Vanilla, TBC, Wrath servers... will they ever happen?

[Crushima]

No. They will never happen. The replay value on old content is minimal at best, and no new content would be forthcoming. Leave that to the side though and let's discuss the technical aspects of this. Blizzard no longer has the game engine that those expansions operated on. It's been changed too much for them to use the current system. That means they'd have to spend an enormous amount of time recreating the game engine for those servers. That means quite a few hours of work for very little return.

So again, no. You won't see legacy servers from Blizzard. The best you can hope for is a private server.

I like how you think these realms would be overpopulated. I don't know a single player who would play on them beyond the first day(just out of curiosity).

Your 'technical aspects' is completely nonsense. Of course Blizzard have backups of every slingle client and server build they ever did. If they wanted to host a Vanilla server, they could do so in a heartbeat, with whichever patch version they wanted.

[Deleted]

Well, there are some servers with lvl 60/70/80 twink guilds and below.

Right, there's a way of getting enough people together, but still, it's not the same, as a 25 player group of level 70 players will burst through some of those raids, and some content just isn't even available anymore.

[MetroStratics]

They already do. Use google.

Be aware, after playing for any extended period of time you realize how much worse the game was back then. There are just toooo many quality of life changes over the last few years to go back to BC days comfortably. People all say they want to play during those times again, but as soon as you do you realize 5 man content and raiding were the ONLY good thing back then. Especially for a select few classes.

[Aquinan]

http://alltheragefaces.com/img/userc...e5660d4f28.png

Infracted. Removed the [IMG] coding as well.

[Sinndra]

Thank you Sinndra, I had lost the link to "The Wall of No!" Now I have it again

haha! glad i could help, you are very welcome! ive been hanging onto that for a little while now.

[Deleted]

That's wouldn't really be the reason at all. It's more to with them wanting the game to actually move forward and not backwards, stagnating at some point in the past. It also further segregates players which really isn't a good thing.

Isn't the first part pretty much what I said?

Even if it did take no amount of work or costs, they wouldn't do it because it sends the message that their past content was better and is more desirable. It's more in their interest to get people excited about what's in for WoW for the future.

[Deleted]

From a developing standpoint it doesnt make sence to add it. They change the gameplay (not talking about expansions) because they belive its a better direction of the game. Another point is that a certain players would play it over the new content and therefor make it less played so it would actually be a "lose" for blizzards developing time. Another point is players would stop buying expansions because there would be no need for them to buy WoD etc.

Personally I would love for this to happend but I have given up the dream already. If I really need a vanilla/BC/WotLK fix I usually go play a private server or just play slowely through the questing areas on a new toon. I'd love legacy servers but it wont ever happend.

[Lochton]

I'm aware of that, but people are clearing AQ40 with 10 man lvl 60 and such.

But what is the craving for the old content? I have heard rumors of servers where they boost the XP gained, what gives? Not the topic though, Blizzard has announced a no, multiple times for this (To be honest, I think minimum once a year since Wrath).

Running old content has a lot of maintenance as well. A lot of bugs that was fun in the old content were fixed via cross-over patching or expansions as well.

[Terahertz]

You already mentioned the fact why it would have no use for blizzard to introduce such servers: Private Servers. If you want to relive the old WoW, stop (put swear word here because im seriously sick of these !@$#$ threads) whining and asking for official oldschool servers, which less than 1% of the playerbase will play, which will also cost too much money to maintain and keep active, AND FUCKING PLAY THOSE SERVERS INSTEAD.

[Deleted]

But what is the craving for the old content? I have heard rumors of servers where they boost the XP gained, what gives? Not the topic though, Blizzard has announced a no, multiple times for this (To be honest, I think minimum once a year since Wrath).

Running old content has a lot of maintenance as well. A lot of bugs that was fun in the old content were fixed via cross-over patching or expansions as well.

Nostalgia. Wanting to play the game that they liked instead of the game it is now.

[Kryos]

Cons:

BUGS, LOT'S OF BUGS

You really forgot them, you brain filtered all the shitty problems and left you with a rose red colored fantasy version of the past.

[sarecho]

What is the point in exploring when you have seen literally everything there could possibly be in the game months and months before it goes live?

People often complain there is no mystery or exploration in WoW anymore and they do it from this website. A website dedicated to telling you everything there is to know coming up in future patches/expansions.

Fun happens all the time in WoW. Naturally, even.

you seriously need this spelled out for you? no fucking way you played in vanilla or bc then. the PEOPLE were what changed things. maybe angwe was ganking in MH for 6 months straight, maybe horde were set up by the SFK stone trying to summon their 5th when a group of 5 alliance showed up. maybe an RP wedding was happening. maybe 10000000 things was happening (and something always was) because it wasn't possible to afk in a city like a piece of useless shit and queue for everything. maybe you had to play the game then, since automated systems were a thing of the future.

when you streamline shit, it becomes far less organic. you need an organic MMORPG experience. right now wow isn't an MMORPG anymore, it's basically a lobby you afk in

VERY few people get out there and do stuff because you simply don't have to. you can explore anything over and over as long as something is different every time. vanilla/bc had shit going on outside. you know how it feels when an expansion hits in that second zone (past the initial zerg of people)? it was like that most of the time. it was busy, unpredictable, sometimes good, sometimes annoying. something was going on. vanilla had a LOT of issues that would cause it to fail today, but the way the world felt isn't one of them

if they killed off flying and automatic queues the world would come alive out of necessity

[Deleted]

No. You said it would be them admitting that their past content was better than any future content. That is not the same thing at all.

I said that. I also said they want them to look forward, to what they will be releasing, instead of the content they released in the past.

[Deleted]

But what is the craving for the old content?

Honestly I ask that myself sometimes. And I usually don't find an answer. Sometimes I just feel like it, feel like playing old games and I play them, but here (apart from privat servers) I don't have an option. And then again I believe I'm not the only one as we can clearly see many people are streaming old games on twitch ect. Then again, they are usually not MMOs.

[sarecho]

Cons:

BUGS, LOT'S OF BUGS

You really forgot them, you brain filtered all the shitty problems and left you with a rose red colored fantasy version of the past.

wow has ALWAYS had a ton of bugs. right now there are 3 gamebreaking bugs i can think of. fuck, you can use 2seater mounts to exploit so much shit. vanilla's overall uptime is also HIGHER than mop's overall uptime (mop's uptime is the lowest of all wow expansions).

hell right now vanilla's peak subs of 7 million > mop's current subs

[Deleted]

Cons:

BUGS, LOT'S OF BUGS

You really forgot them, you brain filtered all the shitty problems and left you with a rose red colored fantasy version of the past.

I know of all the bugs the game used to have, were Vanilla, TBC and Wrath not still great despite those bugs? Why do people play on private servers where bugs are even more common?

[Auxora]

No, and most importantly your cons list is only from the players perspective and leaves out the primary reason Blizz has said it won't ever happen. They have repeatedly said exactly why when asked before. The reason it won't ever happen is more from the technical/support side. It would just be too much work for Blizzard to try to support players playing on different versions. Every earlier version had bugs and issues, so anytime any player calls them for support they'd have to figure out what version you are playing on - and then cross-reference it with a list of bugs or issues to try to figure out if that bug existed then. Plus for example say they have a 2.0 server and there is a huge bug, maybe even an exploit, they can't really patch or fix it like they do with live without knowing what else it might break. It's also then not really a "2.0" server. Anyone who played lock before 3.0 remembers the huge demon follow bug, where when you mounted up your demon would follow you. But the demon was a little slower than your mounted speed and within going 30-40 yards would be too far behind and would be dismissed, which was a hassle to have to resummon every time you went anywhere. That's just 1 of probably 100 examples. You start to see the nightmarish Pandora's box of problems it starts to open up from Blizzard's support point of view as a business and why it won't ever happen. Plus, unless they would charge extra (which people would balk about) there is no business incentive to put themselves through all that. That's also why the closest we ever get are the flashback-type things like bringing back Naxx in Wrath, or the upcoming MC/TM-SS event that they can actually support.

That said, there are some excellent vanilla servers around if you do a little looking. They are "allegedly" a blast and it's fun to go back and re-live or see the much more difficult times, when named mobs were difficult elites, you were lucky to have a few silver by level 12, and it would take 10 hours just to get to level 12. I think in the end Blizz is happy to let them exist when they could easily shut them down. It leaves an option for the small number of players that want to play on them, and leaves them out of the mess of support issues that comes with it. In some ways WoD feels a little old-school vanilla-BC. Not in terms of difficulty, but the additional cast times and limited mana for healers, the cutdown spellbooks, plus the return of the need for cc in places.

[Romanesca]

I think it would be cool if there was 1 dedicated server to classic / TBC, and people have been asking for it for as long as I can remember. I would log on to it every once and awhile, but knowing Blizzard, the effort and cost would not be worth the money return.

You also need to realize the divide in the community that would most likely happen, I mean look at Runescape, they brought back 07 servers and now everywhere it's always RS07 vs. RS3.

Blizzard could hire a small dedicated team of 4 or 5 to deal with the legacy servers, but...come on.

[Deleted]

Read THIS and shut up about it.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7980168520#18

[justjm]

No and i hope they never do. This is a sorry e.g. of wearing rose colored glasses. The classes have all changed for the better and the game is a lot better off. I hope the past remains buried, where it is.