Classic WoW will be a lesson in nostaligia vs reality

[Castration]

Just because I can't be online all day doesn't mean I'm gone for good.

Sure seems like it... keep that tail between your legs as you keep out of where the big boys play.

[Matmcc]

Why did the OP even make this post. Anyone that spends any time trying to convince someone that they shouldn't be happy about something that make them happy is simply an ***hole...............

[Clbull]

What about the insane popularity of the Nostalrius brand?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalrius

You cannot tell me that over 800,000 registered accounts was a fluke. We've all seen the videos of the insane number of people on even during off-peak hours. Considering this was an illegal server, this says a lot. Some of those people will never register a battle.net account though I also imagine there some people that who never played on Nostalrius who also want to play Vanilla without breaking laws.

Your OP honestly looks like just another "I hated Vanilla and I don't want anyone else to experience it." post.

Nostalrius became popular because the state of retail WoW was worse than trash. At the time of its launch WoW's all time worst expansion pack had been released with oodles of cut content, heavily pruned game mechanics, a terrible story, awful class design, a disrespectful and frankly insulting end to the previous expansion's prime antagonist (Garrosh), a major content patch which added little more than a selfie stick, and a fifteen month content drought between the releases of 6.2 and Legion - which remains the longest gap to this day between content releases, beating the TBC content drought by 4 months.

I played briefly on that server but didn't commit past level 20 because I knew that it could disappear overnight either due to legal threats or financial difficulties. In those twenty levels where I played a Paladin, I had far more fun playing one of Vanilla WoW's weakest and slowest classes than I did playing any aspect of WoD. These aren't rose-tinted goggles. Vanilla was objectively a greater game to the dumbed down mess that Blizzard has since been selling us.

To put the Nostalrius registration numbers into perspective, the RuneScape community was so pissed off with changes Jagex made to their game that it created significant interest in private servers. Some of these changes include but are not limited to:

• Wilderness & Free Trade removal - On December 10th 2007, Jagex announced that the Wilderness would no longer be a PvP zone, and that trading would be restricted with a 3000gp unbalanced trade limit in response to a Chinese gold farming pandemic. They made up lies that the update was necessary because credit card fraud was threatening to bankrupt them via credit card chargebacks (an issue no other MMORPG faced.) The updates were ineffective at combating RWT, led to in-game riots, and led to many players quitting the game outright. Both updates were repealed in 2011 when Mark Gerhard took over as CEO but by then the damage had already been done.
• Bounty Hunter was poorly balanced. Jagex claim to have spent months developing alternatives to wilderness PKing but their solution was to half-assedly throw every player into a small crater, enable multi-way combat and let the carnage commence. Players using Ancient Magicks were at a major unfair advantage because they could just spam Ice Barrage, indefinitely root every nearby player and kill them in just a few casts,
• In lieu of making the zone a PvP area, Revenants were added to the Wilderness to make the zone more dangerous. These mobs were far more powerful than their level implied and could cast Members only spells like Ice Barrage and Teleblock, even on F2P worlds. They could also hit higher than most PKers, meaning that they could 2-shot most players. If you encountered one it was a death sentence, and they were littered all over the Wilderness. You couldn't do anything to escape at all and you stood to lose everything if you died to one.
• Squeal of Fortune - a lootbox/gacha system where you could buy spins with real money and gamble them for in-game rewards, including a straight-up 200M stack of coins as the top prize, XP boosts, bonus XP, and many other rare goodies. This effectively allowed players to buy 99s in various skills if their wallets were deep enough, making the game pay to win.
• Evolution of Combat - Jagex's attempt to add action bar combat to the game. This update was huge, but also caused significant damage to the game. Mobs were improperly tuned to the point where mobs that were previously high level (TzHaar and most bosses) became trivially easy to kill and mobs that were previously low level (Deadly red spiders) were buffed and suddenly giving the best XP rates in the game. This update was highly controversial and made players leave in droves. This update also scrapped special attacks and invalidated weapon poison which made certain weapons like the Dark Bow, Magic Shortbow and Dragon Dagger worthless overnight.
• Solomon's General Store. Unpopular because it was more MTX being added to a subscription based MMO, even if the items here were cosmetic. Actually, no they weren't because there were stat and XP boosting auras being sold through this storefront.
• The releases of three very disappointing skills: Summoning, Dungeoneering and Divination.
• On the subject of Summoning, the skill caused detrimental damage to the game's economy by making players hoarding obscure items overnight billionaires. It also introduced a lot of useless scroll items that were unsellable yet couldn't drop below a minimum item value due to how the Grand Exchange worked. These items were eventually 'junk traded' to bypass the game's unbalanced trade limit. Junk trading is when a player trades a valuable item to another player in exchange for unsellable items like summoning scrolls to 'balance' out the trade.
• A highly controversial upgraphical update branded RuneScape HD, which added improved character models, improved textures, a members only fullscreen mode, and fog changes.
• New game clients (HTML5 and NXT) that greatly improved the draw distance, placing players at an unfair advantage. It is important to note that the HTML5 client was discontinued because it ran like crap but the C++ NXT client is now the definitive version to play the game.
• The controversial decision to rebrand RuneScape as RuneScape 3, despite it not actually being a brand new overhaul of the existing game.
• Controversial story changes to the game, like killing off Guthix, banishing Zamorak from Gielinor, heralding the dawn of Gielinor's sixth age, etc.
• T80 and T90 equipment which made previous hard to obtain high level items like Abyssal Whips, Dark Bows, Crystal Bows, Godswords and Barrows sets obsolete.

One such server (2006scape) gained over 400,000 registered accounts in a matter of weeks by the time jagex shut it down, and it accumulated these figures in a much shorter time span than Nostalrius did. What's important to note is that Runescape is a browser based MMORPG that runs in Java, so a RS private server is much more accessible than a WoW one is - which would require you to obtain a copy of the Patch 1.12 WoW client (much easier said than done) and make modifications to the game's files.

The community reaction to 2006scape is one of the critical reasons why Jagex decided to officially release Old School RuneScape. OSRS has since become the most successful version of RuneScape, eclipsing the main game both in terms of updates, players, community content and Twitch viewership.

That is why I genuinely think that Classic WoW will overtake the main game - provided Blizzard don't fuck it up.

[crusadernero]

Hey man classic wow will be great. Now we can venture back to the good old azeroth and from time to time forget about all the shite stuff that Blizzard has done to the game since its release.

[Ashleyxoxo]

No belves have fun

[Greeneye7]

@OP
It's pretty much two different games. Let people enjoy things.

[Perkunas]

No belves have fun

Great, I can be Horde again without dealing with the Horde Lite players. Fucking Diet Cola of Horde.

[WowClassic]

Why can't retailers just admit there is demand for the old style of WoW that encouraged a true social MMORPG experience? It's like denying there is still a huge D&D player base because "bruh, tabletop RPGs are so outdated. Fortnite and Apex Legends is where it's at, why don't you appreciate modern game design you dinosaurs." Do you not think the business heads at ActiBlizz have determined with a fair degree of certainty that there is enough consumer demand to make it a financial success? Nah obviously they just took a wild gamble because someone made a petition on the interwebs.

All you normie retailers are going to be like Crooked Hillary supporters on election night when you realise Blizzard is having to launch new realms to deal with the demand for Classic. It's going to be beautiful and make the Classic experience extra enjoyable.

[Elias01]

Funny how classic haters are worried about classic being potentially successful. I don't understand why though. Both WoW will co-exist and more players can be pleased. How is it a bad thing?

Becouse if Classic is played by 5 Mil and retail 1M why would Blizzard desing game around 1M players? Current retailers are afraid becouse classic migh have impact on retail. Like removing LFR, LFR, difficulty levels, sharding, making content lot harder which lot of 30 minute gametime casuals do not want.

[Ragingheadache]

Becouse if Classic is played by 5 Mil and retail 1M why would Blizzard desing game around 1M players? Current retailers are afraid becouse classic migh have impact on retail. Like removing LFR, LFR, difficulty levels, sharding, making content lot harder which lot of 30 minute gametime casuals do not want.

And yet it is BFA that is designed solely as a gear ramp onto the M+ treadmill & raiding, whereas classic will have multiple progression paths. If anything, I'll enjoy my 30 mins every evening more on classic than I will doing 4 world quests on BFA.

[Elias01]

And yet it is BFA that is designed solely as a gear ramp onto the M+ treadmill & raiding, whereas classic will have multiple progression paths. If anything, I'll enjoy my 30 mins every evening more on classic than I will doing 4 world quests on BFA.

Pretty much. https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...s_at_ragnaros/ Look at this. It is pure happines. I have never see him this happy on retail.

Classic not just recreate past it also created whole new experiences and memories. No it isnt just nostalgia.

[czarek]

Great, I can be Horde again without dealing with the Horde Lite players. Fucking Diet Cola of Horde.

Haha great comparison. Make horde great again!

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Becouse if Classic is played by 5 Mil and retail 1M why would Blizzard desing game around 1M players? Current retailers are afraid becouse classic migh have impact on retail. Like removing LFR, LFR, difficulty levels, sharding, making content lot harder which lot of 30 minute gametime casuals do not want.

I dont think so they could remove those features from retail. As they said retail will go on as is going. If they make any changes they will change some things in classic but it depends on community. I like both ways of gameplay. Smooth and fast run on retail and just enjoy the journey in classic.

[Specialka]

Pretty much. https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...s_at_ragnaros/ Look at this. It is pure happines. I have never see him this happy on retail.

Classic not just recreate past it also created whole new experiences and memories. No it isnt just nostalgia.

He did earn 10k$ for his DM runs. At this rate, you would look thrilled playing minesweeper.

[czarek]

Funny how classic haters are worried about classic being potentially successful. I don't understand why though. Both WoW will co-exist and more players can be pleased. How is it a bad thing?

I dont know. Some just like to complain and be worried about things.

[Edison]

Funny how classic haters are worried about classic being potentially successful. I don't understand why though. Both WoW will co-exist and more players can be pleased. How is it a bad thing?

I think it's some kind of FOMO, which in turn makes them very hateful as they don't know how to handle it.

[Elias01]

Haha great comparison. Make horde great again!

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I dont think so they could remove those features from retail. As they said retail will go on as is going. If they make any changes they will change some things in classic but it depends on community. I like both ways of gameplay. Smooth and fast run on retail and just enjoy the journey in classic.

And how will devs justifi cost of creating content for modern wow if Investors will see their 15y old game is more sucesfull than low cost classic wow? Current wow isnt exactly cheap to make.

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He did earn 10k$ for his DM runs. At this rate, you would look thrilled playing minesweeper.

No you wouldnt. You cant fake happines. _If someone doesnt have fun you can recognized it instanly. And you wont have fun just becouse someone throw at you few dollas thats now how it works.

[czarek]

And how will devs justifi cost of creating content for modern wow if Investors will see their 15y old game is more sucesfull than low cost classic wow? Current wow isnt exactly cheap to make..

Because a lot of players enjoy retail and like that way. I like it to so i will play both. One thing more you want old system play old you want smth new just play retail sub is one.

[Marakesh]

Becouse if Classic is played by 5 Mil and retail 1M why would Blizzard desing game around 1M players? Current retailers are afraid becouse classic migh have impact on retail. Like removing LFR, LFR, difficulty levels, sharding, making content lot harder which lot of 30 minute gametime casuals do not want.

Because they make a lot more money per sub on retail.

[Aphrel]

snip.

I played vanilla aswell... all the way to kel thuzad, did everything there was to in the game pretty much. Yet my own private server experience 10 years after vanilla was still a blast. So using my own postvanilla experience of vanilla content as data i conclude that your hypothesis is based on faulty presumptions. People doesnt have faulty memories, the game as it was is still enjoyable today.

[nodlimax]

In terms of monetary success you need to consider something else as well:
Classic => only monthly sub
Modern => monthly sub, character transfers, name changes, race changes, mount and pet sales - whatever other "micro"transaction there is available...

So it will take a lot of subs playing mostly classic to affect any change on modern WoW. You need to consider the modern WoW at this point is literally just a milking machine trying to get as much money with transactions out of you as possible...