Blizzard ending support for WoW and other games for XP/VISTA

[gzeus13]

Wooo maybe DX12 support is coming soon.

[Poizo]

Because issues that arise due to lack of continued support from Microsoft or hardware vendors will then fall on software developers to try and work around or fix.
Arguably they could instead simply stop actively supporting it, instead of intentionally breaking it though.
Just patch in a message that if its broke, its now up to you to fix it.

If you put a warning, 99% of people will close it just like the EULA , if it doesn't run a few could open a ticket, which can be closed automatically by the system once dxdiag is provided.

[Deleted]

Windows 10 is better than everything that came before

*Joker of the day found in this thread* good job

[ComputerNerd]

If you put a warning, 99% of people will close it just like the EULA , if it doesn't run a few could open a ticket, which can be closed automatically by the system once dxdiag is provided.

Then put a persistent message, one that can't be closed.
Either on the launcher or the client at the log in screen.
Even a message you have to close every time will get someone's attention.

[Eats Compost]

Because issues that arise due to lack of continued support from Microsoft or hardware vendors will then fall on software developers to try and work around or fix.
Arguably they could instead simply stop actively supporting it, instead of intentionally breaking it though.
Just patch in a message that if its broke, its now up to you to fix it.

That's not really best practice from Blizzard's perspective, though. Blizzard is (or at least tries to be) all about polish, and "you can run this, but it might crash eventually, who knows?" isn't exactly a polished approach to software distribution. This is especially true for game software, as you have a lot of people using it who might not have any idea what an OS even is (thus making the dictation of "you need Win7/10 to play this" a little more clear).

Anyhoo, I certainly can't blame anyone for axing support for Windows XP this far down the track, and it actually surprised me to hear that WoW still supported it at all.

[Jdance]

Botters are gunna be pissed

[Deleted]

I mean, takes a lot of spare work to have it running for those two as well.

No it doesnt.

[Poizo]

Windows 10 is better than everything that came before, and people had a chance to upgrade free of cost. Their funeral if they didn't take that chance.

It's the best OS to monitor what users are doing unless they have no network, one of the reasons why the upgrade was free.

[ComputerNerd]

That's not really best practice from Blizzard's perspective, though. Blizzard is (or at least tries to be) all about polish, and "you can run this, but it might crash eventually, who knows?" isn't exactly a polished approach to software distribution. This is especially true for game software, as you have a lot of people using it who might not have any idea what an OS even is (thus making the dictation of "you need Win7/10 to play this" a little more clear).

Anyhoo, I certainly can't blame anyone for axing support for Windows XP this far down the track, and it actually surprised me to hear that WoW still supported it at all.

There isn't a good practice though from the view of the end-user.
Patching in the break isn't good for those affected, since it forces them to either upgrade or stop playing.
At least warning the user persistently potentially gives them longer to deal with it.

[ls-]

Thanks to Battle.net client Blizz know what OSes are used by their userbase. All these charts about OS market share are irrelevant, they also often include embedded OSes.

Valve also gather this info via Steam, and their info about gamers' PCs is WAAAAAAY more relevant in this case. XP userbase among gamers is nonexistent.

[Bryntrollian]

Blizzard is only distancing themselves. It is not anyone call who or why anyone should use a certain OS.

With really good video card(s), XP runs awesome. Forcing this restriction is not a good move, IMO.

I never heard of a game abandoning, say, 2000, or ME. It's weird.

Yeah you have, its called World of Warcraft...
How many other games have you played that have been in support for greater than 13 years ?

[Ickz]

There is no reason to complain about this. If you're using an OS that is either 16 or 11 years old, that is on you. It is your problem, no one else's. XP was a great OS, but so is Win7 - Win10 is also fine, and this is coming from someone who was was anti-WinME/2k/vista/8 (the trash versions, essentially).

[Poizo]

There isn't a good practice though from the view of the end-user.
Patching in the break isn't good for those affected, since it forces them to either upgrade or stop playing.
At least warning the user persistently potentially gives them longer to deal with it.

Most players don't read warnings, patch notes and EULAS of the games they play. A crazy practice would be dropping support in may 2014, which they were completely entitled to do, but Blizzard knows the OS players are using, so they waited until a specific % and chose the right moment.

[Raugnaut]

I really dislike how Blizz has the "XXX is not supported anymore", preventing you from playing games on whatever it is when you could have in the past. I missed using my 10 year old laptop to camp spawnpoints on an alt account while playing on the main.

[ComputerNerd]

Most players don't read warnings, patch notes and EULAS of the games they play. A crazy practice would be dropping support in may 2014, which they were completely entitled to do, but Blizzard knows the OS of all players so they waited until a specific %.

So a persistent message, one that you have to dismiss repeatedly is the best way of getting the message across.
Simply breaking it without telling someone WHY it is broken will fail to get the message across for the reason you just described.
People don't read things if they can dismiss it the first time.
So keep telling them, make sure they read it.

[Poizo]

So a persistent message, one that you have to dismiss repeatedly is the best way of getting the message across.
Simply breaking it without telling someone WHY it is broken will fail to get the message across for the reason you just described.
People don't read things if they can dismiss it the first time.
So keep telling them, make sure they read it.

Of course, you can do both, once the user clicks on 'Accept' it can exit the game.

[ComputerNerd]

Of course, you can do both, the persistent message and, once the user clicks on 'Accept' exit the game.

I do agree that they need something that isn't just dismissed away permanently.
A timed message perhaps once the battle.net client is launched.
And when they try to install an unsupported game too.
If there is no button to click to dismiss for at least 10 seconds they can't click it.

[Ishayu]

Blizzard is only distancing themselves. It is not anyone call who or why anyone should use a certain OS.

With really good video card(s), XP runs awesome. Forcing this restriction is not a good move, IMO.

I never heard of a game abandoning, say, 2000, or ME. It's weird.

Well, you just haven't been paying attention. That's perfectly fine, but allow me to fill you in.

World of Warcraft originally came out for Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, and Windows XP. It also ran on PowerPC Mac OS X 10.3, otherwise known as Panther.

With the release of WotLK, support for Windows 98 were dropped due to adding the launcher. However, the game still ran fine.

It wasn't until Mists of Pandaria in 2012 that the old DOS based versions of Windows stopped working entirely without hacks.

To this day, the game can still run on Windows 98, but you'll run into lots of trouble and poor performance. If you run the game using the -opengl flag, you'll find the game running with a renderer from 2002 or so. Lots of things won't work right, but it still runs. Really gives a sense of just how old this game is.

[coprax]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/7...-xp-and-vista/

Not surprised to be honest. XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and Vista extended support ends this April.

Still I think it is strange they actively patch the game to not work on those platforms anymore. Ending support and not fixing OS related bugs in the future is one thing, but disabling the games?

[thewallofsleep]

Anyone who is upset about this needs to think long and hard about updating their toaster. Blizzard might as well just be saying they are ending support for MS-DOS.

I bet the number of Vista users is tiny. Everyone either downgraded or upgraded out of Vista as soon as they could.