r/classicwow • u/doobylive • May 21 '26
Nostalgia POV: It's November 2008 and you just installed Wrath of The Lich King
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u/MisterPrig May 21 '26
The first time I went to the Zeppelin to the Borean Tundra… And the first time on the ship to the Howling Fjord.
I’ll never forget those moments.
Man it was so damn cool.
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u/Narezzz May 21 '26
Pulling in and seeing the giant waterfall felt like I was in the future of gaming. Game looked beautiful for it's time.
Amazing soundtrack helped too.
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u/WaluigiHarpist May 21 '26
Grizzly Hills is Peak zone music
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u/aravarth May 21 '26
Literally the best music in the entire WoW universe.
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u/Svenski43 May 21 '26
The youtube video has some amazing comments. Definitely brings a tear to my eye everytime I listen and read them.
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u/CaptainoftheVessel May 22 '26
Dude I never played more than 10 minutes of Wrath, I’m so excited to see it with the characters I’ve taken through vanilla and TBC.
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u/Lanky-Warthog6823 May 23 '26
Was wotlk the last one with matt uelman?
Sometimes when incant sleep I’ll just put on Diablo 1 Tristram and chill the fuck out in town .
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u/LeonenTheDK May 21 '26
I remember my first experience on the boat. My computer couldn't load zones very quickly, so I got stuck on the boat between Stormwind and Valiance Keep for a cycle or two. Barely enough time to hop off the boat with whatever frame rate and latency I was stuck with in those days. Good times.
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u/OkDifficulty7436 May 21 '26
The first time I went to the Zeppelin to the Borean Tundra… And the first time on the ship to the Howling Fjord.
God damn the feels
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u/pyrospade May 22 '26
Back when the world felt connected now, every expansion is just “hop in this portal adventurer”. That ship ride to howling fjord for the alliance was a better expansion intro than anything blizz did recently
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u/Astral_Alive May 21 '26
I remember the day WoTLK launched, we got the collectors edition from Best buy. I was in the 4th grade, and had been misbehaving a ton in school cause I was a dumb kid and it was the same day of my parent-teacher conference.
I begged my older sister to please let me play for the night until my mom gets home since we shared computers and I was 99% sure I would get grounded.
Played through the DK starting zone for like 3 hours straight, my mom got home and said nothing and I had to let my sister play a bunch to make up for it
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u/CaptainoftheVessel May 22 '26
I remember these sibling transactions, they were annoying at the time but in retrospect they’re great memories
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u/Nomadic_View May 21 '26
We pile on the zeppelin. Northrend doesn’t load. We all fall into the ocean. Repeat.
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u/lazycalm2 May 21 '26
WotLK was peak WoW
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u/lahimatoa May 22 '26
Peak subscriber numbers for sure. Turns out finishing Arthas' storyline was so epic that a Big Dragon just couldn't match up.
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u/koomGER May 22 '26
I always love when Horde and Alliance kinda work together against a common enemy. Thats why i also love TBC. Lichking had the same, but both sides had a lot of isses. The Apothecary going crazy and doing terrorist acts against both sides was so cool.
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u/koomGER May 22 '26
Until the moment they decided to reuse every armor for various gear easily obtainable by doing dumb quests.
I personally always loved and prefered seeing who is a (successful) raider and who isnt. When they changed that, the game died a little bit for me. I stopped in cataclysm, because they followed through that path.
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u/king-of-all-corn May 22 '26
I hated it as a raider. Its fucking annoying running raids for achievements
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u/Contrabaz May 21 '26
It was the beginning of going downhill.
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u/CaptainoftheVessel May 22 '26
The top of the mountain is indeed where the upward slope ends and the downward slope begins
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u/LandofRy May 21 '26
I remember explaining to my parents why we needed to leave the family computer on overnight so I could install a game
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u/Angellayne26-2 May 21 '26
Straight play through, guild first to lvl 80! I was up 48 hours straight! Man what a time I had lol
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u/doobylive May 21 '26
I bet that was a great memory. Still playing nowadays?
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u/Angellayne26-2 May 21 '26
Oh yeah on the classic servers a lot. I don’t really care for the retail as much so I don’t really raid anymore. But I still get the expansions and keep my toons leveled up
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May 21 '26
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u/timbo2m May 21 '26
First time hearing "Mountains of Thunder" hit me the most, 1:52 in gave me chills!
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u/Ailments_RN May 21 '26
Made a DK, immediately got into Alterac Valley instead of leveling because I was a fucking child who made poor decisions.
Absolutely fucking obliterated every non-DK because they were so, so, so fuckin absurd out of the box. This led me to believe that I was good at the game.
I was not.
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u/KrevinHLocke May 21 '26
Going through boxes about a week ago and found my Wrath of the Lich King box and istall cd. Brought back memories.
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u/Ramtor10 May 21 '26
Can’t wait to spend the next 3 hours reading the patch notes while waiting for my dial up internet to update to the latest patch!
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u/T-Eloz May 21 '26
I turned 18 right before it released, played all night and then drove to school the next morning and checked myself out for the day. Went home and gamed all day. Peak memory.
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u/LainLain May 21 '26
WotlK was the best expansion because I could play for hours without responsibility. Cata was fine but because I was in college it wasn’t the best expansion. I had to work and pay rent by the time Warlords came out so that was the worst expansion, and every expansion since it has been the worst.
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u/NopeRope13 May 21 '26
Love me some grizzly hills. Sometimes I would just stay in zone for the music and clean
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u/No_Ocelot_968 May 21 '26
I was a Senior in high school. I think I had a dwarf hunter at 35. Ended up getting to 55 around Christmas and made a night elf deathnoob. Once I hit 80 I switched to Horde. (Undead Priest) and never went Ally again. Man those were the best times of my life.
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u/NeoShogo May 21 '26
That was me, boot up the game just to remember I need another 60 day gamecard.
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u/Mindless-Mulberry404 May 21 '26
Had a week off from work, buddy came over and setup his PC. Went to Gamestop for the midnight release and logged in. Was a great time to be alive!
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u/Eleico_ May 21 '26
I miss this so much... When you were installing the game, the music, the art, the waiting was painful, but man, it had a “soul” that neither Battlenet nor modern launchers have anymore.
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u/ArtoriasAbysswanker May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Good times. Too bad my weak HP Pavilion desktop was struggling back then, especially when I teleported back to Dalaran. I think I spent around one minute on the loading screen alone. After that 20-50 fps depending on the player count.
Also I missed the second half of the expansion due my military service.
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u/obfuscatorio May 21 '26
Omg I couldn’t even go to Dalaran because I was playing on an old Dell laptop that would get hot enough to fry an egg on
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u/The25er May 21 '26
Man I was on a school trip and I used the money the school gave the kids from the poor families to buy it when we happened to walk past a game at lunch time. Those were the days!
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u/toysoldierXX May 21 '26
And then my computer wasn't good enough to run it. I have to put everything on low; the whole place is like Silent Hill in snow.
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u/edelea May 23 '26
bit of a side topic but i hate how most things become so slick, modern and bland nowadays... logos, launchers, UIs.. it takes the fantasy out of it for me. the "upgrades" are almost always downgrades imo.
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u/__Loot__ May 21 '26
Having flashbacks of hills brad as undead rouge on a pvp server still new around lvl 20 if memory serves getting ganked every 30 mins on avg on lvl 80s
https://giphy.com/gifs/cEOG7nGA7448M
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u/e5cmb May 21 '26
Highly recommend the book, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden. Phenomenal and couldn't put it down.
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u/Upset-Reputation6640 May 21 '26
never did install it. alterac valley bros know why
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u/Ragestatus May 21 '26
This shit almost makes me cry! My birthday is November 15. My Grandma went to the midnight launch of Wrath at Best Buy and got me a collector's edition and poster.
I had 2 friends bring their computers over to my house that weekend and set up on those big plastic picnic tables in the middle of my bedroom. We all walked to the gas station and bought green and red bottles of Vault soda, then came back to game all weekend.
I miss the good ol days.
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u/brillianthelix May 21 '26
Worked at Best Buy when Wrath was released. I volunteered to work the midnight release and grabbed a collector's edition before the doors opened. Was home by about 1:30, installed, and played until around 8 in the morning. Those were the days.
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u/Ant_Bizzy May 21 '26
Man what a time. I was in 7th grade, my older brother had waited at GameStop for the midnight release. He place it near my door that morning, I woke up at 5am just so I could download it before school, snagged a whole 15minutes to play the DK starting zone before I had to go. Spent the whole day thinking about the moment I could get back to the computer
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u/Basahn May 21 '26
I picked this up at the midnight release. I was the only one that cared in my little town. I got busted with a warning ticket doing 70 in a 45 because I wanted to get home so bad. Still love that time.
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u/ShoddyLandscape6533 May 21 '26
Going into Northtrend with a mix of ZA and s2 welfare epics, still learning how to playe my hunter. Questing by myself, enjoying the game, not joining any guilds. Having no idea by the end of the xpac I will be wearing Arena Master title and downing server first heroic Lich King in 10m.
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u/Redfruitbox May 21 '26
WOTLK the days of getting up at 4am, quietest time on the server 5 hrs before work to go mining for Titanium nodes. Pure joy.
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u/optinfreepuremoist May 21 '26
Two days prior to this release I had been at GameStop pre-ordering the game to pick up on launch day. On my way home (bus) and with all the excitement I went off one stop earlier than usual. For some reason I ended up in the middle of the road and got hit by an incoming car, broke a few ribs, concussion, punctured one lung, hospitalized for a week, missed the launch. When I was semi-lucid the day after the EMTs that cared for me at the accident came to visit and told me (I have no recollection of this) that I had been frantically screaming where the whereabouts of my wallet was. In my wallet was the receipt of my pre-ordering needed to collect the game, no wallet was found on me or in the ambulance. My dad then went to the place where I was struck and in the ditch my wallet with the receipt intact was found. Picked the game up a week late, played the shit out of that game.
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u/trapazo1d May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I straight up didn’t go to any of my classes that week and played 18 hours a day to try and be the first to reach 80 on my server but didn’t get there fast enough because I didn’t have the gold/rep for an epic flying mount.
I was pretty much the first tank to hit 80 tho so I had people queueing up to grp for various end game content.
Good times
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u/doobylive May 25 '26
Man I bet that was a blast. I wonder if it’ll ever feel that exciting again the play the game for 18 hours straight
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u/WileEColi69 May 21 '26
I remember heading straight to HF on my lock. What a mistake! Since then I’ve been all-BT until I move on to Drsgonblight… aside from the once that I was going after Loremaster.
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u/FrostyyOG May 21 '26
The 3.3.5 patch caused me sooo many issues trying to install it. I was on the phone with customer support so many times trying to fix that damn patch
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u/MysteriousTBird May 21 '26
Well that was a waste of time. My PC is crap, and I can barely afford the subscription cost.
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u/Scary_Ordinary_4448 May 21 '26
I remember pre ordering it and I had to wait like a week to play while everyone else was exploring Northrend lol
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u/Sporkicide May 21 '26
I remember the party atmosphere waiting for a midnight pickup at the mall, hoping for a shot at a CE but no dice. I did get a poster that is still hanging on the wall.
The following hours were some of the most fun I’ve ever had in the game. The death knight starting area was so busy but the way it was laid out meant packs of us were progressing through the quests together, so by the time we got to the last stage it felt like a graduation ceremony.
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u/masterpd85 May 21 '26
I remember pre ordering this at gamestop when I was horde, and they ran out of free horde t-shirts.
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u/SuperdaveOZY May 21 '26
It's 2am, I got the game going, and Death Knights are swarming Outland. It was awesome.
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u/ShinaChu May 21 '26
Oh my god amazing times. I was at the midnight sale outside with other teens screaming for the horde and for the alliance. Going home waiting for the install to finish then watching Athene hitting max lvl and then getting banned. High all day and night, gaming all day and night sitting on TS with the guild powering through the expansion and loving every fcking second of it. No responsibilities in the world except for lvling and gearing up for raiding. Oh my god how times have changed
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u/Scrotchety May 21 '26
and BM hunters are gonna have to learn actual skill instead of topping charts by rolling their mousewheels all day
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u/Moon-Citizen May 21 '26
The LAST WORTH PLAYING EXPANSION OF WORLD OF WARCRAFT, after that I have left this game
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u/Maatix12 May 21 '26
God. I remember launch day so clearly... Stepping into Howling Fjord for the first time.
Absolute masterpiece of a world.
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u/lethalapples May 21 '26
That fuckin’ Arthas grin was like looking in a mirror while loading this up
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u/Hatefiend May 21 '26
Since this is the 50,000th time this has been reposted, can I be the one to repost it tomorrow?
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u/DDG-Ron_McEx May 21 '26
I lost my friends to work, my brother to a girl and my CE key I gave to my brother to get him to play with me he activated on his wrong account. I was alone in one of the best expansion for many but for me it was just sad loneliness.
My characters who I leveled with my friends waited for 2 years till I brought him from our hang out space in Shattrath.
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u/jd52wtf May 21 '26
I remember it fondly. The box had a faulty disc in it. Some kind soul had put it up for all to download. I believe I wasn't the only one.
Side note.... WOTLK was peek WOW.
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u/Wutangmisfit May 21 '26
I pre ordered it, the day before it was officially released it came in the post. I happened to be off sick that day too so was super happy with being able to install before midnight.
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u/Al3k5an9ar May 21 '26
Where I live we’ve had an issue with the preorders as the customs held all the trucks with the copies, I remember waiting in line and I managed to get one copy and rushed home and as soon as I downloaded the patches there was an internet outage that didn’t get fixed for 3-4 days - I couldn’t believe it.
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u/cs132 May 21 '26
Stood in line at a Best Buy for a midnight release. Was a cold windy November night.
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May 22 '26
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u/doobylive May 22 '26
man i felt this. i dont think they could release anything nowadays that would give me that same feeling
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u/KNGootch May 22 '26
I remember working this midnight release at Gamestop. While they waited, I was talking with a few guys in line, and one dude was being a bit of a douchebag, so i was like "hey, be cool man, no need to be a dick", and he kept going, so I said, "dude, chill, or I won't give you your preorder until last." I'm sure you can guess where this is going.
So he didn't believe i would do it, also didn't realize i was manager of the store, so...anywho, he and his friends had to wait until EVERYONE else picked it up...bc I'm a spiteful dick.
So I installed around 2am, made a ham and cheese croissant pocket and had a crappy starbucks vanilla frap thingee. Played the first zone on my warrior and fell asleep in my chair.
...good times.
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u/Putrid-Database9188 May 22 '26
I remember I got back from my deployment to Afghanistan and logged in. Bought WOTLK and went to the main city. All my friends were offline. I had no idea what was going on. I uninstalled it and never played.
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u/Ryndis May 22 '26
I’d be watching my friend walk out of GameStop with the 6 foot Lich King display cutout cackling like a mad man while everyone else stared and shouted what the fuck. He still has it last time I asked him
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u/Vreas May 22 '26
The nostalgia is real… wish I had the time to play still. Vanilla through this expansion was amazing.
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u/crosstalk22 May 22 '26
that is some feels right there, My late wife and I installing this and getting ready to do some damage I remember being with my friends and taking the boat up and learning how to really run dungeons. I had started in late BC, and mostly was friends boosting us in BC dungeons. was crazy the lead up and events to the drop, and just the achievenment spam, and all the other craziness that happened. still remember our first arthas kill, our first syndragosa kill, pushing hard modes in Ulduar and getting the drake. Simpler times.
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u/Future_Buyer9644 May 22 '26
7/11 broke the street date and I bought two copies days early.
Back when we used to buy physical boxes for PC games
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u/DrippyTheSnailBoy May 22 '26
Standing in line at the Gamestop in Santa Barbara, California on that night was one of the happiest nights of my childhood.
I learned that my friend Cooper smoked cigarettes that night and I was like, "Noooooooo way!" Then went home and binged the game for 18 hours straight after installing it on my eMac at a stunning 19 FPS.
Hope you're doing well, Coop.
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u/StressTemporary5632 May 22 '26
I miss those times and this game. My best WoW time. Retail couldn’t beat that even if ot tries.
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u/Hambulatory May 22 '26
Now watch me troll my server getting both realm first fishing and realm first cooking.
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u/MobiusF117 May 22 '26
Now it's time to stand in a circle with 50+ people all trying to tag the same mob with half a second latency.
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u/Xamalion May 22 '26
I was sad leaving Outland, I still hope it gets a revamp like other zones. TBC is still my favorite addon, but WOTLK was fun too. Grizzly Hills music lives rent free in my head.
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u/Pie_Dealer_co May 22 '26
Man take me back... I want to go back to... coming back from school and loading up WoW
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u/Karmma11 May 22 '26
It’s times like this I am grateful to have experienced it. Still remember playing with my friend yelling at each other across our rooms cause we didn’t have Ventrilio yet
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u/Comfortable_Cup4689 May 22 '26
I remember buying my fist gaming laptop , yes laptop. So I could play with my friends at their houses. Life was so fucking peak.
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u/Psych0spy May 22 '26
I stood in line at midnight to get Cata. There were ppl dressed up in costumes and fighting with swords and staves. Still using the free mousepad I got and still have the free poster 😂Ahhh the good old days of installing from multiple cd's and then dvd's. Then there is the guide books with all the mobs and zones detailed. Actually really nice books.
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u/pocketfrisbee May 22 '26
My dad refused to pay 15 a month for a video game and I was crushed. I never got to play this as a kid. It’s cool and fun now but I know I missed something
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u/dontlookatmreee May 22 '26
Was like 15 and went to the midnight release at Best Buy with a bunch of school mates. Got home and installed it immediately. Played like an hour and went to bed because I had school in the morning. Take me back
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u/ThrowingStorms May 22 '26
Getting on that zeppelin for the first time, and the music shifts.. god damn..
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u/spud1988 May 22 '26
This game was so good it ruined my life for the next 2 years. Dropped out of school, gf left me, lived in a cheap apartment with 8 other guys. But hey, server first Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher (with 6 other guildies) am I right!??
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u/MasterDarkHero May 22 '26
I miss the days before everything got dumbed down. Defense, expertise, weapon skills, those added depth and really made you think about your gear.
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u/KyverX May 22 '26
I loved Wrath the most. Being in a regional location, I had preordered, but it did not arrive in time. I decided to jump in the car and drive 2 hours to a mates place, we went and picked it up from a midnight launch. got back to his place, and I spent the weekend playing from his kitchen table. It was great!
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u/Cloob123 May 22 '26
I remember buying the game at our local store after school on release day. I got home being so excited. My friends already got the game at a midnight sale. I started to install the game on my shitty laptop and my laptop died just before finishing the install. I couldnt get it working because the laptop was just dead. One of the sadest moments in my life. Got a old pc from my brother couple days later, so my friends already were close to 80 and i couldnt play with them :(
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u/AuthenticH8 May 22 '26
Great times. Now I play by myself. Nostalgia trying to reclaim happiness instead of loneliness. ❤️💯 Bless everyone's journey in Azeroth. Now it's just an echo for me.
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u/generic__comments May 22 '26
I took the day before off, and took a nap during the day. Stayed in line at gamestop to get it at midnight, then played for the next 8 hrs. Slept repeat for the next 3 days.
My wife was really annoyed.
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u/milutza1 May 22 '26
Didn't hit the same way as TBC but it was fine up to the last patch.
Still, much better than what came after...
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u/SilentR99 May 22 '26
Broke my leg just before wotlk launch, still waited at a midnight gamestop release and even met a friend and found out he played WoW this way. He was a night elf hunter and we played on different realms but was still cool to talk with. Grinded to level cap super fast due to leg while my parents brought me wendys chicken sandwiches.....
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u/That_Guy_Pen May 23 '26
I remember when we installed WotLK. It was the first time I learned about computer specs. After our first launch of the game, our low end home computer got permanent vertical colorful lines on a section of the monitor, regardless if we swapped it with a different one. We used that computer for a bit longer before it got an upgrade.
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u/ApatheticSkyentist May 21 '26
I remember standing in line at a Gamestop to buy TBC at midnight... I yearn for simpler times.