First of all, well... What a year! Nostalrius keeps growing month after month. 6 months ago, our community was the first one to reach over 9000 players online. However, we are now proud to announce that the PvP realm reached a precedent in legacy servers history, with more than 10.1K players connected at the same time. The PvE realm has also reached a peak of 2.6K today. We also reached the 100,000 active accounts milestone. YOU are truly awesome! Thank you so much for showing the world that, after 10 years, Vanilla is still the place to be.
As some of you may have already noticed, the GM team managed to handle both realms at the same time (12.5K people at peak) with promptness, while the IsVV and Dev teams were focused on scripting Zul'Gurub the best they could. This milestone is now reached, and we would like to thank all of you for supporting Nostalrius. For example, by providing quality feedback from tests on the PTR server. You did a great job, and we are proud to have such a community!
On the same token, most critical issues have been addressed :
- the server is much more stable and responsive (i.e. lower latency),
- the cheating detection systems are now aiming at a 100% detection rate (bots, hacks, etc.),
- tickets are getting answered quickly, and the testing team is able to handle reports efficiently
Some statistics:
- only 2 unplanned reboots last week (PvP realm)
- 200 accounts banned last week for gold buying / selling (30k gold, 30 level 60 characters)
- more than 1000 in-game support tickets handled each week
- ~10 bug reports updated/documented each day by the IsVV team
- ~800 active members on our Bugtracker for months
- a new website has been developed with new functionalities thanks to Communications team
The staff as a whole gains maturity by tackling problems everyday in the name of our core mission: to create a Vanilla legacy server with a smooth environment, and to make it universally accessible for thousands of players around the world.
Time now has come to discuss our long-term plans.
A. A focus on gaming quality
Because there is nothing more irritating than having to change your game-play because of server bugs, content and scripting quality has always been a priority on Nostalrius. We built Nostalrius on the promise that everyone will find a bug-free and enjoyable environment, and this idea is always at the front of our minds. That is why we plan to focus our debugging efforts for two months on generic/class/quest/instance/etc... issues from the existing content. This will be the occasion to address major issues that have been reported several times, and to improve general server quality again. Both PvP and PvE realms will benefit from these fixes.
Although a complete patch-note will be available before end of year, the patches will be applied on the realms as soon as they are tested and validated, during the weekly server maintenance update on Wednesday.
The PvP timeline has been updated consequently while the PvE realm timeline remains unchanged.
B. World environment change for 10k online players
The current situation makes it very difficult for players to collect herbs or specific leathers: the system as a whole simply can't work on a realm as populated as our PvP realm. Things are going to change.
The IsVV and Dev team are currently working on adapting the dynamic respawn timers to ores, herbs (looking at you, Black Lotus) and to some specific creatures (Devilsaurs). This will be done to reduce the skyrocketing AH prices and thus reduce the inflation on the server. With this update, node positions will also be changed/added, to prevent a few players from camping some nodes for days.
Same goes for hunters regarding the "Stave of the Ancients" quest and the corresponding demons.
Respawn timers will be adapted to the population to highly decrease the current queue.
Theses changes won't affect the PvE realm, as the population there is Blizz-like at the current moment.
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Nostalrius is a complete non-profit organization, that lives only because of its amazing community and the dedication of the staff. If you have the time, then please get involved in the project and be part of this journey! Help us make Nostalrius a better place!
For example, document bug reports, assist new players on the forum, or propose your help to join our GM/Dev/Testing/Com team by sending a PM to their respective leaders. The true meaning of a community is a group of very different people all rallying towards the same cause. In this case, it is making Nostalrius a better place for all. Nostalrius needs you!
Click here to apply to one of our staff teams!
Best regards,
Nostalrius
