I’m feeling a bit lost right now and don’t know what to play on WoW. Recently, I was playing WoW Classic Era and really enjoying the slow pace while leveling my character to 45. However, with the arrival of the “Fresh” servers, it seems like everyone has abandoned the regular Era servers. Now I’m stuck on what feels like a ghost town, and it’s really discouraging.
I really don’t want to start all over again on a Fresh server. Plus, we have no idea what the final direction of these servers will be. Are they going to stop at Burning Crusade? Will they eventually merge back into Era servers? This uncertainty makes it hard to commit.
As for Season of Discovery (SoD), I feel the same way. It’s hard to invest in something with such an unclear roadmap. To me, it feels more like a new Retail than the Classic Era+ many of us were hoping for. Ironically, the Fresh servers seem closer to the original idea of Classic Era+—with small tweaks like dual specialization—than SoD does.
I’m completely lost and feeling unmotivated. Is anyone else in the same boat? Any advice would be appreciated!
Just keep playing on Era. There are still more people on Firemaw than there were on any server back in the original 2004 vanilla. People will get tired of fresh and TBC and return to Era as they always do. I stayed Era when TBC came out last time, didn’t even clone any toons, just stayed Era. Zero regrets. I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have said Era is dead, people literally say it every time anything is released. Era won’t ever die as it is the only version of WoW that is untainted by retail changes. Fresh hype will die and people will return. They will have wasted their time with characters that will rot on some dead server. Characters on Era will get to live on forever and keep all their progress. Era players always have the last laugh, it’s where winners live.
Also make sure you take up mining and herbing. The price of mats just went through the roof on era, so you will make literally thousands of gold on your way to 60 now.
Folk like a fresh start - and I disagree with the sparse comments you have that people will come back - they won’t - most folk will create a new toon on the Normal, PvP and Hardcore server and set sail from the toons they have elsewhere - human nature - but also the smart move to enjoy levelling fresh
I wouldn’t play on fresh until we have information on what will happen to our characters after the TBC transition.
Will we be able to switch our characters to Era 60?
Will the TBC server continue on Wotlk after?
Will we be able to stay on an Era 70?
Others?
In short, I don’t want to get involved without knowing what’s going to happen, so I’m waiting and I continue to play on Firemaw in the meantime.
It’s a shame because I have friends who play on fresh, and I would like to join them, but communication is not enough.
When TBC and wotlk classic were released, I was convinced that they were going to release era 70 and era 80 servers, but no. So until they clearly say it, it will remain just a guess for me. And I don’t want to invest in a character with a long /played character without knowing what he will become…
Most likely this servers would have optional transfers back to Era or cloning service (hopefully free this time around) to ERA 2019 with TBCC AE (Anniversary Edition) main destination.
I expect the same cycle to BC and WLK, possibly branching each time (meaning you can stay at each edition). I don’t expect Cataclysm to stay but I suspect Blizzard will eventually try and merge the clients, allowing to have them all (it’s mostly just content and a few addons).
Blizzard didn’t need to add fresh servers so specifically, I think the point is BC (and the hype to enable access to Classic group content). With the majority of the player base having limited time, instant BC would have been awkward. This is basically time gating the 70.
You can choose depending on what you like:
If you enjoy (low-mid) dungeons, restart Anniversary.
If you enjoy high level farming, stay Era, enjoy the solace and benefit from it.
If you are looking forward to BC-WLK, start Anniversary.
The choice doesn’t have to be binary. You can totally just have one character each and keep playing both reasonably.
I love this answer. I’m a deadmines enjoyer but I’m actually playing horde this time on Anniversary for the mulgore vibes and seeing lvl 30+ horde content for the first time.
I was playing on Alliance Era prior to this. I originally was wishing for TBC servers to play Belf but I am biding my time on anniversary for now. The changes are not as invasive as the SoD stuff.
Pls Blizz, we need TBC era confirmation. It will help your players commit to a plan of where they want to play.
Not much has been announced about TBC except that it is coming. Once it gets into the later phases Blizzard will decide depending on popularity. If the servers have good stable population and everyone posts about staying on a permanent TBC server on forums, Reddit and X, Blizzard might listen.
I just logged in on Era and checked the AH’s of both the Alliance and Horde → There are 30k items on both, which equals the size of a huge server during the Classic re-release. On Friday night there were 6 concurrent Arathi Basin maps open.
This, during aniversary’s launch or point of maximum hype.
I advice you to stick to Era if you enjoy it - Fresh is a short lasting dopamine effect for most and Era will eventually pick up in pop as it always has (although the drop, specially on horde side, is not that noticeable).
Some people are talking about solace in Era lol come join the fun of farming herbs in Felwood with us - You will see the amount of “solace” we enjoy.
A ton of players feel the same right now with the release of Anniversary-servers. But I suspect that Blizzard will effectively kill off everyones characters on Anniversary-servers just like they have done in the past. It is highly unlikely that they give us tbc/wotlk-era so the era-servers will definitely bloom back up if they had a dent just now.
well up to yourself really but think fresh is good removes a lot of the boosting/gdkp there happens on era + with removal of debuff/buffs limit meme specs can maybe be viable for once