Speculation: Vanilla WoW to be released with next expansion 2018 .. /tap /tap

[Vineri]

I am very fond of an official Vanilla coming to an OFFICIAL Blizzard account. Be clear on that, if you would like to close this thread now.

Recent statements indicate Legacy (Vanilla) Servers are on the way. Best Blizzcon ever.

Blizzard's senior vice president and executive producer, J. Allen Brack (WoW Vanilla):

"This is something that we have just continued to hear from the community,"

"This is something that we’ve continued to hear from current players, from former players, from people who work on World of Warcraft, even people working at Blizzard who are like, hey, you should find a way."

"The original problem was that we would have to run two MMOs. We would have to run Classic WoW, and then current WoW [at the same time]. Classic WoW and current WoW really don’t work the same way any more. Classic WoW has all kinds of bugs and problems, it has all kinds of exploits and hacks that everyone knows about. And in current WoW, we’d done an excellent job of reducing all of those problems, and we didn’t see how we could possibly run two MMOs like this."

"We think we have a way to run the Classic servers on the modern technical infrastructure. The infrastructure is how we spin up instances and continents, how the database works. It’s those core fundamental pieces, and running two MMOs of that size is a daunting problem. But now we think we have a way to have the old WoW version work on the modern infrastructure and feel really good."

"What we’re announcing is actually extremely limited. We’re only saying that we’re doing it, that we’re committed to creating and releasing Classic servers. It’s a larger endeavor than people might imagine, but that we’re committed to doing it and we’re excited."

In defense of prior Statements of "You think you do, but you don't":

"The sentiment of what I was trying to express, very poorly back in that day, was that there is a thing called rose-colored glasses. There is a memory of this place, the time, and the stage of life that you were in that contribute to that nostalgia people feel. If you look back at all the things you have deep love for, you have to look at, OK, that was the thing, but what contributed to that being a thing?"

Brack compares memories of WoW to those of the original Star Wars films.

"It doesn’t matter what I think. This game is very powerful for a lot of people. This is a game that people have put hundreds and hundreds of hours into and have deep love for, and it’s not something that you can experience today. It’s not something that you’re able to go and play at a Blizzard-quality level, and that’s what we want to deliver."

SRC:
http://www.pcgamer.com/this-is-how-b...a-wow-servers/


The details out of the way. I don't anticipate Legacy until Fall 2018. Blizzard is hiring people for this project still. Likely sourcing the very people hosting unofficial servers - Dev's, GM's, and customer support.

Blizzard's senior vice president and executive producer, J. Allen Brack (WoW Vanilla):

"We’re going to hire people specifically for this job, and we’re going to staff it with people who are interested in bringing back Classic WoW in the best, most authentic way," Brack says. "And that’s how we’ll be successful."

SRC:
http://www.pcgamer.com/this-is-how-b...a-wow-servers/


My speculation is vanilla Legacy to be released late 2018. Hey who knows, you just might get TBC eventually too, since it's cheaper to keep employee's than to fire them.

Until then, there are other ways to play Vanilla. C'mon Blizzard!!! I'm rootin' for ya!!!

[Ticj]

I don't think it will get released around the same time BfA will release, I'm thinking it will release this spring

[Vellus]

No fucking way this is happening any time soon or within the next year even. There was no timeline released, meaning they have a few people working on it and it will be rolled out when it's convenient for them. This is not a priority, and will not take priority over current game content and future expansions. This requires an entire reconstruction of their old back end which is not as easy as dropping the old patch on a new server. Considering expansions are planned and created YEARS before the announcement, this enormous project was a product of a recent dialogue, and was presented as a nice-to-have side feature. They needed to figure out how to squeeze this in their scope, and it's development will probably be spread out very thinly on top of their current workload, therefore we won't be seeing this for years. This will be a 2019-2020+ feature

[Marston]

While I hope for an early release, I somehow wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing would still take 1-2+ years to get finished.

I hope we get TBC and beyond at some point, but I am not counting on it.

[Selky]

Why? Better to release it when the expansion starts dying down, no one will have the time to play both if they release at the same time. They would cannibalize each other.

[yetgdhfgh]

They wont want to release it at the same time and to do so would be silly they will release it during a content drought

[Vineri]

Yeah, if anyone thinks we're getting classic anytime soon, you're out of your mind. Late 2018 at earliest but I would say 2019. We'll get BFA long before classic.

I disagree. What better time to release it than with a new xpac.

Roll it all up into one purchase (xpac). Given what they say in the article and "tourists" coming and going to only reveal a core group of fans, Blizzard will not release this solo.

They are OK with a small player core in the end, per their quotes.

[Holdodlig]

This will probably happens a few weeks after the last LFR wing of Antorus opens to keep ppl subbed to WoW.

[Coffeh]

The timing of announcing it today is peculiar. It seems like stealing some of the thunder from the expansion reveal. Or maybe they anticipated the expansion wouldn't be that overwhelming, so they needed something else for people to talk about?

It's really hard to guesstimate when classic servers might be available. He did say it's way more work than most people would think. Probably means they're not that close. Personally I think it'll be after the next expansion. They wouldn't want players not buying the new expansion because they're off playing on a vanilla server.

[draynay]

Sooner the better though I'm not optimistic it will be sooner.

[Queen of Hamsters]

According to people @ the event talking to officials, it seems it's not even past the concept level at this point.

I also reckon they'd want to release it separately from a big expansion launch.

[Vexali]

It'll be a looong time before Classic is finished. There is also no way in hell that Blizzard would release Classic at the same time of an expansion. That would drop a lot of the hype for the release of the new expansion. They'd also never sell them in a package deal because that's cutting profits.

[Leih]

This is a side project with most likely a very small team and as excited as everyone is, considering how very very few details were given today, I would be VERY surprised if this came out in 2018 at all. I would imagine this is still a good while away, but they just wanted to confirm it's eventually coming.

[Aeula]

Meh, they’ve announced it now. I never had any intention of playing it, I just wanted the option there. They can take as long as they want, I’ll be waiting for Wrath or TBC servers most likely. Depending on account wide transmog rules.

[Vineri]

Meh, they’ve announced it now. I never had any intention of playing it, I just wanted the option there. They can take as long as they want, I’ll be waiting for Wrath or TBC servers most likely. Depending on account wide transmog rules.

To help speed up your internal timeline: If Vanilla servers are delayed so will be the timeframe of TBC and WotLK servers ... just sayin'. Think about it.

One comes before the other.

[Flurryfang]

That would proberly be the worst buisness decision ever made by Blizzard if they did that. It would be dumb to split your customer base into two camps, giving them a choice between 2 products, when you can just stagger the release and give it to the players, when they have already gotten a bit tired of the other product.

So we will proberly see the new expansion hit next year and atleast 6 months later Classic will be launched and not a moment before.

[Not Againnn]

No fucking way this is happening any time soon or within the next year even. There was no timeline released, meaning they have a few people working on it and it will be rolled out when it's convenient for them. This is not a priority, and will not take priority over current game content and future expansions. This requires an entire reconstruction of their old back end which is not as easy as dropping the old patch on a new server. Considering expansions are planned and created YEARS before the announcement, this enormous project was a product of a recent dialogue, and was presented as a nice-to-have side feature. They needed to figure out how to squeeze this in their scope, and it's development will probably be spread out very thinly on top of their current workload, therefore we won't be seeing this for years. This will be a 2019-2020+ feature

hahahahahaha

[Fascinate]

Its definitely gonna be staggered, its not going to release with the new xpac. My guess is it comes after BFA.

[Thetruth1400]

My speculation is vanilla Legacy to be released late 2018. Hey who knows, you just might get TBC eventually too, since it's cheaper to keep employee's than to fire them.

I think Classic is their test case for it. If it's even remotely successful, I can see them basically re-releasing their xpacs over and over again. Now how they handle it, that's a different story. Do they make divide the classic servers so half of them roll over to TBC and the others stay Classic or do they just make new TBC ones? Then on to WotLK, and so on and so on.

When they will release it, hopefully with the next expansion, but I can see them holding off on it until the next expansion starts to hit a lull. Hopefully it will be before 2019, but who knows.

I disagree. What better time to release it than with a new xpac.

Roll it all up into one purchase (xpac). Given what they say in the article and "tourists" coming and going to only reveal a core group of fans, Blizzard will not release this solo.

They are OK with a small player core in the end, per their quotes.

I agree. I hope they don't try to charge extra for it considering people have already paid for the classic servers, some people up to 13 years ago.

They have said that their current model is pretty much come and go players not constant ones, so if they end up able to retain more people due to classic being more time consuming, it would even give people who are "out of things to do" on the main servers a place to go in the mean time.

[Rowrin]

My guess is that it will be the month or two before BfA. They'll use it like the movie to draw in old players to resubscribe, who would otherwise not. They'll probably try and get some of these old players to pick up Battle for Azeroth as well with the mentality being that, once resubscribed the barrier to picking the new expansion would be lower. Even the new expansion seems to target older players who want less of what we've been having (big bad existential threats) and more traditional/roots of WoW (horde vs alliance).