All answers from Reddit AMA/QA with Suzerain

[Pottu 290]

Format will be Question followed by Answer. I'm not doing quotes, as there are too many.

Q: Any chance we can get an ETA for the first server? That would give us a much better idea of the timeline overall.

Also thank you guys so much. You're making all our dreams come true. <3

A: There is no date yet, however we can ensure you that we’re working day and night on getting everything and everyone ready for launch as soon as possible. There is still much to do and the last thing we want to do is release the servers before they are ready.

Q: Will there be announcements in-game on the first-released server that will let new players know that there will be new and fresh servers released soon? A lot of us are afraid about what the population will be like on the new PvP server.

A: As the opening of a new realm is a big event in the project, we will make in-game announcements about it.

Q: Do dynamic spawn rates affect Rare Spawns?

A: As of now, dynamic spawn rates do not affect rare spawns. We are considering its implementation.

Q: Will dungeons (any of them whether it be Deadmines, RFC, or UBRS) be tuned to have more difficulty to retain a classic vanilla feel, now that we all know how to play the game?

A: Dungeon tuning is something we have been discussing internally. As of yet, we have not come to a decision on this point.

Q: In the announcement for the PvE server on Nostalrius it has been said that a population cap for the PvE server is planned to keep the population on a healthy level. Rumors say a 5k population cap has been considered. Eventually PvE had a player base of 4k-4.5k peak times which was actually a very good population and experience in general. Will this plan be adapted, or will PvE be able to have an “unlimited” population like former PvP?

A: We have a cap planned, but the number would not be this low. The exact number is subject to change based on the amount of people who decide to roll on this server. We are flexible and will do whatever we can to provide the optimal experience while also making as much space as possible for players.

Q: Regarding the server release you’ve said that the order will be Nost PvP > Fresh > PvE. In addition there is a delay for each following release of (at max) 3-4 weeks. Your reason for releasing Nost PvP first is, that it’s the realm with the most players. Why isn’t the “amount of players” fact applied to PvE as well? It’s only pre-BWL progressed, but it had eventually a peak of 4k-4.5k (which isn’t “a dead server”!). It would offer a good environment & easier catch up for anyone that is new. There is also the fear that the population of PvE will seriously suffer because it will be released last.

A: There are two things to consider: The majority of players are interested in the two PvP realms, and the individuals inclined to play the PvE style realms will most likely do so regardless of order. That being said, the staff is confident that the PvE server will not suffer from the order of launch due to its nature. We will do whatever we can to make the gap between servers as small as possible, but also understand that people have largely made up their minds about what server they will play, and the order will not be that impactful.

Q: What exactly is the reason to split release Nostalrius PvP and Nostalrius PvE? It seems like releasing both at the same time (or a split of only 2-3 days) would make more sense, since all existing characters could continue to play while new players could join either one (PvE would make more sense in that regards) or wait for the new server. It’s kind of unfair that former PvP players will have the opportunity to use their holidays playing already while former PvE players will need to wait for a much longer time and even suffer a major drop in the population (a lot of former PvE players said they’ll roll/continue on PvP or fresh since they can’t wait that long).

A: It is not a decision we made lightly. There are reasons why staggering the launches is more beneficial for everyone. There will be a lot to do for each server individually. 3-4 weeks is a very conservative guess. It is not possible for us to launch 2 or 3 servers at once, unless we greatly delayed our initial launch time to do so. There is potential for a faster release schedule for all servers, but there is still a lot of work to be done for each.

Q: Nostalrius adjusted many things to accomodate for the higher than normal vanilla population. On Elysium, will this same idealogy be applied to the pending War Effort?

A: The technologies that are described in the Nostalrius post-mortem document, for dealing with unusually large populations, will be present on all realms. As for the gates of Ahn’Qiraj event, this is a technical challenge that our developers are very excited to solve. Our intention that the War Effort feels challenging to finish yet easily attainable given enough effort for each realm population.

Q: Do you work towards having uncapped servers?

A: While we will be working to allow as many people as possible to play each realm, we will focus on quality over quantity and there will ultimately be adding a cap so that the servers will be lag free and have good view distance.

Q: What is the plan to stop/mitigate gold farmers/botters/etc? There was a massive problem with these farmers (not necessarily ALL Chinese, but a vast majority were) and I want to know what the team's plan is to solve or mitigate this problem.

A: We were tackling a lot of these issues on Elysium. We’ve devised multiple algorithms and auto-detection software that will help us to detect such problems quickly.

Q: Hi, i would like to help the devs with participating in the stress test, however i miss some information:

A: All of this info will be provided to you in an announcement prior to the stress test.

Q: A lot of us want to support you through donations to show our appreciation. Will there be a way to donate, even if it does not give in game rewards?

A: Yes! You can find a donation link in the control panel of our website. Link to that: https://elysium-project.org/control/

As you mentioned, donations do not and will not offer rewards. Your donations will only go to server upkeep for the realms and the websites.

Q: is tbc planned after vanilla is done?

A: As of now, our focus is on Vanilla for the foreseeable future. TBC is something we are very interested in as a whole, but we will only begin to tackle the expansion post-naxxramas. We do not want to begin expanding until our we are satisfied with the quality of our Vanilla realms.

Q: I was wondering what the current situation is with the view distance? It was made extremely low on Nostalrius at some point to deal with the large population, I'm curious what the situation will be upon re-launch?

A: Questions like these are why we need to perform stress tests. We realize that the draw distance on Nostalrius was, at times, disturbing gameplay and we’d like to avoid this the best we can. Some thing we can say is that we’re aiming at a slightly lower player population, with hardware being very similar with the original Nostalrius PvP realm, so we should see improvement in this area.

Q: Before nostalrius shutdown they were very close to adding the clustering system to the server. Do you guys plan on continuing that work and adding it? Could it even be available when you launch?

A: The clustering development as of now is paused and will resume once some crucial core modifications are finished. We currently do not have an ETA on implementation.

Q: Are there plans to redesign the valkyrie forums? I don't find them very well structured, plus sometimes sites pop up with only kyrillic letters which is quite annoying.

A: Yes, we’re looking into the possibility of making the forums a little more World of Warcraft related. However, currently our web resources are focused on the website to prepare the transfer and account creation.

Q: what's the ETA on the fresh start Elysium server?

A: There is no date yet, however we can ensure you that we’re working day and night on getting everything and everyone ready for launch as soon as possible. There is still much to do and the last thing we want to do is release the servers before they are ready.

Q: Will the fresh server follow the original Nostalrius timeline? The original timeline has Dire Maul release at 3 months in and BWL at 7 months, that's just extremely slow and I can only imagine this timeline was used since the content needed to be scripted. Now the content already exists so perhaps an accelerated timeline (similar pace to the original Elysium server) would be in order?

A: The current plan is to release the fresh server in the same way both Nostalrius realms opened and Elysium opened, with Dire Maul closed. The timeline pace is still under discussion and will be revealed in a future announcement.

Q: Any chance of revising the multiboxing rules to allow 2 clients open in the goblin cities? This would allow cross faction AH transfers in a more safe way and reduce the chance of falling victim to auto AH snipe bots.

A: The rules are always maturing and this is something we will take into consideration. Thank you for asking.

Q: What will happen to ingame mail on Elysium characters? I was storing a lot of stuff in my mailbox and the recipients/senders of these mails will now change to another account name and character name. Will the mails still be intact after the merge?

A: The mail will still be intact after the merge.

Q: One of the things that people worry about the most is the difficulty in pve : to sum it up, by the time blizzard was done with the content in each version of the game, it had been nerfed time and time again. So what we have in the majority of private servers, is a watered down distorsion of the real game, as far as raiding goes.

Vanilla isnt difficult, it's true, but we all know that molten core and black wing lair were not a challenge on nostalrius, nor were they on kronos or on rebirth.

Don't you think a re-tuning is in order today, when most people really want a challenge in pve? Crestfall wow, as an example, mentioned that they would do so several times. Now, i'm not saying they're right or wrong, i'm just wondering : what are you going to do about this particular issue?

A: The goal for our team is to bring back Vanilla World of Warcraft to be as close to the original as possible. Before we can say “This boss should be harder” or “This one should do this ability differently”, we first need to get the content accurate. In following the Nostalrius spirit, we will implement the pre-nerf versions of each boss as best we’re able to. One good example would be C’thun. When C’thun was originally released, he was pretty much unkillable do to issues in where he would spawn tentacles. However, when Blizzard fixed the issues that caused him to be unkillable, they also nerfed damage and HP values of everything related to that fight. We intend to bring back the original HP and damage values while maintaining the fixes to the bugs that caused the fight to be impossible. This should mean a more difficult fight than you may be used to on private servers.

Q: What is your main reasoning for delaying the Fresh PvP server relative to the nost PvP realm's release by so long? The original posts stated 3-4 weeks and then that quickly turned into back peddling in Discord with 'oh thats the max time' when the reaction was bad. How long should we really expect to wait and what is the reasoning if it's not just an attempt to manipulate the pop to keep Old Nost alive a little longer?

A: The main reasoning is that there are things that must be done for each individual server. We had two choices: Launch the main realm as quick as possible to give people the opportunity to play their old characters, or delay all releases significantly in order to push them through at the same time. In the end, the effect of the staggered servers results in us getting a realm out far more quickly. One of the biggest roadblocks to getting each server online is staffing. Each server will require a large GM staff to properly monitor and respond to player needs and questions. One of the biggest ways the community could partner with us to speed the release of servers is having more qualified and trustworthy GMs being willing to volunteer their time and effort.

Q: Do you think it may be possible that the fresh server opens on holidays?

A: We cannot set a date for each individual server. Many things can happen between now and then, as well as between each staggered release. We will release each server when it’s ready and we are confident in a successful launch

Q: Why not keep the nostalrius.org site and use it for the community?

A: While we have received the Nostalrius source code, the character database and a number of former Nostalrius members are on our staff, the team behind the relaunches and the new pvp realm is not Nostalrius. We are using the names for the realms as they previously were to limit confusion and for marketing purposes but the overall team behind this project is the Elysium Project.

Q: Will Elysium PVP be ran off Nostalrius' hardware? If not it should because it will have the highest population and will be the focal point of the Elysuim Project.

A: It will be running on very similar hardware, yes. We will be able to accommodate the population.

Hopefully I did not miss anything - if I did, please post it below and I'll add it to the first post.

[killerduki 54]

Sticky this please <3

 

/Kind regards Killerduki

[Docholy 4]

Pottu can you be so kind as to format the Q&A questions with colors?  My autism is freaking out here. 

[illitari 1]

thanks for the update

[Ourk 5]

Thank you Pottu for the Q/A resume! <3

[Skavander 0]

Very handy, thanks for putting it together.

[j9a2per1990 32]

GG.

[caoyang 3]

Man...I wish the fresh PVP server could be released before December 15th...

 

Is that likely going to happen?

[Hazar 3]

Man...I wish the fresh PVP server could be released before December 15th...

 

Is that likely going to happen?

nope. first will be Nost PvP and probably we will know release date after this Sunday stress test

[tinklepee 1]

I liked Nost's schedule it gave ample time to enjoy the leveling process as well as level am alt