The Ahn’Qiraj War Effort hasn’t even started, but some realms have already finished it

How long does it take to complete the Qiraji War Effort and open the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj in WoW Classic? This may seem like a trick question, because technically the gates can’t be opened yet — the War Effort to unlock the upcoming raid hasn’t even started. But that doesn’t mean players aren’t hard at work getting ready for Ahn’Qiraj: on Classic server Incendius, the answer to how long does it take has been answered because they’ve already gathered everything they need to complete the War Effort.

Apparently, due to recent server transfers, it’s been a wild ride on Incendius in terms of server population and the Alliance/Horde split, so it was necessary to coordinate to overcome the realm’s 85/15 percentage split — which made things particularly tricky, since Alliance and Horde both have to turn in specific items for the War Effort. This they did, tracking everything they’d gathered on a spreadsheet — so if you’ve ever wondered just how much stuff you’d have to turn in to accomplish this, here it is.

I don’t recall any servers doing this kind of cross-faction coordination back in Vanilla days — my server certainly fought to open the gates with a great deal of effort, but there wasn’t any coordination between factions. Then again, we were a lot closer to 60/40 than 85/15, and the fact that Incendius went through so many drastic shifts in its server pop and Horde vs. Alliance ratio makes this more interesting. How are big, balanced servers faring? Free server transfers were a rare thing back in Vanilla days — my guild participated in one of the first, going from Azjol-Nerub to Norgannon, but it was a done deal well before the Gates opened. As a point of pride, our guild (Sworn on AN, Way of the Warrior on Norg, RIP y’all) managed to get Scarab Lord for our then guild leader, something we were all really pleased about.

It’s fascinating to see how the race to complete the War Effort has changed and is evolving on Classic servers. For all that WoW Classic tries to be a faithful recreation of the old game, time doesn’t go backwards, and people play the game today with all the knowledge of sixteen years of WoW behind them.