I have several concerns that I think need to be addressed:
The way that Classic 1.0 was launched had some very important things done that made it work well.
There needs to be a name reservation for paid customers to reserve 3 names on a given realm that is offered. Maybe give 15 days for players to settle on their server of choice. This ensures players can play as their ‘main’ and especially that people can BALANCE their servers from the get go. (This is EXTREMELY important for any PvP server)
The reference to Fresh Start does NOT specify if it will be an
A.) “Forever Server”
(All players playing on this server will be staying in Classic FOREVER. The HOME For people who do NOT want to go to TBC or Classic +)
B.) A Classic (+) Server (At the end of the 6 phase content there will be some New ‘Old’ content to be revamped and incorporated to the game.
C.) #SomeChanges traditional Classic server that will be progressing on into TBC. (no world buffs in raids, boosted XP, duel talent, cash shop, w/e knock yourselves out I will not be playing on these servers)
This needs to be specified CLEARLY. There are many reasons that this is an important distinction. Players who are currently in Classic Era servers may feel slighted because of the overwhelming push to go to TBC (draining all their servers leaving the die hard fans of CLASSIC and ONLY Classic left in ghost towns that had to be ‘fixed’ … lets avoid any major ‘fixes’ by just telling people up front what the server will be: “You’re all getting shoved into TBC like it or not” or “This server will never progress beyond phase 6 / will be merged into original Classic Era servers of your region”
Merge this next Fresh start lvl 1 server into a designated Classic Era (PvP or PvE) server at the end of the 6 phase (must be designated beforehand)
Merge the current Classic Era Servers into their respective regions maybe 1 or 2 total servers (pick a new name to be fair?) that will be the ‘mother / home base’ server that all FRESH servers once they’ve run the cycle will rejoin.
One suggestion is 1 PvP Eastern timezone USA and 1 PvP West Coast (1 PvE and 1 RP) Similar set up for Oceanic and Europe based on projections of active players still enjoying Classic. Or possibly just have one world wide PvP/PvE/RP server that every player gets dumped into. 24/7 frenzy
5.) Designate some metric for keeping servers balanced (again extremely important for PvP servers)
A.) create a que to log in for the faction that is heaviest.
B.) A simple pop up to players creating their first player on a given faction
C.) NEVER do Mass guild server transfers to other servers. Maybe offer a discount if an entire guild wishes to move. do a group rate but many balanced servers were disrupted because of inflooding from MEGA servers overburdening the naturally grown community. (Example: Earthfury look at demographic history)
D.) Other. There has got to be SOME way to avoid 99% Horde servers. There is quite a bit of community responsibility here: Avenge new kids getting ganked by 60’s while trying to level. Generally don’t be toxic, share quest hubs. If you pvp attack only players that can see your level or only kill a player once then move on. Some general self imposed rules of conduct… but hey I main a Druid so I’m all about balance shrug what do I know?
Please post a comment (don’t just upvote) get your thoughts out of what you really want and think would be fair for the general Classic Era community.
blizzard can easily offer benefits from the side that is at disadvantage.
if you have a 99% horde to 1% alliance ratio server you can give allies 30 minutes of immunity after being killed to avoid ganking (they can’t get attacked unless they start a fight). until population grows again to 30%/70% ratio at least.
I think it’s important for people to build their own communities. “you’ve made your bed now sleep in it”
If there are toxic guilds the player base should take a stand. Self policing we don’t need a mommy or daddy to tell us how to play online. I’m from the Pserver community that is more or less the wild wild west. You could pretty much do and say ANYTHING and if things get too bad you rise up as a community and deal with the troublemakers. It IS your responsibility for the company you keep and the community you build. (just like irl) Don’t expect the ‘government’ to fix all your problems.
It is a good suggestion on the 30 min for a 1% Alliance server. My advice is foster healthy environments so that it never devolves into that sort of lopsided craziness
Me either. I’d prefer relevance be given to my existing Classic realm again. Quite happy to see new content created for it – new raids to keep the progression people happy – but no stupid QoL garbage added to the game.
I speak of Vanilla servers - not interested in TBC.
A forever server sounds terrible actually. I think at the end of phase 6 there should be a fresh TBC option. A lot more to do in end game TBC than end game Vanilla.
The horde imbalance is an interesting problem because to be honest, by and large, people are already incentivized to go Alliance. Unlike in TBC, in Classic Alliance is BY FAR the better faction in pretty much every area imaginable.
The only advantage horde really has is that they have better skirmish PvP racials. So like in a 1 v X situation, you might rather be playing Undead or Orc. Playing against Orcs specifically is particularly annoying for rogues, and that combined with the fact that WotF is a good PvP racial means that any rogue looking to world PvP is probably going to go UD.
You can play around Orc racial in a 1v1, but again in a 1v X type of situation in the world it’s much harder to turn those types of fights if you get a badly timed resist, etc.
Otherwise though. Alliance is better in PvE, and IMO also easier to play in PvE, not just better but there’s so much more of a margain or error. (except maybe certain fights like Visc, but it can be made up from consumes anyways) . Alliance is also better in any type of organized PvP (not counting like PuG AV).
So basically, unless you’re a die hard world PvP player, Alliance is already the better faction. My guess is though, that a lot of the classic community does like the world PvP aspect (I know I do) so that could help explain part of the popular imbalanced. There’s also just this feeling I get where people think the horde are cooler
Honestly, if you were going a classic+ route, one thing you could do that I think would help a LOT is changing the racial. If alliance and horde have equiv PvP racials alliance would be even more advantaged and that might actually cause enough of a shift in the population, but of course you run the risk of everyone going alliance.
The one line from that post referring in rather vague terms to fresh servers:
“We’re also working on something for WoW Classic players who’ve told us they’d like a chance at a fresh start, and will be sharing more on our plans soon.”
Then go play TBC. This post is obviously not for the TBC community. You’re on a lvl 70 rogue… I am talking to and advocating for the CLASSIC community NOT TBC junkies.
This is not a sports game. It is a WAR game! To keep the ongoing war entertaining you need to have the influx of people grinding things out on the front lines. In your football idea there is a specific number of people against a specific number of other players (that’s the battlegrounds scenario)
What I’m talking about is a community responsible for taking care of it’s own community. If it helps. Think of the entire server faction you are on as a guild. It is ‘Us’ vs "them’ But what I’m saying to keep in mind is the fun is in the struggle. If you go 5 vs 1 and just gank that player and then camp his body and ruin his/her game play experience simply because you ‘have power’ to do so that’s lame and it’s stuff like that that destroys servers and pushes them over the balance into 70/30… then 85/15 … then 99/1 Blizzard does not control your level of ‘toxic’ That is for the community to self police.
But I DO like your solution to help correct this problem. If we can come up with solutions FOR bliz then they don’t have to mess things up.
It sounds to me that you’ve got a ‘grass is greener on the other side’ mentality. I’m frankly shocked that you say Alliance is better for pvp. I play Elf for shadowmeld but the Horde Druid alternative has the advantage with warstomp (Tauren) the Alliance pretty much have no use for a warlock bc of all the Undead will of the forsaken and Orc stun resist (is insane) And lets face it nobody wants to be an ugly little gnome warrior to get out of roots and snares. It’s ‘balanced’ enough and Horde favored for pvp imo. If you mean Alliance have it better for PvE there is still the blood lust we don’t have and windfury totems for some OP dps on geared ROGUES AND WARRIOR … pretty much the meta for Raiding and DPS in pretty much the entirety of Classic is 15 dps warriors 15 rogues 8 mages and a few healers. Nobody else gets invited.
This is blizzard we are talking about…chances are they will do something INSANELY tone deaf and pointless while patting themselves on the back for “listening to the community”. I would be shocked if they do fresh servers and if they do there is a 100000% chance it stays the same and bots/worldbuffs/boosting/easy raids ruin the experience all over again.
Sure, in specific 1 v 1’s or in small scale skirmish type play (like I said) horde racials can do a lot of work, but paladins more than make up for this in any type of organized, extended environment.
This is why hardcore PvP guilds play Alliance.
As for PvE all of the top guilds that post the best times are Alliance for a reason. Paladins are insanely OP. Salv is crazy, Kings is crazy, and their healing is perfect for speedrunning things and smashing through instances.
Translation:
“We are discussing ways to monetize something that will not actually be a fresh server, which would mean effort”
They literally boxed themselves into a corner with the boneheaded decision to monetize character copies. Now the existing classic servers have to remain. That means they will likely utilize them in some way for “fresh”.
I see, so you want to feel all this time spent in your virtual doll will somehow matter.
lol
Play a game that the whole point isn’t to to have a cycle ending. Because classic plus will most likely never, ever happen. Continuous fresh servers? probably will keep on.