Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Reapocalypse]

Talking about their lawsuits. Try to stay on topic, and read for comprehension, next time.

You literally said Botters right after my Quote, with Botters i can just assume that you mean the Players and their Bans, if you meant the Botting Companys then my bad.

It's been said many times, and a lot throughout this thread, but some of you guys really have to understand that Blizzard is constantly moving WoW forward ... The world, the story, their in-game systems etc.
The idea of a Legacy Server does appeal to me too for sure, the days of Vanilla/BC/WoTLK were incredible ... However, think of all the great changes they've already developed since those times, like new character models, achievements, tons of incremental improvements to the game like talents, spells, thousands of quests etc. ... Would all of these systems become obsolete? Neglected? Would we return to old character models again? Disregard changes that took years of development time? ... I'm really not sure this'd be the way to go forward, hence why Blizzard hasn't done it. The way I do see it though is that one day there will be "Classic Realms" where the Cap for the whole server is at level 60, although this brings about issues like Blizzard having to resort to changing the talent trees/spells etc. to a Vanilla-like state. Not sure how they'd execute it ... :-/

"Improvements" or changes to the game are way too subjective to be a good argument against legacy realms imo, QoL changes are tho.

[Raelbo]

but claiming that it proves Blizzard's analysis beyond a doubt is far from the truth, we simply don't have enough useful info on Nost activity.

The numbers I have seen bandied about by Nostalrius fans, which I find plausible, are as follows:

Total number of accounts created: 800K
Total number of active accounts at the end: 150K
Peak number of players online : 15K

So basically, as Raiju said, 80%+ churn of active accounts within a year, and even the active accounts are not exactly bristling with activity.

What this all tells me is that there was indeed quite a lot of interest in the server, but that most of it was shortlived and unsustainable. And this is for a free server - make people pay for it, and you will see those numbers decline even more.

[Xilurm]

How much money will it cost blizzard to redevelop and/or reengineer Vanilla realm? :3 What do you think? At least approximately.

Certainly less than what they use for making a current expansion.

[Deleted]

The world, the story, their in-game systems etc.

Bullshit; their in-game systems are outdated and as anti-innovation as possible. Their story has regressed massively and the lore is terribly formatted. The world environment is obsolete and unused.

[Xilurm]

every f... buisness in entire world follows that route unless you meant charity organizations

Are you saying companies now are like they used to be? Cause I don't remember them splitting games into 10 pieces and calling the first piece a complete game and selling it for 60$.

[shoc]

Where would that money have come from?

Donations over the course of 800k registered users?

[Gadzooks]

You've posted precious few facts. You've made some affirmations supported by little (like claiming their software is heavily dependant on their hardware just because they have tailored hardware servers, and confusing a software update with a hardware one) and postured a lot. Not really sufficient to make you an authority on... anything, really.

I also saw you being obliterated by Xarian when it came to discussing technical matters, where you were just acting like a child and were unable to answer solidly to his polite and argumented posts.

So yeah, I stand by what I said, you're all posture and no substance.

Wow. Someone is really upset. And, i don;'t think you've been reading the same thread I have been posting in. Xarian? Who? Is that one of the other posters this thread I stopped engaging with, because it was useless? Really? I ran away? LOL! Such loaded language you like to use. Affirmations! (I don't think that word means what you think it does, but I'll cut some slack because I know this is an international board)

Go rage at someone else. No, wait, keep going, this is hilarious - it's making the last 50 pages of nonsense worth it! Rage at me! Do your worst!

LOL. So ANGRY.

[Vichan]

it's funny how all of you blindly arguing for these servers completely ignored my posts explaining why blizzard won't make them

[Raiju]

What this all tells me is that there was indeed quite a lot of interest in the server, but that most of it was shortlived and unsustainable. And this is for a free server - make people pay for it, and you will see those numbers decline even more.

To put forth a fair argument - paying will also see more longevity in players, but still it's hard to argue noticeably more than 6 months when the average seems far lower on free servers.

[shimerra]

Certainly less than what they use for making a current expansion.

And would certainly net them far less of a return. Or as some would call it a loss.

[Deleted]

Donations over the course of 800k registered users?

Nostalrius didn't accept donations outside of the $500 it cost for them to keep the servers up every month.

And would certainly net them far less of a return. Or as some would call it a loss.

Yeah, WoD's net Negative 5 million players would also be called a loss 'by some'.

I'm sure bringing Vanilla back would make nobody pay any attention; they should just make continually more shitty expansions. You've obviously got the right idea.

[Xilurm]

In your opinion. Retail WoW is still by pretty much every metric and astounding success dominating its market.


But I guess in your eye the key to maintaining that is to piss away money restarting vanilla to appease a small minority instead of investing in new content?

Yes, because it will be better than current content. If current content is like WoD that is. Somehow I doubt it will get better just because they are using the Legion, Illidan and Demon Hunters for their next expansion.

[Deleted]

And this is for a free server - make people pay for it, and you will see those numbers decline even more.

Could argue that not quite as steeply as one might imagine.
The idea of investing time into a character on a free private server which can go tits up at any moment is a huge turn-off for a lot of potential players.

[Gadzooks]

I'm heading to bed, or as someone here likes to claim, I'm "running away". LOL This "E-bully" needs sleep! ROFL.

Have at it - I'm sure the sniveling and whinging will reach 600 pages tomorrow, repeating the same old tired bullshit. I may or may not come back to play, as the weekend is over.

[corebit]

Where does this myth come from that there is some holy lands where laws do not get enforced (Russia and others) ?, last time i checked Blizzard has HQ´s and sub Companys in every mayor region in EU/NA/KR/Oceanic/Asia if they wanted to they could just go with the Russian legal system or not ?

Nostalrius should hook up with Kim Jong to set it up in North Korea. No more legal problems!

[Propainn]

Now I'm "useless".

Meanwhile, you've yet to refute anything I've said.

And, I don't seem to recall ever calling you any names. Odd, that.

On me trying to learn about server costs, etc.:

"You can try, but all we'll do is laugh at you."

"Reading this makes me think of a kindergardener trying to explain how international monetary policy is created."

"I'll just continue to laugh my ass off at your posturing and incredibly naive attempt to "fix" this problem. Please, answer away - you're comments are the gems we dig through the shit in this thread to find."

Mind you, I never once postured buuuuut:

"No answer, huh? I thought so. So much for "extraneous comments", when that's all you're capable of.

Just stop talking about server economics. You don't have clue one about it."

"I'll stop there, you're not worth the infraction."

You seem to enjoy it though.

So yeah, I guess you totally never insulted me and are a useful asset to this thread (which, tbh isn't sarcasm. you really are entertaining, just not in the way you'd hope) with all of the constructive posting you provide us. Ty so much.

inb4 dodge

[Atelniar]

Given that the first two tiers would be cleared within the first month, barring any artificial gating, I'm not sure a KT kill before 6 months were up, is entirely out of the question.

I have to admit I am not big into raiding myself, but I do find a 6 month period questionable. This perspective would be most relevant for competetive guilds, having to organize up to 30-40 reliable players would take time. I suspect anywhere between 8-12 months to be much more realistic on average. And, this is when ignoring the sustainability of the PvP aspect. Although a harsh grind, the original PvP system did have a very socially competetive aspect to it that arenas lacked, as it was based on realm-per-realm ranking. The current retail aspect of WoW PvP is lackluster at best, honor gear can be grinded out in less than a week and conquest gear can be obtained in the same time-period with the catchup mechanics. Beyond that it is merely an e-peen ladder with no social reward and a minimum set of rewards/titles to obtain. Rated BG's are unfortunately completely broken due to the way PvP is handled through class/spec balance and the heavy focus on 3 vs. 3.

You might be right that a minority would clear content quickly, but I raise a question: how relevant is that minority in terms of this content?

[Saeran]

Nostalrius didn't accept donations outside of the $500 it cost for them to keep the servers up every month.

So it costs them $500 a month.. there's me reading elsewhere $1000 / month.

Donations from 800k users.. as people have said again and again, just how many do you think would have played on Nost if it hadn't been FTP? Even with that they went from 800k to 150k in less than a year.

[Shoopuf]

How much money will it cost blizzard to redevelop and/or reengineer Vanilla realm? :3 What do you think? At least approximately.

I napkin mathed about 5m per year for development and upkeep. Based on

I mean, assume 16 developers like Nost had @ $150k/yr, 50 or so GMs @ 40k/yr, 3 CMs @ 40k/yr, monthly server costs around 60000/yr. It'd be about 5m a year to fund a legacy server. (I could be way off on the amount of GMs required)

So it costs them $500 a month.. there's me reading elsewhere $1000 / month.

Donations from 800k users.. as people have said again and again, just how many do you think would have played on Nost if it hadn't been FTP? Even with that they went from 800k to 150k in less than a year.

That's a false dichotomy. You can bet there's a lot more people willing to pay for a legitimate, legal, server from the company who made the game than an illegal server that could be taken down at any time. Live WoW has had over 100m accounts registered and currently has 5.5m subscribers (last official announcement, likely lower not. I'm not going to speculate.) which is at best an overall 5.5% retention rate.

You might find http://www.artifex.org/~bonnie/WoW_r...n_04_24_11.pdf interesting

[Gadzooks]

Could argue that not quite as steeply as one might imagine.
The idea of investing time into a character on a free private server which can go tits up at any moment is a huge turn-off for a lot of potential players.

That's why I would never play on one, myself. I invested a lot into my characters, and it was hard to walk away from them with the WOD fiasco. I do appreciate very much that if the expansion after Legion is more attractive to me and I decide to return, they'll still be there.

Gee, lookee there. I'm not actually against them, per se, I just like to correct the fantasies and misinformation spewed here about the realities of copyright law, and why Blizzard can't just whip up a vanilla server over the weekend. Imagine that. Maybe if someone had asked...