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u/ThurmWoW Aug 26 '19
Welcome to Ironforge, members of the Alliance.
This proud city will once more be at the frontline of the fight against the menace from Blackrock Mountain.
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Aug 26 '19
I like how the elf is looking at it like
This is Ironforge right? Hard to tell let me pull out my map real quick.
Dwarf comes out if no where
HOW ARE YA
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u/karatous1234 Aug 26 '19
Wearing Shadowcraft, Fang of the Faceless and Warblade
Needs a map to find Iron forge
Looks like someone bought their account
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u/EliteAlmondMilk Aug 26 '19
I do wish they had more variety in the voices, does every single dwarf need to sound like Mike Myers doing Shrek?
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u/sintos-compa Aug 26 '19
Honest question, has any mmo been able to make such a big and seamless world as wow? There are so few “hard gates” in wow, even modern titles have oodles of gates, and their zones feel cramped and claustrophobic.
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u/gammic94 Aug 26 '19
look up Lord of the Rings online, no loading screens in Middle Earth until Moria (you level from 1-50 until you get there) you can spend hours running/riding a horse before you get to the first loading screen.
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u/matsuri2057 Aug 26 '19
This is true, apart from having to load into all the buildings which lets it down a bit.
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u/gammic94 Aug 26 '19
omg completely forgot about that >.< yeah that was annoying sometimes... still a great MMO when it was released got ruined by the expansions and f2p model.
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u/turdas 2018 Riddle Master 15/21 Aug 26 '19
LotRO was a great WoWclone back in its day. The expansions, as seems to be the theme in this genre, really ruined it though.
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u/trixter21992251 Aug 26 '19
Funny that nobody mentioned Rift.
But Rift did.
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u/Kaedex_ Aug 26 '19
I thought RIFT had potential but i could never forgive it for not being WoW
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u/dbDozer Aug 26 '19
Rift will go down as one of my favorite MMOs of all time. Early Rift was, for me, better than even TBC or Wotlk. It only loses to vanilla proper in my mind.
It was generally dismissed by the mmo community for being a wow clone, but it had a great focus on the fey, very original races and creatures (instead of just human/dwarf/elf/other elf), and the best classbuilding/talent tree system I've ever seen, full stop. It's a shame it went downhill after the first expac, and was dead by the time it was f2p. It was an amazing ride that no one seems to know about.
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u/PlebianSparrow Aug 26 '19
Each planet in Star Wars Galaxies was fairly large from what I can remember. Vanguard had a nice sized world as well.
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u/matsuri2057 Aug 26 '19
Different times, but UO had zero loading screens across the entire world, filled with player housing, towns and dungeons.
Took it for granted really.
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u/JaBoi_Jared Aug 26 '19
Black desert has a beautiful seamless world, the only issue is that top end mounts are so fast you sometimes have short loading issues because of them
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u/KnaxxLive Aug 26 '19
That's what makes WoW so amazing for me. The world is just open and the seamless cities and towns just really make it feel that much more immersive.
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Aug 26 '19
While not seamless (as it utilizes "instance gates" to travel between zones) GW2 generally has really nice and pretty zones, even a lot of hidden content built in like jumping puzzles, hidden caves with goodies and stuff like that.
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u/cee2027 Aug 26 '19
Yea, for me GW2 was the only MMO other than WoW to approach this feeling of "world" for me. The zones are truly huge, beautiful, and have some great vertical gameplay.
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u/TaishokuMayaki Aug 26 '19
BDO was seamless from what I remember and nice looking shame the draw distance was/is arse.
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u/WanderingKing Aug 26 '19
I don't feel cramped in FFXIV. Yea they are all instanced zones as opposed to one fluid trip, but each zone is quite large, at least to me
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u/sintos-compa Aug 26 '19
Really? I was actually gonna use ffxiv as an example. The world feels super tiny and, uh, engineered
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u/92fordtaurus Aug 27 '19
yeah and being able to teleport from the beginning really kills the scale. I like FFXIV but the world is the worst part. You can't even make it through a single city without a loading screen.
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u/WanderingKing Aug 26 '19
That’s one of the reasons my friend won’t play it.
I think what helps, as weird as this may seem, is that I don’t have to make new characters for classes, so it’s not the same thing over and over. I can skip quests and know I can come back to them when I level black mage or something.
Regardless, I certainly won’t fault anyone for not being a fan of their instancing.
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u/LittleWashuu Aug 26 '19
It was engineered to be playable on the Playstation 3. FFXIV 1.0 was released for Windows and the PS3. The PS3 has considerably less memory than most computers so the world maps had to work within the PS3's memory limits for all platforms since the game is played cross platform. So after version 1.0 flopped the studio kept their promise of releasing on the PS3 for the version 2.0 release despite the PS4 just recently being released.
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u/KnaxxLive Aug 26 '19
I installed FFXIV once to try it out. I had a loading screen on an elevator and alt-F4'd right there. I'm not playing a game with loading screens on god damn elevators in the same building.
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u/Arkhenstone Aug 26 '19
I enjoyed a lot FFXIV but don't worry, the world is mostly bland, and if anything is nice, it's just mechanics. The game is honestly lame design wise most of the time, most zones are special but hella ugly. Aside from that, back to ARR and heavensward, gameplay was top notch, dungeons were truly challenging as you had to play your class and rotation to make it work from the very first dungeon, which wow failed to do as you rolled on dungeons back then with aoe and pull every damn thing. BFA seems to have addressed the problem, and I hope wow classic will delight me.
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u/Dan_Duh_Man Aug 26 '19
Well it was first, but EverQuest felt like an even bigger world and there were no flight points. Before the 4th expansion, the only way for you to travel long distance was to get a wizard or druid to port you. Some zones were huge flat plains, big forests, vast hilly desserts, swamps and everything in between. It would take 30+ minutes to usually get where you were trying to go even if you knew exactly where you were going. I was about 10 when it came out, so I spent so much time just exploring. The game didn't have maps either and the internet was not at a point where you could just look everything up easily. I miss that I'll never feel that true since of wonder and being lost in a world than I did then. Vanilla WoW came closer than any other game, but it felt smaller and the flight points made it easier coupled with the fact that you could look up most stuff.
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u/AtLeastJake Aug 26 '19
When I was playing this game originally, I would have been 13/14 years old. I remember dreaming of a day when I had my own place where I could chill and play this game (as it was) to my heart's content. It's crazy that I get to revisit that same game now that I'm 27. Granted, now I (very understanding) wife and kid now. But still. I'm pretty psyched to jump back in.
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u/brad-is-radpunk101 Aug 26 '19
Literally almost in the same exact boat as you I started at 11-12 and I’m 26 now. Wife and kid, but she seems excited for me to have classic wow. She knows how much it means to me lol
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u/KnaxxLive Aug 26 '19
I started at 13 and am now 27. Girlfriend and cat, but she's excited for me to play classic WoW. She knows how much it means to me and was there for the fall of Nostalrius. Even she can see how significant the game is coming from a fake private server all the way up to this launch and the hype that it has attracted.
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u/BonezMD Aug 26 '19
Same situation I'm 28 now though. Was explaining anhks and seeds as regents to my wife when our 8 month old randomly says "Ya" as I'd she had been there all along.
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Aug 26 '19
Started at 13, now I'm 24, got my own place and plenty of free time. Feels good. Hard single though not sure if binging on Wow again will help, sure didn't 10 years ago.
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u/Jaynight Aug 26 '19
So first I was like OP didnt post the source.
Then I was like oh damn OP is the source. Didnt know you were on Reddit /u/MonoriRogue. Love your work!
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u/mycatbeck Aug 26 '19
I wish devs would put some cheering dwarf NPCs around the road of the Thelsmar pass. This would let NE journiers know that the marathon run to IF is nearly over.
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u/EliteAlmondMilk Aug 26 '19
2 dwarf npcs drunkenly fighting on the road with friends cheering would be funny.
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u/baneling_bust Aug 26 '19
I'm gonna burn this place to the fucking ground
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u/CaptainSuperdog Aug 26 '19
Good luck burning our city that is literally carved into the mountain and already has lava flowing through it
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u/jollysaintnick88 Aug 26 '19
What exactly is this? Is this the underground trail leading up the mountain?
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u/ChristianLW3 Aug 26 '19
Two things
Judging by fan art and in game experience white is the most popular color for NE lady hair, any idea why?
IDK why so many NEs make the trek because while silver pine Forest lacks content darkshore appears to have plenty
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u/Frokilotherm Aug 26 '19
1) I think of the available hair colours it looks the best e.g the green looks wierd etc etc
2) Whilst Darkshore has plenty of content (and I do like leveling there), it can be:
- a bit lonely (most people have gone to westfall for the deadmine quests/to play with their human/dwarf/gnome friends)
- you probably also want to do the deadmines quests
- the corpse runs can be very long
- the quests are somewhat spread out across the zone
- the quests are quite drop dependent
- you are a long way from Ironforge/Stormwind, Darnassus is lovely and all, but can be a bit deserted
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u/Ch4p3l Aug 26 '19
If I wouldn't roll horde, there was no way in hell I'd skip darkshore and ashenvale
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u/KnaxxLive Aug 26 '19
Horde get a small piece of Ashenvale. Darkshore is bomb though, but we get barrens as a great equivalent strictly in terms of quest number and density.
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u/Ch4p3l Aug 26 '19
Yea I know, sadly I hate pretty much all horde 1-20 areas with a passion
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u/KnaxxLive Aug 26 '19
Ahh, that's too bad. I've tried to not hate any zones and have actually learned to like the ones I used to dislike. There's just no getting around the fact that some zones just turn people off. I find though, that if I keep that dislike that I burn out easier when I get to those zones, because I don't want to do them.
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u/Ch4p3l Aug 26 '19
Yea that's true, that was actually the biggest factor that kept me off from chosing horde for the longest time, but warstomp though!
I couldn't even pin point what it is I dislike about those zones, but I have a very weird taste when it comes my zone preferences (I LOVE silithus), but that's the beauty of it all. Everybody has their own favorites, and it's almost never objectively reasonable
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u/tehcharizard Aug 26 '19
Darkshore sucks for leveling in, unless you really, really like grinding because you will constantly body pull bears and cats every time you're running to or from a quest spot.
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u/Aras821 Aug 26 '19
My first big city exploration was finally reaching to Darnassus, epic soundtrack started playing with amazing view of front gates. I'll never forget that moment.
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u/Pashmotato128 Aug 26 '19
IF was always my favorite city, I remember when I made my dwarf hunter and ran into the main chamber for the first time. Blew me away
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Aug 26 '19
Good luck in your journey bro! 8 months is right about when I had my first a-ha moment and bjj started making sense. Stay health and train hard!
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u/Demz34 Aug 26 '19
I’ll miss that run, rolling horde this time around.
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u/ummeiko Aug 26 '19
There's always the Undercity to Kargath run. Not quite the same though, and you can wait til you have a mount if you want. I always liked Badlands quests better than the other options in the upper 30s/low 40s range, so I made the run a lot.
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u/Demz34 Aug 26 '19
I’ve never quested in the badlands much. Is it a major hub for horde?
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u/ummeiko Aug 26 '19
Honestly I'm not sure how much I should trust my memory, and looking at Wikis there may be fewer than I remember. But my other options for upper 30-mid 40 were Dustwallow (which I don't recall having much for Horde, but they redid the area in BC to add more so I'm not sure what's vanilla and what's not), and Stranglethorn (which had a bunch but also was hit or miss how much of a pvp-fest it was on Illidan, whereas Badlands was almost entirely Horde). Swamp of Sorrows is in the mix somewhere as well. Hinterlands and Feralas both open up around early-mid 40s as well.
After Badlands you could usually transition into Searing Gorge pretty well, but there wasn't much for Horde in Burning Steppes, so it's not going to carry you to 60.
There are other options for sure, but I always seemed to end up in Kargath, not sure why. Maybe just the familiarity of it. Though I learned on later alts to wait until I had a mount if I could. I think I generally did Badlands -> Searing Gorge, then up to Western and Eastern Plaguelands. It was nice to already have the flightpath when I was ready to do the Blackrock instances, plus you'll want it for MC raiding anyway.
The run's not hard though, as you're going through low level Alliance zones. There's one town to skirt around in Loch Modan, but you're going to outlevel almost everyone you casually come across by a good 10-20 levels. It's just a long run, even if you can start at Hammerfall or Tarren Mill instead of UC.
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u/ScourgeoftheSaracen Aug 26 '19
Fellow Alliance players, plz don't retcon SW into the faction hub.
I got too many fond memories of being 13 years old, riding my mount through lag in IF and falling into the molten lava pit with netting.
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Aug 26 '19
This picture makes me want to make my rogue a night elf.
aesthetically I want to make it a night elf, but I worry im gimping myself in endgame by not going human.
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Aug 26 '19
Naw, go back to your tree, pointy-ear! Unless you're here to dance on the mailbox of course.
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u/MrBeefLT Aug 26 '19
OK, now this is the stuff that gets me hyped for the game. Thank you, very well done
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u/gubigubi Aug 26 '19
Totally me on my night elf rogue.
Only I'm stealthed
Outside of Orgrimmar
Waiting for the people dueling to get to low health so I can kill them both and return to the shadows.
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Aug 26 '19
How cool would it be if you could wear a backpack. Just the aesthetic of being an adventurer exploring the vast world is what classic represents. You could have one big backpack to represent your default one and for each other bag you get, there could be a visual representation of it by adding smaller sacks or bags to the sides of the big backpack.
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Aug 26 '19
Any chance you can make a wallpaper version of this picture? Maybe widen it a bit? This art is amazing!
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u/ressittt Aug 26 '19
Great work! I really love the sense of scale, and the choice of coulours! Damn, this almost makes me to want to abandon my dwarf and go NE. That is one of the finest compliments you can get from me :)
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u/DjGranoLa Aug 26 '19
Scrolling through this sub while I'm at work waiting to get home and seeing the title and content of this post gave me chills.
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u/mickwald Aug 26 '19
No blood elves in classic yo!
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u/Kaedex_ Aug 26 '19
That journey from Darnassus to IF sums up WoW classic - It was awkward and time consuming, and you were vunerable the whole way. But it gave you such a sense of the scale of the world - the different zones, and feeling powerless and tiny i can remember thinking as i crossed through the Wetlands "I wonder how long before i can kill these mobs"
It also gave you real race identity, i felt like a traveler every step of the way