Population, ToC 5, New Season & Arena Teams
When I first came here 4-5 months ago, there were 12000 players on the server, now in a steady decline, there is 4000-5000 at peak times. Whilst that isn't all bad and is still a big number, it seems exceedingly impossible to recruit for the raids; people don't want to commit to a guild nor do they want to invest the time and effort to learn the tactics to content. Naxxramas is being farmed but everyone has no need for loot since we out-gear it with emblem gear etc, so you already outgear it before you even step foot in there.
I thought the entire point of having a PTR server is to find the bugs, fix them and then push out the fixed content to the server. ToC 5 being released and only available to Horde is a major letdown, the last season ended a decade ago, at-least that's what it feels like, and we've had to wait patiently for new content to be released just for it to be bugged and unplayable, when the season ends, in my eyes, there isn't much to do, my character was already in the best gear it could possibly be in and ToC release would make Naxxramas and everything easier, so realistically everyone was waiting out ToC, then we find out it's not even achievable on the Alliance side. If it was tested, then it would've been a 'known issue' - but it was clear it wasn't, which means that, and I'm assuming, on the PTR, only horde guilds were invited to test.
So I sit outside the ToC instance, there are waves of Horde going in to complete it and achieve their 200/219 ILVL gear, whilst the Alliance sit in emblem of heroism & Naxx gear and there hasn't been a single post from a GM about this, if the developers are unaware, that is, in my opinion, very poor standards of care.
Yes, it's a free server, but the server is already on a steady decline in population and releasing bugged content is just going to push people away, especially with the anticipation for this new release and season. Another question I'd like to ask is, why weren't arena teams wiped? People started at 2k rating, which in my eyes seems pretty stupid as-well.
I'd like to know the communities thoughts on these issues, as people are already considering Lordaeron a 'dead server' because of what has happened, people are favoring Icecrown or just favoring another server all-together. Compared to other projects, I've heard the developers and the staff even get paid real money to do their job correctly, I'd like to add that I am nothing but disappointed with the lack of care, because it feels like the developers and the testers really don't, then again, I can't blame the testers as only horde were invited.
