Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Ratatosk]

Which mage were you? I think we had PD Skel, and scratching my head for the names of the others its been so long. Yes I was enhancement Shaman on Khalltusk at the time class leader of my band of glorious little shamans.

It was me (Venatik), Primoz, Skeltor and Darlantius if I remember correctly. Nimmereth got me in the guild before Sunwell came out.

Apologies for the offtopic, boys.

[khalltusk]

Oh no doubt, I could get away with balance druid in any dungeon in Vanilla and I got to do it in some of the raids as the game went along. But I was one of the few balance druids that actually got to play as a non-healer. I know the hate my spec got along with shadow priests and ret pallies and so on. It is just one of the many reasons I think if Vanilla servers got opened by WoW people that never played in Vanilla that would try it out wouldn't stick or they would demand class balance and shit. Can of worms and all that.

The thing the pro-Vanilla/classic people need to keep in mind is you WANT people to try the game and stay there, you need more than just PS people and nostalgia people and the like. You want to get as many people playing as possible, but when some of that happens....bitching begins for balance or people will just stop.

Yes, there were some players/groups that would let the odd hybrid in for the spec they wanted. Kudos to those guilds or people. Most serious raiding guilds didnt allow it sadly. I remember going into raiding and basically being told this is the spec you are now going to use. I was enhancement in PVP before then. Balance back then was woeful, you could get a lucky WF proc on a clothie and gib them. Or a POM pyro mage would 2 shot people. Or a warrior with a WF botting shaman would come along and just wreck face as he had a few personal healers.

[Kyanion]

I only played on Nost PvE, because as I said, I considered the other one unplayable. I played only to level 40, because I just wanted to test it a little and see how it is compared to the one I was actually playing on. I can say that both were pretty good. None of the private servers I've played compare to the real retail though, they are all full of bugs, if you actually know after what to look.

Common bugs are:

- pets are pretty fucking retarded, all the servers I've played they didn't go on the boat / zepellin, except Nost, but that was not perfect either.
- most escort quests are fucked
- most mobs that have pets are fucked, those pets are for some reason yellow and don't usually react when you attack the master
- the kiting is fucked in groups, for example in retail if you pull one mob from a group, the whole group will follow for a significant distance, on the private servers the ones not attacked would return after like 5 meters, so it's extremely easy to clear those huge murloc / whatever camps
- some private servers have the kiting fucked completely
- NPCs don't react correctly, for example I kited Stiches to the SV rebel camp and those fuckers just stood there, while on "the other" server, they actually attacked it and killed it
- there are problems with aggro, aggro range, mobs stuck in trees, mobs misplaced, rares not having a loot table and lots of other things, like my preferred one, falling through the world and not being able to resurrect.

The only reason I played on these servers is because I liked the world much better before Cata, some of the zones are so weird and serene. After Cata every zone has some fucking battle going on lol

But these private servers don't even come close to the retail, again, if you know what to look for. Many people don't give a fuck about that, and I perfectly understand that.

Understandable and thanks for being honest about some of the issues on Nost and other private realms. Sounds pretty frustrating but I guess people are willing to look past that. Though for me that just would taint my perception on how I remembered Vanilla.

But it sounds like it wouldn't even be good enough by Blizz standards to ever employee the Nost group which some people have been clamoring for, and I believe Nost themselves tried to volunteer to do it. Just does not sound like their work would be good enough...not that I think they could work on Blizz's stuff anyways.

[khalltusk]

It was me (Venatik), Primoz, Skeltor and Darlantius if I remember correctly. Nimmereth got me in the guild before Sunwell came out.

Apologies for the offtopic, boys.

Ah yes, Now I remember, yeh Primozdelux (PD?) Skeletor, skeltor was another person (a scot) who was on a rogue. Nimmerith known him since vanilla. Darlan I remember as well. The mage group in SWP along with the lock group had some serious bloodlust buffing going on.

[Kyanion]

Yes, there were some players/groups that would let the odd hybrid in for the spec they wanted. Kudos to those guilds or people. Most serious raiding guilds didnt allow it sadly. I remember going into raiding and basically being told this is the spec you are now going to use. I was enhancement in PVP before then. Balance back then was woeful, you could get a lucky WF proc on a clothie and gib them. Or a POM pyro mage would 2 shot people. Or a warrior with a WF botting shaman would come along and just wreck face as he had a few personal healers.

Yeah it was very rare that some of the hybrid specs got to play them in raids and even more rare that people got to play them in the top guilds on their respective realms. I know I wouldn't likely have got to play balance in Naxx if I was able to raid back then, I was moving and unable to play for a chunk there and when I was able to play hardly any raiding was going on as everyone was just honor farming to get weapons for TBC. I got to do all the other raids though so it was nice to be one of the lucky few.

[Ratatosk]

Ah yes, Now I remember, yeh Primozdelux (PD?) Skeletor, skeltor was another person (a scot) who was on a rogue. Nimmerith known him since vanilla. Darlan I remember as well. The mage group in SWP along with the lock group had some serious bloodlust buffing going on.

My bad, but finally I remember why Skeltor sounded familiar, I've sadly forgotten many of the people as well.

[rgwrgh24hh]

The lengths of denial and absurd mental gymnastics these people will go through just to try and justify pirating is incredible.

It's even more insane that they manage to convince themselves, then repeat it endlessly because they think that it's the truth. And when reality knees them in their tiny shrivelled testicles with a cease and desist they are just beyond words and unable to process it.

Im talking about specifically people on reddit right now who think "Vanilla" is abandonware

[DenniZ]

The lengths of denial and absurd mental gymnastics these people will go through just to try and justify pirating is incredible.

It's even more insane that they manage to convince themselves, then repeat it endlessly because they think that it's the truth. And when reality knees them in their tiny shrivelled testicles with a cease and desist they are just beyond words and unable to process it.

Im talking about specifically people on reddit right now who think "Vanilla" is abandonware

Exactly who are they pirating it from then? There is no commercial company offering the same vanilla wow content or experience despite popular demand for it.

[Kyanion]

Exactly who are they pirating it from then? There is no commercial company offering the same vanilla wow content or experience despite popular demand for it.

Oh good lord not this discussion again. Just go back and read the thread and you can see multiple sides to that debate.

[Omnoms]

Exactly who are they pirating it from then? There is no commercial company offering the same vanilla wow content or experience despite popular demand for it.

They do not own the intellectual property, asset design, story, world, development etc.

It doesn't - matter - that nobody else does it. It's Blizzards IP and Blizzards property. It's beyond taking inspiration. It's literally taking something they've spent countless hundreds of hours developing and then launching it on their own with no rights to anything.

[Jewsco]

They do not own the intellectual property, asset design, story, world, development etc.

It doesn't - matter - that nobody else does it. It's Blizzards IP and Blizzards property. It's beyond taking inspiration. It's literally taking something they've spent countless hundreds of hours developing and then launching it on their own with no rights to anything.

Why do you bring facts and logic to this thread. Because I dislike blizz it is fine to steal from them. I ain't hurting anyone and I get what I want. Nevermind most of these people wouldn't pay for a blizz run legacy server.

[khalltusk]

My bad, but finally I remember why Skeltor sounded familiar, I've sadly forgotten many of the people as well.

heh its quite alright it was quite a long time ago. People always confused the two. Fun fact, skeltor went onto the original server him and skeletor joined back in Vanilla. Went to select Skeletor as his name but someone took it. He chose skeltor instead. He talks to his friend and moans about someone taking Skeletor. His friends like erm yeah XD, I am skeletor. Both undead of course.

Skeletor became the GM of the raiding guild I joined (flawless balnazzar) known him and skeltor for years now. Still hang out a lot with skeletor (been to his wedding and many lans and events with him). We were both best men at our friends wedding (TSeng former rogue in our guild). Odd stuff but yeh thats how long we've all known each other now.

On topic. Kyanion, yeh thats the thing anyone wanting to get into higher raiding was pretty much forced to go and spec into things they may not have wanted. If there was a Vanilla setup from Blizzard they would have a dilema. I made a small list below.

1) What patch do we start it on? Do we also start it at the last major patch in Vanilla and then slowly unlock late game content on a schedule?
2) Do we do further tuning/Balance and bug fixing? Or leave it as is?
3) Do we use updated models/old models like we currently do or force it to use only old models?
4) Do we allow transmog? (as who wants to look like a fucking clown)
5) If we do Vanilla, we will most likely end up doing previous expansions, which means we have to go through all the points above (depending on expansion for point 4).

All of the above would take up dev time and hardware resources, which costs money. I think they can "afford" to do it financially (well easily imo) but as a business they have to turn a profit and I don't think they want the risk.

[rgwrgh24hh]

1) What patch do we start it on? Do we also start it at the last major patch in Vanilla and then slowly unlock late game content on a schedule?
2) Do we do further tuning/Balance and bug fixing? Or leave it as is?
3) Do we use updated models/old models like we currently do or force it to use only old models?
4) Do we allow transmog? (as who wants to look like a fucking clown)
5) If we do Vanilla, we will most likely end up doing previous expansions, which means we have to go through all the points above (depending on expansion for point 4).

All of the above would take up dev time and hardware resources, which costs money. I think they can "afford" to do it financially (well easily imo) but as a business they have to turn a profit and I don't think they want the risk.

You start at the very first patch or else it isnt a true VANILLA experience, it would be a private server vanilla experience
As-is
Old models
No
No

[Deleted]

You start at the very first patch or else it isnt a true VANILLA experience, it would be a private server vanilla experience
As-is
Old models
No
No

Or they do it like it happened 3 years ago with runescape.
identical story: private server of oldschool gets super popular, gets shutdown, after a shitstorm oldschool runescape comes out and today runescape and oldschool runescape have very close to 1:1 population.

recent story about it from the runescape devs jagex: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/build...r-avoided-kemp
alternate link: https://bl.reddit.com/r/2007scape/co..._mmk_into_the/

[Akka]

You know by making a statement like that you are basically trying to shut the door on any discussion and handwaving it away as if people can't make an argument against what you say.

Don't try to invert what's happening. I'm not shutting the door, I'm seeing the door shut down in my face and realize there is no point trying to speak with people who actively try to not listen.

Well some of our arguments have to be nostalgia based because what else is it for me?

It's not because the only thing you liked in Vanilla were based on nostalgia that it's the same for others. I'm able to see the difference between what I like due to nostalgia and what I like because, well, I actually like it on its own merit - and I can support it with arguments.
I don't really see how you can logically argue "well, what I liked in Vanilla is based on nostalgia, so it's the same for you as well", unless you meant something else...

The issue with Vanilla was that anything for Hybrids like Shaman Druids or paladins (and priests) was that their healing specs were the only viable ones in raids and the end game dungeons. Not even about competitive, it was the only ones worth taking. Your damage was so low compared that you would struggle to get into a pug or guild that wanted to do any form of high end dungeon/raid content.

The thing is, we were talking about TBC there :

I think BC had pretty much the exact same problems as vanilla.

2/3 specs didnt have a raid set

2/3 specs wherent good enough to raid or even had a thought out rotation

It fixed questing basicly.

This guy was spouting shit about TBC by making false claims, and was corrected.
The fact that some spec were garbage and raid gameplay was a bit boring are among the very few actual valid points against Vanilla. As a whole, TBC class design was spot-on and closest to perfect in WoW history (I'd just add the rotations embellishments of WotLK and then leave them at that if I could design my perfect WoW).

As for the rest of your post, I disagree on many things - the hybrid vs pure was a good design, and the "hybrid tax" was sensible. I liked to be versatile as a hybrid, and to be specialized as a pure. I loved to be a buffbot as an enhancement shaman, and I felt deeply how I needed support as a rogue.
QoL as having raid-wide buffs and consolidating them I don't mind (though they went WAY too far, as usual, in the dumbing down in WoD where buffs are just so automatic it removes all fun there was in).

But WoD has been out a while now. Do I think a fresh Vanilla would keep people as long as WoD was around? I don't really know, I personally feel it wouldn't. I know I wouldn't bother with it, I can only speak for myself. Blizz has likely weighed the costs and thus far they have felt the same way on it for years. Maybe things will change, but I doubt it will be anytime soon. Certainly not before Legion or even shortly after.

WoD today has been around barely HALF the time Vanilla was. Yet people have feel they're done with WoD for monthes already, while Vanilla was often felt cut short (especially for raiders barely entering Naxx).
Vanilla content has MUCH MUCH MUCH more staying power than WoD, 'cause Vanilla was slower paced and had no shortcut making irrelevant 90 % of the content in one afternoon of farming. THAT'S among the (many, many) design points making Vanilla superior to today's shit.

[khalltusk]

You start at the very first patch or else it isnt a true VANILLA experience, it would be a private server vanilla experience
As-is
Old models
No
No

Then it creates more work for point one. Point 2 becomes obvious as people will whine at some point about X or Y being broken (reckonning bombs inc!) We would probably see the ZG virus come again and MC imp bombs in the AH. All of which come down to point 2 and would blizzard really want to go through with all of that again. Not to mention the work load of making each patch as it comes out and hoping they have all the documentation and files to bring those old patches in. Otherwise they have to re-create each patch implement them and hope nothing goes wrong each time.

Point 3 - is a flavour option I personally would allow the clients to choose between old models and new models. As its all done client side at that point.
Point 5 - you would not do other expansions? So all the TBC people wanting that would just be told no for what reason?

[Azgraal]

Exactly who are they pirating it from then? There is no commercial company offering the same vanilla wow content or experience despite popular demand for it.

I've used this example time and time again, but I'll use it once more.

A family has a country house, yet they've been living in a city for decades. As they're not using their own house (despite still owning it) is the house free for anyone who wants to crash in?

Vanilla WoW is Blizzard's propriety. And no matter how you try to spin it, as its owner they're free to use it as they damn well please. If they choose to never let it see the light of day again as the old, already upgraded software that it is, they're within their rights as owners to do so, and NO ONE has the right to legaly claim it for their use, however "fair" they consider it.

[Ratatosk]

I've used this example time and time again, but I'll use it once more.

A family has a country house, yet they've been living in a city for decades. As they're not using their own house (despite still owning it) is the house free for anyone who wants to crash in?

Oh you sweet summer child. Come to south eastern Europe.

[khalltusk]

As for the rest of your post, I disagree on many things - the hybrid vs pure was a good design, and the "hybrid tax" was sensible. I liked to be versatile as a hybrid, and to be specialized as a pure. I loved to be a buffbot as an enhancement shaman, and I felt deeply how I needed support as a rogue.
QoL as having raid-wide buffs and consolidating them I don't mind (though they went WAY too far, as usual, in the dumbing down in WoD where buffs are just so automatic it removes all fun there was in).

Hybrid vs pure was a good idea, but it caused a lot of problems. Players applying to guilds being denied as they already had 1 shaman as DPS and having another was not required etc. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it at the time as it pissed all over Vanilla in terms of game play. Loved totem twisting and the like as well. For its time the hybrid tax was fine, but as it wore on it was annoying. As hard as I could try my damage hit a ceiling and I was brought in due to my buffs but not what I could do as a damage dealer.

Wrath for me hit a good point in terms of raiding. Druids shaman paladins could all compete to be good on damage and provide buffs. I think in time though they went and blended the classes together too much and I think thats why in legion they are really hammering home class/spec identity. A welcome change IMO.

[Akka]

Understandable and thanks for being honest about some of the issues on Nost and other private realms. Sounds pretty frustrating but I guess people are willing to look past that. Though for me that just would taint my perception on how I remembered Vanilla.

You seem to be the one running on nostalgia here
I remember how Vanilla was, and I know a private server WILL have bugs. It's why most would prefer to just play on an official legacy server actually, and why the well-scripted private servers are popular (though, honestly, many people have shit in their eyes and will claim "server X is perfectly scripted" even when half the quests are completely broken and there is countless class bugs all over).

But it sounds like it wouldn't even be good enough by Blizz standards to ever employee the Nost group which some people have been clamoring for, and I believe Nost themselves tried to volunteer to do it. Just does not sound like their work would be good enough...not that I think they could work on Blizz's stuff anyways.

It takes HUGE amount of time to fix bugs, especially considering these guys do it for free on their own free time. Also, one of the thing taking the most time (and probably more than coding itself) is to dig for references to fix what is ACTUALLY a bug, and not a hiddern mechanics or a counter-intuitive results. And to check if it was actually like that at the time, and not before nor after - mechanics changed constantly during WoW life, and you won't implement how they work the same on a 1.12.1 realm as on a 3.3.5.
Blizzard could just check if what happened was in-line with what they decided. It took five second for someone to ask "how much time after the last offensive action is combat supposed to drop ?". When someone on a pserver want to do the same thing, they have to check retail, and video of the time, and try to measure it, and wonder if it was a fixed time (like 5,5 s ?) or a randomized one (like 5 s + between 0 to 1 second ?). And that's for one of the easiest to check mechanisms, there is plenty of extremely convoluted to check, which are a lot of work for a PS but would be very quickly checked and fixed if Blizzard could share information (does spellpower adds damage to arcane shot in patch X ? Or rogue poisons ? Or wands ? If yes or no, when was it changed ? How much percentage of your spellpower is added if yes ? Does you % to hit bonus apply ? If yes, is it the physical one or magical one ? Etc.)

Coding a PS is actually harder than Blizzard dusting off their code, because a PS is an EMULATION, and as such has to approximate what happened without knowing the exact inner workings, and with sources being either lost, overwritten by newer stuff or even worse, mixed with other (newer or more ancient) ones. Add to that the muddled memories and the fact that 90 % of people seem to have no perception skill and no ability to measure (one of the bug I helped to fix on another PS was the amount of weather effects ; retail had perhaps a 2 or 3 % rate, the server had 50 %, that's a pretty overwhelming difference ; yet many people actually DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE THAT and some went as far as saying it was "just like retail").

Yeah, despite what the people try to claim, coding a PS is not as easy as magically "stealing Blizzard code". THAT would make for a very quick, very reliable PS

- - - Updated - - -

I've used this example time and time again, but I'll use it once more.

A family has a country house

BUZZZZ !
Comparison retarded already.

Hello, making a false equivalent between copying dematerialized data of something not even available anymore and a material, existing house. Are you even trying ?