Former Vanilla WoW team lead Mark Kern statement to Mike Morhaime on legacy servers

[Jewsco]

It isn't entirely about the money - it would fracture the player base and if you think recruitment for mythic is hard nowadays, just wait until legacy realms are introduced.

When all said and done everything is about money.
That said what you pointed out is another problem. Guilds now have problems getting 20 people together consistently to run mythics. How is it going to be to get 40 people together to run vanilla raids? Also at fist might be fine but a year or two later how will that be?
A vanilla server means running the same raids forever.

[Wildmoon]

So why won't Blizzard do that then? Open one server that would serve as an example, then when people simply didn't use it, they could not only close it down, they could make a definitive statement "see, we told you we know best" and nobody could complain.

It would cost relatively little, generate massive positive PR, and ensure that in future their word would be taken more seriously in these kinds of discussion.

So why don't they? To me, it comes back to the fact that they are TERRIFIED of letting their players play vanilla. Because people would say, immediately; "Well, it is a bit irritating not having QoL things like LFD, but my god, the gameplay is so much better. Why isn't the gameplay on current WoW this good?"

Do you really believe that? I don't think any relevant company would do something just to serve as an example. The idea is the kinda of idea only people in this forum could come up with. Trust me if money is there Blizzard won't hesitate.

[Triks]

When all said and done everything is about money.
That said what you pointed out is another problem. Guilds now have problems getting 20 people together consistently to run mythics. How is it going to be to get 40 people together to run vanilla raids? Also at fist might be fine but a year or two later how will that be?
A vanilla server means running the same raids forever.

A simple fix would be to have them ladder-style so that people can play Vanilla as much as they want and leave when they want, knowing that they can get a fresh start how many months down the line.

[Kyanion]

So why don't they? To me, it comes back to the fact that they are TERRIFIED of letting their players play vanilla. Because people would say, immediately; "Well, it is a bit irritating not having QoL things like LFD, but my god, the gameplay is so much better. Why isn't the gameplay on current WoW this good?"

They so scurd. Man you figured it out. Everyone will just give up on that whole Legion expansion and flock to Vanilla! /sarcasm

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Simplistic view. They have said many times that they know that there are people who prefer certain versions of WoW. They just don't think it's worth it.

Basically this.

[peterpan007]

If Blizzard can't do it I think they should allow fans to do it.

[Deleted]

The last time we took Vanilla WoW devs seriously, WildStar happened.

I only played beta wildstar and i know how false this statement is.

Wildstar is nothing like vanilla wow. Theres no world you go back to, just faux corridors to go through. Its alot like SWTOR in that regard aswell as most other mmo's that just lay down a road for you to travel in the leveling path.
Stop using it as a toss weapon. The reason it failed wasnt because it had hard raids. Though they did overdo it a bit. Again... Wildstar is very different from vanilla WoW.


On the topic at hand... i still think Blizz has a point. They just haven't gone through with it. They need to make their game better if they want to refuse old servers. And i'm afraid that means pandering less to misguided demands from casuals. Actually many of us were casuals and tbh most of us still are, but while before we ran dungeons and small sized raids with the option to go further into large raids, now we all do the same raid over and over again in different difficulties and dungeons/world/dailies/small raids are things that don't exist anymore.

Why did it come to this Blizz? It's time to re-evaluate the path. Because having those 4 types of content was better than the 1 type we have today. Also, stop making everything easy to achieve. Easy to achieve = not worth your time. Theres no sense of accomplishment. I'm not saying go balls to the wall difficult. I'm saying it can't be balls to the wall easy. There has to be a progression model, not catch up mechanics. There has to be a smaller gear difference between these levels so said catch up mechanics are not necessary. This means removing different difficulty levels. Go back to making small sized raids and large sized raids with a flex range (say 10-15 and 15-20). You have the tech why don't you use it?! Making the flex ranges smaller would help with the designing of abilities aswell.

[MkGuyver]

Yeah, insults swing both ways

But you are also right: I cannot see how a legacy server would hurt me (or anyone who has no interest in playing there). Especially if it gets people back to the game who have otherwise quit. At this point I am more interested in the 2000 pages thread that will happen IF Blizzard actually says "We were surprised by the demand, here is your legacy server"

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What playerbase is that? The hundreds and thousands of people who cannot come to a consensus about anything on this forum for example? I swear if you said "Alliance colour is blue and Horde colour is red" you would still have people disputing that just to watch the forum burn.

Sigh indeed.....

how about the pvp playerbase which gives very well formulated and thought out feedback posts, that get ignored expansion after expansion which led to an insane drop of active pvpers..if they go through with their changes they might aswell remove pvp from wow

there is insanely good feedback on the alpha forum as well about which spells should be pruned - yet again devs decide they know better -> the massive subscription drop says otherwise

me and others r playing this game since classic but blizzard must be high thinking that im gonna play an expansion where my class has 10 buttons out of which 6 r boring dmg spells.

[FlemmMinis]

A simple fix would be to have them ladder-style so that people can play Vanilla as much as they want and leave when they want, knowing that they can get a fresh start how many months down the line.

Yeah... but that wouldn't be the "vanilla experience".

[Triks]

Yeah... but that wouldn't be the "vanilla experience".

Not entirely but that's the whole point of these realms - to get an experience of Vanilla WoW and to play it when you feel the need to.

[peterpan007]

Just like when Runescape introduced legacy server there was controvesy between its playerbase

http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/15/114...pe-legacy-mode

While this option was introduced at the majority of players' insistence, Kemp described the "rivalry" that persists between those devoted to the legacy servers and those who choose to play the overhauled version of RuneScape. That's corroborated by fan threads on forums like Reddit following Old School RuneScape's launch, with players decrying the release as a developmental setback.

Despite some dissent from both players and developers alike, Kemp wrote, Old School RuneScape has become what he called "a major part of Jagex's business." The legacy server hit one million players eight months after its launch, the company confirmed in October 2013.

[Kyanion]

Just like when Runescape introduced legacy server there was controvesy between its playerbase

Runescape =/= WoW

[MkGuyver]

Fair enough - I was addressing the posts that lump everybody together into a homogeneous "playerbase" when there really is not. And I gave an example. But if you want something more recently: Simple question: Flying yes or no resulted in a 2000+ pages thread. As a question that has two possible answers and you get 20 different answers and people fighting to the blood over their belief what is "best" for "the game"

Apart from that...I don't think we need to point out that you are presenting a logic chain: "My feedback is good - it gets ignored - ergo subs drop"

games evolve.. cant say i give a fuck about flying or garrissons or any of that stuff i come back to wow every expansion because the gameplay is good the raids r fun.. atm they r killing that core part of the game in legion by making this an mmo moba that started with WOD - pruning for wod was bad for the game

[Varjo410]

The last time we took Vanilla WoW devs seriously, WildStar happened.

This. Wildstar is the perfect example of how out of touch with the current market/players all those former Vanilla WoW employees are.
It had so much hype, everybody wanted to play a game that went back to a Vanilla WoW type of gameplay made by people that were a part of creating Vanilla. Until it came out and everybody realised how obsolete all those Vanilla inspired mechanics were, within 2 months everybody had already given up on it. It's probably the biggest MMORPG failure ever.

[MkGuyver]

This. Wildstar is the perfect example of how out of touch with the current market/players all those former Vanilla WoW employees are.
It had so much hype, everybody wanted to play a game that went back to a Vanilla WoW type of gameplay made by people that were a part of creating Vanilla. Until it came out and everybody realised how obsolete all those Vanilla inspired mechanics were, within 2 months everybody had already given up on it. It's probably the biggest MMORPG failure ever.

erm.. the game was possibly to difficult for average joe as well

the mmo crowd is more casual now than it used to be otherwise things like LFR wouldnt exist

[Deleted]

ITT: Regressive game developers telling their customers what they want. Oh, also, a lot of people being triggered by the idea of hiring people who see themselves as Stallone's Judge Dredd. (I AM, THE LAWWW)

Fun fact; Other businesses hire people who break their stuff, amongst the Security sector of where people hire Hackers, because the hackers are on a higher level than the programmers, as they manage to break through.

Same ordeal here, this isn't some f'cking random joe shmuck who can't program, they ran Vanilla servers on emulation without major issues - That qualifies them to be at least on the level of programmers.

Also, fun fact - "Couple of million youtube views won't change shit" - Original developer of Vanilla steps up.

Just, gg guys, you are being dofuses. Stay classy, MMO-C.

[munkeyinorbit]

Because legion is different from vanilla and people prefer vanilla?

You mean people prefer free shit over paid stuff. We know this because every person and their dog lied about willing to pay for Vanilla yet the thieving entity known as Nos was out of money because hardly no one was willing to pay for vanilla.

[Deleted]

You mean MMO-C people prefer shitposting over actual facts?

Fixed that for you, m8.

[OreoLover]

ITT: Regressive game developers telling their customers what they want. Oh, also, a lot of people being triggered by the idea of hiring people who see themselves as Stallone's Judge Dredd. (I AM, THE LAWWW)

Fun fact; Other businesses hire people who break their stuff, amongst the Security sector of where people hire Hackers, because the hackers are on a higher level than the programmers, as they manage to break through.

Same ordeal here, this isn't some f'cking random joe shmuck who can't program, they ran Vanilla servers on emulation without major issues - That qualifies them to be at least on the level of programmers.

Also, fun fact - "Couple of million youtube views won't change shit" - Original developer of Vanilla steps up.

Just, gg guys, you are being dofuses. Stay classy, MMO-C.

You bring up a lot of irrelevancy, across many of your posts. Why?

[Deleted]

You bring up a lot of irrelevancy, across many of your posts. Why?

You ask a generic non-specific question without any context, why?

[Pony Soldier]

Because legion is different from vanilla and people prefer vanilla?

Well I hate to to say this but that's too bad. If these people don't like it they can fuck off and find something else. The fact that they can't accept and adapt to the changes just tells me that they don't really like WoW they only liked a certain portion of the game. If you truly loved WoW you would be able to accept the changes it has made over the years and change with it. I have been playing this game for about 10 years and there is not one day where I'm saying "man I wish we could go back to vanilla days". I'll admit that there are a lot of changes that Blizzard made that I wish they would undo but in general WoW has become so much better of a game compared to how it was years ago.

These people are acting as anchors for WoW, they want to hold it back because they can't accept where WoW is heading and what WoW has become. If you can't accept the changes WoW has gone through fucking quit the game and stop the fucking whining and complaining and move on to something else. A game shouldn't have to be held back or change it's ways because of nostalgia or because they liked an older version of the game better. This is an MMO and MMOs have to evolve, not be stuck in the same state forever. So either these people need to accept what WoW is or they can fucking leave and find something else that suits their needs.