Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Vaerys]

From a software maker standpoint, I'd hate if a small group of vocal people kept demanding a 11 year old version of my flagship software instead of the up-to-date version, too.

I'd be delighted to receive recurring revenue from something that didn't require any updating.

[Eliseus]

I updated the link, I had initially posted an older one. In this link, he gives his 2 cents regarding why its a good idea for the player base as a whole and for Blizzard as a company. He honestly has good points, even if he is an ex-dev.

It will be ignored by the white knights though. You already had one person basically implying his opinion as invalid because he is an ex-dev though he just laid all the cards onto the the table of the facts (which have already been done several times in this thread and ignored).

[Thanatoss]

Its much more respectable being ex-dev than current dev of the game.

Where has he been then the last 10 years players have been asking for legacy servers?

[A dot Ham]

I play retail, champ. I don't play on private servers because of the threat of them getting shut down. If your kind are the majority in live then Blizzard would be doing themselves a favor in bringing back older guiding principles and getting older players back.

Ya because I couldn't possibly have played in vanilla. You keep falling back to this unsaid statement that people who played vanilla loved vanilla and if you think otherwise then you didn't actually play vanilla.

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

[Froggy]

Mark Kern is dead on with that interview.

[Mrbubbles17]

It will be ignored by the white knights though. You already had one person basically implying his opinion as invalid because he is an ex-dev though he just laid all the cards onto the the table of the facts (which have already been done several times in this thread and ignored).

It's unfortunate that the issue of legacy servers itself has split the player base. We all want the same thing: We want a good gaming experience with the game that brought us all together in the first place back in 2004. Whether or not its to bring back legacy servers or discuss changes for the current version of the game that can bring back a sense of community. We just have to listen.

[Eliseus]

It's unfortunate that the issue of legacy servers itself has split the player base. We all want the same thing: We want a good gaming experience with the game that brought us all together in the first place back in 2004. Whether or not its to bring back legacy servers or discuss changes for the current version of the game that can bring back a sense of community. We just have to listen.

It seems the issue after reading many of these posts in this thread and the "should Blizzard release a Vanilla server" thread is that some of these people legitimately think they have to choose one or the other.

[Kyanion]

It’s a no-brainer in my mind.

I love when Kern says that. Apparently he left his brain at Blizzard 10 years ago because what he has done since then is brainless as all hell. Let him champion your cause if you want, but I'm not sure it'll do what you think it will.

[Mrbubbles17]

Where has he been then the last 10 years players have been asking for legacy servers?

Playing TBC, WOTLK and Early Cata as stated in the interview. Also, it was not even close to the issue that it is now, back then.

[gamingmuscle]

I updated the link, I had initially posted an older one. In this link, he gives his 2 cents regarding why its a good idea for the player base as a whole and for Blizzard as a company. He honestly has good points, even if he is an ex-dev.

I think his cost estimates are off by a significant amount, and the general ease he thinks it will be to mesh what could be very different systems together. Tools would likely need to be re-written/modified.

In my experience people outside of the situation (which this dev certainly is, as he is several major iterations removed) tend to over simplify what actually needs to get done to make stuff like this happen.

[Thanatoss]

Playing TBC, WOTLK and Early Cata as stated in the interview. Also, it was not even close to the issue that it is now, back then.

You sure about that or are people just being extra loud now with so many social media sources?

[Kyanion]

It seems the issue after reading many of these posts in this thread and the "should Blizzard release a Vanilla server" thread is that some of these people legitimately think they have to choose one or the other.

Some people feel it will take away from resources/manpower/time from the current team and plans for Legion and beyond. I mean SOMEONE has to run these vanilla servers and maintain them so it would likely be current employees at Blizz. And some people might choose one or the other and fragment the player base a bit. That might not be healthy for either one of the versions. There are many things we don't know and I can only go on the most recent blue post about it as to the reasons they don't want to do it. They want the game to move forwards and not backwards.

[Eliseus]

I think his cost estimates are off by a significant amount, and the general ease he thinks it will be to mesh what could be very different systems together. Tools would likely need to be re-written/modified.

In my experience people outside of the situation (which this dev certainly is, as he is several major iterations removed) tend to over simplify what actually needs to get done to make stuff like this happen.

Not true at all. Costs aren't magically limited to the knowledge that Blizzard only has.

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Some people feel it will take away from resources/manpower/time from the current team and plans for Legion and beyond. I mean SOMEONE has to run these vanilla servers and maintain them so it would likely be current employees at Blizz. And some people might choose one or the other and fragment the player base a bit. That might not be healthy for either one of the versions. There are many things we don't know and I can only go on the most recent blue post about it as to the reasons they don't want to do it. They want the game to move forwards and not backwards.

Well for the 10000000x time. All other examples of these servers on other MMOs contradicts this view 100%.

[Kyanion]

You sure about that or are people just being extra loud now with so many social media sources?

That is my thought. There was plenty of clamoring for classic realms as early as TBC. Now it is much easier to get seen/heard with twitter/youtube/twitch and forums the size of wow's and mmochamp.

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Well for the 10000000x time. All other examples of these servers on other MMOs contradicts this view 100%.

and for the same amount of times. Other games =/= WoW. Period. Everquest/Runescape are not WoW and never have been.

[NightZero88]

no, most of cata rigging ended in a disaster which destroyed the glad PvP scene, and later the casual playerbase and twitch represantation

Not to mention that bugs submitted in betas reached release

The point is, even when the community helps out blizzard we get shafted. They really cant be mad at us for running private servers.

All I can say is priorities or bad leadership on that. For example, I work at a software company and when I came on board I was absolutely astonished and baffled when I saw we had bugs from 5+ years ago that had not been fixed. I could not fathom how we could let a huge bug be out there for that long. But what I came to realize is that even in my software which I can assure you is significantly smaller than WoW's we would get around 1000+ bugs a year which is a lot for a small dev team. Ours has about 15. Additionally we had bad leadership where things were not getting triaged properly. We hired a new development manager and things are doing much better, our log has shrunk to a more manageable level but it is what it is. I'm sure some of our customers are furious it took 3 versions to fix their bug (and we don't backport code) so they needed to upgrade. Some of the left because of it and that is also what happens but some stayed and we are still in business. This is basically the same as at Blizz and any software company. You, the customer need to decide if it is worth it or not and it sounds like you did (it wasn't worth it) so you left.

[gamingmuscle]

Not true at all. Costs aren't magically limited to the knowledge that Blizzard only has.

I never indicated it was. Hell the fact I was commenting about costs would imply I don't think Blizzard is the only one with the relevant knowledge.

[Eliseus]

That is my thought. There was plenty of clamoring for classic realms as early as TBC. Now it is much easier to get seen/heard with twitter/youtube/twitch and forums the size of wow's and mmochamp.

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and for the same amount of times. Other games =/= WoW. Period. Everquest/Runescape are not WoW and never have been.

ROFL. WoW isn't some majestic beast that is the last of it's kind to exist that somehow can't do the same things other companies do. For someone who has such high fanboy-ism of them, you would assume you would have more faith they could accomplish what other companies do, even more so given their available resources.

[Kyanion]

ROFL. WoW isn't some majestic beast that is the last of it's kind to exist that somehow can't do the same things other companies do. For someone who has such high fanboy-ism of them, you would assume you would have more faith they could accomplish what other companies do, even more so given their available resources.

It isn't the last of it's kind but it has been far and away more popular and had more players than everything else in the same genre. I loved EQ but it isn't WoW. Maybe they could do classic realms without a hitch, I PERSONALLY would rather see them NOT do it. That is just my OPINION. Do I need to bold and underline those things for you?

[Eliseus]

It isn't the last of it's kind but it has been far and away more popular and had more players than everything else in the same genre. I loved EQ but it isn't WoW. Maybe they could do classic realms without a hitch, I PERSONALLY would rather see them NOT do it. That is just my OPINION. Do I need to bold and underline those things for you?

EQ isn't the only success story with these type of servers. I could care less about your opinion. Don't voice your opinion if you don't want people to disagree with you or point out how wrong your opinion is. Should consider changing your opinion until you can reliably support it.

[gamingmuscle]

It isn't the last of it's kind but it has been far and away more popular and had more players than everything else in the same genre. I loved EQ but it isn't WoW. Maybe they could do classic realms without a hitch, I PERSONALLY would rather see them NOT do it. That is just my OPINION. Do I need to bold and underline those things for you?

I think blizzard totally could do it. Whether or not it would be as successful as some claim is where I have my doubts. I don't expect a high conversion rate from free to pay. Which is why I doubt blizzards mind will be changed at this time. I could see it happening when the sub numbers drop lower as then whatever it attracts may be a significant boost.