Legacy Servers (reason why blizzard dont do them)

[cuafpr]

They are also illegal and prone to corruption and can shut down any second. A lot of people won't touch them because of this.
I'm not going on a private server ever again and I'm not going to play retail either unless the design philosophy drastically changes so it's official legacy servers or no WoW at all for me.

yeah that's why i don't touch them... however i'm happy with retail/legion, less so than i was with WoD (i know... i know... i'm a vast minority), but happy nevertheless.

[thunterman]

The reason blizzard don't make or ever will make Legacy Servers is because it would kill retail wow.

Its a smart move by Blizzard, as a lot of players would quit Legion and their next expansions if they tried Legacy Servers.

The numbers prove the fact that that is the opposite of what would happen. The biggest Vanilla server ever had a user retention of 2%. 2% of people that ever played over a 1 year period stayed full time. That's it. Typical vocal minority, hardly any of the player base wants them, and most of the people crying out for them loose interest within a year. As proven, It's never going to happen.

You think you do, but you don't - has been legitimately confirmed by statistics. You can't argue with numbers friend.

[Queen of Hamsters]

If you actually believe people play Legacy servers to save $15 a month, than you are too stupid to play Vanilla.

Vanilla was literally considered dumb and casual-as-fuck by MMORPG-players when current. You only needed time in order to win and see bosses go down, that's it.

[Echocho]

Vanilla was literally considered dumb and casual-as-fuck by MMORPG-players when current. You only needed time in order to win and see bosses go down, that's it.

So nothing has changed since then then?

[Queen of Hamsters]

You think you do, but you don't - has been legitimately confirmed by statistics. You can't argue with numbers friend.

Pretty much, yes. The abyssmal retention rate is twice as bad when one considers the fact that the numbers came at a time when Live was doing worse than it had been since actual Classic and the hype for Legacy was at its largest...

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So nothing has changed since then then?

A lot has changed since then. But you go ahead and apply to a guild with respectable progress with your only motivation as to why they should take you being "I'm max level and I have time to spend".

Then, enter and pretend that you're doing great by pressing 2 buttons and MAYBE moving out of fire, just maybe. Or if you're a tank, create a macro for your threat generator and go AFK, see how well that'll go down.

[VyersReaver]

That's the most hilarious shit I read today. Thanks for a laugh, TC!

...wait, you are serious, aren't you?

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Think about how many players that play on private servers atm, i know a server which have 40k online at almost all times, now think about if blizzard made a server.

And what's the server, pry tell? I know of none such, the best one is down, and had 4k peak last oh 4 months.

[Heladys]

Because they wanted a billion more shitty threads about fucking legacy servers. They've monetized this garbage, it's their primary money-making asset.

[Ozyorkbourne]

You know 40k online at the same time is like 10x of wow servers. 40k probably means theres more than 250k active accounts.

They play because it's free or they already have a live subscription on WoW at the same time. You'r deluded if you think every player with an active private server only plays 1 or the other or that it means they'd pay the Blizzard sub to play it.

[Chaelexi]

Think about how many players that play on private servers atm, i know a server which have 40k online at almost all times, now think about if blizzard made a server.

you made a new account to tell us this. Guess what private servers are free, wow servers would not be free. It is comparing rotten apples(stolen servers) to oranges(blizzard servers). They are not the same.

Secondly to those saying it is like printing money it is not, they would have to rebuild a game server backend to work on new server architecture, rebuild the actual game to run optimally on new hardware, design it for battle.net integration. Next there is the rack space, power, datacenter equipment, bandwidth and staff to manage.....nope all not free.

[thunterman]

Pretty much, yes. The abyssmal retention rate is twice as bad when one considers the fact that the numbers came at a time when Live was doing worse than it had been since actual Classic and the hype for Legacy was at its largest...

Your the first person that has ever agreed with me on this. lol

[Bloodnickel]

This is how insecure people make themselves feel better.

[Teri]

Putting servers on 1-version will become boring very fast.

You simply cannot recreate 100% legacy ever.

It's not just the content that made the game, but the bugs/fixes/patches/pacing gave the game it's feel.

Also they need moderators/GMs/devs on it, every game has it's bugs.

In classic it didn't matter, as it was the WoW only game around, now each player has it's own experiences/favorite expansions, going back to the same old, with still the experience somewhere deep in the brain will still make it different as well.

And I did love Vanilla/TBC very much, I'd still rather have them modernize the old zones like EK/Kalimdor/Outland/Northrend etc once again to move with the timelines.

Even if they did something big like a WoW2, new engine, new start, new tech, I'd rather have them just do a new IP instead of warcraft, otherwise you'd get silly things like time skip or rewind/alternate universes or a lot of retconning on older games/books.

[Spotnick]

The reason blizzard don't make or ever will make Legacy Servers is because it would kill retail wow.

Its a smart move by Blizzard, as a lot of players would quit Legion and their next expansions if they tried Legacy Servers.

Well, it would be the same sub.. so where's your logic?

Legacy servers wouldn't last long unless you put content on them.. so basically they would have to release the content patches.. and reset the servers once it's over, or allow you to server transfer to the next xpac server.

For me, it would allow me to see what Vanilla was and the first patches of BC before I joined, but in no way I'm interested to redo all the rest I have done already, I already skip timewalking because I have done this content way too many times already.

[Maudib]

Mhmm... Right... Uhm.. Grind was a thing too in classic, just as bad if not worse in some cases.

Not in the least. Never ending grind toward an ever advancing "goal"... that is AP. Grinding content ad nauseum for more lottery tickets... that is the RNG gear. In classic/bc/wrath... you KNEW what gear there was. Your goal was clear, concise, and achievable. When you got your piece, you then helped your guildies get theirs.

Now everyone just mindlessly grinds forward like lemmings. No real goal... just "moar". Gross.

Forgive me for enjoying knowing the caps for defense, parry, block, spell hit, crit, etc. And loving the ability to look up loot in atlasloot to find gear that would help me get there. Then going out and killing a boss umpteen times knowing for sure I would eventually get it. As opposed to mindlessly grinding instances for items that may never help me reach my goals... just "moar".

The more this game is about "moar", the less it is like WoW and more like an ARPG or even a facebook game. It's not an MMO.

[isuridedes]

It would increase profits by a huge margin though, it's basically free money.

Except that it is the opposite of this. As it has been explained again, and again, and again, the paths to a legacy/vanilla server have costs associated with them.

Scenario A: Blizzard replicates their old hardware architecture and database implementation to support Vanilla code.

• Hardware costs money.
• The old hardware / database architecture required 8+ hour weekly maintenance; that requires staff.
• The vanilla game would still need revisions in order to make it function on modern operating systems like Windows 10 or macOS. That costs money.

Scenario B: Blizzard updates the legacy code to allow it to operate on existing hardware architecture and database implementation.

• Still need to invest in hardware which again, costs money
• Updating the legacy code to work under the new hardware/db/operating systems is going to require an investment in time and money.

On top of all of this the moment Blizzard begins maintaining multiple versions of the game they will also need to invest in new training for Customer Service, create a whole set of tools for CS to manage issues pertaining to Vanilla Warcraft vs. Current WoW. Honestly it is baffling how many people on MMOC think that releasing a vanilla server is something so incredibly easy that Blizzard need only say "Make it so" and suddenly money is being printed.

[Luxeley]

It would not kill retail Wow. They don't do it because they can make a lot more $$$ by allocating the same resources elsewhere.

[Dekkers]

Probably true.

[Maudib]

From what I understand raiding back then had an hour or so of prep work to get mats for consumables for the raid, with a bit more time for the Warlocks who had to farm Soul Shards for certain spells. Per night. Then there were long, and admittedly fairly cool attunement questlines to get into a lot of the raids.

No, there’s not really much of a difference in amount of grind between then and now.

You say all that like it's a bad thing. That was PART of the raiding experience. Part of what made raiding rewarding. Now you don't need anything but to step in and start grinding bosses for lottery tickets.

And to what end? To fill up a weapon with intangible AP, towards a goal that keeps getting pushed further ahead? Truly a hamster wheel of a game.

Before there was a weapon you wanted... that sweet, nothing is better for you weapon... that eluded you, until that one day it dropped. And you were there... at a pinnacle. YAHOO! The rush you felt getting it.

Now you are handed the weapon up front... and spend the rest of the game slowly filling it with AP like adding grains of sand to a desert. And nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. No plateau... no pinnacle... no feeling of accomplishment. No rush.

[Fritters154]

Think about how many players that play on private servers atm, i know a server which have 40k online at almost all times, now think about if blizzard made a server.

So the people not paying money for a service will opt to pay money for the service when Blizzard hosts it? I think you would get like 10% of the private server populations back by having legacy servers. Blizzard would likely need to choose between funneling resources into keeping those servers active, which would otherwise be allocated to the live game. I wonder if they pick the one with several million active players or the one that is designed to pull a few thousand back.

[Echocho]

• Hardware costs money.
• The old hardware / database architecture required 8+ hour weekly maintenance; that requires staff.
• The vanilla game would still need revisions in order to make it function on modern operating systems like Windows 10 or macOS. That costs money.

The server cost isn't as high as you may think, it's almost not worth mentioning nowadays. Like 100 subs would cover the cost.
And the vanilla client already works on modern operating systems, no work is needed to make it function.