I have an idea for wrath era server(s) that I have not yet seen proposed on the forums, so here it is:
Premise:
Wrath era players want to continue to play their current characters (and new ones) on a permanent wrath era server. Cataclysm players intend to play cataclysm, and may or may not care about wrath era servers existing. Blizzard wants players to enjoy the game and make money. How do we make everyone happy?
The current list of wrath servers will progress to cataclysm just as TBC did to wrath, this is inevitable. The way I see it, there are two realistic ways for wrath era to exist.
Argument 1
A complete copy of the wrath servers and player option to select wrath or cata, with an optional purchasable character clone to play on both. The same thing they did with classic era when TBC launched. This seems to be a huge undertaking, is messy, and unlikely to happen.
Argument 2 — This is my main idea
One or more new servers created that are dedicated permanent wrath era servers on the final patch. The museum, wotlk valhalla. These new servers open and players have the option to transfer (for free) their characters, until cataclysm launches and the server transfers are closed forever. With all wrath era players transferring into the same minimal number of servers (1 or 2, maybe more?), many players will be forced to re-name their characters. You might get lucky and keep your character name, maybe not. But if someone truly wants to keep a character on wrath era, a possible name-change would be an acceptable compromise for a much simpler way for Blizzard to implement wrath era. Blizzard could also offer a purchasable character clone for people who want to progress to cataclysm and keep a wrath era copy of the same character. If you transfer to wrath era and later on want to play that character on cataclysm? Buy a server transfer.
Please keep comments polite and rational. We can argue all day about the differences between wrath and cata, arguments in support of one or the other. This is a thread about how to keep all three parties happy (wrath era players, cataclysm players, and Blizzard).
This is another option. Then allow wrath players to transfer to the cataclysm realms if they want to.
The reasoning behind my argument is that if a player takes no action, their character will progress to cataclysm, which I assume is what Blizzard wants.
I do not see the logical connection between those, and I wish you could support my proposal even without TBC era. I would support a TBC era server for you and others, but I do not know how Blizzard would implement that. They would have to have a snapshot of all of our character data from the end of TBC and allow you to create those characters on a new TBC era server. Or everyone who wants TBC era would have to accept a fresh start. Either way, I hope you get TBC era.
They can implement TBC as easily as Wrath. They already said that they have the backup and tech for that in the latest interview. They just don’t want to.
And why do I bring this up? Because everyone has different preferences and starting to cater everyone will just be a big mess. At some point we end with 45656523615 versions with each having < 500 people. For me they already have enough versions. We are at 5 WoW Versions, 4 of them are “Classic”.
As long as we have TBC and Wrath Classic Old World Eras. Then it’ll be fine. I came to play Classic WoW for the Old World and basically being forced to not play a Blood Elf Paladin on the Horde because of Cataclysm instead of finally having the option to play a Blood Elf during the TBC and Wrath Classic Old World Era.
I did not know that regarding the TBC backup data, thank you for educating me. I agree with the fragmentation concern, it is legitimate. My thoughts are that there are enough people who would play wrath such that you could still get BG queues and raids, though perhaps only at primetime and the BG weekends. I do not have my fingers on the pulse of TBC interest, so I am less confident in saying TBC era would have a playable population, but I hope it would for you and other’s sake.
As for all the current classic servers, I am probably in the minority in saying only classic era should exist. If I had it my way, hardcore and SoM/SoD would not exist. That would help on the fragmentation front. It could be classic era, tbc era, wotlk era, and current cataclysm progression. Still 4 iterations of classic out of 5 game versions, but I think it would make more people happy than the current 3 types of vanilla. Unfortunately this will not happen.
One thing you need to know about Drain, he specifically doesn’t want anyone going forward. He believes anyone that wants to play Cata should have to start over from scratch
Basically, he’s one of those bad attitude trolls I mentioned in the other thread
Shoot if they make all realms go cata… I’m am perfectly fine starting fresh on a new wrath server. if thats what has to be done. I would start fresh on a BC server just to have one. Let cata keep the botted out servers as they are lol
Will be a good 2-3 months before bots are a pain again maybe longer since cata is the big gun now.
If they were to do that they’d do it the other way round, with WotLK servers going to Cata and the Era servers being what you’d transfer to. It’s what they did the first time with Classic Era and I doubt they’d change the order if they were to do it.
Both in game gold, and RL money.
As many people making significant income with GDKP/RMT it’s no wonder they don’t want the interruption in their flow.
It will be back up and running in Cata tho, no worries.
I think this is best TBO.
Let CATA have all the bot infested realms. Wrath fresh would be at least 2-3 months before bots are even noticeable.
When us Wrath lovers are hitting level 50+ cata players will have all the time they need to see CATA is trash once again and start filling up our Fresh.
Lol, that is a good one tbh and you’re probably right.
With my idea #2, neither wrath nor cataclysm players will lose their character progress, everyone wins! It’s not about the gold for me, I’m one of those noobs in a loot council guild. I’ve got thousands of hours on my main here since day 1 back in August 2019, saved T1-T3 in the bank and almost at 100k HKs.
I agree this is likely to happen–the wrath era server would be far less populated compared to pre-cata once cata drops. But I think it has staying power, some people will never leave and some people might trickle back in when cataclysm hype dies down towards the second half of phase 1. There will be reasonable battleground queues for the BG weekends. As for raiding, it will mostly likely be dominated by PUG GDKPs. Not everyone’s favorite but at least you can carry on your main to later fund your alt.
You are the only post I have seen asking for this!
Did you miss out on the current wotlk progression? I know it is rough to jump on board midway through when everyone else is mostly geared and the gatekeeping kicks in.
That does sound enticing but I want to keep my beloved shammy here and all of his cool stuff! I agree the bot>rmt>gdkp culture kind of sucks. I just play BGs and raid 2 nights a week with a guild so I can mostly ignore it. But if I get clapped by a ret pally with shadowmourne, they are definitely a filthy gold buyer!
