Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[Deleted]

I just want the server community back. No CRZ or LFR or item levels. I remember when people cared about knowing their role, class and the fights so you'd get invited back to the group. I miss the time when you knew people on your server. I dont care about population numbers ... either shut down cross realms or merge realms completely. The most boring thing in the game today is not knowing who you'll be grouped up with by a role of the dice. It was trivial but engaging to bark in trade LFG or LFM because you knew people. i'd love a classic server or a pristine server for that very reason.

[rda]

The only real, actual difficulty I can imagine from Blizzard's perspective, seeing as volunteer teams have been doing this stuff successfully for 6+ years now, would be integrating a legacy server system into battle.net. That actually does sound technically challenging... but it's completely unnecessary to do, really. If you can't integrate it, then don't. That's a very mild inconvenience at worst for your players.

There are tons of other big issues.

There are tons of bug fixes to backport. You wouldn't like to find out, for example, that your hunter's pet sometimes can't find a path to where you are, or even gets stuck in one place and doesn't despawn until you get out of the zone. It's not even funny how many of the old bugs that have been fixed after vanilla you wouldn't want to live with.

There are tons of quality of life improvements that aren't technically bugs, but that they would still have to backport, because not doing it is just not an option, people wouldn't like it. Ie, you wouldn't like it if BGs were unbalanced, for example - and they were in vanilla, you could get in 6 vs 10 easily. This was solved later, that solution would have to be backported.

There are perhaps many things that are just done differently now, eg, new network queues, better ways to communicate with the db (it's not even the same db anymore), etc.

It's just a ton of work.

[Aleksej89]

I was surprised blizz even responded officially to this issue.

Interesting that they said they are talking to the nostalrius guys, perhaps interested in making them a part of the "pristine realms" team?

[Deleted]

Pristine servers are not the answer, they said they have been discussing the idea for some time, but to me it sounds like they have chalked up with the idea in a random discussion in the office because of all the legacy servers talk going on.

It is a terrible idea, really it is.

It's still the same crap game that we have now, the same content that has been played time and time again, the world is completely different to what it was in vanilla,
The dungeons are nothing like what they used to be. you just can't recapture that by removing heirlooms and stuff, it wouldn't last long and the novelty of it would ware off after a while.

Just give us fucking vanilla servers blizzard. no matter how much fucking money or time it takes.

We didn't ask for a blizzard style visualisation of vanilla, we want it as it was in 2000 and fucking 4

[Lochton]

What Nostalrius people want is a vanilla server because they do not like how retail WoW is all around, not just the supposed lack of community feel. They are stuck to their nostalgy, believing that all the unbalance and lack of even more content is the ideal state. Pristine realms would flop even harder than actual Blizzard-hosted vanilla servers.

I would rather support and play on a pristine than a vanilla setup. I mean, it was great but not that great.

- - - Updated - - -

That's completely ridiculous. A legacy realm is ABSOLUTELY NOT even remotely close to their joke of a "pristine realm". The entire gameplay, mechanics and whole world are completely different. This "pristine realm" joke is just a clownish attempt at PR shit.

Believing that a company wants to have an old, broken version going live again, is also a ridiculous joke. They basically offered you the chance of going forward but without all the things that many of the private server people actually complain the most about.

[Saradain]

I would rather support and play on a pristine than a vanilla setup. I mean, it was great but not that great.

I suppose I would be a hypocrite if I said I could live with isolated Pristine Realms (since they cannot be connected to other realms or use group finder), but not vanilla realms? Maybe not, Pristine Realms use the same WoW but with just removed features, vanilla realms would require huge rework and maintenance of different server mumbojumbo I have no idea of.

[Spray]

Yeah. Such a great challenge to do vanilla servers when fucking people in their basements can do it for free. It's not like they have a few billion in cash reserves or anything.

2016 WoW backend != 2004 WoW backend

Different architecture, data structure, new API, Battle.net accounts, patching system (MPQ -> CASC), etc, etc.

I'd advise speaking on the matters you apparently have no idea about. Blizzard wouldn't just use the top-notch server, run MaNGOS on it (or whatever they use nowadays to pirate WoW) and be done with it.

[InfiniteRetro]

It's funny how one posts says "they couldn't even get enough money to keep the servers alive" while the other says "they profited of it".
Nostalriusdevs were just huge fans of the world blizzard created in vanilla, and were not in it for profit. They worked for 4 years, after their day job to create the server. They would be idiots if they did it for the profit since the return on investments (even if they actually took donations other than to pay for server costs) would be god awful.

Blizzard, in a blue post, acknowledged the nostalrius devs' love for the game, and said they were actively talking to them. They said they looked at ways to let people like nostalrius devs use their license. Looks like they don't see them as criminals. Why do you?

they shut down their "pirate" server as they put it...thats you know...criminal unless you live on Mars. either way they didnt "respect" blizzard enough to deny donations as a form of income and actually keep it "free". how very noble of them

[Biske]

Just give us vanilla servers blizzard. no matter how much money or time it takes.

Considering that the whole purpose of a for-profit company is to make money, that's some really ass-backwards thinking.

[Simplex]

Just give us fucking vanilla servers blizzard. no matter how much fucking money or time it takes.

Right, while you are at it blizz, include lifetime subscription and a few grand on b.net balance

[Zandalarian Paladin]

People, I don't know what you've read, but they didn't say no.

In fact they said they were in close relationship with the Nostalrius team and that they were listening. That's absolutely astounding!

[jvbastel]

they shut down their "pirate" server as they put it...thats you know...criminal unless you live on Mars. either way they didnt "respect" blizzard enough to deny donations as a form of income and actually keep it "free". how very noble of them

They changed their donations to be directly to the server hosting company. They have always talked about blizzard in a respectful way, and they have offered all their work on the serverside for free to them, in case they would like to use it for their own servers. Obviously they're criminal masterminds.

These are just a bunch of wow geeks who wanted to relive what they saw as the glory days of online gaming. Blizzard themselves have acknowledged that in their blue post. I can't see them going through with their lawsuit.

[Tart]

Because it's not free right? That's all you thieves want. You don't care if it is vanilla or retail as long as it is free.

Wtf are you babbling on about you absolute tit?

- - - Updated - - -

Pristine servers are not the answer, they said they have been discussing the idea for some time, but to me it sounds like they have chalked up with the idea in a random discussion in the office because of all the legacy servers talk going on.

It is a terrible idea, really it is.

It's still the same crap game that we have now, the same content that has been played time and time again, the world is completely different to what it was in vanilla,
The dungeons are nothing like what they used to be. you just can't recapture that by removing heirlooms and stuff, it wouldn't last long and the novelty of it would ware off after a while.

Just give us fucking vanilla servers blizzard. no matter how much fucking money or time it takes.

We didn't ask for a blizzard style visualisation of vanilla, we want it as it was in 2000 and fucking 4

Concur, it's a lazy way out of actually giving us what we want.

[Armourboy]

They changed their donations to be directly to the server hosting company. They have always talked about blizzard in a respectful way, and they have offered all their work on the serverside for free to them, in case they would like to use it for their own servers. Obviously they're criminal masterminds.

These are just a bunch of wow geeks who wanted to relive what they saw as the glory days of online gaming. Blizzard themselves have acknowledged that in their blue post. I can't see them going through with their lawsuit.

I can see Blizzard going through with it just to protect their IP, which is the only reason they did it to begin with. That said, that doesn't mean they would ask for jack squat in damages because they apparently " like them ".

[TheRealRambo]

As much as I'd like to play vanilla again, I think Pristine Servers are a horrible idea as they are described right now.

Basically, nothing changes, they just make the game time consuming and inconvenient. The totally miss the point of why people want vanilla servers. Vanilla was fun not BEACUSE of the timesinks and inconvenience, it was fun DESPITE those things. It's like they don't even get what an MMO is supposed to be anymore.

EDIT: BUT, I'm incredibly happy that at least they posted a decent answer instead of a simple "NO" as they usually do.

[jvbastel]

I can see Blizzard going through with it just to protect their IP, which is the only reason they did it to begin with. That said, that doesn't mean they would ask for jack squat in damages because they apparently " like them ".

The server is already down, I think they've proven their point.

[Valnoressa]

God I hate the WoW community. This is a non-issue, they don't want to take the risk of officially licensing pirate servers that are beyond their control (seriously, who would do that? It'd be insanity for any company and any individual.)

And they don't want to derail the direction of their game, regardless of how good or bad the future of WoW is, by focusing time and efforts on old shit for the sake of very small minority of players who are stuck in 2004 or forgot they're wearing rose tinted glasses.

[Jeniwyn]

I would not play on that type of realm*, at least not as described. It would be the same easy dungeons where "gogogo" is a workable strategy and you can do half the instance in one pull with no cc. All the (old) raids would be piss easy since the abilities we have now trivialize the content. The "pristine server" idea just isn't a substitute for vanilla servers. I don't think that there will be much overlap between the players interested in vanilla servers and those interested in this type of realm.

It is a good thing if they are talking to the Nost devs. By far the most reasonable idea that's been thrown around in these discussions is to hire them on (as consultants or just straight up) and give the access to the old scripting (whatever is left of it) and together with one or two devs of the rather enormous wow team or even old wow devs moved to other projects try to make classic servers after all.


*) a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder.

[Deleted]

Why does it always have to be about money fopr you blizzard fanboys? why cant they just make it because the community wants them, everything they do doesnt have to be about money. FFS

And why you (not you personally) are always telling how other people should use their own money. Regardless if they want it or not.

[jvbastel]

God I hate the WoW community. This is a non-issue, they don't want to take the risk of officially licensing pirate servers that are beyond their control (seriously, who would do that? It'd be insanity for any company and any individual.)

And they don't want to derail the direction of their game, regardless of how good or bad the future of WoW is, by focusing time and efforts on old shit for the sake of very small minority of players who are stuck in 2004 or forgot they're wearing rose tinted glasses.

Sony Online Entertainment (daybreak) did it, turned out great!