Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[GiefEpixe]

That's a nice thought, and on some level you're probably right, but there are a LOT of players that play WoW for the entirely different game it changed into and not only have zero interest in former design choices, but outright hate them. Fighting to get WoW back closer to its roots would be (and is) even more of an uphill battle than getting legacy servers is. A new server type is the only way to make both crowds happy. I don't think there's any way around that.

Separate, legitimate legacy/pristine servers also open the doors to direct comparisons which I personally feel as a great thing because it means that neither side can make grandiose, self-important, sweeping statements on the subject (like the classic, "it's just nostalgia!") unless facts support it (legacy servers turning to ghost towns after a few months). Right now it's a free for all where anybody can say anything because proof is impossible either way, and that drives me positively insane.

Didn't see the whole comparison aspect becoming possible through legacy/pristine servers. I like that outlook on getting "proof".

[Jeniwyn]

One can hope. I'm staying both positive and sort of pessimistic on the meeting for now. And if they announce pristine servers well they can go to hell. Pristine servers would be pointless like I've said with how easy leveling currently is. Also the whole basis has been around that we want legacy not pristine or a damn compromise.

I sincerely doubt that was ever something they really considered. Seemed like something to say in the hopes that this whole thing would go away quietly.

I however think that we are passed the point of no return.

Even if they decide not to do legacy now, the next time they shut down a private server the entire mess blows up again with more negative PR. And many of the Nost players have already migrated elsewhere. Given time the "new" home might grow to Nost size and then what? Blizzard actually have a claim that these servers are taking money that is rightfully theirs, the problem is that all Blizzard has to do to earn it is to put up servers.

Blizzard don't HAVE to integrate Battlenet etc, etc, etc. They don't have to do more than getting the freaking code they have to compile on the new hardware and we will #$@&%*! come. They can even dust off some old hardware, we will not care, at least not in the start. If they threw that up and said "this is just a start, if people come we will invest in upgrading the code to the new hardware etc" I'll go turbofanboy on them as will countless others.

[Thimagryn]

Even if they decide not to do legacy now, the next time they shut down a private server the entire mess blows up again with more negative PR. And many of the Nost players have already migrated elsewhere. Given time the "new" home might grow to Nost size and then what? Blizzard actually have a claim that these servers are taking money that is rightfully theirs, the problem is that all Blizzard has to do to earn it is to put up servers.

There's too many factors involved to simply say 'Blizzard's answer is to put up servers'. Nost servers were not shut down because they were making money, they were shut down because of IP infringement. That's the official statement, so that's what we have to go by.

Blizzard don't HAVE to integrate Battlenet etc, etc, etc. They don't have to do more than getting the freaking code they have to compile on the new hardware and we will #$@&%*! come. They can even dust off some old hardware, we will not care, at least not in the start. If they threw that up and said "this is just a start, if people come we will invest in upgrading the code to the new hardware etc" I'll go turbofanboy on them as will countless others.

Not really. Blizzard has to integrate it into their systems if they make it. Some 'unofficial' version of Legacy that isn't integrated into their systems just wouldn't fly. They're not some indy developer who can do whatever they want to please fans.

[Gadzooks]

Don't even bother replying to Gadzooks, he's just trolling/being an idiot to pro-Legacy people. Has been the entire thread. You're wasting your time.

Oh, is that what I'm doing?

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I sincerely doubt that was ever something they really considered. Seemed like something to say in the hopes that this whole thing would go away quietly.

I however think that we are passed the point of no return.

Even if they decide not to do legacy now, the next time they shut down a private server the entire mess blows up again with more negative PR. And many of the Nost players have already migrated elsewhere. Given time the "new" home might grow to Nost size and then what? Blizzard actually have a claim that these servers are taking money that is rightfully theirs, the problem is that all Blizzard has to do to earn it is to put up servers.

Blizzard don't HAVE to integrate Battlenet etc, etc, etc. They don't have to do more than getting the freaking code they have to compile on the new hardware and we will #$@&%*! come. They can even dust off some old hardware, we will not care, at least not in the start. If they threw that up and said "this is just a start, if people come we will invest in upgrading the code to the new hardware etc" I'll go turbofanboy on them as will countless others.

Battlenet is integrated into their billing and support system, of course they have to integrate it.

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Trying to post constructively and not troll. When you want to provide evidence to backup your assertions then I'll be here waiting to read and respond. Alternatively if You'd like me to source and itemize where you are wrong I am happy to do so.

Thanks

Pfffft. This is the best you can come up with? Not that i expected better - I already knew all you brought to the table was childish games. This isn't 4Chan, you're not "winning" a debate by "proving" anything. You made laughably wrong statements, I corrected them. Get over it.

And, I'll post whatever I want, thanks.

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You sure do sound upset.

Yeah, 4Chan level comments. It's okay - I didn't expect more from you.

[Tyze]

So what was the big announcement from Nostalrius?

[Pann]

Yeah, 4Chan level comments. It's okay - I didn't expect more from you.

Sorry? I've never been to 4chan so I could not possibly comment on whether my post in on that level or not but why have you clipped most of it?

Once again you're throwing around insults which is all you've done ever since I pointed out that you were wrong when you said that there was no such thing as IP theft. If you are going to claim that you have experience in this kind of area I would suggest that you do not make claims that take less than 30 seconds to disprove.

[Jeniwyn]

I'm not saying that they SHOULD go the path of least resistance, I'm saying that they could and that such an approach would clearly be vastly profitable.

I think that they should go beyond that, and integrate all the stuff, but all of a sudden we are talking a bigger investment and the "we cannot know that it will really be profitable" gets thrown around even though it frankly is silly. Adding bnet should cost less than the additional profit from doing so.

Not releasing legacy servers was always a branding issue. Never about the fundamentals. The fundamentals are amazing. Now however they are suddenly the bad guys for not doing it and it is more clear than ever that there is a ton of money on the table. I would be amazed if they decided against it at this point.

[Thimagryn]

Not releasing legacy servers was always a branding issue. Never about the fundamentals. The fundamentals are amazing. Now however they are suddenly the bad guys for not doing it and it is more clear than ever that there is a ton of money on the table. I would be amazed if they decided against it at this point.

It's not clear at all that there is a ton of money on the table. It's only clear that there is a ton of interest among the fans. For money to be on the table, there must be a working business model and an indication that the consumer base is willing to invest money into it over a period of time.

The facts are:

- Nost was run for free. There may have been donations, but those have not been publicly stated.
- There is no proposed business model for Legacy that we know of.
- We don't know the costs of maintenance. This is not including the resources spent on getting them polished and running. I'm talking customer service, continual patching, content development, marketting etc.
- We don't know how many people would stay subbed for more than 6 months, or are willing to pay for microtransactions on Legacy.

Without knowing any of these factors, I would highly contest the assumption that anything is clear about the monetization of Legacy. All we know is there's a large interest in it.

[Struggle]

It's not clear at all that there is a ton of money on the table. It's only clear that there is a ton of interest among the fans. For money to be on the table, there must be a working business model and an indication that the consumer base is willing to invest money into it over a period of time.

The facts are:

- Nost was run for free. There may have been donations, but those have not been publicly stated.
- There is no proposed business model for Legacy that we know of.
- We don't know the costs of maintenance. This is not including the resources spent on getting them polished and running. I'm talking customer service, continual patching, content development, marketting etc.
- We don't know how many people would stay subbed for more than 6 months, or are willing to pay for microtransactions on Legacy.

Without knowing any of these factors, I would highly contest the assumption that anything is clear about the monetization of Legacy. All we know is there's a large interest in it.

The interest itself is proof, as setting up some servers isn't expensive. Porting the old games over will be where most of the cost comes from, but if you launch even just Vanilla-Wrath servers under the subscription model they would easily make a profit.

Game studios port games all the time for different consoles and systems. Its not some one-off programming job that will be completely custom.

The money is definitely there.

[Kyanion]

The interest itself is proof, as setting up some servers isn't expensive. Porting the old games over will be where most of the cost comes from, but if you launch even just Vanilla-Wrath servers under the subscription model they would easily make a profit.

Game studios port games all the time for different consoles and systems. Its not some one-off programming job that will be completely custom.

The money is definitely there.

The money is not 'definitely there'. As you don't know how much money it is or how long it would last. Interest is not enough to make it worth the time and money to create these Legacy realms thus far. You claim it isn't expensive to set up the servers but you don't know how much money it costs to setup/maintain or how much man hours are involved. You just assume because some people had a working Emulator they spent years on that it is 'easy'?

[Thimagryn]

The interest itself is proof, as setting up some servers isn't expensive. Porting the old games over will be where most of the cost comes from, but if you launch even just Vanilla-Wrath servers under the subscription model they would easily make a profit.

Game studios port games all the time for different consoles and systems. Its not some one-off programming job that will be completely custom.

See, this is the problem with the discussion. It's not proof of anything unless we know it is a fact, and it is not a fact simply because some people have come to a common conclusion that it can be or should be. The costs I pointed out are not even related to setting up servers; it's the cost of hiring an entire team worth of people to maintain them. And there is no guarantee that 'even releasing Wrath servers will make a profit' when it simply is not true. It's not a definitive, and that's what I'm pointing out.

These are not proofs or facts, so we should not be talking about the situation as though Blizzard is doing something stupid by not acting. What's clear is that no one except Blizzard knows the calculated costs and risks involved with getting Legacy set up. We shouldn't be assuming that the costs are negligible and there is no risk involved.

I'm all for having Legacy servers, but I want to make sure that it's realistically possible and not hold on to some blind faith that every one of the Nost players is and always-has-been willing to shell out monthly fees for 5+ years to play Legacy. Blizzard is looking to monetize where they can and if player support wanes for Legacy, so will their support.

The money is definitely there.

There's money in making a Starcraft movie too, but whether or not it is worth the cost and risk is what would need to be discussed.

[Struggle]

The money is not 'definitely there'. As you don't know how much money it is or how long it would last. Interest is not enough to make it worth the time and money to create these Legacy realms thus far. You claim it isn't expensive to set up the servers but you don't know how much money it costs to setup/maintain or how much man hours are involved. You just assume because some people had a working Emulator they spent years on that it is 'easy'?

No, I assume because I'm a software engineer and know what porting games and systems over looks like, as well as rough knowledge of setting something like this up.

I have no delusions that it would take a sizable investment. The coding work is boring as hell, and staff does need to be hired to do that as well as maintain the servers.

But that investment pales in comparison to the amount of money that could be made.

-SNIP-

We can definitely presume that as some of us have professional knowledge of what this undertaking would entail.

It is stupid for them to pass on Legacy servers, plain and simple. It would cost money to set up, and there is a little risk, but it's without a shadow of a doubt a serious money maker. The only reason they wouldn't do it is due to the bad PR of them lying for years.

[Dormie]

This isn't complicated. Once WoW is about done with expansions they simply start again from the beginning. Open Vanilla realms, slowly release its patches, and eventually open BC then Wrath etc.

[Thimagryn]

We can definitely presume that as some of us have professional knowledge of what this undertaking would entail.

It is stupid for them to pass on Legacy servers, plain and simple. It would cost money to set up, and there is a little risk, but it's without a shadow of a doubt a serious money maker. The only reason they wouldn't do it is due to the bad PR of them lying for years.

You talk from only one perspective. As a software engineer, how much of the business and marketting have you handled on AAA game titles? I've seen Activision Blizzard cancel entire projects based on 'not worth spending marketting budget' first hand. Games that were complete and functional. And this is Blizzard we're talking about; the company that will cancel their projects rather than shipping a product that doesn't meet their standards. Just youtube Warcraft Adventures and you'll see that like 80%+ of that game was fully playable.

There's definitely more to this issue than the logistics of a working-and-functional Legacy server. Money and marketing are going to be considerable factors in deciding whether this happens or not.

[Struggle]

You talk from only one perspective. As a software engineer, how much of the business and marketting have you handled on AAA game titles? I've seen Activision Blizzard cancel entire projects based on 'not worth spending marketting budget' first hand. Games that were complete and functional. And this is Blizzard we're talking about; the company that will cancel their projects rather than shipping a product that doesn't meet their standards. Just youtube Warcraft Adventures and you'll see that like 80%+ of that game was fully playable.

There's definitely more to this issue than the logistics of a working-and-functional Legacy server. Money and marketing are going to be considerable factors in deciding whether this happens or not.

I don't work in the gaming industry, I just have experience working on massive scale projects like the one legacy servers would entail.

There is marketing and money involved, there's no disputing that. And yea, they've cancelled games in the past.

But those were new properties that weren't complete. This is World of Warcraft, with 100% of its game code, art, sound, etc done. It just needs to be ported to work with modern server architectures and operating systems. And likely Battle.Net integration on top of that so it's easier on Blizzard's dev team in the long run. Pending those few things, it's done.

Like I said I'm fully aware of the realities of this project. It would cost millions of dollars for sure all said and done for multiple expansions. But the potential (and essentially guaranteed) revenues from the project would be within the tens of millions before the first fiscal year of the project finished.

[Thimagryn]

The problem with that is, with indications of how Mark Kern hints through his polls, that the sub revenues will also be linked with Live in some way (ie Legion sales). While the overall will be bolstered by both and would be a considerable success, Legion may do well on its own without Legacy.

Anyways, I don't contest that money will be made from this if it happens. I'm simply pointing out that it's going to be a major factor in Blizzard deciding internally whether it will be cost effective, despite how successful we think it may be. I don't think any of us have any actual idea how much money this project would actually make. Tens of millions is still a number being pulled from thin air (as accurate as it may end up being). It is not a fact nor is it a guarantee; and if it were really that simple we wouldn't be met with so much resistance from Blizzard in the first place.

[Vineri]

You talk from only one perspective. As a software engineer, how much of the business and marketting have you handled on AAA game titles? I've seen Activision Blizzard cancel entire projects based on 'not worth spending marketting budget' first hand. Games that were complete and functional. And this is Blizzard we're talking about; the company that will cancel their projects rather than shipping a product that doesn't meet their standards. Just youtube Warcraft Adventures and you'll see that like 80%+ of that game was fully playable.

There's definitely more to this issue than the logistics of a working-and-functional Legacy server. Money and marketing are going to be considerable factors in deciding whether this happens or not.

WoW is Blizzard Entertainment's bread and butter, I'd be inclined to think they won't cancel something that made them what they are today, as 'not worth spending marketting budget'. That would be a horrible PR statement to fans. Will they say WoW 2004 does not meet their standards? Slippery PR slope there, since that is the game that revolutionized MMORPG's to the mainstream.

[huehuehue]

This isn't complicated. Once WoW is about done with expansions they simply start again from the beginning. Open Vanilla realms, slowly release its patches, and eventually open BC then Wrath etc.

They're probably just waiting to make sure we buy legion first. Then announcements of something to come a few months in.

[Thimagryn]

WoW is Blizzard Entertainment's bread and butter, I'd be inclined to think they won't cancel something that made them what they are today, as 'not worth spending marketting budget'. That would be a horrible PR statement to fans. Will they say WoW 2004 does not meet their standards? Slippery PR slope there, since that is the game that revolutionized MMORPG's to the mainstream.

Tell that to Disney cancelling their Infinity series, which was making a lot of money yet the cancellation has affected many professionals and studios world-wide.

Whether you approve of it or not, this shit happens on a regular basis in our industry. This is the norm. The fact that you don't hear about every game that's cancelled is because of all the secrecy involved with development in the first place. Don't believe for one second that this is the first time Blizzard is 'listening to the fans'; these decisions are measured and weighed long before you or I know about it. And it's not to say I trust their data or their word; but I know that they aren't so naive to think a few petitions and zealous fans are enough of a guarantee to warrant Legacy servers. We're talking in an echo chamber and none of our words here really reflect the situation at hand - whether Blizzard thinks it's financially viable.

[Vineri]

Tell that to Disney cancelling their Infinity series, which was making a lot of money yet the cancellation has affected many professionals and studios world-wide.

Whether you approve of it or not, this shit happens on a regular basis in our industry. This is the norm. The fact that you don't hear about every game that's cancelled is because of all the secrecy involved with development in the first place. Don't believe for one second that this is the first time Blizzard is 'listening to the fans'; these decisions are measured and weighed long before you or I know about it. And it's not to say I trust their data or their word; but I know that they aren't so naive to think a few petitions and zealous fans are enough of a guarantee to warrant Legacy servers. We're talking in an echo chamber and none of our words here really reflect the situation at hand - whether Blizzard thinks it's financially viable.

Except Infinity did not make Disney. Mickey Mouse made Disney. Infinity did make money initially, but it's currently a product with little real physical value. Nobody is petitioning for more Infinity products.

Whether it affects other professionals and studios worldwide is beyond this scope. That part is irrelevant to discussions here actually (Less cheap stuff from China - Horray!).