Honestly same, I’m here for the full course of rp, pve and pvp, my butt already hopped from Skeram to DD to Grobb, I don’t wanna go through same lil bs that comes with moving servers, I got a lot of mates on grobb that roleplay and a lot that don’t, I’d rather not be forced to choose betwixt the two.
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Skelly bump, but you didn’t see this
The fact is that RP-PvP can be created. wPvP may be difficult, but only in the terms that you can’t gank people.
You can raid towns and draw people to defense, or you can organize actual events with other players and guilds to stage a battle. RP-PvP is more than just basic PvP that you choose to RP after the fact with.
As for base PvP, there are always battlegrounds which are based across servers. We have the ability to make what Blizzard won’t provide, but it’s near impossible to do so with queues that are hours long and layers that divide the populace.
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The biggest problem I see with your proposition is that last I checked, transfers from Grobb to Bloodsail aren’t free. So you’re claiming that a few hundred RPers will all pony up the money to xfer en masse. That’s a pretty big commitment, and a lot of trust everyone would have to put into one another. And it comes without the promise of any sort of possible PvE or PvP on the other side. Just RP. That’s kind of a problem, since most RPers also engage heavily in the other aspects of the game.
You’re heavily overestimating the strength of BSB’s community, I would argue. BSB’s population is tiny, and heavily favors Alliance. So no, an Alliance player cannot go and attack a Horde town or even city and expect to be defended against, especially when Horde don’t even have to flag.
I get why you want to transfer, I get wanting a place for RPers to call your own, but you’re being, perhaps unintentionally, disengenious about what we’re going to find on the other side. Nothing about BSB says that it’s going to be a reliable, fun experience for WPvP, Instanced PvP or PvE.
All of which are things that even us RPers left on Grobb usually want to partake in on the regular.
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I hope Blizzard would offer up free transfers, but I don’t expect people to throw money and pay to transfer. What would you rather do? Sit in queue for a chance to play, or maybe a few hours daily? Or roll an alt and be able to play whenever you want? With the pre-patch EXP buff it’s a trivial thing to get back to 70 and ready yourself for Wrath launch.
I would say you’re underestimating it, honestly. BSB, on Alliance alone, has about 1.5 to 2k unique players. Even if Horde is a fraction of that, it’s still a decently large size in the scope of activity.
And again, the thing people seem to forget is that if we go together, we bring everything with us. It’s not a single person moving to join a smaller community, it’s a merging of communities. If you bring 2 friends, and I bring 2 friends, that’s 6 people. That’s enough for a dungeon group, and only 4 more needed for a raid.
I dunno, while organised pvp events are alright, they’re not anywhere close to how it feels like to fight for control over a zone, just randoms versus randoms, it’s natural and is a lot more fun because you have folks spread across a wide area, instead of just having 2 massive armies smashing into each other where casters dominate over everything else, plus it’s fun to run into a rival and engage in wpvp, it’s very scrappy, disorganised and chaotic.
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The concept and idea you’re holding onto was the original intent of wPvP, ala vanillia WoW.
Basic PvP is fun, yes, sure, but it’s something that’s accomplished in BGs just the same. Wintergrasp is being added into Wrath where everyone is flagged in a massive open world zone as well.
How often do you run into rivals anymore, as well? I know that feeling, I had that feeling… But it’s not Grobbulus anymore. It’s a faceless sea of badly named puns.
Replying to the whole friends bit, I can guarantee you that’s not gonna work, back when DD to Grobb transfers were free, my entire guild moved leaving behind less than 5 percent of the players on the roster.
Within 2 months we went from 50 ish people logging in per day to less than 30, and it’s still spiraling downwards, people are used to Grobb and moving or alting on another server is gonna be a completely different experience, in both positives and negatives, and you will have friends that either quit or rebound back to Grobb.
Nah I constantly have run ins with folks I recognise, both people I like that I either help or leave alone, or enemies I made over the months that I absolutely bobby shmurder their cheeks.
If Blizzard spun up Deviate Delight again, or a brand new RP-PvP server and made it so only Grobbulus players could xfer to it (for free, of course) then I would be sorely tempted to support a mass exodus of the RP Community to such a thing, and if it sounded like it was getting off the ground, I would happily go as well.
But I really don’t think the answer, for me at least, is to transfer to an RP-PvE realm. Maybe it is the answer for everyone else, I dunno.
Personally, I’m partially happy to just wait out the queues now. Blizzard’s actions, while two weeks too late for sure, are going to eventually alleviate queue times. With no new accounts allowed to roll on Grobb, and fair weather transfers leaving Grobbulus by the day utilizing the free transfers, the Queues can only go down from here.
And, with the free transfers being only to PvP or Normal realms, the hope is that only the Non-RPers are leaving anyways. So just by sitting and having some patience, we can expect the RP Community’s market share on Grobbulus to increase as time goes on.
We’re never going to be a majority. Even back in Original Wotlk, RP communities weren’t the majority on the active RP-PvP servers. There will always be the PvP bros. But in my own experience, most PvP bros who roll on RP-PvP servers are of a different breed from PvP bros on normal PvP servers.
I guess I’m happy to wait it out. I understand why you’re not though. There is no perfect solution, and we clearly want different things from the game.
Is that the fault of the server or simply those players? Deviate and Grobbulus were the same type of server. Who’s to say those same people wouldn’t have quit regardless of the move? I would rather actively try than sit and do nothing.
Bloodsail has an accurate amount of players compared to an OG Wrath server, whereas Grobbulus has anywhere from 4 to 8x the amount. It’s massive, and unnecessary.
Bumping for consecutive posting.
If only that were the case, sure, but with how they brought down Deviate, I highly doubt they would bring in another. I sadly think Bloodsail and Grobbulus will be the only labelled RP servers remaining in Classic.
The issue is that unless people really start moving then the queues will remain. While no new characters are being made, we were still at 14k people over. That’s a LOT of people to move. If Blizzard tries to get heavy handed and move the queue, what they’re going to do is reduce the timer for inactivity, which we’ve had before.
Any OG of Grob can tell you of when we had RP D/Cs on the frequent. I’m afraid it’s going to happen again in efforts to get people playing.
There’s just too many people, and sure maybe things will die down in a few months, but why wait for that when we can just create something new in that time and build up what was potentially lost?
Sadly, I agree. And more importantly, at least to me personally, is that Grobbulus will be the only labeled RP-PvP server remaining in Classic. As I said previously, divorcing PvP from RP is not ever going to work for me. I know my experiences on RP-PvP servers versus RP servers from retail. I know what I prefer.
Tbf, it’s been less than twenty-four hours since Blizzard disabled the ability for new accounts to make characters on Grobbulus. I’m happy to wait a few days to see what the true effects of their decision are.
Because as I said previously, I don’t feel like BSB can provide the other parts of the game that I enjoy in sufficient quantity or quality for it to be worth it.
Sure, you might be able to build a successful RP community over on BSB, or maybe they already have one and you can successfully integrate into it with whoever pays for the transfer.
But even if you build up what was potentially lost on the RP side of things, if the PvE and PvP side of things is nonexistent, even RPers will quit playing the game after a certain point.
To put it in another way, I consider RP to be a secondary profession in WoW. PvE and PvP are the primary professions. Now I might enjoy leveling cooking or fishing when I’m not mining or leveling engineering, just as I might enjoy RPing when I’m not PvPing. But if I can’t PvP whenever I want how I want, then I’m not enjoying the game as a whole, and thus my days in it will be numbered.
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The players themselves from Classic and Retail are different beasts. It’s essentially a different game.
While this is a valid point, I’m skeptic as to really how many new players we were consistently getting since the queue started but prior to the lockdown. The queue won’t grow, I don’t believe it will shrink it much of a significant amount for the same reasons I’ve said prior. Time will tell, I’ll suppose.
As someone who’s played WoW for over a decade, including the oft disliked private servers, the issue I have is that the game will always exist outside of RP. You will always be able to find some form of PvE, PvP or even wPvP. It’s something you can create with any regular player on your own.
RP will only ever be created and maintained with a number of other RPers, and if the game is structured for it. If layers continue to divide walk ups, if the queue continues to disrupt and reschedule events, and if my fear that inactivity times will shorten on Grob… Then RP in game will just die, and that’s not something you can really stop.
The problem with this is, the wrong move done in haste can also kill RP in game.
I hope we can both acknowledge that there is no world where you get every single RPer, or RP-inclined player on Grobbulus to pay for a transfer to Bloodsail. Even if it didn’t cost money, you wouldn’t get every single person to xfer over because of all the previously stated reasons from me and others as to why we prefer RP-PvP over RP.
So say you get half of the RP community to xfer with you. How does that not end with both sides of the split RP community simply dying faster?
I get that you’re looking for a solution, I just don’t think what you came up with is a viable one. And maybe sitting and waiting for the queue to go down isn’t the best solution either, but I stand by my belief that its a better solution than xferring off the server at this point.
That’s only for RPers though. Non-RPers should all feel free to xfer off Grobb while the xfers are free. Please and thank you xD
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Off topic- but it was quite refreshing to see you guys in Booty Bay stopping the spread of the contagion. Good times.
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There are some serious issues with such a proposal.
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The most glaring one is that it isn’t a free transfer option now. There isn’t even a paid migration option either. Having already given Blizzard more money than I should have getting off of DD a few weeks before it became free, there’s absolutely no way that any significant portion of the community will want to entertain an exodus to a non-free migration realm, especially with the number of alts most of us have now and have invested in following Joyous Journeys.
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Supposing that a free migration to Bloodsail was an option, there is the issue of PvP that’s been discussed a lot in that thread already. Personally I’d be perfectly happy on a PvE realm I think, but I don’t know if I represent a majority opinion on that. I certainly do not represent an overwhelming majority on that though. You aren’t going to convince anyone that organized wPvP events are going to sufficiently replace what a PvP server provides for people who are interested in it. Yeah, wasting less time ghost running after being ganked and not dealing with griefers would be great, but regardless of your or my opinion we have to respect that there are a lot of people who feel differently.
Population is something I’m not sure about. It seems like all live servers now (with only a few exceptions) have a healthy enough population. Bloodsail seems small, but perhaps is large enough (especially if transfers were to happen on a large scale) to provide a healthy enough population to not cause significant frustration to raiding guilds etc. Can’t say for sure since I haven’t spent any significant amount of time on BB.
The overarching idea though that RP is dead or dying on Grobb, or even that it’s at a low point, is completely and totally off the mark though. Having been involved in RP since soon after Classic launched and having played on multiple RP realms, I can say beyond any doubt that RP is more alive now on Grobb than I’ve ever seen it anywhere at any point in Classic’s history. It certainly suffers now (as everyone suffers now) due to the queues and overpopulation problems, but that’s a broader issue that WoW as a whole is facing.
RPers always have been and always will be a small % of the population on Classic no matter what you do. The idea that you can have a healthy population to play game content with on any realm that is strictly and exclusively for RPers is an absolute pipe dream. It just is. And yes, layering is a shame in how it negatively impacts walk-ups, but it’s been the state of things for a very long time now and isn’t going anywhere. Being actively involved in RP community discords and guilds is the best way to go, and the people in the community are quite proactive at hosting events and providing good RP opportunities on both sides of the faction line as it is now.
That said, I could certainly do with a few less toxic non-RPers and I’d love to see fewer names that consist of dick jokes and other gross/stupid stuff. We should all stay very active in reporting inappropriate names whenever we see them (it’s easier now) and hope that Blizz can be more active in acting on those reports. With a mega-server like Grobb it isn’t really practical or probably even fair to ban any non-RP name in a strict sense, but I do think the blues could agree that it’s a fair compromise to want to keep names that are clearly inappropriate out.
We’re in a challenging state of flux now as they’re trying to tackle the overpopulation/queueing issues now, so the idea of an exodus seems attractive but is similarly risky. Hypothetically if we organized the RP community and perhaps some former DD raiding guilds or whatever into joining together in a mass FCM to one of the new realms, we could perhaps preserve most of the RP community we have and end up with shorter queues, which would be a win. We could also however risk fracturing the community and also end up on a new realm that fills so quickly that we end up having to deal with queues anyway come Wrath launch.
I think what is likely our best bet now is for the entrenched Grobbmob people and the RP community to stay put and stay patient, and continue encouraging Blizzard to act in the interest of creating other places for people to go to and more importantly incentivizing them to go. If there’s good incentive for non-RP PvP players to go to a FCM realm (and some thought given to preserving a reasonable faction balance on them) then a significant number of people could leave Grobbulus and that would be great for all parties involved.
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While, ideally the half that transfers, or rerolls as I want to really drive home to people the point you don’t have to spend money and still get to play the game, bolsters the already surprisingly healthy RP population I’ve come to find existing on Bloodsail. What does this mean for those who remain on Grobbulus? Well, that would be up to them to maintain their own brand of RP. I stand by my unpopular opinion that those focused more on wPvP aren’t honestly concerned with the state of RP, and aren’t inherently helping the situation.
Seconded.
But I would like to thank you, Urivial, for the actual conversation and valid points. While it doesn’t seem like we’re going to agree, it was actually productive in my time and I’m sure the time others will take as they read over our responses.
I don’t think there is a good solution, personally. But it bears looking at if Blizzard does open up transfers to BsB. RP-PvPers are a minority of a minority, in truth. A lot of folks that I know came to Grobb for RP and not PvP, and have said multiple times they’d be having a better time if the constant threat of getting grayscreened by Poonslyrsixnine. Hell, most of them started on BsB but came to grobb because every post said that Grobb was the last bastion of RP.
And while yeah, it’s certainly more active than it’s ever been that is only because of a few key community members making a herculean effort to keep it alive. I was in the scene when there was 8-10 recurring people on a supposedly massive server and that was pretty much it. I’ve seen most OG RP guilds either turn into PvE guilds or quit playing altogether. (RiP OSC, PO, House Blackstone, etc.)
I dunno. I’m making an alt over there because I can’t really log in six hours before my normal play times. We’ll see how the dust settles and which way the wind blows. I think people are a little too attached to megaserver sizes. Blizzard have said that Medium pop classic servers are the same size if not larger than Full servers back in Vanilla, and from my own experience I believe it. The Sunk Cost Fallacy ain’t gonna get me this time!
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