People talking about the death of emulator servers are overracting. The people running Everquest have been doing progression servers for years and they haven't killed theirs off.
The only thing that could really harm those servers if Bliz uses it's extra weight it has over Daybreak Games and actively tries to suppress emulators and drive their population onto their servers as the only nostalgia trip, something which is the exact opposite DBG has been doing with emulators, often seeking the help of P99 for help finding ways of patching their servers to be classic when they're unable to figure a way around EQs mess of code.
And most importantly, 2 - There are only two possibilities and both are shit:
1. The server will have patch progression: eventually it'll reach the expacs that ruined the game. Some people think even Burning Crusade was already decline, but most'll agree that Cata is the hard drop that damaged WoW real good, and that's only the third expansion. Depending on their schedule it won't take that long at all for it to arrive. Even if it does, I hate the idea of playing on an expiration date, it goes totally against the idea of an MMO.
2. The server doesn't have patch progression: so... a static world that'll never ever change? An MMO with zero prospect of receiving content? How many times can you repeat Molten Core and Blackwing Lair really. If you already know everything there is to it vanilla Azeroth isn't that interesting to explore either, it's all about the difficulty and the much better economy.
1: Ironically this is where EQs multitude of expansions might have an edge over WoW, where prog servers release a new expack every 2-3 months. I know WoW often treated massive patches in the way EQ did expacks, I don't know how well that would mesh together.
2: You never can tell with many MMOs players. After releasing progression servers for the past 3 years that will progress until they finally fully catch up and so become "normal" servers, DBG released a fully static server this summer, Agnarr, that will stop progression once Planes of Power is released. That was EQs 4th expansion released in 2002, 3 1/2 years after the games lunch, and is universally considered the end of EQs classic, beloved time of popularity before the troubles Gates and Discord and Omens of War caused.
I'm skeptical of the servers long term health, but the problem is I can't fully tell, since the appeal of the game for many drops off after PoP and it's sadly entirely within my knowledge of EQ players that they'd love to have a server stuck at that stage. Bliz may very well go down DBGs path of releasing several progression servers to keep drawing in people that love to replay the classic era over and over from scratch for various reasons.
At the same time, I've played enough emulated servers to know that MMOs are not a permanent thing and it is the fate of all servers to decline and eventually fade away, official or unofficial.
Regardless, this will attract a ton of appeal from people who better enjoy the ride they go on since it won't last.
You guys are forgetting world PvP. Still have a place in my heart (and PTSD) for places like Stranglethorn Vietnam.
I miss the old open world PvP over seemingly meaningless targets, like overrunning Astranaar and wiping it clean of Alliance until enough built up to drive us back to the Barrens zoneline. No rewards, no permanency, but it was infinitely more rewarding for me than the bullshit that was Battlegrounds as it was actual, emergent, player driven roleplaying of the nascent conflict set up in the game, not some zone to funnel people into to get them to fight to gain points and gear.
The only thing missing was lack of cross faction communication to brag and smacktalk with.
Does anyone believe they will get rid of microtransactions and other "improvements" and instead bring the vanilla "go run on foot until you hit the 40th level"? That it will be run exclusively on monthly fees?
