Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

Hello everyone, I'm new here. Currently a Feenix ED player (have been for about a year). I am here because I've been seeing a lot of noise over there about both this server and Kronos (neither of which I had ever heard of before this week). I'm here in an attempt to seek answers to a couple of questions that have been nagging at me. Please note that I hold no loyalty to any server over any other, and I'm not here to start trouble. I'm just genuinely curious (and concerned).

The TL:DR version:

1) Is this really going to be that tremendously much of an upgrade over Emerald Dream?

2) Do those upgrades really justify pulling apart the already very small population of us who love vanilla WoW?



Expanded version:

Question 1) I've scoured the forums here and watched a boatload of the videos posted on the Nos main page. Tons and tons of videos that revolve around small scripting issues, mostly pathing and timing. That's cool and all, and I have great respect for people more apt than myself who can conquer such programming tasks, but... is that mostly it? I mean, yeah, my warrior on ED falls through the ground all the time when I charge (which honestly is totally ok due to the laughs it provides), and my hunter's pets often times take three minutes and two miles to get to a creature 10 feet away, but for some reason, I dunno, it doesn't bother me THAT much. I'm so grateful to get to play vanilla that I just sort of work around such things. Getting on the zepplin? Unsummon pet, etc. Does Nos really bring that much more to the table?

There are like a dozen posts here about Nos vs. Kronos, but what about either of those vs. Feenix ED? Both are presented as being "better," but I think I may be failing to totally grasp exactly *how* they will be better as a big picture. My main beef with ED is the god awful lag and DCs that are both way too prevalent, but I would imagine any private server would have the exact same issues.

Question 2) This is my really big concern. There are very few of us vanilla fanatics out there. At absolute week peak on Sunday, ED maxes out at 700 total people logged on at a time, both factions combined (at least, according to my CensusPlus addon). During the week we usually have about 400-500 on total at a time. That, as it is, isn't even enough people to have a really fulfilling experience that compares to the 'old days.' My fear is that pulling apart that already small population will have drastic effects on all three servers. Sure, we all have different opinions on WoW, we all come from different nations, and we're all very different people, but we are united in our love for vanilla WoW and our love for ruthlessly and constantly murdering each other in game; and it would sadden and downright crush me to my core to see my fellow vanilla brethren split in so many different directions. To see peak population transform from 700 people to 230 people, 230 people, and 230 people would literally kill all three servers.

Do you guys think that there will be one prevailing victor in this coming war? One clear winner that will suck the populations from all three onto itself? I feel like that's the best, if not only solution. I'd hate to lose everything I've worked for on Feenix ED so far, but I'd certainly make the jump if the ship was clearly sinking. I just worry that too many people will cling to old loyalties and new hatreds, which could ultimately sink all of us.

What are your thoughts on all of this? Someone help ease my mind and spirit.

First of all welcome to the forums Corm! I've played on ED as well as retail vanilla servers, so I hope I can shed some light on the subject from my own perspective.

TL:DR version: Don't worry, people that really love vanilla will unite on the server that provides the best experience in the end.

1) Is this really going to be that tremendously much of an upgrade over Emerald Dream?

It really depends what you perceive as an upgrade. Most players that you'll find on these forums (including myself) will be hardcore retail vanilla veterans that strive for a server that closely resembles Blizzard's original 2005 servers. This being said there are a lot of things that will bother these players, notably the issues that you listed. For instance,I do not enjoy falling through the world due to bad scripting, this is not something that's supposed to happen and it doesn't resemble the original Blizzard servers in any way.

Things that bothered me on ED were not limited to the things you mentioned. Most notably the gathering nodes were completely broken (high level nodes in low level zones, bad respawns, etc), and numerous quests and instances could not be completed because of broken serverside scripting. If reported, these issues remain unfixed; leading to frustration and people quitting, like I did. Some people might enjoy playing a semi-broken game, but Nostalrius is not a place for these people, we strive for a perfect recreation.

The reason we don't compare between ED and Nostalrius is because you don't compare a Cessna 172 to an F-16, they're just leagues apart in quality and function. ED is carried by population and devs that hardly fix stuff; Nostalrius is supposedly about quality and active development that brings the population TO them, instead of relying on the people already present.

2) Do those upgrades really justify pulling apart the already very small population of us who love vanilla WoW?

Clearly different people have different standards. In my opinion the only reason ED has flourished up until now is because of its population and because there have been few good alternatives, or because people don't care/don't know how things are supposed to work. If you really -love- vanilla WoW you'll know ED is a mediocre server at best.

If Nostalrius lives up to its expectations it won't divide the population, it will drain most servers of any noteworthy population. Large amounts of players have been waiting for a proper and stable vanilla server with a good population, Nostalrius should provide all of these things.

Of course it's too early to say if the above will happen, but I personally hope it will. Uniting the vanilla community under one banner on a good server will be better than the current situation, even if that means people elsewhere risk losing the stuff they've worked for. I've leveled a priest to 60 on ED, but I prefer to quit playing and lose the invested time, instead of prolonging my frustration with the server.

The fall of ED in my mind, and a lot of other people's as well who played there - Isn't just the scripting or bugs not being fixed 3 years later and left alone forever...
That's one part of it.
But the biggest part for me was the community, both the players and the devs, and the shitfests that went down all the time. And then my guild also fell apart after big drama due to Thunderfury Bindings being stolen by "ye who will not be named" and his crew of european net café friends.

It's a lot of factors that together kill motivation to even continue playing on such a mediocre server with such terrible community.

But that's my 2 cents on it.
I also realize the irony of saying the community is shit when in fact most private server communities are doomed to become exactly that "kind of shit" like ED became for me, as that seems only inevitable with the ever increasing population.
But a huge factor if that happens or not - rests on the Devs, GMs, and the rest of the community to not become shit itself.
If you hang around douchebags too long, it's easy to become a douchebag yourself. Or at least that seems to happen with a lot of private server communities.

If what they say is true, this place will be great.
My only worry is how long it will stay up. Feenix has been around for nearily 10 years, a number of servers have come and gone. Stole money and made a b line.

I have over 200 days /played on Emerald Dream and I truly had no doubts to end my raiding career there to test Nostalrius and have a fresh start.

As several people already mentioned above there are many good reasons to prefer Nostalrius over Emerald Dream:

Maktaz wrote:Most notably the gathering nodes were completely broken (high level nodes in low level zones, bad respawns, etc), and numerous quests and instances could not be completed because of broken serverside scripting. If reported, these issues remain unfixed; leading to frustration and people quitting, like I did. Some people might enjoy playing a semi-broken game, but Nostalrius is not a place for these people, we strive for a perfect recreation.

Hatson wrote:Isn't just the scripting or bugs not being fixed 3 years later and left alone forever...
That's one part of it.
But the biggest part for me was the community, both the players and the devs, and the shitfests that went down all the time.
It's a lot of factors that together kill motivation to even continue playing on such a mediocre server with such terrible community.

With all the readily available donations on feenix, I never understood why they don't just hire a bunch of developers, fix shit and launch a few servers with cyclic resets and proper scripts. You could milk people properly, which is what they want right? I mean, it's not moral barriers is going to stop that lot.

Difference between this server and other servers is the fact that nothing goes unnoticed even the smallest of things are scripted and working just like retail. Its nice to see such care taken with it.

I really have reservations getting into this thread, but as long as it's not another Kronos thread.....

First off, these private servers base off an open source core and database, and a lot of the stuff people "love" them for is just stolen work to begin with. While I realize this is hard for the average player to notice, it is my main judgement on if a server is good or not to begin with.

Things that really bug me about ED:

They don't even try to keep up with mangos updates, many of their bugs are actually fixed. Caster mobs standing around like an idiot if you max range them has been fixed for a long time.

They create values, some of their mob values are COMPLETELY imaginary including endgame instance values. I hear the nodes outdoors are static as well, even though mangos has a built in pooling feature, I guess they were too lazy to use it.

Why even have a 1x server if all the scripted quests are broken and you're not gonna fix them ever?

They release content at such a rate that people overgear it by the time they enter. This leads to diminished difficulty of encounters, and is the most depressing part of private servers in general. This is the #1 reason I'm hype about Nost because they are going to be the closest to accurate difficulty there has ever been in the private server realm due to their efforts changing the gear values and providing a progressive realm with a timeline.

For icing on the cake, WTF are those war effort values? In some cases they're 10x retail values. Nost will be releasing AQ at nearly the same time as ED, assuming they don't nerf the values.

Even if ED is better, wouldn't it be a waste to not experience a new server launch, especially one that is considered to be of higher quality.
Think about how long time it has been in development and that it's ready to launch .
See how it unfolds ..It's something that is special.

pulser wrote:Even if ED is better

It isn't. It has a 800-1k pop, basic issues that haven't been corrected in 3 years (5 years if we're considering all of Feenix), and it currently sitting on a 10x multiplied war effort. It's tragic how Feenix managed to butcher ED.

It also has race/faction change non-blizzlike features, with item donations coming soon.

No devs, terrible admins, all about money, ED.