Would you want fresh servers?

[FelPlague]

The concept of a fresh server. Is apparently where 1 year after naxramas has released. The whole server is wiped and everyone is sent back to square one. Sorta like diablo 3 season. Some are saying vanilla players only care about the progression and leveling and enjoy that so much each fresh restart would cause the sub numbers to sky rocket.

I wish to see if this is what people really want. Would you want the servers to delete all characters (when TBC pre-event would launch) and simply force everyone to step one. Would you play at all knowing it would all be deleted? Would you play and then once wiped quit?

Feel free to say why or such below
Tl: Dr vanilla stops at nax and just stays there. Or vanilla server restarts everyone's character.

[zesilo]

2 separate realms would be ideal exactly as you stated. Diablo Seasons. Introduce it to the Vanilla scene and yes, people would flock to it every time and try to compete.

[Machismo]

I have no problem with a progression-based server, and the character doesn't need to be deleted. After a season, the character doesn't disappear, it merely becomes a "normal" spot. The same can be done for vanilla quite easily if they push a progressive game with content patches to mirror vanilla. Once those characters end the end of the cycle, they all end up on the same server with all the other "retired" characters. That way, you can play through progression, and still play in the end game with your other toon. You can even start new characters on the "retired" server if you like.

[Sinndra]

why would you need to do this... re~roll does this already. start a new alt. or just delete your own character and start again. iirc, Vanilla didnt have account bound stuff in the first place.

i know its difficult to be proactive and do these types of actions yourself, many need Big Daddy Blizzard to do it for them as well as force everyone else to do it too, even the ones that dont want it.

[FelPlague]

why would you need to do this... re~roll does this already. start a new alt. or just delete your own character and start again. iirc, Vanilla didnt have account bound stuff in the first place.

i know its difficult to be proactive and do these types of actions yourself, many need Big Daddy Blizzard to do it for them as well as force everyone else to do it too, even the ones that dont want it.

Creating an alt you could at least send them gold. And the market would be stable. After a reset the market would be empty. Causing everything to cost more again.

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2 separate realms would be ideal exactly as you stated. Diablo Seasons. Introduce it to the Vanilla scene and yes, people would flock to it every time and try to compete.

Because splitting up the community even more is the best idea right..?

[Sinndra]

Creating an alt you could at least send them gold. And the market would be stable. After a reset the market would be empty. Causing everything to cost more again.

seems unnecessary just to reset the market. everything outside of the market is basically player controlled, meaning if you want progression or something, just re~roll, or delete your character yourself any time you want.

if market is what you are ultimately concerned about, then it would seem more reasonable to just focus on some sort of AH reset alone, rather than entire server wipes.

[Echocho]

Depends on if it's doable or not. If they do authentic patch progression they can't really release fresh servers but if they were to do a frankenpatch and unlock content server side I suppose it's possible but I have to wonder how well received it would be. The whole point of MMORPGs are persistent worlds and long term character progression. Wiping the slate clean doesn't seem that alluring.

[FelPlague]

Depends on if it's doable or not. If they do authentic patch progression they can't really release fresh servers but if they were to do a frankenpatch and unlock content server side I suppose it's possible but I have to wonder how well received it would be. The whole point of MMORPGs are persistent worlds and long term character progression. Wiping the slate clean doesn't seem that alluring.

Agreed. I don't like the idea but someone else said it is what the community wants so I want to test that.

All they said is the severs would reset and everyone would be set back to a fresh account. A fresh server. Every time you would go into TBC.

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seems unnecessary just to reset the market. everything outside of the market is basically player controlled, meaning if you want progression or something, just re~roll, or delete your character yourself any time you want.

if market is what you are ultimately concerned about, then it would seem more reasonable to just focus on some sort of AH reset alone, rather than entire server wipes.

I don't want it. Someone else does. They said this is what the community wants, the servers to shut down then a fee days later or something be back up back to molten core, with all progression reset.

[tikcol]

Yes, such is the law of fresh.

[Xecks]

i would have to say a big no to that. if i want fresh i would roll an alt.

[BSwitch]

Is this actually a thing? I've never heard of the idea of a server getting wiped. Fresh servers starting and people re-rolling of their own accord, yes, but deleting characters and starting over? Have people actually suggested that?

In short, no, not a chance. I wouldn't be happy with that idea, nor do I believe there's even a remote possibility it will happen. The QQ would be epic.

What I DO believe will happen is that new servers will be created and people will continue to make alts. Specifically if there's a progressive patch release, or time-gated content, the idea of starting over could be awesome. Eventually, I suspect the first wave of servers will get populated by people who have capped everything and are ready for an alt. The idea of a fresh time-gated server to roll a new character on is a great one. The idea of a fresh server that deletes your current toons and forces a reroll is insane.

To add onto this, if they make BC servers eventually, I'd be in favour of a character copy option for those servers - allowing you to copy your character to the BC server, instead of doing it like an expansion, where suddenly everything changes and you basically have to continue. Some people just want Vanilla forever, even if things get stale. Forcing a deletion, or forcing an expansion would be a bad idea imo (though, fresh servers could address this to a point.)

[Zulatomten]

Look at it realistically...

Let's play with the idea that the Wow player base whould end up 70/30, Live/Classic respectivly.
Already at this stage Blizzard have in a way split away their community within their one game. Say then a year after Classic releases, they wipe the server. The player base that doesn't want this to happen whould be pissed.
As a company who i whould asume want to financially benefit for releasing Classic, you whould never do this. So if they whould wipe the server, they instead whould make a new server for those whould potentially want to relevel and clear the content again.
Now you split the smaller community again into a even smaller one. Let's say 70/20/10, Live/Classic/NewClassic

There's literally no benefit for Blizzard from doing what OP suggested. The same goes with progressing a Classic server to Burning Crusade,(*) Opening new servers/expansions. Split the community into smaller and more finite ones.

*: Which whould be the only reason why i start playing WoW again.

[DrStiglit]

seems unnecessary just to reset the market. everything outside of the market is basically player controlled, meaning if you want progression or something, just re~roll, or delete your character yourself any time you want.

if market is what you are ultimately concerned about, then it would seem more reasonable to just focus on some sort of AH reset alone, rather than entire server wipes.

Without a complete wipe the progression race doesn’t reset. A season would keep people interested in the race going.

A market reset alone isn’t going to be helpful.

[Aeula]

My interest in Vanilla would drop to 0 immediately.

[Morbownz]

It would be smarter to stagger the release of servers. If a server has been live for 18 months and the activity has died down drastically since the first Naxx clear then a fresh server would attract the more hardcore classic fans back to get that journey experience all over again. A large portion of the private server community has been doing this over and over for the last 5-10 years.

[Uurdz]

Adding fresh servers would be good but wiping servers is a big no-no in my book.
Even with Diablo 2, your characters revert to non-ladder. There are economic implications to this but I could see this working depending on the cost of server mergers

Eg
Stable Server 1
Ladder Server 1

12 months later - merge -

Stable Server 1 (+ Ladder Server 1)
Ladder Server 2

Etc.

They could look to include specific mounts, titles or altered colour scheme sets to encourage play on ladder servers. It might encourage the game to be played long long term like Diablo 2.

[Vineri]

I don't personally see the thrill in starting over from complete account scratch, just to do the same thing over again.

The interesting part is when you are actually strong enough to do the very end content, as a very powerful character. Then you "beat" the game and request a character copy to TBC. Or spend the next year grinding rep. Or make alts.

Servers "elsewhere" keep doing this new realm rubbish. With every iteration, the participating players become more and more antisocial, as it becomes simply how fast they can become 60 and be raid-ready... and not so much how many lives they can change along the way.

However, if there is enough interest, Blizzard might open a new server from time to time for the "I just want to finish 30% of the game and start over" mindset. Or they might just tell players to roll on a different server. /shrug

[FelPlague]

If running a Diablo-esque season system keeps classic fresh and exciting, id be cool with it. Vanilla isn't really my bag, but yeah.., more power to those who want it.

It would be diablo seasons but without the rewards, and also remember this would reset the market, and also leveling 1-60 and doing stuff takes way longer then in diablo.

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Is this actually a thing? I've never heard of the idea of a server getting wiped. Fresh servers starting and people re-rolling of their own accord, yes, but deleting characters and starting over? Have people actually suggested that?

In short, no, not a chance. I wouldn't be happy with that idea, nor do I believe there's even a remote possibility it will happen. The QQ would be epic.

What I DO believe will happen is that new servers will be created and people will continue to make alts. Specifically if there's a progressive patch release, or time-gated content, the idea of starting over could be awesome. Eventually, I suspect the first wave of servers will get populated by people who have capped everything and are ready for an alt. The idea of a fresh time-gated server to roll a new character on is a great one. The idea of a fresh server that deletes your current toons and forces a reroll is insane.

To add onto this, if they make BC servers eventually, I'd be in favour of a character copy option for those servers - allowing you to copy your character to the BC server, instead of doing it like an expansion, where suddenly everything changes and you basically have to continue. Some people just want Vanilla forever, even if things get stale. Forcing a deletion, or forcing an expansion would be a bad idea imo (though, fresh servers could address this to a point.)

yep look 2 posts above you, aswell as i guess a few others, who say vanilla players want to play vanilla over and over and over and over, being forcefully reset every time

[Goldielocks]

Your character shouldn't be deleted but have a prestige leveling system for every reset. A level 60 would be sent back to level 1 with everything removed but have a special indicator for being at max level in the previous season (or whatever word you'd call it). I'd say it'd be cool to have a system like Overwatch has it. There'd be a visual indicator as to how many times you've had your level reset from max, but it wouldn't give any benefit aside from looking cool.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

There were only two reasons people were excited for new servers (aka, "fresh servers") in vanilla:

1.) So they could stand a chance of trying to get a character name they wanted but was taken by some douche who never used it on their old server.
2.) To try and be amongst the first to open up AQ once it was released, so they could get the title and mount.

That was it. And the second one completely negated the whole point of itself anyway by making it less special every time it happened.