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    TwinStar team

Why Kronos?

Aurigon

Authorized
Joined
Nov 21, 2014
Location
Italy




WHY KRONOS?




by Moradin Guildforger
Founder and Commander-in-Chief of the Stormlords
Alliance guild established on 31 October, 2012.




Chapter I


INTRODUCTION


1.1 Premise


I'm hereby offering an exhaustive report to provide everyone an overview of the company and the realm me and my guild transferred to, and why did I choose it over Nostalrius. Maybe those who are still undecided will make up their mind. The migration from our previous realm (we initially started and developed on Emerald Dream @Feenix)
was necessary to save the guild, as that server is almost entirely dead by now.


So, simply put, two alternatives presented to us: Nostalrius and Kronos. I gathered information on both (although I had been following Kronos' development blog every now and then), checked their communities, tried the early levels for the same classes in the same areas, and I ended up choosing Kronos without a second thought, with the rest of our senior members agreeing on that almost unanimously (only one adverse opinion received).

There is also a video review where Dodgykebaab - a known reviewer in the private server scene - compares the two realms, coming to the same conclusions. This review of mine, however, will hopefully provide you with a more detailed insight.

First, allow me to sum up both realms and their main features.



1.2 Realm Summary


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Overview
Released: 28 February 2015
Development: 5 years, starting in 2010 (reportedly), no other information available.
Server location: France
Rates: 1x (all)
Content release: gradual, 100% blizzlike.
Donation rewards: none, they occasionally ask people to donate until they gather the amount needed for hardware improvements.
Peak population (A+H):
7400 (September 2015)
Particulars: two-step phased itemization (1.4 > 1.12.1); custom-made, buffed version of Alterac Valley.


The Good:
+ Huge population (3 retail realms at full capacity)
+ Fully blizzlike timeline
+ No reward system whatsoever
+ Chance to copy characters to future TBC realm
+ Custom-made buffed version of Alterac Valley


The Bad:
- Toxic population (all ED's garbage, basically)
- Latency issues
- Overcrowding problems (excessive ganking, node/mob rush, etc.)
- Lots of bugs, duping and botting
- No additional services (no armory nor database)




ab58Rin.png


Overview
Released: 28 March 2015
Development: confirmed 4 years at least (previously a Czech-only realm released in 2011, re-released on the 12 December 2012 as an international realm with 0-7x rates, reduced to 0-4x rates during spring 2014, closed the next summer for further improvement and finally relaunched as a full 1x international realm).
Server location: Sweden
Rates: 1x (all)
Content release: gradual, mostly blizzlike (Dire Maul, Azuregos and Lord Kazzak available at launch, Silithus quests added before BWL release, Dungeon Set 2 quests added shortly after).
Donation rewards: only non-combat pets, vanity items and Collector's Edition mounts (no riding skill).
Peak population (A+H):
1200 (September 2015)
Particulars: respec cost capped at 5
AsUinsF.png
; option to turn off XP gain for easy twinking; character auction house; some in-between raid content available earlier than during vanilla retail.


The Good:
+ Game world wonderfully coded
+
Dedicated community and zealous developers
+ Excellent bugtracker
+ Highly professional website

+
Long experience in realm hosting by TwinStar


The Bad:
- Lower population during off-peak time
- Cross-faction special mounts available to donors
- Character name change service
- Slightly altered timeline (see Content release in the overview)
- Still no word on future plans (international, brand-new TBC realm?)



1.3 The Dossier


That being said, I'm now going to explain how the strengths of Kronos I found to be more relevant than the ones for Nostalrius, trying to be as unbiased as possible - I really only took a decision after I could test them both for a while, I didn't randomly choose one beforehand to cluelessly advocate it just because - and also describing their respective flaws. Bear in mind that I'm presenting you this review "as is". Hopefully both realms will thrive, competition being what will keep them going whereas ED's uniqueness ultimately made it slack with its year-old bugs and totally missing scripts. To my eyes however, the differences between the two realms are marked. I shall now comment on the good things I listed for Kronos going deeper into details, explaining how the Nostalrius pros aren't as consistent as they might look at a first glance. Let's begin.





.






Chapter II


TWINSTAR GAMING








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2.1 Note about the team


The Kronos staff have behind themselves a solid team that has been running WoW private servers for many years already. Some of our members have had a very good experience in the past playing on their realms, and were glad to know TwinStar was the path we'd take. Having been in this business for so long means they were able to guarantee stability and safety (a.k.a. strong DDoS protection, proven by the fact we ourselves have yet to witness any downtime due to such attacks), and that's probably the first element to take into account when facing a long term decision. The Nostalrius crew is an upstart one on their first endeavor, they struggled to launch first and win people over to their server even though that meant releasing raids in a bug-ridden state; the Kronos crew, on the other hand, took their time to polish everything they could before going live, and it shows - even if the chance was suggested to postpone it for six months or so, and only the great hype made them come around. All in all, slow and steady wins the race.




2.2 The TwinStar website



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Whereas the Nostalrius website is basically a feature main page coupled to a forum, the Kronos counterpart is much more complex: a blog maintained by the realm administrator and chief developer (Chero) which also contains changelogs and general information; plus the TwinStar main site, which provides various additional and useful game-related services. The professionalism and the level of organization put into the making of the site is evident, especially to me, who have always dedicated so much time to create and maintain our own place. Let's have a closer look at the most peculiar features.



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There you can see tabs for the various realms, one for each release of WoW. The TwinStar main infrastructure is made up of four gaming servers plus a login server (and a newly added login one just for Kronos) - all of them with blizzlike rates, by the way, safe for the TBC one where the XP rate is customizable from 0x to 12x for those only interested in the Burning Crusade content. Each of the tab displays the real time status of that realm (online/offline, so you'll never have to wonder whether it's been your Internet which kicked you or some server outage) as well as the Horde:Alliance ratio on that realm, while the Online number indicates the total count of players currently ingame on all realms. Having a distinct server available for every xpac is quite a compelling addition, if you ask me, as that would make your further progression feasible, allowing you to venture forth on Outland and Northrend.




2.3 The TwinHead Database


The next amazing service offered by TwinStar is a great set of realm-specific item databases. It's called TwinHead (the tribute to WoWHead is obvious), and clicking on its button on top of every screen will bring you to a general page where you can pick the one for the game version (realm) you're interested in. Click on Vanilla and you'll end up here:



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There you can see a list with the latest fixes, any world event currently in progress along with its duration, and a series of dropdown menus to query the database. The best thing about such service is how good it's been implemented: it's fully integrated with actual ingame data. E.g.: looking for any resource or NPC will provide you with a map showing its actual ingame location for the realm (so it's not based on some third-party, usually unreliable database).


2.4 Special Features


Another really nice treat is the little informative switch that lets you know when the last realm restart happened:



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On top of the TwinHead page you'll see again the panel showing the real time status of the servers; clicking on [Switch Stats] will display the date and time of the last realm rollback/restart and update:



LQVFkZDl.png


Last Restart: tells you when the realm was last rolled back/restarted (dd.mm.);
Last Update: it refers to the last time the server database has been patched (only for authorized members, i.e. members meeting certain membership + ingame requirements who have linked their ingame and website accounts, confirming their identity and being therefore granted a higher status with special privileges). Basically, when Last Restart displays a later time than Last Update, that means the version of the database currently running is the most updated one.


More information about forum authorization can be found here.


Lastly, a quick peek to the latest implemented and fully realm-integrated Armory, a powerful tool that records raiding progression and character data for all guilds - you won't need RealmPlayers ever again. Here's how the Boss Kills Tracker appears (this screen was taken the same day the first Molten Core run happened):





CRj5Q97.png


Clicking on the guild's name by the Guild column will show you the raid statistics for that guild (in this case the guild <Synced>, where most of testers were during the beta), displaying a resumptive graph of its raid progression and details for the various raid bosses killed:


u3cra8y.png



That's not all however: if you click on the guild name above the graph, or the link to its Armory just below, that will direct you to that guild's page, showing its roster.


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From there, you can click on any player to be brought to its Armory profile, where you can see pretty much every information the retail counterpart would display: 3D model, description tooltips, recent activities, reputation ratings and so on.



IJ1xxdH.png



JnDB9TN.png


Not bad, eh? Seriously, the sheer quantity of functionalities made available for the players, and the quality of the integration with a powerful, fully working database, is something never seen before on any other vanilla server out there.


2.5 Rules & Violations


As you can imagine at this point, it is the TwinStar site that started to convince me of the professionalism of the team; to make a further comparison, just have a look at the set of rules from each of the vanilla 1x realms currently available (ED, Nostalrius and Kronos):


- Feenix Rules
- Nostalrius list of rules non-existent
- TwinStar Rules


Needless to say, I warmly suggest you to read the Kronos/TwinStar list of violations entirely, when you have a chance. The community is far less toxic than Nostalrius and more closely watched over, since TwinStar has a forum built-in form that allows everyone to easily file reports. Named Blacklist, this subforum is yet another example of how seriously violations are dealt with: reports are categorized under two sections (to be solved and resolved).




2xFs0vr.png


Go have a peek at how they never overlook the kind of abuses we used to see left unchecked on Feenix... and to think, even a naming policy is enforced. Here is a direct link to the report form.







.




Chapter III
.
THE COMMUNITY


3.1 Players


It's a common thing that size is in inverse proportion to quality when it comes to communities, where both Nostalrius and Kronos make no exception. The player base on Nost is really toxic, and the majority of trolls from ED can be found there. During peak days and times the total online is beyond 7000 people, and I've personally found the faction wide channel to be unjoinable, as in it loses all its usefulness given the amount of people and the continuous trolling; obviously there's absolutely nothing the mods will ever be able to do under such circumstances, so they hide themselves behind the excuse - a rather poor one, if I'm one to say it - that it's a custom channel and everyone there is supposed to be left unchecked.


On the other hand, the much smaller community on Kronos matches actual blizzlike numbers. This makes the World channel much less similar to 4chan, the atmosphere is way more relaxed and healthy and the GMs are of course able to intervene if necessary. Players are generally the caring kind, meaning they will most likely report you if you act with rudeness, using a foul language, being racist or even just bearing an objectionable character name. The best part of it, though, is probably their commitment to bugfixing: most of them uses the bugtracker (dealt with in the following chapter), carrying out thorough research to help the devs fix even the smallest details, using every bit of information from the original vanilla content that's possible to retrieve.



3.2 Staff


The TwinStar staff is on par with the rest as far as organization and helpfulness go. Forget about the advertisements of dozens shadowy developers and testers no-one has ever seen nor had a clue of you found on Feenix or would find on Nostalrius: every single programmer for Kronos is listed and easily reachable, even through email. Most importantly however, they deal with what issues they are submitted in a very unbiased and professional fashion, whether it is about rule violations or technical problems. They are nothing like what you could witness on Feenix, basically, where you might be banned all of a sudden without even the slightest explanation and forum topics would end up locked and trashed (when not deleted altogether) even if the original poster's only intention was clearly to help the community and the server - I had the displeasure to experience this firsthand. Plus while entire months would pass on ED with not a single fix coming (and some of the bugs there were major ones and present since launch, so much for "a team of 16 developers"), on Kronos several issues are resolved daily, despite the crew being not even close to what numbers rival servers brag about. Anyway, TwinStar has in the interchangeability of its programmers yet another strength: indeed, in order to optimize results, developers swap realms based on what is needed the most at any given moment. Here's a clear example of what rate of fixes you can expect on Kronos:



d3CWHmZ.png


For the best example of the helpfulness - and readiness - offered by the TwinStar staff (and for a great insight to how the Kronos development and administration are carried out) I believe this thread is really worth a read.




3.3 Administrator


The Kronos' Head Game Master and project administrator goes by the name of Chero, the guy we owe the most for the whole idea behind the realm in the first place. He's an information technology student currently attending university, and the commitment and effort put towards the realm is astounding. He single-handedly run the whole job for most of its existence, and still the work done so far is such that it feels like a whole team of developers assisted all along. Which is especially meaningful when you consider how good scripted Kronos is compared to other projects that claim of being run by dozens professional developers.


To make a comparison, allow me to consider once again the server we left and the one who owns it (better yet its spokesperson), Athairne: he and Chero are poles apart. Above all, Athairne lacked the faintest hint of any technical preparation and competence, only providing the Feenix team with his deal of "I'm all right Jack" attitude - which had nothing to do with reality, to top it all - and nothing else. Chero, on the other hand, is both a jack of all trades and master of everything. I have already had a good display of his prowess, ever so much appreciated as it's paired with two more characteristics the aforesaid individual never showed: sociability and honesty. For instance, he happens to do something wrong that makes the realm crash, and rather than trying to conceal it or giving excuses, he admits it bluntly with ingame server-wide announcements.


Speaking of which, here's some examples of ingame announcements from the realm's administration:




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.




Chapter IV
.
THE BUGTRACKER




4.1 Devs and players together


It is finally the time now to introduce you the feature which I personally believe to be the best one offered by the site, the one that stands out putting Kronos many steps ahead of competition... the TwinHead Bugtracker.



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I must admit that maybe this is the single element that most than everything else has had a decisive influence on my final decision. Forget about the Feenix Issue Tracker, messy, dispersive and uncomfortable to use; and don't even think about the Nostalrius bugtracker, that's in no way better. Instead, this tool alone represents the most serious claim to develop a proper and fully blizzlike game world. Totally integrated with the Kronos database I described before, it's user friendly, simple and informative at the same time, as it comes with a flawless tooltip system that runs without hiccups. Other private servers use to call themselves "project": this is the first time such term really and completely fits in, and that's because of this feature alone. Instead of advertising teams of dozens professional developers working in the shadows (so none ever knows their actual numbers), the guys at TwinStar set up this wonderful platform to have their devs working in the sunlight and involving the whole community into the scripting process. In fact, the amount of information available is nearly overwhelming, not only are many players active and accurate quoting original sources and data to the last detail, you can easily see what developer is currently assigned to what issue, interact with them and track the status of the bugs that you care for the most, enabling website or email notifications whenever new comments are added or the status of a given report is modified.


4.2 Numbers and figures



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At the bottom of the page there are two graphs which summarize the global numbers: issues by their category and the overall status percentages. As you can see, right now almost half of the bugs are fixed already; of course more will be reported in time, however, by what feedback we're currently getting from higher level players, it really seems as though all dungeons are properly scripted and working like they have never been since retail, to the point one can't even tell the difference from the original game. I made a comparison between the Ares (TBC) and Kronos bugtrackers, to see how much support can be expected for the newborn realm in the future as deducible by what is done for the older, 2.4.3 one, in terms of development and bugfixing. Here's the results:



ARES (TBC)

KRONOS

ACTIVE ISSUES

707

2019

New

321

1294

Reopened

43

55

Confirmed

234

411

Need Info

73

198

Need Retest

36

61

 



FIXED

1267 (64%)

2845 (58%)

Fixed

1267

2783

Need Update

0

62

 



TOTAL

1974

4864




NOTE: I intentionally left out all redundant numbers the bugtrackers take into account, i.e. all issues tagged as Won't Fix, Duplicate, Not a Bug, and Canceled, in order to provide actual values.


Data above show that, despite the disproportion of issues, the percentages indicating how bug-free a realm is are similar: this means that the devs carry out a huge work for all the realms (the % of fixes for the TBC realm is particularly impressive, given the workload that release of the game requires) and constantly improve on what has already been done, which in turn makes Kronos the most serious candidate to recreate the ultimate vanilla experience. What has been done thus far doesn't simply make Kronos beat competition, it creates the potential to further increase the gap in the future.


It's time now to see how all this translates into practice.



 
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Chapter V

THE WORLD


5.1 Kronos Vs. Nostalrius


All in all, that's what really matters and what has played the bigger part in my decision. As many of you know, I tried both realms firsthand before picking our destination, and did so starting to explore the respective websites and ingame communities, along with the first few levels. I knew I couldn't wait to level to 60 on both servers before making up my mind, so I tested what I could of class mechanics, quests and environment, doing basically the same things on both realms, visiting the same regions and so on. By the time I got to level 5 I knew what my choice would be. Here's the comparative result of my tests, through commented screenshots.


5.2 Attention to detail


The very moment I logged Moradin for the first time on Kronos I could notice the first differences already. They were just about graphical niceties not affecting the gameplay at all, yet they sure couldn't pass unnoticed to good observants as much as they didn't escape the devs' own notice.


Here's how it is on Nostalrius.




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And what it's like on Kronos. You never noticed, admit it.



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The next example is much more noticeable. Coldridge Valley at night on Nostalrius:



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What's going on in the meanwhile on Kronos? Let's have a look...



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I also noticed a couple more differences, like patrolling NPCs walking faster on Nostalrius than the normal walk speed (equal to every humanoid in the world), mobs mispositioning when attacking, warrior's Charge ending with your back towards the mob, but I didn't bother myself shooting that.


5.3 Game mechanics


These are of course much more important than aestethic stuff, as they directly affect your gameplay. This is where Kronos uniqueness starts to really come into play, and we can have a first glimpse of it with these little thingies some of you might haven't experienced yet.


The first one I'm reporting concerns the Line of Sight (LoS): more specifically, what we have here is a Dynamic Line of Sight (DLoS), a feature that used to only work indoors and within instanced content on retail, whereas it was never implemented for outdoor environments (Blizzard guys couldn't code it properly before WoW hit the shelves and that's why it's remained not working in every further expansion). Kronos has it fully working everywhere, even in the open world. Vanilla purists could have something to say about it, according to me it's another jewel on the crown of core quality instead. So while Nostalrius chose to implement a "blizzlike" LoS, including the more laughable part of it where you can hit any target within range even if it's hidden behind some obstacle, on Kronos it's calculated dynamically, so that you won't be able to have your bullets go around a tree trunk and hit the target. A couple screenshots showing such difference between realms:





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The next mechanic I noticed is related to the behaviour of mobs, more specifically packs of mobs, during attacks. Let's say you happen to cause an overpull on Nostalrius, here's how three aggroed wolves will react once you stop fleeing and turn to face them, each one keeping its position:



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Their behaviour on Kronos, on the other hand, is more refined and will see them surround you, placing themselves all around you:



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This isn't made for eye-candy purposes: as you know, you won't be able to dodge attacks coming from behind your back, which makes similar situations even more dangerous. Now imagine how could that turn out during raids. Enough said.


One last part of code I could see working like a charm is the one dealing with pathing, AI and chainpulling, all that I could test in the Frostmane trolls cave through a single fight. Here's how it went on the two realms, pulling the same troll exactly the same way.




h5oY7DM.png


Soon after I pulled I stepped back, and the troll would just rush towards me, up a steep ledge he wasn't supposed to climb and attacked me:



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On Kronos instead that led to a pretty different outcome, here's the pull (you can check the minimap where the troll's position is highlighted):



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Again I pushed back as soon as I took aggro (see my position in the next screen), however the dude didn't bite it and thought he'd go around the slope instead to where his friends were, and here's what I got:



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You can see the lust for a gangbang in their eyes can't you... now that is what is called properly working chainpulling. Needless to say, such accuracy in pathing and AI scripting grants a higher level of challenge, making the game harder and more fun (provided you can get away with it that is).


5.4 Refined script codes


Finally, the icing on the cake: events and mini-events. Where all private servers always failed, marking what is probably the most evident difference between them and retail - undoubtedly due to the amount of work required to code them where they mostly provide only cosmetic frills - the Kronos guys dedicate the utmost attention to make sure they work as intended. The first mini-event a dwarf has a chance to witness is related to the quest Ammo for Rumbleshot, along the road from Anvilmar to Kharanos. Here's how the two realms face this test.


Nostalrius, before the quest is turned in:




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After the turn in:



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On Kronos the dwarves are standing by the fire, where they return after the event:



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The event while it's ongoing:



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And that made it for me. Allow me to say it again, I only stayed on the surface for both servers... but I guess it's more than expected for just the first few levels. Quality wise, Kronos wins hands down.



.




Chapter VI
.
PROS & CONS


6.1 Doubts


I listed and commented what, according to me, are the most appealing features Kronos has to offer. I'm now going to talk about what I found to be less convincing, and make a comparison with Nostalrius' best assets.


While certainly the best seen so far in the whole vanilla scene (by a huge lot), Kronos is still far from perfection, as the numbers shown by its bugtracker demonstrate. The realm is very young, so only time will fix what it currently lacks the most: off peak population.


What really got me skeptical is the name change service and some custom things they had to introduce, like the respec cost lowered to 5
AsUinsF.png
(down from 50
AsUinsF.png
as it was in retail), the chance for donors to have cross-faction special mounts, or the slightly altered timeline... things where I haven't found Nostalrius wanting.


On a more personal note, what pains my sight the most is seeing donors go around on cross-faction mounts. Sure enough it's just a cosmetic thing, but I strongly believe that a gnome riding a kodo would best suit some custom, fun server instead. Above all, this was never supposed to happen in the first place, as it apparently was a bug that allowed donors to pick mounts they normally should have never been able to. There's (un)luckily few of them, depending on how many people donate and pick a "proper" mount for their toon's race compared to players who specifically do so in order to get just that mount. Hopefully the devs will find a way to fix this and compromise with what donors are concerned.



6.2 Donations for Stars


The name change thing allows you to edit the name of your ingame character(s) in a couple of clicks and at a cheap price - 100 "Stars" per use (Stars are the TwinStar currency), whereas you earn 37.5 Stars each 1 EUR you donate - so a single name change costs 2.67 EUR. Unfortunately nothing is said about what limitations this service has in place, or what requirements to fulfill, if any at all.


Another service TwinStar provides is the character auction house: everyone is free to auction their characters and be paid in Stars through the website platform - buyouts are capped at 15000 Stars, i.e. 400 EUR. While some might be put off by this, it's really not that big of a deal long as characters are leveled up normally - at 1x rates - and, most importantly, Stars can only be spent on vanity items (Collector's Edition mounts, special tabards and non-combat pets); besides, it generates an income out of something that would otherwise be an underground business, hence it's a smart move to handle it and allow it under controlled conditions, if you ask me. Call it a necessary evil, if you wish, I personally don't care about who's behind any character as long as I know it was leveled in a legit way, and its current owner was good to invest real money to buy it.


NOTE: Stars can neither be traded for gold nor real money, so in the worst case scenario we'll only see donors and zero farmers.



6.3 Custom features


As far as custom things are concerned, they are all minor changes really, the most worthy of mention being the lowered cap for respec cost - 5
AsUinsF.png
down from 50
AsUinsF.png
. This is something I can honestly live with, in fact it could even turn out to be beneficial: people will be more inclined to experiment through various talents and specs given the less taxing cost, hopefully building better players in the long run. For the same reason, it could easily promote the development of the PvP community.


Speaking of PvP, another custom addition (a great one in my opinion) is the option to turn off the XP gain altogether: a great thing to encourage the growth of a twink niche. For the same reason, they are planning to introduce the option to queue Battlegrounds at innkeepers for lower level players, even though I have no clue up to what level that is going to be made available.


HINT: To disable your character's experience gain, just type the command .experience off in your chat frame. You will not earn a single XP point unless you re-enable it with the command .experience on (you can toggle it whenever you wish). Beware of twinks!


One thing I didn't quite understand, on the other hand, is the choice they made to slightly alter the blizzlike timeline pertaining the release of new content: namely, they are going to make the Dungeon Set 2 quest chains available a bit earlier compared to retail. Similarly, Dire Maul and two world bosses (Azuregos and Kazzak) are available since launch, while it would have been nice to stick with the retail content release, especially considering that wouldn't have required any further effort on their part. All in all, however, it's something we can definitely cope with, especially considering what the rest is about.



6.4 Comparing results


The features Nostalrius offers that cannot be found on Kronos are not that much relevant: the version 1.4 itemization, and the unavailability of Dire Maul at launch, were supposed to make endgame content significantly harder, yet seeing how bugged Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair were on release, and how many exploits through the leveling areas, they could barely take any advantage out of them. In fact, rushing to release before Kronos could, just to win more people at the cost of providing them with endgame content in an embarassing state (to say the least), I deemed that a philosophy which bears too much resemblance to the Feenix one, prioritizing quantity of players over quality of content. Truth to be told, Nostalrius is still much better than ED.


In what does Nostalrius beat Kronos, then? Population, and the 100% blizzlike content release. While the latter sees Nostalrius winning right down the line - not that big of a deal, either, seeing as the first delays are pushing them out of that way already - the subject of player base is more complicated and the final judgement about it really is a matter of perspectives. Sure enough, seeing people going back and forth pretty much everywhere, all the time, returns the image of a healthy realm. The dynamic respawn rate of mobs, too, partially helps people to level faster in overcrowded areas. That however is of little help when it comes to resources needed to level up professions, so skinners and leatherworkers have an advantage over the others, whereas herbs and ore veins would inflate the economy in no time were their respawn rates increased. I'd much rather play on a realm with a blizzlike population and blizzlike profession rates... moreover, I don't think I'd find it very immersive to wander the jungle in Stranglethorn or the Tanaris desert feeling like I was in Times Square during rush hour, but I guess that's a matter of taste in the end.


A probably minor thing at the moment, which however could be of a decisive importance later on, is the fact that Nostalrius devs have made it clear they're going to launch a separate TBC realm when the time is right, as you can see here (scroll down to the end of the post, it's exactly what the last question addresses), where they will allow players from their 1.12.1 server to copy their characters to the Burning Crusade one. TwinStar, on the other hand, already offers a TBC realm, yet it's only a Czech-speaking realm with customizable XP rates - and severely lacking population too, since Kronos has been launched. You can read this up, and have an insight to what the future may bring to players on both realms in this announcement. Incidentally, I've heard many people claim that Ares (the Czech TBC realm in question) is the best 2.4.3 realm around, quality wise - it wouldn't surprise me to find it out as true. Needless to say, my best wish is that Chero and the others will realize how promising a brand new, international TBC realm would be, and how the sheer quality they've managed to bring about with Kronos would put TwinStar in the leading position once and for all, should they ever release what the whole private scene is craving for: a high-quality, international Burning Crusade 1x realm, keeping all promises Corecraft has been making for a lifetime. Only Blizzard itself launching retail vanilla/TBC servers could ever beat such a thing.




.




CONCLUSIONS



I chose Kronos because I prefer quantity of quality codes and scripts over quantity of players and names. On Kronos everyone, ranging from the main admin to the newly arrived bugtracker contributor, put their time into making it the ultimate vanilla experience, finally dealing to us what we have never had since retail times: a real challenge, a hard game backed by a solid tech team dedicated to polish it even more and willing to go flat out for players to an unprecedented extent (reporting an almost trivial bug none ever noticed to see a developer fixing it for you within hours, or major tricky ones resolved in few days, is something unmatched and incredibly rewarding). It's so good to read about players praising their work at the umpteenth wipe, remaining awestruck when mobs use every skill and spell they originally had at their disposal against you. Cheering when Archaedas unleashes every single one of his dwarves, or when you see the stairs event in Zul'Farrak identhical to retail, or hear about Maraudon being "hard as f***".


For a guild like mine, that strive for organization, live on the enjoyment of its players and cherish even the smallest details, Kronos is finally and definitely the place to be, and so is too for anyone who values the same features. Seeing is believing, the proof of the pudding is in the eating: try Kronos and you'll never look elsewhere, I promise.


Thanks for reading, and good luck!


Kind regards



 
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eh, imho you have post this somewhere else, cause people reading it here propably decided to play on Kronos.

2nd i dont get some of the "- things" on Kronos.
- Cross-faction special mounts available to donors
(seriously ? i dont understand the mess around stupidly useless aschievemnts and all that qq about on higher expansions.. but even on vanilla ? this useless reward just saying "look at me, i donated !" Really, its like wtf ? Wtf is wrong with you,damn.

- Character name change service
Where the hell is disadvantage ? Youre donating server by this feature! :blink:

- Minor non-blizzlike features
aka reduced respec gold ? I bet youre part of the minority,one of the few,who dont like it.
 
eh, imho you have post this somewhere else, cause people reading it here propably decided to play on Kronos.

2nd i dont get some of the "- things" on Kronos.
- Cross-faction special mounts available to donors
(seriously ? i dont understand the mess around stupidly useless aschievemnts and all that qq about on higher expansions.. but even on vanilla ? this useless reward just saying "look at me, i donated !" Really, its like wtf ? Wtf is wrong with you,damn.

- Character name change service
Where the hell is disadvantage ? Youre donating server by this feature! :blink:

- Minor non-blizzlike features
aka reduced respec gold ? I bet youre part of the minority,one of the few,who dont like it.

I don't see anyone caring about the mount, as much, but the other things, I can see as a put off.

The name change service kind of makes it harder to have the community based policing we did in vanilla. We used to blacklist a character's name if they did some scumbag stuff and they would eventually be forced to reroll because the server wouldnt group with them.

As for the respec gold, at 5g it might as well just be dual spec with less convenience. Because of this "Purists" with not like it, but I myself saw dual spec, as one of the very few things added by blizzard as a good thing. This feature actually made my decision to roll prot warrior that much easier.
 
Isn't a cap on 10g..?

Really TL;DR for me, to be honest; never read something this huge on English :D But great job with the text structure, pictures and the text itself of course. Now share it everywhere :) You're a respectable person, and those who can listen shall listen to you.

P.S. Shared as usually :) (no one understands anything as usually on https://vk.com/wall-76718000_9869)
 
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The name change service kind of makes it harder to have the community based policing we did in vanilla. We used to blacklist a character's name if they did some scumbag stuff and they would eventually be forced to reroll because the server wouldnt group with them.

.

more and less, but if you have someone on ignore/friend list, after he rename his character name in your list is changed too. In addition, you have realize that, name change isnt free,so dont expect it being used too much:wink:
 
Isn't a cap on 10g..?

Really TL;DR for me, to be honest; never read something this huge on English :D But great job with the text structure, pictures and the text itself of course. Now share it everywhere :) You're a respectable person, and those who can listen shall listen to you.

P.S. Shared as usually :) (no one understands anything as usually on https://vk.com/wall-76718000_9869)
It's a common misconception but no, the cap was reduced to 5g.
 
So Nostalrius doesn't even have a bug tracker? What a bunch of wannabes!

They do have a bugtracker, but it's a pain to look at.

Well maybe ppl just want to have a mount without trying anything? What is wrong with YOU? Damn!

Yeah I agree, still I believe the devs would have any right to fix something that was never supposed to happen in the first place (cross-faction mounts were available because of some bug apparently), and I'm also sure those few players who have them wouldn't feel cheated were they replaced with equivalent proper mounts. Just my opinion of course, it's the only evident resemblance Kronos has with a custom fun server.
 
You convinced me to try Kronos again.

Awesome thanks, enjoy the realm! You won't regret it.

By the way, I updated some of the information:

- Under Realm Summary (paragraph 1.2): most up-to-date population numbers from both servers;
- Changed Kronos Server location: from Czech Rep. to Sweden;
- Updated Kronos Content release (to match the latest additions) and Particulars (added the character auction house, previously not mentioned);
- Under Game mechanics (paragraph 5.3): added more accurate information about outdoor LoS (Line of Sight).
 
You should investigate the stealth detection "issues" to highlight more differences.

There is a huge discrepancy between both servers on that topic.
Basically:

On nost mobs spot invisible targets, even if their level is higher, from seemingly absurd distances. They also automatically attack.
On kronos it seems to be more accurate and mobs even stop when they detected something, not going automatically over into an attack, that only happens when the rogue is way too close too abruptly.

I am not sure which detection range is right, but nost makes it almost impossible to play without master of deception. However, i don't know if this is prevalent throughout all levelling areas since i only reached into lvl 15.
 
Good point, sure enough though the comparison was never supposed to be comprehensive to begin with. I only tested few things, a couple classes (a ranged one - hunter - and a melee one - warrior), the first few levels and a small portion of a couple starting zones... and yet you can see how long the dossier turned out to be as a result.

Obviously however, it's good to report and discuss further differences here... even if I'm afraid I'm not going to incorporate them within the body of the article.
 
I found your review extremely helpful-especially because i am currently leveling on Nostalrius and have been experiencing some regrets for choosing 'nasty Nosty'. I am particularly displeased by getting DC'd only to login to " Nostalrius is full; position in que XXXX wait < under a minute" Ironically, I first heard of kronos in troll wars on Nasty Nosty's trade channels. I had set up an account with twin star but had not downloaded the client. Thanks to your review I will now definitely fully commit to Kronos! Thanks again!
 
I had set up an account with twin star but had not downloaded the client.

If you aren't already aware, you can use the same client. All you need to do is delete your WDB folder and change the realm list to kronos.
 
On official realms, world PvP is not mandatory. That means allowing yourself to be constantly ganked by jackasses five levels higher than you from the other faction while you're attacking mobs for a quest should be optional by realm selection for this to be a true Vanilla experience. Right now Kronos has 2 PvP realms and no normal realms - the fact that non-PvP realms are the 'normal' ones should give away what Blizzard consider optional - when will Kronos have non-PvP realms and will we be able to transfer characters from PvP realms?
 
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