Welcome to Old School WoW, the reincarnation of Patches of Yesteryear -- the column that is magically back from the dead, just like these long lost patches! In the last (and previously only) edition of this column we took a look at patch 0.6, which was the first recorded beta patch that we have public records for. Now we move a couple of months forward...

World of Warcraft beta patch 0.7 was released on April 13, 2004, a whole 63 days after patch 0.6 was released. The time in between these two patches is notable in and of itself. Back in the day, 63 days between beta patches wasn't a big deal. If there were 63 days between Wrath beta patches or the upcoming open Cataclysm beta, there would be so much pent-up nerd rage the internet would explode. You can't have this kind of patch silence today (and it's something that Blizzard is aware of, I'm sure).

Patch 0.7 represented another step forward in Blizzard's development of WoW. Some of the major things that we'll take a look at:

• Mentioning of city defense PvP battlegrounds
• The race war and territorial status
• Notable class changes
• Other notable changes
• Patch 0.7 full patch notes

Mentioning of a city defense PvP battleground

The patch notes talk a bit about the way PvE servers will allow PvP combat, namely killing opposite faction guards, attacking a flagged player or being flagged yourself. The notes go on to talk about how the PvP system will evolve into battlegrounds, where "players will have the ability to attack other players to defend their cities and towns from invasion."

I find the wording of "cities and towns" to be rather interesting. In our battlegrounds now, we don't really defend a city. In Alterac Valley, we defend a military stronghold; in Warsong Gulch, we defend a piece of land; and in Arathi Basin, we mainly collect resources to build up the faction. These original battlegrounds (added throughout classic WoW's life cycle) are not really city defense by any means.

AV comes the closest in that you can set up some measure of defense in turtle tactics, etc. -- but even then, you're not exactly using the city to your advantage. There's not a battle royale to stop the Horde from invading Stormwind Keep, which is what comes to mind when thinking of a city PvP battle.

What this likely referred to was Azshara Crater, where players would build buildings and wage war. Azshara Crater was mentioned as a battleground in the early patches, but has since been abandoned as a battleground.

The race war and territorial status

Also having to do with PvP is the section of the patch notes devoted to the "Race War Server." The naming of this server and concept leaves something to be desired, and we haven't seen Horde vs. Alliance PvP called a race war in recent memory.

The notes talk about how the server will allow automatic PvP between players of opposing faction, but only in certain territories. The types of territories laid out in these early PvP servers are:

• green for "friendly" territories
• yellow for "contested" territories
• red for "enemy" territories

While the territories (or zones) are still like this today to some extent, the rules have changed, and zone control doesn't flip hands as is alluded to in the patch notes. In patch 0.7's iteration of PvP, if you were in a green zone, you could not be attacked by enemy players, while red and yellow zones allowed this.

Notable class changes

• Mage Fireballs got a DoT effect.
• Paladins had a Healing Aura, which automatically healed group members.
• Paladins had a Might Aura and a Wisdom, which gave 30 AP or 30 intellect to group members.
• Priests got Abolish Disease and Cure Disease.
• Rogues got Expose.
• Shaman were able to cast totems while running.
• Warlock curses became instant-cast.
• Warriors' Charge got a stun.
• Warriors got Slam.

Other notable changes

The rest state changed from the patch 0.6 system to a more familiar system in patch 0.7. There was still a "tired" level of rest, but it no longer provided a negative bonus to earned XP. The way patch 0.6, patch 0.7 and today's rest work are illustrated in the following table:

	Patch 0.6	Patch 0.7	Today
Well Rested	200% XP
Rested	150% XP	200% XP	200% XP
Normal	100% XP	150% XP	100% XP
Tired		100% XP
Fatigued	50% XP
Exhausted	25% XP

It's also notable that in patch 0.7, you no longer had to log off at an inn while inside a main city to become rested; you just had to be in the main city itself (although you still had to be at an inn if you were outside of a main city).

Patch 0.7 also brought about the introduction of the basic mechanics for the resistance system. Things list frost resist, fire resist, etc. These resistance mechanics would play a huge role in classic WoW and The Burning Crusade but be scaled off significantly for Wrath. These mechanics were the cause of much consternation within the raiding community. People would spend months farming necessary mats to outfit an entire 40-man raiding guild in various resist gear (which usually mean 50 to 60 sets of gear, to cover the main raiders plus alternates).

There's also a laundry list of other interesting changes in this patch:

• Players had nearly all their items and currency deleted.
• All quests were reset.
• Cinematics were now available for all the races.
• The in-game mail system was introduced.
• Vanity pets were introduced.
• Plate armor was introduced.
• Gnome rogues had very low hit points. (They still do.)
• Basic PvP mechanics on PvE servers was introduced.

Continue on and check out the full patch 0.7 patch notes.

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WoW has changed a lot in the past five and a half years. Back in the day we all used to run around as level 60 characters thinking our Tier 0.5 blues were hot stuff. Not anymore! Join us as we take a trip back to what WoW was like in the past with Old School WoW, publishing bi-weekly on WoW.com.

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Tags: patch-0.7, patches-of-yesteryear, vanilla-wow-beta, wow-beta, wow-classic-beta, wow-original-beta, wow-patch-0.7

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Old School WoW