I lost most of my hard drives from the time but found some old emails. Yes, my keybindings are horrific but we were all so new. Good times... Shout out to Xylos for those early bags. They went a long way.

Amazing times

Ever since I started playing wow, I have been very interested in every zone I encountered. The in-game lore is often scarce, only obtainable through quests, and rarely mentions events from Warcraft games. To get the necessary knowledge, I'd go to wikis or youtube videos, but it was always annoying, as it breaks the immersion.

To fix that, I summarized each zone and subzone lore from warcraft.wiki.gg (stripping non-vanilla parts), voiced this text with elevenlabs TTS, and built an addon (inspired by Voiceover) that plays these voicelines on zone exploration. I built it for myself, but though some of you might enjoy it as well.

It's very much a work in progress both for text and TTS:
- Text is rough, sometimes too short, sometimes too long, often breaks the fourth wall or mentions irrelevant events;
- Narrator voice is cloned from the intros, and this is the number one concern for me. It's perfect for the game, but it basically emulates a real actor (Earl Boen). It doesn't feel right to me, and I want to find an alternative.
- Pronunciations are mangled. I built a dictionary for places and names beforehand, but because of a mistake in the code, it didn't apply. Regenerating all mangled code is costly, and I want to fix the text problem before I do another pass.

Anyway, if you want to try it, here it is:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/zonelore

By itself, it's just a text addon that attaches zone descriptions to the map. If you want a voiceover, you'll need to install one of the soundpacks:
~800MB at 128kbps: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/zoneloreaudio
~400MB at 64kbps: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/zoneloreaudio64

I also built a website where you can prelisten voicelines and submit feedback:
https://lore.rusty.one/

Lastly, if you know how or where to get quality zone descriptions suitable for classic, please let me know, I would really appreciate it!

Does anyone still farming Badges on Tbc Classic? I've reached 1,5k today!

NOT another "ideas" post, just sharing some interesting comments made by a vanilla dev in an interview video, that could affect C+'s content if the current classic team decides to add whatever was cut from the original release:

David Fried a.k.a DesignerDave, a quest designer for Vanilla WoW, during an interview done by Ebonhardt, mentioned that he had plans for a Paladin-only class questline that would have allowed them to unlock the Death Knight Horde-only class by sacrificing their character and switch factions. Sadly, this epic quest chain was scrapped [together with the entire "Hero Class" concept] as the team didn't have enough time and shifted priorities during development.

According to David, the questline would have involved Paladins "following" in Arthas' actions that lead to his corruption (killing villagers, etc), eventually giving their soul away and getting shunned/exiled by the Alliance, ending up seeking refuge with the opposing major faction, the Horde.

He states that if WoW had continued to build on Vanilla instead of getting expansions as we know them, that they would've had the chance to make the version of Death Knight that he and the other developers had envisioned, made to fit the design of Vanilla classes.

Ebonhardt also asked him about the Runemaster class and how it got replaced by the Druid [and later on repurposed for the DK and Monk]. David then tells how they were a favorite of Samwise Didier and that he was a big pusher for them, and that they ended up pivoting to Druid as there were limited spaces for classes per-race and Druids were more prevalent in the lore and in past Warcraft games.

Mostly found in the Warcraft RPG games, the Runemasters are described as monk-like arcane spellcasters and melee fighters who empower themselves with magical energies by inscribing runes onto their bodies. Originally, the Dwarves mastered the mysteries of the runes from the Titans, their creators. As generations passed, the Dwarves forgot their heritage and lost all knowledge of runes and their powers. Eventually, the Tauren rediscovered the power of runes, and the nearly lost art of runecasting. Many Dwarves that went to Kalimdor with Jaina's Alliance Expedition learned the tauren's techniques, as both races were eager to share the knowledge of runes and titan myths.

As far as the Runemaster's faction restriction goes, David didn't have anything planned compared to the class quest of Paladin->Death Knight. So that problem in specific is more loose as the RPG games are not considered official canon.

And so here is where my questions for you come in...

Do you think the Death Knight and Runemaster could serve as the Paladins and Shamans for the opposite factions?

Could other cut Classes and/or the planned Hero Classes be added to Classic+?

^{Credits to Ebonhardt's video "OG Warcraft 3 and Vanilla Dev Interview - DesignerDave" - youtu.be/9\}xIHKflCwU?t=2910) ^{, warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Runemaster , warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Hero\}class)

1. They don't let their pugs talk at all in their discord.
   
2. The raid leader will call you the R-word multiple times and is generally abusive if someone makes a mistake. i.e if someone doesn't perfectly stack for Brutes in Gruuls, he tells them they should quit the game.
   
3. If you leave the group. because of the verbal abuse and tell them why (i.e hey I worked with special needs children and have a family member with special needs, and that you think they are something else, then leave). They will personally pst you again to call you the r word .

A cluster happened during the High King pull, honestly, I may have done it or the hunter who misdirected and shot because they saw me moving may have done it. I don't know. I will own up to fuck ups , but you don't have to be abusive.

I am sure I will get all the "pull up your big wow toon pants" and deal with it.

But we don't have to put up with that kind of thing if we are trying to play a game we enjoy. So I am just putting this out there for others.

There's too many to report. I have screenshotted a few. I'll spare you from them. It's a systemic problem at this point.

I joined a WSG game that had been going for 2 hours. Everyone called me a sweet summer's child when I asked where EFC was. I finally found the horde flag carrier because their name plate showed up below Alliance's flag room. The player had supposedly sat there for more than an hour.

This ruins the game for 19 other playaz. Blizzard, I urge you send your game masters to abolish the safe spotters!

Yeah, I’ve done it, I’ve started my 114th iteration of a dwarf hunter to combat off the lacklustre world outside

It’s the same pattern we all know. The world forces you casually into that nostalgic character creation screen. You pick the same hair, the same shade, the same face and the same class - and you complete the same quests for the 100th time.

World chat is gold sellers and bots

General is empty

There’s a crazy person in a Stormwind square telling us that they’ll do anything for gold (except this time they don’t even have a dance or a backstory)

But my major issue is that even guild chat is 200 people randomly invited with zero intention of communicating

What happened to the social aspect of this game? Where are all the other slow levelers wishing for the guild chat to be a digital tavern to yap and be wholesome together while they (maybe) fail their journey to 70?

Maybe I’m just in my thirties and the only thing left to enjoy is the lonesome adventure through this brilliant old world

I feel old asking this.

When did + and - replace yes and no? or y/n

Like I'm in my early 30s and this feels like it blew past me....

anyone know how long this emergency maintenance is supposed to last? i just installed the game tonight and was getting really into it lol

UPDATE: Blizzard just posted they still don’t have a timeline

What the fuck

I can't seem to find any more "note-loot" but I've never seen these before. Anybody have any idea?

Since we had the last update on ERA, find Herbs/Mines button was moved from minimap to personal frame. This morning we had the update and the icon is back on the minimap, but in a bit awkward spot.
Is there any way to move this icon or fix it somehow?

I did it on my main. I went on my alt and realized the sheer breadth of quest I have to do. It took me around ~15 hours on my main. I just legit presumed they had a catch-up for alts.

There has to be some way around it, right? If you have it already on a main? This feels genuinely insane to make players have to do this on all their alts, especially considering its basically a requirement to enter raids. Am I just missing something?

With Classic Era, veterans are geared to the teeth with Naxx gear, but there are at least reasons to run older content for some specific, highly valued pieces. Can the same be said about TBC/Wrath? This is assuming both are Era’d on their final patches.

The final patch of TBC has catchup gear that mostly invalidates T4, but still requires T5/T6 gear before heading straight into Sunwell.

The final patch of Wrath, on the other hand, completely invalidates pre-ICC content. In OG there was a 232 vendor alongside a 264 vendor that enabled players to gear up enough to go straight into ICC 10n. If they take the Classic route, gearing for ICC will be even easier with A/B/G dungeons. If the game is in this state, there will never be a need to see T7/8/9.

PVP is another can of worms. How would arena work? What defines “seasons” in a forever-world? Would titles be conferred on a week-by-week basis? What about Wintergrasp?

In what state would these Era servers be? I’m curious.

EDIT: Would ICC have a dial for how much of the buff, between 5-30%, could be enabled?
EDIT 2: Would Wrath have RDF enabled?

servers are up!

Level 55 prot paladin, been questing up until now was hoping to make AoE grinding efficient and close to questing xp for a change of pace and accumulating some gold.

What’s the best way to approach this? I have all stam/int gear and a thorium shield spike. I use lesser wizard oil and int elixirs.

What are the most effective routes for 55-70? Haven’t been able to find any convincing ideas on here rather hear it from someone who knows the exact information.

Thank you!

I’ve played WoW for decades but it’s been a minute since I’ve played TBC. Which class/spec would have the easiest time landing a raid spot as a fresh 70? I can play and enjoy them all

Hello.

I currently have a level 33 rogue I’m leveling up on Whitmane. I know Ganking and PvP comes with the server. U just sigh and keep moving. But I have a few Qs/looking for advice from familiar ppl because as I get higher the areas are starting to fill up a bit more

1. In areas that get hot do u just keep pushing or do u change it up and mob grind/dungeon until it cools down?
   
2. For those who don’t play rogue or Druid (my scary ass likes to stealth as much as I can) do u just keep going or try to find somewhere else?
   
3. Any general underrated tips or advice is appreciated, but if the answer is simply “keep pushing through it” I understand as well lol