Fresh start vs old characters (come in)

[Devarial]

Beastdweller makes an excellent point,

Yea honestly if all those "Hard core players" were to really leave because they would have to relevel their characters they weren't that hard core to begin with. "oh my gosh I have to sink time in this again so I might asswell just quit completly". Honestly sounds more like a casual to me then the people who would stick it out and level up again.

I think the main thing that a lot of people are overlooking, especially those arguing there should be no fresh start, is something that was said by Echodox on the first page:

...a lot of people would probably lose motivation if they have to level/gear up in an environment where the top guilds are already set and don't wanna do lower content.

The issue this server will run into if it simply re-opens with the old data, and opens a fresh start server, is that anyone who wasn't incredibly established already is going to roll a toon on the fresh server. Its unattractive to try to work your way to the top of a system where others are already light-years ahead of you.
A lot of people on here that are opposed to a fresh start are saying things like what Phyriel said on the second page of this thread:

Just did mc + bwl way too fucking many times to redo it just to get into AQ and Naxx. Old servers or gtfo.

If they actually re-open these servers, they will not be able to just re-open the same ones and that's it. We all know that there are problems with doing that. Markofthewild01 sums up the issue concisely on the third page when he states:

The original Nost PvP server felt unplayable at peak times, especially with the population hitting close to 15K. If the server ever re-opens, there will likely be enough new players to just create a realm for them

Opening a second realm is inevitable with the kind of population Nostalrius was managing. Especially now, with all this publicity Nostalrius has received, a reopening would likely make the population numbers go up to a point where it would only make sense to open another server.
So when the new server would open, which it inevitably will, everyone who's not established will leave for a fresh start.
These players complaining that a fresh start is a bad idea are failing to realize the end result of keeping the progress. How many players had BWL on farm? How many players have so much raid progress they are truly not willing to do it again? I bet a minority of the population. After the new server opens, these players that are so well established would essentially be the only people left on the server, because everyone will have left to be in a more competitive raid and pvp environment. The small minority of players and top guilds who were truly established on the server will be all alone when everyone leaves and it will devolve to a Feenix style server with 1 or 2 top guilds per faction being the only active players because nobody else is allowed into there club. When the raid or pvp environment is tough to break into, people will leave, especially for a less competitive version of that same environment.
Essentially, re-opening the old server, and opening a new one, would leave the extremely established minority of players as the only players on the old server. It will dwindle and die in population as everyone migrates to the fresh server for a more open and competitive environment.
I believe that the players that would like to keep all the data should be allowed to jump back into their old progress if they really want, but I think they are missing the fact that they will be all alone when that time comes, because they are definitely a hardcore minority. It won't be the Nostalrius it was before, they won't ever get to be on top of all those players like they used to be, the community will split and they will be on the much, much less popular side. I hope the they just remember that when they are arguing for keeping all their data.
Just my two cents.

/clap

People screaming 'we don't wanna do MC again' fail to see the bigger picture.

[Norjak]

It's about the journey (see the thread pinned to the top.)
The correct question should be, start over with server progression?
To which I say, yes (or start a new server every few 6 months.)

[Spansk]

I want my characters back if they reopen but i would want them to open a new realm also.

[mecher]

Opening a second realm is inevitable with the kind of population Nostalrius was managing. Especially now, with all this publicity Nostalrius has received, a reopening would likely make the population numbers go up to a point where it would only make sense to open another server.
So when the new server would open, which it inevitably will, everyone who's not established will leave for a fresh start.
These players complaining that a fresh start is a bad idea are failing to realize the end result of keeping the progress. How many players had BWL on farm? How many players have so much raid progress they are truly not willing to do it again? I bet a minority of the population. After the new server opens, these players that are so well established would essentially be the only people left on the server, because everyone will have left to be in a more competitive raid and pvp environment. The small minority of players and top guilds who were truly established on the server will be all alone when everyone leaves and it will devolve to a Feenix style server with 1 or 2 top guilds per faction being the only active players because nobody else is allowed into there club. When the raid or pvp environment is tough to break into, people will leave, especially for a less competitive version of that same environment.
Essentially, re-opening the old server, and opening a new one, would leave the extremely established minority of players as the only players on the old server. It will dwindle and die in population as everyone migrates to the fresh server for a more open and competitive environment.
I believe that the players that would like to keep all the data should be allowed to jump back into their old progress if they really want, but I think they are missing the fact that they will be all alone when that time comes, because they are definitely a hardcore minority. It won't be the Nostalrius it was before, they won't ever get to be on top of all those players like they used to be, the community will split and they will be on the much, much less popular side. I hope that they just remember that when they are arguing for keeping all their data.
Just my two cents.

this argument is completely moot as this event would occur regardless of shut down happening or not. it's not an argument to justify the downcasting of the old db returning. look at k1 vs. k2. the fundamental difference between that and this is that nostalrius had a large enough population on it's own that the inevitable release of a second server wouldn't doom the original to be a hub of inactivity and raidlogging like k1, feenix, or rebirth. nostalrius was literally unplayable at any time other than NA peak times due to having 12-15k online at peak. i think you are under estimating the number of people that would stick around and would love to have their old character data back; even if the old db came up and people flocked to the new server, there would still be a decent population of 2-5k people playing, if it even died down at all. given how popular nostalrius is, at the time the second freshstart server reached AQ, it would be so over-populated that the release of a third server would necessary and everyone not in the upper echelons will go there and the problem would repeat itself. should the old server be shutdown/downcasted because of this like so many people are proposing? absolutely not, because it is a ridiculous concept. i dont think there has ever been a popular enough vanilla private server that hasn't died down substantially or to the point of borderline obscurity by the time aq/naxx has come out, but nost would definitely be different due to the sheer number of players and hype (it's not like there isn't a ton of time for new players to catch up given War Effort wasn't even out yet. sure you won't ever be comparable to NOPE/Dreamstate autists, but who gives a fuck about that). the point of vanilla is definitely the journey, but that isn't reason enough to throw out and lock the door on the people who were nearly at the finish line once.

i for one am not comfortable with the idea of throwing out my progress for the sake of starting over again on a more populated server; i actually value the time i put into nost and don't want to start over again if i have an option to play the character i painstakingly put 124 days played into. old db nost server will remain active and playable into and after naxx regardless of how many new servers are released, purely because of the number of people who were on it at one point. to compare it to rebirth/feenix is laughable

[Arucado]

hey pottu dont set me as spam and btw calling casual someone is actually not an insult.

[Wreckington]

There is far too much ad hominem being thrown around in these threads. Throwing insults at each other and potential new players is counter productive and only makes it less likely that your own argument will be taken seriously.

As I've previously stated, it's easy to see why these arguments are getting so heated, we've all put a lot of effort into our accounts, but shitting on new players and each other only diminishes the value of your effort.

If you make sure your voice is heard in a less abrasive way it is far more likely that those with the power to make meaningful impact to the server will take it in to consideration.
As much as I want the character data to best restored, if I was a member of nost staff and I saw this thread I would only be more inclined to have it written off.
To all of you shit-flingers who want the data restored, do the rest of us a favor and curb your enthusiasm.

[lolpills]

the majority of people who want a fresh start are the ones who deleted their characters or gave away their gold or had a lvl 60 in vendor gear, and now they want a fresh start.

[Ayumi]

Why are people even deleting their characters when the server gets shut down.
Either the server stays down and it doesn't matter if you deleted your character or not, or it comes online again and you, for no reason, deleted your character.

[Undertanker]

Fresh start for sure!
I miss levling with alot of ppl and go dung 24/7!
People that hate "leveling" can play another game and stop crying.
Leveling = 70% of the game.

Well if you love leveling so much, you could just do another char. No 1 stops you. Think you got enough character slots for you to get tired of leveling over and over again.

When your Nost toon isn't even level 20. I can see how it feels like 70% of the game.

[Undertanker]

Sharax Proposal

Start as a fresh server and when the server progresses to where Nost 1.0 was, unlock Nost 1.0 characters.

IF they did the restart on all servers, this I could be okay with idea, though not ecstatic about the waiting game added to what we've already experienced due to Blizzards Love Letter and the events that occurred after.

Can still log onto your account and have those toons grayed out. If the time line was sped up some or held to the original proposed standard "Once Rag is down after one month" Open BWL, so on and so on. You'll have the hard core people going server first and should have it cleared within 14 days again. Possibly quicker just to speed up the unlock time.

The wouldn't have to be doing PTR/Bug fixes so it shouldn't be delayed this time around for BWL and Vets can help with AQ PTR some more.

Then all the people screaming fresh start can realize no matter if it is fresh start or old toons, you will always be behind somebody else. People will hit 60 before your play-date LAN party. People will clear MC before you clear Uldaman. New 60s will be ganking you while waiting for their BG to pop.

I'd simply level a summoning alt and farm gold for when my toon is accessible. But I'm not starting over from scratch.