Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Clbull]

YouTubers and Twitch streamers who quickly had their channels and videos taken down by Blizzard over copyright claims.

[Deleted]

If the money was so 'free' why haven't they done it? Why WOULD they leave free money sitting on the table if it was as free as you claim?

Because the people running companies make mistakes and bad decisions. If you look at WoW's track record since WotLK, you can see the people in charge of WoW are particularly adept at making mistakes and bad decisions.

[zmp]

Yeah but here is the can of worms theory.
[..]
What about bug fixes? Should those happen? People will bitch for them.
[..]
What about class balance issues?

We have that currently anyway, so do like now, ignore "most" issues. Hell, the disconnect collesion-bug of goblin glider has been in the game since introduced in Cataclysm. FOTM classes still have a special impact on what or what not to play in RBG/Arenas.

[Ielenia]

You are definetly biased. I never said I knew more about the market than Blizzard (cite me if you claim so),

I claimed Blizzard knows more than you about the market, and you disputed that argument when you mocked it:

You sneakily try to imply that Blizzard has more knowledge about the subject than me. Go ahead, do so.

If you dispute the argument, it means you find it incorrect. And if that is incorrect, then it means you either know just as much or more than Blizzard about the subject.

and you fail to admit your phrasing was poor, to say the least.

I don't admit to things I never did or said. Again, not my fault you either lack the reading comprehension to properly read what other people write, or twist the meaning of what you read to suit your narratives.

I do not consistently grasp at straws, you do when you try to weasel your way out of an obviously badly phrased sentence by aiming insults aimed at me.

I never once used insults against you. And again, I'm not 'weaseling my way out', I'm just pointing out you either lack reading comprehension or your mind twists what you read to fit your narratives.

but paraphrasing me consistently while disregarding important plot points in our debacle makes the entire effort pointless.

What 'important points'? You consistently twist the meaning of what I wrote and then use it as strawman. I never claimed omniscience on Blizzard's part. I only claimed they know more than you. Just like a surgeon knows more about the inside of your body works than you. Just like a chemist knows more about chemical reactions than you do. And you, for some reason, find such assertions objectionable enough to mock them.

You are a waste of time, because you refuse to accept your own words as what they are.

Again, I won't admit to something I never did or say. It's not my fault you simply cannot comprehend what others write and then strawman my argument by claiming semantics.

Accept the notion that Blizzard can never with 100% accuracy predict profit, or don't bother replying.

Despite your failed attempts at claiming such, I have never claimed Blizzard has 100% accurate predictions. Ever. This is nothing but a strawman of yours.

[Deleted]

Based on what? It's literally free money for them, why would they leave it sitting on the table?

I'm not sure what you mean by "emulator" version. It's a WoW server implementation, and it's available on Github if you want to look at just how much effort it is (MaNGOS Zero). And they showed they could handle 150k active subscribers, that's the same order of magnitude as a retail EU has at the moment.

150k active subs in whole EU? o.O

Well my guess is:
If we ever get one, it will be on their conditions. They won't put up a legacy server at all cost.
So either it's viable with them doing everything themselves or we don't see one at all.

[Atelniar]

Despite your failed attempts at claiming such, I have never claimed Blizzard has 100% accurate predictions. Ever. This is nothing but a strawman of yours.

Yes, you have. This discussion ends with this quote, as you fail to comply with established fact.

You start out by assuming Blizzard has approached the topic and done market research, which there is no evidence of beyond quotes from blue posters and borderline insulting QA's which are recorded. Then, you proceed to imply that Blizzard would act on it if it was profitable (based on assumptions you make that the research exist). The latter is also an assumption, as Blizzard can not be expected to act on every possibly profitable endeavour that exist. Their research may be faulty and imply something is not profitable when it can be. In theory.

As such, you HAVE claimed that Blizzard knows this for a fact based on nothing more than your biased opinion of how competent Blizzard is. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

P.S: when I say "Go ahead, do so." That means I don't argue against it. That you sneakily imply something, which I then respond to by saying "[...], do so.", usually doesn't mean I argue anything at all. I merely pointed out that you were attacking me and not my logic.

Secondly, you did indeed try to insult me on multiple occasions. Reading comprehension? I am not the one lacking it due to: thirdly, you approached the opposite section of the sentence, ignoring everything beyond the comma which I commented on. One would say you created a strawman to defend yourself, while completely dismissing the notion that you wrote those words to begin with.

You should stop throwing "reading comprehension" around, if you don't realise it can act as an insult (which doesn't make your arguments more valid if you can't support it with logical reasoning, at the very least, or more) you might actually be in need of improving your "reading comprehension" (notice the logical reasoning before stating such a thing).

Especially when you commit to multiple flaws in one post. Such as falsely accusing me of raising myself above Blizzard by saying:

"You sneakily try to imply that Blizzard has more knowledge about the subject than me. Go ahead, do so."

That's neither here nor there, Ielenia.

[jvbastel]

Yeah but at the same time it is ridiculous to think Blizzard would ever use that emulator code that Nost was running. They'd have to go over it with a fine tooth comb and then fix it to even run on what Blizzard has.

All of this is assuming blizzard can not use the original server code from back then, which I'm sure they still have in some form, but might hard to get running. Say they release the following statement.

Dear players,

Following the recent events concerning legacy servers and the overwhelming support they have gotten on the internet, we have decided to rethink our stance on
hosting official legacy servers. While we do not condone, and will actively shut down private servers, since all world of warcraft assets belong to blizzard, we do understand that players want to relive the days of vanilla, TBC, WOTLK and other expansions.

Therefore, we have decided host several official legacy servers. If you are a current World of Warcraft subscriber, and have access to the latest expansion, you will - without an extra cost - be able to log in on our new Timewalking servers.

Please note that there will be several differences between these, and the regular servers:

- Timewalking servers will not have the level of customer support that regular servers have. We will have a much smaller support team for these servers than our
current-expansion servers.
- Timewalking servers will NOT have any client-side bug fixes. We do not plan to update the game client for these servers since we want to give the players
the original experience of that expansion. This means no class balancing, as well.
- Timewalking dungeons will have significantly more bugs than current-expansion servers. If these bugs can be fixed without a game client update, they
might get fixed eventually, but we will always prioritize the urrent-expansion servers.
- As of writing, we do not plan to update the timewalking servers with new content.

We know a lot of players were waiting for the old expansion experiences. Blizzard has always been and will always be about the players, and their love for the game. Therefore, we wanted to give you the experience you wanted. However, World of Warcraft is an ever-evolving game, and we will always prioritize out further development on the current version.

We hope to see you ingame soon!

With kind regards,
[Captain Placeholder]

They would basically say, "you can have your legacy servers, but they might suck until we feel like fixing them". No need for them to spend loads of money on support or development, and the private server crowd would LOVE them, just as the dark souls crowd loves from when they said: "we'll make a pc version, but it will probably suck, since we didn't plan to make it originally, and we're not pc developers"

[Deleted]

The autism is strong in this thread :^)

Infracted {MoanaLisa}

[Veggie50]

This is pretty much deadlocked with both sides going "you can't prove your claims" which is true, on both sides.

The thing is, "Blizzard" isn't a person. When someone says "Blizzard knows" they're referring to a specific subset of Blizzard personel to whom a thing like legacy servers holds any meaning. These decisions are often made by a relatively small group based on a direction they have in mind for the game. This direction IS subject to change, as has been shown on numerous occasions in the past. If we as consumers do not demonstrate that there's a need to be filled, they will never see it as a necessity.

Therefore regardless of wether Blizzard decides to launch legacy servers now, These topics, video's, etc are always important, just to show there are people who care.

[0x0a]

Playing on a Pserver isn't theft, hosting one is.

So many shitposters today.

Actually both shouldn't be theft. A vanilla server is just a free software released under GNU GPL license and its just responding some packets over TCP protocol.

And I don't think I am stealing my client since I paid vanilla client and every damn expansion, I must be able to use whatever version I want.

It's only breaking Blizzard's EULA and TOS. EULA is forbidding you to write a server and TOS is forbidding you to use the client you have to play in a different server other than live servers.

[Atelniar]

This is pretty much deadlocked with both sides going "you can't prove your claims" which is true, on both sides.

The thing is, "Blizzard" isn't a person. When someone says "Blizzard knows" they're referring to a specific subset of Blizzard personel to whom a thing like legacy servers holds any meaning. These decisions are often made by a relatively small group based on a direction they have in mind for the game. This direction IS subject to change, as has been shown on numerous occasions in the past. If we as consumers do not demonstrate that there's a need to be filled, they will never see it as a necessity.

Therefore regardless of wether Blizzard decides to launch legacy servers now, These topics, video's, etc are always important, just to show there are people who care.

Correct. However, there is evidence of demand and interest. That evidence can not be disputed. Otherwise copyright infringement wouldn't be a topic to begin with. A service is not being provided by Blizzard, enough people are interested in said service to make a profound impact which leads to a potential lawsuit.

[Deleted]

150k active subs in whole EU? o.O

No. You just fail badly at reading comprehension. Try that again: And they showed they could handle 150k active subscribers, that's the same order of magnitude as a retail EU has at the moment.

[ridamark]

cant believe ppl are still bitching over this.

wonder how they would feel if it was there IP being ripped off..


even if blizz did vanilla servers half ppl wouldn't play bc they would have to pay now in order to play on them, cheap buggers.

that and..well vanilla was not as good as ppl make it out to see or seem to think it was.


not there IP, they were making money off it and didnt own it. move on.

[Veggie50]

I am all for legacy servers, but there is by no means "proof" that interest is enough for a viable venture on Blizzard's side. There simply are a LOT of unknowns...

- How many people would PAY for a subscription for legacy servers?
- How many are duplicate accounts
- How long would an average player stay on legacy servers?
- What are the costs of making such servers?
- What will be the effects of depreciation on the current expansion?

And many more such questions. We don't know, we can't know. All we can do is voice our demand for legacy servers, and hope Blizzard agrees now, or at some point in the future ^^

I also would like to state I disagree with the idea that Blizzard has a clear view on all these questions. It's incredibly hard to do market research on this by conventional means, because you're targeting a niche.

[Velnora]

Actually both shouldn't be theft. A vanilla server is just a free software released under GNU GPL license and its just responding some packets over TCP protocol.

And I don't think I am stealing my client since I paid vanilla client and every damn expansion, I must be able to use whatever version I want.

It's only breaking Blizzard's EULA and TOS. EULA is forbidding you to write a server and TOS is forbidding you to use the client you have to play in a different server other than live servers.

You paid to use Blizzards vanilla client. That doesn't entitle you private servers.

[jvbastel]

cant believe ppl are still bitching over this.

wonder how they would feel if it was there IP being ripped off..


even if blizz did vanilla servers half ppl wouldn't play bc they would have to pay now in order to play on them, cheap buggers.

that and..well vanilla was not as good as ppl make it out to see or seem to think it was.


not there IP, they were making money off it and didnt own it. move on.

- Nostalrius made no money off it. Donations went directly to the server hosting company.
- Most players on vanilla servers would love a retail vanilla server, including subscriptions (me being one of them).
- Vanilla not being as good as people say it was/think it was is your opinion. I'm having a better time on vanilla than I've had since ulduar on retail.

[Deleted]

wonder how they would feel if it was there IP being ripped off..

Blizzard was repeatedly asked to put up legacy servers, and they repeatedly said they have no interest or intention of doing it. So some passionate fans put up their own vanilla server so that players could play the game they love. And now Blizzard is all butthurt about it.

[zmp]

So you're basically saying: "obey the law, unless it stands between me and what I find fun, then it's ok to break the law"?

There was a time, when several states in the US had prohibited alcohol to be bought. I suppose laws do change.

[jvbastel]

There was a time, when several states in the US had prohibited alcohol to be bought. I suppose laws do change.

To be honest, if alcohol wasn't invented until now, it would be banned immediately.

[Deleted]

Secondly, you did indeed try to insult me on multiple occasions. Reading comprehension? I am not the one lacking it due to: thirdly, you approached the opposite section of the sentence, ignoring everything beyond the comma which I commented on. One would say you created a strawman to defend yourself, while completely dismissing the notion that you wrote those words to begin with.

You should stop throwing "reading comprehension" around, if you don't realise it can act as an insult (which doesn't make your arguments more valid if you can't support it with logical reasoning, at the very least, or more) you might actually be in need of improving your "reading comprehension" (notice the logical reasoning before stating such a thing).

Especially when you commit to multiple flaws in one post. Such as falsely accusing me of raising myself above Blizzard by saying:

"You sneakily try to imply that Blizzard has more knowledge about the subject than me. Go ahead, do so."

That's neither here nor there, Ielenia.

I guess I have to apologize for that: I used the words "reading comprehension" several times in replies to their posts, it seems they have taken them over as "mot du jour". Maybe I should have used "selective reading" or something