Vanilla Leveling - Time Warp Episode 11

Answering the common question "What was vanilla leveling like?"
If you have any suggestions, requests, or just general feedback let me know in the comments or with a message. I try my best to answer as many as I can.
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#Legion #Warcraft #WoW

[@nesano4735]

"Today, it's a bump in the road, but back then, it was the road itself." Dude.

[@3seven5seven1nine9]

I can read these quotes exactly in his beautiful voice before he even says them

[@ikitclaw3299]

i remember getting 6 gold and feeling like the sultan of brunei

[@SpaceElvisInc]

when I started in wraith my Cousin gave me 10 gold felt like a king until I wasted it all on dumb shit

[@chukky1124]

your not the only one ... xD i started in vanilla but when i recieved gold i went to the auction house and buy stupid shit because it was green xD ... or spending to much on fiery weapon ... why ? because shiny weapons xD

[@ikitclaw3299]

I spent my gold tipping a "chick" standing on the postbox in orgrimmar, "will strip for gold"

[@krisumusic]

A lvl 60 priest gave me 100 gold in Vanilla to buy mount and stuff when I reached lvl 40. That's probably worth something like a few million gold now :O

[@KNByam]

Dave Glasgow 6 gold went a long way with repairs and buying food.

[@MrKERRtastrophy]

"Miss, miss, miss, miss, dodge, miss miss, glancing, miss parry." - Every rogue/warrior's scrolling battle text

[@Klimbo93]

Meanwhile, warlock perma fearing and dotting the biggest giant out there, in the shards of myzrael quest line, arathi highlands 🙆

[@poulthomas469]

This video really makes you realize just how different the modern game is compared to the release. One aspect you didn't cover was how the longer leveling really forced you to learn your class. That was a huge side effect of spending all that time on one character.

[@seeker296]

characters are pretty simple tho in wow. you dont really need much time

[@FantasyYeet]

​@@seeker296now that we are older and theres tons of stuff out sure. Had you played back then in 2000s you would know. Wow was so new. No youtube. No addons. No wowhead. Nothing. Just forums. Some of us were lucky to play it in its prime. Sure it seems simple now, but back then, it was something else.

[@ikitclaw3299]

carrot on a stick for mount speed boost

[@frenchcurse7287]

woot :P +1

[@Reinome864]

Gahrzilla and you need to have that damn Hammer to gong that bell. Good Times man

[@Wilburbruh]

Took me so long to find someone in chat that had the fucking hammer just so I could have 3% mount speed bonus 😭😭😭 ran ZF too many times

[@josemanuelrau8010]

3% faster than everyone without it dude!

[@falrak3]

Too bad that Crusader Aura hadn't been implemented in Vanilla.

[@CaptainOvious123]

I love this series so much, the effort you put into these videos is incredible

[@madseasonshow]

I appreciate it! Thank you for watching them =)

[@nesano4735]

This guy's probably doing it from memory too, like a true seasoned veteran.

[@digitaldragonborn]

The memories that this invokes like collecting wool etc for the war effort prior to the opening of the gates of Ahn'Qiraj , not being able to afford the mount till level 60 and tuning to the Molten Core. OMG the hours of my life I gave and still give to this dam game.

[@rafaeld.simard2166]

I completely agree!

[@forsensmotd6795]

Repairing my gear as a warrior was my biggest problem, I was poor af...

[@PaulieVideos]

forsenE

[@forsensmotd6795]

forsenD

[@plummet3860]

This is why i wish they had added the ability to repair your gear at a reduced price for blacksmiths

[@NeuroEnjoyer69]

forsenPuke

[@27Zangle]

I remember logging in 2 hours before raids to prepare food on my mage.

[@travelingbard1]

The idea of actually having to read quests to figure out what to do is huge. It made it so that I was invested more in what I was doing & I feel like it was more immersive overall. It's slow leveling but like the video says, it was an experience & even a feature of the game instead of just this mindless thing that you have to do in order to "play the game". I'm looking forward to playing Classic when it comes out. Thanks for making these videos.

[@kernowbtc7956]

all good players used some addons. i mean those clearing content. Ofc addons were harder to obtain back then though

[@travelingbard1]

@Ben Anthony it was good. Got to 60 on a shaman, raided MC & Onyxia, and called it. Nice few months of gaming.

[@MrSnuggleLP]

For me a MMO is not only the endgame.. Its the road that lies ahead of you. The mystery of not knowing whats out there in the World. Meeting new people & Socialising with them - exploring and defeating difficult quest / dungones, leveling your character. Make him stronger and getting attached to him. The endgame is something that you didn't even know existed. You didn't play because you wanted to raid, you played because you had fun. I don't know how to feel about the current state of the game. I really love Legion with its gameplay and content. But sometimes I really wish I could go back in time, not knowing what the hell a raid is and experiencing beeing a noob again.

[@GermanBoy00]

WORD! Very well expressed! Ty sir.

[@avargs3505]

I remember playing druid and losing to my RL friend outside IF because I didn't realize that any of my forms(cat,bear...) could not be put under the succubus' sleep...to my surprise, this made it in his WoW montage video and we all got a kick out of it.

[@user-Marrk]

I hate being treat as some important figure leading my class, I want to be an adventurer helping the heroes! Whats going to happen in the next expansion? Are we all going to be faction leaders? lol

[@vividly94]

Judging by the route WoW is going in, i wouldn't be surprised if they ended up making an intergalactic federation. lol

[@STAVROS1801]

MrSnuggle i hope they take whats great about zelda breath of the wild and incorporate it into wows leveling AND endgame process

[@madseasonshow]

One of you out there suggested that I talk about vanilla leveling. I thought it was a good idea so here's a whole video about it! Hope you enjoy. Feel free to add anything I left out.

[@Ragetiger1]

Nicely done. I remember those days, where it took a week or longer just to gain a single level. It was fun and challenging. Only other thing to bring up was the challenge that crafting brought to the table. I am glad that I still have most of those forgotten and removed crafted pieces.

[@illidin23]

don't forget the 40 troll ears in strangle thorn vale (vanilla version)

[@doppelganger9254]

I started my WoW Journey in Legion, but your videos of Vanilla and later expansions are very interesting. Looking forward for more, epic job MadSeason!

[@patrickjohansen3552]

plz do some more this is so good to see how it was back in vanilla. i miss it

[@frenchcurse7287]

I love how u bring my mind back 12 years ago :P ur 100% right .Keep going we all love ur videos .I dont understand that 2 dislike i believe they never play Vanilla

[@Limrasson]

It took me 8 months and some things I did: -Raiding Deadmines with 7 people and ninjalooting a bunch of stuff (I didn't even know about loot rules, I just saw blue and I clicked roll) -Raiding Freewind post with my guild at lvl 18. There were a lot of lvl ?? enemies. -Asking a higher level player to escort me on a Hinterlands herbalism trip in exchange for some of the potions I made from it. (I was low level with high level herbalism and alchemy) I effectively became an NPC giving an annoying escort quest. -PvP with a ganking rogue in STV and because we couldn't kill each other (I'm a druid), we kinda became friends? We just chilled there after a few attempts at each other's lives. Still better love story than...you know. -Taking part of the endless slaughterhouse that's Southshore. And so on. Made a bunch of friends during that time.

[@avargs3505]

ditto on the STV part..I rolled a NE druid myself and I would initially take them on quite the chase...and before long..they would give up...a mutual respect was formed. Really like your resourcefulness, especially on that herbalism trip. Thanks for sharing.

[@plummet3860]

deadmines was a 5 man instance....

[@Limrasson]

Back in the day most instances let more people in. For instance Scholomance was usually done by 10 people. I remember that one in particular because when I joined a raiding guild, I was made one of the main potion/elixir guys and getting the major mana potion recipe (a quest in scholomance) was an actual task for the guild (I even got the major fire resistance potion from LBRS which made me kinda sought after), but the first run failed because it was not a raid quest so I didn't get progress in it. We had to do it as a party. (LBRS was done by 5-10 men and UBRS was always a 15-man raid) So we just got 7 people for DM and went for it.

[@Taskmaster17]

Your example of you being an npc giving an escort quest is amazing

[@TheCylom]

First time I joined a dungeon and saw the lootbox I needed on everything because I didn't want to be greedy and press greed.

[@MrMolester666]

Two things I missed the most from vanilla WoW: 1) Socialization. You stole loot in a raid? Get ready to almost never run a raid again. People used to blacklist others, it would almost keep people playing fair. Constantly ganking? Get ready for reinforcements, and bring your own while you're at it because it's about to get bloody. Also, leveling was a great way to bond with people. If you played Horde, the barrens was the place to be for "intellectual conversations", but fun nonetheless. 2) Talents. You weren't a spec you were the class. For example, I played shaman, not elemental or enhancement shaman. The ability to spend points in all specs made for crazy builds. I speced for heavy survivability with heals and damage reduction while my damage came from hard hitting crits. The class had all the tools of the other specs, but can focus on one, getting special passives/actives for that specific spec.

[@Biouke]

Yeah I liked to do my own "exotic" specs too, worst one was in LK when the DK came out, I had a 21-18-21 spec (or something along those lines) with OP auto-attacks. Then they decided you couldn't put points in another branch until you had 31 points in your main spec and I was the saddest thing on Azeroth T_T

[@Kylora2112]

The social aspect was great, but even now, good luck getting into a decent raiding/PvP guild if you're a dick. There were so many dead ends in Classic where, if you were questing in a low-pop zone like Arathi and needed to do something like Stromgarde or Myzrael, good friggin' luck (especially the latter since there was such a huge chain to get the quest to summon her and the reward was terrible). As far as talents go...there was nothing interesting at all about them, save for a few clutch passives and the big 21 and 31 point talents that got you a new active ability. I mean, hunters, regardless of build, had to go 20 points into Marks because Lethal and Mortal Shots (and Aimed Shot) were the only 3 worthwhile talents that hunters had. Sure, you had the freedom of maybe 1-2 points into a useless talent, but if you were serious about PvP you had one build per class, and serious about raiding, you might have 2 viable builds. There were about 13 worthwhile specs in the entire game for most of the run (Arms, Fury, both Holy specs, Frost, Fire [outside of MC/BWL/Ony], Marks, Combat, Assassination, both Resto specs, Ret [but only because it had Blessing Of Kings], and SM/Ruin warlocks). There was so much worthless clutter and imbalance that it was almost not fun.

[@fabiank4396]

In reality there were only one, maybe 2 ways to spend your points. Freedom was just illusion.

[@kiranosNT]

@@fabiank4396 The things that really hooked for the talent tree is the constant level by level progression, compared to today where you get a talent every 15 level. You truly looked forward for just that point, to get just a little stronger, trying to see what next talent would be better on the road.

[@erejnion]

@@fabiank4396 That's only true if you're raiding. How you spend your points while you are leveling can vary enormously, depending if you are leveling alone or in a group, what you want to do, and etc.

[@Lord_Deimos]

Me and a buddy (whom i've met through WoW and we're still friends after 13 years) used to ''park'' our mains in whatever area we were leveling. Each time some higher level scum ganked us we would log back into our high geared 60's and gank them back for hours on end. Fun times.

[@GermanBoy00]

yeah, I loved to do that aswell. Nothing more fun than a sweet revenge!

[@Ryan-tc2el]

Seemed like Horde had much easier access to instances. Other than Deadmines, though, which is probably one of the best instances in the game. Even Gnomeragan could be accessed via teleporter from the goblin town in STV. Never did run Stockade, but never wanted to either.

[@Nyequiloooo]

I'd park my main similarly so when someone got on their main to gank me, I'd get on my main to return the favor. Careful what you wish for ;D

[@tremedar]

Horde had easier everything. For Alliance to go from the EK to Kalimdor you had to run through the wetlands, a contested zone, take the boat from Menethil, while horde just hop on a zeppelin inside horde territory, just outside UC.

[@SpearTheSeas]

DONT MAKE ME GET MY MAIN Cx good times 💔

[@Kurogami7070]

Another thing to consider, quest targets could have REALLY long respawns (sometimes 10 or more minutes for a named enemy, and even more if they were an elite). A good way to experience what vanilla leveling was like, is to take a character to level in Silithus. It somehow got left alone during the cata revamp, and is a museum for the antique wow experience. I remember leveling my paladin, who had so few attack skills that it was mostly just an auto attack bot. Took consecration just so that I had an additional button to hit, outside of judgement and refreshing my Seal, lol.

[@Collector2006]

Yeah before the skill revamp paladins had no damaging abilities. It was blizzards answer to them being a melee who could also cast heals. They considered a warrior who can cast flash of light or holy light was too op. (which at the time, considering how hard it was to deal with mobs, it would have been)

[@GermanBoy00]

yeah remember that hunter quests in STV? the elites needed at least 30minutes to respawn, I believe that elite ogre in the cave even 1h. If you wiped or fucked up the tag, you would wait for another hour lol. Meanwhile you would just be overrun by the enemy faction multiple times... fun times lel.

[@christianweibrecht6555]

Kurogami7070 when I went to silithus on Elysium I encountered one guy who was grinding and everyone else was a bot framer

[@Kurogami7070]

The self healing was quite handy for the most part, but the pushback mechanic was pretty frustrating. Wasn't limited to the first 2 hits and added about a second to the cast time on spells. Flash of light was also a fairly small heal at the time, only doing about 400ish without healing power at the max rank. While it was considerably easier to get off, even non-elites at that level could take about the same amount off in the time it took you to cast it. That being said... Divine Protection essentially had a 1 minute cooldown, so you could easily get off a holy light or two, and completely heal. So... you're right. Mostly because bubbles were great :P

[@Kurogami7070]

Christian Weibrcht haha, probably for the same reason it didnt get a rework... It was an awful area (and still is!!) Though the twilight hammer enemies did have pretty good drops if I recall correctly.

[@danielfinlayson8127]

I remember being like 'yo what's an instance' and trying to whack stuff with my staff as a hunter. The best thing about it was making mistakes and not knowing what to do. It defined you as a player and everyone else. You looked up to players who were higher level and admired their achievement. You also had an innane longing to explore the unknown, wander into the cave, dive into the sea and try your chances against a certain mob. Now you know your class, what they can do, their limits, where everthing is, how to get stuff and all the rest. While this is great, the true magic lies in the unknown.

[@Uri1991]

Man this made me feel so nostalgic... remembering questing with my lock. I had the quest to get the she-demon and I had to go all the way from Ironforge to Kalmidor into Horde territory. I was so in love with the travelling experience. Of course it took around 4 months to level it up but man, once you toped your level you had such an adventure in your shoulders

[@sgrovetown4777]

Great video - brought back all sorts of memories. Like leveling a pally. Would start a fight, go cook dinner, come back and loot.

[@GermanBoy00]

hahahaha ikr

[@Xylos144]

Leveling Prot Paladins was so much fun. Gather as many mobs as you can. Let them kill themselves as they bash themselves on your shield spike and auras and blessings. Want to kill them faster? use righteousness. Need to regain health? Use seal of light. Wonderful times.

[@avargs3505]

any of you Pallys ever remember watching the "Dernos goes PvP" KZbin video...that almost made me want to re-roll a pally myself..still holds up to this day.

[@toohighstrung]

I still level on a private server in vanilla, its so much more satisfying when you stick to it

[@ujustgotpwnd3454]

Bear kill quests were, and still to this day are, the worst.. Bears never drop their organs or appendages

[@mmelkilany]

Ujustgotpwnd yeah. lol

[@MoffittArts]

It's apparently hard to collect bear asses

[@saintupid7034]

thats goretusk in westfall

[@Blackadder75]

they drop a lot of organs, but never the ones you need..

[@tomk8312]

i haven't played in years so i keep saying "wow, it's NOT like that anymore??" lol. leveling being harder is definitely better - you appreciate something a lot more when you worked hard for it.

[@adamleckius2253]

Exactly my feeling. Everything that made WoW vanilla such a great experience... they basically removed all of them?! I'm not usually an old geezer, but in this case things sure were better in the past. Well, glad I/we got to experience it :)

[@andromidius]

The first time its fine. But when levelling alts... Ooof, it could go on forever sometimes. Then again, there was something to be said about having just one character and not a full character list full of max level alts who exist purely to funnel gold and resources to your main.

[@inhocsignovinces1419]

On our PvP server, Vanilla leveling was daunting. We were compelled to level in groups to avoid near constant corpse runs resulting from PvP. Guilds would literally respond en masse when their levelers were corpse camped/they were requested to help clear the area. Open field PvP would break out between entire guilds and in the higher level zones (BRD, Western and Eastern Plaguelands, Un’Goro Crater, and even the goblin towns of Booty Bay/STV and Gadgetzan) large scale PvP between several guilds/nearly the entire server population) often broke out. We actually managed to crash our server due to the population gathering. Truly, I’m surprised MadSeason failed to account for the leveling delay found on PvP servers. This leveling delay made PvP server leveling an experience in and of itself.

[@Blastros01]

Shout out to all my broke boys who weren't too afraid to ask a higher level for some spare change. We were beggin' out here.

[@Kargathmen]

I remember begging in Stormwind and a random level 60 giving me 300g. I was very shocked back then :D

[@SteelBalla]

Everytime someone asked me I usually gave them 50 silver and whispered "

[@MrFalken91]

my number 1 memory from vanilla and probably top 10 wow. Someone was giving out 1.5g to everyone in IF. OFC being broke as I was I traded him but he accidently traded me 1.5k gold :P So suddenly I was rich as fuck! :D Gave him back 500g though. This was mby 15 months after wow came out

[@lsa6916]

word !

[@gestucvolonor5069]

i got one gold at lvl 6. was pretty rad

[@michaelolaf9968]

Been playing on a vanilla server, and I adore the inconvenience and challenge of leveling. Interpreting information, navigating the world, negotiating dangerous situations, cooperating with others, and risking death all the while is the whole point of the game, right? Everyone says so, but it seems like gradual streamlining just detracted from the adventure.

[@siveonfarcloud4190]

Yeah the adventure was fun. You could see someone almost dying to some NPCs and give him a little hand, then you kinda progressed to talking and doing quests together, adding each other to the friends list, maybe even making a guild or joining the same one. You actually met people along the way and made friends. Most MMOs lost this since the old days.

[@lolsa123]

people these days value instant gratification, everything they do in a game no matter it it takes 5 minutes or 5 seconds, it should be a instant gratification that they have achieved something. not many players have the time these days to play 10-15 hrs just for one level no matter how rewarding the endgoal is. sad but true.

[@lolsa123]

​@@Krigfattig the word that suits you is "mentally challenged" now buzz off you swedish chuck.

[@lolsa123]

@@Krigfattig lol "general lvling speed" vs your best lvling speed at 5½ day lol, what are you even on about? you think you will reach 1 day lvling speed now?

[@lolsa123]

@@Krigfattig lol in comparison to the latter 3 expansion in WoW, it's challenging. the same goes for the dungeons. and if you state that the new dungeons are harder i stand to believe that you've never actually played vanilla even if you brag about your 6 characters.

[@Veroveren]

most MMORPGs are like this, everyone being broke and struggling to clear instances. but then it's those times that you meet new friends and make memories you'd treasure forever.

[@xostler]

“The Zhevra” quest in the Barrens. It still gives me nightmares. So many Zhevra, so little hooves. Vanilla is like being a broke college student. It was a great experience to have, but you never want to have it again.

[@notsure7060]

Oh yes i will and still do after the classic came out ;-)

[@dustynewman1]

don't forget you had to gain weapon skill for each type of weapon your toon could use.

[@madseasonshow]

This is very true - switching to an upgraded weapon was also troublesome because you had to re-level a new weapon skill. Another big point! Thanks for pointing that out.

[@knifetoucher]

DID SOMEBODY ORDER A KNUCKLE SANDWICH?

[@troothhoortz3630]

Yeah or going out there and your weapon would miss and miss so you would have to resort to your wand.

[@avargs3505]

those poor souls that would get disarmed during a PvP fight or even a duel...only to realize they never spent time lvling their unarmed skill lvl.

[@SpaceElvisInc]

OH BOY I GOT A NEW WEAPON ...... oh it's an axe

[@HallowedBeThyGame]

So many nostalgic memories of days gone by. Wow has had its ups and downs, but man I love it. Love the series and keep up the great work!

[@gamesux420]

Vanilla leveling was a pain, but i have to say, it was the most fun pain anyone has ever had.

[@replay9896]

Thank you for your hard work into these videos. You really bring out the nostalgia and help me remember the feeling I aim to have when I play this game.

[@BummedProductions]

You are my favorite youtuber hands down. Awesome nostalgia.

[@Peacelulz]

3:17 The days of Thottbot and Allakhazam =)

[@frenchcurse7287]

and the 10 million players on same web page for the same info ::D

[@avargs3505]

Totally forgot about the 2nd one..dang it has been a while...

[@ddot196]

Keep up the good work man. I enjoy your videos as I've been playing since vanilla as well. Your narration and music is pretty soothing and easy to listen to.

[@JulianneRegina]

I used to play back in Vanilla/BC and loved every moment of the grind to level 60/65. I had a main character I raided with, and, during the downtime, I leveled nearly eight alts to the max level. This was my source of fun and it brought me a bunch of stress relief to just take a character, waltz outside Eversong Woods and slay mana wyrms for hours. Once the devs said they were no longer making content as hard as BT/Sunwell and there was rumors of adjusting the EXP system, I left the game for grindy titles like Aion and other Korean MMOs. I recently got back into Legion to revisit the game, and see how they're using old story characters I remembered back in WC2. Despite now having an adult job working nearly fifty hours a week, I still hit 110 in two weeks. This really didn't sit well with me as I find leveling part of the journey and watching my character develop over time always brought me back to playing the game. With my current time schedule, I don't have time to raid, and I don't find PVP all that fun, so when I hit 110 I literally sat in town trying to find something to do, only to log out and roll an alt to begin the leveling process again. But, that didn't contain my enthusiasm for the game, I let my free 30-day trial expire and never renewed my membership. I even went so far as to send feedback to the devs voicing my displeasure with the new leveling system. I even asked if they could create a special potion or in-game switch where it would revert your character back to the old EXP logarithm. I never got a response back. :) There is a reason that 3rd party servers exist and are in high demand. Perhaps some of it's nostalgia, but I feel there are people who truly enjoy the old leveling grind vs. the new loot based grind, such as myself. If there was a MMO where the level cap was infinite, I would totally jump on board.

[@benjaminedenfield3368]

O god those Crocodiles in the entrance of the Wetlands from Dun Morough!

[@babysnaps3217]

Getting from Darnassus to Stormwind/Ironforge, you had go to Menethil Harbor then hoof it for an hour. I feel your pain.

[@benjaminedenfield3368]

The wife and I moved from EQ so we could level together. How many times did I have to jump to the rescue cause she said "O a herb!", which happened to be at the feet of a mob lol!

[@Murdokk00]

it was every bit of an hour for sure. More depending on your luck with the croc pathing.

[@avargs3505]

playing in a PvP server...what about that crowded walk to anything UBRS/LBRS/molten core, etc... feelsgood to have rolled a NE druid.

[@terranceroff8113]

EEEK! yea, i remember them.. in vanilla wow on a PvP server the mobs were every bit as bad as the players.. how many of you remember charging into a mass of mobs just so the opposing faction player would get killed too!// they who got back to their body first wins!

[@instructoryazo6724]

I remember finally getting the Krol Blade in vanilla, 2 months later BC came out. I killed my first mob in the Xpac and replaced the Krol blade with what it dropped. #feelsbadman

[@kollitumi]

Well, to be fair, krol blade was like a lvl 50 epic so its not that strange.

[@instructoryazo6724]

kollib ya, but was still best tanking weapon outside of raids.

[@JoeJacksonJr]

Yea I wished I still had many of the weapons I had back in Vanilla that you can not get anymore..

[@Rabidus289]

I still have my Arcanite Reaper in my main characters bank. Sadly my friend who borrowed the account vendored my full Valor set.

[@khanzy.]

Rabidus I think you could ask the GMs to replace those items. Say someone hacked your account.

[@Tovek]

Man this was a great trip down memory lane for me. The whole experience was just so epic and I know that I’m remembering a lot more rosy than it was but I’m glad I did it.

[@Naraes99]

My first character started out in Mulgore and I remember- when quests that didn't show you where to go- made my character an incredible fun challenge with 1 road (going from Thunderbluff to The Barrens). All the mobs were scattered about making it hard to get around without pulling some of that aggro. Ah, good times. The Barrens (crossroads specifically) will always be a good part of my vanilla memories. Lots of players, and annoying quests when it came to the centaurs or the pigmen aggro. I would always find a set of people trying to sit on the mountains to pull since, back then, it was difficult to just dive right in. For my Horde characters, I always found The Barrens to be my safe-haven for quests.

[@silversurfer8818]

I was so broke back then that it was easier to get rank 11 in PvP and get the epic mount 4free than to grind the gold and buy it!

[@XodarknezoX]

Leveling was such a big part in the game, we even had leveling guilds which we don’t have now.

[@drenuja1318]

We have a LOT of levelling guide. That's incorrect.

[@fizziz_1035]

@@drenuja1318 GUILDS not guides, people used to group up together to help each other level. You can see this still on private severs, it's the best

[@anderssrensen6270]

I remember going into ST or especially Maraudon, you would wipe just to get into the instance, you had to repair after the wipes, so when you finally got to the enterance, someone had to repair first, and you would be screwd, if you didin't had a warlock to soummon you back or asking a lvl 60 friend to help your group out ! :D that is what WoW is/was all about imo! time consomning, and progress. Back then all we had was Thottbot(if you know you know) MadSeasonShow you're the best to explain this game! I love all your nostaliga vidoes

[@Ahito150]

Just found this series, the quality of your content is amazing man, keep doing what you're doing!

[@holdinmcgroin8639]

I leveled in vanilla... ...as a holy paladin

[@Brandy._]

*gasp*

[@cookiegaming572]

Holdin McGroin same. My brother recommended it to me as I was new and could heal myself. To this day I still play that paladin. Telasero Defias Brotherhood EU born. 30th of March 2006

[@DrPluton]

So did I (alongside my mage). I enjoyed being able to heal through pretty much anything as a paladin, but I loved the offensive power of the mage.

[@nesano4735]

That's actually the best paladin leveling spec. You do pretty much the same damage as ret (Just use SotC and whack shit), and you never run out of mana because every 2 minutes you can cast a holy light crit that refunds all mana.

[@asojka911]

Me too........... Talk about a grind...

[@dalekamalani9721]

When I first started playing vanilla my best friend suggested herbalism/alchemy to make gold and lemme tell ya that made me a pretty penny. Got my mounts relatively easy with ample gold to spare. Used to hustle on that auction house $$$

[@gga789]

Brilliant video. It gave me a lot of nostalgia about vanilla wow. Thanks for reminding me of those little details I had forgotten.

[@RepentlessCrusader]

I'm reliving a decades worth of memories listening to this series, i love it.

[@marc_kalls]

That STV intro was brilliant, felt like a Vietnam-flashback

[@konari4245]

I feel so bad for starting playing WoW only in Legion, Vanilla seemed soooo cool

[@Trucktore]

Konari you can experience vanilla on elysium

[@Blubking1]

A lot of people didnt even reach level 60 in vanillia ;) It was really timeconsuming.

[@dakotataylorf2304]

Elysium is pretty fun to play on for a vanilla experience but be careful of the time sink that it will put you through

[@learning2727]

...everything aggroed. I swear at times from miles away. It was pretty tricky to avoid pulling mobs accidentally. This was in BC...so I'm not sure if they were even worse in Vanilla. Once you got to a certain level of gear, most quests weren't so bad (minus the actual elite ones).

[@albanacharjay1625]

you're not missing much, enjoyed vanilla but todays game is far superior

[@123BmanGames]

Each one of your videos is so masterfully crafted, I love it! I liked your videos when they were just gold guides, but this venture off into other content this year was a great idea on your part.

[@AshChapman777]

I love it when the D3 music starts playing in your videos. Great video by the way :-)

[@cenotemirror]

Great video! A good summary of how it was. I have to disagree with you on Vanilla dungeons being harder, though. Longer, for sure. Definitely requiring adequate gear, trash was less of a joke, and people needed to know their class. Boss mechanics though tended to range from simple to nonexistent. Many of them were literally just tank-n-spank. Tbh I find things much harder nowadays, where you have to memorize a dance routine for every single boss rather than just knowing how to play your class well. I remember the first time I did the end wing of Scarlet Monastery, nobody in the group had ever been there before and none of us had read anything about it (not uncommon then). We collectively shat ourselves with fear and disbelief when Whitemane rezzed Mograine; none of us had seen it coming and we'd struggled to bring him down the first time. Glorious, frenzied panic. You'll never see that sort of surprise again, sadly.

[@fabiandoom1]

omg thottbot and asking general chat and gathering a group and walk together to them i miss that tho ;(

[@DraxonTehWarrior]

Met a lot of friends that way back in the day.

[@Xylos144]

I ran SM Cathedral 42 times before I got that damn caster hat from the boss. Had to run there every time from Ironforge. Fly to South Shore, skirt by Dalaran, swim through hammer-something lake, and run all the way to the instance. And most of those runs were before I was 40 and got a mount. And it made getting a mount awesome and epic and wonderful. 10/10 would do it again in a heartbeat. The fact is people were willing to run that kind of distance for an experience with other people. That's not something you can say about the current game.

[@Biouke]

And being ganked at the entrance of the Monastery :p

[@Xylos144]

It built character. And by 'character' I mean a deep-seated rage and thirst for vengeance.

[@kennethstephens992]

Love the old videos. I watch them as I play classic for the first time.

[@andrewlawrence4782]

I have really enjoyed all your work here on KZbin. Keep it up MadSeason!

[@mistercochella1044]

4:00 as to why they didn't have hearts ("should be a 100% drop") whenever I have had cases like this in RPGs I like to imagine you didn't loot a heart because you destroyed it. Possible right?

[@DJscratchpiggy]

That was always my thought. Like the body isnt going to be in perfect condition when i smashi it with a giant hammer or explode it with a fireball.

[@abrvalg321]

@@DJscratchpiggy Sometimes it is addressed like, you need pristine teeth or similar things but most of the time it's just a time sink that masks how many mobs designers want you to kill. Let's say they want you to kill 40 but that'd be too much to show, so instead it's 10 drops with 25% chance.

[@foxdropLoL]

I love your vids dude

[@ithadtobeaname7327]

Wait a sec...what are you doing here O.O I am 3 years too late but seriously Big Fan

[@thefrostwolf9085]

I'm super hyped for Vanilla. However, I never played Vanilla per se. I joined at the end of BC which still had a lot of the vanilla aspects. Leveling still took forever, and I remember racing my brother when leveling. There was no LFG and dungeons such as wailing caverns and sunken temple took forever to navigate and complete. My first main character was a shaman (whom I still play today), and I remember going elem/resto. I miss that talent system. My probably fondest memory is one of two times. 1. My first time in Ogrimmar. I needed to set my hearth point to the major city and so I asked a guard. " The Second hut on the right." So, I set my hearth went on with my quests, and then next thing I know, skeleton dragons were attacking the city with giant weird three armed things with meat hooks and their guts falling out of their stomach. I got in one of the towers, I had a gun (was playing a warrior) and I start trying to shoot them down. That warrior is still level 14. 2. Getting the Leeroy achievement. My dad's friend and co-worker, the one who got him into WoW that got us into WoW, decided to help us out and get us a title. So, we navigated the dungeon and found the room with the whelps. Then we spent maybe a good 30 mins trying it and finally got it done. now, the ach is so easy to get. At least I have to original ach to show off.

[@Walkerrrr]

I don't even play WoW but you explain it so well and your voice fits all the videos, great job.

[@guisasse]

Love the series! Tbh, you can make them longer if you feel like it. Lore/History videos are fine at 20+~ minutes

[@allon33]

I love the good old days.

[@ShadowCrashed81]

Thanks for making this. After Classic was announced I've been vanilla crazy and this helped jog my memory on a lot of subtleties. I remember my first character was a warrior, spending tons of cash on food and never having enough for a mount. Then I leveled a mage and I was so happy because food was free.

[@GermanBoy00]

Man I love your videos. I've been on the move and received a message on my mobile that you uploaded a new vanilla time warp video. I was hyped all the way back home and watching it gave me such a pleasure and satisfaction. It reminds me of the feeling that I've had 10 years agro, when I could hardly wait to come home asap and log into the game. Vanilla was fucking awesome because of that adventurous part - the leveling. It used to be a game just for what it actually was made: the roleplay, where you build your character slowly and deliberately. In my whole "WoW career" (on retail 2005-2010, private vanilla&TBC servers 2011-2017) I leveled at least 60 characters to max level, bcuz it's such fun to just travel around in that perfectly made old world, make friends, master hard quests or do world pvp.... No rush, no stupid daylies, that feel like everyday-work and no time pressure that you have in the endgame.

[@a2Leco]

you could talk about the class quests for spells, like totems or warrior / druid stances

[@politicallycorrectredskin796]

Once spent two hours trying to explain to four other people how to get into Maraudon. When they all announced their presence and only one person was standing next to me, it becamse clear that the other three had gone to the other entrance. After a disastrous effort to centralize our scattered group everyone just stoned and went to bed. So that was a solid three and a half hours well spent I thought.

[@cp0cp927]

Awesome video. You captured the things that give me wow nostalgia very well. This is the essence of what the OG wow players always talk about when they talk about vanilla as the best experience.

[@lordstorm8555]

I come accross your videos once in a while. The tone of voice you use is best part of what makes your videos good.

[@Camps2630]

I've probably died more times in Westfall near Deadmines killing those Defiance Thieves/Mages than any WoW area.

[@MrEpic-qe2tt]

The pillagers were unforgiving. For a few months after the game released, they were ranked the deadliest mob of all time. Their spawns were broken, and multiple pillagers would spawn inside each other often looking like just one pillager, but if you attacked it, 4 more pillagers would come spilling out and would start attacking you.

[@Paal2005]

Murlocs man. You think you pull one, but then their entire extended family wanna join too

[@BennLin]

remember 10 years ago leveling my warrior to 60 all alone make me wanna puke right now.

[@asojka911]

I LOVE your time-warp series. Thank you.

[@philipkelly7369]

Oh my goodness. I had one of those moments where you remember something you didn't remember (you know what I mean) when you mentioned looking at your talent points when running from one area to another. You're right. There was so much time running around between quest givers, towns, and monster camps that there was plenty of down time that could be filled, and you had this big complex tree of interesting abilities right there to look at. This entire video had the nostalgia centers of my brain firing on all cylinders as all the things you said had me dusting off old memories I didn't know I still had, but remembering gazing at my talent tree as I ran back to turn in a quest in the barrens, that hit me the hardest.

[@Falcrist]

The Arathi raptor quest was definitely one to skip if you were on a populated server.

[@remyllebeau77]

I started as a mage sometime around BC expansion. It was nice selling ports, but I didn't make a lot of gold until I started using the AH and using my daily Alchemy CD. I really miss when gear, professions, enchants, and buffs mattered in PvP. Leave it to "no fun allowed" Blizzard to nerf everything about the game that I loved.

[@CDdevivo]

I think you said it perfectly.."Today it's a bump in the road but back then it WAS the road". That's an important thing to remember. Love your videos, keep up the great content!

[@Phlloyd1]

Firstly, all of your vids are awesome and wonderful and very well thought out. Second, the cadence of you narration is very approachable, and is reminiscent of what a great wow player is. Third, you words strike so true, my thoughts flashes back to those days with crystal clear recollections. Thank you. My only regret is that due to RL circumstances, I’ve lost touch with those important people over the years....my toons still remain, but I miss my friends. Ah, would I have known that MMORPG were such a mirror for RL.

[@thomasa4747]

Can you just like read me books, I just want to listen to you talk.

[@skroot7975]

this ^

[@rockdesu]

Lol

[@nameofthegame9664]

I’ve been thinking the same exact thing. He could make serious money recording audio books.

[@SS5Ghaleon]

I hated taking almist an hour to get a BRD group together, only to have a wipe right before the guantlet, then seeing mob respawns, so the group disbanded... Never killed the Emperor until Wrath >_

[@fabiank4396]

Yeah it sucked.

[@fastpace101]

Man your group sucked

[@throttle1000]

I love these videos! So much nostalgia.

[@MrFredrick1991]

love watching your vids with classic coming up!!!

[@fabiandoom1]

u need more subs man =)

[@montoyavelez8538]

you forgot about the books for different spells that dropped

[@SinaKec]

This is One of the better videos covering this topic. Very thorough and entertaining. I can't believe you had the same experience as me with Sunken Temple. The friendships I had made there lasted for quite a bit. :)

[@dhaelligerkeys6585]

Man, I'm getting more and more hyped. Can wait!

[@ujembi155]

So much of this is subjective; I think that Wrath felt like the "right" amount of time to level up a toon. It took a while, but not too time consuming. I can't say I care for having to eat/drink every few mobs so I am glad that is gone, but I certainly miss things being challenging when leveling. It is a problem if you can go from lvl 1 to cap and never worry about dying. BOA gear really hurt this aspect of the game; I don't mind the xp increase once you get a toon to max level, but I hate how the stats they bring trivializes all content and makes dungeons a zerg chain pull (it takes no coordination). It also messed up bgs at least pre legion and ensured new players could not participate. Some might disagree, but I actually kind of liked the LFG for dungeons. Being able to queue for that or bgs while leveling meant I didn't get bored easily. I do wish heroic dungeons were not able to be queued for and pug'd and had a greater difficulty. I did not care for LFR, and sadly haven't raided much to this day since its release. I do think Wrath had accessible content without needing LFR (which has no challenge at all). I also liked in Wrath how there was lots of quick, single boss raids. I don't think the term "casual" should equate to low difficulty, but rather a measure of time investment. I really hated buying spells though, and did enjoy the change in Cata where at lvl 10 you got a neat ability or passive that made you feel unique. That part beat putting a point into reducing cast time of one spell by 0.1 sec. It was also nice to not have to wait until lvl 50 or higher to get very basic tools a particular spec relied on. I do think the MoP talent trees often added better choices, but the old talent trees offered a very clear (if small) reward for every level gained that felt very satisfying. Leveling does not feel as rewarding without it, oddly enough. I did like the addition of flight paths and graveyards that came with Cata, but around that time was when the pace of leveling got out of hand... to where you could only finish a few quests and had to move to a new zone. I wish they could use their scaling system from legion to gate content by level, but allow older content to scale so that you could finish a zone if you want. This way, you could level two different characters and not do any of the same quests. After all, WoW has a ton of content that at any given time most people are not using. All of this is subjective, and there is no right or wrong answer. I do think though, IMO, that Wrath walked the tightrope the best between "casual" vs "hardcore" (time investment) and providing varying difficulties of content that seemed to work for most of the community. Feel free to tell me where your opinion differs though.

[@Hoshpakk]

"you make more friends" this is true, my best WoW Friends are from Classic to WotLK. Afther this, i never meet some real Ingame Friends anymore.

[@darkmido6087]

I feel like i can see this video over and over agien :) love it! Love your videos!

[@chrissinclair89]

I was a Rank 12 NE Druid that did all of the endgame content except C'thun/Naxx. Your videos are amazing and you clearly spend a lot of time developing each of them. Keep it up because you're doing an awesome job!

[@sephiose]

Ah Cutthroat Vale... Certainly brings me back when my hunter found his first epic, which was a staff that dropped off of one of the gorillas: The Staff of Jordan. Sure it would have been much more suitable for a mage since it was a boe epic, but since everything was a hunter weapon back then and it was the very first epic I ever saw, I equipped it immediately.

[@FearZoo]

Forced interaction is the biggest loss of retail.

[@ianrwood21]

Excellent coverage of Vanilla leveling - thanks.

[@2NextLvL]

I respect the way you stay in the middle of the two and don't force an opinion. Nice video and i never got to play vanilla but i wish i had!

[@sefikalarsson5682]

I was nr 8 alliance to 60 on my realm and nr 1 paladin, took 3 months...

[@Solcius123123]

More nostalgiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[@thuti4022]

Love all Vanilla Videos! Great Job!

[@amarug]

you are one of the smartest and most rational wow-youtubers. basically anything you ever put out is a pleasure to watch. keep it up!

[@SuperBonefinger]

Hmmm, I wonder if Classic will bring back gold farmers.

[@renehoyvik]

Im sure some Will try. But Blizzard has new systems in place now to capture it. You cant just put a cheap item on AH for 1000G as a method of transaction anymore. Source: "Dude, trust me."

[@celebrasthedruid4941]

Un'goro Mafia inc.

[@immagonko4261]

Ummm...

[@saltyfry4328]

Vanilla WoW was more about role play (even though most people did not realize that was what they were doing) Current day wow is more of and arcade game with friends (think gauntlet)

[@wyattweeks9314]

Awesome video man... Looking forward to more of this series..

[@SG-xr2bs]

How can one video game can influence an entire generation this much ? I get very happy at first when I see a vanilla wow video and that happiness turns into sorrow at the end of the video. Looking back to Vanilla WoW , I can easily say thoose were the best days of my life ...

[@darthpanzer]

All of the "difficulty" of Vanilla leveling can be skipped by playing mage.

[@cvkpaper]

Darth Panzer playing mage was like playing the game in ez mode

[@darthpanzer]

Which is why i played as a mage in Elysium, people paid me for my shitty water, godhood i tell you.

[@KsanUwU]

a mage still got fucked if the enemy mobs resisted frost nova :p

[@FUnazis]

I only started to play when BC was out, but I first tried warrior and found it to be very frustrating and slow after a short time. Then a friend recommended that I try hunter and oh man... It was SO much easier, like a completely different game. Your pet tanked for you anyway and even if it died, you could still get away easily. You lost a full bag because of arrows and STILL ran out sometimes, but that was worth it. After a while you even got an aspect that restored mana while doing less damage (aspect of the viper, I think), so you didn't even have to worry about bringing water. Have some food for you pet and enough ammo; about all you need. God, I miss these days sometimes. Back then, I could play WoW for half a day with no break. But yeah, those times are gone.

[@christianweibrecht6555]

Darth Panzer *frost mates, out of the hundred mages I encountered on legacy servers only one was not frost #shitty balance

[@eli32109]

People will always complain as I see in the comments... I can guarantee you that if the lvling was like in vanilla in 2017, people were complaning about it.. and the same for the opposite.. it doesnt matter what you gonna do as dev, people will always like and dislike what you're doing. and thats why I dont get the people that complain about it.. you'll get burn out if you'll lvl up slowly for 12 years... the dev team arent stupid, you guys think they never talked about this shit.. of course they did..

[@wallabror]

It wasn't like that back then though. Because this game was the first to ever do such a game on that scale aside from Everquest. Everyone I knew thought it was awesome. Because it was the first time anyone ever played a game like that. What you say about people complaining is true, but devs should never listen to people complaining. They should have a vision for a game they think is amazing and work towards it. Not change the entire formula of the game because some children cried on the forums.

[@eli32109]

wallabror I know, I’m playing the game since then... the community was different.. everything was different..

[@TheIrishEnigma]

I remember a big part of the leveling experience was not just how levelling up was the game, you would often be in awe of much higher level players. A lvl 40+ player running lowbies through deadmines for example would be treated like some sort of unstoppable god.

[@ocharni]

Levelling in Vanilla was epic ... it took so much time and sometimes groups so you just met the same people over and over again, became friends etc. with no crossrealm shenanigans you knew the people you would run into org and UC(nobody went to TB unless they had to). I still remember my first couple of hours as undead lock in tirisfal glades and the awe of it all....honestly, i havent played an MMO since Warhammer but I cant wait for Classic to come out.