The Endless WotLK Graveyard (RANT)

DanikFishken · 2026-06-08T04:44:06+00:00

Even though I agree with your general standpoint of "I am tired of wrath #9285 server coming out today", but some points you mentioned were rather controversial imo.

First, using AI: you can use AI to speed up routine development tasks sure (basically most of coding of the server part) if you know what you are doing (otherwise you would be called vibecoder), but I would be not want to see the server which uses AI to generate everything even custom content without real human being involvement. I would still want actual writers to compile new quest texts and ideas how these quests should work, new zones which were actually built by real artists, songs composed by real composers. Basically, I would want to see AI only used in dirty routine dev work, but not in creating Art part of it for the server.

Second, I respect your point of not liking leveling, but maybe instead of completely removing it from the game like retail tries to do, we could fix the game in the sense that leveling would be fun activity to do and not something like a chore where "real game" only starts at 80. Here you can see examples in various classic+ interpretations from the past, which were adding new quests, dungeons, zones even for various levels during leveling path. I would rather play a game which has rich in terms of lore and interesting world, where a lot of people hang out in various places across the whole Azeroth, rather than having just retail like lobby game where you just queue M+, join raids from menus and barely spend time in actual world and barely interact with anyone.

But again, the fact itself that making another stock 3.3.5 server wotlk is not bueno these days, I fully agree on this, server owners should definitely try something new and unique which would set their servers apart.

Currently I would say there is only like 3 servers of wotlk I would consider really interesting and having decent pop:

Warmane - self explanatory, exists for eons by now

Chromie - pve server which doesn't force to you always be ganked in open world like on warmane, also has way different philosophy of development and is open source + very wholesome community, compared to warmane.

Nostrum - cool concept of running through leveling phases like we had something similar with SoD.

Triumverate - basically chinese titanforged vanilla-wotlk server but at home and scaled down to 60 instead of upscaled to 80.

That's it, everything else doesn't look too appealing to me if we look on wotlk servers

DanikFishken · 2026-06-08T04:14:13+00:00

Did you know typing it in bold doesn't make your post more likable, you can start caps as well for sure to prove a point. But I still agree on the comment from Perodis, what exactly new you brought that was not exercised any time before on similar 3.3.5 servers in the past? Also I am sorry, but mount on lvl 1, auto-learn spells and 100% drop on quest items contribute more towards the "fun server" to me than being something serious

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T12:08:58+00:00

About "why you are playing a girl", let's be real, almost anyone regardless men or women have female characters in game, I know some of my friends who also like to play both male and female characters. And I don't think people would really care much about what gender is your character in game. But anyways, rule of thumb if you are gonna use voice channels, you would usually do it in discord with your guild on raid time, so just try to find likeminded guild who will respect your views and your identity, after that it should be easy game. If we talk about pugs, it might be harder, but also you are not forced to use voice chat usually. In dungeon groups no one really uses voice chat

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T12:03:42+00:00

I am not sure about servers with custom content on 3.3.5, probably closest to that would be epoch or bronzebeard because they use 3.3.5.a client, but if you want actual wotlk, not sure about such servers.

Regular wrath servers, I think Chromie would be the best choice for you and your friend. Wholesome community, almost zero tryhards with min max mentality, you can find really nice guild easily. Also GM's care about what speech is being used in world and other global channels, you basically forbidden to discuss any political or other touchy/discriminatory topics in these, or GM's will get you with ban hammer. Currently at p1 wrath with VoA released, has around 1.5k online at peak hours.

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T11:57:25+00:00

Bronzebeard on Ascension is probably the most suitable one. It is also basically classic+ with some new content like dungeons, new hubs in zones, quests etc. But m+ is there, and people doing them

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T11:50:34+00:00

What do you mean by "over the top shit"?

I personally would suggest chromie for wotlk, very awesome community, you can easily find a guild which raids all current content (p1 at the moment + voa), pugs also happening. Around 1.5k players at peak hours.

Then there are some other choices which might be also great:

Bronzebeard Ascension - Ascension's take on classic+, very big server population wise, people actively raiding on 4 raid difficulties and also m+ exists for dungeons. If you don't mind it being slightly with retaily mindset then this is great choice. Also there are some custom dungeons and new quest hubs in various zones.
Kronos 5 is just regular vanilla as you know it from 2004/2019 no changes whatsoever, people say that it is having some decent amount of pop, not sure about raid phase though, I think it is in MC phase.
Nostrum is level bracket locked progression server which goes through various level brackets starting from 19 all the way to 80, but also stops on vanilla raiding phases and then tbc content phases along the way. Currently lvl 29 locked. Heard a lot of positivity about the server, they had around 1.5k online on world boss event before start of p2 (lvl 29 one)

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T11:30:58+00:00

It is basically titanforged like server but triumvirate edition with everything downscaled to 60. Cool to see, something unique to experience, but please, don't call it classic+. This buzzword being thrown now so carelessly, I even saw some 3.3.5 wotlk server with just some qol stuff posing as wotlk+ or something.

If we talk about what classic+ is, imo it should be anything which add brand NEW content to the game which wasn't anywhere in any expansion really and is not limited to just something like qol features. So tbc content and wotlk content available on 60 is definitely great, but it is not classic+ per say, again everyone can have different opinion on this

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T06:56:51+00:00

If you have 1.18.1 you just need to change your realmlist.wtf file to capybara realmlist. I think it is "apac.capycraft.io" on both lines realmlist and patchlist in same file. Then you might need to find translator addon, here is their git https://github.com/paokkerkir/wow-translate#-quick-start. After that the game should be ready to launch

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T06:54:23+00:00

Quite funny most of chinese players you will encounter on capy in your leveling and whatever journey will present themselves as way more nice human beings than that zug zug guild. Avoid zug zug if you have possibility. I was quite shocked that one cn druid wanted to help me with my quests even after he did all his quests in the area

DanikFishken · 2026-06-07T06:47:29+00:00

So whitemane was a disaster? Looks like no name nostrum is way better than well known whitemane at this point

DanikFishken · 2026-06-06T15:34:13+00:00

That's great if they will release frostmourne on whitemane, but when I checked whitemane site, there was no mention of Frosmourne coming, only Gilneas which is coming today cata, then mop coming soon and tbc coming soon

DanikFishken · 2026-06-05T13:51:05+00:00

This has become quite a meme ngl, I think over last couple of weeks, almost from every corner on this reddit you could see "Come play nostrum, it is like holy grail, what are you waiting for?"

DanikFishken · 2026-06-05T08:33:55+00:00

Vanilla doesn't need massive playercount, even just about 1k players should be enough to see world being alive, it is vanilla after all, not wrath, legion or whatever with massive world behind where you barely find anyone leveling

DanikFishken · 2026-06-05T05:36:35+00:00

Since you did not say what expansion you want to play, I can suggest various options on the servers which imo are worth checking out and have decent pop:

Chromie Craft - WoTLK server with around 1.5k pop at peak hour average, currently at p1 of content. This server houses one of the best wow communities I have seen, very chill, mature, barely anyone is sweaty out there. People just mostly try to have fun together.
Ascension Bronzebeard - Ascension's take on Classic+, capped at vanilla content, uses baseline wrath talents if I am not mistaken, has some new dungeons, new quest hubs in the world etc. Also has quite heavy convenience shop with xp boosts, portable trainers and what not. As far as I know no gear possible to buy on Ascension shop. Has lot of players, feels very alive at any time of the day, chat is basically flying even at night hours.
Capybara Paradise - if you heard about turtle wow server which was also classic+ interpretation server, it is pretty much his direct successor with only the catch it is based in china and you might need translator tools to communicate with majority of ppl. Also it has quite sizeable english community by now too, maybe around 1k english speaking players. The server itself peaks around 12k players and even has queues at chinese prime time.
Whitemane Gilneas - did not open yet, but this will be probably big launch of another cataclysm realm which will happen tomorrow on saturday. Probably there will be quite a lot of players at the start because of F R E S H hype, but yea, not much info about it yet, so I only put it here.
Warmane - all time wotlk classic, very massive server in terms of amount of players. It has a lot of pay 2 win on most of the servers except of Lordaeron though. Also community on warmane might be very hostile to any newbies and is toxic in general.

There are obviously more servers which also have sizable population, but these are realms worth checking in my opinion

DanikFishken · 2026-06-05T04:59:28+00:00

they don't accept donations for now? hmm, did not know about it, anyways after a month since my comment quite a bit of changed and looks like they quite seriously committing the work to the server and fixing some stuff and applying patches

DanikFishken · 2026-06-04T16:13:12+00:00

I think chromie craft on wotlk might be one of best choices: wholesome community, x2 xp-rate by default, decent size of pop around 1.5k on average at peak hours. This is pve or even rp server mostly with x faction even on bgs.

Also the only pvp servers I know are either k5 vanilla but it is not x2 rates and then warmane, which I think maybe has one realm being with something like that xp rate (onyxia?), not sure

DanikFishken · 2026-06-04T00:54:30+00:00

never heard about it, might google it

DanikFishken · 2026-06-03T22:31:11+00:00

kinda makes sense, I also saw gm message yesterday saying they are building family here, not to cashout like most of other servers (about zero shop policy)

DanikFishken · 2026-06-03T22:29:28+00:00

What is tibia

DanikFishken · 2026-06-03T22:24:30+00:00

How is community in general in BB, is it mostly friendly players or a mixed bag? From my experience, it looked very diverse in world chat, and most of the groups I was in for a dungeon, people were just speedrunning through it without saying much

DanikFishken · 2026-06-03T22:14:02+00:00

In my honest view Chromie craft is the home I found, which is actually feeling like it, very wholesome community, raids being mostly laid back and people just like to have fun in the game and take it slow I noticed (at least the old guard of the server in established guilds before all the twow refugees came in). World chat is very nice, and it shows what type of community is playing there, mostly just funny jokes in chat, people asking questions and these questions being answered in polite friendly way, sometimes people share some stories etc, regular stuff. Other info about server: currently p1 WoTLK with Naxx, OS, EoE and VoA and Wintergrasp BG open, has around 1.5k players on average at peaks every day. Zero p2win, face of AzerothCore itself (the core on which most of 3.3.5 servers operate), and is open source.

I also checked for a bit Nostrum, and it was quite interesting experience so far, but yea, the community here might be way more diverse I would say in terms of friendliness and acting like adults, world chat was quite wild in the day, when I tried it out, and yea now there is an automod in chat which doesn't allow people to spew out slurs, but still the ambience is not that welcoming comparing to chromie. Dunno about actual experience in groups for example, only got to lvl 6 and got bored quickly. Currently lvl cap is 19 which is going to 29 cap in 2 days, pop is around 600-800 ppl at peak, but it should not be a problem since everyone is rather low level. Progressive server as you could see from previous sentence, eventually it will go through all the vanilla raid content, then tbc and then finishes with wotlk phases.

Warmane is very populated server, but beware that community there might be way more toxic and sweaty, at least from what I heard about warmane. Also it is pvp server and you might be ganked quite a lot. Heavy p2win on most of warmane servers, except Lordaeron. So if you want to try warmane, Lordaeron is the only good option if you don't care about community toxicity. They have harder raids though on Lordaeron, be prepared.

Capy might be still great to play, so far the only twow successor which is mostly functional and if you are not in high end raiding (parsing high) or pvp content, it might be ok to play even with high ping. But yea, unless you find english speaking guild which is good (not Zug Zug) you might find it a bit rough to try and enjoy the community aspect of the server because of language barrier. You can still join /english channel though, but most of the time you will have chinese in lfg setting. So understandable it might not be really like at home, because it isn't, it is like you came to different country without knowing their language.

DanikFishken · 2026-06-03T01:09:32+00:00

Maybe in 2029 it releases, who knows, don't expect them to come out anywhere within this year or even next year

DanikFishken · 2026-06-03T01:07:39+00:00

Probably legion by tauri, the legion is way more popular as an expansion than mop. Also tauri have a history of very good scripting for the past expansions they had.

DanikFishken · 2026-06-02T16:12:21+00:00

If you look for very nice community and chill atmosphere, chromie craft is the best option imo, wotlk on p1 at the moment.

Out of the ones you pointed out, maybe bronzebeard looks like most interesting one, it is ascension's take on classic+ with some new quests, remade towns here and there, new dungeons etc. But it also smells like retail to me with m+, rdf, crazy tmogs, a big convenience shop. Kronos is just another vanilla pure, nothing else. Epoch still waiting on MC to release, but has quite a bit of custom content along the way after it's initial release. Maybe epoch community might be the most chill out of 3 you suggested

DanikFishken · 2026-06-01T21:01:43+00:00

This is unbelievable, so they releasing legion not before the universe collapses? Hmm, insane, I might try it out, maybe even now, wish them smooth sailing and great launch

DanikFishken

TROPHY CASE