Capitalist WoW vs. Communist WoW – A Tale of Two Servers

Once upon a time, in a parallel universe very much like ours, there were two private WoW servers. They had comparable populations and about the same level of development. For a while, they existed in peace since the private scene was small, players were loyal to their projects, and the general population of normies had little idea that private servers existed.

However, this couldn’t last, and after a series of cataclysmic events that included nostalgia, competent marketing, and France, the scene was changed forever. Tens of thousands of new players poured in, but many new servers were started as well — often, a week wouldn’t pass without a new project announcing its launch. Competition kept increasing, and the two older servers that once ruled the scene started to feel the pressure. Players were leaving for the new, exciting “fresh”, and something had to be done.

In an attempt to attract new players and keep the existing ones, the two servers introduced a number of drastic reforms, each set of reforms being radically opposed to one another. One project embraced capitalism and renamed itself Capitalist WoW, and the other went full communism, changing its name to Communist WoW. Some argued that the names weren’t imaginative, but the owners wanted there to be no doubt what their servers are about. Clear, in your face branding was key in a ruthless market the private scene had turned into.

Capitalist WoW

All gear in the game became BoE. Every time a boss was killed, the gear would be openly auctioned and sold to the highest bidder, making every run into was was previously known as “GDKP”.

Those who lacked skill but had plenty of gold could buy their way into most difficult raids, and the best tanks, healers, and the rarest type of player, excellent damage dealers, were getting paid massive amounts just to show up to raids. Most of the time, the currency was in-game gold, but sometimes they’d be paid in dollars, euros, Swiss francs, and Norwegian krones. A few players were known to be making a living solely from raiding and raid leading — including a young family of four where everyone but the baby played WoW to pay off the mortgage (which they did).

Not only gear and services, but characters were freely sold too. The project’s website had a system that allowed the trade of characters, gold, and all items that weren’t equipped. Goods could be traded in any way players wanted, and if there was a RL monetary exchange involved, the server would take a small cut of the money. The system was made in a way that minimized a chance of scams, but all trades were final, and each player was fully responsible for their own decisions. The general consensus was that if someone’s incompetent enough to get scammed, they deserve it, and occasional appeals and cries for help were collectively laughed at.

The entire in-game world was a PVP zone; all sanctuary areas were removed. To make up for it, NPC guards in cities like Shattrath and Dalaran were buffed, but a faction could still control the area with a 40 man raid or two. This, however, only happened rarely since the only reward for doing so was lulz. There was no material incentive for it.

The opposite was true for world PVP. In order to make herbs more important, all flasks were buffed by 500%, and all the raid bosses were buffed in ways that required far more damage and healing to down them. This made them unkillable without flasks, and to raise the value of flasks, the amount of herb spawns was drastically reduced as well.

That forced the guilds, previously just mere conglomerates of individuals wanting to improve their gear, to organize themselves and work together, so they could raid at all. Each guild had teams of players who specialized in herbalism, often working in shifts, who would comb the world for hours, looking for new spawns and fighting the opposing faction in the process. What used to be a boring activity now lead into intense battles that made herb-rich areas into battlegrounds: most herbalists were actually PVP-ers. Friendships were made, videos were recorded, resulting Discord rage was surreal, and above all, players had a reason to log in. Herbalists would, of course, be rewarded for their work with gold and raid gear.

Mining was just as intense. To make it meaningful, crafted gear was buffed to match endgame raid and PVP items, and the amount of ore spawns was, again, reduced. This provided an alternative way to progress: a player could choose to not raid and just play the mining game instead, which, just like the herbalist one, included lots of cooperation, PVP, and drama. Entire PVP guilds were made to trade materials with raiding guilds, so those who disliked PVP but enjoyed raiding could simply kill bosses on regular basis and trade the gear for materials.

Capitalist WoW had near-complete freedom of speech. Players were allowed to discuss any topic in whatever way they pleased, and the only reason for a mute or ban was spamming or doxing. Even so, the chat remained relatively civil since everyone had a reputation to maintain. if too many people considered you toxic, you’d have a hard time trading or getting into a good guild. If someone proved to be too annoying for enough people, they’d be dealt with by being repeatedly ganked until they shut up.

Goldshire offered a fine selection of adult RP-ers both amateur and professional. Women, men, and everything in between would mingle in complete freedom, engaging in voluntary transactions, so to speak, of their desires. While the place was mostly used for relaxation after a long night of raiding or gathering materials, there were rumors of new couples being made in the Goldshire inn or at some remote spot in Elwynn forest. Almost no one would admit actually visiting the place, but it was there, open for everyone, and oh so busy at all times.

Communist WoW

While a great game, WoW always had a problem of elitism: selfish players who can farm endgame raids and get high arena ratings. They think they’re better than everyone else and parade around with their gear — as if getting it was some kind of an incredible achievement. In reality, clearing raids and winning arena games is easy for them because they always have good gear from previous tiers and seasons. They’re also members of successful guilds that refuse to recruit anyone who isn’t as lucky as them, and so such unlucky players are left with nothing. What can a player with no gear and no friends do? They’re unfairly blocked from playing the game, and the team at Communist WoW decided to stop that injustice once and for all.

Upon being looted, all blues and epics would be transfered to the central bank. Players were still allowed to loot greens and lower quality items, but everything above that was seized and redistributed to assure maximum fairness. Redistribution was handled by the staff, and players were unable to see the contents of the central bank since there really was no need for it. After all, it was the staff that had a vision of a better server based on equality and justice, and there was no reason to doubt their judgment. In fact, anyone doing so was probably a toxic troll and/or a Capitalist WoW agitator who needed to be swiftly removed.

The same was true for mining and herbalism. Players were encouraged to gather as much as possible to provide enough materials for everyone, including players who didn’t have the time to farm (or simply didn’t learn a gathering profession). Everyone would receive resource tokens every week, and these tokens could then be redeemed for ores and herbs on the server’s website. Because the amount of materials was limited, players often had to wait for several days — or longer — for their tokens to be processed and turned into profession goods. Of course, no one complained about the so called “Titanium lines”, a term most likely coined by a Capitalist WoW infiltrator that claimed the wait for a single Titanium stack has now stretched over 8 months. Only a paid shill would try to complain about the world’s most progressive server.

All PVP was disabled due to being elitist. The initial idea was to allow it and redistribute the honor and arena points, but that turned out to not be enough. Certain players would, for some reason, continue winning the majority of games, making other players feel bad about themselves and continuing the tradition of toxic elitism that Communist WoW was determined to end. The “I hate PVP” soon become a popular maxim among the players, and anyone suspected of not agreeing would soon be reported to the staff.

Speech was heavily regulated. Any form of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, toxic masculinity, and trans-exclusionary language was bannable — along with expressions of white, male, and cis privilege. The staff also worked hard on developing a system that would automatically detect such hate speech though its introduction kept getting delayed for unknown causes.

All actions by the staff were to promote fairness and fight elitism. Players adored them and wrote lengthy posts on forums and Discord about how great the server is, and how excellent specific staff members are at doing their jobs. Donations were optional, but were really common even though the project had no item shop. Sadly, agitators from Capitalist WoW would spread rumors about how donators are rewarded with gold, items, and even services like getting a specific player banned.

Some went even further and claimed that the server owner is trading sexual favors in exchange for a legendary weapon. The horrendous account described how a young man, in return for a Shadowmourne, agreed to move in with the owner to live under his bed while taking estrogen, slowly turning into a girl while playing WoW all day and servicing the owner at night. The rumors were suppressed, and no one dared to wonder how come there’s a ret paladin with Shadowmourne on a server where all legendaries are banned.

~ FIN ~

I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!

Which server sounds more appealing to you: Capitalist WoW or Communist WoW?

Do you think their representations are correct, or is there something you’d add?

Since we just had two serious posts in a row, the next post is also going to be a fiction piece. We’re traveling to a dystopian future where we’ll meet a famous WoW YouTuber.

See you next Sunday!

Fresh

A Friday afternoon. One of those hot, lazy Fridays when half the people are on vacation, out of town, and the other half organizes their lives in the most pleasant way possible. Kids would run around the playground or gather in small groups, looking at their smartphones, adults would celebrate the end of workweek. Young people were getting ready to go out with their friends to get wasted, to make out with their dates, to enter the night that held an unspoken promise. Most of them, anyway — not her.

The apartment was brightly lit with blinds wide open, and smell of mint hovered in the air. A bedroom, living room, small kitchen, bathroom, and a hallway. Every surface so clean it almost sparkled with a soft sound of synthwave coming from somewhere in the background. Most likely from from the speakers set on a large table that was set with a screen, mouse and keyboard, a pair of mint scented candles, and a small cup of blueberries. On one of the walls, there was a framed, almost life-size poster of Jordan B. Peterson, overlooking the room with his sharp and fatherly gaze. Clean your room, bucko, and she most definitely has.

On the screen, there was a forum page with topics talking about different pirate WoW servers. What used to be an odd, obscure niche reserved for kids from countries where 12 € wasn’t exactly pocket change slowly grew into a scene full of professionally ran projects (with paid employees) and a growing playerbase of tens of thousands. No one expected it to happen a decade ago, but there it was, and the competition was fierce.

At least half the topics on that day revolved around a new server just about to release. The majority was excited, and whoever dared to disagree with the obvious fact that the new, fresh server is going to be amazing, that it’s going to blow up the competition and attract thousands of players, was quickly dealt with. Those unable to appreciate the new fresh would soon learn of their wrongthink, leave their boring, subpar servers, and join the others.

Of course, nothing could ever compare to the greatest server that ever existed, Nostalrix. A project that redefined the meaning of a pirate server but was now, sadly, long gone. It was only with Nostalrix when the existence of the pirate scene entered the public conscience and for a good reason: the quality, the scripting, the absence of bugs, the stability the server offered was above anything pirate community could even dream of. There were even rumors that Nostalrix was superior to the actual retail, classic WoW made available by Blizzard.

However, only a few months after its release, the server was put offline, and the staff mysteriously disappeared. Some speculated that Blizzard hired a group of Russian hackers, known to specialize in that sort of thing, led by a man named “Kaer”, to hack the Nostalrix servers. Some implied that the Russians were also responsible for the team’s sudden disappearance as “Kaer” was known to be ruthless and without morals, interested only in cold, hard cash.

Others argued that the team was paid off by Blizzard when the company realized how superior Nostalrix was to their original game. After being paid the hush money, the staff was likely employed by Blizzard as well, the theory went, and the fact that Blizzard was now working on their own vanilla servers, scheduled to be released at a time unknown, only seemed to confirm it.

Whatever the case, one thing was certain: nothing could ever replace Nostalrix. The memories of the experience, in minds of its players, were frozen in time, unable to be sullied by trolls and shills, and in a sense, forever fresh. They would keep its memory alive and defend it forever, and like quality wine, the server only seemed to get better as time passed. It continued to loom over the private scene, quietly judging, like a portrait of a dead child in a family household, all the other children never being as well behaved, as hard working, as successful as the deceased child was, and would surely have been if the tragedy had not struck.

She played with her hair, lost in thought, then realized that the new fresh server is releasing in just a few hours. The afternoon started turning into an evening, the kids still played outside, adults were relaxing, teenagers would stand in lines to buy the evening’s supply of store brand beer. She put her hair in a pony tail and got to work, almost ready for the new fresh. It’s going to be so great, it’s going to be the one, this time for real — she could feel it, and everyone else felt it, too. No one dared to say it out loud, but maybe … it might even be as good as Nostalrix was.

Night slowly descended upon the town.

Bright light. Dark room.

A sound of mechanical drums, accompanied by nothing but a repetitive synth pattern, was coming out of speakers near the computer screen, its glow being the only light source in the entire apartment.

Bright light. Dark room.

She brushed her hair aside, now tangled and greasy, and gave another look to the screen. She didn’t have to, she knew exactly what was on it: a few Excel spreadsheets, loosely organized, but full of detail.

The one opened was titled “the new NEW f r e s h” and listed the server’s population numbers: Horde, Alliance, total. The initial entries were weekly, but they soon started to multiply from two a week to at least one entry a day. The numbers looked good: the server started with just over five thousand people on the launch day and kept at the same level for weeks. It then dropped to between 4.500 to just below four thousand and more or less stayed there until the end of the table where the amount of players, on one weekday night, was 3459.

Most of the table was devoid of comments, but there were a few near the end. One of them said, “server dying?”, and the other one, “probably just holidays, actually getting lots of new players”. Next one said, “not again”, and the next, “lol ded”, followed by the final one at the 3459 mark saying, “DED KEK”.

All window blinds were tightly shut, the floor was covered with trash and dirty clothes, empty yogurt cartons stacked high in one of the corners. Some tightly packed trash bags sat in the middle of the room, waiting to be taken out, and the smell, the smell was something she’d gotten used to and didn’t even register and any more. Jordan B. Peterson was still on the wall, giving her a judgmental gaze every time she looked at him. She’d gotten good at avoiding it.

It hadn’t taken much effort anyway since all that mattered, her entire life, or at least the relevant part of it, happened on the screen. Back in summer, she’d been positive that the new server will be the one, that it’ll have the population, the community, the gameplay to rival Nostalrix. The server had failed, but with another new fresh already on the horizon, she hadn’t been worrying all that much. It had been only when that one started failing too, dipping below 4K online on regular basis, that she’d realized the other upcoming server, the new fresh, is her final hope.

Walls near the bed were covered with printouts of tables, detailing their population over time. She’d been starting at them for hours, half asleep, when her body hadn’t allowed her to sit any more, protesting the abuse, the incessant sitting, horrible posture, absence of movement. On one of the walls, there was a large sign, smeared with a mixture of feces and menstrual blood, spelling, “F R E S H”.

Sharp ringing. Won’t stop. Sound of men. Knocking, trying the door handle. More knocking, more voices, loud sounds, banging, cracking. They’re in. People talking, now standing around her, someone opening all the windows, so bright.

She was found in her bed, clutching the official Nostalrix teacup, now sold out and a valuable collector’s item. They had to pry it from her hands to prepare her to be transported to a hospital for the initial assessment.

…

…

…

Don’t worry, though, the story has a happy ending. It did take a long time, and she doesn’t like to talk about it, but she’s fine now — and happily playing on Retro WoW.