Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Krusza]

If you're so concerned about people "stealing" Blizzard's "intellectual" "property", why don't you care about something that matters, instead. Like this.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...aft-theme-park

But no, instead you care about a couple of people playing peacefully on a server of a game that Blizzard doesn't even support anymore.

Retards.

Blizzard doesn't support WoW anymore? Are you stupid?

I know you can be like "OMG WOD IS SO BAD BLIZZ DONT CARE ANYMORE, WORST GAME EVER IGN 0/10" but to say they don't support it is just absolutely dishonest.

[Wildberry]

Yeah and good thing too, would be weird for Blizzard to knock down a crappy Vanilla server if it wasn't keeping up its own product. Vanilla well and truly sucked on a multitude of levels, I'd never want to redo Desolace as a Feral Night Elf again.

Garrisons are much more fun, I agree. You have great taste!

[Deleted]

Yeah and good thing too, would be weird for Blizzard to knock down a crappy Vanilla server if it wasn't keeping up its own product. Vanilla well and truly sucked on a multitude of levels, I'd never want to redo Desolace as a Feral Night Elf again.

Ahh Desolace, almost as good as Silithius!

[Deficineiron]

Those servers are essentially PCs. You can install whatever you want on them, not to mention theyre way more powerful than the original Vanilla servers were.

they would need to, as I understand it, substantially re-work the old server-side code for current hardware and software. Would just be payroll. I think the dollar cost is trivial compared to reasonable expected revenue.

[Deleted]

They can't use their new tech to host a game made of very old code just with the flick of a finger.

So you're saying that a small group of fans is more capable than Blizzard themselves? Because Nostalrius had very minimal number of bugs, if they could get a Vanilla server running then why can't Blizzard themselves?

I think Blizzard is still in denial. But maybe this shitstorm they unleashed by closing Nostalrius will open their eyes. Blizzard opening official Vanilla servers would be a blast.

[RobertMugabe]

Yeah for like a month.

Maybe, maybe not... We AND Blizzard didn't know it exactly.

[Darkeon]

It does in this case. There is clearly a demand for legacy servers, yet Blizzard are refusing to supply that demand.

The question is: Why?

Because, while there was a time in which Blizzard would say "Yeah, that'd be neat! Have fun, folk!"; However, over the course of the years, it's all about how much justifies X and if implement Z is financially viable and if it's content worth implementing, and so on (read: the entire discussion around LFR and how it justifies PvE End-Game, blabla)

A free Legacy server, while awesome for the specific players who are interested in it, would by default be a very small, niche community. But as it's free, it's a "dead weight" to Activision-Blizzard. It's not self-sustainable, therefore something, somewhere, has to suffer for it - in other words, it's not justifiable.

Now, we could go with a paid Legacy Server. However, imagining that already small and niche community with the free server, imagine how smaller it would be if one had to monthly pay in order to be able to access stale content, that will receive no (to barely any) updates. It would, once again, not be justifiable.

[Deficineiron]

So you're saying that a small group of fans is more capable than Blizzard themselves? Because Nostalrius had very minimal number of bugs, if they could get a Vanilla server running then why can't Blizzard themselves?

I think Blizzard is still in denial. But maybe this shitstorm they unleashed by closing Nostalrius will open their eyes. Blizzard opening official Vanilla servers would be a blast.

no, blizzard official servers would be to classic wow what new scholomance is to classic scholomance. a linear carnival haunted-house parody you run through quickly with a talking skull yelling GOGOGOGOGO.

[Deleted]

Err.... 30k a day is more than Nost. Nost had an active playerbase of 150K, that doesn't mean 150k a day.

hmm... thanks for making my point again???

Eve has been around for over 10 years and has 30k people logging in at peak times on average. Nostalrius was around 1 year, its existence heavily suppressed and it still got to what 8k users a day? That's incredible for an illegitimate service that not many people know about, or that people knew about, wanted to play but foresaw the ending result from Blizzard.

[dd614]

Props to mmochampion for posting that Nostalrius letter on the front page. It's good they are allowing discussion on this.

It's clear to me why Blizzard doesn't want Legacy servers: They want people playing the current version of the game. The current state of the game relies on random grouping for dungeons, pvp, raids, etc. Every player who is playing on a legacy server for vanilla, TBC, Wotlk, Cata or MoP is taken out of the current environment and potentially unavailable for LFR, LFD, PVP, etc.

[Kolvarg]

The problem that you are not accepting is that World of Warcraft vanilla doesn't exists... There is only ONE game, World of Warcraft. That game has been updated a few times, but, legally, it's still the same game. So that "the game is not available" theory doesn't exists, because the game IS available. What is not available is the version of the game that you want. But the same can be said to any of the 12 original patches or any other of the dozen patches we had since TBC.

Legally, yes, but I already stated plenty times, including in that post, that the activit is illegal. I'm not discussing legality, I'm discussing morality. And as far as anything else than strict definitions, the game is indeed very different, to the extent of many of the zones, npcs, items, instances, spells, features and gameplay mechanics not being accessible/reproducable in-game on retail anymore.

Yes, "technically" it's the same game, but from a user experience prespective, it's a completly different game.
It's as stark a difference as this to this. Or this to this.

(Not claiming those are parallels in the sense that they're also the same game, just from how different these versions of these games are and how different of an experience they despite having the same name, same IP, etc)

[Vampyr]

Again, defenders of the server miss the entire point in defense of their desired outcome.

Taking an established IP without authorization and using it for its protected purpose is theft.

That's the SUM TOTAL of the argument. That's the whole thing. The questions presented are one liners.

1. Was this IP protected: Yes.
2. Was this IP taken by an outside source: Yes.
3. Did the outside source have authorization to do so: No.

Open and shut. Nothing else matters. Not a single additional comment, reason, rationale, or explanation is relevant in the slightest. These are the elements of infringement when replicating a protected intellectual property. So whatever other crap you try to load onto the truck in order to muddy the waters, these three things remain material, clear, and absolute.

I'm genuinely sorry for the people who feel betrayed by the loss of the game they've stolen.

Not because they lost it, but because they're too clouded by their disappointment to understand that they stole it in the first place.

Every MINUTE spent on a private server is material theft. You may LIKE the fact that you get something someone else sells for free, but most thieves do like the benefits of theft. It's fun to get stuff for free.

But it's still theft.

[RobertMugabe]

active in last 10 days is an extremely strict measurement. it is MUCH stricter than blizzard uses itself for china.

Yes, I think Blizzard used to measure their subscriber number in a way, that someone who was subbed 3 months ago was still counted.

btw. Nostalrius had constantly 12-15k People online

[zorkuus]

So you're saying that a small group of fans is more capable than Blizzard themselves? Because Nostalrius had very minimal number of bugs, if they could get a Vanilla server running then why can't Blizzard themselves?

Blizzard is much more strict about quality control than a small group of fans. Doing something with similar quality as say Nost wouldn't be good enough for them. Esp. when they'd be charging people money for it.

[Deficineiron]

Because, while there was a time in which Blizzard would say "Yeah, that'd be neat! Have fun, folk!"; However, over the course of the years, it's all about how much justifies X and if implement Z is financially viable and if it's content worth implementing, and so on (read: the entire discussion around LFR and how it justifies PvE End-Game, blabla)

A free Legacy server, while awesome for the specific players who are interested in it, would by default be a very small, niche community. But as it's free, it's a "dead weight" to Activision-Blizzard. It's not self-sustainable, therefore something, somewhere, has to suffer for it - in other words, it's not justifiable.

Now, we could go with a paid Legacy Server. However, imagining that already small and niche community with the free server, imagine how smaller it would be if one had to monthly pay in order to be able to access stale content, that will receive no (to barely any) updates. It would, once again, not be justifiable.

well it is the entrance of large publicly traded companies into video games - it is design by spreadsheet. it is the main reason I don't think blizzard today is institutionally capable of released an unperverted classic server. so much of the game as it was would go against everything they have tried to make the game into.

[Deleted]

So you're saying that a small group of fans is more capable than Blizzard themselves? Because Nostalrius had very minimal number of bugs, if they could get a Vanilla server running then why can't Blizzard themselves?

I think Blizzard is still in denial. But maybe this shitstorm they unleashed by closing Nostalrius will open their eyes. Blizzard opening official Vanilla servers would be a blast.

Because

A. Nos crew doesn't have to integrate Battle.net and all the other features the platform currently has.
B. Nos crew is emulating, Blizzard have to redo the code from scratch, code which they dont have anymore.
C. Let's say a bug causes the server to lag/crash over several days, let's compare each forum to eachother

Nos: It's okay guys, do anything you can to get the servers up again, loving the dedication!
Blizz: OMFG BLIZZ I TOOK 4 DAYS OFF WORK SO I COULD SIT IN MY TANK TOP PLAYING VANILLA BUT YOU CANT EVEN FUCKING KEEP THE SERVERS UP, YOU FUCKING TRASHBAGS.

[Deficineiron]

Blizzard is much more strict about quality control than a small group of fans. Doing something with similar quality as say Nost wouldn't be good enough for them. Esp. when they'd be charging people money for it.

right, it wouldn't just cost a rayd tear, it would probably cost them an expansion.

[Fasc]

Garrisons are much more fun, I agree. You have great taste!

About as fun as running circles in IF spamming "LFG UBRS Will Tank, have ring" and being told "LOL DROODS CANT TANK" and the like... oh wait that was terrible and stupid. TBC at least would make slightly more sense but even then... meh. Let's go with Wrath or Cata maybe if we're picking from a set of rose tinted glasses.

[zorkuus]

or that people knew about, wanted to play but foresaw the ending result from Blizzard.

I don't trust these people to be that smart.

[RobertMugabe]

Again, defenders of the server miss the entire point in defense of their desired outcome.

Taking an established IP without authorization and using it for its protected purpose is theft.

That's the SUM TOTAL of the argument. That's the whole thing. The questions presented are one liners.

1. Was this IP protected: Yes.
2. Was this IP taken by an outside source: Yes.
3. Did the outside source have authorization to do so: No.

Open and shut. Nothing else matters. Not a single additional comment, reason, rationale, or explanation is relevant in the slightest. These are the elements of infringement when replicating a protected intellectual property. So whatever other crap you try to load onto the truck in order to muddy the waters, these three things remain material, clear, and absolute.

I'm genuinely sorry for the people who feel betrayed by the loss of the game they've stolen.

Not because they lost it, but because they're too clouded by their disappointment to understand that they stole it in the first place.

Every MINUTE spent on a private server is material theft. You may LIKE the fact that you get something someone else sells for free, but most thieves do like the benefits of theft. It's fun to get stuff for free.

But it's still theft.

A private server itself is not stolen property. You hav to program the emulator by yourself. No one has stolen Blizzards Code, assets etc.