Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Nightstalker]

How big is the circle-jerk of people that keeps repeating the same stuff for the last 500 pages?

[Marakesh]

How big is the circle-jerk of people that keeps repeating the same stuff for the last 500 pages?

On a hunch I hit your forum posts button, and oh, waddayaknow! This is at least the second time you've said this here. Like 5 posts down. Doesn't that make you the master of the circle-jerk?

[Tome]

How big is the circle-jerk of people that keeps repeating the same stuff for the last 500 pages?

A lot, on both sides.

[Grim32]

This just in:

Blizzard is adding Legacy servers! But with one caveat. It will require a dial-up connection for the "true Classic experience".

Oh Blizzard you slay me!

On a serious note, Blizzard just announced release date of 8/30. Nothing kills a nostalgic conversation quicker than showing people the latest and greatest and reminding people to "never look back".

If you're still waiting for an answer, this is it.

Go to all announcements about it - FB, Twitter, Forums, people say they want vanilla - not legion. I find Blizzard very good at avoiding an elephant in the room.

[Deleted]

How big is the circle-jerk of people that keeps repeating the same stuff for the last 500 pages?

See how many people have viewed this topic.

There's only one way to move this forward though. The answer is buried within these hundreds of pages.

Now personally, I believe that Blizzard should defend their livelihood. It's childish to make demands of them.

Now if you are willing to pay for something in huge amounts, that's another story.

[Marakesh]

Loss leader is something you lose money off of.

For example. Black Friday. Most of the crazy sales items are below cost meaning they lose money for each one purchased. They are the loss leader to get people into stores who may then buy the more profitable items earning stores profit in the end.

Blizzard could give away Starcraft, Diablo 1 + 2 or the Warcraft series for free. That may give people an incentive to sign up for WoW or buy SC2, D3.

Yes about the loss leader, but not the 2nd part. The thing is to get people subbed. Once they're eligible to play legacy, they might start playing the live game. Getting people in the door, especially those you know are good potential (love mmo's enough to come back), is worth a lot. Even if you attached a free WoW sub to Starcraft purchases, it wouldn't be as valuable. And doing that would signal the game had gone f2p, unlike boosting paying subscriber numbers.

[A dot Ham]

Go to all announcements about it - FB, Twitter, Forums, people say they want vanilla - not legion. I find Blizzard very good at avoiding an annoying cricket in the room.

As much as I loathe the term. I think the vocal minority applies.

Those of who us want to play legion aren't really going to speak up because... we are getting what we want.

Also I think you greatly over exaggerate just how many people are in support of legacy servers... so I fixed your comment.

[Deficineiron]

Your patronizing attitude is also one of the cancers of this community.

You never owned the game. All that came on the cd was all the data of the game, you absolutely needed to log in to Blizzard's servers to play.

Being named one of your peers is high praise indeed!

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This is a non-starter Blizzard are not going to license WOW to anyone in regions where they already operate.

This sums it up exactly.

[Murictavis]

There is a law that forbids any foreign game company directly selling their product in China.
That's why Blizzard has to get a partner. just saying.

[Uurdz]

There is a law that forbids any foreign game company directly selling their product in China.
That's why Blizzard has to get a partner. just saying.

Spot on. China has protectionism laws that's trump would drool over. Can't really say trusted partner when they don't have a choice.

Blizzard are not going to franchise their IP unless they have no choice. They're the best, they'll do it themselves or not at all.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.
Yes, Blizzard licensed WoW to NetEase to bring it to China.
"Currently, Blizzard and NetEase collaborate to bring World of Warcraft®, StarCraft® II, and Hearthstone™: Heroes of Warcraft™, and the Battle.net® gaming platform to millions of Chinese gamers."

The point is they CANT publish there themselfs cause china is a dictatorship.

[Tharkkun]

I don't disagree.
But because of this China agreement, Blizzard already has a trusted 3rd party partner in NetEase that could run vanilla servers.
And NetEase now has a presence in North America. How convenient.

Again, this is pure speculation on my part.
But I'm not short-sighted enough to assume that Blizzard isn't at least considering this option.
Or that Blizzard "MUST" run and maintain the vanilla realms themselves.
There are other options that can be pursued.. Are they pursuing them? I don't know.
I have no special insight into what happens behind Blizzard's closed doors. Neither do you.

The only reason Blizzard does this in China is because it's very difficult to open a company in China. Let alone a company that provides a service such as WoW. NetEase only manages the servers in China. Blizzard provides all the code and the product.

Since Blizzard has their infrastructure built up in the US/Europe already it wouldn't make any sense to partner with another company.

[Deleted]

Those of who us want to play legion aren't really going to speak up because... we are getting what we want.

Also I think you greatly over exaggerate just how many people are in support of legacy servers... so I fixed your comment.

I find this adversarial thing absolutely dumb as shit. You aren't supporting a soccer team in a derby.

It is quite possible to support both private servers and retail. As it is also possible to understand the people who like legacy servers without wishing to play them yourself.

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The only reason Blizzard does this in China is because it's very difficult to open a company in China. Let alone a company that provides a service such as WoW. NetEase only manages the servers in China. Blizzard provides all the code and the product.

Since Blizzard has their infrastructure built up in the US/Europe already it wouldn't make any sense to partner with another company.

It makes sense because another company can take on all the risk and maintenance costs of a private server and give Blizzard a % of any profits.

It is pointless just sitting on valuable IP not letting any one use it.

[Sury]

This just in:

Blizzard is adding Legacy servers! But with one caveat. It will require a dial-up connection for the "true Classic experience".

I actually raided 40 man Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and did Alterac Valley on 56k... It was my only option at the time lol. I have to say it was always the worst when I would go back to town to hit the bank of put something on the AH. The game would completely freeze and have to load when I would hit the highest populated areas.

[Chrno]

I actually raided 40 man Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and did Alterac Valley on 56k... It was my only option at the time lol. I have to say it was always the worst when I would go back to town to hit the bank of put something on the AH. The game would completely freeze and have to load when I would hit the highest populated areas.

haha this i remember all too well

[papajohn4]

For those Nost players who are NOT actively subbed that is exactly what it means. You can't be a customer without the exchange of goods or other currency to another party (in this case Blizzard). Let's not try to act as if most of the Nost players are actively subbed to retail players that are hyped for future expansions.

If i am eating on a restoraunt once a week, i am not a customer because i dont eat all day everyday 24/7? And if 1 week i decide to try another restoraunt, does that mean tha i will never eat again to the first restoraunt?

Customer is anyone who payed you a lot of money and is very likely to pay you again in the future, not just the one who pay you right now...if you(not you specifically, in general) open a business with this mind you will not make it very long...

[Pantalaimon]

If i am eating on a restoraunt once a week, i am not a customer because i dont eat all day everyday 24/7? And if 1 week i decide to try another restoraunt, does that mean tha i will never eat again to the first restoraunt?

Customer is anyone who payed you a lot of money and is very likely to pay you again in the future, not just the one who pay you right now...if you(not you specifically, in general) open a business with this mind you will not make it very long...

I get the general idea of what you mean, but I disagree with the comparisons. Many of the players who were drawn to Nost had most likely already experimented with previous private servers before Nost came around and also had not been subbed to retail for well over a year (if not many years). If I chose not to go to an average cost restaurant for well over a year that isn't really letting the business people behind that establishment feel like I am going to come back any time soon.

Aside from the restaurant example I wouldn't really call the typical Nost/private realm player as someone who is "...very likely to pay [Blizzard] again in the future...". The typical player in this scenario preferred WoW between Vanilla & Wrath & most often view that WoW started majorly declining in quality (for a variety of proposed reasons) and sub numbers with the onset of Cata. With that in mind I doubt many of these players would return to retail any time soon unless retail did a 180 to bring it more closely back to one of those three expansions, albeit with some modern QoL changes.

[Atelniar]

It's getting very annoying that somebody who has no arguments feels the need to use any fallacy available to try to discredit other peoples valid arguments. It is even getting to the point that the arguments used to discredit a poster are the same ones the poster used himself (for example the video drivers). I guess Ielenia chose the second option from your signature but doesn't accept the consequences.

It doesn't seem so, no. I haven't even received a decent reply regarding the artifical use of "pay to win" as an argument in relation to F2P, nor the fact that he/she never bothered to apply logic in order to shoot down the examples I mentioned.

When I am met with that level of idiocy, aka: "doesn't sound like a seller, to be honest", I kind of lose hope in humanity's ability to have a rational discussion.

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What I am saying is that Blizzard has the potential to foresee how a given project in game development may or may not be profitable with a much greater accuracy than the average MMO-Champion poster, some who even claim to know more about the subject than Blizzard.

Nay, you never said that Ielenia, that is what you apply as a bandage now, in order to weasel yourself out of a difficult dilemma that I point out.

You said:

I'd argue their word have more weight, though, considering they're a legitimate business, and, as such, care about the bottom line, and if vanilla servers were indeed as profitable as people claim, they would do it.

Let me compare it word for word: no, it still doesn't mean the same.

You changed your phrasing gradually for each time I pointed out the naive nature of the idea, that Blizzard would undertake any and all projects that could potentially be profitable. Blizzard themselves have even stated in public at an event that they never thought about it, there's video evidence of that, when directly confronted. That they later imply there is desire amongst their in-house developers to do it, but that they don't "think" it's profitable, that doesn't necessarily mean that they ran any statistics or market research.

This is ALL your assumption. And I question that, due to the fact that Blizzard has repeatedly shown they do not do market research on certain topics. Flying, for one.

Holy fuck, that was the biggest pile of useless trash people clung to for months because they felt bereft of hanging in the sky (quite literally). It went so far as to upset the playerbase that more pressing issues about WoD's design was left unvoiced for longer than it should. While others were moaning about flying, I was moaning about garrisons being the worst idea in the history of bad ideas for professions and the open world.

You sneakily try to imply that Blizzard has more knowledge about the subject than me. Go ahead, do so. I will just sneakily avoid attacking your intellect by not comparing you to a company of people. Because that doesn't make your stance look any better, if you have to resort to a personal attack just to make Blizzard stand out as more than they really are.

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IMO the concept of the 5 man dungeon has been greatly watered down, starting with Wotlk. As the game progresses we've seen bosses have more mechanics but that's it. Generally 5 mans from the vanilla and BC days would ordinarily take 45 min to an hour (for harder dungeons) although you could complete easier ones in 30 minutes if you knew what you were doing. Now though we are seeing dungeons that are completeable in 15 or even 10 minutes.

In addition to that most of the stuff that made dungeons interesting aside from bosses (such as trash that can kill you) has been neutered beyond the point of recognition. That being said take a dungeon like BRD and I think even most vanilla haters will agree that it had a level of complexity and vastness that has gone unmatched to this date. You could spend hours in just one BRD run even just exploring the place. I also think the fact that the had materials as well as things like the black anvil made it more interesting than just flat out handing gear - essentially people with MC or BWL gear would still want to go back for things they could only craft from there.

Yes. I agree. BRD was the highlight of WoW dungeoning, not because of boss mechanics, as the design was so complex and a lot of the instance was in fact optional. It had different levels and you could take shortcuts to get to specific bosses. Materials, as you mentioned, could be found within and much more. The layers of depth that instance had has never been achieved in any other dungeon to date. The closest match were in fact other classic experiences. Such as Dire Maul and Sunken Temple. I used to love the lower levels (the sewer) of Sunken Temple, but that is completely cut out now. It doesn't exist anymore. And Dire Maul has been split into different wings, which is kind of lame.

In my mind the change began in TBC when dungeons appeared much more streamlined than in Classic WoW, not necessarily in WotLK, but I do feel it became even more prominent then.

It just goes to show how WoW has slowly moved away from being inconvenient, but immersive, towards convenience and quick tasks with rewards.

[Foj]

It just goes to show how WoW has slowly moved away from being inconvenient, but immersive, towards convenience and quick tasks with rewards.

I agree with that, but if you've only run BRD or (especially) BRS 20 times the place is confusing as all fuck. And you wouldn't run it 20 times without having run it 50 times 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 way through first.

I like many aspects of BRD and MC but when the game had 5+ million people during those days, only a tiny percentage of them ever set foot in either BRD or MC, and it's not accurate to say that they represented the WoW experience. Most people had no fucking clue what anything approaching endgame play was all about, and once they got there (which very few did), it was so uneven that it made very little sense.

The rose colored goggles are strong with Vanilla.

[papajohn4]

I get the general idea of what you mean, but I disagree with the comparisons. Many of the players who were drawn to Nost had most likely already experimented with previous private servers before Nost came around and also had not been subbed to retail for well over a year (if not many years). If I chose not to go to an average cost restaurant for well over a year that isn't really letting the business people behind that establishment feel like I am going to come back any time soon.

Aside from the restaurant example I wouldn't really call the typical Nost/private realm player as someone who is "...very likely to pay [Blizzard] again in the future...". The typical player in this scenario preferred WoW between Vanilla & Wrath & most often view that WoW started majorly declining in quality (for a variety of proposed reasons) and sub numbers with the onset of Cata. With that in mind I doubt many of these players would return to retail any time soon unless retail did a 180 to bring it more closely back to one of those three expansions, albeit with some modern QoL changes.

Before the Nostalrius, the private servers was not so popular.. the best private server had mostly 400-500 people online, while the majority had 50-100...Nostalrius had 150k active players.. How the private server community have instantly grown so much, if not from the current wow playerbase? (Which is why blizzard closed nost imo).

Also keep in mind, that those players are very likely to pay Blizzard again, because they are fans of the IP. Is not 2004 now, there are tons F2P and B2P games, why do people chose to play on a wow vanilla server? (and now the same thing is happening for a TBC private server that is opening). I see this as, we love your IP but not your current game. We will pay you again gladly, if you offer us a legacy server or if you make changes to the current game: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...rs_discussion/ (this is from the "official" wow reddit, not from private servers.. )