Smolderforge Support Community

Let's start with the server type. Instant 70 Fun server. Now, that already can be looked at negatively and positively. Most people who respect the game prefer blizzlike servers, which include the adventures of leveling, making friends along the way, absorbing the vast and enchanting world (of warcraft). Plus you get a sense of accomplishment, a feel of progress. You get more attached to your character as well. Plus there aren't any custom content, items removed etc. The list could go on and on. While on the other side if you start out at 70 the game basically loses most of its content and qualities. Although, I can see that some people like to jump right into action and start out at max level and just focus on end-game content. But I feel like the game loses most of its wonderful elements this way. I do not want to advertise, though there is this one new TBC server coming out soon. It's gonna be blizzlike, no wonder why everyone is so hyped about it. There are some who criticize it for not being true blizzlike, since players will be able to choose whether they want to level up all the way from 1 to 70, or just from 60. That's still blizzlike, because back in the day that's just how it was with the expansion, most people were already 60 from vanilla. So this is completely fine. And I can see why you don't bother with creating a blizzlike server, since it includes fixing almost endless bugs with quests, mechanics etc. So with the Fun server you can skip all that. And you wouldn't even have the resources to do that, form what I can see progress and development wise on the server.

Next point: PayToWin elements. The server needs to be funded from something, that's true, but this P2W nature of the server really ruins it for most people. There are many who believe this server is about one thing, and that is having all these fully geared people who paid 5 bucks for that and that's it. Where's the sense of accomplishment? A game developer would see these problems immediately and would've not implemented it in the first place. Donation could just be about cosmetics, mounts, transmog, pets, and other items, which do not bring real advantage to the buyer. But at this point, I guess there's no going back, it was ruined in the beginning.

So, next point: Development and bugs: I've seen posts about progress on the forum, but if you think about it during these 8 years the server still suffers from major bugs, which completely ruin the experience on the server. Pet's follow function is messed up, they lose track of the player in under seconds, and just keep standing in one place. And their stances are messed up as well, not really being passive/aggressive/defensive. Plus hunter pets don't have abilities/talent trees. Just, what the hell. Battlegrounds: Why the F is there phasing in a goddamn battleground? Is the server really that bad? Geez. You can't even see what's happening at the nearby objective/base for example in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm. Plus players' movements freeze, they keep running in one place. Sometimes they completely bug out, and they just stand there like NPCs, pets do this too many times. The icons on the map get refreshed extremely infrequently- again, making it hard to keep up with what's happening in the battleground, and where you should give your aid for example.
The next thing is: Lag, lagspikes, client side freezes. Before you say anything, I have a 120MB/s connection, plus I'm form EU, So the problem is obviously server side. This, among many others things I've mentioned ruins the PvP the most. It happens even in arenas.
Let's continue with the community aspect. I think this is pretty obvious for anyone who has been in LookingForGroup for even just a few minutes. The community is extremely toxic. People with terrible grammar harassing others, cursing them with no actual content in their message, others are bragging about their worthless achievements in arenas on this server. There are guilds with full donors who farm battlegrounds and ruin everything for the opposite team, and all they had to do was donate.
There are some really great features on the server though: Transmog, Auto equip/enchant, Phasing out in the duel zone - i really like this one, dailies etc.

So in conclusion, It's important to note the direction the server has chosen. It may not be the best, hell not even good, but that's what it is. The reason why it's getting players is because of two other private servers, which I don't want to name, one just got shut down, the other was just about to launch.

There are some good improvements in the changelog, but for 8 years, that's almost nothing.
I also wonder if admins,GMs are playing on the server, you know to test stuff out, to see what's up. Because then they would see all the problems and bugs, which ruin the pvp, and ultimately the server. To improve funds should actually go towards getting new staff members for example, developers, who would fix bugs, upgrading the server.

I just thought it would be important to see crucial failures regarding the server. Most of it probably will not get fixed, but hey, at least we know what's wrong, right?

If you think one of my perceptions is not right, please say so, and do go into detail to let me understand it better.
Also, If you have anything else to add to the list, don't hesitate, post it below.

Well pay2win concept works actually well. Works for owner (who's getting those sweet potato money) and works for certain farming pvp guilds. Only one who doesn't profit from it is regular Joe that only wants to (maybe) re-live his tbc pvp experience or just play the tbc without grinding his way to lvl 70 (and gear). If you take out that concept people that paid for it will leave - pop will drop (maybe not that rapidly but still) and owner will not receive his french fries in time, because very few people would be interested in paying for tmog things/mounts etc.

Even tho I am probably one of highest critics of devs here, I must admit there was actual time where today's bugs were non existent (afk pets/players in bgs/bugged map/lags etc..). But as recent (sort of) fix of charge paths, I can see there is a tiny progress of restoring SF to it's pre-buggy/laggy era.

Comeherefour wrote:Well pay2win concept works actually well. Works for owner (who's getting those sweet potato money) and works for certain farming pvp guilds. Only one who doesn't profit from it is regular Joe that only wants to (maybe) re-live his tbc pvp experience or just play the tbc without grinding his way to lvl 70 (and gear). If you take out that concept people that paid for it will leave - pop will drop (maybe not that rapidly but still) and owner will not receive his french fries in time, because very few people would be interested in paying for tmog things/mounts etc.

Even tho I am probably one of highest critics of devs here, I must admit there was actual time where today's bugs were non existent (afk pets/players in bgs/bugged map/lags etc..). But as recent (sort of) fix of charge paths, I can see there is a tiny progress of restoring SF to it's pre-buggy/laggy era.

As I've said, there is no going back now. I'm just pointing out how potentially more successful the server would be if it would've chosen a different direction early on.

Galathion wrote:As I've said, there is no going back now. I'm just pointing out how potentially more successful the server would be if it would've chosen a different direction early on.

Well it could be changed - everything could be changed, same way server (sort of) got rid of swp gear/weaps . But then there is my explanation why it couldn't. It's not about the unchangeable system it's about the will of owner/players.

Comeherefour wrote:Well it could be changed - everything could be changed, same way server (sort of) got rid of swp gear/weaps . But then there is my explanation why it couldn't. It's not about the unchangeable system it's about the will of owner/players.

Agree. Many changes could be made, even which seem unreachable and out of the question, but it's just not happening.

I've been expecting you, Henry. ( ?° ?? ?°)

Hi there, I appreciate your feedback and agree with you on most of it, but let me explain why things are the way there are here.

[h]Instant 70 Design Concept[/h]
Smolderforge's design stems from the 2007/2008 private server philosophy at the time. Remember, Smolderforge is over 8 years old. The original concepts for it were originating from 2007, too. Private servers at this time were terrible, they crashed and had endless flaws. However, players did not really care much because this was their way to see WoW as a sort of "sandbox" game, where items could be made, custom quests, etc., world exploration, super speed, etc. It was a different time. Most servers were instant level 255 with custom everything. Others were instant 70, and very, VERY few attempted a "blizzlike" experience, which they most surely never were able to deliver.

Smolderforge's instant 70 concept was popular at the time, because the current game was TBC. It took a LONG time to level back then, and if a player was like "man I wish I rolled a Mage instead... I wish I knew what that was like..." we had a solution for them. Instant 70 was amazing because, suddenly you got to experience the end-game aspects instantly... without having to spends weeks/months grinding and leveling a new character. This was incredibly popular back then.

However, many years later... no one cares about that. People are nostalgic now -- they're remembering the 'good ole days' -- they want to level and experience it again. That is something Smolderforge doesn't offer... we're based on an old concept.

This cannot really be fixed. We cannot change SF's design since... it was made at a different time for different interests. The solution would be to open a leveling server, which I would love to do if I had the time, ability to do so. But running even one smaller server can take immense amounts of time managing everything/everyone.

[h]Pay-to-Win[/h]
I agree with you on this point as well. But once again, this is what everyone did in 2008...Pay to win is not popular anymore, and it's not desired... I agree, it makes the playing ground less fun because people skipped. Back in 2008 it was more acceptable because the market for all games was not oversaturated with microtransactions and 'pay-to-_____" like it is now. I actually don't like it either... but how could I possibly change that? I cannot delete 8 YEARS of people's donations to the server just because I want to try a different approach. I feel that would betray the trust of the users, and also the people that did it wanted to play like that. A non P2W approach would have to originate from the beginning of a project, or it likely will never be fair to anyone else down the road. Donors and new players alike.

If I ever started a new server, I would never do P2W anymore. I disagree with it, and I do not like it. But everyone did it, and it was the only way to really easily fund a server. People wanted the end-game gear back then -- the gear that was so hard to obtain in retail... back then it made sense. Give the people what they want. Now to recreate nostalgia... giving people what they want is the hard experience of retail, without skipping parts.

[h]Development[/h]
TBC cores were abandoned from the public, open-source scene back in 2009 to move onto WotLK. TrinityCore dropped it in 2009, whereas MaNGOS continued to develop it until the project itself collapsed several years ago. However, MaNGOS never focused on playability, but on function, and we were running off a project based on Trinity since it focused on fixing bugs and making the game more playable for those wanting to experience it. While we have been developing for many, many years, we've always had a relatively small team. It takes a long time to fix bugs, and many would say we're possibly one of the most fixed TBC servers PvP-wise. Despite all these years, and all these fixes, there is still so much wrong. TBC cores are baddddd, and it takes a long time to even begin understanding what all must be fixed. I doubt that will ever not be so. Nostalrius was the only hope we had for a public, open-source TBC core to be developed. But now that is all gone.

I don't know what you mean by BG phasing... if you're talking about view distance that is another lacking feature, while at the same time a feature implemented still by many private servers. Hell, Nostalrius barely let you see what was right in front of your nose. Their visibility distance was turned insanely down.

About lag: the core is terrible and bottlenecks. Doesn't help that the mall was designed for a few hundred either, not the 400+ hundred we've been getting lately. Screen freezes have existed on TBC cores since forever and no one has fixed it. I think it's the result of packets not being handled properly somewhere and an error occurring and being dumped into a log file. Every time we've thought we got close to fixing it... we didn't.

LFG. I hate LFG and have wanted it gone for some time. Unfortunately, many people disagree with this change including half the staff who things LFG best serves the community. Their argument is the solution to toxicity is to just mute everyone being toxic... though this isn't realistically feasible considering we are not police, I don't agree with censoring bad words or someone being harsh... I just disagree with it being public for everyone to see. Additionally, we're not on 24/7 reading what people say... I think it enables toxic players to spread that toxicity. If we disabled LFG I worry people would just use Tanaris' General channel to do the same. It has its benefits -- finding teammates, forming dungeon groups, etc. But other than that, it's a foul place.

Thank you for this comprehensive insight. It's good to see that you know about these, and restored my faith. I like what you think about these things.
I remember old private servers as well, I too played on Funservers, even 255 ones :P , It makes sense now that I think back, you guys just kept those policies, and decisions have been made.
And yea, changing the donation system is not possible, as both of us suggested, and again I'm glad to see how you feel about it.
Let's hope Blizz will one day create Legacy servers where we can all enjoy WoW in its true glory. :)