PROSPECTIVE 2016
DEATHWING & RAGNAROS MERGE AND UPDATE (Q1 2016)
We are looking to update Deathwing and Ragnaros to Lordaeron's core in upcoming months. Currently the dates depend on quality of Icecrown Citadel rescripting that we are undertaking on internal test realm. Once finished, it would be available on our PTR for testing.
Additionally we're considering merging Deathwing and Ragnaros into a single high-population realm. Higher population will improve overall player experience and server management efficiency. Our current vision of the merge is announcing a free transfer of all characters on Deathwing and Ragnaros into a realm with a new name (Icecrown? Any suggestions?) while retaining all player data and achievements. Transferring active characters will help us leave data clutter on the old databases and eventually archive them. With all quality of life improvements, updates, higher population, expense reduction and optimizations that we expect to achieve, we would face the undesirable effect of having to rename our characters and guilds on a new realm. Overall these changes are expected to breathe new life and excitement into our beloved Deathwing and Ragnaros.
Please feel free to discuss this as well as a proposition to make some limitations to help refresh the economy on the new realm that Deathwing and Ragnaros will merge into.
As much as I love you Kaer, and understand you wish to do what you feel to be an important thing to do. I have to comment on this, because it greatly affects me and the realm I call my home.
To put this straight, I don't want to play with Deathwing people. If I did, I would be playing there, not on Ragnaros. I made this choice 3 years ago or so, after being forced to move from my original home (which still, to this day, fills me with remorse) of Neltharion when it was upgraded to Cataclysm (I loathe Cataclysm, you will never catch me playing it if given a choice).
To put it bluntly, I despise Deathwing and the majority of its people. Allow me to explain why.
The past
Back in Feb. 2010 (when this staff and server was but 3-4 months old), I came here to play. My first choice of a realm was Deathwing. I leveled a character to level 80, and tried to gear up - playing the game as it should be. I should note that I am a long-time retail player. So when I did my first heroic dungeon experience, how things were handled were extremely alien to me. The first couple dungeons, people just left. They left the group. I assumed it was because people did not want to do those dungeons. Later, I discovered, it was because these dungeons were "bugged", even though they worked perfectly fine.
-- Later, I was to find myself talking in global, to inquire some things about how these heroic dungeons were handled by the community. I'm sure some people around may recall the name of "Ducky", particularly on Deathwing. This person, along with others, greeted my inquiries with insults and condescension. To the point where I put them on ignore, continued to play for another couple hours farming mobs, and then logged off of Deathwing. Never to return. I found myself disgusted and incredibly repulsed by the experience I had just dealt with. I didn't even come back to the server for a couple more months.
Finally, I came back, and started playing on Neltharion (wotlk -- best realm). This realm I came to call my home because of how much more friendly people seemed to be. I figure that the realm being the server's first may have had something to do with it. I found myself a raiding guild, named <Crysis>. While I was in this guild, we were the first on the entire server (not just the realm) to kill the Lich King. It was glorious. I have so many fond memories of the realm. I was even so pleased with the realm and the community that I donated for a Shadowmourne at full price. Yes, I was willing to commit that large of a donation forth, because I felt it was extremely well earned.
-- Then Cataclysm came, Greymane and Deepholm. These realms were eventually shut down and merged into the primary realms, which some of the primary realms were upgraded to Cataclysm. Neltharion was one of the selected realms to be upgraded. This not only tore apart Neltharion's community that I had come to love so much, but it also tore apart my guild. Ever since then, I have not found a community I have been so proud to be a part of. There is no replacing the original Neltharion to me. You cannot replicate it. And it is now gone. This made me sad beyond comparison, not even the Moltdown holds a torch to it. Ever since then, I have felt that I lost my home to my most hated expansion. I played Cataclysm on retail, for its entire length, and I have absolutely zero desire to repeat that garbage -- yes, I said it, the expansion is garbage.
More recent history
I was forced to move to a new realm. The bulk of my friends decided to move to Ragnaros. Rhonim in particular being my biggest friend at the time. He made a guild there and welcomed his guildmates from <Crysis> to come join him, so that we'd have a place to go and not be left out in the cold. The guild prospered for a time. It had its drama issues, just like any other guild, but it felt like the closest thing to a second home I'd ever have. Ragnaros felt a little hollow at the time, but I always figured that to be because Ragnaros was so young. Later, I came to realize that the realm had its flaws, and it wasn't near perfect as Neltharion felt. As time passed, myself and my friends became a better known part of the realm's raiding community. I've been a part of many guilds, more than I can count, and countless more people know me and my friend's name very well.
As time passed, I found myself to be a center of an entire guild's drama. A guild I had no wish to be a part of. A guild that was essentially the remnants of <Crysis>'s rival guild back on old Neltharion. The problem here is that it wasn't a guild on Ragnaros. It was a guild on Deathwing. This guild paid me a great deal of hassle, but they eventually left me alone as they moved on to another server. But the damage was done, the imprint was made. Since then, I have watched players on the forum from that realm, and watched their guild threads. All this time building upon the one thing which I experienced the very first month that I played on this server: Deathwing was a cess pool of egos, drama and exploiting.
I've had my own drama with particular guilds on Ragnaros. I've had trouble with people's egos and exploiting, to the point where I even faction changed all of my characters to get away from it. This is why I now play Horde on the realm. There are a number of guilds that "farm LoD" (LoD being the Light of Dawn; achievement for killing Lich King 25-man heroic), but only manage to do so with exploiting. And they publicly bare it, show it off, tell others it doesn't matter. They even have the audacity to tell others that it is legit because the GMs here won't ban them. (Have they been banned yet?) We have proof that they have been exploiting this **** for a while now, tried reporting it, but to no avail. And as much as that bothers me, it reminded me of one thing. The one thing that truly bothered me the most, the thing that compelled me to faction change to get away from it in the first place: Deathwing. Because I have witnessed all these same things happen over on that realm.
The worst part of it all, there are Horde guilds over there that act this way, and if the realms were to merge, the only escape I'd have from it is quitting. Because, by this point, the part of the community that is aware of this situation (against it or condoning it; both sides) knows action against their exploiting isn't going to be taken, and as a result, their inflated egos will continue to plague the realm's community.
Conclusion
I have no idea what any Deathwing player feels about Ragnaros and its community, but I know for absolute certainty that I am not the only person on Ragnaros that feels this way about Deathwing. In fact, I know one person who has read this very thread and told me that they will avoid the thread in the future and from posting on it, because they don't want to get themselves banned. Yes, it's that bad.
Is merging the realms absolutely necessary? I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to know what you know, Kaer. I trust you to take care of this server. I have always trusted you. You are one of the main reasons I am still active here and donating (despite having nothing left I wish to donate for). If you feel the realm merge is necessary, I will trust your judgment and give it a shot, but I do not foresee myself sticking around for much longer if I have no escape from these people who have inflated egos because of their exploiting. This is the last thing that the loyal and legit players need, to feel like we have to exploit or die out.
Myself, and the others with opinions like mine, are dying for the Lordaeron core. We know the staff is working extremely hard on it, and we are incredibly excited and anxious to be getting it. To me and others with opinions like mine, to us, this core means more than just "quality scripts". To us, it means content being as hard as it should be. It means not over-gearing the content so easily (1 heroic tier token per boss instead of 2-3 of them). It means not exploiting Professor Putricide (because it's the only way the boss can be beaten, and it has been this way for YEARS). It means Valithria Dreamwalker won't be such a royal pain in the backside when it's supposed to be pretty much free loot, instead of requiring a group of MANY HEALERS (it has been this way for a long time, only because some people refuse to extend the enrage timer back to what it once was). It means no more kiting Lich King with Judgment of Justice when he is enraged. It means no more using stunned Val'kyr to make people invulnerable and capable of DPSing Lich King during Frostmourne phase. It means no more interrupting Lich King's Vile Spirit casts.
To us, the Lordaeron core is HUGE, and it is our last hope.
And about names. I fought against fanboys to get the one name I have been known to use (my current forum name) after the Moltdown. If I have to go through that again, ugh... so help me God. This is another thing that troubles a LOT of people. Please don't put us through this BS again if you can help it. The likelihood of me continuing to play without the player name I have grown so attached to, and others have come to know, recognize and respect, is very slim. If there is an alternative that would allow us to keep our names, then I would strongly motion for it.
I strongly motion for a delay on the merging of the realms. At the very least, let us have the Lord core long enough to 1) see how many people come back to our realms, and 2) give the Lord core enough time to kill off these people who have inflated egos due to their exploiting.
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