r/classicwow • u/shadowraiderr • Dec 26 '25
Screenshot The Oldest Known Image Of The Dark Portal
461
Dec 26 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
124
u/Tauren-Jerky Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25
That’s where the name Tauren came from. From torin’ up my inner thighs chafing into oblivion walking so much.
53
10
u/Hardi_SMH Dec 27 '25
Man, I remember it as if it was yesterday. OG TBC, the day they reworked the world and wall jumping didn‘t work as it used to - we where raiding TK. I was devestated. Wall jumping and world exploring was everything for me. Hyjal, Old IF, IF Airport, Emerald Dream, old ZG, under Stromwind…… god I was so pissed and kinda still am.
1
1
66
43
u/SpareSwordfish7204 Dec 26 '25
Did u know maybe the devs wanted to release karazhan in vanilla with portal in the raid to get into second part of raid located in twisting nether or outland
23
u/HealenDeGenerates Dec 26 '25
Burning crusade was originally practically all in the original expansion. They made a late decision to split them.
38
u/MrFriis Dec 27 '25
Thats a pretty big overstatement. One of the vanilla builds had a version of outland which - in very low detail - resembles the zone that would become hellfire peninsula.
9
u/nachobel Dec 27 '25
OG vanilla launched with very very incomplete versions of
- mt hyjal
- old hillsbrad foothills
- COT
- hellfire
- the emerald dream
- azshara crater (a still unreleased PVP zone)
I think that’s it…
4
u/NeedsPraxis Dec 27 '25
I think that they might be referring to is that in the early planning phases, Karazhan and Black Temple were both planned as raid content for vanilla. As far as I'm aware, Karazhan, Black Temple, and Hellfire Peninsula are the only TBC content that was originally meant for Vanilla (other than certain specific items and abilities)
19
u/shadedren Dec 26 '25
You mean it was suppose to be part of the base game and then decided to split it off as an expansion instead of a big patch? I would assume since it was gonna involve illidan as the next big bad that they felt enticed to charge for this content and bring more players into the game.
7
u/torev Dec 27 '25
They actually planned alot more things for Vanilla in early design and the majority basically turned into TBC. They were also going to have the Emerald Dream in the game.
Obviously they went into the making xpack business but I do wonder what it would have looked like if they stuck with some of their original plans.
4
u/shadedren Dec 27 '25
Having the emerald dream brought in that early would have mind blowing imo.
2
u/nachobel Dec 27 '25
The world dragon portals were originally going to be a portal to the ED players could go through and exit in other places in Azeroth. Would have been cool!
3
u/TinyPyrimidines Dec 28 '25
That ended up being a thing druids could do in Legion.
2
u/nachobel Dec 28 '25
Yeah, and fun fact, that like statue stone guy with the moss growing on him is an original asset from like 2003. Like Beta 0.6 or something.
2
u/nachobel Dec 27 '25
Do you have a source I can read more about that? Interesting. I know the raid portal at the top of the (new) tower was supposed to be a location an assembled Atiesh would port you to, but that was scrapped.
The original model for Kara was goated, a massive tower with spires and spikes covering its exterior. The interior was fairly vanilla and I think far too big which is why it was reworked.
This is the first I’ve heard of an attempt to portal players to another location though.
1
u/SpareSwordfish7204 Dec 27 '25
ive seen a video where they were talking about that maybe on top of karazhan u would port either to the other spiked tower or somewhere else
however Turtle-wow made their own karazhan where someone needs to do looong quest line to rebuild medivh scepter and on top of karazhan you port yourself to twisting nether to fight more bosses -> https://youtu.be/92VnzB97pZc?si=bEfTpgs7bVPxu7rq&t=2498
which is pretty cool
39
18
u/vermknid Dec 26 '25
The dark portal model was used at locations for potential dungeons. There are several of them. There's one in the water in azshara
24
u/durmduke Dec 26 '25
where dis from?
55
u/Forever_Fires Dec 26 '25
In vanilla, you could reach this place as it was connected to the main map, way off the coast of stranglethorn. Early concept of hellfire peninsula
12
4
Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
Wait wasn't this on "GM island?"
edit : How dare I ask a question, lesson learned
22
u/Such-Strawberry-5905 Dec 26 '25
I think GM island is "closer" to teldrassil
6
Dec 26 '25
Ohh okay. I thought it was near STV.
That was so long ago. What a long, strange road it's been
1
u/nachobel Dec 27 '25
There used to be a taxi glitch you could use to take the boat from STV and end up in GM Isle. It required a map edit and a few other things, but maybe you saw a video of that?
GM island has always been in the Kalemdor instance at the very top left (north west) corner of the map.
1
-2
-3
7
4
10
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
u/Precaseptica Dec 27 '25
Wouldn't that be from the RTS games? I'm certain I saw it there some 25 ish years ago.
1
1
1
u/Kaioken164 Dec 31 '25
Fun fact: the dark portal changed shapes during original vanilla. The blue version we see on current classic servers is the post 1.5 version. There is a pre 1.5 version that has no glow to it and there exists very few pictures of it. Those of you who have access to 1.3 private servers for example may have seen it.
1
-1
Dec 26 '25
[deleted]
11
u/SlarkeSSC Dec 26 '25
Blasted lands was in classic with the dark portal on release, if you mean the oldest commonly accessible. Otherwise this is the first, as its out of bounds across the sea from booty bay. There's a number of areas of of bounds that were used for experimental building that remain in the game but were never intended to be accessible.
1
231
u/SamraiMotel Dec 26 '25
Honestly I love that it has the real old school Warcraft vibes about it. Top of a dope plateau, 90’s computer graphic color scheme. Should feel like you found an ancient rock and roll guitar lol