WoW didn't birth the 'collect ten pig noses' formula, but it certainly popularised a trope that soon became shorthand for wider MMO mockery. Remixing its initial hours to be faster, more exciting and a shower of upgrades makes sense, in terms of encouraging the curious to stick around. Though never anything less than hugely successful, WoW hasn't been the phenomenon it once was for quite some time. I understand why Blizzard made the changes they did. I thought that this first World of Warcraft was lost forever.
Where once this was a slow-starting MMO, defined by long wandering, hard work and a certain degree of solitude, these days its early questing is an explosion of instantaneous rewards and high-speed levelling.
It did not go entirely well - in the 11 years since WoW's launch, much has changed. Last year, I tried to indulge my nostalgia for Dun Morogh, the wintry original Dwarf & Gnome starting zone in World of Warcraft, by returning to it as it is now.
