Hello, first of all I'm very sorry for the wall of text, but I felt that considering what is it about, it was totally needed. So here we go.
I am a player who has been here since the very beggining of Kronos 3, the international version (yes, this is the third version of the server, and previous ones were Czech only), and even for some months before that.
I watched how your project progressed, and chosed you over Nost even when it released a month earlier.
I made my decision because I got convinced on your project: your good work on making blizzlike mechanics to work, the transparency you showed and you still show (which I've never seen on another private sever), and how you take your players opinions into consideration for most decisions you make. I've contributed to the bugtracker as much as my free time let me, and been active on the social media of the server over the time.
I know you are not perfect, you have made mistakes in the past, and you learned from them. Keep doing that. You can learn to from the mistakes that other projects have made too, don't close your eyes and always be aware of your competition.
But now is blatant that you are in a very complicated situation concern us all as a community. You need to take action, because if you don't, your whole project can fail. The next few weeks will be a turning point on Kronos' future.
For all of that, is why I feel that I need to express my opinion on this matter at this time.
This is a list of what I think you should do in sequencial order:
1. Do whatever you have to do to fix latency issues. NOW. If it means a 2 weeks downtime so be it, but it has to be right now, don't let more time pass. This is the most important thing to fix right now because that is the main thing that is scaring people away. You will probably lose some players to this, but the sooner it happens the better, because when you are back online players still won't have a real alternative to switch, and most of them will come back anyways.
2. Most developing efforts should be on fixing the pathing system. Is the only thing on Kronos that has real problems, and it taints all the other good scripts. Many people like to mock the server for naming it self "the most advanced in the universe", and having a very problematic pathing system which is a basic thing for a true gaming experience can be enjoyed. That's very bad for publicity and hurts the server image.
3. Focus on good Naxxramas advertising (and developing of course, on next priorty after pathing). There are literally no vanilla server that offer that content, and there will be none for a while. Do PTR for it, and release gameplay videos of the raid of how it is well scripted. That is your best way to attract new people: only you will have it for quite a long time.
4. Make an advertising video showing all the good things that Kronos has, just like you used to make when the server had not released yet: engineering, mob AI, dungeon events, quest events, endgame raids, etc. Show your quality to the public, you haven't done it in a very long time! Take advantage of that.
And finally, about the merge. I know you have already said that you don't plan to do it, altough you still have it on discussion. This is what I can say in that regard.
KI feels abandoned, almost no GM's around and very low population. It's hard to PvP and find people to do regular dungeons. Even though I've seen the server evolution over time since the beggining, and the current population feels very similar to what it was before the 7x event, the difference is that at that time KI was your only realm and all your efforts were focused on it. Now, it seems that you care more for KII than KI. That is not fair to your old and loyal players such as myself, and is not good for your image either, showing that you don't care for them.
It seems logical that, as some other people stated, a great part of KII playerbase will abandon the realm when this new "Nost 2.0" server comes out, more than KI. But that is a roulette: that project can be a total failure, or a total sucess. The only sure thing is that when that time come, you will lose a lot of players on both KI and KII, at least for a while. If that continues that way will depend on many factors, some that you can't control, and some that you CAN. And by that I mean that one of the factors you can control is having a strong and united comunity, not a divided one like we are now.
Over the years has happened to many growing guilds that they reach a point when they have too many people for their progression roster and main raiders have to sit for their weekly raids, losing the chance to get loot and improve their performance. So they decided to do split raids: with less people, but with the chance of double loot that week. It seemed like the best option, and almost a win/win situation, but on most cases those guilds fell apart not that long after they made that decision. Why? Because they divided their forces. The effort to be able to complete both raids in a weekly basis was too much for their leadership and to the raiders too. This example is exactly what is happening to our community right now.
Plus, now you don't have the incredibly huge load of people you had after Nost's shutdown anymore, and you again have direct competition after not having it at all for a while (or you are about to have).
KI needs to feel included and taken care of. Take a step in advance. Unite your poeple in one realm.
So, I think you should do the following.
On KII:
1. Release ZG and Dragon's of Nightmare, together, ASAP.
2. Release the AQ scepter quest for opening the gates after a couple of weeks of ZG and Dragons. Start the War Effort along with it, but when the first person finishes the AQ scepter quest, instantly finish the War Effort and schedule the 10 hour gates opening event for the next upcoming weekend. With this people will have some time to farm the Dragons and ZG while they work on their rep and materials farm for the AQ scepter quest, as they can farm some other stuff with the War Effort too.
And then, now that both servers are on the same content, wait 2 raid raid resets (for the people on KII can have the realm firsts kills) and enable transfers from KI to KII, keeping in mind that for characters with the same nickname, the older character keeps it and the newer is forced to rename. Then, announce a scheduled close date for Kronos I. When that date arrives, close it, and rename Kronos II to only Kronos.
I know some people won't like this, because of many reasons: they want to experience the full event, other people will have the bug mount too, etc. But lets be real: no solution will ever keep everyone happy.
I think this is the best solution that will help more and do less harm than any other alternative to the community. Personally, I don't like the idea of a merge and I wish it would never happen, but sadly for me it's necessary at this point.
I know too that all of this whole process will require a huge effort and lots of work, but it will totally worth it. I think that it should take a couple of months at best, and the sooner the better.
Please always take this as a suggestion from an old loyal player for what you should do, to contribute to keep making this project the best vanilla experience in the universe as it really should be.
Regards.
I am a player who has been here since the very beggining of Kronos 3, the international version (yes, this is the third version of the server, and previous ones were Czech only), and even for some months before that.
I watched how your project progressed, and chosed you over Nost even when it released a month earlier.
I made my decision because I got convinced on your project: your good work on making blizzlike mechanics to work, the transparency you showed and you still show (which I've never seen on another private sever), and how you take your players opinions into consideration for most decisions you make. I've contributed to the bugtracker as much as my free time let me, and been active on the social media of the server over the time.
I know you are not perfect, you have made mistakes in the past, and you learned from them. Keep doing that. You can learn to from the mistakes that other projects have made too, don't close your eyes and always be aware of your competition.
But now is blatant that you are in a very complicated situation concern us all as a community. You need to take action, because if you don't, your whole project can fail. The next few weeks will be a turning point on Kronos' future.
For all of that, is why I feel that I need to express my opinion on this matter at this time.
This is a list of what I think you should do in sequencial order:
1. Do whatever you have to do to fix latency issues. NOW. If it means a 2 weeks downtime so be it, but it has to be right now, don't let more time pass. This is the most important thing to fix right now because that is the main thing that is scaring people away. You will probably lose some players to this, but the sooner it happens the better, because when you are back online players still won't have a real alternative to switch, and most of them will come back anyways.
2. Most developing efforts should be on fixing the pathing system. Is the only thing on Kronos that has real problems, and it taints all the other good scripts. Many people like to mock the server for naming it self "the most advanced in the universe", and having a very problematic pathing system which is a basic thing for a true gaming experience can be enjoyed. That's very bad for publicity and hurts the server image.
3. Focus on good Naxxramas advertising (and developing of course, on next priorty after pathing). There are literally no vanilla server that offer that content, and there will be none for a while. Do PTR for it, and release gameplay videos of the raid of how it is well scripted. That is your best way to attract new people: only you will have it for quite a long time.
4. Make an advertising video showing all the good things that Kronos has, just like you used to make when the server had not released yet: engineering, mob AI, dungeon events, quest events, endgame raids, etc. Show your quality to the public, you haven't done it in a very long time! Take advantage of that.
And finally, about the merge. I know you have already said that you don't plan to do it, altough you still have it on discussion. This is what I can say in that regard.
KI feels abandoned, almost no GM's around and very low population. It's hard to PvP and find people to do regular dungeons. Even though I've seen the server evolution over time since the beggining, and the current population feels very similar to what it was before the 7x event, the difference is that at that time KI was your only realm and all your efforts were focused on it. Now, it seems that you care more for KII than KI. That is not fair to your old and loyal players such as myself, and is not good for your image either, showing that you don't care for them.
It seems logical that, as some other people stated, a great part of KII playerbase will abandon the realm when this new "Nost 2.0" server comes out, more than KI. But that is a roulette: that project can be a total failure, or a total sucess. The only sure thing is that when that time come, you will lose a lot of players on both KI and KII, at least for a while. If that continues that way will depend on many factors, some that you can't control, and some that you CAN. And by that I mean that one of the factors you can control is having a strong and united comunity, not a divided one like we are now.
Over the years has happened to many growing guilds that they reach a point when they have too many people for their progression roster and main raiders have to sit for their weekly raids, losing the chance to get loot and improve their performance. So they decided to do split raids: with less people, but with the chance of double loot that week. It seemed like the best option, and almost a win/win situation, but on most cases those guilds fell apart not that long after they made that decision. Why? Because they divided their forces. The effort to be able to complete both raids in a weekly basis was too much for their leadership and to the raiders too. This example is exactly what is happening to our community right now.
Plus, now you don't have the incredibly huge load of people you had after Nost's shutdown anymore, and you again have direct competition after not having it at all for a while (or you are about to have).
KI needs to feel included and taken care of. Take a step in advance. Unite your poeple in one realm.
So, I think you should do the following.
On KII:
1. Release ZG and Dragon's of Nightmare, together, ASAP.
2. Release the AQ scepter quest for opening the gates after a couple of weeks of ZG and Dragons. Start the War Effort along with it, but when the first person finishes the AQ scepter quest, instantly finish the War Effort and schedule the 10 hour gates opening event for the next upcoming weekend. With this people will have some time to farm the Dragons and ZG while they work on their rep and materials farm for the AQ scepter quest, as they can farm some other stuff with the War Effort too.
And then, now that both servers are on the same content, wait 2 raid raid resets (for the people on KII can have the realm firsts kills) and enable transfers from KI to KII, keeping in mind that for characters with the same nickname, the older character keeps it and the newer is forced to rename. Then, announce a scheduled close date for Kronos I. When that date arrives, close it, and rename Kronos II to only Kronos.
I know some people won't like this, because of many reasons: they want to experience the full event, other people will have the bug mount too, etc. But lets be real: no solution will ever keep everyone happy.
I think this is the best solution that will help more and do less harm than any other alternative to the community. Personally, I don't like the idea of a merge and I wish it would never happen, but sadly for me it's necessary at this point.
I know too that all of this whole process will require a huge effort and lots of work, but it will totally worth it. I think that it should take a couple of months at best, and the sooner the better.
Please always take this as a suggestion from an old loyal player for what you should do, to contribute to keep making this project the best vanilla experience in the universe as it really should be.
Regards.