Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[schwarzkopf]

The only thing I'd play on would be if it had the vanilla world, that's the only thing I miss. Playing on a realm that just has 10 optional features turned off seems pointless.

I wonder how many people whinging about no Vanilla servers are also whinging about no flying in WoD/Legion

[kensim]

If Blizzard says that it is too hard to diversify on their infrastructure then it is, it is stupid for us (who have no real idea) to question it. Pristine servers are interesting, since it could be controlled via feature toggles that could be configured on the application level. Using the same game systems and content means the RoI may be more acceptable. The problem is how profound will these servers be?

Removing the leveling aides seems stupid, if you want that experience right now, then simply don't use them. The content will be the same and it is still tuned to allow for leveling without any aides. That only leaves cross-realm and group finder, which offers up a challenge. Without a high enough population within a single pristine server instance, the whole thing collapses, which I am betting is the concern. People will go there for the "challenge" and then become frustrated and cycle out constantly creating a difficult situation in which success can be expected.

End of the day I see Blizzard introducing a toggle in the menu that allows for the disabling of leveling aides (on a regular server) and then maybe create a channel that people can join (Pristine Channel) to allow for grouping (cross server still enabled so population is not a problem). To create a carrot for this type of activity they would add in a feat of strength or two, and maybe a mount, title, and pet.

That is my guess.

[Desparil]

Still better then 1 month of WoD content what you can burn in like 1 week. And btw Vannila wasnt tedious grind. Vannila had amazing progression and with great effort you get greate reward so it never felt like you grinded anything. But right now how WoD become so *** easy and faceroll all that content just feels like it is there to gate you in form of grinding pointless stuff just to get to the stuff what actualy matter. In vannila everything mattered from lvl 1 to naxx 40.

It was awful tedious grind with crap rewards and 70% of not viable specs and 1-2 mechanic bosses gated behind resist gear that didn't get killed right away just because they were bugged or half raid was afk. You are just being attacked by rose tinted glasses it will pass. Even meh expansion as wod is 10 times better then vanilla.

[Deleted]

I think the classic game, if released, should not have achievements, but I do think that it would be awesome to have cross-game feats of strength, similar to the cross-game promotions in Hearthstone, HoTS etc... for example, get to level 60 on the legacy server to unlock a feat of strength next time you log onto the live game that earns you a cool mount or something. Maybe an opportunity to re-earn one of the "old school ride" mounts? I think that'd be a nice incentive for people to play both games.

[Aggrophobic]

lol, do you think the discussion is going to stop here? because blizzard posted a response? haha, you're wrong, breh

Yeah, I know.
The discussion is pointless now though so they can bark all they want. It'll be for nothing.

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Huh. I guess people really like beating a dead horse. Oh well. Pristine servers sound nice, though.

[Deleted]

I'm playing WoW since Europe start, raiding since TBC up to date. I'm very glad that Blizzard gave us response with their point of view and a few informations about steps they are taking.
Im not a big fan of idea with vanilla or pristine server and these are my reasons:

1. vanilla/tbc is for guys who have 6-8 hours per day and I think most of ppl who thinks that they want it are blinded with nostalgia and they don't remember how much grind it was. They also don't acknowledge that it was the willingness to discover/beat all new things never seen before what drove them to sacrifice so much time to the game (at least this is the main reason for me and most of my old guildmates/friends). Going back again to things we know will probably end for most of ppl after having to level all weapon specs/grinding mats for professions/having to farm mats for reputation (remember those bot hunters at plaguelans graveyard farming bones for weeks ?) I also have a lot of best memories from vanilla/tbc but don't have time and it probably will be the thing for a lot of people.

2. Pristine server will create small separated community (which is one way good thing - i miss server communities and hate anonymity at current days) but I think when you create small group inside whole community it will become even more toxic and there will be neverending forum/ingame flame wars etc between those two.

This reply from Blizz gives me hope that maybe (i know it sound stupid and I'm too optimistic for most of you) old Blizzard team, which looks like bunch of guys tired after 11 years work with the same product, will be reinforced with Nostalrius guys - hungry for success and full of enthusiasm - to cure old team from apathy, and they both will how to solve some big issues with current game:

1.the communities - this is one of the most listed reasons why Nost was so popular and one of the most complained problems of current WoW mentioned by ppl. I might be mistaken by my memory but it was like very close guild community than there was still close and active server communities but also whole WoW community was connected strongly enough to, for example, know best guilds, best pvpers, etc. I won't give the solution but I can imagine such Blizz/Nost mixed team will find answer to complains about communitieses.

2. journey feeling - or tbh lack of this at current WoW - this is what drives me mad (and as I can see it's the problem for a lot of people). This is also connected with content drought because in old WoW nothing was gained/achieved fast what gave us this feeling and also kept the content alive longer. (I know it's irony to write it when I already wrote about not having so much time for game but I think there are ways to achieve this goal in other ways than mindless grind and World quests from alpha I think are the first step in good way)

3. challenge - it's not only about raiding - it's also about dungeon difficulty, lack of group quests, lack of attunements (this really should be in the game but account-wide or even better guild-wide with need of proper amount of contribution from guildmembers) - I remember doing Onyxia prequest for my 5 chars and other guildies with their mains and alts - it was pain the .... Diablo-like system is nice step to give longer life to dungeons, there also should be (and as I can see there will be but we dont know details) something like dungeon set with long (journey, anti-content drought), interesting questline to upgrading. Professions also can provide such questlines to deliver even more powerfull items. Facerolling through dungeons after 2 initial weeks and raiding the same whole instance again just to avoid even more fire or to interrupt more is not a challenge - it's faking that there is more content than it is for real. And one thing about just raiding - it's human that most of us when we are left with choice will choose the easiest way - LFR. It's like LFD - making WoW single-player not MMO.

My conclusion is - mix those two teams of dedicated people to bring back WoW to glory and what I personally think one of the best things to do is bring back a few ways of alternative character progress other than raiding (professions specialist, "dungeon specialist" and whatever they could possibly invent) fulfilling needs of different types of players.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Yeah, I know.
The discussion is pointless now though so they can bark all they want. It'll be for nothing.

What? Blizzard literally said they were opening discussions with Nostalrius for what's the best way to go. Not only that, but Nostalrius themselves confirmed it - as if Blizzard confirmation wasn't official enough: https://twitter.com/NostalBegins/sta...96445766193152

[Deleted]

Listen to me.

Please do not confuse our dissatisfaction with how retail currently is with our love for classic WoW. This is important. We all want the retail version of the game to be great and enjoyable, the best it can be. If you want to take a look at the philosophy Blizzard built their games around 2005 and try to improve the retail version, then that is great.

But please, do not think that our love for classic WoW is a temporary thing because we currently dislike the retail version. The two are over ten years apart. They are completely different games. We want to play classic WoW, that is our only request. You've said that you would not provide it for us, so out of love for the game and the World of Warcraft community, some people have decided over the years to provide this game for us despite the hardships that come along with it.

There have been classic servers since forever, it's something that provides content almost indefinitely. This is mostly because classic servers were all about the community and the player driven content. If you release classic progression servers, there will definitely be content for years. Just have a talk with the devs at Nostalrius. The server had been up for over a year and we had not even started AQ war preparation. And the great thing about classic WoW is the fact that, even if you do complete all content - there is still a whole lot of things to do, since it's an open world with thousands of people in it.

The demand for these servers are unbelievable and we are all waiting to sell our houses and livers so that we can finally play on them.

The Vanilla communtiy has poked a lot of fun at Blizzard over the years, since we have felt that we've been ignored since Blizzard started to abandon some of the philosophies that we believe made the game truly great. We all want Blizzard to do great and we all want to feel welcome. Now, since we have been silenced in the past many WoW players have no idea how large the vanilla community actually is and I think it's fair to say that Blizzard have forgotten too.

Many people have been scared to 'split the community' by adding legacy servers, but the reality of the situation is this: we've been split ever since you abandoned the 2005 philosophies. But we've managed to do OK on our own, though many of us still subscribed to the retail game. Now, with Nostalrius shut down we just feel stepped on, thus the uproar lately.

We are not trying to steal your profits. We are your fans too. We have been waiting for years to be able to play legacy servers provided by Blizzard.

What we want is simple: Vanilla progressions servers, as they were back then. We don't want any modifications or 'improvements'. The only changes that are acceptable are stability and server capacity. Yes, some people might ask for X and Y to be changed - but that's nothing new. We had those few people on Nostalrius too. It's not difficult to say no and that this is willl be servers as they were back then and nothing more.

We just want to go home, we just want Vanilla.

[Alcomo]

Still better then 1 month of WoD content what you can burn in like 1 week. And btw Vannila wasnt tedious grind. Vannila had amazing progression and with great effort you get greate reward so it never felt like you grinded anything. But right now how WoD become so *** easy and faceroll all that content just feels like it is there to gate you in form of grinding pointless stuff just to get to the stuff what actualy matter. In vannila everything mattered from lvl 1 to naxx 40.

Either you need to look up what grinding in a video game is, or you didn't play vanilla. You literally needed to do hours of grinding to achieve anything. The game didn't progress well, it just made everything take 5 times longer to get compared to now. Leveling (you know, the thing that half the player base complains about being too long) 1-60 took a committed person 10+ days of actual time played. A casual could spend months just getting to 60. That isn't fun, that's tedious. To put it into perspective for people, right now it takes about 2-4 days played for the average player to hit level 100. You could also faceroll content in Vanilla when you were geared just like we do now, so I don't know where you are pulling that from. Dungeons may have taken a bit more coordination in the way of CCing in Vanilla, but raids were just terrible. Very little mechanics and the most difficult part was finding 40 somewhat competent people and removing debuffs constantly. Then there was the grind just to get attuned for the raids. And the hours and hours of grinding mats just to raid one night. Then the super long corpse runs. The horribly balanced classes. The few and far between flight paths. The list goes on and on.

Vanilla wasn't all bad, but compared to what came after it, its complete crap.

[Dejiko]

It`s great to see a reply regarding the matter but on the mention of pristine servers, it checked all the wrong boxes as far as i`m concerned.
The XP rate and the services mentioned were among the least important factors for me.
Ability pruning, LFR, cross server dungeon tools, lack of interesting content for professions but above all the direction of class design would be on the top of the list of reasons for me personally to go back to an earlier time.

Ultimately though, i wish there were multiple progression paths depending on your preferred type of content.

[Unlimited Anza]

I made a video going over the post as well as what I think (or maybe hope) it means. This is a much more positive and hopeful take then some of you might be thinking.
https://youtu.be/lQ17VkBe0eE

[Aggrophobic]

What? Blizzard literally said they were opening discussions with Nostalrius for what's the best way to go. Not only that, but Nostalrius themselves confirmed it - as if Blizzard confirmation wasn't official enough: https://twitter.com/NostalBegins/sta...96445766193152

They also said that the "tremendous operational challenges" were just too much. Keep on beating that dead horse if you'd like.

[Deja Thoris]

They also said that the "tremendous operational challenges" were just too much. Keep on beating that dead horse if you'd like.

They didn't say that. They said there are tremendous operational challenges. The "just too much" bit was added by you to suit your narrative.

That blue response is a textbook example of how people interpret the same statement in completely different ways depending on their bias.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

They also said that the "tremendous operational challenges" were just too much. Keep on beating that dead horse if you'd like.

They didn't say that, actually. Here's the quote:

We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW.

I don't see how they wrote impossible. They said it would be extremely hard, require a lot of time and management. But not "no" or "never".

[Desparil]

Looking at front page poll they did smartest possible thing with pristine servers they divided vanilla crowd, its 53% vs 47% players that would play on them and i would guess that many of no's were people who wouldn't play any form of vanilla.

So with some small modification of current wow vanilla they will pretty much destroy momentum of whine brigade giving people that like idea of pristine servers (and it looks like majority) what to play while easily ignoring minority of obnoxious youtubers and diehard ps fans.

[Aggrophobic]

They didn't say that, actually. Here's the quote:



I don't see how they wrote impossible. They said it would be extremely hard, require a lot of time and management. But not "no" or "never".

You guys are impossible. Well, you've been repeating yourself for weeks, why not just keep going?

[Deleted]

A guy called namalia must be with so much buthurt now .

"blizzard wont give a fuck about petition" :lol:

[Jewsco]

I could of sworn for post after post th legacy people wanted blizz to answer them right? They did and said at least for now it is too much work to do legacy servers and you still are arguing this? You got your answer move on already.

- - - Updated - - -

You guys are impossible. Well, you've been repeating yourself for weeks, why not just keep going?

Don't say how many weeks because they will argue that with you too. They got thier damn answer it is over.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

You guys are impossible. Well, you've been repeating yourself for weeks, why not just keep going?

That's exactly what we're doing.

One other note - we’ve recently been in contact with some of the folks who operated Nostalrius. They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks.

You, the Blizzard community, are the most dedicated, passionate players out there. We thank you for your constructive thoughts and suggestions. We are listening.