Some images of World of Warcraft during the development phase make us smile. How much the game has changed…
The Pixel Army of Azeroth
When the MMORPG genre began to bloom about 17 years ago, the genre leader World of Warcraft was still in the early stages of development. There are only a few screenshots and other evidence from that time that document the evolution of Azeroth, but they have a big impact.
Who would have thought, for example, that WoW in its early moments was nothing more than a modded version of Warcraft 3?
Also interesting is the fact that originally only 6 different races were planned. The trolls and gnomes were added only at a later stage of development – this might still explain the lack of existing gnome lore (or why gnomes never appear in a WoW cinematic).
Molten Core is an example of a small technical miracle. Originally, the zone was supposed to be cut from the launch. However, two developers (including Jeff Kaplan) saved the raid by completing it in less than a week. Would such a thing still be possible at Blizzard today?
The shattered world was originally intended to be a fixed part of the main game. Much more than this first draft of the Hellfire Peninsula has not remained – although the design still strongly resembles today’s raid instance “Firelands”.
And to conclude, a little guessing game: Which area of World of Warcraft could this image show?
Believe it or not, this has been the whole concept idea of the Arathi Basin. The corresponding designer was of course teased a bit at work. Nevertheless, this concept worked out.
For those who can’t get enough of this nostalgia experience, they should also check out the other screenshots. Special thanks goes to the Reddit and Imgur user exo316, who collected these images.
