Request in a nutshell:
Bring back the pre-Cataclysm world and make it an option through Chromie Time and Zidormi. There is so much content that can be experienced by re-introducing the old world. With Chromie Time and Zidormi, there should be no reason that this can’t happen.
Bring back pre-Cata content!
Seconded.
They had to resurrect the game files and piece them together anyways for Classic. There’s no reason not to add it all back in. They could even lock flying out of it so we don’t see over their weird janky invisible walls they used to avoid filling in landscapes.
NB4 Someone says, “iT waS aLL DeLeTeD/OveRWRiTTeN!”
That isn’t a reason not to do this. They could just clone classic servers for a Chromie phase. It may not be as updated as some of the areas were right before the 'clysm, but with time travel, it doesn’t have to be.
Make this happen, Blizzard.
I second this.
And they can do it quite easily given the whole thing is already ready and available on Classic.
The only problem I can see is how many people would be willing to actually play it, given flying is not available. I would certainly happily play it but I think a fair amount of the playerbase would be crying for flying. And then crying more when Blizzard understandably refused to add it.
Oh yeah. I forgot that part of the 'clysm’s purpose was to make the old world flyable.
I still support them adding this for the 1-30 leveling experience and for exploration just the same. I’d use the feature occasionally and it’d be nice to go back. I think with scaling in place, that particular Chromie phase would have a pretty niche purpose. You probably wouldn’t get any more requests to put flying in the pre-'clysm than you do for flying in Silvermoon/Eversong Woods/Ghostlands. It would be nice to fly in those places, but to what end? By the time you’re flying, you don’t really need to navigate those places quickly, and there’s absolutely nothing in those places that you need a flying mount to reach.
For the record, I would choose to level in Old Barrens and Old Thousand Needles pretty much every time I leveled an alt. I also miss Old Westfall.
Old world is old world, so those complaining about flying would have to get over it IMO. I earned Loremaster pre-Cata and think the lack of flying greatly enhanced the experience, but even so, “take me back to the old world” should mean exactly that - the old world as it was, including a lack of flying.
Besides, no flying would just bring back the excitement of wall hopping.
I’ll never forget the excitement of falling underneath Stormwind or glitching my way into the non-instanced Zul Gurub.
Go play classic if you want that. This is retail and retail means updates to the world, something they should have been doing on a more periodic basis to reflect the changes in each new expansion.
It’d be neat seeing those zones again, but there’s also some jankiness to it. Because vanilla zones are very physically different than today’s. Like in SW for example there’s no harbor or portal room in Classic. So they can’t seamlessly blend it in, it has to be 100% separated.
Essentially you’d be cut off from the whole rest of the world as long as you’re in Classic. No free access to any other expansion, not without leaving vanilla. Because future zones don’t exist there.
You’d be in an alternate phase of SW/Org, of EK and Kal. Most of the population will stay in the current one so it’ll probably be a ghost town outside of occasional levelers and tourists. No interaction with retail’s real side. There’s just no reason to be in vanilla besides exploring, you’re actively restricting yourself. That’s why they made Classic a whole separate game.
It just seems like a very niche complex issue thing adding vanilla back to retail. You can see why Blizz hasn’t wanted to. 
Don’ wanna. I’d have to make a different character for that.
I want to go see all the old zones on this character.
Isn’t that how the Chromie phases work already? You have to go switch them at her physically, so it’s not like you could just drop into Vanilla while six miles up or anything.
Mm not really. I mean the only thing Chromie really does is decides your dungeon queue list. It puts you in a scalable world, but you still have access to the same things. You can roam anywhere and level anywhere regardless of what CT you chose. It’s all connected, the choice does not matter or have to be switched unless you’re turning it off.
That doesn’t work with Classic though since there are no other zones there or means of transportation. Relevant NPCs and quests are not there too. It’s more than just another layer of phasing, it’s another world entirely.
And it’s really fast to go 1-50. So when you’re done leveling what’s vanilla really any good for?
Heck yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. 
I got Loremaster on 6/24/09. 
Old versions of dungeons, transmog, etc.
I mean honestly it’d just be another leveling path for the most part. I think that’d be enough value to do it on its own 
And undoing the biggest mistake of Cataclysm, which was removing all of those storylines and experiences.
I really want to see the old versions of Stratholme and Sunken Temple but classic is not happening for me. I’d do it in retail, though.
Exactly! That’s all I’m saying. I’d like to go see all the old versions of things without having to deal with Classic’s clunky awful gameplay.
There’s really no reason why they can’t put it mostly back right? It seems easy enough to take anything they want out but I think we’d all be really happy if they started adding some things back. Not really a compensation but I’d still take it.
Sooooo you’re saying you want WoW Classic?
It’s the pre-cata world. Technically not wrong. 
Jokes aside though, I wouldn’t mind being able to step back into ZA/ZG pre-cata style. I remember doing them for the first time before they got swapped to Cata heroics, and always felt like I never got the full idea of what they were about.
Only reason I can think of is if they overwrote all the NPC coding in Cataclysm or put in duplicate values or anything like that, but that’s way over my head. Might be a bit of a job to add them back in if that’s the case, but still worth it imo
I feel like you’re missing the point of Chromie. Yes, of course this is retail and the world should be updated. Chromie’s role is to make nostalgic content available to (and rewarding for) players who play retail. I do not want to play classic. At all. Ever. I will not download it. I will not make a character there. I am not interested. I would enjoy accessing old Thousand Needles though, especially on an alt I could level there. I miss that zone. Most of the Cataclysm changes were great, but some effectively removed areas I enjoyed. Ashenvale lost its pristine beauty and its mystery, Thousand Needles was completely reinvented, and Barrens was transmogrified into something else entirely.
There are instances where, if this was a feature in retail, I would choose to visit the old world. If this is not made a feature, I will simply go on never visiting the old world, because Classic is dumb. I was there when Classic was retail, and it wasn’t all that great then compared to now. All I have from that time is a little nostalgia, and this trivial change that would be contained entirely within Chromie time would serve to satisfy that nostalgia without removing me from the version of the game that I actually play.
Yes. Some places hold a very strong spot in my heart. My first character’s lore was that she was a Southshore girl turned Paladin after what had occurred.