mmm… Theres demand enough for both eternal Classic servers and fresh… No nudges are needed. Let the players play what version they like.
People want the choice. Not everyone wants to play the same version of wow. Every Wow version its is own unique game.
For Example I like TBC and classic but dont like wrath. I will progress to TBC but when wrath comes out i want to stay in a TBC era server. I want that choice and Blizzard is setting a precedent for players to choose what era server they want to play in.
Eventually it will be
Classic era servers
TBC era servers
Wrath era servers
And if the community wants cata and mop then the frame work is in place to facilitate that transition.
you can have options
Eternal classic era servers
and fresh classic era servers
you can have options
progressed TBC era servers
and fresh TBC era server
and when wrath comes
you can have options
Eternal tbc era servers
fresh tbc era servers
There is enough support for all those to exist simultaneous
The only big brain move blizzard could have ever done ( but involves thinking 5 steps ahead) is stating what servers from the very beginning are designed as perpetual or progressive.
If we just do copies, then Blizzard now has a host of characters sitting idle on both TBC Servers and Vanilla Servers, because despite copying over a ton of characters, the player likely only sits in Vanilla or TBC 95% of the time. That means that Blizzard analytics for any server are going to be skewed with a massive amount of ghosted characters that could come online but just never do. That impacts how Blizzard analyzes the health of servers, whether a server needs free xfers, a merge, etc.
Furthermore, copying allows people to duplicate, just like people do on the PTR. Load a character up with materials, gold, and other items, copy them in that state, swap it over to another character, copy them in that state, repeat until you have multiplied your resources 10, 20, 100 times over. Anyone wanting anything even close to a balanced economy or setup on the Vanilla-only servers will have ruined it by the fact that folks now have hundreds of flasks per character, hundreds of thousands of gold, and vast amounts of otherwise rare items.
Nothing is getting deleted. Your classic server is going to become a CTBC server. Just like it did back in 2006!! Then you can decide to “transfer” your character to a forever Classic vanilla server and keep it there forever! Something that was NOT available back in 2006. So their already giving you more options than they did in 2006.
That has NOTHING to do with wanting my PROGRESSED characters to remain in tact. I have no issues leveling characters. I do it ALL of the time. My problem is ALL of my work for that character is all for not. If I wanted to delete a PROGRESSED character, I would, but I don’t, and I’m annoyed that Blizz is forcing my hand.
so tell me what happens if i dont transfer to the classic server? will my character be on the classic server? no? so then isnt that the same result as it being deleted?
No? That same character exists on the TBC realm. Why do you think you should be able to create a new character that is an exact copy of your character?
Because people want to play both so no the server won’t be dead, making them decide if they want to continue on to tbc or stay in classic just splits the community.
If your character exists on a Classic realm, while also existing on a TBC realm, you have doubled your progress by creating an exact copy of your character.