Development Roadmap 2024-2025

[Bigsmerf]

I think it will be none of this.

Not another fresh. You saw how quick Tel'abim fresh died. Let's not make the same mistake.

dead server...

Wow, a whole raid group! This place must be really lively, huh?

[Drubarrymooer]

Not another fresh. You saw how quick Tel'abim fresh died. Let's not make the same mistake.

dead server...

Wow, a whole raid group! This place must be really lively, huh?

There's a pretty consistent ~200 players online. That's not dead. Ppl just like to complain that it went from a few thousand to a few hundred right as sod launched. It's far from dead though.

[Majestik51]

its dead now, it became even xfaction server, ppl assist each other. disgusting.....
only the great kor krons keepin it still alive.

[Typh1]

Personally I just log for raids. In between nothing else to do. World is empty, bg’s AB 4v4 and it’s super lame. So much for a pvp server

[Deso5618]

I can only guess, but contested areas in one of updates is an change to Nordanaar.

[Codymb24]

Imo Tel'Abim died because it's a PVP server.

Um no. Sod did that

[Allwynd01]

Imo Tel'Abim died because it's a PVP server.

Um no. Sod did that

I'm pretty sure Season of Discovery didn't cause the drop in players on Tel'Abim, it was the PvP itself. Season of Discovery was a letdown - a very generic and uninspired way by Microsoft-Activision to attempt a Vanilla+. About 2 weeks after it released, everyone stopped talking about it. Now it's dead.

People who asked for a PvP server finally got their wish granted and soon after realized that a PvP server is just not that fun as they imagined so they went back to the PvE server instead. I know it, because in 2019 when Classic launched, I stated playing there on a PvP server thinking I will recreate the old school experience, one time a high level Warlock from the enemy faction kept killing me over and over and corpse camping me until I was forced to stop playing for 1 hour until he gets bored and moves on. Then I realized how frustrating PvP is - high level enemy players can kill you and you can't do anything about it, you either have to let it go, or go crazy and make a hit list of everyone that killed you then level up, gear up and go hunt them down like you have the time, because you are unemployed IRL.

I can bet 90% of the WoW players on all servers are 30-50 years old at this point and the ones that turned out OK have jobs and IRL responsibilities so they don't have the time to spend what little game time they have to feel miserable and frustrated on a PvP server. That worked when we were 15 year old high school kids with tons of free time.

[Bjorn88]

Imo Tel'Abim died because it's a PVP server.

Um no. Sod did that

I'm pretty sure Season of Discovery didn't cause the drop in players on Tel'Abim, it was the PvP itself. Season of Discovery was a letdown - a very generic and uninspired way by Microsoft-Activision to attempt a Vanilla+. About 2 weeks after it released, everyone stopped talking about it. Now it's dead.

People who asked for a PvP server finally got their wish granted and soon after realized that a PvP server is just not that fun as they imagined so they went back to the PvE server instead. I know it, because in 2019 when Classic launched, I stated playing there on a PvP server thinking I will recreate the old school experience, one time a high level Warlock from the enemy faction kept killing me over and over and corpse camping me until I was forced to stop playing for 1 hour until he gets bored and moves on. Then I realized how frustrating PvP is - high level enemy players can kill you and you can't do anything about it, you either have to let it go, or go crazy and make a hit list of everyone that killed you then level up, gear up and go hunt them down like you have the time, because you are unemployed IRL.

I can bet 90% of the WoW players on all servers are 30-50 years old at this point and the ones that turned out OK have jobs and IRL responsibilities so they don't have the time to spend what little game time they have to feel miserable and frustrated on a PvP server. That worked when we were 15 year old high school kids with tons of free time.

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

[Sylveria]

Um no. Sod did that

I'm pretty sure Season of Discovery didn't cause the drop in players on Tel'Abim, it was the PvP itself. Season of Discovery was a letdown - a very generic and uninspired way by Microsoft-Activision to attempt a Vanilla+. About 2 weeks after it released, everyone stopped talking about it. Now it's dead.

People who asked for a PvP server finally got their wish granted and soon after realized that a PvP server is just not that fun as they imagined so they went back to the PvE server instead. I know it, because in 2019 when Classic launched, I stated playing there on a PvP server thinking I will recreate the old school experience, one time a high level Warlock from the enemy faction kept killing me over and over and corpse camping me until I was forced to stop playing for 1 hour until he gets bored and moves on. Then I realized how frustrating PvP is - high level enemy players can kill you and you can't do anything about it, you either have to let it go, or go crazy and make a hit list of everyone that killed you then level up, gear up and go hunt them down like you have the time, because you are unemployed IRL.

I can bet 90% of the WoW players on all servers are 30-50 years old at this point and the ones that turned out OK have jobs and IRL responsibilities so they don't have the time to spend what little game time they have to feel miserable and frustrated on a PvP server. That worked when we were 15 year old high school kids with tons of free time.

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

Do you guys always have to take personal insults/attacks in your argumentations? That just makes your point look weak. :/

But you have to see it from this point of view: TurtleWoW started as a RP-PvE-Server. therefore the new balancing was more focused on a good PvE-experience and to stay true to the class fantasy. Yet PvP-Players came to this server and asked for a pvp-realm EVEN though they KNEW that the balancing wasn't in favour of PvP.
And regarding the doom sayers.. idk how you are, but i propably wouldn't be affected by those doomposters.
Regarding "poor advertisment" - what would you have done instead? They made plenty of posts, even a video on Youtube.. idk what else you expect.

I once played on a PvP-Server, but there's a simple reason for why i don't play PvP anymore: Ganking.
And don't come and tell me "it's part of WoW". Being Ganked simply is not fun. Especially if you're getting ganked multiple times in a row. Not even necessarily by the same person, but in general. To me this ganking-culture is toxic behaviour. there is no competition, it's not even fair, it's just mindless slaughter. The Ganker doesn't gain anything except maybe that they feel great that they have killed someone ~40 lvl below them, and the ganked one is getting robbed of their time.

[Codymb24]

I'm pretty sure Season of Discovery didn't cause the drop in players on Tel'Abim, it was the PvP itself. Season of Discovery was a letdown - a very generic and uninspired way by Microsoft-Activision to attempt a Vanilla+. About 2 weeks after it released, everyone stopped talking about it. Now it's dead.

People who asked for a PvP server finally got their wish granted and soon after realized that a PvP server is just not that fun as they imagined so they went back to the PvE server instead. I know it, because in 2019 when Classic launched, I stated playing there on a PvP server thinking I will recreate the old school experience, one time a high level Warlock from the enemy faction kept killing me over and over and corpse camping me until I was forced to stop playing for 1 hour until he gets bored and moves on. Then I realized how frustrating PvP is - high level enemy players can kill you and you can't do anything about it, you either have to let it go, or go crazy and make a hit list of everyone that killed you then level up, gear up and go hunt them down like you have the time, because you are unemployed IRL.

I can bet 90% of the WoW players on all servers are 30-50 years old at this point and the ones that turned out OK have jobs and IRL responsibilities so they don't have the time to spend what little game time they have to feel miserable and frustrated on a PvP server. That worked when we were 15 year old high school kids with tons of free time.

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

Do you guys always have to take personal insults/attacks in your argumentations? That just makes your point look weak. :/

But you have to see it from this point of view: TurtleWoW started as a RP-PvE-Server. therefore the new balancing was more focused on a good PvE-experience and to stay true to the class fantasy. Yet PvP-Players came to this server and asked for a pvp-realm EVEN though they KNEW that the balancing wasn't in favour of PvP.
And regarding the doom sayers.. idk how you are, but i propably wouldn't be affected by those doomposters.
Regarding "poor advertisment" - what would you have done instead? They made plenty of posts, even a video on Youtube.. idk what else you expect.

I once played on a PvP-Server, but there's a simple reason for why i don't play PvP anymore: Ganking.
And don't come and tell me "it's part of WoW". Being Ganked simply is not fun. Especially if you're getting ganked multiple times in a row. Not even necessarily by the same person, but in general. To me this ganking-culture is toxic behaviour. there is no competition, it's not even fair, it's just mindless slaughter. The Ganker doesn't gain anything except maybe that they feel great that they have killed someone ~40 lvl below them, and the ganked one is getting robbed of their time.

Gank them back. It's world of warcraft not world of peacecraft. It's a game loop a lot of people enjoy. If you don't play on the pvp server why do you even care what happens to it?

[Sylveria]

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

Do you guys always have to take personal insults/attacks in your argumentations? That just makes your point look weak. :/

But you have to see it from this point of view: TurtleWoW started as a RP-PvE-Server. therefore the new balancing was more focused on a good PvE-experience and to stay true to the class fantasy. Yet PvP-Players came to this server and asked for a pvp-realm EVEN though they KNEW that the balancing wasn't in favour of PvP.
And regarding the doom sayers.. idk how you are, but i propably wouldn't be affected by those doomposters.
Regarding "poor advertisment" - what would you have done instead? They made plenty of posts, even a video on Youtube.. idk what else you expect.

I once played on a PvP-Server, but there's a simple reason for why i don't play PvP anymore: Ganking.
And don't come and tell me "it's part of WoW". Being Ganked simply is not fun. Especially if you're getting ganked multiple times in a row. Not even necessarily by the same person, but in general. To me this ganking-culture is toxic behaviour. there is no competition, it's not even fair, it's just mindless slaughter. The Ganker doesn't gain anything except maybe that they feel great that they have killed someone ~40 lvl below them, and the ganked one is getting robbed of their time.

Gank them back. It's world of warcraft not world of peacecraft. It's a game loop a lot of people enjoy. If you don't play on the pvp server why do you even care what happens to it?

Now explain to me how to gank someone WHO IS 40 LVL HIGHER? ;)
'cuz If i am getting ganked all the time i cannot lvl Up, therefore can never gank Back.

And this "world of Warcraft, Not world of peacecraft" is Not even a real Argument.. my Point is, that with this behaviour it's the pvp-communitys own fault why Player Numbers decreased, at least partially.
And i dont mean it in a way to Attack the pvp-community, but as constructive criticism. It's easy to say "Yeah it's the Turtle-Devs fault", but ask yourself If you yourself have contributed to the Problem.

And why do i care? Because i'd consider myself to be a friendly, polite and empathic Person (Is Up to everyone Else to decides if it's true or Not.) Sure i won't Play PvP, because of the Just mentioned reason, but that doesnt mean that i dont Care about fellow WoW Players.

[Xudo]

I believe whole vanilla PvP Idea was like "you should suffer first, but when you get level and gear you make other people suffer".
It was good back in the days when there was no games to play. Now people can just quit.

[Elleshar]

Lots of things that are good with PvP server, but just one example that you guys suffer from the pve server is you can't kill someone stealing your vein/herb/quest mob etc.

[Sylveria]

I believe whole vanilla PvP Idea was like "you should suffer first, but when you get level and gear you make other people suffer".
It was good back in the days when there was no games to play. Now people can just quit.

though once you're leveled up and geared i wouldn't consider it to be ganking anymore, but a fair pvp fight, since both players will be around the same power level.
Slaughtering low levels, as said, isnt something that brings anything positive to anyone.

[Codymb24]

Do you guys always have to take personal insults/attacks in your argumentations? That just makes your point look weak. :/

But you have to see it from this point of view: TurtleWoW started as a RP-PvE-Server. therefore the new balancing was more focused on a good PvE-experience and to stay true to the class fantasy. Yet PvP-Players came to this server and asked for a pvp-realm EVEN though they KNEW that the balancing wasn't in favour of PvP.
And regarding the doom sayers.. idk how you are, but i propably wouldn't be affected by those doomposters.
Regarding "poor advertisment" - what would you have done instead? They made plenty of posts, even a video on Youtube.. idk what else you expect.

I once played on a PvP-Server, but there's a simple reason for why i don't play PvP anymore: Ganking.
And don't come and tell me "it's part of WoW". Being Ganked simply is not fun. Especially if you're getting ganked multiple times in a row. Not even necessarily by the same person, but in general. To me this ganking-culture is toxic behaviour. there is no competition, it's not even fair, it's just mindless slaughter. The Ganker doesn't gain anything except maybe that they feel great that they have killed someone ~40 lvl below them, and the ganked one is getting robbed of their time.

Gank them back. It's world of warcraft not world of peacecraft. It's a game loop a lot of people enjoy. If you don't play on the pvp server why do you even care what happens to it?

Now explain to me how to gank someone WHO IS 40 LVL HIGHER? ;)
'cuz If i am getting ganked all the time i cannot lvl Up, therefore can never gank Back.

And this "world of Warcraft, Not world of peacecraft" is Not even a real Argument.. my Point is, that with this behaviour it's the pvp-communitys own fault why Player Numbers decreased, at least partially.
And i dont mean it in a way to Attack the pvp-community, but as constructive criticism. It's easy to say "Yeah it's the Turtle-Devs fault", but ask yourself If you yourself have contributed to the Problem.

And why do i care? Because i'd consider myself to be a friendly, polite and empathic Person (Is Up to everyone Else to decides if it's true or Not.) Sure i won't Play PvP, because of the Just mentioned reason, but that doesnt mean that i dont Care about fellow WoW Players.

I think I can count on one hand how many times I was ganked over and over again by someone 40 levels higher. Maybe that's just me. But if it happens I would just take a break and come back later. What is even the point of having an opposite faction if you can't interact with them through pvp. I'm sorry you have bad memories of this or whatever it is. But this is common in most mmos especially at the time. But don't discount a part of the game just because you have a hard time with it.

[Allwynd01]

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

OK, show me facts that Tel'Abim lost popularity due to the reasons you listed.

1. No facts or proof, just you repeating the same thing over and over like a broken record, thinking the more you repeat it, the more it becomes truth. Go on. Show me proof.

2. Again people realizing PvP is not fun for them.

3. Is true Blizzlike Vanilla balanced? Absolutely not. Are true Blizzlike Vanilla PvP servers imbalanced faction-wise. Yes they are, usually 80% one faction vs 20% other faction.

4. Again, how is this different from Blizzlike Vanilla WoW? WoW in 2004-2006 was not intended to be a PvP game, it just happened to have World PvP and Battlegrounds, it doesn't mean it was balanced or fun or had proper PvP-oriented content.

5. What kind of advertisement do you expect to have? Turtle WoW is a PvE Vanilla Plus server, it just happens to have a PvP server on the down-low. That's what people know about Turtle WoW, if they start advertising PvP servers, people will think the developers have lost their minds, changed direction 180° and the server is now all about PvP and it will do more harm than good in the long run.

6. If you really believe that people are dumb enough that they will base their opinion on what other people are saying and make decisions based on that, I think you should take a hard look at yourself and ask yourself why do you put other people's opinion on such a high pedestal. People are doing what they want, they aren't thinking too much (much less overthinking), they don't read what others are saying and certainly are not listening to them. They can just see the writing on the wall themselves.

7. Of course they are going back - why waste time and effort to gear characters on a dying server.

8. Of course the population is dropping - people lose interest and then other people see that others are leaving so they realize the server is dying and they leave too, because it's impractical and illogical to waste time and effort on a dead server that might shut down any moment now.


Points 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 all point to the same thing I said, just in different words - people realizing a PvP server is just not that fun and going back to the PvE server.

I don't know why you find this so hard to understand. I'm playing on the PvE server and I have nothing to lose, I understand based on your aggressive remarks that you are playing on the PvP server and are really frustrated with your current hopeless predicament. But no matter how you twist things around, it doesn't change the fact that people left the PvP server, because they simply realized they aren't having fun with it.

Also, I'd like you to point me to a single PvP-oriented Vanilla private server that is very popular and successful, because I can't think of any, which means PvP in Vanilla is just not the main thing people are playing about.

If you read on the internet for the reasons why people enjoy Vanilla WoW more than other versions of the game, it's because of the journey, not the destination, just listening to the music, traveling the zones, questing, socializing with other people, meeting new people, forming friendships, are only some of the things people enjoy about the game, nobody has ever mentioned PvP as one of them.

[Xudo]

I also can add that ganking is not natural behaviour for players.
They very often choose not to fight rather than to fight. Even on PvP server.
There is no real reason to attack other player out there. You don't need honor when you leveling.
People sometimes cooperate with players of other faction. Without party. Just wait for some elite mob to spawn and kill it togeter. Then wait again, other player tags it and they kill it together.

Ganking happens when one player have absolute advantage over other player. It might be Ambush opener or level difference or quantative difference.

If you want a thrill of danger in open world, fine. How about higher reward for kill in open world, with reduced possible level range of attackers?

[Nonnoanselmo]

Um no. Sod did that

I'm pretty sure Season of Discovery didn't cause the drop in players on Tel'Abim, it was the PvP itself. Season of Discovery was a letdown - a very generic and uninspired way by Microsoft-Activision to attempt a Vanilla+. About 2 weeks after it released, everyone stopped talking about it. Now it's dead.

People who asked for a PvP server finally got their wish granted and soon after realized that a PvP server is just not that fun as they imagined so they went back to the PvE server instead. I know it, because in 2019 when Classic launched, I stated playing there on a PvP server thinking I will recreate the old school experience, one time a high level Warlock from the enemy faction kept killing me over and over and corpse camping me until I was forced to stop playing for 1 hour until he gets bored and moves on. Then I realized how frustrating PvP is - high level enemy players can kill you and you can't do anything about it, you either have to let it go, or go crazy and make a hit list of everyone that killed you then level up, gear up and go hunt them down like you have the time, because you are unemployed IRL.

I can bet 90% of the WoW players on all servers are 30-50 years old at this point and the ones that turned out OK have jobs and IRL responsibilities so they don't have the time to spend what little game time they have to feel miserable and frustrated on a PvP server. That worked when we were 15 year old high school kids with tons of free time.

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

Most empathic response from a wow pvp player

[Sylveria]

I think I can count on one hand how many times I was ganked over and over again by someone 40 levels higher. Maybe that's just me. But if it happens I would just take a break and come back later. What is even the point of having an opposite faction if you can't interact with them through pvp. I'm sorry you have bad memories of this or whatever it is. But this is common in most mmos especially at the time. But don't discount a part of the game just because you have a hard time with it.

My Point Just is that i wouldnt consider ganking even to be PvP at all. PvP - Player "versus" Player, implies to me some Sort of competition between two Players/factions/whatever. And ganking, AS Said, Just is No competition at all. I dont say that PvP dont has a place in the Game, but that is just an absolute advantage someone has over someone else.
The reason why i once played on a pvp server was the thrill of the danger to be attacked by one of the opposite faction. But it used to be always someone around my own level so i had a chance to EITHER win or die. With ganking there's not such a chance, therefore: no fun. Especially for the ganked one.
And if you're getting ganked multiple Times, over and over again, even after taking several Breaks, i wouldnt be surprised If people leave the Server.
So we're Back at my Initial Point: the pvp-community, or at least the ganking-culture, is PART of the Problem why the Numbers on Tel'abim are declining.. Just blaming the Turtle-Devs, Like some Here do, is just wrong.

[Bjorn88]

Hahaha you again, basing everyone's opinion on your own trauma of that one time you got camped five years ago. This self-centeredness is typical of kids, adults try to refer to facts. And I've shown you already in another thread how classic pvp servers were twice as popular as pve servers in classic. They are de facto the type of server most wow players prefer - just not the slutmog chasers of Nordanaar.

Tel'abim population likely dropped due to 1) SoD, 2) fresh chasers quitting, 3) class imbalances, 4) absence of pvp-specific content, 5) poor advertisement by twow team, 6) doomposters here and on discord, 7) players going back to the comfort of their geared chars and existing community on Nordanaar, 8) population drop creating a self-reinforcing negative loop - players quitting because others do.

OK, show me facts that Tel'Abim lost popularity due to the reasons you listed.

1. No facts or proof, just you repeating the same thing over and over like a broken record, thinking the more you repeat it, the more it becomes truth. Go on. Show me proof.

2. Again people realizing PvP is not fun for them.

3. Is true Blizzlike Vanilla balanced? Absolutely not. Are true Blizzlike Vanilla PvP servers imbalanced faction-wise. Yes they are, usually 80% one faction vs 20% other faction.

4. Again, how is this different from Blizzlike Vanilla WoW? WoW in 2004-2006 was not intended to be a PvP game, it just happened to have World PvP and Battlegrounds, it doesn't mean it was balanced or fun or had proper PvP-oriented content.

5. What kind of advertisement do you expect to have? Turtle WoW is a PvE Vanilla Plus server, it just happens to have a PvP server on the down-low. That's what people know about Turtle WoW, if they start advertising PvP servers, people will think the developers have lost their minds, changed direction 180° and the server is now all about PvP and it will do more harm than good in the long run.

6. If you really believe that people are dumb enough that they will base their opinion on what other people are saying and make decisions based on that, I think you should take a hard look at yourself and ask yourself why do you put other people's opinion on such a high pedestal. People are doing what they want, they aren't thinking too much (much less overthinking), they don't read what others are saying and certainly are not listening to them. They can just see the writing on the wall themselves.

7. Of course they are going back - why waste time and effort to gear characters on a dying server.

8. Of course the population is dropping - people lose interest and then other people see that others are leaving so they realize the server is dying and they leave too, because it's impractical and illogical to waste time and effort on a dead server that might shut down any moment now.

Points 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 all point to the same thing I said, just in different words - people realizing a PvP server is just not that fun and going back to the PvE server.

I don't know why you find this so hard to understand. I'm playing on the PvE server and I have nothing to lose, I understand based on your aggressive remarks that you are playing on the PvP server and are really frustrated with your current hopeless predicament. But no matter how you twist things around, it doesn't change the fact that people left the PvP server, because they simply realized they aren't having fun with it.

Also, I'd like you to point me to a single PvP-oriented Vanilla private server that is very popular and successful, because I can't think of any, which means PvP in Vanilla is just not the main thing people are playing about.

If you read on the internet for the reasons why people enjoy Vanilla WoW more than other versions of the game, it's because of the journey, not the destination, just listening to the music, traveling the zones, questing, socializing with other people, meeting new people, forming friendships, are only some of the things people enjoy about the game, nobody has ever mentioned PvP as one of them.

I’ll answer the parts of your post that I think are worth responding to.

1) You know perfectly well that it will not be possible to actually show a causal relation of players leaving tel’abim for SoD but since you’re into anecdotes I’ll repeat what I’ve said before – I saw my guildleader along with around 80 guildmembers leave for SoD and repeated statements of other players doing the same in worldchat and discord during the period December – January. Recently had around ten other guildies doing the same (for a pvp server on SoD ofcourse).

2) This is a great example of your well-refined skill of twisting words and arguments into fitting your own narrative. People leave new (and old) servers for many reasons and you can never know exactly why, just point out trends. But I will borrow from your toolbox: ”Show me proof why people left tel’abim because they didn’t like pvp”

3) Ugh, not worth my time

4) As above. Although I can say from personal experience on tel’abim that pvp-specific content – very simple additions, such as faction leader loot and perma-pvp flag lvl 60s - has been asked for from dozens of players on the server since around january. Nothing yet.

5) Fine it's a great idea to pay for hosting a server and then don't advertise it.

6) I’ll just quote your own words here which very well describes how doomposting affects people, in how it creates a perception of a bad server when it isn’t: ”people lose interest and then other people see that others are leaving so they realize the server is dying and they leave too, because it's impractical and illogical to waste time and effort on a dead server that might shut down any moment now”

I don’t understand why you think private servers are a relevant point of observation in the argument of whether pvp or pve servers are more popular. Private servers are niche projects which a fraction of wow players ever find or play on – player pop will be skewered and not representative. I’ve already shown you that pvp servers were twice as populated in classic, which are the only relevant servers to look at in this case. Except for vanilla if you can find those numbers, but I bet they look the same. From my memory, there were around twice as many pvp servers as pve.

I also don’t understand how you can list all those reasons, based on some random readings of the internet, and draw the conclusion that people like these thing and thus do not like pvp. Naturally people like WoW for a list of reasons, including the ones you gave, but more people rolled on pvp servers in vanilla and classic for the chance of world pvp encounters. This faction vs faction part of the game is basically what makes an mmo an mmo. If you don’t like it you might as well play co-op games, which is essentially what pve servers are. Zero resistance leveling fighting nothing but scripts.

Good for you if you enjoy that, I lasted around 3-4 months on Nordanaar before I was bored to death.

[Allwynd01]

I’ll answer the parts of your post that I think are worth responding to.

1) You know perfectly well that it will not be possible to actually show a causal relation of players leaving tel’abim for SoD but since you’re into anecdotes I’ll repeat what I’ve said before – I saw my guildleader along with around 80 guildmembers leave for SoD and repeated statements of other players doing the same in worldchat and discord during the period December – January. Recently had around ten other guildies doing the same (for a pvp server on SoD ofcourse).

2) This is a great example of your well-refined skill of twisting words and arguments into fitting your own narrative. People leave new (and old) servers for many reasons and you can never know exactly why, just point out trends. But I will borrow from your toolbox: ”Show me proof why people left tel’abim because they didn’t like pvp”

3) Ugh, not worth my time

4) As above. Although I can say from personal experience on tel’abim that pvp-specific content – very simple additions, such as faction leader loot and perma-pvp flag lvl 60s - has been asked for from dozens of players on the server since around january. Nothing yet.

5) Fine it's a great idea to pay for hosting a server and then don't advertise it.

6) I’ll just quote your own words here which very well describes how doomposting affects people, in how it creates a perception of a bad server when it isn’t: ”people lose interest and then other people see that others are leaving so they realize the server is dying and they leave too, because it's impractical and illogical to waste time and effort on a dead server that might shut down any moment now”

I don’t understand why you think private servers are a relevant point of observation in the argument of whether pvp or pve servers are more popular. Private servers are niche projects which a fraction of wow players ever find or play on – player pop will be skewered and not representative. I’ve already shown you that pvp servers were twice as populated in classic, which are the only relevant servers to look at in this case. Except for vanilla if you can find those numbers, but I bet they look the same. From my memory, there were around twice as many pvp servers as pve.

I also don’t understand how you can list all those reasons, based on some random readings of the internet, and draw the conclusion that people like these thing and thus do not like pvp. Naturally people like WoW for a list of reasons, including the ones you gave, but more people rolled on pvp servers in vanilla and classic for the chance of world pvp encounters. This faction vs faction part of the game is basically what makes an mmo an mmo. If you don’t like it you might as well play co-op games, which is essentially what pve servers are. Zero resistance leveling fighting nothing but scripts.

Good for you if you enjoy that, I lasted around 3-4 months on Nordanaar before I was bored to death.

1. OK, sure, that happened to you, I can't argue with that. I compared the server population graphs on Turtle WoW around November - December 2023 when SoD released and I did not see a big drop on the PvE server, only on the PvP one. In fact, the drop on the PvE server was subsequently followed by a spike and then stabilization around that spike. Assuming that people left for SoD, then saw what's up and came back a few weeks later. Also we have to account that during that period, Chinese players were still being migrated to their own server so we can't know for sure if those player drops were still Chinese players or SoD tourists.


2. Since you won't provide examples of why you believe the PvP server died due to SoD, probably because you can't, I will provide proof of why people don't like the PvP server and quit for the same reason:

New PvP realm is stupid
viewtopic.php?t=9809

My experience - leveling is great, raiding is good - PvP makes you quit
viewtopic.php?t=7231

Why do people get so mad in pvp?
viewtopic.php?t=8009

The pvp state of the server
viewtopic.php?t=5553

The new server should put PvP on the same level as PvE for once.
viewtopic.php?t=11182

Devs - You've Spat In the Face of Old Players.
viewtopic.php?t=9810

SERVER FULL OF GRIEFERS
viewtopic.php?t=7263

All those are posts of people saying they don't like the PvP for one reason or another and other people agreeing with them. What more proof do you want that the majority of people realize that PvP is not as fun as they initially envisioned it to be?

3. You don't want to comment on the fact that original Vanilla WoW was never balanced in any aspect and this is part of what made it fun, unfortunately for you, it's more fun in PvE and more frustrating in PvP due to all kinds of imbalances.

4. All I can say about is that those requested changes are optional and don't affect people who aren't interested in having PvP mode enabled. I don't know when you started playing on Turtle WoW, I started in 2018 when there were 50 players at peak hours, the XP rate was x0.5 and there was only PvE, PvP was like a running joke, because people never knew it would actually happen in any capacity whatsoever.

5. You forget that the Turtle WoW added the PvP server due to the requests of the vocal minority who kept asking for a dedicated PvP server, away from the "pussy ass PvE players" and all that - how PvP/Warmode players could not play with everyone, how their experience was impeded and so forth. They NEVER... EVER... intended to have a PvP server, therefore no need for them to advertise it. I am even starting to think they wanted this to happen so they can prove to everyone that a PvP server was never needed and only the current reality can prove that, but don't believe this, it's just my hypothesis that I came up with just now as was writing this paragraph.

6. So you quote me, the point is what exactly? The snowballing effect is happening everywhere in dying venues. How is my post related to "doomposting" and how is the quote you provided in any way related to the act of "doomposting"? It's a description of the natural course of things in a dying MMORPG - player X logs in, queues for a battleground or a dungeon, spends 3 hours in queue until group is found, by the time the group is gathered, player X has to log out and deal with other IRL responsibilities, player X also remembers that 1 month ago it took 50 minutes to find a group, player X also remembers that 2 months ago, finding a group took merely 10 minutes. Player X comes to the conclusion that continuing playing will be even more frustrating, annoying and the experience will be limited due to the increasing lack of players and player X decides to leave. Then players Y, Z and anyone else also leaves. It has nothing to do with no "doomposting", as I already said - people don't really read forums or Discord or Reddit or care what others think about certain issues.

Try to count how many active users are on all 3 platforms - I think there are no more than 100-150 active users on Discord/forums and maybe about 50 (tops) on Reddit. Out of the 5000 players on the PvE server, alone, there are over 80% who don't participate in these discussions or read it. Let's assume there are some 50-80 lurkers who only read, but don't care enough about creating an account and posting, it's still not enough people to say whatever people are saying here affects the opinions of a lot of people. The logical conclusion is that people base their decisions on the basis of personal experience with the game.

I think private servers are a relevant gauge for a PvP success story, because usually most popular WoW servers are just one server/realm, the ones that have multiple - PvP, PvE, RP, whatever are mostly "jack-of-all-trade-master-of-none" and they aren't popular or successful and don't have a healthy population on either of their servers/realms. If we look at official PvP realms and see their population history, they start with 50-50, then slowly goes to 80-20 and 90-10 until one faction completely leaves, then the other, being unable to play the game at all, just quits and the server gets shut down. For official PvP servers, it's less of a setback to have them and then shut them down, because the revenue there is massive, on private servers, if the server shuts down, everything is gone. That's why I asked you to give me an example of one (or more) successful Vanilla PvP servers with large population, because I can't think of any, meaning there aren't any such. I know about ones like Warmane, but Warmane is 3.3.5, not 1.12.1, and WoTLK is more balanced and classes are more homogenized, also that server is instant 80, which means you have custom NPC vendors selling you the gear and you just go queue for BGs and arenas, that is hardly a normal server, it's merely an extract of the game, not the whole game, you won't see people leveling or mining or doing professions, a whole 95% of the game is made irrelevant on those servers. If this is a PvP server success story, that's pretty depressing IMO.

You can check the official Classic server populations and see how popular they are: https://www.warcrafttavern.com/population/classic/

And lastly, I wand to remind you that WoW began as a casual-friendly take of EverQuest 1. In that game, PvP wasn't really a thing, people were mostly grouping together and tackling PvE content and this is what made the game so popular. Factions and PvP came later. RuneScape doesn't really have factions, there is PvP, but mostly it's PvE. Ultima Online was PvP-only for the most part without factions - anyone can kill anyone. So don't act like Vanilla WoW was the first MMORPG ever and it's the golden standard of what an MMORPG should be like. I'm speaking from the perspective and the philosophy that Turtle WoW is about - PvE experience with additional lore-friendly content. The PvP server in this case is what happened when too many people asked for something and the developers halfheartedly gave it to them so they can shut up and stop bothering them, it was never a goal for them. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you will have a peace of the mind.

Oh and I forgot to address this in my previous post, what my experience being ganked on Claassic 5 years ago is not an isolated case, a lot people got ganked in PvP and lost interest in it. When I was in high school playing WoTLK, I played on PvP servers and did not mind the stress or the frustration, I had a lot of time, now I'm a working adult and I can't be bothered to deal with PvP anymore, think about how many people are in the same boat - got ganked in PvP enough times to not like it anymore and then actively avoiding it due to their current lives and not having enough time or patience to deal with this BS anymore. As harsh as it may sound, I can only imagine the people who play PvP servers as adults are useless (to society) parasites like that sneaky charlatan asmongold who sit on their asses 24 hours a day without a job or anything and can afford to play this, nobody else, I imagine, has the time or patience to deal with this BS. Basically people in their 30s-40s who played WoW in 2004, still play it 20 years later, but unlike normal adults, they still have the same time to play games as they did in high school. I know it sounds harsh and it's not 100% true, but I can't imagine how exactly would working adults have more than 1-2 hours a day to play PvP.

[Kanto123]

For Grim Reaches, do we know if they will be using the Twilight Highlands map released during Cata, or will it be developed from the ground up, like how Gilneas was remade rather than ported over from Cata?

I like the look of the retail version so wouldn't mind it's inclusion; the only objection I can think of is that it would look too high quality compared to the rest of the game, but Hyjal is the Cata version

Hyjal was an uncomplete version present in-game in Classic, you can look for videos in YouTube exploring that area.
Porting areas from later versions of the games is mlre difficult than simply creating new areas, cause the number of polygons are larger than the amount of the number of polygons accepted in the Vanilla client. So, yes, Grim Reaches and any other area will be developed from 0 for sure.

That all makes sense

[Daedalus007]

I'm really excited for the 'Eversong Wastes' aka 'Ruins of Silvermoon' patch tbh. The lore alone should be really awesome to see as we diverge from the TBC timeline.

Still would love to see High Elves get at least one good offensive ability (Arcane Torrent AND/OR Mana Tap) to have them be more viable in PvP settings.

*snip*

I saw the population graph where there were several THOUSANDS of players wanting to play on Tel'Abim and they left because of the usual issues with open world unlimited uncontested PvP: it devolves into griefers and gankers until everyone who doesn't like that ends up leaving.

I mean Eve Online (Sci-Fi) and Albion Online (Action-RPG-fantasy) exist along with all the FPS/TPS/MOBA games, so why do people who claim to enjoy PvP continue to complain about WoW PvP?

If I may speculate, the answer may simply be that they don't want real PvP they want to gank and they want to kill others with little to no effort. They want an 'I win' button with no effort. As a brief example, see all the posts from people who don't play Paladin complaining about Paladin using impossible scenarios (one Paladin using both Holy Shock and Seal of Command on an enemy player). There's even been spew thrown out at Rogues even though they are meant to be stealth-focused stunlockers when it comes to PvP.

Cowards, trolls, griefers, grifters, and more ended up ruining Tel'Abim and rather than admit their faults they continue to whinge, whine, spew, and otherwise exacerbate the otherwise chill community in global chats on the PvE server.

[Allwynd01]

I'm really excited for the 'Eversong Wastes' aka 'Ruins of Silvermoon' patch tbh. The lore alone should be really awesome to see as we diverge from the TBC timeline.

Still would love to see High Elves get at least one good offensive ability (Arcane Torrent AND/OR Mana Tap) to have them be more viable in PvP settings.

Is this zone Eversong Wastes different from the new starting zones for the High Elves? I recently saw that they added new starting zones for both Goblins and High Elves, I've made characters for each, but am yet to play them.

Is this zone you talk about going to be 10-20 level range or what? Is there a counterpart for the Goblins?

I saw the population graph where there were several THOUSANDS of players wanting to play on Tel'Abim and they left because of the usual issues with open world unlimited uncontested PvP: it devolves into griefers and gankers until everyone who doesn't like that ends up leaving.

I mean Eve Online (Sci-Fi) and Albion Online (Action-RPG-fantasy) exist along with all the FPS/TPS/MOBA games, so why do people who claim to enjoy PvP continue to complain about WoW PvP?

If I may speculate, the answer may simply be that they don't want real PvP they want to gank and they want to kill others with little to no effort. They want an 'I win' button with no effort. As a brief example, see all the posts from people who don't play Paladin complaining about Paladin using impossible scenarios (one Paladin using both Holy Shock and Seal of Command on an enemy player). There's even been spew thrown out at Rogues even though they are meant to be stealth-focused stunlockers when it comes to PvP.

Cowards, trolls, griefers, grifters, and more ended up ruining Tel'Abim and rather than admit their faults they continue to whinge, whine, spew, and otherwise exacerbate the otherwise chill community in global chats on the PvE server.

I play Retribution Paladin and I don't think it's that strong, other people who have more knowledge than me are much better with other classes and get better results than me. I feel like Affliction Warlock in some aspects is much stronger than Retribution Paladin and other classes too.

I agree with what you're saying, it's what I've been saying since the beginning - Tel'Abim died because people realized PvP is not as fun as they imagined, they don't want to be ganked or griefed, and you have a very good point - they want PvP only when they can win the fight and kill other players, when they get killed, it's no longer fun for them.

People who say Tel'Abim died because of Season of Discovery are completely delusional, thinking if it wasn't for it, the server would be alive again... Wrong! It would have still been dead. Why hasn't Nordanaar died too then? It's as populated as it was before Turtle WoW became popular in China. It's because Season of Discovery did not have any effect at all.

And regarding all the people complaining about various things, they are insane, delusional and detached from reality, because they are so entitled, they expect the developers to bow down to their every whim. They keep forgetting this is a free server and we are at the mercy of the developers. We can play here without spending any money at all and we should even be happy and thankful we have this opportunity to play on such a server. It may sound like I'm praising Turtle WoW and it's developers, I'm not, I say this about every private server for every MMORPG out there that was, is or will be.

People who have demands to have this or that changed, should start paying Microsoft-Activision and go complain about their version of WoW, it would make their complaints slightly more valid. On a private server, complaining is like wasting your time and this of those who bother reading or engaging with you.