The developers at Blizzard do not want to offer German-language servers for WoW Classic on August 27. This announcement caused heated discussions at the time, with vanilla fans arguing about the pros and cons in thousands of comments. Our editor Karsten can understand the frustration of many fans.
Holla, the forest fairy! On June 20, there was a lot going on in the WoW forum. As soon as Community Manager Toschayju announced that there would be no language-separated servers for WoW Classic on August 27, hundreds of comments hit the post. Less than 24 hours later, there were well over 3,000 reactions, and that was just under the official text in the German forum. Of course, the announcement caused heated discussions elsewhere as well. I don’t know how many comments I’ve read since Thursday evening. But what I can say: A large part of the Classic community is disappointed in Blizzard, surprisingly many players sent a subscription cancellation to California as a clear feedback – and I can understand the anger.
Why, Blizzard, why?
Perhaps we first look at why Blizzard decided to take this step. With over 80 German servers for WoW: Battle for Azeroth, it should be a no-brainer for the developers to provide a PvE, PvP and RP server for German-speaking Classic fans. In the official announcement, Toshayyu writes that the international servers “will give players the opportunity to move freely and find guilds and friends that share their interests.” I think we realize that this is just a nice PR phrase. But what is the real reason? Money again? Well, since we’re not talking about physical servers, it doesn’t matter to Blizzard if there are a few servers for each language or a larger number of international servers. In the end, the financial cost will be comparable in both cases.
There was also speculation about whether Blizzard will save the money for an additional customer service for all countries. Here it was Toschayju himself who clarified that there will be a German-speaking support for us even without an official DE server. No, the money is not the reason. I’m more afraid: Blizzard currently doesn’t believe that there are enough enthusiasts in Europe who will play Classic long-term to justify the corresponding national servers. In other words, the developers want to avoid creating ghost servers shortly after release and having to merge the Classic realms afterwards – which is never a nice situation for those affected.
Niche or success?
Shortly after WoW Classic was announced, I too thought that the new edition would only serve a small niche. From today’s perspective, the vanilla experience is simply too uncomfortable, too time-consuming, and not balanced enough. However, from my perspective, the BlizzCon demo and the current beta and stress test phases have shown that a surprising number of players are willing to engage. They long for the sense of community of times past. They want to go through the long leveling phase again or for the first time, master pre-quests, farm gold for the mount and collect pet sets. They look forward to the old talent trees, the old class design, and the valuable crafting professions. I believe that Blizzard – if my thesis above is correct – underestimates the classic community and shoots itself in the foot with this decision. Because the harsh criticism that is currently raining down on the developers is more than understandable in my view. If they stick with it, quite a few Vanilla fans will stay away from the Classic servers or look for a German private server (or return to the old P server).
Authentic vanilla feel
The problem starts with Blizzard wanting to give us as authentic a Vanilla experience as possible on the classic servers, but not being able to achieve that goal for a large group of players with international servers. After all, it’s the community feel of yesteryear that made Vanilla what it was. However, language barriers torpedo this collaboration. Be it because your own English is not good enough and you don’t participate in the community the way you would like to. Be it because the other person refuses to use a language other than your own, which you unfortunately don’t understand. Or because different language clients are installed and there are misunderstandings about important terms. Sure, you can find a guild of like-minded people.
Classic is not BfA
Then there are the cultural differences and friction between players of different nationalities that exist on all international MMO servers I’ve played on so far. Just a few days ago, my better half had to listen to Nazi slogans again in TESO because she and a few other players had written German in the chat. And TESO is an online role-playing game that you can largely experience on your own. Classic is also not Battle for Azeroth with automatic dungeon and raid searching. In BfA, if you want to participate in group content, you can use two words: hello and goodbye. Classic is a very different caliber of community. And no, not everyone needs to be able to speak or write English fluently in 2019. In the past, many older generations enjoyed playing WoW, precisely because Blizzard always offered German servers. It also looks problematic for all roleplayers who were looking forward to making a German RP server unsafe with their friends. Even if you are somewhat proficient in English, it is a completely different story for a non-native speaker to RP in that language. By the way, it’s not just German players who are expressing concerns here. On Reddit and in the English WoW forum, there are also enough French, Spanish and Italian players who doubt that such a real vanilla feeling of togetherness can develop. to make a German RP server unsafe with their friends. Even if you are reasonably fluent in English, it is a completely different story for a non-native speaker to RP in that language. By the way, it’s not just German players who are expressing concerns here. On Reddit and in the English WoW forum, there are also enough French, Spanish and Italian players who doubt that such a real vanilla feeling of togetherness can develop. to make a German RP server unsafe with their friends. Even if you are reasonably fluent in English, it is a completely different story for a non-native speaker to RP in that language. By the way, it’s not just German players who are expressing concerns here. On Reddit and in the English WoW forum, there are also enough French, Spanish and Italian players who doubt that such a true vanilla togetherness can be created.
Fingers crossed
By the way, this decision of Blizzard does not affect me personally. I simply doubt that I will find the time to throw myself into Classic as I did into vanilla WoW over fourteen years ago. Still, I think it’s a shame that Blizzard has actually managed to rob many fans of their anticipation for WoW Classic with a single announcement. My hope now is that there will continue to be critical but constructive feedback and that Blizzard will eventually decide to release Classic on national servers after all. In my opinion, this is the only way to get a taste of real vanilla air again. I keep my fingers crossed!
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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