Why did you purge my Classic Characters?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Hello,

after reading recent reports of people having the same complaint, I felt encouraged to be heard as well. So here’s my story.

I’m a returning WoW Classic Player. Or so I thought.

After a Long break due to a health condition, I logged back into my Live - World of Warcraft Classic Account, only to find out, that all my characters were moved to Live - World of Warcraft Wotlk and everything I had on Live - World of Warcraft Classic has been deleted. Strange enough, but they were also randomly moved from a german server to an english one.

I understand that this happened when TBC and Wotlk were introduced and that the clone Service has been deactivated by now and because Blizzard somehow decided to keep the new addon era characters as fallback.

What I do not understand is what kind of utter madness could possibly have made Blizzard make that decision.

As a long time WoW Classic player, I never wanted to get caught in the addon loop again. The whole idea behind playing WoW Classic was to play WoW Classic. That was originally communicated by Blizzard as well. I wanted to play WoW Classic, created WoW Classic characters on a WoW Classic exclusive game mode and server and wanted to log back into this exact WoW Classic exclusive game mod and server to continue playing.

I did know about some optional cloning that was available at the time, but while I was on a break and simply never cared about TBC and Wotlk because I was finally again able to just play WoW classic, I pretty much ignored it because I didn’t want to sign up again for any of the Addons anyways.

Basically, you deleted my Sulfuras, rank 10 pvp stuff, complete BWL/MC gear and a few thousands worth of gold. And on top, some of your GMs just told me:

  • „sorry for the inconvenience“,
  • to „deal with it“
  • and „go play the classic content that is still there in wotlk“.

I am disgusted by your „support“ and absolutely devastated.

You guys have lost it. This is unacceptable and after almost 25 years of buying your Games, I am fully done with Blizzard „Entertainment“ if this is what I now have to “deal with” when dealing with you guys.

Bye.

9 Likes
2

“all of the existing WoW Classic servers will be updated to Burning Crusade content, while brand-new Classic Era servers that will stay locked into “Vanilla” WoW content will be created.”

Which means, if you never used cloning which you didn’t as stated here:

You defaulted into TBCC which moved eventually to Wrath present day. None of your toons were deleted, they’re just at a place where you don’t want them to be due player inaction which you blame Support for.

If you got feedback please post into the megathread below.

1 Like
3

I know. I did my research yesterday.

I was of course talking about when I started WoW Classic back in the days. Blizzard basically just changed their mind and forced that upon us.

So basically, even some “mega” thread did not make them think about this twice?

At this point I’m not even surprised anymore.

1 Like
4

Your characters weren’t moved anywhere they are exactly were you left them. On the progressive realms, Classic Vanilla => TBC => Wrath.

The Era realms are not the Classic Vanilla realms, they were new and you had to choose to move to them.

The data that was the Era characters that were inactive is now gone, as Blizzard say “permanently deleted”. But that was after at least 14 MONTHS

Yes, it would be nice if it was brought back but they ain’t coming back.

edit: And don’t you think that anything that would make Blizzard money would be used? So they would if they could but they can’t.

2 Likes
5

That was never the deal when WoW classic was introduced. Even my original WoW Classic Server still exists as well as the original WoW classic game mode, on which I chose to play on from the beginning - just without my Classic Characters. That makes zero sense.

I “had to choose” not to get my progress deleted? Automatically losing all progress by moving my characters off my original classic game mode and server against my will is the worst decision they could have made. The Classic “progress” is worth NOTHING on wotlk anyways.

Being forced to a fresh start on a different server and game mode in wotlk if I have not chosen anything is the only thing that would have made any sense instead.

Lies. No backup is just deleted permanently - for legal issues alone.

Again, I knew about the cloning server but I guess I did not read the fine print - because again - I did not play during that time and did not care the slightest about TBC and Wotlk.

It’s like I had to intervene in the progress and jump in to rescue my stuff from something that does not and should not concern me in any way.

That’s completely bonkers on every level.

2 Likes
6

They didn’t know what was going to happen when Classic Vanilla was released but they did tell us later.

It makes perfect sense, remember exactly like back in 2007.

Except it wasn’t deleted, it’s exactly where YOU left them.

Except that deleted data has to be securely deleted, that is the law.

And you only care now because others who took the time to level a new character started to play it and put the numbers up.

What’s bonkers is the characters being moved to Era rather than being allowed to naturally evolve to TBC then Wrath.

2 Likes
7

If that was the case why didn’t you play your characters for free on Era during the time TBC was available.

8

That’s my point, they are not.

The “Live - World of Warcraft Classic” Game mod still exists and never did not exist and my old server still exists as well.

Blizzard made lazy decisions out of touch with a player base that was on and off around for decades.

I will not discuss this topic any further with you because you obviously are only here to grief people, coming up with arguments nobody who just wants to continue where they left should not have to deal with.

9

They are, how many times Era realms were NEW. The Classic Vanilla realms moved onto TBC.

It’s not lazy, the delete also freed up loads of names.

I’m here to be truthful to those who won’t accept it, like you. Having actually read what Blizzard have said on this, I can say that Cloning will not return in this iteration, even though it would be good if it could. Far too long has passed since the clone snapshot was taken.

10

Because I was on a long break after a health condition.
Do you really want more information on that?

I know that. I did my research.

Again:
Blizzard made lazy decisions out of touch with a player base that was on and off around for decades.

1 Like
11

If you wanna be nitty-gritty detail orientated:
The Era servers are NEW servers, they were created when TBC went live, since the TBC servers are the original Classic servers.

They follow the progression as Dottie explained: Vanilla → TBC → Wrath - just as they did in retail back in 2007 and forward.

1 Like
12

I know the technical background. It’s lazy and unprofessional.

It’s a completely new and different game mod in which I have no interest.

I assume that I also don’t get my characters automatically moved to hardcore because it’s like… the natural order or something in game mods and addons and stuff.

And now let’s get real “nitty-gritty”:
I have always played the “Live - World of Warcraft Classic” game mod and server.
I logged back into the “Live - World of Warcraft Classic” game mod and server, which is very much a distinct selection I have to make before launching the game.
I never asked to be moved to “Live - World of Warcraft XYZ Addon” game mod from a german server to an english one.
I never asked to have all my progress on “Live - Workd of Warcraft Classic” game mod deleted.

It makes no sense. At all.

I hope it’s clear now why I have such a big problem with what has happened.

1 Like
13

No it’s not, it’s exactly as it was back in 2007.

and that’s what you are in now. It’s also where you started.

Doesn’t mean you are right.

You can tell you don’t play much as you call it a mod.

So you know, Blizzard described it the way we are describing it.

2 Likes
14

No it’s absolutely exactly not:
Back in 2007 there was no second or third game mode.
There was no going back.
There was no missunderstanding in any way.

Wrong. For god’s sake. That’s exactly my point! My stuff has been moved to “Live - World of Warcraft Wotlk”, from “Live - World of Warcraft Classic”, which is a completely different game mode, which I distinctively have to select in my battle.net launcher, which I never signed up for. I never started in a different game mode than “Live - World of Warcraft Classic”.

I’m not arguing about that. I’m arguing that it’s lazy, unprofessional and that there’s lots of people left confused and robbed of their progress and that there’s room for improvement on that situation.

I was in the top 50 raids in Germany back in the days by progress and have achievements in the top 3 in the world during Wotlk. I did play enough to know what I’m talking about.

15

It is, it went from Original Vanilla to TBC in 2007.

Yes, but there was until last year in Classic and you didn’t choose so the option is now gone.

It has not been moved from Classic Vanilla to Classic Wrath. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ON THAT SERVER, and stop saying mode it’s EXPANSION.

You know what, you are wrong even if you think you are right, you are not. You are 100% wrong.

2 Likes
16

1.) I have now to distinctively select “wotlk” instead of “classic” in the Battle.net launcher.
2.) I was moved from my original german classic server to another, english wotlk server.

Now, please, try again explaining how it’s always been that server and that I’m wrong.

1 Like
17

Everything said by the other posters was right, and as I have quoted prior, they re-created the Classic realms after moving all Vanilla realms to TBCC.

You were moved from your Vanilla German, to a TBCC German, which got retired to a default English realm here in preparation for Wrath. I’m quite sure, it was Celebras?

So the Classic Celebras now, has no relation to your current toons.

Edit: Since OP did not mention which realm it was (Dragon’s Call) everything still lines up with the realm consolidation thread mentioned there.

18

Yes, because Blizzard did not want to abandon the classic game mode and chose to continue supporting that game mode, which I intend to continue playing as I chose to play before: “Live - World of Warcraft Classic”, which still exists, as well as my original server.

Wrong. My original classic toons were originally created and played on “Dragon’s Call” (classic, before TBCC) and were moved to “Mograine” (WOTLKC).

You can imagine how I felt logging into Dragon’s call, not finding my toons there with no option to restore deleted/lost characters. I was confused. Because that’s all this whole fiasco is: Highly confusing and unreasonable.

19

For god’s sake, call it Era or Wrath will you, you are calling both the same thing.

So they got the first realm wrong but everything else is right.

1 Like
20

Well I didn’t see any mention of your home realm so I had to make a guess of one of the German realms, but Dragon’s Call’s was one of the realms that was set to merge to Mograine so it lines up with what happened then.

The realm Dragon Call Vanilla updated to TBCC then migrated to Morgraine Classic Wrath.