Lots of ooolld things about the game. If you've been playing for a while it's a pretty interesting read.
-During original WoW alpha, Scholomance was supposed to be an outdoor elite area (probably where sorrow hill is now), but the developers made it so big and good that they decided to make it an instance.
-At the beginning, there were shields and bucklers. Rogues and hunters could use bucklers, but they later removed them, and rogues/hunters couldn't equip shields anymore. There are still bucklers in game, but they are labeled as "Shields".
-Survival talents for hunters was the "melee" tree and they had a lacerate ability which dealt less than 100 damage at lvl 60.
-Discipline tree for priests was supposed to be a "melee" tree (think of like monk), which is why Inner Fire increased attack power.
-All of you know this already, but Dwarves could be Mages.
-Hunters were using focus as their resource system, but it regenerated while standing still, and was very overpowered so they gave them mana instead.
-Several classes had talents which increased stats by a raw number (for example 20/40/60/80/100 spell power (not percent but just 100 SP)), and they didnt scale at all with gear/level.
-There was almost no Spell Damage on gear during early vanilla. It wasn't a strange thing to see a lvl 60 mage with less than 30 SP.
-The reason why there are so many cloaks with exactly the same stats in the starting areas was because cloaks also had armor types (for example cloth/leather/mail/plate cloaks)
-There were two big islands off the western coast of STV, which were removed, but if you go far enough with mount and water walking, you can reach the area where they were. You will see that you are zoning in Isle of Doctor Lapidis or Gillijim's Isle.
-Elwynn Forest, Stormwind and Westfall were the first zones that blizzard made back before 2001. That is why they are crappier than other starting zones.
-Azshara has very little quests because Blizzard has designed it with a terrible layout, and they realized that too late. They thought most people would hate it so much, so they just didn't bother and left it for future expansions (Cataclysm)
-Their original design(back before alpha) was that horde and alliance each had only 100 quests in the game.(was said in a recent interview)
-At release, there were no quests at all in Silithus(or anything important), and it was added in the AQ patch(or earlier I don't remember)
-There were much less quests past level 50 at release, so players complained that they had to grind mobs in order to level, and Blizzard added more quests later.
-Blackrock Spire, Stratholme and Scholomance were all tuned for 15 people raids, and they were still way too hard even with 15 people, which they later toned down to 5 players (except for UBRS which is 10 player)
-Before TBC was released, you were able to blink through deadmines portal and glitch it, cast slow fall off an unfinished tunnel, and reach a very early version of Hellfire Peninsula. Here is a video of it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiL64...eature=related-Emerald Dream was supposed to be released in vanilla, as either zone/raid/continent. They scrapped it, but there are emerald dream zones in the game files, though not accessible in any way on official servers. You can also see it on Youtube.
-T2 sets dropped in Molten Core, and had different graphics.
-Epic Mounts at release were just recolored normal mounts without armor. They removed them and replaced with armored mounts later(R.I.P Ivory Raptor). Oh and Tauren didnt have a mount at all, they had a plainsrunning ability.
-Ironforge was by miles the largest city in game, because it had two floors instead of one, and the one which exists today is smaller than before. The Great Forge was also visible in game. Here is a video of it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ZKb61xxX0#-Gnomeregan was supposed to be a city like all others, Ironforge had an elevator which led into Gnomeregan, but they turned it into an instance because it would create faction imbalance.
-Undercity was even more complicated to navigate, so they removed the second floor (it is still accessible in game).
-Humans and Orcs were the first Races Blizzard created in game.
-Human females and Orc males used a slightly different model.
-You would be scared if you saw how Female Trolls looked in alpha.
-Goldshire was a lot bigger, and it resembled a real village. But Blizzard realized that they can't make other starting zone hubs that big, and they removed a lot of buildings in goldshire so it would be even for all zones.
-Overall Graphics in WoW are definitely improved since it's release, but in alpha, the graphics looked more realistic(but lower quality than now), and they toned them down.
-Naxxramas is still physically present in Eastern Plaguelands today. There is no way to enter it or see it(it is invisible). If you logged off your character in old naxx before wotlk was released, you would appear in EPL naxx with portals to northrend. Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpLjxvPBE8M#-Undead were able to communicate with the Alliance.
-Undead were really Undead, so they could have been targeted by Exorcism and such spells(back when it only worked on undead and demons)
-Will of the Forsaken was a passive buff which made you immune to sleep, polymorph and fear effects. That didn't last long.
-Cloaks weren't visible at all until beta, due to player request.
-CC effects didn't have reduced duration on pvp targets, so a rogue or mage could cc you up to 1 min(or more)
-Mages had an invisibility spell earlier, but you could cast Pyroblast while still invisible. It was removed because of an outcry from other players.
-There were no guards at neutral cities, so most of them were slaughter fests.
-Maraudon was added in a content patch.
-Warrior charge ability used to teleport you to your target instead of increasing your run speed.
-Wands couldn't auto-shoot so you had to click it each time you wanted to hit.
-Spell schools used to have a skill system similar to todays weapon skills. "Your skill in Fire has increased to 93"
-There was only one flight path and graveyard in the Barrens. Ugh.
-Warlock spell Banish had a 30 minute cooldown for some reason.
-Rogues and Druids had "feign death" abilities before they were moved to the hunter class.
-Mages had an ability called "Khadgar's Unlocking" which was like rogue pick lock spell.
-The only enchanting trainer at higher level was in Uldaman.
-Each major city had it's own special auction house, so Darnassus was pretty useless.
-Although Azshara crater, a scrapped battleground, never appeared in game, it is in the game files.
-All wings of Scarlet Monastery was once a single instance, but they have split it into four because it was too big.
-The Black Morass instance(without the mobs and bosses) was in the game files since 2004.
-Hellfire peninsula was supposed to be a 54-60 zone.
-Andorhal in Western Plaguelands was a very hard elite area(MC geared players had problems with it). Araj the Summoner was tuned for 20+ people. It also had ruined wall around it's borders, which was later removed.
-There are Programmer isle and designer isle in the game files but aren't accessible.
-As one reply reminded me, player housing was briefly tested and scrapped completely. Here is an interesting picture
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...Housing3.0.jpg-If you look at the beginning of the original wow cinematic, you'll notice half of Silithus is missing on the map. That's because it wasn't there at that time.
-Here are some more realistic graphics I was talking about
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...Ashenvale1.jpg-The original Hellfire Peninsula resembled the WCIII HFP a lot more. Here is a very old picture of it
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...20Outlands.jpg-Blizzard definitely wasn't wrong when they said emerald dream was gonna look awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5oHucJj90s#-Another reply that reminded me: The very first legendary item that dropped was a necklace (
http://www.wowwiki.com/Talisman_of_Binding_Shard) that dropped off Baron Geddon. It was removed from the loot table, but the guy who got it was allowed to keep it. Here is his armory
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...rock&cn=Savorx (you can't actually see it because it shows an error).
-Hunters were the last class to be introduced in beta.
-Paladin Judgement had a cast time.
-Shaman enhancement tree had a couple of tanking talents/spells, although they were never really able to tank anything other than occasional trash.
-Warlocks were able to summon people off cliffs, and mages/some other classes were able to cc people underwater and make them drown.
-Warrior Recklessness used to reduce targets armor to 0.
-On release, there was no PvP content at all. It was added some months later(battlegrounds and honor system).
-Flight masters didn't summon mobs to help so they were sometimes camped constantly.
-Many people don't know this, but there is a "click to move" option in WoW. You can click on the spot on the ground, and your character will move to that spot, like in RPG games.
-Paladins had about a dozen seals removed, namely Seal of Fury, Seal of the Crusader, Seal of Sacrifice, Seal of Wrath and others. They also had Crusader Strike and Holy Strike in beta.
-I'm not 100% sure on this, but when you died you lost a small amount of XP.
-Warlock Felsteed mount was called "Nightmare".
-Kick and other interrupts had a 75% chance to hit.
-Mages had to spend 5 talent points in arcane tree to make Arcane Explosion instant. Evocation was a talent also.
-Shamans had Magma Blast and Lightning Shock spells.
-Since the vanilla definition of "Hybrid Class" really meant "Hybrid Class", the itemization was quite strange. Paladins/druids/shamans had all stats on their gear, and for some reason rogues, warriors and some other classes had spirit or some useless stat for them on their gear.
-Though most people know this, Windfury weapon procs could proc off eachother. So theoretically shamans could one shot a raid boss if stars aligned.
-Paladin reckoning talent could be stacked to infinite stacks. It was used to one shot Lord Kazzak, and it was hotfixed within 24 hours of that event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGTL6BC_cg#-Mages and priests had a "Sleep" spell.
-Eviscerate had a base damage that didn't scale, so a naked rogue would hit the same as a full T3 rogue.
-The best lvl 60 warrior dps item was a level 44 mail gloves(Edgemaster's Gauntlets), because they had weapon skill bonuses.
-Rogue and warrior mace specialization used to randomly stun people. They were changed to ARP bonuses in WotLK.
-Mortal strike hit for 200% weapon damage, making 50% healing debuff almost useless because you would 1-2 shot cloth.
-You weren't able to see buffs on enemy players, but mages had "Detect Magic" spell.
-Deathwish and Enrage could stack for some scary DPS increase.(enrage was 40%)
-There was a way to gain reputation with Wildhammer clan and Revantusk trolls, but they had no reward at all and they just removed it later.
-Bosses had only 8 debuff slots, so warriors were sometimes kicked for speccing into deep wounds.
-Hunter and warlock pets didn't scale with any stat at all.
-Many players think that worst quest in vanilla was "Deep ocean,Vast sea...", because the breath timer was only 60 seconds and murlocs could move through walls. Ouch.
-There was no arcane resistance, but there was holy resistance. Today it's vice-versa.
-Hunter arcane shot scaled from spellpower, which is why hunter T2.5 sets have SP on them.
-This was recent but, healing and spell damage were two separate stats. So leveling as a holy priest/paladin would be a suicide.
-Mage arcane tree and priest discipline tree had talents that improved wand damage. This was removed in 3.0
-Wound poison would stack to 5 for 10/20/30/40/50% healing debuff.
-Dispelling poisons was actually a good tactic because it's application chance was much lower.
-Although never confirmed, there is a rumor that Ironforge Airstation was supposed to be a gnome starting area.
-Priests had racial spells, but some of them were turned into baseline priest spells and some other removed. (human-desperate prayer/troll-hex of weakness/undead-devouring plague)
-There was a period in TBC when orcs had bugged shoulder size(2x smaller), and worst of all, it took Blizzard 2-3 months to fix it.
-Undead had slightly bigger shoulder size than today.
-Recently, in the Ulduar patch, a Gm accidentally mailed a player with Martin Fury. That is an artifact level shirt that has a "on use" effect that one shots everything. He used it to one shot Malygos, and couple of bosses in Ulduar. People noticed on his statistics tab that he had an abysmally high "Highest hit ever" number, and he got a permanent ban shortly after.
-Female Tauren had a lot of doors/obstacles that they couldn't fit through. They still do, but much less.
-Tauren not being able to fit through the MC entrance window(next to the high elf quest giver)
-And the best one! instance servers being full, and 40 people jumping through the window of MC to zone in, inevitably falling into the lava, getting "Instance servers are full, try again later" message
-Trolls used to have a joke ( /silly emote) that said this "I kill two dwarves in da morning,I kill two dwarves at night,I kill two dwarves in the afternoon, and than I feel alrgiht.I kill two dwarves in time of peace and two in time of war,I kill two dwarves before I kill two dwarves, and then I kill two more." This was removed from the game, because it was a reference to smoking weed.
-There is a very creepy crypt behind Karazhan which is currently inaccessible except for hunters/shamans chain farsighting/eagle eye. It is pretty well done, and was probably shaping to become something, but Blizzard abandoned it because the game is rated "12".
-In alpha WoW, all instance portals used a "Dark Portal" model as a placeholder. There was one dark portal in underwater Azshara, which would lead to assume that there was supposed to be an instance in Azshara underwater. Maybe they just threw it there randomly, who knows. Pic
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...r%20Portal.jpg-Meeting stones weren't used for summoning other people, they were used so you can look for other people who queued for that instance.
-Retaliation had no animation, and you couldn't see the buffs of your enemies, so warriors could pop it against rogues who had very little chance to notice it.
-After a patch in vanilla, something got bugged and warriors received one extra talent point, which allowed them to spec 31/21/0 and be very overpowered.
-People used to pay a lot for people that had a key to Upper Blackrock Spire.
-The Unstoppable Force(AV exalted weapon) used to knock back players instead of stunning them.
-There was a hunter that stacked spellpower gear(for mend pet) and soloed Azuregos.
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