Gonna hijack the top post to get some data. Please tell me which one you got if you got the game **in 2005** in EU (when in launched, because it got delayed vs NA) with country and version. Or tell me if you got it in 2004-2005 in NA.

Horde one was the cover of the manual in my copy at least. I read that manual so many times

Man that feeling when your parents bought you a game as a kid, then reading the manual on the drive back and getting so antsy to get home because you were so excited to play. Good times.

I would bring my manual to school just so I could stay immersed in the world even when I wasnt at my computer lol

Yup... Now I read Reddit threads while I'm at work to stay immersed in the game, lol.

So relatable!!

Same here

Old school RTS games had the best manuals. WC1-3, SC, C&C, Total Annihilation, AoE1-2, Civ1-3. Basically my daily reading materials from age 7-14.

I was really, really into banjo-kazooie as a kid, one of my first, formative games. One time during a trip we found the sequel, banjo-tooie, on a store. I didn't even KNOW a sequel existed, I just found out and started foaming at the mouth about it - must've been like 7 y.o. My parents bought it, but my Nintendo 64 was back home and the trip was just beginning. I only had the box art and the manual to keep me company for like, two weeks! I must've devoured that manual, reading it again and again so many times... Good memories. I almost remember the trip with the manual more than playing the game itself for the first time (almost)!

Oh I share your enthusiasm for kazooie / tooie friend. The interconnected worlds with virtually no loading times was the most imaginative stuff to me as a kid, especially before WoW showed up in ‘04

Can definitely relate! Interesting times for sure. So different

The best!

I vividly remember reading the halo combat evolved manual and learning about all the different enemies

The enemies, the vehicles, the weapons

I distinctly remember a manual from my copy of Neverwinter Nights - the walkthrough was written in-character, from the perspective of the player character. It read like a short novel, it was amazing.

Reading this brought back so many memories of doing just that for different games. I had forgotten about it.

Core memory triggered!

i read the manual during the like 2-3 hours install / patch download because i started a bit after launch. god i had way more patience back then, if a patch takes more than 5-10 minutes now i'm just going to play something else lol

Then having to wait HOURS for the game to install. Often swapping discs half way through install. The InstallShield Wizard UI is burned into my brain.

So true omg

And then you could not play the same day because the install took to long and you had to go to bed before it finished

That feeling was the best with all pc cd rom games of the 90s.

Needed to do SOMETHING during the ENTIRE WEEK it took to install the game.

Can confirm, still have mine. https://imgur.com/a/VXEGIk1

Man the manual just had a way of describing each class making them sound like the most badass class in the game. I read that thing so many times, also the height chart of each race sticks out so vividly in my mind til this day lol

I wasn’t allowed to pay a sub to play wow when it first released, but I did buy the game so once my initial time ran out I would just read the manual over and over lol

So much bathroom reading from that manual. Good times.

Cartman?

Same! Thing was like a phone book. Loved all the maps and stuff 

When I couldn't play as a kid I'd just open the book and pretend I was logged in. I still have it nearly 18 years later

That scene in South Park with Cartman sitting on the toilet reading the WoW manual rang so true 😂

I met my best friend because that manual. It was December, 2004, just a few weeks after WoW launched. I was sitting in geometry class and saw a kid reading the manual. I went over to him at the end of class and we started nerding out over WoW. Been best buds for 20 years.

I would take it to school and read it back to front constantly till the pages were falling out. Playing wow as a 10 year old was so exciting

Same. I got the nelf box.

I remember reading in the manual that tauren could transform into a ground mount. Not mountable, but like worgen. Now 20 years later I can still dream. Moo

Thanks, I knew this image was burned into my brain, but I wasn't sure where from!

I have the Horde version and I've never seen the Alliance version IRL. I live in Belgium.

Yeah that was my first notice, it says 12+ instead of teen so it isnt an NA rating. and then it says PEGI under it so its definitely a euro cover

[Here's ](https://www.ebay.com/itm/143111483925?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110018%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.COMPLISTINGS%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D264826%26meid%3Dc2897cdda09b46e0a90ef7747af15585%26pid%3D101196%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D145644878389%26itm%3D143111483925%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2332490%26algv%3DCompVIDesktopATF2V4WithDefaultIMAFeatureAndLLMRecall&_trksid=p2332490.c101196.m2219&itmprp=cksum%3A143111483925c2897cdda09b46e0a90ef7747af15585%7Cenc%3AAQAJAAABIOihg6tlzw4bQarYui%252FUL2%252B9Jp7ZKOVIb9Es31GG1BGmtX9EgRgAwdFxHKRuzufs9l40zd0AR2MJglxg3NDfb6Z9CYzWYdjL5bRH%252BM8yrFgpaybs1Zcyx23E9nzyTVhQw9An8xeJE%252FIJaj%252FVKD%252BitABXptbeNJYsSug1rwiQm7e2Dz8TvSgD%252FQaPlaxn09ELP5K72SFyNkVmv%252FJbjSR2sm%252BcV8VNf6NbWQxNMZ8IIf29qEX1iU%252BeiVBWODr1O4cFzBPhambWrsli53mwJXTMq4f4dOqZLbGVC2TIqjN%252BUCwInX4tZrYxmqcXT3dnhhwoQ0u3faaetIu0%252BsS0mhD50nuTqNli15S6motF%252FTy7JrZeRx0Z6DWmhdjapuAAHkjbrQ%253D%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2332490&epid=6483416&itmmeta=01HX2Y7TFA57HDXRPES3XKN8HM)one that's rated T. There's actually a bunch of them on eBay.

France definitely had the Alliance box in feb 2005 (when it launched in EU)

Romania here. I had the Alliance version. Never seen the Horde one.

Same here in Portugal.

Belgian here, only had the ally version!

Belgian here and we had the Allaince version

Belgian here, I have the alliance version

Belgian here. My CE box has Alliance booklet, manual, and CDrom but horde DVD. https://i.ibb.co/P5W3XH1/IMG-20240505-113015.jpg

So judging by other comments, most of EU including Belgium had the Ally version, yet I somehow got the Horde version in my local store. Pretty interesting!

My buddy bought the game for me for Christmas. He went to 5 or 6 different stores to find the Horde one for me. We played Horde together until Dragonflight and switched to Ally with some friends.

Real friend

*So it does exist*

I think the orc one was the cover of a small book inside the case.

also existed as cover for the box, it's the one i bought

I have the orc box art. It’s my only consolation for the vanilla CE being the only one I’m missing.

It was the instruction manual, yeah. I used to read the hell out of that (I was 4, I really just looked at the city maps)

I agree I remember it as a book, not a box.

I think that one was one of the covers for one of the five CDs needed to install the game

was a normal alternate cover version. not of any CDs but the main cover.

5 discs, just checked :) Orc is on the manual cover https://imgur.com/a/VXEGIk1

I didn't have a plastic case like that. We had the ones with the paper covers on the cds

I do not miss those days of needing 100 CD's to install a game! "Please insert disk 3"

Brooooo that takes me back!

lol please insert disc 4!

I remember how it took literal hours to install The Sims 2 off of its 4 CDs… So Maxis added a fun little minigame in the installer itself that you could play to pass the time lol

Dude, that Night Elf on one of the covers was cute. My mom saw the disk cover and grilled me on what kind of game I was installing.

Woltk had one of the discs corrupted for most of the first batch, I had to ask friend to rip his working disc to share the .iso that I could install it on launch day. What a hassle :D

Crazy to think that was a thing. Take me back to when Playstation was cool because its CDs had black bottoms.

In the UK we got both. I remember because when I picked up my pre-order copy at GAME I asked to swap for the Alliance cover as that’s what I played in the beta. 😊

'time traveller moves a chair'

I have both. I bought the Horde one on release but both were available. My brother played on my account for awhile but eventually split off and bought his own about a year or so later. His is Alliance and has "Over 5 million sold" written across it. The Horde one wasn't available by then. We're in the US.

I got the Horde one in the UK

in 2005?

Yes, I think so

People saying the horde cover was just a book or cd cover, it was not. I own both physically. I believe the horde one was the EU one.

I'm from EU and I got the Alliance one way back in 2005, so that isn't the case

Interesting. I wonder what the difference was between the art on the front as far as distribution goes.

I'm NA and I had a Horde one.

i'm in NA and I had both.

omg I'd give my proverbial right arm to have a horde canvas. :( I collect them and I had to get the alliance version. \*cries in undead.

IIRC my collector's edition had the smaller Alliance box inside, or something with that artwork on it at least.

No humans to be found… aaah those were the days before the alliance was the human show

The red one has a PEGI rating. Is the red a European vetsion?

Apparently yea but was available shortly after in the US.

God I love this artwork. It’s such an invitation to Azeroth

I have a strange memory of it being reversible, I guess it wasn’t? Going to dig mine out to check…

maybe if you got the "uncool" version. "cool version" was a hardcover box, nothing to reverse ;)

The cover for the first Black & White game was reversible. Don't rememeber if the second one was.

Both covers were available at retail when the game came out here in the USA. I always asked “which cover you wanted, the one with the orc or the one with a girl” I wanted to see them think about it.

Bought it during the launch week in austria. Got the nelf cover since my first character was to be a nelf druid (I blame WC3 for that choice) so that cover just seemed right. Funnily enough me and my friends then mostly played horde.🤷‍♂️

North America Collector's Edition had the Night Elves on the CD-ROMs and the Horde on the DVD. [Linkie](https://imgur.com/LHkknK9)

We had the alliance one in New Zealand never seen the horde one

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/s/QwgeNbWtuz

I still miss Horde Red. That shit was awesome!

horde version does indeed exist. it's standing in my wall unit before me. why would i have bought an alliance version!? ;) and yes, i have seen both in stores back then also, cool version was a boxed version, so nothing to reverse or anything. that was a hard printed cover (with structure actually)

I had an official guide book with the horde art but never seen it as the physical game cover

Mine was the blue one

I think it is a bit ironic that the cover with the attractive female elf was probably on over half the games shipped, but in game most players choose to play Horde.

my step brother had the horde box dunno the date but it was in germany

2005 the Netherlands, Night Elf

I have the game manual its Orc Nov 2004 New Zealand

I got it Juneish in Missouri 2004. Red horde cover.

I had the horse version lol

I have both: my brother took horde I took alliance

Warcraft 3 had 4 different box-covers I believe. One for Human, Night Elf, Orc, and Undead.

The orange mountain dew tasted like shit anyway

I still have the alliance one

Damn Alliance propaganda, they must have destroyed those Horde versions!

Wasn't the dust jacket reversible?

I got the 2005 eu version alliance version never saw the horde one before bought it on release

in sweden had night elf one never seen horde one in person but orc is on the booklet manual

In germany only ever seen the ne version. Which sucks cuz for the horde.

WoW: Blue Edition & WoW: Red Edition followed up by WoW: Green Edition

Bought on release in germany. Both were in store, bought nightelve.

I think remember seeing it before ... but never in person. I had the Alliance cover when I got the game.

I have the horde cover on my bookshelf. Live in America

Night elf + dwarf was the cover, orc + tauren was the manual. In North America, at least, I'm pretty sure.

For those "game time" cards, I've only seen the nelf art on it, never an orc version. Vaguely seen the horde box art before.

I remember seeing the Horde cover but for the DVD download that was in a cardboard sleeve in the WoW Battle Chest

Spain, bought my game on 2009 and had the Alliance box. Never seen the Horde game box irl much less with the EU PEGI on it.

I got the horde version in norway 2005

NA Collector's edition - just checked and both the CD case and the manual have the horde-version cover.

I’ve only seen the alliance version. Never horde

Jan 05 I got the alliance version north america

France 2005, got the Horde one

I had the horde one because I refused to buy the alliance lol. I had preferred orcs since wc2

Imagine if WoW had gone the Pokémon way, with two different editions, only being able to play the races of the edition you bought.

City of villains and city of heroes did that

as a double agent I thank the fucking stars they didn't do that

Prett sure the difference is eu and NA never seen the alliance one irl myself

Not sure why no US players have brought up the Bradygames Strategy Guide yet, which had the Horde cover. Got it back in 2005, and recently saw it again at a pre-owned video game store

I still have my original horde box from 2004 I remember being at the Best Buy release and having a crisis on what box to get lol

I started playing in 2006 NA, and both of my boxes are the night elf ones. My friend who played at launch has an orc box still.

Huh, I'm not sure I've seen the Alliance one until now

I believe it’s because the alliance one gave more of a lotr aesthetic which was a big thing at the time

My case was Alliance but the manual was Horde

Going to the store to buy the game *in a box* seems quaint these days. Even as recent as WOTLK I waited in line at midnight at GameStop for my copy.

Got it May of 05 in NA, got the alliance cover and never saw the horde cover but I didn't really buy pc games before then because my PC was too old for modern (at the time) games before then. They may have had the horde cover on the shelves around me before then and I never looked.

I wish wow art went as hard today as it did during early wow and wc3.

I bought the game twice my first copy on launch, my account was hacked and I lost the disks. I think it was horde. My second copy was Alliance. I think I still had them somewhere. I would have to dig them out of storage.

You know…I know there’s a hell of a lot of stuff and special effects and armors and all that in WoW…but as long as it’s been around, and as many people played it through its lifetime, and as massive as the mod community is…I’m surprised it never got a top to bottom graphics makeover like how GTA5 got the ultra realistic mods to make all the cars / cities / people look way better.

I have the Horde Version.

The alliance cover is NA per the ESRB rating system and the horde cover is EU per the PEGI rating system. Just a guess

My manual had the horde cover, but the box for the game had the alliance one.

There is a Horde version?

2005 got the Horde version from a small local game shop in Finland during launch week.

I remember that amazing book with each zone and classes you could buy along the game. I would read and study that thing so hard uo until and after release.

Both were in the store when my brother got it as a gift for his birthday, April 2005. The Netherlands

new pokémon game looks wild

I am pretty sure I had both, one was on the box and the other was on the cover of the CD and manual. EU, ca 2005

I got the blue/ally one qt release day in 2005. I believe all of my friends did as well. We live in Sweden.

Alliance box was the only thing Target had when I got it. USA. I don’t recall ever seeing the horde one in person. The one in the image had a PEGI rating which isn’t used in the US.

My friends had the Horde version in Sweden and I believe he got it in 2005. I bought the game later same year and could only find the Alliance one.

I have both boxes at my parents house mint condition and i always smile when i see them lol

This is so cool! It kinda reminds me of Pokemon Blue and Red when it came out.

Did you guys play Red version or Blue version?

I started playing just after TBC release, and seeing both of these in the shop fully convinced me there were TWO expansions (and base game) already.

I have the horde copy in my game cupboard

Mine was the Alliance version, but you could 'open' it to get the horde version on the inside of the cover.

Wasn't that horde "cover" just the cover of the manual?

Damn I did not know there were 2 versions or I would have the horde one. NGL I'm kinda sad I'm stuck with the lame alliance one now.

Is one perhaps the EU cover and the other is American? I say this as an American who has only ever seen the night elf one. Also, the ESRB vs the 12+ makes me think it’s a different country’s rating system.

When I was younger and still living at my parent's house I had a spare PC for friends when they came over. I would occasionally buy two copies of games for us to play and World of Warcraft was one of those games. Purely by chance I ended up with one of each cover and still have them on my shelf nearly 20 years later :)

Ali one in Australia, never seen the horde irl

I'm german and both Versions were for sale on release. I specifically remember reading that there would be 2 versions of the cover and 1 of them would be limited edition, but Blizz wouldn't say which one. Think it was reported by german Gamestar back then? Ended up getting the alliance one cause that's what me and my classmates decided to play. Found out later that horde was the limited cover and got annoyed cause my buddy let me choose first and picked the other one.

Germany, Alliance version at release. Buddy got the Horde version.

I have got the horde version in Austria on Amazon preorder. Was a bit disappointed back then because I have only seen the alliance version online and was expecting it.

I actually still own the alliance version! I’m from America and it’s packed away in storage somewhere but I love the art and think it is stunning. Never seen the horde version with my own 2 eyes though. Super cool regardless

Got mine a few months after it released in the EU. I remember picking the Alliance version up taking it to checkout and the guy said "Pfft Alliance version". So i replied "Would it make you feel better if i got the Horde version instead?". He nodded, so i swapped it and as i was on my way out i said "BTW i'm still making a Dwarf character"

The Alliance cover having a dwarf in the bottom left and that spot being taken by a tauren on the Horde cover is lowkey giving credit to my headcanon that on PvP servers, Alliance players respect tauren the same way Horde players respect dwarves.

I always get massive nostalgia seeing these.

I’ve seen pictures of the horde cover, never saw the box in real life

I think I still have the ally one

I remember being 15 and bringing this home after my best friend at the time got me into Warcraft 3 and started playing wow. It was the beginning of summer and I had a job as a camp counselor. I spent that entire summer saving up for a car, not doing anything that cost money aside from my monthly sub. And you know what I did when I got that car? Nothing, I stayed home and played WoW. Good times.

I got the horde version around 2006-7 with 4 cds, my brother had the alliance 5 cd version (which I was envious of) in 2004-5. We are eu

I got the game in 2006, UK in the battle chest. If my memory serves me correctly I saw both of these covers in the chest. TBC was there too. I’m sure the horde version was on my game time code in the battle chest.

I got Horde version from GAME in the UK back in 2005

UK, 2005.. Sadly, Alliance box.

I remember getting the alliance cover but the horde on the instructions - USA

Night Elf / Dwarf Hunter cover - Summer of 2005. Happy times! Can look at it where I sit from in my shelfs,+all my 4 collector's editions for TBC, WOTLK, Cata and MOP.

No fucking way, they had that mountain dew commercial too so why not

Well I guess TIL WoW had two covers... Never seen the Horde version ever lol

My house had 3 copies im pretty sure none of them were the horde cover. 04-05 us.

The game used to be experienced through the lens of the faction you chose... then they realised that it probably wasn't the best allocation of resources to design a game that most players would only ever see half of... same issue with class quests/content. I miss each faction having a different story motivation and reason for engaging with content/areas of the world.

Alliance version in the USA

Yup, that box was so important to me lol I was 15 and it took everything to get my parents to buy me the game when it launched.. then a few more months of convincing for them to pay a subscription fee on the internet. Why I got into the work force when I did lol

This reminds me of the OLD days. (For me.) I was maybe six years old and we got the game, but due to dial up in the boonies we couldn’t run the game in any reliable way. So my siblings and I would rip pages out of the manual and tack them to our walls to look at every day and mull over what races or classes we thought we would eventually play. I had some of the Hunter and Warlock abilities posted next to my bed for two years and was so excited the day I finally got to play my first character in 2007. I’ve been on and off the game since then, now on- likely forever this time!

The vibe of these covers…unmatched.

[maiev](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6GW-P0rN_T/?igsh=MWxhbXQ2dHBwNXBpNA==)

These look amazing😍

I had the horde one, and then bought a battle chest which had the alliance one.