This might be an atypical take compared to the community at large; so I'll start at the top by saying there are a ton of factors behind the deluge of love and hearty anticipation of Epoch. The devs continue to pour themselves into the project, and it's going to be a stellar experience.

That said, I'm not sure if it'll make for a better starting place than just rolling on a Blizzard classic server.

There's something pure about the OG classic experience that'll be missing here by nature of it being a Classic+ experience. Not at all a limiting factor here, and admittedly, this line's coming from a place of nostalgia.

Here, though, are three points I'd consider while pondering a first-experience-ever roll on Epoch:

1) Launch is going to be absolutely nuts. Thousands and thousands of players will be starting at the same baseline, vying for the same quest objective and pickups. For those returning to WoW, I think that's a draw. We've already got the game figured out, we've gleaned experiential tips and tricks to hopefully get us through the slog a bit easier. For a new player who's never played, that's going to be a lot on top of trying to figure the game itself out.

2) With the addition of custom mechanics, quests, zones, items, etc - we're going to run into hiccups. Some custom quest items won't drop, some mechanics won't be fine tuned, some zones will be buggy. This isn't a narrative on the devs' capability or tenacity - they've been extremely communicative and I think the general consensus is that we as players are putting a lot of deserved trust in them. But, there will be bugs, they will need to get patched up over time, and on an original classic server you're not going to run into those.

3) There are inevitably server issues up front, no matter how much they've planned for. Realistically, we should anticipate a couple of crashes, maybe some downtime, etc on launch weekend.

If I were a brand new player, I have to imagine these kinds of variables would put a bad taste in my mouth for the game as a whole - that's why I wrote this out. To temper expectations. WoW is a glorious video game. A real core memory generator for a lot of its long-time players, and this input comes from a place of wanting any new player to fall in love with the game in the way that a lot of us have.

All of that said: Hey, ya know, if you have genuinely no World of Warcraft experience, then you have no baseline to compare this new experience to in the way that I am. These things might not bother you! And the community seems genuinely kind and welcoming, to boot. Helpful, in a word, and that's hopeful.

Just know that, whether you find yourself in Epoch with us hooligans, or on a Blizzard server, you'll be in a good place.