Because right now we are looking at two potential options: 1.) Blizzard forces everyone on current “Classic” servers to move over to TBC while separating a few servers specifically for Classic, or 2.) creating a copy of each server on a new TBC client. Either choice will have some consequences in what it does to the current community, potentially splitting the playerbase between two games and causing one or the other to die on the vine, depending on the popularity of TBC vs. Classic.
There is no doubt that larger Classic servers, should they do the second option, would maintain a healthy population, perhaps identical to my server (Deviate Delight). But I am skeptical that any smaller servers would survive in their current state. We are all aware what happened to the population of certain servers when Blizzard opened up transfers, we do not need a repeat if new TBC servers are launched. If TBC is really popular, it could cause whatever community that remains on the original servers to die, hence my apprehension.
The other option, forcing everyone into TBC while separating a few servers solely for those who want to continue with Classic, sort of betrays the whole idea that Classic would be a “museum piece,” at least in part, for those who have no interest in TBC and just want a sandbox to play in. I partially feel like that, even though I consider TBC a great expansion (and it was the expansion I started in), that I would rather spend more time currently as it is in Vanilla than move on to TBC already. Nonetheless this option might be the less “damaging” one when it comes to preserving the communities on every server.
So going back to my main point, I’m wondering what we all think which option here will work the best. And I reckon the correct decision is really based on whether TBC will be more popular than Classic or vice versa. Certainly reading these forums gives me the idea that it will be. Thoughts?
I personally want character copies but only if I can character transfer from “Incendius” to “Faerlina/Herod/etc-TBC” for free. I have my horde characters on Incendius and Activision killed that server overnight with free transfers. Not really excited to pay 25 dollars per character to move them off of a murdered realm, just so I can be on a server with more than 3 horde on it.
I disagree, Hagrim. I think that you’re worrying too much about things that are speculative at this point. If I had to weigh in on the speculation, I’d say that the most likely way they’ll handle it is progress existing classic servers into TBC while offering an option to copy your characters onto static phase 6 servers.
You and I prefer vanilla to TBC, but frankly most people I talk to on DD want to progress into TBC. Many of our mutual friends have no interest in static vanilla phase 6 servers and are really excited for TBC and think TBC is their favorite iteration of the game. I wouldn’t worry too much about the future of Deviate Delight, it still has a very loyal and active player base that loves the realm and the community. A lot of the people we started with from last fall are gone, but new folks have come in to replace them and I think most people want to progress into TBC as a server. So while you and I do want to maximize the time we spend in vanilla, don’t forget that we are at the end of the day the minority and most people are going to be really excited for TBC and its release will reinvigorate the server, if anything. We may even see people we thought were gone forever return.
I don’t think transfers threaten this because they’ve always been there and it’s never been an issue. We’ll get some transfers, but it won’t be a flood, it will be a steady stream as it always has been and they’ll fit in. As long as the transfers aren’t free, I don’t think we’re going to see a flood of transfers. Free transfers to servers like ours would be a completely different story, that could ruin are server overnight as it has other servers. The $25 per character price keeps the kind of people coming as those that appreciate the server and actually want to be here.
I think they will copy the servers so there are TBC and Classic servers. Idk if it will be transfers from TBC to Classic or Classic to TBC, I don’t think it matters which way they do it. I think they will go with whatever gets them the most money for transfers though, if they charge.
Then they can merge the classic realms when they see how many are transferring to the TBC version based on that information.
I think the best thing would be to consolidate the classic vanilla servers so that if you want to play classic you’ll always have a packed realm for it. There should be a few fresh servers as well.
You’re deluding yourself if you don’t think this game is effectively dead right now anyways.
I love this game, but the fact is it’s boring. The last bastion of fun is smashing raids with world buffs. These buffs are getting more rare as time goes on and most players get a Heart of Hakkar or Nef head.
I have to start buffing Sunday evening so I can raid Saturday morning with my schedule. I can pick any day of the week to actively seek PvP and there is almost no one in the world. Why would you farm when everyone just buys gold?
The main issues for Servers moving forward is going to be how the break down shakes out. The clear over population and under population of others is going to cause more issues for TBC. This is before we even get into the idea of how guilds are going to handle the issues with 25 man raid roster that would be coming.
For larger servers that are already 3-4X over the cap, you can easily take up the land mass in Azeroth without most of the issue coming from resources (leaving out DM Farming). Take that issue and push it into Outland is going to make a permanent Layering system in the long run. With both the good and bad of it since there isnt going to be an instance people can farm for resources.
On the other end low pop servers may have issues as people rotate around to other servers after TBC comes out simply to feel on a more live server removing that many more people as new guilds are formed up form the influx of people now WITHOUT raids.
The question is going to be for blizzard, Which one of these situations is going to get the least backlash from the community? Leaving the servers as, top populated servers will have layering at the start for sure. Perhaps as a permanent status on them. Names wont need to be re-reserved and the community sticks together. Lower pop servers may get a bump from people coming back but see that go again as people move to more populated servers with the raid changes.
On the other hand if they go to Full Copy/Transfer route. People need may need to reserve names again and communites are Broken up. However, we could get more stable server pops that fit with the amount of people that Outland can support. Realignment of populations on servers leading to possibly better balance. Blizzard gets to claim they dont need to merge servers or shard them in order to save face to share holders.
The last and worst option would be to Progress and shard low pop servers with each other using the live method in order to gloss over the problem.
I typed up a larger response but I am not going to beat around the bush too much anymore.
If they end up going with the option for independent TBC servers than this means all the Vanilla servers will need merging, which is what a few posters already hinted at. Outside of a few of the mega-servers there simply won’t be enough activity to keep them online.
If they progress all Classic Vanilla servers to TBC this could upset people who want to continue playing Classic Vanilla.
It seems that Melphina just typed up a response that better conveys what I am trying to convey. Yes it is very dependent on how many people are interested in progressing to TBC and how Blizzard ends up implementing it.
I mean, if your expectation is that static phase 6 servers will keep the popularity they have now that was never realistic. With or without TBC, most people will grow bored and stop playing classic once they’ve cleared naxx, gotten t3 or done whatever it may be that their goal is. If you want to continue playing vanilla after that, fresh servers are probably the best option. We’ll probably get that option too at some point, and I’ll play for sure.
And what happens after TBC? Wrath? I think Vanilla’s strong point is that you can set your own goals. Tell me how many alts you are working on now, Vorena.
Fresh Classic servers have their own set of problems, mostly identical to the ones with Fresh TBC servers. Does all progress get wiped out? I hope not. At least in retail there’s achievements, etc.
There is no way to preserve the current communities in Classic. They will die regardless after Naxx has been out for a while and everyone who wants to clear it has cleared it. Most people aren’t going to keep playing the same content over and over forever. They will be ready to move on to something else, anything else, after a couple of years in Classic.
The best hope to preserve the current communities is in TBC, because it will give people a reason to keep playing the game, and I expect 80% of the current population to move on to TBC. Without TBC, those people will just move on to other games, so they will leave Classic regardless.
No matter what happens, within a year of Naxx being released, to maintain healthy Classic servers, they are going to be forced to merge them into a handful of servers, because that’s all that’s going to be left that want to keep playing it. And those servers will be the “museum piece,” so they will have kept their promise. But it’s going to be with new communities pieced together from remnants of the old ones.
I’m curious if there will be a way for certain types of communities to self-select, because with Classic I think we’ve seen a few pretty specific types of realms and players, and some of them have pretty different ways of engaging with each other and enjoying the game.
One of the things that was so interesting to me about Classic’s launch was how quickly players sorted themselves out and found or developed realms and populations that fit their own playstyle. Initially much of that had to do with the presence or absence of celebrity streamers, and with overall realm populations, but I think it later extended to less tangible factors as well. I suppose that will happen again in TBC, in one way or another.
I think most of us can think of a couple Classic realms or groups of players that we would hate to find ourselves lumped on a server with.
I’m saying this as diplomatically as I can, but I think that your typical player from a server like mine (Windseeker) would hate to find themselves stuck on a realm with all players from Faerlina or Whitemane, and vice versa.
Classic serves as an official alternative to private servers. That’s the reason for its existence. They can release expansions, sure, and it’ll negatively affect the vanilla game. But at the end of the day… this is understood, bugfixed, nerfed and massively predicted legacy content.
It’s not just a tedious antique rollercoaster of defeated content for disgruntled retail players and nostalgic veterans, it’s an official outlet to experience an ancient game. That’s it. They want people paying to play WoW. This is a long-term cash grab, not some silly executive get-rich-quick scheme. I keep seeing the same Selfish Blizzard rhetoric; this Classic outlet is absolutely a way to cash in on people devoted to prehistoric versions of the game.
Blizzard explicitly promised they wouldn’t wipe our characters out, they had better stick to that promise, but I do think the end game for anyway playing permanent p6 servers is a pretty dead game when it’s all said and done where we just log on to mess around once in awhile, I don’t think people are going to be clearing Naxx forever, people will move on whether it’s to TBC, fresh servers or some other game.
Classic will be dead in 6 months, regardless of TBC.
By dead, I simply mean that 99% of the playerbase will be done once and for all after Naxx. There’s always going to be that 5-10k players who will stick to Vanilla for another 10 years, but 1 server per region is effectively a dead game for a billion dollar company.