Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[AeneasBK]

Funny if they just ignored the private servers like nost and did nothing about it they wouldnt have to put up with all this, sure they always got some questions at blizzcon about legacy servers or whatever, but all this pretty much started from taking down nost, and im pretty sure not many of the nost players decided to sub to WoW after that, so the smartest thing would probably have been to just ignore it and countiune to let it run as long as they are not interested themself in hosting legacy servers.

Yes, quite a lot of people have come forward in the last month and explained that in American law or internation law or law someplace somewhere, you ahve t oagressively defend your intellectual property or risk losing it by default. It would appear that the popular line is "They couldn't NOT shut down Nostalrius"

[Gavan]

The legacy advocates are faaaaaaaar from being a large community in the big picture. Blizzard can safely ignore them and their spam on social media and survive.

A couple of posters on this forum and other independent groups analyzed the last financial release for ATVI/Blizz Q1. (Granted these are educated estimates from folks to know far more about that analysis than I do.)

Educated estimates put the current WoW sub base at approx 2.8 mil world wide.
Historically, roughly half of that has been NA and Europe. (1.4 mil in that market area)

250k+ have signed the petition alone. (Responses largely in Western markets as above) Marketing research for hyped/hot products show that you'll get another 25-50% (varies on industry) above the extreme demand groups for a product.
This puts, early purchase and sub, estimated numbers for 310k - 425k+.

That's ~35% increase in customers. Or money on the table.

If I was a shareholder, I'd want to know, nay, I'd demand to know why that money is still on the table and not capitalized yet.

[Gadzooks]

I think Ion's comments are interesting - and I'll preface this with Ion has a credibility problem, or his company does, after the flying fiasco, so his comments to me are just spitballing and white boarding, he's just talking in the theoretical.

What was interesting was his admission the leveling game is broken, which it is. I think he's moving in the right direction in that if the leveling game is fixed, and ALL levels of the game a populated again, there could be an experience for players that's good enough so legacy servers aren't required. It's an interesting thought...but daunting in implementation. Redoing 100 levels of content at this point is unthinkable for them, it would take years, with NO expansions out during that time. It would be a gamble, but worth it if they brought a couple of million new players into the game, at all levels, and had the low level stuff populated and fun to play. I also liked that he considers heirlooms a big problem (I think he said perversion).

I've always felt that the abandoned content issue with WoW was unsolvable. He makes a good point that the scaling tech could be an answer. I'd go further, and look at making the entire game scale, so a new player or alt starts out with the usual leveling experience, then chooses an expansion as their end game. Get rid of player level. Get rid of item levels, as they exist, so epic drops in The Eye are the same as from HFC. Make the major cities hubs for all of the expansion content, and guilds/players can choose which one to focus on. The artifact system can fit into this, with specific upgrades coming from end game content in each expansion. Give players a reason to play all the old content. It's a big job, has flows, but interesting to think about - and less daunting for new players, which is what they need. Too much focus is on old players. They're gone. Most won't be coming back - they played, they have their experiences, they moved on. Now it's time for new generations to have a game that's as fun and as engaging, for the next 10 years.

And, I know it's all talk, because that's what Ion tends to do - talk. But it's interesting - and good at the very least he at least recognizes that there's no compelling reason to play 1-100, as it's an empty wasteland.

And who is this dude with the beard, and severe neckbeard vibe? Whatever happened to Lore?

[Vineri]

<SNIP>

Yes, he did. He said that what J. Allen Brack said stands - and that's no legacy servers.

I've watched that portion of the video twice, because i don't care about Legion.

He said there's no legacy servers coming. Accept reality.

I would suggest you not put it in quotes then. Also Ion went on to say (paraphrased) he is a Vanilla fan, but such decisions are beyond his scope, since he is just a developer, not a design maker. He had no new information, so merely referred back to the previous blue post as the current official statement.

Basically all he did was pass the buck... no new declarations were made.

[Gadzooks]

I would suggest you not put it in quotes then. Also Ion went on to say (paraphrased) he is a Vanilla fan, but such decisions are beyond his scope, since he is just a developer, not a design maker. He had no new information, so merely referred back to the previous blue post as the current official statement.

Basically all he did was pass the buck... no new declarations were made.

Which was my point. So your point was..quotes?

Or was it just knee jerk response over legacy servers.

Wait. Don't answer. I don't care.

[TCGamer]

A couple of posters on this forum and other independent groups analyzed the last financial release for ATVI/Blizz Q1. (Granted these are educated estimates from folks to know far more about that analysis than I do.)

Educated estimates put the current WoW sub base at approx 2.8 mil world wide.
Historically, roughly half of that has been NA and Europe. (1.4 mil in that market area)

250k+ have signed the petition alone. (Responses largely in Western markets as above) Marketing research for hyped/hot products show that you'll get another 25-50% (varies on industry) above the extreme demand groups for a product.
This puts, early purchase and sub, estimated numbers for 310k - 425k+.

That's ~35% increase in customers. Or money on the table.

If I was a shareholder, I'd want to know, nay, I'd demand to know why that money is still on the table and not capitalized yet.

Two things...

First, there is no evidence that every one of those signatures on that petition is valid, and even less that every one of those signatures would pay to play on legacy servers, that petition is a non-factor.

Second, perhaps there is money to be made there. However, does the income outweigh the cost of developing (or re-developing if you prefer) and maintaining several older versions of a game to directly compete with the game you are still trying to press forward? I doubt it, and Blizzard doubts it too, that's why you haven't seen (and likely won't until WoW's development ends) legacy servers. It makes no financial sense.

[Erwarth]

Legion will bring back more subs than Legacy, so it's normal for them to focus on Legion rather than Legacy.

[Gavan]

Two things...

First, there is no evidence that every one of those signatures on that petition is valid, and even less that every one of those signatures would pay to play on legacy servers, that petition is a non-factor.

Second, perhaps there is money to be made there. However, does the income outweigh the cost of developing (or re-developing if you prefer) a game to directly compete with the game you are still trying to press forward? I doubt it, and Blizzard doubts it too, that's why you haven't seen (and likely won't until WoW's development ends) legacy servers. It makes no financial sense.

This is where the conversation circles back to, "30 guys in a garage did it on zero budget with an emulator".

If Blizzard's development structure is so bloated that they can't do this and the above can, it's a corporate issue, and not a game development issue. Time to restructure. My opinion, of course, but I've been through restructuring when compartmentalization becomes so bad that you can't get anything done without it taking forever or with a Rosary and prayer. The development issues and content drought of WoD hint at those problems within Blizzard. Again, observational opinion, but educated, as I've seen and been through it before. There are signs.

[Zyster]

And it would still be a new experience for thousands of players that have picked the game up since BC came out, especially Cata players. They may want to try it, some undoubtedly will.

There are a lot of private players who wouldn't pay a sub, and then there are a lot that would. Combine that with the newer players wanting to see it, old players like me who don't play private but want Legacy, etc.

Inevitably some would quit, sure. People quit WoD every day, doesn't mean we should shut down the retail servers.

The fact is that there are thousands and thousands, if not millions of people who want Legacy servers. ActiBlizz denying to provide the service with such blatant fiscal gain would merely mean they're afraid of it becoming more successful than retail and proving that the current game isn't nearly as favored as old WoW.



Yea I'm not buying the crocodile tears about them being sentimental about the game moving forward. This company hasn't cared about its community, consumers, or their IP since Activision signed on the dotted line.

They're a corporation. Their goal is to make money, period. If a way to make money presents itself, and they don't take it, it's because of PR or legal reasons. And seeing as they own the IP...

I don't know where this guy concluded the results of the survey to begin with since they aren't published anywhere.

[Vineri]

Which was my point. So your point was..quotes?

Or was it just knee jerk response over legacy servers.

Wait. Don't answer. I don't care.

When you spread misinformation via poor / incorrect citations, someone is bound to call you out. Perhaps another thread would be more suitable for something you do care about then? There are lots of other threads out there to try out.

[Aggrophobic]

Two things...

First, there is no evidence that every one of those signatures on that petition is valid, and even less that every one of those signatures would pay to play on legacy servers, that petition is a non-factor.

Second, perhaps there is money to be made there. However, does the income outweigh the cost of developing (or re-developing if you prefer) and maintaining several older versions of a game to directly compete with the game you are still trying to press forward? I doubt it, and Blizzard doubts it too, that's why you haven't seen (and likely won't until WoW's development ends) legacy servers. It makes no financial sense.

You can also not use the numbers we have now, with no new content for a year. You'll have to compare thoes numbers with what WoW would have if they spent all their money on a new expantion and relesed that.
Last time they did so they got over 10 million subs. Can legacy servers compete with that? I doubt it and they sure would not keep people playing for as long either with no new content comming out... ever.

[Zyster]

Oh my, old people back in thread spinning stuff. Inb4 Gadzooks starts telling everyone to f off again.

- - - Updated - - -

Two things...

First, there is no evidence that every one of those signatures on that petition is valid, and even less that every one of those signatures would pay to play on legacy servers, that petition is a non-factor.

Second, perhaps there is money to be made there. However, does the income outweigh the cost of developing (or re-developing if you prefer) and maintaining several older versions of a game to directly compete with the game you are still trying to press forward? I doubt it, and Blizzard doubts it too, that's why you haven't seen (and likely won't until WoW's development ends) legacy servers. It makes no financial sense.

Until you can prove otherwise, no one cares what you say. Going to threaten of DDoS some more?

[kunah]

Funny if they just ignored the private servers like nost and did nothing about it they wouldnt have to put up with all this, sure they always got some questions at blizzcon about legacy servers or whatever, but all this pretty much started from taking down nost, and im pretty sure not many of the nost players decided to sub to WoW after that, so the smartest thing would probably have been to just ignore it and countiune to let it run as long as they are not interested themself in hosting legacy servers.

Legion will bring back more subs than Legacy, so it's normal for them to focus on Legion rather than Legacy.

But you don't really know if it will or won't bring back subs. Legacy does not preclude legion or visa/versa. Do both.

[Gadzooks]

Two things...

First, there is no evidence that every one of those signatures on that petition is valid, and even less that every one of those signatures would pay to play on legacy servers, that petition is a non-factor.

Second, perhaps there is money to be made there. However, does the income outweigh the cost of developing (or re-developing if you prefer) and maintaining several older versions of a game to directly compete with the game you are still trying to press forward? I doubt it, and Blizzard doubts it too, that's why you haven't seen (and likely won't until WoW's development ends) legacy servers. It makes no financial sense.

I've given up point things like this out - they don't want to hear it. You can talk yourself blue, and they won't change.

[kunah]

Legion will bring back more subs than Legacy, so it's normal for them to focus on Legion rather than Legacy.

But you don't really know if it will or won't bring back subs. Legacy does not preclude legion or visa/versa. Do both.

[TCGamer]

This is where the conversation circles back to, "30 guys in a garage did it on zero budget with an emulator".

If Blizzard's development structure is so bloated that they can't do this and the above can, it's a corporate issue, and not a game development issue. Time to restructure. My opinion, of course, but I've been through restructuring when compartmentalization becomes so bad that you can't get anything done without it taking forever or with a Rosary and prayer. The development issues and content drought of WoD hint at those problems within Blizzard. Again, observational opinion, but educated, as I've seen and been through it before. There are signs.

This is where the conversation circles back to "Those 30 guys did it on an emulator with zero security, battle.net integration, thousands more bugs than live, hacking code together, without splitting regions or languages, limited customer support, and zero real-world production value."

Needless to say that you can't compare Nostalrius to a real live-production game, because it wasn't one. As much as the Nostalgius drones would want everyone to believe, it was a hack-job of an emulated server that took them YEARS of work (not months, YEARS, their words) to even get to a playable state.

Do you even know the slightest bit about how game design works, or are you just spouting your nostalgic mouth off?

It would take Blizzard YEARS of work to design/re-design Vanilla & TBC & Wrath (& to a lesser extent Cata & MoP). Or are you selfish enough to only want your specific level of legacy server developed and screw everyone else?

Come on now... Anyone that doesn't think that this endeavor would take years of work is just stupid or deluded. You decide.

[Zyster]

I've given up point things like this out - they don't want to hear it. You can talk yourself blue, and they won't change.

We've given up asking you for proof since we know yo won't provide any.

[Gondorian]

You can also not use the numbers we have now, with no new content for a year. You'll have to compare thoes numbers with what WoW would have if they spent all their money on a new expantion and relesed that.
Last time they did so they got over 10 million subs. Can legacy servers compete with that? I doubt it and they sure would not keep people playing for as long either with no new content comming out... ever.

The whole "running out of new content" argument is completely idiotic when comparing to what a legacy server could offer based on what we have seen in the latest WoW expansions. Over one year content droughts is absolutely terrible. Legacy servers can keep releasing their content much better over their period of time, and once you're done, move on to the next expansion. And basing this on what most people are wanting, which is Classic > BC > Wotlk, this could be up to 6 years of content if we base it on originally release schedules.

[Gadzooks]

This is where the conversation circles back to, "30 guys in a garage did it on zero budget with an emulator".

If Blizzard's development structure is so bloated that they can't do this and the above can, it's a corporate issue, and not a game development issue. Time to restructure. My opinion, of course, but I've been through restructuring when compartmentalization becomes so bad that you can't get anything done without it taking forever or with a Rosary and prayer. The development issues and content drought of WoD hint at those problems within Blizzard. Again, observational opinion, but educated, as I've seen and been through it before. There are signs.

What '30 guys in a garage" did is in no way comparable to what Blizzard would have to do. It's like trying to say setting up a lemonade stand is the same as building out and running a 5 star restaurant.

[Zyster]

Come on now... Anyone that doesn't think that this endeavor would take years of work is just stupid or deluded. You decide.

Thanks for only these options.