Old School doesn’t mean Stone Age: WoW Classic has some quality of life improvements you might not expect

We talk a lot about all the things WoW Classic doesn’t have. because much of the game as we know it came in The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and later expansions like Cataclysm or Mists. 

But it should be pointed out that Patch 1.12 went through several iterations and it was the last in a long chain of patches that significantly changed the game. WoW Classic may be the ultimate experience of classic World of Warcraft but it isn’t the same game as patch 1.0 was, even if we’re seeing both PVP and PVE content rolled out in stages to better replicate how it felt in the original game.

Here are a few conveniences you’ll find in WoW Classic that you may not have expected.

Transit amenities

A couple of seemingly small changes to gryphons were a big convenience. You can interrupt your gryphon/wind rider taxi rides in WoW Classic. And as of patch 1.10 linked flight paths allow you to select an end point and fly directly to that as long as you know the points between them. This means that when I did the run to Ironforge on my Night Elf, I only needed to take the tram once and get the Stormwind flight point and now I can fly directly from Menethil Harbor to Stormwind, which is a very nice convenience and one I’m glad is still there.

While the zeppelin from Orgrimmar to Thunder Bluff is not available in Classic, the others to various points in the Eastern Kingdoms are available. You can catch a zeppelin to Undercity or to Grom’gol in Stranglethorn Vale, and you can even take a zepp from Undercity to Grom’gol.

The Alliance has several boats in play, some of which no longer exist in the modern game. You can take a ship from Menethil Harbor to Kalimdor, specifically Auberdine in Darkshore, or you can travel from Booty Bay to Ratchet and vice versa and there’s even a ship from Menethil Harbor to Theramore — which is, itself, still there of course and has all the original quests for Alliance players.And you’re wondering whatever happened to King Varian Wrynn? You can do some quests that will make you confused.

Commerce and carnivals

Another cool thing that makes it easier to get stuff done is the inclusion of linked auction houses. Since patch 1.9, all of the Auction Houses on a faction side are linked, as are the neutral AH’s run by Goblins in Everlook and Tanaris. So if you have a lot of light leather from killing hoofless Zhevra in the Barrens and just happen to be in Mulgore, you can go to the AH in Thunder Bluff and put that leather up for auction and someone in Orgrimmar or Undercity can buy it. The same goes for the Alliance in Ironforge, Darnassus, and Stormwind, and it’s a huge time saver. Before patch 1.9 you would have had to travel to the specific area you wanted to sell things at.

I honestly had forgotten that linked AH’s were a Classic thing, so it was really nice to see them last night when I was trying to get a better weapon than the ones I kept getting via quests.

Also, the original touring Darkmoon Faire was introduced in patch 1.6 and so will be a fixture of WoW Classic — though it won’t be available until until Phase 3 of the Classic rollout. The Cannon and the Steam Tonks were introduced before patch 1.12 and so you should be able to shoot yourself off into the distance or battle with robot tanks as you see fit, which is pretty cool in my estimation. If you never got to see the original version of the Faire, here it will be, without a mysterious island but with a lot of traveling carnival feeling.

So yeah, Wow Classic is old school, but it does have a few amenities you may be surprised by. When you get the chance to check it all out, definitely see when the Faire is up, because the Cannon was fun and often hilarious.