Because Blizzard isn’t delivering, players have simply revived a realm in WoW Classic. Thousands participated – with success.
A few days ago, MeinMMO already reported that a player in WoW Classic launched the “The Fresh Crusade” project. He wanted to give WoW players a fresh start like at launch and sought like-minded individuals. The response was overwhelming, and thousands of players joined to repopulate the world of WoW Classic once again.
What kind of event was it? “The Fresh Crusade” was players’ attempt to fulfill a dream that Blizzard probably won’t offer anymore. The players wanted to experience the launch of the game and a new realm once again. To this end, they coordinated their timing and stormed an previously unmentioned realm last Friday evening.
The scenes were likely to touch some WoW fans, as they were reminiscent of the sights during the official launch of Classic. Hundreds of players in starting areas caused long waits and queues in front of quest mobs. These can only be “tagged” by a maximum of one group and have respawn times that can last several minutes.
As is proper, the players are patiently waiting in line for their kill.
How many participated? Exact numbers are hard to find. However, it is clear that on the “The Fresh Crusade” Discord server, a little over 10,000 interested individuals were registered. Caszhar, the initiator of the project, explained in an interview with Eurogamer that about 30% of the people on Discord were actually present. That would mean about 3,000 players who entered the realm Dragonfang (EU). The realm was considered “dead” beforehand, with hardly any active players left.
Now there are nearly 20 new guilds. How many of those players will stay on the realm long-term is hard to say. However, the chances are good that many will form new friendships that will last and lead to extended gameplay.
There were also trolls who wanted to disrupt: Because the project attracted so much attention beforehand, there were also a few trolls who wanted to disrupt intentionally. Some tried to guess the right realm in advance to “level up” and kill newcomers directly through PvP. Others tried to defeat the valuable quest mobs repeatedly, even though they didn’t need them anymore – just so that other players couldn’t complete their quests.
But there are trolls and troublemakers on every realm, it seems.
Can you still participate? Sure. Anyone who wants can still start on Dragonfang a bit delayed. The other players had only about 3 days of head start, which can still be made up in Classic. Anyone who puts in some effort can soon catch up with the others and can then experience dungeons again or quest in groups instead of just being pulled to level 60 by “boosters”.
Did you participate in the event? Are you looking at the realm later on? Or would you not have the nerve to start anew in Classic?
