One of the most talked-about projects coming out of Blizzard's development studios is the World of Warcraft Classic. It's exactly what it sounds like -- a throwback to the classic edition of World of Warcraft, when times were simpler and expansion packs were nil. During this year's BlizzCon, the company unveiled the release date for the upcoming vanilla server.
During the BlizzCon opening ceremony (via Gamespot), it was revealed that World of Warcraft Classic will make its grand debut next year during the summer of 2019 for PC gamers. If you already have a subscription to the standard World of Warcraft, you'll be able to get in on the classic action without having to pay anything else. So premium subscribers get to play it for free.
As a way to help ease gamers back into the fold -- as well as to take notes and build up feedback on performance, stability, and features -- there is a demo available for those who purchased a BlizzCon ticket. And yes, this applies to both the physical and virtual tickets, so you don't have to worry about having appeared in person at this year's event, nor do you have to worry about having logged into the livestream.
You'll be able to hop into the demo and play-test the various character classes up until level 19. However, you won't be able to start from scratch. The classes are preset at level 15, so you'll only really get to stretch your class-legs for four levels. Even still, it will give you access to some of the classic class structures from the old vanilla World of Warcraft from a long, long time ago. The demo will be playable from now up until November 8th, so you'll only really have a week to get in some game time with the re-release of the classic MMO.
As noted by Gamespot, There's also a 60-minute time limit implemented into the demo, and a 90-minute cool down period, so that they can keep the servers moving at an even clip. So you won't be able to server-camp the demo and play all day every day. You'll only be able to play a couple of times throughout each day, and only for an hour at a time. Some people may not like that but it's to ensure that the servers don't get overcrowded during the demo testing. Besides, you can still play the Battle for Azeroth if you really need a WoW fix for the interim.
Now despite it being a classic re-release, there are some new features that are being added in, including Battle.net's social support and other quality of life features relating to graphics and display options. But for the most part it's a throwback to the classic WoW experience.
It was born out of a strong desire and inclination from nearly one million gamers who wanted to play classic World of Warcraft. It originated from the Nostalrius Begins legacy server, which serviced more than 800,000 users before Blizzard had the private server shut down on copyright grounds. Former World of Warcraft developer Mark Kern attempted to broker a peace treaty between gamers and Blizzard by getting the company to reconsider releasing a classic vanilla version of the popular MMO, and it turns out that Blizzard was willing to play ball.
If you don't get in on the demo this month, you can look for the full World of Warcraft Classic launch to take place next summer.
