Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions.
Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.
We have been discussing classic servers for years - it’s a topic every BlizzCon - and especially over the past few weeks. From active internal team discussions to after-hours meetings with leadership, this subject has been highly debated. Some of our current thoughts:
Why not just let Nostalrius continue the way it was? The honest answer is, failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard’s rights. This applies to anything that uses WoW’s IP, including unofficial servers. And while we’ve looked into the possibility – there is not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.
We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW.
So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about 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. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.
One other note - we’ve recently been in contact with some of the folks who operated Nostalrius. They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks.
You, the Blizzard community, are the most dedicated, passionate players out there. We thank you for your constructive thoughts and suggestions. We are listening.
J. Allen Brack
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...84206#new-post
It's ironic then, that the very same person that said: You think you do, but you Don't. is now posting a topic, in the official Forums about vanilla realms?
it's Not good news, it doesn't sound like they are going release official blizzard hosted 2004 realms, but instead try a different kind of realm, a pristine realm that I do not like the sound of one bit.
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. the challenge is none existent. 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.
The whole point of a vanilla server is that it is a completely different experience to what the game is like now, there was no shaman for alliance, no paladin for horde, no silly pandas and worgens running around, no flashy flying mounts and silly pet battles, there where no deathknights, monks, and demon hunters, it just cant be changed by removing the very things that ruined the game in the first place.
Even with all of the xp bonuses and conveniences removed, it would still only take a few days to get to max level, not because of how stupidly easy it is but the fact that at the end of it all it would be the same old wow, same old garrisons and same old bs.
Just give us vanilla servers blizzard. no matter how much money or time it takes. even if it is challenging to get these servers up and running, just do it. it will be worth it in the end, trust me.
We didn't ask for a blizzard style visualisation of vanilla, we want it as it was in 2004. simple as that.