Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Deleted]

if we assume blizzard can decide this without the consent of vivendi

Why would they have to ask Vivendi?

[Deficineiron]

Ah, refreshing to see awesome discussion, I really appreciate it.

Whoever tried to fix pathfinding in wowemu (if anyone remembers it) or mangos is silently crying. To me, personally, this is best RE ever, period.

On a humorous note, if they do hire any of those guys, I will print (in very small font size) and eat, all the petition pages.

I suggest using virtual ink and an arbitrarily small font size. maybe a square inch of clean paper, but symoblic.

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Why would they have to ask Vivendi?

now on the other hand they sure as hell would need to ask activision-blizzard for an outside licensing anything, I assume...

[Tuesdays]

Why would they have to ask Vivendi?

Because you can't have vanilla unless you go back in time?

[Deficineiron]

I don't think Vivendi would have any say in the matter to be honest.

in fact they don't even own a share now afaik.

they might need to ask bobby kotick's people, though.

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Because you can't have vanilla unless you go back in time?

rofl too funny I laughed.

[Deleted]

now on the other hand they sure as hell would need to ask activision-blizzard for an outside licensing anything, I assume...

I've no idea to be honest, but I'd assume the group legal functions are at the highest level (ATVI) anyhow

[Thimagryn]

no they dont. in a real professional project your are faced with an enormeous amount of tools you need to master. Development wise you can go on doing many project and not see one design pattern implemented, and trust me they are various degrees of developers and as a rule no amateur would be at the same skill level of a professional, otherwise there wont be a crisis in IT recruitment...

All those tools can be learned. The jump from Amateur to Professional can be made, and there is no fine line that dictates one from the other. The difference stems from experience in the field. In terms of skill level, Amateur are not necessarily less than Professionals. Tools training, experience, team work, time management are not skill-based factors.

Case in point - Mr. Jack, one of Blizzard's concept artists for SC2 and Heroes of the Storm, got hired because of his fan work of Zerg units. In fact the Infested Terran model in SC2 was remodelled using his concepts after he was hired and before the game was launched. His fan work was absolutely amateur but done on at 'professional skill' level.

please dont just throw statement like this, it does not sound serious.

And I don't. I am both a professional CG artist and a modder. I have worked at big companies (Activision Blizzard), on indy games and on modding projects (Armies of Azeroth, Starcraft Universe). Being professional and amateur has little to do with skill level or competency. I've seen and worked with modders who can create maps that far exceed anything Blizzard has done with their own engines. The difference in working on those projects and working through an actual company stems from management more than actual skill.

[psyquest]

[QUOTE=Thimagryn;40190366][QUOTE=psyquest;40189557]no they dont. in a real professional project your are faced with an enormeous amount of tools you need to master. Development wise you can go on doing many project and not see one design pattern implemented, and trust me they are various degrees of developers and as a rule no amateur would be at the same skill level of a professional, otherwise there wont be a crisis in IT recruitment...

All those tools can be learned. The jump from Amateur to Professional can be made, and there is no fine line that dictates one from the other. The difference stems from experience in the field. In terms of skill level, Amateur are not necessarily less than Professionals. Tools training, experience, team work, time management are not skill-based factors.

Case in point - Mr. Jack, one of Blizzard's concept artists for SC2 and Heroes of the Storm, got hired because of his fan work of Zerg units. In fact the Infested Terran model in SC2 was remodelled using his concepts after he was hired and before the game was launched. His fan work was absolutely amateur but done on at 'professional skill' level.



And I don't. I am both a professional CG artist and a modder. I have worked at big companies (Activision Blizzard), on indy games and on modding projects. Being professional and amateur has little to do with skill level or competency. I've seen and worked with modders who can create maps that far exceed anything Blizzard has done with their own engines. The difference in working on those projects and working through an actual company stems from management more than actual skill.

I think I ll stick to my opinion, based on 18 years in software development. The jump from amateur to professional is possible. But saying that amateur are more skilled that professionals. sorry no. The amount of experience an amateur lacks is huge.

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Why would they have to ask Vivendi?

We don't know the legal in and out that ties Blizzard and Vivendi. Whilst blizzard have a number of freedoms, we dont know if it goes all the way to what they can or cannot do with their IP. Vivendi bought blizzard for their successful IP so I dont think they would look kindly to anything that could endanger their investment. But then again, who knows?

[Thimagryn]

I think I ll stick to my opinion, based on 18 years in software development. The jump from amateur to professional is possible. But saying that amateur are more skilled that professionals. sorry no. The amount of experience an amateur lacks is huge.

Perhaps you're reading beyond what I said?

The difference between an Amateur and Professional is that a Professional works for finance and dedication to a profession while an Amateur works for recreation. Amateurs and Professionals are not separated by skill level. Amateurs can achieve a high skill competancy without being a professional. Keep in mind that even a junior designer at a company makes them a professional designer, regardless of skill level or experience.

Experience (in a professional environment) has little to do with skill. In relevance to the topic, Nost has shown their ability to maintain playable classic servers of good-standing quality. Their ability to fix bugs and make previous iterations of WoW more playable shows a fair level of competency. Is it better than what Blizzard could do by throwing money at it? Maybe not, but that doesn't mean that is a difference of skill or experience.

[Pann]

We don't know the legal in and out that ties Blizzard and Vivendi. Whilst blizzard have a number of freedoms, we dont know if it goes all the way to what they can or cannot do with their IP. Vivendi bought blizzard for their successful IP so I dont think they would look kindly to anything that could endanger their investment. But then again, who knows?

The point is Vivendi have nothing to do with the running of Blizzard since ATVI bought themselves a couple of years ago.

[Deleted]

250k players of which a large part probably never even played vanilla to know how dreadful a lot of it was (it was good at the time, not by modern standards).
250k players of which a large part is likely multiple fake accounts voting on the same thng.
250k players of which a large part votes "please do it", but wouldn't even play it if you have to pay a sub for it.

In the end Blizzard puts up a legacy server, 100k people will actually play. 50k people are of the first group, find out most of the content is dreadful and leaves within 2 months. 50k people left. Of the other 50k, 25k will rage at how hard the content (aq40, naxx40) is and how much they have to grind for resistance gears etc, also leave within 2 months.
There you got 25k people left. Nowhere near enough to make the whole thing profitable.

Blizzard thinks in business figures, not in emotion figures of some turd who got kicked out of his own company by the board.

[Deleted]

I think blizzard should just not care about Nost and Kern. Up to the point they threaten blizzard to violate their copyright again.

Hiring them would be the worst possible solution, as that just would question their IP.

And it doesnt matter at all if the devs actually like the Nost guys as they are as nostalgic as them. The devs bias is completely irrelevant as they need to work on a product thats actually evolving, and thats actually adressing a broad audience and not just a few.

[Deficineiron]

And it doesnt matter at all if the devs actually like the Nost guys as they are as nostalgic as them. The devs bias is completely irrelevant as they need to work on a product thats actually evolving, and thats actually adressing a broad audience and not just a few.

at the risk of asking a proscribed question, why did late classic and tbc (late tbc was almost double) have more subs than now, when that product only addressed a few, if I understand the issue right?

I understand classic and tbc were bad, and that is why they had so many subs, and the game is old and good now and that is why it has a lot less, but it seems the few outnumbered the many.

[Deleted]

There you got 25k people left. Nowhere near enough to make the whole thing profitable.

To be fair, while im against the idea of a legacy server, 25k people would be profitable. They have to pay sub to play this, and thats ~350,000$ a month. Best thing is you dont need a huge team to manage it, the content is made and most people decided it really didnt need anything else, just bug fixes. They would make profit on it. I think someone people refuse to mention is the fact that these servers were free.

[Thimagryn]

I think blizzard should just not care about Nost and Kern. Up to the point they threaten blizzard to violate their copyright again.

Hiring them would be the worst possible solution, as that just would question their IP.

And it doesnt matter at all if the devs actually like the Nost guys as they are as nostalgic as them. The devs bias is completely irrelevant as they need to work on a product thats actually evolving, and thats actually adressing a broad audience and not just a few.

I don't think it's a worst possible solution. I certainly think there are risks involved with hiring a 3rd party team, but I believe Nost has proven themselves capable of providing what fans already want.

It's more of a case of figuring what Blizzard actually wants to achieve and whether or not Nost and Kern fit in those plans.

[Deficineiron]

To be fair, while im against the idea of a legacy server, 25k people would be profitable. They have to pay sub to play this, and thats ~350,000$ a month. Best thing is you dont need a huge team to manage it, the content is made and most people decided it really didnt need anything else, just bug fixes. They would make profit on it. I think someone people refuse to mention is the fact that these servers were free.

i am trying to sort out where the 25k came from - roughly 1% of the live western playerbase????????? perhaps 0.05% of the total current and former western playerbase? does anyone ever do math here?

this seems arbitrarily low and inconsistent with other legacy mmo projects.

0.05% is in 1 in 2000 former players.

[Deleted]

at the risk of asking a proscribed question, why did late classic and tbc (late tbc was almost double) have more subs than now, when that product only addressed a few, if I understand the issue right?

Lifecycle. The game was new those days.

I understand classic and tbc were bad, and that is why they had so many subs, and the game is old and good now and that is why it has a lot less, but it seems the few outnumbered the many.

They were the only implementation of a broad audience MMORPG those days. Every other MMORPG was catered to minorities.

Thats what blizzard is strong with.. creating a meainstream game in a niche genre.

[Manhands]

To be fair, while im against the idea of a legacy server, 25k people would be profitable. They have to pay sub to play this, and thats ~350,000$ a month. Best thing is you dont need a huge team to manage it, the content is made and most people decided it really didnt need anything else, just bug fixes. They would make profit on it. I think someone people refuse to mention is the fact that these servers were free.

Even if it wasn't profitable itself, it would likely bring players back to the game and repair a little bit of PR damage caused by this. I think that's worth it, however you slice the numbers.

[Deficineiron]

I don't think it's a worst possible solution. I certainly think there are risks involved with hiring a 3rd party team, but I believe Nost has proven themselves capable of providing what fans already want.

It's more of a case of figuring what Blizzard actually wants to achieve and whether or not Nost and Kern fit in those plans.

if it were to happen in a licensing context, the nost guys might have their names on the door as consultants, but i cannot imagine atvi not insisting on a very competent corporate structure stacked with their people handling the licensee-side.

[Deleted]

i am trying to sort out where the 25k came from - roughly 1% of the live western playerbase????????? perhaps 0.05% of the total current and former western playerbase? does anyone ever do math here?

this seems arbitrarily low and inconsistent with other legacy mmo projects.

I think 25k is high to be honest. You'll have a huge spike of players come and play it, and after a couple of months it'll be next to dead. The majority of the playerbase is casual, and vanila just does not cater to casuals, it'll take months to just level to 60, something most players will just not do now, and then to find 40 players to raid? People are struggling to find 20. Vanilla now just doesn't work, and the reason servers like Nost had so many players was because it was the only server to not really use the annoying "vote to gain" points system so many private servers use. If nost was using the cata xpac, it would have had the same results.

Even if it wasn't profitable itself, it would likely bring players back to the game and repair a little bit of PR damage caused by this. I think that's worth it, however you slice the numbers.

Bringing back players for a couple of months isn't in their interest.

[Thimagryn]

at the risk of asking a proscribed question, why did late classic and tbc (late tbc was almost double) have more subs than now, when that product only addressed a few, if I understand the issue right?

I understand classic and tbc were bad, and that is why they had so many subs, and the game is old and good now and that is why it has a lot less, but it seems the few outnumbered the many.

You can't ask that question without looking at the external factors involved. WoW's population height was driven more by the times than by standards of quality. In its day, Classic and TBC are far superior in quality compared to all other MMO's around that time, but that does not mean it would still be considered a quality MMO by today's standards.

Just look at how interest in RTS has shifted since the late 90's. It was once the top PC gaming genre, matched only by FPS. Today there are less RTS games coming out than you can count on your hands. It doesn't mean the RTS games of the 90's were better quality than the ones coming out now.