Expansion Era Servers and the future of Classic

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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With the announcement of Cataclysm Classic and Blizzcon 2023 Q&A statement of “no plans for Wrath era servers” I’d like to address why a player would be interested in dedicated era servers for every expansion, and question what is the future of Classic WoW without them.

I’m not trying to argue against Cataclysm Classic or the progression of Classic servers, infact I would love to see if there is interest far enough to see Legion and BFA again. Especially for people who genuinely did not get to experience all those years ago. However as someone who has played the game on and off since 2005 and has already experienced progressing through raid tiers, balance patches and all matter of additions and removals- the notion of being able to enjoy an expansion in a preserved era state without the threat of it shutting down after 2 years is why I would like to continue playing.

Every expansion brings with it a unique experience, whether it’s PvE, PvP, class design and talents. Often times capturing the exact feel of that specific gameplay cannot be replicated in the following expansion:

  • A player does not have the functional choice to be a Shadowmourne wielding Blood Death Knight DPS in Cataclysm
  • A player does not have the functional choice to use a bow/ranged as Survival Hunter in Legion
  • The massive scale of Wintergrasp (non-battleground version) and the rewards it yields are only available and relevant in Wrath.
  • Expansion-specific instances, zones, talents and abilities, Class raid buffs, Mastery, Resilience, PvP stat templates, Tol Barad, Ashran, 5v5 arena, Challenge Mode armor sets, AOTC mounts, Artifact/Azerite power, the list goes on and on of memorable things from the past.

For some, these expansion-specific reasons are the essential basis for what makes the game so enjoyable, and why being forced into the next expansion yet again feels like a letdown when they suddenly become irrelevant or unavailable.

Take Dragonflight as a live comparison. Though the talent trees are back and fun the game remains riddled with the balancing issues of class buffs and nerfs nearly every week and a confused playerbase constantly asking for re-works of their desired class spec. Yet despite all of the work to balancing it remains one of the most exclusionary expansions to date. Excess attention encircling e-sport resembling content like mythic world first raiding, MDI and achieving the highest Raider.io score results in only the highest output class/specs for their given role being desired for PvE and rated PvP…until next week when X gets its rework! For some this is reason enough why Classic era servers are popular because the class you are playing or the instance boss you are trying to defeat will not be altered in a game changing way, progression and the array of in game activities are defined. Despite the ever changing state of retail, moving forward Dragonflight will be remembered fondly for its unique gameplay by a portion of the playerbase and many, including players who were not able to play this expansion, would return if given the chance in the form of Dragonflight Classic. But will we even see a Dragonflight Classic at this rate?

I would like to see expansion era servers. It does not strike me as fair that Classic maintains 41 (NA) servers and 2 Hardcore for players to enjoy that version of the game at any time, while players who prefer Burning Crusade (and Wrath) are being forcibly migrated into Cataclysm Classic. This seems especially unfair to returning players who were just not available to play Burning Crusade/Wrath Classic within the time frame which the servers were hosted, but additionally brand new players will not even have the option to experience these expansions. I do not think it unreasonable to ask for 2 dedicated era servers (x1 PvE x1 PvP) for each individual expansion which can be increased based on popularity/population. If something so niche as Hardcore Classic is allocated two dedicated servers, why not host two servers for expansions that were indisputably well received such as Wrath and Legion as well.

The Warcraft community deserves to know the future of Classic, where it is going and how it will end. These are important questions that were not even vaguely touched upon at the Blizzcon 2023 Q&A:

  • Will we see Mists of Pandaria Classic, and if not will the Cataclysm Classic servers stay active as era?
  • If Mists of Pandaria Classic is planned, is every other expansion expected to be seen again?
  • Will the unique rewards earned throughout Classic servers eventually be merged with retail account achievement/collections? (Mounts/Cosmetic appearance unlocks)
  • Will Burning Crusade Classic return?

I know there are like-minded players who would love the option to be able to log into retail for raid one day, then switch over to Wrath for some PvP, and then maybe do some M+ dungeons in Legion later that week. There are also those who would just like to stay in their favorite expansion. And again, players who did not get to experience Burning Crusade when it originally released or when it returned in Classic form no longer have that option: that is the fate of Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm unless the community comes to a consensus on what they want from Warcraft. Constructive takes, feedback and ideas welcome.

Don’t @ me with:
“More servers will divide the community”
The community is already divided between 241 retail (NA) servers, 41 Classic era, 2 Hardcore Classic era, and a dozen for Cataclysm (assuming all of the current Wrath ones are being pushed forward) and numerous private servers. Players are already divided by the game itself through: phasing/layering/sharding, faction specific content, minimum/maximum player count content, prerequisite content, incentive to keep playing or lack thereof from expansion/patch content, PvE/PvP rating, guilds, communication barriers.

“Era servers are dead, nobody plays Classic anymore”
Wrong. Players love Classic. Do I think there are too many Classic servers that effectively spread player count thin? Yes. Should they merge servers? Only as a last resort. Being merged to a server where your character name is taken is an annoyance. Some prefer to be on small servers for more tight-knit guilds and interactions. More is not always better and this is why I think the number of expansion era servers should only be low upon release and supplemented with more if there is more interest.

“Nobody will want/play on -insert your disliked expansion here- server”
Wrong. Nobody plays Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning because it was shut down. Yet despite this, passionate players made it possible to enjoy the game and play it again via the Return of Reckoning private server. Just as passionate players will continue to play on Warmane-Wrath/Mists private servers and Ascension WoW because that is the version of the game they have fun on. Nostalrius was a prime example of only needing one server to bring hundreds of people together.

“Servers are not free, Blizzard needs money to host them and employees to manage them”
Character cloning and in-game shop options. I know numerous players who would pay for multiple characters to stay on Wrath era and continue playing the clone copies throughout Cataclysm and Mists. Players will pay for a subscription to play their favorite version of the game.

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extremely well written Tazmagor!

I applaud this and hope Blizzard will read it, We just gotta keep making sure our voices are heard.

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Most of your questions have been pretty much answered

yes

They have no idea

no

Same as wotlk “No plans for now”

And for the "dont @me"s:

Even more so, yes. Especially when the Wrath crowd is winning, TBC and Cata will also cry. At some point we end up with 50 versions of wow each having 1 server. Great game. This is not an experience that is any fun. It may work on pservers because they are free but this is $10 sub game. Blizzard is well aware of this and don’t want to end like that thus not just immediately announcing Era servers just because 50 alts in the forums are spamming give Wrath Era pls.

You are wrong here. People say Era was dead. Objectively Classic Era was dead for almost 2 years and even with the current Hardcore hype, it sits barely at 30k current players globally, which is frankly, nothing.

Nobody ever said that. Its mostly you Wrath babies that tell everyone that nobody will play Cata. However, what is being said is that playing an expansion the last patch forever is loved by a very niche part of the community which you can see on Classic Era.

It costs them money to maintain the servers, update the client, and fight against bots. Nothing is for free mate. Even pserver fall back and sell bunch mxt to survive

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Retail servers aren’t really a divide anymore since mostly everything is cross realm nowadays.

Do you think there’s a difference between those divides and the divide of playing on an entirely different expansion?

So this argument just boils down to a slippery slope fallacy? There’s already so much divide why not add to it and make it worse?

Definitions of “dead” vary, but let’s just say Classic Era servers were so dead that Blizzard did not plan for TBC or Wrath era servers.

Yeah, around what, 20k people? That’s comparatively so low it could be considered dead by most standards, unless you’re unironically a small indie studio.

Then players complain about having to pay for clones like they did with Classic Era. Moreover, how exactly would Blizzard see profits from the shop? Do you think people will be regularly buying character services on an era server?

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What Blizzard needs to do is set up a Classic ERA Chromie and put her into Cataclysm, so people can play Wrath ERA, or even Burning Crusade. Then later when MoP launches and gets replaced, they can add MoP to Chromie, too.

Then people can always have their fav version of WoW to play through, and swap out at will. Hey, they did it for Retail, but only from Cataclysm up, and Pandaria is nothing like the original. No Timeless Isle, just another “fight” area with MoP’s pretty trees around. All the Chromie areas you play through in Retail are modified, not Original Game, ick.

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I suspect this subject to change based on player awareness, especially if Classic progresses to a particular expansion stopping point or if the servers are closed. Even if neither of these scenarios happen it is amusing to think about the conflicting value of the Classic vs Retail account unlocks. For example if I own Celestial Steed (Cataclysm 2010 shop mount) on my retail account will it automatically unlock on my Cataclysm Classic account. And until Blizzard provides a more transparent plan for Classic- high value cosmetics such as realm first titles, legendary weapons, Mists of Pandaria challenge mode armor sets ect seem to lose their value if the servers are only temporary.

Subjective stance that I will respond to with my own. New players and players who were physically not able to play any expansion during original release/Classic reiteration during the times in which they were hosted currently do not have the option to play them, while any player has the option to play Classic era right now. That is not fair. There are 10 expansions and Season of Discovery, so if each was allotted x1 PvE and x1 PvP upon arrival we would have a grand total of 22 fresh additions which is not a lot compared to the existing 300. A subscription is precisely the reason why it should be done. People will pay to play their favorite version of the game, Blizzard makes no money from players who will not play Cataclysm or Retail. There are players who would just like to play one expansion, and there are some players who would like to play multiple expansions.

I am in some agreement over the division of a community over several versions of a game having an effect, however most players who have this concern do not understand the magnitude of how many people play the game and the actual number of players a single server needs to make the game enjoyable. The following are legitimate questions that would be major factors why someone would want to play any version of WoW-

On one server:

  • How many players are necessary to enjoy 10, 25, 40 man raid content – considering both the perspectives of players who want a long term guild or the casual pug.
  • How many players are necessary to enjoy reasonable que times for instance/scenario PvE content, or open world content such as group quests, public events such as BFA Warfronts.
  • How many players are necessary to enjoy reasonable que times for battlegrounds and arena, or open world PvP events such as Wintergrasp or Ashran.
  • How many players are necessary to create an effective in-game economy, and what effect would botting have on the smaller servers if left unchecked.

I do not have the definitive answer, but as someone with considerable MMO experience I can say it is around 1000 active players for a playable experience. Less is functional, more would always be better.

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I thought their market research would show that Wrath has potential to retain a strong demographic for era…guess not.

There is no remedy but to let the hype-train demographic ride through onto Cata and see what passengers remain at that point.

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i think you share some vaild points that should be considered

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Classic, crusade, and wrath, should all have their own permanent realms. But Blizzard would rather keep recycling classic while deleting the others.

There is 1 upside to the deletion of wrath. It means we’ll never have to give money to Blizzard ever again.

Edit: In my own thread I suggested a better way to do cataclysm: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/a-better-way-to-do-cataclysm/1713384/1

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They sell a boatload of deluxe editions of each expansion. Also why they said they want to speed up the content release.

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Your questions are irrelevant. Blizzard doesn’t consider any of them when they make their decisions. Let’s start with the premise that activision/blizzard runs it’s business to make money for the owners of it’s business, the shareholder. Their first question is: How many players does it take to make a sufficient profit for the shareholders. The second question is: How many players only play one version of wow and if more than one what version of wow do they spend most of their time playing. The last question they ask is: If we eliminate version x of wow how many will unsub and how many will just play another version of wow.

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  1. I cannot image Blizzard ever wanting to piss of retail players with an army or ooga booga classic people all having immortal, mimis head, scarab lord etc. Maybe if they introduce something like “Immortal Classic” achievement and you can’t wear the title itself. Tho, I think this is a waste of dev time because you can tell from the forums people would rather lose their right nut than playing “retail”. They haven’t even bothered looking up what happened in the last 13 years of retail. Apparently, dragonflight is a copy of cata. Why would Blizzard bother merging and introducing a new achievements? Anyways, I digress. Current stance is no (have been asked).

  2. You had over 1 year to play the expansion. If you haven’t played it by now then you simply don’t care. So its really not about “new players”. Its only about players that don’t like Cata. There are also people that hate Wrath but love TBC. There are also people that love Cata and hate pandas. The list never ends. Are we really catering to everyone know? And no, Classic Era is different. It is the original game an serves as a museum where people actually play the zones that are gone from the live game.
    And for your questions: the issue is that this is a paid service and people want quality. If blizzard doesnt properly uphold the servers, most people will quit and join free alternatives. And yes, maybe 200 people are enough for some raids but the population will just continue to dwindle until it is a ghost town. I just want to refer to Classic Era here. It took them 3 modes, an insane streamer hype and an OTK tourney so that Era is somewhat playable now.

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I enjoy any cross realm content, however it has still has created a deal of negative effects on the traditional game that IS divisive. On Retail we get to suffer players leaving raid after defeating the specific boss they wanted, or players leaving M+ for the most trivial reasons. Dungeon Finder roulette is fun and all, but since the odds of you interacting with the same people again are so slim many players feel enabled to not play nice. At least on particular Classic versions of the game both server character reputation and raid lockouts serve as a filter to create more tight-knit groups and encourage less toxicity.

I think there is justification for players to have the choice to play a version of the game where less of these problems exist. Many problems in Retail do not exist in Classic and vice versa because of design choices. Aspects of gameplay and storytelling have gone a long way since 2004. A player having access to these older versions has the ability to identify and experience the comparable differences what makes the game fun for them and in turn may have a greater effect on the future of World of Warcraft in the long run if they decide to participate in the community like us. This I perceive as a benefit that outweighs the minor population spread effect.

Yet there are both Retail and Wrath servers that are near empty and not ideal play environments. Have you ever been in a group with someone from the NA server “Haomarush”. Do I think there should be server merges? Not really because merges are annoying, there should have been foresight to release less servers to begin with.

The common metrics to deem a server dead or unplayable are very over-exaggerated. I do however feel like there is a minimum amount of active players a server needs to be enjoyed, or feel alive. How many active players are on your server? How many people would play on a single Burning Crusade or Warlords of Draenor era server? Would it matter if such a server only had 100 active players but they were having fun and paying subscription to play it? These are interesting questions to consider because I can think of numerous multiplayer games on Steam that have no business being kept online.

Alexa how much money does Activision-Blizzard make annually

Again there are players who will not pay for a subscription because they don’t want to play Cataclysm or Retail. And there are players who would pay to play their favorite version of the game.

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“He already lost his leg, so what’s the problem with cutting off his other leg and arms as well?”

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