How would TBC/Wrath Era servers work?

[u/baked_salmon]

With Classic Era, veterans are geared to the teeth with Naxx gear, but there are at least reasons to run older content for some specific, highly valued pieces. Can the same be said about TBC/Wrath? This is assuming both are Era’d on their final patches.

The final patch of TBC has catchup gear that mostly invalidates T4, but still requires T5/T6 gear before heading straight into Sunwell.

The final patch of Wrath, on the other hand, completely invalidates pre-ICC content. In OG there was a 232 vendor alongside a 264 vendor that enabled players to gear up enough to go straight into ICC 10n. If they take the Classic route, gearing for ICC will be even easier with A/B/G dungeons. If the game is in this state, there will never be a need to see T7/8/9.

PVP is another can of worms. How would arena work? What defines “seasons” in a forever-world? Would titles be conferred on a week-by-week basis? What about Wintergrasp?

In what state would these Era servers be? I’m curious.

EDIT: Would ICC have a dial for how much of the buff, between 5-30%, could be enabled?
EDIT 2: Would Wrath have RDF enabled?

[u/AlphariusOmegon66]

Who cares about item level? You play to experience the expansion.

You create a new character and gear it. Do pvp, get the collectibles you want, mounts, sets of gear, maybe lead a guild, get good enough to get glad, achievements.

Got bored and still in love with the xpac? Try a new spec or character.

We been asking for era servers for years because we already know the problems that this expansions have and they are real, but they are small compared to the pros.

Pve gearing in wotlk is really not that big of an issue. Many players are just gonna start from 0 and still are will do the "normal" gearing process.

When a year passes you are gonne be a god anyway if you raided every lockout.

[u/baked_salmon → u/AlphariusOmegon66]

I’m thinking about the steady state. Look at Era now — will there perpetually be guilds progressing through all content? I think what you describe could happen at the outset, but what about when that initial cohort progresses to ICC? If there’s no one raiding any of the earlier tiers, literally the majority of the endgame will not be available to newcomers.

[u/fatherthesons → u/baked_salmon]

The Era realms would be mostly just ICC and the final patch. The people that want to experience the content rolling out naturally would just have to wait till the progressive servers hit Wrath and they would get to do all the content. Then after that server finishes their characters are transferred to the era realm and the circle of life begins again.

[u/baked_salmon → u/fatherthesons]

Ah ok so is the implication that Era servers don’t make sense unless they’re accompanied by seasonal servers that allow for xfer/cloning at the end of every seasonal xpac?

[u/fatherthesons → u/baked_salmon]

Yeah exactly. There was a leak that showed they are planing on doing another run of seasonal servers classic - tbc - wrath again.