Earliest known screenshots of WoW

[akspa420]

I've been scouring the internet for the better part of the past 6 months for version numbers and build numbers of WoW from before the public beta. I've managed to find a handful of photos from the very first press event that took place after the announcement in September 2001.

These photos were taken at a press event in February 2002, in France. The version number is unknown, but it features a Warcraft 3-like menu, much like a later build that was demonstrated at E3 in May of 2002.



I have more in the album that that's from - akspa420's Album: WoW Press Event 2002

Some of the earliest images are taken from whatever version this was, likely the internal pre-alpha without a version number. To the right is Shane Dabiri, who at the time was the Lead Producer of WoW. (see his linkedIn profile for his CV - http://www.linkedin.com/profile/pub/shane-dabiri)

Later on, during E3 2002, a similar build was shown, however the bottom bar was gone, and the action buttons were consolidated to a small block at the lower left side of the screen. By E3 2003, the UI had undergone further changes and was effectively fully developed - the default UI has changed very little from 2003.

I will be adding to this thread as my research continues into the history of WoW. So far, the photos and videos from 10+ years ago are hard to come by, but perhaps with appropriate petitioning and letter writing, I may be able to get more insight into how everything came together.

[ev0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfzpbeWT78s - Some gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvYHSmaD8-A - part 2

[phantom325]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfzpbeWT78s - Some gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvYHSmaD8-A - part 2

Really cool, but dat quality

[ev0]

Really cool, but dat quality

in 2002 a good camera was 6 megapixels, think about that.

[Nyuelol]

nice pic's, thank you!

[piehead]

Interesting pictures and videos. Thanks you two.

[EnhRreezznniikk]

Character Create in 2002


http://screenshot.cz/RPUA4/screen168.jpg

[ev0]

Character Create in 2002


http://screenshot.cz/RPUA4/screen168.jpg

Wow! Thanks for your screenshot, i have found more:

Messe Fotos ? World of WarCraft ? Die WoW Fanseite

[stevesgamebox]

Aghh. I would have some good ones too if I hadn't gone through so many computers since 02. Brings back memories.

Peace.

[Dovah]

Pandas and blood elves were gonna be in vanilla it looks like
Edit: Judging by the character create screen that was probably BC alpha before they put in the TBC logo, still cool though. confirmation that pandas were originally planned for TBC.

[dweezee20]

Very cool! This is some OC I've never seen before!

[MDesert]

God damn, it's funny to think about EQ competing with WoW back then. The UI, even back then, was spot ****ing on between usability and intuitive.

[Eldhenn]

Hmm. Looks like those screens got from yet another pre-alpha build. There is no chat windows on bottom-center, neither some sort of "menu panel". Instead we can see ... square skills panel on the left?

[Natrist]

Thanks for this. Really nice informative thread.