I stopped playing WOW just before the release of Wrath of the Litch King. I recently found myself with a lot of spare time and decided to give the game another try, and go figure, it has changed a lot. I both like and don’t like this new scaling thing. I think I like it more than not. But it was always kind of fun, and gave a sense of progression, to be able to travel through a zone where you used to be kind of afraid of everything, but now nothing could touch you.
I see why they changed it. Those zones essentially became nothing but flyover country for anyone but newbs, and so the scaling kind of fixes that.
I made several alts like I played back in the day and had a lot of fun playing around, levelling in the zones I played before. Did not do much in the new zones. I figured I could do that once I got bored with my nostalgia play.
But then I reached lvl 35 with my main, a druid, and it kind of stopped being fun. The scaling thing just went away the second I made 35. The old zones I was enjoying now were pushovers. I was informed by some very helpful people in the newbie chat channel that if I wanted to continue levelling I had to use Chromie to choose an expansion and play through that. The vanilla game was essentially dead to me.
I picked one and played through it for a while. But find it kind of meh. I am starting to see why they were forced to bring back classic. I could try hopping around the different expansion, but find that kind of chaotic.
Is there no way to continue playing the game on vanilla? Or, is my only options to move on to classic? There is a lot of stuff I like about the newer parts of the game. I just would like to keep doing missions in the vanilla zone for a bit longer. Is it possible to lvl in vanilla by going to, for lack of a better word, level appropriate zones?
1 Like
Vanilla zones were changed up in Cata and that’s a permanent change. If you want to play on Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, you choose Cataclysm in Chromie Time and you can level through the old zones.
If you want a “Vanilla experience,” then you play Classic. Just keep in mind it’s not true Vanilla. And it’s currently Wrath Classic, unless you want Hardcore (you die you’re done) or Season of Discovery (which is added stuff to Classic). And then Wrath Classic will change to Cataclysm Classic, so the old zones will once again be changed.
You can go play Classic. Surely, you have to know this. #troll
Considering the OP spoke about Classic, yes, they know. They wanted the details on how things work in retail. Calm down, stop insulting people for no reason.
4 Likes
I understand your pain OP. I’ve played a bit of retail and classic. There are some places that are so close to me, that I miss in classic.
I have a character parked in Southshore on WoTLK. Just remembered that I probably have till Cata classic to move it!
I don’t know if it’s ever mechanically possible to include the old world, but that’s a cool idea.
My favorite “Vanilla” leveling method now is 1-60 in Wrath. Easy mode but gives me my nostalgia hit. For anything beyond Vanilla I do Chromie time in Retail.
I think WoLK servers are dead now. People are either playing SoD, Hardcore classic, or Standard Edition WoW.
I did not see Wrath of The Litch King as an option in Chromie. Are you saying you go to the Wrath ZONES to lvl up to 60?
My big question is, can I still level in vanilla normally, if I stick to zones designed for whatever level my character currently is?
You pick cataclysm from chromie time.
That allows you to stay in vanilla zones until level 50
1 Like
If you are referring to Retail; Chromie Time is designed to scale the content of whichever expansion you picked to level 60, after which you’re pushed out of Chromie Time and into the newer content. If you do not select to do Chromie Time, then in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor you’re only scaled to 35 after which you receive very little experience. This is because the normal leveling track is Battle for Azeroth from 10 - 60.
If you wanted to continue leveling in the Vanilla zones you would want to select The Cataclysm for Chromie Time. That scales all EK and Kalimdor zones to 60 and also allows you to go to the Cataclysm expac-specific zones from 35 to 60.
Thanks Toraakya,
That makes sense for what I’ve experienced so far. I had chosen Battle for Az. But did not particularly like it. Too many gnomes 
I’ll check out Cat. and see how that goes.