I tend to agree in the abstract. In the practical, I think blizzard internal performance metrics is driven in great part by participation/completion metrics, and that + truly random grouping in classic dungeons (possibly without a PL who can just kick underperformers) will in fact lead to content tuning for the LCD, as well as general nerfing of difficulty from level 1 up.
More generally my issue is that the company that owns the property is Activision-Blizzard, rather than a smaller closely-held enterprise like Jagex, etc. it is like the scorpion and the frog story - the scorpion has to be true to its nature, and the nature of activision blizzard is to make mass-market games tuned and targeted at the largest audience possible.
Another example (hypothetical), assume McDonalds had a regional or trial product that they later canceld but had some constant demand for from customers. When considering re-introducing it, they would carefully consider how to make it more appealing overall than the prior effort for their entire customer base, rather than just releasing somethign that will be ordered by a small subset of customers. I think you have to look at ATVI overall in this light, no matter what blizzard people's alleged personal feelings may be. it is a mass-market approach to product development and sales and anything they do with classic wow will be under that compulsion/geas, I think.
Last edited by Deficineiron; 2016-04-29 at 03:25 PM.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.
No, I don't believe in the "it's too hard" claim either - they certainly have the best know-how an resource in the world when it comes to WoW code. If there's anyone who *can* set up a vanilla server, it's Blizzard.
However, this still doesn't translate to them doing it. The whole "bunch of guys doing it for free", is a luxury Blizzard doesn't have. Big corps are usually unable to work with such agility, due to the "enterprise overhead".
They have to push profit and do their ROI calcs and all those boring things I listed in earlier post. And I suppose (of course I have no way to check this) - that they've done those estimates already and their bean counters have looked at the project proposal - and decided it won't fly. Hence the trail of "No", we've seen over the years.
But maybe this group of Nost devs could serve as an "alternative" way out? A group of devs that can act indipendently, developing legacy product? A small, fully Bilzzard owned subsidiary (so they retain their IP ownership)? That would relieve them from most of the overhead that mothership-Blizzard has to comply to while still enjoying from the backend/billing/security platforms that they currently don't have.
It's an interesting thought and quite honestly, I don't really see any other possible solution for "true" Vanilla server. Anything done by Blizzard will not be accepted - or it won't be what the community is looking for.
Perhaps. Twink PVP is mostly a competition in who finds out / farms the best item combo. The skill component there is pretty small compared to PVP at max-level. You think PVP at max-level is stupid and full of FOTMs, welcome to the world of twinks which has that in spades, half of the specs you can cross out right in the beginning and most of the other half are one-trick ponies. I am not saying it's not fun, it can be, but skill for that is pretty special.
Last edited by rda; 2016-04-29 at 03:41 PM.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.
I am completely fine with people liking whatever, I was just replying to a point that perhaps those who will play on vanilla servers will be more skilled on average, and in my opinion it is going to be the exact reverse. (It just occurred to me that maybe you weren't trying to contradict that, in that case, apologies.)
It seems Blizzard is going to hire the nostalrius admins to run classic realms for them (not pristine realms, i assume). They will announce something like that at weekend.
The first thing i would ask for is to tell players who dont like flying to use those nostalgic realms. And to add back flying to the normal realms without delay.
I believe classic realms would give blizzard a high one time sub boost, while those players will not stay for long.
Last edited by mmoc903ad35b4b; 2016-04-29 at 03:50 PM.
i am already quite surprised blizzard is making an effort to even talk to nost. I viewed the idea as laughable for a fortune500 co to talk to cowboys more or less pirating their stuff. so they are talking. is it blizzard trying to co-opt nost endorsement for something to try to disarm the pr problem this has been for them? Would they, could they actually work with nost on anything substantial at all?
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i would think just being able to see how key areas/vents/encounters are scripted would be a big, big deal. that is where these realms seem to have the most trouble once you cannot attack backwards or fall through the world - getting dungeons and raids to work the way they did in retail. (as well as other odd outdoor pathing attributes, like the mages in Moonbrook.
I am already wrong on continued nost/blizzard interaction, unless this is all a PR dog and pony show. Interested to see what blizzard tries to get these guys into, and how substantial it actually is.
Last edited by Deficineiron; 2016-04-29 at 04:06 PM.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.
They could use both. Their old server software with modifications. Or even a emulator. Just think about the fact those nostalrius admins created classic realms without a lot of costs.
That would be a very smart PR move.. they would hire the guys which are the heroes for the nostalgists.. which would literally be a magnet for those players to come back to blizzard.
OTOH, pristine realms arent what those players want.
At the end i see a good chance to actually get rid of the nostalgia topic that way. Even for every demand to change WoW back to "the good old time".. which would give a lot of freedom to the devs to create components without the need to cater to the screaming minority anymore.
Google Diversity Memo
Learn to use critical thinking: https://youtu.be/J5A5o9I7rnA
Political left, right similarly motivated to avoid rival views
[...] we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism)..
I would like to add that my idea is just nothing but a idea and no fact. It seems to be logical for me that blizzard tries to embrace the nostalrius-geeks to solve the problem.
just speculation, but any deal like this would allow such a server setup in north america, likely, as well, which would solve lag issues (toxic in pvp) for half the potential playerbase. for pvp-oriented folks, its a major issue.
I am quite curious now to see what they announce. If it is any kind of licensing or development of an authorized classic server service I will eat my hat. if it is, I can already imagine some unintended consequences down the road when it is quite successful.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.