What would happen to all the classic servers if TBC came?

[Naraga]

In my opinion they should make the current servers transition to TBC 1 year after Naxx release.

I see no point in keeping the vanilla servers around. It literally goes against the spirit of Vanilla and MMORPG's to have a finished game.

Was it separate at launch of TBC? NOPE, if you picked up then you were behind. The headstart is only a problem to those who did not subscribe. Blizzard has a track record of rewarding those who play the game.

TBC did see fresh servers though.

[Classy]

TBC did see fresh servers though.

I have zero objection to fresh TBC servers or fresh servers in general, but did they actually restrict transfers to certain new servers when TBC launched? I remember transferring to Area 52 right when it opened (as Alliance, huge mistake), but I don't remember if they specifically opened realms and restricted transfers.

[McNeil]

TBC should be its own client and give you the opportunity to transfer your Classic character over. If we're just continueing from Classic then we would be repeating the cycle all over again where we are asking for Classic servers again.

[CrawlFromThePit]

I'd imagine it would be new servers and youd have an option to copy your character over. This would split the playerbase and they would have to do something about all the classic servers losing a ton of ppl. It would completely cripple them imo.

There would be enough people to make 1 classic server at best and it would be filled with crazy people. No one with a working brain thinks classic is better than TBC.

[ellieg]

There would be enough people to make 1 classic server at best and it would be filled with crazy people. No one with a working brain thinks classic is better than TBC.

Some people are very adamantly anti arena, anti resilience, and anti flying mounts. Idc either way.

But if you think faction balance is bad now, wait until belfs get introduced lol.

[xGLxAnubis]

allow you to copy each character a single time, .

This doesn't work, though. I Copy Char A with 1k gold. I send the 1k gold to Char B. I copy Char B. I Send the gold to char C. I copy char C. I've now duplicated all of my gold onto BC.

Most likely what they would do is when BC goes live, THEY would copy all existing Classic toons. When BC goes live, your toons are already there. Proceed as normal, no more Character transfers occur.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Some people are very adamantly anti arena, anti resilience, and anti flying mounts. Idc either way.

But if you think faction balance is bad now, wait until belfs get introduced lol.

At this point in time with the popular perception that horde is always better, the only way to fix faction imbalance is either deleting faction, or forcing population control on every realm, literally stopping people from rolling horde, and hand pick future server transfer to make it impossible to join the outnumbering faction no matter what. Wanan play with your friends and they're on horde? Make them all come to alliance somewhere else, or play alone, or don't play at all.

Right now Blizz is too permissive and letting players destroy the game.

[Monkey]

What is all this talk about 1 character free transfer with limited gold?

If I don’t get to transfer all toons with all gear and gold, and keep my names, regardless of level, then I would be done with Blizzard.

When BC first hit you didn’t have to be poor again. If you had gold in Vanilla, then you had gold in BC.

If they do launch BC servers, they need to have a one way, unlimited, no restrictions transfer from Classic to BC server. Forever.

Classic is a museum piece. Supposed to allow future generations of gamers to experience the original game. By never stopping the free transfers, players will be allowed to have that experience for as long as they want. When the time comes to do BC, let that happen.

But telling someone who is just starting WoW Classic 5 years from now that they have to choose between trying out Classic or going right into BC would negate the entire reason for it to exist.

[brunnor]

This doesn't work, though. I Copy Char A with 1k gold. I send the 1k gold to Char B. I copy Char B. I Send the gold to char C. I copy char C. I've now duplicated all of my gold onto BC.

Most likely what they would do is when BC goes live, THEY would copy all existing Classic toons. When BC goes live, your toons are already there. Proceed as normal, no more Character transfers occur.

Copies wont work. It would have to be moves. Some people don't plan to play TBC+ at all, so they would just sell their gold/materials either for classic gold or irl as they would have duplicated funds.

Just have a prompt when you log on, move to TBC or stay classic, with each char. If you pick move, you char is xfered and if you pick stay, you stay.

This would prevent those not playing TBC from being able to mess with economy and would keep TBC players from messing with classic economy.

[Unholyground]

I'd imagine it would be new servers and youd have an option to copy your character over. This would split the playerbase and they would have to do something about all the classic servers losing a ton of ppl. It would completely cripple them imo.

Considering that private servers were fine with less than 2000 per faction I think it would just require some server mergers. There are always solutions to problems.

[Nobleshield]

I would suspect it'd be different servers, that way people who want Classic and only Classic can stay on those, and people who want TBC can move/reroll. Ideally with one free character transfer (not copy) per account so you can move your main to a TBC server (a one-way transfer). Preferably with faction transfers (paid, ofc) too.

[draynay]

Don't care, rerolling shaman.

[Will]

What makes you think that so many Classic players would switch to TBC?

Also, what makes you additionally assume that TBC won't attract players who have no interest in [Vanilla] Classic?

I'd switch to TBC, but make no mistake, there'd be plenty of people left behind with zero interest in it to retain healthy realms. Some would probably need merging, yes.

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What is all this talk about 1 character free transfer with limited gold?

If I don’t get to transfer all toons with all gear and gold, and keep my names, regardless of level, then I would be done with Blizzard.

When BC first hit you didn’t have to be poor again. If you had gold in Vanilla, then you had gold in BC.

If they do launch BC servers, they need to have a one way, unlimited, no restrictions transfer from Classic to BC server. Forever.

Classic is a museum piece. Supposed to allow future generations of gamers to experience the original game. By never stopping the free transfers, players will be allowed to have that experience for as long as they want. When the time comes to do BC, let that happen.

But telling someone who is just starting WoW Classic 5 years from now that they have to choose between trying out Classic or going right into BC would negate the entire reason for it to exist.

I don't mind if they do that so long as they:

A) give early access for 2-3 weeks for TBC for levelling new toons, and don't open up transfers until later.

or

B) make a few servers for TBC "fresh" ones which don't allow transfers, and have other servers which CAN be transferred to like normal.

[Kayze]

I'm not sure they'd release that. They might add content to Classic in the same spirit of Classic but adding TBC changes the systems that people wanted from Classic. Honestly, I could also see them doing nothing further with Classic and using it as just a test case for what players liked from the traditional MMORPG systems to then integrate into retail.

A new client wouldn't be needed. Classic is built from the Legion client of the game.

It's built on top of the modern client framework, which would be BFA now. They didn't fork it, they just added a layer.

[Noxina]

I could see the opposite. Move all servers to TBC and provide an option for you to migrate your characters over to a classic realm at purchase of TBC, if you so wish.

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Was it separate at launch of TBC? NOPE, if you picked up then you were behind. The headstart is only a problem to those who did not subscribe. Blizzard has a track record of rewarding those who play the game.

Who gives a shit if it was like that in TBC? And Blizzard gives zero fucks about people being subbed, that's why there is one million catch up mechanics on retail. They just want people to pay teir 6 month subs for a pretty mount.

But hey, you're entitled to your opinion.

[valax]

The most cost effective way to add tbc would be having a warmode-like population phasing .
You opt in to TBC irreversibly , having the same people on the same servers would be best to avoid player migration and you could be able to play some characters on tbc and the others in vanilla if you desired.
But they would have to separate auction houses and cut off mailing to different phase alts to keep the economy true .

Or just add servers IDK , it seems like many realms run on the same machines anyway but i'm no engineer so don't take me too seriously, just my 2cents

[Egomaniac]

Would they merge servers? And how would Blizzard handle the initial hype for TBC?

That would be for blizzard to decide. They might keep classic servers classic and create new servers for BC, they might just straight up upgrade classic servers to BC servers, or they might just provide an ability for each character on your account to lock into classic or upgrade to BC.

[Whistl3r]

Open up the portal, if you step through it your character starts TBC (on new servers) if it doesn't that characters stays wow classic. That would be cool.

[Shuji V2]

I think layering would make a comeback in Classic once TBC arrives. Basically layer 1 is Classic while layer 2 is TBC (and 3 could be WoTLK etc) and you will be able to switch which game you would like to play at any given time through the character select screen or in bnet launcher or something. This means that at the time of launching the TBC pre-patch, a carbon copy of the world is made so all your toons, gear, items etc will carry on into TBC and if you ever decide to play some Classic again you can simply switch back and your toons are in the same state as you left them. Perhaps there should be a way to copy a classic toon to tbc if you ever wish to do so after pre-patch as well.

But yeah, I think the use of layering would be really useful, allowing server communities to stay in tact regardless of which expansion you play.

[RobertMugabe]

New servers to avoid the purist cries.
Remains to be seen if purists want dead servers or connect all classic realms in a single one or a few.

It's hard to tell who is a bigger crybaby, you or these purists (whoever tf this is supposed to be) you're talking about.

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Copying would kinda be an unfair advantage that someone can still play both even though I would like it so that the leveling to 60 was not completely useless in Classic.

Else Transferring the character would kill Classic servers and they are already pretty much thinned out.

Either they just upgrade classic to BC or it probably won't happen.

Why would copying characters be unfair and unfair to who?

Keeping your character on a classic server, while at the same time being able to progress through TBC is the most logical thing they could do.

Then you have the best of both worlds too: Classic servers and TBC servers and then you just play whatever u want.