Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Blizzard employee says that Warcraft belong to gaming history and deserve a platform to live in - to me that's pretty much confirmation that they want to do it.

That, but also the fact that they have the official numbers. There's a huge community interested in Vanilla, they'd be quite stupid to ignore it.

All in all, this is as close to an official yes that we'll get until Blizzcon Q&A. Although Blizzard has been able to surprise us in the past. We'll see!

[zorkuus]

Blizzard employee says that Warcraft belong to gaming history and deserve a platform to live in - to me that's pretty much confirmation that they want to do it.

That, but also the fact that they have the official numbers. There's a huge community interested in Vanilla, they'd be quite stupid to ignore it.

All in all, this is as close to an official yes that we'll get until Blizzcon Q&A. Although Blizzard has been able to surprise us in the past. We'll see!

There are no "official numbers". What they have is better estimates than what we have. That's it.

[jvbastel]

News Flash: Some people from nost think Blizzard 'really want' Legaccy servers. That is it. It is simply something some nost guys think. Untill Blizzard themselves either confirm or deny, that is all it will ever be. But agian, staggering confirmation bias at work couldnt possibly be a factor here. I mean, christ, the simple fact that Blizzard actually took the time to sit down and talk to them is treated like a bloody carved in stone guarantee to most of the pro-legacy people, so it doesnt surprise me in the least that a nost dev trying to imagine what is going through blizzards collecctive minds with no way of acctually knowing is treated as gospel from god......

They were in the meeting for 5 hours, more than enough time to get a firm grasp on whether some blizzard employees like the idea of legacy servers or not. Honestly, it'd be foolish to assume otherwise. Most of them did play the game during those days and have fond memories of it.

Wanting to play on a vanilla server and actually deciding to make one are 2 very different things though. I think it looks somewhat promising for the vanilla community, but it all depends on how much it would cost. By now it should be obvious that they are actively investigating the posibility, if they weren't already.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

There are no "official numbers". What they have is better estimates than what we have. That's it.

Of course, better estimates, which are thoroughly bigger than their initial guesses. Not only that, but throughout their meeting Blizzard made it clear that Legacy was something they were very interested in.

This is what I've read: http://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=44218

And this is what it stated:

Last Friday, Blizzard hosted the Nostalrius core team members at their campus in Irvine - California in order to discuss about the petition, the legacy community & realms for World of Warcraft. This all happened because of your engagement through the petition (it did matter whatever some people may think) and the fact that we worked hard for years for you, the community, and not for any financial reward. We wanted to share with you our feedback regarding this meeting. [...]

First of all, people at key positions inside Blizzard attended the meeting. They were also all very interested, curious, attentive, and asked a lot of questions about all of the topics we mentioned: the presentation was meant to last less than 2 hours, and we finished after more than 5 hours! Finally, we were very surprised about the deep respect and admiration they all had for what we had accomplished and what the community has built around legacy WoW servers.

[...]

In a sense, they are also Vanilla World of Warcraft fans and one of the game developers said at a point that WoW belongs to gaming history and agreed that it should be playable again, at least for the sake of game preservation, and he would definitely enjoy playing again.

[...]

After this meeting, we can affirm that these guys WANT to have legacy WoW servers, that is for sure. We did everything we could to make this presentation & discussion as professional as possible, which was something that clearly was a pleasant unexpected surprise for the whole Blizzard team, Mike Morhaime included.

[kary]

Feral Druids in raids were good offtanks and bears did much better damage than prot warriors, and generated aggro a lot easier, so it was nice to have a bear instead of an extra prot warrior.
Bears were also more useful in some fights than warriors, they couldn't be polymorphed (Jindo), couldn't be mind controlled (Skeram), except by totems and they could shift out of snare.
They did have their place, but like a balance druid, rarely more than 1 in a raid guild, so its hard to find a guild. If I remember correctly they were also preferred on trash clearing in AQ over warriors, but memory is fuzzy. edit: and of course it was nice to have the 3% crit buff

Found a link where you can do a lot more in-depth reading on what made them good in vanilla: https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3335

With enough time, you can math out something to a guild to allow you to tank.
Still doesn't mean that feral druids were *good* by any margin. It's not like os+3 where classes had clear advantages over each other. In TBC you had to wear pvp/heavy clefthoof crafted gear and that blue trinket from ogri'la to have any chance of not getting instantly destroyed as a bear. I remember that. Dem yellow + defense gems. Sure a feral was nice to have, for hunters/rogues; there's no disputing that. But bears were awful tanks. I won't say that they couldn't tank, I'd say that they were awful and you were likely holding your progression back to play a special snowflake spec. And if you had all content on farm, it didn't matter.

And honestly, if the first boss in AQ and an optional boss in ZG are their only niches, why would you gear a bear druid?

[Surfd]

They were in the meeting for 5 hours, more than enough time to get a firm grasp on whether some blizzard employees like the idea of legacy servers or not. Honestly, it'd be foolish to assume otherwise. Most of them did play the game during those days and have fond memories of it.

Right, but that is not the same thing as attempting to equate that to "Blizzard" wants legacy servers. Which is what voidillusion was attempting to imply. Blizzard, the company, does not make decisions based on the whims of some of its staff, no matter how passionate they may be about those whims.

[Ordinator]

Oh, so you admit that noone would play classic if they had to pay for it?
What? You say they would pay? So you admit the fact that Blizzard was losing out on money?

That's not even what my post intended. Speaking broadly, the people who were playing Nostalrius were playing because they weren't happy with the state of retail WoW and weren't going back to play retail just because Blizzard shut down the WoW they were enjoying. Therefore, Blizzard wasn't losing out on money by people playing Nost. They weren't potential customers to begin with.

[Neteyes]

Right, but that is not the same thing as attempting to equate that to "Blizzard" wants legacy servers. Which is what voidillusion was attempting to imply. Blizzard, the company, does not make decisions based on the whims of some of its staff, no matter how passionate they may be about those whims.

But they didn't talk with "some" of the staff. They talked with key members of the staff, including the CEO.

[Fenderxx]

Right, but that is not the same thing as attempting to equate that to "Blizzard" wants legacy servers. Which is what voidillusion was attempting to imply. Blizzard, the company, does not make decisions based on the whims of some of its staff, no matter how passionate they may be about those whims.

You are totally correct, but you have to admit that they had to dedicate recourses to look into the man hours to create a Legacy Server. So that means they know there is a demand and a market for this product that can be monetized. The question becomes is the work required worth the reward. Even if all the people in the room want Legacy Servers that are still responsible to run a business that keeps a lot of people employed. Blizzard will not dedicate the recourses to complete all of this work overnight, but if they create a small team, 2-3 people and give them a 1.5 years.. you may have a cost affect Legacy server after the next expansion. I am sure the concern has always been, that people want Legacy servers when there is a content drought and that the demand will go away leaving their hard work useless. I think the community has convinced Blizzard otherwise, so steps will be taken to make Legacy a reality.. just don't count on it anytime soon. Just my thoughts though.

[voidillusion]

Right, but that is not the same thing as attempting to equate that to "Blizzard" wants legacy servers. Which is what voidillusion was attempting to imply. Blizzard, the company, does not make decisions based on the whims of some of its staff, no matter how passionate they may be about those whims.

I implied, i stated, because it transpired from last meeting. We all know though, or should know, that wanting isn't the same thing as being possible. If their desire translates into too much work and low expectations of return, they may as well want, but it aint happening.

All this though is way different than their previous stance of "no".

[goibonuden]

With enough time, you can math out something to a guild to allow you to tank.
Still doesn't mean that feral druids were *good* by any margin. It's not like os+3 where classes had clear advantages over each other. In TBC you had to wear pvp/heavy clefthoof crafted gear and that blue trinket from ogri'la to have any chance of not getting instantly destroyed as a bear. I remember that. Dem yellow + defense gems. Sure a feral was nice to have, for hunters/rogues; there's no disputing that. But bears were awful tanks. I won't say that they couldn't tank, I'd say that they were awful and you were likely holding your progression back to play a special snowflake spec. And if you had all content on farm, it didn't matter.

And honestly, if the first boss in AQ and an optional boss in ZG are their only niches, why would you gear a bear druid?

We're gonna have to agree to disagree I guess. My stance is that warriors were more viable for a large majority of content, but that it was still an asset for any serious raiding guild to gear up at least one feral druid. Plenty of reasoning for that in the link i provided. I don't know about tbc and am talking specifically for vanilla post patch 1.8 though. Edit: Also, if you read link you'd see there's a lot more than just those 2 bosses where it was beneficial to have a feral.

[rda]

This is what I've read: http://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=44218

And this is what it stated:

... the presentation was meant to last less than 2 hours, and we finished after more than 5 hours! ...

What the hell did they discuss for five hours?

Heck, I wonder what the hell is there to talk about even for two hours, but fine, many meetings are repetitive. But five??? Jeez...

That's an awful lot of time to be repeating "we want old servers" - "yeah, we understand, we support you 100%".

[Zandalarian Paladin]

What the hell did they discuss for five hours?

Heck, I wonder what the hell is there to talk about even for two hours, but fine, many meetings are repetitive. But five??? Jeez...

That's an awful lot of time to be repeating "we want old servers" - "yeah, we understand, we support you 100%".

I'm sure Blizzard has bigger issues to fix than to spend 5 hours repeating the same thing over and over. Anyway, it gives nothing to argue further. Vanilla wow will happen, the question is when and how now.

[Morbownz]

I'm almost certain after the Nostalrius meeting that we wont see official legacy realms. Looks like people will be heading back to private realms again in the near future.

[Eleccybubb]

I'm almost certain after the Nostalrius meeting that we wont see official legacy realms. Looks like people will be heading back to private realms again in the near future.

So you really think they are gonna ignore the large amount of interest it has?

[zorkuus]

So you really think they are gonna ignore the large amount of interest it has?

Let's say it happens. Don't hold your breath for the immediate near future. We're probably talking about years here, not months.

[Kallisto]

So you really think they are gonna ignore the large amount of interest it has?

I don't think they'll ignore but they do have to ask if the legacy realms are economically viable and if the interest will last long term.

[Morbownz]

So you really think they are gonna ignore the large amount of interest it has?

No, that's why they set-up the meeting. But that feedback says to me "we aren't against it, we're just not convinced it's worth the risk".

[goibonuden]

No, that's why they set-up the meeting. But that feedback says to me "we aren't against it, we're just not convinced it's worth the risk".

I doubt they've decided either way as of right now, as I don't think they have anything to gain from postponing saying no if they're not interested. "we aren't against it, we're just not convinced it's worth the risk" sounds about right, but wouldn't that mean it could go either way at this point?

[Jerichofr]

I doubt they've decided either way as of right now, as I don't think they have anything to gain from postponing saying no if they're not interested. "we aren't against it, we're just not convinced it's worth the risk" sounds about right, but wouldn't that mean it could go either way at this point?

I disagree. Look at the flight in WoD issue, and how long they strung that along. To me, this is the same thing, and as someone who is 100% against legacy servers, I'm fine with them stringing people along like that.