#Vanilla WoW

[blackfinchart]

More ideation on which race my warrior oughta be.

Elves have tiny weapon models but better animations. It’s impossible

[the-sentinel-enclave-blog]

Azeroth has two moons, The white lady (Elune) and The blue child. Two screenshots taken 27/3/24 of The blue child visible in Darkshore and Teldrassil

[shadowcow]

Final words of the fallen heroes of WoW Hardcore Classic, pt. 1/???

(pt. 2)

[maxiecabphotography]

Turtle WoW Pride Parade

Small event but we kept it private to prevent trolls (not the race lol) from coming to ruin it. A GM was flying above us as a rainbow cloud to make sure everything went smoothy too. Thanks to all who came!

[touhouweed]

got my bear!!!!!!!!

[wubble]

My heart lives inside this game from nearly 20 years ago.

[oldazeroth]

A new beginning.

[jolikmc-stuff]

Turtle WoW (v1.16.5) - The Great Gobbo Escape! by Jo Li KMC at YouTube

I didn't feel like waiting to bring my new gobbo into the world at large.  And so… I didn't.  Hah~!

I fully expect this to get patched.  But, dammit, they should let you escape the starting zone like the elves!

[sarenthar]

[blackfinchart]

Forsaken have such good lore potential but the writing insofar as their story and place in the universe has been so barmy at all times in WoW history haha (even if we don't consider some of the crazier more recent stuff)

This is such a gutwrenching flavor text. It reminds me that I would love to see the Undead fall further into the "inclined towards evil but trying their best to be good" trope as allies of the Horde, rather than the rather inconsistent cartoon villain treatment they received over the years.

Not necessarily no cartoon villainy (I love that shit), just have that be more of a conflict trait than a standard feature. Create this whole culture that is alone and confused and in conflict with its own spirit, that seems like a great angle to write for tenuous allies of the Horde

fella are you gonna teach me leatherworking or not

[blackfinchart]

“Have you ever heard of the High Elves???”

This is not a very good drawing but it was fun to make, obvious as it is that I thought of adding magic waaaaay at the end haha

High Elf Mage in Turtle WoW (Vanilla+ Server) I’m trying to get the hang of AoE leveling for a fun change but it’s pretty hard. As you can tell I heavily referenced that Draenei drawing I posted a few days ago because of all the characters I had in WoW and made fan art thereof, I liked her design the most!

Also her name is “Antediluvia,” which I thought was clever.

[indefenceofvanillawow]

Spell Ranks (Part 2)

Link to Part 1.

There's a particular quirk of Vanilla WoW's implementation of spell ranks that I consider to be beneficial. An extraneous complication that adds player choice, and would be significantly worse if it were paced too differently in either direction.

You might start Vanilla buying every single spell available from the class trainer as soon as it becomes available. But you might find that this is a bit costly, and eventually, you just might not be able to afford a particular spell or rank. This is an intentional friction, from which you're supposed to come away with the realization that you can simply opt out of buying spells you don't want.

Relatedly, you might've also realized that you don't need to come back to the class trainer every time they have something new, and you don't always need to use the highest rank version of a spell.

These realizations open up a bit of player choice. Ignore spells that don't fit your build, save money for spells that do. Ignore your class trainer for 6 whole levels because last time you purchased a crucial upgrade and it's gonna work fine for a while. Ignore the highest rank of a spell because a lower rank is more mana-efficient, otherwise known as 'downranking'. Ignore all that and go to your class trainer because you might just need that extra edge. Getting a new spell or rank of a spell is a power spike, and that can feel really good.

But eventually things started to change. Downranking was causing problems, as healers would prioritize mana efficiency over raw healing output, and lower ranks scaled decently enough with stats while their mana costs remained static. The solution Blizzard went with in WotLK was to replace all mana costs with a percentage of base mana cost. This meant the mana cost still had no relation to the effectiveness of the spell, but in the opposite direction, causing your spells to accrue mana-inefficiency with each level.

There were also new problems as a result of the expansion model. Every new expansion added new ranks to most spells, along with new spells, and that means a lot of stuff to learn. Expansions wouldn't follow the 'every second level' rule either. The new zones would also lack class trainers, even in the capital cities of the new zones, requiring players levelling in the new zones to go back to the old world for class training and nothing else, as all the new profession training and everything else important was in the new zones.

These factors made class training more annoying and less purposeful. So people complained. It doesn't matter that the feature was working fine until outside factors ruined it, the feature itself was blamed. But they didn't entirely remove it.

In Cataclysm, they removed spell ranks, so spells fully scaled with level, but you still had to go to a class trainer to learn the spell. So instead of getting something new on the class trainer every 2 levels, it's a lot more sparse. I don't know why they did this.

In Mists of Pandaria, they removed learning spells from class trainers entirely. They also allowed you to reset your talent points from anywhere, though I don't know which expansion this was implemented in. Thus, class trainers became superfluous.

The new Pandaren starting area didn't have any class trainers, as they simply weren't needed. Now the game could funnel you through the starting questline without any distractions. But now there were fewer useful NPCs to populate the towns. No class quests either, same route for every class.

Class order halls in Legion were something of a return to form, as they were places that your class would go to that other classes wouldn't go, with NPCs only your class would talk to, and quests for your class only. This feature didn't return in later expansions.

Spells ranks as a feature have survived though, in another genre. MOBAs, or Action-RTS games, feature spell ranks prominently as an important aspect. Which spells you choose to prioritize can determine your power spikes and what situations you can respond to.

[shadowcow]

Final words of the fallen heroes of WoW Hardcore Classic, pt. 3/???

(pt. 2, pt. 4)

[maxiecabphotography]

Searing Gorge