Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[Deleted]

whoa can't wait to re-live the authentic feeling of farming materials for 30 hours to be able to do an evening of pulls on loatheb.

or the fact that half the specs are complete toilet tier.

wait why do people want this again?

beats sitting in your garrison, having a wank though, doesn't it? there was tons of things to do in vanilla. retail has 0 apart from raiding or bgs and arenas.

[Awbee]

The WPL and EPL are definitely less creepy, but at least the make sense now, questing-wise (everything's more organized and all that). Cata overall was a disaster, imo, but there's some zones I actually prefer post-Cata, like Thousand Needles. Not a big fan of the Un'goro changes, though. Pre-Cata Badlands were my mithril farm spot so that previously desolate spot will always have a spot in my heart for a weird reason since I normally hate the fuck out of farming.

Ooooh yeah I remember farming in Badlands! I enjoy farming though, I do it to relax while listening to music or podcast or ASMR. Pretty sweet.

What I dislike the most about the Cata changes is how so many of the areas are now in ruins or burning or both. It's a shame. I feared that when I first heard about it. Like, okay, so they're gonna have a molten lava thingy in Ashenvale, that's cool I guess, but are we gonna be able to remove it?? We weren't. And so Ashenvale still burns, from 2010 to 2016 and it's still burning. I don't know who thought that would be a good idea, and I REALLY wish there were some new questlines to remove the worst damage.

Like Loch Modan. Used to be one of my favorite areas, so tranquil, with the beautiful blue lake. Now it's a hot, empty, dirty mess. Can't we fix that? Or Auberdine.

[AeneasBK]

Cata overall was a disaster, imo, but there's some zones I actually prefer post-Cata, like Thousand Needles.

Something I never realised about Old Thousand Needles until playing it on a PvP realm. The whole mirage raceway is an ideal WPvP zone. You get quests to kill 4 different types of mobs - Scorpids, Basilisk, Vultures, and Turtles. These mobs appear sparsely all over the area, but each one has a "good spot" where they are most concentrated with 5-10 spawn spots, North for turtles, East for vultures, West for scorpids, and South for basilisk. As a result, the whole area is populated by roaming bands of 2-3 alliance or horde, as both factions attempt to wrest controls of the "good" spots for getting the quests done from each other. On all of the toons I levelled through that zone on, both Alliance and Horde, I spent an awesome evening of gaming getting them done. Sure it wasn't "efficient" questing; but because the area is so massive, you could always "run away" if the enemy held the spot you wanted, and look for the sparse spawns across the area, or buddy up with some allies and try to evict them :P

If you're not into PVP when you're questing then sure, the area is cacky. But wow, it was a lot of fun. Maybe because its out of the way enough that lvl 60's can't be arsed to come down and shit on everyones fun, I don't know But it was epic.

[Pachycrocuta]

Hah, yeah I remember! I also remember the dread that was "Gearscore" ... I never had that installed though. I just did ICC entry-level runs with my cute guild, we usually made it up to the Professor and got butchered

I was also super proud that I got the original "Explorer" and "Ambassador" achievements before Cata launch, exploring the entire vanilla map without flying, and getting all Alliance reps to exalted without tabards. I wanted to do Loremaster as well, but didn't make it, and now I have to live with the feeling that I never completed all Vanilla quests and most of them are gone forever ... ;___; ... at least I still have little Pamela's "Tea with Sugar" in my bank. I really miss the old Plaguelands, they were so desolate and creepy. Maaan now I wanna go on a legacy server to see them again.



I've always suggested the option of having access to the old Vanilla Azeroth via the Caverns of Time. That would certainly satisfy most of my Vanilla desires, since I care most about the world and quests than about Vanilla raiding.

I got the Loremaster achievement before Cataclysm ruined everything, but I don't think I got Ambassador beforehand. It was a pain in the ass, trying to figure out what quests you hadn't done and where they were. But it was an awesome feeling of getting that little popup after completing a Silithus quest.

If they added access to original Azeroth via the Caverns of Time, and it was an option to start a new character there (even goblin, worgen, and pandaren), I would possibly still be playing the game. To me, Original > Cataclysm 1-60. Access to all the old dungeons, recipes, zones... That's all I really want. I miss the old Sully Balloo questline from the Soggy Letter.

[noladrew]

beats sitting in your garrison, having a wank though, doesn't it? there was tons of things to do in vanilla. retail has 0 apart from raiding or bgs and arenas.

Says you. I have plenty to do with alts. I don't want to have to farm materials for hours upon hours, or do annoying drawn out attunement. I enjoy raiding and do so as often as I can.

[JustRob]

Yeah I don't get the point of "pristine" servers. They're only talking about removing character boosts such as heirlooms and RaF, not about the increased XP rates they've hardcoded in over the years. That means you can literally do the same thing on live right now by just not using heirlooms or any boosts.

Give me legacy servers or go to hell.

[Deleted]

beats sitting in your garrison, having a wank though, doesn't it? there was tons of things to do in vanilla. retail has 0 apart from raiding or bgs and arenas.

Not for me. I hate farming mats

[Devolved]

All things aside.... can anyone in the community really wait for 3 sunders again? :P

[minteK917]

beats sitting in your garrison, having a wank though, doesn't it? there was tons of things to do in vanilla. retail has 0 apart from raiding or bgs and arenas.

Plus its not like they will give the game a 100% vanilla. Sounds more like they want to offer the new game with no queues and such. I really dont think its gona end well this way. Most people remember vanilla as something else. I do too, but i dont think playing the game as it is now without queues and such is the answer, it would just be even worse. The real thing wow needs is better quicker content. "BETTER". Most of the time their concept is good but their execution are shit. Example Garrison, on paper its a good idea, in the actual game its garbage. Its not customizable at all, its nothing but a lazy instanced daily zone. If they wanted daily zones, their old model like Quelthalas and suchs were much better. Same for Ashran, its a good concept, except with garbage like CZR and all that junk making it sour.

[Baine]

I think affiliate legacy servers would be the way to do.

[Direpenguin]

Do you expect people to run two clients or blizzard to update two different clients? That isn't the only issue they would face ether. They finally speak up and say why they shut the server down. But there reason isn't good enough for you is it.

Oh, you mean something along the lines of access to Alpha and Beta test servers? But yeah, continue lecturing us on how that is "too hard".

[dope_danny]

I can only imagine how much it sticks in his craw to do this after his "you think you do, but you dont" complete dismissal at Blizzcon, however what sounds like cata era 1-60 without group finder as a solution once again shows how far this current team has drifted from the one that made vanilla. This is a company that makes enough money to be quantified as 'quite a bit' and they cant solve b.net integration issues? because a bunch of nerds in a basement figured the servers out and its not like hearthstones miniscule pre launch team just shat out its bnet integration one day like magic either.

I think the long and short of the matter is this is an indirect way of them dealing with having to address people are large not liking modern WoW and with an expansion on the way thats not something they remotely want to even confirm is a thing, but the shitstorm was too big this time and they have had too and in true modern Blizzard PR fashion its a poorly thought out response that serves to make them look out of touch at best and mildly incompetent at worst.

Theres no good end for them with this one, no matter they do they are going to get bad press for some reason and all before another box sale release which i im sure has them in absolutely foul moods right about now.

[Eleccybubb]

Oh, you mean something along the lines of access to Alpha and Beta test servers? But yeah, continue lecturing us on how that is "too hard".

You realise Alpha and Beta use basically PTR servers they have had for years yeah? Just less stable is all.

[Alcomo]

I wasn't around during vanilla and after playing for a few weeks on a vanilla server, I haven't been this eager to play any game in years.

Because it feels shiny and new. As someone who did play vanilla, give it a couple months. Wait until you burn yourself out during the super long leveling (people bitch about leveling now, vanilla is 1000x worse and longer) only to realize the end game is even worse with raids so easy and boring they make LFR look tough. And that is after spending hours getting 40 people together. If you love hours of boring grinding in your games, then sure, vanilla might appeal to you. But I can guarantee you that a legacy server would fail horribly and that blizzard is 100% right in telling people its really not what they want. Blizzard doesn't want to waste money knowing full well people will play it for a month or so, realize how tedious and boring the game was back then and quit using the servers. It is just the current fad and I can't wait for it to die off.

[rda]

because a bunch of nerds in a basement figured the servers out and its not like hearthstones miniscule pre launch team just shat out its bnet integration one day like magic either.

A bunch of nerds in a basement figured how to run something that barely resembles a server with numerous bugs and issues. That's very easy compared to what Blizzard would have to do (actually run and actually work instead of failing left and right).

[Awbee]

If they added access to original Azeroth via the Caverns of Time, and it was an option to start a new character there (even goblin, worgen, and pandaren), I would possibly still be playing the game. To me, Original > Cataclysm 1-60. Access to all the old dungeons, recipes, zones... That's all I really want. I miss the old Sully Balloo questline from the Soggy Letter.

I miss the creepiness of those grove areas with the HUGE dragons in there! When I first stumbled upon each of them, it was a huge "OH SHIT" moment, but even once I knew were they were, I was always a bit anxious in their presence, because they seemed sooo mysterious and leading up to something big. Sooo disappointed that in the end it was just all about the Emerald Dream which got dealt with in a novel. Ughh. At least we get to see some of it in Legion.

I hadn't even thought about being able to level via CoT, but yeah, why not? Would be super cool!

[ls-]

A bunch of nerds in a basement figured how to run something that barely resembles a server with numerous bugs and issues. That's very easy compared to what Blizzard would have to do (actually run and actually work instead of failing left and right).

Get ready, you'll bombarded by messages saying that Nost was blizzlike af

[Deleted]

Because it feels shiny and new. As someone who did play vanilla, give it a couple months. Wait until you burn yourself out during the super long leveling (people bitch about leveling now, vanilla is 1000x worse and longer) only to realize the end game is even worse with raids so easy and boring they make LFR look tough. And that is after spending hours getting 40 people together. If you love hours of boring grinding in your games, then sure, vanilla might appeal to you. But I can guarantee you that a legacy server would fail horribly and that blizzard is 100% right in telling people its really not what they want. Blizzard doesn't want to waste money knowing full well people will play it for a month or so, realize how tedious and boring the game was back then and quit using the servers.

Still better then 1 month of WoD content what you can burn in like 1 week. And btw Vannila wasnt tedious grind. Vannila had amazing progression and with great effort you get greate reward so it never felt like you grinded anything. But right now how WoD become so *** easy and faceroll all that content just feels like it is there to gate you in form of grinding pointless stuff just to get to the stuff what actualy matter. In vannila everything mattered from lvl 1 to naxx 40.

[Ciddy]

Honestly, I don't care about legacy servers as long as Legion isn't like WoD. I only played on Nostalrius because WoD got boring to me after a couple of months, but I still wanted to play WoW (and my friends who were playing on Nostalrius asked me to join them). I'll be coming back for Legion. As someone who doesn't raid, I'm hoping it can keep me interested longer than WoD did.

Also: I don't see how this "pristine" server idea helps anything. Most of what they'd be removing on a pristine realm is optional now anyway. I've leveled alts without heirlooms for fun before. You don't have to use tokens, boosts, or RAF bonuses either. CRZ is the only thing on a "pristine realm" that's not already optional. If Blizzard is trying to win over the Nostalrius crowd, that's definitely not the way to do it.

And I think group finder is a good thing anyway. Even back in Classic WoW, you could easily burn an hour standing around in major cities screaming "LF3M [insert dungeon here]" Happened to me quite often, and my character was a tank back then.

[trm90]

Because it feels shiny and new. As someone who did play vanilla, give it a couple months. Wait until you burn yourself out during the super long leveling (people bitch about leveling now, vanilla is 1000x worse and longer) only to realize the end game is even worse with raids so easy and boring they make LFR look tough. And that is after spending hours getting 40 people together. If you love hours of boring grinding in your games, then sure, vanilla might appeal to you. But I can guarantee you that a legacy server would fail horribly and that blizzard is 100% right in telling people its really not what they want. Blizzard doesn't want to waste money knowing full well people will play it for a month or so, realize how tedious and boring the game was back then and quit using the servers. It is just the current fad and I can't wait for it to die off.

Agreed. The "pristine" server is a step in the right direction, which is to rebuild the community. Gameplay - talents, combat, specs, leveling, raids - has improved massively since Vanilla IMO and I want to keep it. But although this is a subjective matter, we can all universally agree that WoW is extremely unsocial compared to Vanilla.

Slowing down the leveling experience so we can stop to smell the polygonal roses, making people put effort into finding dungeon groups and actually spending time locating the entrances, containing all these things within a server, etc... this is a hugely positive way to revive social interactions within WoW. I would play on such a server in a heartbeat, even if the end-game experience would remain similar.