Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Eliseus]

well. there went three minutes fourty seconds of my life I won't get back.

figures don't lie, but liars do a lot of figuring.

let see the stack of papers of those who do not support dredging up old content.

First, anyone against the idea is irrelevant. This does not effect your game play. Second, every poll being created right now with people actually volunteering have showed that more people are for the idea. Look at MMOC poll on the Pristine Servers. Obviously people don't want current WoW. Since Blizzard doesn't do it's own polls, I take whatever fan websites will give. Btw, people currently playing WoW doesn't mean they don't want this before you try to use that fallacy.

[AeneasBK]

A self-made, billionaire CEO of a division within a Fortune 500 company doesn't give a damn about the opinion of a former employee that went on to fail as a designer (we'll ignore the discussion about "Legacy" servers, because to be frank, it'll be a cold day in hell before it happens).

Sure, but kinda puts a big hole in all the shtick he peddles at the Blizzcon opening ceremonies :P

[Zandalarian Paladin]

It's not part of WoW. Fan videos are for the community, this video is to Blizzard. Blizzard can watch it.

It's part enough of the community for you to spend an awful amount of time on threads related to it, though.

And it's an open letter made by the community, so yeah, it deserve its place on the front page.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

He got burnt out and left shortly after wow was shipped.

so if he didn't care about wow shortly after it was shipped why should we care if he cares now, i wonder if he feels he missed out on all the glory wow got if he left shortly after it was shipped and now he wants a piece.

[Eliseus]

A self-made, billionaire CEO of a division within a Fortune 500 company doesn't give a damn about the opinion of a former employee that went on to fail as a designer (we'll ignore the discussion about "Legacy" servers, because to be frank, it'll be a cold day in hell before it happens).

Obviously they do or they wouldn't of commented on the matter to begin with.

[Sfinna]

Oh god.. that's gold.. And sadly.. I actually was one of the ones hoping for Firefall.

Me too.

At this point, he shouldn't be taken seriously. But people here are so desperate for private servers that they'd listen to scum like him.

Hey, guess what? It's not happening!

[In Ogres We Trust]

Like he said, citing numbers and having text on a screen is somewhat ephemeral. When you have it physically presented, there's kind of a "whoa" moment.

It could easily be a prop, absolutely. I just meant it's possible he decided to kill a tree.



The biggest reason I feel that Blizzard should have kept the pre-Cataclysm version of WoW around, even if just in storage, is from an archivist and preservationist standpoint. Video games have become a huge part of our society's pop culture, and perhaps culture in general. WoW does have a huge, historic impact and the fact that it's essentially gone from existence is disappointing. You can still play Pong, Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man. MMOs, unfortunately, don't lend themselves to being preserved.

Though EverQuest did see some success with a Legacy Progression server. I'd have thought Blizzard would have had the foresight to have things put aside to be capable of something similar.

A total waste of resources, code, and dollars. Y'all are clinging onto an "idea/feeling" that will never come back.

[enragedgorilla]

For those who don't know, here's the Wikipedia link to Mark Kern - a lot of good things before leaving Blizzard.

Good things before leaving Blizz...ok cool Thanks for the fun, obviously this guy needed a tight leash / handler though...because, well...the rest of his history is rather,"Hey do what I say !! I am so great!!,Fuck you your ideas are stupid!!" and ...I figure this is the asshole we are seeing in this video...not the "great things while at Blizz" version.

[Jewsco]

First, anyone against the idea is irrelevant. This does not effect your game play. Second, every poll being created right now with people actually volunteering have showed that more people are for the idea. Look at MMOC poll on the Pristine Servers. Obviously people don't want current WoW. Since Blizzard doesn't do it's own polls, I take whatever fan websites will give. Btw, people currently playing WoW doesn't meant they don't want this before you try to use that fallacy.

How can you say if they didn't it wouldn't effect the live/current game play? No development, money or manpower would go into making it? Thus taking away from live/current game? How does sub work for it? Is it added into the current sub thus making someone pay more or is it optional? Finally splitting the fan base is good why?

[Wolfheart9]

First, anyone against the idea is irrelevant. This does not effect your game play. Second, every poll being created right now with people actually volunteering have showed that more people are for the idea. Look at MMOC poll on the Pristine Servers. Obviously people don't want current WoW. Since Blizzard doesn't do it's own polls, I take whatever fan websites will give. Btw, people currently playing WoW doesn't meant they don't want this before you try to use that fallacy.

Actually having such things put in does effect our game play, as it's pulling time/labor/resources from the main game to another form of the game that will have to be kept running with bug fixes and actual support.

People like the idea of their ideal rose tinted glasses situation, but the truth of the matter is everything in the Pristine realms you can already do by choice, and if people 'really' wanted to play that way, you'd see a lot of people on live realms choosing to play that way, and they'd be happy. You don't see that. Many have also loved the joys of playing vanilla wow for free. We'll see how much the tune changes when they're doing $15 a month again.

[Hydrofluoric]

Wow.. A video from an old employee who knows the top guys, it's just something made because signatures actually reached 200.000.

200,000 players isn't something to be taken lightly, especially since it's in support of a private server.

[Eliseus]

A total waste of resources, code, and dollars. Y'all are clinging onto an "idea/feeling" that will never come back.

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

THE MOST RECENT RESPONSE. Doesn't state that at all. Are you still clinging to 8 year old responses? Matter of fact, this response is trying to figure out a way to make it all work, which also put emphasis on the possibility of a server still since they are in talks with Nost.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Obviously they do or they wouldn't of commented on the matter to begin with.

They've commented on it before (countless times), and the response has always been an AFFIRMATIVE, NO CHANCE IN HELL. Obviously, the problem isn't on their end; instead, it's on YOUR end.

[Eliseus]

How can you say if they didn't it wouldn't effect the live/current game play? No development, money or manpower would go into making it? Thus taking away from live/current game? How does sub work for it? Is it added into the current sub thus making someone pay more or is it optional? Finally splitting the fan base is good why?

Lol, the exclusively mutual comment where it's either one of the other. Good luck with that.

[AeneasBK]

Me too.

At this point, he shouldn't be taken seriously. But people here are so desperate for private servers that they'd listen to scum like him.

Hey, guess what? It's not happening!

Hehe, so the butthurt opinions of an anonymous red9 employee splashed all over Reddit make Kern "scum" now. (And that's what the article is sourced from, right?)

I mean, I'm sorry that this topic of legacy servers is generating tonnes more interest than anything going on in WoW that isn't Legion related at the moment; but other than that I'm not sure why you're so salty.

[Gib Lover]

A total waste of resources, code, and dollars. Y'all are clinging onto an "idea/feeling" that will never come back.

You realize it did come back and people felt it again, right? Like, consistently as long as private servers have been around

[Hydrofluoric]

A self-made, billionaire CEO of a division within a Fortune 500 company doesn't give a damn about the opinion of a former employee that went on to fail as a designer (we'll ignore the discussion about "Legacy" servers, because to be frank, it'll be a cold day in hell before it happens).

That's the point of the petition, video, and thread. Let's just ignore it.

[Eliseus]

Actually having such things put in does effect our game play, as it's pulling time/labor/resources from the main game to another form of the game that will have to be kept running with bug fixes and actual support.

People like the idea of their ideal rose tinted glasses situation, but the truth of the matter is everything in the Pristine realms you can already do by choice, and if people 'really' wanted to play that way, you'd see a lot of people on live realms choosing to play that way, and they'd be happy. You don't see that. Many have also loved the joys of playing vanilla wow for free. We'll see how much the tune changes when they're doing $15 a month again.

Lol, the exclusively mutual comment where it's either one of the other. Good luck with that.

[In Ogres We Trust]

THE MOST RECENT RESPONSE. Doesn't state that at all. Are you still clinging to 8 year old responses? Matter of fact, this response is trying to figure out a way to make it all work, which also put emphasis on the possibility of a server still since they are in talks with Nost.

In other words, the PR department issued a statement to let you down easily.

[Lochton]

200,000 players isn't something to be taken lightly, especially since it's in support of a private server.

Well, 200.000 where of rumors has it that you could fake signatures as well. 200.000 is a big number, but not a secured profit or development number.