Hello I been thinking to give a go to Woltk, as I have skipped tbc knowing expansion progression will kill my character and my effort. Now here are the questions that will be a vital key factor if ill join Wotlk community or not:
A: Will there be permanent Wotlk realms?
B: Will it progress to cataclysm?
C: Once all phases conclude, will my characters get deleted like they deleted thousand of characters in classic? Or be forced to join another game version?
D: How is the population in the PVE and RP realms?
Ok ti be fair the answer to first three questions you asked is honestly “We don’t know yet”. Considering there were surveys about potential Cataclysm Classic there’s at least consideration of that but we know nothing for sure. Just like we don’t know if there will be Wrath Era Servers though if there are you’ll likely be given a choice between staying and moving on.
For the last one… Let’s throw away pretending currently PvP and PvE servers don’t differ that much since most realms are effectively mono faction.
But since you asked strictly about PvE they do… Decently enough especially if you’re Alliance now of course even biggest Alliance Realm (PvP Firemaw) is not even half of population of biggest Horde Realm. However Pyrewood Village and Earthshaker have solid numbers. Same case with Mirage Raceway though it’s on smaller end. Mirage Raceway is also the only real option if you’re Horde player and really care about the label.
RP well Hydraxian exist but data from Ironforge suggest they don’t really run endgame content or at the very least don’t post logs. It’s more of a realm where you need to give it a go and see if the small realm vibe suits you.
Bad news for you, even Blizzard doesn’t know.
I think they will check the end of the P5, if they lost 80% of the players after 8 months of ICC they won’t let Wotlk ERA
I play Horde on Mirage Raceway - came back after a 12 month break. If you don’t mind being the minority faction it’s OK. Can’t comment on end game as I’m playing super casually, our Guild raids 3 times a week, but the raiders are pretty much raid logging.
There does seem to be less people out and about leveling, than in TBC, but that could just be memory issues on my part.
I believe there was a case of missing characters after Blizzard did their realm merging during TBCC. Apparently many of those never showed up despite Blizzard assuring player that everything is fine and they will. But you’d need to ask people from what little remains of RP community.
Yes at “consolidation” characters disappeared - or lost levels - Some never returned (one low-level alt of mine among these). But all characters stayed after BC went to Wrath. I think he speaking of clones.
One thing is for sure - no characters will be deleted. They will either stay in Wrath or move to Cataclysm. Or maybe both like when TBC Classic released.
We don’t know in what direction will Wrath go. Probably we will find out months after ICC - at some point in 2024.