I want to get back into Classic Era, but when I logged on all I saw was “GDKP,” which isn’t my cup of tea. Are there normal raiding guilds on Whitmane out there? I play CST times, and can play Prot or Fury.
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There are regular guilds that don’t do GDKPs, but the runs are likely to be much longer and the overall experience feel more like progression.
Everyone (gdkps and non) are happy to have a good warriors.
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It is THE BEST time there’s ever been to get back into era. Here is why:
- Established long term communities exist. Very populated server clusters exist.
- Niche communities exist (fresh rerolls, micro servers)
- Population is growing. People are tired of Season of Flavor of the Week and CataMistsOfBattleForBlah.
- OG vanilla was always the best game (my opinion) and Era has the happiest players. It’s such a community oriented game!
- The game never ends or “moves on” to TBC! Play at your pace.
Now to your point, GDKPs and meta chasing. Ugh. I hate it too. I play on Grobbulus ([Era] Join Legacy of Grobbulus: Forge Your Legend Today!) where we remain unclustered. We have no GDKPs, and run a single guild on each faction.
The alliance guild, Legacy, raids M/F 9pm to 12am Central time. We just got our first KT kill a month or so ago, and would love some new friends to join our crazy band.
The horde guild, Requiem, raids Saturdays as the same time I believe and is progressing in MC and BWL.
Neither of our guilds will ever run a GDKP, nor do they exist on our server.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for a more “fresh” experience, a group of folks started up a fresh re-roll on Deviate Delight. You can’t transfer there by virtue of it being a fresh campaign, but it’s a great time to start if that’s your thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1chne2i/phases_and_faq_fresh_server_movement_on_deviate/
Last, Mankirk and Whitemane remain the most populated servers. However, they are rampant with GDKP and well inflated economies. I’m not trying to speak to the pros and cons of GDKP here (both exist), but I’m with you, and it’s not my cup of tea. That being said, I’m told you can find non GDKP guilds there too!
Hope this helps you and anyone else looking for alternatives to the primary clusters.
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Yes. Absolutely. The reason you don’t see them advertising in trade chat is because that’s not what a “normal” guild does. They build a roster in discord. You won’t see non-GDKP guilds advertising in public channels because they have established players. It’s a little more effort to find your way into those guilds but not any more than it has ever been.
I play on Windseeker/Mankrik.
It’s really difficult to answer the “is it worth it” question when it comes to games. It’s hard for me to fit my own experience into that kind of investment-payoff calculation, because I just really enjoy playing the game and it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice or a chore. So I think it really just comes down to what you want out of the experience, and what you would consider an appropriate payoff.
If you’re looking for a Vanilla-style experience, I’d say Era is reasonably good for that. If you’re looking for Faerlina 2019-2020, it will probably be disappointing. I can’t speak for all Era players, but it seems like most of the Era players these days don’t really miss the streamer fanboys, the content locusts, and the layer hoppers, and feel that Era is better without them.
I do see quite a bit of GDKP, but like boosting I just ignore it because I’m not interested in that kind of setup. I’ve never been that much into raiding, but I usually get offered invitations to guilds from people I group with in UBRS, the 5-mans, or whatever leveling dungeons I do on alts.
I also see people advertising for normal pug raids and guild recruitment pretty frequently. I play Arms Warrior, although fury seems to be the most common warrior spec by far. I typically don’t have trouble finding dungeon groups, unless it’s a “LF1M Scholo Need Mage” type of situation, which is understandable.
I think one thing to keep in mind, and this goes for boosting as well, is that the players doing/organizing these things have a strong in-game financial incentive to advertise loudly, actively, and constantly, so they’re always more noticeable than the players/guilds who are just out there playing the game to play the game.
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So are you on Grobb or Deviate Delight? Looks like similar communities on two different realms.
Your first mistake was a PvP server.
Mankrik cluster has maybe 2 GDKP guilds rest of the guilds have their own progs and naxx runs normal. About 5-8 guilds are naxx farmers. Rest are naxx/AQ40 progs.
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I mean I can always transfer to said PvE server lol…
I dont think they allow transfers to and from PvP/PVE servers?
Personally I’m on Grobbulus alliance side with Legacy! If I had more time to play I’d certainly be down to roll a fresh toon on DD since I love that they’re building something cool over there. They’re two totally different communities (DD being a fresh reroll and Grobb being a micro server with an alliance guild clearing Naxx and horde guild on MC/BWL) but similar in that they provide Era players alternatives to the “default” Whitemane/Mankirk experience. Both realms are also all very community oriented, to the point of both factions working together to an extent.
There’s demand for “something else” besides GDKP hyper inflated servers, and so I’m happy to advocate on behalf of any alternatives so new or curious players know where to look!
They do now actually! Some time a year or so ago they allowed it and we’ve had PvE players xfer to Grobb RP PvP.
You can even have both factions on the same PvP realm now (make a hardcore toon of the opposite faction, die, and it will let you move them to a server with a toon of the opposite faction, allowing you to now make toons on both sides).
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Interesting
Someday I may have to think about swapping to a diff cluster due to drama lol
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There is a similar Alliance community on the Benediction cluster. We are not as far along in content as Grobb (we are only in MC), but know you have options on a variety of servers if GDKP isn’t your thing. Era still has a lot going on 
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what timezone is the benediction cluster in? ive also been kinda playing around with the idea of getting back into era
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Would anyone happen to have the discord Deviate Delight is using? I have been posting about the server on SoD forums trying to brew up more interest. Thanks in advance!
I believe this might be what you’re looking for;
The Benediction Cluster is in US Eastern Standard Time, but we have folks across all US time zones. We’d love to have you if you want a friendly group to raid and progress with!
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Log off of era, wait for fresh or play pserver vanilla.