Official Reply to Vanilla Servers and Nostalrius

[metzger84]

Come on J. Allen Brack, you got what you want, GIF THEEZ PEEPL AIER!

[Otaka]

Lots of bullshit talk to be honest, and I'll tell you why vanilla or any other previous expansions wont ever happen
1) They don't want to work on older patches, because it takes much more time compared to current state of the game
2) If they actually do release something "older" it's literally them saying that their current game sucks, go play older version
3) No $$$ to be made there with in game purchases

It's all about the money, newer expansions wont be sold cos people would be playing older patches.
RIP WoW been fun

What are you, stupid? sorry... but they dont NEED to work on older patches, they are already there. DUH!
All they need to do is setup the server and never update it... because thats how its gonna be, vanilla had its updates and its not gonna get more content.

Exactly what nostalrius did on behalf of blizzard... "worked" on the older patches to make sure they were bugfree. Once they are completely bugfree they wouldnt need to touch it anymore.

I would definetely play on pristine server... even transfer my characters. I dont care if its not vanilla but if i can get rid of LFG-tool and spend hours searching for groups for dungeons.... yes please. That server is gonna be far more social than any other wow server ever will again, i play mmos because the community is fun... or should be, that is not the case in wow anymore... only guildwide community is fun.

[Skulkesyk]

The people voting yes to pristine realms, you do realize that it would be the current version of the game right?

Sounds like absolute garbage. The new game does not work with old game mechanics and the old version doesn't work with new game mechanics.

Some might want it but im hoping everyone just can't be botherd reading and are just clickin yes cuz its says vanilla in the title ;P

[Otaka]

Some might want it but im hoping everyone just can't be botherd reading and are just clickin yes cuz its says vanilla in the title ;P

I read it and i was first disappointed but then i realized it actually would be a dream to play live wow without these heirloom/lfg-tool bullcrap. :P
Even more excited of that than actual vanilla server.

[NMX-]

I believe the idea here would be to bring back a sense of server identity. Leveling up together. Using summoning stones to get to raids/dungeons. Looking for people on your server, making new friendships. Not doing dungeons/raids with a bunch of ppl where nobody says a single word. Not randomly coming across somebody from a different realm, only that you know you shouldn't make friends with them, because hey, you guys can't really trade stuff with one another. Can't be in each other's guild. It's just not the same as that being on your server.

With server identity + community, new expansions would be more ... meaningful. You , and your friends, all excited to play with each other in the new content vs what WoW has been today for so many: log in, open a menu, wait, raid, leave. Wait till Tuesday. Repeat.

And, as for legacy servers, I think running an older versions of the game on some servers for millions of people is, simply put, not a smart decision. It's easy to say, "oh but these people did it!" - I'd like to challenge you to consider that it's way easier said than done. A company like that would have to scale it to a global audience, would have to maintain those servers, and probably have to create a separate version of customer service's tools to work with specifically legacy servers, and then train customer service to use these new tools to fix players' issues.

and then they'd need to train a bunch of techies and service level people to also keep an eye on these new servers as well. and so on. and so on. and so on. It's so nice and pretty on paper. It's not so pretty in practice.

[ortund]

Lots of bullshit talk to be honest, and I'll tell you why vanilla or any other previous expansions wont ever happen
1) They don't want to work on older patches, because it takes much more time compared to current state of the game
2) If they actually do release something "older" it's literally them saying that their current game sucks, go play older version
3) No $$$ to be made there with in game purchases

It's all about the money, newer expansions wont be sold cos people would be playing older patches.
RIP WoW been fun

You need to make like a frost mage, bro, and find some chill.

1. The folks who want to play Vanilla obviously don't care about improvements or changes to that state of the game so working on older patches wouldn't be a factor.
2. Actually I was thinking the other day that offering one or two Vanilla realms on a separate network to the live servers wouldn't be a bad idea. Costs would be relatively low due to the fact that no patch work would need to be done and Blizz could charge a normal sub for people to play on them. Overheads might still be a thing because whether regular maintenance is required or not, there is a cost to running those servers in the first place.
3. With income from normal subs to allow users to play Vanilla on new servers, Blizz would probably be making money just by offering the platform which they wouldn't have to maintain because the players wouldn't want changes made.

Of course what income there is to be made off Vanilla nowadays would depend on the player base it gets. TradeChat made an interesting comparison where 500k users wanted classic Runescape to be a thing but then only like 130k of those users were active on it. That said, it wouldn't be viable to absorb the costs to establish Vanilla WoW servers for nostalgic players to enjoy based on outcry of, lets say 7m players only to find only 2m players actively play on them.

Bottom line, Blizzard made WoW and failing to protect it as their Intellectual Property is a very bad idea and if more players who think they're full of shit were business people and not just "worker bees", maybe they'd be able to see that.

I own a software business myself, and I'd be pissed if I were to find someone using my software who had not paid to do so.

[tankbug]

What are you, stupid? sorry... but they dont NEED to work on older patches, they are already there. DUH!
All they need to do is setup the server and never update it... because thats how its gonna be, vanilla had its updates and its not gonna get more content.

Exactly what nostalrius did on behalf of blizzard... "worked" on the older patches to make sure they were bugfree. Once they are completely bugfree they wouldnt need to touch it anymore.

If WoW was a singleplayer game that worked with a current OS, it would be true. It would be a piece of software running in its little bubble on your computer. Unfortunately there is a huge part of the game that's run on an elaborate server park, that needs to be maintained and kept secure. It has to work with battle.net.
Why oversimplify?

[furydeath]

and yet some how them none billion dallor groups are able to do it jus fine least you you force them to shut down



on that note when are they stopping StarCraft and diablo 2 I mean it's OLD STUFF people should only okay the new better game after all

[Skulkesyk]

I read it and i was first disappointed but then i realized it actually would be a dream to play live wow without these heirloom/lfg-tool bullcrap. :P
Even more excited of that than actual vanilla server.

I can respect that.

[Deleted]

The people voting yes to pristine realms, you do realize that it would be the current version of the game right?

Sounds like absolute garbage. The new game does not work with old game mechanics and the old version doesn't work with new game mechanics.

It's not necessarily about mechanics but the community spirit. Turning off all the "quality of life" feaures would force people to actually interact with eachother and venture out into the world. That is what many nostalgia fans are interested in.

If I could add something to the turn-off list it would be flying in all expansions. Current flight paths are more than enough for fast and convenient travel. That's all what's really needed.

[chewie49]

would i play on a vanillia server, maybe...i mean, i might try it out but i'd probably get bored, especially if it wasnt linked somehow with my reg acct (after all, once the nostalgia runs out, vanilla really did suck tbh). would i play on a bc or wrath server? absolutely! would i play on a 'normal' wow server minus xp boosting? meh, why bother?

[Deleted]

So here are my thoughts. I've been playing WoW since Vanilla and until Wrath of the Lich King came out, the game was fun. Especially the PvP and arena in my opinion. It was simple but the combinations were still there to make sick moves and time the right attacks on the right time to kill your enemy. Now, I feel like I have 100 buttons to press and there are simply too many combinations to play this game in a normal way. I stopped playing at Mists of Pandaria because I felt like the game was too much and it didn't feel like the World of Warcraft I was so passionate about.

Seeing this blue posts does me good in a way that you guys are also thinking about bringing the old feels back of the game and thinking about possibilities to give the 'veteran players' the fun back. The 'Pristine Realm' immediately made me excited, for me this would be a huge reason to start reconsidering playing again. I will keep following the updates and I truely hope the old feels will get back to the game.

- Auriell, (once a lvl 60 priest with starfall as a Night Elf Racial)

[tristannarutofan]

Lots of bullshit talk to be honest, and I'll tell you why vanilla or any other previous expansions wont ever happen
1) They don't want to work on older patches, because it takes much more time compared to current state of the game
2) If they actually do release something "older" it's literally them saying that their current game sucks, go play older version
3) No $$$ to be made there with in game purchases

It's all about the money, newer expansions wont be sold cos people would be playing older patches.
RIP WoW been fun

And what pray tell is "bullshit"?

The honest answers with logical reasoning or them highlighting a way in which they might actually implement such a realm?

[Tenjen]

People dont seem to realize there is a LOT OF WORK implied to host vanilla servers in an official manner for blizzard. Its not an on and off switch like a lot of you like to imply. its not "dump the old code in a server and watch it work with no effort".

Blizzard has already researched player behavior in regards to hosting vanilla servers and realized it wont return the investment required and work needed to maintain it later. In other words, its a poor idea doomed to failure, it wont even break even or be sustainable.

Hosting vanilla servers on the official systems implies a vast amount of work to setup and maintain. A separate client (maintaining two clients will be hell), absolutely new software and its own infrastructure. All for something already proven to not hold enough active interest over time by enough people to even cover the cost of doing the above, let alone maintaining it. Not to mention the opportunity cost implied as resources are put aside for it and not engaged elsewhere in things that do have returns and profits to keep going.(to use an old joke, imagine a few expansions worth of raids lost)

So yes, when blizz says "you think you do" they say that because random parrots can say whatever shit they want on the net, but the player populations behavior over a long period of time concerning this reveals otherwise. Nost is a big example itself, with the vast majority of registered accounts (a piddly sum compared to official servers) consisting of people who logged in, played for a while before losing interesting and left with a small active population remaining behind. All other private servers reveal the same activity over a period of time.That is not a sustainable model of behavior to follow up on in an official and expensive manner.

[Demoncrash]

I wouldn't mind a pristine realm if it was the vanilla version of the game. Not interested in a post Cata pristine realm.

[Kryos]

Just offer the Nostalrius guys a job and their job is to make a classic realm. They already coded the emulator.

[Drpizka]

The fact that they released a comment on that, means that they are thinking about it. They actually investigated if it was plausible.

There is a chance, and they certainly know that they will attract the old players who have quit and want the old-challening WoW back.

From our side, this is a big FU to all cry-babies who want their epics without any effort at all; Blizzard is listening to us too sweeties

[zenocide]

We all were young and naive and in love with the game. Surely we all remember the chills from killing Vanilla Ragnaros or C'thun. We all remember the joy of downing Illidan for the first time.
But let's be honest. The game was fucking terrible and the mechanics were retardedly redundant and overcomplicated. I wouldn't play on a vanilla server even if they paid me to..

[VitesseEOD]

What are you, stupid? sorry... but they dont NEED to work on older patches, they are already there. DUH!

I'm sorry but you've just made a complete fool of yourself there. Software will ALWAYS need patching. If it became mainstream, hackers/exploiters/dupers would find new ways to ruin the game and as a paid for product, consumers would expect it to be fixed. So no, its not HIM who is stupid...

[ombus]

I am not in favor of vanilla but i think blizz can do it.
1- Hire the people of Nostalrius to manage the vanilla server.
2- Get the server/s to the new battle.net we have now like another wow license.
Those who want to play, pay that license and the guys from Nostalrius are paid from that, the rest is for blizz and if the server/s doesn't make enough to support itself and the new people then puff, it proves to everybody that its not needed.