My great thanks to Warmane team and Lordaeron realm!

Greetings everyone!

I just want to share my experience and thoughts about this server. It will be quite long-read, so let's get started :)

Chapter 1 - Leveling
(December 2016)

I was totally caught by WoW nostalgia again and decided to find some private server with good quality and following parameters:
- x1 rates, because I feel uncomfortable with even x2 ratings, because it provides me less immersion with my character. Leveling is very important for me, because I like to clear all quests on location before move to the next one, like to chill out with awesome music from each expansion, slowly improve my character, his professions, earn money to buy some expensive things and so on... For me x1 blizzlike rates feels like retail version of the game back in a day.
- TBC, Wrath or Cata expansion. These are just more memorable ones for me, maybe Wrath is the best, but description of my thoughts about pros and cons of the expansions is another long-read :)
- No shop with weapons, armor and other character boost stuff. Mounts, pets and tabards are fine, but pay-to-gear is not for me at all.
- Average population and similar faction balance. 3-4k people is the most comfortable for private server, because this pop provides nice, solid community and short queues for high-level activities.

Back in a day I tried one x2 rates TBC server with mobs without casts, one old Wrath server with toxic community, one x1 rates Cata server with animation problems. Everywhere I saw some kind of problems, bugs and another issues. I thought: "So, what do you want? it's private server". But everything has changed when I saw Dodgykebab review of Warmane Lordaeron Server. Just after that I've created character here and you know what... There were no issues with leveling and questing at all! My God, thanks a lot Dodgy for this review! I met the first quest problem only when I was 72 (Abduction quest in Borean Tundra). Leveling on the lordaeron brings me some many happiness and fun, I can't describe it on English). There was no LFG back in a day, so locations were so populated and live and I'm pretty sure they are still populated even with LFG, I'm not really against LFG system. I met so many kind, smart and happy players during questing.

So I spent 6 month before I met 80 level. Lord, it was the best 6 months of my WoW experience! So nostalgic! You know how I got 80? I completed quest chain in Icecrown what starts with "Where Dragons Fel"l quest (with Tirion, Arthas, Illidan) and ends with last quest "Tirion's Gambit". It was SO EPIC, so good scripted and so immersive for me! I completed "Tirion's Gambit" quest and got 80! I was so much excited and happy, guys, maybe I were crying a bit, not sure now)

Chapter 2 - PvE and pre-raid gear
(June 2017)

Guild mates said, that when I get 80, fun will over. They will be wrong! Let me explain. I like to spend evenings with my family and ready to play only 1 or 2 hours a day. Such short play sessions is ok when you are leveling, but for end-game content there are some problems. So I know, that raiding content is not for me, because I can't find enough time for it. You may call me old-school casual XD. When I start playing here my main activity to do was old content solo farm for nice items, gold and achievements, just because I love TBC and Vanilla raids same as Wrath ones :). It's comfortable, because I'm free to choose my playing time and it still requires some gear to start. Also, I was very excited about transmogrification system on Warmane WOTLK realms.

First of all, I decided to get some PvE gear for that. Even without LFG back in a day, there was no problem to find players for 5 man dungeons. So, all dungeons are great, well scripted and fun to clear on Lordaeron. The percentage of toxic players is minimal, you even can say "Hello guys!" and get an answer! And I have no problems playing low-geared ret, nobody shames me about crappy gear or dungeon quests. No one push forward, every tank I met was calm and careful.

In October 2017 I decided to get a pause with Lordaeron and play on retail. There are tons of Demon Hunters, who don't care about group at all. Legion was single-player MMO, where nobody care about another people, but it had great lore, quests and interesting class-based grind mechanics. After Legion there was some EVE Online comeback, whatever :)

Chapter 3 - PvP and transmogrification
(June 2018)

So, my ret was geared up to 5k GS and I was ready to start doing solo content, but before that, I decided to get some "Scrolls of Deception" first. As I said before, raids are not an options for me. So, the only way to get a scroll was PVP. I absolutely enjoy WOTLK PVP because it is so well balanced. Every class and every single spec is viable. BGs were really fun, queues are fast, faction balance was good also. I met so many cool PvP players both on Alliance and Horde side and I still remember them. I really want to help Alliance side to defend or capture Wintergrasp, because it was also fun for me and brought a lot of HP. I got some PVP gear and decided to fresh my memories about WOTLK arena. And it was also really enjoyable, because I found another ret XD. Why not? it's Wrath and double-ret is viable (checkout Tehseus Double Ret PVP video, it's a gem). PVP is perfectly fit with my playing time, because even 1 hour of arena can move your progress forward. But I still got only 2 Scrolls Of Deception that time(

Legion was quite good expansion, but when I complete all quests, for me it's over, so I was really hiped about BFA. And was totally disappointed :( In BFA story and lore are still interesting, but grinding and gameplay is so far from my picture of good RPG, so I have stop playing it after 3 weeks after release. After BFA fail I was working on my small board game project, so can't play at all.

But WoW nostalgia is merciless and I've decided to come back here :)

Chapter 4 - Cross-realm PvP
(March 2019)

After long pause I was really surprised to hear, that Lordaeron PVP scene is now cross-realm. I saw huge negative feedback from community, not even from Lordaeron players, but also from Blackrock and Icecrown players. My arena mate drop PVP at all, because on his opinion it's worthless to get PVP gear or rating on Lordaeron now, especially if you are fresh 80 player. So I've decided to check situation by myself and play some BGs. I was waiting for 15 minutes to start battle, previously it was much shorter. Ok, when I come in, I saw same hated asterix near my teammates names. Battle was awful, tons of toxic hatred in chat, overgeared guys (4 players with SM), 10 players just left the battle and newcomers also left after some time. And you know what, I've already seen this. On retail... And I know, that there are no chances to meet these people from another realm again. That's why retail community is so weak. I remember PVP community on Lordaeron before cross-realm:
- Karma. I cannot just leave BG, because Lordaeron community is so solid and compact. Every time I wanted to leave BG before its end I thought: "What if someone from my teammates is a leader or officer of good guild and he'll remember, that I leave team in hard situation". Some kind of batterfly effect, you know, where your action against community may affect your future experience.
- Idols. When community is small, you see same people again and again everyday. You know who play well, who has good gear or who will lead your team to win, even with low-geared newbies. I remember first time I see SM on Lordaeron BG. It was Solymer! My God, it was very funny, because in this fight I was "holy paladin" in retribution spec XD, I've just support him so hard and he blow every face under my "HoFs" :) If I clear, Solymer was playing from Horde side also, and it still be fun, because our team just join forces to kick his *** hard to protect our only healer. And I never forget you, Incadeptus! Every BG I play with him force me to have that "For The Alliance" feel, because he was good geared and skilled priest, who led a team of crappy geared players to win. He did all that because he cares about Alliance PVP on Lordaeron. As I understand, he is not playing now and I think cross-realm PVP is one of the reasons for that.
- Time consumption. I've spent half a year to get 80 and one more half to get 5,6k PvP GS, every item was enjoyable and I was waiting for it so long. And I knew, that everyone on BG or arena was working hard to obtain items, skill and reputation on Lordaeron PVP scene.

Chapter 5 - Future
(April 2019)

At this moment I don't want to do any PVP on Lordaeron, because it reminds me boring retail PVP. So, I can't do raids, because of lack of time and I can't do BGs. This is a problem, because I cannot get transmog scrolls at all :( For me personally scrolls for Points in shop (even if they will be expensive) or chance to get scrolls from legacy raids also would be just perfect, but I'm not sure Warmane do that for one old-school casual geek :) I also don't like Mercenary mode idea, because this ruins PVP immersion, but again, I understand, that technically, it's good idea to reduce queues. Maybe it could be good for Icecrown or Blackrock community, but not for cozy Lordaeron campfire.

Does it all mean I quit Lordaeron? Of course not! Because it awesome and the only one, I know, that Warmane staff knows what they are doing and server will be better and better in future. Every time I come back to Lordaeron, start game, hear login screen music, see Sindragosa flying and enter Dalaran Inn...

I feel...
I'm home...

P.S. Warmane, thank you so much for the best Wrath Of The Lich king realm! Long live Lordaeron! Best regards, Losfy!