Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Vichan]

You contradicted yourself in a sentence.

I don't think you get sarcasm...

[Deleted]

I dont know. For me, its fine with the legacy realms.

But, keep in mind. The majority of people on nostalrius were there mainly because it was free.

How do you know that? Was there a poll or statement from the Nostalrius devs I missed?

[Deleted]

stop making sense, just ask any of the pro-nost people, everyone there would gladly pay to play it, even though nost couldn't even get enough donations to keep the servers going

Please stop shitposting. Server was doing fine and was paid for months ahead. Nobody asked for donations.

[OreoLover]

Please stop shitposting. Server was doing fine and was paid for months ahead. Nobody asked for donations.

Wasn't shitposting; he was sarcastically pointing out that not all Nost players would pay. In Blizzard WoW, all players would have to pay.

I'm sure you know that! Just saying, not a shitpost when he's making a point, even kind of rudely (with some inaccurate info attached*).

Also, there were donations, if anyone wasn't aware of that in this part of the thread: "As some of you may have already noticed, the hidden donation link within our forum has been removed a few weeks ago."

[Deleted]

Wasn't shitposting; he was sarcastically pointing out that not all Nost players would pay. In Blizzard WoW, all players would have to pay.

I'm sure you know that! Just saying, not a shitpost when he's making a point, even kind of rudely (with some inaccurate info attached*).

Also, there were donations, if anyone wasn't aware of that in this part of the thread: "As some of you may have already noticed, the hidden donation link within our forum has been removed a few weeks ago."

No, he was shitposting. His entire point is that Nost couldn't keep up with server costs, which is simply not true. He used it to "prove" that Nost players are mostly freeloaders, which is also not true, as proven by poll on this very forum.

I'm not saying that there weren't any freeloaders. I'm sure there were many of them. However if they are majority or minority is debatable, the only poll about issue that was conducted showed that more would pay for vanilla WoW than those who wouldn't.

[OreoLover]

No, he was shitposting. His entire point is that Nost couldn't keep up with server costs, which is simply not true. He used it to "prove" that Nost players are mostly freeloaders, which is also not true, as proven by poll on this very forum.

I'm not saying that there weren't any freeloaders. I'm sure there were many of them. However if they are majority or minority is debatable, the only poll about issue that was conducted showed that more would pay for vanilla WoW than those who wouldn't.

I think Blizzard's big issue with that for a long time (and still being addressed) is how many will actually come back and pay, and pay significantly (long periods, buy expansions, whatever). Maybe they'll turn the Nost team's passion for Vanilla into a source for how to mine $$$ out of Vanilla paytrons[sic].

[Relapses]

No, he was shitposting. His entire point is that Nost couldn't keep up with server costs, which is simply not true. He used it to "prove" that Nost players are mostly freeloaders, which is also not true, as proven by poll on this very forum.

I'm not saying that there weren't any freeloaders. I'm sure there were many of them. However if they are majority or minority is debatable, the only poll about issue that was conducted showed that more would pay for vanilla WoW than those who wouldn't.

Because a poll on a forum that's flooded with the vocal minority of players who feel personally violated by Blizzard's audacity to shut down Nost is somehow meaningful, right?

[AeneasBK]

For context, we were talking about how to keep raiders that feel like there is no content left in the game after beating the last boss interested in the game, obviously there are no good answers when attempting to cater to people like that.

Make progressions ball-breakingly difficult. They only play for the challenge of raiding so give em 12 bosses that take a month each to down.

In otherwords "Fuck 'em"

- - - Updated - - -

Because a poll on a forum that's flooded with the vocal minority of players who feel personally violated by Blizzard's audacity to shut down Nost is somehow meaningful, right?

At this stage of the debate anyone claiming Nost couldn't support themselves financially is either a month late to the discussion (n which case stfu and read something before commenting) or is shitposting.

Lets call a spade a spade, c'mon.

[Relapses]

At this stage of the debate anyone claiming Nost couldn't support themselves financially is either a month late to the discussion (n which case stfu and read something before commenting) or is shitposting.

Lets call a spade a spade, c'mon.

That was more directed at the claim that players would pay for a Nost-type service by polling people on this forum is somehow indicative of anything.

[Deleted]

Make progressions ball-breakingly difficult. They only play for the challenge of raiding so give em 12 bosses that take a month each to down.

Progression raiders don't only play for the challenge, that's just a strawman fallacy people keep repeating. It's the combination of the challenge and the gratification that comes from over coming it and getting the rewards for your effort and skill.

But I agree that the pace of content consumption needs to be brought way down. It is a complete waste of resources to spend months and months on building a raid instance just so it can be zerged through in one night with LFR. Month per boss is on the excessive side, but for me an ideal pace would be needing 2-3 weeks for a new boss kill, and a month or more for the tier final boss. And obviously you shouldn't be able to enter the next raid before clearing the previous.

[Fojos]

Not sure if it's this thread or another related one, but there's a new buzzword going around: PROPAGANDA! So let's look at all sides on this topic and their supposed propaganda:

Since there aren't a lot of strict anti Legacy people, I'll lump those with don't care/concerned/so-called White Knights together:
1). Pointing out Kern's failings as a leader/dev and problems that arose while at Red5 (sourced, albeit some heresay by an unnamed employee)
2). Pointing out concerns of the impact that Legacy can have on retail (not will, but could)
3). Debating if people would stay subbed long enough to actually bring a profit or if worth it at all for Blizzard
4). Debating old vs new WoW and whether it should be regressed on a separate server.
5). Allegations that some pro Legacy followers made threats to a YT personality to physically assault her.
6). Pro Legacy have rose tinted glasses and ignore failings of vanilla

Pro Legacy:
1). Stating that expressing concerns about a feature automatically make you anti Legacy, and sometimes anti WoW
2). expressing concerns or citing information about someone's past are direct attacks and spreading propaganda
3). Mark Kern has no fallacies when it comes to WoW and nothing else he's ever done has no bearing on anything else, ever
4). Citing any proof offered by anyone against their ideals has no proof and is wrong and resulting to ad hominem attacks
5). Stating that Legacy will do nothing but good for everyone

Just some things to consider when accusing one side of spewing propaganda.

"Since there aren't a lot of strict anti Legacy people" - Right, except you?

I don't care much for either side, but this post makes it pretty damn obvious what your stance is and how biased you are.

[AeneasBK]

It's the combination of the challenge and the gratification that comes from over coming it and getting the rewards for your effort and skill.

That would be part and parcel of the concept of "challenge", right? Blizzard can't interfere with the level of "gratification" that comes, as that is both tied into the level of the personal challenge, and also "how much people give a damn".

[Deleted]

That would be part and parcel of the concept of "challenge", right?

The challenge and reward, and thus gratification, are tightly linked. The tangible rewards in WoW have no intrinsic value. Seeing a boss death animation, or getting a bunch of purple pixels by themselves have no value. But if you get those as a reward for great effort/challenge, they become immensely valuable. That's why people don't care about purple pixels anymore, everyone's got them because they're trivial to get. Of course not every reward is equal. Getting a few ilvls on your gear and some achievements do not serve as meaningful enough rewards. And not every reward needs to be "tangible" -- getting to see a brand new part of an instance you can't get to any other way than killing a tough boss was one of the strongest rewards in the game back in vanilla/TBC.

This is a big problem for Blizzard's current instant gratification design, because no matter how many purple pixels or boss death animations they throw at the players, they don't feel rewarding and gratifying. So people leave to other games that do provide them with gratification.

[AeneasBK]

This is a big problem for Blizzard's current instant gratification design, because no matter how many purple pixels or boss death animations they throw at the players, they don't feel rewarding and gratifying. So people leave to other games that do provide them with gratification.

And they make dumb as fuck decisions like wrapping up stories only in Mythic mode

I think ew're talking from the same page, just a piddly semantic difference. I imagine the gratification from killing a WoW boss would go up considerably if they survived more than about a week in the relevant mode.

[Deleted]

The challenge and reward, and thus gratification, are tightly linked. The tangible rewards in WoW have no intrinsic value. Seeing a boss death animation, or getting a bunch of purple pixels by themselves have no value. But if you get those as a reward for great effort/challenge, they become immensely valuable. That's why people don't care about purple pixels anymore, everyone's got them because they're trivial to get. Of course not every reward is equal. Getting a few ilvls on your gear and some achievements do not serve as meaningful enough rewards. And not every reward needs to be "tangible" -- getting to see a brand new part of an instance you can't get to any other way than killing a tough boss was one of the strongest rewards in the game back in vanilla/TBC.

This is a big problem for Blizzard's current instant gratification design, because no matter how many purple pixels or boss death animations they throw at the players, they don't feel rewarding and gratifying. So people leave to other games that do provide them with gratification.

If you are talking about epics being epics you are literally fucking retarded, I raided MC and BWL when that came out and by the time we started doing Razorgore everyone was dripping in purps.

[Deleted]

If you are talking about epics being epics you are literally fucking retarded, I raided MC and BWL when that came out and by the time we started doing Razorgore everyone was dripping in purps.

Good for you. But I didn't have a single epic, and neither did the majority of the playerbase.

[Surfd]

Good for you. But I didn't have a single epic, and neither did the majority of the playerbase.

If you didnt have a singgle epic by the end of Vanilla, you literally werent trying. By mid way through AQ, most halfway decent servers were running regular pickup Molten Core runs. By the end of Vanilla, You could pretty well pug all the 20 man raids, and a good chunk of BWL without much trouble, unless your server was absolute garbage.

[Deleted]

If you didnt have a singgle epic by the end of Vanilla, you literally werent trying. By mid way through AQ, most halfway decent servers were running regular pickup Molten Core runs. By the end of Vanilla, You could pretty well pug all the 20 man raids, and a good chunk of BWL without much trouble, unless your server was absolute garbage.

I wasn't trying, because I was casual and had no interest in raiding. I got my enjoyment from doing 5-mans and making gold.

[Surfd]

I wasn't trying, because I was casual and had no interest in raiding. I got my enjoyment from doing 5-mans and making gold.

Which kind of goes to show why your entire post about "reward" rings hollow.

There is still plenty of people who are quite happy with the reward structure the game currently has. "Purple Pixels" as a measurement of "reward" hasnt really been a thing since blizzard introduced split item levels back in Wrath. People long ago moved on from "purple" to "Item level" as a measurement of reward, and while you claim that "incrimental" Item level upgrades are not rewarding enough of a "reward" to keep people around, the sheer amount of eletism / discussion / controversy they generate seems to disagree with you, considering all the stuff that constantly springs up every time you mention LFR vs Regular vs Heroic vs Mythic as a topic.

Having multiple reward tiers, which allows peopple to earn rewards appropriate to their skill / commitment does not somehow magically diminish the value of those rewards for the people who get them. In fact, it opens up possibilities that simply didnt exist before. If you raided pre-multiple raid difficculties, then you essentially had one option: be good enough for the current tier, or be permanently stuck in the previous one. Now you have the option to always raid "current" tier, but pick the difficulty level that suits you (and should you find yourself nolonger challenged in the difficulty you have chosen, you can attempt to move up untill you get to mythic).

[Deleted]

There is still plenty of people who are quite happy with the reward structure the game currently has.

Depends how you define "plenty" I guess. It's a minority for sure, since the majority has quit and WoW is down to early vanilla sub numbers.

"Purple Pixels" as a measurement of "reward" hasnt really been a thing since blizzard introduced split item levels back in Wrath.

Yes, the end-game design has been broken since Wrath. And coincidentally the subs have steadily fallen by 100k/month since Wrath.

Having multiple reward tiers, which allows peopple to earn rewards appropriate to their skill / commitment does not somehow magically diminish the value of those rewards for the people who get them.

I agree, but the content for them should different. Like TBC had Kara/ZA for casual and friends-and-family guilds, and 25-mans for progression raiders. Trying to stuff everyone into the same raid instance at the same time just doesn't work as we've seen in WoW. It was a reasonable and logical idea to test, but it just doesn't work, so they should try something different (like going back to the TBC model).

If you raided pre-multiple raid difficculties, then you essentially had one option: be good enough for the current tier, or be permanently stuck in the previous one.

That's not true. You could progress more slowly, accumulate more gear in your raid, wait for the progressive nerfs that Blizzard did, or find a better guild.

Now you have the option to always raid "current" tier, but pick the difficulty level that suits you (and should you find yourself nolonger challenged in the difficulty you have chosen, you can attempt to move up untill you get to mythic).

Again, perfectly logical and reasonable idea. Unfortunately it turns out it's just not fun for the majority of the playerbase.