We did it boys and girls.
Blizzard is finally releasing official Vanilla World of Warcraft servers!

This is a sentence that, I never thought I would ever get the chance to write.

After Blizzard’s silence post Nostalrius, I didn’t believe we would ever get here.
I believe Nostalrius really paved the way for this reality and we are finally here guys. The game we love will be back!

They also said that these new classic servers will take some time to develop. So… be patient.
This is great news for our community though because… multiple vanilla projects out there have been on some pretty shaky ground lately….
Finally we get a great ping on a server that’s (most likely) not going to be over crowded.

The announcement was cleverly delivered:

The Dodgy Kebaab has a pretty interesting take on how Official Blizzard Classic servers will affect the private server scene. This topic came up on our Discord server and I figured I would share his take on it with you guys.

One interesting perspective was the affect it would have on TBC & Wrath servers. The idea being, when live WoW players play Vanilla for a few months, they may get an urge to try out the expansions. Considering there won’t be a Blizzard option for these expansions, they may turn to private servers. This will increase the population on those servers considerably.

A lot of people live in countries with unfavorable USD exchange rates. This means that some people will still have to play on private servers, so we shouldn’t see the vanilla servers simply die off.

I think what this means overall is that the scene will still exist. The exposure will probably bring new players in as well. Personally, I will be playing classic for some time and hoping that blizzard releases the other expansions but only time will tell.

This is just a great clip that I ran across today and wanted to share with you guys. This guy is on point. Some pretty refreshing world pvp.

Here is the druid PoV: https://youtu.be/LMSrqrJs1CY?t=82

From MMO Champ:

• Classic became possible because the team discovered a way for it to run on modern infrastructure.
• Classic servers will not have the features added to current WoW such as Dungeon Finder.
• The team ran old school Scholomance with the Nostalrius build.
• They have some infrastructure stuff in place and a build up and running for reference.
• The main part of the job is the infrastructure before tackling the design questions.
• No development will be taken away from Battle for Azeroth for Classic. A new team is being hired for this project.
• Brack can’t say whether it will be months or years for the release.
• Some players will return just for a nostalgia trip.
• The team wants to provide a constant social connection and community.
• These servers have full commitment now and will not be ditched if they are not popular.
• Blizzard has maintained contact with Nostralius and are considering involving some of their team in the process.

Finally:

• Blizzard wants the launch experience of Classic to be smooth and successful.
• The experience will be as identical to Vanilla WoW as possible, but they are not sure at which point in the patch life cycle of the original game it will take place.
• The team wants to create a Blizzard-quality experience of the original game.
• Sounds great so far. No QoL changes yet, which means they are staying faithful to the original experience.

This was from a EuroGamer Interview.

We are all excited for Classic World of Warcraft.
Well, a new place to discuss Classic WoW just opened up!
Blizzard opened an official Forum for the classic version of World of Warcraft!

Check it out on their site: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/22814264/

This is probably the best place to get your voice heard.
Happy gaming!

You can check the guys out on their website.

I do apologize for being a little late getting this announcement up.
Their initial launch was last Saturday 10/21/2017.
The server seems to be doing alright, they have had a few minor setbacks but it has been a lot better than I expected.
It’s nice to see new servers coming along, at any rate I’ll list the developer supplied information below.

Project Elysium closes it’s doors

Apparently,
Project Elysium has become a non-viable project. As of today, they have taken their servers down.

Their announcement says that there were in fact staff members selling gold. Furthermore, a real risk of player data being sold has come to light.
Once the news circulated to all of the staff members, they collectively decided to close project Elysium.

Re-Opening as Light’s Hope

The project is being re-branded as Lightshope with the offending staff members being removed. Even with understanding that this will kill their name recognition, they still believe this is worth it to protect the players.

Characters will be transfered

The character database is moving to the new project.
You will be able to log back in with your existing characters.
You can read the announcement on the new Lightshope’s webpage.

Crestfall parts ways but now needs a new owner

After learning about these new developments Project Crestfall is severing all ties with Elysium.
This actually puts them in a bind due to not having a Russian owner for their project.
The project may go dark until they can find a new owner but the developers are still working on the project.
The open beta has come down due to the systems admin on Elysium being the main offender according to Elisium staff.

You can read Crestfall’s announcement On the Crestfall forums

This is a really sad day for the community but hopefully Elysium can clean up their act and come back as a bigger and better project.

Normally, I enjoy writing about new server openings but today just isn’t one of those happy fun times.

Discord chat of the staff deciding to close the server

Northcraft, a WotLK server has decided to shut their doors. This isn’t the end for the players that were playing there, the characters and accounts have all been transferred to the Sunwell project.

Check out this four horseman kill by Scuba Cops on Anatthema.
Great job guys