Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[paralleluniverse]

Creating classic servers is a bad idea. The content is done, people are finished with it, so you might get a spike in the first few months but after that what's the point?

There's no point, there's nothing new to experience, nothing new to achieved. It's just a rehash of content that is completely exhausted. Finished.

And why on Earth is Blizzard paying attention to Mark Kern, who is a failed developer, an anti-feminist gamergater, and a serial liar? Is he also a Trump supporter now?

[flan1337]

Creating classic servers is a bad idea. The content is done, people are finished with it, so you might get a spike in the first few months but after that what's the point?

There's no point, there's nothing new to experience, nothing new to achieved. It's just a rehash of content that is completely exhausted. Finished.

And why on Earth is Blizzard paying attention to Mark Kern, who is a failed developer, an anti-feminist gamergater, and a serial liar? Is he also a Trump supporter now?

That point is invalid. I never played vanilla so it would be completely new to me. I started in tbc. Look at old school runescape, there doing great and they bring out new content with polls to see what fans really want.

[Eapoe]

You forgot how sodapoppin fits in, afaik soda started the movement and contacted Kern. (and various other streamers)

Well, obviously Blizzard can't contact Kern directly, there'd be too easy of a trail to follow. So, very naturally, they have to set up links and contacts to get in touch with Soda and others and put forth the idea to bring in Kern. Given how Blizz knows of Kern and the way he is, it's very foreseeable that they knew he would get involved easily, and once he mentions contacting Blizz the job is done for them. This is all so in your face obvious it's scary!!!

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Don't do drugs children

As posted, I was tired and amusing myself. As per last sentence, "don't take this to heart."

[Dormie]

Creating classic servers is a bad idea. The content is done, people are finished with it, so you might get a spike in the first few months but after that what's the point?

There's no point, there's nothing new to experience, nothing new to achieved. It's just a rehash of content that is completely exhausted. Finished.

That's true about WoW now. There's nothing new to see once done with LFR.


People forget how different the alt game was back then. You didn't just have a plethora of alts to play. The average players alt was no higher than level 30. We hardly even really have "mains" anymore. Main now is just the toon you happen to be playing more of at the time, rather than THE main toon. That's another thing Vanilla provided, more attachment to your personal toon.

[Deleted]

The more hype there is the more likely I will play on those servers. And if you are currently <500 wrank you will regret not calculating people from those guilds in.

[Deleted]

Okay, so here's one for the conspiracy people. I was thinking about one one Moana's posts about Blizz meeting to discuss legalities of Nost becoming a Blizz supported server. Here's the conspiracy, are you ready? Mind about to be blown:
This was all discussed, planned, and executed BEFORE NOST WAS EVEN SHUT DOWN!!! Now hear me out. Blizz has stated Legacy is something they'd like to do and always discuss, but never able to get off the ground with everything going on. They hear about this Nost server, a server that's popular amongst the Vanilla fans, and the brain wheels start turning. At some point, they start e-mailing each other and plan. Blizz approaches Nost very simply, "we can shut you down legally, but here's a better proposition, we would like to endorse you. We will negotiate a contract that states you get to manage and run a Legacy server, but you need to abide by our decisions and rules, and you can even keep some of the profits as a monthly charge will be implemented."
Well, this is a great idea right, but how do we get it rolling to seem official? Obviously Blizz can't outright endorse them, otherwise they have to endorse all other private servers doing the same thing. So now they go back to the original statement, "let's 'shut them down.'" Also, Blizz needs someone to spearhead the movement, who would they know that has ties to WoW but no affiliation with them anymore? Enter Kern (who's entrance to the Legacy cause seems kinda convenient on its own). A man who knows Blizz with no ties to them, but if he joins the Legacy crew becomes relevant again and can promote his new game company he's working on.
Do you guys get it!!!??? This was all planned from the get go to get right to this point! A blizzard approved Legacy server where they take little risk but still keep rights on and get a little profit while Nost stays in business and makes fans happy.
MIND...FUCKING...BLOWN!!!
Okay, I'm tired and wanted to be funny, please don't take this to heart and hope you all get a chuckle from it.

Another theory:

After the shutdown of Nost resulted in unexpected high resonance in the community, Blizzard PR decided to jump on the train and fuel it with the usual vague non-answers open for endless speculation to bridge the time until the release of the expansion with eager speculations and discussions that will never bear fruit though and just distract and pull away from the ongoing complaining about the lack of content and updates, working as free advertisment as well. Yet in reality Blizzard has no plans and interest in doing anything substantial about the demand for vanilla server at all because it may not be profitable enough to waran't spreading out the services and raise expectations.

Not very common critical and demanding topics like this can continue without the usual pulled up facile excuses ala 'everything has been said what need to be said' or ' there is nothing more to discuss' to close them prematurely or unnecessarily to stiffle a movement or shut down it down completely.

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Creating classic servers is a bad idea. The content is done, people are finished with it, so you might get a spike in the first few months but after that what's the point?

There's no point, there's nothing new to experience, nothing new to achieved. It's just a rehash of content that is completely exhausted. Finished.

And why on Earth is Blizzard paying attention to Mark Kern, who is a failed developer, an anti-feminist gamergater, and a serial liar? Is he also a Trump supporter now?

99% of all existing character didn't finish Naxx Classic and all theoretical Vanilla achievements on every character on their account.

Thats means there is still years of fun content in Vanilla WoW

There is just not enough Vanilla content you want to do. You decided not to play all the content thats there. Don't talk for everyone.

Right?

Right?

Usual whiteknight clapping, go:

[Vineri]

Another theory:

After the shutdown of Nost resulted in unexpected high resonance in the community, Blizzard PR decided to jump on the train and fuel it with the usual vague non-answers open for endless speculation to bridge the time until the release of the expansion with eager speculations and discussions that will never bear fruit though and just distract and pull away from the ongoing complaining about the lack of content and updates, working as free advertisment as well. Yet in reality Blizzard has no plans and interest in doing anything substantial about the demand for vanilla server at all because it may not be profitable enough to waran't spreading out the services and raise expectations.

Not very common critical and demanding topics like this can continue without the usual pulled up facile excuses ala 'everything has been said what need to be said' or ' there is nothing more to discuss' to close them prematurely or unnecessarily to stiffle a movement or shut down it down completely.

- - - Updated - - -



99% of all existing character didn't finish Naxx Classic and all theoretical Vanilla achievements on every character on their account.

Thats means there is still years of fun content in Vanilla WoW

There is just not enough Vanilla content you want to do. You decided not to play all the content thats there. Don't talk for everyone.

Right?

Right?

Usual whiteknight clapping, go:

Many eyes are on this topic, not just current subscribers. ALOT MORE. The last expansion I bought was Cataclysm. It stunk. I won't be buying any more, so there is no hype for me.

I will subscribe to a legacy server, however!

[Bapestar]

Okay, so here's one for the conspiracy people. I was thinking about one one Moana's posts about Blizz meeting to discuss legalities of Nost becoming a Blizz supported server. Here's the conspiracy, are you ready? Mind about to be blown:
This was all discussed, planned, and executed BEFORE NOST WAS EVEN SHUT DOWN!!! Now hear me out. Blizz has stated Legacy is something they'd like to do and always discuss, but never able to get off the ground with everything going on. They hear about this Nost server, a server that's popular amongst the Vanilla fans, and the brain wheels start turning. At some point, they start e-mailing each other and plan. Blizz approaches Nost very simply, "we can shut you down legally, but here's a better proposition, we would like to endorse you. We will negotiate a contract that states you get to manage and run a Legacy server, but you need to abide by our decisions and rules, and you can even keep some of the profits as a monthly charge will be implemented."
Well, this is a great idea right, but how do we get it rolling to seem official? Obviously Blizz can't outright endorse them, otherwise they have to endorse all other private servers doing the same thing. So now they go back to the original statement, "let's 'shut them down.'" Also, Blizz needs someone to spearhead the movement, who would they know that has ties to WoW but no affiliation with them anymore? Enter Kern (who's entrance to the Legacy cause seems kinda convenient on its own). A man who knows Blizz with no ties to them, but if he joins the Legacy crew becomes relevant again and can promote his new game company he's working on.
Do you guys get it!!!??? This was all planned from the get go to get right to this point! A blizzard approved Legacy server where they take little risk but still keep rights on and get a little profit while Nost stays in business and makes fans happy.
MIND...FUCKING...BLOWN!!!
Okay, I'm tired and wanted to be funny, please don't take this to heart and hope you all get a chuckle from it.

I wouldn't rule this out tbh lol.

[Deficineiron]

I wouldn't rule this out tbh lol.

not endorsing the above theory but there is a lot of room here to speculate

blizzard doubtless has people who would like classic servers. Maybe even quite high in blizzard. I have assumed such a project would not get greenlighted by a/b without some rather onerous conditions, mainly Frankenstein servers or something else. So nothing happens.

Then the nost shutdown happens and blizzard is getting pre-orders reversed, and possibly sub loss change and other financial tells that this isn't a small or isolated problem. They go to a/b with it and are told 'we have a major movie release in 6 weeks, we don't need this now. what do you need to make it go away?' would blizzard have suggested sorting out how to license or otherwise make the classic game available again?

well first off invite names to visit irvine. take some time to schedule. drag it out at least past movie release. this is the most cynical interpretation, but it is the only reason I can see to include Kern in any meeting. The nost folks made the best? emulator for classic yet, but they are not necessarily qualified to run or even be involved in a licensed wow server(s) operation, possibly in 2 regions. what they are is high=profile faces for the entire topic, which they came out and said in their post today. Importantly, nost is not releasing their server code. They are co-opted, for now.

so either a/b is trying to buy time and get the movie out and drag this out until it does die down, or they have decided to seriously explore the topic of classic servers, or they intend to offer a frankenstein variant and try to co-opt these names into endorsing it. The nost folks in particular may be under implicit legal threat if they overtly criticize this. I am not sure what blizzard still has in potential legal options against them.

the drastic change in tone in that last blue post is a major about-face from all prior blizzard comments and to me suggests that they were not happy with how the response to nost c&d impacted them, blizzard, with means they saw an impact in money. the most direct and mercenary strategy for them would be to co-opt the movement faces and drag out 'talks' for as long as possible until emotion does down to a more manageable level. At this point it isn't only the movie but legion sales (and pre-sales) that are at risk.

So ask yourself - what would bobby kotick do?

[Foj]

So ask yourself - what would bobby kotick do?

He would do whatever protects the company's IP and grows the customer base and increases share value.

Do legitimate "vanilla servers" figure into that? Probably not much beyond .1% of revenue.

But if Blizzard wants to allow people to run licensed, monitored vanilla servers, that's not an insane idea, but it's probably not an idea that someone running a "pirate server" has any interest in adopting.

The main problem with all this is that the art and lore assets from Vanilla are still largely in the present game (even after Cataclysm) and you can't just "open source some old shit" because it's not in fact "old shit" ... just like Disney resists allowing 75 year old Mickey Mouse cartoons into the public domain. (Although the day is fast approaching when no one including Disney gives a shit about Mickey Mouse.)

[Deficineiron]

He would do whatever protects the company's IP and grows the customer base and increases share value.

Do legitimate "vanilla servers" figure into that? Probably not much beyond .1% of revenue.

But if Blizzard wants to allow people to run licensed, monitored vanilla servers, that's not an insane idea, but it's probably not an idea that someone running a "pirate server" has any interest in adopting.

The main problem with all this is that the art and lore assets from Vanilla are still largely in the present game (even after Cataclysm) and you can't just "open source some old shit" because it's not in fact "old shit" ... just like Disney resists allowing 75 year old Mickey Mouse cartoons into the public domain. (Although the day is fast approaching when no one including Disney gives a shit about Mickey Mouse.)

exactly. so my assumption is blizzard is trying to defuse the pr problem this has become, run out the clock on the film release and even legion release, and somehow claim to be giving customers a viable alternative to legacy servers.

keeping that source code non-public was in itself a nice little victory for blizzard.

.1% of revenue is likely understating it by at least one order of magnitude, though. They only do 4.6~B annually 0.1% of that is only 4.6m or so, or roughly the sub revenue alone of 25,000 people annually. You seem to expect a legacy server to have less (new) subs than OSRS does?

[bluspacecow]

They are looking for server devs for Wc3, Starcraft and D2 as stated in the offer.
After they already updated the clients, looks like the servers are getting some love too.

If they didnt want to tell you what it is, they usually just write "unannounced project" or stuff like that.

Also those classic positions have been advertised since November 2015

So not "new" as rym claims.

[Foj]

.1% of revenue is likely understating it by at least one order of magnitude, though. They only do 4.6~B annually 0.1% of that is only 4.6m or so, or roughly the sub revenue alone of 25,000 people annually. You seem to expect a legacy server to have less (new) subs than OSRS does?

Any "vanilla realm" would almost certainly (99.9999%) be included in the regular WoW subscription, which is already pricey relative to everything else except EVE and a handful of other premium games. So in that case it would be a matter of "how many people without a WoW subscription would obtain a WoW subscription just to play an 11+ year old game."

Or else it would be administered by some other entit{y,ies) and Blizzard would get a tiny percentage of the tiny revenue.

Either way it would be a landmark success if it produced a change in the third decimal of ATVI's balance sheet.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying it's something that the company would do with no expectation of financial benefit. It probably wouldn't cost Blizzard anything, if done properly, but it wouldn't make Blizzard any money, and it wouldn't make anyone anywhere any money except for maybe one or two or three non-Blizzard folks who managed to structure their service in a way such the money goes to them rather than their minions who make it work.

"Vanilla realms" is not a thing that has a big financial upside. It has very close to zero financial upside. But in a way that's OK because it probably doesn't have a financial downside, if providers are required to sign restrictive license agreements, and share operating revenue, which will be insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

As far as Nostalrius being some kind of "PR nightmare," that is something that exists only in the minds of a tiny (relatively speaking, a few hundred at most) number of players of a free, bodgered-up inaccurate simulation of a decade-old game whose current version still costs the same $15/mo YET allows clams to stack, and in the fingertips of about a half dozen gaming "journalists" who are just looking to stir the shit.

[bluspacecow]

It doesn't have to. There are ways around it. You could login to a blizzard created legacy server with your battle.net account without the actual client actually being connected to battle.net if they put their mind to it. I can come up with a few viable solutions just from the top of my head and I'm not even that good of a developer.

The login server is on battle.net in their newly created ASN backbone.

It would be in Blizzards best interest to host the vanilla server login server on battle.net as it makes it easier to guard against DDoS attacks made on that login server. Just in terms of patching server software against zero day exploits , a ton more bandwidth being available and being able to shape incoming net traffic.

Also I imagine vanillas NetCode is a lot different then what's used today in wow so the less recreating of the wheel they have to do the better.

[Vaelorian]

Why are people discussing if the legacy or pristine server is feasible. Because it doesn't matter what we know or think about the matter. It doesn't matter if WE parrot earlier statements by Blizzard that it is too expensive.
All that matters is if the situation has changed and regardless if not, whatever we say here on these boards about the matter (the server being feasible/making big bucks or not) will have 0 impact on the outcome.

However, you can take part in feedback about what kind of server you would like or if you are against them/it. Atleast that is something that you can have influence on.

[Foj]

However, you can take part in feedback about what kind of server you would like or if you are against them/it. Atleast that is something that you can have influence on.

My feedback? I don't want to play on a realm where clams don't stack. And if it's a Vanilla realm where clams do stack, it's a nerfed piece of shit that I want to play even less.

We should probably stick to economic arguments instead. I don't actually mind if people manage to twist Blizzard's arm into somehow allowing "Vanilla realms" but it's going to be this tiny ghetto of people who will get tired of 12 slot bags full of clams and "fuck it."

[Vaelorian]

My feedback? I don't want to play on a realm where clams don't stack. And if it's a Vanilla realm where clams do stack, it's a nerfed piece of shit that I want to play even less.

We should probably stick to economic arguments instead. I don't actually mind if people manage to twist Blizzard's arm into somehow allowing "Vanilla realms" but it's going to be this tiny ghetto of people who will get tired of 12 slot bags full of clams and "fuck it."

Or you could "tell the world" about that very quality of life improvement that you would require in order to have fun on such a vanilla/legacy realm?

I mean I want legacy servers personally but I would love them far more if there are certain current QoL features implemented. Stacks like you just said would really be helpful.
Removing Weaponskills
Blessings for paladins be on 1 hour duraction instead of 5 min.
Lay on hands not have a cooldown of an hour but 10 min.

I could go on.

I would still like legacy servers if they didn't do that. But honestly I rather have Blizzard buff the overall world in terms of making it a dangerous place including dungeons. I would have true server mergers instead of crossrealm.
If they did this, for me WoW would be redeemed enough.

[Leih]

I mean I want legacy servers personally but I would love them far more if there are certain current QoL features implemented. Stacks like you just said would really be helpful.
Removing Weaponskills
Blessings for paladins be on 1 hour duraction instead of 5 min.
Lay on hands not have a cooldown of an hour but 10 min.

I could go on.

You pretty much just highlighted one of the biggest problems with doing this. People want the best of both worlds, but who's all going to agree on what's a good thing or a bad thing?

If you bring back Vanilla exactly as Vanilla, you get all the problems and imbalances too. If Blizzard start to fix individual "problems" with QoL improvements, well not only is that more work on this project people like to claim would be easy for them, but it's also going to create disagreement within the community (all over again...). Some people like weaponskills, some people like quiverbags and ammo and 5 minute blessings and having to carry around firewood. At different points, some classes were overpowered or stupidly weak, are those players just going to accept that they will be underpowered forever because that's how it was in Vanilla? There's no perfect instance of the game which works for everyone.

If Blizzard agree to devote their time to continuously updating the Vanilla servers to improve balance and enhance quality of life, won't it lose that Vanillaness and end up eventually becoming the modern game anyway? I mean, the "problems" with today's game didn't appear overnight with one single conscious decision from Blizzard "hey guys lets make the game easy!" They all came about through over a decade of community feedback & whines leading to QoL change after nerf after QoL change. It's a slippery slope.

[Vaelorian]

You pretty much just highlighted one of the biggest problems with doing this. People want the best of both worlds, but who's all going to agree on what's a good thing or a bad thing?

If you bring back Vanilla exactly as Vanilla, you get all the problems and imbalances too. If Blizzard start to fix individual "problems" with QoL improvements, well not only is that more work on this project people like to claim would be easy for them, but it's also going to create disagreement within the community (all over again...). Some people like weaponskills, some people like quiverbags and ammo and 5 minute blessings and having to carry around firewood. At different points, some classes were overpowered or stupidly weak, are those players just going to accept that they will be underpowered forever because that's how it was in Vanilla? There's no perfect instance of the game which works for everyone.

If Blizzard agree to devote their time to continuously updating the Vanilla servers to improve balance and enhance quality of life, won't it lose that Vanillaness and end up eventually becoming the modern game anyway? I mean, the "problems" with today's game didn't appear overnight with one single conscious decision from Blizzard "hey guys lets make the game easy!" They all came about through over a decade of community feedback & whines leading to QoL change after nerf after QoL change. It's a slippery slope.

Oh I realise that. Hence I rather want Blizzard to make the current game worth while. I want them to make the world more dangerous. I want dungeons to be dangerous. I want grouping to matter. I want true server mergers.

If they did that instead of legacy or pristine crap, I would be 100% for it.

But if they do not. Fine, give me Vanilla back then or TBC.

[Uurdz]

I wouldn't rule this out tbh lol.

It's silly for numerous reasons. I rule it out completely.