you think you do, but you dont

[Kithelle]

Private servers have custom code... not even Blizzard server code emulating the vanilla experience.

Blizzard has.. every single working build that ever was. They could have the janitor copy the files over and reboot each patch.

So I take it you work for Blizzard?

Plus you know...they don't need anyone to actually work on the servers to set them up...work on them if unexpected bugs pop up...they don't need CSRs for Classic do they? No emergency workers if servers ever crash.

You know because wow was magically self sufficient in Vanilla but not after words

But look who I'm talking to...someone with a sig like that know everything, including the future.

[thunterman]

Lets be real here the upkeep cost once the servers are running is going to be extremely minimal, They won't close and there certainly won't be micro-transactions pushed into it.

Nosts numbers were 150k over a 10 day period (opposed to the 30 day standard), Given the fact that there's numerous drawbacks to playing on a private server, Not to mention the severe lack of advertisement for one the official server is definitely going to have a suitable playerbase.

The arguments are getting rather tiring now, Going from "You're never going to get official servers" to "You're not going to like vanilla" to "People won't continue playing", It's silly and you know it.

People like different things and there's certainly enough room in the past 100 million WoW subscribers for those who enjoyed Vanilla.

Server costs to run a server, for a game, that hosts for millions at day one. That's allot of hardware. It's gonna cost them hundreds of thousands for the hardware alone, the electricity of all said servers will cost a bomb (to you or I anyway), additional staff to monitor servers, or they could outsource it, which they are unlikely to do, because they like to control their own shit. It would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars a day too. you think they are gonna keep all that going on when there's 10% of the people still playing? No... No they won't.

it's gonna launch pure vanilla, like they said. after a year, it's gonna have the wow shop, or it will be changed to suit the requests of the casuals. It's inevitable if they launch it as pure Vanilla.

Its also apparent you never read any of my posts either. You've targeted one post and labelled me as anti vanilla.. I want pure vanilla, I just know it wont work. I was in full support of the Vanilla movement from the start, Your right that I didn't think it would actually happen.. but It's good that it has. All the people crying out for the changes will quit before they hit 20, if the changes are made to keep them interested, it means more people playing. More people playing benifits us all, vastly more than a small QoL change would damage your gameplay. I'm up for people getting a bit of what they want, It's called a compromise, all these whingebags are gonna be needed to keep the player counts up.

[skannerz22]

The threads asking for changes to vanilla is a testament to that statement.

so many idiots want bug fixes

[skannerz22]

To be fair his statement is correct from his point of view.

95-97% will quit after the first week due to nostalgia no longer apply.

This will happen on classic. The very reason they are releasing it is to shut up whiney people.

no, they're making it because there will be 1 to 3 million extra subs

$180000000 to $540000000 per year earnt and that's subcriptions only not including server, race, faction, name, guild name changes
that's not even including wow token sales on retail for people to play classic for real

[Flarelaine]

no, they're making it because there will be 1 to 3 million extra subs

Your future vision is fantastic. Could you message me next week's lottery numbers as well?

[mich4el]

LOL you find it offensive? you are a special little snowflake, aren't you?

It's probably good PR to have that same person announce it and they did it on purpose, you can be sure.

- - - Updated - - -



This quote made me literally LOL and almost spit out my water.

Classic will be loved by many but it will NEVER even become 25% of Blizzards focus. Hearthstone, Overwatch, retail WoW...all will be more popular and make more money than Classic.

It's possible to be excited for Classic without being delusional.

You don't get to decide that if classic will be more successful than BFA/Legion Blizzard will shift their focus toward vanilla and other legacy servers such TBC and WOTLK

[adamzz]

You don't get to decide that if classic will be more successful than BFA/Legion Blizzard will shift their focus toward vanilla and other legacy servers such TBC and WOTLK

It won't be more successful, and EVEN if it was they won't shift their focus toward Classic.

Classic is a side project, they made a new small team for it. Classic will pretty much be a project for interns. While the big boys work on the real WoW.

[Micronetic]

[digichi]

it's funny, because i remember watching the 'you think you do' thing at the time, and it didn't come off as
"THIS GUY IS BEING A DICK!"
his tone seemed lighthearted and was just pointing out the QoL changes over time (which, fair enough.)

But i remember jontron used the clip in his WoW rant, which inspired a barrage of other videos, which helped the movement in a way..

On the other hand, these kinda witch hunts are why devs get more clinical and vague when talking with players :\ so people have to be careful..

[urasim]

So inconsequential you had to mention it in the first place, Right.

Correcting stupid notions about there was millions of people begging for classic. It's not my fault you jumped into a conversation without knowing what the fuck was going on, and playing a stupid semantics like games as you did.

[namecraft]

I remember on the official forums you could not make a new thread about vanilla servers and also not necro them.
if you did any of that you'd get flamed and bashed. it was pathetic.

[RapBreon]

i find it offensive and disrespectful to whole WoW community, especially those who wanted legacy servers

Lets assume he's wrong 100% (I think he is, but I'm not in the business of absolutes). Isn't' the ultimate apology Classic servers anyway? Honestly his little speech about Ice-creams was a sort of soft admission of his previous error.

[Eazy]

I think it's kinda ironic... Because now he's going to prove him right.

[Rafoel]

Well I, for once, will never step foot in classic servers if they include modern QoLs. It's Blizzard decision if they want to alienate people like me from their project. We still have a plenty of private servers to go to if we want vanilla experience.

[restokrek]

Someone mentioned private servers being free to play. Is that even a thing that people care about? What is the sub? 15$ a month?

I think the number of accounts on private servers is far lower than the actual number of players who would passionately play classic. I for one steer well clear of anything unofficial because of security and unpredictability issues.

Despite of this I did say a couple years ago that I'd quit my job to play if they were to launch an official vanilla server, hopefully it won't be altered so far that I won't have to eat my own words ������

[Maudib]

So I take it you work for Blizzard?

Plus you know...they don't need anyone to actually work on the servers to set them up...work on them if unexpected bugs pop up...they don't need CSRs for Classic do they? No emergency workers if servers ever crash.

You know because wow was magically self sufficient in Vanilla but not after words

But look who I'm talking to...someone with a sig like that know everything, including the future.

They don't need MORE server people, nor MORE CSRs... they already HAVE a large support base.

[alturic]

I don't know if it's been said, and I forget if it was Swifty or LazyPeon who I heard it from, but I like the thought of Vanilla for ~16 months, then TBC and you can keep your char on Vanilla, while transferring it to a TBC server, and then every ~16 months the next "expansion" comes out. As much as it would take them time, there's no new "development"* per se and it would breath life back into the game for at least the next 4-5 years.

*I refuse to believe they don't have the source code to the previous expansions like they've once said. Most of the "development" that WOULD be needed is tech related.

[Deleted]

people asking for changes are obviously present times players that never actually experienced vanilla.

People who ask for no changes are obviously present times players who never actually played Vanilla in the first place.

See how retarded your argument is?

[Deleted]

As a person who started playing on retail WoW in 1.10 (quitted in 2.4.3) as a priest healer, I find some of the arguments here - especially about QoL and economic commitment - kinda perplexing.

First of all, about QoL. Some people have apparently voiced their opinion that, as a healer, it's just unviable to level to 60 without a dual spec system. That strikes me as a pretty funny (as well as incorrect) statement for a variety of reasons.
1) Nobody stops you from levelling as a DPS spec, only to respec as a healer once you hit 60. I did so as a priest, and I still could heal in most pre-50 dungeons (can't exactly speak for paladins/shamans/druids, though). Furthermore, there are some talents in the healing tree, like Searing Light (as well as early talents on other specs like Wand Specialization and Spirit Tap) which makes levelling as Holy far from impossible. Of course, you won't level as fast as you would as a mage, but that's true of ALL priests in Vanilla (including Shadow ones, which only start getting quite good at farming once they hit Shadowform).
2) Unless something changed since WotLK (which I don't know of), Dual spec was only available starting from lvl 40, and for quite the hefty sum of money. How would this help you in any way before lvl 60? Unless you're requesting a fully free (or at least very cheap) dual spec system (as for why it's a bad idea, keep reading I'll mention it in a while).
3) Once you hit 60 with your healer or tank, even if you still need to farm on your own for gold etc., you don't necessarily need to respec DPS. On the one hand, you could just roll a DPS alt (levelling a rogue or a mage doesn't take a lot of time, comparatively, at least by Vanilla standards). Or, if you can't be bothered, professions such as Herbalism and Mining allow you to make significant amounts of gold without having to touch a single mob.

Now, what I said so far concerns why a dual spec system isn't necessary for a tank/healer - but why, you may ask, would it be a bad/harmful thing? I can think of at least two reasons.
First, and foremost, back then spec change was the main gold sink of the game. Sure, there were others - such as flights, mounts, etc. - but dual spec was the only one which was both hefty and repeated (flight costs were repeated but not very significant at 60, and mount costs were hefty but also a one-time thing). In other words, the sort of game mechanic which helps keeping item prices under control and not out of reach for everybody but lvl 60 veterans. This is even more of an issue on an "eternal" server, like Vanilla would be, than on a "progressive" one (more about this below).
Second thing, a large part of the Vanilla experience was that, much more than any other expansion past that, people were commonly identified with their char/roles to a community level. In a world without dual specs, cross realms and with slow levelling rates, you generally had no more than one "competitive" char (i.e. lvl 60 char which actually raids/PvPs rather than just farming), and people identified you with said char. It was not simply your main, it was you. In my guild (which, back then, was a MC-farming guild), there was about one guy - one of the officer - who had 2 alts with half-epic gear, and that was seen as a uniquely impressive achievement, as nobody but him actually had "raid alts/subs" to boast. The rest of us had about one char to raid MC with, if we were lucky. By introducing dual specs, much of that "uniqueness" and sense of commitment would go lost. OFC, I understand that it's a more subjective criticism than the one about the gold sink effect, but it's something I'm sure many people - who played Vanilla too back then - will empathize with.

Now, some of you also voiced the concern that, without such QoL improvements, it would simply take too much time to level/raid in Vanilla, as now we're no longer teenagers but people with full-time jobs (including me). Here, I think, there is however an error of perspective. Back then, the risk of being left behind was very much real because patches and expansions kept coming and you'd risk missing entire tiers of content. However, this is not the same for a static server like Vanilla would be - the experience, I believe, will be much more akin to that of a private server. You don't have to worry about not being able to gear fast enough for Naxxramas - even if you're ready only by next year, Naxx will still be there, and it still will be the endgame content it was the year before. Nobody is hurrying you. Even if your guild ends up "outpacing" you, there are probably other guilds out there who're just starting to clear the kind of content you were at before falling behind. And, if you're the kind of person with full-time jobs and not enough time for Vanilla WoW, you'd prolly not be the kind of person who's racing for world/realm firsts anyways, right?
In short, much of the hurry which makes QoL improvements a necessity in order to experience PvE/PvP content before it's outdated simply will not be an issue on the new Classic servers, unless they diverge significantly from Vanilla WoW by adding brand new content (which I doubt). If, like me, you have less time than before to play WoW, then take your time and enjoy it!

As for the economic concerns, well...
1) As others mentioned, Blizzard likely has evaluated economic prospects before making such an announcement, considering how long the conditions for an interest in Classic WoW have existed for. If they did this announcement now, it's probably because they have evidence supporting a positive outcome, financially speaking.
2) Older games like Diablo 2 still have servers and a small-ish but dedicated fanbase. Heck, minor patches for D2 are still being released to this day, and D2 isn't even a game with a monthly subscription, unlike WoW. Why couldn't the same happen with WoW classic?



One last note - I'm not saying that I'm against any kind of change to WoW Vanilla. Some - such as minor graphic revamps or QoL improvements on par with what addons could give you already - are things I wouldn't mind, as long as they actually mean a larger population. However, some of the QoL improvements proposed, such as the aforementioned dual spec system or significant rebalances to"useless" specs (many of which, btw, would still remain useless/inferior because they lack enough endgame items to support them in raids, such as Feral tanking etc.), would have a much more serious impact on the Vanilla experience, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

[Proskill]

People who ask for no changes are obviously present times players who never actually played Vanilla in the first place.

See how retarded your argument is?

u make no sense. i know what i want

feel like playing slow paced WoW where everything has more weight to it ? go to privates
feel like playing something faster with more button mashing ? resub on live