Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Eliseus]

didn't WoD launch with an insane amount of players. WoW is not dying, it just has a player retention problem. Something blizzard is actively working to fix with legion.

The numbers were gone as fast as they came because...... you guessed it, the hype that it was going to be BC. It wasn't.

dy·ing
ˈdīiNG/
adjective
adjective: dying

on the point of death.
"he visited his dying mother"
synonyms: terminally ill, at death's door, on one's deathbed, near death, fading fast, expiring, moribund, not long for this world, in extremis; More
informalon one's last legs, having one foot in the grave
"his dying aunt"
occurring at or connected with the time that someone dies.
"he strained to catch her dying words"
synonyms: final, last; deathbed
"her dying words"
antonyms: first
gradually ceasing to exist or function; in decline and about to disappear.
"stone-cutting is a dying art"
synonyms: declining, vanishing, fading, ebbing, waning; informalon the way out
"a dying art form"
antonyms: thriving

[Deleted]

He asks Mike personally to call him so they can take a look together and talk about it, all those papers aren't fake either they belong to veterans like me and many others that would resub instantly if legacy servers were announced, if a private server like nostalrius can attract nearly a million accounts then think about how many more would resub now and increase the subscription numbers if it were announced officially by Blizzard.

No he did THAT so he can allways claim to be the GOOD guy and Mike is the BAD one cause he didnt called him. pretty obvious.

[Eliseus]

WoW isn't dying, unlike Vanilla and TBC there are just things that can actually compete with WoD, like FF14, ESO and Star wars. woW still has the most Subs of any MMO out there, despite all the competition, how is that "Dying."

dy·ing
ˈdīiNG/
adjective
adjective: dying

on the point of death.
"he visited his dying mother"
synonyms: terminally ill, at death's door, on one's deathbed, near death, fading fast, expiring, moribund, not long for this world, in extremis; More
informalon one's last legs, having one foot in the grave
"his dying aunt"
occurring at or connected with the time that someone dies.
"he strained to catch her dying words"
synonyms: final, last; deathbed
"her dying words"
antonyms: first
gradually ceasing to exist or function; in decline and about to disappear.
"stone-cutting is a dying art"
synonyms: declining, vanishing, fading, ebbing, waning; informalon the way out
"a dying art form"
antonyms: thriving

[Deleted]

Fun fact https://twitter.com/SdotLow/status/725029601223778304

[Deleted]

Veterans are around 30 years old now i'm sure they can pay 20 euro each 2 months to play the game, most games these days cost 60 euro and it lasts you 2 weeks so the fact that it was free is irrelevant you can even play retail WoW for free with a token.

fixed. and nice way of showing you wouldnt paying for vanilla

[Borigrad]

snip

I've been dying since i left my mothers womb.

[Deleted]

Ok blizzard release a statement and this guy calls there bluff so whats next ? They want all focus on legion the movie and overwatch and it seem this headache isnt going away easy so they have 2 option really stay silence again and cross there fingers or come out with a flat out no and hope that the back fire from it will go away before the launch of legion and the film.

I know people are going to say but option 3 they can make legacy servers but this has been going on for along time now and the loud outcry we are getting is because wow sucked and we are in another year long drought. I do believe that legacy server will cost them more than its worth if they just charge a standard sub because of the actual work needing to get them up and adapting it to the new systems. But as what ive seen people will pay more money just to play legacy so how about this idea WoW legacy subs!! charge say an extra $5 a month thats $60 extra a year what will count the expansion cost they would of lost out on and maybe $10 legacy account upgrade to cover the initial costs. Heck they could have it on a separate launcher and hide it from battle net saving more costs.

But im really fed up of reading and lissening about this topic as its a massive circle jerk i just wish legion would come sooner so im to focused actually playing to notes this crap peace out!!!

[Wolfheart9]

Fun fact https://twitter.com/SdotLow/status/725029601223778304

People who are bitchy are bitching? That's a fun fact?

[Aliadra]

You didn't really have a point, so I don't think I've proven anything. The petition is still a waste of time, the guy "spearheading" it (lol) is still an annoying has-been who sees this opportunity to get some free publicity, and you're still ridiculous with your gamergate crap, because gamer fucking gate was ridiculous butthurt from the start, and beating this skeleton of a horse in the year of our lord 2016 is exactly what I said. No amount of feet stamping is going to change the fact that Blizzard has said "NO" - again! - to this vanilla server garbage, and they're unlikely to backtrack on it because some guy who worked with them a decade ago makes a cringeworthy vid in which he makes serious faces and fakes concern like a second rate politician ;]

I did make a few points that you conveniently ignored. If you want to shitpost, don't pretend not to.
Mark is retired and has little reason to get free publicity other than for his own ego's sake, which I don't really care about. The fact that you care more about who is saying it than what is said says quite alot about you. Some of the worst people in history have had good ideas, that doesn't make them invalid.
If you deny Gamergate was a reactionary response to the massive influx of SJW bullshit then that really says alot about your method of thinking, and also explains why you hate Mark Kern so much.
Blizzard have said no, and will likely continue to say no. It's really just giving them bad PR. Just because some people want legacy/progression servers doesn't mean it will happen, but give one good reason why people shouldn't say they want it. No one really cares what you think about vanilla being garbage or not, many people want it, and you want to deny it to them because you think your personal opinion is more important than anyone else's.
If you're so confident legacy/progression servers would fail, why are you so against them? If they fail they'll fail and you get to say "Told you so." if not nothing really changes for you. WoW's subscriber count has dropped so much they stopped releasing it to avoid it potentially having an exaggerated effect on the stocks. They have a massive player retention issue and setting up legacy/progression servers could not only give people a reason to try Legion but also keep subscribers from unsubscribing between patches due to having alternative content that's relatively maintenance free and very low development cost. They could even licence someone like the Nostalrius team to run it legally.
And really, hating so much on Mark Kern really makes you seem like an immature child that might have to share his toys he doesn't use. It's not about Mark, it's about WoW.

[Eliseus]

I've been dying since i left my mothers womb.

Congratulations?

For a normal person this isn't true though unless you have some disorder. The human body doesn't actually start to die till somewhere in the 30s. For example, cells die everyday, but the actual decline of cells starts in the 30s. Therefore the average person doesn't technically start dying till they are in their 30s.

[Deleted]

Fun fact https://twitter.com/SdotLow/status/725029601223778304

OBSCURE LINK? a youtube link is obscure these days?.... noone wants to see that face on the front of mmoc....

[Halicia]

(When they're employed by Blizzard) OMG! This guy is ruining Warcraft!!! He should be fired and replaced with someone worthwhile.

(When they leave Blizzard) OMG! The creators of WoW are bailing a sinking ship! WoW is dying and will never be the same again!!!

(When they comment about WoW years later) OMG! This is the guy that made WoW great!

I don't care what the comments are from the cheap seats. People say they want to play stuff, but the financials turn up otherwise.

If people were willing to actually pay for what they said they *want* to play, then there would be a market for those sorts of games.

[Deleted]

Because we been there and have DONE that. And there was NOTHING glorious about Vanilla. And I want Azeroth to move FORWARD and not ressources wasted on how the game was 12 years ago.

To my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to both: Disagree that Vanilla was a better version of the game and believe that the creation of legacy servers would be a waste of company resources.

I don't think I could, or would try, to convince you that the game was better 12 years ago. That is simply personal opinion and nothing can be done about that. Different people, different tastes.

Regarding the resources, however, I don't think Blizzard has as limited resources as you might fear. I reckon a completely different and separate team would need to be hired to deal with Legacy servers, which while increasing the company's spending costs (salaries, and all kinds of software and hardware necessities) would not drain the current team working on live WoW of resources nor manpower.
Keep in mind, however, that even with the increasing money investment, it would, supposedly, deliver profit, so it isn't blatant spending. I know this last bit is obvious, otherwise they wouldn't take this hypothetical route. I said it just in case someone is silly enough to believe that they would be losing money, somehow, if they decided to go forward with the idea.

[Sierra85]

OBSCURE LINK? a youtube link is obscure these days?.... noone wants to see that face on the front of mmoc....

it is making a bit of a stir, and it could be seen as censorship or not wanting to assist in the spread. deny the virality?

[Wolfheart9]

To my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to both: Disagree that Vanilla was a better version of the game and believe that the creation of legacy servers would be a waste of company resources.

I don't think I could, or would try, to convince you that the game was was better 12 years ago. That is simply personal opinion and nothing can be done about that. Different people, different tastes.

Regarding the resources, however, I don't think Blizzard has as limited resources as you might fear. I reckon a completely different and separate team would need to be hired to deal with Legacy servers, which while increasing the company's spending costs (salaries, and all kinds of software and hardware necessities) would not drain the current team working on live WoW of resources nor manpower.
Keep in mind, however, that even with the increasing money investment, it would, supposedly, deliver profit, so it isn't blatant spending. I know this last bit is obvious, otherwise they wouldn't take this hypothetical route. I said it just in case someone is silly enough to believe that they would be losing money, somehow, if they decided to go forward with the idea.

The bigger problem is the sheer amount of work it would take to get a vanilla server up and running to the standards that Blizzard expects, with all of the features cut from the game. People don't understand that code is built ontop of code, so if you change one thing down at the bottom, you have to fix things all the way up. It's why they have the joking song of '99 bugs on the wall, take one down, pass it around, 103 bugs on the wall' or close to that.

They would have to invest a significant amount of time and money into getting it running, and if millions of people don't return like some appear to think that will happen, it could be a waste of time, money, and resources. It's a pretty risky thing to do.

- - - Updated - - -

it is making a bit of a stir, and it could be seen as censorship or not wanting to assist in the spread. deny the virality?

If posting a topic is seen as censorship, people have some serious problems. They could of easily not posted anything.

[Zoldor]

All I hear is bring back the game I helped with to the way I made it. Very similar to his exit from Red 5. I get the desire for these servers, but as many have said, if blizz thought it would make solid money they'd do it. I'm a little tired of all the Nost people whining. It is like listening to any criminal complain about being caught, you knew going into this that getting caught and getting shut down was a very real possibility so when it happens to be mad at the people who have the right to shut you down is foolish. Nost was obviously profiting in some way or Blizz wouldn't have shut it down. Things change including games and time moves on get over it already.

Also, this isn't some civil disobedience to get a law changed, it is just generally profiting off someone else's work.

[Eliseus]

(When they're employed by Blizzard) OMG! This guy is ruining Warcraft!!! He should be fired and replaced with someone worthwhile.

(When they leave Blizzard) OMG! The creators of WoW are bailing a sinking ship! WoW is dying and will never be the same again!!!

(When they comment about WoW years later) OMG! This is the guy that made WoW great!

I don't care what the comments are from the cheap seats. People say they want to play stuff, but the financials turn up otherwise.

If people were willing to actually pay for what they said they *want* to play, then there would be a market for those sorts of games.

Not true, there is a market for those games, but to contradict your post first. There is no game out there like classic WoW. Second, the market is typically more to appeal to a very casual audience with something like micro-transactions, not that the audience you are portraying wouldn't make any money. Third, https://pantheonmmo.com/ disagrees with you that no one wants it.

[Deleted]

compared to the 4mil on retail or all the people playing SC, D, HOTS or HS each.

Every single nos guy and rest will resub with legion. No problem - so on what base do you argue?

[kensim]

*yawn* Blizzard at most will explore pristine servers, which will waste resources since 90% of what they are can be done today by simple choice. Vanilla servers do not appear to even be an long shot option at this point. The next wave of game launches culminating with Legion will force this whole discussion to the back burner where it belongs.

[Eliseus]

it is making a bit of a stir, and it could be seen as censorship or not wanting to assist in the spread. deny the virality?

Well, they already only quoted Ghostcrawler on one comment he said towards Blizzard than them all. I'm assuming Curse fully non-biased reports doesn't apply here, even though it says so on their websites with MMO-C listed.