What does paying money have to do with genuine interest in the subject matter from a potential demographic?
Why do you also seem to be so inclined as to have subscription model as a default payment method?
You posting a quote created which again assumes subscription models to be the only viable solution is irrelevant to the topic. Too many assumptions on what Blizzard has done or not. When asked specifically on if Blizzard had ever thought about re-visiting expansions as they were then, a representative replied: "No, you think you want that, but you don't" (after I sort his stuttering out). He openly replied "no". They never thought about it, let that sink in. A Blizzard employee explicitly said so. No.
If they never entertained the thought they never ran statistics. The statistics are in the open for all to see. They are called private servers, and their activity is proof of a demographic. You can try to shrug it off by implying not enough would pay by creating an artifical argument regarding subscription models, but that can be easily dealt with by utilizing a more effective payment model for stale content such as a legacy server. Case in point, you have no argument that isn't based on a falsely constructed premise regarding subscriptions. You have no means of dismissing genuine interest and a demographic.
Cut the fucking bullshit, already. Excuses posted by Blizzard about costs without no details regarding said excuse, in the very post where they themself verify that they never lost the entire old code, an excuse that has been used multiple times up until I caught it red-handed and began attacking that premise, is questionable at best. It is an excuse, not establish fact.
Provided evidence (curtosy of the Google search engine, since a good portion of it is not allowed to be linked to or even mentioned specifically by name):
1) Private server activity and their success as such inspite of their questionable nature, which would normally cause people to avoid them.
2) There are half a dozen active private servers with classic orientation and has been like this for many years.
3) Many of these private servers rival or topple most of the large servers in WoW in terms of activity.
4) Nostalrius alone could be compared to 3-4 of the largest WoW-servers currently running in terms of activity (put together, not one by one).
5) 150k+ signatures on an actual petition.
6) Anything from 80k up to 2+ million views per youtube video (depending on the chosen video-creater) which focuses on the topic.
7) One of the largest threads currently running on MMO-Champion, while others also address the topic (legacy servers/classic WoW) but in a different manner than focusing on Nostalrius.
Assumptions are:
1) What Blizzard knows that the common public does not when they try to make an excuse not to undertake a potential project.
2) WoW ran statistics and analyzes this specific topic, even if when asked directly by the community they said "no". They never thought about legacy servers at all. This has been recorded and is a meme by now:
3) Blizzard lost the old code and would have to re-write it from scratch (proven false by a blue poster on the offical forums).
4) That subscription models are the only capable monetization method in today's market.
5) Blizzard will make every correct buisness decision, because they want to make a profit, even if they have made a plethora of bad decisions the last 5 years.
6) There's not enough interest, Blizzard said so, in a formal excuse to their playerbase (which is written in order to justify their stance as to why it shouldn't be done). No data was provided on the lack of interest.
Call me Sherlock, baby, I'd say that there's very little for the nay-sayers of legacy servers to stand on. Other than conjecture based around subscription having to be a payment model and assumptions regarding how many would pay their own subscription for a stale server (duh) and Blizzard's stance (which Blizzard is allowed to have, I am merely arguing there is a fucking demographic).
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It's bullshit and I refuted it myself by addressing a quote from the official forum that Kyanion provided in this thread. Blizzard has said so themself: they have the old code, or at least large portions of it. So that was either a lie or a complete misunderstanding by those who are against legacy servers.