Yesterday, I transferred two characters from Aggramar EU to Moonglade, a RP server. (Requested the transfer in the morning, and it was complete by midday – go, Blizz!) As soon as I got home after work, I logged in, checked my bank and bags and such to make sure that nothing had been lost in translation, and then went exploring.

I felt very, very lost, which surprised me. Obviously it was the same world, the same landscape, all the NPCs were in the same places, but the actual people, that mostly-unnoticed fabric that makes up a world, had changed. As a player who (outside of instances with the guild) mainly solos and rarely does pickup groups, I hadn’t realised just how many of the names and personalities I was familiar with: the famous scammer on the server (every realm has at least one that is known far and wide), the usual trolls and people who bitch about others misusing LFG, the players that you notice because of their funny/weird/obnoxious names (and once having noticed them, you seem to see them everywhere), the duelling-outside-IF crowd, the power-levellers that are constantly looking for PUGs. You know the names of the bots and farmers, and where they lurk, and you know which ones have been booted.

And now, that fabric has been changed. Strange feeling, and quite unexpected.