Offical response from blizzard on legacy servers.

[Reapocalypse]

Then the cries will be that blizz didn't back it enough and that is why if failed or that the people really want tbc and that will not fail. And if that failed the. They would say the subs highest in wotlk and that is what they want and so on and so whatever it takes to fit thier agenda

They dont need to back it up "enough" or offer every realm, they open 1 server, see the reaction of it and decide upon that, then the official interest in a legacy realm is more of a fact, i simply cant trust Blizzard blindly when it comes to them thinking they know what "we" want.

[Namalia]

Even if there's a positive reply. There still would be people complaining about things, e.g. it's P2P, it's not the version of the game they liked, it's not how they remembered it or how they experienced it on PS, etc. There's no winning against community ever.

Even now, there are people who bitch about WoW being not RPG enough, Blizz recently introduced Suramar, extremely RPG friendly zone, questing is awesome, guess what were some of first reactions? "Oh, not this fucking RPG shite"!

Yeah. I've only done Val'Sharah so far. <3 druid lore. (Although, I disliked much of that story. /sniffle) But then, I enjoy searching for the bugs too...

On-topic: Yeah. As good as they say Nost was, it took those guys YEARS to even get it to where it was, and that was with using an emulator that had already had YEARS of development. So, Blizzard is right when they say that it would take a lot of time and money to bring those versions of WoW back. And I do mean *versions*, because they would need Classic, TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, and WoD servers that are Normal, PvP, RP, & RPPvP in each region (NA, EU, OC, CN, KA, etc etc.)

Then those would all be competing against each other and the main retail version of the game, diminishing the player base on each different type of realm...

It just makes no sense to do while active game development is occurring on the game. When its life-cycle has ended, maybe then... But even then, it wouldn't be for years.

Now, if Blizzard wants to hire me on as a developer to work on said project, they are more than welcome to. Other than that... Let's wait until after active development on WoW stops.

They should be happy they even got "pristine server" discussion out of Blizzard.

[Uurdz]

Even if there's a positive reply. There still would be people complaining about things, e.g. it's P2P, it's not the version of the game they liked, it's not how they remembered it or how they experienced it on PS, etc. There's no winning against community ever.

Even now, there are people who bitch about WoW being not RPG enough, Blizz recently introduced Suramar, extremely RPG friendly zone, questing is awesome, guess what were some of first reactions? "Oh, not this fucking RPG shite"!

The only opinions Blizzard should really pay attention to is the voice of your wallet. Forums are just too full of hateful malicious comments that frequently lack any real substance or thought out arguments.

The only real question is: how much would this rabble pay for legacy servers and how much would it cost. Pristine servers are a low cost low risk, relatively easy solution that misses the mark by a long shot. I'd rather they just say no altogether than waste resources on giving us a slight variation on existing content.

[huehuehue]

I would think character power would still be too strong on the pristine realms. It's definitely a good start just by taking away all bonus experience, CRZ shenanigans, and transfers. At least if anything you all feel an attachment to a realm and its players. If possible, they should slow the leveling instead of just taking away the ability to get bonus xp through heirlooms and RAF. They should also gate leveling at 60/70/80 for a certain amount of time each depending on how 60 progression goes, but to be honest isolating a server wth any level cap would probably be fun.

[ls-]

The only opinions Blizzard should really pay attention to is the voice of your wallet. Forums are just too full of hateful malicious comments that frequently lack any real substance or thought out arguments.

The only real question is: how much would this rabble pay for legacy servers and how much would it cost. Pristine servers are a low cost low risk, relatively easy solution that misses the mark by a long shot. I'd rather they just say no altogether than waste resources on giving us a slight variation on existing content.

Now, that's a good point :3

[Uurdz]

I would think character power would still be too strong on the pristine realms. It's definitely a good start just by taking away all bonus experience, CRZ shenanigans, and transfers. At least if anything you all feel an attachment to a realm and its players.

It's too similar to the existing game. Vanilla servers provide different content to the extent it plays like a different game. Pristine lacks things like talents, slow gear progression and long adventures from area to area. It's misses the mark by a long way because it's nothing that we couldn't already do.

[Smauldy]

Pristine is no good if it's just the current game with no dungeon finder/LFR and slower leveling. You'll still have the WoD content featured, and a lot of people just do not care for that.

[ls-]

Yeah. I've only done Val'Sharah so far. <3 druid lore. (Although, I disliked much of that story. /sniffle) But then, I enjoy searching for the bugs too...

On-topic: Yeah. As good as they say Nost was, it took those guys YEARS to even get it to where it was, and that was with using an emulator that had already had YEARS of development. So, Blizzard is right when they say that it would take a lot of time and money to bring those versions of WoW back. And I do mean *versions*, because they would need Classic, TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, and WoD servers that are Normal, PvP, RP, & RPPvP in each region (NA, EU, OC, CN, KA, etc etc.)

Then those would all be competing against each other and the main retail version of the game, diminishing the player base on each different type of realm...

It just makes no sense to do while active game development is occurring on the game. When its life-cycle has ended, maybe then... But even then, it wouldn't be for years.

Now, if Blizzard wants to hire me on as a developer to work on said project, they are more than welcome to. Other than that... Let's wait until after active development on WoW stops.

They should be happy they even got "pristine server" discussion out of Blizzard.

Apply, I believe they always have some openings for devs.

[corebit]

What happens when you run out of content on current WoW? You either stop playing or make a new character.

On retail, at least you have expansions and content patches to look forward to. There's nothing awaiting vanilla servers. If the purists have their way, you are stuck doing MC/BWL/AQ/Naxx forever.

That's why people are asking and the vanilla server advocates are ducking the question. What makes you think there won't be demand to ask for TBC/Wrath/etc/etc and all the other things down the line? If that happens, then Blizzard is running two WoWs at the same time which makes no fucking sense. The only difference then is WoW2 is running years behind WoW1.

[Darkeon]

On retail, at least you have expansions and content patches to look forward to. There's nothing awaiting vanilla servers. If the purists have their way, you are stuck doing MC/BWL/AQ/Naxx forever.

That's why people are asking and the vanilla server advocates are ducking the question. What makes you think there won't be demand to ask for TBC/Wrath/etc/etc and all the other things down the line? If that happens, then Blizzard is running two WoWs at the same time which makes no fucking sense. The only difference then is WoW2 is running years behind WoW1.

Avoiding the question? I'd say it's pretty well known that eventually, should Vanilla be introduced, TBC and WotLK should follow after.

And I find the quote "If the purists have their way, you are stuck doing MC/BWL/AQ/Naxx forever." extremely amusing; No one is stuck doing anything.
Want to play the ever-evolving, update-receiving World of Warcraft, instead of any available Legacy Server? Surprise, it'll be there.

[corebit]

Avoiding the question? I'd say it's pretty well known that eventually, should Vanilla be introduced, TBC and WotLK should follow after.

You guys can't even agree among yourselves whether you want static or progression servers. That's why we say it's opening the Pandora's Box. You don't even bother with thinking about the ramifications and just don't care. Once they start opening Vanilla/TBC/Wrath servers others will come along and demand Cata/MoP servers. Some in the vanilla crowd wants TBC without moving, others want to stay so let's open a couple servers. Some in the Wrath crowd just want the Ulduar patch so let's open another server for that. It fucking never ends.

[Reapocalypse]

If by "ever-evolving" you mean, "one month of content for every eight months of wait".

- - - Updated - - -



Honestly I don't think balance is going to be that important, you know going in which classes are going to be op so most people will just play them and it'll be fine.

Exactly, poeple know how classes were back then, you dont level a paladin to 60 and expect to be able to tank mc (or atleast be allowed to try), you know how it was (or how poeple tell you how it was) so you dont expect anything else than that, trying to balance it would just lead to more frustration since they would never be able to do that good enough.

[Eapoe]

At this point, I think they just need to release WoW 2. End WoW with the Legion xpac, design WoW 2 roughly several hundred years down the road, make new lore, the player characters can be some kind of descendant of they want, get rid of some classes, make new ones...basically make a whole new game with just the fundamentals of current WoW (quests, leveling, dungeons, raids, etc).
This can potentially free them into making Legacy a thing and bypass all upkeep and renovations. Yes, I know there would be code and server work they would have to do, but assuming they go that route, roughly 6 months to a year after WoW 2 put in cyclical WoW 1. Cyclical in the sense that they release Vanilla, 1-2 years later upgrade to TBC, 1-2 years later upgrade to WotLK. They could choose to stop there or go all the way to Legion. At the end of that, start all over again. Detracts nothing from the new game, minimal work from a new team (think contractors: hire a crew to build the servers and code under contract until it's over, and use current team just to maintain servers if something happens where they crash). Fulfills all nostalgic wishes, and keeps a rotation for nostalgia to build again and just be redone. WoW 2 will keep players that want evolution and new things without having to worry about any affect Legacy has on it while Legqcy draws a separate crowd and being its own entity is potential profit at minimal work/upkeep, or even just make F2P.

[Deleted]

Also you look at the attempts of the "top end" raiders of Vanilla and TBC and they did quite a few pulls each week of the bosses, but no where near the amount of attempts as current top end guilds going for world first nowadays, some doing over 500 attempts on a single boss in a week.

So I will continue to tell you, that a lot of the greatness and joy of Vanilla is peoples nostalgia of it being new and the community it USED to have that we will never see again.

The core gameplay of WoW is leaps and bounds ahead.

Sorry, why are you so adamant in the voicing your uninformed and clearly biased opinion? No offence, everyone's entitled an opinion on the matter, my qualm is that I think you, as well as the people who counter-argue Vanilla was way "better" or "harder", have no concrete fundament to purely 1:1 compare retail to its early instalments.

You don't know for a fact a lot of the greatness and joy of Vanilla is just people's nostalgia, it may be for YOU, may be so for many people, but until you know this to be entire and absolutely accurate you should refrain from generalizing if you want to be taken seriously (especially when voicing an unpopular opinion). This is basic argumentation, you think you know what others feel or think based off of your own experience. It is incorrect, you are not entitled to enforce your point of view and what you think to be correct in your head on other people - you should not do this to your children, let alone to complete strangers in a video game's online forum.

That said I speak for myself as well as for many others I am friends with who played on Nostalrius for a year, when I say nostalgia was only a relatively small part of it, to us it just is a good game. Even if it is to be taken into account as a considerable portion why is that so relevant to you? As long as the community members are enjoying themselves does it actually matter if some of it is placebo and/or rose tinted goggles? Maybe long term it would if the nostalgia fades and people unsub again but that's hypothetical, I personally find it highly unlikely if not categorically impossible that Blizzard would ever lose money if they do end up releasing vanilla progression servers; maybe you disagree.

When you mention guilds nowadays spend 500 attempts each week on a single boss are you factoring in they have access to that same boss several times for months on PTR as well as a dungeon journal, an endless stream of detrimental addons, free access to infinite materials and consumables, etc? I was in a decent enough guild for the better part of 3 to 4 years during MoP/WoD up until I quit the game entirely, let's say top 50 in the world (though we mostly ranked much higher, modesty for the sake of argument integrity) and mostly the content and methods were insufferable. Why did I do it if it was shit? Same reason I started playing World of Warcraft in the first place - friends. What did all of us end up doing at the exact same time? Quitting the game completely. 10 years back I was also in a pretty good guild (best in the server, cleared up to KT in Naxx 40 et al.) so I am aware of the differences, I experienced them.

I'm not taking sides or trying to imply one or the other was objectively better, that is asinine, what I am saying and what I can tell you with absolute certainty is that to me one was enjoyable and the other was/is not. Giving you a specific example, if I heard my speakers being blasted with "Ysondre spawned" at 7 in the morning I instantly got out of bed with an ear to ear smile on my face, I'd anxiously await 6pm because I couldn't wait to get invited to the BWL group. Much in the same fashion being called upon to American PTR test some random boss in x or y dungeon in MOP/WOD at 6am I wanted to kill myself, staying up till 8am smashing our collective head into a boss until it finally dies after 18 hours of raiding also made me want to kill myself. 12+ hour raids every day after content release? I assume you are now able discern how I feel about that.

The only enjoyable part of raiding these past expansions were the fact I had a few good friends in my guild, without them I would've quit half way through Cataclysm. The exact reason I started playing WoW the day of its European release was its downfall - people, friends, we all wanted to be a part of something big. We were (or felt as though we were). We wanted to matter. We did. Now we have a phased, shut in garrison where NPCs can pretend to be our friends and do missions for us ala facebook/browser game. Alas, this is not the core of your post and not why I am replying to you so I will keep it short.

Maybe if Blizzard took some of that money they feel so strongly about and used it on something that actually matters like you know, actually recruiting a competent team of decent players to closed in-house test their shit before it is released so that guilds who compete for ranks don't get to clear the upcoming raid months before it is actually live it'd be less excruciating to play their "amazing" content for the 6+ months that are forced upon us due to how infrequently things come out nowadays. Let's not bother talking about dungeon journal in all its glory either, genius invention there, their whole game model's just messed up nowadays and its (for years now) come to the point where the only way to salvage the situation is to go back literally 10+ years and get an ipsis verbis copy of the game they once offered.

This is not exclusively aimed at you, let people enjoy the things they want to enjoy, stop trying to tell them why they think they want it or why the idea of it entices them. You are not entitled to do so, neither are they, don't pretend to be all knowing when the subject is so personal.

[Doomchicken]

Anyone surprised that the nost clowns got the answer they didn't want and immediately chucked a tanty? I know I'm not.

[Kallisto]

No, it's just that the "you think you do but you don't" was supremely ignorant, condescending, insulting and stupid. So yeah, people are allowed to have a bitter laugh at seeing the guy eat a crow.

No it was truthful because the community doesn't know what it wants

You have those that want vanilla, BC, Wrath
Those that will want the QoLs too. You think they added them in a vacuum or realistically they saw this is what people want.

They have the numbers, the statistics and cold hard facts about statistics are more important than feels and wants.

[pateuvasiliu]

Most people that cry about a Legacy server never played Vanilla on Retail.

They don't realise a lot of classes/specs were useless, PvP was a 3 button mess ( I played hunter, my PvP strategy was literally Scatter>Feign>Trap>Aimed and hope they die ), PvP titles were given to the no lifers that played 24/7 and raids were pretty simplistic in mechanics.

I mean Naxx has Thaddius, Heigan and Razuvious, the other 10 bosses or however many there are ( I think 14 in total? ) are pretty simple.

[Thetruth1400]

The only opinions Blizzard should really pay attention to is the voice of your wallet. Forums are just too full of hateful malicious comments that frequently lack any real substance or thought out arguments.

The only real question is: how much would this rabble pay for legacy servers and how much would it cost. Pristine servers are a low cost low risk, relatively easy solution that misses the mark by a long shot. I'd rather they just say no altogether than waste resources on giving us a slight variation on existing content.

Exactly. I don't think Blizzard gets that people want Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK servers, they don't want the experience of those servers on today's realms. They want the pure, unblemished (by "improvements") version of today, they want a nice, game as it was back in those respective eras.

Frankly, legacy servers are going to cost Blizzard slim to nothing to run. The code is there, which is obvious because some random people have it and maintain it effectively in their free time, and we're already sitting with TONS of ready to go servers considering the state of the game today. All we're talking is shifting server A (maybe A - C) to Legacy servers, and actually merging the tons and tons of dead and dying servers into each other. At the end of the day, they'll have to pay a small team very little to actually do that. Considering they're in talks with Nos, it sounds like they might be reaching out to them to have the Nos people be the ones running the classic servers, which would mean maybe 10 additional staff. If a multi billion dollar company can't afford that little bit to make their player base happy, then frankly, they're not a company anyone should support.

[ls-]

Exactly. I don't think Blizzard gets that people want Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK servers, they don't want the experience of those servers on today's realms. They want the pure, unblemished (by "improvements") version of today, they want a nice, game as it was back in those respective eras.

Frankly, legacy servers are going to cost Blizzard slim to nothing to run. The code is there, which is obvious because some random people have it and maintain it effectively in their free time, and we're already sitting with TONS of ready to go servers considering the state of the game today. All we're talking is shifting server A (maybe A - C) to Legacy servers, and actually merging the tons and tons of dead and dying servers into each other. At the end of the day, they'll have to pay a small team very little to actually do that. Considering they're in talks with Nos, it sounds like they might be reaching out to them to have the Nos people be the ones running the classic servers, which would mean maybe 10 additional staff. If a multi billion dollar company can't afford that little bit to make their player base happy, then frankly, they're not a company anyone should support.

I think people should stop talking out of their asses. There's nothing in common between "emulator" and retail, it's explained numerous times in another thread.

[Uurdz]

I think people should stop talking out of their asses. There's nothing in common between "emulator" and retail, it's explained numerous times in another thread.

I agree. People focus too much on the game code and not enough on the back end integration. I remember the blizzard launcher taking them A very long time to get and were asking them to integrate the old code into this. You also have to review comparability for both windows and Mac, how much has change in 10 years? I imagine a lot. If they are saying it's not easy, stop being so disrespectful and calling them liers. Don't bandwagon blindly behind someone like Mark Kern who says it's easy and affordable - he knows nothing of the current state of their systems and his word, aside from comments on how many players they need, is largely worthless.

Why should Blizzard listen to you, the customer, when you constantly bleat on about how easy it is and how they need to get on and do it. Show some respect. If it was easy they would have done it already.

I really hope their next step is to provide a tangible pre-order type option which will evidence where the demand really is. If you think legacy should be free or come part of your existing subscription then you're asking for far too much. Be reasonable, they aren't profitable by throwing money away.