Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Pann]

I generally avoid your posts because of your uncanny ability to piss me off, but I'd really wish you would stop trying to push this narrative that this thread is fueled by people with a certain pro- or anti- agenda. Ultimately, it's about discussion. It doesn't matter what position the poster in question has if they're attempting to carry on a reasonable exchange of ideas in the meantime. I think that's the fundamental purpose of forums so trying to develop trends where no trends are necessary is extremely detracting.

To be honest, I wish you'd avoided that post as well it would have saved me from reading the ridiculous strawman. If you're going to reply to me in future I would be grateful if you at least tried to address what I have written.

[Eleccybubb]

It was implemented in Vanilla, patch 1.3, in the form of Meeting Stones. They were LFG tools until TBC changed them into their current thing.

Ok so we have what was suggested. Go to the dungeon and use the stone.

[Deficineiron]

They've done that before, with China. They even explained why they don't just outsource their servers: they don't like risking other people failing to achieve the standards they have set for their service, because that kind of stuff affects Blizzard's image and credibility, not the third-party who messed things up. So even if they were up for it, before you can set up your own World of Warcraft server, you'd have to conform to their standards. Full uptime, as few bugs as possible, integration with Battle.net (that would be tricky), a proper full-time GM staff, all that stuff. None of the private server crews got that yet.

there is pretty much no choice about partnering with a chinese company if they wanted to get into the chinese market. It is, in terms of the combination of closed market status and huge gamer population base, a unique situation.

- - - Updated - - -

I generally avoid your posts because of your uncanny ability to piss me off, but I'd really wish you would stop trying to push this narrative that this thread is fueled by people with a certain pro- or anti- agenda. Ultimately, it's about discussion. It doesn't matter what position the poster in question has if they're attempting to carry on a reasonable exchange of ideas in the meantime. I think that's the fundamental purpose of forums so trying to develop trends where no trends are necessary is extremely detracting.

are we reading the same thread? 50% or more of this thread is back and forth between a small set of posters for several pages or more. 75%? is emotional ramblings, willfully obtuse comments/analogies/flawed notions/common core math claims, and blatant attempts to bait other posters or otherwise direct personal attacks.

Pann is one of the posters who seems to have a grasp of the larger externals at work (business factors, legal realities, etc), and posts much more to these and avoids the omnipresent emotional overtones of the topic which dominate most posts here.

I see 2 major external issues that would be interesting to clarify -

How much demand is there for the product? How do the participation levels in other old mmo classic servers suggest (just linearly applying them) response here would be, comparing several data points (peak subs at games peak, current newversion subs, peak legacy subs, curve of decline, etc)? then, how do those figures apply to wow, which had a much broader, not-so-hard-core-gamer market even in classic? I have seen arguments literally suggesting classic servers would have less subs than rsos has right now. clearly the number is larger. How did any public metrics when rsos was being considered measure up to vs the eventual number of players on those servers? I seriously doubt there were 30k unique posters on a RS forum demanding them. very likely much, much, MUCH less. Does anyone know? Any other metrics of interest pre-rsos?

To this I will add that most posters do not seem to fully grasp just how huge wow became compared to other western mmo's. If you assume a western sub peak of 6m or so (early 2009), what is wow, 10x?? larger than any prior mmo? (I don't know exact multiple).

How would blizzard structure the product financially? They could just make part of the wow sub and hope it altered the unsub pattterns. they could charge some premium for access to teh classic server, and/or require current expansion box purchased (not trivial either).

finally, would blizzard's expectations for the product meet what a/b would want to see in terms of potential revenue? Bobby kotick discontinued several titles when he got vivendi's game division because, in his own words, he wanted to concentrate on games that could become 9-digit performers. for reference, 100,000,000 revenue from a 15$ sub alone would need 550k subs, ignoring all other revenue potential associated with said subs (and the potential extra revenue is a lot in the retail game and it could easily be translated to the classic game, for better or worse, with things from sparkle pony all the way to instant 60, eventually.).

[Unholyground]

Ok then go play retail. You want Vanilla then accept having to get off your ass and go there.

I think it may just be a side effect of Private servers only having like a few thousand players too, so on a full sever it will probably be a non issue.

[Stormdash]

I'm enjoying Legion quite well, would still happily play around on a vanilla, BC, and wrath server as well if they were available. Shut up and take our money. See also, race/class combos for 7.x and beyond.

[Deleted]

no random wow qa at blizzcon, rip nostalrious people standing in line asking about legacy, only cherry picked questions from the interwebs

[Keltas]

no random wow qa at blizzcon, rip nostalrious people standing in line asking about legacy, only cherry picked questions from the interwebs

They know a lot of people are dissatisfied with legion and with legacy, so there is no way they have an open QA. It's like asking for questions they can't answer without losing face or creating another "you think you want it" meme.

[Kolvarg]

Side note, im gonna make a "ifone". its gonna be the iphone 3g. its the old ver, everything is the same, logo and everything, but the name is different! its going to be for all those ppl that look back on the old 3g with nostalgia. i bet apple will have 0 issues with this bc....nostalgia!! im flat out ripping off there property but hey bc i feel entitled to something that i have 0 right to and SO many other do too, its ok...right?

"small" flaws in the analogy:
- You can still use your old 3g if you bought one back then. You can still buy one legally from someone else if you want. You can't play Vanilla anymore, despite having bought it back then. You can't buy or pay for Vanilla legally in any way.
- The majority of people aren't trying to justify it's ok to use Blizzard's IP for profit, Nostalrius didn't make money off it. A better equivalent would maybe be to recreate the iphone 3g for collecting purposes, and let random people have a play with it.
- There are thousands of iphone copycats in the market (obviously not the same logo and same everything, but defenitely very similar and defenitely riding on the popularity wave), and they are being sold legally. Just like there are thousands of copycat games which are blatant copies of more popular games (especially in the mobile market), and they are being sold legally. Bad analogy tbh.

[Relapses]

To be honest, I wish you'd avoided that post as well it would have saved me from reading the ridiculous strawman. If you're going to reply to me in future I would be grateful if you at least tried to address what I have written.

...I did reply to your nonsensical, useless quip about the nature of discussion in this thread. I thought it was pretty clear but I'll spell it out for you: It doesn't matter whether you're pro- or anti-Legacy. Making statements like "most of the posts" are by one faction or the other is completely fucking pointless. It's like people who say shit like, "atheists read more scripture than actual believers." Of course they fucking do, they're the ones trying to expose organized religion for the sham it is. The situation is very similar here, just replace blind faith with the nostalgic desire to play a fucking video game that no longer exists.

(PS: That is a ridiculous strawman.)

[-Joker-]

I think if people took a hard look at what WoW looked like in 2004, without adding ANY of the conveniences after patch 1.12, they would probably play once for nostalgia and quit. Think about vanilla for a sec:

- Hunters gave up a bag slot for ammo/arrows (made or bought)
- Warlocks farmed shards for 2-4 hours before the raid
- Rogues made poisons
- You had to train in new weapons and level your weapon and unarmed skills
- Reagents
- 5 minute buffs (instead of 60)
- No such thing as food buffs
- Horde loses paladins
- Alliance loses shamans
- Limited race/class combos
- 16 slot bags
- Mounted speed with the carrot and spurs only 120%. No flying ever.
- Summoning stones and Warlocks only - no LFD, LFR
- No more flex/mythic raiding
- no rep tabards
- 1 bank/mailbox/ah in SW and Org
- remove 70% of flight paths
- most holiday bosses removed
- paladins and locks have to quest for class mounts at 40
- 60% speed at lvl 40 and 100% speed at lvl 60. Walking for the first 40 levels
- No such things as heirlooms
- no transmog
- Nothing is account wide
- Achievement system removed
- Gearscore comes back

and the list goes on and on. Have people really thought about the limitations, and changes of reversion involved with a classic server? No AoE loot, nothing glows, no dungeon journal, raids require you to be in a raid, no more soloing content... etc. People will get what they wish for... and then leave.

[Deleted]

They took donations to help run the server.

And the cease and desist was sent to the ppl that owned the server because they were making money off it.

False, they were having ZERO profit.
In fact they started by paying with their own money the servers. From their own pockets.

Later players said they wanted to help so the Nost team opened up a monthly donation with a limit.
Meaning as soon as donations reached the max value (to pay the server for the month) the donations stopped automatically.

[Housebroken]

I think if people took a hard look at what WoW looked like in 2004, without adding ANY of the conveniences after patch 1.12, they would probably play once for nostalgia and quit. Think about vanilla for a sec:

- Hunters gave up a bag slot for ammo/arrows (made or bought)
- Warlocks farmed shards for 2-4 hours before the raid
- Rogues made poisons
- You had to train in new weapons and level your weapon and unarmed skills
- Reagents
- 5 minute buffs (instead of 60)
- No such thing as food buffs
- Horde loses paladins
- Alliance loses shamans
- Limited race/class combos
- 16 slot bags
- Mounted speed with the carrot and spurs only 120%. No flying ever.
- Summoning stones and Warlocks only - no LFD, LFR
- No more flex/mythic raiding
- no rep tabards
- 1 bank/mailbox/ah in SW and Org
- remove 70% of flight paths
- most holiday bosses removed
- paladins and locks have to quest for class mounts at 40
- 60% speed at lvl 40 and 100% speed at lvl 60. Walking for the first 40 levels
- No such things as heirlooms
- no transmog
- Nothing is account wide
- Achievement system removed
- Gearscore comes back

and the list goes on and on. Have people really thought about the limitations, and changes of reversion involved with a classic server? No AoE loot, nothing glows, no dungeon journal, raids require you to be in a raid, no more soloing content... etc. People will get what they wish for... and then leave.

Not all of these QoL are necessarily great for the overall health of the game. Sure Achievements are removed, but so is LF1 Nighthold link Achieve. Despite not having any of these, Nost was able to foster an incredibly strong community.

[Dormie]

I think if people took a hard look at what WoW looked like in 2004, without adding ANY of the conveniences after patch 1.12, they would probably play once for nostalgia and quit. Think about vanilla for a sec:

- Hunters gave up a bag slot for ammo/arrows (made or bought)
- Warlocks farmed shards for 2-4 hours before the raid
- Rogues made poisons
- You had to train in new weapons and level your weapon and unarmed skills
- Reagents
- 5 minute buffs (instead of 60)
- No such thing as food buffs
- Horde loses paladins
- Alliance loses shamans
- Limited race/class combos
- 16 slot bags
- Mounted speed with the carrot and spurs only 120%. No flying ever.
- Summoning stones and Warlocks only - no LFD, LFR
- No more flex/mythic raiding
- no rep tabards
- 1 bank/mailbox/ah in SW and Org
- remove 70% of flight paths
- most holiday bosses removed
- paladins and locks have to quest for class mounts at 40
- 60% speed at lvl 40 and 100% speed at lvl 60. Walking for the first 40 levels
- No such things as heirlooms
- no transmog
- Nothing is account wide
- Achievement system removed
- Gearscore comes back

and the list goes on and on. Have people really thought about the limitations, and changes of reversion involved with a classic server? No AoE loot, nothing glows, no dungeon journal, raids require you to be in a raid, no more soloing content... etc. People will get what they wish for... and then leave.

You people don't seem to get that some people LIKE that stuff.

[Deleted]

I think if people took a hard look at what WoW looked like in 2004, without adding ANY of the conveniences after patch 1.12, they would probably play once for nostalgia and quit. Think about vanilla for a sec:

- Hunters gave up a bag slot for ammo/arrows (made or bought) and what?
- Warlocks farmed shards for 2-4 hours before the raid not true, you "farmed" em in few minutes
- Rogues made poisons again... and? why is this a problem?
- You had to train in new weapons and level your weapon and unarmed skills holy shit, you actually had to do something wheww
- Reagents and?
- 5 minute buffs (instead of 60) *15, and those are only blessings, others last 60 for the most part
- No such thing as food buffs lmao, you makin a fool of yourself
- Horde loses paladins horde and alliance are not the same? wow who would have thought that
- Alliance loses shamans horde and alliance are not the same? wow who would have thought that
- Limited race/class combos i dont even...
- 16 slot bags more than enough
- Mounted speed with the carrot and spurs only 120%. No flying ever. best thing to happen in wow
- Summoning stones and Warlocks only - no LFD, LFR yeah, you have to use chat, and talk to people... damn!
- No more flex/mythic raiding no more raids for the potato people
- no rep tabards
- 1 bank/mailbox/ah in SW and Org multiple mailboxes
- remove 70% of flight paths know your world, you are stuck with it forever
- most holiday bosses removed no easy loot for scrubs
- paladins and locks have to quest for class mounts at 40 or they can buy em like any other class
- 60% speed at lvl 40 and 100% speed at lvl 60. Walking for the first 40 levels i dont even...
- No such things as heirlooms a good thing, buy regular items, craft yourself something, etc.
- no transmog why when you can have the original thunderfury and sulfuras?
- Nothing is account wide and why should it be?
- Achievement system removed thank god
- Gearscore comes back not really

im pretty amazed by the amount of people saying that a month into vanilla "we" would be complaining about bugs, content, balance, pvp
do you really see private server communities complaining about bugs (and god there are 1000x times the bugs retail would have) or content? or about any stupid features?
no, we just want the game back, we do NOT care about class balancing - every player accepts the fact that vanilla is scissors/rock/paper game, or lack of content - we know what content is available in vanilla, we know there wont be no new... so what?

anyway, just shut up and let blizz decide, dont tell us what we want

[Pann]

...I did reply to your nonsensical, useless quip about the nature of discussion in this thread. I thought it was pretty clear but I'll spell it out for you: It doesn't matter whether you're pro- or anti-Legacy. Making statements like "most of the posts" are by one faction or the other is completely fucking pointless. It's like people who say shit like, "atheists read more scripture than actual believers." Of course they fucking do, they're the ones trying to expose organized religion for the sham it is. The situation is very similar here, just replace blind faith with the nostalgic desire to play a fucking video game that no longer exists.

(PS: That is a ridiculous strawman.)

Oh dear.

My statement was neither a quip or nonsensical it is a matter of fact, together with your analogy this shows that you a tenuous understanding of the contents of this thread.

I honestly have no idea who you are or why you seem to have such an issue with me, that you feel the need to either try to insult me, misrepresent my posts or lie about what I have written, since this is our third (or maybe fourth) exchange on these forums. Might I suggest that since I piss you off so much that you save both of us the hassle and put me on ignore?

- - - Updated - - -

False, they were having ZERO profit.
In fact they started by paying with their own money the servers. From their own pockets.

Later players said they wanted to help so the Nost team opened up a monthly donation with a limit.
Meaning as soon as donations reached the max value (to pay the server for the month) the donations stopped automatically.

He is correct that the people who owned the server which hosted Nost would have been making a profit. I am not sure whether the cease and desist was sent to the hosts or if are legally responsible for how their servers are used (perhaps someone with some legal knowledge on the subject could shed some light on the matter?).

[Deleted]

He is correct that the people who owned the server which hosted Nost would have been making a profit. I am not sure whether the cease and desist was sent to the hosts or if are legally responsible for how their servers are used (perhaps someone with some legal knowledge on the subject could shed some light on the matter?).

They say the donations had a monthly limit. They were only to pay the servers.

Min 2:15

[Deleted]

I think if people took a hard look at what WoW looked like in 2004, without adding ANY of the conveniences after patch 1.12, they would probably play once for nostalgia and quit. Think about vanilla for a sec:

- Hunters gave up a bag slot for ammo/arrows (made or bought)
- Warlocks farmed shards for 2-4 hours before the raid
- Rogues made poisons
- You had to train in new weapons and level your weapon and unarmed skills
- Reagents
- 5 minute buffs (instead of 60)
- No such thing as food buffs
- Horde loses paladins
- Alliance loses shamans
- Limited race/class combos
- 16 slot bags
- Mounted speed with the carrot and spurs only 120%. No flying ever.
- Summoning stones and Warlocks only - no LFD, LFR
- No more flex/mythic raiding
- no rep tabards
- 1 bank/mailbox/ah in SW and Org
- remove 70% of flight paths
- most holiday bosses removed
- paladins and locks have to quest for class mounts at 40
- 60% speed at lvl 40 and 100% speed at lvl 60. Walking for the first 40 levels
- No such things as heirlooms
- no transmog
- Nothing is account wide
- Achievement system removed
- Gearscore comes back

and the list goes on and on. Have people really thought about the limitations, and changes of reversion involved with a classic server? No AoE loot, nothing glows, no dungeon journal, raids require you to be in a raid, no more soloing content... etc. People will get what they wish for... and then leave.

WoW ok legion fan, nice list of quality of life improvements that current wow players love, the things you just listed make the game an mmo, you know a game where you spend lots of time grinding and exploring, because you know your character has limitations, and those limitations make your accomplishments a lot more meaningful.

[Pann]

They say the donations had a monthly limit. They were only to pay the servers.

As far as I know what you're saying is also correct however the person you responded to claimed the cease and desist was sent to the servers' hosts/owners who would have been making a profit from their hosting services. But I have no idea if the order was sent to them or whether there is any legal obligation for them to act on it when it is received.

[Deleted]

As far as I know what you're saying is also correct however the person you responded to claimed the cease and desist was sent to the servers' hosts/owners who would have been making a profit from their hosting services. But I have no idea if the order was sent to them or whether there is any legal obligation for them to act on it when it is received.

Ah ok sorry, i didnt read it correctly.

[Gadzooks]

Oh dear.

My statement was neither a quip or nonsensical it is a matter of fact, together with your analogy this shows that you a tenuous understanding of the contents of this thread.

I honestly have no idea who you are or why you seem to have such an issue with me, that you feel the need to either try to insult me, misrepresent my posts or lie about what I have written, since this is our third (or maybe fourth) exchange on these forums. Might I suggest that since I piss you off so much that you save both of us the hassle and put me on ignore?

- - - Updated - - -



He is correct that the people who owned the server which hosted Nost would have been making a profit. I am not sure whether the cease and desist was sent to the hosts or if are legally responsible for how their servers are used (perhaps someone with some legal knowledge on the subject could shed some light on the matter?).

Profit is only relevant if Blizzard sued for unjust enrichment, like they did with Scapegaming - you can still be found guilty of copyright infringements and DMCA violations with no profit. A lot of the more ignorant people in here think the lack of profit is some kind of immunity from lawsuit, which is laughable at best. The laws regarding copyright first and foremost establish the control an artist or creator has over their own work - if Blizzard doesn't want someone hosting their game, they have every legal right to sue that person to stop, regardless if there's profit or not. The profit angle comes into play for damages, once a guilty verdict has been reached.

The act of allowing someone to access The World Of Warcraft outside of Blizzard servers and their authentication servers, without express permission from Blizzard, is the only thing they need to sue. It, in itself, is a copyright violation. Wether someone paid to access it, or not, is irrevant to the charge, they're still guilty either way.

Nost were smart in that they didn't seek to get rich off their game, which they could have. The bulk of the 88 million dollar damages Blizzard won over Scapegaming came directly from her making millions hosting her server - but if you read the actual case, which i have, Blizzard made the case for other charges as well, including copyright violations and DMCA violations circumventing Blizzard's DRM for the game (their auth. servers). All of which she was found guilty of. If she'd given access to the game for free, the damages would have been a lot lower - but she'd still been found guilty and forced to take the game down permanently.