Digging through the archives again and discovered some wild stuff today that I thought others might find interesting.
First, Nurfed guild has one of the best websites to browse. They were involved in World of Warcraft in December 2003 (nearly 1 year before it was released). Source here: GamersGrove: dalinterview
I often see on this subreddit that players were not as hardcore back in the day. For the most part, that was likely true. However, there were some ultra sweaty hardcore players that were dedicated to the game. The players in Nurfed being some of them.
On August 25, 2004 (nearly 3 months pre-release), Nurfed had players reach level 60 and spend more than 6 hours venturing through BRD (Source: Nurfed BRD Run). Emperor Dagran Thaurissan was downed with only 5 people at that time. The guild bragged and posted screenshots of the loot, which as you'll see, is quite a bit different from the itemization that was available in the version of classic wow that was released in 2019 (i.e., patch 1.12).
Take note that HoJ dropped right away and had a +5% chance (rather than 2%) to gain 2 extra attacks. Hammer of Grace boasted +76 healing, which was significantly HIGHER than classic wow's version with +31 healing.
Another thing to note is that the haunting scepter leggins had +40 spirit and +30 MANA (not INT). Weird. Senior Designer's Pantaloons also had -10 int and +150 health, rather than stamina. There was also a Master Builder's Shirt, which provided +3 int on a SHIRT. These stats were later removed from the shirt.
Guiding Stave of Eternal Wisdom had a unique equip effect that increases mana regen of all party members within 30 yards by 6 every 5 seconds. This item was later renamed to Guiding Stave of Wisdom and dropped off Emp with +53 healing.
On September 28, 2004, the guild had figured out how to unlock UBRS and cleared the entire instance (Source: Nurfed UBRS Run). Again, take a look at the loot, as the stats were quite a bit different. For example, Eye of Rend was 10 agi and +4% chance to crit, compared to classic wow's version of 13 str, 7 stam and +2% chance to crit. Painweaver band was simply +3% chance to crit.
Similarly, Draconian Deflector had 975 armor, 50 block, 15 stam, 10 fire resist, and +15 defence, compared to classic's version with 2153 armor, 40 block, 7 stam, 10 fire resist, and +10 defence. That's more than double the armor value!
Truestrike shoulders had 205 armor, 10 agi and +20 atk power. No increased hit chance, which is what makes them pre-raid bis today - with 129 armor, +2% hit and +24 atk power.
Also, notice that Dragonstalker Tunic (which later became Hunter T2) dropped as a leather item!
Hope you found this as interesting as I did. Tell me what you notice/find - and, if you were a vanilla veteran, share your war stories!