Todays hardcore Classic isnt precisely the same game as the original Vanilla that was played from 2004 and onwards. There are “small” differences to game mechanics, which all of them are interesting to get to know.
I wonder if anyone has seen an extensive list of these changes/differences ?
How can this info be helpful to you?
The question is rather; Why wouldnt this be interesting ? Right ?
It’s not… There are also many differences between the many versions of the classic.
Of course it is.
How about you play an old client and play it simultaneously to Classic?
Make the list yourself. Imagine how interesting that is!!!
I do not think anyone has list. On forum many has told of differences.
One difference I’ve noticed is in Hardcore you can’t ress.
2005 in EU (november 2004 in US) to be exact.
In vanilla there were GMS providing support and fixing bugs, in classic they don’t exist.
True.
I even remember a topic on the forums where GM’s and players chatted together completely off-topic. Was fun looking “behind” the GM’s daily life and banters from the other side. GM’s where human back then.
Defias pillagers we’re nerfd back in 2005 coz they basically 2shot you from range……
I remember that too. It was great when we had GMs. Some of them were really funny too.
I once had a Gnome GM appear before me, dressed as a pirate. He actually role-played as a pirate throughout the entire exchange and once he’d sorted out my ticket he dumped a load of Volatile Rum into my bags 
Another time we had a guild event to enter Zul’Gurub, this was on an RP server, so we had an in-character meeting in Darnassus before the raid where we acted out our reasons for storming the place. A GM appeared above our heads in the guise of wind serpent. He never said anything just kind of ominously hovered there, but it made the event really cool and memorable.
The first thing I would say is how did you play in 2003? That was early alpha times, when rogues could use bucklers.
he didnt. I would assume he meant he was born in 2003.
FIrst you define which patch of Vanilla you think.
Or you look patch notes here: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Patch_1.1.0
Because Vanilla was not one.
When classic came and there was layering I was like “whats this lol in my vanilla”. Now I can’t bear to play because there is so much people per layer I have to wait to get 1 mob per 2 minutes in quest spots. Doesn’t feel hardcore at all, when there is 3 Kurzen mobs against 20 alliance heroes. Pump up the layers please.
We have an ability to use much more modern addons and we already have 20years of experience in wow. This is the main difference. No need for lists.
A lot of the differences are irrelevant at this stage as Classic progression finished a few years ago now when it moved on to TBC. But a few points:
Honour system changes (recent) you can read about these on the forums .
Community driven. Many of the players on Classic came from the list of now defunct private servers that preceded it. These would be ED, Nost, Ely & LH. This means many players had been playing classic continuously from a period of 2013-2019. This meant the game was completely figured out. Min)max by the community changed the way the game was played.
3a) Due to many PS being designed with nostalgic memories of how hard vanilla was in mind, many of these servers did not use the proper itemization either, but as a result, they overtuned content significantly. This led to players going into early classic content with better gear than they would have in vanilla and much more knowledge, to face bosses easier than expected.
3b) GDKP AND BOOSTING were not as prevalent in vanilla. They existed, but in a very inefficient and primitive way in most cases. A boost was your level 60 mate running you through stockades. In classic people have mathed out how to maximise player XP and farm dungeons in very short periods of time. GDKP Is also the primarily method of raiding on many servers.
3c) Gold inflation caused by Botting. In vanilla, blizzard had a bit more oversight into stopping Botting and were slightly more strict on RMT. They had GMS that would intervene in player disputes directly on occasion and actively ban bots. Bots were also more primitive. In classic, no attempt was ever made to do this.
3d) Server population. Classic players tend to congregate In high pop PvP servers based primarily on hearsay and streamers. These servers could often be 10-15k in population. In vanilla, a high pop server would normally have had about 5k players or so.
3e) Players tend to form monofaction PvP servers, this didn’t really happen in vanilla
I am sure there are more differences but perhaps someone else can share them.