Anathema is a sidekick? Rant?

[Morathe 5]

I'm getting a vibe that Anathema won't get merged into Elysium despite its dire loss of population due to one thing: 

We serve a purpose of being a Live Test Realm for content that will then be fixed or not (Ossirian) months later so Elysium can have a smooth launch later. So even tho server slowly reaches the bottom that Zeth'kur did we won't get a merge because keeping us alive actually benefits Elysium in a major way. 

Ofc I aknowledge the difficulty of merging AQ geared ppl with a server that just had their bwl and av released but thats something that can have its solution if someone were to actually think about it. 

Delaying 1.10 on our server to fix bugs on Elysium is just another sign that this is the way it works. Don't get me wrong but when headlining content server gets its major content patch delayed because their pet project has to be polished then its a sign of favoritism isn't? I'm not looking to blame here, ofc you gonna tend to server with 7times bigger pop more. I just look to get you to admit that so I can finally quit for good.

Before this topic gets closed because its considered talking about "death of a server" which all of a sudden became a taboo topic. Let me adress few things from your statement

https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/49560-addressing-rumors-regarding-possible-anathema-elysium-merge/

"Due to our respect to Nostalrius and its community, we have no plans of merging these two realms anytime soon" 

You respect us so much you will let us bore to death on emptying server. Before anyone raise a voice saying "we stil got over 1k online thats way more than you need to play and have fun", true, but vanilla is a long term thing, hardcore players won't invest their time anymore to such a degree they used to if they notice a trend of withering. That in turn snowballs into average and in the end into casual players that quit the last, because they notice it last due to how they perceive the "health" of a server. 

"Our goal is to provide the best possible experience for our players and thus we believe that a merge would negatively impact a large chunk of our community."

Yes I agree Elysium folks would be rightfully mad if you accepted migrations of AQ geared ppl into the server but i'm sure if you were willing to actually reanimate Anathema community you'd find a solution. Like finding a way to block usage of items that are not yet on Elysium without deleting them so people that earned those items on Anathema can equip them once Elysium gets into same content or sth like that. I mean there is no easy solution but you fucked up in a first place by dividing communities into old/fresh server so now its your uneasy thing to chew it. 

"Anathema, historically, is a very important realm, and will remain untouched in its original state as the oldest progressive Vanilla realm. Anathema has a very unique and dedicated community, which we do not believe would boast well with Elysium....Anathema isn't going anywhere and we will continue to work to make the gameplay on it more attractive and enjoyable."

Treat us equally then, don't delay our content releases to work on the other server, I refuse to be your beta tester for your favored server. I respect that its your free time, that all the work you do is free but i think its a bullshit argumentation and I smell you use that bullshit argumentation to waste my and others time and thats something I can't stand for... even if its free of charge. 

""any speculation and memes about it's supposed death will only damage the realm and its dedicated community and thus, we will no longer tolerate these sort of posts or messages on our official platforms"

If observing, commenting and discussing well being of a server i spent over 100days /played on damages the server and myself (as dedicated player) then you truly built a palace on sand. Don't be ridiculous with that intolerant approach warnings. The only thing that can damage server further is you not letting players voice their thoughts. Its dangerously close to saying "You think you do but you don't". 

Just as few closing words:

As players we pay with time, invested into playing on a game that in its concept is a long term investment, sure we use that time to have fun but you as a staff working on the server also pay with your time.. and I suppose its also, to some degree fun to you, as I can't imagine doing what you do without any sense of enjoyment of running a server. In that regard we're equal. Keep in mind your work is useless and wasted if players go away. It happened before and there is absolutely nothing unique about Anathema/Elysium in that regard that wards it from that fate. 

 

[Shiamorah 20]

I believe a large issue here that you don't account for is that there are not individual developers working on each server independently of each other. Instead, the developers are responsible for all servers. And obviously, as it is, Elysium has a higher concurrent populations than Anathema. I assure you if Anathema had a higher concurrent population, it would receive more attention than Elysium. What is happening here is simply a matter of allocating resources based on demand (population). 

[Morathe 5]

I'm fully aware of that. However demand is purely a matter of accessibility in that case. Its a price we pay now for a decision made 6-7 months ago when it was decided to open a server that would rival with Anathema for fresh players which are essential for server longevity. Because of a series of unfortunate, miscalculated decisions Anathema lost tons of players which are not refilled with fresh people, which led into even more quits, hiatuses... spiral of downfall is quick. Especially for guilds that struggled with AQ and failed to bolster their roster due to lack of people. 

And the fact is that Anathema is playtesting things for Elysium... I honestly see no valid argumentation in what they said in their statement about possible merge. All decisions about servers were made at start, including Zeth'kur. Zeth'kur proved to be failed decision but people that were there didn't get punished by being left there to die but instead they got merged into... mostly Elysium. Now Anathema is nearing same problem, even worse than Zeth'kur for majority of old players because its one thing to roll on fresh progressive server and realize its turning shit after u got to lvl 50 or just started farming mc. But its completely different matter to have 100+ days played and force yourself to keep doing AQ not to say about making huge preparations for naxx40 when you see pop drop by % each week. 

Prior to AQ opening we had 4-5k online, when AQ opened we started loosing guilds that couldn't form strong rosters to clear it and farm it. They were unable to bolster it so they disbanded. Now 2 months later when I login at morning hours its not rare to see just 500-800 online... I've been hunting for world pvp for 2 hours in major herbing zones, felwood, winterspring, epl and found just 2! people. Then I queued wsg and had 42 min queue.

They can't say server is alive and well and leave it be using argumentation like they did. When they said about "dedicated hardcore players that still play here" it tried to sound like its a very alive community with very hardcore players but what it really says is that there is a rather limited group of people that stick around until the bitter end because they invested too much here to just start over elsewhere so they idle in IF chitchat, raidlog or circlejerk with other grumpy cats while linking old nostalrius/anathema recordings to each other showing how fun it was when we still had a population. 

[Roxy 8]

The reason for not merging the 2 servers is pretty simple.

If you merge elysium into anathema, people who wanted a fresh start will be pissed off and leave cause they just got put together in a bracket with people that had farmed AQ for months.

Which means that for the elysium players, they will lose more players than what they gained by merging.

 

And if you merge anathema into Elysium, you would have to strip anathema people of the gear they have spendt a year farming. And set them back to a pre bwl level. + having to wait another year for naxx to release. Which will make most anathema players leave.

 

Merging elysium and anathema is a lose lose situation, because you cant do that without losing more players than what you would gain by a merge 

[Morathe 5]

I'm aware of difficulties and fact that chunk of community would be unhappy with either solution, I'm obviously biased as I'm from Anathema but think for a moment about all the people that quit Anathema because they got wind of dying trend... the pop that is present right now are some extremely stubborn players that refuse to quit despite all odds although they don't feel strong incentives to play anymore. Then you have all the people that are there somewhere waiting for things to get better but are on hiatuses until then. If you add up all those people that are active now + those potentially active you gonna come up with a nice healthy number that would bolster overall number of players of combined anathema + elysium substentially. 

Of course right now it would benefit Anathema more than Elysium cause its Anathema that got dull and empty but as I said there is nothing that protects Elysium from sharing same fate. Just how many progressive servers got in a good health to naxx stage in the past? Its matter of answering a question if its more important to try and improve chances to maintain server alive until its ran its course (post naxx period) or tend to people that want to remain special snowflakes with their mc/bwl epics? Not to mention that Elysium already cought up more or less with Anathema because difference of bwl gear vs aq isn't terribly huge, not to say that its minority of Anathema pop that cleared AQ. 

[DPS 6]

@Roxy

Theres possible option to remove all AQ items. Whats problem now?

Also, btw, patch 1.10 update is so easy ti apply... Just nobody gives a f*ck about it.

The problem is a bit deeper: Anathema is like adopted child in big family, so nobody cares about it.

[Morathe 5]

 

6 minutes ago, DPS said:

@Roxy

Theres possible option to remove all AQ items. Whats problem now?

There are many solutions honestly... its not like its never been done in history. Its just a matter of good will and making right decisions sooner than later. I guess least painful solution for both sides would be to bring Elysium to AQ stage sooner, let them farm it for a month or two without Anathema people and then merge servers. 

[DPS 6]

Только что, Morathe сказал:

 

There are many solutions honestly... its not like its never been done in history. Its just a matter of good will and making right decisions sooner than later. I guess least painful solution for both sides would be to bring Elysium to AQ stage sooner, let them farm it for a month or two without Anathema people and then merge servers. 

thats ~5-6 months... Are you sure Anathema will survive?

[Morathe 5]

I don't know, I can't speak for every Anathema player here but for me its dead already. If i have to look 2 hours in major herbing zones for world pvp and all I get is 2 pve mode hordes that don't even fight back then its a bit rip. Btw why 5-6 months? AQ is mainly done and already playtested by Anathema so launching it on Elysium shouldn't be that time consuming. If you talk about War Effort... well its been laughable on Anathema and then it got auto completed for the hardest materials... so it might as well get skipped and auto completed on Elysium... with some window of time so Elysium folks can farm some reps with War Effort.  

For all the technical difficulties 1 thing that Elysium deserves and shouldn't be stripped off no matter what is having AQ opening for themselves without Anathema people interfering with their race for Scepter. Thats all that is really important. Rest of shit is irrelevant... like being special snowflake with your Elysium first Asscandy. Derp. 

[SchfiftyFive 5]

Bear in mind, we have some big server openings coming up in TBC and also possibly another serious vanilla project in the next 6 months. Which likely means another exodus. Not to mention we all know right now the server peaks during asian hours, I'd guesstimate less than 50% of the server is now english spoken. 

Speeding up Elysiums timeline in order to get it up to Anathema is the most probable scenario.. I don't think you should underestimate the amount of work needed if you want to downscale anathema players.. Limiting consumables, gold, general mats and also gear for thousands of characters? How does that even play out?

Such a massive mistake and a massive middle finger to all the people who pretty much made this community to open up Elysium PVP. Especially when the exact same scenario had played out on Kronos not long before. 

 

[Roxy 8]

The best solution would be to speed up the timeline for Elysium so that it gets ti AQ patch sooner. But you cant just skip ahead one tier of raiding without pissing people off.

So you would nees to delay naxx for anathema for quite a while, so elysium could catch up, even with a increased timeline sleed, or there is no point in merging at all.

So what we are looking at is maybe 4-6 months delayed naxx so thar elysium can catch up. Do you think anathema would survive that?

[Morathe 5]

8 minutes ago, Roxy said:

But you cant just skip ahead one tier of raiding without pissing people off.

So you would nees to delay naxx for anathema for quite a while, so elysium could catch up, even with a increased timeline sleed, or there is no point in merging at all.

So what we are looking at is maybe 4-6 months delayed naxx so thar elysium can catch up. Do you think anathema would survive that?

Its really hard to say, might not even be relevant as Naxx ptr ain't here yet. Maybe Naxx gonna be pain in the ass to script and we all will wait 2 years for it. Thats always a possibility. All im saying is that merge is deffo possible with ways to control the damage.

[Ragward 2]

If we speed the progress up of Elysium and eventually merge with anathema we are 100% going to end this project sooner rather then later we would all have cleared naxx and got majority of the gear within a year and that would be the end of that. I personally do not wish to merge with Anathema and I do sympathize with your situation but at the end of the day you are talking about potentially destroying one community to maintain your own which either way you look at it is selfish from our perspective to preserve ours and selfish from your perspective to preserve yours.

Merger Aside , those players that have left and are in hiatus will come back for a brief moment and will clear the content or experience it and then leave again putting you in the same boat that you are in now , I have experienced this and ultimately this is the fate for both servers all that we can do is trying to develop both servers to a high quality and pray it attracts more players that are dedicated.