How should they launch Fresh Start Classic Servers? (Timing, QoL, etc)

As I am only interested in playing Classic Wow; I stated from before Launch in 2019 that Blizzard should designate the servers that WILL progress into ‘Classic+/TBC’ and servers that WILL NOT ever be anything but Classic wow. My advice went unheeded.

So now that we have once massive 50,000 player servers of 12,000 active at a time down to 25 players online (total) ghost towns Bliz is looking to the community for feed back.

Here is my idea. Try to keep it simple:

1.) Launch a small number of Fresh Classic lvl 1 server with no changes from the first go around. (no porting in, no XP boosts, let the server grow in a natural way. Maybe have a handful of PvP and PvE servers in EU and USA and Oceanic. (RPers can pick a pve or pvp and just make it their home)

2.) For those who don’t want to grind rank 14 all over again etc have merged servers of the players who paid for their characters to be saved. (got to give them a legit place else charging them was not right. I’ve lost money transferring into a balanced server only to have bliz ‘fix it’ and it’s no longer balanced… and couldn’t transfer back bc my old server was now locked. We’ve all lost money in this game. Move on.)

  1. make it clear at the time of the Fresh server launches that there will be voted on servers that you must pay to vote (one vote) and you get to move there reserve your name etc. And this server will be ‘tailored’ to your specifications (within reason) boosted XP, more gold, faster drop rates, haircuts, duel talent spec, less % decay in BG’s rating to get Rank 14 gear, no world buffs in Raids, no Xfaction BG’s,

you will get as many flavors of vanilla as you have ice cream but a consensus will emerge. And you’ll have a ‘good enough’ Vanilla with sprinkles for people who wish to customize their game.

Please post your thoughts on Fresh, Merged Servers, and Classic with Sprinkles as the topics. (This is not even looking at TBC. We don’t care. WE JUST WANT A CLASSIC WE CAN CALL HOME.

6 Likes

I’m actually a fan of stealing the idea of “seasons” that many/most ARPGs use.

That is, there are a few “permanent” vanilla-era server that never reset. Then, there are a few “seasonal” servers which progress from a completely fresh state through the end of vanilla every year or two (the cadence is up for debate). When these servers complete their cycle, all characters on them are transferred to the permanent realm(s). Then the seasonal servers start with a completely clean slate.

As far as changes go, this is all I want:

  • Once per character world buffs and/or make them fall off upon entering an instance. No buff storage item.
  • Fix pathing so mages can’t boost anymore. It creates an unhealthy system in which players that should be out questing are afking in an instance while some RMT farmer levels them up.
  • Old AV
  • No honor decay

Bam. Give it a shot and see how the meta evolves. If new unhealthy metas evolve, fix them. Do whatever you need to do to detect and ban botters and RMT. Etc. It’s a constant battle, yes, but one Blizzard needs to start fighting a little more seriously.

3 Likes

I like the simplicity of this. The World Buffs seems to be a consensus of what needs to be removed. I especially like the reduction or removal of honor decay (even if the decay is cut in half it would go a long way toward more ‘casual’ players getting their pvp gear … esp warrior!!!)

The simplicity and keep it simple would go a long way to reducing long debate and arguments and lend toward a swift FRESH release (maybe Sept 2021?!?! PLEASE?!)
Great points!

If we have ‘Seasons’ we could even mix in some vanity servers that are maybe not extremely popular but would cater to specific crowds (barber shop, more gold, faster exp per level, duel talent spec, things that the standard hardcore Vanilla player would NEVER set foot there but might find a nice bridge between Retail and Classic players)

I’m curious what would you think is ‘ideal’ server cadence and what would you recommend Blizzard give as options to their playerbase?