This year marks the 25th anniversary of the World of Warcraft franchise, and while Blizzard now has plenty of other properties, they clearly still value their enduring World of Warcraft fan-base. To that end, the company will be releasing World of Warcraft Classic on the 27th of August; a new mode available in the game which returns the game back to before the 1.12.1 patch.
When World of Warcraft Classic Will be Available
World of Warcraft Classic will be available in less than week’s time from now, and will be available for free for anybody who already has a subscription to the game on PC or Mac. The Classic mode turns back the clock on World of Warcraft, resetting it all the way back to before its very first expansion; Burning Crusade. The mode was first announced at BlizzCon in 2017.
Anybody with a subscription to the game can head over to the Classic mode, regardless of their character level. There are doubtless many players for whom the mode will be especially nostalgic. However, there are likely to be many others who have gotten into the game since the launch of Burning Crusade. For them, World of Warcraft Classic is a chance to see the game as it was in its early days; at a time when it was defining the very nature of an MMORPG. For years, World of Warcraft was the dominant force in that market, equivalent in some ways to Fortnite today; seemingly unassailable to its competitors. Indeed, it’s a testament to the game’s design that it still stands as one of the largest MMOs in the world.
Overall, World of Warcraft Classic mode offers players nine classes. Seven are shared across both factions, while Paladin is exclusive to Alliance and Shaman is exclusive to Horde. Druid, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, and Warrior are available to both sides. In other areas, Blizzard has insisted that gold farming, a major problem in the early days of World of Warcraft, will be under control. The game’s Token System will not be available in Classic. Players looking for WoW gold for sale still resort to an illegitimate black market. However, according to Blizzard, the game now has; “better detection algorithms and techniques today than we had before, so we hope that will be sufficient to keep [gold farming] under control.”