Community Based Retail Server (Retail Server with Classic Approach)

Community General Discussion
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Going forward, what I would like to see is for Blizzard to add servers with special rulesets for Retail/Modern WoW patches and expansions. The aim of these special servers would be to combine a “best of both worlds” approach to the game. Basically, these would be Retail/Modern WoW servers with the rulesets that encourage server community and a social context that has meaning to the players on that server.

Other than potentially siphoning off players, they would NOT affect regular retail servers in any way nor would it affect Classic servers in any way. Regular retail servers can act and function exactly as they are now and the same with Classic servers (whether-or-not Classic+ or Classic TBC was added).

The ruleset for these special “Retail/Modern WoW” servers would be as follows:

1.) No paid transfers on or off the server.
2.) No heirloom gear.
3.) No special XP or level boosts.
4.) No cross-realm dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, arenas, or auction hall.
5.) No paid-for name, race, or faction changes.
6.) No “auto queue” for any dungeon, raid, battleground, instance, or arena. This means no LFR, among other things.
7.) In order to keep battleground match-up times low, alliance teams may fight alliance teams and horde teams may fight horde teams, just as they do in arenas.
8.) Blizzard would employ aggressive incentives and restrictions to balance horde vs alliance populations in order to keep these realms healthy, especially in regards to World PvP. I cannot specify the methods but I would encourage something as strict as “no new characters” of a faction if that faction heavily outnumbered (perhaps >60%/40) the minority faction. Perhaps this rule would only apply to PvP servers of this type.

That’s all I can think for now.

The point would be to create a more “community” oriented server environment while allowing people to enjoy new and fresh content with updated systems.

This would not be for everybody, obviously. But, it seems reasonable there would be a good audience for this. Personally, as someone who re-subbed (along with two friends) to specifically play Classic (which I am currently thoroughly enjoying) I would love to see the same kind of vibe but with modern content.

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No thanks, I do not want to wait in queue for 4 hours on my days off since I work nights.

“Hey Yeetmachine, wanna come play this retail server with ‘classic’ designs with me?”

“Sure man let me hop on.”

“Oh I didn’t mean right now, you have to wait a few months to create a character on my faction. You cannot roll the other faction either because there are no faction changes. It isn’t very ‘classic’ to just allow you to make a character, you have to wait like other normies who were late to the ship.”

Yeah these ideas are lackluster.

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You lost me there.

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Shouldn’t have. Opposed faction games need to be balanced, otherwise let the factions play together.

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Sure, but the way to get there isn’t “aggressive incentives and restrictions.”

Let’s apply this to other scenarios:

Blizzard would employ aggressive incentives and restrictions to get Alliance to turn on War Mode.

Blizzard would employ aggressive incentives and restrictions to get players to participate in Mythic raiding.

Blizzard would employ aggressive incentives and restrictions to get players to participate in PvP when they don’t enjoy that aspect of the game.

Blizzard would employ aggressive incentives and restrictions to [fill in the blank]

They can do better than offering unbalanced rewards or needless restrictions.

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Incentives may not even be necessary to achieve balance… it could be as simple as adding a faction creation throttle, which puts a “cooldown” on creation of characters for the overpopulated faction. The greater the overpopulation, the higher the cooldown until the imbalance hits some kind of set limit (60-65% maybe) at which point creation for that faction is disabled until things balance out.

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Then don’t play on these type of servers. You have would have regular servers to be on and there’s nothing to stop you

Are you opposed to the idea in general or just these specific rules?

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What would they do to enforce the faction balance? Stop letting people make one faction or the other until its balanced?

Then what would they do if a large portion of one faction became bored of this type of server? Stop allowing people of the other faction to log on until its balanced?

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Then what is the way?

Good question, do you have any ideas?

On the other hand, the “faction balance” item is just a small point of the bigger goal which is combining the best of retail with the best of classic. It’s pretty clear to me that dungeon and raid content is better in retail whereas the community atmosphere is better in classic. Why not do something that combines both?

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Doing these type of things risks creating a bunch of small population bases spread out over different rule sets. Classic and retail is enough.

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I dont have any ideas. I cant think of a good way to balance factions without creating more issues then there is currently.

In the past they buffed a race that drew the FOTM/Min,max crowd from one to the other.

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I mean there are plenty of ways they could accomplish this, but at the end of the day, it’s the players who make the choice to go Horde or Alliance. How exactly is Blizzard supposed to account for that.

So let’s say Blizzard opened up such a server, and my guild decided to move there. What happens if one of iur core members isn’t allowed to go Horde, or half are forced to go Alliance? Is breaking up a stable community of friends worth faction balance?

How is Blizzard supposed to account for player interest? Just because they can ensure a strict faction balance doesn’t mean they can ensure balanced participation. Maybe one faction has a sizable PvP community while the other leans more toward PvE and RP. The factions may be equal numerically, but qualitatively, at least from a competitive standpoint, there would be a notable imbalance.

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I’d really rather them -not- take additional dev time away from retail, thank you.

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Go play classic.

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I think what OP is trying to say is he loves classic ( as do I ) but we know its flawed game. But there is community, there is immersion, there is difficulty you need to use your brain, there is a feeling of reward when you grind and get that 40 mount, or the epic that is just unmatched in retail.

We want the best of both. If classic had all the new animations, some new races, mounts, quest design I would be happy man.

But then again how many version of WoW is enough?

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I think you get exactly what I am saying and I think a lot of “retail” players would be better off for a “retail + immersion” experience. I have a handful of “retail” characters (a few of which are at level cap) and one that I’m leveling right now (76 arcane mage) and I can tell you that in the process of leveling the mage, retail WoW feels like a single player game. I love the graphics, the zones, the class systems, and some of the common sense QoL features. However, the overall experience has been gutted. I have made no new friends or acquiantances and though queueing for dungeons is easy and a rapid means of level gain, they are empty experiences. No one really talks. It’s obvious everything there is just there to zoom and get it done. The only reason I am leveling her is because I always wanted a Nightborne mage w/ the heritage armor. All my at cap toons are collecting dust because retail endgame feels very inconsequential. Mythic + rinse and repeat, LFR, and so on… it just doesn’t seem to matter and has no context. I literally cannot name one guild other than my own on retail. Heck, I can’t name one other player I’ve met either other than through my guild, which is now on the skids, no one in the guild logs in anymore.

This is very different than my Classic experience, where in just a very short period of time I am part of a lively guild, feel like the world is a shared experience, and there is a context to what I’m doing because I can recognize other players and other guilds as they are showing up in different parts of the world. I feel like I am part of something bigger than my own leveling/loot chase.

There are defintely some things better in retail WoW and definitely some things better in Classic. These things are not mutually exclusive. Why not combine both?

As for the “why fracture the player base?” argument my thought is this: It’s NOT a zero sum game. Classic has brought back a lot of people back to the fold. So rather than fracturing the WoW player base, it’s restored it. I know of myself, my GF, and my son who re-subbed because of Classic WoW, not despite it. I know of many other resubs as well.

This is a good thread and also speaks to what I’m talking about:

It’s about coherency of the world and why that matters.

To me, it’s about social context. Without that, WoW isn’t that great of a game, the graphics are outdated, the engine is outdated, the combat system is dated, and so on. There are a lot of better single player RPG’s out there that are just more sophisticated. Why play WoW if it becomes a single player experience in essence? Why not just play Witcher 3 or some other highly rated RPG that is better in every other way?

If the answer to all this is just “get into a good retail guild” I would say there’s a bit of a point there but at the same time I have been. I’ve built good retail guilds. But at the end of the day, something is missing from retail WoW. It’s obvious. Why else would classic be so successful even though in so many ways it’s even more dated and painful. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s the notion of immersion, world cohesion, and social context/experience.

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NO just NO. If you want those things then play Classic. All the things you’re asking for belong in Classic NOT Retail.

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This entire idea comes across as ridiculous and a waste of time and resources.

If you want classic, play classic.

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This would go over like a lead balloon. And it’s a waste of dev time. Stop trying to make retail something it isn’t. We need more Connected Realms and not dividing players into separate spaces.

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This idea has been pitched before under the name of pristine servers and I often wonder if it would be a good idea because you can combine the things people liked about old WoW with modern WoW

1 Like