We are fast approaching World of Warcraft's 15th anniversary, but before that World of Warcraft Classic is set to launch later this month. Blizzard knows it will bring old players back to the game, so it decided to make finding old WoW friends an easy task.
As Kotaku reports, Blizzard has created a tool called Classic Connections 2004-2006, which takes the form of a series of Blizzard forum posts and links. If you haven't played World of Warcraft since before the expansions started arriving, then this is a great way to try and reconnect with other people you regularly formed a group with all those years ago.
The options breakdown into ever finer detail, starting with Horde or Alliance, then there's a realm type selection, and specific realm you played in. So, for example, you could select Alliance -> Normal Realms -> Aerie Peak. At that point you can post your details in the thread for the selected realm and others can do the same. Chances are you'll recognize someone you used to play with, or they will recognize you.
It's a clever system for Blizzard to introduce so close to the launch of World of Warcraft Classic. There's a lot of lapsed players who would like to play the game as it was originally, but also with the friends they made almost 15 years ago. Now they can, or at least they can for any friends who also decide they want to come back and play the original again.
World of Warcraft Classic is set to launch on Aug. 27 and will allow the MMO to be played in a a pre-Burning Crusade expansion state. More specifically, as the game was after patch 1.12.1 in Sept. 2006. It's what players have been asking for, and now they are going to get it, but will they really enjoy the original all over again?