Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Vash The Stampede]

Not having anything to do outside of Ashran and Raiding after 1 month, maybe 2, of the expansion, was a big part of why a lot of people thought it was shit.

But filler content doesn't work. Vanilla didn't have this problem because if you wanted to do Naxx, that's fine but first you need gear. In WoD this was a easy solution, you just get PvP gear. Bam, just made most of the content in the game pointless. The only reason I did LFR and Dungeons was due to Legendary Ring. That and farming Valor with Mythic dungeons.

In Vanilla you could go about it two ways. Get dungeon Tier and do MC -> BWL -> AQ40 -> and eventually you can do Naxx. Or do ZQ and AQ20 and hopefully you'll get lucky on loot drops, and maybe you can skip MC. Maybe. You have to experience all the content, and if you're a guild looking to gear up players for raids, it doesn't stop once you're geared.

I didn't join WoD until after patch 6.2. I knew the expansion was gonna be fail back in MoP. I didn't miss anything special. There's no world events like AQ40. The raids don't exactly provide any lore, at least nothing I find interesting. I got to skip running around a ground mount and went straight to flying. I don't raid with my guild, despite they're 12/13 or something. I geared up fully in Heroic gear but pugging. There's no value in doing Mythic raids, other than saying you've done Mythic. But if you did Naxx, people will be amazed. The amount of effort that's needed to down Kel'Thuzard is unbelievable.

A LOT of people have commented that they miss dailies. Or that they never hated them in the first place (these would be the ones who completed them at thier own pace I assume). The backlash over the communities reaction to the large amount of content at the start of MoP lead the developers to put LESS content in their next game, I would have thought that correlation was a plain as the sun in the sky.

Dailies aren't content. Dungeons and raids are content. Nobody I know is complaining about the lack of dailies. Most people today don't care cause they just ignore them anyway. There's so much of it in the game that the player becomes desensitized to it.

And Normal raids aren't normal. Blizzard just calls it that so people don't feel stupid because all they can clear is normal content. But Blizzard expects players to run through normal, Heroic, and Mythic for no good reason. For most players LFR is enough to say they cleared it. Even though they didn't come close to the experience. Blizzard is just enabling players to quit the game.

And to clarify, it wasn't the people who played too much. It was the ones ho played too much then bitched about being "forced" (!!) into doing too much stuff. Like "Your skinner box is TOO GOOD".

In MoP it was a problem, cause professions didn't get to the stuff worth a damn until you got revered with Lotus or something. And a profession exists to farm gold, and it can't do that job well unless you have the pattern that is sold but requires being revered.

WoD this is less of a problem because professions don't matter. But I still had to rep grind for flying. By grind, I mean doing daily's. And yes, I hated doing this very much. I liked WOTLK version of using tabards while doing dungeons. It was quicker.

I dnno you were arguing that sending garrison followers out on missions was a "daily quest".

So yeah.

It takes 18hrs? Then it's a daily. Also, 18hrs for a Garrison mission? What were you think Blizz? Oh sorry, the $15 is what you're thinking.

I did use the Garrison... daily, because it paid for my subscription. If it wasn't for the gold missions, I would have left it to rot.

[Atelniar]

Yeah but the ones SharkLazorz are referring to are the ones that come to the forums and blatantly advertise or just call retail shit and make up a bunch of names and then try and name drop PS.

We all find that annoying, me included. But moderators are in charge of moderating, it's their job. I simply ignore the threads that are too blatently advertisement where no valid points are made at all. I like healthy discussion, but the shit the other party throws and the generalizations they make aimed at the "demand" surrounding legacy servers is so fucking toxic that you can't have a decent discussion.

We have people who target posts concerning possible legacy realm ideas (in terms of how it could be implemented) as "concealed advertisement" now. How fucking pathetic is that?

People in here, whom I previously pointed out as "your ilk", do that shit. They lynch everything and anything concerning the subject matter. They aren't specific or constructive. They are just shitposting generalizations that belong in grade school.

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That you might not have done but just taking the statistics off private servers on active accounts doesn't really show you much of a demand for paying for a vanilla server.

Yes there is. That is exactly what it does. The idea of payment involved in the matter is an artificial construction your lot try to build as a premise for the numbers to be valid. It is not an actual premise in today's market where f2p solutions are a part of b2p titles such as GW2, where the original installment of the game is f2p and the expansion is b2p.

We can, as a result, completely disregard the argument that states: "they have to want to pay". We are trying to establish if there is a demand around the subject matter at hand. Period. WoW's trial version is lackluster in many ways, to include the legacy realms as a f2p alternative would work as free marketing or at least keep your playerbase invested in your IP instead of leaving all together. Inbetween content draughts, such as now.

[AeneasBK]

In MoP it was a problem, cause professions didn't get to the stuff worth a damn until you got revered with Lotus or something. And a profession exists to farm gold, and it can't do that job well unless you have the pattern that is sold but requires being revered.

Well if everything for professions is instantly accessble then they have a much decreased value. I know the enchanters in my guild loved the fact they had such a grind to unlcok thier recipes because for weeks they could charge through the nose for them becuase barely anyone else had them yet.

The rest of your post seems to either agree with what I'm saying, or hinges on accepting that "daily quests aren't content". Which I disagree with, daily quests are absolutely content.

I don't think at any point I was comparing WoD with Vanilla so not sure why you brought it up.

[Atelniar]

Sustained interest in free vanilla is all we know.

And it is all we need to know.

[Deleted]

Yes, but discussing the idea of legacy servers is not against forum rules, and that is what many do.

I'm not against discussing the concept - it's interesting discussion. Inevitably those discussions always draw the both ends of the spectrum though.
The people who just pop in to say "retail is shit, play on xzy instead, we rock" and the other side which is crying bloody murder of thiefs and criminals.

It's a draining discussion - and while the core is interesting to talk and argue about, most of the threads in recent year have just been thinly veiled "come play nost"-ads. And I'm quite sure we'll see a surge of similar threads for whatever the new server is going to be.

It creates a lot of negativity, polarises the community here and only thing they usually accomplish is a mod-lock after 40 pages of name calling.

[Atelniar]

They 'thrive' because they piggy-back ride on WoW's fame, using art and assets that aren't theirs. Nevertheless, the interest is obviously still not enough to turn up a worthwhile profit to a business.

Perhaps, as you say, if you desire to make it a subscription based implementation as you argue they must. I argue that they don't have to in order to make use of the idea. Perhaps you are being a bit to stubborn about the matter? Afterall, WoW has the worst trial version or f2p solution of any MMORPG in the current market that remains competetive. Improving on that could mean a lot for the surge of new players interested in the IP or to keep people from abandoning the IP during content draughts.

[AeneasBK]

People in here, whom I previously pointed out as "your ilk", do that shit. They lynch everything and anything concerning the subject matter. They aren't specific or constructive. They are just shitposting generalizations that belong in grade school.

Seriously though, if you just want the decent discussion, you have to just ignore the shitposting from both sides and respond only to the good posts. Or you'll be here all day. Commenting on the posting habits of either side is just adding to the toxicity, whether you're right or wrong.

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Perhaps, as you say, if you desire to make it a subscription based implementation as you argue they must. I argue that they don't have to in order to make use of the idea. Perhaps you are being a bit to stubborn about the matter? Afterall, WoW has the worst trial version or f2p solution of any MMORPG in the current market that remains competetive. Improving on that could mean a lot for the surge of new players interested in the IP or to keep people from abandoning the IP during content draughts.

Yeah I think a lot of the "It wouldn't be profitable" crowd just aren't stretching their imagination as to payment methods that could work. Without even developing new art assets they could cash shop a load of cosmetic things without breaking the experience; just as an example.

[Deleted]

No, but it does entail that bitching about private realms and trying to face them down the legal route is ineffective. Which the movie and music industry has realised long ago. Which is why they accepted the presence of Spotify and Netflix. There is a demand, and it is quite large in MMORPG circles. People seem to forget just how small of a genre MMORPG's are compared to the general mix of genre that make up MMO's. In that perspective the interest is absolutely massive!

That is why I argue there is a market or a service that Blizzard, in its incompetence, refuses to adress due to "artistic vision". "We don't want to go back", aka: they don't want to admit their current iteration of the game failed to sustain old-time players. That they actually destroyed the integrity of their own title at some point. Stubborness is why piracy exist.

Very true!

[Atelniar]

I'm not against discussing the concept - it's interesting discussion. Inevitably those discussions always draw the both ends of the spectrum though.
The people who just pop in to say "retail is shit, play on xzy instead, we rock" and the other side which is crying bloody murder of thiefs and criminals.

It's a draining discussion - and while the core is interesting to talk and argue about, most of the threads in recent year have just been thinly veiled "come play nost"-ads. And I'm quite sure we'll see a surge of similar threads for whatever the new server is going to be.

It creates a lot of negativity, polarises the community here and only thing they usually accomplish is a mod-lock after 40 pages of name calling.

I don't disagree. That is correct, however, in threads where the topic leans towards legacy realms and the interest surrounding such an implementation people keep using the terms "criminals", etc, to devalue any healthy debate surrounding the subject matter. In order to beat down those who are genuinly interested in legacy servers. The condescending tone some of those people holds does not improve on matters, so I have this to say: both sides are to blame. But I have no patience for those who troll and act condescending against the subject irrelevant of how the topic is being handled. And those exist.

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Seriously though, if you just want the decent discussion, you have to just ignore the shitposting from both sides and respond only to the good posts. Or you'll be here all day. Commenting on the posting habits of either side is just adding to the toxicity, whether you're right or wrong.

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Yeah I think a lot of the "It wouldn't be profitable" crowd just aren't stretching their imagination as to payment methods that could work. Without even developing new art assets they could cash shop a load of cosmetic things without breaking the experience; just as an example.

True, I just like to reply to people who quote me, common curtosy on my end. Even if I come off as rude at times, I will refrain from mentioning posting habbits from now on.

As for the "it wouldn't be profitable"-crowd. Yes, I have been saying that for a long time now. Some people just don't want to hear that there are alternatives that Blizzard should be able to consider.

[Pantalaimon]

But filler content doesn't work. Vanilla didn't have this problem because if you wanted to do Naxx, that's fine but first you need gear. In WoD this was a easy solution, you just get PvP gear. Bam, just made most of the content in the game pointless. The only reason I did LFR and Dungeons was due to Legendary Ring. That and farming Valor with Mythic dungeons.

In Vanilla you could go about it two ways. Get dungeon Tier and do MC -> BWL -> AQ40 -> and eventually you can do Naxx. Or do ZQ and AQ20 and hopefully you'll get lucky on loot drops, and maybe you can skip MC. Maybe. You have to experience all the content, and if you're a guild looking to gear up players for raids, it doesn't stop once you're geared.

I didn't join WoD until after patch 6.2. I knew the expansion was gonna be fail back in MoP. I didn't miss anything special. There's no world events like AQ40. The raids don't exactly provide any lore, at least nothing I find interesting. I got to skip running around a ground mount and went straight to flying. I don't raid with my guild, despite they're 12/13 or something. I geared up fully in Heroic gear but pugging. There's no value in doing Mythic raids, other than saying you've done Mythic. But if you did Naxx, people will be amazed. The amount of effort that's needed to down Kel'Thuzard is unbelievable.

Dailies aren't content. Dungeons and raids are content. Nobody I know is complaining about the lack of dailies. Most people today don't care cause they just ignore them anyway. There's so much of it in the game that the player becomes desensitized to it.

And Normal raids aren't normal. Blizzard just calls it that so people don't feel stupid because all they can clear is normal content. But Blizzard expects players to run through normal, Heroic, and Mythic for no good reason. For most players LFR is enough to say they cleared it. Even though they didn't come close to the experience. Blizzard is just enabling players to quit the game.

In MoP it was a problem, cause professions didn't get to the stuff worth a damn until you got revered with Lotus or something. And a profession exists to farm gold, and it can't do that job well unless you have the pattern that is sold but requires being revered.

WoD this is less of a problem because professions don't matter. But I still had to rep grind for flying. By grind, I mean doing daily's. And yes, I hated doing this very much. I liked WOTLK version of using tabards while doing dungeons. It was quicker.


It takes 18hrs? Then it's a daily. Also, 18hrs for a Garrison mission? What were you think Blizz? Oh sorry, the $15 is what you're thinking.

I did use the Garrison... daily, because it paid for my subscription. If it wasn't for the gold missions, I would have left it to rot.

I really don't get your take on dailies not being content. Throughout many expansions dailies have contained lore scattered throughout many of them that eventually led up to dungeon or raid lore down the road. And even those that didn't contain such lore it still sent you out into the world to do stuff. Saying dailies are not content is basically like saying the quests from each leveling zone that do no contain some massive lore event isn't content either. Maybe you don't know people that missed dailies, but I do (myself being one of them). I was actually one of those players back in MoP complaining about the other complainers who said they were "forced" to do dailies for gear, I guess not being able to grasp the concept that plenty of guilds started doing the first couple of bosses in MSV with blues.

Also part of the reason so many were wowed by players who did Nax was because it was available for such a ridiculously short period of time before TBC launch and it also got wrapped up in the general 'awe' many players had for those who had epics in general (seeing as how Vanilla was lacking in raid accessibility at the time, plus the intended longer length of leveling before getting to cap).

[Atelniar]

fixed it...

Let me beat this down:

Opinion: "A view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge"

Reasoning: "The action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way"

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Yes, plus you had to prove everyone of these players would be willing to pay and at this point your demand would crumble...

Nay, ye don't. There are alternatives to subscription based implementation and Blizzard already has a monetary store, a bonus most subscription based MMORPG's rarely are able to pull off without getting shot dead by their community. WoW is, as I say, a unique phenomena.

[Idoru]

Whut. +15 and +25 agility on weapons says "hi". Thorium Brotherhood says "You're going to WHAT Core without making friends first??"

Cenarion was pretty derp, fair. Have to assume you weren't talking about Raveholdt and Shen'dralar.

Thorium Brotherhood reputation wasn't needed to enter MC, their main focus were crafting recipes.

[AeneasBK]

I was actually one of those players back in MoP complaining about the other complainers who said they were "forced" to do dailies for gear, I guess not being able to grasp the concept that plenty of guilds started doing the first couple of bosses in MSV with blues.

Amen brother

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Thorium Brotherhood reputation wasn't needed to enter MC, their main purpose was crafting recipes.

No it wasn't needed personally, but access to those recipes "almost" was Certainly I wasn't intending to suggest it was part of any attunement or anything.

[Deleted]

Sorry but that isn't true. Blizzard is suing tons of game developers that take graphics and art from them.

No, I'm actually talking about ideas. I'm not talking about private servers. I'm talking about games like this.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/03/24/...-infringement/

Those game developers don't take graphics and art from Blizzard. They take the ideas and make their own art. All those characters were made by the game developers themselves. Sure they look like Blizzard characters, but they all drew that art themselves.

[Deleted]

Yeah I think a lot of the "It wouldn't be profitable" crowd just aren't stretching their imagination as to payment methods that could work. Without even developing new art assets they could cash shop a load of cosmetic things without breaking the experience; just as an example.

Payment methods are really not a problem at all. The thing is, many people would only play a legacy realm, if it was completely included in their standard subscription without any additional cost. Regarding this group, Blizzard would gain not much - only sub for the time when some of these people interrupt their subscription because of "no content" - but will definitely have increasing costs. Then there is a group, who would probably pay some extra $ for the addition of legacy realms. These people could probably contribute to reducing the cost factor, probably even net some gain - depends on the number of people in this group, and the additional costs for the legacy server model. And then there are people, who would not pay anything - like on pirated, private servers. These people would only cause increasing costs and the only benefit there would be an increase in the player base for the paying customers on legacy servers. Some of these not-subbed people would possibly use micro-transactions now and then if there are shop items or anything like that. This is hard to tell. And it's a slippery slope.

It's not about payment methods, it's about the willingness to pay for such a service, and the estimated amount of gains vs. the increasing costs for the company.

If all these Vanilla fans would not fork out money beforehand in a Kickstarter campaign or something like that, I would not risk the investment, if I would make the decision at Blizzard. The damage to the brand could be desastrous in the worst case - first, legacy servers stealing people from regular servers, so these began to detoriate. Then, Legion sales plummet because people on legacy servers are not interested in the addon, and possibly drag a part of the regular community with them. This could end in an ugly situation. I would only start legacy servers if I knew that Legion would be the last expansion and that I would only maintain the game afterwards to gain some profit from WoW fans - then I would surely like to get as many as possible and lure all the people who have left into battle.net with legacy servers.

[Goondicker]

you claim bad argument and tell me payin a hoster is the same as doin some advertisement just to ignore the fact that someone DID made a profit of Nost and it WASNT Blizzard.

And the advertising company used by UNICEF would make a profit. I didn't ignore it, I brought it up...

(Also, your post was difficult to read.)

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You mean the petition that can be manipulated by ANYONE?

How would it be manipulated by just anyone?

[Atelniar]

Payment methods are really not a problem at all. The thing is, many people would only play a legacy realm, if it was completely included in their standard subscription without any additional cost. Regarding this group, Blizzard would gain not much - only sub for the time when some of these people interrupt their subscription because of "no content" - but will definitely have increasing costs. Then there is a group, who would probably pay some extra $ for the addition of legacy realms. These people could probably contribute to reducing the cost factor, probably even net some gain - depends on the number of people in this group, and the additional costs for the legacy server model. And then there are people, who would not pay anything - like on pirated, private servers. These people would only cause increasing costs and the only benefit there would be an increase in the player base for the paying customers on legacy servers. Some of these not-subbed people would possibly use micro-transactions now and then if there are shop items or anything like that. This is hard to tell. And it's a slippery slope.

If all these Vanilla fans would not fork out money beforehand in a Kickstarter campaign or something like that, I would not risk the investment, if I would make the decision at Blizzard. The damage to the brand could be desastrous in the worst case - first, legacy servers stealing people from regular servers, so these began to detoriate. Then, Legion sales plummet because people on legacy servers are not interested in the addon, and possibly drag a part of the regular community with them. This could end in an ugly situation. I would only start legacy servers if I knew that Legion would be the last expansion and that I would only maintain the game afterwards to gain some profit from WoW fans - then I would surely like to get as many as possible and lure all the people who have left into battle.net with legacy servers.

Which is why many argue that the worth of legacy realms lies in its ability to sustain a playerbase during content draughts. Content draughts are usually the period when people flock to private vanilla realms in larger droves than normal. The value of a legacy realm becomes part advertisement for the retail product and as a means of keeping the playerbase invested in the IP instead of going elsewhere. Say what you want about private realms (because they are indeed illegal in a sense), but they do keep former WoW players invested in Blizzard's IP, that is WoW to some degree, instead of taking part in an entirely new title.

WoW's trial system has been proven to be wholy uneffective at sustaining players ever since its implementation. However, if you offer legacy servers (with certain restrictions, such as not being able to buy tokens for the gold you make on a legacy server) as a f2p option with its own server community but access to its own sub-forum on the official forums, it might be a positive addition without requiring a subscription. You could also make it b2p, as in unavailable until you bought the bundle of expansions prior to the current one (battle chest).

There are many ways...

[Deleted]

No, I'm actually talking about ideas. I'm not talking about private servers. I'm talking about games like this.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/03/24/...-infringement/

Those game developers don't take graphics and art from Blizzard. They take the ideas and make their own art. All those characters were made by the game developers themselves. Sure they look like Blizzard characters, but they all drew that art themselves.

Yeah, no. Just looking at the main picture in on that site I can tell you are trolling.

Also Taurens are copyrighted.

[Marlberg2963]

Steal? How is it stealing?

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

In theory it isn't any different than any of the Fair Use exceptions to the DMCA (that Nostalrius was French Based might have bearing on the case as well)
and might even be a violation (on Blizzard Entertainments part) of the Misuse (aka Unclean Hands) defenses to infringement allowing copyright infringers to avoid infringement liability if the copyright holder has engaged in abusive or improper conduct in exploiting or enforcing the copyright (If the actions by Blizzard arise to the statute of anti-competitive practices in the manner or effect of its actions a court of competent jurisdiction could prevent Blizzard from maintaining its injunction and the C & D that goes along with that would be rescinded)

In Practice it is a moot point since Nostalrius rather than contest Blizzards actions via the court. Being the all volunteer nice guys that they were complied with the Cease and Desist order thereby rendering the case irrelevant.

Hopefully the release of the source code and the community as a whole will be able to undo the damage that Blizzard has done to Nostalrius and to itself. Who knows there may yet be legitimate Vanilla based servers. But in order for it to happen those who create these private vanilla servers will be forced to either comply with Blizzards demands or they must find a way around Blizzard's wishes legally and legitimately.

[Cryonic]

They shut down nost but can't keep their own servers up (EU down for extended maintenance as usual)