So first of all I really love the idea behind this, I am an outsider to warmane but this kind of progression server really appeals to me. I am not too keen on vanilla simply because its a total drain on your mental stability as well as your life. But a necessary evil on the road to two better expansions in my opinion.
But there are several important issues i feel have not yet been properly discussed and they would be very concerning for outsiders that the warmane team absolutely would be hoping to secure. Although i know the servers would be fine without outside invitation it would be daft to limit yourself by just the warmane built in player base. And obviously with what is going on now in ActiBlizzard servers for classic revival has no doubt been noticed over here, you would be tempting hundreds of thousands of brand new clients and making a small fortune in the long run, that means better servers, service and development cycles. So as i said, although outsiders are not needed as such, they should be looked at with more concern than the built in players who are loyal and will accept anything so long as its new.
So that said, the concerns i have, likely are the same worries many outsiders will have coming over and perhaps even a few warmane veterans also. What i am referring to is the shop and what it will sell. If you aim to sell weapons or tier gear, you will shoot yourself in the foot and kill any large gathering of players that might have come here. P2W might have made the Wrath servers a success but they would not do that for vanilla or tbc.
However if you organise the shop around paying for convenience i don't think anyone would have an issue.
So for example, buying blue and epic mount riding skills is convenient and won't kill economies since the AH's will still operate perfectly well regardless. You could also sell Dual Spec, which i think almost every single player in the game would buy, this is never going to be the official vanilla build so why worry about whether or not the conveniences are lacking also. Also both wpvpers, bg players, rpers or pvers need dual specs. And so this would be a very welcomed addition.
Another shop item could be mounts, including the TCG and Blizzcon Bear Mount, along with TCG goodies, (Murloc suits, disco balls, picnic tents). And lastly perhaps bigger bags. (Limiting the bags to perhaps 1 or 2 per character so players will still need the best tailoring ones)
I think with this revenue alone you would more than enough to make a wage and feed the server needs. And this would not effect raid progression and server stability.
However if you decide to sell BiS gear pre-raids, last patch tier gear catch ups and rare weapons like corrupted ashbringer you will most definitely lose a huuuuuge portion of players that want servers to 'progress' as you stated it yourself. I have no issue with adding tier 1 perhaps in the last season to prevent new players being one shot all over the place or for being able to get into the final raid content more quickly but if you are dropping tier gears after each patch you will end up destroying peoples drives to complete content for gear. And weapons will cause people to see your servers as p2w. This kind of tag line will prevent thousands of players from trying the servers out and sticking with you as you intend to grow and prosper into oncoming expansions.
I myself am hyped for the proposal and I have many guild members interested in the endeavour you are about to take. But like i said, if there is an unfair system you can pay to overcome that will effect the server progression, not a single person will join up. And i can guarantee you that many thousands of others who are dying for a vanilla of convenience (but just as long a slow a burn as you can manage) will look at your project with disgust.
I understand you need to make money and like i said, convenience is the route to this and you will make a hell of a lot more money selling things like flags of ownership, fools gold, picnic sets, disco balls, bigger bags, epic riding skills, unique and rare mounts and perhaps even x5 xp boosts for alts (once you have a lvl60), than you will selling weapons. And there is no risk of losing popularity and momentum if you do it this way.
I hope this server idea is a success and i really hope there is no p2w mechanics because you have the chance here to make a name for yourself, to grab in thousands more players new to warmane and kick off a huge new wave of interest in this progressive server initiative. I am sure there are many already well established communities already on warmane but it would be great to add many more. Food for thought.
Thanks for your time.
TL'DR (i don't do that kinda crap, read the text and stop being lazy)
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Banned
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Field Medic Moderator
I personally feel that people outside of Warmane's community tend to hear all about how Icecrown functions, because it's seen as the worst possible example Warmane has to offer, and as a result, is the prime choice of representation by anyone who wishes to hate on or talk smack about the server. Which, I personally, find to be an interesting choice because it was a realm merged of two other realms like it (with the exception of having xp rates lowered from before, the prior x10) who were realms that were intended to carry on for players who lost all the things they had invested money into during the "Molten era". Since the inception of Icecrown, we have not once directly duplicated its design or strategy.
Every realm that has been created since then, including TBC realms (rip), have never exceeded beyond the strategy that our recent Frostmourne seasonal realm employed: Items added to the store once enough of them were farmed within the game.
The restrictive dropped # requirement in addition to the progressive nature of each of the realms that have had this system (TBC included) has meant that the window in which that "current bis" items in some capacity (as in, not all of them, but some) are available on the store were there only for a few weeks at most prior to the new season/raid tier. Which meant that the items were available when that content was dead and the players were ready to move on. Very few items remained relevant. There were some, but very few. And this has been the furthest extent that it has gone at its maximum value.
- Even in this situation, there have been people within the community who have been unhappy on both sides of the isle; those who want more, and those who want less.
The reason for this design is for a few reasons, but the primary two are #1 the realms need to be able to fund themselves, and #2 we don't want to push it too far because we realize that Icecrown's system is not for everyone, and most people who don't mind that will end up playing on that realm at some point anyway.
Funding is a contentious topic, for many obvious reasons, but also in part because of the effectiveness of a variety of strategies and what we are and are not willing to do. An example of something that we wouldn't really be willing to do, especially in the face of attempting to peel back away from Icecrown-esque design, is to gate something like dual-spec behind a paywall. That's not friendly design, at all. But let's say you were suggesting that paying money for it is optional to its gold cost instead. Then what is the likelyhood that someone would spend money on that? Likely the top 1% that can't wait to grind up the gold to get it immediately, in order to gain an advantage (p2w, you know), or the 1% that just doesn't give a damn and has money coming out their ears. Where would that put the rest of the player-base? Yeah, they may not care about enough about the other two mentioned groups of people to spend money about it, but what about their perception of the server due to the fact that we were willing to put such a thing on the shop for $$$? Not good, I don't think.
Furthermore, even with Frostmourne's strategy, it is not exactly a gold mine. The amount of people you may think that invest in the items available to them on the store is likely more than those who actually do. That in itself is a hurdle to overcome in terms of funds. Not because we want people to buy more items, but because more funding means more that we can do for our servers and community, which I see you understand.
- I suppose it is also worth mentioning that some of the intention behind Frostmourne's item shop strategy was also to enable an alternative source of "catch-up", and whether it is ideal, of course, has opinions on both sides of the isle as mentioned above.
Now, I know I did kind-of single out only one of the things you mentioned, but I felt it was important to address some potential misconceptions and what our goals are. That, and all of the above, being said, we've not set anything in stone as of yet. We would like to provide the best possible experience with the least amount of invasive systems as possible. On the sheer numbers scale in which we have to operate most of the time, things can get quite expensive. But we'll see how things turn out. We appreciate the thoughts and feedback; from you and everyone else who is interested in such a project and what they'd be interested to see come out of it. We're excited to have a new and interesting experience too, and we'd love for it to work out in all ways as best as possible. Also, please understand, that this is precisely why we are taking our time on it and not rushing it - in addition to sharing what we're working on, so we can get feedback and thoughts on the project.
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Member
I was there Gandalf, 3000 years ago.
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Member
i think we shouldnt use vanilla talent trees at all. they are terrible and vanilla class balance is just as terrible. Id rather have them either use wotlk trees or vanilla+ trees
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Member
Agree. Vanilla combat is awful.
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Member
If you use Wrath Talents you will have lot of balancing to do as you will only unlock low level tiers, some classes will be missing important spells from talents and then you have to blaance gear too. I dont see this happening, way too much trouble
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Member
Yes guys, when you see a mod post you must ignore it because he's someone chosen in total randomness from the street and whatever it takes, even if your life is on the line, why, because this Vortex-g(u)y says so, because he is totally not nobody you know, and knows the **** inside-out.
Seriously, hope at least you dront brake your spine when you fall from the height of your ego.
BTW, 66 pages already didnt the 'conversation' drift too much away? Everyone with his very competent and very important opinions?
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Member
Trust the team guys, they are on our side. I'm pretty sure the team behind the warmane servers are more passionate about providing a better experience than blizzard for all of us than most of us are at enjoying the content that they are providing for us. I also know for a fact that when a company cares more about their product than they care about money; money will come to them as a byproduct. They can do this and they will do this better than blizzard has done in the last 10 years. Last words: It would be awesome if we could use the blizzard client to connect to your server, but I would not be sad if that's not possible.
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Member
Warmane has better servers than retail already. WOTLK classic is full of bugs and since they dont have enoug developers some bugs are simply not fixxed because they are low priority lol.
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Member
I have concerns for this project being 3.3.5 for the entire duration. If it was a custom 3.3.5 Client with access to Vanilla Talent Trees, BC Talent Trees, Wrath Talent Trees, Vanilla Skills, Elixir's and Buffs not having "Guardian or Battle Elixirs" during Vanilla as almost all Buffs can Stack during Vanilla. With some Quality of Life improvements like perhaps 5M Dungeon Finder and BG Finder being available during Vanilla and Burning Crusade. Then I think this project could be very successful although I am skeptical because if Vanilla is just Vanilla with Wrath Abilities and Wrath Talents we have some major problems as there are many changes Wrath did that would make it nothing like Vanilla, one huge example alone is the fact that Windfury Totem is completely different and that is only one example. I am intrigued by this project but unless it is a custom 3.3.5 client with all of those things I have a hard time understanding what this is going to be. I am looking forward to more information and if it is remotely close to what I stated then I will probably most likely be playing. I think a Vanilla and BC (Moreso BC as it has Rep and Badge Grinds) experience could be beneficial from having RDF at the very least.
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Member
I have a suggestion for how this might work. I know that what I'm going to suggest is huge and will take a lot of work but here it goes:
It would be great to have 3 yearly progressive servers at all times
one for Classic (example name: Sulfuras)
one for TBC (example name: Azzinoth)
one for WOTLK (Frostmourne)
Each of these servers lasts for a full year. At the end of the season, all characters are moved forward to the next expansion. Therefore, characters that were previously in Classic will automatically be moved to TBC, characters in TBC will be moved to Frostmourne, and characters from Frostmourne will be moved to Icecrown. Then a completely fresh and empty Classic realm can start again just like Frostmourne does with the current setup
Obviously, players should have the option to start a new character on any of these servers at any time.
What do you think about this?
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Member
I doubt that the player base is big enough to open 3 servers.
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Member
This! We need this. I am sick of scrolling through all the Offtopic Posts in this Topic. Please give us an alert/newsletter.
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Forum Veteran
Any news would be posted on https://www.warmane.com/ with link to the new thread. This thread won't provide you any further information regarding the new project's status.
This is now just for people to comment on about it, whether it's wild ideas, speculations, opinions, expectations etc.
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Banned
This is an interesting post, am i to assume then that there will be both, servers that will offer gear such as BiS gear on some servers just before the tiers go into effect and that there will also be servers that do not? Clearly there will be more than 1 server so i cannot see why there wouldn't be such an option but i must remind you, that the way in which warmane is perceived may not be to your liking and i can understand the slanderous nature of it, however that is how rumours spread and that is how they have been adopted. Warmane can survive on the player base that it has but all businesses must expand, you wont have the same people returning for the rest of their lives, some might have a year left in them, others must leave due to real life priorities, so your objective should always be expansion when it comes to business and what strategies worked in the past do not mean they will work in the future. Sadly the mmo community of wow these days is absolutely horrific and that would extend even into private servers. I should know, i've been on most servers. There is no such thing as a good community, only good individuals with good intentions among the riff raft. I digress.
The point i am trying to get across here however attaching to my previous post and to your response is that Warmane needs to adapt a strategy that will be as inclusive as it can and still as you say function without too much interference and assistance.
Whether people will admit to it or not, the vast majority of complaints and suggestions are self serving crap, there is no benefit for all, it is just a benefit for them. This kinda crap can be ignored. But you should at least be aware of the clamour of the masses out there, beyond your realms and know that people are dying to play vanilla as close to the original experience as possible and if you go adding BiS and Tier gears that are even slightly behind each other let alone during that period in which they are viable you are going to shoot yourself in the foot and kill whatever good word of mouth and support that you have going for you. By all means have a P2W server but never allow those people to migrate into the servers that do not and i mean that, if you allow migrations at some point from one into the other that will cause an exodus. And it will taint your servers way beyond what you think you have now. Again I hold no allegiance to your server or retail. I hate wow personally, i just like ganking, griefing and entertaining the people that join my guilds.
I am aware all the changes that have been suggested and how some quality of life changes should be implemented but there is a difference between convenience such as 'Dual Spec' or 'Bigger Bags' or 'Epic Mount Skill' being added to the shop for money and then literally buying tier gear that allows people to skip content. One is helping people focus on what matters in the game, the other is helping people withdrawal from the game.
If i only have to wait 1 patch season to get tier gear then why would i bother running raids every week? I can just farm pvp and then buy the tier gear that everyone else slaves away for day one of the next patch and gain the same advantage without ever earning it. This will cause the same animosity that existed in classic when people bought deluxe mounts with perks and ****. Blizzard literally had to remove the /spit emote because people being so abused.
And you are may create that sort of toxic environment if you add gear so stupidly and thoughtlessly into servers. There has to be at least 2 patches between gear, in fact i would suggest offering the gear only as catch up to new players long after the gear is being farmed, this would tactically speed up the process at which people can participate without scuffing the actual participation of people that grinded for weeks and months in advance of that player.
You main money is in convenience and i really do think you have not considered just how much money people spend trying to be more unique than other players. This is literally the marketing practice of ALL companies today, even though in buying this stuff they just join a club onto themselves, you do however offer them the chance to stand apart from the masses and people will spend ****ing hundreds of euros on each character in order to do this. So you should not be ****ing with the age of the server, in that you should not be speeding up the time it takes to accomplish anything during the time frame of its release. You should instead focus on CONVENIENCE.
Such as:
Being able to buy your Riding Speeds, blue at 40, epic at 60. If it costs 700g for a fast mount, then you charge a high price for that convenience. It doesn't have to be fair, in fact it shouldn't be, that is the 'PRICE' of convenience. (pun included) This high price also means that there will still be people that refuse to pay and will grind it the long way.
Bigger Bags (offering perhaps x2 22slot bags. The person will buy both but will still need the best ones in game for their other slots and for their bank slots so its not breaking the community but it still offers some convenience)
Dual Spec (literally every single person in the game would buy this on all their alts too, it would be *****ic not to and since it is something that was not originally in Vanilla it would again be a 'convenience' with a price. )
TCG Loot Card goodies. Flag of Ownership, Murloc suit, Picnic Basket, Fools Gold, Stable, Foam Swords, Paintballs, Disco Ball and so on. Again Convenient items, they don't break the game, they existed back in the time and they will generate enormous amounts of money without effecting anyone's game. The good nature of them also encourages others to buy them.
TCG Mounts, Unique Mounts and so on. Mounts are just mounts and yet retail make BILLIONS selling them every year. And yes Billions with a B. Again individuality is what Warmane needs to focus on selling, not gear or weapons to allow people to ignore the game itself or gain advantage of others with their credit card. That just creates elitist environments and carries toxic bravadoism over from other servers where you do sell stupidly op weapons.
XP Boosts being able to buy a x5 boost once you've levelled up a character to 60. Selling this makes sense for altaholics. Vanilla is an ugly experience the first time around, offering this encourages people to level more characters but also makes sure that they EARN it by grinding through that cancer the first time.
Everything i have suggested are convenient solutions to money making and there is no excuse for adding game breaking p2w on the servers with these implemented as your bread and butter. You have no idea perhaps how much a person would spend making their character unique or stand out. But in a narcissistic age, it is a lot. Where as in my days you downloaded free weapon skins for counterstrike now people pay thousands for a skin that will never carry over into the next reiteration of the game.
I played on a TBC private server called Endless. And they had this very same system in place. I spent €360 buying every single thing i could to make my character different and for fun. Some may call that sad but do i really care what other people think? And every single person in my guild bought the Bigger bags, mounts and tcg loot cards because it was 'fun' and we enjoyed the server.
Your first objective is to draw people to your servers, what is unique, what longevity and methods are you using to increase the time i get to spend in this expansions as opposed to how can i speed up my limited time online. Its not everyone else's fault that a person doesn't have as much time as they are making and thus should not be rewarded for it.
So i implore you, do not add p2w or at least separate p2w servers from ones that function with just shop goodies and conveniences that do not effect the achievement that comes from accomplishing something. And never allow a p2w server player to migrate into one of these servers. You do that and you will win thousands of players through your protection and good will to those who made their choices knowingly. Perception is something that changes through your actions, not by try to explain or give excuses why you think that model was successful.
I know plenty of people that would love to be apart of this project and would buy into your shops and spend a lot of time and money on warmane in order to progress through each expansion.
But none of them want anything to do with p2w and there are thousands of people that agree with that over the few hundred that might not.
Be fair, not greedy and your community will rally and respect you.
