As a community, we seem to have forgotten a few things. The launch of the Beta managed to turn the classic community on itself the way retail was for months before the Great Exodus began and masses of subs quietly left. I would really like to avoid that here, and though I am only one voice, there are plenty of others here trying to keep folks from going full retail.
First, the Beta was never random and if you aren’t in yet, you should probably make other plans for the 91 days you have left before Classic launches. Me? I got a bunch of Nolzur’s magnificent Miniatures and a nice new D&D campaign to run my group through.
Second, complaints =/= toxicity just because they are a viewpoint you don’t like. Throwing that word around like a drunk making it rain at a strip club has only taken away its meaning and tends to make most people just roll their eyes (this applies in real life as well, just watch people when you use it on them.)
Third, and most important, streamer hate is worthless. Yes, I would like to know what servers certain ones are going to so that I can avoid them as they have admitted using their followers to abuse the reporting system. I am also not thrilled that they made a very poor choice and streamed an AQ gate run while most people (not all, most) could not get past either the login or character creation screen for up to 3 hours during the stress test. Yes, the not getting in provided great data, no, doing a stunt run did not. having said that, streamers are about the best targeted marketing that Blizzard has for this product. I am not saying we should like them, I am saying we should respect the fact that they are bringing attention to classic in a high enough volume to hopefully ensure its success.
In short, we have 91 days. We get to download the client early, pick servers, organize a guild via retail or discord and even make 3 characters weeks before launch. Relax. Let people burn themselves out on Beta knowing that you can approach it fresh. Finally, if you did play vanilla, then watching one stream (don’t care which) for even a little bit coupled with a stress test should spark your memory enough to bring you back up to patch 1.12 speed.
Have a great summer, I will hopefully see you in Classic.