Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Deleted]

What relevance is there to how often people play?

People who play rarely are more likely going to buy conveniences. The engaged crowd plays for their gold. The occasionally playing players are more likely to buy gold tokens from the shop. Or to buy mounts, as they dont get mounts out of organized gameplay.

The valuable customers for blizzard are the none-engaged players.

The risk is Blizzard finding out if people are willing to put their money where their mouth is. 'Those are no whales' is highly presumptive considering no one here has any information on Legacy Server business models. Just because a token system works for Live doesn't mean it will work for Legacy. That is the challenge that the Legacy team will have to face.

I hope blizzard is not setting up a legacy team, as the big part of their playerbase is more interested in content for the current implementation. The Blizzard devs should start to adress the large playerbase, and not try to create special funsies for every single minority they like personally.

For all we know, they could make Legacy F2P while making microtransactions purely off of new mounts, revamped transmog gear, pets and graphical updates. Anything said about the 'whales' is completely presumptive.

I believe wow completely should go f2p. As it would adress way more players than some legacy realms for a hundred thousand players or even less.

[Froggy]

It's not exactly a new concept is it. Vanilla servers have been around for a while now and if you really wanted to play one, no one is stopping you, there are still a ton of them around.

I've played them all. And other than Nostalrius, which was an incredible server, the current crop of Vanilla servers leaves something to be desired. The most popular Vanilla server since Nostalrius went down, recently launched a new realm, which I rolled on. I quit after 2 days because there were too many bugs that ruined it for me. I was spoiled by the quality of Nostalrius. Also add in the fact that this new server let's people buy rare mounts for real money. Something Nostalrius was totally opposed to. Blizz shut down the server that was doing it purely out of love for the game, and they leave standing a server that is selling in-game stuff and making a profit.

[Thimagryn]

I hope blizzard is not setting up a legacy team, as the big part of their playerbase is more interested in content for the current implementation. The Blizzard devs should start to adress the large playerbase, and not try to create special funsies for every single minority they like personally.

I don't see the point of this train of thought. Heroes of the Storm is technically run by the same team as Starcraft 2, both games which still have content being created for each with different business models in play. One project isn't being impacted negatively by the presence of the other, and one isn't lacking focus by means of another.

The Live WoW devs would still be addressing the large playerbase regardless of what a small, specialized Legacy division does. And let's face it, at this point the Legacy crowd should not be addressed in the same scope as Live just as Diablo players are not WoW players despite any overlap of the fanbase. Consider that Blizz is continuing to maintain Diablo 3 despite the fact that players are putting no more money into it than what they did at the start; no microtransactions no promotions no premiums whatsoever. It's still up and running and still getting new content.

If the Legacy Servers have potential for long-term monetization, I see no drawbacks to it. The whole point of concern is whether or not it actually does.

[Mosotti]

You can not compare, OSRS is free, a vanilla Wow server would be sub based. A monthly sub is going to throw a lot of people off.

From my own experience in private servers, about 80% of the people leave the game before reaching level 40, even though all are extremely vocal in world chat in lower levels about the "great experience" and how the retail is "pure shit" and how Blizzard "fucked up the game". And going to level 40 is really the most enjoyable ride, because the grind is not in full swing yet. This is pretty much consistent with the figures Nost put up, 800k accounts and 150k "active" players. But keep in mind that on a free private server anyone can make multiple accounts and they count as "active players" even though they are the same players. It's not unusual to make twink alts because it costs nothing and it's much effective to run them through dungeons for gear yourself.

Adding to that paying subscription, that 250k players that want private servers is really a much lower figure. Also 150k active players on a free private server, is really a much lower figure when they have to pay for it.

[Eliseus]

From my own experience in private servers, about 80% of the people leave the game before reaching level 40, even though all are extremely vocal in world chat in lower levels about the "great experience" and how the retail is "pure shit" and how Blizzard "fucked up the game". And going to level 40 is really the most enjoyable ride, because the grind is not in full swing yet. This is pretty much consistent with the figures Nost put up, 800k accounts and 150k "active" players. But keep in mind that on a free private server anyone can make multiple accounts and they count as "active players" even though they are the same players. It's not unusual to make twink alts because it costs nothing and it's much effective to run them through dungeons for gear yourself.

Adding to that paying subscription, that 250k players that want private servers is really a much lower figure. Also 150k active players on a free private server, is really a much lower figure when they have to pay for it.

Except nothing to support anything you just said. Even professor Google thinks you are full of it.

[Mosotti]

Your arguments are amazing so I think I must agree and go away. Oh wait...

[Deleted]

I don't see the point of this train of thought. Heroes of the Storm is technically run by the same team as Starcraft 2, both games which still have content being created for each with different business models in play. One project isn't being impacted negatively by the presence of the other, and one isn't lacking focus by means of another.

It seems the WoW team is caring about the legacy realms. As J. Allen Brack was involved. As the WoW devs talked to nostralgius.

At the end i think the WoW team is better placed at adding content to the current implementation, and not to care for pristine realms where it just isnt clear whom they even would adress.

The Live WoW devs would still be addressing the large playerbase regardless of what a small, specialized Legacy division does.

They would not if they had to care about the legacy servers.

Consider that Blizz is continuing to maintain Diablo 3 despite the fact that players are putting no more money into it than what they did at the start; no microtransactions no promotions no premiums whatsoever. It's still up and running and still getting new content.

The difference is that a new expac for Diablo 3 is going to sell for 30-40 million copies. While the legacy realms will adress a hundred thousand players or even less, and it surely would not adress more people over time, as a typical classic realm would not evolve and as a pristine realm would be defacto like life without conveniences..

If the Legacy Servers have potential for long-term monetization, I see no drawbacks to it. The whole point of concern is whether or not it actually does.

I wonder where the long-time monetization should come from. For a group of people which rather plays for free on pirated realms.

[Gratlim]

Thank you Mark. Let's hope Blizz listen to us and give us classic realms.

[Thimagryn]

It seems the WoW team is caring about the legacy realms. As J. Allen Brack was involved. As the WoW devs talked to nostralgius.

At the end i think the WoW team is better placed at adding content to the current implementation, and not to care for pristine realms where it just isnt clear whom they even would adress.

They would not if they had to care about the legacy servers.

I don't see this any different than them splitting their design focus on the multiple raid tiers or on PVP vs PVE content. PVP already takes focus away from PVE design. There are always people of one group complaining about the other. I think it's valid for you to believe that resources can be better spent if focused on one type of content instead of trying to please everyone, but I think Legacy is as valid as PVP or Pet Battlers or Collectors. Someone still has to design all that content with every expansion, having a small division tackle Legacy servers wouldn't impact current design in a big way.

I wonder where the long-time monetization should come from. For a group of people which rather plays for free on pirated realms.

We'll wait and see. That's all we can do really.

[Deficineiron]

I don't see this any different than them splitting their design focus on the multiple raid tiers or on PVP vs PVE content. PVP already takes focus away from PVE design. There are always people of one group complaining about the other. I think it's valid for you to believe that resources can be better spent if focused on one type of content instead of trying to please everyone, but I think Legacy is as valid as PVP or Pet Battlers or Collectors. Someone still has to design all that content with every expansion, having a small division tackle Legacy servers wouldn't impact current design in a big way.



We'll wait and see. That's all we can do really.

candidly I am shocked to see people arguing low-5-digit numbers as the long-term playerbase potential for classic realms.

I think the sheer scale of wow's current and former playerbase size is not easily appreciated by some posters. Others of course will find the lowest number they can post without getting immediately ridiculed.

wow's western playerbase may be around 2.5m or so right now. the former western playerbase is many, many times that number.

a while back '13k' (the peak concurrent users and likely capacity of nost) was used. now 25k is used.

i suspect a viable long-term customer base (>1 year) of several hundred thousand minimum on an actual non-frankenstein legacy realm.

so lets use the 25k number. that is 1 in 100 current players and no former players, or perhaps 1 in 2000 (approx) current and former players who would be expected to participate on a classic realm long-term.

a classic realm, as I understand it, would be expected to have a smaller playerbase than the classic versions of other pre-wow mmo's? wow's former playerbase is many, many times larger than those games.

all this ignores if netease was to license it in china (in terms of revenue to blizzard).

[Alyxanna]

candidly I am shocked to see people arguing low-5-digit numbers as the long-term playerbase potential for classic realms.

It might be a little higher but it seems more reasonable than unreasonable. If Blizzard were to do this, it wouldn't be free. It might be very well run and safe but you would pay for that, whether in the form of a special subscription or a regular one. Meanwhile, pirate servers for vanilla and previous expansions would still exist in the world where you could play for free. This would cripple the growth prospects of a pay server system. This, more than anything, is why the topic of Blizzard-produced vanilla servers would have a hard time returning anything like enough revenue to make Blizzard interested in it.

[Thimagryn]

candidly I am shocked to see people arguing low-5-digit numbers as the long-term playerbase potential for classic realms.

There's no reason to be shocked. This could very well be the situation in just a few years, given a shift in player or economic interest. We don't know what would happen, and people being interested now in Legacy servers is not indicative of interest in 2-5 years time.

Hell, we don't even know if Chinese players are all that interested in having Legacy. These are things only answerable once the Legacy servers are up and running, not something we can predict on paper with estimations. There are far too many factors involved with a global market, especially today.

[Deficineiron]

There's no reason to be shocked. This could very well be the situation in just a few years, given a shift in player or economic interest. We don't know what would happen, and people being interested now in Legacy servers is not indicative of interest in 2-5 years time.

Hell, we don't even know if Chinese players are all that interested in having Legacy. These are things only answerable once the Legacy servers are up and running, not something we can predict on paper with estimations. There are far too many factors involved with a global market, especially today.

Do you think it is possible you are wrong by an order of magnitude? I find it uphill to argue that only 1/2000~ current and former players, at a ratio of 1/100 for current retail players, would play on classic servers after 1 year or so.

I am puzzled that the other legacy mmo projects didn't have hundreds if not a few thousand players after a year or so, based on the expectations for legacy wow. that would be a consistent ratio, roughly. maybe some of them failed miserably, but I have not seem them mentioned.

I am puzzled by why wow is expected to perform so differently from other similar projects. The main reasons seem to be some posters having trouble moving zeros in large numbers, and other posters having a strong bias against classic wow being viable.

comparisons are imperfect for other legacy mmo projects but the participation vs. live and former population seems multiples higher than what is grudgingly allowed as possible wow classic server interest after a year or so. weirder, from what I can find, OSRS population is both higher than your 25k wow number and higher than 'live' runescape population. the last I could find on google, you had to pay the runescape sub to have access to either. maybe that has changed. others claim it is free.

the comment about netease was one which, once a western legacy server exists, would be extremely low cost to blizzard - import the language adn modified art from the client the9 used, which presumably was the art netease used in classic areas of wow when they launched with wotlk. thus it would be viewed, if picked up by netease, as a high-margin project for blizzard. i have not actually seen more than a couple of posters over the years who play, speak/read, and comment on the prc mmo market, and can only offer that as a possibility.

[Thimagryn]

Do you think it is possible you are wrong by an order of magnitude?

You should ask yourself if it really matters whether anyone here is right or wrong. That's not the importance of this discussion. And the answers won't come through any means of statistics and estimation.

the comment about netease was one which, once a western legacy server exists, would be extremely low cost to blizzard - import the language adn modified art from the client the9 used, which presumably was the art netease used in classic areas of wow when they launched with wotlk. thus it would be viewed, if picked up by netease, as a high-margin project for blizzard. i have not actually seen more than a couple of posters over the years who play, speak/read, and comment on the prc mmo market, and can only offer that as a possibility.

So you believe. If it were that simple, Phantasy Star Online 2 would be on US servers already considering it's already translated into english. Companies have their reasons for not releasing servers in certain areas due to more than just localization and porting. Keep in mind that Legacy Servers will ultimately require its own customer service team dedicated to addressing Legacy issues. It's not as easy as getting Live server customer service to handle everything. And that's just one example off the top of my head, not factoring the hundreds of internal factors that a big company would have to deal with in getting such approval. I'm not saying it's super hard or that it's not going to happen, but it's certainly NOT as easy as you make it sound.

[Vineri]

I'm yet to figure out who so many subscribers come here and troll the Legacy folks .. rather than enjoy the game they pay for, by playing it .. But they choose to instead dwell in forums (here and elsewhere) and chat up about how great the retail version is. It's rather astonishing!

Retail is so mind-blowing, that people need something else to do .. like surf the internet .. .... I never had that problem in Vanilla :/

[Eapoe]

I'm yet to figure out who so many subscribers come here and troll the Legacy folks .. rather than enjoy the game they pay for, by playing it .. But they choose to instead dwell in forums (here and elsewhere) and chat up about how great the retail version is. It's rather astonishing!

Retail is so mind-blowing, that people need something else to do .. like surf the internet .. .... I never had that problem in Vanilla :/

Well, some of us post while we're on the toilet or tabbed out flying from point A to B, or maybe even taking a break from the game because we've just spent too much time in 1 spot. Nice bait topic. I give you a C+ for effort and an F on execution.
Can we return back to topic now of the game itself and not bashing on each other or stating our opinions of why one version is worse than the other?

[McNeil]

I'm somewhat suprised that Mike even answered and invited Mark to their HQ. I can't tell how much influence his letter is going to have, but I feel like we might get classic servers sooner or later. But then it'd have to be quite a wait, they still have no idea how to handle classic servers and if they want to share some QoL features from retail or not. Even if Blizzard says yes today, its gonna take atleast 2 year to even see a classic server I think.

Atleast Blizzard is listening, thats reassuring to the crowd for now. I just hope we get actual vanilla servers and not these pristine servers.

[Deleted]

Doesn't prove shit lol.

If you have nothing to say use the lol-argument, right? right!

[Vineri]

Well, some of us post while we're on the toilet or tabbed out flying from point A to B, or maybe even taking a break from the game because we've just spent too much time in 1 spot. Can we return back to topic now of the game itself and not bashing on each other or stating our opinions of why one version is worse than the other?

Fine. This game needs legacy servers. Not current sub's spending 60% of their wake-able hours on the pot arguing against legacy instead of playing their game of choice.

It would behoove Activision-Blizzard to implement Legacy, since retail WoW is faltering, while retro WoW is gaining momentum. <-- TRUE

Value the above as you like, but still a true statement. I have no plans on resubscribing unless a Vanilla or Vanilla / TBC server is implemented. There is so much to gain by playing Legacy, since former subscribers are doing this anyways - they do not want to pay for the current retail garbage. They want classic. That is not to say they will not pay.

Why do the retro sites keep popping up? Don't you consider for a moment that someone WILL pay, if they can keep their character(s) from being wiped?

Until then .. shut down one, give each other a pat on the bum .. another Vanilla site will pop up tomorrow. Ignore the elephant in the room - people want to play Legacy.

[Eapoe]

Fine. This game needs legacy servers. Not current sub's spending 60% of their wake-able hours on the pot arguing against legacy instead of playing their game of choice.

It would behoove Activision-Blizzard to implement this, since retail WoW is faltering, while retro WoW is gaining momentum. <-- TRUE

Value the above as you like, but still a true statement. I have no plans on resubscribing unless a Vanilla or Vanilla / TBC server is implemented. There is so much to gain, since former subscribers are doing this anyways - they do not want to pay for the current retail garbage. They want classic.

Why do the retro sites keep popping up? Don't you consider for a moment that someone WILL pay, if they can keep their character(s) from being wiped?

Until then .. shut down one, give each other a pat on the bum .. another Vanilla site will pop up tomorrow.

Retro WoW is not gaining momentum, it's just gotten some time in the limelight. Nothing has changed for it (yet). Blizzard has still offered the same answers in a different way every time, but now Blizz is "meeting" with Nost. Have we gotten any new word on that yet? Not pointing out it won't happen, but that's lost some attention and most people are putting their "eggs in one basket," so to speak, with Kern's upcoming meeting.
Of course some people want classic, and TBC, and Wrath. That's not the issue we're discussing. I am amazed though that you bring up how retail is so awesome then why aren't people playing it instead of posting here, yet you are so enthralled with vanilla (let's not start calling it classic, it's vanilla, try not to class it up) that you are posting in the forums instead of playing on a PS.