Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[corebit]

666 pages already o.o holy shit. Time for an official classic realm, no?

Mine shows 333. I don't know why regular posters don't even bother to change posts per page viewing, it's so much better than clicking next page, next page...

[Ielenia]

Hmm people are talking about 2/3rd cost but I think if we were to convince Blizzard it was worth it you would need something more like:
Standard Subscription ($15) plus an extra Legacy Server Pass ($5)

$60 extra dollars a year means Blizzard can be okay with the fact that those people aren't going to buy expansions and/or shop items/boosts.

Blizzard gets $20 instead of $15 and suddenly it doesn't matter that those people won't buy expansions anymore, they'll still pay as if they did.

Don't you think that if that model you propose was really profitable, wouldn't Blizzard have implemented it by now? I'm pretty sure that all the payment models people have claimed would work in this thread, Blizzard have already ran the numbers on them all, and found them insufficient.

What we're talking about, here, is not just server implementation and maintenance costs, but also the costs of paying the developers that will work on keeping the game afloat and without bugs, community managers, as well as customer support personnel.

[Doomchicken]

666 pages already o.o holy shit. Time for an official classic realm, no?

I think it would be about 200 pages tops if it wasn't for the circlejerking about morality vs legality.

[Auberdeen]

Steal? How is it stealing?

They're not taking money for anything, how is this any different than Fair use?

exactly. why im scratching my head too.

[Charge me Doctor]

Oh, so you mean stuff that took the private community (with many community devs working on it) YEARS to put together and isn't commercially-viable, compatible with battle.net, and up to Blizzard's security standards could just be plugged-in to Blizzard's architecture and hardware and just work with no effort?

Hah...ahhahahaha...haahhahahaah...ahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahaha.

You should take some courses in game development and get back to me when you're qualified to make such claims.

I mean, i was able to dupe shit and buy epic gear using wpepro on each and every private server i was playing on (even back in time when dolphin and mangos was fighting over being #1 emulator). The after huge time-leap i was convinced by frinds to play on lv70 TBC pvp private server (ugh), and was still able to get martin thunder to my rogue and wreck havoc for, well, about 1 hour before getting permabanned. But security of private servers was fucking joke

[samus]

I honestly do agree that classic servers would require too much to run. I admit that, I want to see them as well but it's true. The best thing I can hope for is a server that has restricted features (No lfr, no lfd, tougher mobs, some targets of quests become elite and really really difficult to solo, no cross realm, no heirlooms, etc)

[Eliseus]

Don't you think that if that model you propose was really profitable, wouldn't Blizzard have implemented it by now? I'm pretty sure that all the payment models people have claimed would work in this thread, Blizzard have already ran the numbers on them all, and found them insufficient.

It's not a matter if it is profitable or not. Blizzard said themselves that they feel people would play for 2 weeks. The payment model seems to be completely irrelevant, at least definitely implied over the years of random responses from community reps. This server COMPLETELY CONTRADICTED THAT STATEMENT though. In fact, it ONLY saw an increase since it's release.

[Jeniwyn]

I know these petitions aren't taken seriously. The website is a joke. It's just a place where people can sign up and keep a running total.
Almost everyone who signed the petition knows this aswell.

Obviously.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm not very optimistic about Blizzard starting a legacy server. I would love it if they did but, yeah, I don't think they will. And petitions are a joke. I still signed it.

[Ielenia]

It's not a matter if it is profitable or not. Blizzard said themselves that they feel people would play for 2 weeks. The payment model seems to be completely irrelevant, at least definitely implied over the years of random responses from community reps. This server COMPLETELY CONTRADICTED THAT STATEMENT though. In fact, it ONLY saw an increase since it's release.

They've stated, multiple times, that the interest they see in vanilla servers would not off-set the costs of implementing and maintaining a 'classic server'. Payment model is not irrelevant. Blizzard is, at the end of the day, a business, and, as such, cares about the 'bottom line'. If vanilla servers were indeed profitable, you can bet they'd have implemented it in a heartbeat.

[oplawlz]

Don't you think that if that model you propose was really profitable, wouldn't Blizzard have implemented it by now? I'm pretty sure that all the payment models people have claimed would work in this thread, Blizzard have already ran the numbers on them all, and found them insufficient.

What we're talking about, here, is not just server implementation and maintenance costs, but also the costs of paying the developers that will work on keeping the game afloat and without bugs, community managers, as well as customer support personnel.

NO, I don't think that at all. I've always believed that their stance is ideological rather than financially driven. They can't take the chance of people flocking back to earlier versions of the game, as it would prove they've made some catastrophically bad decisions (pun intended).

[Eliseus]

They've stated, multiple times, that the interest they see in vanilla servers would not off-set the costs of implementing and maintaining a 'classic server'. Payment model is not irrelevant. Blizzard is, at the end of the day, a business, and, as such, cares about the 'bottom line'. If vanilla servers were indeed profitable, you can bet they'd have implemented it in a heartbeat.

No they haven't. Here is a link from MMO champion on a 2015 interview.

I would come back to wow in a heartbeat if blizz made vanilla servers. I would love to experience it all again. By the way I don't mean this as a knock to current WOW, it's just something I would find incredibly fun.

I think the biggest challenges for an idea like this are a) would it be interesting enough to keep playing, and b) would there be enough sustained interest from other players to make the world feel alive. I could easily see the outcome being people logging in, going "wow the game is so much better now," and logging out. (CM_Lore)

IMO seeing how popular uh "theoretical" vanilla servers seem to be, I would say there is at least some demand.

Sure, there's definitely interest, even internally. We just don't think there's enough to offset the costs. (CM_Lore)

Personally, I'd 100% expect it to be something almost everyone just pokes at for a week or two and then drops. (CM_Lore)

Not really an effective use of time for devs who could be working on any number of features for the live game. (CM_Lore)

Speaking for myself, I'd love to go back and poke at classic. I just don't think I'd play it for long. (CM_Lore)

Or, the devs could just 'go back to the core roots', as it were. Yep, especially the class designs, every class used to be fun, but in WoD.

If that's the case, I think we'd rather focus on fixing the modern game. (CM_Lore)

The implication here has nothing to do at all with what you stated. They mention a cost, but purely based off his opinion people would only stay for 2 weeks, which I keep pointing out has been completely contradicted by this server.

[Holtzmann]

You are one of the few who continually highlights the technical difficulties if Blizzard ever offered to do it. Thank you and great post.

It's all right. Just keep in mind the things I've listed there are, as you said, technical difficulties. They don't make Classic realms impossible, they're just hurdles that Blizzard could very easily get through if they pumped enough people and resources into it.

The point then becomes how much incentive Blizzard would require to dedicate said people and resources into it. As I've mentioned before, Blizzard likes shutting down servers about as much as Stalin liked political dissidents, so any Classic realms would require not only the immediate popular demand to be profitable after implementation, maintenance and staffing costs are accounted for; but they'd also need to remain profitable for years to come. So they'd need to have some level of progression to them (Nostalrius' solution), or the game would become stale and the playerbase would become extremely top-heavy (resulting in empty leveling areas, for example) and likely drop down to unprofitable levels with time

It's a tricky thing to figure out, both technically and design-wise. I'm absolutely not surprised Blizzard keeps saying they don't have any plans for it yet. Their internal analysis the possibility for Classic realms must be a really interesting document to read.

[Ielenia]

Seems like they're about to reevaluate that interest!

Very, very unlikely. This isn't the first time Blizzard shuts down an illegal server, and it won't be the last. Hell, their most recent comment about that is dated January this year. You don't think they were aware of Nostalrius by then?

[Ielenia]

No they haven't. Here is a link from MMO champion on a 2015 interview.



The implication here has nothing to do at all with what you stated. They mention a cost, but purely based off his opinion people would only stay for 2 weeks, which I keep pointing out has been completely contradicted by this server.

*sigh*

I'll repeat what I already posted here and here:

We were at one time internally discussing the possibility fairly seriously, but the long term interest in continued play on them couldn't justify the extremely large amount of development and support resources it would take to implement and maintain them.

And a more recent answer:

We feel it is not feasible to support multiple versions of World of Warcraft concurrently, and instead believe that our resources would be better placed continuing to build upon the current live game.

Yes, the costs are a concern. And before you say anything, Aerythlea's answer is dated January 15, 2016. This year. This January.

[Holtzmann]

No they haven't. Here is a link from MMO champion on a 2015 interview.



The implication here has nothing to do at all with what you stated. They mention a cost, but purely based off his opinion people would only stay for 2 weeks, which I keep pointing out has been completely contradicted by this server.

Sure, there's definitely interest, even internally. We just don't think there's enough to offset the costs. (CM_Lore)

That seems like this cost was actually calculated by the team itself, otherwise why would he say "we"? You're conflating two different sentences there to reach the conclusion you want. Lore said "they" (presumably the staff at Blizzard) have noticed the interest of the playerbase in the idea, and there are parties interested in Classic servers even within Blizzard, but that they don't think that interest would be enough to offset the cost of Classic servers. His personal opinion comes afterwards, and he makes it clear it's his opinion in that quote and two quotes later.

[Eliseus]

*sigh*

I'll repeat what I already posted here and here:

We were at one time internally discussing the possibility fairly seriously, but the long term interest in continued play on them couldn't justify the extremely large amount of development and support resources it would take to implement and maintain them.

And a more recent answer:

We feel it is not feasible to support multiple versions of World of Warcraft concurrently, and instead believe that our resources would be better placed continuing to build upon the current live game.

Yes, the costs are a concern. And before you say anything, Aerythlea's answer is dated January 15, 2016. This year. This January.

One of your quotes is 8 years old and the other 5. This is your supporting argument?

Aww nvm I see a more recent response. I apologize though it talked about resources which could be a plethora of different things.

[Charge me Doctor]

*sigh*

I'll repeat what I already posted here and here:

We were at one time internally discussing the possibility fairly seriously, but the long term interest in continued play on them couldn't justify the extremely large amount of development and support resources it would take to implement and maintain them.

And a more recent answer:

We feel it is not feasible to support multiple versions of World of Warcraft concurrently, and instead believe that our resources would be better placed continuing to build upon the current live game.

Yes, the costs are a concern. And before you say anything, Aerythlea's answer is dated January 15, 2016. This year. This January.

It's much more simple than you make it, if they hire someone to work on old WoW - this person could be working on new, or newest WoW (it's not a surprise that when blizzard release patch 7.1 - they are already working on patch 8.1). It's just counterproductive to have people developing and supporting old versions of WoW.

People are complaining about blizzard adding fun stuff like pet battles and say that it costs them a raid tier - imagine what suppotr of old versions of wow will cost to the players in this case?

[Eliseus]

It's much more simple than you make it, if they hire someone to work on old WoW - this person could be working on new, or newest WoW (it's not a surprise that when blizzard release patch 7.1 - they are already working on patch 8.1). It's just counterproductive to have people developing and supporting old versions of WoW

How does one develop something that already exists?

[Ielenia]

It's the first professional non-profit! They kicked a beehive : D

"Professional?" Give me a break. Unless you're implying that the Nostalrius guys were professional criminals, then I might believe you. Nostalrius is nothing more than another illegal server that got taken down. Like I said, wasn't the first, or the second, and won't be the last one.

[Charge me Doctor]

How does one develop something that already exists?

It doesn't exist anymore, they'll have to re-write servers from almost a scratch. And just fyi, the way blizzard employees used to code 10 years ago and they way they do it now may be very different, which will lead to "how the fuck did they managed to do that?" "why is this shit here?" "we can do this much more efficient but it won't work like it used to be on vanilla", etc