Official Reply to Vanilla Servers and Nostalrius

[VikingKings]

There is a VERY simple solution for both parties! It is hard to have a known formula that works in today's game designs. Vanilla WOW has shown to have one and a guaranteed fan base. All that has to be done is for the vanilla players to make their own game, lore, trademarks, IP, servers etc. base it on vanilla WOW and you will have a hit! Call it World of Stealcraft. BOOM!

[AnteroXX]

Did my statement of Vanilla being flawed ruffle your feathers? If you read my post, i said the flaws were because Blizzard were new. They were trying to bring creative and broad ideas but didn't quite execute them as intended. The flaws that appeared the deeper into development/expansions of the game are far less forgivable.

And I ask again, what are those flaws?

[PenguinChan]

And yet that's what most of the "challenge" from Classic stemmed in...that, and people being completely new and bad.
If you took TIME between leveling mobs, you wouldn't die. That's not mechanical challenge, that's just a time-consuming grind.

To be fair this is about a game where people play a video game that is centralized around the time consuming grind. It's not unrealistic that people want that grind to last longer than a week or two for most individuals at max level, in a meaningful way. But yes a lot of the challenge in Classic was knowing to stop and eat, and not choosing the incorrect specialization for leveling.

And I ask again, what are those flaws?

While I love Classic, the major one being about half the specializations in the game were either broken or down right useless in one area of the game.

[DivingByZero]

People are too focused on 'vanilla' without a deeper understanding of what made vanilla great and what DIDNT. There's a lot of stuff about vanilla which was sheer frustration and I actually quit for a few months during vanilla cos I was bored out of my mind.
People would prefer an amalgamation of 1.x/2.x/3.x than pure 1.x. Some of the 1.x patches simply weren't very good, like 1.10 which added DS2, which was a waste of time, since most people were at least T1 by then. but it also introduced stuff that should've ALWAYS existed, to alleviate frustration, in the case of 1.10, final destination flight paths. Yea, you could only fly from one FP to the next FP until 1.10, which most people have totally forgotten about, including people who played Nost cos that was 1.12. I think people would want to keep some of these improvements while dumping the rest of the stuff which made WoW *far* too easy and therefore unrewarding.

The other major factor that Blizzard has removed (via other additions) is the community/social aspect of playing WoW. There was a time where many parts of the game invited people to create friendships, alliances, etc to proceed through the content. It wasn't - "click a button, random group, play, rage, quit, never see you again, who gives a shit...".

[roninwookie]

Pristine realm? What's pristine about it? The wellfare epics that will still be easy to get? The ZERO challenge while leveling? Yea it's going to take you longer, that doesn't make it challenging! Vanilla WoW was fun because you didn't just get new useful gear after each quest, you didn't just kill 15 mobs without having to bandage or drink up after each one.

How many times do we have to say this? We want a challenge, making something that requires you to put in more time isn't challenging!

The only thing challenging about vanilla was raiding. And that was because 40 people had to coordinate a 3 ability boss. Maybe grind out that rep and resistance gear. That's not challenging. Making a game where you have to take a break after fighting 5 mobs is boring as hell. SWToR did that and they had a fast regen system. That crap got insanely boring and frustrating. That's not challenging.

[AnteroXX]

I wonder how many of the Blizzard shills on this thread are also on social security.

[Deleted]

My sole problem with a 'pristine' realm is it would be post-Cataclysm. It wont feel like vanilla.

[DivingByZero]

The only thing challenging about vanilla was raiding. And that was because 40 people had to coordinate a 3 ability boss. Maybe grind out that rep and resistance gear. That's not challenging. Making a game where you have to take a break after fighting 5 mobs is boring as hell. SWToR did that and they had a fast regen system. That crap got insanely boring and frustrating. That's not challenging.

And you are a candidate for current Retail WoW. Nothing wrong with that. There is a large community of people who enjoyed the struggles that the unrefined WoW experience offered. For many people those 'struggles' that you don't like, actually were the catalyst for many social interactions that made the experience of this MMORPG worth more than the sum of it's parts.

[Paula Deen]

I wonder how many of the Blizzard shills on this thread are also on social security.

I wonder how many shitposters have actual arguments instead of just using ad hominem to forward an agenda.

[Deleted]

I don't get the reasoning of people who complain about heirlooms and outleveling a region. Don't like heirlooms - DON'T USE these things. Want to finish a zone? Then just STAY there and do it.

What a kindergarden.

[AnteroXX]

To be fair this is about a game where people play a video game that is centralized around the time consuming grind. It's not unrealistic that people want that grind to last longer than a week or two for most individuals at max level, in a meaningful way. But yes a lot of the challenge in Classic was knowing to stop and eat, and not choosing the incorrect specialization for leveling.



While I love Classic, the major one being about half the specializations in the game were either broken or down right useless in one area of the game.

That's it? that's the big major flaw about vanilla? oh man

[Amun72]

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.

I like the idea that you've presented, but in fact, a group finder, not LFR, would be a boost to the pristine server (yes I understand that if guilds return to the prominence they once were this could be mitigated). I would enjoy the challenge of a server without perks, but I did notice that one thing wasn't stated as being removed. I feel that if you made a pristine server 1-110 no matter what, there should be no flying. I never did get into a pvp server back in the day and I really regret that decision. Flying however has made pvp worthless, too easy to drop down, pwn someone, then fly off before retribution can be dealt back. You have my interest, after playing for nearly 11 years non stop this could bring back those moments that I always tell my wife about.

[PenguinChan]

That's it? that's the big major flaw about vanilla? oh man

It's a pretty major flaw when half of your play styles within one area of the game or the other are unplayable or nigh torturous.

[Gib Lover]

My sole problem with a 'pristine' realm is it would be post-Cataclysm. It wont feel like vanilla.

It's not just post Cataclysm, it's whatever the current content is. It's just leveling marginally slower, with the same max level content as a regular server.

[Queen of Hamsters]

The other major factor that Blizzard has removed (via other additions) is the community/social aspect of playing WoW. There was a time where many parts of the game invited people to create friendships, alliances, etc to proceed through the content. It wasn't - "click a button, random group, play, rage, quit, never see you again, who gives a shit...".

And there's still content which requires you to form those bonds.
Funny how such "social" people seem to need everyone else to be forced into interacting with them in order to be "social"...

I wouldn't mind it if flying was disabled on this "pristine server" however, so that the conversation could be forever buried. "Want no flying? Fuck off to the Pristine server nad have your fill".

Obviously the Pristine server should be PVP as well.

[kamuimac]

People are too focused on 'vanilla' without a deeper understanding of what made vanilla great and what DIDNT. There's a lot of stuff about vanilla which was sheer frustration and I actually quit for a few months during vanilla cos I was bored out of my mind.
People would prefer an amalgamation of 1.x/2.x/3.x than pure 1.x. Some of the 1.x patches simply weren't very good, like 1.10 which added DS2, which was a waste of time, since most people were at least T1 by then. but it also introduced stuff that should've ALWAYS existed, to alleviate frustration, in the case of 1.10, final destination flight paths. Yea, you could only fly from one FP to the next FP until 1.10, which most people have totally forgotten about, including people who played Nost cos that was 1.12. I think people would want to keep some of these improvements while dumping the rest of the stuff which made WoW *far* too easy and therefore unrewarding.

they didnt forget - most of them did not play back then so they have no way to remember stuff like this

[roninwookie]

Are the people that are here saying "pristine still won't be as good as Vanilla because (insert reason here)" also posting on the Blizz forums? If you aren't, why not? And "Blizz doesn't listen!!!!1!!!" Isn't a good excuse since that actually applies to these forums.

[Krusza]

Let's not kid ourselves. Vanilla has little to do with it. The predominant reason those people play in there is because it's free.

Entirely false, nearly everyone that played on it played it because WoD is awful. Most would gladly play even more to play on an official vanilla realm.

[Daedius]

The only thing challenging about vanilla was raiding. And that was because 40 people had to coordinate a 3 ability boss. Maybe grind out that rep and resistance gear. That's not challenging. Making a game where you have to take a break after fighting 5 mobs is boring as hell. SWToR did that and they had a fast regen system. That crap got insanely boring and frustrating. That's not challenging.

Not true. Leveling experience during Vanilla had you pulled more than 1, occasionally you can handle two, mobs you'd pretty much dead. Current WoW you can just pull everything and just AoE them all dead.

[AnteroXX]

It's a pretty major flaw when half of your play styles within one area of the game or the other are unplayable or nigh torturous.

You're just mad because you didn't have some cookie cutter bullshit to faceroll the entire game, also too poor to re-spec, enjoy your tri-spec, quad-spec, quint-spec garbage.