Agree. A small community is better than no community.
Now…20 people isn’t a ‘healthy’ server. But it doesn’t need to be massive either. Vanilla server sizes (which would be considered low or dead today) were perfectly fine. You could get everything done, plenty of people for every task, and yet still knew and recognized other players.
My pvp realm in Vanilla was Eredar. I can still remember things like running into a person in Thousand Needles and banging out a few quests while joking around. And then a few days later randomly ran into him again and did some more quests together. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen on a Megaserver. And that kind of stuff is why I play an mmo. And more specifically why I wanted to play a Classic version of this game.
There’s a reason why people keep saying Megaservers feel like playing Retail. It’s because it’s like playing Retail. That’s the experience it creates. One where fellow players are mindless, pointless strangers who you’ll never see or interact with again. If I wanted a game like that, I’d just play Retail.
If nothing else it was a good starting point. Those 19 other people and myself made sure to rally together because we were all dependent on each other to keep some semblance of the world going and as such, everyone treated everyone else with dignity and respect. Getting a UBRS going felt like a big deal again - good times.
Then 20 became 50, then 100, then 200 etc. Now, we were massively dwarfed by the alliance on our cluster but to me that was pretty much inline with my vanilla experience. At some point during Wrath Classic, at peak hours, we had roughly 300-400 active horde compared too 1200-1500 alliance.
Hmm, I agree to an extent. Completing certain quests is definitely a challenge (I’m impatient though) and there is much more competition for resources. I do feel, at times, that chat seems dead for how many people are in a zone and it’s comparable to retail. I returned to War Within after years and years off retail and was amazed to see hundreds of people around but chat a ghost town, for example.
After thinking on it however, I’ve realized I’m also part of the problem. Back when I started in 2007 I talked in chat and to random people, would group up no prob, be seeking player interactions, etc etc. Now, eh I don’t really care. I’m older, and as stated before, apparently cranky with impatience and have gotten used to “solo WoW” after years of playing without friends who quit long, long ago.
It seems your main issue is with the shear amount of bot farming which is entirely understandable, but that doesn’t exactly have direct relation with “megaservers”.
For community… well, as others have stated this truly is down to every individual. If you want that close(r) knit community feeling you need to actively seek and foster it. I can’t expect everyone to start being openly friendly to me if I don’t start a conversation, join a guild, etc. It’s work. It can take time to find the right fit. But it’s just like the real life, you’ll need to carve out your own “space” and gather together like-minded people you enjoy playing with. While I prefer smaller servers because it fits my anti-social, no competition for anything attitude, Megaservers can be great in this aspect in that there is a plethora of players to meet and create friendships with.
TL:DR- maybe social media ruined us all over these years /shrug
Need helps create communities. When you have to rely on other players and actually work together to get things done…they become an asset. They have value. Reputation matters. People treat each other better. They understanding helping out a lowbie means eventually that player contributes and matters and adds something. Even one person makes a difference.
There’s zero need or want on a Megaserver. It’s an endless supply of easily replaceable automatons. You’re not a person…you’re a number. We’ve seen the mentality and toxicity this environment creates.
Its worth pointing out that Deviate Delight was an absolutely dead server on era before a bunch of people moved and then it was absolutely popping for a while.
Dead server doesn’t really mean much. So long as you have enough people, probably a couple thousand at most, a server can function. There’s no need for giant servers.
Deviate Delight is a perfect example of how you can’t just “build” a community, like the megaserver fans say you can. Those people who fought for a resurgence on there ultimately gave up because there were too many factors fighting against them, and then Blizz goes and releases new anniversary megaservers lol.
I’d argue Deviate Delight met its fate due to other factors, namely that it was created by streamers and killed by streamer drama.
But to say you can’t build community because DD tried and failed is crazy. I was saying back when it started, Legacy and Grobbulus would be here long before DD Fresh and we’d remain long after DD Fresh.
Look who’s still standing (and who’s got a raid in 1hr with the best crew I’ve ever played wow or really any game with).
I’m curious though, what actual steps have you taken in-game to improve the community? Are you actively engaged in this, or just stepping back to criticize without making a conscious effort?
Really? Because I see the necessity of filling your friends list and the use of discord to foster a community extremely tiresome and unnecessary. It was not necessary in 2006 and it is not necessary now.
Try putting out a wildfire with an eye dropper, little bro
what do you mean pros… groups aren’t even possible on megaservers after level 30ish its just people buying boosts. There is nothing good about megaservers except guild being a rando at guild hopping
In 2004 to 2006, on my medium pop server of Cenarion Circle, our community was quite literally formed around in game chat channels, forums, guilds, and Ventrillo servers for each of the guilds.
I feel like you’re just out to argue to be honest.
The irony is, I actually fully agree with your original post as I stated above.
Megaservers suck for the game and they harm communities. I’m a big fan of low pop servers — hence the reason I only play wow on Grobbulus era.
I love the small town feel of a lower pop realm. Really anything sub 3,000 is ideal to me.
But judging by your replies to people, I think you may have some other issues fostering community that are unrelated to megaservers, even if they are also bad.
I understand your point. I think the whole Discord thing is, meh, maybe just not for me. But the friend’s list… lol that’s literally community building. Making connections, logging on and seeing people you’ve positively interacted with on, and sending a “hey what’s up” message.
It’s exactly like your analogy and an uphill battle. Though it seems you’ve entirely given up on making an attempt (which will be needed by many people collectively) to help improve the situation. In-fact, you’ve taken the negativity from the “megaservers” and extended it yourself to the forums.
