I've put this together to give you guys some tips for vanilla and it's supposed to be a bit about everything. Hopefully you'll find it useful :)
Picking race/class
Go look up old forums for vanilla like:
WoW-one: Vanilla Classes - Feenix - vanilla wow home
Valkyrie-wow: https://valkyrie-wow.org/boards/index.php?showforum=28
Nostalrius: https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewfor...5d6b3204d25aef
Elitist-jerks (Look in archived or last pages section of classes): Public Discussion - Page 118 - Elitist Jerks
All these forums have some guides for each class that's been perfected over so many years. The posts might not have updated since 2012-2015, which in my theory is because the guides has reached it's peak of details. Most of these guides have a section about race choice and benefits from it, but the most important parts of the guides is the addons, macro and leveling spec sections.
Macros, addons and leveling spec
Leveling spec
Look at a few guides and see what leveling spec they suggest. STICK WITH THAT. Don't change halfway or before you get a major powerspike by getting aimed shot or dual wield etc. Also don't respec. It costs way too much and you need the gold for spells and mounts.
Addons
Read through the addon section, see what addons they suggest and look them up. Many of them are basic like xperl for decorating your UI to your liking. But essential class addons like auto shot timers, dot trackers, buff trackers, totem timers are there too. A bunch of addons also replaces spells you'd use as etc. a hunter. You can get an addon that does the same as Beast Lore, but also shows you if there's pets in the zone you're in, that has an ability you want/need. That saves you gold in the long run!
A few addons I'd recommend getting no matter class are:
(You can get most of these addons at wow.titus.me or on the nostalrius forum.)
1. Informant - Shows statistics about items
2. Enhtooltips - Gives you value of items you have in your bags (requires Stubby addon to work).
3. Aux-master (https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=21102) - It's an AH addon that gives the same possibilties like retail/live AH addons. It's not like TSM3 but it's as close as you can get, and the best AH addon for vanilla as of yet.
4. Questie - One of the most important addons for vanilla. It shows where quest objectives are.
5. Vanillaguide (https://github.com/rsheep/VanillaGuide) - It's Joana's 1-60 guide made into an addon like Zygor's. It tells you where to guy, lets you see the steps and also works with MetaMap that's like the vanilla TomTom system. It makes leveling such a breeze if you keep following it.
6. MailTo - Makes mailing so much easier and you can bulk mail items instead of just 1 per mail. It will send multiple mails with one item, but it'll be easier and save you time.
7. OneBag - Just makes the bag ui better
8. vQueue - Not many use it but it's like dungeon finder for vanilla. You can also just use world chat or whatever is on your sever.
9. ImprovedErrorFrame - A LOT of addon errors happen in vanilla and it's annoying with that pop up all the time.
10. Bongos - My go to action bar addon that feels most like bartender in my experience.
Macros
Now macro's are something that's either not really worth looking into (depending on your class) or it can make your class so much more easier/fun. I'd recommend getting SuperMacro so you can get extended and more detailed addons than what vanilla allows you to. Look at the class guides macro section and see what's worth using for YOU. Don't just copy them all and try to make them fit your playstyle. Take what you need or want and use that. An example would be: There's almost 30 different macros for engaging combat as a hunter, sending pet out, hunter's mark, auto shot etc. I tried atleast 10 different of them and most of them didn't work as intended or was buggy. I had to search a bunch on the forums and found one with SuperMacro which makes leveling so much easier. I can just press 1 button + serpent sting and then ALT+TAB to my browser and go on reddit, then 10-15 secs later I can go back and do it again.
Getting gold for mount
There's been a lot of guides over the past 10 years about getting gold in vanilla, and I'm gonna be brushing a bit up against what's already ridden but probably forgotten.
Don't buy spells you don't need
Now most of the people who's tried vanilla knows this. You shouldn't never learn all your spells immediatly. You don't need that rank 2 or 3 of raptor strike when all you're doing is auto shotting. You don't need that mana crystal spell when you conjure water. You don't need to learn mail right when you hit 40 or to learn track elementals/giants/whatever. Get what you need.
Use the right addons, get good bags and hoard like a hoarder
Get informant and enhtooltips (along with stubby to make it work). When most people loot, they only get quest items, potions, cloth, greens/blues/epics etc. But leave out the grey and white trash items. Some take some of it but they pick the wrong things and then don't think it's worth it. You're going to be farming a lot of mobs for quests and a lot of them actually drop some good trash items that sell well. With the two addons you can see what's worth most to vendor, and then keep that instead of the items like Large Fang that only give u 7c.
Get some 8-10 slot bags when you reach 15-20 or as fast as you can. The more space you got the more gold you can carry in items. You can also see what trash items stacks the most and figure whether it's worth keeping 5x Soft Bushy tail that'll be worth ~37s or those 10 scales that'll be worth 50s.
Make a bank alt
Probably everyone has made a bank alt at some point. Make a human/orc and run to SW/Org and keep it there at the mailbox. Send some bags to it and then keep sending all the items you want to sell on the AH. It'll save you a lot of time and money compared to flying back and forth to major cities when your bags are filled with silk cloth. So once in a while when you're at a city with a mailbox, send whatever you have to your alt and then sell it through that one.
Should you farm humanoids or beasts?
It depends on what your professions and goals are. If you're skinning then beasts are often more profitable. If you're tailoring then humanoids would probably be better because of cloth drop. Beasts tend to have more grey items of lower vendor value, where humanoids have cloth drop, uncommon/rare/epic drop along with okay grey drops with low drop chance, along with they also drop liquid cash. I won't be going over where or what to farm since there are tons of guides for that, that'll do a better explanation.
Items to sell for early gold
Getting gold in the early levels (prior to level 20) is not gonna be fast or easy, but once you get higher levels, you'll get more gold. Here's some items to keep in your bags to sell:
1. Cloth. It's pretty basic but everyone needs all types of cloth, though linen and wool don't sell for much.
2. Greens and blues. Almost all greens can be sold on the AH for a profit, some more than others. Look up the value of the item via your bank alt, db.vanillagaming.org or addon tooltips if it's scanned it before.
3. Potions! Even low level potions like the healing potion are worth something since you'll need them for quests later on in 30-40+.
4. Profession items. If you're a gatherer with mining/herb/skinning and don't have a crafting profession then sell the items you gather. Crafting professions cost money and you won't be able to craft anything (besides savory deviate delight) that'll earn you something prior to late game.
5. Quest rewards! With the addons I suggested you can see the vendor value. If you can't use any of the items from quest rewards or they aren't worth using, then pick the one with most vendor value and sell it.
Tips for making Vanilla more fun
Do what you want. Pick the spec you feel is fun, not just pick AoE frost mage because it's faster or because most people do it. Do dungeons if you feel like it. Do wpvp or bg's if you feel like it. There's rewards in it like Sergeant rank gives you reduced cost on your mount too!
Picking race/class
Go look up old forums for vanilla like:
WoW-one: Vanilla Classes - Feenix - vanilla wow home
Valkyrie-wow: https://valkyrie-wow.org/boards/index.php?showforum=28
Nostalrius: https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewfor...5d6b3204d25aef
Elitist-jerks (Look in archived or last pages section of classes): Public Discussion - Page 118 - Elitist Jerks
All these forums have some guides for each class that's been perfected over so many years. The posts might not have updated since 2012-2015, which in my theory is because the guides has reached it's peak of details. Most of these guides have a section about race choice and benefits from it, but the most important parts of the guides is the addons, macro and leveling spec sections.
Macros, addons and leveling spec
Leveling spec
Look at a few guides and see what leveling spec they suggest. STICK WITH THAT. Don't change halfway or before you get a major powerspike by getting aimed shot or dual wield etc. Also don't respec. It costs way too much and you need the gold for spells and mounts.
Addons
Read through the addon section, see what addons they suggest and look them up. Many of them are basic like xperl for decorating your UI to your liking. But essential class addons like auto shot timers, dot trackers, buff trackers, totem timers are there too. A bunch of addons also replaces spells you'd use as etc. a hunter. You can get an addon that does the same as Beast Lore, but also shows you if there's pets in the zone you're in, that has an ability you want/need. That saves you gold in the long run!
A few addons I'd recommend getting no matter class are:
(You can get most of these addons at wow.titus.me or on the nostalrius forum.)
1. Informant - Shows statistics about items
2. Enhtooltips - Gives you value of items you have in your bags (requires Stubby addon to work).
3. Aux-master (https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=21102) - It's an AH addon that gives the same possibilties like retail/live AH addons. It's not like TSM3 but it's as close as you can get, and the best AH addon for vanilla as of yet.
4. Questie - One of the most important addons for vanilla. It shows where quest objectives are.
5. Vanillaguide (https://github.com/rsheep/VanillaGuide) - It's Joana's 1-60 guide made into an addon like Zygor's. It tells you where to guy, lets you see the steps and also works with MetaMap that's like the vanilla TomTom system. It makes leveling such a breeze if you keep following it.
6. MailTo - Makes mailing so much easier and you can bulk mail items instead of just 1 per mail. It will send multiple mails with one item, but it'll be easier and save you time.
7. OneBag - Just makes the bag ui better
8. vQueue - Not many use it but it's like dungeon finder for vanilla. You can also just use world chat or whatever is on your sever.
9. ImprovedErrorFrame - A LOT of addon errors happen in vanilla and it's annoying with that pop up all the time.
10. Bongos - My go to action bar addon that feels most like bartender in my experience.
Macros
Now macro's are something that's either not really worth looking into (depending on your class) or it can make your class so much more easier/fun. I'd recommend getting SuperMacro so you can get extended and more detailed addons than what vanilla allows you to. Look at the class guides macro section and see what's worth using for YOU. Don't just copy them all and try to make them fit your playstyle. Take what you need or want and use that. An example would be: There's almost 30 different macros for engaging combat as a hunter, sending pet out, hunter's mark, auto shot etc. I tried atleast 10 different of them and most of them didn't work as intended or was buggy. I had to search a bunch on the forums and found one with SuperMacro which makes leveling so much easier. I can just press 1 button + serpent sting and then ALT+TAB to my browser and go on reddit, then 10-15 secs later I can go back and do it again.
Getting gold for mount
There's been a lot of guides over the past 10 years about getting gold in vanilla, and I'm gonna be brushing a bit up against what's already ridden but probably forgotten.
Don't buy spells you don't need
Now most of the people who's tried vanilla knows this. You shouldn't never learn all your spells immediatly. You don't need that rank 2 or 3 of raptor strike when all you're doing is auto shotting. You don't need that mana crystal spell when you conjure water. You don't need to learn mail right when you hit 40 or to learn track elementals/giants/whatever. Get what you need.
Use the right addons, get good bags and hoard like a hoarder
Get informant and enhtooltips (along with stubby to make it work). When most people loot, they only get quest items, potions, cloth, greens/blues/epics etc. But leave out the grey and white trash items. Some take some of it but they pick the wrong things and then don't think it's worth it. You're going to be farming a lot of mobs for quests and a lot of them actually drop some good trash items that sell well. With the two addons you can see what's worth most to vendor, and then keep that instead of the items like Large Fang that only give u 7c.
Get some 8-10 slot bags when you reach 15-20 or as fast as you can. The more space you got the more gold you can carry in items. You can also see what trash items stacks the most and figure whether it's worth keeping 5x Soft Bushy tail that'll be worth ~37s or those 10 scales that'll be worth 50s.
Make a bank alt
Probably everyone has made a bank alt at some point. Make a human/orc and run to SW/Org and keep it there at the mailbox. Send some bags to it and then keep sending all the items you want to sell on the AH. It'll save you a lot of time and money compared to flying back and forth to major cities when your bags are filled with silk cloth. So once in a while when you're at a city with a mailbox, send whatever you have to your alt and then sell it through that one.
Should you farm humanoids or beasts?
It depends on what your professions and goals are. If you're skinning then beasts are often more profitable. If you're tailoring then humanoids would probably be better because of cloth drop. Beasts tend to have more grey items of lower vendor value, where humanoids have cloth drop, uncommon/rare/epic drop along with okay grey drops with low drop chance, along with they also drop liquid cash. I won't be going over where or what to farm since there are tons of guides for that, that'll do a better explanation.
Items to sell for early gold
Getting gold in the early levels (prior to level 20) is not gonna be fast or easy, but once you get higher levels, you'll get more gold. Here's some items to keep in your bags to sell:
1. Cloth. It's pretty basic but everyone needs all types of cloth, though linen and wool don't sell for much.
2. Greens and blues. Almost all greens can be sold on the AH for a profit, some more than others. Look up the value of the item via your bank alt, db.vanillagaming.org or addon tooltips if it's scanned it before.
3. Potions! Even low level potions like the healing potion are worth something since you'll need them for quests later on in 30-40+.
4. Profession items. If you're a gatherer with mining/herb/skinning and don't have a crafting profession then sell the items you gather. Crafting professions cost money and you won't be able to craft anything (besides savory deviate delight) that'll earn you something prior to late game.
5. Quest rewards! With the addons I suggested you can see the vendor value. If you can't use any of the items from quest rewards or they aren't worth using, then pick the one with most vendor value and sell it.
Tips for making Vanilla more fun
Do what you want. Pick the spec you feel is fun, not just pick AoE frost mage because it's faster or because most people do it. Do dungeons if you feel like it. Do wpvp or bg's if you feel like it. There's rewards in it like Sergeant rank gives you reduced cost on your mount too!