Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Flatspriest]

THE WALL OF NO!

Summary of Blizz’s public stance:

1. Blizz does not believe there are enough people interested in utilizing this idea long term to justify the various costs necessary to bring it about.

2. Blizz feels this idea is counter to the nature of MMO’s; non-progression equates to stagnation and eventual boredom.

3. The original game code does not exist in that form anymore. All the old data has been replaced, with the newer data which was not saved (archived) for later reuse. It was over-written and destroyed. “There is no switch to flip on the realms to roll back years of patches and changes…” In keeping with the sentiment in expressed in #2, above, it’s gone, never to return. Even if it were “recoverable” by other means it would still require lengthy and expensive rewrite.

4. They have no plans or desire to recreate the original version from scratch. They refer to the notion of attempting to do so as “a logistical nightmare,”… and in keeping with their stance in #1, above the time, money and resources required are prohibitive and unjustified.

To paraphrase it all: “Too much cost, too little interest and it’s not what the game is about… we’re not doing it.”

Proponents are adamant it is a good thing and continue to post it (in various forms), sometimes multiple times a day despite heavy resistance.

Analogies:
Those who argue for “Classic”, “Vanilla”, “Old Content”, “Old Style”, “Realm Specific”, “Locked Progression”, “Throwback”, “Retro”, “Premium” (or any other variant thereof) servers frequently fail to put real thought into their idea. Consider how this would work in similar situations in other venues.

The movie industry:
“The earliest days of film were so much better; we really had fun and such a sense of adventure. We really had to work at understanding what was going on and those that couldn’t read the subtitles were just bad. We want special theaters that play only silent films (Vanilla), those were so awesome and we miss them so much. For those that want black and white “talkies” (BC) we can maybe have some that do those too, but no further. Technicolor (WotLK) is where the studios went wrong and this fancy Bullet-Time fx (Cata) junk is just taking the whole thing in the wrong direction…Blizz, fix it now! Give us our silent films back!”

The auto industry:
We want our Model-T’s back (Vanilla)… Henry Ford’s stuff was so awesome (blah, blah)…We could support maybe the Mustang (BC), but no further (blah, blah)… Datsun’s 280Z (WotLK) is where it all went wrong (blah, blah)…Chrysler Minivans (Cata) are just too bad to deal with (blah, blah)…

Proponents are asking either for (a) regression to the past where things were not better than they are now…and want to drag everyone else in the game with them… or (b) the ability to segregate themselves from everyone else so they can indulge in their nostalgia. Not only does the majority of the player base not want that, neither does Blizz. Not enough people want it to justify the costs of doing it and… most importantly… it goes against the progressive vision the company -- and players -- have for the game as a whole.

You will have no better chance of getting Blizz to do this than you would convincing the movie industry to revert to silent or even black and white only films or the auto industry to revert to producing nothing but cars like the Model-T or Edsel.

Blizzard specific references on the issue:

They were going to, long ago…
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. We'd effectively be developing and supporting two different games.
Drysc (CM), Feb 21, 2008
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/6...lassic-servers

We occasionally see requests for us to open pre-TBC realms, or classic realms if you prefer. Lately there have also been requests for pre-WotLK realms, and I am sure that once the next expansion pack is released there will be requests for pre-Cataclysm realms as well. We have answered these requests quite a few times now saying that we have no plans to open such realms, and this is still the case today.

We have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms, and you should not expect to see the opening of such realms with the launch of Cataclysm either.

We realize that some of you feel that the classic game was more fun than the current game, and as a result would like to revel in nostalgia; the developers however prefer to keep the game moving forward as they want the game to continuously evolve and progress.
Vaneras (CM), Nov 28, 2009
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...igional-realms

We have no plans of making pre-TBC realms. This goes against the very nature of an MMO and would be a logistical nightmare. There's no switch to flip on the realms to roll back years of patches and changes, and we don't intend to invent one so that a very small minority of players can play what we feel would be an inferior cousin of the World of Warcraft of today.
Zarhym (CM), April 27, 2010
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...the-wow-killer

Question: The whole topic of classic servers has been popping up on the forums, always on yours - I assume with the release of Cataclysm there's this huge wave of nostalgia here because you can't play in the old world anymore. Is this something you might consider doing after the Cataclysm launch?

Chilton: Currently, my answer would be probably not. The reason I say that is because any massively multiplayer game that has pretty much ever existed and has ever done any expansions has always gotten the nostalgia of, "Oh God, wouldn't it be great if we could have classic servers!" and more than anything else that generally proves to be nostalgia. In most cases - in almost all cases - the way it ends up playing out is that the game wasn't as good back then as people remember it being and then when those servers become available, they go play there for a little bit and quickly remember that it wasn’t quite as good as what they remembered in their minds and they don’t play there anymore and you set up all these servers and you dedicated all this hardware to it and it really doesn't get much use. So, for me, the historical lesson is that it's not a very good idea to do *laughs* - it's a great idea to talk about.
Tom Chilton (lead game designer), Aug 20, 2010
http://www.wowhead.com/news=166540/e...tails-and-more
(approx. half way down page)

https://twitter.com/ghostcrawler/sta...81503165054976
Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street, Dec 31, 2012

Additionally, read this player post that might remind you of some of what you “miss” about Vanilla WoW:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...1718715?page=1

WowInsider has a similar negative view:
May 2, 2012
http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/02/5-...one/#continued

Also –

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...0659727?page=2
I work for a software company with corporate customers. Each of them has rather more invested in equipment than a PC gamer, and they like paying for upgrades even less.

Our products have been advancing technologically over time in a gradual fashion, so as not to lose the customers with the oldest equipment. However, things like operating system support and hardware version support are outside our control--which means we have to keep slowly advancing the requirements, and adjust existing code to match. Over time that means stuff eventually falls off the list of what we can support, because our code, gradually upgraded as it is, starts to require OS or hardware features the oldest equipment can't support.

We couldn't turn the clock back ten years, or probably even five, if we wanted to.

Blizz is no doubt in the same pickle. They've changed their database structure, upgraded the graphics, and likely done a lot of more subtle stuff over the last seven years that makes it fundamentally impossible to support Vanilla code, even assuming that code still exists in pristine form somewhere.

MOP will, as I understand it, very likely require at least a duo core CPU. That's another significant difference that can't be rolled back.

Therefore: what the Vanilla crowd is actually asking for is the development of new code to duplicate old code. That's not easy or cheap, and is going to compete directly for resources with development of current content. There would have to be a monumental ground surge of interest to make it feasible, an order of magnitude greater than what has ever been exhibited on the forums.

TLDR: That's not how software works.

From the EU forums, Feb 23, 2011

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1751857331

MMOChampion poll about whether Blizz should have such servers:
(June 19, 2012)
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...a-or-BC-server

It's a line Blizzard has drawn from way back when, yet suggestions or requests for classic realms continue to pop up on the forums. Let me tell you here and now... don't bother. Blizzard will eventually just lock your thread or delete it entirely simply because it's not in their best interests to provide such a service.

http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/13/no...realms-really/
Mar 13, 2009

Finally: Here’s a link to a past post dedicated to a deeper discussion of the idea. Please read it all the way through – it is very thorough.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...0659727?page=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HoaFWI5S0Q
http://i.imgur.com/Xw1Dx.gif

Lakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

How the forums are dealing with the “problem.”
Buy a stronger whip.
Change riders.
Say things like, “This is the way we always have ridden this horse.”
Appoint a committee to study the horse.
Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
Create a training session to increase our riding ability.
Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.
Declare the “No horse is too dead to beat.”
Provide additional funding to increase the horse’s performance.
Declare the horse is, “better, faster, and cheaper,” when dead.
Study alternative uses for dead horses.
Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position

[Deleted]

People acting like it's impossible for Blizzard to be wrong in evaluation if something is worth it or not.

Remember that Blizzard willingly passed on supporting dota for W3. Look at how big dota became and how poorly HotS does compared to LoL and Dota 2. They even tried to prevent Valve from naming the game Dota.

A very good point. Look what happened with LOL. Whatever you think of the game it was an extremely popular ad on that Blizzard could of capitalized on and made millions and kept fans happy. What happened?

"YOU THINK YOU WANT THIS, BUT YOU DON'T".

What was the result? Another company jumped in at the chance and made a very easy smash hit video game that cause Blizzard a lot of grief. Even now they are trying to correct this colossal mistake and missed opportunity with HOTS (which I personally think is great) but it could of been so much more and so much more popular if they had of done it before LOL.

[Kolvarg]

Do they plan to make an announcement, for or against vanilla, after Legion?

I believe a few people on reddit said they had contacted CS regarding this and they mentioned they had a forum sticky "in the works", but that as far as it goes =P Very possible 100% bullshit.

[wombinator04]

THE WALL OF NO!

CLIPPED

Get out of here with your logic, reasoning and years of proof that this has been discussed to death.

Please go create a reaction/rant video of this for all the youtube monies.

[Mullet Man]

THE WALL OF NO!
Feb 21, 2008
Nov 28, 2009
April 27, 2010
Aug 20, 2010
Dec 31, 2012
May 2, 2012
Feb 23, 2011
June 19, 2012
Mar 13, 2009

So nothing new since 2012?
You could have a least grabbed the post from January.

Times changes. We are asking for Blizzard to reconsider.

[Aehl]

So nothing new since 2012?
You could have a least grabbed the post from January.

Times changes. We are asking for Blizzard to reconsid

Blizzcon 2015

NO

From MMO Champion's summary of the Blizzcon Q&A:

"No plans for Vanilla realms. Lots of emotional desire for it, but when other MMOs tried it, it didn't work out. Lots of complexity, old code, old hardware, old data, old bugs. Players would expect things to be fixed."

[Hexian]

There's nothing to preserve, as every bit of vanilla world is preserved until today. Every zone, NPC, questline, are here, and everyone can play them.

Holy shit...

I almost want to bookmark this just to remember how utterly wrong it is.

[Mullet Man]

Blizzcon 2015

NO

Blizzard 2004 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2005 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2006 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2007 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2008 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2009 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2010 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2011 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2012 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2013 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2014 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2015 - We will be releasing content more quickly.
Blizzard 2016 - We will be releasing content more quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A

[Thanatoss]

Get out of here with your logic, reasoning and years of proof that this has been discussed to death.

Please go create a reaction/rant video of this for all the youtube monies.

But other people discussed it to death! I obviously have an idea that no one has ever thought of or considered ever in the history of this topic /s

[Hexian]

THE WALL OF NO!

Summary of Blizz’s public stance:

They also said at one point that faction switches were never going to be in the game because it went against the spirit of WoW. But then realized they could charge obscene prices for such a service.

So to answer your post....times change.

[Aehl]

So nothing new since 2012?

2015 Blizzard said no.

So no.

[Thanatoss]

They also said at one point that faction switches were never going to be in the game because it went against the spirit of WoW. But then realized they could charge obscene prices for such a service.

So to answer your post....times change.

Yeah, times do change. But this one hasn't yet. ::see quotes from earlier this year where they said no:: Asking every single day isn't going to get an answer the pro-legacy server side wants until the metrics for the pro outweight the cons and that seems to be something we have no control over

[Eliseus]

THE WALL OF NO!

Too bad this is full of outdated info and strawmans and fallacies. Keep up the good fight though.

[Mullet Man]

2015 Blizzard said no.

So no.

Thanks for posting this twice.
Gives me another chance for another video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuOYmqSF6OQ

[Eliseus]

They have more numbers about that issue than we do
They know the industry better than we do
Seeing that, I more inclined to believe them than other people that are shouting on the internet

Says who? Have you ever once as a WoW player seen a poll from Blizzard if you would want these servers? Have you ever had emails sent to you to notify you of such poll? Blizzard does not have the numbers. I'm also inclined to wonder how you are seeing people shout through the internet. Are many people in this thread in some voip with you? Let's not start claiming they have the numbers when they do in-fact not. A professionals opinion on whether the idea is worth it or not is not validation of a magical number that was never concluded.

[Mullet Man]

Yeah, times do change. But this one hasn't yet. ::see quotes from earlier this year where they said no:: Asking every single day isn't going to get an answer the pro-legacy server side wants until the metrics for the pro outweight the cons and that seems to be something we have no control over

I think most people were happy to play Nost, and bring up the topic occasionally on different WoW forums.
Now you have a bunch of people with nothing else WoW related to do.

Hence, you get people asking daily for vanilla realms.

[Deleted]

Says who? Have you ever once as a WoW player seen a poll from Blizzard if you would want these servers? Have you ever had emails sent to you to notify you of such poll? Blizzard does not have the numbers. I'm also inclined to wonder how you are seeing people shout through the internet. Are many people in this thread in some voip with you? Let's not start claiming they have the numbers when they do in-fact not. A professionals opinion on whether the idea is worth it or not is not validation of a magical number that was never concluded.

Well they atleast can estimate the effort that is required to adapt a classic server for their modern Infrastructure.
Which is more than any of us can do.

[Eliseus]

Frankly it's astonishing so many people are upset that people want these servers. In in no way, shape, or form effects their game-play of the current server. If Blizzard on the other hand ignored the current servers, that would be a different thing. I wouldn't count on them to ignore 2mil+ people though, so this fear-mongering is absurd. It's like I go into an ice cream store and prefer vanilla ice-cream and you start yelling at me how I'm making a poor choice and should choose chocolate though the Company is catering to both and not neglecting keeping their ice-cream flavors coming for all. The logic is outstanding lmao.

[bigbaddan]

Thanks for posting this twice.
Gives me another chance for another video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuOYmqSF6OQ

You accuse people of using conjecture to push their view yet come right back with conjecture of your own. Excellent.

Says who? Have you ever once as a WoW player seen a poll from Blizzard if you would want these servers? Have you ever had emails sent to you to notify you of such poll? Blizzard does not have the numbers. I'm also inclined to wonder how you are seeing people shout through the internet. Are many people in this thread in some voip with you?

So in your opinion, posing a question is the ONLY way to gather data. No polls, no emails...there's no WAY they can gather information by some other avenue. Impossible!

The portion you edited out of your post...what was wise...

Let's not start claiming they have the numbers when they do in-fact not. A professionals opinion on whether the idea is worth it or not is not validation of a magical number that was never concluded.

Wait...you rail on Cevera for making a statement with no facts to back it up yet you come back and do the EXACT same thing. How do you know it's a fact that they don't have numbers?

[Eliseus]

You accuse people of using conjecture to push their view yet come right back with conjecture of your own. Excellent.



So in your opinion, posing a question is the ONLY way to gather data. No polls, no emails...there's no WAY they can gather information by some other avenue. Impossible!

The portion you edited out of your post...what was wise...



Wait...you rail on Cevera for making a statement with no facts to back it up yet you come back and do the EXACT same thing. How do you know it's a fact that they don't have numbers?

Numbers were provided by Nost, unless you think those people are all fake (which they could be). How else do you get numbers without numbers? I'm going to claim I'm 100% right and you are 100% wrong. I have the numbers to support this. I don't need to provide said numbers, but an expert told me I have the numbers.