Status update, your concerns, and the future

[Charanko]

All these idiots wanting fresh will blaze through the content rush the leveling process and then cry for another fresh, that's not what this servers about, so god knows why they're doing a new Europe server with no transfers... Just shotting your self in foot attracting MORE NEW PLAYERS

For me i dont care if its fresh or a 1 for 1 copy of the current one…just want it pvp ;)

[Torta]

Thank so much for the clarifications! The transparency and close communication is welcomed. I'm still a believer in your team and the project but you have to admit some of your latest decisions were confusing and left us with a sour taste. If the whole point of new SEA servers was to decrease queue in main realm and stabilize the population, why weren't all servers lock-downed for a few days at least, prioritizing transfers first, and opening for new accounts only after? Can you perhaps address the reasoning behind this decision? Thank you

We didn't anticipate that our servers would attract such a large number of players at once, so we didn't consider this scenario. Once the realms were up, it became practically impossible to launch transfers without addressing the over-population issues.

In hindsight, we should have offered more realms with enough room for the transfers. However, at the time, the idea of having 50,000 players trying to connect simultaneously to the modding project realms seemed too unrealistic to even consider.

Right now, we are focusing on solving the current issue at hand, by ordering and setting up larger infrastructure. In many provides assembling a custom HW configuration is not a one-day task, as well as we don't have enough Chinese-speaking support to cover for 3 or 4 realms at once.

Getting and training new support takes time. Our English support team dealing with 600-1000 support tickets of various difficulty daily, the count is more or less the same on new SEA realm.

[Mikeyhong]

Really happy to hear this response so respectful,im a chinese living in EU,and im a new player of TWOW,A New server is very exciting for the new comers. i thought your teams work more than 5years and then is the time to begain a hero. So dont affriad to accepet more and more players come to this new family. although i know the chinese problem is perplex for the orignal players,sorry for this. And i also know the culture is totally different,but trust me if the asion server is enough and then here will be much better. BTW take care of the RMT,THANKS!

[Zen9000]

After restart it is impossible to enter the game!
The waiting line is just growing!

[Zen9000]

200-500-1300 already!

[Torta]

Calling it right now, we will end up with HC only realm, as with most things the development of Turtle has gone the full corporate dev circle now:

Community asks for something -> devs refuse cuz they simply know better (blizz mindset)
Community keeps asking for 6+ months -> devs finally agree

Class changes/removal of wbuffs/debuff limit/literally any change to the core vanilla gameplay are the prime examples of this

This isn't an impossible scenario :)

[Trangoul]

Please no second Europe server. The whole philosophy behind Turtle was One Server One Home!

This. Do not split the community even further.
Or, if another realm is really needed beyond any doubt, set up one with some distinctions (PvP? HC/SC only?). Do not go the way Bli$$ went with HC Classic realms, so they differ only in names. Make the realm choice meaningful for the player. This will prevent later regrets "I should have started playing on realm X instead".

[Ovaron]

• The new EU realm will further divide the English-speaking community.

We are closely monitoring the feedback provided on forums, Discord, and in-game. It is a controversial topic, but please be assured that we are reading and listening to everyone.

Please think twice before opening a second EU server.
If the new server comes fresh and without transfers, the old server will simply die out.
Many years of private WoW experience have shown that new players are more likely to start on a fresh server than on an existing one.

Furthermore, you should consider locking down the new SEA server for new accounts and only use it for transfers.
At least until everything is working.

[Yidhra]

Having a Hardcore-only server with the option to transfer leveled characters back to the main server would result in many alienated players who have no background in the community they have just joined.

I see you may have read my suggestion thread, thank you for doing that.

I understand that a new fresh 60 character suddenly arriving on the softcore realm would be jarring, however to me the hardcore community/players are already ostracized by the normal/softcore players and community. There's an immense amount of dissatisfaction surrounding them throughout nearly the entire leveling process, due to being unable to interact with them yet they can interact with the world around us. I do not want to foster any ill-feelings towards them, but it is an undeniable issue that hardcore players make the game less fun for non-HC players.

Your idea of phasing them out for the first 20 levels or so is wonderful, but that sounds like a massive technical hurdle and is definitely a long ways off. Even before the population boom of the eastern players, there was already rising discontent with the amount of HC players flat out ruining the leveling experience.

The stats are true and most hardcore players thin out drastically after level 20 and before level 30, but even after that it's still disheartening to not be able to group with a player you see out in the open or even help them since mob tagging does nothing for one of you. I just think it's a little silly to have players you flat out cannot interact with in an MMO.

I'm positive the hardcore community would love an entire realm to themselves where they can freely use the HC auction house or trade with everyone they see and group with them and once their journey is over they have the option to transfer to the normal realm. Even if they don't accept the transfer due to community/worldbuilding issues like you said, achieving hardcore on the hardcore realm is no less a feat than it was on the normal realm. They still did something great and can show it off to the other hardcore players.

Thank you for the updates on the other issues as well. While I'm not entirely satisfied, that's just the way it is. I have hope for this project, but I am wary now.

[Fresharugula]

• The new EU realm will further divide the English-speaking community.

We are closely monitoring the feedback provided on forums, Discord, and in-game. It is a controversial topic, but please be assured that we are reading and listening to everyone.

Please think twice before opening a second EU server.
If the new server comes fresh and without transfers, the old server will simply die out.
Many years of private WoW experience have shown that new players are more likely to start on a fresh server than on an existing one.

Furthermore, you should consider locking down the new SEA server for new accounts and only use it for transfers.
At least until everything is working.

This right here… I will likely be quitting turtle if their new EU server goes up. Enough of my guild will transfer that it will destroy our raid capabilities. I have no desire to start leveling again after just hitting 60 a few weekdnago, and I dont wanna go through the whole “meet a new guild” phase. I will literally just walk away from the project

[Xwolfi]

Right now, we are focusing on solving the current issue at hand, by ordering and setting up larger infrastructure. In many provides assembling a custom HW configuration is not a one-day task, as well as we don't have enough Chinese-speaking support to cover for 3 or 4 realms at once.

Getting and training new support takes time. Our English support team dealing with 600-1000 support tickets of various difficulty daily, the count is more or less the same on new SEA realm.

Again, what i'm taking from this is EU/NA players are further expected to suffer through daily queues of 6k+, lag and overpopulation for god knows how long?

We are expected to "Be patient (yet again)" until the Chinese community is dealt with (new servers and apparently training support staff? How long will that take?) before any chance of alleviation to current conditions.

[Geojak]

How about leaving hc as an option on normal servers unchanged and just additionally add a hc only server option?

Players could decide themselfes. Do they want to play together with the soft cores and not having to transfer later or do they want to go on a hc only environment that offers ah support, working lft, lower queue and no need for an inferno questline to play at 60.

If you believe that hardcores are alienated by transferring, then just leave the current option in place and let players decide for themselfes where they want to play.

It this an OK compromise?

You don't have to transfer ever if you don't want to. But you should have the options for all hc Player at all time towards the hc only server and transfer option at 60 to softcores serves.

[Dogfood420]

• The new EU realm will further divide the English-speaking community.

We are closely monitoring the feedback provided on forums, Discord, and in-game. It is a controversial topic, but please be assured that we are reading and listening to everyone.

Please think twice before opening a second EU server.
If the new server comes fresh and without transfers, the old server will simply die out.
Many years of private WoW experience have shown that new players are more likely to start on a fresh server than on an existing one.

Furthermore, you should consider locking down the new SEA server for new accounts and only use it for transfers.
At least until everything is working.

This is a really really valid concern.

But they are dealing with a project that must feel like it's growing out of their hands, and everyone is barking at them.

What do you think the option would be, since they can't put 15k players on 1 EU/NA realm?
How many of these players are from SEA? Or what if the server keeps growing once the influx of SEA players is solved?

What do

[Ovaron]

• The new EU realm will further divide the English-speaking community.

We are closely monitoring the feedback provided on forums, Discord, and in-game. It is a controversial topic, but please be assured that we are reading and listening to everyone.

Please think twice before opening a second EU server.
If the new server comes fresh and without transfers, the old server will simply die out.
Many years of private WoW experience have shown that new players are more likely to start on a fresh server than on an existing one.

Furthermore, you should consider locking down the new SEA server for new accounts and only use it for transfers.
At least until everything is working.

This is a really really valid concern.

But they are dealing with a project that must feel like it's growing out of their hands, and everyone is barking at them.

What do you think the option would be, since they can't put 15k players on 1 EU/NA realm?
How many of these players are from SEA? Or what if the server keeps growing once the influx of SEA players is solved?

What do

Tbh, I have no clue what to do, IF we still reach 10k+ peak players AFTER the transfer of SEA people is complete.
But I doubt we will reach that many EU/NA players for now. I can only start playing at around 6pm ST, where everything is okayish with the queue.
If there will still be need for another NA/EU Server it should be possible to transfer from one to another. This way we would not leave someone behind.

Remembering last year when i started, they told everyone that there wont be a fresh server anytime for sure. Rushing out a second server without considering every aspect just for the queue wont help in the longterm.

[Dachengzi]

Thank you, team turtles. I always think your ideas are good. You will never satisfy all the players, but I know that most of the players support this place. Continue with your plan and don't be disturbed

[Syboro]

Old players will stay at old server with comfortable online and RP/PVE component, second EU server will attract more english speaking gamers who dont want to play on the old one with overgeared people, its a huge demanding player base, so second server has to be more PvP, for expample all HCs players with pve mark everyone else pvp marked, or maybe some new Activated modes for those who dont like pvp at all. Turtle is a great experience for everyone, since we are talking about second EU realm perspectives, do not lose that chance to gather huge part of more pvp oriented people.

[Duorool]

Hello, respected developer
I come from China and thank you for your efforts and efforts
You have completed the feat of Blizzard's team of hundreds of people
Congratulations to you all
But I hope you can understand the market volume in China
We have hundreds of thousands of loyal fans of World of Warcraft, which will bring great challenges to your team. We hope you can successfully enter the Chinese market

[Luqj]

Hello Torta I am a Chinese player joins Twow at Jun, a little earlier than the Chinese player floods. So grateful for twow and community, let me have a leisure and recovery time after endless real boring life, bring me back to the good memory of youth. I saw your team hard working and respect to every community member, no discrimination, sincerely thankful.

[Vanillamemory]

thanks for the information, turtle GMs. please take into account of the possibility that massive chinese players might flow into SEA servers. think about the senario: chinese-speaking server, hanzi typing available, and, the best among all, playing for free. Blocked by Blizzard's withdrawing service from mainland China, chinese WOW lovers might find the turtle SEA servers paradise. and there are millions of WOW players in China. the expansion of turtle WOW into the East might become a deep and long lasting expansion.

[Noce]

i do hope so that you are also looking into class suggestions and general pvp for possible changes bcoz there are alot of usefull and interesting things to see and hopefuly implement. ty for your work.

[Syboro]

New EU realm will gather new player base and make comfortable playing on the old one, you cant just rely on old players with decisions about second server, cuz they always stick to not open it, by understandable reasons(gear, time, etc)

[Missmumu]

Just 1 question: why the queues increasing while waiting?

[Geojak]

i do hope so that you are also looking into class suggestions and general pvp for possible changes bcoz there are alot of usefull and interesting things to see and hopefuly implement. ty for your work.

Remeber when paladins in pvp were our biggest problems. Well atleast we don't have to fight about that anymore with the queue having replaced all other topics

[Deeken112]

I think they handle it better then blizzard. Keep it up

Im pro PVP-server but because classes are balanced mostly in PVE I personally don't think it makes sense to open a PVP-server unless you are gonna make some minor balance in the future to PVP.
PVP would still be a fun thing and im sure it will bring new players but ppl will complain about imbalace.

Dunno if it will work but PVP-server with some sort of PVE-mode maybe.
But if the population decrease in the future it will be pretty easy to merge the two if they both are PVE.

[Axxl]

@Torta - maybe consider going the RP route on EU2 if you make it, generally that pulls a different group of players and may ensure you don't end up with a fractured player base.

Also agreed on points around trying to ensure if it goes live it doesn't become a primarily chinese pop server. Not sure how you that mind!

[Sylveria]

Calling it right now, we will end up with HC only realm, as with most things the development of Turtle has gone the full corporate dev circle now:

Community asks for something -> devs refuse cuz they simply know better (blizz mindset)
Community keeps asking for 6+ months -> devs finally agree

Class changes/removal of wbuffs/debuff limit/literally any change to the core vanilla gameplay are the prime examples of this

You know.. the "community" doesn't always know what's best either, else maybe official WoW wouldn't have developed the way it did, since the "community" cried "boohoo, we want this, and we want that", and when blizz gave it to 'em, the game became, as many of us call it, the "retail" of today.

@Torta - maybe consider going the RP route on EU2 if you make it, generally that pulls a different group of players and may ensure you don't end up with a fractured player base.

Also agreed on points around trying to ensure if it goes live it doesn't become a primarily chinese pop server. Not sure how you that mind!

I'd second that. Since the main-realm has moved away from the RP (since the huge influx of "normal"-PvE-Players at the beginning of 2023), the entire RP-Atmosphere has been flushed out. I know we're propably a minority, but even we have dreams. :p

[Geojak]

I think I am warming up to the thought of a pvp (not rp) realm. I won't play on it but I am sure it will be demanded enough not just by Chinese to justify it. Many English international kept on the fence becuase turtle Was pve. And just as the Chinese Pop is booming, The rest of the world also watches.

[Axxl]

@Torta - maybe consider going the RP route on EU2 if you make it, generally that pulls a different group of players and may ensure you don't end up with a fractured player base.

Also agreed on points around trying to ensure if it goes live it doesn't become a primarily chinese pop server. Not sure how you that mind!

I'd second that. Since the main-realm has moved away from the RP (since the huge influx of "normal"-PvE-Players at the beginning of 2023), the entire RP-Atmosphere has been flushed out. I know we're propably a minority, but even we have dreams. :p
[/quote]

That's 2 votes! RP-PVE EU - 2 is the future!

[Tutayanova]

Our goal is to provide a comfortable experience for Chinese players on the SEA realms, that run on a separate infrastructure from the European services. Both EU realm (if the second realm isn't canceled due to lack of demand), will not have any support for Hanzi, nor the non-English speaking support (which is currently being provided on SEA realms).

Even if there is no support, what’s stopping CN players still going to the EU\NA server and writing 4=1?

[Er12]

I hope to have a pure HC server, even if the entry condition is to pay enough money.

[Alubby5th]

Our goal is to provide a comfortable experience for Chinese players on the SEA realms, that run on a separate infrastructure from the European services. Both EU realm (if the second realm isn't canceled due to lack of demand), will not have any support for Hanzi, nor the non-English speaking support (which is currently being provided on SEA realms).

Even if there is no support, what’s stopping CN players still going to the EU\NA server and writing 4=1?

Learning something new is always exciting.My son started learning English when he was about 3 years old.I'm proud of that although he has never got a chance to speak with a English man till now.If you understrand 4=1,why not accept it then?We respect your writing LFM/LF/WTB/ and so on.We never say bad thing against that.We need some respectation too.

[Hctwowfan]

I think I am warming up to the thought of a pvp (not rp) realm. I won't play on it but I am sure it will be demanded enough not just by Chinese to justify it. Many English international kept on the fence becuase turtle Was pve. And just as the Chinese Pop is booming, The rest of the world also watches.

Absolutely, let's attract more players for even longer queues =D make the new eu realm pvp so all the sweatlords leave twow for the new realm, fight each other for 2 months until faction imbalance and no transfers turns it into a one faction pve server, like every pvp server always has and forever will

[Grizb37]

Pvp servers are pure cancer imo.

The only reason I came here is to avoid that one sided eventual dead server rubbish. And who cares for ganking in the world.

[Lionyhyh]

Hello and thank you for responding to the community. I've often thought that in these turbulent times there's been a surprising lack of regular updates so this is great to see.

• We need a Hardcore-only server!

We are against this idea because we believe that the current design of integrating Hardcore players back into the raiding community upon reaching level 60 is the best approach. For those who want to play Hardcore after reaching level 60, there is an Inferno Mode. Having a Hardcore-only server with the option to transfer leveled characters back to the main server would result in many alienated players who have no background in the community they have just joined.

As a player who's only ever been on TWoW for its HC community, I think this is surprisingly short-sighted. I don't want to write an essay on this but short version, the current state of mixing HC+non-HC creates so much division and resentment, especially in the non-HC community, creates unnecessary competition for mobs, quests etc that could otherwise be shared, and so on.

A HC-only server would see much more cohesive camaraderie and interesting community dynamics (bad behaviour would be taken quite seriously for example).

Further, I think the mentality that HC is a temporary journey to 60, and Inferno is the "Extra" version of it, is mistaken and a HC-only server should be purely HC-only forever with no way to end your HC status, even at 60. I think that's the correct atmosphere and attitude for HC, and although I'm glad the "holiday" option exists for the many players who wish to try it but don't wish to remain HC at 60, I don't see how the current state of affairs is any different to your suggestion that level 60 transfers from HC-only server to regular server "would result in many alienated players who have no background in the community they have just joined."

If someone just spent months leveling to 60 HC, in the vast majority of circumstances they already have very few links to the non-HC community, so I don't see how that's very different, outside of the few long-time players who have 20 characters on 6 accounts etc.

I agree that implementing this is challenging because, how do you move all the current HC players over? Or if not move them, how do you phase out HC from the main server? I agree these are challenges that would need to be overcome but I'm confident that reasonable long-term solutions are available.

I'm sure this is already decided and won't be changed now, but still, I'm quite disappointed to hear there'll be no HC-only server and think it's a mistake, so I hope you'll consider the points I've raised.

Thanks again for your diligence in these busy and challenging times.

You're doing great! I agree that HC-only server are necessary.

However, I partially agree with this statement: a HC-only server should be purely HC-only forever with no way to end your HC status.

After level 60, players face many high-level graid content, facing much greater risks than the 1~60 level stage, in this case, having only one life is not appropriate.

I think HC-only server should always be HC-only , but after players reach level 60, they should have 3 lives (or more) as a reward.

The game content for players at the 1~60 level stage is very rich, killing monsters, leveling up, accumulating money and equipment, this is very interesting, players get a great sense of satisfaction when they get to level 60.

But when players reach level 60 and start experiencing high-level content, once they die, it will be a huge blow, the player's level 60 journey has ended before it even started, giving level 60 HC players a reward of 3 lives is necessary, it gives players the courage to try high-level content.

[Dated]

I FUCKING love turtlewow. i play this game 21 hours a day with 2 hours to sleep and even when i do sleep i wake up SHAKING in a cold sweat wanting to play turtlewow. im PHYSICALLY ill when im not playing turtlewow. this is what i call DEDICATION!!