The server is stagnating, and slowly dying. You need to make a change.

[Grimjoe]

I'm going to start this off by saying, I've been around for almost 4 years now on and off, I've donated between 150-200 bucks to the server over that time, giving out codes etc., as well as gearing my own characters obviously, and I rarely come around anymore due to the toxic population, and the lack of numbers on the whole preventing anything but sitting in the duel zone and doing Warsong Gulch or AB/Eots.

Whether or not you want to admit it, Henry, the majority of the server left when you removed Sunwell gear. Some immediately, the rest just slowly died off.

I'm not here to discuss what hurt the server, however, I'm here to hopefully bring about a solution or two.


My primary idea is to create a large World PvP zone, something players can flock to for Faction v Faction PvP with a large enough space to allow for both regular 1vX, XvX, and even 1vXvPvE scenarios. By this I mean add a World PvP zone w/ a faction specific boss at either end to allow for an end goal, make it difficult to require between 10-20 people to kill, and allow it to be healable, buffable, and defendable by the opposite faction to create an additional difficulty level to it. Tack on a respawn timer of 15-20 minutes for the boss's faction to retake the area for good measure.

Where else could you stage such a thing?

Alterac Valley.


No, not the BG itself, but the non-instanced Vmap for it. There were two extremely successful servers between 2009 and 2012 named "Chaos Crusade", and it's late successor, "Remnants of Chaos". I won't go into great detail about them besides the fact that if you remember them, they were wildly populated to the point they got blizzards attention which resulted in both of their untimely demises.

The premise was, you spawned in AV in level 60 gear, you earned gold through killing people, and as you got on a kill streak, I believe it began at 5, the gold added 1 more the higher it got (20 silver for HK's (Non KB's), 1 gold per kill, +1 gold per killing spree level, ie: 5 kills, 10 kills, 15 kills etc.). This allowed for gear progression in a balanced fashion so people weren't instantly full sunwell overnight, and it made it interesting and engaging because you had to progressively upgrade your gear, it wasn't slow and tedious, but it wasn't extremely overpowered fast.
Many servers have attempted to replicate this, but none of them had a starting base population to do it.

Now; I'm not saying to wipe all characters to do this, I suggest merely wiping gear, but keeping engineering, tailoring, leatherworking etc., this would allow for a gear wipe but still keep characters and professions etc. there so people wouldn't lose time on it.

You've already removed Sunwell in the past, but for this to work I would suggest reintroducing it for the purpose of keeping the endgame overpowered ideal strong, it's why people play the game. They enjoy stomping wildly more undergeared players, and while I understand you want balance, the majority of the players don't and they've shown that by taking the route of the sunwell gear itself; by disappearing.



This whole idea might seem extremely painful to do, but it's as simple as scripting together the gold methods, scripting a handful of NPC's to spread around the map for mini-objectives, and the two main boss NPCs that reward gold to those of the faction who kill it within a specific radius, rather than people who tag it to avoid griefing.


I understand this may not be a route you're willing to take, but at this point in the servers life, it's either you make a change, or you continue to watch your hard work over the years wither away.
This obviously doesn't need to be the change you make, but maybe hold a few polls on on the idea, and a few others that might come to mind for you, and see what the rest of the server population thinks, because it would be something fresh, something new to everyone, and it would open a whole new world of opportunities to the players.


Think about it, Henry. #MakeSmolderforgeGreatAgain



PS: You'd still earn PvP gear through PvP, the only gear available for gold would be PvE gear. That was one of the neat catches of CC/RoC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98WQWhn6aRM
Found a really old PvP video from it, it even shows killing one of the main bosses (They were placed in either factions spawn cave rather then their home base.)

PPS: Found another that highlights the gold system, 20 silver for HK's (Non KB's), 1 gold per kill, +1 gold per killing spree level, ie: 5 kills, 10 kills, 15 kills etc.

[castor]

I strongly doubt swp removal is responsible for the shrinking population. Tbc is just dead in general, every other old server is dieing out aswell, people are moving on. Your ideas about that world pvp zone might sound fun, but just look at hyjal/azshara crater, world pvp doesnt seem to work on here. Imo the main problems atm are the premades, especially with this small playerbase.

[Sbkzor]

Seems like tbc will never be as polished as the other xpac's pservers. T_T
You can find perfect vanilla realms, wotlk realms, and probably the same for cata mop wod., but lolz TBC pserver scene is just a mess :(

[Zap]

Perfect vanilla? Wrath? Where?

[Sbkzor]

I mean with good playerbase, good reputation etc. I dont play actively other xpac but nostalrius(rip) was one of them, i guess warmane aswell.
I dont wanna start a discussion about it. There are tons of it on CCforums/OffTopic.
But what i meant was that there are nice places to stay cuz they feel blizzlike (playerbase ; panel of players pve/pvp/rp with every lvl of skill ; other social aspects) with some scripting that are still enjoyable.
On TBC, we're barely able to find realms with gd playerbase (even 3k ppl would be enough), with progressive content (cba starting to play on a server with everyone geared with endgame content), and without 7years old buggued skill/talent.
It's like there are zero dev caring about this xpac or able to deal with it. Even corecr@ft team just vanished

[robsn]

1500 online at exca atm

[Akeno]

Perfect vanilla? Wrath? Where?

Only repacks. Same goes for TBC, there are a few really good complied repacks around.

[ZatYo]

1500 online at exca atm

2k even but its a mystery to me cause that server is utter shit

[robsn]

@ZatYo so do u got an account there that u dont need and give it to me ? :D

[ZatYo]

@ZatYo so do u got an account there that u dont need and give it to me ? :D

bro honestly you dont want to play there the most fundamental things are bugged like melee attack you dont even understand how broken that shit is and the population is full of people who's first experience of the game is in that server you feel me, its shit. But no I dont have an account people lend me a few so I can play arena but hell naaaaaah