$14.99! On top of that, the boxed game cost $49.99 at launch.

Back then, you'd drive to a store like Best Buy or GameStop, buy the box with five CDs inside, and install them one by one. If you didn't have a credit card, you could buy prepaid game time cards at the register, scratch off the code, and type it in. You're about to do the exact same thing. 💰

Your tasks:

1. Your Blizzard card is hidden inside the middle console (armrest) of the couch.
2. Scratch off your Blizzard card. Gently; you don't want to scratch off the code. 💳
3. Log in to your Battle.net account, choose Redeem a Code, and enter the code to add the balance to your account.
4. Use that balance to buy one month of World of Warcraft game time.
5. Open the Pre-Install World of Warcraft callout below and get the game downloading tonight, so it's ready to go the second you get home tomorrow.

Once it's all set, you're officially a subscriber. See you in Azeroth. 💀

Let's get the game downloading tonight so it's ready the moment the servers open. Open the Battle.net app and make sure you're logged in before you start.

Step 1: Find your Battle.net path

1. Find the Battle.net shortcut on your desktop or in the Start menu.
2. Right-click it and choose Open file location. (If you're in the Start menu, you may need to do this twice to reach the actual file.)
3. Click the address bar at the top of the folder window and copy the path. It will look something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Battle.net.

Step 2: Open Command Prompt

1. Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard.
2. Type cmd and press Enter. A black window will open.

Step 3: Run the install command

1. Copy the command below:

"F:\BattleNet\Battle.net\Battle.net.exe" --game=WoWF --install

2. Paste it into the black window by right-clicking (or pressing Ctrl + V). Don't press Enter yet!
3. Replace F:\BattleNet\Battle.net with the path you copied in Step 1. Use the arrow keys to move around; you can't click inside the window. Keep the quotation marks and \Battle.net.exe at the end.
4. Press Enter.

Battle.net will open and start installing WoW. You can close the black window once it's going. 🎉

On Wednesdays, we wear pink! Mean Girls came out on April 30, 2004, and is still one of the most quoted movies ever made.

Your pink shirt is waiting for you in the hall closet. You know the rule.

A disposable camera! In 2004, most phones either had no camera at all or took tiny, blurry photos. So you bought a cardboard camera with 27 shots, wound the little wheel after every picture, and had no idea how anything turned out until you dropped it off to get developed. Every photo was a surprise, and half of them had someone blinking.

Yours is waiting in [hiding spot]. It's coming with us for the next two days to capture the whole adventure. Keep an eye out for 📸 Photo Op lines in the callouts, and check the Photo Ops list at the bottom of the page for bonus moments. Don't use them all at once; you only get 27!

📸 Photo Op: Your first shot is us, in our pink shirts, heading out the door.

Taco Bell and Mountain Dew launched Baja Blast, a tropical lime flavor, in summer 2004. It was sold only at Taco Bell for a decade, until its first limited-time run in stores in 2014. It wasn't until January 2024, for its 20th anniversary, that you could buy it in bottles and cans year-round.

Dinner is on me. 🌮

📸 Photo Op: A toast with our Baja Blasts.

Before you head to bed, wrap up the night with these:

• Camp at an inn
  • In WoW, logging out at an inn gives your character rested experience, which earns you double XP for a while the next time you play. It was the game's way of rewarding you for taking breaks. Park both of our characters at the same inn, take a screenshot together, and call it a night. 🛏️
• Post-raid debrief
  • Every 2004 guild did a recap after a big night. We each share our favorite moment, our funniest death, and one thing we want to do tomorrow. Write them down on a sticky note and leave it by the computers for the morning. 📝
• Set your away message
  • Like AIM in 2004, write tonight's away message on a sticky note and stick it to your monitor. Something like "zzz... raiding again at 9am, don't wake me." 💤

📸 Photo Op: Both of us at our computers, characters side by side at the inn.

The people (and monsters) you'll meet as a brand-new Forsaken, in roughly the order you'll meet them. Write down your favorites on a sticky note and leave it near your computer.

⚰️ Deathknell

• Undertaker Mordo
  • The very first face you'll see. He's the caretaker of the crypt where you wake up, and he'll let you know they were about to throw you on the burn pile before you started moving. Charming. He's also the one who tells you you're free from the Lich King.
• Shadow Priest Sarvis
  • Your first real quest giver, in the chapel at the bottom of the hill. He's one of the oldest characters in all of WoW; he was already in the game during its earliest testing, before launch.
• Novice Elreth
  • She gives one of the sweetest and saddest quests in the zone, Marla's Last Wish. Marla's husband Samuel turned undead during the plague, and she died at his hands. She loved him so much that her last wish was still to be buried beside him. You get to make that happen.

🍺 Brill

• Gordo
  • A big, friendly abomination (a giant stitched-together undead) who wanders the road between Deathknell and Brill. He doesn't stand still, so keep an eye out. He'll ask you to pick some weeds for him.
• Innkeeper Renee
  • Runs the inn in Brill. Make this your first home with your Hearthstone, and remember to log out here at the end of the night for rested XP.
• Apothecary Johaan
  • Hiding in the cellar of the inn, he works for the Royal Apothecary Society and is cooking up "a new plague" to use against the Forsaken's enemies. He'll have you test it on a prisoner. The apothecaries are a big deal later in Warcraft's story, so remember the name.
• Coleman Farthing
  • He used to work at Agamand Mills, owned by the richest family in Tirisfal before the plague. Now the Agamands have all risen as mindless undead, and he'll ask you to put them to rest. Watch out for the younger son, Devlin, who betrayed his own family to the Scourge. Listen for what he yells when he dies: "I am the head of the family. Me. ME!!!"

💀 Undercity

• Sylvanas Windrunner
  • The Banshee Queen and leader of the Forsaken. She was once a heroic elf ranger, killed by Arthas (the future Lich King) and raised as a banshee to serve him. She broke free, took a group of undead with her, and founded the Forsaken. You'll find her in the Royal Quarter at the very bottom of the city.

Undercity! The Forsaken are undead who broke free from the evil Lich King's control and joined the Horde, led by the Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner. Their kingdom of Lordaeron was destroyed, so they made their home in the crypts and sewers beneath the ruins. It was one of the original Horde capitals when World of Warcraft launched in 2004.

Time to show your true colors. Your shirt is waiting in the office closet. 💜💀

📸 Photo Op: Both of us repping the Horde.

SI:7 Toast and Eggs! SI:7 is the Alliance's secret spy network, based in the city of Stormwind. They're the shadowy rogues who handle the Alliance's sneaking, scouting, and dirty work. Yes, you're wearing a Horde shirt while eating an Alliance spy's breakfast. Consider it stolen intel.

This recipe comes from the official Hearthstone tavern cookbook (Hearthstone is the Warcraft card game). Report to the kitchen whenever you're ready for your briefing food.

Westfall Stew! Westfall is the Alliance's farmland, just south of the human city of Stormwind, and this stew is one of the original cooking recipes from 2004. The in-game version called for stringy vulture meat, a murloc eye, and a goretusk snout (a boar's nose). Ours is just a hearty beef stew; we promise.

Alliance players learned it by helping a farmer named Salma Saldean, while Horde cooks could only get the recipe by buying it from the neutral auction house. So yes, this is another stolen Alliance recipe. The Forsaken are getting very good at this. 🥣

You're off on your work trip tomorrow, so let's wrap up our adventure:

• Camp at an inn
  • In WoW, logging out at an inn gives your character rested experience, which earns you double XP for a while the next time you play. Since you'll be away for a bit, your character will have plenty saved up when you get back. Park both of our characters at the same inn, take a screenshot together, and call it a night. 🛏️
• Final debrief
  • We each share the moment that stuck out the most from the last two days, and what you'll miss most about Azeroth while you're away. Write them on a sticky note and pack it in your suitcase. 📝
• Set your out of office
  • Like AIM in 2004, write an away message for your trip on a sticky note and stick it to your monitor. Something like "Away on a real-life quest. Back soon; don't level without me." 💤

📸 Photo Op: Our last shot of the adventure; both of us, together, at the end of it all.

Once you outgrow Tirisfal (around level 10), head south to Silverpine Forest. It's spooky, it's foggy, and it's full of werewolves. Write down your favorites on a sticky note and leave it near your computer.

🌲 The Sepulcher

• High Executor Hadrec
  • The Forsaken commander of the Sepulcher, Silverpine's only Horde town. He'll keep you busy fighting the plague-spreading gnolls and, later, send you into Shadowfang Keep to find his missing Deathstalkers (the Forsaken's elite spies and assassins).
• Dalar Dawnweaver
  • A former mage of Dalaran, the great city of wizards, who was raised as a Forsaken. He's obsessed with figuring out the curse that's turning the local villagers into werewolves, and he can't stand the mage who caused it. He thinks Arugal was a fraud who never deserved his title.
• Apothecary Renferrel
  • Another member of the Royal Apothecary Society, working on the same "new plague" as Johaan back in Brill, this time using animal organs. Yes, you'll be collecting them.

🐺 Pyrewood Village & Shadowfang Keep

• The villagers of Pyrewood
  • By day, they look like ordinary humans. When night falls in the game, they all transform into worgen (werewolves). They're tougher than normal enemies, so give the village a wide berth until you're higher level.
• Archmage Arugal
  • The villain behind it all. During the war against the undead, he summoned the worgen to fight the Scourge, but lost control of them. Driven mad with guilt, he adopted the werewolves as his "children" and moved into Shadowfang Keep, which they had overrun. He's the final boss of the Shadowfang Keep dungeon.

🌵 Bonus: The Barrens

• Mankrik
  • If you take the zeppelin from Tirisfal to the Barrens, look for Mankrik at the Crossroads. He'll ask you to find his missing wife. Her body was hidden so well in 2004 that "Where is Mankrik's wife?" became the most-asked question in Barrens chat and a WoW meme that's lasted twenty years.

Every time you level up, a golden light bursts around you. In 2004, players announced it in chat by typing "ding!"

House rule: every time you ding, say it out loud and claim a sweet treat. 🍬

Tip: Find the innkeeper in the first town you reach and make it your home. Your Hearthstone (yes, the card game is named after it) will teleport you back there once every hour.

📸 Photo Op: Your brand-new character on screen, with you next to it.

In the original WoW, you learn new abilities from your class trainer, and they get new lessons for you at every even level. Every time you hit an even number, head back to town and see what's new.

Not having your best attack yet because you forgot to train was a rite of passage for the now veteran players.

You can now learn professions! Most players choose a gathering profession and a crafting one that go together. But you can choose anything you like. Some common picks are:

• Herbalism + Alchemy (pick flowers, make potions)
• Mining + Blacksmithing (mine ore, make armor)
• Skinning + Leatherworking (craft leather armor)

Also pick up Cooking, Fishing, and First Aid; they don't count against your two main ones.

This is a big one. You now get talent points, one per level, that you spend to specialize your character. Hover over everything, take your time, and don't stress; you can reset them later for a little gold.

Some classes also get a special class quest around this level. Warlocks summon their first Voidwalker, and Warriors earn their Defensive Stance. Mages, Priests, Rogues, and Paladins: ask your class trainer what's next for you.

📸 Photo Op: Double digits deserve a celebration shot.

You've outgrown the starting zone, and the world is opening up. A few things worth doing around now:

• Head south to Silverpine Forest. It's the next Forsaken zone, and its town, the Sepulcher, has plenty of new quests.
• Collect flight paths. Talk to every flight master you find, even just once. After that, you can fly back to that town by bat from anywhere you've unlocked.
• Check your gear. Quest rewards are your best upgrades right now. Hover over new items to compare them with what you're wearing.
• Grab bigger bags. You'll be picking up a lot of loot. Bags are one of the best things to spend your first real gold on.

Reward: When you hit level 14, we're getting dessert. Dairy Queen run in our Undercity shirts. 🍦

In 2004, a lot of new players were somewhere around here when they first realized how big the world actually was, and that the starting zones were only the beginning.

At this point, you're officially not a newbie anymore. In the original game, level 20 was also when the next tier of dungeons and zones really opened up, like Wailing Caverns, a cave in the Barrens full of corrupted druids and giant snakes.

📸 Photo Op: Level 20! This one deserves a big pose.

Achievements didn't exist in WoW until years later, so we're making our own. These are optional; save some film for whatever surprises us! 📸

• Your first death (your reaction is the photo)
• The first time you get completely lost
• Your first piece of loot that's actually good
• The first time another player kills you
• The snack spread at its peak
• Both of us asleep at our desks
• Anything that makes us laugh too hard to play

Everything here first aired or hit theaters in 2004. Pick whatever fits the mood!

📺 TV Shows

• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (HBO Max):
  • Creator Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls) got the idea after he and his wife, Lauren Faust, adopted dogs from an animal shelter. He wondered what a shelter for imaginary friends would look like.
• GANTZ (Netflix):
  • The anime caught up to the manga while it was still being written, so the show had to invent its own ending. The manga kept going for almost another decade, until 2013.
• House (Hulu):
  • Hugh Laurie is British and auditioned by sending a tape he filmed in a hotel bathroom in Namibia, where he was shooting another movie. Director Bryan Singer thought he was American. The show is also a secret Sherlock Holmes retelling: House/Holmes, Wilson/Watson, and House even lives at apartment 221B.
• Samurai Champloo (Jellyfin):
  • Much of the soundtrack was made by Nujabes, a Japanese producer who is often credited, along with J Dilla and Substantial (Stan Robinson), as founding fathers of what's now called "lo-fi hip hop." The "beats to study to" streams trace straight back to this show's era.

🎬 Movies

• EuroTrip (Netflix):
  • It was written by three former Seinfeld writers. The punk singer belting out "Scotty Doesn't Know" is an uncredited Matt Damon, and most of the "European cities" were actually filmed in Prague.
• I, Robot (Disney+):
  • It started as an original script called Hardwired that had nothing to do with Isaac Asimov. After the studio bought the rights to Asimov's I, Robot, they merged the two. Audi also designed a concept car, the RSQ, just for the movie.
• Mean Girls (Jellyfin):
  • Tina Fey adapted it from a nonfiction parenting book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, by Rosalind Wiseman. Lindsay Lohan was originally considered for Regina George.
• National Treasure (Disney+):
  • There really is writing on the back of the Declaration of Independence. It's not a treasure map, just a label written upside down at the bottom: "Original Declaration of Independence, dated 4th July 1776." It was likely there so it could be identified when rolled up.
• Secret Window (Jellyfin):
  • It was written and directed by David Koepp, who also wrote the screenplays for Jurassic Park and the first Spider-Man. It's based on a Stephen King novella called Secret Window, Secret Garden.
• Spider-Man 2 (Disney+):
  • Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon worked on the story. Tobey Maguire was almost replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal after a back injury put his return in doubt.

Grab whatever sounds good. Fair warning: the tavern snacks take a little time, but they're already in the freezer!

🛒 From the Pantry

• Cool Ranch Doritos
  • Doritos were born in the 1960s at Casa de Fritos, a restaurant inside Disneyland, where the kitchen started frying leftover tortillas into chips. Cool Ranch joined the lineup in 1986. Pro gamer tip: eat them with chopsticks so the ranch dust never touches your keyboard. 🥢

🧊 From the Freezer

• Hot Pockets
  • Brothers Paul and David Merage, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran, created them. They first sold them to restaurants as the "Tastywich" in 1980, renamed them in 1983, and got them into grocery stores nationwide by 1985. In 2002, Nestlé bought their company for $2.6 billion.
• White Castle Sliders
  • White Castle opened in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 and is considered America's first fast-food burger chain. The five holes in every patty aren't decoration. They let the burgers steam-cook on a bed of onions without ever being flipped. In 2004, they got their own movie: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
• Totino's Pizza Rolls
  • They were invented in the 1960s by Jeno Paulucci, who had already made a fortune with Chun King, a frozen Chinese food brand. He made the first pizza rolls on the same machines he used to make egg rolls.
• Toaster Strudel
  • Pillsbury launched it in 1985 to compete with Pop-Tarts, and it has to stay frozen, unlike its shelf-stable rival. And yes, according to Gretchen Wieners, her dad invented it.

🍺 From the Tavern

These come from the Hearthstone Innkeeper's Tavern Cookbook. Hearthstone is named after an item you'll have in your bags from the very start of WoW: a stone that teleports you back to your favorite inn.

• Unbeatable Cheese Rolls
  • In gamer slang, "cheese" means a cheap, sneaky strategy that's almost impossible to beat, even if it isn't exactly fair. Hearthstone players love to complain about "cheese decks," so naturally, the cookbook made them delicious.
• Unleash the Corndogs
  • A pun on Unleash the Hounds, a classic Hearthstone card for the Hunter class that fills the board with a pack of dogs. In WoW, Hunters tame wild animals and fight alongside them as pets.
• Virmen Veggie Bites
  • Virmen are rabbit-like pests from Pandaria, a continent added to WoW in 2012, so you won't run into them in WoW: Forever. They're obsessed with stealing vegetables, especially carrots, from the farmers there. Eating veggie bites is basically getting revenge on their behalf.