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

[Perkunas]

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

I did not say all difficulties.

[Sting]

Mark Kern in 2017 OMEGALUL

[Theoris]

Figures he would make a statement on all this; and with no shortage of hyperbole either.

[Hashtronaut]

I can't stop getting hyped for this!

[Deficineiron]

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

our viewpoints are not mutually exclusive, and his employment track record is pretty clear.

[anon5123]

I have watched a few PS streams the last couple weeks. One guy is making gnomes locks to practice leveling so he can get to 60 stat. The other guy is a hunter who has done nothing but talk about how he wants to get to 60 so he can get a head of the game.

Because two people represent the entire vanilla community amirite?

[Deianeira]

Oh please. I've been on 3 different mythic guilds this expansion. Outside of raiding, nobody utters a word. Don't even mention LFG/LFR, u don't even have to communicate for m+20s.

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How is he wrong? Plenty of players that have never stepped in a mythic raid have 940+ ilvl.

im sure at this moment there are a few that have that or close to it, BUT many or perhaps even most of them dont have setbonuses or really poor itemisation on their stats.

[anon5123]

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.

"B-b-but muh vanilla struggle! STOP IMPROVING THE GAME REEEEE GO BACK TO LEGION FUCKING SCRUB REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

yeah, I don't get it either. These purist idiots are convinced that if you make small QoL changes, the game will "turn into legion" and shit like that, always making these dumb slippery slope arguments. Because increasing the duration of paladin buffs will totally make Blizzard implement LFR the next day.

No quality of life allowed, everyone must suffer through outdated bullshit due to technical limitations that don't exist anymore.

[Deianeira]

The internet was a very different place before social medias, and millennia generation entered it.
The difference in mindset of the youth today compared to 20 years ago is the primary catalyst.

Communities started to die when they butchered the 40man guilds, when half the roster is needed, maximum half the people are online.
This trend continued with the terrible idea of 10&20 man raiding aswell.

Then remove all outside raid grinds, LFR, X-realms, makes it so easy to raid at your own leisure that you dont need to commit to a guild.

But yes, Mark Kern hits it on the head with :

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

Sad part is that i Think he is wrong about the players is gonna feel that challenge again. ESPECIALLY not the veteran players unless perhaps they quit right after Vanilla. Those that have been raiding on any sort of serious level through the years will not feel any real challenge. The challenge will be to make the Groups but that is not a challenge of the game its a challenge of the social aspect. Also dont expect Raids/Guild are gonna recruit in trade/general atleast not if there are to few servers to play on. Because as some people seems to insist there will be hunderds of thousands people playing and i have played on High pop servers and you cant read Shiet in /trade /general.

[Nheme]

Why should training spells cost less?

[leviathonlx]

This guy just loves attention.

[Roar-Powah]

https://www.pcinvasion.com/ex-world-...izzard-vanilla





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

CRZ is driving me from this game, as well as no server communities.

[Deianeira]

Nah. I'm not even a classic/vanilla advocate and I'll just be trying it out for the leveling again really. I have no doubts there will be douchebags around but I also have no doubts that they'll get bored not being able to get in to groups once they've made a name for themselves. As long as Blizzard skip the whole cross-realm functionality, that is.

But the thing is atleast in the beginning i cant imagine they will have several dozens servers for Classic on both EU/Asia/US, Because if they do and the novelty wears of there will be a need for that cross-realm functionality anyways since i know atleast I will probably play sparingly especially during Retail raidprogression.

Have they said anything on how they will solve the number of servers they will have and where?

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CRZ is driving me from this game, as well as no server communities.

Actually i Think they will rectify some of those problems with the new community function they will add.

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Okay cool? There were people in Vanilla that never stepped into raids and were geared to the teeth from PvP and dungeon gear from later patches in Vanilla. Point being?

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Oh just wait until the elitism hits when those servers launch. Not only can they be outrageous assholes they can attempt to try and get you blackballed on the server, grief you, ruin your groups, ninja your loot and so on. Woo

Actually had one of those people on my server in Vanilla, he was a really competent player and he often started PuGs, but if there was something he wanted he would just take it despite saying in the beginning that there would be rolls for all items. Sad part is he never got punished for it since he was a pretty good player and people still wanted to do the PuGs with him for the small chance of some nice loot.

[Static]

If only people like Mark, Sodapoppin, Asmongold and Kungen just.. didn't exist.

[epLe]

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.

It's tuning, all abilities on trash aswell as bosses, hurt so much less, that the gearing process is too easy.

Originally the gear tuning to boss encounters, was so tight that you really had to cover everything, every time.
It is vastly different on the pirate servers, including the "blizz like" ones.
On top of that, alot of these servers has inflated drop rates, contributing even more to this problem (mindset).

[Icechaosss]

So first he says "There is no community anymore because of LFG, flying etc."

Then he says he hasn't played since WotLK.

Sounds like he's just reading MMO-C to me.

I mean, we could just stop this retail vs. classic war and just let people enjoy what they want to enjoy, but letting others enjoy things isn't what we do here is it?

[Deianeira]

Yeah I am starting to wonder this myself. Early LFR actually kicked the shit out of many a raider

Yes and it still happens to this day, the MAIN reason all fights are faceroll in LFR is most people do them on reset and then is when most of those that are Highgeared do their runs for Legendarydrops and AP drops But if you do a LFR at the end of the week when people do their alts with a bi lower gear then sometimes it is not uncommon there is a wipe here and there.

[epLe]

..Because increasing the duration of paladin buffs will totally make Blizzard implement LFR the next day.

No quality of life allowed, everyone must suffer through outdated bullshit due to technical limitations that don't exist anymore.

Just to address your meme example with the paladin buff durations.

The 5 min single target buffs, had a large impact on how paladins was played in Vanilla. They were buffadins for a reason.
You wanted enough buffadins, to cover the buffs for whole encounters, so they needed to manage mana to rebuff everyone during the fight.

This is why they were in the raid. Make the buff 1h duration and you remove the need for them, they get parked outside like the soulstone dispensers.

[Lasombria]

Just to address your meme example with the paladin buff durations.

The 5 min single target buffs, had a large impact on how paladins was played in Vanilla. They were buffadins for a reason.
You wanted enough buffadins, to cover the buffs for whole encounters, so they needed to manage mana to rebuff everyone during the fight.

This is why they were in the raid. Make the buff 1h duration and you remove the need for them, they get parked outside like the soulstone dispensers.

This former soul stone dispenser sobs, "It's all true."

[Deianeira]

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:

Yes i saw some of the despicable comments the "Fine and upstanding Vanilla Community" gave to TradeChat after that Video. I dont care if she was wrong or if she had different opinions then those guys you dont fucking threaten people over opinions on Videogames. If that is the Community Mark is part of i dont want anything to do with it because then we all know what type of people they are.