Vanilla, TBC, Wrath servers... will they ever happen?

[Deleted]

May be? But most likely not...

Before you jump the gun and yell at me, that there are millions of such threads around already, lets look at some (history) facts, pros and cons on this topic.
I have read a lot of such threads, but there are always new opinions and insights to be had.

FACTS

- People have been asking for such servers since release of TBC
- This topic is always in open conversation (there are more than 5000 posts only on Vanilla servers on Blizzard official servers)
- Privat Vanilla servers peak at 700+ people online at raid hours
- Blizzard has stated that they have no plan of introducing such servers in future

Clearly people are interested in such servers and if only half of those people that play on privat servers (I bet that many of them also play current game) would play on official Blizzard server, we'd have at least medium populated server.

PROS

- People that didn't play the game at that era could try it out
- People that played then and loved it could relive the experience
- "Lorewhores" could get their dosage of pre-cataclysm quests and story
- Time sink for those who ran out of content in current game
- Meeting new people due to how game worked back then
- Finally some joy for "masohists" who enjoy slow progression, gearing, honor farming; in general heavy grinding
- No new content - very little time spent on such servers by Blizzard

CONS

- Overpopulation at start, when people are trying out the "new" thing
- Loss of interest shortly after by majority of those who tried
- Non-healthy population on server after a while
- Complaining all around by people who aren't satisfied with the game as it is
- Trolling due to feel that such servers aren't as important as the ones that have current game
- No new content

Before I add my 2 cents on the topic, lets add a note: I played Vanilla only up to level 7 or so, then leveled up till end of TBC and did semi-hardcore raiding through Wrath and Cataclysm. Now I'm playing on and off casually.

Now to give my insight; I'd honestly love to try out Vanilla servers (and no I'm not going to play on privat servers). I'm a kind of person that enjoys grindy games, even if I pop in only now and then, do some quests, do a dungeon or two and then not play for 2 days. It's about journey, about getting there.
Also I don't understand why people are afraid that introducing such servers would take so much time from Blizzard. It's a content they already created, the one we already played (tested). They'd only need to open servers for them.
In fact I partly feel robbed because i bought a game I can't play anymore. We payed 50$ for original and expansions. So why don't we have the option to play them anymore. I love to jump into old game and replay it now and then. And most of those games will always be there for me to replay. Why isn't it so with old WoW? It would just need to be there, people would still play current game, but would have an option to jump into old content (with a challange).
And yes I'm aware that is most likely wouldn't work, because WoW is a MMO, you need people running around the world or it's nor worth playing. But still one can hope eh?
Before I get to long; What I don't understand is why people are so against OPTION to play the game they BOUGHT?

Anyhow, try not to get offensive to fast.
Would you try such servers if they were out? Would you commit to them bit more time? What's your opinion?

[Deleted]

Engine has been changed indeed, however that doesn't mean they just tossed old engine through the window. They still have copies of it, they just don't use it. So I don't agree that it would take them that much of a time to make such servers.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Enough of this. Enough of these threads, enough of these arguments, of these discussions, of this hunger for old content masked by nostalgia.

They will never happen.

[Deleted]

It wouldn't make sense for Blizzard. Sure, for the first while they would be populated...but soon there probably wouldn't be many players left there.
You have to consider that there would be NO new content whatsoever. It's like Siege, but without anything new on the horizon at all.

So no, I don't think that something like this will ever happen. And I can't say that I'm sad about it.

[Lessthanzer0]

No

/thread

[Calfredd]

Didn't they also auction off their original server blades or does that not matter?

[Lochton]

Fact: Blizzard has always said no to this option.

And really not something I would use anyways, I admit. Not sure I would pay for it either, really. They wish to follow their story that they build up and is offering us.

And don't think it would be easier as they would have to turn back to old programming to fix errors on older versions.

[chazus]

There have been literally hundreds of threads, and thousands of posts about this.

Blizzard has made it clear it will never happen, ever.

[The Kao]

It might sound like a nice idea, but really, as soon as people realize that they essentially pay to play a stale game from years ago that will never change even in the slightest and doesn't hold any benefit other than being nostalgic, they'll just return to the main game. Or would you pay to play Space Invaders daily? Sure it would be tried out, but you'd never be able to form stable guilds around clearing Vanilla or TBC raids even for some weeks, and PvP essentially hasn't changed enough since then to justify playing it at all.

It's a bad idea that wouldn't be appreciated for long. Blizzard is very well aware of this, hence there's no chance in a million years it would happen.

[Lochton]

Didn't they also auction off their original server blades or does that not matter?

Well, they did auction off the original server blades, doesn't have to do with the content on them

[Deleted]

Also I don't understand why people are afraid that introducing such servers would take so much time from Blizzard. It's a content they already created, the one we already played (tested). They'd only need to open servers for them.

This is where you're just wrong. If it would be just flipping on a switch, I would have no objection. But as vegas82 pointed out, it really isn't. Even if it would just cost "1 new dungeon" in recourses, then I'd be completely against it, but it's most likely a higher cost than that.

[Xires]

May be? But most likely not...

Before you jump the gun and yell at me, that there are millions of such threads around already, lets look at some (history) facts, pros and cons on this topic.
I have read a lot of such threads, but there are always new opinions and insights to be had.

FACTS

- People have been asking for such servers since release of TBC
- This topic is always in open conversation (there are more than 5000 posts only on Vanilla servers on Blizzard official servers)
- Privat Vanilla servers peak at 700+ people online at raid hours
- Blizzard has stated that they have no plan of introducing such servers in future

Clearly people are interested in such servers and if only half of those people that play on privat servers (I bet that many of them also play current game) would play on official Blizzard server, we'd have at least medium populated server.

PROS

- People that didn't play the game at that era could try it out
- People that played then and loved it could relive the experience
- "Lorewhores" could get their dosage of pre-cataclysm quests and story
- Time sink for those who ran out of content in current game
- Meeting new people due to how game worked back then
- Finally some joy for "masohists" who enjoy slow progression, gearing, honor farming; in general heavy grinding
- No new content - very little time spent on such servers by Blizzard

CONS

- Overpopulation at start, when people are trying out the "new" thing
- Loss of interest shortly after by majority of those who tried
- Non-healthy population on server after a while
- Complaining all around by people who aren't satisfied with the game as it is
- Trolling due to feel that such servers aren't as important as the ones that have current game
- No new content

Before I add my 2 cents on the topic, lets add a note: I played Vanilla only up to level 7 or so, then leveled up till end of TBC and did semi-hardcore raiding through Wrath and Cataclysm. Now I'm playing on and off casually.

Now to give my insight; I'd honestly love to try out Vanilla servers (and no I'm not going to play on privat servers). I'm a kind of person that enjoys grindy games, even if I pop in only now and then, do some quests, do a dungeon or two and then not play for 2 days. It's about journey, about getting there.
Also I don't understand why people are afraid that introducing such servers would take so much time from Blizzard. It's a content they already created, the one we already played (tested). They'd only need to open servers for them.
In fact I partly feel robbed because i bought a game I can't play anymore. We payed 50$ for original and expansions. So why don't we have the option to play them anymore. I love to jump into old game and replay it now and then. And most of those games will always be there for me to replay. Why isn't it so with old WoW? It would just need to be there, people would still play current game, but would have an option to jump into old content (with a challange).
And yes I'm aware that is most likely wouldn't work, because WoW is a MMO, you need people running around the world or it's nor worth playing. But still one can hope eh?
Before I get to long; What I don't understand is why people are so against OPTION to play the game they BOUGHT?

Anyhow, try not to get offensive to fast.
Would you try such servers if they were out? Would you commit to them bit more time? What's your opinion?

Blizzard has already said over and over and over again..."No". It will not happen. I played back in those times and if the sky fell and they did make a vanilla, TBC, Wrath server I would never play there. Know why? Because I've already done it.

[vindicatorx]

No, it's not going to happen. This thread pops up roughly every 2 weeks and it is always the same thing NO. I have no idea why you people do not get it. This is not a feature wanted by WoW players or Blizzard. The people playing on private servers don't want to pay for a service they can get for free.

[Myrwyss]

You can stop your xp at whatever level you wish,here,stop at 60/70/80 and play as if its vanilla/tbc/wotlk.Next please.

[doot]

Enough of this. Enough of these threads, enough of these arguments, of these discussions, of this hunger for old content masked by nostalgia.

They will never happen.

To be honest this thread is making me Nostalgic for the good old days when these people just wanted Vanilla and TBC servers.

[fixx]

Ever? Maybe. Soon? No. Likely? No.

[vindicatorx]

Blizzard has already said over and over and over again..."No". It will not happen officially.

Read the rules man you don't quote a huge ass wall of text and post it only the important part.

[Stormspark]

Don't make me get out my Wall of No. Seriously, just google for Wall of No, and you will see the 50,000 reasons Blizzard has said this will never happen.

[rda]

CONS

- Overpopulation at start, when people are trying out the "new" thing
- Loss of interest shortly after by majority of those who tried
- Non-healthy population on server after a while
- Complaining all around by people who aren't satisfied with the game as it is
- Trolling due to feel that such servers aren't as important as the ones that have current game
- No new content

You don't list the biggest and most important con: vanilla / TBC / WotLK / Cata servers are just very difficult to do.

It's not a simple matter of checking out the code for the relevant build, then compiling it and deploying it on servers, because since the time of any of those expansions, the dev team has fixed quite a number of various issues, some of which are bugs and some of which are small features, and the players won't want to live without these fixes ("what, do we have to live with BGs being imbalanced number-wise??? really? wasn't that fixed a long time ago? so what that this was after vanilla, you have the code, port it!"). The efforts on backporting the fixes for the vital issues are not at all small, and might very well be huge, especially for vanilla / TBC / WotLK. Then there's a small issue of having to maintain more than one codebase (say, if someone discovers a way to dupe items, you have to fix it in all versions of WoW now instead of just one, because people *will* try duping on all versions). Etc.

Going back to vanilla or whatever is so difficult to do that this options just isn't on the plate.

[cFortyfive]

we'd have at least medium populated server.

How would that even be remotely worth the effort ?