A solo journey through a self-hosted WoW server with 1,472 bots, exploring gameplay, AI behavior, and classic WoW challenges.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- AI bots can simulate human-like MMO gameplay convincingly in World of Warcraft.
- Running a large-scale bot population locally is technically challenging but feasible.
- Classic WoW mechanics, such as class quests, significantly impact gameplay strategy.
- The bot-driven world creates a living, breathing MMO environment even without real players.
- Solo play combined with bots can recreate the MMO experience in a unique way.
What the video covers
- The video explores a unique World of Warcraft private server populated entirely by around 1,800 AI bots using the Deep Seek API.
- Motleyorc embarks on a solo adventure as an orc warrior accompanied by a shaman bot named Grok.
- The bots exhibit surprisingly human-like behavior, questing, fighting, and interacting similarly to real players.
- The journey covers leveling from 1 to 60, including questing, dungeon runs, and raids.
- Motleyorc discusses technical challenges, frequent server configuration, and bot management.
- The video highlights the differences between classic WoW gameplay and retail, especially regarding class quests and tanking abilities.
- Dungeons like Ragefire Chasm and Temple of Atal'Hakkar are explored with the bot companions.
- PvP and large-scale raids with bots are demonstrated, including a 40-man raid on Theramore Isle.
- The video captures the immersive experience of playing in a bot-driven MMO world with dynamic AI.
- The project showcases the feasibility and fun of running a massive bot population on a local WoW server.
Chapters
- 00:00Welcome to Azeroth and Introduction to the Bot Project
- 03:55Starting the Adventure with Grok and First Impressions
- 06:40Configuration Challenges in Durotar
- 09:28First Dungeon Attempt and Class Quest Realizations
- 12:27Questing in The Barrens and Recording Begins
- 17:27Dungeons Explained and Gameplay Strategies
- 22:47PvP and Large Scale Bot Raids
- 27:29Exploring Tanaris and Advanced Gameplay
- 34:42Temple of Atal'Hakkar Dungeon and Classic WoW Challenges
- 38:18Battles, Leveling Milestones, and Final Preparations
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
[music] Welcome to Azeroth, a world as vast as it is beautiful. From the sweeping plains of Mulgore, the forbidden forests of Ashenvale, perhaps the untamed jungle of Stranglethorn, or even the quiet snow-filled Winterspring.
Speaker A
From the sprawling desert of Tanaris to the fields of Arathi Highlands, Azeroth has something for everyone.
Speaker A
Millions of people have called the World of Warcraft home over the last two decades, myself included. But, what if they didn't?
Speaker A
I was doom scrolling one day, as you do, and I came across this specific post. It reads, "Someone on Reddit built a WoW private server with 1,800 bots and AI chat via the Deep Seek API. Dead internet theory, but playable." An
Speaker A
MMORPG with no real players, yet somehow it still feels human. Up until this point, I had thought I'd pretty much seen everything, but I was dumbstruck by this. I couldn't wrap my head around it. What do you mean 1,800
Speaker A
bots all chatting with each other and playing the game? There's no way this is really possible, right?
Speaker A
Something clicked inside me. I wanted to try that, too. I didn't really know why, but the concept utterly captivated me.
Speaker A
An entire MMORPG controlled by just you and an army of bots. Was it feasible? Was it fun? Was it even possible?
Speaker A
I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole on the subject, and let's just say my mind was blown.
Speaker A
I'm making this video to chronicle my truly solo adventure on a self-hosted WoW server, because yes, it was in fact possible. We're going to track my adventure through the game on my leveling journey from level 1 through 60
Speaker A
and everything in between. We have a journey ahead of us, so roll the intro.
Speaker A
[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Like any orc, our story begins in Durotar, a rugged red wasteland that the Horde calls home. This is, well, me, Montliorc, my orc warrior that I'm going to be taking through the whole game.
Speaker A
Why did I choose an orc warrior specifically? Well, I didn't have any particular reason. I've mained a monk for the last 12 years on retail, and monks don't exist here, so I had to choose something else.
Speaker A
As a warrior, I plan to tank my way through the game, hopefully leading me and my legion of bots to victory, whether out in the world, in a dungeon, or even through the end-game raids.
Speaker A
Now, this—this is Grok. Grok is my trusty personal companion, his name a surprisingly fitting double entendre. I personally find his existence to be quite comical. Grok is a shaman, mostly with the intent for him to keep me alive
Speaker A
as I recklessly charge through vanilla-era WoW, a version I am almost completely inexperienced with.
Speaker A
Armed with my sword and Grok at my side, I began my adventure hopeful that really any of this project would work.
Speaker A
Now, let's talk about the foundation of this whole thing, player bots. Player bots is essentially a mod for the entire WoW server client that essentially creates hundreds or even thousands of decently intelligent player bots to populate the entire game world.
Speaker A
When I say decently intelligent, I really mean it. I would say, and this might be controversial, these bots are on average roughly as skilled as a normal player. Let's take a look.
Speaker A
As I peer into various zones, it's apparent that the bots occupying the world are actively doing things. While one would expect a simple bot to only be capable of just running around killing whatever's closest to it, these are
Speaker A
several steps beyond that. This bot, for example, is hunting scorpids to complete a quest. While these bots are visiting the auction house and then flying out to their next adventure.
Speaker A
These bots didn't grind, they played. Fully capable of leveling through questing like a real player.
Speaker A
I was utterly impressed at these capabilities right off the bat. Despite me being the only real player online in the entire game, the bots gave the illusion of a living world.
Speaker A
Grok, the same as any other bot, was grouped up with me. Recognizing this, he dutifully followed me wherever I went, attacked what I attacked, looted what he could.
Speaker A
While questing through the starting zone, I really just couldn't believe that any of this was possible, especially given the fact that there were well over a thousand of these things running around simultaneously on an entire server, all of which being run
Speaker A
locally on my PC. I followed through the entire starting zone quest by quest, helping gather some cactus apples for Galagar, killing Sarkoth to avenge Hana'zua, rooting out the Burning Blade in the cave. I even beat up a bunch of peons with a stick.
Speaker A
I found my experience to be incredibly intriguing. I couldn't stop watching the other bots run around doing the same thing I was.
Speaker A
My journey continued. Graduating from the Valley of Trials took me out into Sen'jin Village, where we faced our first real trial, Echo Isles.
Speaker A
My first actually difficult quest had me facing up against Zalazane in a densely packed jungle isle off the coast. The quest being much higher level than me, presumably any normal player would just come back later, but I was determined to
Speaker A
see what me and Grok were capable of. Venturing in decently under-leveled, I did the damage while Grok kept me alive.
Speaker A
We may or may not have had a few deaths due to the absolutely crazy aggro range, but ultimately victory was achieved.
Speaker A
Moving along to Razor Hill, clearing every quest as we went, I [music] followed the traditional path an orc and troll should follow.
Speaker A
I should mention to you that my journey through Durotar was [music] absolutely swamped in configuration. Almost every 20 minutes I would stop what I was doing, make [music] some changes to the core server to fix something, restart everything, and keep playing over and
Speaker A
over for hours on end. Having progressed through the zone, I hit level 10 and was ready to give my first dungeon a shot, Ragefire Chasm.
Speaker A
Now, let me just say because of all the configuration I was doing, I wasn't recording anything yet, [music] but I really want you to understand how this first attempt went.
Speaker A
Being a retail player, I wasn't really familiar with class quests or what they actually gave to you.
Speaker A
I was under the impression they existed just to gear you up and maybe add some flavor. Boy, was I wrong.
Speaker A
You may remember from the beginning of this section that I wanted to be a tank, right?
Speaker A
Well, if you're familiar with classic, you might be able to see where this is going.
Speaker A
I ran headfirst into the dungeon, an under-leveled new warrior tank without a single tanking ability. I made it a few pulls into the dungeon before bravely carrying the entire group to the graveyard.
Speaker A
Repeatedly. Confused by this, I looked up a class guide and discovered you get every tanking ability from the level 10 class quest [music] chain. What?
Speaker A
Under-leveled with mostly broken gear, I crawled out of the chasm with a shattered dignity. Thankfully, only the bots were there to judge me. I ended up completing the class quest and earning my repertoire a bit later because we
Speaker A
first needed to head to the west. Ah, the Barrens. Everyone knows about the Barrens. This is where the training wheels come off and the real game begins.
Speaker A
Having become happy with my overall configuration, I began actually recording my journey here. Everything from this point on is the real deal.
Speaker A
Now, fresh off the tail of that absolutely abysmal Ragefire run, the first thing I did was immediately complete my class quest, giving me access to a sorely needed defensive stance.
Speaker A
Having gained the ability to actually survive, I began questing through the zone. In the quest areas, you generally end up seeing a lot of other player bots like you do here. For example, a glut of similarly leveled bots were competing
Speaker A
for quillboar spawns in this particular zone, forcing me to wait around just like you or I would in the real game.
Speaker A
Eager to redeem myself, once I hit level 11, I ran back to Ragefire Chasm and got a group to run it again.
Speaker A
Because the last run went so poorly and quickly, I neglected to talk about how any of this stuff works. So, let's talk about dungeons.
Speaker A
Player bo
Speaker A
There are several methods of doing this. My favorite of which is simply typing LFG in general chat prompting several random level and role corrected bots to fill your party up immediately.
Speaker A
Every bot has a random spec and they all play very well, better than your average classic player. Rotations are followed, extra mobs get interrupted or CC'd, the bots patiently wait for me to pull, give their all to win a fight, and most
Speaker A
importantly never get pissed off at you. I suppose I should bring up the final big aspect of this whole project, the chat integration. With my setup, every bot has the ability to chat in a somewhat intelligent fashion with all of
Speaker A
their dialogue being generated through a locally run Ollama LLM on my PC. Whenever something happens or someone says something, they're capable of responding with unique messages created on the fly. It's really impressive.
Speaker A
Now, my PC is no data center, so the model is quite weak and lacks historical context. They really only see whatever the last message was and forget whatever they said 3 seconds ago.
Speaker A
I like to bully Grok a little bit, as you can see here. He randomly stated that the dungeon felt pretty easy. I, of course, told him to shut up. So, he struck back at me understanding my message, what I was in work, and what he
Speaker A
was doing, healing me. Back to the task at hand, who could have guessed that getting my tanking abilities would make my life easier?
Speaker A
Still pretty low level, my group struggled through the dungeon with several wipes. Ultimately, we triumphed defeating the final boss and then subsequently not being able to clear the rest because the packs were too difficult.
Speaker A
I came back one level later for For third and final attempt, this time actually clearing everything completely.
Speaker A
Back in the Barrens, I kept questing for hours and hours, watching the bots mindlessly argue with each other back and forth in general chat. Perhaps the most realistic thing about this entire server.
Speaker A
One thing I found myself really enjoying was fighting the various rare monsters around the world, especially if they were way higher level than me.
Speaker A
Combat felt slow but methodical. I had to be careful because one mispull meant I was dead.
Speaker A
What was particularly funny is that random stray bots couldn't care less about you. If you weren't grouped up, they would walk right past you at 5% health fighting for your life. They had more pressing matters to attend.
Speaker A
After fighting the harpies to the north, I took a stroll along the zone border to the entrance to Stash and Vale to turn in a quest when I got an idea, PvP.
Speaker A
This is definitely one of my favorite memories from the early game. I took a stroll up to the battle master and I clicked join, thinking I would be stuck in an endless queue as the sole real player in the entire game, and then
Speaker A
What do you mean, enter battle? What? I loaded into the map and to my absolute astonishment, the room filled with nine other bots, timer ticking down.
Speaker A
The gates opened and the bots began telling me they've got their eyes on the objective. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker A
Yes, the bots could PvP. I ran down the field with my team. Seeing an alliance ahead, I clashed with Thornogdis. My first PvP fight began.
Speaker A
Seeing he was outleveled, he ran to the buff chest in the house nearby, giving him the edge he needed. The battle was close, but I got my very first honorable kill.
Speaker A
I ran to the flag room, Grok absolutely nowhere to be found. I suddenly got charged by several members of the opposite team. I was hunted down as I ran helplessly through the map.
Speaker A
Moments later, my teammate Chorshu grabbed the flag. I yelled at him to get out of the enemy base and he just replied with stay out of my way. I've got this.
Speaker A
Turned out he really did because he made it all the way back scoring our [music] first point.
Speaker A
I scored the second a few minutes later with one left to go before an assured victory.
Speaker A
My favorite moment of the whole thing was when I had the third flag. I ran to the roof of the Horde base and had to wait. It was the classic standoff. Both flags were held in a deadlock. I was
Speaker A
watching my map when I suddenly got chased down by an enemy that followed me all the way home. Hopelessly out leveled, I ran. Grok showed up bravely to top my health off right as the enemy flag carrier went down. I sprinted to
Speaker A
the end and won the match. I literally cheered in real life. What? How was any of this possible? Am I officially just getting old? What an incredibly dynamic experience given the fact that 95% of the players in that
Speaker A
match were completely artificial. I think this is the turning point for me where I officially began to love this little project. This was so much better than anything I possibly could have imagined.
Speaker A
Satisfied with this outcome, I continued. This is where my path began to diverge as the world slowly opened up before me. I kept questing hitting level 19 where I ran the Wailing Caverns without much issue, only a single death.
Speaker A
I was beginning to hit my stride both with my character and structurally with handling the server itself.
Speaker A
One last thing I wanted to do before leaving the Barrens was to get a massive under-leveled group to wipe out the level 27 Alliance Patrol. So, I used the chat LFG command to instantly assemble 40 bots to my side and well,
Speaker A
let's just say I crushed that puny Alliance Patrol. [music] [music] Moving my way into Ashenvale, I hit a milestone, level 20. This is where quests started to cross between zones. A hallmark of Classic is the very lengthy quests, almost to the point of it being
Speaker A
a little bit excessive. You'll regularly run into quests where you're asked to cross the entire continent to gather a couple of rocks or weeds or something, retrace your steps all the way back, and then get sent again to a totally random place.
Speaker A
I'm Gen Z, so this sort of design is tolerable, but not necessarily the most enjoyable for me. Though, it's absolutely undeniable that the exploration vibes from WoW are excellent.
Speaker A
A great example of this is the level 20 class quests, which are massive undertakings compared to whatever I experienced prior.
Speaker A
The level 20 warrior questline rewards a few pieces of really good armor, including a helmet that I really wanted because I didn't have one yet. Here's what I had to do.
Speaker A
First, I had to travel to the Southern Barrens to kill some bugs on a time limit to prove myself.
Speaker A
Once proven, I headed up north to really begin. The first piece had me collecting 15 smoky iron ingots, which were collected off of Kobolds in Stonetalon Mountain. So, I ran all the way there and got my ingots. While there, I
Speaker A
grabbed a stray bot, climbed to the peak, and completed an extra group quest. Next, I needed 10 powdered azureite, which was sourced from a random mine in Hillsbrad Foothills, an entirely different continent. So, I went to Orgrimmar, rode the zeppelin to
Speaker A
Undercity, walked through Silverpine Forest, of which I then ran Shadowfang Keep while passing by for fun. While not the content, I will say that Shadowfang Keep is probably my most nostalgic dungeon of all time. When I was a kid, I
Speaker A
used to make drawings of the Keep, especially the rooftop portion. Arrugal defeated, I kept walking down to Hillsbrad where I struggled through the cave gathering my azureite.
Speaker A
After that, I needed a vial of phlogiston, which was found in Razorfen Kraul. So, I hearthed back to the Barrens, ran all the way to the southernmost [music] point, and slowly crawled to the side boss with my fellow
Speaker A
underleveled bots to acquire, well, whatever a vial of phlogiston was. Finally, I needed 10 iron bars, so I consulted the auction house. I had a server module installed that essentially generated a pretty comprehensive auction house full of just about anything for a
Speaker A
reasonable price. I forked over a couple gold for the bars and got some equipment as well.
Speaker A
I ran back to the Barrens, and for my hard work, I received the first piece of armor from the quest line. I still had much to do.
Speaker A
From this point, I had three branched quests to take. The first took me to Sen'jin Village, where I was told to gather seven satyr hooves from Ashenvale, so I did.
Speaker A
After running all the way back, I got a pair of gloves. The second branch took me to Bluff, where I was told to gather a chimeric horn from a vile in Stonetalon Mountains. So, I traveled out, acquired it, and traveled back. I was given my
Speaker A
coveted helmet. The third and final branch took me to Undercity. So, I traveled from Thunder Bluff to Orgrimmar to Undercity. I was tasked with gathering shinbones from some orcs in the Wetlands.
Speaker A
So, I swam to Hillsbrad Foothills, walked through the Arathi Highlands, and then the Wetlands. After slaying a couple dozen or so orcs, I traveled back for the final piece of gear, some pants.
Speaker A
I was finally done with the whole quest chain. That was a lot of work for what felt like comparatively not that much reward.
Speaker A
A lot of quests in Classic are like that. I'm undecided on how I feel about this type of design because on one hand, I definitely see the use in it, getting you out into new places of the world to
Speaker A
experience. On the other hand, it got a bit tedious at points. Perhaps the single [music] focus gameplay of modern WoW has rotted my brain through.
Speaker A
I wasted no time afterwards and put my new helmet slot to use questing in Ashenvale, ultimately leading to Black Fathom Deeps.
Speaker A
Despite it being utterly claustrophobic, I've always enjoyed this dungeon, especially the last temple area.
Speaker A
Becoming more confident, I really liked the full send into rooms, making gigantic pulls, and commanding my bots to victory.
Speaker A
[music] Back into the questing grind, I traveled to Thousand Needles, one of my favorite classic zones.
Speaker A
Grock got permanently stuck in Black Fathom Deeps somehow, so I started grouping up with the bots in my guild.
Speaker A
I haven't mentioned yet, but I had formed a guild. I invited every random bot that helped me on a quest or dungeon.
Speaker A
Thousand Needles is one of those really inspired, yet plain zones that, while pretty small, feels much larger.
Speaker A
Everything in Classic has such a perfect vibe. Even just walking out into Freewind Post, you feel so protected way up in the air. Gazing over the other needles, it's great.
Speaker A
Because it's a much older game, the quests in Classic are a lot dumber. They're simplistic, so any deviation, no matter how simple, always feels fun. A great example is the Test of Faith quest. You're whisked away onto a pillar
Speaker A
and told to jump. You jump off the side and get clunkily teleported back into the cave you started at, and yet somehow it's incredibly memorable. Classic is magic like that.
Speaker A
While questing, I encountered a warlock bot who helped me clear out some centaur. After parting ways quite a while later, I ended up naturally encountering him again in the Wyvern area. I think it's fascinating seeing the bots function so naturally,
Speaker A
progressing as you do. My journey was filled with moments like this, meeting back up with a bot you saw hours ago.
Speaker A
You'd be pretty surprised with how well they keep up in levels. One of the bots I added to the guild started at level one, and I enjoyed watching their level creep up over time.
Speaker A
I ended up doing something particularly unhinged. While on a pretty lengthy quest chain, I had to acquire a book from the Scarlet Library, a dungeon about eight levels higher than me. Any sane person would just chuck the quest
Speaker A
at the back of their log for later, but I had a fiery determination to finish the quest for some reason.
Speaker A
I gathered a group of guildies around my level, and we fought our way inside.
Speaker A
To say the first pull went poorly was an understatement. The bots face pulled everything and we wiped instantly. To be honest, I nearly just called it there, but I tried again. We cleared the first pack and I began to learn about bot
Speaker A
command mechanics. Bots have several command states. If you type follow, the bot will follow and attack whenever you do. Up until this point, I've used the follow command exclusively without issue.
Speaker A
Whenever you hit an enemy, the bots will immediately rush in to assist with minimal regard to anything else, which is problematic in a dungeon where a second pack will wipe your group.
Speaker A
The flee command works a bit different. The bots will follow you, but not engage, which is exactly what I needed.
Speaker A
I found a good flow where I would find my next pack, set the bots to flee, pull the pack away from everything else, set the bots to follow, and attack.
Speaker A
Incredibly time-consuming, tedious, but ultimately functional. I kept with this strategy until I reached the book I needed for the quest.
Speaker A
But, what if I cleared the rest, too? So, I kept at it until the final boss.
Speaker A
Famously, Classic is not a very mechanic-heavy game with most bosses really just being slap fights until one side falls over.
Speaker A
The final boss of this particular dungeon isn't much of an exception save for one single ability, Detonation.
Speaker A
Detonation requires the group to simply run away lest you, well, detonate and die instantly.
Speaker A
The bots don't have any particular strategy or knowledge of this ability, so they eagerly stand around and get blown up.
Speaker A
I wiped several times to this boss until I managed to barely scrape by by using a force move command to move all the bots away. Kroq died, I died, but the final three bravely fought until the end and
Speaker A
we won. I got a pretty decent weapon upgrade and immediately went to another dungeon, Razorfen Krawl, and cleaned house. Not being eight levels under allowed me to easily fly through this one, thank goodness.
Speaker A
[music] I continued on my journey which took me back and forth between Shimmering Flats and Stranglethorn Vale.
Speaker A
Having just hit level 30, I took a quick detour to clear out my next class quest and grabbed my very own Whirlwind Axe and with it I was truly balling out.
Speaker A
One silver lining about these cross-zone quests is it almost becomes something of a mini-game. I was always trying to optimize my routes to hit as many quests as possible to minimize downtime.
Speaker A
Whatever the case may be though, a dense questing zone like Northern Stranglethorn Vale just hits different.
Speaker A
I cut through the local wildlife for Hemet, I tore through the trolls for the Horde, I hacked through some murlocs for some guy back in Shimmering Flats, and I cleaved through Venture Co for another guy in the Shimmering Flats.
Speaker A
I started running out of quests, so I needed to go to other zones like Desolace. Nobody likes Desolace, right?
Speaker A
Other than Maardon, the zone is completely worthless and honestly pretty depressing. Surprisingly enough, I had some cool moments. I needed to grind some reputation with the Gelkis by wiping out the Mag'har, so I assembled a team of 10 to grind the whole area for
Speaker A
me, wanting to try out some commands. Looking at the roster, I realized I found Chorshu, that Chad warrior that told me off in Warsong Gulch almost 20 levels ago. Remember him?
Speaker A
Well, apparently he kept pace with me with our chance meeting dozens of hours, levels, and zones later. As always, I was shocked.
Speaker A
Bot behavior continually impressed me. You'd think the bots would move through the zones via path or just teleport around, but no, they actually travel and some of the routes are utterly unhinged.
Speaker A
I completed a Naga quest up north, so I swam behind the Maraudon mountain area through the sea expecting to just auto run my way back while tabbed out. You'd never expect to see someone here until I crossed paths with a random rogue going
Speaker A
the opposite direction. I wasn't even recording, it was totally unexpected. I ended up running a ton of other dungeons, especially the Scarlet Monastery Armory on loop to level up a bit. I ran Gnomeregan, Scarlet Graveyard Library Armory and
Speaker A
Cathedral. This video should sum up how Cathedral went. So, why am I actually doing any of this?
Speaker A
Well, I've been playing World of Warcraft for a very long time, the majority of my life.
Speaker A
You might know that one meme floating around of a 13-year-old helping a woman through her divorce [music] on WoW.
Speaker A
Well, that's me. I've been there, I've literally done that. It's no secret that Blizzard, and by extension WoW, are a far cry from what they used to be. By all accounts, their decline won't stop. I've grown a bit
Speaker A
bored with retail, and I've always wanted to experience the full breadth of old school WoW. Being too young when it was current in the 2019 era classic required too much time investment for me to want to bother with.
Speaker A
Something a lot of people don't realize is that you can literally just go do things. Nobody will stop you. I thought the concept of a WoW server full of player bots sounded fascinating, so I put in the time to make it work and here
Speaker A
I am. I'm quite glad I did. I'm writing this script as I play, so everything stays fresh in my mind.
Speaker A
Currently, I have about 50 hours played and I've had a blast. You can tell it's not filled with real people, but there's flashes of greatness everywhere. While on the King Bangalash quest, a bot foolishly tried to solo the
Speaker A
great tiger, only for me and another random bot to sit on the sidelines patiently waiting for them to perish so we could steal the kill.
Speaker A
Moments like this kept things very fresh. Cruising through the world as it was with no time restrictions, no falling behind, just me and Brock. It's liberating in a way.
Speaker A
From an outside perspective, I probably look like I've lost my mind, playing with my little dolls in my own little sandbox, but that's fine and I don't really care if you think it's weird. In fact, I would personally recommend you
Speaker A
try setting this up on your own and giving it a shot. I fully intend [music] to keep playing through each expansion. A really cool functionality of my server is the player progression module which gates various things behind the main player
Speaker A
progression. Once I hit level 60, I can't skip any classic content. I have to push through each raid tier, dynamically changing the world to a period relevant form.
Speaker A
The Ahn'Qiraj event is one such form. When the world progression reaches that point, the gate questline can be done, leading to the opening of the gates and the huge war across the world.
Speaker A
From there, you keep progressing update by update until the end of the Wrath of the Lich King.
Speaker A
I've always dreamed of becoming a Scarab Lord and I intend to realize that dream within this server.
Speaker A
There are, of course, slight irregularities. I can't prevent the bots from rolling as blood elves. Jewelry crafting exists. I'm using the wrath talent trees and class design, but the core concept is there and easy to stick with.
Speaker A
Fun fact, before you bully me too hard, every character's damage and healing stat is halved in classic and BC to more closely match the original balance. So, cut me some slack.
Speaker A
Anyways, while in Dustwallow Marsh, a random rogue ganked me and Grok. So, in retaliation, I gathered a huge 40-man raid to attack Theramore Isle.
Speaker A
Once again, I invited a bunch of bots from my guild and filled the rest from the world. I filled the group in about 30 seconds. Pretty effortless.
Speaker A
We were all around the high 30s in level, but collectively we managed to take down all the guards and even down Jaina on her tower after about 10 minutes of slapping.
Speaker A
Funnily enough, I had to grab a footlocker at the docks, so we pushed all the way through the town.
Speaker A
I wonder how many players have completed this quest by wiping out Theramore instead of swimming carefully. I definitely had more planned for PvP later.
Speaker A
Back to questing. I cleared out the entire zone of quests by massacring some murlocs, clearing some dragons. I even began to play Peggle.
Speaker A
After over 50 hours, I finally hit level 40 and with it, I was able to get my very first mount. And thank God for that because I was getting extremely sick of running everywhere by foot.
Speaker A
I'd been stocking up gold this whole time and was immediately able to learn the skill and buy my very own dire wolf to carry me into battle.
Speaker A
[groaning] A cool functionality of the auction house module is the ability to sell stuff on the auction house as well. So, I sold rare BOEs, cloth, and other stuff as I got it to trickle in the gold little by little. I hope to be able to
Speaker A
get epic riding as soon as I hit level 60 with this. Getting a mount is a huge milestone in the game for any player because it's just so much better to ride around. It really feels like a load off of your,
Speaker A
well legs. I had been eagerly looking forward to hitting that [music] milestone for at least the last 10 levels, and the payoff was truly satisfying. That said, getting to level 40 takes such a long time that I don't necessarily agree with it being
Speaker A
so far into the journey. It's a design choice that exists almost as a relic of a bygone era for gaming.
Speaker A
Old-school design isn't necessarily better, and I know saying that might tick off a bunch of people. If a slower game like classic WoW was made in today's gaming scene, I don't think it would survive. Though, to be fair, I
Speaker A
don't think modern developers are capable of making a game like this anymore. While I'm on my soapbox, I will say some old-school stuff really does just hit different. When I returned to Stranglethorn Vale, I was taken away by
Speaker A
how beautiful the southern area was. Gorgeous sunny coasts along the aquamarine sea protected a lush forbidden jungle. Climbing through the isle north of Booty Bay, I drank from a secret holy spring in some ancient ruins. God, it's just perfect.
Speaker A
Stranglethorn Vale might be the current winner for my favorite classic zone. I busted up some ogres, cleared out a crazy witch doctor. I also dueled Grok for the arena trinket.
Speaker A
I won handily. Check out this turn-in spree. I had officially tapped the zone clean, so it was time to move on to another banger, Tanaris. I don't really know why, but desert zones like Tanaris, Silithus, and Uldum are among my
Speaker A
favorites. The aesthetic really just does something for me, and I don't really know why.
Speaker A
A vast sandy wasteland stretches as far as the eye can see. One thing I particularly like is the dark shapes on the horizon, obscured by the very short view distance. It's creative because not only does it optimize the game, which
Speaker A
was necessary by 2004 standards, but it looms over you and really makes you want to go and check it out.
Speaker A
Gadgetzan is one of my favorite little towns in the game. Nestled up north, it's a lone bastion in an endless sea of sand. More importantly, it's full of quests.
Speaker A
I cleared out a bunch of bandits and pirates, only to be met with another huge journey, Zul'Farrak.
Speaker A
Thus far, every dungeon in the game I had cleared, I'd been getting into the habit of doing a bunch of pre-prep to acquire all the quests available for that dungeon. Zul'Farrak was no exception to that, except this one
Speaker A
required much more work for one simple reason Gahz'rilla. Zul'Farrak is easily clearable without any prior work, except you'll miss one single secret boss, Gahz'rilla. No big deal right?
Speaker A
Well, in order to complete one of the dungeon's quests, I needed to summon and slay the leviathan, so I simply had to figure out how to do so.
Speaker A
To summon Gahz'rilla, you first need the Mallet of Zul'farrak. Its acquisition was no simple task. The first step required me to go to the Hinterlands.
Speaker A
So, I traveled to Eastern Kingdoms where I ventured through the zone to arrive at the Altar of Zul.
Speaker A
I gathered some allies and we took out Qiaga the Keeper for her sacred mouth.
Speaker A
Unfortunately, this was the easy part. Heading east, I had a truly insurmountable task ahead of me. I had to climb the steps of the ancient troll city of Jintha'alor.
Speaker A
Severely underleveled, my group slowly, and I mean slowly, climbed each step one by one.
Speaker A
We climbed into the second to last step where I actually started running out of time. I had to go to work soon, so I threw in another five bots.
Speaker A
Facing trolls nine levels higher than us, the group reached the pinnacle. We fought bravely through an insanely sketchy pull, but ultimately survived the battle and I crafted the Mallet of Zul'farrak.
Speaker A
I thought getting back down would be easy. Just jump down every step. And it was. But guys, I want you to watch this escape I made. No commentary.
Speaker A
What an adrenaline rush. I couldn't even make something like this up. I cannot believe I survived something like that with literally one single HP.
Speaker A
So, anyways, that was a multi-hour-long trip to acquire the key to summoning one single boss, and the entire thing wasn't even part of any quest. It's just something you simply do.
Speaker A
I had a lot of fun doing this, and it made me respect the old-school design of Classic just a little bit more. I really love the concept of an open-world dungeon with a bespoke hidden adventure held within.
Speaker A
Back to Tanaris. After gathering all the other random quests around the world, it was time to enter Zul'Farrak. Zul'Farrak is the first dungeon that, to me, felt like an actual proper dungeon [music] experience, especially on account of the
Speaker A
hidden boss. What's more, it's in a desert, so aesthetically, I am hooked. I like how things are a bit out of the way in Classic dungeons, like Antu'sul and his incredibly freakishly long aggro range.
Speaker A
Who could forget the prison break sequence in the main temple? I locked in and face pulled the entire swarm of enemies, and we somehow survived, which surprised me.
Speaker A
Amazingly, on the approach to the final boss, I got my first ever epic BoE drop, the Dazzling Longsword.
Speaker A
I intended to sell this on the auction house, as it wasn't too crazy of an item for me. It's worth noting the price distribution kept things very cheap, which was a double-edged sword. I could buy stuff cheaply, but was forced to
Speaker A
sell cheaply, as well. I ended up getting around 12 gold for this sword, a price the modern Classic player would surely balk at.
Speaker A
I summoned Gahz'rilla with my hard-earned mallet, slew it, and harvested its scales, earning me one of my first trinkets, the Carrot on a Stick, which gave me a whopping 3% extra mount speed. Wow.
Speaker A
Feralas was next on the agenda. If Ashenvale was a forbidden forest, Feralas was an even forbiddener forest.
Speaker A
I did all sorts of stuff. Attacked some ogres, cleared some Grimtotem, felled some hippogryphs. I even went giant killing.
Speaker A
It's really funny to me how some things bring back intense nostalgic feelings. One of the most significant examples of this was in the southern Writhing Deep, where some silithid reside. A decade and a half ago, I distinctly remember
Speaker A
questing here as a kid. And while in the hive, I remember eating some cookie dough my mother made. Even now as I stand here in the Writhing Deep, my mind is filled with the taste of that cookie dough all those years ago.
Speaker A
Having completed what Feralas had to offer, it was time for another absolute banger of a dungeon, Maraudon. Maraudon is so weird because half of it is absolutely disgusting. But the other half of it is an absolutely beautiful, tranquil vibe unmatched really anywhere
Speaker A
else. As with any other dungeon, I prepared all my quests beforehand and full sent it.
Speaker A
Unsurprisingly, being a bit under leveled, a lot of the dungeon was pretty challenging. The first half especially was annoying due to the creeping ooze type monsters that pulsed a constant deadly AoE. An AoE that the bots didn't know how to avoid.
Speaker A
It was becoming increasingly obvious that random basic abilities throughout the world weren't super well handled, and even the most mundane of dungeon [music] mechanics became cumbersome.
Speaker A
My Maraudon run was extremely long, taking nearly two full hours for a full clear. But I'd say it was well worth it for the adventure, as well as getting to see the dungeon skip quest mechanic.
Speaker A
Little stuff like this that I had never experienced before made all of this worth it. Because as a long-term player, this even longer-term content that I had never seen before was fresh and interesting like uncovering long-lost ancient history.
Speaker A
Speaking of being a long-term player, I've never really ever paid attention to the lore. So, can anybody tell me what Princess Theradras is supposed to be exactly? What an absolutely horrifyingly ugly creature. I kind of hate it.
Speaker A
Having felled all the demonic corruption and well, whatever else is in Maraudon, I emerged from the caves with a quest log full of quests waiting to be turned in. The majority of them had nothing particularly special involved save for
Speaker A
one, the Seed of Life. Victory or death. Seed of Life had me traveling to Moonglade in the far northern reaches of Kalimdor. Except to get to it, I had to travel through Timbermaw Hold full of high-level hostile furbolgs that would
Speaker A
kill me in an instant. There was, however, one trick I had up my sleeve, friendship.
Speaker A
Throughout Felwood and Winterspring, there's a select number of friendly furbolgs spread throughout the land offering a chance for you to prove an ally to Timbermaw Hold. Proving your worth would allow safe passage into Moonglade. I knew what I had to do, so I
Speaker A
set out to Felwood where I had to grind away at the hostile Fel Crag of the furbolg for a half hour or so, moving me from hostile to unfriendly.
Speaker A
In an uneasy alliance, I was allowed passage underground into Moonglade. The guards names rang as orange showing we weren't friends yet, but not quite enemies.
Speaker A
Grock, unfortunately, didn't get the memo for some reason and was killed on sight. Ouch.
Speaker A
Passing through into the beautiful Moonglade, I was able to get my hard-earned experience, lock in the flight paths, and continue on to Winterspring because, well, why not?
Speaker A
One mechanic I'll say is definitely better in classic over retail is reputation. Every reputation in modern day wow is sterile. Start at neutral, grind to exalted. It always works the same way and doesn't really fit into the world in any special way. In classic
Speaker A
reputations give you choices. You can fix hostilities with the furbolg, get the roof of Kalimdor for safe passage, or cleave your way through all the same.
Speaker A
Want to battle the goblin factions to befriend the hostile blood cell pirates? You can. You'll just completely revoke all your access to several main hub towns. It's your choice.
Speaker A
[music] Having run out of things to do in Kalimdor, I turned my attention towards the Eastern Kingdoms, which took me to the Hinterlands, which for me has always been a pretty lackluster zone in modern day. I was looking forward to seeing
Speaker A
what it had to offer. Turns out a lot. Like a lot. I was given a nearly comical amount of quests, so I did them all. I hunted turtles, I climbed Jintha'Alor again, I cleared out some elves, I even taunted
Speaker A
the Wildhammer clan. Let's just say the turn-in spree was legendary. Just watch. I don't know what happened, but it felt like the zones became much more approachable. Everything was on offer at the start and all the quests kept me in
Speaker A
one spot. It was a little bit refreshing. I was getting annoyed that my flight paths weren't connected in this continent, [music] so I went on a huge hour-long journey across the entire continent.
Speaker A
I ran from Auberdine [music] to the Wetlands, to Loch Modan, to the Badlands, to Blackrock Mountain, to Redridge, to Duskwood, to Deadwind Pass, to the Swamp of Sorrows. What a trip.
Speaker A
Along the way, I decided to hit up the Searing Gorge for all it had to offer, just like the Hinterlands.
Speaker A
Being a pretty small oval, the zone was pretty trivial to clear out. As always, I took out some Dark Iron Dwarves, I helped some dragons, helped [music] out some guy in a random outhouse, I even stole some pillows.
Speaker A
Okay, that was kind of a weird zone, admittedly. Funnily enough, this completely random outhouse quest is another example of a huge cross-zone quest that just happens to perfectly match up with the trajectory of the rest of my journey.
Speaker A
It had me visit several other zones to collect and then deliver a bunch of random junk to Tanaris.
Speaker A
I'm pretty sure the classic WoW devs are just magic because all the extra zones were along my way, with Tanaris being my final destination anyways. Crazy how things just work out sometimes.
Speaker A
Of course, being back in Tanaris, I completed the rest of the offerings there, too. I cleared out some ogres, harvested some sentient cacti, ventured through a bug cave, I even painstakingly walked a turtle through the entire zone for some reason.
Speaker A
God, the things I do for experience points. Anyways, I was reaching the end of this huge questing marathon with the next dungeon quickly approaching, Atal'Hakkar.
Speaker A
In my usual fashion, I needed to do my pre-prep, so I needed to head to Un'Goro Crater, where I cleared a couple more quests, including starting the Venomhide Ravasaur quest chain.
Speaker A
Yes, for the purest among you, I'm aware this quest chain was added in Wrath of the Lich King, and no, I don't care.
Speaker A
There were many examples of Burning Crusade and Wrath content being present in the open world, so it wasn't a truly classic experience, but rather 95% of it, and that was fine with me.
Speaker A
The Temple of Atal'Hakkar was the first classic dungeon that I was entering almost completely blind. I knew it was significantly different, but not to what extent. We flew out and journeyed through the temple, and I was met with a
Speaker A
super confusing stacked maze. I started with the bottom ring, which presented me with an altar and a very simple repeating pattern which I would need to activate on the terrace above. So, I followed the pattern, revealing a secret
Speaker A
boss. How cool. My blood is spilled as acted. Let the blood flow. I went to the top to clear out the ring of names trolls, though I'm not exactly sure what purpose this served.
Speaker A
I was having a lot of fun exploring the dungeon, but admittedly, it was extremely repetitive. Having cleared all the trolls, I got to go through the part I did know, the middle tier full of nightmare dragons.
Speaker A
It was in this dungeon that I encountered my first bugged fight, the Hakkar fight. I was completely blind, so I didn't know what to do at first, so I just survived as long as I could until I realized I was a
Speaker A
I retried but focusing on the objective, and then the event despawned randomly. I'm fully willing to admit fault if I was doing something wrong, but I don't think I was. It despawned randomly every time several more times.
Speaker A
I hope you'll forgive me, but not wanting to waste a bunch more time, [music] I had to cheat my way through the event. As a community-made project recreating the entire WoW server architecture from the ground up, it was
Speaker A
actually extremely impressive that this is the only huge issue I had thus far in over 80 hours of gameplay.
Speaker A
The rest of the dungeon went okay, save for this one pull. I'm sure I don't even need to explain this one.
Speaker A
I took down all the dragons and then the shade of Eranikus himself and that was that. Good riddance.
Speaker A
I had passed into the final stretch of the leveling journey and with it I had unlocked something I had been eagerly waiting for since nearly 40 levels ago, Alterac Valley.
Speaker A
Alterac Valley with 79 bots sounds absolutely crazy and it was. I was happy to say that it was fully functional but I hate to say it was rather janky.
Speaker A
My first run out with my team was super cool. Everyone ran out and immediately set to the roles which for me meant clearing out the mines.
Speaker A
Okay, I don't know why I felt like making that my first ever act in this epic battleground but I did.
Speaker A
Fights were massive as you would expect but didn't feel dynamic as they would in the real game. Both teams would face off against each other in a massive game of tug of war pushing forward on that one spot endlessly until a team was wiped
Speaker A
out. What's more is that the bots on my team appeared to solely assign themselves to defending so I had to quietly push forward with a team of five or so random bots through the whole map while the other 30 sat back at home patrolling for
Speaker A
enemies. My first Alterac Valley was a victory and so I went again. Thankfully the bots seemed to have signed themselves correctly this time and I was able to push ahead and slay Vanndar with my team.
Speaker A
While on a technical level this was undeniably impressive for me once again. Seeing a 79 bots clash against each other in real time was crazy and watching a huge fight go down was undeniably satisfying.
Speaker A
That said, I was a bit disappointed in the All Track Valley bot behavior. It felt so very static. Bots would always do their one single role and they would push as you would expect, but if a pusher needed to defend, it just
Speaker A
wouldn't. It would keep pushing. This led to me being able to easily sneak behind the enemies and capture buildings without much issue because the bots would have their one job in mind with me being an afterthought.
Speaker A
Thankfully, the module that adds these bots into the game is still in active development and this is one of those features that I really look forward to seeing in a year or so as everything continues to get fleshed out.
Speaker A
Back in the game world, I got right back to questing which led me to accidentally stumbling upon the Lincoln quest chain.
Speaker A
Now, guys, this might be contentious, but I was unimpressed by the whole thing. In fact, I found it pretty tedious.
Speaker A
Definitely pretty flavorful, the Lincoln quest chain had me traveling from Un'Goro all the way to Winter Spring, then all the way to Feralas, then all the way to Winter Spring, then all the way to Tanaris. It was kind of
Speaker A
exhausting and not for much experience payoff either. My favorite part was definitely [music] summoning Aquementas in some far-off corner of Tanaris, which almost got stolen by some random bot that just happens to be passing by, but beyond that it was a bit boring. But hey, I was
Speaker A
a WoW kid, not a Zelda kid. I traveled back to Un'Goro and got back on the grind. I felled a few dinosaurs, then I killed some more dinosaurs. I even tried attacking Simone the Inconspicuous, which led to my entire
Speaker A
party being one-shot instantly. I also tried the same thing with King Mosh, which went exactly how you would have expected it to.
Speaker A
[music] With that, I had my next journey in my sights, Blackrock Depths. If a classic player ever got asked what's the most iconic wild dungeon, chances are they might answer with this one, an absolutely massive multi-hour mega dungeon.
Speaker A
Now, Blackrock Depths is built a little differently in that it's absolutely huge and has a ton of quests for me to collect. What I found particularly annoying is the design taking you into the dungeon, finishing your objective, going back out of the dungeon to turn
Speaker A
in, and immediately getting a follow-up quest to head back into the dungeon. Maybe my completionist mindset is rotting my brain a little bit, but I found this to be incredibly tedious and a little bit boring. I assume the
Speaker A
mindset is to get you to rerun the dungeon later with a new group of friends, but when the dungeon is a multi-hour marathon, I just don't see the appeal.
Speaker A
Here's an example. I enter the beginning of the dungeon and have to free some orc from a cell, which I may add resulted in my second purple BOE drop, the Warden Staff.
Speaker A
I free the orc and I'm told to go all the way back to Thrall in Orgrimmar, on the other side of the planet. Okay, I do, and I'm given a quest to go all the way back to the dungeon on the other
Speaker A
side of the planet and free the princess at the end. What a tedious diversion.
Speaker A
I headed back and got to enjoy the dungeon for a while. I cleared out the prison area, noted this random hole in the wall showing the entire city, really showing the scale of this mega dungeon.
Speaker A
I love it. Through the arena and then through the guardhouse, I experienced the dungeon as properly as I could, even taking a detour into the vault area to finally find out what that room was even for.
Speaker A
I got the key to the city and then took out legions of dark iron dwarves to get to Balgar who guarded the most interesting gate of all time and I really mean it. What's behind that gate?
Speaker A
And then I had to leave the dungeon again for a sudden diversion to arrest some bad guy orc in a castle and then walk at a snail's pace through several zones for 15 minutes, guys. 15 minutes of RP walking. Do you Do you see this?
Speaker A
I'm going to make you guys sit through a 30-second clip of this with no commentary. Enjoy.
Speaker A
I think hating escort quests in classic WoW was one of the most iconic things of all time and yet it still makes no sense to me why they coded it like this.
Speaker A
What's worse is some escort quests aren't even that slow, just most of them are. Why?
Speaker A
[laughter] Back to Blackrock. I closed the gates and made my stroll down to the Grim Guzzler to tear it up taking down all the big shots camped out inside.
Speaker A
I forgot how to open the exit door so I attacked the bartender and well I kept going and reached the final stretch, the Lyceum, which was a huge struggle to herd the bots through and then Magmus.
Speaker A
Now, see, the problem with Magmus is that I'm pretty sure his room is bugged on this server clients. All of the room flame gusts just blow forever, leaving almost zero room to safely stand.
Speaker A
What's worse, the bots couldn't naturally path to avoid the flame and stand in the absolute micro sliver of space that wouldn't kill you.
Speaker A
And so, I was stuck. I tried again. I was close, but not close enough. I couldn't do it. I couldn't defeat the emperor and save the princess, so I left.
Speaker A
Well, that sucked. I was determined to see this through though, so I decided to come back later once I was a higher level to maybe push through it because I was admittedly a little under-leveled.
Speaker A
I went to the next best thing, Dire Maul. Another huge dungeon split into three distinct wings.
Speaker A
As always, I did my pre-prep which involved one quest that took me from Moonglade all the way to Silithus and then all the way back to Moonglade and then all the way down to careless. How absolutely dire.
Speaker A
Thankfully, it gave me ample time to practice my Peggle skills of which I was improving handily at.
Speaker A
I started with the Eastern Wing, which was chock-full of evil plants, goat men, and this one imp that everybody hates.
Speaker A
Thankfully, I was able to clear through to the end without much trouble. I like Dire Maul a lot, but it's an interesting situation because I have almost zero nostalgia for it. I don't really know why.
Speaker A
Fresh out of the Eastern Wing, I moved to the next one, the Northern Wing, full of about 80 gazillion ogres, so I got right to it.
Speaker A
I was once again pretty under-leveled, which led to me having to be really strategic about my pulls, which I personally found to actually be really fun.
Speaker A
Clawing my way through the city was both time-consuming and ultimately netted me a pittance of experience, and I didn't even really get anything I could use.
Speaker A
Finally reaching the summit of the dungeon, it was time to face up against King Gordok except we wiped.
Speaker A
So I tried again and wiped again. I felt like a What was happening? Was Was I just bad? Did I not have enough control over my bots? Did I not know my class well enough?
Speaker A
I knew one thing was for certain, I had to hit level 60 and lock in. Why?
Speaker A
Because this whole display was absolutely embarrassing for me and also I had a significant surgery coming up and let's see here.
Speaker A
Tomorrow. What? Tomorrow? Yeah, so it turns out I'd been playing like an absolute no life maniac trying to get to level 60 before I had surgery so I could focus on healing in real life rather than tanking in game.
Speaker A
I decided it was now or never. First, I cleaned up my act and installed a proper add-on to control the behavior and formation of my bots. For the last 100 hours, I had basically left it up to the
Speaker A
default behavior which worked out for the most part but it was time to smooth out the bumps.
Speaker A
I had three levels to go so it was time to hit up Alterac Valley repeatedly for 4 hours straight. Let's do this. Cue the montage.
Speaker A
[music] I I I lost my first match. What's happening? Ignore this. Get back to the montage.
Speaker A
I hit level 59 and some change and I left my teammate behind because I had an emperor to kill.
Speaker A
It turns out Alterac Valley was by far the best source of experience I had found in the entire game. And while perhaps it wasn't a bit lame, I was on a time crunch and what's more iconic to classic wild than slamming your face
Speaker A
into a mind-numbing grind for hours on end. Time was approaching. I had to be in bed asleep in less than 90 minutes, so I assembled my team and we flew out for our final battle.
Speaker A
Over the Southfury River, through the Stranglethorn Jungle, into the heart of the Blackrock Mountain, it was time.
Speaker A
Grock wasn't so enthused. He seemed to be annoyed that we were here again. Whatever. Shut up, Grock.
Speaker A
Through the ramparts, across the wall, into the Golem Manufactory, and I did it. I hit level 60 on a random non-elite dwarf.
Speaker A
Whatever. It wasn't the most climactic level up, but it was mine nonetheless. After over 100 hours, I had just hit level 60 on my first ever classic wild character and man, did it feel good.
Speaker A
But who cares about that? Time was running out. I had less than an hour at this point, so I ran to the Grim Guzzler and properly opened the door this time and passed through the seven and into the
Speaker A
Lyceum I went, which was still a bit of a train wreck, but surely even with real humans, this place sucks, too.
Speaker A
Magmus, my sworn enemy with your bugged room. I was determined to defeat [music] him, so I used my fancy new add-on to line my bots into formation and parked them carefully in a safe area next to the front doors, safe from the fire.
Speaker A
I dashed into the flame to grab the Behemoth, a fiery death box in front of me, a dwarf-filled death box behind me.
Speaker A
I clung to my little edge safe [music] zone with all my bots up in a line.
Speaker A
Magmus wasn't having it. He kept exploding in bursts of searing flame. Everyone was dying. One by one they fell until it was just me.
Speaker A
Palms sweaty, I hit the four key on my keyboard and down goes the giant. I had redeemed myself, at least in my eyes, but we still had one thing left to do.
Speaker A
Emperor Thaurissan, it was time. After carefully clearing his entire room of trash, I began the fight, which was unfortunately not very interesting.
Speaker A
What? Did you expect some crazy battle? This is classic WoW. Come on, man. Being careful not to hit the princess, we fought for about 45 seconds and then the emperor fell and I took a seat upon the throne. My climactic adventure had
Speaker A
come to an end with literally 15 minutes to spare. I filmed that last clip and immediately hearthed back to Orgrimmar to buy my much-awaited epic riding and then it was time to go.
Speaker A
I shut the server off and the following morning I I in for my procedure. Good luck me.
Speaker A
[music] So, I just spent over 100 hours playing WoW with a bunch of fake people. What was the point of all this?
Speaker A
Well, I just enjoyed over 100 hours adventuring through a beautiful ancient game world, getting to see everything I possibly wanted, and getting to do everything I possibly wanted on demand.
Speaker A
Whether I was sleeping or at work, or even now as I sit here post-op writing this section, my server awaits for my return. There's no FOMO, no rush. I can do things at my own pace, however slow or fast.
Speaker A
What started as a bit of a tech demo for me quickly spiraled into a renewed love for playing a game I was growing bored with. I honestly thought I'd maybe make it to level 10 or so before giving up,
Speaker A
but I didn't. I can't really explain how I feel about this project other than excitement.
Speaker A
Excitement that I had so much fun with it, and excitement that I still have so much more left to do.
Speaker A
Every day I was looking forward to seeing what I had next on the agenda, being able to jump in game and do literally whatever I wanted to.
Speaker A
Truthfully, a lot of the game felt strange. Bots are certainly not humans, even if they had a funny quip every once in a while.
Speaker A
There wasn't a community, no events, no server-wide lore, but for me that became part of the allure. There wasn't any drama, no deadlines, no sweaty min-maxers. I could walk the world, fight the alliance, and see a fellow face from time to time, like Torshu.
Speaker A
I honestly feel like a psycho writing this section because I have no idea if people will see this and either think I've lost my mind or be fascinated like I was.
Speaker A
To me, this is one of the most primal core ways [music] to enjoy WoW. The world really was mine alone to explore however I wanted to and I can't stress that aspect enough.
Speaker A
With your own server, you could set up whatever you wanted. Want an ultra hardcore 1,500 V1 survival deathmatch, you versus everyone? Done.
Speaker A
Want a thousand of your own Grocks farming gold all day while you ride on a hacked Swift Spectral Tiger? Done.
Speaker A
Want no bots? A desolate world shared with nobody, bot or not? Done. I am so, so glad I chose to play through this project. The memory of this adventure easily beats anything I've done in the modern game for the last,
Speaker A
God, 5 plus years. And what's better, I've still got so much left to do.
Speaker A
But, what did I think of the actual game itself? Let's just say I'm a believer now. I was pretty anti-classic on most fronts since, well, forever. I never really understood the desire for classic design, but after this, I get it.
Speaker A
Classic WoW was such an impressive game. Every aspect of it lovingly crafted, rich with lore, beauty, and soul. That said, it's definitely a product of its time.
Speaker A
The leveling journey is infinitely superior to the modern game, but many aspects are inferior too, I'd say.
Speaker A
Hopefully, you can tell by now I strongly dislike the breadcrumby style of quest design, making you sit in a flight path for 40 minutes only to squeeze out 10 minutes of actual gameplay.
Speaker A
The pre-mount grind was also terrible, specifically level 30s through 40, which was abysmally slow.
Speaker A
The first 20 levels were definitely my favorite section with 40 through 50 being a close second.
Speaker A
Combat is slow but methodical. You really need to think about what you're going to do next, especially in dungeons, which I ended up enjoying a lot more than I expected.
Speaker A
I really loved how everything fed into itself. The game led you on a journey.
Speaker A
I would say classic WoW doesn't really respect your time, but at the same time that disrespect makes the reward that much more satisfying.
Speaker A
I can't stress enough that I became really addicted to playing WoW with this project. On multiple occasions, I found myself playing for 8 hours or more just purely questing and having fun with my little crew of bots, which for me, a
Speaker A
fully employed tax paying adult, is really impressive. I'd get home from work and immediately hop on to continue questing in Stranglethorn.
Speaker A
Even now during my surgery recovery, when I'm not working on this script, I'm playing all day, every day. Yesterday, I played WoW for 13 hours straight. 13 hours straight.
Speaker A
I'm excited to hop on WoW again every day, and I hope this video might inspire some other people to try out this method of enjoying the game as well, because it's really surprisingly functional, including the raids.
Speaker A
I literally cleared Molten Core with a team of 39 bots [music] all dutifully following my command. It's insane.
Speaker A
Anyways, this section and video are long enough at this point. I hope you enjoyed watching this as much as I did making it because this certainly was not a small undertaking.
Speaker A
I don't know if I'll continue to make follow-up videos, but one thing is for certain, I will not stop playing.
Speaker A
My journey is far from over, so if you'll excuse me, I've got a dragon to go slay. Thanks for watching. [music]
Topics:World of WarcraftWoW private serverAI botsDeep Seek APIMMORPGclassic WoWbot gameplayRagefire ChasmWoW dungeonssolo WoW adventure











