let's get to work
. I have some suggestions that could be put in one sentance:"Don't rush, don't rush and for 3th time don't rush and fix as many things as you can before official release ." Corecraft is probably the best example how you should make hype and development progress and I think that you took their path and example with releaseing videos and advertising your future server (they are making hype over 2 years now, don't forget that fact). As far as I know you were instant level 60 server so you probably focused on high level instances, dungeons and raids, PVP, Battlegrounds, pathfinding, as we can see in your videos but I am wondering in what state are low and mid-level zones, quests, mobs, instances etc... Logical advice would be to start fixing things patiently, each zone by zone just as Corecraft did.So let's start with concrete suggestions:
1) This is probably most important, check all abilities, spells and talents for each class, all class mechanics (aggro mechanics, buff stacking and effects for example), class forumals, because without working classes gameplay is turning into a nightmare. For example on every private server that I played (and my experiance is not so small, I can mention many of them, Archaica, TheRebirth, Feenix, Quality Gaming, Valkyrie WoW, VanillaGaming, MC-WoW, Scriptcraft etc...) stealth is broken and stealth is not working as it should in PvE against mobs, pet system is horrible, the reason why I am avoiding all these years warlocks and hunters is because of that bug, these are just examples that I mentioned so with this first suggesion you should not make any compromise.
2) Racial abilites and spells were never fixed from my experiance and it's very annoying if you play some race and their racial spells do not work. My advice is to make video about these too after you fix them of course.
3) Quests (polish working ones by adding gossips and text of NPCs, in other words work on details as much as possible, here is one great example (Ammo for Rumbleshot quest) video by one ex-vanilla project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIeY1XU_3NI (check their video channel also to see how did they fix other things, meetings stones for example, charging through a trap, charm and kiting mechanics) and script bugged quests and add missing quests, from my experiance there were a lot of private servers that were missing many quests, try to have precise drop rates for quest items and do not forget to check class and escort quests (often bugged on private servers))
4) Mobs (fix their their HP, mana, check their resistances, armor, their minumum and maximum damage, their attack speed and attack power, their equipment, repuation, loot table and drop rates (so important and so widespread bug on private servers), their position if they are not moving (this is very important because I remember on Valkyire WoW vanilla server there is one entrance in that cave in Night Elf starting zone that is filled with spiders and those spiders are so badly and poorly positioned that it's almost impossible to enter because just before the entrance if you pull one spider than you will pull 3 spiders more and the reason for that is because they put those spiders very close each other, they are overlapping, I am not sure 100% about this, maybe it was hard like this during official classic wow period, but one more thing that should be double checked), their patrol route if they are moving, check elite mobs and their drops (this is bugged on almost every server), what is also very important is their artificial intelligence, their abilities, spells, buffs, debuffes and how do they cast them, when do they cast them, for example try fix that all mobs that have spell for summoning their minion, I want to say that if you slay mob's summoned pet they should start casting spell to resummon their pet, here is example for Burning Blade Cultist located in Durotar http://db.valkyrie-wow.org/?npc=3198#abilities, also for Fizzle Darkstorm also located in Durotar has some special spells that he rarely cast on private servers because AI is completly bugged (referring to mangos default state) http://db.valkyrie-wow.org/?npc=3203#abilities, these mentioned mobs are only examples in the jungle of buggs, then I remember there were some mobs that had spell to drink potion when they are low on health (murlocs in Elwynn forest and some ogres as far as I can remember), one more thing is that when you pull more than one mob, 5 for example, they should not stand in one standplace, they should not overlapp but they should spread, here is proof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzbUL5yt ... j3AOXmmlrw, then you should also look what mobs should "cry out for help" and run to the closes mob for assistance when mob is low on health etc... as you can see this part of fixing requires in depth analysis and of course patience, check all videos that Kronos and Corecraft have released to see and to compare what you have fixed and what you need to check but of course just bare in mind that Corecraft is a TBC server)
5) Instances (you should make a poll and ask your community if they would like to have instances as they were before patch 1.10.0 when they were harder (I remember times when people had trouble with finishing even Deadmines
) check and polish every instance from level 1 to level 60, check mob's AI, their HP, mana, resistances, immunities, minimum and maximum damage, attack speed, attack power, armor, equipment, loot, repuatation, their linking with other mobs, abilities, spells how do they cast, when do they cast them, check their resistances, their damage, their attack speed, their position if they are not moving, their patrol route if they are moving etc...) 6) Fix items that are giving you special abilites, spells and features
7) Check all professions and profession items
8) Fix all Loot mechanics (Free-for-all, everyone can loot corpses, Round-robin, looting cycles evenly through group members, Group loot, round-robin for normal items, rolling for special ones, Need before greed, round-robin for normal items, selective rolling for special ones, Master looter, designated player distributes loot), Kronos and TheRebirth fixed just Group loot but I am not sure about other Loot methods
9) Quest share mechanic is mainly working but it requires polishing and attention
10) Fix Events (Elemental Invasion and Gurubashi Arena) and Festivales
11) Repair Flight Path mechanic (for example you take flight path that has few flight stations between your starting point and finishing point, you should not fly to each of these station and then to continue flying but your flight should avoid and steer a little bit from them just before you reach those in-between stations, in this video you will better understand what I am talking about (at 2:35 just before reaching in-between flight station in Stormwind, gryphon will continue flying to last station) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmDi3ydg-A8
12) Implement herb and ore dynamic spawn mechanic
13) Chests, food crates and water barrels (these are bugged also from my experiance, check timers and loot and their positions)
14) Fix client freezes and odd errors that are occuring, for example I know one strange bug when you would leave one zone and enter into another, you could hear some voice that is repeating all the time (luckily chance were low for that bug to occur)
15) Fix combat state mechanic (we all know that annoying bug when combat is ended but your character's upper left portrait is saying that you are still in combat)
16) Critters are not lootable!
(except for skinners that should loot them when they are skinning them)17) One sweet detail for the end that you should check, when you wave to a guard NPC (target orc grunt for example and type "/wave"), that NPC guard should wave you back
18) Link all all actions houses, alliance AHs, horde AHs and neutral AHs into one big auction house before you get high population and also you could consider reducing cost fees for puting items on AH for sale until you reach high population
19) Other (this is my favourite one
)That could be all from someone that is tracking history of private classic and TBC servers (golden age of WoW) for years now and remember if you put high goals infront of you to achive, you will increase your chances to have high population on your server so do not let your urge to release your server overwhelms and to witness epilogue which is:" Ah this is again one half-fixed project." Do not be distracted by other projects that will be released, do not rush, be patient and type precise lines of code
Best wishes
