- Author: Pride
- Date: June 13, 2022
- Updated: June 16, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Blizzard just announced that the WotLK pre-patch will bring with it new, “fresh” servers, designed for new and returning players to Classic WoW. This is something that players repeatedly asked for when TBC was announced, so it’s great to see Blizzard finally listening to player feedback.
These fresh servers will work exactly how most people imagine: everyone starts at level 1, no added cowbells. Every single dungeon and raid instance will be unlocked from day 1, so you don’t have to do the war effort to unlock Ahn’Qiraj, if you desire to go there.
Additionally, in order to maintain the server’s integrity as a “fresh” experience, players will not be able to use the level boost service or transfer to the fresh servers for “at least 90 days”. Additionally, you cannot create a Death Knight until you have a level 55 character on that server, unlike regular servers where everyone will be able to create a Death Knight at any time.
Both regular and fresh servers will have WotLK content being unlocked at the same time, which will presumably be at least a few weeks after the fresh servers unlock, giving players a chance to level up to level 70 beforehand.
This is all coming along with multiple other measures to improve the realm population issues that TBC Classic has been plagued with, including consolidating low population servers and disabling PvP realm restrictions, such as only being able to have characters of 1 faction on PvP servers, or being unable to transfer to a PvP server from a normal server. Additionally, Blizzard announced that they’ll be removing the restriction on the amount of characters one can have on each server, instead changing to a 50 characters per account limit, which is the limit in Retail WoW currently.
What are your thoughts on these fresh servers? Will you be trying them out, hoping for better faction balance as Blizzard also hopes, or will you be sticking to your current server? Let us know in the comments below!
With the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King Classic pre-patch, we intend to open “Fresh Start” realms for players who wish to experience starting a new character and playing alongside a new community of others.
In addition to fulfilling a request we’ve heard from players for a long time, we expect there to be a lot of new Classic players joining us for the first time in Wrath of the Lich King, and some of them may be concerned that they’ll feel behind. Fresh Start realms should give those players a chance to feel as though they’re on an even playing field with everyone else.
These realms will be Wrath of the Lich King Classic realms from day one, so when they launch, they’ll have all of the talent trees and player abilities coming with Wrath of the Lich King Classic, but all players will start new characters at level 1. Fresh Start realms will also come with a few stipulations:
- For at least 90 days, you will not be allowed to boost a character on Fresh Start realms.
- For at least 90 days, Fresh Start realms will not be available destinations for character transfers.
- Death Knights cannot be created on these realms without a level 55 character on that same realm.
All of the WoW Classic and Burning Crusade dungeons and zones will be unlocked and available on these realms. On all realms, Northrend will be locked until Wrath’s official launch day.
As a reminder, this is one of several steps we’re taking over the next few months to prepare for Wrath Classic:
- PvE to PvP transfer restrictions removed*
- Wrath Classic closed beta test
- Classic Era clone service retired
- Existing realms consolidated**
- New Fresh Start Realms with Wrath Classic pre-patch
- Wrath of the Lich King launch
*This will include the removal of the restriction on having characters of both factions on a PvP realm.
**Before we consolidate realms, we’re going to remove the restriction on the number of characters you can create on each realm, up to the limit of 50 characters per account.
Ultimately, we hope to see players spread out onto all of the available realms as Wrath of the Lich King Classic approaches. For players looking for a chance at faction balance, we’re hopeful that by starting fresh, they’ll have a chance to stay balanced for a long time. For players looking for a chance to level up in dungeons, we hope the presence of other leveling players makes that more likely.
We’re excited about all of this, and we hope you’re excited about it too. We’ll see you in Azeroth!
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i think there should be no transfers what so ever on a fresh server that’s just pointless for 90 days and then after that people start bringing in mass amounts of mats and gold and ruin the economy anyhow fresh should be fresh and not disturbed at all….and ffs try doing something about the bot’s and perma bans for people who buy gold
1000% AGREE! Keep it freaks, NEVER allow transfers! This is gay, server is cool for 3 mos then everything is destroyed. No one will sell anything as they wait for the price inflation when TONS of new money comes in. I was really digging the idea of a fresh, but with the 90 day thing, I am out of Blizzard for ever. Started in 2004 and enjoyed SOM but with transfers, hacks, cheats and no-lifers coming in, C-ya!
This is amazing! I am SO very happy to hear this!
Typo in your post. You state transfers are not allowed for “up to 90 days”. In the blue port they state it will be 90 days minimum that you will not be able to transfer there
“Both regular and fresh servers will have WotLK content being unlocked at the same time, which will presumably be at least a few weeks after the fresh servers unlock, giving players a chance to level up to level 70 beforehand.”
where does it say that
it says that current content will be available in wotlk pre-patch. thats about it
Yep
so they do it at last. we talk too much and ask too much to bring something like this for TBC but they don’t listen. some old vanilla player with full t3 just raped and farmed a new low gear player in hellfire like weeks and months and now we are all the same all have the same chance to win-lose and enjoy the game. no gold bonus no buying gold no gear bonus that bee look like vanilla start amazing like that
it’s creating huge chaos, i hope they thought this throw
I mean it’s good that some empty server will merge or remove but this fresh server gonna effect some good server like firemaw ,…
they didn’t say anything about free transfer if i crowed relm get destroyed by this
Nobody who has characters ready on the megaservers is gonna play Fresh.
Fresh is gonna be a total fail unless they do only 1 server. If they split the population between multiple Fresh Servers they will die in a couple of months.
I find this to be bad. I’m glad some people are happy about it, but I’m not. It will split the community even further, more dead servers. Been on a dead server a long time now and it’s not even retiring. This could’ve been a thing after Wotlk launch not during.
Hate my opinion, love my opinion, I’m just speaking of experience.
Honestly, my real question is: will it be like WotLK was at launch? Meaning will Blood DK be a DPS spec, with Frost being the tank spec? I LOVED playing my DK at launch because Blood was an amazing spec the way it was launched. I was using one of those add-ons that basically told me which ability to use based on the situation; kind of like playing Guitar Hero but with WoW and it was the most fun I think I’ve ever had in WoW. Pulling like 10 things in Zangarmarsh and being able to kill them all and not die made it truly FEEL like a “hero class”.
I think the Hero Classes SHOULD be unbalanced but ONLY in PvE. In World PvP, BGs, Arenas, etc they should be given some kind of disadvantage where they can still play their class as normal and be able to compete with base classes without being super OP like DKs were at launch of WotLK. They’re freaking HERO classes for a reason, so let’s let them be that, just not in PvP where it can ruin the game for others.
Every dk spec can both tank And dps. At wotlk launch the mightiest class was paladin which was hotfixed in few days. I really Hope that dks will tranform to ghouls after death which was most exciting feature in the game.
clowns
eh. blizzard is a shit company and ruins everything. getting banned for “leave it to 3 dip wads to ruin the game further” is too toxic from the creators of the Cosby Suite. They havnt solved many issues, and they use and abuse sales mechanics, to lure people in, then find ways to milk them. They could have easily implemented these solutions, and can still do that now, but are choosing not to because ??
and on top of it, that will kill the pvp player base, unless both versions get to arena//bg against each other. splitting their player base is a bad idea. But hey, extra income right? Now they can buy boosts for regular and fresh
wow if you hate blizzard so much, why are you still playing the games; go play somewhere else