Players in all the other versions are always asking for this and that…
Era players are happy with the way the game is. In fact, we are the only ones that proactively petition for no changes.
Can we please have a fresh server as a reward?
Yes! SoD was not classic+. We like era and Blizzard can’t change without ruining, apparently. Give us a fresh server.
It’s Blizzard’s version of it. And you can always say something isn’t Classic+ because “Classic+” is an amorphous blob.
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self awareness plz
oh and you never answered my question:
aren’t you also xfour?
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Yes - but xfour (the toon) is still protesting 1.15 
It was a bit of a joke, but I do want a fresh server.
To clarify I think it would be much more successful if it was announced as a rolling fresh server:
- 2 year timeline
- last 3 months players can xfer their toons to Era and at the 2 year mark the server will reset to fresh.
- Pvp available on release - 1.12 or 1.14 ruleset but with the lvl 58 blue pvp gear and epics only available at BWL or AQ release.
If this was marketed I think it would grow in population each 2 year season and could become pretty huge after a few because vanilla is really an amazing game.
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You’re going to get fresh servers one day its just not anytime soon.
I can’t bring myself to say that its true that Era players are happier but anecdotally, my community is okay and my small tribe is a contented bunch by all appearances.
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We are all cats dancing to the ‘happy happy happy’ song - that is Era
I don’t think some people understand or appreciate what they have with Era and I mean the current crop of servers/clusters exclusively.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not calling you or anyone out and I am not wholly opposed to fresh Era servers. However, there is much more to be gained and there are way more benefits and opportunities available when it comes to playing an MMO in its progressed end game state.
You can literally play your toons and more with relatively the same crowd for the next decade or more. Look at games like Asherons Call before they regrettably took it offline - A couple thousand people who had played the same game in the same end game state for over a decade or something like that. Their souls were crushed when it was gone.
You can still have a “fresh” experience on an old realm it just requires more effort and yes, forgetting the AQ event. There are diminishing returns with every run and it ultimately becomes indistinguishable from any of the other low pop realms that have been around awhile. It doesn’t make much sense to open more realms if you end up having to close/merge others as part of the process. The cons outweigh the pros here.
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I agree at a high level - one of my favorite parts of Era is that I can stop for months and my toons don’t fall behind. I love being able to logon to my paladin and play WSG at top level anytime, that I can spend half a year+ gearing up my rogue alt, take a long break and come back to where it was.
I also think p6 pvp is a lot better than many people propose. It allows some classes to come into power that actually struggle in the bwl phase (which is what most claim is the best pvp phase).
The reason I propose fresh on a 2 year timeline is because it makes it fun to level new alts. It gives people a chance to practice their leveling routes (each time getting a bit better), it makes an even playing field for new people that want to join era, and it is generally always fun to have a big wave of new levelers fighting it out in world pvp in the 30, 40s and 50s.
That’s why a 2 year timeline is great - if you miss the wave, you know when the next one is coming and have a choice to join midway or wait and prepare for the next one. Also it allows there to be not that many servers - just one pvp / pve server per region should be plenty.
Ultimately some classes / specs are better in p6 - while others are better in the early phases (especially in pve) - these sorts of rolling servers would give people that love the latter a chance to shine with their classes and then they can chill out as the later phases come.
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I’m sort of disappointed.
You the player had an awful lot of thoughts about SoD that would seem to preclude playing seasonal.
I find the insistence that Era players (of which I am one as well) are “happier” or perhaps I should be reading that to mean “better adjusted” in this context to be odd but do you.
I’d say what I believe mirrors that.
Quoted for truth.
Nailed it once again.
Hats off to you.
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The best way to test my thoughts would be to try it.
And now I feel a bit more confident in my views that changing the classes is likely to reduce the quality of gameplay as opposed to increasing it.
I didn’t think it was worth re-discovering this (tbc seems plenty to show the above), but I have no control over what the devs do so if the option is out, I may as well try it.
I find it somewhat amusing that both you and Blizz refer to your preferred version of fresh as a season which doesn’t compete with or diminish Era in anyway. But if your vision of fresh includes at its conclusion the hoarding of trophy characters in Era it’s hard for me to see what Corpse detailed and is currently available as substantially different.
I miss Despite and his calls for server event resets/replays in Era. It’s not a bad idea at all if possible. I see that as a fresh-en up.
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I think fresh and Era highlight different aspects of vanilla.
Having Era is amazing, but fresh can act as a feeding ground for Era - as well as offering a nice option to make new characters, meet new people, and have unique adventures around all zones in Azeroth that often become less populated as everyone become fully geared and focused on raids / bg pvp.
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I don’t begrudge those who umm uhhh errr “enjoy” starting anew in concert with the entire game environment but Ill still point out that you end up at the same place every time which negates the entire “fresh” argupinion or “reasoning” on why they are needed in the first place.
In other words, the entire concept is really pointless and unnecessary and works against the long term good health of the entire community with enough time.
Its far from perfect but Sa has the general gist of a way to implement fresh servers. I have no problem if they say, released one new server per gametype per time zone every year and a half but here’s the thing - if they are to be fused with Era CLUSTERS down the road these “fresh servers” would need to have BGs linked with existing pvp pops from Day 1 and most freshers would throw a fit even thinking about that.
These servers would be totally isolated from current era servers during progression (phase 1 to 6). BGs would only comprise of players from the pvp and pve sever and not be mixed with Era. Players would not be able to xfer to era until the final 3 months and players would never be able to transfer from era to these vanilla-progression servers.
I agree that we end up in the same place, but I disagree that it is pointless, unnecessary, and working against the long term health of the community.
Here are some benefits that the community gains from a rolling vanilla-progression server:
- Race to 60
- Massive world pvp battles in the leveling zug
- Race to first clear each raid
- First rank 14 players
- Fresh economy & smaller population so blizzard can more aggressively manage RMT
- Even ground for players that don’t have Era mains
- Guilds farming prebis / progression with all players together
- More people can attempt to do AQ bug mount chain
- More classes / specs have more of a chance to shine (some classes / specs are better in phase 1 while others better in p6, some are best in the middle.)
One last thing I forgot to add is that it lets players truly feel item progression. Ex. if you are a warrior in P1 and you get an early bonereaver’s edge, you will be feeling a pvp power spike that can perhaps never be matched (maybe an early MoM in p6 comes close). But the point is that items are always relative, and so the power you gain in pvp is relative to how strong everyone else is. The joy of getting a good epic early during progression phases can be much higher than what is gained getting bis-item on era (since many you face in pvp are already full bis).
Yes we all end up back in Era at the end of the ~2 years, but new people were able to join Era in a welcoming way, and people that are already on Era had a chance to level a new alt in a totally fresh journey with a zerg of others.
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ahahahaha
oh the tears
one shot MoMs for everyone erryday
main reason why I disagree with a need for fresh
That’s a potential problem for the Era community especially if you aspire to merge the two sets of players later on down the road. Fresh servers aren’t substantial derivatives like Hardcore or SoD. You’re dividing an already relatively small community. You’re asking one crowd to choose between the same game at two different lifecycle stages with no end in sight to making that choice. That all catches up with you eventually.
It’s probably a big reason why Blizz went with Seasonal Era “fun” servers rather than straight up Fresh offerings on a rotating basis. Too much push and pull and you’ll lose everyone with enough time. At least if Bgs were linked from the start, there would be something tying the two halves of the same community together which would make separating them for a time less jarring and make uniting them with existing clusters seem more fluid and sensical seeing as they were already linked in some fashion.
If we are just going to end up in the same place then what exactly is being accomplished by having fresh servers? The answer of course, is nothing. Then look at the very real, long term potential consequences. All player responses in this regard are either emotional or psychological if not both.
Ultimately the “Fresh” “argument” is self defeating. “There’s nothing to do on a preexisting P6 server so lets make more of them” is the typical rallying cry and you’re not saying anything much different.
I have my own list of needs, wants and expectations out of my gaming experience so without passing judgement I still feel obligated to point out that most of what you listed can be done on an existing server (with a conscientious reroll community within the community) and are more personal in nature than practical.
Something practical would be ‘all the servers are at full’. Era is not a race and server firsts are not a reason. They’re short lived dopamine hits which are cool and all but that cant be your sole motivation to play a game like this because not everyone can get their races won and their bug mounts, the company can’t roll out enough servers on a consistent enough basis to deliver that dopamine for you and the game isn’t exactly built around giving you non stop thrills.
Seeing as Blizz forewent the idea of releasing straight Era servers (and for good reason) under every conceivable circumstance I think the implication and onus is on players to do the best with what they have. Since this is the most community driven offering then that’s probably where the player focus should be.
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Everyone knows if you solo queue in your quest greens you’re guaranteed to face off against fully Naxx geared teams 100% of the time.
There is no need for fresh. More than enough want and desire but sometimes those things don’t translate and we don’t always know what’s best for everyone.
I look at it like this. Thanks to clusters I have like 50 character slots in a game in a forever albeit progressed state. I love 60 WoW. Character creation still works, all the zones, quests, dungeons and raids are still there. Attunements are still a thing. People are still leveling characters, guilds are still recruiting and all manner of content is being run. Community is a beautiful thing.
The only real major difference between a fresh server and progressed one is the AQ event and to me that’s not a huge deal. There’s way more to this game than racing to max level and farming bugs for the chance at a mount in a lagged out zone.
Blizz could divine a way to add fresh servers or add some spice to existing ones with rotating expired events and what not but it would appear they’re not all that worried about Era servers beyond keeping them up which I think is just dandy by itself. Anything else would be a bonus.
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ding ding ding
im in total agreement here but im not one of those jonesing for fresh not that there’s anything wrong with that
just think that the same sweats that need to run the same exclusive events and content over and over (first to clear raid/r14/anything aq related/etc) can adapt to the fresh that blizz is providing - seasonal
or if blizz is able to reset the events once in a while that’s the freshen up opportunity
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