Ex-World of Warcraft dev Mark Kern explains why Blizzard open vanilla servers

[TheTaurenOrc]

Oh snap, I forgot about this guy and thew whole open letter to blizzard.

I wonder if actually had some sway behind the scenes...

[Kathranis]

I will never get why Mark I make myself important is so important for the classic "community" when he never achieved anything....

Well, I don't see any websites scrambling to interview him about Em8er or whatever his new game is called.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh snap, I forgot about this guy and thew whole open letter to blizzard.

I wonder if actually had some sway behind the scenes...

Probably not much. It's more about the community overall showing a persistent demand and Blizzard wanting to control that share of the market.

Like, sure, at first you saw Blizzard having meetings with Kern and the Nostalrius peeps, but then after a while you also had the Nostalrius devs try to blackmail Blizzard with an ultimatum, threatening to release the Source Code, and then following through with it.

A lot of the people running those various pirate servers showed themsleves to be untrustworthy, immature, and unprofessional, so my guess is that Blizzard probably isn't going to be throwing them any bones. Their job listings require 5+ years of experience and a shipped game under the applicant's belt.

[rasako]

people are far more selfish these days.

classic wow will be a pain just to find groups, in classic (given wow's predecessors) it was commonplace to allow 3-4 hours when looking for a dungeon group and also completing the dungeon. given the state of the game now, i would hesitate people allow more than 30 minutes (less so, perhaps 20 minutes if tank/healer) to complete a dungeon. what you will see if a complete failure of people to dedicate themselves to a group.

This is a worldwide problem. almost everyone on the planet under the age of 44 have severe commitment issues whichi is why divorce is through the roof, people are cheating like crazy, and most people bitch about unemployment when they can't even hold a job.

[Deficineiron]

Yeah, the guy is an absolute asshat and just wants some time in the spotlight or maybe a job.

Not sure why people bother with him at all.

yeah, red5 and the bus story are really something, BUT

when he actually writes (insteads of runs a company), he makes a lot of sense. He nails several points better than I have been able to the last few days, dealing with why nost's numbers were so good, how that can be extraplated to an official classic, why current game has retention issues, etc.

he wrote an article a few years ago https://attackofthefanboy.com/news/m...-killed-genre/ which I thought was spot on.

so whatever severe mgmt skill issues he has, he has some useful insight into the massmarket McMMO problem as it relates to wow, and he is the only of the people with first-hand experience at blizz early wow period who will write about this critically. Maybe his NDA expired? I would love to hear Rob Pardo's view on this, or Chris Metzen's.

[Arkthugal]

- veteran MMO players want to feel that challenge again, without the automation and the hand-holding.

Current WoW is both more accessible and infinitely more difficult than Vanilla ever was.

EDIT: Also there's a reason that Mark Kern is an ex-Blizzard employee.

[Deleted]

- veteran MMO players want to feel that challenge again, without the automation and the hand-holding.

A veteran who wants a challange would not want classic the game for casuals.

[Ielenia]

TLR

- there is no way to play the original version of WoW or even TBC or WotLK versions of the mechanics. It’s like a whole new game
- veteran MMO players want to feel that challenge again, without the automation and the hand-holding.
- Retail level 100 in a day, and level 87 or so in just 4-6 hours. Where is the satisfaction in that? Where is the fun?
- 2Million people…these players will not only play vanilla World of Warcraft
- Cross realm, flying, LFG/LFR and garrisons have already made retail into a single player game
- simplification and streamlining to reach a wider audience has cost Blizzard something

Remind why we should bother listening to a guy who practically only had massive failures since he left Blizzard, tried to gain more time in the spotlight by "joining the movement", and now is trying to pretend he's still relevant yet again?

I see Mark Kern as the member of a school group who does nothing to help a project, but in the end, when it's time to get credit, he starts screaming "I helped! I helped! I helped!".

[Kathranis]

The challenge in Classic basically boiled down to:

1. Taking the time to level up.
2. Taking the time to farm the gear and items you need to start running the content.
3. Getting enough people to show up, stick around, and pay attention for long enough to finish the content.
4. Having a computer that couldn't maintain stable framerates and an internet connection that was laggy.

From a mechanical skill standpoint, most rotations were incredibly easy and boss mechanics were mostly tank and spank with minor movement requirements.

Especially taking into account everything we now know about the game, the average WoW player in 2017 will not have a difficult time with any of the raid mechanics in Classic WoW. Get the mandatory add-ons, farm your gear and consumables, and just show up. With 39 other players you don't even have to play that well.

[pateuvasiliu]

People think that lack of QoL features is bad.
No, that's exactly why people are looking forward to playing Classic.

No. People are playing Classic because:

1. Levelling is a long but fun process as you meet a lot of people in your travels and forge friendships as a reputation. If on a PvP server you also gain infamy and make a name for yourself through PvP ( at some point I was on kill lists on Nostalrius, shit was cash, made me feel good )

2. Raids require team work and preparation and killing the bosses actually means something

3. Epics mean something

4. Epic mounts mean something

5. There is no LFG or name change or server transfer which means your reputation means a lot

And a couple others.

Those are the main selling points of Vanilla.

Do you really think it would matter that much if Respec cost 5g instead of 50 or if you could use a Meeting Stone to summon or if Training spells cost less?

Those are minor things.

[Aggrophobic]

yeah, red5 and the bus story are really something, BUT

when he actually writes (insteads of runs a company), he makes a lot of sense. He nails several points better than I have been able to the last few days, dealing with why nost's numbers were so good, how that can be extraplated to an official classic, why current game has retention issues, etc.

he wrote an article a few years ago https://attackofthefanboy.com/news/m...-killed-genre/ which I thought was spot on.

so whatever severe mgmt skill issues he has, he has some useful insight into the massmarket McMMO problem as it relates to wow, and he is the only of the people with first-hand experience at blizz early wow period who will write about this critically. Maybe his NDA expired? I would love to hear Rob Pardo's view on this, or Chris Metzen's.

Yeah, or he's just a bitter man that got fired from pretty much ever company he worked for.

[Revamp Man]

So when people ask for things you don't agree with, it's a vocal minority asking for changes. When they agree with your views, it's the playerbase asking for needed changes? Very hypocritical to say the least.



Would he be a terrible person if he was praising the current state of wow? Hypocrisy is very abundant here, it seems.

no he would still be an asshat
i dont play runescape because i quit many years ago
i am not going to comment on how the devs of that game came to releasing OS RS
now if i was mark i would currently be saying "well this is how they think this is what they need to do and this is fact"
seriously he is as irrelevant as the players wanting post naxx content

[Lasombria]

I'm so happy that Mark is able to see through this retail vs classic groupings and just shoots it home: There is no sense of community on current retail and everything has been trivialised.

people are far more selfish these days.

Mark Kern understands community in much the way that dysentery understands a healthy human body. He demonstrated his idea of community with regard to diverse opinions on TradeChat not long ago:

[Vargur]

Hitting the nail on the head.

Is Sodapopping even a raider? The levelling process in MMOs shouldn't be the only kind of content, WoW is not a damn Asian F2P game. Not sure why him and Soda are basing their thought process on "levelling time".
And how did flying made the game a sp one? I'd interact with other players just as much as with a ground mount = none at all. We are of course talking about PVE servers.

[Egregious]

There is no community in the game if YOU don't do anything about it. People have changed the last 10 years. If you want to have a community in the game, then join a guild, say hi when you enter a lfg and so on, its all up to you.

Vanilla won't change the community one bit.

Lol. You don't understand the elements of building community then, do you?

[Deletedaccount1]

The challenge in Classic basically boiled down to:

1. Taking the time to level up.
2. Taking the time to farm the gear and items you need to start running the content.
3. Getting enough people to show up, stick around, and pay attention for long enough to finish the content.
4. Having a computer that couldn't maintain stable framerates and an internet connection that was laggy.

From a mechanical skill standpoint, most rotations were incredibly easy and boss mechanics were mostly tank and spank with minor movement requirements.

Especially taking into account everything we now know about the game, the average WoW player in 2017 will not have a difficult time with any of the raid mechanics in Classic WoW. Get the mandatory add-ons, farm your gear and consumables, and just show up. With 39 other players you don't even have to play that well.

The competition in vanilla now is over how fast guilds can clear raids. On popular private servers, the top guilds compete over things like MC clear times for which I think the record is under 15 minutes. Obviously most players won't partake in this though.

[kenoathcarn]

Mark Kern understands community in much the way that dysentery understands a healthy human body. He demonstrated his idea of community with regard to diverse opinions on TradeChat not long ago:

Another case of two sides to every story... Tradechat was hardly and innocent victim, she tweeted a whole bunch of shit she quickly deleted so she didn't look as bad.

https://twitter.com/CalemAnnk/status/725382471458643970

https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/..._they_used_to/

These posts pretty much reflect how i remember it going down.

[Relapses]

Mark Kern is a walking dumpster fire of a human being and the fact that he is smugly appropriating the implementation of Legacy realms to his bullshit pandering is one of the single most depressing thoughts I've had recently.

[Zaeyla]

First this interview is way too old its from april of last year... not long after Nostalrius originally got shut down most of the info/points are kinda irrelevant now that blizzard has officially announced and committed itself to classic servers.

Second I really don't recommend the legacy movement attach itself to big names/streamers/content creators/former blizz employees even if they do support legacy/classic its not good to tie the entire movement to them, We're stronger as a voice on forums/social media/petitions/ingame then if we have one big voice speak for us.

Third: I don't personally think Mark Kern is a good guy (he really isn't) but his points in this interview do hold allot of merit and make sense.

[chronia]

Wonder where he gets all this talk about "Trivialisation" and "oversimplifying" comes from, is he only talking about leveling or something? A good mate of mine was playing on Nost and now on their successor and yes, leveling is way less trivial than on live, however the way they stomp trough end game content like raids had nothing to do with how it was when we played Vanilla, the only thing that slows them down a bit is stuff that has a hard requirement for resistance gear, the rest they just stomp trough like the bosses arent even there.

[Deianeira]

But game can push you to be a part of community. Game must motivate it or it is not even interesting. Nowadays motivations are weak, because everything can be done in PUG raid.

Excuse me everyone is talking about Now you can do everything in PuGs and guess what there will be sooooooooo many PuGs goin on in Classic it will prolly look just like on the retail realms. You will not be forced to participate in the community.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the issue is you can clear all the content in the game without talking to a single person in live and for some of us that's a bridge too far. I'm not asking them to change modern WoW I simply long for the old way. Which again, you don't have to take part in. They aren't shutting down modern WoW.

There is no way you could clear all the content in the game without talking to a single person. Not even close. But i guess you talk about LFR/LFD