Old Ironforge Lives

[Bolty]

Those of you who got in the WoW beta during the first half of it might remember the original Ironforge - a terribly confusing layout of a city that, quite the opposite of now, was usually a ghost town (at the time, Stormwind was the center of player activity). I remember once trying to find the High Seat, where the king was, and spending 20 minutes looking for it. Back in those days we didn't have city maps, and there were no city guards to give directions. Ironforge had many levels vertically, so finding something became a matter of guessing what floor something was on and then trying to find it on that floor...was a mess.

The high seat was located behind a hard-to-find door, which led to a really buggy elevator. For months, upon logging in to the beta, the MotD included "WARNING: JUMPING ON THE ELEVATOR IN IRONFORGE MAY RESULT IN DEATH" and there'd always be lots of bodies at the bottom of the elevator. Back then, bodies didn't disappear when you res'ed.

Anyway, due to huge complaints about how annoying it was to get anywhere in Ironforge, it was completely and totally redesigned to its circular layout during the beta. They basically scrapped the old design utterly. Blizzard no longer uses "vertical" layouts on their cities, where shops/inns/whatever can be over top of another shop/inn/whatever.

The old Ironforge still exists, though. Blizzard just moved it. Down. Way down.

You can still find little bits of evidence when you stand in certain corners of IF and your location changes from "Ironforge" to "Old Ironforge." But someone put out a video showing how he got to fall through the world and find the old High Seat of Ironforge, the one you had to climb up a lot of stairs for (and if you fell off of, you would get incinerated). I want to try this myself.

You can see the video here; some nostalgia for beta players and a peek for those not "lucky" enough to see Ironforge how it originally was.

Edit: obviously, you need either Slow Fall or Levitate to survive the long plunge he takes; however, this looks to be a Mage-only thing since he blinks through the wall at the top of Tinker Town. Also, this is likely to get patched out soon due to this video...

-Bolty

[ima_nerd]

You used to be able to die in the lava at the forge then walk through a wall in the throne room while a ghost and explore to your hearts content. I always thought it was going to be an instance in the future. I now understand.

[Ruvanal]

Actually the Old Iron Forge was still open to players at the start of retail. There was passage on the north side of the kings current chamber that took you through a long sloped circular passage (like some of those in Sunken Temple) down to the level of Old Iron Forge. This access point was sealed up at some point, but as ima_nerd noted there were some ways to get around even that for a period of time.

I would guess that it is still at that same position as it was at the start of the retail, but just better sealed than it was then. I am not sure, but I think that the GMs had gotten tired of trying explain what that area was about and having to help players that got stuck down there. The lighting was extreamly poor in spots and in one spot where the lighting was very bad, there was also a bad section of flooring. At that section, it was very extreamly difficult for gnomes and dwarves to cross that spot in the direction required to head back up stairs. I recall having spent at least 10 minutes there doing running jumps with Littledude to finally cross that point so I could get back up to the top. With some stuff like that there, it is just easier to seal it off rather than fix it; till they are ready to use that area for what they have invisioned for its use.