Let me tell you the story of an old Classic realm they called Bigglesworth…
It was the only realm I played on before Maladath, in Classic. It was an amazing experience for the first few months of launch in 2019. Probably the best memories I’ve made in gaming as an adult. Despite all the bad apples in the communities and the inherent problems in the game, it was a living vibrant world filled with people trying to have a good time. The population was booming. And like every realm, you became familiar with the people you were playing with. Not just your guildies either, but also recurring names you’d see in trade chat, while running dungeons, leveling, etc. You got used to the guilds you saw below player names and in advertisements. It became very familiar, almost like home in some sense. In the case of Bigglesworth, there were many guilds named after the realm itself, and a real shared feeling of community even over something as simple as the fact we all chose the most ridiculous sounding server to play on.
But Bigglesworth was a PvP realm, so when phase 2 hit: everything went to hell. It was Horde-dominant, and I played Alliance. The game became literally unplayable with groups of Horde killing Alliance on sight, camping quest hubs and slaughtering NPCs. You’d never see Horde and Alliance let each other be anymore, it was just a complete one-sided stomp, with Alliance taking whatever cheap shots they could…and a real bitterness grew between factions quickly. I didn’t stick around much after that, but I returned briefly for the TBC launch in mid-2021. I remember it being more quiet than I expected. For whatever reason within the next year the realm was simply dead. I resubbed and logged back in as I was anticipating the release of WotLK Classic. Nobody was there…it was like the rapture had happened and I was left behind with a few other confused stragglers logging in for the first time in ages. It turns out that free realm transfers had been opened a number of times, and everybody who was paying attention switched, or stopped playing entirely.
Such an eerie feeling walking around an empty server like that, doing /who and coming up with nothing, or only a few names in the most trafficked zones. The auction house being completely empty. And group content being essentially inaccessible. There is almost nothing remaining that gives the indication that you’re even in the same realm anymore. And then after the amazement at the absurdity of the situation wears off…you just feel sad.
It looks like that’s where Maladath is heading now. I just logged in earlier, the place is nearly a ghost town. Funny enough there are still people questing and leveling…to quickly get to level 51 so they can transfer with all of their gold. I’m one of those people. When I first joined I saw someone get an achievement for unlocking all their bank tabs before leaving the whole of Undercity to me alone. About 30 minutes later I got the same achievement on my alt while storing items that I can no longer sell, and I realized we had been doing the same thing. The only thing anybody online can talk about is how dead it is. The party’s over and everyone’s moving on. But I don’t think anybody saw it happening like this, and not nearly so soon.
In the case of Bigglesworth, it was one of the first realms in WoW history that was actually deleted entirely. Whatever toons were left were simply dropped into another server. One of mine lost their name, but I have no motivation to continue with any of them anyways. My guess is that this is where Maladath is headed in the near future.
One of the most uncanny things about it was the fact that no one really cared when Bigglesworth was deleted. There was nobody to protest the decision or mourn the loss of the realm, as they had all either stopped playing, or moved on to a different realm, long ago. A place where so many memories were made, which had so much life to it, went out with barely even a sigh. It reminds me of the feeling of leaving behind a childhood home…its quiet…all the rooms are empty…and you just want to have one final look around before stepping out the door.
