If you’re one of the millions of fans of World of Warcraft and its vanilla versions, the wait is almost over. And as part of the build-up Blizzard has been slowly rolling out test phases starting later this month ahead of the full launch of the vanilla experience later this year.
In case you missed it, here’s the full suite of test dates as well as the full launch day for World of Warcraft Classic:
- A first load test will run on May 22 to May 23
- A second load test will run on June 19-20
- A final third load test will run on July 18-19
- Character creation opens on August 13
- The full launch of Classic occurs on August 27
But a series of pre-launch tests isn’t the only thing fans are getting to see when it comes to World of Warcraft Classic. This week Blizzard took to the WoW forums to release a nice little rundown of some iconic “issues” with Classic that players may experience. It’s pretty cool of Blizzard to recreate some of these things in the Classic release, and since the entire thing is clearly fan service born of nostalgia, the idea to lean into that feeling as hard as possible shows a nice level of commitment. The “It’s not a bug, that’s a feature” meme has become iconic across many MMO communities over the years. As features are rushed out the door for release, testing isn’t always perfect, and sometimes things slip through QA. A simple nod to that by faithfully recreating some of the less game-breaking bugs or design oversights shows that they know the fans want a truly vanilla experience.
“The following is a list of commonly-reported gameplay in WoW Classic that is not actually a bug, and is working as we expect it to:
- Tauren’s hitboxes and their melee reach is slightly larger than other races.
- Being critically struck while using /sit to sit does not cause abilities like Enrage, Blood Craze, and Reckoning to activate.
- Using the “Automatic Quest Tracking” option does not auto-track newly accepted quests. (It instead will start to track an existing quest once progress towards an objective is started.)
- Warrior health Regeneration is working at the expected rate.
- Quests objectives and points of interests are not tracked on the map or minimap.
- Completed quests are marked on the minimap with a dot. (and not a “?”)
- Feared players and NPCs run fast.
- Standing on top of other players while facing away allows spells and attacks to be used.
- Creature respawn rates are much slower than in Battle for Azeroth.
- NPCs which offer multiple quests may inconsistently display them as a dot or a “!” on the available quests list. They were inconsistent in 1.12, and we’ve reproduced the exact inconsistency they had back then.
- Quests that are too low level for do not show up as a “!” in the game world.
- Available quests do not display a “!” on the minimap.
- On level up, the message: “Your skill in Protection increased to 15” was added in 1.12.1, and we’re intending to keep that.”
And having the Classic variant be based on the 1.12 version of the game will lead many players who weren’t around back then lost for what to do. It’s going to be quite the different game, with an extremely different layout and tone. I hope you’re prepared.
World of Warcraft Classic releases on August 26, 2019 for PC.