Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Deleted]

There would always be some, no matter how good retail was. You're pretty much asking absolute perfection that appeals equally to many different people. A bit naive I must say.

It's not about perfection as that is subjective for game design anyway. It's just that the game fundamentally changed wich naturally causes disinterest in some of the original players. It would primaly need to retain it's original tone to retain them.

[Jokerfiend]

Apparently, when making an argument that Blizz is lying to their investors (which would be a good way to lose said investors), China is uninhabited. All accounts from China are bots Blizz made and keeps subscribed to falsify sub reports.

My attack on Blizzard has nothing to do with Nos. Blizzard has inflated numbers in subscribers. The amount of players in the US and EU are far lower than what is projected. So unless you are Chinese and playing the Chinese/Korean servers which are different games, none the less, Chinese server mean squat to the discussion. Which mean Blizzard numbers are subjective to say the least.

[Sinyc]

What does Blizzard do when it's general population finds out, that it can get Blizzard products for free?

General population isn't savvy enough for private realms, especially when they see them getting shut down.....

[Tuesdays]

The "they just wanted to shut down someone pirating their product" argument would have worked if they actually did just that. An easy google will give so many hits on so many different private servers (private servers have existed since vanilla. A friend of mine used to host one), but they only chose to go after Nostalrius because it actually garnered a lot of interest and a good reputation.

Blizz have always known there were private servers. They just didn't care... before now.

I'm sure they cared before now, since action taken probably started months ago; however is it worth it to go after every single little pserver? No. Nos to them was a big enough problem, and they took it down. You can probably thank all the streamers who made it a big via all the sheeple they command.

If you don't like how wow is now, stop playing, Blizzard owes you nothing.

[bonekrusher]

Once again, you never payed for the game - you only payed for access to the servers. If you can't handle that, don't support blizz, it's that simple.

It's not "that simple". This is why people go to private servers. So they can have the access to what they already "paid for" and have a reminiscent experience to go along with their current subscription which offers timewalking to relive old content and transmog to customize you gear with your favorite oldskool tier sets.

As far as supporting Blizz; I've managed 3 accounts for over 10 years (mine, my wife's, my brother's) as well as kept a few guild members accounts active here and there during that same time frame. Trust me... I support Blizz. I'm still an active subscriber and will be for a long time. I have had beta access to Cata, Mists, hearthstone, HoTS... my wife has had beta access to Cata, HoTS, WoD and currently Overwatch (Damn her!).

All I ask for are some options. Myself, my family and my friends have invested over 10 years of our lives playing a game we love. If they won't allocate resources to legacy servers, we'll deal with it. And by "deal with it" I mean playing a private server on occasion.

If you can't "handle that", then you're missing the point. It's that simple.

[Baconeggcheese]

Turning that on its head Nost had about 100K active accounts for free. It's not a great deal of evidence to convince a game studio that sells games by the millions that they should invest any time or money in it. I don't disagree about the quality of play and I do agree there's much there for Blizzard to think about but it's very thin evidence that a return to that style of play would stop the slide in subs. It might be a preference, yours or mine, but there's nothing at all there to suggest that it would be successful in new content that people pay to play.

I disagree with that heavily, if you have the slightest knowledge of what kind of numbers etc private servers rake in for how below the radar they are... especially on what was a true copy of a 10 year old game... it was absolutely insane that nost managed to rake in the amount of players that it did.

The game was seeing averages of 8k players active at a time with 13k players at peak. It had over 100k (I've heard some wildly varying numbers between 100 and 150k) active users and over 800k accounts made on it. That's massive especially considering it's only existed for a little over a year. That is about as successful as some other legit games are. Again if you've much experience with private servers this kind of sustained interest is far and away from insignificant.

On an aside I don't really get why they don't have xpac specific servers. Their excuse is the whole splitting of the dev team and not having the files, neither of which make any sense. They absolutely have the files, these private servers wouldn't exist if the files didn't. That's not really even a question. The team consisted of 24 total people only 4 of which were actual developers on nost. Assuming the server managed to maintain the interest of the lets assume the minimum of 100k active players, that's 1.3 to 1.5 mil a month in raw subscription costs for something that needs virtually no man power and no real tangible updates to maintain. And lord knows it would be more popular on live than it was as a private server.

Personally I have virtually no interest in xpac specific servers and would much rather them focus on putting the current content on the right track, but I don't really understand why blizzard doesn't want basically free money.

[Jokerfiend]

General population isn't savvy enough for private realms, especially when they see them getting shut down.....

Savvy? All you had to do was download the link and install the game. All you had to know was where to look. Once the word get out there are other options, possibly better options. All it's going to do is pique interest in private servers.

[Catblob]

Exactly, people shitting on the wrong people. Instead of Blizzard creating a market of dissent of it's product. It should be making such a superior product that has no rivals, even if that rival is it's past self.

No one, and I mean no one should WANT to have Vanilla server, yet here we are.. it isn't Nostalgia.

Your definition of 'superior product', my definition of 'superior product', and Goober Joe's definition of 'superior product' will differ. Every feature that is added, removed, or modified will have those that are in favor of the changes, those that are opposed to the changes, and those that are indifferent.

Every change that Blizzard ends up making is done with the intention of making the game into a superior product for some part of the player base, and will always result in the community being divided on opinion.

[zorkuus]

It's not about perfection as that is subjective for game design anyway. It's just that the game fundamentally changed wich naturally causes disinterest in some of the original players. It would primaly need to retain it's original tone to retain them.

WoW has had a total of 100 million + accounts created in its existence. The vast majority are gone for good. Poof. They had their fun, it was only a game. They're not coming back no matter what miracles they pull off. As for the rest, they will also disappear little by little over time. The glory days ain't coming back. Quality wise they might, but not in terms of number of players.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

It's not "that simple". This is why people go to private servers. So they can have the access to what they already "paid for" and have a reminiscent experience to go along with their current subscription which offers timewalking to relive old content and transmog to customize you gear with your favorite oldskool tier sets.

As far as supporting Blizz; I've managed 3 accounts for over 10 years (mine, my wife's, my brother's) as well as kept a few guild members accounts active here and there during that same time frame. Trust me... I support Blizz. I'm still an active subscriber and will be for a long time. I have had beta access to Cata, Mists, hearthstone, HoTS... my wife has had beta access to Cata, HoTS, WoD and currently Overwatch (Damn her!).

All I ask for are some options. Myself, my family and my friends have invested over 10 years of our lives playing a game we love. If they won't allocate resources to legacy servers, we'll deal with it. And by "deal with it" I mean playing a private server on occasion.

If you can't "handle that", then you're missing the point. It's that simple.

I think you're overestimating how much of the PS community is upstanding individuals.

I guarantee you there are more people out there using PSes as a way to "play WoW for free" than as a way to "play classic WoW while paying for WoD."

[Shammyrock]

The problem is that to be honest, most players in general actually probably aren't that fussed about legacy servers. Theres a niche that want it sure, but theres also a niche that will want BC servers, Wrath servers etc. And within those, as people have pointed out, there'll be groups that want different patches, there'll be groups that want a scheduled rollout of patches, there'll be those that want it all unlocked from the outset. Its not feasible to cater to all those groups when you consider each legacy server will need to be fully supported to the level of current wow. And the bugs that existed back then will need to be ironed out, so there is dev work to be done.

Added to that, is the reality that legacy servers have a very limited lifespan. Retail is still going because it gets updated with new content etc, a static product is pretty much guaranteed to die at some point if Blizz is charging a fee.

On the topic of Blizz charging a fee, it doesn't exactly say much for its profitability if they had 150k active accounts or w/e, accepting donations and they couldn't even pay to keep the server afloat, let alone make the kind of profit that would make a company the size of Blizzard take notice.

[Queen of Hamsters]

It's not about perfection as that is subjective for game design anyway. It's just that the game fundamentally changed wich naturally causes disinterest in some of the original players. It would primaly need to retain it's original tone to retain them.

And then, naturally, the question has to be: Should resources REALLY be spent on people that don't want anything to change in an mmorpg...?

[Deleted]

Now, this is a very sensitive topic to talk about on right now, but here's my input.

1.Do Blizzard have all the rights to shut down Nost?
-Yes, WoW is their brand/mark and it's been used without any sort of permission from them and they're free to do as they will.

2.Are they doing the right thing?
-Well, given what I've said few words before, yes, Private Servers are illegal by the TOS (given those things should be read but who even reads them), and them shutting down a private server is no big surprise. They could go on a rampage and sue lots of Private Servers out there, I wouldn't mind and I do believe that many of you wouldn't mind either.

3.Will this bring anything in attention to them?
-It should. You see, it isn't about this private server in special, it is about the demand of the community, what the players want. The sole idea of this amount of players giving interest towards a 1.12.1 server is ridiculous and Blizzard needs to see that aspect of this situation and realize "Yo, THIS amount of players have been dedicating time towards this server, why don't we do the same if that's what they search?"

4.What made Nost special amongst the thousands of other Private Servers?
-Obviously, many will say "ohhhh you know, it's free, they're dodging the subscription fee" and all that type of stuff. First of all, if the players even wanted to dodge the subscription fee, wouldn't they be on a WoD Private Server instead? Doesn't that make some sense? The players from Nost did not dodge the subscription fee, but Blizzard's ignorance towards the idea of Legacy servers, and many other players do the same on different private servers, for example, those who enjoyed WotLK will be found on a PS with WotLK Xpac. Why Nost became so popular on the other side is that it was a Private Server, so free, offering the challenging environment from all the way back in Vanilla, with a community driven system, where the GMs/Devs actually listened to their playerbase and of course, being rather bug-free. The Devs did a rather great and extraordinary job on creating of this server.

Yes, I played on Nost, truly out of curiosity, and I got to say, I got surprised by how good it turned out to be. I expected it to be a piece of shit given some PSs there that are complete crap, but hey, it got me completely unarmed, so I spent a couple of days leveling there and actually managed to INTERACT with players, who've surprisingly turned out to be not as toxic as expected. I got to experience Vanilla WoW as I remember it from over 11 years ago, and it got me that good nostalgia feeling, given the server's name. This did not stop me from going on retail, do the weekly round of raids and interact with my guildies, it didn't. It was simply something to turn my attention towards when I had that feeling of recreating the days of the past, and the community there truly impressed me, something that no other MMORPG or any other online game managed to do so since BC/WotLK. This should be proof that the server didn't threat Blizzard's current playerbase of the game. The server didn't run on a donation system, the GMs/Devs did not ask for money, they did it out of passion for Vanilla WoW.

In conclusion, Nost in all seriosity can be shut down, the use of WoW without Blizzard's permission is illegal, but Blizzard needs to realize what this means. The players do want legacy servers. How many of you wouldn't want to go and check back WotLK and the madness from Winterspring? BC and the World PvP situation in Hellfire Peninsula and the rest of Outlands, Vanilla with the countless hours spent in AV, heck, even Cataclysm for some other reason. The playerbase drop on retail is given by the fact that players do not have what to do nowadays in WoD, which is understandable, but if Blizz were to open legacy servers, think how much the subscription numbers would rise up again. And take it like this: Hell, you buy Legion, you get to the end-game of the expansion where, let's say, you literally don't have anything to do, and then you simply get bored inside the current world, so you decide to try something else more challenging. Without Legacy servers, people will go towards other games, let's say now Blizzard games: Overwatch, Hearthstone, HoTS and spend more time on there. During this time they might choose to cancel subscription towards WoW, which is reasonable, why pay for something that you have nothing to do in, but, with Legacy servers, some people may get the idea of "Hey, let's check how WoW was back then?" and jump on one of the Legacy servers, where they have what to do. This doesn't hurt Blizzard's income, it freaking brings it to a new peak. They could charge a separate sub fee for Legacy servers or add an overfee above their current price and do it like 20 dollars a month to play on Legacy servers aswell. I would honestly pay up to 50 bucks, even more, just to experience good old times, the old times that got me addicted to this game. Again, Legacy servers wouldn't hurt the games progress in future expansions, because whoever is a sane person can realize that "Hey, there's new content out there, why not check it? And if I don't like it, then I'm back to the Legacy servers".

Thank you for reading this and I hope you do understand, Legacy servers are something that players have demanded since post-WotLK, and hell, that's more than 7 years ago. Blizzard needs to take them in consideration and don't go on with the "You think you need that, but you actually don't" excuse. That's a pretty lame way to say no to something. Sorry if my english wasn't on point, i'm not a native speaker, but I hope that I've made my statement solid regarding this case. And for those salty people out there who are all like: "Oh, Nost players just want to live in the past, how pathetic", tell me, wouldn't YOU love to experience that moment of the game that got you addicted to it?

P.S. Too much salt is bad for your health.

Best post i've seen today i salute you sir.

[Queen of Hamsters]

General population isn't savvy enough for private realms, especially when they see them getting shut down.....

...What does that even mean? "Savvy enough"...? Tech savvy? Bootleg savvy? What?

[McFuu]

Also from a legal stand point, I'm pretty sure Blizzard has to take action. They have to, otherwise it weakens their claim on the copyright. Someone else can point to the example of xyz server that Blizzard knew about but didn't shutdown. When it comes to smaller servers, they can ignore them, but 150k users is not a small amount. They have to take action. Also I believe Nost attempted to sell gold within game, which is profiting off of the game, and Blizzard has already sued and won pservers making money off of WoW.

[Flower Milk]

I wonder how much multiboxing was occurring. Because it didn't cost anything to make another account to multibox with.

Multiboxing was not allowed and anyone who was caught multiboxing was banned.

[Shammyrock]

Their stock price is partly tied to their ability to prove they can defend their IP.

[Sinyc]

Savvy? All you had to do was download the link and install the game. All you had to know was where to look. Once the word get out there are other options, possibly better options. All it's going to do is pique interest in private servers.

...What does that even mean? "Savvy enough"...? Tech savvy? Bootleg savvy? What?

Don't you have to set realmlist? Download a torrent of the game files? General population is reason for changes to WoW. Doubt they go back 10 years in time to a buggy, unbalanced game.

[Ausr]

It's a strawman, because Im not talking about stayed accounts, and you attack the money position. Now if you want to talk about US market share in accounts or EU. Something that affects us. Then sure... I am saying Blizzard is inflating sub numbers, I said nothing about Nos, as you did. Then you go on about money.. I don't know. Can you see how you went in a COMPLETE different direction then what I was talking about?

They can't inflate numbers. It is illegal to report it as such. You literally are talking out of your butt when you type that crap.

[Jokerfiend]

Your definition of 'superior product', my definition of 'superior product', and Goober Joe's definition of 'superior product' will differ. Every feature that is added, removed, or modified will have those that are in favor of the changes, those that are opposed to the changes, and those that are indifferent.

Every change that Blizzard ends up making is done with the intention of making the game into a superior product for some part of the player base, and will always result in the community being divided on opinion.

When it's a superior product, you will know it. There isn't an opinion to be had, it will be general consensus. Blizzard knew it in 2010 when it peaked in sub numbers. Did twitter intergation make the game better? Did the jute box make the game better? Not every decision is in the games best interest, but Blizzards best interest, and that makes all the difference.