Trying Nostalrius

Out of curiosity I started playing a human mage on Nostalrius (PvE server) and I hit level 10, I was interested in the differences I would notice compared with Kronos and how far I would make it.

The very first thing I noticed were the players, about 10 different players were leveling in Northshire, some AFK and others fighting, running or waiting for a respawn and many more in Goldshire and during my quests. The world channel was very active, with players looking for BFD, Stockades, BRD, ZF and many UBRS at the same time. A /who tells me there is about 1700 total players online (that's already more than Kronos's peaks and I wasn't playing at peak time). This high population would also mean that it is likely I would find players for a dungeon or quest at any hour. I did notice a couple trolls on the channels (yes, people even talk on the General channel here) but overall during my 3 hours of leveling the players were mostly respectful to eachother and civil.

I grouped up to kill some defias with a long respawn (I don't think I ever had to wait for a respawn on Kronos, but it didn't take too long anyway), both a paladin and a priest greeted me and saved my life twice when killing kobolds, a paladin thanked me for getting some kobolds off of him, I got buffed up in cities and a mage spontaneously decided to share the content of a chest that was nearby with me. I have to say my impressions about the community are pretty good for a start.

The players are there but there is also something more, french, czech and chinese players and even communities or guilds with specific language. Assuming I was talking a particular language then Nostalrius would have been a better choice, it gives more opportunity to find players from the same countries.

Stormwind felt very alive with players running to it and from it and the auctioneers were busy.  Interestingly the items for leveling players had a somewhat low price and some blue weapons were sold for over 200+ gold. I guess it had to do with the timeline and the recent release of the server (2015/10/17).

After talking a bit on /say I got a strange bug that prevented me from using anything but emotes to communicate, it got me wondering if I had gotten muted, but I don't see a reason why (?). A great point to take note of : Group loot worked (on Kronos it was mostly the first one to loot that can take everything if it is not of uncommon quality or over)! A couple gnolls, defias and kobolds weren't linked together and did not come to attack me together when I pulled and I did get some delay when casting spells at times, nothing gamebreaking for me.

I noticed that creatures did use some kind of pathing, just like on Kronos and did not go through barriers, a good point which allows kiting. Unfortunately the trees and many kinds of walls did not block line of sight which made any cave a disgusting pain to clear, with kobolds and spiders getting aggro from anywhere and preventing me from abusing line of sight to interrupt their casting. I died many times and the rapid respawns did not help when it takes a minute to clear an area only to get them again on my face before I can loot the chest/pickup quest items. The creatures and monstrers did not get slower when low on health which further increased their difficulty as a mage.

All of this actually reminded me very much of my first steps in Vanilla back in the days and... made me want to quit, just like before. Good point for blizzlike feeling, bad one for fun.

The good :

• Lots of players, the zones feel alive, easy to make groups
• It is likely possible to do most of the content at any hour
• Active world and general channel, globally positive attitude
• Friendly community from my experience
• French, chinese and specific language communities
• There is lots of content on the auction house, with decent prices
• Group loot works for trash items
• Creature pathing (although sometimes a bit broken in caves)

The bad :

• I couldn't communicate for over 30 minutes, for no known reasons
• Some kobolds and defias do not attack together when pulled
• Trees and many objects don't block line of sight and spellcasting, very painful in caves
• Rapid respawns before I could clear a zone
• Creatures don't get slower when low on health

The mixed :

• I had to wait a bit for some monsters to respawn
• Sometimes short spell casting delay

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