Check out the full "It's 2005" playlist here: bit.ly/3vylGcI

Unregistered HyperCam 2, poor connection speed, blurry screen, poorly timed sounds, and loading issues. This guy knows the vanilla experience better than anyone!

This nostalgia is unreal. Love the starting zone.

I remember the first character I made was a night elf and I made it my mission to exterminate all the grellkin, but they kept respawning, and I didn't yet know the concept of respawning mobs so I was trying to figure out what was "summoning" them. Since they had a nearby campfire I assumed that was like some kind of ritual to summon them and I tried to use the starting water they give you to put it out-to no avail, of course.

The beauty of gaming before the sweaty KZfaq meta tutorials started flowing, people had to explore and chose exactly what they wanted out of their character, exploring the world not knowing the exact order to complete quests to maximize content. The good ole days

This is what people miss when thinking of “classic”. This feeling of discovery and wonder.

Coming from Warcraft III playing as a Night Elf was just the coolest shit back in the day. Knowing the lore, that male soldiers were now a thing, about you turning into a Wisp upon death, how you could still Shadowmeld, how beautiful Teldrassil was... it was simply amazing rolling one for the first time.

This is when WOW really was magical. The discovery, the wonder, learning how things worked on your own, it was rewarding and addictive and when you discovered Darnassus was the tip of the iceberg it blew your mind. That feeling will never be replicated in WOW again, or by any other game.

This is pretty much exactly how my first Night Elf experience went. Then a few hours later, I learned that I was in a giant tree the whole time.

Man this was my childhood, this is the only reason I still play every now and then, not to raid mythic or do all the crap that one has to do nowadays, just to create a new character and let the nostalgia hit…

Since it was years I heard the MSN sound, i still reacted to it and was ready to answer the message

I created a Night Elf character 2 days after the game was released. I remember the same feeling you try to recreate. The exploration in the magical forest. I remember the feeling of beeing inside this huge world, and i had no idea what was outside of Teldrassil, and what to expect. I wanted to find out where all the great heros of Wacraft 3 where hiding. Where was Malfurion, Tyrande, Illidan, Arthas, Thrall, Jaina and so on.

I started with a gnome like "well this dude is cute as shit." Pranced around the starting zone with the same wonderment. Made it to Ironforge around lvl 10 only to find out everyone hates gnomes.

Elf zones always have the best music, regardless of elf race.

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them" :'(

I started playing in 2005 so relate to all this lol. Also that noise when someone nudged you in msn and you just pray your computer doesn’t crash whilst in game 😂

My first 15 minutes in WOW; "Woah I can jump in this game?!" *proceeds to jump on and off fence in Northshire Abbey for 15 minutes*

lol that fucking MSN sound

Your content never ceases to give all the nostalgia. +1 for MSN. Where did time go..

Man. My dad raised my siblings and I off of wow from the very beginning. I was three in 2005. We stopped playing consistently last summer. He always talks about how his first time in teldrassil, he was awestruck. Couldn’t stop staring and exclaiming “what the fuck!”. I remember the feeling I had when I was little, watching my brother and my dad play wow. Getting on their characters just to kill them or run around on their mounts. Being underneath my dads arm on my stepping stool just to press the spacebar to make his character jump while he was playing. Use up their money to use flight points. Being so excited when they got a second computer to play together. Ahhhh. I want to go back.

Still to this day, nobody can convince me any other starting zone will give such an amazing first impression to wow 10/10

I was expecting you to choose the character's name " legolas " . And yeah you did it . You are such a nice guy .

The slow screen, old looking graphics and bad mic make this feel like I’m in a Vent chat talking to someone. This is good 🤣

This gives me such a wave of nostalgia. I still remember how I felt at 10 years old barely understanding what's going on in the game.

I literally spent almost a whole month in the Night Elf starting zone as a Druid. I just kept melee'ing everything too with my staff.

Coming from Warcraft 3, my first character was an orc warrior. How could it not be. And I remember being shocked learning that I could SWIM. You can swim in this game guys!!! I got to about level 6, wandered into the Barrens and was murdered by a big angry bird, and decided to try something different. I made a night elf druid and was completely blown away by the starting zone. Don't forget to do the bit where you decide to try jumping off the tree! And then you have to spend half an hour getting to your corpse halfway down the tree, dying again, and then slowly swimming around because you didn't know what hearthstones were yet!

Oh man, these videos bring warmth to my heart

That feeling playing wow in 2005 for the first time was magical…. It was truly game changing experience.

Brings tears to my eyes. I have no emotions to describe that first feeling. It was a time of no worries or adult burden.

Somehow at some point, we all stuck in there, in that low resolution wow, the world before crisis, the sun was brighter and people laugh more. We listen songs with iPod and waiting for a better and maybe best ever era in human history. But that's just a bubble, it's beautiful yet fragile. I know what's happening around this world, but I can't resist the urge to close my eyes and connect to my 2006 dream.

Yooooo, this MSN Message sound just unlocks a forgoten memory....thank you Sir for this and this Video!

I remember playing on a cracked Beta server a while before the game came out. My buddy and I were level 2-3 dwarves in the starting zone, and this level 11 troll came into town, and murdered everyone. We were pretty sure he came over the ocean because we found a way over the mountains to the water, and were able to swim out forever till we got bored.

my first WoW experience ever was with those 10-day trials, around 2005, as a night elf hunter... so many late nights spent exploring teldrassil in silent wonder. so many late nights creeping around auberdine, the dark and scary forest feeling like home to me, as i walked with my bear Cactus along the beach and cobblestone roads, the moonlight making them shiny at a certain angle, the sounds of the water lapping up on the sand, looking inland where the trees start to block your view and being afraid to go too deep within the forest. i will never play anything like this again

Controlling every little unit in wc3 and having heroes and champions, then changing to WoW and stepping into the actual lore with starting as a unit what youve controlled yesterday and now you can explore a whole massive and mysterious world. That was a huge joy back then. All part of our childhood/younghood that we want to relive.

thank you. i actually have tears in my eyes. its a bit like going back to when everything was good. it weren't even 3 whole minutes, but you brought back that feeling of "good".

Even now whenever I run around Teldrasil, I feel calm. So many pretty trees, the green air is just the right shade of peaceful, and the music is enchanting. I've done the zone on so many alts, from baby elves to high level members of other races just stopping by for the holiday, that I know just about every nook and cranny. The familiarity doesn't make it any less magical.

I remember starting playing and I chose human. Then I made a night elf friend and I asked him where he started and we made the long trip to Teldrassil from SW. When I saw the location I was wonderstruck. It was beautiful.

I remember making a night elf when I was like 7, I thought it was the coolest shit ever. Teldrassil looked amazing to me, the whole night elf aesthetic I loved, even though I mained an undead rogue, and mostly rolled horde... I always loved the night elves!

I've always rolled Nelf. That starter music be hittin them nostalgic memories. God, how I wish I could feel that all over again and just be a complete noob.

Moving from W3 to this was mindblowing 😭 so many memories

Its so funny almost ridiculous videos like these stirring existential angst where we were where we are where we're going...this vid feels like yesterday yet its so far away almost 20 years to be exact...( i know its a parody) but the feels... phew... damn you time you don't play fair! (Great work Azamous).

The msn ding LOL Even the nudge. Amazing. It’s like a recording of 11 year-old me.

Should have gone for Lëgôlás instead like the rest of the elf Hunters in 2005

A massive part of what makes/made WoW so great is the music and the setting. It's unparalleled to this day. Something about it just makes you feel like you are actually there even though you know you're not. Even over a decade later with all our fancy tech there is no game to match this.. i'm hopeful but also it's kind of impossible to replace this music after so many years of playing.

Teldrassil is still and will always be amongst my favorite zones in this game. The immeasurable beauty of the forests and the music is some of the best in the game, then later discovering that the entire zone rests atop a giant tree, no other game can recreate the sheer sense of adventure this game has.

The music and atmosphere when you first enter Teldrassil....pure nostalgia

The very first World of Warcraft character I made was a human warrior. As basic as it could be haha "ohh humans good guys defenders of the world" etc. I was 12 at the time and loved Eminem. My name was Lshadyl because I thought the capital L would be l so it would look like lshadyl. (ooh badass) People called me "Le Shaddle" because of the typo and it just stuck lol. Good times in Vanilla.

I love the effort into making this look like it's genuinely from 2004. Keep it up man.

Coming from WC3 and playing WoW for the first time. I'll never forget walking into Org for the first time in Jan of 2005. Went from looking down at the settlement/city I had built to being a grunt in that city. It was great. A sense of wonderment ill never feel again.

Damn the memories... Everything, every animal, monster, city, it seemed so great and felt like living the LOTR game I always wanted.

Feels very authentic but the ping bar should be yellow :D

1:58 “ooh my stomachs gone all funny!” Is such a delightful and true detail.

I have a distinct memory of playing a night elf hunter in the starting zone while the music video for “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy was playing on Fuse. Those were the days

this brings me back to my time when I started in 2004. making a dwarf paladin and goddam I miss those times. thanks for recreating that 2004 feeling again

These videos are just make my day.

Oof them feels!! This is exactly how my journey started back in 2006. Nightelf hunter. I'll never forget that feeling. Chills.

Lol love the MSN chat in the background. Completes this video very accurately.

I love these videos. Truly amazing concept and execution, thank you! :D

amazing "Oo someone messaged me, I wonder who it is" (continues to play as alt'tabbing could crash the computer) :'D

This hit deep dude. The MSN sound from the messages in the background made even more of an impact and nostalgic. I had forgotten MSN and how everyone was there in the past. Good times.

Nostalgia!!! Love it. This is exactly what I experienced 15 years ago. Thanks, I feel good.

The first half of the video triggered like 20 memories. All of them nostalgic.

That was all the most accurate feels ever. Ever.

back when gaming was raw. Now you see 40 clips, 40 youtube guides, watch streamers play beta, see then optimal way to play the game, see how to min/max. All before you even play the game.

Aza you mastered the capturing of the old feeling! 🤩👍🏼 4:3 resolution, background sounds from chatrooms, ~20 fps, bad mic, unregistered hypercam, the will to explore rather then speedrun through the world, just chill and hang out…oh god, I miss those times 👍🏼 you did a great job!

I also remember before I really knew how to play I would make characters of each race so I could do each starting zone. Teldrassil and Azuremyst were my favorite :)

I died at the msn sounds :D Loved it. And yeah, this is why classic was “not the same”. And it never will be. This is what people wanted. This can not be retrieved by simply re-releasing the game.

1:53 im still dying over the jump whyd you have to say "my stomach feels funny" i cant dude

Beautiful video, it really captured that good old times feeling

Coming from years spent playing Diablo II LoD, my first WoW char was a night elf druid, which I wanted to call Belenos but the name was already taken.

This was exactly my experience. ~16 years old, making my Night Elf Hunter as my first toon. THE GAME WAS SO PURE AND INNOCENT. Only difference was that I had 8-12fps on my HP laptop.

No feeling in gaming will ever beat when I finished Elwynn Forest after 4-5 hours, opened the larger map, and realized I only explored less than 1% of the entire world. That and the music. WoW has the best music. It just takes you to a different world.

I love those "its (some year)" type of video's, its just so nostalgic and cool

Your videos hit hard. Back then I had a crap dell computer, if I logged into stormwind it took forever to login, I didn’t make a human first I made a night elf warrior, and their starting area was magical. Coming from RuneScape, I didn’t even care about the low FPS lol. My brother came home one day and he had played WoW at a friends house, and came home and begged our mom to buy WoW for us, (we were both in our teens) she got it, he played for about a month literally begging me to play, I wanted to but I had so much in RuneScape going for me that I didn’t want to. I finally gave in, and within 5 minutes on my Nelf warrior named Chiton (pronounced kite en, from an old Metroid video involving space pirates), I dropped RuneScape, and I’m still playing today. No I haven’t pre ordered or bought Dragonflight, but I do miss these days simply because I had all the time in the world to play it, I have so many memories with WoW with so many in game friends and some real life friends that are now dead…I’ve also geared 2 or 3 toons in one expansion while tweaked out on things I shouldn’t have been on, while in my using days. In my mid 20s. I’m almost 4 years clean now, bought a new gaming pc downloaded WoW, came back after not playing since WoD, having the best possible geared rogue, Druid, hunter and Warrior possible at that time and continued on. With just my Druid. So I could experience the missed expansions. Currently i only have my druid geared as much as I can. and WoW has simply become something over time, it’s just something that I try to enjoy, when I have time 😞 almost every time I logon, I think of my IRL hunter friend named Roley in game, that I decided to rename my hunter to his name so it could live on, and it’s hard to kick ass anymore in PvP, on any of my characters. Basically this is a long ass rant of how much I love WoW, the old days, and how much I don’t enjoy the newest expansion. And how much the death of a close friend IRL that you have countless priceless memories with can affect you. Maybe I should go to classic. Sorry I’m watching this and have had quite a few drinks. Usually I don’t pour out my soul like this

My first beta character was a night elf male hunter. ....so that's nice.

pure gold man, keep it up, love it.

The moment you start this sheer neverending journey the first time is just priceless. Overwhelmed by the scale

First time I tried levelling a night elf I HATED the starting zone (I seem to remember a frustrating quest with a time limit). I spent probably a whole day walking to Elwynn at probably level 3, taking the boat, dying more times that I could possibly count. I had no idea that mage portals were a thing.

The nostalgia makes my heart feel like it's about to burst. I stopped playing WoW during BFA, just hated what the game became. Haven't touched it since and moved on to FFXIV a few years later. But nothing can ever replicate that feeling of when I first entered Azeroth all those years ago.

That msn noise really got me, good job!

azamous youve consistently made funny content my dude i remember you just trying to hustle and first advertising your channel on firemaw disc at classic launch, proud of u xoxo

I remember falling off one of the branches on the edge of the map, dying, and not knowing how to get back to my corpse. I didn't know what spirit healers did either. That character is still dead to this day. I ended up making another character instead.

My first character was a night elf hunter back in Wrath. He's been my main ever since to this day! Such nostalgia, and you even added to it by the MSN sounds.

the ICQ chat beeping in the background, everything about this video is amazing.

At 2:30 I think he had to cut the footage because he forgot to turn off GM so he can actually die lol

The part most people don't realize about nostalgia for old games isn't that the game itself was particularly better in some way, it was the level of information available to the player. You didn't know what was over the next hill, in some random cave, or what gear was going to drop from a boss. You didn't have a meta build and rotation optimized to perfection by the game's elite super tryhards, speedclearing guides, or video tutorials for everything imaginable. You had to learn, adapt, and work with players to solve and overcome challenges. That's all gone, and has been for about a decade. WOW in particular (vanilla vs classic) is an excellent case study for how access to near perfect information can transform the same content into an unrecognizably different experience. It's also a good look into how automation can disrupt an economic system designed for purely manual work, but that's another issue entirely.

Dude, you quite literally took me back to early 2000's. Amazing

the msn noises just brings it all together, nicely done

TRUE STORY: I was but a little kid when i created my first night elf character and i remember it was night time, big mistake! I was so scared of the environment. I moved her to the first village after a while, logged out and didn't touch her for more than a year. 😅

240p is still bit high, was better watch it in 144p

I started playing Wow when I was 5 years old. I played a night elf rogue on my mom’s account. I didn’t know wtf I was doing but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I kept playing through TBC and Wrath and never hit max level. I would just explore everything and run around doing whatever I wanted. Those were the times.

Weary traveler, be sure to save that quest reward potion in low level Darnassus you get that makes you invincible to everything for 10 seconds. Save it for many years so that one fateful day you will be the hero of the guild when you're fighting a raid boss that you've all been stuck on for months and you find one day that it's just you still alive and under 1% HP left on the bosses health bar with no DOTS left on it.

lmao is that the original MSN messenger tone? Oh my god. This was too accurate. My heart. I love this channel so much. Its like a time machine.

The night elf starting zone music is the best in the entire game, I remember back in the day when i was around 7 and I played a Night Elf with my dad. I yelled my moms name because I was about to ding, good memories, no worries and no stress, the nostalgia is insane.

the mid 00s were just awesome.I was 17 years old in 2005 and life just began for me,thanks guys for sharing this moment hope it was a great time for you to!!

Thank you for all 2005 videos.

I made my first WoW char back in 2006, a night elf hunter as well, and this vid completely encapsulates every bit of feeling and nostalgia. The passion, quality, love, and care of the original dev team will never be replicated ever again; it makes me kind of sad but I’m so thankful I was a part of this new grand adventure ❤️

Brought me to tears… i had a troll shaman that time, I was 10 years old, trying to learn english, not really understanding what a massive multiplayer online game was. are these real people from all over the world? i turned alliance shortly after. the feeling you brought to this video reminds of so much, brotha. Thank you for the beautiful content!

those random msn ping noises 😂 literally me from 2005, but i didnt even click anywhere at the character creation I just destined to have a night elf

The MSN chat notification is the best part of this. You have successfully recreated the newbie experience.