Legacy Realms - What's your verdict

[starkey]

play a private server they cater for the nostalgic

[Zaqwert]

So that people can complain about bugs and balance issues on those realms on top of current realms?! That is just ridiculous. No.

As I'm picturing it Blizzard would come out and say "This realm has no support and will not receive any patches, if you don't like it don't play on it"

will people complain still? Sure, a few would, but nobody would care. It'd be like running an old non-supported version of a product. You're free to do so if you want, but don't expect any support.

[melodramocracy]

While they've repeatedly said no, I like the idea of them, they're a good thing for the folks who'd be curious about such things. It doesn't impacting the current game in any way at all.

Which patch would the servers operate on? Would people have new talents or old? Would warriors still be the only viable tanks? When would new patches be released? What would happen after the final patch had been released, would servers start over?

I'd guess that they'd base themselves off the last patch of each expansion. Everything should be rolled back to whatever it was like at that point.

[grisset]

As I'm picturing, and as would probably be easiest and cheapest for Blizzard, the legacy realms would exists EXACTLY as the game was as of a particularly patch level (which patch it is you could debate, the final path? Start with the earliest patch and release the next one every so often, etc.)

But Blizzard would clearly not want to devote any "new" development time to old code. Thus everything would be as it was, talents, professions, quests, all as they were on that patch level.

But this is all just speculation of course.

That sounds terrible...

Game balance would be awful. There would be even less variety in specs and characters than there is now.

And since barely any people would play on these realms, good luck finding enough people to run a 40 dungeon... At least the mechanics are face roll easy compared to today...

[Lunareste]

I'd play a vanilla alt and a TBC alt.

they would be alts though, and my main would stay on a "current" realm.

[Mithfir]

I accepted that my golden days of Wow are behind me. I do have fond memories of Vanilla and BC, but to play on a legacy realm would be like living in the past.

However, to do lv.60 Pvp like the old days? That could be tempting to try it a little. I do miss my old Reckoning bomb spec and old AV...

[Zogarth]

Not subbed, but i would if they introduced a BC realm.

[Monstercloud]

Really? It's one of these threads again, but more vague/generic? While I wouldn't say "WoW is as best as it's ever been", there's certainly alot of improvements that have been made that would of benefited past content. As it's impossible to bring all that we have now to current content, the best we can hope for is Blizzard remembering, "OH... that was a good idea, lets do that again!" which is few and far between at this point.

[Zaqwert]

That sounds terrible...

Game balance would be awful. There would be even less variety in specs and characters than there is now.

And since barely any people would play on these realms, good luck finding enough people to run a 40 dungeon... At least the mechanics are face roll easy compared to today...

I've never understood this argument. Every major patch of WoW was played by millions of people who enjoyed it and dealt with all the bugs and balance issues of it.

The game has changed a lot from expansion to expansion. Obviously if you like the the changes and think the game is improving then legacy realms aren't for you. Legacy realms are for people who think the changes have not been good and want to go back to an older version they felt was superior.

Or, to experience a time before they joined the game. I joined right when BC began and never got to do Vanilla, I would check it out just purely out of curiosity.

A lot of hardcore WoW fans might maintain accounts on EVERY realm, you could do any raid you wanted to with the originally level of difficulty.

[Evil Inside]

The novelty of this would wear off within a few weeks and then everyone would be back to normal servers and blizzard would have wasted alot of dev time on such a stupid idea.

Edit: Not to mention blizzard has said that this is something that they wont be wasting time on.

[ComputerNerd]

I've never understood this argument. Every major patch of WoW was played by millions of people who enjoyed it and dealt with all the bugs and balance issues of it.

The game has changed a lot from expansion to expansion. Obviously if you like the the changes and think the game is improving then legacy realms aren't for you. Legacy realms are for people who think the changes have not been good and want to go back to an older version they felt was superior.

Or, to experience a time before they joined the game. I joined right when BC began and never got to do Vanilla, I would check it out just purely out of curiosity.

A lot of hardcore WoW fans might maintain accounts on EVERY realm, you could do any raid you wanted to with the originally level of difficulty.

Actually I think that might be coming as a feature.
Challenge Modes feature scaling down to a given item level, so I propose that it would not be unrealistic to allow such scaling down to any level.
Blizzard even discussed, and hinted at the plans for a "mentoring" capability in WotLK where a player could down-level so that they can assist their friends with level appropriate content in a way that is actually far more conducive towards better play in a way that boosting is not.
The battleground scaling of pushing the stats of a player up to the top end of the bracket is not too different from levelling someone down in the same way.
Now the two core mechanism are both present in-game in some form, I would say it is very feasible to be a big upcoming feature

[cFortyfive]

I had the best times in vanilla and the first two expansions but trying to get back there via legacy realms seems incredibly stupid.

[dope_danny]

I'd definitely roll an alt on a vanilla server if only for the very permanent "60 will always be maxed, this IS a best in slot that never changes" sort of thing so you could get your character to be the absolute best it could be and explore all the things removed later on all over again.
Wouldnt be my main in wow, but it would be a great side diversion to keep me subbed.

[Stormcall]

People would lose interest shortly after they discovered there were no new patches (ever,) classes were completely out of balance, and the servers had absolutely no contemporary upkeep.

This about sums it up. Sure, there are some things I miss about TBC, or Wrath...or even Cata in some cases, but it doesn't mean I want to stay in that content forever, either.

[Larwood]

They should do them just to show people how far the game has really come. I guarantee that if they existed the % of people who decide not to play on them would be much closer to 100.

[Atrea]

Obviously I don't think a TON of people would go to the legacy realms if they existed. I mean it wouldn't be millions or anything, the current servers (whatever current was) would be by far the most popular.

However legacy realms COULD be profitable. You could setup a small number of each and have it be known there is no support, no patches, no GM's, or anything for it. So you wouldn't have much overhead cost.

Even if you only got a few hundred thousand on each of the legacy realms and charged them $10 a month or something, surely that's more profitable than having a bunch of ex-subscribers not paying anything.

People wouldn't play these servers long term, but I mean even if everyone just came back for 3-6 months to get their nostaligia fix, WoW has many many many millions of ex players and that represents a ton of revenue potentially.

I know Blizzard has said they won't do it, but if the demand for it grows I wouldn't be surprised at one day it becoming a possibility.

Judging by your own rather unscientific poll, you're pretty far from reality if you believe this.

[Ferocity]

Actually I think that might be coming as a feature.
...
Blizzard even discussed, and hinted at the plans for a "mentoring" capability in WotLK where a player could down-level so that they can assist their friends with level appropriate content in a way that is actually far more conducive towards better play in a way that boosting is not.

EXpansion-limited servers are much m ore than just level-capped realms. Everything preCata just worked 100% different way than now. Literally, the whole world was absolutely different (1-60), class mechanics completely different, a lot of dungeons completely different (WC, ST, DM, SFK, RFC, ZG). The game itself had completely different pacing, with leveling being an adventure in itself.

And upkeeping such server would cost minimum resources - to make data back-ups and clean from dust, that's it. Even if few players will be playing on server - it will far outweight the server upkeep. You don't even need uber servers to run preCata WoW. But time passes, decent private servers are more and more refined, so people would rather be interested in server code to have identical servers rather than pay for what they already have access to, what they reconstructed by their own hands and having access to free of charge Especially with technology' progress, when maintaining servers and databases becomes more and more efficient.

Edit: I misread poll options: make it -1 to last poll option >.<

[Mifuyne]

I'm not even going to read all the other replies, I voted subscription and not moving to any "legacy" realm.

First of all, it's a waste of time and resources that could be better spend on future stuff.
Second of all; In my opinion the game evolved and shows how poorly it was done in the past.
People will get bored of it after a few months just from the lack of progression and ofcourse - rose coloured glasses are rose coloured.

[Deleted]

Well if there was only ONE big Classic, ONE big TBC and ONE big Wotlk Realm i would probably give it a try. Without any Xrealm features i could imagine a nice community to form. Maybe even just ONE Classic realm... its not a long time since woltk and you can basically still experience the whole content in MoP.
I personally really miss the old 1-60 zones, maybe pure nostalgia but i would level a char just to see it again. So much good memories.

Generally blizzard needs to reform their realms... 80% of servers are basically dead, there isn't a difference between PVP and PVE realms anymore etc...

[Deleted]

Same as blizzard's and the majority of players.

No need.