Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Atelniar]

It could obviously blow up in their face, because obviously if it was possible to know for sure what works and what doesn't there would only be successful enterprises
But nevertheless, legacy servers are a very low-cost investment, especially for Blizzard - they might be rather high-risk from a PR perspective, which is IMO the real roadblock - so even if it blew up it wouldn't be a large cost.

Again, the only real problems are most probably "political" (as in : would be a loss of face, and a change in general strategy). Which can be pretty strong incentives to ignore even a low-risk venture.

Yea, I would say the same thing as Akka regaring successful enterprises. But I kind of assumed that people knew that much, just for the record, so that people don't demand I explain what I meant when I implied that Blizzard weren't "almighty". I just thought it was pretty obvious.

[xChurch]

True, but wow has lost so many MMORPG elements that I'm wondering if it's still worthy of being called that. I'm mentioning this because it resembles these quick-to-play games more and more. And the lack of perceived value on characters nowadays makes people less incentivized to come back.

Because they've gone from competing with other long term games to competing with the games that are designed to last brief amounts of time. If WoW proves to take to much time than other games for entertainment value, people have massively more options than they used to. Gone are the days where people would bash their heads against a wall for weeks/months because now they have options. Hell, how many people have steam accounts full of games they haven't even beaten yet?

[Akka]

Here's the thing: the ones telling us about Nostalrius' ""official numbers"" are the Nostalrius gang themselves, and, being criminals talking about their crime

Usually, we don't trust criminal about their crime because they have an incentive for lieing about them (like reduced sentence). Regardless of the loaded "criminal" emphasis, what exactly would lieing bring to Nost guys ?
Fame ? Legitimacy ? Be it 400 000 or 800 000 it's all in the same ballpark anyway. Unless they inflated like one hundred-fold, which seems just conspirationist-theory worthy.

[Atelniar]

On a free server

You can add anything from 3-10k more from other "free" servers. The demand for a product targeting such a demographic is present. Period, and it is much larger than you probably liked to admit to begin with. Nostalrius is the tip of the iceberg. You see it, you hear about it right now, but there's much more where that came from.

[Tuesdays]

This is piss-poor logic. Is Blizzard the almighty profit-god that will make any and all proftable choices available to them? If so, why didn't they manage to make a relatively large PvP scene become e-sport competetive in time before MOBA's hit the scene? If so, why didn't they manage to make garrisons work as proper player housing as people wanted to? If so, why did they utterly destroy gathering professions and many crafting professions the last five years? Why, why, why? Because they aren't that competent. They aren't almighty. And you certainly CAN NOT under ANY circumstance use that as evidence that legacy servers will not be profitable. Because Blizzard has proven on multiple accounts that they are not perfect, which undermines your entire assumption that they would make the right decision in this case.

Care to continue discussing that fact? Or do you think losing half your subscribers in less than two years shows all-knowing competence?

Umm, why all the bold? Why, why, why?

Anyways, can you show me with 100% fact that they can indeed make profit, and FFS do not link me to the god damn petition that every idiot and his brother can sign all day either.

You have ideas how to monetize Legacy, please list them, so that Blizzard can read them, and see where they have messed up. Also the cost of setting up servers, software and hardware integration, cost of a new ui implementation.

How much should Legacy cost?
Does it include current version of World of Warcraft?
How much does implementation cost, and what is the project profit?
Should Blizzard hire more employees, or split teams currently working on Legion?

Let's just discuss facts.

[Mullet Man]

Anyways, can you show me with 100% fact that they can indeed make profit, and FFS do not link me to the god damn petition that every idiot and his brother can sign all day either.

Can you show me with 100% fact they can not make a profit with Vanilla WoW?

[Akka]

Do you have any proof that it's a low cost venture? I've yet to see any numbers to back that claim up from anyone.

I have plenty of logical evidences for those who look at it objectively. Which are, honestly, pretty much obvious and self-evident by themselves (note again that I'm strictly speaking hardware and software, with the minimal amount of GM and maintenance ; I'm NOT speaking of the PR and long-term strategy cost, which is, again, where I think the REAL cost for Blizzard is).

On the other end, there isn't in the entire world enough evidences for people who actively do not want to believe them. We still have YEC and climate change deniers to this day, we still have people claiming loudly that "maths are wrong" when being told that "0,999... = 1" and so on. People will believe what they WANT to believe over a wrecking ball in their face, and I'm powerless against this.

[Triks]

Because they've gone from competing with other long term games to competing with the games that are designed to last brief amounts of time. If WoW proves to take to much time than other games for entertainment value, people have massively more options than they used to. Gone are the days where people would bash their heads against a wall for weeks/months because now they have options. Hell, how many people have steam accounts full of games they haven't even beaten yet?

In 2004 I was playing: Doom 3; HL2; Thief: Deadly Shadows; Rome: Total War; Need for Speed: Underground; Call of Duty: United Offensive; XIII; Warcraft 3/DoTA; 1.6; Far Cry; UT 2004; The Suffering; etc. Yet WoW occupied the bulk of my play time because it was simply more engaging. From all of those I listed, the only ones which are "longer" are Thief and RTW.

In 2007 (probably the best year for gaming) I was playing: The Club; Hellgate London; Bioshock; CnC 3; The Orange Box; Modern Warfare I; Need For Speed: Pro Street; Crysis (upgraded my rig for that); Assassin's Creed; Stalker; Oblivion; Lost Planet; Gears of War; Unreal Tournament 3; Zeno Clash; Mirror's Edge; Dead Space. Yet TBC again occupied the bulk of my play time.

If a game is able to occupy your time you will play the hell out of it.

[Jewsco]

This message is a perfect example of :

I think it is you arguing in bad faith. You have decided with no facts that blizz could do legacy servers at little to no costs. Somehow you have decided that legacy servers would be a great profit to blizz but blizz doesn't want to make this money. Makes perfect sense that business would choose not to make money. Maybe they have done the real research and up to this point it still isn't worth it for them financially. But no you are right blizz just doesn't want to make money.

[xChurch]

I have plenty of logical evidences for those who look at it objectively. Which are, honestly, pretty much obvious and self-evident by themselves (note again that I'm strictly speaking hardware and software, with the minimal amount of GM and maintenance ; I'm NOT speaking of the PR and long-term strategy cost, which is, again, where I think the REAL cost for Blizzard is).

On the other end, there isn't in the entire world enough evidences for people who actively do not want to believe them. We still have YEC and climate change deniers to this day, we still have people claiming loudly that "maths are wrong" when being told that "0,999... = 1" and so on. People will believe what they WANT to believe over a wrecking ball in their face, and I'm powerless against this.

So you have 0 actual proof and yet I'm like a climate denier because I don't believe you?

[Jewsco]

I wonder which side that is, people like strawmen in here. I think. Yikes.

Straw man? It is he stat you keep using so are you admitting you are straw manning then?

[Atelniar]

Umm, why all the bold? Why, why, why?

Anyways, can you show me with 100% fact that they can indeed make profit, and FFS do not link me to the god damn petition that every idiot and his brother can sign all day either.

You have ideas how to monetize Legacy, please list them, so that Blizzard can read them, and see where they have messed up. Also the cost of setting up servers, software and hardware integration, cost of a new ui implementation.

How much should Legacy cost?
Does it include current version of World of Warcraft?
How much does implementation cost, and what is the project profit?
Should Blizzard hire more employees, or split teams currently working on Legion?

Let's just discuss facts.

There's no such thing as a guaranteed success in development. Didn't you get the memo? The idea is that the potential demographic more than justifies an attempt at utlizing already existing code at some point (notice the term, I am not saying today, I am not saying tomorrow). This would be wise because they have already alienated the demographic in question a long time ago, so the idea that will truly split their playerbase is a fraud. The playerbase has been split for years. They left the game a while ago, and at some point they may never return. I am not saying that it should necessarily be implemented before or even after Legion, but to ignore the idea on the premises that have been made (such as bullshit excuses about lost code) is about as stupid as it can get. Legacy servers for a game, that in it's classic state resonated with millions of players at a time where the MMORPG-genre was far more narrow than now, could be the biggest success Blizzard ever ventured into. I don't think people realise how big Vanilla WoW was at the time, it created a cultural stigma that exists today, ten years later. Think about it.

Oh, btw: "the proof is out there". Just use google properly and spend more than 10 minutes researching the topic. I can not provide evidence as it is against forum policy.

[Jewsco]

The entire difficulty curve is so whack it needs an entire overhaul with LFR being consolidated into Normal, Heroic being rebalanced and Mythic becoming cross-realm to stop the massive folding of guilds. Getting the players shouldn't be the barrier for not doing the absolute hardest content in the game. I won't go into boss design because that's an entirely different story but just know that I am not a fan of the design that has been the standard since Cata.

Legion has the right idea but there's something missing and I can't put my finger on it.



The average age of gamers is around 35 ie people with disposable income. Try again.

Maybe disposable income but not the time to grind out a game like back when a teen.
Maybe why MMO's overall are fading away and hardcore ones like wildstar failed.

[Alroxas]

But nevertheless, legacy servers are a very low-cost investment, especially for Blizzard

Legacy servers (done right) aren't going to be cheap. The amount of overhead required to modernize Classic WoW (or BC/Wrath WoW) is a large task considering the interfacing with b.net. Additionally, various tech issues also come up. A similar analogy is to try to natively run old ms-dos games in Windows 10 without emulation.

Even if Blizzard had the old server blades around, it would be a nightmare in terms of upkeep because parts would be very rare.

Lastly there's always the cost factor. Would private servers actually have a large following if there was a sub fee? Say equal if not more than the current wow sub?

No Blizzard was right to attempt to defend their IP by shutting down private servers. Had they not acted then they could have lost the IP. The only real regret is why Blizzard didn't act sooner.

[Osmeric]

A Vanilla server seemed like a dumb idea, but then I remembered Vanilla had lolsand.

Who doesn't love lolsand?!

[aisatsana]

Because they are meaningless. Not to mention that you can sign more than once.


On a free server


Proof that vanilla servers can be profitable, like most pro-vanilla people claim. But not 'chump change' profits: remember: Blizzard won't be hiring a third party to host their servers: they'll buy it themselves, which means doing all the work themselves, buying all the necessary hardware themselves, and hiring and training development, community manager and customer support teams, and pay them monthly.



Read above.


Hah. So hypocritical of you to say we 'repeat the same rhetoric':

"WoW vanilla servers can be profitable!" *offers no evidence*
"There is a huge interest for vanilla servers!" *ignores the low retention rate"
*Blizzard are lying to us about vanilla servers!" *trusts the words of criminals*

You can't look at private server numbers and expect the same if official servers come out. Private servers are a niche thing and 15k peak players is VERY impressive for a private server. Most players either don't know about them or don't bother trying to install them because they're private servers ("not the real thing"). If Blizzard comes out with official private servers it's a whole different story. A lot more people will play than a private server.

Take runescape as example. The retail game was in a pretty bad state and people wanted old school servers. Similar situation. They came out with old school servers and now those servers are more popular than the actual game. I wouldn't be surprised if this happened with WoW if they release old school servers. Honestly so many people that quit WoW and don't play anymore + people who are playing now would love these servers. You'd be surprised.

[Deleted]

If you can't separate the message from the person then I can't help you.

So we should seperate his twitter messages from his persona? how silly and ironc can you get....

[Akka]

So you have 0 actual proof and yet I'm like a climate denier because I don't believe you?

Well, I guess you prove my point, and I was right in not bothering to make a long post and a lot of arguments that would be just wasted efforts dismissed mindlessly by people who just want to dismiss anything which contradict what they want to believe.

[Atelniar]

Straw man? It is he stat you keep using so are you admitting you are straw manning then?

Strawman: An intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.

Misrepresenting my opinions and words opposite to what they are is considered bad forum habit. Capiche? Hence why I use the term.

[Perkunas]

You can't look at private server numbers and expect the same if official servers come out. Private servers are a niche thing and 15k peak players is VERY impressive for a private server. Most players either don't know about them or don't bother trying to install them because they're private servers ("not the real thing"). If Blizzard comes out with official private servers it's a whole different story. A lot more people will play than a private server.

Take runescape as example. The retail game was in a pretty bad state and people wanted old school servers. Similar situation. They came out with old school servers and now those servers are more popular than the actual game. I wouldn't be surprised if this happened with WoW if they release old school servers. Honestly so many people that quit WoW and don't play anymore + people who are playing now would love these servers. You'd be surprised.

While I don't think they'd be more popular than retail I think they'd be popular enough for Blizzard to rethink some of the added convenience that's sacrificed the community aspects of the game. They might rethink progression entirely and that would probably drive some lazy players away.