Since World of Warcraft Classic launched, I've been burning a substantial amount of time in Azeroth. While the sport is not as popular as it once was, it's played on a continuous basis to buy classic gold by millions of people worldwide. Classic offers a exceptional opportunity also to experience a bit of gaming background and to come back to a multiplayer game's original variant. This report contrasts the leveling up and adventuring experience of this first third of WoW, spanning levels 1-20.
In this article,"Retail" describes the current version of the game,"Classic" refers to the servers Blizzard found in late August, and"Vanilla" refers to the original game and associated adventures from 2004 onwards. Replies to Vanilla are references.
I've played World of Warcraft as well before the game launched. I combined the Closed Beta in March 2004, only. I played a Paladin, but finally wound up maining that a Warlock and struck Lvl 60 prior to the game launched. I wrote on Warlocks at the moment, but after WoW had actually sent I decided I'd rather try course and a new job and rolled a Paladin on Zul'jin. I've mained a Paladin ever since and have analyzed the game and its expansions over the past 15 years, for various books.
I recall the original Paladin leveling encounter in Classic, and I wished to use a class I had been familiar with in the two variations of the game. Paladins aren't the levelers in Classic, but they also have excellent survivability. They are also effective at meeting all three of the game's primary roles (DPS, recovery, tanking) while trimming in both Classic and Retail. Protection Warriors are favored tanks for endgame raiding in Classic, but for leveling, all the hybrid classes (Druid, Shaman, Paladin) have healing, DPS, and tanking alternatives.
My goal with this collection of posts would be to compare the leveling and game encounter between Classic and Retail, without taking advantage of some of the extra bonuses Retail players can use to level quicker. Retail WoW provides Heirloom gear -- items that increase in amount every single time that you do. Several of these items raise. My playthrough does not use these items. Gear is not crafted by me because of my Paladin using a personality that is different. This usually means that my Paladin will not level as quickly as a Retail player with alts is very likely to par now. My goal, however, is not to compare the experience of playing WoW together with tons of alts, but to compare how the game feels and plays a new player experiencing the match for the first time on mywowgold in both versions. I've met with people in Classic and Retail undergoing WoW for the first time in 2019.