It’s been a month, how is this not known yet? The fact that they haven’t answered yet doesn’t bode well for permanent TBC Era… 
4 Likes
Agreed. There is no point to go crazy on TBC if there is no era.
5 Likes
I’ve never understood that mindset. Does the experience mean nothing? Just because there isn’t an Era doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it while it lasts. You can apply that mentality to anything.
“Why go on vacation? I have to come home and go back to work eventually.”
People need to start appreciating the moment. That becomes more and more relevant the older you get. Nothing lasts forever.
th difference is that this is a mmorpg not real life. the game takes alot of work and isnt fun 100% of the time. if we are timegated we cant achieve everything we want to.
3 Likes
Taking a one or two week vacation is one thing, but spending 2-3 years investing in characters and communities that will disappear is an entirely different thing. I’m fully in support of Blizzard if they want to do time-limited seasonal event offerings, but they should also offer a permanent place for players who don’t want to lose all of their progress.
It’s also important to remember that Blizzard has made no announcements here. If these servers are not going to be permanent and all progress is to be lost, at least people can choose to engage with them knowing that they are time limited. By not saying one way or the other, Blizzard is being pretty disrespectful of their playerbase and the time they invest into these games.
In your own analogy, this is like booking a vacation but not knowing if it’s going to last two weeks, two days, or two years.
3 Likes
You’ve made a good point. Blizz should be upfront about their intentions. Unless they don’t even know…which is a failing on their part. Players should at least be informed about the long-term state of these servers.
One slight correction though…your characters won’t disappear. They’ve never disappeared. And before someone says ‘Classic characters were purged’…all those characters still exist in one form or another and players had the opportunity to send them where they want. And they should be told if they’ll have that opportunity with these Fresh servers.
3 Likes
The only issue I have is the not knowing. I’ve gotten great enjoyment out of the existence of Vanilla Era and I can only want the same for those for whom TBC is their expansion of choice. While it’s a massive shame that TBC and WotLK Era servers don’t exist, ultimately that’s Blizzard’s choice to make. They just need to tell people what they’re doing.
Let’s be clear here… they are gone in the context of TBC or WotLK, which is all that really matters here. TBC/WotLK characters continue to exist in Cata, but many players don’t want to play in those expansions. Given that the game they are now a part of is completely different, do those characters even really exist? Is a character defined by its name only, or is it defined by the complete collection of your name, gear, build, and the world its a part of?
Imagine being sold a car today. For two years you enjoy being able to drive anywhere you like and however you like. Then the car manufacturer ships a firmware update that limits the driving speed to 50 km/h, unless you drive on their new road network. It’s a much smaller area but if you drive there, you can go any speed you like. They never said they wouldn’t do this… so it’s fine, right?
It kind of boils down to what your expectations should be as a reasonable consumer. Given that when TBC came out, Vanilla went to Era, it was more than reasonable for TBC players to expect the same thing to happen when WotLK came out. Blizzard set a precedent, then didn’t hold to it and didn’t communicate their intentions in any way.
1 Like
Did people expect a TBC era back then? I just looked at it as the only reason we got Classic Era is because they had previously already promised those servers would continue to exist for as long as Blizz is around. Which they never did for anything other than Vanilla. To my mind once I saw the Deluxe Edition and the Boost, and of course the cloning service it became evident that Classic was now just a milking machine. Which meant more expansion to sell more Deluxe editions. It definitely wasn’t about ‘what the players want’ (if it ever was).
With that said, I could see them offering another cloning service for these servers if they split them from progression and era. That would be the only reason players get the option: $$$$. But if they decide it’s not worth maintaining another separate set of servers, it won’t happen. Their bean counters will decide that.
In any event, they should have known all this when these servers launched and communicated the future to the players.
Oh 100% they did. As soon as Vanilla went to Era I think everybody just assumed they were going to leave behind a server for TBC and WotLK as well. Like I said, Blizzard set a precedent.
I largely agree with you that it all ultimately comes down to $$$ but that’s what makes it all the more strange. Having those servers means more subs, which means more revenue. The cost of the servers themselves are greatly exaggerated. These things run (or should be run) on virtual machines where resources are spooled up on demand. I would expect this is how layering works today. No sense in spending resources when nobody is actually online.
Not only is it more financially lucrative to have TBC and WotLK Era servers, it also would have been good for them to leave the cloning service up. People were paying for it and what was the cost? A copy of a database record utilizing infrastructure that already existed. One last point of confusion around all of this as well… did you know that Blizzard shut down paid transfers between clusters? The service wasn’t hurting anything and people were definitely utilizing it. It was a main vector of recruitment for my guild as we’re on a small server outside the main clusters.
So from a revenue generation standpoint, I really struggle to understand their decision making here.
Vanilla Era has proven that if you give people a place to play the game they want, they will continue to throw $15 USD at you for many, many months. Just let people play the game they want with the communities they’ve built. Don’t even try to force it, just let it happen. Hardcore was a community driven thing and sparked a new wave of Vanilla interest. Imagine if TBC and WotLK existed. We would almost certainly see player driven waves driving an influx of players to those servers. All costing Blizzard relative pennies to host. Now imagine if they added the mount store to each of those… because players have clearly demonstrated that they’ll throw more money than the game itself is worth at a company for the opportunity to own a mount.
By own, of course, I mean digitally lease 
3 Likes
I mostly think so Classic Wrath was a terrible rehash, I quit because I did not like it.
I would like Era servers for both TBC and Wrath, but most like the origitnal expansions.
4 Likes
Agree 100% with everything you’ve said , glad we have some big brains in this thread
2 Likes
Funny enough I was anticipating permanent wrath classic era servers during the announcement of classic vanilla wow. And I was so mad when they did not do that. I was expecting permanent bc classic to. Now we gotta wait god knows how long again, and it’s just annoying.
And once an era bc and era wrath server gets made. It’s only a matter of time before a community forms on those realms. And yah I find it stupid they got rid of the paid services. That made zero sense. I mean, it’s not like people aren’t playing vanilla era currently. I see people playing all the time now. And the same would eventually happen to permanent bc and permanent wrath classic era realms.
And I was surprised hardcore realms even took off in the first place. But, at the same time, that does have it’s place. Games like runescape, although not as extreme. It’s pretty popular, and dying is annoying in that game. But, people don’t mind those heavy penalties. As well as games like eve online, where it’s like, you might as well restart and create a new toon if you die in that game. So blizz did that and it worked.
And I agree. If blizzard did that in permanent bc and wrath era realms. It was flourish new interest in wow. And those servers would eventually flourish just like vanilla era has. Getting blizzard to see this is going to be a challenge. Possibly as difficult as convincing them that classic wow was a good idea in the first place. Hard to believe it took like 12 years for them to be like, ok. We will make classic wow. Just wait for 2019. Like what the heck. We should just be able to ask for permanent bc and wrath classic realms and eventually get them after providing the points.
And alot of people would resub eventually for permanent bc and wrath era realms to. Thus making blizzard more money each month.
And sure there are people who hate wrath and bc. But there are also people who hate vanilla lol. And alot of people also don’t care for retail.
I like every version of wow to be honest, but wrath will always be the best in everything to me.
1 Like
Having a perma-TBC makes perfect sense. Please make this happen Blizzard.
5 Likes
they are a stubborn bunch. they just gotta keep trying to lead us towards the $ retail trail.
you really cant blame them. i would guess they made more $ on store pets than classic subs?
1 Like
Daily post about how we want TBC/WotLK Era servers.
9 Likes
ahhh yes good day kind sir
3 Likes
This still needs to be addressed.
2 Likes
And daily post about how they haven’t answered us yet lol.
3 Likes
Blizz,
I’d love to be playing on these Anniversary Realms, but until I know what’s going to happen with these characters in the long run, I refuse to devote any time to them.
Can you please just answer what happens after the TBC phase of these Anniversary realms? What happens to our characters after that?
4 Likes
No, there will not be anything as requested.