Project Maelstrom

We're stocked to announce the open alpha of Project Maelstrom. We're looking for testers to try out the server and give early feedback.

Project maelstrom is a 5.4.8 private server with many custom features, some of the big ones are:

• Classless freepick with Conquest of Azeroth abilities and talents with a twist. With more than 2000+ abilities and 3000+ talents there are endless possibilities for you design your unique character. To unlock these abilities players first need to find the right creature in the world and kill it to absorb it's power.

• With that many combinations, you might ask "how are you going to balance this" and the answer is that we won't*. Instead, every other week all abilities and talents are automatically incrementally nerfed and buffed depending on the how popular the ability or talent is. This means that spells that are overpowered will get auto-nerfed (because people like playing OP builds) and spells that are underperforming gets auto-buffed (because noone will be using them), ultimately leading to an ever-green meta.

• Items have seen major rework and more changes are planned. Leveling items can be upgraded to max level by prestige coins which are earned by taking on leveling trials that dramatically change their leveling journey. Items have gained** unique special abilities that enable new builds and playstyles. All content has been descaled to level 70 meaning that you have a full 4 expansions worth of content to do.

The goals of this project are

• Players should be rewarded for theorycrafting and trying out new stuff. The auto balancer will reward players that discover a fun unique build by buffing builds that no one uses. The meta will change on a regular predictable cadence, and while you absolutely can just play the flavor of the month, that flavor will be different next month. Spells that previously were underperforming will eventually become better, and so every theorycrafting session is a little different than the last time.

• What you do while leveling should matter. We're aiming at enabling this by letting you start the journey of unlocking spells from level 1. Spells that drop from one creature will be different than spells that drops from another creature, and so where you level and which creatures you hunt matters. If you find cool items you can keep them and at max level upgrade them. We are also looking into exploring leveling trials that meaningful changes your leveling journey.

• We want to focus on horizontal progression. One big component of this is through the unlocked collection where players slowly grow their unlocked spells and talents thus enabling new fun builds. Another will be transmog. A third will be gearing which is currently a work in progress. We want it to be easy to get decent generic gear but for the perfect gear of a build to be build specific. This way you can progress towards a new build you want to try out even if at peak gear for your current build.

*We'll obviously do some balancing as necessary but the hope is that the autobalancer will take care of the bulk.
**Only the first few special effects have been released but more are in the works.

Hope to see you!