Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Thage]

People like to talk about "moving forward" and "looking ahead."

Dude, we've lived in a fake world fighting fake video game dragons and collecting fake video game clothes for our characters for the past 12 years. The ENTIRE GAME is nostalgia-based. Who randomly decides to start playing a 12 year old MMO? No one! Everyone has been subbed for years. "Moving forward" is quitting MMOs and being real human beings.

I played WoD, quit, then tried Nostalrius. I sincerely liked it better than WoD as a game.

Yeah, the moments I had in vanilla were some of the best in my life at the time, but when I go back to play games like FF6, FF7, Zelda 64, or even Diablo or Warcraft 3, I get bored as fuck.

Vanilla is genuinely a good game, at least to many of us.

To add to this, to everyone asking "Why look backwards?" (copypasting my answer from another thread from here on out)

Well, for one, posterity. World of Warcraft as it existed in 2005 is impossible to obtain and play legally right now. The environments (barring instanced maps), dungeons (again, barring the maps, but a few of these were also changed/condensed), class designs, storylines, and many items are all currently lost to history. In essence, there's an entire MMORPG, one that kickstarted the genre's shift into the mainstream rather than being the butt of the 'sweaty, greasy EverQuest nerd' stereotype once celebrities began coming out as WoW players coupled with Blizzard's aggressive and successful marketing that's lost to the aether.

So a legacy server would accomplish a fairly important goal in preserving WoW in a form that currently doesn't exist (the expansions are less subject to this arguing point, as they're largely unchanged from release other than character design like talents and abilities). Given WoW's place in video game history, that's a fairly big deal. That it would also appeal to a demographic that may not currently be giving Blizz money is just the financial carrot-on-a-stick that could get the team to justify it to the suits.

I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it, myself, but I can see the value in preserving history rather than just constantly forging onward without any time taken to study the past. Or just go back and play an old game without having to step into legal grey areas to do so; again, classic WoW is an outlier here along with other dead MMORPGs as I can still buy an Atari 2600 and play the SwordQuest games, or grab a Sega Genesis and play Phantasy Star II (which is historic as one of the first RPGs to feature a major party member's permanent plot death midway into the game).

Unless the Library of Congress starts hosting servers to run MMOs that had a huge impact on the genre and are no longer available to play, right now the only choices are to play them on private servers, which involves making a few moral and ethical compromises, or continue lobbying Blizzard to put up a server for posterity.

There's also that contingent who just hate the modern game and would rather revel in nostalgia, and that's just as valid given, again, the game is completely inaccessible through legal means right now and those players bought a game with the intent to play it for a pretty long time, given the nature of an MMO.

[Deficineiron]

I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it, myself, but I can see the value in preserving history rather than just constantly forging onward without any time taken to study the past. Or just go back and play an old game without having to step into legal grey areas to do so; again, classic WoW is an outlier here along with other dead MMORPGs as I can still buy an Atari 2600 and play the SwordQuest games, or grab a Sega Genesis and play Phantasy Star II (which is historic as one of the first RPGs to feature a major party member's permanent plot death midway into the game).[/FONT]

this is actually a very good point. I play early-mid 80s mame coin-op roms, am currently working through populous 2 via dosbox, and more generally have played video games since they were introduced (pong, but I was young). MMO's old versions may be the only thing you cannot either buy or just download (copyright lapsed) legally and play.

none of this addresses the legal aspect but it does point out that the situation is an aberration compared to all other video games.

[Tackhisis]

i want to play Elders Scrolls Morrowind i can still buy the old disk and play. Or buy it in Steam.
In this case we can't play Vanilla (a 12 year old game).

You can buy Vanilla WoW disk and play. It will automatically upgrade to the actual version.

[Deleted]

Sorry but Private Servers will never happen. Bluizzard will lose money if they make them and Win10 can't run c++ (the langueage of Wow 1.0). Times change.

[Tackhisis]

Unless the Library of Congress starts hosting servers to run MMOs that had a huge impact on the genre and are no longer available to play

But World of Warcraft is available to play, in the same form it was created.

[deniter]

Sorry but Private Servers will never happen. Bluizzard will lose money if they make them and Win10 can't run c++ (the langueage of Wow 1.0). Times change.

Yup, we already know win10 is shit.

[Xudomus]

Win10 can't run c++

kek

In all honesty, why is this damn thread so long? Either Blizz will bring it back, or someone else will. All we gotta do is wait for BlizzCon to find out. All other discussion seems irrelevant.

[Deleted]

But World of Warcraft is available to play, in the same form it was created.

It is?
With the old world, talents, spells, balance, no LFG?

[AeneasBK]

I like how I've come back to this thread however many months later and people are still arguing that the Vanilla WoW game is still "there" in retail

[Eleccybubb]

It is?
With the old world, talents, spells, balance, no LFG?

The world was updated over time because MMO games are ever evolving. You should know that especially since MMOs before WoW did the same thing. But again it might not be available but "World of Warcraft" is owned by Blizzard and they will shut down servers to risk losing their IP. You don't have to believe this and go with the "they hate vanilla players" argument even though they invited Nost to their headquarters when they could have gone down a completely different road and ignored them but the fact is they were in ever right to shut it down in order to protect their IP.

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I like how I've come back to this thread however many months later and people are still arguing that the Vanilla WoW game is still "there" in retail

It's not I agree. Doesn't mean Blizzard still don't own the rights to it. However the core mechanic of the RPG aspect is which is level up, do quests, raid, dungeon and PvP in WoWs case.

[Thage]

But World of Warcraft is available to play, in the same form it was created.

The original 1-60 game, which is what kickstarted MMORPGs becoming a mainstream genre, is not available. The zones and questlines from Classic, the original dungeon quests and in some cases the dungeon maps, and many gear sets are no longer obtainable. Many dungeons and at least two raids are no longer available in their original format. The Cataclysm revamp did away with almost the entirety of the original game's content. That's what you can't access anymore--it's not like BC where you can do the old Outland questlines, dungeons, and raids as they were implemented at BC launch with the exception of a few titles.

[Pejo]

There is discussion that is worthwhile; however, it seems to get ignored. As fans, we should be discussing the different aspects of it from a business perspective: progressive servers vs all content released, how to handle population, spawn rates the same as Vanilla or changed to deal with population, possible payment models, etc. Instead, we sit here and argue back and forth the legality of it - fucking waste of time. I asked this yesterday and it was ignored by everyone who wants these servers:

I think we should be looking at what Blizzard could do to solve some of the technical problems they're going to run into. One of these issues is how to deal with the population for the legacy server. Let's talk about what this could look like, using some of the numbers people have thrown out in this thread.

Let's say 1M people across NA/EU decide to play, and let's assume they make servers in NA and EU to keep them separate like they are currently (where PS are worldwide). There are three scenarios we want to look at (I won't add timeframes because they're variable and it's not about when these scenarios will occur):
- Initial launch. There will be a huge spike on interest (more than what will actually play long term on the server, or subscribe). This can be seen at any expansion launch.
- Population is stable. This is where the servers are pretty set, certain number of people play at peak, etc.
- When population starts to decrease, and you end up with low population servers.

With original WoW servers, the servers were capped at 5K but let's assume they spend engineering time to increase these caps to 15K or so. The reason they are currently able to go high is due to phasing/virtualization of realms. Is this something we want to allow on the Vanilla servers to allow for that? This is not a Vanilla experience and can lead to you not seeing people that you expect to see, even if they go with their current instances implementation. Do we expect players to wait in hour long queues? Do we open more servers? If we open more servers and servers decrease to low population, do we connect legacy realms? Once again, this is against the Vanilla experience since your community is changing now. Maybe you liked low population. To deal with PVP battleground queues, do we do crossrealm queues once they become low population, or queues reach a certain wait time?

This is only one of the technical issues they will run into (most of this is the business decisions, not even the engineering involved) - what are peoples' thoughts?

There is no wrong answer for this, and gets us thinking about different concessions.
I, myself, would like them to the time engineering to increase server population vs the old cap. I did like the server only aspect, and would prefer single instancing per zone, allowing for large events like the AQ event to be absolutely hectic with tons of players versus instancing at the continent level. This will keep events like this lagging out the whole server, but keep the familiar social aspect of Vanilla where there aren't multiple instances of a zone as there is in Legion. I understand this will decrease server caps, but will be worth it imo for that experience. I would not like to see crossrealm BGs, but am open to connecting realms at low population in the future.

Now, what do others think/prefer?

[Shridevi]

Sorry but Private Servers will never happen. Bluizzard will lose money if they make them and Win10 can't run c++ (the langueage of Wow 1.0). Times change.

I'm not sure what you mean. Compilers are made for Windows 10, they compile C++ code into machine code, applications, and so forth. Even if that couldn't happen, the .NET framework runs it. That's not even what happens anyway, an installer does the work. Not that it even matters, because private servers run on pretty much the exact same WoW client, and it works in Windows 10. Not being a jerk, just saying.

[Xudomus]

I would not like to see crossrealm BGs, but am open to connecting realms at low population in the future.

It would be nice if they just came out before the launch of it and said "Servers X, Y, and Z are in a cluster. When the total population drops below (some number) they will merge into one server permanently. No Name-"X_Server" tags or anything (just allow duplicate names on the server, there'd be only a few per unique name), one day, there'll just be more people back in the realms." That way you can maybe scope out who's joining who and know a little of what to expect

[Pejo]

No Name-"X_Server" tags or anything (just allow duplicate names on the server, there'd be only a few per unique name), one day, there'll just be more people back in the realms." That way you can maybe scope out who's joining who and know a little of what to expect

I believe this part would be hard due to the whisper/mail system. If I wanted to mail Xudomus and he was on server 1/2/3, I need a way to know which one. It would be a small problem, but I think we may not be able to ditch the -Server part until we go to BattleTags or something.

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If Vanilla does come out, just make 3 realms. 1 pve, 1 pvp, 1 rp.

Hell, I'd even stretch and say just make 1 realm altogether.

Even with just three realms, how should we deal with the population? Long queues? Multiple instances of a zone?

[Tackhisis]

The zones and questlines from Classic, the original dungeon quests and in some cases the dungeon maps, and many gear sets are no longer obtainable. Many dungeons and at least two raids are no longer available in their original format.

All zones and dungeons are still available. Most quests are the same. Except some insignificant difficulties, it is the same game.

[Thage]

All zones and dungeons are still available. Most quests are the same. Except some insignificant difficulties, it is the same game.

The zones were changed in Cataclysm. Very few of the original quest chains are still ingame, none of the original class quests are ingame, and the few iconic questlines carried over were condensed to the point that they only resemble the original quests at their most superficial scale. Zones like Redridge, Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge, Westfall, Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest, Eastern Plaguelands, Western Plaguelands, Stonetalon Mountains, Ashenvale, Darkshore, Desolace, the Barrens, Loch Modan, and even the starter zones like Deathknell and Northshire have been changed greatly. The dungeon quests are all different and many stories within the dungeons are completely different. Zul'Gurub and Naxxramas are unavailable in their original formats; the maps were recycled for high-level content.

You are being factually incorrect for the sake of pushing a false narrative. Anyone who played before Cataclysm can tell you without a heartbeat of doubt that you are incorrect.

[EviForums]

All zones and dungeons are still available. Most quests are the same. Except some insignificant difficulties, it is the same game.

*sigh*

Azshara is completely different. Westfall has a big hole in it. Loch Modan isn't a loch anymore. I could go on. I did classic loremaster, and then the Cata loremaster, and to say "most" quests are the same is laughable. Burning Steppes springs to mind as having an entirely fresh questing experience.

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Zul'Gurub

Good example. An entire faction gone with it, along with gear sets, mounts, encounters (fishing up Gaz), etc. And that's one small example.

[Kyanion]

*sigh*

Azshara is completely different. Westfall has a big hole in it. Loch Modan isn't a loch anymore. I could go on. I did classic loremaster, and then the Cata loremaster, and to say "most" quests are the same is laughable. Burning Steppes springs to mind as having an entirely fresh questing experience.

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Good example. An entire faction gone with it, along with gear sets, mounts, encounters (fishing up Gaz), etc. And that's one small example.

K? Still does not matter. Blizz can change the game as they see fit and you have no legal recourse to do anything about it. You can go play private servers if you want but don't bitch when they get shut down.

[EviForums]

K? Still does not matter. Blizz can change the game as they see fit and you have no legal recourse to do anything about it. You can go play private servers if you want but don't bitch when they get shut down.

non sequitur
nɒn ˈsɛkwɪtə/
noun

a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement