Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Vash The Stampede]

Vanilla wasn't that good. It was only good in that people didn't know everything, thanks to datamining basically not existing, and it being most peoples first MMO.

Like all expansions, there's no perfect version WoW. As a person who likes playing a Ret Paladin, I should have no love for it, but yet I do. Not because Ret worked, but because the game generally worked better. For me TBC was by far the worst expansion for Ret, but it has the most to offer in game play.

But like all expansions, there's always something to learn from each one, even WoD. What I liked about Vanilla WoW was the talent system, one raid difficulty, and lack of casual content. If devs could bring that back today then we'd be a few changes away from a perfect WoW.

Most people who talk about how great Vanilla is didn't get to play it, it was before their time or there parents didn't buy them subs. Don't even bother listening to people talk about how the lack of LFG tool made a "better community". You spent half an hour sitting in a city spamming LFG chat while everyone else sat AFK at a meeting stone to summon.

While I agree the removal of modern tools would be stupid, the LFG was kinda worse. Getting in a queue with 4 other random players is generally a bad thing. Why you ask? Firstly, cause you never develop relationships with people in another realm. It's a wam bam, than you mam. Secondly, cause there's no consequences for player actions. You could be a dick and pull stuff in a room and leave the dungeon. Doing stuff like this on a realm will get you a reputation, and grouping up gets harder. Finally, it puts less importance in realms. It's nice to be proud of a realm that isn't full of asshats.

Now the new WoD LFG that allows you to look for people to raid/dungeon is just an optimized general chat in my opinion.

OTE=Mahourai;42777732]
A "remix" of Vanilla WoW is outside the scope of this topic, really. It's closer to something like the Cataclysm relaunches of ZG and ZA. It's also far less feasible for Blizzard to develop than a traditional private server style. What you're looking for is more like an entirely new expansion than relaunched old content.[/QUOTE]

I imagine that Blizzard just wants more TimeWalker crap in place of servers. I don't mind a graphical remix, but nothing more. Also, any server Blizzard opens up would need to be patched. This is more for game play quality as they need to keep it consistently good. Imagine if there's a bug that makes the game crash whenever someone does something in the game, and it's left as is to be never patched? Blizzard is obligated to patch even an old game, it's just that those patches move on to v2 and v3 and etc.

[Mahourai]

You are not the vast majority of people who want to play legacy WoW.

I didn't say I was, unlike later in your post where you roleplay as a Blizzard employee, even saying you're "giving insight" into their decision-making process (you aren't). I'm simply stating facts - almost no private servers for any MMORPG, much less WoW, are run in the fashion you desire. This is because people don't like to develop them, or play on them.

[Shridevi]

I think if Blizzard decides to make legacy servers then they will do a decent job either way, and most of us will be very happy either way. Yeah, I would prefer an authentic vanilla experience, but most of these matters really are trivial.

I didn't realize that anyone had a prob with the way Nostalrius did vanilla until reading this thread, because for me they did an amazing job and it seemed almost exact. Yeah, during an Onyxia quest I saw one line of French dialogue, and the placement of number of mobs in UBRS did not seem exact, and early on I heard that frost nova could be spell reflected (which was fixed), but I got to play vanilla again! And it was fun. People were and are still addicted to Nost's vanilla, even more so than I am. I bumped into 3 pvp friends from retail who all independently decided to get addicted to Nost, we had no idea we played, we only identified each other from similar char names.

The important issues for me are normal 1x experience, the same world and instances, same class abilities and balancing. There will be creative choices, for example if Blizz decides to increase the number of debuffs right from the start that would prevent some exploits later on with Vaelastresz and maybe allow more affliction locks to join raids. Then it wouldn't be just like vanilla but it's totally understandable. God damn, that is like 0.00001% of the big picture. Even if they made experience 1.5x the normal rate I might complain at first, but I'd still definitely play. All of this is just the culture of WoW forum nitpicking and perfectionism.

If Blizzard makes legacy servers they will be extremely popular and profitable. There is data to irrefutably prove it: petitions, statistics from Nost, 20+ top Twitch streamers pledging to play it, not to mention that no one really knew about Nost when it was operational. I also know because I have about 10 friends IRL and online itching to play it, and I saw people get addicted to Nostalrius. I don't even have 10 friends who play Overwatch or SC2. If the realms progress from 1.0 to the end of WoTLK that is SIX YEARS of playing. Why are we worried about legacy having a finite length? After six years video games will drastically change and WoW 2 could be out for all we know, plus legacy can always start over from 1.0 again and we'd have a blast.

This nitpicking is all bullshit. I don't have fun from arguing on the forums, I have fun questing in mystical Darkshore before Deathwing jumped the shark and fucked it up!

[parcus]

This nitpicking is all bullshit. I don't have fun from arguing on the forums, I have fun questing in mystical Darkshore before Deathwing jumped the shark and fucked it up!

No it's not bullshit. Yes, Blizzard doesn't HAVE TO make things perfect, but they have to at least try, since that's what will set official servers apart from random private vanilla server X.

[Molis]

Depends on how quick is quick. Only a handful of guilds cleared BWL on it's first week out. MC on the flip side is pretty easy to beat in BIS gear.... yet still, some guilds did struggle there. Hell I've been in Ony pugs that legit couldn't kill her and eventually disbanded. Ditto with stuff in ZG. Keep in mind AQ40 and Naxx did not yet hit.

Not the vanilla experience. Not even close.

You can not have it both ways. You can not have the true version 1.1 that Blizzard published and some Nost fun server where people are face rolling MC and BWL in a week.

[voidillusion]

No it's not bullshit. Yes, Blizzard doesn't HAVE TO make things perfect, but they have to at least try, since that's what will set official servers apart from random private vanilla server X.

Because live version is perfect right? And i'm not event talking about design options, i'm talking about pure bugs that exist in the game.

A game this big, be it vanilla or live, is bound to be imperfect, fixes will have to happen on either case.

[Gadzooks]

Not the vanilla experience. Not even close.

You can not have it both ways. You can not have the true version 1.1 that Blizzard published and some Nost fun server where people are face rolling MC and BWL in a week.

I've stayed out of the squabbling over what a legacy server would be - the final arbiter of that is Blizzard, not the players, but I agree with this. You want a vanilla server? Then that's what you get - none of this "We want vanilla servers...but with all the quality of life fixes and mods from now." A real "vanilla experience" is wiping on the same boss for weeks in MC, then spending months farming that boss to get good gear for the entire raid, two drops at a time. Anything less isn't vanilla.

[Tharkkun]

So Blizzard is not capable of hiring new personnel to focus on a legacy project? Devs (to maintain a product that is complete) are finite? The team does not have to be anywhere near as large and does not have to have all the bells and whistles of a current xpac. Nor does it have to be released in all markets. Start small in a test market and expand...like what most companies do with products.

That's the entire point. The product isn't complete anymore.

Much of the arctitecture that ran WoW in 2004 doesn't exist. Battle.net has been upgraded. Server architecture has changed. Instances, crz, etc. They would need to create separate infrastructure as well as completely overhaul much of the login and communication process because that no longer exists. It would take more than just a sustaining team to keep it running.

That's why you can't just turn on legacy servers.

[Coombs]

I've stayed out of the squabbling over what a legacy server would be - the final arbiter of that is Blizzard, not the players, but I agree with this. You want a vanilla server? Then that's what you get - none of this "We want vanilla servers...but with all the quality of life fixes and mods from now." A real "vanilla experience" is wiping on the same boss for weeks in MC, then spending months farming that boss to get good gear for the entire raid, two drops at a time. Anything less isn't vanilla.

That is exactly how it should be. The only thing that I would possibly argue with is keep the graphical updates. The UI and the shop and all the other new bullshit should not be in.

[slaise1]

I've stayed out of the squabbling over what a legacy server would be - the final arbiter of that is Blizzard, not the players, but I agree with this. You want a vanilla server? Then that's what you get - none of this "We want vanilla servers...but with all the quality of life fixes and mods from now." A real "vanilla experience" is wiping on the same boss for weeks in MC, then spending months farming that boss to get good gear for the entire raid, two drops at a time. Anything less isn't vanilla.

If Blizzard could make their patches and their cycles close to identical of vanilla it would be amazing. But it would also mean enchantment shamans not having stormstrike from the get go lol.

[Eleccybubb]

That's the entire point. The product isn't complete anymore.

Much of the arctitecture that ran WoW in 2004 doesn't exist. Battle.net has been upgraded. Server architecture has changed. Instances, crz, etc. They would need to create separate infrastructure as well as completely overhaul much of the login and communication process because that no longer exists. It would take more than just a sustaining team to keep it running.

That's why you can't just turn on legacy servers.

This. Migrating shit to work on the new battle.net is going to be a pain in the ass. Supposedly they are doing it with Warcraft 3 and wanting to get older blizzard games on the modern system. People think legacy is just flip a switch and voila it would still require a dedicated team and a lot of development work.

[tratra]

just checked blizzcon schedule there is nothing for world of warcraft only apart from Q&A...

maybe: Blizzard 25th Anniversary - A Look Back, maybe they say something during that.

[Kyanion]

just checked blizzcon schedule there is nothing for world of warcraft only apart from Q&A...

maybe: Blizzard 25th Anniversary - A Look Back, maybe they say something during that.

Yeah I can see it now during the Q&A:

"Any plans to release Legacy servers?"
"Not at this time. Next question"

[CosmicGuitars]

just checked blizzcon schedule there is nothing for world of warcraft only apart from Q&A...

maybe: Blizzard 25th Anniversary - A Look Back, maybe they say something during that.

They aren't going to have anything to announce after just a few months.

[RickJamesLich]

Can you at least get my argument right? I will start misrepresenting your argument if you continue to misrepresent mine. I am not against vanilla at all. I want you to tell me what made vanilla so great. In talking to a lot of Nost-lovers, i have found that a good amount of them don't want any changes to the boss abilities in Molten Core. Then i must assume that they found those abilities so great that they don't want it changed. Or, they don't want it changed because they don't want to compromise at all. Or, they are irrational individuals.

Blizzard should not design around the irrational or the ones who don't want to compromise. So, what is so great about the boss abilities in Molten Core. I am genuinely curious why Baron Geddon's Living Bomb lasting exactly 10 s is amazing to you.

If i made a logical error, point it out to me. If i didn't, but it doesn't make sense to you (read it, to you, because you can only speak for yourself), then an education should be a much higher priority for you than a Blizzard sponsored Nost-clone.

Nah Molten Core is fine as it is. If they had a "harder version" I honestly wouldn't oppose it, but on the flip side, I do think it's in a good spot as an entry level spot for raiders to hit up. Ditto with Onyxia. Bear in mind while many have an easy time at these places at the same time many did struggle too. That being said I don't mind certain adjustments.... as long as they make sense.

You should do one of two things, in my opinion. You should emulate vanilla kill rates (as you said 3 months for Rag, and another 3 for Nef). Or, you should emulate retail's kill rates. It took over 400 attempts to down Archimonde in WoD. It took less than 4 to down Rag (when he was current content) on Nost. That is awful from the Nost developers.

There are of course differences and after 10 years there are mechanics that can make boss fights harder, on this we do not disagree. I do think on the flip side the idea of having to repair gear through inconvenient measures, things like literally running out of gold for repairs, etc. is a good mechanic so you can't just zerg the same boss over and over without consequence. Of course on retail you do need to repair gear for example, but the costs are beyond insignificant. As a hardcore raider I was never a big fan of the whole doing 40 attempts in a night thing with no real penalties being available if you die repeatedly. That being said the game's mechanics were very different, I can say that while some things are definitely more challenging, some of the challenges are non-existant anymore, such as tanks handling multiple adds, or the possibility of going OOM. Now I know there are certain points in the last few expansions where as a healer you could go oom, but it's clearly not a major issue the way it was back then.

I know you mentioned that earlier. But you never will mention the actual differences that you are ok with. Can i assume that any change Nostalrius developers decide is fine for you? If not, can you speak for yourself (you seem to love speaking for everyone, but yourself).

I need you to compromise. Blizzard sponsoring a Nost-clone is a horrible idea. If they do a legacy server, or implement legacy options into current WoW, we need to look at living, breathing options. Not a stagnant one.

And your example is awful. Picking up and playing SMB on the ol' NES is the exact same game. We all can agree. But, when was SMB patched? How does your analogy at all fit in to vanilla WoW and Nost-clone WoW?

Nah, it's difficult to go into details over what changes I would be good with and which ones I would not be, just because there's thousands of things that could be changed. If I *had* to change up a few things, personally I'd change hybrids to be more viable as dps, while also counteracting that by taking away their healing abilities, I'd also give druids and pallies a few more tanking tools..... but overall those are the big things. I'm not opposed to some changes, but many of the private servers bring in the bad stuff, paying for levels for example. I'm not opposed to all changes though, for example the whole thing with raising the cap on the number of players on the server was a great idea.

- - - Updated - - -

Not the vanilla experience. Not even close.

You can not have it both ways. You can not have the true version 1.1 that Blizzard published and some Nost fun server where people are face rolling MC and BWL in a week.

Why not? If the mechanics are the same and players get punished the same if they don't follow them, I see no problem with people being able to beat said raids faster than it was done during vanilla.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

just checked blizzcon schedule there is nothing for world of warcraft only apart from Q&A...

maybe: Blizzard 25th Anniversary - A Look Back, maybe they say something during that.

Well, objectively that would be the best spot to put it. If you're going to do a "Look Back", DII remastered and Vanilla servers are two very strong candidates.

Also according to Nost, Blizzcon has a surprise for us. If not, they'll take care of it.

[Molis]

Why not? If the mechanics are the same and players get punished the same if they don't follow them, I see no problem with people being able to beat said raids faster than it was done during vanilla.

Because that is not Legacy, Vanilla or Classic WoW.
It is some abomination that was pieced together by 5 dudes in a basement (ie Nostalrius)

I suppose you want Elemental Shamans to be viable DPS as well?
or
The 8 debuff limit increased?
or
Paladins to be able to tank a Core Hound?

The list goes on and on

[A dot Ham]

Actually that was your point. As for burden of proof: guilty until proven innocent is your claim.

Provide evidence FOR your claim, and people will take you seriously. Currently there is evidence that people want to play Legacy. Belittling the numbers to your advantage only weakens your cause, IMO. Making up stats doesn't help either. Private servers are everywhere, more than ever. If you think people don't want their old games back, you are wrong.

To be fair the "evidence" that people use which is what the petition? Only gives you a snapshot of initial interest, but gives little to no insight into the long term viability of such a business move.

If those of us currently playing and enjoying Legion can't use initial sales numbers as evidence to Legion being pretty awesome, then you certainly can't use a damn petition to project the success of Legacy servers.

[Kyanion]

Also according to Nost, Blizzcon has a surprise for us. If not, they'll take care of it.

I'm sure Blizzard is quaking in their boots at the threat of people that had to take donations to fund their server.

[Molis]

I'm sure Blizzard is quaking in their boots at the threat of people that had to take donations to fund their server.

I found the threat comical.
It took some balls I guess, but overall very immature.

These really sound like guys that Blizzard would like to go into business with.