Official Reply to Vanilla Servers and Nostalrius

[Deleted]

Actually, it is still the 1900s where we overwrite everything to save costs. My company has made games for 30 years now. The released version of our first games are certainly stored on backup, however we do not have a single person from that era that even can read what the hell the code does. Sure we could boot the game to how it was at the time but we can not fix any of the issues and the amount of time required to learn the code is not worth the nostalgia factor. Not only that but all the version control history is gone as that server was no longer needed.

In blizzards case, they may have the code...may...but they are going to need the specific compiler and hardware that the server ran on. Then they will need developers from that era who know the codebase. Nostalrius were very dedicated individuals who wanted to learn the codebase, Work through the bugs and incompatabilities and etc to get the game running. Blizzard would have to pay nostalrius for their intellectual property and probably hire them to understand all of their changes.

Even after that they are going to have to dedicate hardware, bandwidth, customer support, etc to support a fork of their original code. All of that costs money, and I doubt there is a large enough community to support that effort on a continual basis.

A "pristine" version is probably the best compromise that people will get.

But is it really the cost? This argument gets thrown around alot, even by Blizzard but the moment you start to actually look at numbers it stops making sense.
I mean if we calculate one devs cost as $10k/m and one gm/support at $5k even a dedicated 5+5 team would only cost $75k/m. Hardware acquisition is a one-time fee with small upkeep fees. Electricity/bandwith are laughably small compared to other costs. Even a measly 10k players would bring in $150k/m. Realistically it would be much higher. Additional realms are cheaper since you only need more support, not devs.

[Bigthumbb]

Oh my god. Pristine realm is EXACTLY what I've wanted for the past several years. That would be amazing. I can hardly believe Blizzard are even considering that. Good for them.

[KimJongman]

I'm sure almost everyone who has played WoW recently has leveled an alt in Elwynn Forest. Imagine in retail right now fighting the current Hogger without heirlooms(Or hell, just go do it, it takes 5 minutes). It is not hard, he wont even make you blink, even without heirlooms. You don't need help, you just go kill him. This is how the entire leveling process of a Pristine Realm would be. This is not the same game as vanilla. You dont have to find 1-2 other people to kill Hogger or any other elite "group" mob/quest with you. All Pristine Realms would do would add the negatives of leveling without bringing back anything that made the experience fun and challenging. In my opinion this is just a way for blizz to say "We gave you what you want, we told you that you wouldn't like it", when really they didn't give the people that want Legacy servers what they want at all.

[Deleted]

Blizzard, a multibillion dollar company says it's too hard to make legacy servers. But a small group of people who have full time jobs can do it in their spare time WITHOUT making a profit. What a fucking joke.

I am so mad man! This means they think we are fully degenerates & retards... Not a single company can show that much disrespect to their customers...
They are so high with their money.

[Chaelexi]

But is it really the cost? This argument gets thrown around alot, even by Blizzard but the moment you start to actually look at numbers it stops making sense.
I mean if we calculate one devs cost as $10k/m and one gm/support at $5k even a dedicated 5+5 team would only cost $75k/m. Hardware acquisition is a one-time fee with small upkeep fees. Electricity/bandwith are laughably small compared to other costs. Even a meassy 10k players would bring in $150k/m. Realistically it would be much higher. Additional realms are cheaper since you only need more support, not devs.

You are missing, management cost(the people who manage this 10) as well as all the initial development costs to make Vanilla code run on their current equipment and integrate with current systems, anti cheating/botting code, battle.net login and character screens. Writing a game to work with new consumer hardware, remember we are going from DirectX 8.2 to DirectX 11.3 or 12. Fixing numerous exploits that exist in Vanilla code. It is a lot more expensive for something that will not have a guaranteed long term player base.

[shyguybman]

People really need to quit with the "a bunch random dudes did it in their spare time why can't blizzard?" Well those people did it for free and it probably took them years to get everything set up. Blizzard has to spend money, potentially several millions to get everything working again and once they put their name on a product people will expect it to be bug free. Hell I bet people will even start complaining about class balancing and want changes.

[Chaelexi]

Blizzard, a multibillion dollar company says it's too hard to make legacy servers. But a small group of people who have full time jobs can do it in their spare time WITHOUT making a profit. What a fucking joke.

You said the key word NO PROFIT. There is none in this because a large portion of Nost players play there because it is FREE!!!!!!!

[Paperquake]

I'm sure almost everyone who has played WoW recently has leveled an alt in Elwynn Forest. Imagine in retail right now fighting the current Hogger without heirlooms(Or hell, just go do it, it takes 5 minutes). It is not hard, he wont even make you blink, even without heirlooms. You don't need help, you just go kill him. This is how the entire leveling process of a Pristine Realm would be. This is not the same game as vanilla. You dont have to find 1-2 other people to kill Hogger or any other elite "group" mob/quest with you. All Pristine Realms would do would add the negatives of leveling without bringing back anything that made the experience fun and challenging. In my opinion this is just a way for blizz to say "We gave you what you want, we told you that you wouldn't like it", when really they didn't give the people that want Legacy servers what they want at all.

I understand your perspective, but with their current scaling technology, I don't think it would be a stretch for them to increase the power of elite/quest mobs.

[vinmmo]

I am so mad man! This means they think we are fully degenerates & retards... Not a single company can show that much disrespect to their customers...
They are so high with their money.

If it's so easy and profitable, wouldn't they have to be stupid to not do it? Are they just THAT stupid? Or have they wrestled with the idea for years without coming up with a practical means of bringing a product to market that meets their expectations and quality assurance? Which seems more likely? That the evil company has it out for you and wants to throw away money and fail their shareholders, or that they don't have a means of bringing the product to market and making a profit?

[Scalen]

You said the key word NO PROFIT. There is none in this because a large portion of Nost players play there because it is FREE!!!!!!!

I played Nost for a bit cause it was free, would I play a live version of classic. Yes I would, if it was free with my current sub of WoW. Not paying for a outdated version of the game.

[Disturbed]

Oh my god. Pristine realm is EXACTLY what I've wanted for the past several years. That would be amazing. I can hardly believe Blizzard are even considering that. Good for them.

surely this is sarcasm, as pristine doesn't fix things like faceroll aoe tanking and tanks doing more dps than all dps classes in the party - combined. tons of other issues but i'll just save time by not listing them. long story short: nerfing exp and removing cross realm alone.... will not fix everything. game will still be casual faceroll. old dungeons and raids are not tuned for current retail skills/mechanics/numbers/etc. blizz retunes numbers each xpac and with no regard for how they will affect previous content.

[shyguybman]

surely this is sarcasm, as pristine doesn't fix things like faceroll aoe tanking and tanks doing more dps than all dps classes in the party - combined. tons of other issues but i'll just save time by not listing them. long story short: nerfing exp and removing cross realm alone.... will not fix everything. game will still be casual faceroll. old dungeons and raids are not tuned for current retail skills/mechanics/numbers/etc. blizz retunes numbers each xpac and with no regard for how they will affect previous content.

Since when do tanks more damage then the dps?

[Goondicker]

I think I'd play on a "pristine" realm before the current retail realms, but I'd really prefer legacy. I think if they try to compromise, they'll just piss off both sides.

[Deleted]

You are missing, management cost(the people who manage this 10) as well as all the initial development costs to make Vanilla code run on their current equipment and integrate with current systems, anti cheating/botting code, battle.net login and character screens. Writing a game to work with new consumer hardware, remember we are going from DirectX 8.2 to DirectX 11.3 or 12. Fixing numerous exploits that exist in Vanilla code. It is a lot more expensive for something that will not have a guaranteed long term player base.

Ok, throw in 10-20k for management. Yes, there's work to be done and that's why I mentioned 5 devs, not 5 coffee drinkers. No it's not impossible to do. What the private realms have shown is that the old clients work pretty well since dx is backwards compatible etc. But yes, it has costs. It also has ridiculous potential income. Like I said just 10k players could pay for dev team of 5 + 5 supports and bring lots of income too. How many players could it get? We don't know but what we do know is that Nost had nearly a million registered players and 200k active. Then there are dozens of smaller servers. Now count the players who are interested but didn't want to play on illegal servers? We are talking potential playerbase of millions where you only need some tens of thousands to make a profit. Nothing is guaranteed but that's not a reason to shut down your business.

[Deleted]

You said the key word NO PROFIT. There is none in this because a large portion of Nost players play there because it is FREE!!!!!!!

This simply is not true, there are private servers that have later patches and expansions that are also free. People do actually like vanilla, believe it or not.

[Deleted]

Epic does matter.

I remember a poll on it, asking whether people supported the removal of easy epics and a returning of most gear to blue. Even raid gear would be rare by default. I got a lot of responses about how the colour doesn't matter, how it's all about stats and how a piece of gear is good or bad, independent of whether or not it's epic.

Yet everyone voted to keep the system showering everyone in supposedly meaningless gear.

What to take from that is that people like to pretend that the colour doesn't matter to them, but are ashamed to admit that they love their shiny purples.

For most raiders that i know they don't really care if you can get epics easily from stuff like lfr, they just care if the items they get from hc/mythic are dropping lol. I know quite some vanilla players, and most of them only do lfr/normal so to me it feels like they get butthurt over nothing. It's also ironic since they are the ones using the ''welfare epics''.

[mystupidhandle]

They should scale up the leveling difficulty on both current and pristine realms. I doubt Blizzard will or wants to maintain two versions of the game (beyond enabling/disabling features). If they alter leveling EXP, that has an effect on pacing, which could lead to lulls in the leveling experience. I think the pace of leveling from 1-100 will be fine without any experience boosts. I think people forget the time investment it took to find a group and actually travel to the dungeon.

[Deleted]

According to the poll 1% more want it than don't. Soooo...

i want cake, not poop, a poop with a flag in it aint enough

[Deleted]

I am not a programmer, developer or anything of the sort.

But I refuse to believe that sparetime pro bono work by a handful of French guys (sure, it took them 5 years, but they're willing to give their work to Blizzard! Plug and play, really!), is a burden of work too large for multi billion dollar company Activision Blizzard.

That simply doesn't add up.

Additionally, if we were to take every private server player, currently, and get them to resubscribe to retail world of warcraft, their subscriber count would probably double. And no, private servers are not about them being free. I firmly believe the majority of us would resubscribe to retail if we considered the game remotely worth playing. I have nothing against farmville or welfare epics, I just don't want it. Maybe that's because I outgrew the game or maybe it's because I like exclussivity and elitism, I'm not sure.
To me, it used to be that "only the cool guys" had full arena gear or cleared the hardest raids, but now all of that seems up for grabs. For everyone. I believe you obtain your BIS weapon simply by logging in and previously you would get full BIS gear simply by visiting your garrison sometimes. It used to be that you had to raid every week, every month, every year, to get those shiny purples. Hundreds, no, thousands of hours were invested in order to get those shiny purples (not to mention orangies). Not 10 minuttes per day for a few weeks!

Disagree with me? No problem. I respect your opinion and your right to have one and express it. I am willing to discuss this and I will try to see things from your perspective, if you can manage to keep it somewhat civil Myrok.

Pristine realms sound fun though. I think it a slippery slope and there's a chance it will flop, but I'd definately give it a try.

[Deleted]

Since when do tanks more damage then the dps?

Low level damage is broken, blizz made tanks do 5-10 times more damage than dps-ers to make sure mobs are on tank and get smashed to pixels, so the party doesnt wipe. Wiping breaks the casual heart and makes them unsub. Accessibility. If you are looking for the thing that is killing wow and making even vanilla seem like a viable option. If the current realms wont change into something like the pristine realms, this game is gone. They forgot what made 12M people sub the game and now its not better than the general shitty mmorpg-s. Demon hunters and dalaran wont save the day, man. Not anymore.