I main Icecrown right now, which was my last retail experience coincidentally.
Is there enough population and activity to make it worth the time?
Any compelling reason to choose one over the other (ie, Northrend, DKs, etc)?
Should I Outland?
[edit]
...Running a test character. Crap, I forgot how much crap got watered down going into WotLK. And how warlocks start with their predestined weapon of choice :)
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Should I Outlands?
Edited: February 24, 2018
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Uh, ok, let me take a stab at this.
Having played BC/WotLK retail, and, well, BC private server, I'd say...
Hm, I don't know what your experiences are on WotLK, but BC private server & how BC was in retail are a lot different. At 70, most of the people turned what should've been leveling/basic gearing dungeons into 70/post 70? gearing dungeons, like, to a ridiculous degree that I've seen people shun out non 70's in what was actually a non 70 dungeon (lol).
Gearscore, like I said, is incredibly important, and just as Vanilla was in Project lel, people seem to require you to be way more tuned for a fight than you need be. This might actually be a productive quality and assure shorter duration dungeon pushes, which it does, but ends up actually scaling everyone back a bit, imho.
As far as PvP goes, i've seen people with 90% win ratios with the wrong enchants/gems (lol @ the amount of people going for socket bonuses), the wrong talents - I even saw a 2k+ Mage with improved blizzard lol. From what I can tell it seems like there's a handful of actually geared people who haven't tried to sell their character steamrolling all the new people that come into the game and that's about it. So, until you get geared, just do your ten and move on I guess, farm some honor for S1 or, idk, PvE. Personally, I plan to PvE, I see little merit trying to push rating on a private server.
Personally, I wouldn't have ever boosted a character on a WotLK private server - there is so much that went right in WotLK retail that i'm 99% sure won't be happening now that it would just make me depressed. This is the second private server i've been on, and what I can tell you is that hindsight didn't serve this game well and a lot of it was nostalgia.
The PvE experience in BC in bar-none imo, but the PvP system is actually better in retail-live Legion than it is now. Having been in front of the curve in BC/WotLK/Cata, and behind the curve on private servers, I can kind of see the dilemma. PvP is about skill, not time commitment necessarily. It shouldn't take you two months just to have a somewhat even competitive margin - you either want competition or a rpg, you don't get both - that's probably why MLG dropped WoW in 2011.
The other part of that is precisely why pretty much non-legion achievements are laughed at. A majority of the gladiators, in fact almost all, were only gladiator because they were ahead of the gear curve. This faded slowly as the expansion went on, but i don't think really settled until sometime in S4. I can't tell you how many BC glad drakes in Tich Durotar that I see that can't even nab a challenger title today.
People don't like to remember this, but the first half of WotLK was a complete mess, it was only the last half of the expansion that was so amazing (mostly due to patch/balancing). But the gear curb was still there - if you hit 80 in Season 7, I don't care if you were the next marmalade, you weren't beating me in 3's. That shouldn't happen - it just shouldn't.
That, and the other issue, and im not sure if this has affected WotLK as well, but the glaring balance issues of before are even more glaring now, with 2018 eyes and the experience to boot. Whereas I don't think the private servers (any of them) hold a candle to live in terms of skill cap, i DO think they are far more skilled than when live was playing any versions of the game, from vanilla->wotlk. Honestly, if I had to admit, I'd say most people had no clue what they were doing until early Cataclysm. That's just not the case now.
So, if you want to PvE, I highly suggest BC over WotLK, I just think it was a way more balanced approach to the vanilla/wotlk contrast, being skillful and yet having a rpg element. WotLK was great for pvp, but not so great for competitive PvE. That's where I think BC shined.
If you want PvP, imo (and i'm not sure if i'm okay saying this), play live - or, play on Blackrock. I mean, hey, if you enjoy this big fish little pond thing, then sure. But once you realize the 2k player here is 1400 on live i'm not sure if it's going to make that big of an impact on you. Believe me or don't believe me, your armory is gonna prove it =\
I'm having a good time on BC, I enjoy the staff, most of the community (minus the lolscore), etc. I think there's a horrible gear gap that exists right now (I think the middle is falling out), but that's the only issue that I see.
2cents.Edited: February 26, 2018
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^exactly. The middle is a very painful place, whilst middle for me means (in PvE) starting/farming T5 content. There is a huge impact of the gear shop considering how the attunements work in TBC. Also, if you plan to start PvE, be very mindful with your guild, due to all of the above mentioned, and for being a far slower version of the game as it is today, a lot of players quit after being 70 for a few weeks so that you (my personal xp) constantly need to refill your roster if you want to progress in raids which need Champion or higher attunements.
After playing on both Iecrown and Outland, I would always prefer Outland because everything you do feels a lot more rewarding due to the more RPG and "slow-but-worthwile" oriented focus of the game. This is (all imo) a perfectly made TBC server with the one exception that being able to buy key items from high tier content has a far higher and far more toxic impact on this type of game style than it could possibly have on WotLK.
If you want to play PvP seriously you almost have to buy, because most PvP Players today (I believe) do not want to and most likely will not farm and raid for 3-4 months before starting to feel some kind of competition in arenas. Generalization never works well but it is like you always encounter the exact same gear setup on, for example, rogues, which is usually just the best you can buy via donation, which would cost you, ofc depending on effort and luck, at least 3 month worth of farming/raiding. It is a different story if you are, as a PvP player, fine with lets say getting totally stomped for at least a week of playtime whilst waiting countless weeks for arena point flushing.
But by all means, if you are interested in the style of TBC and/or Vanilla, go ahead because these two where definitely the best World of Warcraft experience and by far the best MMORPG experience of all times - or do you know somebody who quit his job/abandoned his marriage etc. for WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD or Legion? Maybe you srsly do but even so, there are plenty of skilled mechanics and **** and the overall skilllevel of players is tremendously higher than back in the days but you won't ever get totally sucked into Azeroth again after the end of TBC (afaik :D).
Just have fun and do what ever you might enjoy more.
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Yeah, I think the shop has something to do with the GS, and I think in the long term that has had something to do with the middle falling out (they couldn't buy their way into Bt/Hyjal, so they left?). Like, I see adverts for 2400+ GS heroics, and i'm pretty sure you're around 2200 GS Max with BiS blues from normals. So where'd the bridge come from? It came from buying shop + pvp gear (the pvp gear being terribly itemized for it's 'score').
I think he'll enjoy BC if he just leaves the try-hard at the door. There's no room for elitism, imho. It's just not how the server seems to be designed, or populated.
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Appreciate the replies, folks :)
