Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Pann]

Give Legacy already? Then the armchair coders will stop already.

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Humor me this ... if I dont give a hoot about the current expansion, and will never see the movie because I feel Blizzard deserted me, how exactly WILL this topic go away? What if I never bought the last expansion and won't buy the next?

After 12 years of WoW .. half of which are (arguably) trashy .. people will just think .. ah yeah, movie is out, time to go home... it's done, go home. Can't have Legacy, expansion / movie is out. Go home .. lol?

LOL, can you seriously consider this as an outcome?? Disaster for Blizzard, if I still have 20/30 vision at least. Let Legacy fizzle out .. surely, you jest!

For the person who does not give a hoot about the current expansion and who will never see the movie this topic might not go away. But I am willing to bet that perception of their importance to Blizzard is very different from Blizzard's.

Why would it be a disaster for Blizzard? You're not a customer and apparently have little intention of becoming one.

[Mosotti]

Give Legacy already? Then the armchair coders will stop already.

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Humor me this ... if I dont give a hoot about the current expansion, and will never see the movie because I feel Blizzard deserted me, how exactly WILL this topic go away? What if I never bought the last expansion and won't buy the next?

After 12 years of WoW .. half of which are (arguably) trashy .. people will just think .. ah yeah, movie is out, time to go home... it's done, go home. Can't have Legacy, expansion / movie is out. Go home .. lol?

LOL, can you seriously consider this as an outcome?? Disaster for Blizzard, if I still have 20/30 vision at least. Let Legacy fizzle out .. surely, you jest!

It's time to move on. Actually, don't you find it really fucking insane to want to play again and again the same expansion?

[gcsmith]

It's time to move on. Actually, don't you find it really fucking insane to want to play again and again the same expansion?

It still makes me laugh when people complain about doing HFC for 14 months and then in the same post say they want legacy servers, where you'[d never have new content.

[SoundOfGuns]

...stop acting like vanilla wow was the promised land.

[Deleted]

...stop acting like vanilla wow was the promised land.

Agreed the problem i have with this whole thing even discounting the fact it was illegal is.

1. It was free. once Blizz shoves a subscription onto this will it pull the same numbers?

2. Seperation. NOS had alot of Asian players on it they would not be included in the same Blizzard realms as would the US players so the player base which lets be honest is not as big as live is anyway would be further divided and if they choose not to divide then there will be latency issues depending on the location of the server which is why they currently have them separated.

3. Updates. Now there should not be any because people want this "Vanilla" feel now the problem with this is as soon as Blizz gives in if they do and create these realms people will start screaming "i pay subs i want content i want bug fixes i want i want i want" its basically a neverending stream of shit that they will never hear the end of.

4. Armchair coders. People think "Because NOS did it easy" Blizzard will, not the case here at all. If Blizz do it and it becomes a support product things like battlenet would be included in this, that means revamping 10 year old code to work with a modern battlenet client which is not going to be easy.

5. this one is the bit that i don't get at all. Vanilla itself now having played since mid vanilla and leveling a char to 60 in my experience i cannot see why it was ever as popular as this is now for several reasons.

1. only 1 of the 3 specs a player had was usable maybe 2 on certain classes if you were lucky.

2. No X realm, now some people see this as a plus which i do not share that opinion logging in fairly late at night to a BG that took 30 minutes to queue for you to get the message " not enough players on your team" then get booted out was not fun. Same goes with instances and raids.

3. 40 man raids, this was a clusterfuck and a pain in the ass to get together, Anyone else do MC anniversary event with the current player base? jesus the "Lets pull all trash" went down like a lead balloon.

4. i remember actually running out of quests before 60 and sat AOE grinding mobs in WPL for 2 levels which was excruciating.

These are just a few things off the top of my head i could probably think of more.

Just my two pence.

[Uurdz]

By the way, Nost will NOT release their source code and database as they said in the beginning, so that also says much about them. They used an open source shit and built upon it, but now that they were busted, they don't want to share their work to others that might continue.

They have very good reasons not to release that code and its embarrassing how many people have cried about them not doing it.
Just like Blizzard were entitled to close Nost down, they're entitled to hold onto their code.

It gives them more bargaining power with Blizzard to deliver what they really want which is Blizzard supported Legacy servers. Anyone who writes them off immediately from this is obviously just selfishly wanting what THEY think is best for them.

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Agreed the problem i have with this whole thing even discounting the fact it was illegal is.

1. It was free. once Blizz shoves a subscription onto this will it pull the same numbers?

2. Seperation. NOS had alot of Asian players on it they would not be included in the same Blizzard realms as would the US players so the player base which lets be honest is not as big as live is anyway would be further divided and if they choose not to divide then there will be latency issues depending on the location of the server which is why they currently have them separated.

3. Updates. Now there should not be any because people want this "Vanilla" feel now the problem with this is as soon as Blizz gives in if they do and create these realms people will start screaming "i pay subs i want content i want bug fixes i want i want i want" its basically a neverending stream of shit that they will never hear the end of.

4. Armchair coders. People think "Because NOS did it easy" Blizzard will, not the case here at all. If Blizz do it and it becomes a support product things like battlenet would be included in this, that means revamping 10 year old code to work with a modern battlenet client which is not going to be easy.

5. this one is the bit that i don't get at all. Vanilla itself now having played since mid vanilla and leveling a char to 60 in my experience i cannot see why it was ever as popular as this is now for several reasons.

1. only 1 of the 3 specs a player had was usable maybe 2 on certain classes if you were lucky.

2. No X realm, now some people see this as a plus which i do not share that opinion logging in fairly late at night to a BG that took 30 minutes to queue for you to get the message " not enough players on your team" then get booted out was not fun. Same goes with instances and raids.

3. 40 man raids, this was a clusterfuck and a pain in the ass to get together, Anyone else do MC anniversary event with the current player base? jesus the "Lets pull all trash" went down like a lead balloon.

4. i remember actually running out of quests before 60 and sat AOE grinding mobs in WPL for 2 levels which was excruciating.

These are just a few things off the top of my head i could probably think of more.

Just my two pence.

1. An interesting idea, except that you'd expect a similarly popular private server to have existed when legacy wow was around if people cared about the cost. This argument has been used a number of times but just doesn't hold up to a closer look.

Even if they lost 1/2 the players due to a $15 sub fee they will get a lot of interest due to the Blizzard effect, as well as streamers and youtubers who will support legacy and dont support retail wow.

2. Where did you get the fact there was a lot (thats 2 words btw) of the players were Asian? A misconception people have is that the existing player base would want to play Legacy realms. For a gimmick? yeah they might, but they LIKE the current game. That puts them at odds with people who liked the OLD game because its vastly different.

Remember, a legacy fan is more likely NOT to be a retail fan.

3. Yes of course they will do updates, remember they are getting sub money you noted in point 1, this will support bug fixing and maybe some additional development if they really want. They can re-release the old content and that provides between 12-18months worth of gameplay. They can then re-release TBC if legacy works and so on. They already have a never ending stream of shit for retail wow, i doubt they will care as long as players are paying.

4. Correct - good point.

5. You don't understand why people want to play legacy. Thats fine - but people do and a 250k strong petition and the game play seen on Nostralius are evidence of this desire. But to answer your points
1. Yes this is bad, i can only raid frost mage in Vanilla until late AQ40 but thats ok!
2. People don't like X realm for numerous reasons and it is needed due to the significant fluctuation now in gameplay. People fall out of engagement at a much faster rate now, the idea is that legacy doesn't have as BAD of a problem so this server empty issue is less. Not gone, just a bit less.
3. Yes correct but some people liked it.
4. Correct - you had to bounce between zones to level just through quests. You could however, make it from 1-60 purely doing quests.

Hope my response helps your though process, I only think your point #4 is valid though.

[Eggers]

Yeap, you're missing "Situation update - 1st May 2016". "Nostalrius source code and database won’t be released". And some lame ass excuses, which don't even contain "Blizzard will sue us", just some bullshit about their magnificent anticheat that they "don't want to release". LOL.

Ahh. Gotcha. Thanks for catching me up. That's too bad, and lame, they went back on their promise.

[Uurdz]

Ahh. Gotcha. Thanks for catching me up. That's too bad, and lame, they went back on their promise.

They made that promise prior to the opportunity to meet with and discuss Legacy with Blizzard. Releasing the code costs them that opportunity.
Get off your high horse and go back to your mountain dew and doritios guys. They did ALL the work.

They, like Blizzard, owe you NOTHING.

[Deleted]

pff is this legacy server thing still going on?

[Eggers]

They made that promise prior to the opportunity to meet with and discuss Legacy with Blizzard. Releasing the code costs them that opportunity.
Get off your high horse and go back to your mountain dew and doritios guys. They did ALL the work.

They, like Blizzard, owe you NOTHING.

Well that's a pretty lazy argument.

You could say that about any of the hundreds of mmo-champ members (poll here ： http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Vanilla-server )who want the servers to become a reality.

Do all those people think Blizz owes them something? Does Mark Kern think Blizz owes him something?

*In my case, i simply don't trust that Blizz will actually open the legacy servers. I hope that, working with the Nos team, they do, but i have doubts it'll ever reach fruition.

[Darkpoison324]

Okay okay okay. i've been reading most of these forums and there is one common theme i don't understand

People who do not want legacy servers.....

you guys need to stop literally if blizzard makes legacy servers you will not be effected just don't play on them its honestly that simple there is no need for your comments or thoughts on the topic let the people who want the legacy servers enjoy them selves

[Uurdz]

Well that's a pretty lazy argument.

You could say that about any of the hundreds of mmo-champ members (poll here ： http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Vanilla-server )who want the servers to become a reality.

Do all those people think Blizz owes them something? Does Mark Kern think Blizz owes him something?

*In my case, i simply don't trust that Blizz will actually open the legacy servers. I hope that, working with the Nos team, they do, but i have doubts it'll ever reach fruition.

Huh? I honestly dont understand what your're trying to say.
There is a difference between polling for something, posting you want something and then saying you lost all respect for the team because they made 1 decision which actually makes a lot of sense?

I agree with that, I expect Blizzard will say - lets just stall this until Legion comes out.

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Okay okay okay. i've been reading most of these forums and there is one common theme i don't understand

People who do not want legacy servers.....

you guys need to stop literally if blizzard makes legacy servers you will not be effected just don't play on them its honestly that simple there is no need for your comments or thoughts on the topic let the people who want the legacy servers enjoy them selves

They believe legacy servers mean:
(a) Retail wow will get less development and less players
(b) Legacy servers will be a poor investment and detract from future investment of WoW because they will fail
(c) Legacy servers would mean an acknowledgement that Retail WoW isn't great

[Darkpoison324]

Huh? I honestly dont understand what your're trying to say.
There is a difference between polling for something, posting you want something and then saying you lost all respect for the team because they made 1 decision which actually makes a lot of sense?

I agree with that, I expect Blizzard will say - lets just stall this until Legion comes out.

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They believe legacy servers mean:
(a) Retail wow will get less development and less players
(b) Legacy servers will be a poor investment and detract from future investment of WoW because they will fail
(c) Legacy servers would mean an acknowledgement that Retail WoW isn't great

I can understand (C) but if blizzard is smart they will hire the nos team which means (A) will not happen

[Hammerfest]

I was impressed by Kern's reasonable, rational demeanor.

[PaladinBash]

Mark Kern is a man that did a lot of good work and made a lot of big mistakes. Should be listened to and respected but not fanboyed over because he has fucked up pretty hard a few times. He's still an important part of Blizzard's legacy but his other decisions have been almost universally terrible. I wouldn't blame him entirely for that but he played his part in it.

Overall I like some of what he says but to me it's no greater imput than anyone else saying it just because it's from his mouth.

[Uurdz]

I can understand (C) but if blizzard is smart they will hire the nos team which means (A) will not happen

Thats just arrogant.
There is no evidence to suggest Nos devs > Blizzard devs.

If Blizzard do it im sure they will involve nos devs in some way, and reward them with an ingame NPC or something
Like a room in SW filled with their senior guys <Preservation Guild>

[TyrianFC]

Okay okay okay. i've been reading most of these forums and there is one common theme i don't understand

People who do not want legacy servers.....

you guys need to stop literally if blizzard makes legacy servers you will not be effected just don't play on them its honestly that simple there is no need for your comments or thoughts on the topic let the people who want the legacy servers enjoy them selves

Just a question: Do you believe any of this bullshit you just wrote?

It directly affects current-patch players if a portion of the dev/maintenance team is diverted to handle appeasing nostalgia-craving fanboys who wish they were playing vanilla . I want Blizzard 100% focused on the current game. And if the current game isnt good enough? They should focus on improving that, not trying to find a niche group of clowns who think that vanilla is good enough and saying 'well that subset of players is happy - so I guess we're fine'.

[Eggers]

saying you lost all respect for the team because they made 1 decision which actually makes a lot of sense?

Whoa. bit of a stretch there, since i only said it was lame they went back on their promise. Definitely never said anything about losing respect. Let's not exaggerate.

I agree with that, I expect Blizzard will say - lets just stall this until Legion comes out.

At least we agree on something. lol

[Tackhisis]

Why do you think Blizzard will permit anything to a group who couldn't even implement LoS, fix pathing and boat rubberbanding? Or making boats not to disappear suddenly?

[Uurdz]

Whoa. bit of a stretch there, since i only said it was lame they went back on their promise. Definitely never said anything about losing respect. Let's not exaggerate.



At least we agree on something. lol

By the way, Nost will NOT release their source code and database as they said in the beginning, so that also says much about them. They used an open source shit and built upon it, but now that they were busted, they don't want to share their work to others that might continue.

I was replying to this guy.