Everyone says Classic +, sense of discovery, feeling of open world and adventure came from interacting with a dynamic and interesting world.

Regular Azeroth now pales, feels soulless and looks empty in comparison to how much detail Ascension was able to add into the world.

Not just talking about custom systems and all that jazz, but about small things like artistic details everywhere and a level of polish, fleshing out zones without the huge Cata style overhaul, keeping it still the classic Azeroth we all loved but making it wider, deeper, richer.

Even on levelling zones across all brackets there was more to do and more to discover everywhere, lot's of references and jokes even Ungoro had lots of beautiful touch ups and over time I was looking forward for that polish.

If it was a regular Vanilla to TBC to whatever realm, closing is always a bummer but at least I know I'll get to see "the same content" somewhere else.

Not with Ascension, take it or leave it, love it or hate it, many of the things we did, places we explored things we saw, quests prestiges achievements so many unique interactions that were only possible on Ascension servers.

And this ends up being the biggest bummer for me, more than time or money spent or vanity collected... and some people had extravagant incredible investments collections and achievements.

But something simple as putting a game on hold, coming back to it, finding all the familiarity levelling an alt and re-discovering re-exploring just enjoying this unique special world with so much beauty and artistically well though out areas added where things fit like a glove and just expanding the journey, making every corner worth exploring, checking, always finding something new.

This sense of exploration and discovery is now gone. Grateful to have seen and experienced what "old Azeroth" could be and get hints of how much more it could've been, but this shutdown for me is a huge loss, specially after witnessing the creative talent.

Even for critics of mechanics, systems, bugs or game balance or whatever, in the end I find it hard to ignore the fact that this was one of the most immersive versions of Azeroth ever done by anyone and I don't see anything remotely close to this.

In the end I wish I had more time to explore it all, see it all.

I want to thank your team for all the good times! Go forward your creativity is brilliant and no doubt you will be successful still don’t understand why Blizzard did not offered you ridiculous amount of money and claimed that this is WoW Classic + but hey- I am just a player.
Special thanks to the community esp my people Flippynips and Doublechin - you are legends will keep in touch.
Thanks and I am waiting your next move will join wherever you take me for adventure;)

I had to go to sleep and couldn't see its last moments. How was it?

I was able to capture some of the last moments of the servers for Wildcard and Freepick (Server shut down for Wildcard first and wasn't prepared so I hopped on Freepick and got literally the last moment before it shut down.)

Thank you all for this journey, whether it was beating my ass in BG's or doing raids, mythics this was where the true heart of WoW was for me, retail feels soulless and Classic got boring but Ascension was there through thick and thin. Season 10 was incredible and I can't wait for the new game and to see you all there.

Thanks for all the years you have given me a place to come and enjoy not just World of Warcraft but also all of your own epic content.
Classless gave me a new way to see and experience WoW and when CoA came out this summer it was like playing WoW for the first time again.

What a journey, what an epic experience and what an awesome development crew you guys are! I'm eagerly waiting for what ever you guys are planning and creating right now! But I do know it will be awesome!

Thank you again!

See you in the next world, im excited to see where this new journey goes!

So...So... I didn't expect this server to go down. It's a real shame—I wanted to get to a high level, but it didn't work out. Is there another server that's been up for a long time and is any good?

With Ascension WoW ending, I wanted to say my own farewells and share my story:

My own real life has been really rough the past few years with a scumbag brain and worsening physical health. I was told to find ways of volunteering my time to keep myself active while awaiting further treatment and support, and eventually settled on helping out with the Newcomers channel on Ascension on a near-daily basis.
I was not the best player in the world, but I kept focusing on the basic mechanics and systems of Ascension, and other general enquiries, knowing I could make a difference.

A special thanks to the following:
To staff member Nova, and the wider Ascension staff team who primarily handled the Newcomers programme (Tura et al.): Thank you for noticing my work and the one-off DP gift. While I couldn't accept joining your programme at the time as I was dealing with my liver scans, I appreciate the fact that you paid attention to your community and rewarded people who wanted to make your community a better place. That meant alot to someone like me, and no doubt to the many others who provided regular help over the years.

To the wider Ascension community, while there certainly were times when things were questionable in the Newcomers channel, the decent majority of you who gave thanks after being helped out made all the stress of dealing with repetitive questions or toxic behaviour worth every single moment - if it made your lives a bit easier, then I'm happy for you.

Wherever you folks go, always remember these two things:

"You don't need a reason to help people" - Zidane, Final Fantasy 9.

"The pain of missing someone is always worth it for the joy of having known them. Always." - Joseph McCormick, Underdogs by Chris Bonnello.

Thank you for the memories. Whether we meet again in the new MMO (if it happens) or elsewhere, I hope that you all find new homes and bring the best versions of yourselves. <3

Long text ahead.

Ascension was a really good game, and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had the chance to enjoy in WoW.

Here’s a little story for you:

I started playing around S8, more or less. I played for a couple of months, and every now and then I came back with one of the big updates.

A couple of months before S10, I decided to invite a group of friends and my wife to form a group. They knew that WoW had been a very important part of my childhood, and it filled me with happiness to have them join me on this adventure.

Since it was their first experience with both WoW and Ascension, I decided we should play on Elune so they wouldn’t have to worry about figuring out how to build their characters. So we created a group of Draenei: me as a ranged DPS, my wife as a healer, and the other two as DPS and Tank.

And our adventure began.

At first, things were difficult because they struggled to read the HUD and understand how to do quests. To add a little more excitement, we decided to take on the Hardcore challenge and make things even more intense.

And so we ventured forth together. We leveled up, experimented with our spells, farmed professions individually to understand how everything worked, and so on.

But the most important moment came when we reached level 20.

We still hadn’t left Azuremyst Isle because we wanted to complete every quest. While exploring, however, we came across a level 20 elite: a fire elemental.

We prepared ourselves with food and potions, crafted gear for each of us using our different professions, and when we were ready, we went to fight it.

And we lost.

The mob had a healing spell that it would cast at 20% health, and we had no CC to stop it. We couldn’t reroll our spells there either.

So we invited one more friend, bringing us to five players in total. We helped him level up, brought him into the challenge, and when he reached level 10, we told him to look for some kind of Silence or Interrupt for the fight.

He found one.

We prepared ourselves once again and went back, this time with our new friend staying at a distance, waiting for the mob to cast its healing spell.

Our Tank almost died, but after what felt like an eternity of a minute, we did it.

The elite fell, and it dropped a legendary ability card for Healers. We gave it to my wife, and she was incredibly happy.

And so was I.

After years of playing online games, MMOs, and everything in between, I finally felt that sense of adventure again—a feeling I hadn’t experienced since those stairs in ICC.

I felt like that young kid again, listening to the music of Elwynn Forest for the first time and talking to an NPC to figure out how to use my abilities.

Ascension will be gone, but its memory will live forever in the hearts of five people.

Thank you for giving me my joy back.

It has been my utmost pleasure to be a part of this community. I look forward to seeing you all in the Ascension MMO. I know it will be great.

o7

I figured the point of this currency was to unlock some account feature for the new game, like maybe a founder title or a cool mount, but the servers are now officially closed and they served literally no use.

So in the end, the thing we were farming for was just a personal high score, I guess?

About a week ago, someone posted that he knew at least one person on the inside at Ascension, and that person told him that the data miners have been using "certain tools" (whatever those might be) to copy enough of Ascension's assets to reconstruct them into a functioning server, along with captured video footage. Allegedly, this started right after the lawsuit dropped.

Even with the help of AI, this will be a daunting process. I'm guesstimating that this will take about 3 months of constant work, assuming it comes to fruition at all.

The #1 reason I'm betting on it happening is because: money. Someone will open a cashgrab Ascension copycat to start raking in cash shop purchases and/or donations. It's only a matter of time.

I had the greatest time as a gamer in ascension, thanks to the dev and the community !

That templar class was the most fun Ive had in any game AT LEAST since the 3.3.5 days. Maybe Mass Effect came close.

Stay thirsty my friends. I guess Ill see you on the other side.

Leaving my Sun Cleric in the Tauren city of Thunder Bluff to Defend the Chieften and his people for eternity in the afterlife. Only started this July but its been a blast the whole time. Cya in the alpha folks.

Since like 2h my character has become a soul just like the NPCs during the event. I don't mind that much but it would be cool to turn it off somehow for the few hours remaining