Official Reply to Vanilla Servers and Nostalrius

[Die Hard]

Wow, I'm legit surprised that the poll is basically dead even. I was imagining an overwhelming response on "Yes" tbh.

Many people that would like this feature are mostly WoW veterans, people who actually PLAYED it in vanilla and TBC days, players which are LONG GONE now, people like my self, we are dying breed. The poll results are quite amazing considering this fact.

[TomtheWonderDog]

I made an account to voice my concerns in the hopes that people can more clearly understand what a "Pristine Server" entails.

"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. "

Before you vote please think about what that would be like.

A single server, that progresses slower than retail content, *but* still offers the exact same content. Who would this appeal to?

-No Competitive Guilds would play there, because they will want to 'be where the action is' and compete with other established guilds.

-No Nostalgic players would come back for it, because it is not what they have been asking for or using private servers to experience anyway.

-No Newbies would start there, because when given a choice they would pick the full version of Retail over the "hardcore/Slower" and less populated version.

-None of their lost subs would come back, because it is only offering the same content that made them quit this latest expansion anyway.

In conclusion, I think that this would be a very bad idea and I'm afraid that Blizzard knows this. They are hoping to put in a small amount of effort to appease some of the Legacy Server crowd and in the end it will satisfy no one.

[tyrlaan]

"So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched?"

This quote makes it feel like they're still not realizing what people actually want here. We're not asking for Legacy Servers for nostalgia's sake, we're asking because we genuinely love and enjoy the old game over the new for a massive amount of reasons (which I won't go into). To clarify, I have nothing against anyone who likes the new game, but I truly don't and I feel the people like me who like old WoW should have a medium to experience it once more.

So... nostalgia. You literally just explained nostalgia.

"We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty."

This quote is really stretching the truth. Nostalrius was a team of a few people who had nothing to do with Blizzard and yet they managed to train all of their members and make a perfect re-creation of Vanilla WoW (with progression might I add), 100% scripted/coded, great server stability, and their servers were hosting up to 13k people online at once, which is insane. Note that this was all done without profit and you're telling me Blizzard (a massive company with thousands of highly trained professionals on the matter) can't make the same thing happen??

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Nostralius had very little to consider other than the fact that Blizzard could have been much nastier to them for doing something illegal. Blizzard on the other hand has to consider cost, maintenance costs, opportunity costs, if it fits their company direction/vision, what the return on investment would be, etc.

But I get it, knowing nothing about how Blizzard operates as a company from an internal perspective, it's easy to conclude this would be "easy" for them to do and they just "don't want to". i.e. assuming they could and just don't want to is an uninformed opinion. You're welcome to have it, but please recognize it for what it is.

" Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”."

Though this concept isn't that bad, it won't fix anything. This idea is more like putting a few bandages on a large gash, it only looks at a few issues that Legacy players have with the current game. If you're going to do this, I'd say just do Legacy instead, it appeals to a larger crowd. This method is more of a quick fix, but it will not bring me (and a lot of other vanilla players) back, because it doesn't entirely fix what I dislike about the game, it only goes to patch up a few things. Sure it might be a slight step in the right direction, but I feel the game is so different deep within its core that patching a few things up won't do. To fix the game in my eyes tons of stuff from it would have to be out right removed (which can't happen) so Legacy servers are just a far more clear option rather than meeting us like 20% of the way.

Fair enough, though I'd be really curious to understand how many people really even want actual vanilla servers.

Think of it from Blizzard's perspective. They have, what? 5 or 6 mil subs right now. So let's say everyone that played on Nostralius wants vanilla servers. How many people is that? More than 13k I assume since that's their max online at once. Shall we, double, quadruple it? Quadrupling it to 52k brings us to.... just over 1% of 5million subscribers.

So if I'm a company that has to decide to spend money to support... If I add up the 52k to my 5mil.... do I spend effort on 1.03% of my player base or 98.97% of my player base? When I consider I have no means of guaranteeing that the 1.03% will all use the vanilla servers when I bring them online, that's not even a sure thing. So maybe like 0.5%.

At the end of the day, this is probably barely a problem to Blizzard and more likely a case of a vocal minority. The fact they responded at all is kind of surprising.

[suniki]

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.

This is a completely stupid opinion. Half the guild I was in still plays retail and were enjoying it less and less as time went on because all they did was raid with their guild normal/heroic once a week. Some enjoyed retail a bit but would run out of things to do in game so they'd spend 80% of their time on Nost because of how much longer it takes to do everything. Not to mention how much more accomplishing it felt to level a profession to max or in general complete anything, including leveling dungeons for drops you wanted. Everything felt good to accomplish, how could you have this opinion still, do you not have any opinions that are truly your own and and not simply spoonfed to you by Activision?. If anything Nost was helping Blizzard by operating because people felt a need to be subbed to the game out of respect and 5 hours spent on retail didn't feel as much of a waste because we had a'lot of time to spend on "WoW"
I unsubscribed and got a refund on Legion, I've spent thousands upon thousands on a game that has given me less and less as each expansion releases. Because ya know 15 bucks a month is Sooo much, but Blizzard needs to finally learn the rejection the old players feel.

Infracted

[Wildtree]

Their (Blizzards) actions were logical. They can't let a ip violation slip, since it would set false and bad legal precedence in case of other violations.
Today someone pirates vanilla wow, tomorrow someone pirates a current Blizzard game and it would complicate the matters in the second case.

Blizzard just got to hammer out a deal with the team that ran the Vanilla server.
This might very well be the best solution for everyone involved.

[shyguybman]

I unsubscribed and got a refund on Legion, I've spent thousands upon thousands on a game that has given me less and less as each expansion releases. Because ya know 15 bucks a month is Sooo much, but Blizzard needs to finally learn the rejection the old players feel.

Me and the other 5+ million people playing Legion will see you there eventually.

[Chaelexi]

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.

It is not plug and play, do you think that a large corporation is going to take an outside sources code and plug it in to their servers. The security risks alone built into this are huge, next you also have to adjust it to integrate their code into your current server hardware and OS base. Next your have to also build in the battle.net login system for account management. to use your words taking some group of random coder's code into your major cororation is a slippery slope that only ends in security issues.

[Xilurm]

Me and the other 5+ million people playing Legion will see you there eventually.

Lol. You know that doesn't even make sense right? Because before it was more than 5 million, it was more than 8 million too. People told them the same thing you're saying now.

[vinmmo]

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.

On the subject of things that don't add up, lame throw this out there. If this task is technically feasible as you believe it is and it would be profitable, then why has blizzard stated for years they won't do it? Do they have a grudge against vanilla wow? What's more realistic, the evil company wants to oppress their player base, or the company is unable to bring the product to market and turn a profit (that would be enough to justify the risk)?
As for the subject of "amauteurs made it work, why can't Blizzard?" The typical explanation is the expectation of quality from blizzard is much higher than of private servers, plus integrating into current blizzard systems.

[Glorious Leader]

Lots of bullshit talk to be honest, and I'll tell you why vanilla or any other previous expansions wont ever happen
1) They don't want to work on older patches, because it takes much more time compared to current state of the game
2) If they actually do release something "older" it's literally them saying that their current game sucks, go play older version
3) No $$$ to be made there with in game purchases

It's all about the money, newer expansions wont be sold cos people would be playing older patches.
RIP WoW been fun

Subs are down and the developers don't have a clue. At this point it's throw shit and see if anything sticks at wall
It's a shame they seemingly cannot be fired.

[Deleted]

Viewing the result of that poll is quite shocking actually. Do any of you actually sit down and read this bs?
Pristine Servers is NOT what we want. Absolutely not. In essence it´s just retail content with a slower leveling rate.
Basically they try to sell you a nicely painted piece of crap as an air freshener.

[Deleted]

They are spewing bullshit when they say its "to technical" to implement, when people as young as 16 can figure out how to host a server that supports 1000 people.

[Chaelexi]

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.

Do you think if there was profit in this they would have done it by now. Also what happens when everyone burns out on old content. They leave.

[Wildtree]

Subs are down because vanilla servers.... yeah right..
If subs are down because of that, how come those 7 million people less than the peak weren't on the vanilla servers? Instead it's been some 200+k..

Subs are down because of a number of reasons, with the top reasons are:
1. the game coming of age
2. and the genre itself being in decline.
3. desktop gaming being in free fall.
4. sub based gaming being an outdated concept only few can maintain anymore.

[Angeredsoul]

I imagine pristine servers are current patch realms but with all the features of the pristine realm. Vanilla for me is best left in the past.

[Deleted]

Of course is is.

It's laughable reading people's comments either disputing Blizzard's assessment of the situation, or believing that there is some retarded nefarious plan at work.

Just use your head. Blizzard is a public corporation. If there is a good opportunity to make money at a reasonable rate of return on investment, then they'll do it. And Blizz is incredibly well run, whether you support the direction of their game development or not. A quick look at their growth, revenue, earnings, and long term trajectory will confirm all this - so I'm quite confident in their ability to assess the cost/revenue scenario better than a forum troll. That said and if you disagree, then go prove it and sell ATVI short ... and let me know how that works out for you over the next few years.

Arguing that there cannot be a cost is just moronic. There is a cost. Whether it has to do with the creation of the new realms - the ongoing maintenance that would be of a different format than standard live realms - or possible cannibalization of the live game, there are costs.

Can you show your calculations making it not profitable? The numbers don't just add up. Blizzard is very well known for being ridiculously stubborn and doing things their way. People have given good suggestions which would have opened possibilities for more profits but it was against their vision and "never happening", only to do happen later on like paid faction transfers. There are things they could do to maximize profit but choose to not do.

[Agnar]

Saying it is too difficult to implement is another way of Blizzard saying it's not profitable for them. If it can't make boats loads of money, they won't invest the effort and resources to do it. Probably not enough of a player base to make it profitable for them when you consider the time and effort.

[Dyptheria]

@thread

This whole affair reminds of the days of Napster, Scour and MP3.com. The media companies (a category under which Blizzard falls) couldn't see the market, took the legal route and shut those operations down.

A few years later, we got iTunes...

[Deleted]

Do you think if there was profit in this they would have done it by now. Also what happens when everyone burns out on old content. They leave.

No, I think the reasons they haven't done it are completely different. Possibility and profitability are not among them. Yes, because those classic private realms have existed for 10 years and no-one have played on them in years as everyone burned out, oh wait. Classic players are different, kinda like Diablo players.

[Chaelexi]

They are spewing bullshit when they say its "to technical" to implement, when people as young as 16 can figure out how to host a server that supports 1000 people.

That is hosting a server with no security and shitty reliability. Its like saying a 10 year old can make pizza when he opens a box and puts the frozen pizza in the oven. No he followed some layed out instructions online to do it but he did not make it.