Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Lolsteak]

...why would I play on a private server? My fond memories of vanilla are connected to the people I played with (and still do) so there's no reason to relive the past. The game moved on, so did I.

It's like going back now and playing pokemon red with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game. It won't be the same, at all.

People play old games all the time, My last purchase being FF9 on steam and the one before that Twilight Princess HD.

I actually kinda want to replay Pokémon Red after you mentioning it

[RickJamesLich]

...why would I play on a private server? My fond memories of vanilla are connected to the people I played with (and still do) so there's no reason to relive the past. The game moved on, so did I.

It's like going back now and playing pokemon red with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game. It won't be the same, at all.

Nobody is expecting everyone to think vanilla is fun. We are well aware the game is not everyone's cup of tea. If you prefer WoD and Legion, more power to you. The game has gone backwards though, we saw traces of it in late TBC, things got much more noticable in WOTLK and by the time Cata hit it was pretty clear the game no longer had the MMO elements that made it fun originally for a lot of players. It's not so much about reliving the past, rather by having fun in the present by playing a better MMO.

Speaking of which, blizzard still sells all of their old games (minus WoW) on their website. You can buy Starcraft, Diablo 1, even Warcraft 2 lol.

[anon5123]

Er.. weren't TBC Heroics just increases in HP & DMG?

TBC heroics often had new mechanics, as well as a few having bosses that only spawned in heroic mode.

The main thing that was compelling about them is that they were tuned so that they didn't become "lolezmodefaceroll" difficulty until you were full T5 geared or so. And even then, you could still wipe if you pulled more than 1 pack of trash.

Compare them to heroics on WoD, where they become "lolezmodefaceroll" by the time you're in full 630 gear. It's kinda pathetic.

[kary]

People play old games all the time, My last purchase being FF9 on steam and the one before that Twilight Princess HD.

I actually kinda want to replay Pokémon Red after you mentioning it

I replay FF9 all the time. But it won't be the same as the first time when you didn't know what was what.
I didn't spam steal on my first playthrough. You get obscenely strong obscenely quickly doing that. Alexandria before the concert has a crapton of rare cards. You could grind steiner to level 100 in disc 2 with a turbo controller and blood sword. Getting all of Quina's blue magic early on made her more powerful than prob any other character in the game.

Re: pokemon. R/B. Rattata and tail whip 6x makes brock's onix disappear. In pokemon yellow, nidoran learns double kick and mankey is available, making brock a non issue.

Games aren't as fun without that sense of discovery, to me.

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody is expecting everyone to think vanilla is fun. We are well aware the game is not everyone's cup of tea. If you prefer WoD and Legion, more power to you. The game has gone backwards though, we saw traces of it in late TBC, things got much more noticable in WOTLK and by the time Cata hit it was pretty clear the game no longer had the MMO elements that made it fun originally for a lot of players. It's not so much about reliving the past, rather by having fun in the present by playing a better MMO.

Speaking of which, blizzard still sells all of their old games (minus WoW) on their website. You can buy Starcraft, Diablo 1, even Warcraft 2 lol.

Those games have completed. WoW hasn't. Not relevant.

The game has gone backwards though,

Opinion. It's less grindy and doesn't punish people for being bleeding edge. Way more casual friendly.
Is grindiness inherently a mmorpg trait? debatable.

[Lolsteak]

TBC heroics often had new mechanics, as well as a few having bosses that only spawned in heroic mode.

The main thing that was compelling about them is that they were tuned so that they didn't become "lolezmodefaceroll" difficulty until you were full T5 geared or so. And even then, you could still wipe if you pulled more than 1 pack of trash.

Compare them to heroics on WoD, where they become "lolezmodefaceroll" by the time you're in full 630 gear. It's kinda pathetic.

I wouldn't say often, I found Talon King Ikiss which has an extra ability (Polymorph) and checked Durnholde and it looks like the second boss Captain Skarloc has Consecrate on Heroic, It's actually quite difficult to find bosses with extra Heroic only abilities

[Bapestar]

...why would I play on a private server? My fond memories of vanilla are connected to the people I played with (and still do) so there's no reason to relive the past. The game moved on, so did I.

It's like going back now and playing pokemon red with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game. It won't be the same, at all.

So basically 11 years ago. Yea why would I take your word on how vanilla was, when I actually played it this year? Anyway even with all the information we have today it didn't take away from my vanilla experience.

[Lolsteak]

I replay FF9 all the time. But it won't be the same as the first time when you didn't know what was what.
I didn't spam steal on my first playthrough. You get obscenely strong obscenely quickly doing that. Alexandria before the concert has a crapton of rare cards. You could grind steiner to level 100 in disc 2 with a turbo controller and blood sword. Getting all of Quina's blue magic early on made her more powerful than prob any other character in the game.

Re: pokemon. R/B. Rattata and tail whip 6x makes brock's onix disappear. In pokemon yellow, nidoran learns double kick and mankey is available, making brock a non issue.

Games aren't as fun without that sense of discovery, to me.

- - - Updated - - -



Those games have completed. WoW hasn't. Not relevant.

I'd partially agree with you I guess, I like replaying games to play them differently on purpose effectively discovering things about the game I missed or didn't experience the first time.

WoW I'd try different classes (I've only ever raided with a max of 3 different classes in a single expansion and only one class in Vanilla), Final Fantasy's I'd try different groups (same with Pokémon games).

[kary]

I wouldn't say often, I found Talon King Ikiss which has an extra ability (Polymorph) and checked Durnholde and it looks like the second boss Captain Skarloc has Consecrate on Heroic, It's actually quite difficult to find bosses with extra Heroic only abilities

Yeah, dungeon journal doesn't work properly for TBC instances. That's half the issue, really.
Oh the first boss in mechanar had some changes too, iirc. Fire lady as well.

[Eliseus]

I have never once used this arguement. Again I will direct to post #19829 in which I show various ways it does affect the "retail" version of the game. Apparently the pro-Legacy crowd is unable to accept valid arguements against them or come up with effective ways to counter those points. I'm not actually for or against Legacy servers really, if it ever happens then cool, I might try it out, I might not ever do anything with it. I have no interest one way or the other if it happens honestly. I just look at people posting things and bring up points of interest that they may not have considered, such as resource usage or how it will effect current xpacs; or when they post about legalities of things and just mindlessly post whether right or wrong with nothing other than "because I said so."
Again, my posts are about things people need to consider, not whether I want it to happen or not, which always makes it the more fun to reply later when someone tries to call me out for being a white knight or an evil villain just for stating simple things that should occur to everyone.

Firstly, that wasn't directed at you, that was the generalization of people against the idea. Secondly, you are the one that stated sound arguments. You listing your fabricated ideas of how it would effect the servers aren't sound. In order for them to be sound you would need some factual context to support that, which you don't.

[Bapestar]

<snipped>

Infracted {MoanaLisa}

[Jokerfiend]

Despite what people think, my personal opinion is that this would be good and probably useful.

I'm relatively ambivalent about vanilla servers (although I would actively pay for a few months on a 1-80 Wrath server). I can take them or leave them. I do think though that if Blizzard has any thoughts about continuing to do year-long content droughts at the end of expansions, they might want to consider some alternative content forms to keep people occupied and subscribed.

In the real world though: there's zero evidence that Blizzard is inclined to do it; the potential subscription rate long-term is problematical; unknown development and support costs to get something decent together that doesn't rely on the Mangos server emulator (which is a problem in itself...educational software my ass*); what will be for some a rather confusing multiplicity of clients and how that will integrate to Battle.net (it doesn't have to integrate to Battle.net but they will certainly want to do that if they are going to make the effort); and Blizzard's obvious reluctance to embark on what for them are relatively low-value projects. All of that makes it extremely difficult to imagine they're going to do this but they have surprised us before. I hope they come down off their Legion cloud for a moment and clearly state their intentions one way or another. Closure is good. Loud yelling by a couple of hundred people on a forum and a somewhat disgraced developer that hasn't worked with the company for ten years, is not the same thing as guaranteed revenue.

And it's very amusing and not a little bit ironic to see the familiar names that are constantly theorizing that Blizzard slaves under the iron hand of Activision and Bobby Kotick not bring that into this conversation at all as a reason why it might not happen. In this case apparently, Blizzard has a completely free hand. OK.

*getMaNGOS is an educational non-profit organisation and we provide source code for running private MMORPG servers.
Our primary interest is to learn and teach each other (and our users) about development and project management on a large scale project.

Uh huh.

All I know, is Blizzard also thought DOTA wasn't worth their time either, and look where that got them.

Blizzard has a track history, and I feel this is going to be another one of these events where it schisms. If Blizzard sanction server don't work out, they lose a couple of million, helping the playerbase better understand itself. And would have grounds, to shut down player idea shit with a cold shoulder.

Blizzard should be willing to toss a couple of million our way, in faith. They expect our faith with monthly donations, and Blizzard knows best attitude. I would like that faith reciprocal.

[kary]

I'd partially agree with you I guess, I like replaying games to play them differently on purpose effectively discovering things about the game I missed or didn't experience the first time.

WoW I'd try different classes (I've only ever raided with a max of 3 different classes in a single expansion and only one class in Vanilla), Final Fantasy's I'd try different groups (same with Pokémon games).

I actually stopped replaying FF9 because the only challenge left was the Memoria speed run, and since Steiner doesn't really need any investment to hit for 9999, I just didn't bother.
I replay final fantasy tactics a lot, havent in a couple of years, though. That game actually is fairly refreshing every playthrough, since all the random battles are totally random.

- - - Updated - - -

So basically 11 years ago. Yea why would I take your word on how vanilla was, when I actually played it this year? Anyway even with all the information we have today it didn't take away from my vanilla experience.

I leveled on a TBC private server 2 or so years ago and it was just as I remembered it, friends and all. Gearing took too long, lost interest. Game was a lot easier because I was significantly less shitty.
I'd guess the same thing applies here.

[MoanaLisa]

If Blizzard sanction server don't work out, they lose a couple of million, helping the playerbase better understand itself. And would have grounds, to shut down player idea shit with a cold shoulder.

Blizzard should be willing to toss a couple of million our way, in faith. They expect our faith with monthly donations, and Blizzard knows best attitude. I would like that faith reciprocal.

First paragraph: I don't believe any of that for a minute. If they did this and shut them down what we've seen with Nost's closing would be nothing at all.

Second paragraph: You aren't donating anything. You're paying for a commercial service.

[RickJamesLich]

Those games have completed. WoW hasn't. Not relevant.


Opinion. It's less grindy and doesn't punish people for being bleeding edge. Way more casual friendly.
Is grindiness inherently a mmorpg trait? debatable.

The game had casuals back in vanilla too lol, A LOT of them. The game lost just about all of it's social aspects, almost all of the challenge (the only place you can really find any challenge is in mythic content), professions have been neutered of anything that players could find interesting, almost every server has extreme faction imbalances (typically favoring horde), world pvp has been dead for ages, hackers and bots go unpunished for years potentially, and the big one is - most players have nothing to do. I could go on though, but IMO it seems pretty clear that is has gone backwards.

[Jokerfiend]

First paragraph: I don't believe any of that for a minute. If they did this and shut them down what we've seen with Nost's closing would be nothing at all.

Second paragraph: You aren't donating anything. You're paying for a commercial service.

Misspoke, slightly. I meant subscription. My bad.

This situation is just like DOTA. The only difference now, is the DOTA burn has taught them to protect themselves more. Don't act like Blizzard hasn't been denial before. Don't act like this isn't a nearly identical situation.

[Addict]

Misspoke, slightly. I meant subscription. My bad.

This situation is just like DOTA. The only difference now, is the DOTA burn has taught them to protect themselves more. Don't act like Blizzard hasn't been denial before. Don't act like this isn't a nearly identical situation.

This is nothing like dota, at all.

[Jokerfiend]

This is nothing like dota, at all.

explain the difference

[Aehl]

In the real world though: there's zero evidence that Blizzard is inclined to do it; the potential subscription rate long-term is problematical; unknown development and support costs to get something decent together that doesn't rely on the Mangos server emulator (which is a problem in itself...educational software my ass*); what will be for some a rather confusing multiplicity of clients and how that will integrate to Battle.net (it doesn't have to integrate to Battle.net but they will certainly want to do that if they are going to make the effort); and Blizzard's obvious reluctance to embark on what for them are relatively low-value projects.

Moana: agreed. I dont know if Id say low value, but I would agree low potential and high risk.

All of that makes it extremely difficult to imagine they're going to do this but they have surprised us before. I hope they come down off their Legion cloud for a moment nd clearly state their intentions one way or another. Closure is good. Loud yelling by a couple of hundred people on a forum and a somewhat disgraced developer that hasn't worked with the company for ten years, is not the same thing as guaranteed revenue.

They did at Blizzcon.

BTW Kern wasnt a dev, he was a team leader who was sacked for incompetence.

Oh and "toss us a few million"..what , are you insane? Companies dont EVER commit that kind of money unless they are sure it will be a positive developement and worthwhile. If it was YOUR money would you be so blase?

No way in HELL.

[Dartz1979]

The way I see it is this way if blizzard doesn't want private servers then they just need to make "legacy type" servers and let the community council of selected players "non paid of course" run them but the set boundaries and rules would be enforced by blizzard meaning only they would make a pending profit from it wouldnt be that hard to do i mean come on everyone knows that when code is out there it just doesn't go away even when it's written over.

[Aehl]

Of course having to pay for the game is definitely a different scenario but it seems pretty obvious that when people petition blizzard to release this type of server that they are willing to pay.

...and you can of course validate this assumption?