Almost casually, Blizzard has announced that WoW Classic will be getting new servers. Fresh ones, where everyone has to start anew. Fans of “Vanilla” have been asking for this opportunity again and again, and now there is great joy, but also some skepticism.
This was announced: As part of a larger announcement, Blizzard revealed how World of Warcraft will progress. Included were details about the upcoming Patch 9.1.5 for Shadowlands and the upcoming Phase 2 for WoW Classic with the new Tier-5 raids.
In a small aside, it says: “We are also working on a surprise for players of WoW Classic who wish for a fresh start, and we will inform you about our plans soon.” (via worldofwarcraft.com).
Fans agree: Blizzard has announced “fresh servers” for WoW Classic. Whether it is for WoW Classic, TBC Classic, or both is still unknown.
What are “fresh servers”? On a fresh server, every player starts from scratch. No one has a “main” that they can use to boost new characters or gear up instantly. It’s like everyone is starting over with the game.
Of course, veterans still have the advantage of experience and can optimize their leveling routes or farming. Still, the chances for everyone are significantly better distributed, and above all, a major problem is hoped to be eliminated.
No more boosters – But will the servers be full enough?
That’s why new servers are good: Often, players offer so-called “boosts”. This does not refer to the paid services from Blizzard, but to “dungeon boosts”. Higher-level characters – mostly mages – invite twinks into a group and repeatedly run through dungeons, pulling groups together and killing them with area spells.
This method provides a lot of experience points for the boosted characters within a short time, for which they pay gold – which is apparently not infrequently bought with real money, which however is prohibited.
For many fans of the Classic version, leveling and exploring the game is the essence of WoW. Getting to the endgame as quickly as possible and focusing only on performance diminishes the fun, as they believe. And it also disrupts the economy, apparently.
A major problem with WoW Classic, and subsequently also TBC Classic, is the economy of the servers. Some players, including boosters, can amass vast amounts of gold and essentially dominate the market.
This is the concern: Whether the new servers alone will be enough to solve the problem remains to be seen. Some players are calling for further changes such as nerfs for boosters or for XP in dungeons (via reddit.com). They also see a difficulty for the new servers.
Depending on how many people start on the new servers, there may not be enough players for raids – or the “wrong” ones. If there are enough players, but they are all playing the “best classes” (like Fury Warriors, which one player fears), a functioning raid will not materialize.
Especially players with little time may be deterred by new servers, as they will take significantly longer to get a new character “raid-ready” without their “main”. However, how exactly this will all work remains to be seen by Blizzard.
Either way, new servers offer a great opportunity for both veterans and new players to check out WoW Classic (again): Why starting WoW BC Classic is still worth it in 2021
