Dralek

The actual boss encounters and raid mechanics are higher difficulty than vanilla, but the general preparation needed to raiding is not as consuming as vanilla was: - As a start... you need less people. - better itemisation, and the added bonus of badge of justice farming (which ensures some good items for certain classes) - class balance, anyone can have a raid spot. - easier to farm gold and consumables. In general the mechanics of vanilla bosses are not really hard (until Nax), and while there might be a hard boss here and there (such as C'thun), the difficulty comes from getting 40 people to be able to have the requirements to endure the fight (such as enough gear). Also vanilla raiding can require consumables which are perhaps a bit harder to get, and some gear requirements (like resistance gear) for some particular fights which makes the progression take time. In contrast, the economy of TBC is much smoother given everyone can farm gold with daily quests, and recipes for crafting consumables are more widely available. In regards to boss mechanics, they are more complex than vanilla, but they rely more on individual skill of players, and the itemisation makes it much easier to focus on making harder boss mechanics, instead of making the encounter hard because the raid lacks dps. In regards to Nax, consider it was the end of expansion raid, and it is certainly much more difficult than the rest. If you notice vanilla progression, you will realise that blizzard was acting on a trial and error basis, slowly making the raids better. It could be said that the TBC raids are the product of what blizzard learned through vanilla and posses some of the challenges presented in the most difficult bosses, with Nax as the culmination of the expansion being the hardest. This is why, despite Nax being regarded as the hardest raid ever released, the general difficulty of the entire TBC expansion is higher than vanilla in comparison. PS: it is also fair to say that, looking back at vanilla, all the strategies are now widely known and the raid encounters may today seem much easier than they originally were.

Today I logged into my account and found a toon with the same name as my main, but lvl 1 and with a number at the end written in the name, as in "Dralek1" (not my toon's actual name, just using as example), which I found odd given you can't use numbers in names, so I suppose its a bug due to a copy from an old back up or something. So should I just delete that extra toon? Its level one, same class as my main, same name with the number "1" in the name

I really hope the twink brackets resurface. Personally I would recommend preparing for 30-39, as far as I remember, it was the most popular bracket during TBC, because of the few epic items and the TBC enchants. But I guess that with a big population any bracket is possible. Also, in patch 2.4.3 mounts and riding skill level are reduced to 30, so at some point the bracket becomes much better.

30-39 will always be the favourite one, because the TBC enchants can be applied to most of the gear.

Given characters will be "copy/pasted" from one db to the other, and exist simultaneously in the Vanilla database and the BC database, there is a potential for item and gold duping. For example after having one character copied into TBC realm with all its gold and items, one could simply log in the vanilla realm (where the character still exists) and transfer gold/items to another character on another account, and then have that account transfer, and so on, and so on. I wanted to point this out early before TBC came out, because this has the potential for trouble.

cool thnx (:

I understand, and in fact agree with that. But that isn't what people are asking on this thread. I think they merely want the blue items to be upgraded.

As far as I remember, they implemented the updated versions of the rank 7,8 and 10 sets, along with the epic shoulder/weapon rewards from Arathi Basin rep (Defilers/Arathor). I do not remember if at the time they did update the epic rank items, but then again this isn't what the people are requesting. Your complain seems to focus on the queue system, rather than the items itself, so your response seems to have little to do with what I said. When they implemented the items most higher ranks blew up in anger, but in the end it didn't change much. The gear gap with raid epics was still large, yet the blue items did not impact PVE content at all.

Just to offer some evidence, this un-blizzlike change was done in Nostalrius, and it had no negative impact in the gameplay whatsoever. And yes, before it was implemented a lot of people complained about it. The change didn't affect PVE at all, because most PVErs don't rank so grinding for a few weeks in order to get a piece of blue gear which can be easily replaced makes no sense, and it did make pvp grind a bit easier, particularly for casuals. Its a good change.

I'm going to react if I'm being heavily miss-quoted on what I have written, which is what you and others have been doing for 2 pages. Half of what many have posted was based on things we didn't actually wrote (such as Anathema players having "demands"). Your lack of reading comprehension isn't my fault, but it becomes my problem if you begin quoting me.

A lot of players that used to say "I like vanilla more" eventually migrated to Warmane when it came out, either out of discontent for the situation in Anathema or general apetite for TBC. Personally I think Anathema will end up with much less population. But you never know.

By your other comment in which you seem to believe that Elysium players are getting transfered, or that Anathema players are making "demands" (quite the opposite), and the one I'm quoting, its seems perfectly clear that you have not read the entire topic, and you are just posting based on a brief overview of what was written. Thats fair, but it truly makes most of your comments so far, completly meaningless and devoid from the reality of what we have been discussing. Perhaps you were offended by the mention that Elysium players are only interested in themselves, and decided to skip over the actual important parts. Please take a minute to actually read them.

I think that the childish thing would be to attempt to chastise others for having disagreements regarding a certain subject. Playing the school teacher role when its not needed doesn't make you more eloquent, considering the conversation has been quite polite so far. As you said, Elysium is around 75% of the realm's popultion. If you go by majority number, it is likely that the suggestions will be in favour of Elysium (making Anathema wait for example). So its expected that we, the few Anathema players left, will voice our opinions regarding such actions. Its true the possibilities are endless, but the most likely outcomes can easily be predicted, so whats wrong with suggestions based on the most possible scenarios actually happening? If we are wrong then good, if we are not then at least we will be prepared.

The plan is to transfer Anathema into TBC. They said nothing about Elysium. We are suggesting for them to allow people from Elysium to start TBC along with us, in essence we are asking if they can consider elysium players too. How on earth is that us being selfish??

Because Anathema players are not supposed to be sacrificing anything. We are almost done with vanilla content, thus the only logical step-up is to go TBC. Now, as I said before, this was the original plan since old Nostalrius. Whether Elysium players get TBC or not later isn't something related to Anathema's progression. Now, I'm sure the admins do not want to end up with two TBC realms in different timelines, because this would hurt Anathema in the long run. But It is also not fair for both communities to end up in one realm in which one community is getting a head start, because this would hurt Elysium. We can also add that neither Elysium should be forced to progress faster to catch up, nor Anathema be forced to wait for this to happen. So we are hurting both communities in every scenario. So what are we suggesting to avoid so many complications? A compromise: allow Elysium players that wish to have TBC now transfer to Anathema realm now, before the launch. Keep Elysium as the "vanilla realm" and make Anathema the definite "TBC realm". Is it perfect? No. Is it fair to both sides? No. It does, however, remove some of he problems we have from the table. And it can sort of benefit both Anathema and Elysium players.

Exactly this.

I understand your point, but it doesn't change the proble. First of all, you can't really make the timeline for Elysium faster. A lot of people play in Elysium, because they want to play a slow vanilla progression. Making the timeline run faster is screwing that part of the community over, and they may oppose the decision. We can't really force Elysium players to deal with the problem, because its not theirs to bare. Let them have their server the way it is working right now, and let them enjoy their vanilla experience the way they prefer. Now, we can do as you say, and wait for an entire year until Elysium ctches up to Anathema: in the process we risk more people leaving, and spending more time having to host/support a dying realm, which costs a lot of money. Its not a good investment because we are loosing both money and people. The solutions to Anathema need to be encanted soon. The best solution is to have 2 realms: 1 in Vanilla (Elysium) and 1 in TBC (Anathema). Let Anathema players finish up Nax, and make Anathema the TBC realm. Let Elysium players thta wish to play the TBC realm transfer to Anathema before it upgrades to TBC. Then lets just have Elysium be the vanilla realm, while Anathema caters to the TBC community. Once both realms stop competing with each other, is when Anathemah will begin to grow.

You are asking other people not to play new content for an entire year (until Elysium finishes progression). The reason is because you want to finish your progression at your pace. You are prohibiting others from doing something that isn't even related to you, under the excuse that it will somehow affect you in a very very very long time while disguising the notion under the banner of "for the greater good". I'm sorry, but if I see obvious hypocrisy I will call you out on it. The greater good would be to attract all the Anathema players back into the game, by launching TBC. Also attracting a large number of possible new players that may be interested in a TBC server, and also keeping the 2k-3k players in Anathema/Darrowshire from leaving.

Actually, while it is subject to change, the message implies there will only be one TBC realm. At no point did the admins say that we would have individual TBC realms for each subsequent realm in different timelines. An the majority of complains on this thread regarding an early launch for Anathema, do come from Elysium players, that wouldn't want Anathema players to start before them. So your initial premise is kind of miss-guided here. The other problem with your assesment is that you presume the only playerbase the TBC realm may have is the current shrunken Anathema population, disregarding the many players that may return and re-populate the realm. Sure, the current active player base is lower than 2000 players (which is still a high number for a private realm), but like the name implies, its only those that log often. Furthermore, you are also not accounting for new players that may wish to come to this community looking for a TBC realm. The idea that we have to wait at least one year for the release of the TBC realm is utter nonsense, and expecting the anathema player base (and possibly the darrowshire one) to just hang around until this happens is silly. Ever since Nostaltiurs, there were always talks that after Nax there would be a TBC upgrade. This is merely part of the original plan (which Elysium as a fresh realm wasn't really part of it, cause it didn't exist). Truth be told, most Elysium players are merely looking out for their own interests. Thats fair, but the whole masquerading as "its for the good of the community" is just a very transparent lie.

Problem is he ignores the fact that Anathema is *dead* because most people left for Warmane, which is a TBC realm. A high number of people will come back to Anathema for TBC. The reason they didn't is because after the mass exodus, even more people left, guilds disbanded, and it became a real struggle to find a spot for raids, which in turn caused many more people to leave. Anathema still probably has around 2k active, considering the huge amount of raid loggers. He is also not considering Darrowshire population. Anathema as TBC won't compete with Elysium, but with Warmane and other TBC realms. I understand and partially agree with what you are saying, but I think he is rather motivated by the possibility of Elysium loosing some players to the TBC realm, which could become a reality considering the tendency of people to jump ship to fresher realms. I agree that would be bad, and thats why my suggestion was meant to only focus on transfering those that are certain that wish to play TBC. But as you can see, he also rejects that compromise, which to me seems like he just doesn't want things to change. It won't help the greater good if the couple of players left in Anathema and Darrowshire, also abandon the server.

So what you are saying is that, Anathema players should not get a TBC realm, and the only thing they can do is wait for you to finish your progression, which is at least a year away from ending. That isn't looking at the greater good, just your own interests. It is apparent that your interest comes from the fact that Anathema players will get TBC sooner, and thus will be more progressed than Elysium players and once you get to TBC stage you will be behind them.

Yes, they will, because nearly half of the private server population moves from server to server looking to find and edge, in which they can start early in the realm hoping for it to flourish. That is why a lot of people jumped ship from Anathema to Elysium. No one is forcing anyone. People are free to stay in Elysium and play vanilla, or free to roll in Anathema and start TBC earlier. A compromise can be done for those that wish to transfer from Elysium to Anathema early on before the TBC launch. But if you rather play Vanilla instead of TBC, why are you even on this thread? Go play on Elysium or be happy. If you are here, commenting, its clear you wish to get something out of it.

Lets hope so. In all honesty, it would be sweet to have a vanilla and TBC realm that attracts the majority of the private server community. But as it happens, the largest threat to Elysium, is Elysium players themselves and their selfish choices.

No. The death of the vanilla realms is a possible outcome from launching a new TBC realm. But not because the admins will "close" the realms, but rather because players will stop playing in the vanilla realms and choose to play/transfer to the TBC realms. Its also not a certain thing that may happen, just one of the possible outcomes depending on how the launch is handled. PS: see? people already start to get afraid lol

Excactly, that way we can offer 2 realms with 2 expansions, an have both realms with a healthy amount of population. The idea is not to have both realms compete with each other, which so far has been the cause of all our problems. If we only allow transfer for a short time, months ahead (lets say 15 September - 1 October) only the players that truly want TBC will transfer. Those that only trnasfer out of fear won't do it because they will not want to be stucked in a nearly dead realm for a long time (we can probably expect TBC at least next year, not before). It is the only sensible solution in order to not screw one realm over the other.