Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Saracens]

Once again, stop the personal attacks and focus your posting on the topic and the discussion, please. Thank you.

[Spiral Mage]

So after giving this some more thought (I can be a little obsessive) I have come up with the following implementation strategy for rebooting WoW and how the gating system can work. I am open to feedback.

1.) Create a server cluster that spans every xpack. For example Doomhammer-Vanilla, Doomhammer-TBC, Doomhammer-WotLK, etc. Connect these servers into a local group.

2.) Patch each server to the last available patch for that xpack. For example, Vanilla realm will release with patch 1.12.2, TBC 2.4.3, etc.

3.) All new players must start on their respective Vanilla server and must progress stepwise through UBRS/MC/BWL/AQ/Naxx to attune to a server hop. Want an alt? Be prepared to work for it.

4.) Once the last boss is killed (only one difficulty), the character unlocks the ability to transfer to the TBC server. Realm hops can be announced in major cities (like the Onyxia kill for example). This is a major achievement and should come with a cool cinematic.

5.) All toons rolled must stay on their server group, cannot be moved, cannot name change. However, people can chat between servers within their own group.

6.) LFR/LFD will never be implemented. Patches will be tweaked so attunements are never removed.

7.) Since everyone will be geared well for each new xpack hop, gear resets can be eliminated. Naxx gear can be worn up until TBC heroic 5-man or Kara gear and trash can be made harder. You want a leveling buff? You have amazing gear. There's your buff.

This is IMO the best way to implement a WoW reboot in a way that will satisfy progression raiders (aka the subs lost when tourist mode was introduced).

Obviously there will be struggles/bottlenecks. Entire guilds will need to hop at the same time in order to avoid orphaning raiders who aren't attuned. It won't simply be 'OK 40 of us killed Kel'Thuzad, BYE!' It would need to be run for a few weeks, but this is no different than what progression guilds did back in Vanilla/TBC.

This will take some dev work and tweaking for sure, but 90% of the work is already done. This will in effect create a 'gauntlet mode' for raiders who want to experience all content from scratch.

I love this statement. You list all of this shit BLIZ would have to do from scratch and then say: "90% of this is already done." No, no. 0% of what you listed is done. None of that has been done, period. Even in a world where they kept backups of every single patch (they don't ..), having to modernize all that stuff to work on their new backbone structure would require them to basically start all over from nothing knowing that the things you listed were the goals.

It's like building a house, then adding tons and tons of stuff onto it and knocking it down a few times, only to have someone come by and be like: "Dude, just go back to how the house was in the beginning, it's 90% done already." When the original house hasn't been there for 10 years and only exists in blueprints and memories.

And all so you can spend a week on there, remember how bad it was, and go back to Legion? No way dude.

[Galax]

I'm going to set the record straight here.

To all the people saying that 850k subs is inflated, you're out of your mind. A legacy server would bring in well over one million subs. Probably more than 2 million. Think about it. Even if only 100k individuals were willing to figure out how to play a patchwork version of Vanilla on a private server, most knowing they were playing on borrowed time, you can easily infer that 10x more would get behind an official Blizzard release. Take me for example. I didn't play Nost but I'm well in favor of a legacy release. Why? In a word, CONFIDENCE.

1.) I will play knowing Blizzard is behind the project, which means my account is protected and problems are supported.

2.) Blizzard's advertising will be WAY better than the Nost team, which means I will play in a large, stable community.

The voices you're hearing in the official forums are current subs ONLY. People who have quit 'candy crush' WoW unsubbed a long time ago and don't have posting rights. These silent masses exist in droves.

People who started after initial release will sub to experience original content as it was meant to be played

Blizzard knows this. They aren't stupid. Legacy servers may not release this year or even next year.. but they will release. There is a massive market for it, and what Nost captured is only a fraction of it.

[Holtzmann]

ok so you agree that creating legacy servers is not as expensive as creating a new mmo now read this quote from mark kern a blizz dev:

"Let’s put that in perspective. When we planned World of Warcraft, we only expected 1M sold and 500k active. And yet..and yet that was enough to bet the whole company on making WoW. It was the most expensive game Blizzard had ever made, and a huge risk. And yet, we would have been happy with 1M accounts back then. So I don’t understand this talk about 850k account not being worthwhile. That’s bunk. And you know what? With Blizzard officially behind legacy servers, you would see far more than 1M account re-activations. If a relatively unknown private server can reach 850k, then think what putting the Blizzard name behind it could do…far, far more.

As for 150k active, my understanding is that was measured over a 10 day window. The industry standard for measuring active is 30 days. I bet the 30 day number is higher, but even at 150k, during vanilla WoW we only expected around 450k active subscribers, and it would have been a huge success. Nostalrius is not that far off from what would have been a home run for us at the time. Of course, we ended up doing much, much more than that, but I’m talking about what we would have been thrilled with in the beginning and been very profitable."

if 450k subs was enough for blizzard to develop and entire mmo, why is developing legacy servers, something that in costs does not even come close, not a profitable or smart option.

I don't know. Ask them?

The point is that we don't know how the landscape is nowadays. Back in the times of Vanilla the MMO hadn't yet boomed and busted. I'm sure they could develop whatever they want at any kind of loss right now, just on the massive income they're getting from Overwatch and Hearthstone. But someone important in the company doesn't think Legacy servers are a wise project to be pushed forward right now. Probably because while 150k active accounts is a truly impressive number for a free private server, no one knows what the percentage of those people would play a paid version of it.

Keep in mind that the very definition of a Legacy server implies no progression past the last patch of the base game or expansion in question. People already complain about content droughts at the end of expansions, and most of World of Warcraft's subscription losses happened during those times. If a Legacy server was deployed and hit 500k active accounts during the first month it would be fantastic, but the developers have to think a year or two ahead when those 500k active accounts would gradually drop as people left the game. Blizzard was deathly afraid of even mentioning the term "server merger", imagine how afraid they must be of having to shut down a Legacy server because it's dropped down to 5k active accounts after just three years online.

[parcus]

funny how they also claimed that they didn't have the core data from past patches and expansions and one day it suddenly came up and they had it again.

They never said they didn't have the data, some retards chose to interpret their comments that way and repeated that 1000 times until it "became true".

basically i get from that is back then they didnt not have the ability to back up the data but now they do.

Also, the latest "Nost threat" mentions that they have been in contact with Blizzard lately and that Blizzard has said that they now have the means to fix the metadata issue.

[Galax]

I love this statement. You list all of this shit BLIZ would have to do from scratch and then say: "90% of this is already done." No, no. 0% of what you listed is done. None of that has been done, period. Even in a world where they kept backups of every single patch (they don't ..), having to modernize all that stuff to work on their new backbone structure would require them to basically start all over from nothing knowing that the things you listed were the goals.

It's like building a house, then adding tons and tons of stuff onto it and knocking it down a few times, only to have someone come by and be like: "Dude, just go back to how the house was in the beginning, it's 90% done already." When the original house hasn't been there for 10 years and only exists in blueprints and memories.

And all so you can spend a week on there, remember how bad it was, and go back to Legion? No way dude.

Legion will still be there when I've completed the game from Vanilla. Plus Blizzard can release one at a time. Start with Vanilla to gauge interest and work from there. As another poster stated, they released Vanilla with 500k active users in mind. They can't erect a few servers with existing content on a trial basis? Sorry but the risk:reward favours trying this.

[Holtzmann]

basically i get from that is back then they didnt not have the ability to back up the data but now they do.

Pretty much, yeah. Now they could probably release a, say, Warlords of Draenor server without much issue. They have all the relevant data for that, both in terms of source code and metadata stored. If I were to guess, I'd say that they started doing proper version control on their stuff after Cataclysm, because they had to change a lot of things while developing that particular expansion because of the sheer amount of effort the old world revamp required.

funny how they also claimed that they didn't have the core data from past patches and expansions and one day it suddenly came up and they had it again.

Take it up to them. I'm just relaying the information they released. As far as I'm concerned they could have everything ready to launch Legacy servers right now, or they might not even have a single kilobyte of Vanilla code left in their repository. It doesn't matter to me. What matters is what the current information is, and at the moment what I quoted for you up there is the current information. If Ion Hazzikostas walks out on a stage tomorrow and tells everybody they got the metadata for Vanilla, then that will be the current information and that's one less hurdle for them to release Legacy servers.

[Deleted]

I don't know. Ask them?

The point is that we don't know how the landscape is nowadays. Back in the times of Vanilla the MMO hadn't yet boomed and busted. I'm sure they could develop whatever they want at any kind of loss right now, just on the massive income they're getting from Overwatch and Hearthstone. But someone important in the company doesn't think Legacy servers are a wise project to be pushed forward right now. Probably because while 150k active accounts is a truly impressive number for a free private server, no one knows what the percentage of those people would play a paid version of it.

Keep in mind that the very definition of a Legacy server implies no progression past the last patch of the base game or expansion in question. People already complain about content droughts at the end of expansions, and most of World of Warcraft's subscription losses happened during those times. If a Legacy server was deployed and hit 500k active accounts during the first month it would be fantastic, but the developers have to think a year or two ahead when those 500k active accounts would gradually drop as people left the game. Blizzard was deathly afraid of even mentioning the term "server merger", imagine how afraid they must be of having to shut down a Legacy server because it's dropped down to 5k active accounts after just three years online.

so you agree that there are no reasons for them to release it nice , I believe the reason blizz as not yet released them is legion, it's still to new and they don't wanna take any attention from it. also the amount of hate that some of the wow community directs towards legacy servers also does not help

now on the topic of "no progression", it's not as you say, servers would progress trough patches just like in nost or when the game was live, but no extra content will be added to them, when the expansion reaches it's last patch instead of ending, it progresses to the next expansion. giving the option to go to the new expansions or stay in the current one.

[Traveler Voltin]

Pretty much, yeah. Now they could probably release a, say, Warlords of Draenor server without much issue. They have all the relevant data for that, both in terms of source code and metadata stored. If I were to guess, I'd say that they started doing proper version control on their stuff after Cataclysm, because they had to change a lot of things while developing that particular expansion because of the sheer amount of effort the old world revamp required.

still going to cost alot to set stuff up and take at least a year maybe 2.
i still hate the idea of legacy servers and i dont want them. but i have decided to be civil about it.

[Eleccybubb]

Once again, stop the personal attacks and focus your posting on the topic and the discussion, please. Thank you.

Ok then stop people posting "Legacy Confirmed" just because there is a retrospective topic at Blizzcon for their 25 year anniversary. Seems fair.

[Holtzmann]

how can you say that there is not a huge amount of people getting into world of warcraft, there are new wow players everyday some stay and some don't that is a fact, that is why blizz should make legacy servers part of the base wow sub to give the option to new players to experience a different version of the game

You can't compare the rate of new players getting into World of Warcraft now compared to 2004-2009. The new players we have nowadays are but a trickle compared to the deluge that we had back then. World of Warcraft was a pop culture phenomenon, and now it's faded into the background. Legacy servers would certainly bring it back to the forefront for a few days, maybe a few weeks, but ultimately WoW would settle back to what it is today.

And sure. If Blizzard wanted to implement Legacy servers, I'd be all up for them to be included in the base World of Warcraft subscription. Spares me from having to run two subs. :P

[Tackhisis]

Blizzard would've created several servers to handle initial load, but 96% of players will quit in a month, as Nost statistics say. What will happen with the resulting dead servers and their communities?

[Deleted]

You can't compare the rate of new players getting into World of Warcraft now compared to 2004-2009. The new players we have nowadays are but a trickle compared to the deluge that we had back then. World of Warcraft was a pop culture phenomenon, and now it's faded into the background. Legacy servers would certainly bring it back to the forefront for a few days, maybe a few weeks, but ultimately WoW would settle back to what it is today.

And sure. If Blizzard wanted to implement Legacy servers, I'd be all up for them to be included in the base World of Warcraft subscription. Spares me from having to run two subs. :P

maybe , there is only one way to find out xd

[Holtzmann]

Blizzard would've created several servers to handle initial load, but 96% of players will quit in a month, as Nost statistics say. What will happen with the resulting dead servers and their communities?

Ironically, Blizzard's new server sharding technology would be perfect for handling that sort of situation. Problem is: the Vanilla server would have to be rewritten to current standards to be able to make use of that technology.

That and some people would decry sharding (and server stability) as being un-Vanilla-like. :P

maybe , there is only one way to find out xd

Yep. And it's in Blizzard's hands to take that risk. Just gotta wait for them there.

[Shridevi]

I'm going to set the record straight here.

To all the people saying that 850k subs is inflated, you're out of your mind. A legacy server would bring in well over one million subs. Probably more than 2 million. Think about it. Even if only 100k individuals were willing to figure out how to play a patchwork version of Vanilla on a private server, most knowing they were playing on borrowed time, you can easily infer that 10x more would get behind an official Blizzard release. Take me for example. I didn't play Nost but I'm well in favor of a legacy release. Why? In a word, CONFIDENCE.

1.) I will play knowing Blizzard is behind the project, which means my account is protected and problems are supported.

2.) Blizzard's advertising will be WAY better than the Nost team, which means I will play in a large, stable community.

The voices you're hearing in the official forums are current subs ONLY. People who have quit 'candy crush' WoW unsubbed a long time ago and don't have posting rights. These silent masses exist in droves.

People who started after initial release will sub to experience original content as it was meant to be played

Blizzard knows this. They aren't stupid. Legacy servers may not release this year or even next year.. but they will release. There is a massive market for it, and what Nost captured is only a fraction of it.

This makes perfect sense to me as well.

The metadata issue is just an excuse, and it only bothers the purists. People who want to play vanilla don't give a shit where the metadata comes from, as long as it's as accurate as possible. This is assuming that Blizzard is even missing it in the first place (which I find very hard to believe). There is such a thing called the internet, web archives, screenshots, Youtube, etc.

Yeah, source control and data backups are real. You think thottbot or allakhazam won't respond to official requests from Blizzard asking for database backups from Nov. 2004? You think Blizzard doesn't have their website archived with every single patch note? They don't have notes, reports, excel sheets, presentations, proposals saved from their employees over the years? Nost did an amazing job with whatever limited resources they had, and we're saying that Blizzard can't improve upon or use Nost's metadata?

People in comp sci, or those who program for a living (both me), find this exceptionally hard to believe. Even if it's true, the defeatist, purist attitude among some here is seriously a mood killer. It's almost as if they don't want the metadata to be found. If it needs to be done then just do it. This is secretary work.

[Galax]

Exactly. I have worked in software development for a much, much smaller project than World of fucking Warcraft and if I didn't have backups of every iteration of my software, along with detailed requirements, a tracability matrix, and .bak files, I'd be fired.

You're telling me an outfit like Blizzard overlooked these things?

[Darsithis]

Exactly. I have worked in software development for a much, much smaller project than World of fucking Warcraft and if I didn't have backups of every iteration of my software, along with detailed requirements, a tracability matrix, and .bak files, I'd be fired.

You're telling me an outfit like Blizzard overlooked these things?

We have a full history in our GIT repository of all of our software.

However...we don't store every database revision, and at this point it would be impossible to truly roll our software back 2, 3, 5, 6, years. It's just not supportable. It can run on our current database but it won't work well by any means. There is no doubt at a place like Blizzard, professional as it may be, some things have been lost. It's human nature.

On top of that, try weaving in hardware updates, drivers, bug fixes, and exploit fixes into code from a decade ago. I mean, come on. I have games from less than 5 years ago that cannot play on newer hardware.

[Dormie]

Trying to act like they couldn't do it is IMO the worst argument to focus on. Of course they can do it. It's the other factors that stop them from actually starting servers.

[Fascinate]

We have a full history in our GIT repository of all of our software.

However...we don't store every database revision, and at this point it would be impossible to truly roll our software back 2, 3, 5, 6, years. It's just not supportable. It can run on our current database but it won't work well by any means. There is no doubt at a place like Blizzard, professional as it may be, some things have been lost. It's human nature.

On top of that, try weaving in hardware updates, drivers, bug fixes, and exploit fixes into code from a decade ago. I mean, come on. I have games from less than 5 years ago that cannot play on newer hardware.

Smart people get things done, especially if lots of money can be had. I dont know when classic servers are going to happen, i just know they will. I am enjoying the heck out of legion they did a really good job, but i would leave for classic servers at the drop of a hat.....as would millions of others.

[slaise1]

Smart people get things done, especially if lots of money can be had. I dont know when classic servers are going to happen, i just know they will. I am enjoying the heck out of legion they did a really good job, but i would leave for classic servers at the drop of a hat.....as would millions of others.

Why? /10char