Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[jvbastel]

Yesterday Kungen (former guild leader of Nihilum, one of the top raiding guilds in vanilla and the best guild in TBC) had a great stream talking about Vanilla and why it would be good for blizzard and its customers to implement legacy retail servers.

He also talked a lot about how WoW was back in the days, from a top raider pov. (opening the gates of AQ, raiding in vanilla, etc.)
I only started raiding seriously in wrath, so it was a lot of fun to see how different it was (the whole server collaborating to get the materials for the AQ quest, for example)

very entertaining stream which shows just how different the game was back then, you can check it out here https://www.twitch.tv/kungentv/v/61755386
The best bits start around the 3 hour mark, when the petition hits 200k

[Deleted]

And if, I may add I said if, we get another "you think you do, but you don't" we can all safely assume Blizzard is incompetent. Because they would be refusing to learn from their mistakes.

You mean you and the pserver gang don't already assume they are incompetent? Huh. Thought that's why you're all playing over there.

[0x0a]

2. implement a good portion of those things in current WoW or take things out that are considered not welcome additions

That would require removal of 90% of QoL's including transmog, LFR/LFG/CRZ, Flying Mounts, Heirlooms etc. It may lead to piss off their current casual player base. Even if they make leveling hard, there is not enough quest to level up properly. There is no way to make great again like it once was during pre-wotlk.

[Deleted]

Yesterday Kungen

Oh sigh. Not this again.
There was a recent thread about that idiot just recently: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-sucks-so-much
He keep repeating himself. He hasn't been relevant since TBC. He's also known for being really excited for stuff for 2 days and then quitting and leaving his community behind.

He's just ranting for views and riding a bit on the wave of angry Nost people. He'll get tired of it next week and goes somewhere else. Only to return in 3 weeks.

[Atelniar]

You mean you and the pserver gang don't already assume they are incompetent? Huh. Thought that's why you're all playing over there.

I am not playing on a private server currently, I did not play on Nostalrius and I do assume Blizzard to be less competent of late than they were leading up to the end of the last decade. Why? Because WoW fails at building a community that can preserve itself anymore, and it fails as an MMORPG.

Perhaps you should learn to apply logic, rather than arbitrary assumptions and attempts at targeting people as a specific individual which they are not when you quote them? I mean, it seems somewhat incompetent.

[Foj]

Firefall didn't receive the popularity that Studio Red 5 had hoped for, and laid him off. I guess job security is great at Blizzard HQ since WoD wasn't quite a success i believe.

Hiring SDEs for a company like Blizzard is extraordinarily difficult, especially because Silicon Valley is once again the center of the universe and no one wants to live in LA. Seriously, fuck that. All the expense of the Peninsula, none of the job opportunities.

Although I'm sure Blizzard hires and lays off dime-a-dozen artists and animators with the tides, they're not going to let go of developers unless things are dire. They'll just move them from project to project. Heck, in general, developers will move themselves to the busiest/sexiest project without prodding from management.

[cholobanger]

I was saying you can't ignore that fact that adding legacy servers will disrupt the current trajectory of the game with Legion coming up. I'm not saying that this projection is good or that I'm in favor of it at all, I'm saying that Blizzard won't allow an iteration of the game to co-exist with the current retail wow.

You aren't alone in your projection that the game has lost its communal aspects (perhaps I should have reworded it better) but it still isn't a reason for Blizzard to react unfortunately.

[Foj]

Why? Because WoW fails at building a community that can preserve itself anymore, and it fails as an MMORPG.

The community did it to itself once the community decided that gear was the only thing of importance in the game.

You can't blame Blizzard for that, unless you think it's an option that Blizzard removes gear as a source of power in the game.

[cirdanx]

You can belittle those games all you want but the popularity in Korea and China is growing and that's where the numbers are. They know what they're doing.

That's where you're probably wrong. Don't quote me but the games you mentioned are entering and if not already established as an esports. The main reasons WoW won't compete and will slowly fall off is because the popularity and viewership are in these moba's and shooters. Whether we like it or not, Blizzard will continue to invest time and effort into growing these scenes because it should yield the most profit. Now I say should but they have huge competition already.

You can belittle those games all you want but the popularity in Korea and China is growing and that's where the numbers are. They know what they're doing.

They don´t know what they are doing, Blizzards success has been a lot of luck, that doesn´t mean they were not talented or good.

Look at HS, that was a passion project INSIDE the company, it took them fan feedback that yes, this is something that works. That is Blizzard for you.

And no, no one in Korea or China gives a shit about HS or HotS and Overwatch, they already HAVE this kind of games. Just because a chinese streamer is popular, doesn´t mean the game is popular in china (hint it ISN`T..source THEIR OWN financial results which are open to the public)

And i can "belittle" these little games, i wouldn´t but if one of the most known game devs in history (bah) doesn´t even make it into the top 10 with their card game shit on IoS and Android, then don´t come along and talk about their main income. (f*cking bird games make more money on mobile)

And e-sports? Really? The only title Blizzard has that fits e-sport is Starcraft and that suffers from "we need more people" adjustments. HS, HotS, Overwatch and certainly not WoW Arena, will never be e-sport. NEVER. There is a big difference from Blizzard making an event and the e-sport scene. WoW has been shut down from any but one host (who shut that down soon). No one, and i mean no one cares enough about their moba game (they will watch DOTA2 and LoL). HS is going, it makes money for sure, that´s all really since it lacks the depth of Magic to be interesting.. And Overwatch? Pre orders from the typical bunch will bring in the money..sure. Long time? No chance, there are so many issues with that game and Blizzard as usual is not able to fix them or bring any sort of balance to it... Overwatch will be dead after at least 6 months. Only the "core" will remain, who will pay for all the cosmetics and crap.

Laugh now, but remember this when you sit in a waiting line for your next match to start. And i didn´t even touch the subject on how wrong it is that the money lies in china and korea. Seriously, different zone, different prices, different sub models.

[Atelniar]

The community did it to itself once the community decided that gear was the only thing of importance in the game.

You can't blame Blizzard for that, unless you think it's an option that Blizzard removes gear as a source of power in the game.

Blizzard design the game, if you think game design consists only of coding and leaving the rest up to the playerbase you are off the mark. Game design is about much more than that. If the gear is the only thing that matters, it is because Blizzard made it so. Blizzard killed professions, Blizzard killed the economy by introducing garrisons in a state where it wasn't player housing but a resource hub that made trading and player interaction irrelevant.

That isn't the player's fault or the community as a whole. Your logic is lacking.

[Deleted]

Perhaps you should learn to apply logic, rather than arbitrary assumptions and attempts at targeting people as a specific individual which they are not when you quote them? I mean, it seems somewhat incompetent.

You seemed to be thinking Blizzard's next reply to legacy server question should somehow determine their competence level and completely ignored the 10 year track-record of denial to build such things and wanting to focus on the future and new development instead of setting up old fragmented servers. ...

Allright then, keep holding your breath. That sounds totally logical.

[jvbastel]

Oh sigh. Not this again.
There was a recent thread about that idiot just recently: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-sucks-so-much
He keep repeating himself. He hasn't been relevant since TBC. He's also known for being really excited for stuff for 2 days and then quitting and leaving his community behind.

He's just ranting for views and riding a bit on the wave of angry Nost people. He'll get tired of it next week and goes somewhere else. Only to return in 3 weeks.

~This person has a different opinion on certain things than I do, clearly he must be an idiot.~

Even if you don't agree with his views on current WoW, the stories about the Kel'thuzad kill and opening of AQ alone are great examples of how the game design promoted a sense of community back in vanilla.

- Entire server populations collaborating to help 1 guild finish the gates of AQ quest
- Horde and alliance influencing each other by world pvp'ing when guilds are collecting world buffs for raids.

are 2 quick examples. I've never played in retail vanilla myself, so it was great to hear these stories.

[Atelniar]

I was saying you can't ignore that fact that adding legacy servers will disrupt the current trajectory of the game with Legion coming up. I'm not saying that this projection is good or that I'm in favor of it at all, I'm saying that Blizzard won't allow an iteration of the game to co-exist with the current retail wow.

You aren't alone in your projection that the game has lost its communal aspects (perhaps I should have reworded it better) but it still isn't a reason for Blizzard to react unfortunately.

Not at all, I even commend the theory (mind the term theory, as I am not in the alpha/beta or what you want to call it) of World Quests, and I commend the idea of being able to level through the zones in whatever order you like. If that is actually the case while maintaining a coherent storyline (many people praise WoD's questing, I thought it stunk of rushed work, Orgrim's part especially smelled unfinished a long way from the cut-scene with golfclapping to his sub-par death).

What Blizzard decides is up to them, but no one has the right to claim that asking for previous iterations of the game is too much. No one. The demand is there, in some form. It's up to Blizzard what they do with it.

As for the communal aspects: there's hardly anything left. It hasn't just lost some, it's practically gone. The only aspect left is guild structures, and it isn't necessary to be a part of a guild to progress. Community in WoW is optional. That's a problem in an MMORPG. If Blizzard doesn't realise that and stop spending effort on useless tools such as Twitter-screenshots with built-in emotes, you might lose some more customers.

We'll see.

- - - Updated - - -

You seemed to be thinking Blizzard's next reply to legacy server question should somehow determine their competence level and completely ignored the 10 year track-record of denial to build such things and wanting to focus on the future and new development instead of setting up old fragmented servers. ...

Allright then, keep holding your breath. That sounds totally logical.

Keep making assumptions. I implied that their replies during PR-sessions should be less awkward. And perhaps less intellectually questionable. You know, learning from your mistakes? Aka: competence. But whatever floats your boat, mate. You can hate the pro-legacy effort all you want, but if you target me specifically you better be damned good at making accurate assumptions. Not half-arsed bullshit.

[Deleted]

Keep making assumptions. I implied that their replies during PR-sessions should be less awkward. And perhaps less intellectually questionable. You know, learning from your mistakes?

I'm not making assumptions. You are assuming they think (or should think) their previous statements were mistakes. They have a long track record to show they've been pretty consistent with that very same message. Maybe they don't consider it a mistake.

You assume they should learn from their mistakes - and you assume their statement was a mistake. You assume a lot.

[Coconut]

- Entire server populations collaborating to help 1 guild finish the gates of AQ quest

This is what you call "a sense of community"? The entire server worked to open the gates, and one jerk got a super exclusive mount out of it, while everyone else got nothing?

True sense of community would have meant delaying AQ until a majority of the population, or at least a majority of raiders or guilds got to reap the awesome exclusive reward from the world event. Yet this rarely happened, and when I say rarely I mean guilds, not raiders. Nobody in this day and age would pay a sub and invest /play hours to help some random dude who doesn't give a fig about them get a special snowflake reward.

I think what you and others are calling "a sense of community" was actually is actually "a pecking order", where being special allows you to stand out that much more. And, honestly, good riddance to that design.

[jvbastel]

I'm not making assumptions. You are assuming they think (or should think) their previous statements were mistakes. They have a long track record to show they've been pretty consistent with that very same message. Maybe they don't consider it a mistake.

You assume they should learn from their mistakes - and you assume their statement was a mistake. You assume a lot.

I don't think their stance on legacy servers is a mistake. Even though I would love retail legacy servers, I'm not 100% sure it will benefit the company or the customer in the long run. I think it will, but it would still be a big risk, one that they don't necessarily have to take.

I do think the whole "you think you want that, but you don't" was a very bad way to handle that blizzcon question. If I said that to a customer, my boss would be very unhappy to say the least.

[Atelniar]

I'm not making assumptions. You are assuming they think (or should think) their previous statements were mistakes. They have a long track record to show they've been pretty consistent with that very same message. Maybe they don't consider it a mistake.

You assume they should learn from their mistakes - and you assume their statement was a mistake. You assume a lot.

"You think you do, but you don't." (after I correct the stuttering), is a mistake. To assume you know better what people want than themselves is quite arrogant at a public PR-event. It's stupid, actually. So much so that it turns into a meme private servers and their community use to showcase their discontent with the company. If you think that isn't a fiasco, you're bordering on the inane. It literally is a big "fuck you" targeted at former players. It's a big mistake to make, one which might showcase how the most dominant MMORPG in the history of western MMORPG's is able to lose roughly half of its active playerbase in less than a year.

The last part is indeed an assumption. But bad press is bad press. You being incompetent in how you attack a point by selectively trying to group me with a gang (aka: the private server community on Nostalrius) of people merely showcase a level of incompetence.

You assume they will stick to their word this time, even if their trackrecord provides nothing but evidence that Blizzard changes its mind whenever it feels like it. Server transfers, purchasing gold in-game, flight-fiasco. A lot of examples here.

You assume that they don't think it's stupid to be cocky and piss off their former players who have a fondness for old iterations of the game. Good for you. But that was before Youtubers like JonTron began ranting at them and attracting attention to their cocky attitude towards legacy servers.

[jvbastel]

This is what you call "a sense of community"? The entire server worked to open the gates, and one jerk got a super exclusive mount out of it, while everyone else got nothing?

True sense of community would have meant delaying AQ until a majority of the population, or at least a majority of raiders or guilds got to reap the awesome exclusive reward from the world event. Yet this rarely happened, and when I say rarely I mean guilds, not raiders. Nobody in this day and age would pay a sub and invest /play hours to help some random dude who doesn't give a fig about them get a special snowflake reward.

I think what you and others are calling "a sense of community" was actually is actually "a pecking order", where being special allows you to stand out that much more. And, honestly, good riddance to that design.

The people who farmed and sent their mats to Nihilum got boe epics and gold in return. They didn't do it because there was a pecking order, they did it because they knew they could never finish the quest line themselves. It took Nihilum over a week apparently, and you had to do several raid bosses, which only a few guilds would have been able to do at the time.

At the time of opening, there were so many people in the zone that he couldn't even hand in the quest. Everyone wanted to be there at that time. I call that a server community.

[Sunnydee]

Yesterday Kungen (former guild leader of Nihilum, one of the top raiding guilds in vanilla and the best guild in TBC) had a great stream talking about Vanilla and why it would be good for blizzard and its customers to implement legacy retail servers.

He also talked a lot about how WoW was back in the days, from a top raider pov. (opening the gates of AQ, raiding in vanilla, etc.)
I only started raiding seriously in wrath, so it was a lot of fun to see how different it was (the whole server collaborating to get the materials for the AQ quest, for example)

very entertaining stream which shows just how different the game was back then, you can check it out here https://www.twitch.tv/kungentv/v/61755386
The best bits start around the 3 hour mark, when the petition hits 200k

you are aware that he's only streaming under wow again to gain subs/followers, he's a greedy man and only shows up where the action is to be taken on Twitch.
He is a minority with a big mouth and a horny wallet.
All he does is taking advantage of the situation.

[Coconut]

The people who farmed and sent their mats to Nihilum got boe epics and gold in return. They didn't do it because there was a pecking order, they did it because they knew they could never finish the quest line themselves. It took Nihilum over a week apparently, and you had to do several raid bosses, which only a few guilds would have been able to do at the time.

At the time of opening, there were so many people in the zone that he couldn't even hand in the quest. Everyone wanted to be there at that time. I call that a server community.

I'd call the first part "buying stuff" and the second part "hype".

A sense of community is when people constantly, and often selflessly choose to collaborate and help each other.

The fact that Nihilum did it in one week (inherently screwing over every other guild on the realm) was the opposite of "a sense of community". Others in the community lost the opportunity to get a reward because Nihilum thought only they should be special.