You can't assume that just because Nost had that many people playing on it that all those players would sub. There are likely more players there who just would rather not sub to get access to the server so they played on that one. I mean, it sucks that it shut down, but the reality is that the reason it was so popular was also....because it was popular. Players chose that server because there were alot of people on it, and those friends chose it for the same reason,ect. It does not necessarily mean they chose it because it is Vanilla WoW. Some players may have chosen it in spite of it being Vanilla.
To be total honest i would mostlike go back to play WoW if the open a legal vanilia server i was play WoW back in 2004 and honest it is was not just game i fall in love with it was the server community as well and everyone know everyone in the factions and if you did have anything better to do on firday evening you could just login and sit around in orgrimmar talk to people in chat and you end up do help someone get gear the need for molten core or blackwing lair and also i personal love the classic dungeon before blizzard revamp.
I have play all way to MoP the only expasion i did play was Lich King but what i hear up to Lich King WoW was still WoW.
"I can tell you that there will be no greater sign that World of Warcraft is finished than when Blizzard opens vanilla servers. Once that moment happens, you can rest assured that World of Warcraft as a brand is completely spent and Blizzard has shifted focus not towards gaining momentum but merely bailing out a sinking ship—and that's when they'll finally be willing to listen to whatever players have to say."
What this comment and article fails to realize is that WoW hasn't been gaining momentum for years and is already a sinking ship that they're just trying to plug holes. The second thing they're continuing to do is to make every attempt to milk every last cent out of a bunch of rosy eyed players who refuse to quit purely due to a form of sunk cost fallacy.
Ignoring the writing on the wall and sticking your head in the sand does not make the problem go away.
Blizzard 100% needs to be knocked down a peg. The amount of hubris they exhibit on a daily basis is mind boggling. The most unfortunate part about it all is that it's a bunch of players who are incapable of evaluating a product based on its merits and only evaluate it based on the company which made the product that have been blowing smoke up Blizzard's collective asses for the better part of 15 years that have caused this issue.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
"I can tell you that there will be no greater sign that World of Warcraft is finished than when Blizzard opens vanilla servers. Once that moment happens, you can rest assured that World of Warcraft as a brand is completely spent and Blizzard has shifted focus not towards gaining momentum but merely bailing out a sinking ship—and that's when they'll finally be willing to listen to whatever players have to say."
What this comment and article fails to realize is that WoW hasn't been gaining momentum for years and is already a sinking ship that they're just trying to plug holes. The second thing they're continuing to do is to make every attempt to milk every last cent out of a bunch of rosy eyed players who refuse to quit purely due to a form of sunk cost fallacy.
Ignoring the writing on the wall and sticking your head in the sand does not make the problem go away.
Blizzard 100% needs to be knocked down a peg. The amount of hubris they exhibit on a daily basis is mind boggling. The most unfortunate part about it all is that it's a bunch of players who are incapable of evaluating a product based on its merits and only evaluate it based on the company which made the product that have been blowing smoke up Blizzard's collective asses for the better part of 15 years that have caused this issue.
That's why every expansion of WoW Blizzard launches outsells the last right? Because WoW "hasn't been gaining momentum for years".
WoW hasn't been keeping high player retention rates(no game does anymore), but you can bet your mom's house it's gonna gain momentum when its expansion time.
Yes, the 150,000 players on an illegal, unmarketed, unreliable private server is not at ALL indicative of a larger demand within the Warcraft and MMO community.... /sarcasm
I would say that 150k is the absolute minimum amount of players official legacy servers would bring in.
Sure some of the people playing on private servers wouldn't sub, then you have the millions of ex-wow players who might or the people who missed out on vanilla or tbc who are not playing or ever heard of private servers that want to pay to play on official legacy servers.
Point being the 100k petition or 150k active players on one private server is indicative of a much larger demand, how big I dunno but acting like official legacy servers would only pull in half of what one private server had because it was free is just laughable.
Blizzard just look like arrogant pricks, even with the moral high ground.
Maybe I just think I do but I don't. heh
If WoW players were that interested why aren't there more people signing the petition? That is .11% of the 100M WoW accounts that Sedryn mention. It's a small fraction of the 800K accounts from the private server. It costs nothing to sign that petition. Why isn't the outcry greater?
Because only a small fraction of the people who would be interested in legacy servers are even aware the petition exists. If Blizzard conducted their own poll, they'd probably get a much larger response. They won't do that, of course, because they'd rather behave like ostriches with their heads in the sand than admit there's a large number of former players who think their current iteration of WoW is dogshit when compared with the old game.
That sounds like a giant excuse and huge pile of.... conjecture, to me.
Reasonable conjecture given that over 100 million World of Warcraft accounts have been created but currently only 5 million or so are active. Do you really believe that only 100,000 out of 95 million would want to try legacy servers?
Anyone who thinks it through will realize that WoW is in a class by itself. You can't compare the success of progressive servers in EQ1 to the potential success of official legacy servers in WoW. World of Warcraft has a massive pool of past players to draw from; far larger than any other MMO.
Reasonable conjecture given that over 100 million World of Warcraft accounts have been created but currently only 5 million or so are active. Do you really believe that only 100,000 out of 95 million would want to try legacy servers?
Anyone who thinks it through will realize that WoW is in a class by itself. You can't compare the success of progressive servers in EQ1 to the potential success of official legacy servers in WoW. World of Warcraft has a massive pool of past players to draw from; far larger than any other MMO.
hmmm, you have to take into account that just because people aren't playing anymore doesn't mean that the reaosn is that they want legacy servers.
I have an account made in the first week of the game and I've never been able to get a character above the 30's. Just never kept my interest. I wouldn't play on a legacy server nor a modern server. I'm sure there are peopel who just tried the game "just because" it was popular or people were talking about it.
I agree.
So taking that into account, let's say only 2% of past customers would reactivate their accounts to pay a subscription for WoW legacy servers. That'd be about 1,900,000 subscriptions, give or take.
Reasonable conjecture : 100 million account created doesn't mean 100
million accounts paid for at least base version or vanilla game. Why?
Because blizzard had a 15 day trial system and now they even have up to
level 20 unlimited trial, so creating account was never a bother for anyone. So your conjecture of 1,900,000 people wanting to play legacy server is bonkers. If that many people really did then want to play vanilla server then i will ask again : why have not this petition still got 150K sign?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I would play on both, live and legacy. Live to see what's new and legacy for competition. Live for my windwalker, legacy for my enhancement shaman. Live for dungeon finder, legacy for community. Ect...
Yes ... Yes you have made such sound arguments , that is a really tuff decision , who do we believe the Multi Billion $ co. with years of data and experience building and maintaining a successful IP for well over a decade, or the vagabond troop of 100k thieves,freeloaders,neckbeards and Xemployees...
cue the Jeopardy music... gonna need to think this one thru ...
Yes, the 150,000 players on an illegal, unmarketed, unreliable private server paying no sub is not at ALL indicative of a larger demand within the Warcraft and MMO community.... /sarcasm
Fixed it for you.
If they weren't paying money to play that server it might be difficult to convert those players over to subs. Kind of makes this thread moot.
Not if you've actually been reading the thread. Seems like myself and the other louder voices on this thread weren't even involved in said server. Furthermore, go read some of the folks signing the petition, there is a wide array of some great stories. And the fact that you seem to be giving the same regurgitated response, it seems moot.
Just because you say there would be a profit for blizzy doesn't make it true. How much are you willing to spend per month to access this vanilla wow service?
You guys haven't make a convincing argument. The burden to do so is on those wanting this service.
check out 2 posts above you.
I know you're not smart or anything, but try to keep up. We're talking about World of Warcraft, not runescape. WoW is a completely different and more importantly much larger beast than Runescape. Also you completely ignored the negative impacts the move Jagex made had.
"Kemp updated those numbers, saying that "we have seen just short of
seven million players log in with over two and a half million becoming
members." Although he describes some roadblocks experienced by the
development staff since Legacy Mode's release — including "community
tribalism" and divided opinions of fans and developers alike on the
existence of the feature — he ultimately concludes that the officially
run legacy servers have been a boon to the long-running game."
I read the article, thanks for reiterating it though. Although the personal attack against my intelligence seems unnecessary.
Referring to the article, Yes it split the community, isn't the Blizz community already though? ..Read the many threads across the internet on this very issue. And ultimately what was the end result? I know you can think outside the box, or are you from the spoon fed generation? I grew up when games made you work for a win, not just meander through a story, where critical thinking mattered. It was a boon which means beneficial. Not only did 7M people check out the Runescape legacy server, it got them 2.5M new accounts.
The most popular MMO in history couldn't possibly do just as well right?
Happily playing Vanilla and BC WoW, again, since September 2016.
Yes, the 150,000 players on an illegal, unmarketed, unreliable private server is not at ALL indicative of a larger demand within the Warcraft and MMO community.... /sarcasm
I would say that 150k is the absolute minimum amount of players official legacy servers would bring in.
Sure some of the people playing on private servers wouldn't sub, then you have the millions of ex-wow players who might or the people who missed out on vanilla or tbc who are not playing or ever heard of private servers that want to pay to play on official legacy servers.
Point being the 100k petition or 150k active players on one private server is indicative of a much larger demand, how big I dunno but acting like official legacy servers would only pull in half of what one private server had because it was free is just laughable.
Blizzard just look like arrogant pricks, even with the moral high ground.
Maybe I just think I do but I don't. heh
If WoW players were that interested why aren't there more people signing the petition? That is .11% of the 100M WoW accounts that Sedryn mention. It's a small fraction of the 800K accounts from the private server. It costs nothing to sign that petition. Why isn't the outcry greater?
Because only a small fraction of the people who would be interested in legacy servers are even aware the petition exists. If Blizzard conducted their own poll, they'd probably get a much larger response. They won't do that, of course, because they'd rather behave like ostriches with their heads in the sand than admit there's a large number of former players who think their current iteration of WoW is dogshit when compared with the old game.
That sounds like a giant excuse and huge pile of.... conjecture, to me.
Reasonable conjecture given that over 100 million World of Warcraft accounts have been created but currently only 5 million or so are active. Do you really believe that only 100,000 out of 95 million would want to try legacy servers?
Anyone who thinks it through will realize that WoW is in a class by itself. You can't compare the success of progressive servers in EQ1 to the potential success of official legacy servers in WoW. World of Warcraft has a massive pool of past players to draw from; far larger than any other MMO.
Reasonable conjecture given that over 100 million World of Warcraft accounts have been created but currently only 5 million or so are active. Do you really believe that only 100,000 out of 95 million would want to try legacy servers?
Anyone who thinks it through will realize that WoW is in a class by itself. You can't compare the success of progressive servers in EQ1 to the potential success of official legacy servers in WoW. World of Warcraft has a massive pool of past players to draw from; far larger than any other MMO.
hmmm, you have to take into account that just because people aren't playing anymore doesn't mean that the reaosn is that they want legacy servers.
I have an account made in the first week of the game and I've never been able to get a character above the 30's. Just never kept my interest. I wouldn't play on a legacy server nor a modern server. I'm sure there are peopel who just tried the game "just because" it was popular or people were talking about it.
I agree.
So taking that into account, let's say only 2% of past customers would reactivate their accounts to pay a subscription for WoW legacy servers. That'd be about 1,900,000 subscriptions, give or take.
Reasonable conjecture : 100 million account created doesn't mean 100
million accounts paid for at least base version or vanilla game. Why?
Because blizzard had a 15 day trial system and now they even have up to
level 20 unlimited trial, so creating account was never a bother for anyone. So your conjecture of 1,900,000 people wanting to play legacy server is bonkers. If that many people really did then want to play vanilla server then i will ask again : why have not this petition still got 150K sign?
Give it a couple of days, 127k in a week with limited advertising. I think that's more people than a few of the current MMO's that still seem to be kicking around. When it hits said mark that you find acceptable, lets take that number and cut it in half. If 75k people actually sign up for Legacy servers are you telling me its not worth Blizz's efforts? 75k x $15= 1.125M. I would say 1.125M monthly would make it seem like this venture is already profitable.
Happily playing Vanilla and BC WoW, again, since September 2016.
I'm still not understanding how we can point to the live Blizzard WoW servers with between five to ten million active subscribed accounts world wide and declare that the current game is terrible and the game is dying and then with the other hand point to free-to-play Nostralrius with 150,000 active accounts and declare that vanilla WoW is much better and millions will resubscribe to WoW to play Legacy Servers. I'm also not sure any numbers are relevant to the conversation proposed by this article.
I know the article was an opinion piece, but its so emotionally charged it loses any semblance of objectivity and, therefore, any hope of credibility. Nostralrius was a free party. Everyone came and drank up the beer and had a blast until the cops shut it down. Everyone playing Nostralrius had to accept that as a possibility when they logged in. By the same token the Nostralrius developers could have just switched off the server anytime, and the player base would have no recourse. I understand people are upset that its gone, but that doesn't mean Blizzard is under any obligation to do anything to assuage the hurt feelings. Shouting that its patently obvious and inevitable that definite millions (or even thousands) will resubscribe if Blizzard would heed the Nostralrius example is a little on the tortured side of logic and won't convince anyone except the folks that are four square in agreement with that position already. Saying that Legacy Servers would mean the death of the game is just the other side of this coin and there is as much proof for one assertion as there is the other. Your mileage may vary and I myself have weighed in on what I think the Legacy Servers will do if implemented based on my personal experience with Mythic and DAoC.
The truth is no one knows what would happen and Blizzard and its investors have chosen, as is their right, not to take that particular financial risk. They have said so publicly and as such no one should be surprised. Blizzard has made a lot of money with World of Warcraft by keeping their own counsel so far. Making a lot of money was their goal starting out, so again we can't be surprised at their choice. Staying the course is a viable option so long as the money keeps rolling in. I'm sure World of Warcraft is in the profit phase now so I can understand people who have their money invest in this not wanting to rock the boat. I can also understand a business not wanting to take the advice of people who aren't in the field and are obviously emotional about the issue and may have participated in the theft of Blizzard property.
If you're mad at Blizzard for raining on the Nostralrius Free To Play party, I understand. I don't like it when the Man keeps us down either. If you're mad at Blizzard for a particular patch and/or expansion and you think they ruined the game and quit, I understand. If I don't like the product a company puts out, I don't consume it either. If you're mad at Blizzard because they are arrogant and presume to tell us what we want and don't want, I understand. Sometimes pasty computer programmers who just happened to be working for a company that puts out a highly successful game should shut their pie holes and just toe the company line rather than trying to educate us on what we want and don't want. What I don't understand is linking those separate angers together, stirring in some spurious evidence and cooking up a dubious conclusion that 1) Blizzard is blinded by greed and arrogance and that greed and arrogance prevents them from putting up legacy servers and 2) Blizzard isn't greedy enough because they'd make so much money with Legacy Servers like Nostralrius.
It is also arrogant presumption to assume that any group of people who post on message board forums are in any way representative of the larger player base community. Of the millions of WoW players world wide its is a safe bet that only a small percentage post on the official forums, let alone attenuated ones like this forum.
Until the emotion dies down, there really can't be any rational discussion on the topic. The sad part is once the emotion dies down no one will remain to have the discussion. Blizzard knows this will go away in a couple of weeks. Their best move would be to stop deleting the posts and feeding the anger. Corporate stonewalling will defeat most every consumer uprising.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Not only should bliz open vanilla servers, they should take a SERIOUS look at why people prefer the gme back when it was more complicated.
After many years I actually think Daybreak has learned this. Let's see if blizzard can
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
I can understand the need to push forward, but what I do not understand is why they continue to push forward when the people are leaving because of the push. At it's peak, 12 million people were active in this game, 2 expansions ago. With a steady decline since, you would think instead of just staring straight ahead, Blizz would learn and look back at what caused people to leave instead of pushing more out the door. I for one will not go back, unless they bring in legacy servers. 9 years is a long time to play one game, and I had fun while it lasted, but the thrill is gone and in no way will it come back without looking to the past.......at least for me it won't.
nothing can save WoW from WoW ..even if they opened vanilla servers ..yes it would be packed for about 2weeks or a month then all the weak minded ppl that are soo used to the senseless dribble that it is now will flock back to their heirloom gear // gear score and 90% of content that everybody skips...also knowing how they run things there they would open the vanilla servers..then after about 3 weeks say they will be releasing BC and ect ect ect xpan and make you pay for it all over again lol WoW has gotten ever worse after they sold out to activision and moved their product out WAY to fast with all the xpan. ...now you can just look at it and it should screams f2p ..its bad..
Wow is not a game that had 500,000 players at is peak it's a game that had 12,000,000 at its peak. IMHO having legacy servers for all Xpacs would be profitable. Maybe not profitable enough for a multi billion dollar Corp to bother with, but profitable none the less. I'd put money on that any legacy Xpac population would be larger than most other MMORPG's
They would need to double if not triple the number of programmers to maintain the code and expand their support staff to be able to offer at least some form of support (not to mention the increased workload of the CSR´s having to remember the ins and outs of 6 different games rather than one.
I just don't buy this as a legit argument anymore. Maybe back before D3, Hearthstone, HotS, SC2, and Overwatch, (oh and that new game they're making and Project Titan which was canceled), but right now, they're not exactly struggling to maintain six different games with their visions. Adding a progressive server would be 1 additional game that evolved over time, and as a multi-billion company, they aren't hurting so badly financially they can't, especially if they can scrap an entire game (for the... 4th time?), and move on to a new project without immense hang in current projects. Activision-Blizzard also just acquired King, and didn't they finance Destiny and Destiny 2? While they're not providing CSR/main support, they had the money to throw at these companies with existing games.
Those 800,000 "registered users" weren't paying customers. They weren't even the audience Blizzard cares for anymore.
If I offered you free burgers all day for the rest of your days you'd be like "sure" most likely. Regardless of quality.
Because it's free.
Tell folks they need to p2p a game without any expansions to any content since like I dunno the goddamned stone age now?
Yeah that's not going to fly. You maybe get 20k.
Citing huge numbers on freebie servers with no limits to registration of persons and accounts (IE 1 per person) is pretty much just trying to create news which is fun to commentate on but still stupid as hell all the same.
"I can tell you that there will be no greater sign that World of Warcraft is finished than when Blizzard opens vanilla servers. Once that moment happens, you can rest assured that World of Warcraft as a brand is completely spent and Blizzard has shifted focus not towards gaining momentum but merely bailing out a sinking ship—and that's when they'll finally be willing to listen to whatever players have to say."
What this comment and article fails to realize is that WoW hasn't been gaining momentum for years and is already a sinking ship that they're just trying to plug holes. The second thing they're continuing to do is to make every attempt to milk every last cent out of a bunch of rosy eyed players who refuse to quit purely due to a form of sunk cost fallacy.
Ignoring the writing on the wall and sticking your head in the sand does not make the problem go away.
Blizzard 100% needs to be knocked down a peg. The amount of hubris they exhibit on a daily basis is mind boggling. The most unfortunate part about it all is that it's a bunch of players who are incapable of evaluating a product based on its merits and only evaluate it based on the company which made the product that have been blowing smoke up Blizzard's collective asses for the better part of 15 years that have caused this issue.
That's why every expansion of WoW Blizzard launches outsells the last right? Because WoW "hasn't been gaining momentum for years".
Yet there are significantly less players than when Cataclysm came out.
"I can tell you that there will be no greater sign that World of Warcraft is finished than when Blizzard opens vanilla servers. Once that moment happens, you can rest assured that World of Warcraft as a brand is completely spent and Blizzard has shifted focus not towards gaining momentum but merely bailing out a sinking ship—and that's when they'll finally be willing to listen to whatever players have to say."
What this comment and article fails to realize is that WoW hasn't been gaining momentum for years and is already a sinking ship that they're just trying to plug holes. The second thing they're continuing to do is to make every attempt to milk every last cent out of a bunch of rosy eyed players who refuse to quit purely due to a form of sunk cost fallacy.
Ignoring the writing on the wall and sticking your head in the sand does not make the problem go away.
Blizzard 100% needs to be knocked down a peg. The amount of hubris they exhibit on a daily basis is mind boggling. The most unfortunate part about it all is that it's a bunch of players who are incapable of evaluating a product based on its merits and only evaluate it based on the company which made the product that have been blowing smoke up Blizzard's collective asses for the better part of 15 years that have caused this issue.
That's why every expansion of WoW Blizzard launches outsells the last right? Because WoW "hasn't been gaining momentum for years".
Yet there are significantly less players than when Cataclysm came out.
Your point? Ah, that's right. You didn't have one.
I disagree about WoW's franchise being undermined by legacy servers, official, endorsed or illicit. Blizzard has already incurred that damage.
What this article is beating around the bush at saying is that Blizzard doesn't want to admit that recent iterations of WoW were not as popular and not as successful as legacy iterations.
Anecdotally; Blizzard already had a big hurrah hype-fest to get back old school players with the promises of a return to old school with WoD. A lot of my old friends from back in the day checked it out and left within the first couple of months.
In fact that was the consensus. The 3.5 million players that had come back for WoD had left by March of 2015, just three months after its launch as shown by the same graph linked previously.
Personally; it has been very difficult to be a WoW fan; a Blizzard fan lately. With bold hubric statements such as "you think you do, but you don't" by J. Allen Brack, WoW Executive Producer, and complete ignorance of the player-base's wants with the now infamous "Flying in Draenor" fiasco stumbled into by Ion Hazzikostas, Assistant Game Director (it was not about flying, it was about Blizzard not communicating with the community), I do not expect Blizzard to acknowledge the concerns of the community, writ large; let alone communicate meaningfully with their player-base about this issue.
As with the "Flying in Draenor" issue, I do not even expect Blizzard to understand what the issue is actually about. To be clear, it is not about Nostalrius. The issue is myriad frustrations that have been long overdue to be addressed; from low server populations, account services fees and their lucrative symbiotic relationship; to reiterations of failed design concepts such as Garrisons being repackaged as Class Order Halls in Legion; to the shuttering of virtually all meaningful community relations; what remains being relegated to 140 word derisive quips on Twitter; to 14 month long content droughts, expansion after expansion;
I believe that until significant and meaningful strides in communication with the WoW player community are reestablished; long-standing issues with WoW as a service as well as the game's direction of development are addressed and or resolved; that the population of WoW subscribers, the quality of WoW as a service and product and the reputation of WoW and Blizzard as a franchise and game development company will continue to churn.
Adding a progressive server would be 1 additional game that evolved over time,
So you say... But the entire argument here is that people do not want progression servers... they want time locked servers. If not the same issues will arise again and again.
So then you would need a time locked server for classic, BC, WotLK and Cataclysm + the regular game.(so my bad... 5 games... not 6) with their own support staff and developers and QA.
Or do we simply tell anyone who want a different rule-set than vanilla to go bugger them self...? Is that fair?
Not only should bliz open vanilla servers, they should take a SERIOUS look at why people prefer the gme back when it was more complicated.
Well, if you haven't noticed the general trend, any human activity that's been around for a significant time was "way better back when." Ask your parents, and their parents.
Then you get a series of analysts who try to decide "what exactly was it that made it better?" (Nostalgia seems to be the only unacceptable answer.) Non sequiturs are perfectly acceptable, particularly when supported by ad nauseam. Anecdotes abound.
But there are always a thousand theories why "things were better back when." And some of those theories are actually contradictory. All of them are attempts to climb backwards up the slippery slope seeking a Patient Zero Primary Cause...which probably doesn't exist.
All of them are simplistic answers to complex questions.
"The game went South because we tried to live in it, and game developers make terrible surrogate parents."
There you go, a nice simple answer, no more likely to be right or wrong than any other.
The only way I would play WoW again is if they had a vanilla server. Also, MMORPG companies have too much power over the games, City of Heroes was home to me and thousands of others who put countless hours into it and NCSoft tore it away from us. I will never forgive them for that.
The only way I would play WoW again is if they had a vanilla server. Also, MMORPG companies have too much power over the games, City of Heroes was home to me and thousands of others who put countless hours into it and NCSoft tore it away from us. I will never forgive them for that.
An interesting inflated sense of ownership, for a consumer.
The market that the current game focuses on is completely different. The current WoW is for the instant feedback, low attention span, convenience at the expense of depth, shallow and superficial game loving players. Vanilla was more focused on community and working together. I don't really see a conflict. Players that like current WoW will just make fun of the Vanilla players and blame it all on nostalgia like they currently do. The kind of player that was interested in a deep community isn't going to buy into the crap Blizzard is selling now anyway so I don't see them losing much on that front either.
The market that the current game focuses on is completely different. The current WoW is for the instant feedback, low attention span, convenience at the expense of depth, shallow and superficial game loving players. Vanilla was more focused on community and working together. I don't really see a conflict. Players that like current WoW will just make fun of the Vanilla players and blame it all on nostalgia like they currently do. The kind of player that was interested in a deep community isn't going to buy into the crap Blizzard is selling now anyway so I don't see them losing much on that front either.
Yep today's WOW player is the low attention span type player that do love to call vanilla WOW players someone who has rose tinted glasses on. Yet the Vanilla WOW player is honestly more true to a real MMORPG can get because Community is more important in an MMO than convenience and low quality gaming like MMOS have become today.
Comments
I have play all way to MoP the only expasion i did play was Lich King but what i hear up to Lich King WoW was still WoW.
"Blizzard can't or shouldn't release vanilla servers because it would highlight what a complete shit box it has become".
Yeah, that's some fantastic logic right there.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
What this comment and article fails to realize is that WoW hasn't been gaining momentum for years and is already a sinking ship that they're just trying to plug holes. The second thing they're continuing to do is to make every attempt to milk every last cent out of a bunch of rosy eyed players who refuse to quit purely due to a form of sunk cost fallacy.
Ignoring the writing on the wall and sticking your head in the sand does not make the problem go away.
Blizzard 100% needs to be knocked down a peg. The amount of hubris they exhibit on a daily basis is mind boggling. The most unfortunate part about it all is that it's a bunch of players who are incapable of evaluating a product based on its merits and only evaluate it based on the company which made the product that have been blowing smoke up Blizzard's collective asses for the better part of 15 years that have caused this issue.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
WoW hasn't been keeping high player retention rates(no game does anymore), but you can bet your mom's house it's gonna gain momentum when its expansion time.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Reasonable conjecture : 100 million account created doesn't mean 100 million accounts paid for at least base version or vanilla game. Why? Because blizzard had a 15 day trial system and now they even have up to level 20 unlimited trial, so creating account was never a bother for anyone. So your conjecture of 1,900,000 people wanting to play legacy server is bonkers. If that many people really did then want to play vanilla server then i will ask again : why have not this petition still got 150K sign?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Old Wow= Great
New WoW=Suxor
Stop ignoring that fact!
Referring to the article, Yes it split the community, isn't the Blizz community already though? ..Read the many threads across the internet on this very issue. And ultimately what was the end result? I know you can think outside the box, or are you from the spoon fed generation? I grew up when games made you work for a win, not just meander through a story, where critical thinking mattered. It was a boon which means beneficial. Not only did 7M people check out the Runescape legacy server, it got them 2.5M new accounts.
The most popular MMO in history couldn't possibly do just as well right?
I know the article was an opinion piece, but its so emotionally charged it loses any semblance of objectivity and, therefore, any hope of credibility. Nostralrius was a free party. Everyone came and drank up the beer and had a blast until the cops shut it down. Everyone playing Nostralrius had to accept that as a possibility when they logged in. By the same token the Nostralrius developers could have just switched off the server anytime, and the player base would have no recourse. I understand people are upset that its gone, but that doesn't mean Blizzard is under any obligation to do anything to assuage the hurt feelings. Shouting that its patently obvious and inevitable that definite millions (or even thousands) will resubscribe if Blizzard would heed the Nostralrius example is a little on the tortured side of logic and won't convince anyone except the folks that are four square in agreement with that position already. Saying that Legacy Servers would mean the death of the game is just the other side of this coin and there is as much proof for one assertion as there is the other. Your mileage may vary and I myself have weighed in on what I think the Legacy Servers will do if implemented based on my personal experience with Mythic and DAoC.
The truth is no one knows what would happen and Blizzard and its investors have chosen, as is their right, not to take that particular financial risk. They have said so publicly and as such no one should be surprised. Blizzard has made a lot of money with World of Warcraft by keeping their own counsel so far. Making a lot of money was their goal starting out, so again we can't be surprised at their choice. Staying the course is a viable option so long as the money keeps rolling in. I'm sure World of Warcraft is in the profit phase now so I can understand people who have their money invest in this not wanting to rock the boat. I can also understand a business not wanting to take the advice of people who aren't in the field and are obviously emotional about the issue and may have participated in the theft of Blizzard property.
If you're mad at Blizzard for raining on the Nostralrius Free To Play party, I understand. I don't like it when the Man keeps us down either. If you're mad at Blizzard for a particular patch and/or expansion and you think they ruined the game and quit, I understand. If I don't like the product a company puts out, I don't consume it either. If you're mad at Blizzard because they are arrogant and presume to tell us what we want and don't want, I understand. Sometimes pasty computer programmers who just happened to be working for a company that puts out a highly successful game should shut their pie holes and just toe the company line rather than trying to educate us on what we want and don't want. What I don't understand is linking those separate angers together, stirring in some spurious evidence and cooking up a dubious conclusion that 1) Blizzard is blinded by greed and arrogance and that greed and arrogance prevents them from putting up legacy servers and 2) Blizzard isn't greedy enough because they'd make so much money with Legacy Servers like Nostralrius.
It is also arrogant presumption to assume that any group of people who post on message board forums are in any way representative of the larger player base community. Of the millions of WoW players world wide its is a safe bet that only a small percentage post on the official forums, let alone attenuated ones like this forum.
Until the emotion dies down, there really can't be any rational discussion on the topic. The sad part is once the emotion dies down no one will remain to have the discussion. Blizzard knows this will go away in a couple of weeks. Their best move would be to stop deleting the posts and feeding the anger. Corporate stonewalling will defeat most every consumer uprising.
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After many years I actually think Daybreak has learned this. Let's see if blizzard can
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
I just don't buy this as a legit argument anymore. Maybe back before D3, Hearthstone, HotS, SC2, and Overwatch, (oh and that new game they're making and Project Titan which was canceled), but right now, they're not exactly struggling to maintain six different games with their visions. Adding a progressive server would be 1 additional game that evolved over time, and as a multi-billion company, they aren't hurting so badly financially they can't, especially if they can scrap an entire game (for the... 4th time?), and move on to a new project without immense hang in current projects. Activision-Blizzard also just acquired King, and didn't they finance Destiny and Destiny 2? While they're not providing CSR/main support, they had the money to throw at these companies with existing games.
Those 800,000 "registered users" weren't paying customers. They weren't even the audience Blizzard cares for anymore.
If I offered you free burgers all day for the rest of your days you'd be like "sure" most likely. Regardless of quality.
Because it's free.
Tell folks they need to p2p a game without any expansions to any content since like I dunno the goddamned stone age now?
Yeah that's not going to fly. You maybe get 20k.
Citing huge numbers on freebie servers with no limits to registration of persons and accounts (IE 1 per person) is pretty much just trying to create news which is fun to commentate on but still stupid as hell all the same.
Yet there are significantly less players than when Cataclysm came out.
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Oldschool Runescape servers are just as notable as EQ's TLP servers.
Mathew Kemp Product Manager at Jagex posted this 4 days ago:
Building on the past: How RuneScape’s official legacy server avoided cannibalism and became an eSport
I disagree about WoW's franchise being undermined by legacy servers, official, endorsed or illicit. Blizzard has already incurred that damage.
What this article is beating around the bush at saying is that Blizzard doesn't want to admit that recent iterations of WoW were not as popular and not as successful as legacy iterations.
The last known subscription numbers for WoW were 5.5 million in September of 2015. The last time WoW's subscriber base was that low was in Dec of 2005, a decade earlier in the middle of Vanilla WoW while on an upward trend towards 8 million subscribers.
Anecdotally; Blizzard already had a big hurrah hype-fest to get back old school players with the promises of a return to old school with WoD. A lot of my old friends from back in the day checked it out and left within the first couple of months.
In fact that was the consensus. The 3.5 million players that had come back for WoD had left by March of 2015, just three months after its launch as shown by the same graph linked previously.
Personally; it has been very difficult to be a WoW fan; a Blizzard fan lately. With bold hubric statements such as "you think you do, but you don't" by J. Allen Brack, WoW Executive Producer, and complete ignorance of the player-base's wants with the now infamous "Flying in Draenor" fiasco stumbled into by Ion Hazzikostas, Assistant Game Director (it was not about flying, it was about Blizzard not communicating with the community), I do not expect Blizzard to acknowledge the concerns of the community, writ large; let alone communicate meaningfully with their player-base about this issue.
As with the "Flying in Draenor" issue, I do not even expect Blizzard to understand what the issue is actually about. To be clear, it is not about Nostalrius. The issue is myriad frustrations that have been long overdue to be addressed; from low server populations, account services fees and their lucrative symbiotic relationship; to reiterations of failed design concepts such as Garrisons being repackaged as Class Order Halls in Legion; to the shuttering of virtually all meaningful community relations; what remains being relegated to 140 word derisive quips on Twitter; to 14 month long content droughts, expansion after expansion;
I believe that until significant and meaningful strides in communication with the WoW player community are reestablished; long-standing issues with WoW as a service as well as the game's direction of development are addressed and or resolved; that the population of WoW subscribers, the quality of WoW as a service and product and the reputation of WoW and Blizzard as a franchise and game development company will continue to churn.
So then you would need a time locked server for classic, BC, WotLK and Cataclysm + the regular game.(so my bad... 5 games... not 6) with their own support staff and developers and QA.
Or do we simply tell anyone who want a different rule-set than vanilla to go bugger them self...? Is that fair?
This have been a good conversation
Then you get a series of analysts who try to decide "what exactly was it that made it better?" (Nostalgia seems to be the only unacceptable answer.) Non sequiturs are perfectly acceptable, particularly when supported by ad nauseam. Anecdotes abound.
But there are always a thousand theories why "things were better back when." And some of those theories are actually contradictory. All of them are attempts to climb backwards up the slippery slope seeking a Patient Zero Primary Cause...which probably doesn't exist.
All of them are simplistic answers to complex questions.
"The game went South because we tried to live in it, and game developers make terrible surrogate parents."
There you go, a nice simple answer, no more likely to be right or wrong than any other.
Mystery Bounty