Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[wombinator04]

Man has that, you know what TBC server, had a terrible couple a days. The amount of rage/conspiracy going on in a certain subreddit is biblical.
No it still hasn't launched if you were wondering.

The Nostalrius closing has unleashed a wave of refugees attacking every server they find, lol. Shouldn't become a surprise to people since the WoW private server community is hilariously bad.

[Deleted]

lol .

lol .

[Triks]

lol .

Yeah I know how funny it is. Now how about we return to topics that are less insane like Vanilla design decisions and the state of the current game, instead of playing legislators.

[Idoru]

Oh and by the way , playing on a private server is not illegal. Hosting it it and making profit of it is.

It actually is illegal the second you download the client. But like the music industry eventually learned, going after every single user is not viable.

[Akka]

Wow. I'm opposed to Classic realms and think it's nostalgia instead of true fun (yes, I played since a week after launch)

I'd like to point there is a number of people who discovered Vanilla with PS (they started to play well after).
How can it be "nostalgia" for them ?

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Just give it 2 years and you will be bored out of your mind.
I did Vanilla and if TBC never would had come then i had quit this game years ago like all other games out there that dont evolve like an MMO.

And your point is? you dont play WoD after 1 month so move on to something else then.

And you do know this is illigal and you basicly are stealing.
When a factory is not making a model anymore (of lets say a car) i cant also steal the old model from them and say: "i like it more so i should be able to steal it from you."

I like how you start trying to argue that Vanilla is somehow inferior, then try to dodge the issue, then switch to loaded "YOU THIEF !" when each of your attempts fall flat on its face

Seems you don't really have an actual argument, you just switch to whatever pretexts you can find in a flailing serie of attempts to "win".

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This is one of the best statements that was posted in this thread.

Well TBH it was already stated several times since WotLK

[Triks]

I'd like to point there is a number of people who discovered Vanilla with PS (they started to play well after).
How can it be "nostalgia" for them ?

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I like how you start trying to argue that Vanilla is somehow inferior, then try to dodge the issue, then switch to loaded "YOU THIEF !" when each of your attempts fall flat on its face

Seems you don't really have an actual argument, you just switch to whatever pretexts you can find in a flailing serie of attempts to "win".

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Well TBH it was already stated several times since WotLK

It was but this thread needed some sanity after our little legislator here tried to play Judge Dread.

[Tommi]

I give you 1 law, driver should keep both hands on the weel when driving.

But.... How do I change gear??

[Zafire]

And can you prove they are a minority?
Free of charge, so of course more people are inclined to try it out? How is this even a question?

There are some people that refuse to play on private servers because it is illegal.
There are some people that refuse to play on private servers because they know it wont last forever.
There are some people that don't even know certain private servers exist.

I didn't even know Nost existed. I found out about it because of this post. I regret that I couldn't have been part of it though. The money, for me, has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'd pay to play it if it was an option.

[Ielenia]

Reminds me when we kept asking for Oceanic servers and every year for nearly 10 years no no no.

Then suddenly one day a miracle happened - oceanic servers announced.

Morale of story - it won't happen overnight but it will happen

You do know there's a big difference between establishing Oceanic servers and Vanilla servers, right?

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This just contradicted yourself. You say no, by also stating as a company they won't close any possible future endeavor.................

It doesn't contradict me, because I never said they will never do it. Maybe, when the game's player base reaches a six-digit population or below, they might do it.

Consider the frequency that these threads show up I would say it's safe to assume so, although that doesn't necessarily prove that it has at the same time.

Again, up until Nostalrius being closed, the frequency of threads popping in about vanilla/classic realms didn't differ from any other year where we had content droughts.

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Yes, but it's a matter of timing too. You don't release a legacy server when your game is young. But World of Warcraft isn't young anymore. It's been over ten years now and in term of timeline, legacy servers make sense.

For you, maybe. For Blizzard, it obviously doesn't, considering their answers throughout the years, and especially their latest one: "we feel it's not feasible to support two versions of World of Warcraft concurrently".

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I believe Nost was satisfying the need for many players.
They shut it down, and the intensity in requests for vanilla raised.
Plus you have a lot of players that joined the vanilla bandwagon that didn't play on Nost.

That doesn't really change anything. Like I said, the talk about vanilla servers didn't intensify any more than the previous years until Nostalrius was shut down.

Now the vanilla players have nothing WoW related to do except post on forums.

Or... go to a different illegal server? Or go on with their lives?

It also made it real that private servers get shut down.

This wasn't the first time Blizzard has shut down an illegal server. It 'has been real' for a long time. People just didn't care.

[Eliseus]

You do know there's a big difference between establishing Oceanic servers and Vanilla servers, right?

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It doesn't contradict me, because I never said they will never do it. Maybe, when the game's player base reaches a six-digit population or below, they might do it.


Again, up until Nostalrius being closed, the frequency of threads popping in about vanilla/classic realms didn't differ from any other year where we had content droughts.

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For you, maybe. For Blizzard, it obviously doesn't, considering their answers throughout the years, and especially their latest one: "we feel it's not feasible to support two versions of World of Warcraft concurrently".

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That doesn't really change anything. Like I said, the talk about vanilla servers didn't intensify any more than the previous years until Nostalrius was shut down.


Or... go to a different illegal server? Or go on with their lives?


This wasn't the first time Blizzard has shut down an illegal server. It 'has been real' for a long time. People just didn't care.

A lot of claims in here for things you don't claim. No factual basis either.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

There are some people that refuse to play on private servers because it is illegal.
There are some people that refuse to play on private servers because they know it wont last forever.
There are some people that don't even know certain private servers exist.

I didn't even know Nost existed. I found out about it because of this post. I regret that I couldn't have been part of it though. The money, for me, has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'd pay to play it if it was an option.

I find myself in that category. I don't play on private servers, not because I don't want to, but because I don't want to pour blood and sweat in something that can stop existing at any point. I did try Nostalrius, however, and fell in love with it, and certainly hope that Blizzard will understand the demand.

I like to compare this to the no-flying/flying crowd, but in this case, the decision to add a legacy server would have absolutely no impact on those who are not interested in it, whereas flying/no-flying impact the way to play a game directly with no options to opt-in or out.

Neinhundred Pages sune. Surely Blizzard will respond now, right?

I have a Dream... a Dream that Blizzard will give us an announcement soon.

[Deleted]

Neinhundred Pages sune. Surely Blizzard will respond now, right?

They alrdy did , they said no to vanilla servers.

[Kyanion]

They alrdy did , they said no to vanilla servers.

They just need to come out and say no again so this thread can die.

[Ielenia]

A lot of claims in here for things you don't claim. No factual basis either.

Are you going to give counter-arguments, or are you just going with the old and tired "you're wrong because I say so" reply?

[Tome]

Neinhundred Pages sune. Surely Blizzard will respond now, right?

I surely do wish for something to be said, something good.

But in all honesty, even if I am pro-classic realm, I don't think Blizzard will respond to anything, because they don't have to. They are right in their practice, and people might argue against it, but sadly, they are. It feels saddening to be neglected, despite the outburst trying to reach for Blizzard.

But I really do think nothing will be said, and that's that.

IF they say something, it will be in the line of "We appreciate the love for our game this part of the community gives, but we currently have no plans for legacy servers. You can pre-order Legion here."

[Deleted]

I surely do wish for something to be said, something good.

Again they alrdy said something good: NO legacy servers.
They dont want to split the community up in a vanilla, TBC, WotlK, Cata, MoP, WoD and Legion part.

[Tome]

Again they alrdy said something good: NO legacy servers.
They dont want to split the community up in a vanilla, TBC, WotlK, Cata, MoP, WoD and Legion part.

For you perhaps, but not for me.

When I say I'd wish for them to say something good, I'd like to hear they will decide to make one.

[Deleted]

For you perhaps, but not for me.

When I say I'd wish for them to say something good, I'd like to hear they will decide to make one.

Well then you can wait for a long time i guess.

[Haselden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iWH4V0m3Jg

Apparently Former big shot dev will help out fixing this.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Well then you can wait for a long time i guess.

I'm not sure where the concept of "splitting the community" comes from, honestly. It doesn't make sense to me. By releasing Vanilla - which is a completely different game from current retail World of Warcraft - it makes more sense to think that they'll bring back more players overall. I understand the focus on the future - after all, working on old content isn't nearly as impressive than creating your own - but in term of possibilities, Vanilla make as much sense.

Also, this: http://massivelyop.com/2016/04/17/ru...assic-servers/

The legacy risk
During the early discussions there were of course many concerns such as: Was it even possible? How long it would take? And, whether there was the potential for cannibalisation of the existing RuneScape player base? We knew our players wanted legacy servers, as with most MMORPG communities they were not shy in telling us what they wanted. Even though we were quite certain about the initial surge of interest these servers would get, we wanted to test this so we asked our players via a poll if they would play. When half a million of our customers said they want to play it… we kind of had to do it.

Another big question mark was whether the legacy servers would have any longevity. To manage this risk a small team of three people was put together to manage the servers and community until the initial interest had died down, at which time resources could be reallocated.

The risk seemed low, allocated resources could all be temporary, and with half a million players saying they would like to try it, the risk of cannibalisation was outweighed by the potential for new customers. At the very least, Old School RuneScape would be a quick nostalgia hit for disenfranchised players.

With legacy servers comes legacy technical debt

Once Old School RuneScape had launched it quickly became apparent that the community wanted game updates. However, initially we were very limited in what we could deliver. Since RuneScape as a game had progressed during the intervening years, so had all the tools we used to develop it. We were in the unenviable position of having to recreate all the tools we used to develop the game back in 2007 so we could update it. At no point had anyone thought, “We ought to keep all these old versions of the development tools just in case.” I mean why would they?

The lack of development tools was not our only technical debt, we had to rework anti-cheating software, optimise areas of the code, and fix some pretty major bugs for a second time.

Community tribalism

Something which should not really surprise anyone is that there was a rivalry between the communities of the Old School RuneScape and RuneScape. Over time this rivalry increased with the Old School community taking the stance of being purist, and the RuneScape community positioning themselves as progressive.

Although the Old School community saw themselves as purists they still wanted change, so to ensure the rate of change was acceptable to those players we allowed them to vote on every update that happens to the game. If 75% of those voting did not agree, the update didn’t happen. This gave a very strong sense of ownership of the game to the community; they were in control.

What was a surprise was that the tribalism shown by the community started to manifest itself among the development teams. As the small team was left to get on with things they developed their own ways of making things happen without relying on other teams. Although this self-sufficiency might be much sought over by many people, it has a hampering effect when it has to fit into companywide objectives and strategic planning across products.

It came to a point where the Old School RuneScape team needed more integration into the wider RuneScape studio. This was achieved by creating stronger relationships between staff and line managers that traversed different teams, as well as including the Old School team in more of the studio level decisions.

Game positioning

After about six months we started to see player numbers settle and we could see that very few players migrated between Old School RuneScape and RuneScape. What we were not seeing was one game cannibalising the other, so we wanted to understand why a player would play one game and not the other.

Through a series of surveys and data gathering from the game servers we saw there were some distinct reasons why people played Old School RuneScape. The three key reasons were the old combat system (which was changed in the main game in 2012) the grinding of levels, and the straightforward membership monetisation model. This made it very easy to position Old School RuneScape as complementarily to RuneScape and give us a very clear direction of where the game could go. More importantly, it identified areas we could branch into much more effectively than we could have done with RuneScape on its own.

For example, the old combat system leant itself well to PvP combat, which in turn allowed us to take our first steps into the eSports market last month with considerable success.

When legacy becomes THE legacy

Although the initial impact of legacy servers on RuneScape was expected to be short and sweet, it has grown into a major part of Jagex’s business. The Old School team is now five times the size it was when it started and has more members than the launch period, showing it can reach out to a wider market than the initial audience.

The modernisation of RuneScape meant tensions increased between the traditionalist and progressive RuneScape player base. However, Old School RuneScape gave the traditionalists a safe home and allowed for the continued modernisation of RuneScape without alienating a key part of our player base.

There have been challenges in overcoming the technical debt that suddenly appeared, as well as, ensuring that the product sits well within a wider business. However, it offered something our existing games did not offer and has allowed us to start expanding the RuneScape franchise into new areas such as eSports and streaming.

By keeping the risk of legacy servers low and being focused on how they can grow the franchise, this adventure has just started.