😞
I have been eternally whiny that I didn't get the "Community" survey asking about Wrath Classic. It turns out I did get it, but never saw it because it was in the Promotions folder of email. Wahhhh! I could have said and explained the reasons for including LFD in Wrath where it naturally occurred in the past. Sorry, buds, I'll check all the spots.
Kaivix:
To maintain healthy populations for Burning Crusade Classic realms, we’ve regularly reviewed realm populations and offered Free Character Transfers from realms that dropped to a low population. Additionally, we’ve made the decision to retire some Burning Crusade Classic realms and consolidate their remaining players onto other realms that have higher populations. We plan to perform this realm consolidation and retire the following realms with weekly maintenance the week of August 9:
Anathema
Bigglesworth
Blaumeux
Deviate Delight
Fairbanks
Felstriker
Heartseeker
Herod
Incendius
Kirtonos
Kromcrush
Kurinnaxx
Loatheb
Netherwind
Rattlegore
Reaper
Skeram
Smolderweb
Stalagg
Sul’thraze
Thalnos
Thunderfury
What this means is that all of the Burning Crusade Classic realms listed above will be retired and will no longer be accessible after August 9. All player-characters remaining on these realms will be automatically moved to a new destination realm. We will post a full list of retiring realms and their destinations soon.
Please note: Player-characters that are automatically moved during the realm consolidation on August 9 may be unavailable for up to two weeks thereafter.
All of the realms in the list above currently have Free Character Transfers available to multiple active destination realms. We strongly encourage you to take advantage of the Free Transfers prior to August 9 to choose your destination. Utilizing this service will move your characters quickly and will allow you to avoid being subject to the automatic migration on August 9.
Find more information on Free Character Transfers here. 345
In the coming weeks, we plan to remove the restriction on transfers from Normal to PvP realms in Burning Crusade Classic. At that time, we will open additional Free Character Transfers from underpopulated Normal realms wherever appropriate, and we will remove the rule on PvP realms that prevents players from having characters in both factions on the same PvP realm in Burning Crusade Classic. We’ll confirm all of the details as soon as we’re ready to take those steps.
Thank you!
Isn't this stunning news? I personally feel that closures and merges are completely preferable to "Cross Realms". I 'd like to see them let the people on these servers completely choose what realm they want to transfer to, rather than having limitations.
Cross Realms was the first time I saw Blizzard completely ignore the wishes of their customers. There were pages and pages of arguments on the forums against the cross realms rather than server mergers. These threads were not answered and were routinely locked after a time. To me it was Blizzard's NGE, though, ho! a glimpse into the future would show they had so much more in store for their loyal customers.
My acceptance of the realm closures of course goes back to Galaxies, which closed servers and let you go where you wished. My scattered characters ended up on Bria, Starsider and Flurry. It worked out fine, I thought.
Cross Realms, I have never liked. Blackwater Raiders, which had it's own friendly personality much like the Burning Crusade Classic Realm of Bloodsail Buccaneers, just disappeared in the merge. All the colorful personalities in chat disappeared, replaced by people from other realms who weren't as fun.
I like the idea of mega servers such as ESO uses, but you never see that many people around, so it isn't the glorious let's all play together situation one might wish for. It may be they use layering as Blizzard does, but that is always a mistake, in my opinion. You can't play with people you can't see.
Let's start with the easy peasy group of Blackwater Raiders characters continuing (or back to) conga-lining their way through Shadowlands.
I've changed from just having everyone doing a particular set of quests to moving everyone up a level at a time. Currently it's level 58. Once you done particular quests several times, some of them you don't mind, others are dreaded. I'm going to make a list of the not bad Ardenweald quests and the ones I can't stand but have to do anyway.
On the plus side, I no longer out and out hate Ardenweald.
In the much more fun department, Burning Crusade Classic.
My goal for June is to get my main Alchemist and my main Tailor to the Outlands. They've both been stuck at 300 in their tradeskills forever. I REALLY need to be able to make those sixteen slot bags.
While my husband is the best gatherer in any game you ever saw, it doesn't seem fair to him to make him go around gathering Briarthorn with his level 68 guy.
This is so unusual for me not to have those two characters way ahead of everyone else, it's a habit I have because what they can make and share is so valuable.
The other two characters I'm pushing forward are my Protection Warrior and my Holy Priest.
As I'm sure I've said, before playing Classic I never ever played a Healer or Tank character. My "hybrid" types who could tank or heal have been called into play when Healers or Tanks dropped out out dungeon groups.
I've been bravely pugging it with these two recently. My Priest does super well. I'm getting more confident with her.
My Tank is also doing well, but the last two dungeons she tanked, I could see people wanted her to go faster. I'm happy being cautious so nobody dies, but I have to respect maybe I'm too cautious after all. I'll work on my Draggy Tank skills.
And that was all an excuse to use this old cartoon I did. Oooh maybe I could do a new cartoon about the Tank who was a Slow Weasel.
I've been looking forward to the Wrath of the Lich King announcement, certainly more than the announcement of the next regular expansion.
I thought it was stunning though, to have the immediate announcement that there would be no group finder in Wrath because "the community" didn't want it. What? Who on earth did they send those Wrath surveys out to? The groups that charge for dungeon runs?
Not to anyone trying to get a dungeon group together. I'd be fine if it came out later in the expansion as it originally did.
I am enjoying playing this older version of the game partly to see it all unfold as it originally did. I think it gives a perspective in real time of the changes made to the game over the years. Maybe things were better, maybe they were worse. But you get to see those changes.
Suddenly, they've hit a mark where it doesn't have to be the way it was. It will be the way "the community" says they want it.
I also find the suggested changes to the Barbershop somewhat disturbing for the same reasons. Eep, are they going to use the new facial models?
So this morning, very early, I'm thinking maybe I'm done with Classic once Wrath comes out, because it won't be classic at all.
My favorite classes in The Burning Crusade Classic are a surprise to me.
I'm not a fan of my usual favorite, Feral Druid. Slow slow fights...zzzz.
Warlock and Mage are just ok.
The classes that shine, and that I have been leveling slowly so they could stay on level with our dungeon group are Holy Priest, Protection Warrior, and not so held back Hunter. I've sent my Hunter ahead just to be a money maker because her fights are so quick.
The Holy Priest is really an effective PVE fighter and can hold her own better than most. The Protection Warrior is tough and has very little down time between fights.
Here are my Classic Priest, Hunter and Warrior with their Shadowlands counterparts.
We now have a second set of dungeoneers, with my sister tanking and brother in law healing, so I am going to move my Priest and Warrior ahead.
I like the Priest and Warrior so much, that I activated a set on another of the Classic servers to try their hand with other people. Practice, practice, practice.
On the live servers, I gained access to Lightforged Drenai, Dark Iron Dwarf and Void Elf, and created twos Priests and a Protection Warrior to be. I want to run those in dungeons as well, to compare how the classes play in the two versions.
Dark Iron Dwarf Prot Warrior
Lightforged Drenai Priest
Void Elf Priest
The new travel form for druid? So cute. Adorable! I love her to death. She has a permanent smile.
I'm such a fool. I thought I'd I'd have to wait till Wrath of the Lich King for the game to be as familiar to me as the present day game is.
Oh, no. Upon reaching Hellfire Peninsula with my Hunter, man, everything is "right where I left it". I know where quests are, I know the map before it's filled in. Home again, home again.
I've remarked in the past different areas of the game seem cut off from each other, they aren't the same thinking, somehow. It starts right here.
The money and xp drops into your pocket. Your armor rewards are great, or sell for nice gold. There are dailies. It's so night and day from "the Old World".
I will say the stories are better in the Old World. Also, I really hate to see my beloved treasure chests go by the wayside.
For my Holy Priest, her first TWO wipes in a dungeon. Gnomeregan. Last Boss! So sad!
Ha. As I finally have a character (Hunter) within a level of entering the Dark Portal, and questing and getting loads of gold, I find myself dreamily thinking of Wrath of the Lich King.
So many quality of life changes. The only ones I don't see that are on my perennial list of "I wish they were here in TBC" are more mailboxes and flight paths.
I also really find the Horde domination of Kalimdor to be sooo annoying. That horde camp for instance that stretches (or seems to) most of the way through the center of Feralas. Even worse, I had a level 37 character trying to make the ride through Feralas to Thousand Needles, and avoiding the camp left my character at the mercy of a wolf several levels higher. Insult to injury, when you die you're in the freakish middle of the Horde Camp, so you have no choice but to go back to your body. Grrr. Grr!
So, it is revealed that the Horde used to "own" Kalimdor, and it was given back to them in Battle For Azeroth. See, I was so used to all of the Alliance quests and outposts from "the future" that it has been a shock seeing hardly anything there in these old world areas. It's empty space for the Alliance with the added pain in the (someplace) of Horde outposts every two blasted feet.
Thanks for listening.
Here I found a delightful list of all of the things to do in game when Wrath comes out, whenever.
I guess the title says it all! I've done the Stockades and Wailing Caverns with our family group. This was my first time tanking the Deadmines, and with a PUG.
The Goblin Foundry! Oof! Somehow every Engineer got pulled. It felt like it anyway.
Still we lived!
A Paladin dropped out with an "I gotta go!" So we made it all the way through with four.
My Warrior is level 26 and everyone else was low 20s and a 17.
I think it helped me be less frustrated that everyone seemed to be pulling because in my family, it's Mages, light those fires! Whoosh, Whoosh!
I missed my sister as a healer big time. Good thing my character was set up to do Blackfathom Deeps and she had lots of potions in her pack.
My Warrior is really the only one of my characters who can tank that I like tanking with. She actually can fight well and holds aggro. I just have to keep running over and grabbing it from people.
I can see though, even among my family, when I'm the Healer everyone is nice and loves me, when I'm the tank, any problem is a problem with my Tanking. No wonder nobody does pugs. I'm going to continue though. The world needs my girl.
