Server:Anub'arak US

Anub'arak is an Eastern Time Zone PvP server and part of the Vengeance US battlegroup. It was launched on August 21st 2006, just a few months prior to the launch of The Burning Crusade expansion.

The server is named after Anub'arak, a former king and now Crypt Lord of the lost spider kingdom of Azjol-Nerub.

Server population and health
Anub'arak is a low population server with a severe realm imbalance in favor of the Horde. Current estimates place the Alliance to Horde ratio at approximately 1 to 7.7 overall and approximately 1 to 8.7 at level 80 (i.e. over 90% of the server's level 80s are Horde). Anub'arak also has a disproportionately high population of Blood Elves (more-so than most other servers). As an example, there are about as many Blood Elf Paladins on Anub'arak as there are Alliance players put together.

The low population has lead to questing areas often being completely empty, making group quests very difficult to complete without a friend or a guild mate lending their time. Farming spots are often empty as well. Rare items (world drops), recipes, and crafts may be hard to come by, as very limited people have them.

Due to this, the economy of the server is somewhat inflated. Objects and materials which would be commonplace on higher population realms are considered rare, and so prices are considerably higher then the norm on most servers. Many players are able to play the auction house in this way to their great advantage, making huge sums of money. This is especially true with the introduction of the Mobile Auction house.

A very large portion of Anub'arak's character population is alts.

Anub'arak has been a target realm for free server transfers on multiple occasions. It has also been set to a 'recommended' realm for quite a while. Unfortunately, both these efforts have failed to alleviate the server's population issues.

Community and progression
Anub'arak does not receive new players, hence most of the people on the server are those that have been there for a very long time and have a core group of friends that they play with. This has lead to a somewhat cliquey community. While not outright hostile to new players, most players on Anub'arak prefer to socialize within their respective cliques, which is a significant barrier to entry for new players to the server.

Due to its limited size, Anub'arak does not have a strong raiding scene or a significant group of experienced raiders. Recently the server has seen an increase in raiding interest, as a result of the approaching Cataclysm expansion. At this time there are approximately 3 10 man guilds that consider themselves 'hardcore', and 1 25 man guild that considers itself 'hardcore'. All others would be best labelled 'casual', as they do not have regimented group rosters, nor consistent progression. Alliance side raiding is almost non-existent. Overall, Anub'arak as a server is ranked 173rd out of the 241 US realms where raiding is concerned. This server is compliant with the use of Gearscore addon for advertising PUG raids in trade. Pugs will often ask for a minimum gearscore, and players will usually PST their gearscore in asking to join a PUG.

As far as PvP and Arenas are concerned, Anub'arak has a very, very small set of players that are interested in serious high level arena play. The best arena team from Anub'arak can consistently place in the top 40 on Whirlwind battlegroup arena ladder.

The significant population on Anub'arak are either solo players, small, very casual guilds or alts.

Guilds

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History
Anub'arak was opened on August 21st, 2006. This was one of many servers opened 5 months prior to TBC release. Anub'arak showed a lot of promise early on in its history with the Alliance guild Chilltown tearing through pre-BC content. They completed ZG before the first 60's came up on the Horde faction. By the time the first Horde guilds were clearing MC, Chilltown had already cleared BWL. They also went on to clear several bosses in Naxxramas, without ever setting foot in AQ. Chilltown eventually fell apart due to lack of raid attendance.

Opening of the Gates
The gates were opened by a hunter from the guild Prey, on the horde side, 2 weeks prior to TBC. Alliance had a deep distaste for the Horde, which has its roots here, as the Alliance blamed the Horde for not pulling their own weight and sabotaging the war-effort to open the gates at AQ.

Burning Crusade
By Burning Crusade many of the Alliance had transferred off, shifting the progression power to the Horde. Alliance guilds like The Final Sanctum transferred off prior to Tier 5 content and so the Alliance was left struggling in tier 4 while many horde guilds progressed to Lady Vashj and Kael'Thas. After patch 2.1 and the opening of the Black Temple, horde guilds moved into t6 content and the alliance guilds Epinicion, Deadly Soap, and the transfer-guild Skyfang began to progress into t5 giving some hope to Alliance raiding. Horde guilds like Revolving Door, Twilight, Legion de MonteCristo, and Divine Comedy were achieving server firsts in Hyjal and BT.

As T6 content became stale, many horde raid guilds began to fall apart as farming Illidan became routine for them. The Alliance guild  found itself incapable of progressing farther into 25-man content and so they chose to raid 10-man ZA and Kara and become one of the premier PvP guilds on the server. Epinicion became the only guild on the Alliance side to clear SSC and TK and Skyfang later joined them in Hyjal and BT as soon as the entrance requirements were removed. Eventually Skyfang dissolved and Epinicion transferred to the Dark Iron server after progression and recruitment became grueling after the Teron Gorefiend encounter.