Happy New Year to all of you!
Let’s stop for a moment and look back at the events of 2017 happened in World of Warcraft private servers community. We experienced the launch of the best Vanilla realm Elysium, met The Burning Crusade on Warmane, conquered Ahn’Qiraj and Naxxramas on Kronos, were impressed by Classic WoW Blizzard announcement, witnessed Elysium drama, moved in to Light’s Hope Lightbringer realm, started again from scratch on Nighthaven and even tried Hades Cataclysm by Twinstar. I hope I have mentioned everything…
So, first we have to return in December of 2016 when Nostalrius team solemnly passed their database and the core to Elysium Project. Players got an opportunity to restore their beloved characters from original Nostlarius PVP and PVE. We should be grateful to Nostalrius and Elysium team for their hard work and exclusive professionalism that let all followers be together again and return to the world that had seemed to be lost forever. A month after, Nostalrius team broke all relations with Elysium asking them to stop using their core and database provided and stated about taking direction towards Legacy realms that meant collaboration with Blizzard. We still cannot know if they already knew about Blizzard’s plans for World of Warcraft Classic or that was a strategy to avoid new problems with Blizzard’s lawyers as in April 2016. Fortunately, Elysium ignored their claims. Lots of former Nostalrius Game Masters and Developers joined Elysium Project and continued their great work. In January they launched new Elysium realm. It earned great popularity among Vanilla WoW fans and again everyone could experience that very taste of new Azeroth.
While Vanilla WoW players found their new home, there was no any decent place for The Burning Crusade lovers. In May 2017 Warmane Project opened Medivh and Outland realms. Unfortunately, Blizzlike x1 Medivh did not get such a success and recognition as Outland. Though it had x5 rate for leveling, over 10.000 players joined it. It was impossible to log without a queue in the evening. There were some rumors about simulated online population to cause that queue to make players donate and get premium status for their accounts to skip it. Eventually, the situation with the queue solved but still Outland is considered to be the best and most populated TBC 2.4.3 realm.
We should not forget old fellow Kronos by Twinstar that could see Nostalrius disaster and opened its doors for refugees where some of them stayed even after the launch of Elysium. They were good enough to compete with Elysium, strong opponent with obvious advantage. On-time release of game content, Ahn’Qiraj and Naxxramas, immaculate work of developers and support kept players and led newcomers.
More information about Elysium Drama, Lightbringer and Nighthaven confrontation, Blizzard WoW Classic announcement you can find in our previous articles.
What to say about 2018? What to expect?
In February Kronos III is coming out. Good place to wait out for World of Warcraft Classic. Elysium Project published their schedule for Nighthaven, they might continue their work for The Burning Crusade once Vanilla content is completed. Light’s Hope may experience the merge of Anathema and Darrowshire to preserve the community and maintain its activity. Lightbringer is heading for War Effort and opening of Ahn’Qiraj Gates with Naxxramas after. We still do not know about their plans after WoW Classic release. Hopefully this grand affair should happen in 2018, many predictions indicate the end of the year.
By Alex Mood,
01/02/2018
