Do you remember the wall of NO?

[Projectmars]

There must be a lot of idiots then, for remastered old games are selling like freshly baked bread. And Blizz is no stranger to it, with its (very successful) remaster of SC1.

I know, right? Makes views like the one Nnyco has seem silly.

[Deficineiron]

I know, right? Makes views like the one Nnyco has seem silly.

actually you guys look silly. Everyone (and I mean everyone) knows that nostalgia isn't an applicable condition with most older video games, but only old versions of wow. The desire to play old versions of other games is actually an accepted preference based at least in part on qualitative factors. Ditto preferring the first star wars movies to the jar-jar technological terrors and/or the disney movies, or preferring old coca-cola (pre-new-coke) to the corn-syrup classic. Those are choices based on product differences, and everyone understand that.

Also, preferring diablo 1 or 2 to 3 is clearly understood to take into account the different nature of those titles. They are very different games and no one would say that enjoying one more than the other is anything other than personal preference for different games with a common setting.

Preferring pre-4.0 wow is a very different situation, of course. Qualitative factors clearly cannot apply, so the only possible reason is irrational nostalgia. If you haven't figured this out for yourselves, you need to keep reading the mmo-c classic forum, and perhaps review the megathread where the nostalgics were schooled on why they seemed to believe they wanted to play classic.

the most fascinating part of that was no matter how much well-intentioned, caring, and concerned posters gently tried to guide the nostalgics into a more rational state of mind, most persisted in believing they actually preferred classic wow based on rational and objective factors.

[Soon-TM]

The creation of vanilla could backfire hard on blizzard. this is why blizzard is saying all of this.

Why would it backfire...?

[Deficineiron]

Why would it backfire...?

monetary success would be bad.

[arkanon]

I honestly find it just as funny that certain groups of people are making ridiculous claims about having something to do with Blizzards decision. Saying things like "WE are the reason they are doing this, we spoke loud and they listened!" Such an insane claim to make without any real merit. I think at the end of the day people hear what they want, read what they want, quote what they want, and believe what they want.

For example, those wanting to take some credit for blizzards decision will ignore the private server situation, litigation costs, potential earnings, increasing health of live servers, increasing overall sub numbers etc. etc. they will ignore ALL of that and only hear "we listened!" - OMG GUYS WE DID IT, THEY ARE DOING IT BECAUSE WE ASKED FOR IT YAAAAA USA USA USA USA USA USA

And the same went for the "it will never happen" crowd. Personally, i never thought there was a need for classic servers, but i had no strong feelings for it either way. Private servers did piss me off and still do, i believe their activities to be illegal, and not good for the overall health of the game, but thats a personal opinion.

[arkanon]

The creation of vanilla could backfire hard on blizzard. this is why blizzard is saying all of this.

Im guessing you will get shredded for this comment, because most people in here have already come to the conclusion that Classic will be a success. For the individual players it might be a win, but i believe people are underestimating the potential cost for undertaking this project, and in turn, the potential losses if demand is shown to be lower than expected, or more short term than expected.

People like to (miss)quote private server numbers as some kind of "proof" of classics coming success, but that ignores many factors, not least of all the removal of ALL financial barriers of entrance. It also makes wild assumptions about the product blizzard will be launching. I have absolutely no doubt they will release a very high quality product, up to blizzards usual quality standards, but the design choices are guaranteed to upset many people, no matter how they go about it. I have faith in blizzard to launch a great product, but most do not.

[Deficineiron]

I honestly find it just as funny that certain groups of people are making ridiculous claims about having something to do with Blizzards decision. Saying things like "WE are the reason they are doing this, we spoke loud and they listened!" Such an insane claim to make without any real merit. I think at the end of the day people hear what they want, read what they want, quote what they want, and believe what they want.

For example, those wanting to take some credit for blizzards decision will ignore the private server situation, litigation costs, potential earnings, increasing health of live servers, increasing overall sub numbers etc. etc. they will ignore ALL of that and only hear "we listened!" - OMG GUYS WE DID IT, THEY ARE DOING IT BECAUSE WE ASKED FOR IT YAAAAA USA USA USA USA USA USA

And the same went for the "it will never happen" crowd. Personally, i never thought there was a need for classic servers, but i had no strong feelings for it either way. Private servers did piss me off and still do, i believe their activities to be illegal, and not good for the overall health of the game, but thats a personal opinion.

actually the petition once nost closed may well have influenced corporate decision regarding timing, if not actually whether to (ever) do it at all. I know certain posters ridiculed it and anything to do with classic servers, but the folks who make decisions are not so dense as to completely dismiss what (I believe) was the largest video-game related petition, ever.

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Much of the wall of no actually used some critical thinking vs. the simply minded screeching that was taking place from the PS community. Well see how it plays out.

most of what I remember about the critical thinking was 'they said no and that is the end of it.'

also 'how many ways do they have to say 'no' for you to get the message?'

also 'they want to concentrate on taking the game forward, not dwell on the past.'

also 'blizzard knows doing vanilla servers would be bad for the game overall'

others pointed out the server code was 'lost.' I remember critical thinkers saying that this defied any common sense and was a questionable blue claim.

some posters (not you) in the business actually speculated about the actual cost to do the job. The point I took away from that (and one of them did too when he looked at his own numbers in context) was that it could make money if they did it, based on modest sub gain expectations.

[Deficineiron]

There was lots other issues as well. What patch for example. Was it a sub fee? etc...etc..

what patch is a red herring. once people are talking what patch, the battle is already won (and in reality 'what patch' is trivial compared to what other stuff may get changed. it is like arguing 10 or 15 man ubrs when that is the most trivial of the things that are actually on the table)

almost immediately out of the gate there was a blue asking if class balance would feel classic - (meaning if we balance classes how big of a problem is it, because we sure want to!) since it is on the current engine I can only imagine the internal debates on 'can we turn this feature on/include that one/etc.'

sub fee? I know some folks feel entitled to a free game but most are pragmatic and realize wow ain't gonna be free. I believe this was covered in the very large poll done after nost closed.

[Nathasil]

Everything Blizzard (and players) said about Classic Servers was and still is accurate.

The only reason they are shiftig their stance is thousands of free-riders playing on private-servers pretending they do not do so because it is fucking free...but because they want to support some kind of agenda. That did indeed bring pressure upon Blizzard why they are restricting a free service when they themselves are not even offering it in paid form.

You know what will happen next? When the fresh-bling of official Classic-Servers has washed out for 90% of players after 1-3 months the freeloaders will start playing TBC private servers and claim that actually THAT is the version of the game they want to play and Blizzard has no right to deny them, since there are no official TBC servers.

That's the whole point of it. But i'm not complaining either if i get the option to replay Classic for a few months OFFCIALLY...especially since BFA shapes up to be a real shitpile of an expansion.

[arkanon]

You know what will happen next? When the fresh-bling of official Classic-Servers has washed out for 90% of players after 1-3 months the freeloaders will start playing TBC private servers and claim that actually THAT is the version of the game they want to play and Blizzard has no right to deny them, since there are no official TBC servers.

HAHA thats pretty funny and i honestly wouldnt put it beyond them at all. I could 100% see this happening.

[Wramp]

That's the problem - you only have to add one QoL change for every person and suddenly you have retail, not vanilla.

Bug fixes and battle.net logins - that's it, once you are in the game it should play and look exactly as it did in 2005.

yeah this is pretty much word for word how i feel about it

[Deficineiron]

Everything Blizzard (and players) said about Classic Servers was and still is accurate.

The only reason they are shiftig their stance is thousands of free-riders playing on private-servers pretending they do not do so because it is fucking free...but because they want to support some kind of agenda. That did indeed bring pressure upon Blizzard why they are restricting a free service when they themselves are not even offering it in paid form.

You know what will happen next? When the fresh-bling of official Classic-Servers has washed out for 90% of players after 1-3 months the freeloaders will start playing TBC private servers and claim that actually THAT is the version of the game they want to play and Blizzard has no right to deny them, since there are no official TBC servers.

That's the whole point of it. But i'm not complaining either if i get the option to replay Classic for a few months OFFCIALLY...especially since BFA shapes up to be a real shitpile of an expansion.

people accuse me of believing in conspiracy theories when I saw a/b wants classic to make as much money as possible, but I think you take it to another level - blizz has been 'forced' to do this? Not because they want money (that is my conspiracy theory, not yours) but because of some agenda of some people on private servers?

Personally I think folks currently playing on ps are the smallest potential player subset for classic servers, and I think blizzard sees it the same.

[arkanon]

I mearly stated what blizzard was thinking. Classic wow is a risky business no matter how you look at it.

Sure it will have a huge amount of players at launch but you have to look at the long term. We are most certain that the number of classic players will decrease by at least 80% after the first few months. The question blizzard doesn’t know how to answer is that is it worth keeping the servers working with a small number of players.

My best guess is that they will use it as a compliment to retail which is why i am certain they will make vanilla free as long as you are subscribed to retail.

I am simply trying to analyze why blizzard disagreed to create vanilla before.

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Same answer

You didnt read my post. Such a shame. If you had, you would understand i was agreeing with you, and explaining it more clearly, since you are really struggling to. And saying "We are most certain that the number of classic players will decrease by at least 80%" - We who? who is this WE you speak of, and how did they come to this conclusion? i agree with what you are trying to say, to an extent, but you are destroying your own argument with silly assumption and use of "we" when you really mean "I"

[Ehrenpanzer]

We all knew #3 was a load of shit from the moment they said it

[Echocho]

Also, preferring diablo 1 or 2 to 3 is clearly understood to take into account the different nature of those titles. They are very different games and no one would say that enjoying one more than the other is anything other than personal preference for different games with a common setting.

Preferring pre-4.0 wow is a very different situation, of course. Qualitative factors clearly cannot apply, so the only possible reason is irrational nostalgia.

Actually the way the games work are very different on a fundamental design level. Sure they look alike but the design philosophies are so different between vanilla and Legion that they might aswell be completely different games. This comes down to personal preference like you said, I like the design principles of the first few iterations of WoW (I'd say up to and including Ulduar) and after that they kept making changes I didn't like, which is why I look forward to a game like Pantheon a lot more than Ashes of Creation for example. Some people prefer the new philosophies and some prefer the older ones and there's nothing wrong with that, people like different things.

Would I like a brand new game with the design philosophies of vanilla? Absolutely, but until/if that comes Classic will have to do.

[Deleted]

Do you remember the huge copy and paste quote people would quote the moment anyone mentioned classic servers? It's pretty hysterical how the views of a company can shift so quickly over a short period of time. I'm using this thread as a lesson, a lesson that Blizzard decisions and views on a subject can change in a split matter of time.

You do realize that it took them several years to even decide to start working on it right? YEARS!!! Many of them.

[Healasouhait]

Classic-Servers will be classic, nearly nobody said something else. But Classic ≠ Vanilla. This is not vanilla, because the code of it is from BFA. So less crashes (Nefarian crashed for me for months because there was a nasty crash in Searing Gourge, battle.net integration, complete different code, 64 bit transition, User Interface will be modern, althrough hopefully not BFA-Style; more the raidframes and blindcolor-mode and many things more.

Using a bug to demonstrate that Classic =/ Vanilla is just so stupid. Not to mention your less crashes, battle.net integration, 64 bit, raidframes, how exactly will it kill your experience of Vanilla ?
Classic will be Vanilla, with some necessary QoL (like less bugs).

[Deficineiron]

Actually the way the games work are very different on a fundamental design level. Sure they look alike but the design philosophies are so different between vanilla and Legion that they might aswell be completely different games. This comes down to personal preference like you said, I like the design principles of the first few iterations of WoW (I'd say up to and including Ulduar) and after that they kept making changes I didn't like, which is why I look forward to a game like Pantheon a lot more than Ashes of Creation for example. Some people prefer the new philosophies and some prefer the older ones and there's nothing wrong with that, people like different things.

Would I like a brand new game with the design philosophies of vanilla? Absolutely, but until/if that comes Classic will have to do.

sometimes the urge to post sarcasm unmarked is overwhelming and I do it. I usually try to load up my post with enough material to make clear that either I am a complete moron, or am making a point with sarcasm (or both I suppose )

like old coke vs new ok - ok
like old st vs jarjar - ok
like d1 vs d2 or d3 ok
but everyone knows wow 1.12 vs wow i dont even know what number? impossible. has to be 100% nostalgia. I learned this on the megathread.

the most fascinating part of that was no matter how much well-intentioned, caring, and concerned posters gently tried to guide the nostalgics into a more rational state of mind, most persisted in believing they actually preferred classic wow based on rational and objective factors.

does this accurately describe how the nostalgics were treated on the megathread?

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You do realize that it took them several years to even decide to start working on it right? YEARS!!! Many of them.

in the absence of further data, I suspect that while it may well have been discussed internally before, it was the whole outcry post-nost, petition, publicity, etc., that really started the ball rolling.

[Animalhouse]

Blizzard is so full of shit.
I mean, you can be when you have a legion of Stockholm syndrome fanbois ready to defend all your lies on a moments notice.

[alturic]

That's the problem - you only have to add one QoL change for every person and suddenly you have retail, not vanilla.

Bug fixes and battle.net logins - that's it, once you are in the game it should play and look exactly as it did in 2005.

I'm sure someone else in software development probably already said it but, that's the problem. First, some of the "bugs" weren't fixed until well into TBC (well duh, bugs that existed in 1.12 weren't fixed until TBC heh) but secondly you can't just rip out pieces of code that fixed feature X, from a patch 8 versions in the future and retroactively apply it. *ANYTHING* that relied on bugfix X that relied on something from any of those future patches... would have to be implemented as well, if that makes sense?

Think of it this way, how does changing something, seemingly related end-game content have any affect on something like Hogger? Deadmines? That was something that, to your typical gamer, isn't correlated. Yet at some point, somewhere, it was/is.