Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[Charge me Doctor]

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. 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

I understand, but that's the way of things now. They still can add more "fun" quests like plants vs zombies one - but it will hit the "it will get published on the internet for 99% of players to discover by wowhead", but that's it. I want questing to involve more than half of a brain, like it used to in, say, WotLK (i won't say "vanilla" or "TBC", because in vanilla i leveled half of my characters while constantly alt+tabbing). I want something more like Witcher 3 questing, but i know that it won't happen.

But i agree, i miss things like visiting high level location just to turn in some crappy quest - but the rational side says "fuck that, i'm not going there for 86xp", and most likely i won't find it very fun after leveling one character. Or at least until a big break from a game.

[Deleted]

I guess its nice that Blizzard have responded with something other than 'No, Never happening'. But its not what anyone was asking for, its an odd compromise that I doubt will really make anyone happy.

[Charge me Doctor]

And as many have said before, if it's "too difficult" for a multi-billion dollar company in an unlimited period of time to do, what a handful of people can do in a few months time (Granted not perfectly, but they also didn't make the game...) then I call bullshit on that. I've pointed out that 'infrastructure' doesn't change a damn thing when all people want is what already exists - Blizzard just WON'T make the legacy realms without upgrading the infrastructure, which is horseshit.

People want the game as they had it before. Just like people who go back and play the NES version of mario bros and still have a grand old time. They want to play the version of the game they enjoyed. If you hand the new super mario bros Wii U to someone who wants to play the NES version of mario bros, they will tell you it's not what they want to play, and no one will misunderstand and say "It's just nostalgia you'll get over it." Yet when people do the same with WoW, somehow it must just be nostalgia. I'll never understand that.

mangos had to be developed for more than 8 years, the server in question was developed for more than 4 years, talk about "handful of people can do in a few months time"

[Glorious Leader]

Subs must be way down

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

And as many have said before, if it's "too difficult" for a multi-billion dollar company in an unlimited period of time to do, what a handful of people can do in a few months time (Granted not perfectly, but they also didn't make the game...) then I call bullshit on that. I've pointed out that 'infrastructure' doesn't change a damn thing when all people want is what already exists - Blizzard just WON'T make the legacy realms without upgrading the infrastructure, which is horseshit.

People want the game as they had it before. Just like people who go back and play the NES version of mario bros and still have a grand old time. They want to play the version of the game they enjoyed. If you hand the new super mario bros Wii U to someone who wants to play the NES version of mario bros, they will tell you it's not what they want to play, and no one will misunderstand and say "It's just nostalgia you'll get over it." Yet when people do the same with WoW, somehow it must just be nostalgia. I'll never understand that.

The nostalgia thing is a bad argument, you're right... but so is the "its easy Blizzard, so give us what we want!"

[AeneasBK]

But i agree, i miss things like visiting high level location just to turn in some crappy quest - but the rational side says "fuck that, i'm not going there for 86xp", and most likely i won't find it very fun after leveling one character. Or at least until a big break from a game.

I always felt the beauty of these "Go to a high lvl zone to hand in" style quests is they often rewarded a lot more XP than a similar on in a "safe" zone would. So if you wanted a break from colleting bear asses and grinding quest mobs you could take a 15 minute journey and not "lose out" on XP so much. Regarding the "everything is available online now" that is true, but Blizzards response to that of saying "Lets just put every bit of information in game via quest objective trackers on the mini map, highlighting quest mobs over non quest mobs etc." was a really crappy way of handling it.

Ultimately there were only a very LIMITED number of cases where they didn't tell you what to do next in the quest text, if you read it. (I'm thnking Haleh, but the point of that was it was a "nobody knows" situation). Ah well, what's done is done.

[Charge me Doctor]

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

I know, people say like leveling in vanilla was hard, monsters were killing everyone left and right. No, it was you dumb enough to be a level 11 warrior charging into level 18 harvester golem with two-hander and dying over and over again. Sure, "not enough rage" *dodge* *dodge* "not enough rage", and priests shielding you in dungeons and dying because of aggro (hint: you don't get rage from being hit while shielded and can't do shit) did happened, but that mostly because of RNG and, again, lack of experience. Things like this won't happen today - you'll see one white swing dodge - walk away, evade mob, eat, kill 3-4 critters, attack the mob again.

[noladrew]

I find it funny that no one (in the 4-5 pages I actually read) has mentioned the matter of content. A lot of people bitch and complain that the new xpacs lack a desirable amount of content, and gets stale after 'x' amount of time.....

What exactly do you think will happen if Blizzard released Legacy servers with Vanilla only content? (Rhetorical question, let me answer that one for you!)
They would bitch and complain (nothing new) that there's not enough content and they need more. Like some have actually said, one thing that made content last so long back then was the lack of knowledge about the content. Now that everyone and their mother knows the fights, at best the content would last a couple of months (and that's being optimistic). What do you think the player base of these servers will expect after 'x' amount of time?? That's right! AN EXPANSION!

Are people seriously suggesting or think that basically re-releasing the game in its entirety will change anything? Blizzard took steps in the development of the game to work with the community (whether you think they did or not, your opinion sucks sometimes too, remember that) in making the game better. People cried about not being able to transfer or play both factions on the same server. This left servers unbalanced in population and/or in unfavorable faction ratios. This made people complain about these problems (understandably... BUT... their complaints lead to this after all). The one common variable we've always had in the existence of this game, is that people will bitch and complain no matter what. "VANILLA WASNT FUN IT TOOK TOO LONG TO DO ANYTHING!" "VANILLA WAS THE BEST AND THE CURRENT GAME SUCKS!"

FIRST AND FOREMOST, Blizzard is, in fact, a business. They have R&D teams that weigh all the pro's and con's of every business decision they make. If the risk too greatly outweighs the reward, chances are they won't take the risk.

And? Why is this company's money more important than people to you?

It's not a matter of the company's money being more important to people to him, it's a matter of the company's money being most important to the company. They make the decisions on what to do financially, not you. That was the point that person was trying to get across to you. Apparently comprehension is difficult for some of us on the forums.


TL;DR:
The problems people had with the game before will be there again. Only, this time, people won't be patient and Legacy servers provide no depth or future, unless you expect them to re-release expansions, in which case, brings us right to where we are now. Flawed logic is flawed. Stop thinking your opinion is the most important in reference to Blizzard's financial future.

[Felancelan]

And as many have said before, if it's "too difficult" for a multi-billion dollar company in an unlimited period of time to do, what a handful of people can do in a few months time (Granted not perfectly, but they also didn't make the game...) then I call bullshit on that. I've pointed out that 'infrastructure' doesn't change a damn thing when all people want is what already exists - Blizzard just WON'T make the legacy realms without upgrading the infrastructure, which is horseshit.

People want the game as they had it before. Just like people who go back and play the NES version of mario bros and still have a grand old time. They want to play the version of the game they enjoyed. If you hand the new super mario bros Wii U to someone who wants to play the NES version of mario bros, they will tell you it's not what they want to play, and no one will misunderstand and say "It's just nostalgia you'll get over it." Yet when people do the same with WoW, somehow it must just be nostalgia. I'll never understand that.

No its not hard for them to make it in its own little bubble, I wouldn't think. Now have that bubble connected to to main game that becomes the trouble, since most systems are drastically different, talents for example. If they did it would have to be a new game, maybe still on battle.net but not connected the current client or game.

[Charge me Doctor]

I always felt the beauty of these "Go to a high lvl zone to hand in" style quests is they often rewarded a lot more XP than a similar on in a "safe" zone would. So if you wanted a break from colleting bear asses and grinding quest mobs you could take a 15 minute journey and not "lose out" on XP so much. Regarding the "everything is available online now" that is true, but Blizzards response to that of saying "Lets just put every bit of information in game via quest objective trackers on the mini map, highlighting quest mobs over non quest mobs etc." was a really crappy way of handling it.

Ultimately there were only a very LIMITED number of cases where they didn't tell you what to do next in the quest text, if you read it. (I'm thnking Haleh, but the point of that was it was a "nobody knows" situation). Ah well, what's done is done.

I remember getting a two-hander on my paladin, you had to get 4 iirc items all over the azeroth for that. Was really fun. But now i know that spending 3 hours on this quest just to replace this two-hander with the one from deadmines... nope. Also fuck deadwind pass

[Kolvarg]

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.

Very ironic, and hopefully also humbling for him =P

Personally, while I would indeed enjoy true legacy realms, pristine realms would at least be a step in the right direction.

Because in the end, if done right, they could not only allow us to properly experience old content again (leveling at the "appropriate" rate and with appropriate challenge/danger from the world and instances), but it could even apply to current content, essentially giving the option to those who prefer slower-paced gameplay to play on realms where you level slower, have less convenience features, get gear at lower rates etc.

It wouldn't give us "Vanilla", but it would at least bring back true realm communities with better matching mindsets, and would better allow leveling and capping level at old content to be more enjoyable.

They could even make some pristine realms lvl 1-60 only, or 1-70 , etc. They just need to add increasing mob power and/or decreasing player power to the feature list of pristine realms, and alllow the pre-cata zones to be accessible.

[Deleted]

I remember getting a two-hander on my paladin, you had to get 4 iirc items all over the azeroth for that. Was really fun. But now i know that spending 3 hours on this quest just to replace this two-hander with the one from deadmines... nope. Also fuck deadwind pass

Just because you know what to do now, doesnt mean its easy

[AeneasBK]

I remember getting a two-hander on my paladin, you had to get 4 iirc items all over the azeroth for that. Was really fun. But now i know that spending 3 hours on this quest just to replace this two-hander with the one from deadmines... nope. Also fuck deadwind pass

You kidding? That 2Her lasts from lvl 20 to about lvl 30 it's insanely good, similar to the Warriors "Whirlwind Axe at lvl 30" can easily last you up to lvl 40. Class quests were OP, but yeah, whenever I see someone in trade say "LFG SFK" (as Alliance) I know its gonna be a paladin needing to get his Holy metal or w/e it was you need from SFK for that quest.

Of course the fact that levelling from 20-30 these days takes about 1/5th of the time it would take to complete that quest means it would be obsolete in todays game :P

[noobstar]

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

I'm not talking about vanilla I'm talking about pristine heroic realms. Vanilla was a kick in the teeth leveling though, lvl 19 priest helping a lvl 15 mage in pyrewood village in silverpine going up against lvl 13-14 elites! That's the kinda leveling I'd want going all the way to 100.

Edit: also while we're on the topic of speculations and dreams. would be nice to recolor all the gear and get a ton of those purples down to blues, stat squish again and make rewards feel amazing again.

[deniter]

The comment in blue post regarding these 'pristine realms' strongly indicates they don't have a f%!#ing clue why so many people prefer vanilla servers over retail, and what makes it so much better game in many ways.

Is this really the same company that used to make such awesome and excellent games in past decade?

[Deleted]

The comment in blue post regarding these 'pristine realms' strongly indicates they don't have a f%!#ing clue why so many people prefer vanilla servers over retail, and what makes it so much better game in many ways.

Please enlighten us? Because they're free?
I personally thought playing vanilla was "for the journey" - the experience of slowly getting there, completing story and zones. Not about the "actual vanilla!, because that stuff is so old and bad. These "pristine servers" seem to be more about the journey, so I thought it fit in quite well.

But you're saying it has to be "pure old vanilla or GTFO"? Why's that?
Also which patchlevel of vanilla is considered the "purest"?

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I know, people say like leveling in vanilla was hard, monsters were killing everyone left and right. No, it was you dumb enough to be a level 11 warrior charging into level 18 harvester golem with two-hander and dying over and over again. Sure, "not enough rage" *dodge* *dodge* "not enough rage", and priests shielding you in dungeons and dying because of aggro (hint: you don't get rage from being hit while shielded and can't do shit) did happened, but that mostly because of RNG and, again, lack of experience. Things like this won't happen today - you'll see one white swing dodge - walk away, evade mob, eat, kill 3-4 critters, attack the mob again.

Agreed. That shield thing did happen a lot. But Blizzard changed how rage works - and in my opinion, for the better. Thats why I roll my eyes when people say that Vanilla was flat out better... Its more of a grey area imo. Vanilla had tons of cool stuff, but so does the current game. Vanilla wasn't some crazy game like that guy I quoted was saying. You didn't always get sent to 30% health, and you didn't always use all your spells and cooldowns.

It was more often being confused, not being sure of where to go, and then just grinding mobs so you could open up more quests.

[Biske]

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.

Horde in my server was super tiny and only had one major guild, while Alliance had several. They were more tightly knit and, honestly, better players overall. They tried to snipe some people from my guild (including me on my paladin, even though my main was my hunter, which hurt my feelings a little bit. They didn't know it was the same person. I would have had to be a shaman, though, if I switched, since Horde didn't have paladins back then), but most of us didn't just because we already had things on our mains and would have to sacrifice all of that since you wouldn't just race/faction change back then. They beat us to every single server first. Every damn time. We always ended up 2nd place. Those guys were beasts.

[grexly75]

I find it funny that no one (in the 4-5 pages I actually read) has mentioned the matter of content. A lot of people bitch and complain that the new xpacs lack a desirable amount of content, and gets stale after 'x' amount of time.....

What exactly do you think will happen if Blizzard released Legacy servers with Vanilla only content? (Rhetorical question, let me answer that one for you!)
They would bitch and complain (nothing new) that there's not enough content and they need more. Like some have actually said, one thing that made content last so long back then was the lack of knowledge about the content. Now that everyone and their mother knows the fights, at best the content would last a couple of months (and that's being optimistic). What do you think the player base of these servers will expect after 'x' amount of time?? That's right! AN EXPANSION!

Are people seriously suggesting or think that basically re-releasing the game in its entirety will change anything? Blizzard took steps in the development of the game to work with the community (whether you think they did or not, your opinion sucks sometimes too, remember that) in making the game better. People cried about not being able to transfer or play both factions on the same server. This left servers unbalanced in population and/or in unfavorable faction ratios. This made people complain about these problems (understandably... BUT... their complaints lead to this after all). The one common variable we've always had in the existence of this game, is that people will bitch and complain no matter what. "VANILLA WASNT FUN IT TOOK TOO LONG TO DO ANYTHING!" "VANILLA WAS THE BEST AND THE CURRENT GAME SUCKS!"

FIRST AND FOREMOST, Blizzard is, in fact, a business. They have R&D teams that weigh all the pro's and con's of every business decision they make. If the risk too greatly outweighs the reward, chances are they won't take the risk.



It's not a matter of the company's money being more important to people to him, it's a matter of the company's money being most important to the company. They make the decisions on what to do financially, not you. That was the point that person was trying to get across to you. Apparently comprehension is difficult for some of us on the forums.


TL;DR:
The problems people had with the game before will be there again. Only, this time, people won't be patient and Legacy servers provide no depth or future, unless you expect them to re-release expansions, in which case, brings us right to where we are now. Flawed logic is flawed. Stop thinking your opinion is the most important in reference to Blizzard's financial future.

I have often wondered myself about those in the pro legacy server camp would go, after playing the same version of the game knowing they will never see anything past Naxx 40.. They would never see new content and would not be long before the complaining of nothing to do will rise once again.. I mean people are complaining about having nothing to do on live as it is.. Imagine playing the exact same game you would see nothing change you would never see any new content for the next 10 years..

- - - Updated - - -

Please enlighten us? Because they're free?
I personally thought playing vanilla was "for the journey" - the experience of slowly getting there, completing story and zones. Not about the "actual vanilla!, because that stuff is so old and bad. These "pristine servers" seem to be more about the journey, so I thought it fit in quite well.

But you're saying it has to be "pure old vanilla or GTFO"? Why's that?
Also which patchlevel of vanilla is considered the "purest"?

I doubt that they would know themselves, but they would have to know that if they chose wrong then who knows..

[AeneasBK]

Agreed. That shield thing did happen a lot. But Blizzard changed how rage works - and in my opinion, for the better.

Offtopic but you'd have to be pretty new at warrior tanking to be relying on the rage from getting hit :P The rage from hitting stuff was adequate to tank up to maybe 4 mobs at a time, which is basically all you were facing unless you were Rambo regarding CC.

I used to hear the complaint a lot when I was raid leading in TBC or running dungeons and stuff. I hear it now (priests asking me if they should use PW:S or not) and yeah, seen little evidence to suggest it makes it difficult, rage from dmg taken was tiny unless you're getting chunked by a boss, and in that case, a bubble won't stop you anyway