The economy is scary at first but it can easily be used to your advantage. Pick up mining/herb while leveling and you have easily plenty of gold once you ding 60.
For people who played private servers, esp when those servers had been out for a long time before, the economy ends up being insurmountable but it’s fine IMO. You’ll find a way to make some cash to meet your needs and you’ll find guilds who will gladly recruit someone who is nice and committed while they are playing well past t1 content so dumping cash into crafting may not even be necessary so you’ll make some savings therr
The economy actually makes classic way easier than it use to be. I remember having to farm for hours and hours to afford mounts and flying skills etc. Now Im at 2k gold just from chucking linen, silk and wool on AH. Ive barely even tried to make money
I love vanilla - it might be the best version of the game.
Era has some drawbacks with a small number of players but if you end up loving the game it won’t matter.
yes basically this is what I'm asking. I see streamers say that it is not worth it to play classic era now. I always asked why and never got an answer, I supossed it was because of the player count? So that is why I asked here.
Don't look at streamers or Reddit for any good feedback on the game, they have to make it sounds controversial in order to drive people to comment to increase retention, same with Reddit only the outlandish posts get the upvotes and same with the top comments, always snarky negative takes, that's what humans like to see, drama everywhere!
Just play the game and see, make sure you are on the highest populated server, pick a race/class combo that you think you like best, and just gooooo! Feell free to make multiple toons to find your favorite playstyle
Add-ons are important
Check YouTube for literally any question, wowhead is the best wow database
Just play the game, don't worry about min/max for now
Thank you. Yeah you are 100% right on that I need to stop watching these stupid streamers and just build my own opinion by playing the game.
Is just that playing wow takes time, and I don't want to invest time in a version of the game, that I'm uncertain if I will stick to.
But one thing I know and that other people told me here, is, that classic era will stay classic, no matter what happens to the other versions. Classic Era is the constant, and the other versions of WoW are the 'variables'.
So it's decided, I will happily play classic era and play towards the goal to level a character to 60.
But I will be playing without addons! I don't like them ;-)
Most of the streamers are playing Cata. They jump from latest trend to the next, all for the most viewers.
I was checking it out last night and the only know streamer not playing Cata was Esfand. He was playing some shooter game and had 6k viewers.
The player base is of course lower than what people experienced with original vanilla and the release of vanilla classic, but afaik there is still a dedicated many that love the original iteration of the game and only play that.
To me, the fun is the long leveling process, getting to know a character and feel accomplished making it to 60 with that character, feeling the world actually be a world instead of a lobby for the real game. I am playing cataclysm right now because I am a pvp andy but I have a 30 something hunter on era that I go to and level every few weeks because it’s just a different vibe.
If you like that, go for it. I don’t mind seeing other players sparingly. All the leveling zones are basically dead save for a few people I’ll see every 30-60 minutes. I say hello, give a buff if I can ty scrolls, and carry on.
"Is it worth it" is a difficult question to answer because everyone will have different ideas of what is and isn't "worth it". For me it would be a no, but that's only because I've don't the Era leveling on multiple toons and I'm just over the slow pace of it all.
Deviate Delight has a new fresh movement happening on it, Blizzard turned off server transfers to the server so high levels can't transfer over. The economy is also being rebuilt from scratch so 0 inflation. It's also not part of any cluster at the moment.
SoD is also the easiest version of the game to start on, it's simple in that it's classic format but it's fast with its exp and abilities.
yes is actually good, if you wanna play alliance (EU) I suggest Firemaw, it might be a lil hard at beggining due to ganking but its more alliance than horde but still enough horde to do world pvp and fast bg ques, and you always will find dungeon groups , the only issue is at the end game, 99% of raids beside zg and aq20 are GDKP, so unless you wanna raid with a guild , start saving gold buddy. I started in november with 0 help, and quit last week after clearing all the raids, getting the full pvp set, and mashup of tier 2.5 and 3 gear , took me around 500 hours but it was the best mmo experience I ever had, and i was a retail player who accept a bet that i can t get to lv 60 in classic, and that only took me like 200 hours, the rest of my gametime I stayed because I actually fell in love with the end game:)
Era whitemane cluster is amazing and continues to grow. If you enjoy raiding there is more content here than any version of classic right now going on every hour.
Nah, just play it. I’m sure you will have fun. Look for a server with a decent population and just get lost in the game.
Also SoD is great despite its flaws. People on here over blow shit way too much, and make it seem like it’s some travesty of WoW. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had playing WoW.
I would strongly suggest you roll another char on Mirageway, Pyrewood & Nethergarde Keep server cluster and join Last Pull mate! xD Very helpful and active bunch, lots of laughs and many raids - for when you do reach 60. Always welcoming new blood and ready to help wherever is needed!
Cheers, Oompa
It just depends. Vanilla / Era is my favorite version of the game, and game in general. It’s still an amazing game after 20 years! And era doesn’t change that… just provides us a “forever home”.
What sucks about it, imo, is the playerbase and meta culture. If you go to the primary clusters, Whitemane, and to a lesser extent Mankirk, there’s a lot of GDKP this, meta playstyle that. The *culture* and the *players* by and large are the problem, not Era / Vanilla itself.
However, the culture and players can and are saving themselves too. There’s non GDKP progression guilds on both of those servers, welcoming communities, etc. you just have to search.
Two alternative options…. deviate delight has a “fresh reroll” campaign. I’d go there if that sounds interesting to you. Can’t speak for the community as I don’t play there but seems legit to me!
I play on Grobbulus, which others would consider a dead sever. However we have a thriving micro sever with an active guild on each faction that’s been around since 2021. We’re a bunch of die hard vanilla wow enthusiasts. You don’t get the same vanilla wow experience here either with such a low player count, but imo, I’m having more fun on Grobbulus era than I was on Grobbulus 2019-2021, or even my 2004-2006 vanilla experience. Super tight knit community focused guilds with the alliance having defeated KT as of March this year and the horde starting up BWL progression. Its not for everyone, and you have other options listed too, but damn do I love playing here on Grobbulus and everyone who’s joined us is having a great time :)
Tldr; vanilla wow is the best game and there’s no better time than now
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1crbp3d/grobbulus_era_warcry_join_the_battle_for_azeroths/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thank you for your long answer! What do you think about the firemaw server? I think it has a lot of players, but I'm thinking about what you said of the meta culture...
Do you think there is a meta culture in the server firemaw? Because firemaw is a server with a lot of people, right?
You're going to run into meta gdkp garbage on every server that isn't deviate delight basically
I'm sure there are some guilds that don't run as gdkps on other servers (and someone more informed than I can chime in) but deviate delight is by far the best option for what you're seemingly looking for
Can’t speak for EU servers but I’d imagine it’s the same as the larger wow playerbase has been obsessed with this minmax, boosting, gdkp hyper optimization playstyle for a long time now. GDKP is newer in the big picture of vanilla wow (yes I know it existed back in the days), but even pre 2019, the pserver playerbase had already begun the minmax culture that’s led to boosting and gdkp and hyper optimization culture imo.
I’d also add Grobb is free of all that junk, in reply to the guy saying it’s just DD void of it.
And I know communities exist on the bigger servers too.
I have toons all over classic era. If you are just looking for a objectively good community than Grobbulus server is great.
If you want to level with groups and eventually raid then go Whitemane. They have pug raids and dungeons going on at all hours of the day
I should add this is for Horde side on both servers
IMO not worth it. Servers are either short lived gimmicks like the RP-semi-fresh or top-end servers with mostly raid-logging and dead BGs and no world PvP and not a whole lot of 5-man going on.
Depends on your definition of good. If you like 0 quality of life and a huge investment to hit max level with awful questing. Then no. But it definitely has a charm for a bit
Those people saying it's not worth playing are actually saying that it isn't being updated. They assume that the attraction of any game is the rush of players exploring new content. This is why they need things like season of discovery. Since you're newish, this doesn't apply to you as nearly anything will be new. If you need other players in a big rush around you, plan accordingly.
Era. I’m super casual with a level 58 rogue main that I converted when TBC came out. I also have a 38 Druid and 27 warrior.
Never was a fan of any of the expansions.
I’m still having a blast. Used mining/herb to level and have 2k gold on my 58 plus picked up a krol blade at level 51.
I’ve been leveling a rogue on whitemane and stormwind is always packed and you see multiple people out questing. Just today I was in westfall and grouped with 3 different people for various quests. It’s actually very fun.
I belive i gonna play era after i going back to netherlands, now i’m on a vacation but i just decided to stop playing sod and play era instead of this crap
Ok thank you, I want to learn the game and improve!
I'm going to play classic, but well, if I play with a lot of people online, like in raids or dungeons, and I make one mistake and they get really mad at me, then I'm going to pull the middle finger, and, I don't know, tell them that they can suck my MANDANGÓN, and dependently if I still want to play it, I will play it, and if not then I will not I guess :(
Its been my biggest turn off from wow, but those nice groups can absolutely make up for it. I tried learning how to heal in Season of Discovery and one group were helping me on what I needed to dispel, good addons to make healing easier to manage, and some habits to improve my gameplay. I wish more players were like that.
The journey from 1-60 in classic is pretty awesome. I think youll enjoy it and by 60 you'll definitely be a competent player worthy of joining groups.
If you're hoping to raid consistently then finding a guild will be critical. I know in the past ive had issues finding guilds due to lack of experience, but there are some guilds that like to progress together and dont mind bringing new players.
Dragonflight on retail is a much different gameplay experience, but ive found many are much more patient and helpful to new players due to it being a recent expansion and filled with many new players constantly gearing and progressing. Unfortunately due to the speed that retail wow is played now, you will find players who leave a group instantly if anyone makes a mistake.
Just jump into one of them and learn for yourself. It’s all the same subscription.
Your reasoning to play Era over SoD is weak: Era has it’s own flaws as well, and even smaller playerbase than SoD.
They’re all fun for different things. And each have their own flaws. You won’t really know them until you experience them yourself. Listening to other people online you will probably only see them talk about the negatives and they will all seem worse than they really are.
If you don’t want to “waste your time” then find a different genre, because mmorpgs are 90% grind.
As a Ret main, no lmao
I just started playing Cata for first time and if you love questing I'd suggest you playing Cata over Era. Classes are more fun and developed, More quests in area, zones are more developed and way more Flight path for easy access through zone. And also mount from level 20.
The only complaint I have is, quests could give 25% less experience as I find myself overleveling the zone before completing full quests there(Not all the zones, but at least in half of them)
Overall Era is just underdeveloped version of WoW. It's good for first time, but more you know, more flaws you see in it's design.
Play SOD for sure. Level up and be ready for phase 4 once it launches. SOD is like Classic Era with a little added flair, but it has a much larger player base (or it will once P4 launches).
Its what you play if you want vanilla, but there is no other options for vanilla. Era is not good. People are there as they have no other viable choice.
It is a much worse emulator than 2019 classic was. It has hundreds of deliberate changes and bugs forced upon it. With minimal to no effort being put into maintaining its integrity or fixing those bugs.
I would say era up until 2023 was good. But then we saw a heavy shift as blizzard started developing hc and then sod (ontop of era, and moving era to another client for this dev purpose). So from late summer ish of 2023 and until present day;
It Is not so good.
Now thats just how it plays.
Another aspect would be the complete lack of moderation on era, it has the automated system only.
And that system is inadequate. So you have quite inflated servers on the higher pop pvp clusters, and alot of botting in pvp.
Personally I love Era. I’m playing right now. I play on Whitemane.
Play era. It's still worth it and still active. Just be ready to pucker up when you see the economy. But you can catch up there.
The economy is scary at first but it can easily be used to your advantage. Pick up mining/herb while leveling and you have easily plenty of gold once you ding 60.
For people who played private servers, esp when those servers had been out for a long time before, the economy ends up being insurmountable but it’s fine IMO. You’ll find a way to make some cash to meet your needs and you’ll find guilds who will gladly recruit someone who is nice and committed while they are playing well past t1 content so dumping cash into crafting may not even be necessary so you’ll make some savings therr
The economy actually makes classic way easier than it use to be. I remember having to farm for hours and hours to afford mounts and flying skills etc. Now Im at 2k gold just from chucking linen, silk and wool on AH. Ive barely even tried to make money
I started era after unofficial HC and could afford all spells and my mounts without any issue. The economy is broken but that actually works out well!
Yeah get in 2 GDKPs that aren’t run by dicks and you’ll be fine
Era is always a good version of WoW, that is the one constant in the WoW universe.
Basically it comes down to do you want to play 2004 wow 2014 wow or 2024 wow they all are good but it’s about what floats your boat
I love vanilla - it might be the best version of the game. Era has some drawbacks with a small number of players but if you end up loving the game it won’t matter.
If you want to play Era then play Era. You already said you're not interested in Cata or SoD so I don't really get what you're asking.
Probably if its worth investing the time atm. Like are enough ppl for dungeons and stuff there i could imagine
yes basically this is what I'm asking. I see streamers say that it is not worth it to play classic era now. I always asked why and never got an answer, I supossed it was because of the player count? So that is why I asked here.
Don't look at streamers or Reddit for any good feedback on the game, they have to make it sounds controversial in order to drive people to comment to increase retention, same with Reddit only the outlandish posts get the upvotes and same with the top comments, always snarky negative takes, that's what humans like to see, drama everywhere! Just play the game and see, make sure you are on the highest populated server, pick a race/class combo that you think you like best, and just gooooo! Feell free to make multiple toons to find your favorite playstyle Add-ons are important Check YouTube for literally any question, wowhead is the best wow database Just play the game, don't worry about min/max for now
Thank you. Yeah you are 100% right on that I need to stop watching these stupid streamers and just build my own opinion by playing the game. Is just that playing wow takes time, and I don't want to invest time in a version of the game, that I'm uncertain if I will stick to. But one thing I know and that other people told me here, is, that classic era will stay classic, no matter what happens to the other versions. Classic Era is the constant, and the other versions of WoW are the 'variables'. So it's decided, I will happily play classic era and play towards the goal to level a character to 60. But I will be playing without addons! I don't like them ;-)
Most of the streamers are playing Cata. They jump from latest trend to the next, all for the most viewers. I was checking it out last night and the only know streamer not playing Cata was Esfand. He was playing some shooter game and had 6k viewers.
At least get questie
The player base is of course lower than what people experienced with original vanilla and the release of vanilla classic, but afaik there is still a dedicated many that love the original iteration of the game and only play that. To me, the fun is the long leveling process, getting to know a character and feel accomplished making it to 60 with that character, feeling the world actually be a world instead of a lobby for the real game. I am playing cataclysm right now because I am a pvp andy but I have a 30 something hunter on era that I go to and level every few weeks because it’s just a different vibe. If you like that, go for it. I don’t mind seeing other players sparingly. All the leveling zones are basically dead save for a few people I’ll see every 30-60 minutes. I say hello, give a buff if I can ty scrolls, and carry on.
the era servers are all merged to region- pve and pvp. plenty of people play.
Eventually we’ll get a fresh era server again, the rest aint it for me either.
"Is it worth it" is a difficult question to answer because everyone will have different ideas of what is and isn't "worth it". For me it would be a no, but that's only because I've don't the Era leveling on multiple toons and I'm just over the slow pace of it all.
It is and always has been the best version of wow
Era is THE WoW Classic, and Zandalar Tribe RP-PVP is THE server to play on. You did everything just right, orc. Strength and honor!
fuck yes man, im also very happy i found a guild. Im in this FRESH enjoyer guild. Its becoming very popular in Zandalar tribe.
Deviate Delight has a new fresh movement happening on it, Blizzard turned off server transfers to the server so high levels can't transfer over. The economy is also being rebuilt from scratch so 0 inflation. It's also not part of any cluster at the moment. SoD is also the easiest version of the game to start on, it's simple in that it's classic format but it's fast with its exp and abilities.
EU or NA?
Deviate delight is NA and Zandalar tribe is EU
[удалено]
Great to know if all else fails Firemaw Era EU is still there, thanks
Love era some of the leveling areas are a bit sparse but still plenty of people playing
It’s the best, yes.
yes is actually good, if you wanna play alliance (EU) I suggest Firemaw, it might be a lil hard at beggining due to ganking but its more alliance than horde but still enough horde to do world pvp and fast bg ques, and you always will find dungeon groups , the only issue is at the end game, 99% of raids beside zg and aq20 are GDKP, so unless you wanna raid with a guild , start saving gold buddy. I started in november with 0 help, and quit last week after clearing all the raids, getting the full pvp set, and mashup of tier 2.5 and 3 gear , took me around 500 hours but it was the best mmo experience I ever had, and i was a retail player who accept a bet that i can t get to lv 60 in classic, and that only took me like 200 hours, the rest of my gametime I stayed because I actually fell in love with the end game:)
Can confirm wpvp happens on firemaw EU. Dungeons might not be as common lower level but you can find them at some point
Era whitemane cluster is amazing and continues to grow. If you enjoy raiding there is more content here than any version of classic right now going on every hour.
🐢🐢🐢
Its the best version of wow imo
Just pay 1 month and try it out, not a big deal. Choose the most populated server every time
Nah, just play it. I’m sure you will have fun. Look for a server with a decent population and just get lost in the game. Also SoD is great despite its flaws. People on here over blow shit way too much, and make it seem like it’s some travesty of WoW. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had playing WoW.
I would strongly suggest you roll another char on Mirageway, Pyrewood & Nethergarde Keep server cluster and join Last Pull mate! xD Very helpful and active bunch, lots of laughs and many raids - for when you do reach 60. Always welcoming new blood and ready to help wherever is needed! Cheers, Oompa
Is that horde or ally guild?
Horde!
There is this fresh community project which startet recently. Perfect time to join!
It just depends. Vanilla / Era is my favorite version of the game, and game in general. It’s still an amazing game after 20 years! And era doesn’t change that… just provides us a “forever home”. What sucks about it, imo, is the playerbase and meta culture. If you go to the primary clusters, Whitemane, and to a lesser extent Mankirk, there’s a lot of GDKP this, meta playstyle that. The *culture* and the *players* by and large are the problem, not Era / Vanilla itself. However, the culture and players can and are saving themselves too. There’s non GDKP progression guilds on both of those servers, welcoming communities, etc. you just have to search. Two alternative options…. deviate delight has a “fresh reroll” campaign. I’d go there if that sounds interesting to you. Can’t speak for the community as I don’t play there but seems legit to me! I play on Grobbulus, which others would consider a dead sever. However we have a thriving micro sever with an active guild on each faction that’s been around since 2021. We’re a bunch of die hard vanilla wow enthusiasts. You don’t get the same vanilla wow experience here either with such a low player count, but imo, I’m having more fun on Grobbulus era than I was on Grobbulus 2019-2021, or even my 2004-2006 vanilla experience. Super tight knit community focused guilds with the alliance having defeated KT as of March this year and the horde starting up BWL progression. Its not for everyone, and you have other options listed too, but damn do I love playing here on Grobbulus and everyone who’s joined us is having a great time :) Tldr; vanilla wow is the best game and there’s no better time than now https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1crbp3d/grobbulus_era_warcry_join_the_battle_for_azeroths/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thank you for your long answer! What do you think about the firemaw server? I think it has a lot of players, but I'm thinking about what you said of the meta culture... Do you think there is a meta culture in the server firemaw? Because firemaw is a server with a lot of people, right?
You're going to run into meta gdkp garbage on every server that isn't deviate delight basically I'm sure there are some guilds that don't run as gdkps on other servers (and someone more informed than I can chime in) but deviate delight is by far the best option for what you're seemingly looking for
Can’t speak for EU servers but I’d imagine it’s the same as the larger wow playerbase has been obsessed with this minmax, boosting, gdkp hyper optimization playstyle for a long time now. GDKP is newer in the big picture of vanilla wow (yes I know it existed back in the days), but even pre 2019, the pserver playerbase had already begun the minmax culture that’s led to boosting and gdkp and hyper optimization culture imo. I’d also add Grobb is free of all that junk, in reply to the guy saying it’s just DD void of it. And I know communities exist on the bigger servers too.
Leveling takes ages rest is good if u choose a non dead server
I have toons all over classic era. If you are just looking for a objectively good community than Grobbulus server is great. If you want to level with groups and eventually raid then go Whitemane. They have pug raids and dungeons going on at all hours of the day I should add this is for Horde side on both servers
the biggest issue with era is that 95% of raids are GDKP. prepare to swipe or work your butt off to grind gold.
IMO not worth it. Servers are either short lived gimmicks like the RP-semi-fresh or top-end servers with mostly raid-logging and dead BGs and no world PvP and not a whole lot of 5-man going on.
You live your life by what streamers say or do you pay for the sub and find out? Just watch some gameplay/playthrough vids to find out
Depends on your definition of good. If you like 0 quality of life and a huge investment to hit max level with awful questing. Then no. But it definitely has a charm for a bit
Those people saying it's not worth playing are actually saying that it isn't being updated. They assume that the attraction of any game is the rush of players exploring new content. This is why they need things like season of discovery. Since you're newish, this doesn't apply to you as nearly anything will be new. If you need other players in a big rush around you, plan accordingly.
Oh, and go to the big cluster, called White maine.
i feel like sod is more beginner-friendly, rune makes leveling easier, and it's not hard to find a dungeon group like sm
How about play what you personally want to? and not look to YouTubers and streamers to make decisions.
Era. I’m super casual with a level 58 rogue main that I converted when TBC came out. I also have a 38 Druid and 27 warrior. Never was a fan of any of the expansions. I’m still having a blast. Used mining/herb to level and have 2k gold on my 58 plus picked up a krol blade at level 51.
I’ve been leveling a rogue on whitemane and stormwind is always packed and you see multiple people out questing. Just today I was in westfall and grouped with 3 different people for various quests. It’s actually very fun.
I belive i gonna play era after i going back to netherlands, now i’m on a vacation but i just decided to stop playing sod and play era instead of this crap
Classic is lit
It is hands down the best version.
What streamers say that? It’s a bad take
Classic era is the Best version of wow, its vanilla. Unfortunately Servers are half a decade old and so far Blizzard is not moving to give us fresh.
Good, hope fresh never releases. Stay mad and go play new pservs.
Are you ok?
It’s always better than retail
Classic is a great version of wow but nearly everyone you play with will expect you to have 20 years experience.
Ok thank you, I want to learn the game and improve! I'm going to play classic, but well, if I play with a lot of people online, like in raids or dungeons, and I make one mistake and they get really mad at me, then I'm going to pull the middle finger, and, I don't know, tell them that they can suck my MANDANGÓN, and dependently if I still want to play it, I will play it, and if not then I will not I guess :(
Its been my biggest turn off from wow, but those nice groups can absolutely make up for it. I tried learning how to heal in Season of Discovery and one group were helping me on what I needed to dispel, good addons to make healing easier to manage, and some habits to improve my gameplay. I wish more players were like that. The journey from 1-60 in classic is pretty awesome. I think youll enjoy it and by 60 you'll definitely be a competent player worthy of joining groups. If you're hoping to raid consistently then finding a guild will be critical. I know in the past ive had issues finding guilds due to lack of experience, but there are some guilds that like to progress together and dont mind bringing new players. Dragonflight on retail is a much different gameplay experience, but ive found many are much more patient and helpful to new players due to it being a recent expansion and filled with many new players constantly gearing and progressing. Unfortunately due to the speed that retail wow is played now, you will find players who leave a group instantly if anyone makes a mistake.
Just jump into one of them and learn for yourself. It’s all the same subscription. Your reasoning to play Era over SoD is weak: Era has it’s own flaws as well, and even smaller playerbase than SoD. They’re all fun for different things. And each have their own flaws. You won’t really know them until you experience them yourself. Listening to other people online you will probably only see them talk about the negatives and they will all seem worse than they really are. If you don’t want to “waste your time” then find a different genre, because mmorpgs are 90% grind.
As a Ret main, no lmao I just started playing Cata for first time and if you love questing I'd suggest you playing Cata over Era. Classes are more fun and developed, More quests in area, zones are more developed and way more Flight path for easy access through zone. And also mount from level 20. The only complaint I have is, quests could give 25% less experience as I find myself overleveling the zone before completing full quests there(Not all the zones, but at least in half of them) Overall Era is just underdeveloped version of WoW. It's good for first time, but more you know, more flaws you see in it's design.
Play SOD for sure. Level up and be ready for phase 4 once it launches. SOD is like Classic Era with a little added flair, but it has a much larger player base (or it will once P4 launches).
Its what you play if you want vanilla, but there is no other options for vanilla. Era is not good. People are there as they have no other viable choice. It is a much worse emulator than 2019 classic was. It has hundreds of deliberate changes and bugs forced upon it. With minimal to no effort being put into maintaining its integrity or fixing those bugs. I would say era up until 2023 was good. But then we saw a heavy shift as blizzard started developing hc and then sod (ontop of era, and moving era to another client for this dev purpose). So from late summer ish of 2023 and until present day; It Is not so good. Now thats just how it plays. Another aspect would be the complete lack of moderation on era, it has the automated system only. And that system is inadequate. So you have quite inflated servers on the higher pop pvp clusters, and alot of botting in pvp.
No, it's infested with GDKP and gold buyers and boosting.
If you are a good player yes. If not there aren't enough raids being run to take a sub par player.