WARNING: This is a long SoB about how I’m confused. If you’re not interested in helping me understand things better, feel free to skip the rest of this and comment the same responses that you’ve given in other feeds about how much you love the boosts, how much you hate the boosts, why $___ is too much/little for ___ service, or how well or sucky Blizzard is handling all things related to TBC. But to those who actually read all of this mess and can clarify things for me, I sincerely appreciate your time.
So I just read more of the specifics regarding the transition into TBC (clones, boosts, TBC servers, Classic servers, etc) from the Blizz website, and my understanding is that all servers are just being duplicated. One copy will be the OG server for vanilla players and the other copy will progress into TBC. Please correct me if I’m wrong here.
So my question is: are all the classic servers just going to die now? I assumed (I guess it’s on me for assuming) that the classic legacy servers would be merged somehow. I like my characters names, but I’d be happy to name change them if it meant that there would be at least 1 or 2 populated servers. But if my server Rattlegore, which is a medium pop server, isn’t being combined with other servers then I guess I’m done with group content? I would imagine that most are moving into TBC (whether or not they do clones is irrelevant since they will be playing TBC 99% of the time and will only go back to their classic copies to look at their T3 gear), and that’ll leave every classic vanilla era server with a tiny fraction of an active playerbase. If all of the dead servers were combined, then there would be at least a couple of high population servers that can experience a normal MMO playstyle.
I apologize for the rant and for not being as concise as possible, but I’m just a little shocked. Combining the active players from all the dead classic servers seemed like the obvious decision. Sure it has it’s downsides, but being on an active server would trump most of those.
I was always planning on keeping my characters in classic and only playing TBC if and only if they did fresh servers where everyone starts at lvl 1 and there isn’t a boost or cash shop. Considering how Blizzard hasn’t made any comment on fresh servers, it’s widely speculated that fresh TBC servers aren’t going to happen. I made my peace with that and was content to keep leveling my other characters and gearing them out in the same classic wow 40 man raids. But if that fallback option isn’t going to happen, then I guess I’m just not going to play?
I disagree with some of the changes that are being made in TBC enough to turn me away from the game. That’s really ok. But if Classic Era or whatever servers are also about to all become dead and not merged into a few populated servers, then I’d like to know.
I know that some of you skimmed part of this and are ready to respond with “C ya in TBC!” or “Can I have your gold if you’re quitting?” but I’m genuinely asking for clarification on this. In the past I’ve tried to vocalize my thoughts and critiques but it seems to no avail, so I’m past that and just want to be informed so I can plan accordingly.
So before you call me out for crying like a baby, know that I’m not writing this novel as a threat to Blizzard. I’m not complaining that Blizzard should do things the way I see fit or I’m withholding my sub from them. I’m not writing this to criticize them for the directions they’re taking their games. I’m just genuinely confused and hoping to see that I misunderstood the transition method that’s coming in a couple of weeks.
Quick Edit: I read about those staying in Classic Era servers will be offered a paid realm transfer just like those going into progression servers can pay to transfer realms. This only increases that sinking feeling in my stomach that they are leaving Classic Era servers to die. Even if I wanted to fork up the money to transfer realms, where could I transfer to? Even big servers like Faerlina, Pagle, Whitemane, etc will have tiny active playerbases. I wouldn’t imagine more than a single 40 man raid group will be present.