“You think you do but you don’t.” That was J. Allen Brack’s answer to a fan’s question at a Blizzcon panel about adding servers for previous expansions as they were at the time they were live. It became a rallying cry for people tired of the easy mode that had become World of Warcraft, eventually leading to a legacy server petition that garnered more than 250000 signatures.
Since then there have been meetings between Mark Kern (former team leader for Vanilla WoW) and Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime as well as the developers of the private serve provider Nostalrius that was shut down earlier this year and Blizzard’s executive team. As you can expect, the outcome of the meeting was that nothing had changed.
How to Play an Older Version of World of Warcraft
Going back to play an older version of WoW is surprisingly easy these days. There are numerous private server providers around, each with guides on how to connect, download an old version of the client, and get going without much hassle.
The hard part is picking a good server with minimal bugs, a decent population, and one that suits your play style. Do you want a cash shop to buy gold? How about instant max levels to avoid the grind and get straight to PVP? The best places to start looking to pick the server or servers you want to try and going to be:
Once you decide which server you want to start on, simply go to their site, register and follow the instructions. Some of the more polished realms have extra features such as WoD models for the WotLK client, Cataclysm mini-clients to get started faster, or their own launchers.
Enjoy!
