The top guild on the server, Variance, is planning on leaving for Atiesh-US on July 1st.
Variance is not merely the top guild on Myz, but it is also one of the top guilds in all of TBC Classic. I've occasionally referred to the Myzrael progression raid scene as "Variance and then there's everybody else". Until they ran into Sunwell Plateau, they were able to down every single raid they came up against the first night. (It took two nights for them to finally finish the job on SWP.) Yes, that included Naxxramas and their full complement of bosses.
They are that good.
What's more, there's likely about 200-300 raiding toons in Variance, so when they leave the Alliance raiding toon listings will take a 20-30% hit.
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What this means for the server is... Not good.
Well, if you're doing progression, anyway.
The problem about that is that progression is the straw that stirs the drink in TBC Classic*, and without a healthy amount of raiding toons, guilds will leave the server for greener pastures. This began in early TBC Classic when Imperium --the #2 guild on Myzrael-- left. Then the drip drip drip began.
Nox Terrorem (Horde) left.
Infernal hit the road.
Midnight Souls imploded and many people in that guild left the server.
Conquerors dissolved.
Limelight moved on.
Anubis migrated off.
As did Carnage Asada.
And there are a bunch of smaller guilds who have also migrated off, seeking their fortune elsewhere.
But losing Variance? That's something the server may not recover from.
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There was a short but vigorous discussion about the server's fortunes in our guild's Discord, and the overall sentiment is that the guild ought to move sooner rather than later, because it certainly seems that if Myzrael as the #2 sized US-West PvE server is getting ready to implode, we shouldn't wait for the fallout to hit an unsustainable auction house or anything else.
One of the options? To move to Pagle-US, which is almost 100% Alliance. It is also gigantic with over 10000 raiding toons. The other potential option Atiesh-US, where Card 2.0 resides, has about 6000 Alliance raiding toons, but an 80:20 Alliance:Horde split.
I will be watching this with great interest, but given that the only raiding I'm doing is the Friday Karazhan raid, I might be seeing it's last days if the guild decides to migrate off of the server. After all, I haven't decided what to do, and I'm not deleting Card 2.0. I've invested too much time in her now.
Shintar, we haven't reached the "Blizzard destroyed my server" point yet, but right now their inaction on propping up the smaller PvE servers in the Classic environment speaks volumes.
*And WoW in general, but I digress.
All I can say I'd good luck to you. At least you have the opportunity to consider your options in advance.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a small consolation I know. But still it amazed me that Blizz never took the obvious move and merged Myzrael, Azuresong, and Old Blanchy into one server. At least that merged server stood a chance against the maw (or is it The Maw?) of the megaservers.
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