Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[Biske]

Different people like different things, what you see as unpleasant I see as ok. Sure I didn't like everything about Vanilla, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy playing it. I think some of it too is more bearable because going back to it I wasn't in a rush or pushed to do all of that crazy stuff. I mean when you know it isn't going anywhere past Naxx, why get in a hurry? I don't know the mindset was just different going back to it. I remember playing endless hours a day back then as well, but hey I got a life to live so I just picked it up when I could now. I will say though that for the first time in years, all I could think about was getting home to play WoW again, that hasn't really happened for me since very very early Cata.

I was an officer in a high-end guild. I had to do all of that. Like I said, it was basically a second job. I was basically the poster boy for burnout after classic WoW ended. I loved BC because I switched to pvp and was playing with my rl friends, and I loved WotLK even more because I met a bunch of people who are still my friends (and didn't lose contact with since Facebook became a thing) and I found the questing that involved story-telling to be actually fun. Hated Cata. It was just too weird. Got back into raiding for a bit, too, which made me hate it more. Didn't like MoP until SoO, but that was more of a theme park ride than dedicated raiding on my part on there. Almost got hardcore again during the start of Warlords. Stopped so that I wouldn't hate myself again. Really, really enjoyed the questing, but after that I felt like SWTOR where I was like "ok, now what?" and started leveling an alt on Alliance to see the other side (I've mostly been Horde, but I was Alliance during classic. Never felt that burning passion for either faction that most people have. Even when I was Alliance, though, I always wanted to play an orc just because I like orcs)

[AeneasBK]

Is it just me who thinks the "contained with in a zone single storyline questlines" are what makes cata questing really dull?

The world seems more massive when, as an example, someone is asking you at level 14 to go to Darkshire to get booze, and you take the road and see all the lvl ?? mobs in the forest. Now the games railtracks pointedly avoid any such scare. Being sent to Southshore at lvl 20 where you have to run through Wetlands and Arathi Highlands, as opposed to just being portalled there by a handy mage... The fact that most zones spanned almost 10 levels of mobs, so that you could handle some areas but absolutely not handle others... Just gives the illusion of things being bigger as it isn't so ... formulaic. I dunno.

They seemed to stick with the "cata" style since TBC, the TBC style is the same, if slightly less so :- range of mobs per zone is usually 3 (58-61 in Hellfire, 60-62 Zangar) and it there isn't a lot of questing between zones until you hit max level and the bigger questlines available there.

So yeah the idea of a pristine realm wouldn't fix that issue particularly. The questing just is too linear.

[Deleted]

Their idea, but also with Mob health and stats boosted could be fun.

I don't get why people aren't pushing for this, if people would even spend 10% of the effort they spent on the petition trying to make good pristine realms it would be sick

[Armourboy]

Their idea, but also with Mob health and stats boosted could be fun.

Problem is mob health and boosted stats isn't what made Vanilla leveling " hard ". The mobs just did things that don't happen today. The Defias Pillagers didn't kick your butt because of mob health and boosted stats, it was because Fireball hit you like a freight train and they would run when they got to lower health, grabbing another one. Heck some mobs were just tied together even if they had plenty of distance between them. That doesn't even get into the random elite mobs that would be mixed in with the regular mobs. They didn't really do anything, they were just there to rock your world if you didn't pay attention.

We've had boosted mob health and stats, they basically did that with area's in MoP and Cata if I remember right. All it did was make it feel like it took forever to kill something. Mobs in Vanilla weren't deadly because they took a long time to kill, they were deadly because that little things they did ( ranged casters, rogue mobs that would randomly back stab you, bubbled, healed, etc.) could kill you. Blizzard loved them some poisons and diseases back then too.

[Biske]

The game doesn't have to cater to you, and exclusive rewards are cool rewards

I don't see how expecting a game aspect to not break and getting something you actually worked for is catering. Anyone who joined later didn't do any of the work required to get the mount, so they wouldn't feel the same. I don't even care so much about missing out on the mount, but I sure as hell would love to have all the time and work I invested into doing that whole shit back. All I had left to do was hit that fucking gong.

[Deleted]

If a Pristine Realm is apparently post-Cataclysm content just without the heirlooms, group finder and crossrealm zones then it still sucks. We want VANILLA content, Pre-Cataclysm.

[Akka]

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.

No, they made a ridiculous proposition which completely miss the point, and that you even think it's remotely what is wanted just prove how you're purposedly blind to the issues.

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.

Exactly. It's just a PR stunt that a few tools are gullible enough to swallow and stupid enough to think it's actually relevant.

[QuiksLE]

If a Pristine Realm is apparently post-Cataclysm content just without the heirlooms, group finder and crossrealm zones then it still sucks. We want VANILLA content, Pre-Cataclysm.

No we don't we want the challenge and community feel back.

[Charge me Doctor]

Is it just me who thinks the "contained with in a zone single storyline questlines" are what makes cata questing really dull?

The world seems more massive when, as an example, someone is asking you at level 14 to go to Darkshire to get booze, and you take the road and see all the lvl ?? mobs in the forest. Now the games railtracks pointedly avoid any such scare. Being sent to Southshore at lvl 20 where you have to run through Wetlands and Arathi Highlands, as opposed to just being portalled there by a handy mage... The fact that most zones spanned almost 10 levels of mobs, so that you could handle some areas but absolutely not handle others... Just gives the illusion of things being bigger as it isn't so ... formulaic. I dunno.

They seemed to stick with the "cata" style since TBC, the TBC style is the same, if slightly less so :- range of mobs per zone is usually 3 (58-61 in Hellfire, 60-62 Zangar) and it there isn't a lot of questing between zones until you hit max level and the bigger questlines available there.

So yeah the idea of a pristine realm wouldn't fix that issue particularly. The questing just is too linear.

It's the case of "we don't give a fuck about leveling experience".

They could make it better now, make more diverse mobs (like, for example, Ogres used to be elite mobs). Everything standardized now, common mob should die from 2 hits, rare mob from 2 hits but can scratch you a little, elite mob dies from 4 hits. That's it.

Sure, in BC leveling experience wasn't much better (for me it was ice barrier>mana shield> mount up > pull pack of buzzards > nova 'em > walk away > blizzard > CoC > walk away > blizzard > blink away > blizzard > CoC), but blizz have an opportunity to make leveling interesting (i really enjoyed leveling in MoP, for a first time, then it became "yeah yeah, i know that, skip me to the exp pls") and i hope they'll deliver in legion

[Deleted]

I don't see how they feel like the pristine realm would change anything... the game is shit and still would be on the pristine servers... it would just be a slower paced shit game, as for them saying there is no way for them to implement legacy servers without great difficulty, if its so hard how did the Nostalrius team do it then... zzzzz same old blizzard trying to save up them $$$ blizz continue with your 0 content blizz thanks bye.

[Armourboy]

I was an officer in a high-end guild. I had to do all of that. Like I said, it was basically a second job. I was basically the poster boy for burnout after classic WoW ended. I loved BC because I switched to pvp and was playing with my rl friends, and I loved WotLK even more because I met a bunch of people who are still my friends (and didn't lose contact with since Facebook became a thing) and I found the questing that involved story-telling to be actually fun. Hated Cata. It was just too weird. Got back into raiding for a bit, too, which made me hate it more. Didn't like MoP until SoO, but that was more of a theme park ride than dedicated raiding on my part on there. Almost got hardcore again during the start of Warlords. Stopped so that I wouldn't hate myself again. Really, really enjoyed the questing, but after that I felt like SWTOR where I was like "ok, now what?" and started leveling an alt on Alliance to see the other side (I've mostly been Horde, but I was Alliance during classic. Never felt that burning passion for either faction that most people have. Even when I was Alliance, though, I always wanted to play an orc just because I like orcs)

Yeah I've done all of that at one point and time, well outside of pushing progression content. I mean it was progression for our guild, but we sure as heck weren't ever competing to be world, server or anything first. I was an officer and a GM back then though, and definitely understand the idea of " having to do all of that". Shoot in some ways I still do it. I keep the guild bank stocked, sorted, supplied and I have no reason to do it really. Most of my guild went poof in Cata and those that didn't went poof in WOD.

[Akka]

This.

I started playing on a vanilla server after the nost news broke out, and holy cow, how much the game has changed. Some things for the better, but the overall philosophy of the game is much more to my liking as it was in vanilla.

Gear that actually matters. Dungeons that actually feel like real adventures. normal mobs that can actually kill you.
You know, a challenge.

But but but it's not possible ! It's only NOSTALGIA ROSE TINTED GLASS DURR DUUUR !
I mean even if you never played Vanilla before and only discovered it today, it's still nostalgia somehow.
I mean because my narrative that only people "stuck in the past" or "wearing rose-tinted glasses" or "just being nostalgic" can't accept the fact that people actually prefer design philosophy X over Y, so I'm going to ignore anything which contradict it and continue to pretend !

[Charge me Doctor]

Because that's only one of many things about why the exansion sucks. Sometimes it's a favorite spell being removed from your favorite class, sometimes it's because you liked the mechanics of your class better before, sometimes it's just the questing, sometimes it's just the challenge, and sometimes it's just the lack of a real community.

Pristine realms can't do any of that, because it doesn't bring back what was taken away. It just says "This is the current game, deal with it" as they've been saying since day 1 about private servers. Really, it's not solving anything.

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Sounds like you never actually enjoyed the game, which is kind of the point of a game.

Me, I'd find that entire situation perfectly fine. I never really cared for the scarab mount itself. I just wanted to experience the quest, because a long-spanning quest like that is pretty epic. So if I missed the mount because of a server crash, oh well, I still got to do this crazy cool quest. I don't need something to show for it - Who gives a rat's ass if some random lowbie knows that I did something? I did it, and I know it, so that's what matters.

In your mind, it sounds like "I wasn't rewarded so it was just a waste of time." Which just doesn't make sense to me, as the game should be a game first, a chore later.

IMO what he meant was "we understand what you want, we already told you that's it too difficult to implement, here what we can do instead, we know that you won't like it, but that gives you the idea of direction we can move on to"

[AeneasBK]

It's the case of "we don't give a fuck about leveling experience".

They could make it better now, make more diverse mobs (like, for example, Ogres used to be elite mobs). Everything standardized now, common mob should die from 2 hits, rare mob from 2 hits but can scratch you a little, elite mob dies from 4 hits. That's it.

Sure, in BC leveling experience wasn't much better (for me it was ice barrier>mana shield> mount up > pull pack of buzzards > nova 'em > walk away > blizzard > CoC > walk away > blizzard > blink away > blizzard > CoC), but blizz have an opportunity to make leveling interesting (i really enjoyed leveling in MoP, for a first time, then it became "yeah yeah, i know that, skip me to the exp pls") and i hope they'll deliver in legion

I maybe wasn't clear, the mechanics of the quests themselves (the mobs you have to kill or gubbinz you have to click on) thats all fine, or at least, I'm not talking about that aspect at the moment, objectively that has improved massively with each expansion as their tech has improved... It's the "Here is a quest hub, in areas immediately around it are where the quest objectives are. Once you have done the 5 or 6 quests in this area, we will send you to the next hub, 100 yards further into the zone". Rinse repeat for 10 levels or however many there are.

None of the "You've just entered a zone, no idea where or what to do, but some Dwarf in Ironforge said you had to find Elfinbuddiel his Elf friend and deliver his report on X to him, best go looking". Or quests in one zone to be completed in a different zone. Everything is so damn convenient :P

[noobstar]

Give me a pristine heroic realm, pushing boundaries playing 8 hours a day the quickest you can get to 100 is 6 months. World mobs 1v1 maybe a one level higher expect to walk away with 30% of your HP left, 1 spell cost almost a 1/4 of your mana. I'll entertain the idea of playing on a realm like this if not I'm quite happy living in the past.

[Darkpoison324]

Pristine Servers are the opposite of what we want it would still be the exact same game blizzard you guys are f*ing morons

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Maybe because their bullshit excuse doesn't fly and people aren't retarded enough to believe them. I don't get why people can't admit that wow isn't good anymore and vanilla/bc were better. inb4 LE ROZE TINTED GOOGLE argument because people can't explain why wow is better today besides MUH SPEC



Guess what people did when they played retail and nos. They had 2 clients and vanilla was only 5 gigs which is nothing now. But please, keep telling me why a billiion dollar company can't give people more options.

You people wouldnt accept any reason though. You can't put down your pitchforks and clean the foam off your mouth long enough to get it... you don't always get what you want. Sorry.

I don;t think you guys would accept anything other than getting legacy servers.

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Give me a pristine heroic realm, pushing boundaries playing 8 hours a day the quickest you can get to 100 is 6 months. World mobs 1v1 maybe a one level higher expect to walk away with 30% of your HP left, 1 spell cost almost a 1/4 of your mana. I'll entertain the idea of playing on a realm like this if not I'm quite happy living in the past.

Vanilla wasn't like that though. What are you even talking about?

[Akka]

You genuinely don't realize it's not nearly that simple? Christ.

Its obvious you don't want to hear how much work official legacy realms would mean if Blizzard chose to do it. Once it's fully integrated it'd essentially be it's own separate game. Because people would expect it to be fully integrated with everything else. And support. And bug fixes. Bnet paid services. Transfers. Account data. Changes to their databases to accommodate legacy data...
Once you give it a minute thought you realize it'd be many months to make it work to the standard you and everyone would expect.

As much as I'd like official legacy realms it's obvious once you properly break it down that it's not worth the time

They could integrate Diablo II and Starcraft, and those are even much more long past their selling days and don't bring in subscriptions.
Your argument is rejected.

[Melkorr]

I feel like most people complaining here are pretty spoiled. They answered. They care. They could have stayed silent and told you to f'off with your illegal private servers.
Remember that Blizzard employees are also players, they would love a vanilla server. But Pristine is what you get. Then maybe we could complain about how we could make the pristine server better.
It's a start, I say go for it Blizz.

[Felancelan]

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.

Well I want to point out, for pristine servers they said "take out leveling acceleration". 1-85 (I think they have needed the xp need though wrath) right now when an expansion is over they need the amount of xp you need in less than half. That is leveling acceleration, the new servers would have 1-60 need the same xp as vanilla, 60-70 the same xp as when bc launched, etc. If you dont like the game as is, go try rift or gw2 or something else, complaining how the game is awful because it used to be better doesn't help anything.

Now I love the idea of a pristine realm, I do hope they keep cross realm groups available, but imagine people would have to level out in the world instead of from sw/org. Maybe they would have realm first achievments active, so if there are groups who want to stop and do previous raids (let's assume they are not nerfed) would be a fun chaotic time.