Wrath of the Lich King Classic - New Fresh Start Realms

[Lumy]

New Fresh Start Realm Now Available - Angerforge (NA)

When Wrath Classic realm maintenance is finished today, you’ll find a new Fresh Start realm available in this region: Angerforge (PvP).

As with previous Fresh Start realms, only new characters can be created here. All transfers to and from Angerforge are disabled, level boosts may not be applied to characters on this realm, and Death Knights may not be created here until your character is leveled up.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been highly focused on realm populations and making adjustments to promote the long-term success of all realms. We’re looking forward to seeing the Angerforge community join the story.

New Fresh Start Realm Coming Soon - Jin'do (EU)

When Wrath Classic realm maintenance is finished early tomorrow morning, you’ll find a new Fresh Start realm available in this region: Jin'do (PvP).

As with previous Fresh Start realms, only new characters can be created here. All transfers to and from Jin’do are disabled, level boosts may not be applied to characters on this realm, and Death Knights may not be created here until your character is leveled up.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been highly focused on realm populations and making adjustments to promote the long-term success of all realms. We’re looking forward to seeing the Jin’do community join the story.

[fwc577]

What a waste of resources. These realms will be dead in a month.

[Recovery]

So silly. Why spin up a new fresh start realm rather than opening more transfers from benny / faerlina

[Aqua]

What a waste of resources. These realms will be dead in a month.

Well no, they can freely merge realms now when it gets like that, this is just planning ahead for the congestion of Wotlk launch week.

[SinR]

Players: WEH SO MANY QUEUES ON THE NEW SERVERS
Also Players: STOP WASTING RESOURCES ON NEW SERVERS

[Ragu4]

Players: WEH SO MANY QUEUES ON THE NEW SERVERS
Also Players: STOP WASTING RESOURCES ON NEW SERVERS

I don't think you've missed a single MMO-C thread. I see you on every single one.

[Greyvax]

Future dead realms

[chronia]

Bad move, now they open up the possibility for a 'Alliance' and a 'Horde' server again per region. The very thing they here ( https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...ers/1323722/14 ) said would be detrimental to the game.

So the fresh realms are a very unique situation and we want to be extremely careful about adding more realms. Adding a 2nd fresh PvP realm is very very likely to do one of two things:

Lead to both realms being unhealthy in the long term.
Essentially guarantee that one of the two realms becomes the “horde” server, and the other becomes the “alliance” server.
Additionally, Fresh realms are also much more likely to experience a bit of a decline once the game actually launches. Many people are leveling in fresh now during pre-patch but we expect some number of those players to return to their normal established servers and guilds once the expansion launches. This might be a situation where its better for us to weather the storm, as it were.

And yet they give in again, while long term it would be much better if ppl just take the queues for a bit and keep one healthy server per type per region.

[Tonkaden]

I see that inbred mongoloids still manage to access some internet pages.

He isn't wrong. Once the big streamers leave them, their rabid fanboys (like yourself) will go with them. Spinning up new servers is def a mistake. They are DoA. Its going to be interesting in a few months when all the streamers have gone.

[SinR]

I don't think you've missed a single MMO-C thread. I see you on every single one.

Work gets boring when all you do is stare at two computers all day.

[RamGuy]

It baffles me how tone-deaf and oblivious Blizzard seems to be on this issue, especially for fresh servers. I've already spent over 40 hours in queue total, I've had to schedule everything around the game instead of the other way around how it's meant to be. And I have already gotten two characters on Thekal to a decent level and started interacting with a lot of the players on this server, already grinded some of my professions, etc. Not to mention how Northrend is still opening at the same date, and there is no compensation on this new server to make it so I can somehow replace the two weeks lost in leveling time before Northrend opens on this new fresh server.

Not providing an option for free transfers from Thekal to Jin'do will most likely not affect the current queue times on Thekal all that much as the number of people playing sub-level 30 compared to post-level 30 is starting to get rather big. I have a hard time believing a lot of people will be willing to leave at this point. Of course, if we continue to have 15k queues every single day it will hopefully make some people feel the pressure to leave so perhaps it decreases to 8k queues every single day. That's almost half the queue which is a huge improvement, but it's still a problem so we actually need at least 15k players to re-roll on the new server and I highly doubt that is going to happen.

I understand the argument about not offering free transfers as history clearly shows how that would only result in Thekal becoming 90% alliance, Jin'do 90% horde. But this is probably going to hurt the ratio by the fact that the server is already 60/40 alliance:horde and there is far more low-level being done by the alliance on the server so low-level horde players seem to have a harder time as of right now so horde players are most likely to be easier tempted by re-rolling on Jin'do making this 60/40 slipping into 65/35 very quickly which will make it even more likely for horde players to re-roll and less likely for alliance players to do so and thus faction balance goes down the drain regardless.

There is also the argument on how you should treat your existing player base. The players of Thekal have done nothing wrong. There was only one option for a fresh PvP server and people rolled on this server. Having the solution for 15k queues on a daily bases to be another fresh PvP server that existing players have been struggling with for two weeks out of the total of five weeks pre-patch can't free transfer to sounds really tone deaf if you ask me.


Considering how both Vanilla: Classic and TBC: Classic had a rather large drop-off of players after 2-3 months I wouldn't feel very confident about the state of this new fresh PvP server either. How many players interested in the fresh experience leading up to the WotLK release haven't started playing already? This new fresh server sounds like a magnet for casual players that have had the biggest issues with the current queue situation and that sounds like the portion of the player base that is most likely to disappear in 2-3 months. This will also mean you'll have to convince all your friends and guildies (if you are invested in whatever guild you are currently in on Thekal) to actually re-roll with you.

[Tonkaden]

It baffles me how tone-deaf and oblivious Blizzard seems to be on this issue, especially for fresh servers. I've already spent over 40 hours in queue total, I've had to schedule everything around the game instead of the other way around how it's meant to be. And I have already gotten two characters on Thekal to a decent level and started interacting with a lot of the players on this server, already grinded some of my professions, etc. Not to mention how Northrend is still opening at the same date, and there is no compensation on this new server to make it so I can somehow replace the two weeks lost in leveling time before Northrend opens on this new fresh server.

Not providing an option for free transfers from Thekal to Jin'do will most likely not affect the current queue times on Thekal all that much as the number of people playing sub-level 30 compared to post-level 30 is starting to get rather big. I have a hard time believing a lot of people will be willing to leave at this point. Of course, if we continue to have 15k queues every single day it will hopefully make some people feel the pressure to leave so perhaps it decreases to 8k queues every single day. That's almost half the queue which is a huge improvement, but it's still a problem so we actually need at least 15k players to re-roll on the new server and I highly doubt that is going to happen.

I understand the argument about not offering free transfers as history clearly shows how that would only result in Thekal becoming 90% alliance, Jin'do 90% horde. But this is probably going to hurt the ratio by the fact that the server is already 60/40 alliance:horde and there is far more low-level being done by the alliance on the server so low-level horde players seem to have a harder time as of right now so horde players are most likely to be easier tempted by re-rolling on Jin'do making this 60/40 slipping into 65/35 very quickly which will make it even more likely for horde players to re-roll and less likely for alliance players to do so and thus faction balance goes down the drain regardless.

There is also the argument on how you should treat your existing player base. The players of Thekal have done nothing wrong. There was only one option for a fresh PvP server and people rolled on this server. Having the solution for 15k queues on a daily bases to be another fresh PvP server that existing players have been struggling with for two weeks out of the total of five weeks pre-patch can't free transfer to sounds really tone deaf if you ask me.


Considering how both Vanilla: Classic and TBC: Classic had a rather large drop-off of players after 2-3 months I wouldn't feel very confident about the state of this new fresh PvP server either. How many players interested in the fresh experience leading up to the WotLK release haven't started playing already? This new fresh server sounds like a magnet for casual players that have had the biggest issues with the current queue situation and that sounds like the portion of the player base that is most likely to disappear in 2-3 months. This will also mean you'll have to convince all your friends and guildies (if you are invested in whatever guild you are currently in on Thekal) to actually re-roll with you.

What do you want them to do. Real question. How is it fixable?

[Kralljin]

Generally speaking to good news to alleviate insane queue times but obviously the long game matters here.

I still hold the view that Blizzard should offer more incentives to players other than just "queues on big realms are long, transfer if you don't like them".
People who transfer should at least be offered some benefits such, as
- Greater XP Buff
- More Honor gain
- More badges

Having these things last into Wrath may be a bit too far, but if Blizzard wants to avoid any direct incentives for Players to transfer, they really need to roll out announcements in regards to their plans what they'll do about realm health in Wotlk.
Because those Mega realms and players absolute unwillingness to transfer is borne out of Blizzards "oops, too late to do anything about it now, but thanks for paying 2-5 character transfers!" attitude in Classic and TBC.

[Rosefern]

This feels like it won't have any effect on queues without free transfers off existing fresh servers. (unless I missed that part).
As someone who's been leveling on Skyfury and currently at 45, starting all over at this stage before wotlk drops doesn't feel doable. If I can transfer from skyfury over to angerforge i'd do it though.

[Ave07]

Why does Blizzard just make a server B for the mega servers and allow crz and grouping?

[RamGuy]

What do you want them to do. Real question. How is it fixable?

Accepting the fact that their decision on bringing out just a single fresh pvp server in the entirety of the EU was a mistake and thus offer free transfers from Thekal to this new fresh server. This is obviously going to affect faction balance, but faction balance is most likey going to be affected regardless so at least make things as painless for existing players that have had to deal with massive queues for almost three weeks instead of forcing them to stay with the massive queues or start all over again.

- - - Updated - - -

This feels like it won't have any effect on queues without free transfers off existing fresh servers. (unless I missed that part).
As someone who's been leveling on Skyfury and currently at 45, starting all over at this stage before wotlk drops doesn't feel doable. If I can transfer from skyfury over to angerforge i'd do it though.

Worst part about it is how the Joyus Buff is supposed to end when Northrend opens. So you are not only going to struggle with reaching level 70 in time, but it will go slower for you once Northrend opens up as the buff gets removed just to add insult to injury.

Unless you have ample time and do some power leveling, most players won't be able to make it in time if they re-roll on this server. By using all kinds of remote desktop and anti-AFK shenanigans on Thekal/Skyfury people won't toss their previous time invested into the bin.

This server should at least extend the EXP buff so it lasts for an additional three weeks so it all matches up with the other fresh servers. To give existing players on Thekal/Skyfury some intensive to re-roll to alleviate the queue as there are no free transfers one could argue for this new fresh server to have some additional benefits making it more attractive. If the buff is going to only stay there for two weeks, increase it to 100 or 125% to balance out the fact that it's available for only 2/5 of the duration compared to the original fresh servers.

[munkeyinorbit]

I don't think you've missed a single MMO-C thread. I see you on every single one.

Weird way to flex that you've read every single thread.

[Dristereau]

I see people complaining but how is what they're doing so bad? They've taken a steady approach to only add limited realms, offered FCM to help relieve queues on mega-servers and added a brand new server that can only be populated by those on servers with massive queues. Also they've locked servers to prevent the issue getting worse.

These new servers have been created because I assume that the new PVP Fresh realms on EU and US have massive amounts of players on them and this is their answer; to prevent those servers having massive queues as well. Honestly feel like they're taking a very logical approach by not adding millions of new realms that need to be merged in the future.

[Darknessvamp]

Bring on the Jin'do queues!

[Ragu4]

Weird way to flex that you've read every single thread.

At least on the ones I open, that person is ALWAYS there lmao.