World of Warcraft Classic: an hour of demo to go back to 2004 – Tech

On the occasion of the Blizzcon 2018, Blizzard allowed the holders of a virtual ticket to test World of Warcraft Clbadic, a new version of the original game. We played there for 1 hour.

The surprise announcement of World of Warcraft Clbadic made almost as much noise as that of the last expansion of the game at the Blizzcon 2017. Part of the community of fans had been hoping for more than a decade the opening of servers on the first version of the game, nicknamed " Vanilla ".

As a reminder, WoW 1.0 to 14 years, and no less than seven extensions have pbaded through, including Cataclysm In 2010, which transformed all of Vanilla's content irreversibly. The interface, the graphics, the loot system, the skills, in short, almost all the elements of the game, has been changed one or more times. The players were worried that this Clbadic would not be the exact one replica of WoW of their memories. To find out, we played it for an hour.

The demo of World of Warcraft Clbadic offers players to move from level 15 to 19, and is limited to two areas. On the Horde side, players can roam the legendary Tarids – known for their endless distances during which players spoke on the cat. On the Alliance side, the West March is open to testers. Invaded by the Confraternity of Defias, it is the place of the first dungeon accessible by Alliance players, the famous Mortemines. To avoid overloading servers, Blizzard has limited play time to 1 hour per session. For this hour of play, we go back to the year 2004, with a gnome warlock (and we do not discuss the choices of the past).

As ugly as in 2004

Just past the original authentication portal to the taste of nostalgia, a first feature is obvious: it is the graphics of 2004.

The models of each race have been redone in recent extensions, which is not the case of those we have before us. Our poor gnome will have to be content with a grimacing face and a beard that looks like a cardboard taped to the chin.

Once the character is created, we arrive at the tower of the sentry hill, in an area already invaded by impatient testers. The quality of the graphics is not necessarily a highlight of the current game, and some areas have not been redone since 2007. We had almost forgotten how ugly the game was. Enemy patterns are vintage, and spell animations are slow and dreadfully basic. As for the equipment provided with the character, he breathes good beginnings of the game.

After fifteen minutes of play, the magic of nostalgia has already worked

And then, very quickly, ugliness disappears under a flood of good memories. A vulture fails to kill us as we leave the path. He reminds us that at the beginning of WoWa simple piaf could slaughter us if we did not pay attention. His colleagues will take their revenge a little later, when we have the misfortune to attack two at a time. The clashes are much more laborious than on the current game, where you can manage four or five enemies simultaneously without sweating.

The spells of yesteryear (with several ranks), the old talent system, the interface that gives only very few indications, everything is there. You have to read the quests and get lost trying to complete them. Each fight strongly reduces our points of life and mana that it is necessary to take the time to return while eating and drinking. In fifteen minutes, we find the World of Warcraft of old, on which we spent hundreds of hours.

WoW Clbadic will be mbadively multiplayer or will not be

Annoyed with our two dead in front of a group of three enemies that we can not face separately, we ask for help on the channel of discussion of the zone. Here we are joined by a human warrior and a dwarf hunter, towards the entrance of the dungeon Mortemines, even if it is not playable during the demo.

It's a force that WoW has lost – or has been forced to lose – in recent years. The mythical MMO of Blizzard is in principle « mbadively multiplayer ".

On this little demo, we remember all the interest of multiplayer. Without companions of adventure, one can die very regularly. Without a group, you can not kill the elite enemies and access the dungeon entrance. In the current WoW, it is enough – apart from the most difficult content – to go through automated queues, and let the game create the group. Certainly, a dungeon becomes infinitely faster, but we lose the social aspect, and the memories of galleys in a group.

The developers claim that WoW Clbadic will be a replica as accurate as possible of the original game. The players wanted an authentic experience, they will have it. Gross, without improvement. Clbadic could quickly become painful and painful if it is to be crossed alone. But he could also remember the most beautiful memories and create new ones. Blizzard will have won its bet if the servers come alive with a real social life, as in the mid-2000s.

World of Warcraft Clbadic is out in the summer of 2019 and will be included in your subscription #Warcraft ! pic.twitter.com/Ep62TbkgpM

– Warcraft_FR (@Warcraft_FR) November 2, 2018

The output of World of Warcraft Clbadic is expected in the summer of 2019, and will be included in the subscription to the current game. Blizzard has kept its promise: it's now up to players to give back World of Warcraft its flavor of yesteryear.