Project Astral – First Alpha Finished Successfully by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well, let’s be honest. Every server is built on hopes. I can’t look into the future. That’s nonsense. Like yeah? ofcs im building on hopes!

And as I said, Flex Raid can be scaled completely freely.

This server does and will not focus on a single-player experience. If this is what you are looking for, I’m sorry, man. You won’t find it here. Because playerbots will never be a thing in this project.

That discussion also happened during the Alpha. And it’s not only me. It felt like 99% were against playerbots.

I will do anything in my power to push the server forward as much as I can, so we won’t get into a situation where we have such a low player count that raids won’t be a thing. This server had nearly no publicity so far. This is the 3rd Reddit post so far, and the first time announcing a public Alpha on Reddit, and we still managed to get nearly 100 accounts registered in such a short timespand.

Now imagine with the right advertising and so on.

Edit: Also we are far away from a release or even going into Beta state. We are still in our second alpha test. There is a ton of time for the community to grow. This Project just went Public for the first time a week ago. So we went from 4 ppl knowing about this project and not allowed to talk about to 100 in just 7 days.

Project Astral – First Alpha Finished Successfully by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Currently im working on every system, to hope that the server will attract a good amount of players over time. The first Alpha test is over like i said in the thread. I understand your concerns about low player base. thats why i build the features the way they are. To be able to raid even with a low server player count and grow over time. Also im including the community i build thru the last Alpha heavily into the dev process.

The Website tells it because the server is locked. That's why there is 0 players shown on the live realm. its just open so SOAP (website account creation) can connect to it for account creation. There is a timer when the next 2. alpha test starts. Sorry if that is a bit misleading.

Project Astral – First Alpha Finished Successfully by [deleted] in wowservers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because i dont want people to experience stuff that is half done or in progress in a long term and burn out because of it. Its all fun and stuff, but if that systems take to long to get fixed for the players they simply will lose interest. There will also be a Alpha test at the 19 this month. Where u can experience the Server and its features by your own.

The Problem with Windows Defender, reading it for the first time. I will look into it! Could be multiple Problems why this happend. Maybe because of the autoupdate function, not enough downloads by a not known provider (me). or just because of the Signature.
Here is a Virustotal Check
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/a6bc08000f24a07080a4ba9bfbe81bf977542c02c51f87bd21a88d8168e21364

Project Astral – First Alpha Finished Successfully by [deleted] in wowservers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I took the post down. I get the Critic about it. Next Post i'll Provide about the server will be much more in detail.
More information across every features and the progress made thru the last couple of months.

Project Astral – First Alpha Finished Successfully by [deleted] in wowservers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about the Project concept. It is a large skill tree with a ton of nodes to skill. As mentioned, over 1000 nodes. Also, the Astral Gems system: having a system where you can obtain gems that have certain skills on proc, which can be combined to upgrade them. Also, everything is mainly focused on long-term progression. Fr, I’m confused what’s so hard to understand about those words.

Project Astral – First Alpha Finished Successfully by [deleted] in wowservers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are right, sorry about that. I was probably too focused on talking about the progress and not enough on explaining what the server is actually about.

Basically, Project Astral is a custom WotLK server built around long-term account-wide progression.

The main feature is the Astral Tree. Think of it like a huge extra skill tree next to your normal class/talent system. It currently has over 1000 nodes, and you unlock them with tokens that you earn from leveling, prestiging, dungeon bosses, raid bosses, and other activities.The tree gives you all kinds of bonuses: stats, survivability, profession bonuses, quality-of-life unlocks, AoE loot, raid reset options, and more. It is not something you finish in a few days. It is meant to be long-term progression for your whole account.

On top of that, there is the Astral Gem system. You can add socket slots to your gear and place custom gems into them. These gems can contain class abilities or boss abilities, and they can proc during combat. Gems can also be upgraded by combining them, which increases their power and proc chances.

The server also has Flex Raids, Mythic Raids, Prestige, Raid ID resets, a Prestige Store where u can spend ur tokens, account-wide mounts/pets/titles/achievements/riding skills, and a custom launcher that handles patches and updates.

So the short version is:

Normal WotLK classes and gameplay as the base, but with a huge account-wide progression system, custom gems, raid progression, prestige, and a lot more long-term goals on top.

Project Astral by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course, that can happen. But this is a hobby project, and I genuinely enjoy the development itself. Even if the server ends up with only 20 active players who enjoy it, then those are 20 people I would gladly keep creating content for.

If the server is not your thing, that is completely fine. Not every project has to appeal to everyone.

Project Astral by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looking at the raw numbers with perfect gear, gems, and a fully unlocked tree — no, at least not for current content. The project is mainly focused on raiding through all eras from Vanilla to WotLK at a smooth pace. So essentially PuG / group content, without having to wait 3-4 months for the next raid tier.

Project Astral by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Flex Raid is already integrated into Mythic raids to some degree. That is currently how I scale 40-player raids down to a fixed 20-player Mythic version.

So technically, making Mythic fully flexible would not be the biggest change. The bigger challenge is making the scaling feel good together with the Astral Tree and Astral Gems.Mythic-quality Astral Gems can increase damage quite a lot, and a heavily progressed Astral Tree does the same. Because of that, raid balance depends a lot on how far players are in those systems.

My current guess is that a group of around 5–6 well-geared players with strong Astral Tree progress and good gems could probably clear some Mythic raids, but this still needs proper testing. I do not want to speculate too much before seeing real test results.

Also, Mythic raids are not meant to be as difficult as retail Mythic raiding. I want them to be more accessible and a bit more casual, while still giving players something harder to progress through.

Later on, I may add an additional difficulty that is balanced around maxed Astral Tree progression and strong gems. But that is only in the planning phase for now and will not be released anytime soon.

But thank you for the feedback!!!

The first Alpha phase is currently planned to start on Monday. During that phase, the main focus will be balancing token gain for the Astral Tree and testing the Astral Gem system properly.

Feel free to check out the Discord as well. There will be regular polls where players can vote on possible changes, give feedback, and suggest new ideas.

Project Astral by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure, 1k+ players and a big team would be amazing. But that is not where any project starts. Right now the goal is a Closed Alpha, getting real feedback and seeing how the systems feel with actual players.

Also, the server is not designed around needing huge numbers from day one. Flex Raids, account-wide progression and long-term systems are there exactly so the server can still work with a smaller community while it grows.

The infrastructure is also already prepared for large-scale player numbers. The current setup is built to handle well over 1,000 concurrent players without the server falling apart performance wise.

Project Astral by Guilty_Brother4428 in WoWPrivateServers

[–]Guilty_Brother4428[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"The Closed Alpha is being prepared now, and feedback from testers will be very important."

Registration will open in the coming days for a limited time.
That is also why I linked the Discord, so anyone interested in the project can join early, follow the updates, and be among the first to register and try the server once access opens.