Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Thimagryn]

But nobody wants Pristine realms. And this is one of the main problems with the current WoW dev team. They only think what is cost effective for them, not what is best for the players. You can see this in every aspect of the game since Cata. Take raids for example, Ulduar was the last proper raid they made with tons of effort and passion and detailed work going into it. Afterwards they (I think it was GC) even said they'd never make something like that again, and since then all the raids have been formulaic and shallow -- but no doubt very cost effective.

I wouldn't say nobody wants Pristine realms. I would say many people want Legacy Servers and Pristine realms isn't an answer to that problem.

Pristine Realms could work on their own, as a way to return some of the challenge to low-level gameplay in WoW and hopefully return some of the community aspects that many have been craving for. Legacy Server discussion has so many facets to it that it's difficult to talk about because everyone has their own idea of what they should be, and their reasons for playing it. Some people just want a harder version of WoW, some people prefer the gameplay of the classic talent system, some people want to play simply for nostalgia, etc.

Spending resources to polish up Legacy servers into Blizz-quality playable form is definitely a step in the wrong direction for Blizzard (as a company). It's what many players want to see, but we'll see in time how successful they really will be. The onus is on Blizzard once they set the ball rolling. Whether or not people play on Legacy Servers will be their responsibility, and the community will be quick to blame any shortcomings for anything potentially negative that happens.

This situation isn't easy to predict, but it's certainly a big investment for Blizzard to take from a business standpoint.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't say nobody wants Pristine realms. I would say many people want Legacy Servers and Pristine realms isn't an answer to that problem.

Right, but the problem is that Blizzard seems to be suggesting pristine realms instead of legacy servers. Just like they made garrisons instead of player housing. I like the ideas they had for pristine realms, and think all realms should have those changes. But it's not a substitute for legacy servers, nor would it be enough to get me back into the game (while legacy servers might).

Spending resources to polish up Legacy servers into Blizz-quality playable form is definitely a step in the wrong direction for Blizzard (as a company).

The direction they've taken since WotLK is definitely the wrong direction, as evidenced by the 100k subs they've lost every month since Cata launched. Legacy servers are not a solution, they're a stopgap measure to buy Blizzard time to change their direction with the current version of WoW into something that can once again attract players into the game. If they ran their own legacy servers, they could look at the data and learn what exactly it was about the vanilla design that causes people to get so passionate about the game, and what it is about the current design that completely fails to interest the majority of potential players.

This situation isn't easy to predict, but it's certainly a big investment for Blizzard to take from a business standpoint.

A new MMO would be a big investment (which they tried and failed at), getting and older version of their existing MMO running again is a trivial investment from a business standpoint. It would not even be a footnote in their financial statements.

[Mosotti]

A new MMO would be a big investment (which they tried and failed at), getting and older version of their existing MMO running again is a trivial investment from a business standpoint. It would not even be a footnote in their financial statements.

They just confirmed that's it's not trivial at all, but hey, let's pretend we're smarter than them. Also there's this conspiracy theory that Blizzard doesn't like money, piles of it, that would enter their pockets if they release legacy servers. Because there's this "huuuuuuge demand" lol

The shit Nost had there was not WoW, they build that crap over several years (according to them) on top on another shit called mangos, that also had years of development. There was nothing trivial about that either, even though it was shit compared to retail.

Most of those 7 million or whatever the number that left WoD didn't go away because they want legacy servers, they want a current WoW that's better than that garrison-centric piece of shit. If Legion will actually deliver that, their subscription base will grow again. Even now, with this piece of shit expansion, the "new and fucked up WoW" still has like 20 times more active subscribers than Nost. Paying subscribers that is. That is DEMAND they care about.

So if you can't see why Blizzard doesn't want to open the legacy can of worms, it's only because you're totally biased. The pristine realm crap was brought up because that's really easy to set up, they just need to disable some interface shit and there you have it, a pristine server

[Thimagryn]

The direction they've taken since WotLK is definitely the wrong direction, as evidenced by the 100k subs they've lost every month since Cata launched.

I share the sentiment that post-Cata content has gone downhill. That being said, whether that was the right or wrong direction is well beyond our perceivable knowledge, because we can only talk about it in retrospect. For all we know, WoW's gameplay could have stayed 100% the same and still dropped 100k a month for years. 12m players is not something that can be expected to be maintained forever, especially when no other game has ever reached those numbers in an MMO. It could be the case that keeping TBC/Wrath's design would have dropped 200k players who get fatigued over the hardcore focus of the game; similar to what has happened to games like Rift. We simply won't know.

The only ones who have this data is Blizzard. There is a reason why they decided to cater towards casuals and implement more quality-of-life changes, despite all the negative impacts they've had for the community as a whole. What would the game be now if they hadn't catered to the majority? There's no answer to how 10m player base can ever be maintained.

A new MMO would be a big investment (which they tried and failed at), getting and older version of their existing MMO running again is a trivial investment from a business standpoint. It would not even be a footnote in their financial statements.

Whether or not you think it is trivial is irrelevant. It boils down to Blizzard deeming it a fairly significant factor.

[Deleted]

They just confirmed that's it's not trivial at all, but hey, let's pretend we're smarter than them. Also there's this conspiracy theory that Blizzard doesn't like money, piles of it, that would enter their pockets if they release legacy servers. Because there's this "huuuuuuge demand" lol

I have seen nothing that confirms that it's not trivial. Just some PR blue post with weak arguments that held no water. And this is not a conspiracy theory that Blizzard doesn't like money. This decision is not something driven by business, but the dev team. And the dev team is obviously going to be against the idea, because otherwise they'd have to admit they've failed so badly that the players just want to go back to the decade old version of the game.

Even now, with this piece of shit expansion, the "new and fucked up WoW" still has like 20 times more active subscribers than Nost.

That is catastrophically bad for Blizzard. Nost was a hacked together private server that couldn't even be talked about on sites like mmo-champion. Blizzard should've beaten them 100-1000x. And don't forget that Nost subs were going up, while Blizzard's subs were going down...

[hulkgor]

For me is not agaisnt the Legacy servers is more about the ones that defend it,It kind gets annoying when:

1:Youtubers only do videos about it.

2:You go see Legion Alpha update theres the "You think you do but you don't","Remember Nostalrius" crow.

And let just say they aren't calm people.

1- Dont watch those Youtube videos?

2- Err what?

[Thimagryn]

I have seen nothing that confirms that it's not trivial. Just some PR blue post with weak arguments that held no water. And this is not a conspiracy theory that Blizzard doesn't like money. This decision is not something driven by business, but the dev team. And the dev team is obviously going to be against the idea, because otherwise they'd have to admit they've failed so badly that the players just want to go back to the decade old version of the game.

Well tbh, it's also a weak argument to say that this is not driven by business and is only a decision of the dev team. What insider information do you have that the rest of us don't?

Keep in mind that despite what you and everyone thinks about sub numbers and their relevance to financial gains, Blizzard is capable of retaining a strong income by supplementing monthly fees with paid services, tokens and microtransactions. Blizzard is making money off the whales. That's how WoW's business model is formulated today. Tokens are a clear and present way for WoW to sustain itself (and profit) despite numbers dropping by the millions. Much of these services would likely not be relevant to a Legacy server, unless they could find a way to make microtransactions non-invasive and appealing for the pro-Legacy player.

That is catastrophically bad for Blizzard. Nost was a hacked together private server that couldn't even be talked about on sites like mmo-champion. Blizzard should've beaten them 100-1000x. And don't forget that Nost subs were going up, while Blizzard's subs were going down...

Well yeah. WoW's currently in the content deadzone while Nost remains to be a F2P server with ever-growing popularity through word of mouth. You could literally say that about WoW and any new MMO within its first year of popularity too. But if you look at the actually statistics of how many people have made accounts on Nost vs how many were active, there is a huge disparity between its growth and player retention.

Blizzard should have beaten them 100-1000x? Nost had 150k active players at shut down. 100-1000x that is 15-150 million players. I think you're over-estimating yourself a little there. Either way, WoW probably still has 3-5 million active right now, which is still far more outstanding than any F2P or P2P MMO in the market. The expectation that it should remain at 10m plus active players is a ridiculous bar that shouldn't even be considered; not even Vanilla WoW would reach those numbers today.

[gushDH]

So there would be an announcement at weekend from the nostalrius visit. Anyone knows anything?

[MoanaLisa]

Right, but the problem is that Blizzard seems to be suggesting pristine realms instead of legacy servers.

There's nothing from Blizzard to suggest that as far as they are concerned there is any choice between legacy and pristine. Until they say otherwise it's a "No on legacy, but what do you think about this..." response. If pristine realms are disliked enough, they can always do nothing. It's probably a mistake to frame this as a choice that Blizzard is offering. Right now there's no choice at all between the two.

[Froggy]

Right, but the problem is that Blizzard seems to be suggesting pristine realms instead of legacy servers.

I personally am hoping for both! An official Vanilla server would be absolutely amazing, and if the pristine realms restore some challenge back to current WoW... that would be equally amazing!

[Sansnom]

I can't talk for anybody but myself. I will pay to play this 10 year old game again. Even though it will never change, unless they bring out a separate TBC server a year or so later, then I will roll a toon there as well.
And it is not nostalgia, because I played on Nostalrius for months before it was shut down. So, I know what I am talking about.

Now, if there are other players that feel the same as I do, I cannot guarantee

A few things some people have not considered which Blizzards needs to is,

How many servers? I pretty sure that there will be a limit to these servers and probably an initial surge. So how many servers will they need at the start, after six months? After a year? Two year?

How many people will still play the game after 2 or more years? I still play some older games but only in phases. For about 1 month or 2. Depending on the game. They also do not require a server to do so

I do not know the tech they use so I do not know if they can run it on virtual servers or require a physical box. What about the battle realm and login servers etc.

It is easy for people to say, yes I will play it. Even pay for it. But will people still after medium or long term?

[deniter]

A few things some people have not considered which Blizzards needs to is,

How many servers? I pretty sure that there will be a limit to these servers and probably an initial surge. So how many servers will they need at the start, after six months? After a year? Two year?

How many people will still play the game after 2 or more years? I still play some older games but only in phases. For about 1 month or 2. Depending on the game. They also do not require a server to do so

I do not know the tech they use so I do not know if they can run it on virtual servers or require a physical box. What about the battle realm and login servers etc.

It is easy for people to say, yes I will play it. Even pay for it. But will people still after medium or long term?

I think this is the matter they should be considered right now, on current retail WoW. If amount of servers becomes a problem, it's already there. I mean, every time they release a new expansion millions and millions of players renew their subscription and starts playing on their servers only to quit few months later either in lack of proper content or in boredom.

Besides, Blizzard has stated very recently that server and bandwidth costs are not an issue these days.

[Deleted]

<snip>

It is easy for people to say, yes I will play it. Even pay for it. But will people still after medium or long term?

Yes, that is the challenge for the devs. Some people will play long term, some won't. Impossible to put figures to that.

I am fairly sure Blizzard will use VMs for this if they ever do it. Does not make sense otherwise as I think there will be a huge surge at the start and then things will settle down. They will need the capability to spin up more servers quickly and also remove them without having to fiddle with physical boxes.

[Deleted]

There's nothing from Blizzard to suggest that as far as they are concerned there is any choice between legacy and pristine.

I guess you missed the blue post then. You know the one where they gave their excuses why they "couldn't" do legacy realms, but had instead been thinking of pristine realms? Here is the relevant part:

So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”.

[Relapses]

I guess you missed the blue post then. You know the one where they gave their excuses why they "couldn't" do legacy realms, but had instead been thinking of pristine realms? Here is the relevant part:

So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”.

Instead of needlessly trying to frame this as an us vs. them debate, read the entire post. What was implied in that post is that Blizzard doesn't have to do anything. It's incorrect to say it's either Legacy realms or pristine realms because based off the wording of their response it's far more likely to be either pristine realms or nothing at all.

[Mosotti]

I have seen nothing that confirms that it's not trivial. Just some PR blue post with weak arguments that held no water. And this is not a conspiracy theory that Blizzard doesn't like money. This decision is not something driven by business, but the dev team. And the dev team is obviously going to be against the idea, because otherwise they'd have to admit they've failed so badly that the players just want to go back to the decade old version of the game.

It's not about failure, it's about effort vs profit. You say you've seen nothing, but that dude says it pretty clear. It's very difficult to set up the server, and it then very difficult to support it. I played on private servers too and I know what's there. If you see a nasty bug and ask about it or report it, you can forget about it. "Move on".

That is catastrophically bad for Blizzard. Nost was a hacked together private server that couldn't even be talked about on sites like mmo-champion. Blizzard should've beaten them 100-1000x. And don't forget that Nost subs were going up, while Blizzard's subs were going down...

It's catastrophically, but not compared to Nost and there's absolutely no relation. People didn't leave paid WoD to play some paid vanilla private server. They left WoD because it was a fucking piece of shit, and a very small fraction of them ended up on Nost. Also, Nost was free shit, advertised like crazy through word of mouth and lots of sites that are not Blizzard friendly. Like reddit. Apart from promoting Nost, the fuckers also talked shit about the other private servers. That's actually a good reason to not give a fuck about what happened to them, arrogant fucktards. I was playing on another private server (and a slightly better scripted one) and we had these Nost fuckers trolling the forums. Now most of them ended up there I'm sure, poor cretins

On the other hand, WoD was a total disaster, but still managed to retain some millions of PAYING customers. Now obviously if I were Blizzard I wouldn't want to fuck up any other expansion by diverting important resources to lunacy servers, I would very much want to not fuck it up ever again. I would work to make those 6-7 million people that left the game in WoD come back for Legion and I would work towards not disappointing them again.

But then again, if these fucking servers would actually have ANY kind of sense from a business point of view, Blizzard would have set them up. They would have hired additional people and fired up those fuckers and started cashing in those trucks of dollars and euros and what not. But they obviously and thoroughly ANALYZED this shit and made probably some of those documents with lots of graphs and numbers and at the bottom there was this conclusion: NO FUCKING WAY.
When I see these youtubers, left without their accounts, "talking" to Blizzard, like "Blizzard, listen to me and you'll make a lot of money, just open vanilla servers" I can't stop rofling...

By the way, Nost will NOT release their source code and database as they said in the beginning, so that also says much about them. They used an open source shit and built upon it, but now that they were busted, they don't want to share their work to others that might continue.

[Pann]

By the way, Nost will NOT release their source code and database as they said in the beginning, so that also says much about them. They used an open source shit and built upon it, but now that they were busted, they don't want to share their work to others that might continue.

I doubt it is a case of not wanting to share the source code rather than a case of not wanting to end up in court faced with a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

[Deficineiron]

I doubt it is a case of not wanting to share the source code rather than a case of not wanting to end up in court faced with a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

I am wondering if another part of avoiding further legal action risk is endorsing whatever blizzard eventually 'proposes' to them.

the most orwellian outcome would be, as you allude to, the "Nostalrius" pristine servers, with alleged input from nost team, etc.

to me the entire meeting thing smells of pr damage control. especially considering kern gets a meeting too.

[Pann]

I am wondering if another part of avoiding further legal action risk is endorsing whatever blizzard eventually 'proposes' to them.

the most orwellian outcome would be, as you allude to, the "Nostalrius" pristine servers, with alleged input from nost team, etc.

to me the entire meeting thing smells of pr damage control. especially considering kern gets a meeting too.

At this point I don't think Blizzard even need to strong arm the Nost team with legal threats to get them to do their bidding. It appears as if the whole situation has gone completely to their heads and they believe that they are, in their own words, ambassadors to Blizzard for the legacy/private server communities.

I can see the Nost. name being (the only thing) of value to Blizzard and it may even help sell the idea of pristine servers to those who only want a genuine vanilla server.

I agree that this all appears to be little more than a PR exercise.

[Deficineiron]

At this point I don't think Blizzard even need to strong arm the Nost team with legal threats to get them to do their bidding. It appears as if the whole situation has gone completely to their heads and they believe that they are, in their own words, ambassadors to Blizzard for the legacy/private server communities.

I can see the Nost. name being (the only thing) of value to Blizzard and it may even help sell the idea of pristine servers to those who only want a genuine vanilla server.

I agree that this all appears to be little more than a PR exercise.

that 'we are now ambassadors' post smelled like something blizzard wrote for them, or suggested.

it is possible I am doing them a disservice. once more details are out, matters will obviously clarify some.