WoW Classic Calms Down a Bit

We are now about five weeks into the WoW Classic experience.

I believe this past week was the first since Blizzard opened up name reservations back in mid-August that they have not had to add any further WoW Classic servers.

Classic is as classic does

They started out with 25 servers, 13 US/Oceanic and 12 European.  The count now stands at 74 servers, 36 US/Oceanic (with 1 each for Latin America and Brazil) and 38 European.  That is quite a change, enough to drive subscription revenue up by 223% in August when compared to July.

I remain interested in the mix of server types, which come out as follows:

1. PvP – 51
2. Normal – 18
3. RP-PvP – 3
4. RP – 2

I would have assumed, given the World of Warcraft care bear, theme park, easy mode, starter MMO reputation that normal rules servers would have represented a greater portion of the mix.

My own theory has been that Blizz effectively making all retails servers normal servers with Battle for Azeroth may have pushed that, though I have been told that PvP is also one thing that the private emulation server community did not do well, so WoW Classic may be the only way to scratch the open world PvP itch for a lot of Azeroth fans.

I also wonder how the success of WoW Classic will influence the industry?  Which games… among those who haven’t already gone this route… will feel pressure to jump on the bandwagon?

I remain happy with my own server choice.  The RP server is about as chills as expected.  The population has been moving up through levels, so the early zones are not as crowded as they were a week or two ago.  I even caught the Defias Messenger outside of Moonbrook.

He made it out onto the road outside of town at least

For quite a stretch there has been somebody waiting for him at his spawn point in Moonbrook, with his corpse usually present only as far as he was able to flee.  He has a drop players need in the quest chain that leads you into the Deadmines, so has been a popular attraction.

In other news, Blizzard posted another video about WoW Classic and its creators, this time featuring Alex Afrasiabi.

 

Like many other members of the team, he found his way into the game as Field Marshal Afrasiabi, who stands at the entry to Stormwind.

He doesn’t have anything to say to me save “Move along”

Blizzard also posted two more WoW Classic city tours on their site, this time for Ironforge and Undercity.  Despite their similar circular layout I have always found Undercity much more confusing to navigate.  It is probably the elevators.

And, finally, Ula put up another video.  She captured a bit of a druid bear form party event taking place around the fountain in Stormwind.

I think the reactions of passers by are pretty amusing.