Why I believe we're not getting WotLK Era servers

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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There’s been some posts asking for and if WotLK will have Era servers and the answer to that question is “There are no plans currently”. This is spoken directly from a dev from an interview during Blizzcon of last year. I’m going to say what I believe their reasoning is behind the decision.

I’ll also say that personally I don’t care one way or another if WotLK Era servers get added, I won’t lose sleep over them being added and I won’t jump for joy if they’re not.

I put the reasons in drop downs so that there isn’t a massive wall of text.

Reason 1:

Player Retention

When TBC was on the horizon and people were asking for Classic Era servers they were claiming the same things that people are saying now. That they and their friends would continue playing, that they’re fine running Naxx forever and that they’re willing to do it all over again and again by making new characters over and over. Unfortunatly they all quit very quickly. As soon as TBC hit there was already a noticable drop in the Classic Era player base, these people were either quitting WoW entirely or moved onto TBC servers.

Within a month after TBC launched Classic Era was effectively dead with only ~2 raids hanging on in Whitemane (iirc). Blizzard saw this, saw how quickly people left and took note of it for future or rather lack there of Era servers.

Reason 2:

The Spin

When SoM was first announced there were people that were looking forward to it, me personally thought that it was too soon for them to do something with Classic Era again.
We got SoM 5 months after Classic ended which was way too quick, so it was no surprise to me when SoM started bleeding players heavily. Not only was it too soon, it was also unchanged, it was just Classic again but with no phases you might as well of just made a character on an Era server.

After roughly 3 months SoM was pretty much a ghost town, at least for me it was too soon and now they knew it was. It was, until the hardcore community made use of the dead Era realms (more specifically the Whitemane cluster) and started playing on them to play hardcore WoW. More and more people flocked to the Whitemane Cluster in Era to play hardcore, all it required was the hardcore addon and you’re set to go but the activity in the Era servers was beginning to bring in more than those from the hardcore community.

The hardcore community set rules that had to be followed and it was enforced by the addon itself. It didn’t allow group leveling unless they were present from level 1, it didn’t allow trading, it didn’t allow the use of the AH and mailbox, it doesn’t let you bubble hearth and you can only run dungeons once (iirc). This created problems to those that just wanted to play Era without the spin and with the people who were doing hardcore outnumbering those that weren’t made those that weren’t feel left out.

This is the spin, the players put a spin on Classic WoW, Hardcore, death = delete, Blizzard saw this, saw that there were players playing Classic Era but in a non-traditional way and that there were also players that were being left out so they created official Hardcore servers. They saw how many people were playing and relized that the only way to get people to play Classic Era again is if they put a spin on things which is what lead to SoD.

SoD is Blizzard putting their own spin on Classic, spells added in from future expansions in the form of runes, stunted levels and them converting dungeons into 10 man raids was all it took to get the players hooked.

Reason 3:

Trophies on the Wall

Some of the people who are asking for Era servers are only asking for them so that they can have a snapshot of their character from that version of WoW, not intending to play but to simply look at and reminisce their time playing. These people are only wanting to have what is essentially a trophy on the wall, something to look at but never use and Blizzard shouldn’t cater to those people.

Reason 4:

The Precedence of TBC

During Sunwell we learned that no TBC Era servers will be made and to me, it was enough to confirm that they’re done with Era servers, so it didn’t surprise me when I heared that there’d be no WotLK Era servers (or rather that that there are any plans for one). TBC set a precedence for future era servers.

Reason 5:

Server Cost to Player Ratio

It’s more than likely that Blizzard thinks that because the player count on any future Era servers will be low and that having a server for them will be either too costly or what’s more likely, too dead to even warrant a server. And with WoW being an MMO there needs to be a certain amount of players for a server to actually function, sure you can play by yourself but there’s things you can’t do solo and systems that won’t work either and what’s the point of having a server if you’re just going to have barely anyone play it.

Reason 6:

Spread too thin

There’s someone asking why can’t WotLK have the extra servers that Classic Era has, why can’t WotLK get Era, hardcore and a seasonal server. My answer to that is that Blizzard doesn’t want to spread its workforce too thin. The devs are currently working on Era, hardcore and SoD on Classic Era along with Retail and the progression server (currently WotLK). That’s 5 iterations of WoW the devs are working on, to ask them to increase that by 3 per expansion is honestly insane.

WotLK hardcore might not have the same allure that Classic Era hardcore does and it’s also fundamentally easier than Classic Hardcore so the people looking for a challenge might not even look to WotLK. WotLK SoD won’t work because the class design in WotLK is a lot more refined than what it is in Classic. They’d have to make radical changes to classes, potentially removing talents/abilities and not to mention that it’s simply too soon to be doing anything with WotLK at the moment. If we were to wait a couple years I’m sure that’d be fine but to ask for it immediatly after is just asking for it to fail.

These are all of the reasons why I think that WotLK Era servers won’t happen, if you think of anymore feel free to post what other reasons you think are true.

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I still have faith that the WOTLK crowd will get at least 2 servers. However transferring to them would cause unbalanced populations.

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It’d be nice if they did but with them saying “no plans currently” the chances of WotLK Era is pretty slim.

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Reason 1 is legit. Forgot to add the part where once the shiny new thing (TBC) wasn’t shiny anymore, Classic Era popped back off. Scroll through Classic Era forums and you’ll see a lot of upset people that missed the chance to clone their character. It’s a Blizzard “oopsies” that doesn’t need to happen. Keep a Wrath client open and let the players decide. They got Hardcore open and it’s got like 5 people. :rofl:

Of course I’ll step into Cata to try it out. I’m going in with a bad attitude and feeling skeptical about the whole thing. If it isn’t good and Wrath isn’t around, it’s the end of the road for me.

The craziest part is how little love Cata has compared to Wrath the first time around. It’s totally Blizzard logic to make the same mistake again.

Kind of sucks to watch this unfold, we’ll see how she goes.

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Classic Era didn’t pop off until Wrath Classic was such a failure. And then mainly due to the unofficial hardcore scene.

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Hardcore started to gain traction around the time ZA released in TBC, then yes it did gain a lot more popularity during phase 1 of WotLK with Naxx being a boring phase.

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We literally already know we are not getting era servers lmao

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I know… I started it by saying

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Every point on there is crap except 4, and I’ve been saying that one since crusade was deleted. I said right then and there that wrath will most likely share the same fate one day. If they didn’t preserve crusade, they’re not going to preserve wrath either. Obvious, yet people wanted to argue with me about it for a year. I did not think they’d do clones again either, given how badly that went for classic. Honestly, I’d rather the plug be pulled than repeat that mistake. “Sometimes dead is better.”

One point you could have had was Blizzard’s horrible mismanagement of the games. We had to suffer realm mismanagement, lack of communication, laziness, taking forever to fix things, cherry picking stupid changes, selling boosts to botters instead of banning botters, some of worst support in the industry, list goes on and on. A thread about that alone would be longer than yours. Point is it was clear for years that they really didn’t give a crap about these games, and thus most likely weren’t going to keep them around any longer than necessary to pillage and move on.

But there is good news. The day they delete wrath is the day we never have to give Blizzard money for anything ever again. Yes I know most of us have switched to tokens already, but they actually get more for those than normal months. You’re just pushing the bill over to someone else. When you unsub and uninstall, they will get nothing.

The problem is that they did 1 snapshot at a date THEY picked, meaning anything you did after that date would NOT be counted. For players that wanted to finish classic at their own pace and move later, their work would not be saved. Blizzard could have allowed players to decide when you want to move, but instead, they forced it with their snapshot date.

But at least classic is still around, even though it’s vastly inferior to crusade (deleted), and wrath (soon to be deleted). I find it quite illogical that they preserve the worst version while dumping better ones. They also keep making gimmick versions of classic without doing any for crusade or wrath. Classic has had 4 versions now. Crusade had 1, and it’s gone. Wrath has 1, and it’ll soon be gone too.

Everything you’re saying about wrath was already true about classic and it’s still around despite crusade being deleted and wrath planned for deletion. Like I tell a certain other guy, a reason must be applied everywhere, not cherry picked to where you want it.

Necroing wrath threads is one thing, necroing this clown’s junk is something else. Let this thread go to the dumpster where it belongs.

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TBC Era and WotLK Era are great for the player that wants to focus on playing that game, to be the best player they can be.

The love letter to the players.

To play the game as it was then.

PvP.

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Well written and pretty much everything is on spot.
However, the delusional wrath era people you’re trying to target with this thread will just ignore it or claim its bs (drain).

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I don’t find it crazy, or any other disparaging term, to want an era (or forever) realm of ones favorite flavor whatever that might entail. I completely get enjoying one expansion or type over others and wanting to have that frozen in time like a classic console game you can always go back to for nostalgia or comfort. It is not also insane or wild to ask for something, as you never know unless you do.

What I do find mildly frustrating and a little out there is repeatedly bombing every post one is in with the same thing over and over and having some thought that it will influence the owners to make a product or sway the minds of the decision makers in your favor. I don’t know if these people don’t understand that post count honestly does not matter (as it means nothing without substance and unique accounts not just total posts) or if they simply don’t get the fact that repeating something ad nauseum will actually have the opposite effect that they are generally hoping.

If it is viable I hope everyone gets to do what they enjoy and can do it for as long as humanly feasible. I enjoy games in general and mainly like playing this one (multiple versions of it) because of the people I have met so as long as they are around I could care less what I am playing as for me it is truly about the journey and not the destination. I am a little rare however in the regards that I understand and respect both the laid back players and the sweaty min/maxers. Live and let live is kind of my motto just for the love of all that is holy make your point and engage in real conversations opposed to cluttering every thread with the same posts.

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the real reason is “nobody knows but blizz” and they probably dont even know. ima just find it incredibly odd that one, if not the best expansion just wont have any servers living. i mean it was shocking enough that news articles even were surprised lol. blizz does things and we’ll never know why.

look @ the whole rdf thing. they gaslit us hard until the end just to say “we listened! we’re the hero’s again, do u trust us?” they could very well do the same right before cata. i do think the closer we get to cata, the people will be more vocal about wrath servers again. anyones game though so keep the fight going.

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After all wotlk players have been enduring since sod release… I dont think I even want a wrath era server anymore. Why keep paying for a game where it’s filled with bugs and dev’s dont care to fix them…

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IIRC it popped off somewhere around phase 2 of WOTLK not TBC. There are videos of CE being basically dead in TBC/Early WOTLK. It started gaining popularity again mostly due to HC and later developed when HC characters died and continued onward. Let’s not pretend there’s some magic in Vanilla that makes it endlessly replayable, people like Vanilla, get their fill and move on and maybe willing to come back after awhile. People also like to play Vanilla with modifications to keep the gameplay interesting.

Absent HC and SoD, Vanilla would probably have a quarter to a half of its current population from refugees of WOTLK, and then would be just as quiet or even more quiet than 2022 a year from now as everyone got to experience the Vanilla gameplay loop again. Then maybe in like 3 or 4 years it will get re-discovered again and on and on it will go.

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I feel like most people saw the bc permanent classic server fiasco, and felt it would happen again to wrath classic. And of course it is.

What I find stupid is that there is bias towards bc and wrath. Vanilla gets hardcore, som, classic plus, a permanent era server. But why didn’t bc classic or wrath classic get those options.

Like, I hated vanilla and bc. I just wanted permanent wrath classic. Blizzard has chosen their side. The side that will give money to them no matter what they do.

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The main reason why I feel like we aren’t getting permanent wrath classic era servers is because blizzard follows the “you think you want permanent wrath classic servers, but you don’t” logic.

That is why I think we aren’t getting them. I kind of wish I had cloned some toons to vanilla though at this point. But I didn’t because vanilla wow was not my forever experience. Permanent wrath classic was.

As much as I want to try cata classic out, and I do. I kind of don’t want to currently. I mean, if blizzard allows me to clone my cata toons to permanent wrath classic era servers. Then I will. But I don’t like the options we currently have for vanilla. Because vanilla stinks. I mean, you can’t play horde paladins which is stupid. And several other things are stupid about vanilla classic.

Wrath was just peak. The talent trees, class designs, leveling designs, leveling up process as a whole, the dungeons, the overworld. It just had everything that was bad about vanilla made good. And paladins were the best in wrath to.

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If by that you mean that there won’t be enough people for the server to function or that the players will leave in a couple weeks/months until it’s dead then you’d be right because that’s what happened on Classic Era servers.

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That’s nonsense. I’m sure they know a small group of players want wrath era. They just don’t think there’s enough of them that will sub for it for the server to make a profit. What you’re saying is you don’t care if blizzard makes a profit or not you want blizzard to support your wish at a loss.

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edit: post was too long

Wrath isn’t some crazy best-of-the-kind xpac. It was the peak of WoW. It was the hype. It was the peak due to the hype and being one of the kind game at that time.

Wrath is no different from TBC. Cataclysm won’t be that much different either.

Not all 2004-2010 game designs have aged all that well. People also learnt that rather quickly and started asking for changes within first couple of months of Classic launch.

90% of changes to Wrath were warranted. If anything, there should have been more core design changes to Wrath.

A lot of people already aren’t playing Wrath. Or only raid logging. No one is going to stick around on Wrath Era for more than a couple of weeks at best.

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