A possible difference between Kronos and Nostalrius

[Switchblade]

I'm pretty sure Blizzard was not doing it back then.
These services appeared far after burning crusade's realease
(the things available was periodical server migration from high to low pop server, and the pnj rewards from blizzcon).

Source :
http://www.wowwiki.com/Race_Change_service
http://www.wowwiki.com/Faction_Change_service

[Drain]

I don't know what was in Classic or BC; but it's not much of a stretch either way at this point. Blizzard also had blizzcon pets, which you basically paid for as they were linked to tickets or limited 1 time use codes. The server needs to do something to bring in revenue. Account services and cash shop junk is the way to go about it, as proven by good F2P games. Having nothing and just hoping enough people give donation money for gratitude won't cut it. This is all assuming they care about revenue, however. They could just be a bunch of rich people funding the server themselves that couldn't care less about monthly costs. I know if I had enough money laying around, funding a server like this is something I'd spend it on.

[kahari]

I want this server to be as blizzlike as possible, but character services are not a big deal to me. Being able to race change or whatever doesn't detract from the vanilla experience, and it's a good way for the server to make money.

One thing I'd like to see is a monthly donation option. I'm not the type of person that likes to buy stuff for my characters, but I do want to support development, and I'd happily sign up for a monthly paypal donation if was made available.

[Switchblade]

It's not as much of a stretch to you, but belive me allot of people care.
In any case, we don't know what funds Nostalrius need to be online atm.

Change faction is a big deal, it allows pvp players to migrate to the strongest faction, weakening the weakest faction.

[kahari]

Faction change is a whole different beast, and should have major limitations or cooldowns if it's allowed.

Mostly I'm referring to cosmetic services - name change, character recustom, race change, etc. I really don't see any harm in that sort of thing.

[Youfie]

Change faction is a big deal, it allows pvp players to migrate to the strongest faction, weakening the weakest faction.

Actually, the PvP ranking being one-sided, I'd think the faction change would actually encourage PvP boyz to migrate to the less populated faction in order to have less people to compete with ; chain-wining BGs doesn't help you geting to high ranks if everybody in your faction does so, and it's never fun to have a huge queue between games. So PvP-wise, factions switchs would tend to even out the population on both side.

I do agree with you regarding the fact that it's nonetheless a "big deal" in itself though, and having "free-for-all" factions changes all around would ne kinda bad.

But maybe if it's properly managed and restricted (e.g. only if a side needs some), factions change, if they are ever allowed by the staff, could be a good thing.

[Youfie]

Mostly I'm referring to cosmetic services - name change, character recustom, race change, etc. I really don't see any harm in that sort of thing.

Well, it's all about recreating a retail-vanilla-like feeling you know, making the players aware that they can't just change their character like a kleenex, making their faction / race choice meaningful. I think an important CD or something should be used to limit the use of these features too, if they are ever allowed

Just to remind players they're not on retail (I mean the current one).

[kahari]

Well, it's all about recreating a retail-vanilla-like feeling you know, making the players aware that they can't just change their character like a kleenex, making their faction / race choice meaningful. I think an important CD or something should be used to limit the use of these features too, if they are ever allowed

Just to remind players they're not on retail (I mean the current one).

Well no matter what, the server is going to have to have some sort of donation system that is inherently non-blizzlike. I'd much rather have this focused on account services and cosmetic changes (not faction changes necessarily) than focused on in-game cosmetic items and such.

Trust me, I want the most authentic experience possible, but servers don't pay for themselves and there has to be some sort of compromise somewhere.

[Switchblade]

Change faction is a big deal, it allows pvp players to migrate to the strongest faction, weakening the weakest faction.

Actually, the PvP ranking being one-sided, I'd think the faction change would actually encourage PvP boyz to migrate to the less populated faction in order to have less people to compete with [...]

and then, once this pvp player have the rank and gear he wants, he go back to the strongest faction

Well no matter what, the server is going to have to have some sort of donation system that is inherently non-blizzlike. I'd much rather have this focused on account services and cosmetic changes (not faction changes necessarily) than focused on in-game cosmetic items and such.

Trust me, I want the most authentic experience possible, but servers don't pay for themselves and there has to be some sort of compromise somewhere.

you are probably right but let's wait and see what Nostalrius staff will offer to keep the server funded.

[Youfie]

Well, it's all about recreating a retail-vanilla-like feeling you know, making the players aware that they can't just change their character like a kleenex, making their faction / race choice meaningful. I think an important CD or something should be used to limit the use of these features too, if they are ever allowed

Just to remind players they're not on retail (I mean the current one).

Well no matter what, the server is going to have to have some sort of donation system that is inherently non-blizzlike. I'd much rather have this focused on account services and cosmetic changes (not faction changes necessarily) than focused on in-game cosmetic items and such.

Trust me, I want the most authentic experience possible, but servers don't pay for themselves and there has to be some sort of compromise somewhere.

Well, regarding the server maintenance cost themselves, Nostalrius never needed a single penny to run during Beta, so I guess it's rather promising for the future. I know at some point the server was hosted for free because Nostalrius was part of a server "cluster", and / or because knew the admins. I don't know if it's still the case or if the staff now fund the server themselves, maybe a word for them could be interesting on that matters.

Of course if there are to be services sold to maintain the server, cosmetic change & account services are to be privileged, we all agree on this .

Change faction is a big deal, it allows pvp players to migrate to the strongest faction, weakening the weakest faction.

Actually, the PvP ranking being one-sided, I'd think the faction change would actually encourage PvP boyz to migrate to the less populated faction in order to have less people to compete with [...]

and then, once this pvp player have the rank and gear he wants, he go back to the stronger faction

yeah, that's why it'll have to be fairly controlled, like one switch per character ever or something !