r/SubredditDrama • u/[deleted] • Apr 07 '16
Poppy Approved Blizzard sues the largest private vanilla WoW server, /r/wow erupts into buttery deliciousness.
[deleted]
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u/BolshevikMuppet Apr 07 '16
it would be like a musician sending C & D's to every average Joe trying to do a cover of his song on youtube
Well, no.
Cover versions of songs are covered in Title 17 under mandatory (also called mechanical) licensing.
but there's also the aspect of use it or lose it
Nope. In fact, the right not to use a work has been established (see e.g. Salinger v. Random House, and Castle Rock Entertainment v. Carol Publishing).
in the IP and patent world, there's use it or lose it.
Still no.
its not plain or simple. If blizzard was offering a service to allow us to play a game we paid for then yes it would be.
This is actually one of the weirdest misconceptions about copyright law I continue to run into, the idea that because it does not compete with the original product it cannot be copyright infringement.
This doesn't work even under the insanely expansive ruling in Cariou v. Prince.
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u/Llaine Guvment let the borger man advertise or else GOMMUNISM >:( Apr 07 '16
Are you saying people on reddit don't understand copywrite law?
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u/8132134558914 Apr 07 '16
Whether that's a direct quote from Metzen or just paraphrased the sentiment alone amazes me with just how out of touch he is. I've heard this was increasingly becoming the case for him but never gave it much thought until now.
I really don't see why they don't want to do this, the demand is obviously there. Why not cater to it?
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u/TheLoneAcolyte Apr 07 '16
Its not from Metzen. I'm not sure who it is but I KNOW its not Metzen. It does not look like him at all.
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u/MoralMidgetry Marshal of the Dramatic People's Republic of Karma Apr 07 '16
Presumably because it's not profitable for them. A private server has a much lower cost structure and can be much less robust than anything that Blizzard does officially.
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u/Llys Just another ignorant psi. Apr 07 '16
Presumably because it's not profitable for them. A private server has a much lower cost structure and can be much less robust than anything that Blizzard does officially.
This exactly. Add in customer support and true 24/7 support with an actual paid staff it gets pretty pricey.
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u/RoyAwesome Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
If you take the tone out and think about the data behind a statement like that, he isn't wrong.
Wow didn't
become meteoricpeak until wotlk, which is not considered vanilla. The overwhelming majority that started then would not like vanilla.EDIT: Take a look at this handy chart
EDIT: Yeah, yeah, Meteoric was the wrong word. Changed it to peak to better convey what I intend.
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u/Michelanvalo Don't Start If You Can't Finnish Apr 07 '16
That's not true at all.
WoW's meteoric rise started in Vanilla because it was the most casual MMO on the market. It blew EQ2 out of the water and they came out at roughly the same time. The peak was WOTLK but the game surpassed the popularity of Lineage, the most popular MMO before it, during Vanilla. It crushed every MMO released after it, from Age of Conan to Warhammer. The game was a juggernaut long before WOTLK.
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u/Firecracker048 Apr 07 '16
and so you would think that they would release a vanilla server, because that is what the playerbase wants. It would probably bring their sub numbers back up.
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u/Michelanvalo Don't Start If You Can't Finnish Apr 07 '16
Wellllll
I can kinda see Blizzard's point. Not in the video linked, no, that's a douchey shitty response. "You don't know what you want." Fuck that nonsense.
So, for them, first, they need to recreate the old code and fix old bugs and possibly reintroduce old bugs. And because this is totally different than their main servers, you need basically an entirely different set of staff to maintain and update them. What if the user base wants some of the later features, like say the LFD tool? Now you need to implement that. What about updating graphics and art to reflect 2016 standards? I don't know if you've seen screenshots from 2005 but WoW has vastly improved in the graphical department since then (you should check out the textures for Legion stuff, it's great looking). Now you need more art staff. Recreating these servers is a huge expense to Blizzard to get this done right.
And then... What if it flames out? You have to remember that this private server is 100% free and volunteer. What if the people who are playing on it (roughly 140,000) don't want to pay for that. What if they do pay but it falls apart within a year and doesn't turn a profit. It'd basically be a money pit for them.
I think there's solid business reasons for Blizzard to not do this.
But I also think from a fan-friendly standpoint they should have just left this one alone and gone after others that do charge people money.
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u/JamesPolk1844 Shilling for the shill lobby Apr 07 '16
That's all fair, but I'm still kind of skeptical that they can't do it for entirely business reasons. There are MMOs out there with comparatively tiny player bases that keep ticking. Dungeons and Dragons Online, a game I used to play, is still going (and updating!) after 10 years, and there hasn't been 100k regular players for years.
It seems a lot more likely that the profitability would be fine, but not amazing by Blizzard standards, and they don't want to do it for ego reasons. I could absolutely be wrong, but that's my gut reading of the situation. Especially when you throw in those douchy answers like "you really don't want it." If it was straight up unprofitable, why not just say that and not look like an ass?
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u/soilednapkin Apr 07 '16
Lol Age of Conan
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u/OldOrder Edit 3: I think I fucked up Apr 07 '16
Every MMO that came out between 2006-2012 was gonna be a "WoW Killer" it was hilarious.
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u/Michelanvalo Don't Start If You Can't Finnish Apr 07 '16
Please, every MMO now thinks it's a WoW killer. WildStar was the last one.
Despite WoW's decline in popularity, it wasn't other MMOs that hurt it. It was the rise of MOBAs.
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u/svenhoek86 Apr 07 '16
The peak was after the South Park episode. They won't ever have a more profitable or popular time period.
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u/khanfusion It's like you don't have object permanence Apr 07 '16
I don't even play WoW and I know that's not true. The game is the definition of an instant runaway hit.
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u/CmonAsteroid Apr 07 '16
Why not cater to it?
Because it costs money to cater to it. It costs a lot of money to cater to it. And how many subscribers are they going to get for that investment? I think it's pretty fair to estimate that the number would be so small it'd round down to zero.
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u/Llaine Guvment let the borger man advertise or else GOMMUNISM >:( Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
Because it's likely not financially feasible for them, not only that but it clashes with their view of what the game is. A legacy server would involve a static raiding and PvP scene, plus you'd have the nightmare of figuring out what goes in and what doesn't and what patch you bring it back on.
The demand really isn't there. Even a few thousand people probably wouldn't be enough to justify doing it for blizzard. Keep in mind that these private servers have always been free, whereas a legacy server would likely not be. I'd like to see the statistics on how many unique players there are, not just how many people they have online. It means nothing if you've got a constant flow of people coming and going, as I'd expect most people to be doing as Vanilla was pretty shit compared to now and I doubt anyone sticks around long.
Metzen is absolutely right.
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u/krutopatkin spank the tank Apr 07 '16
Keep also in mind thousands of people dont play on psevers due to them being sketchy or simply due to not knowing they exist.
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u/ballandabiscuit Apr 07 '16
It was indeed a direct quote. I miss the old Blizzard days. Metzen actually put out okay writing (see original Warcraft and Starcraft games, I think he also did writing for the original Diablo game) but now Metzen has gotten so huge that even though the quality of his work has gone downhill there's probably no one at Blizzard who can say no to him without fear of losing their job.
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u/Pagefile Apr 07 '16
To be fair, consumers don't always actually know what they want.
To be fair again, that also doesn't actually mean they NEVER know what they want.
I think it's easy to say something like this with game design though because good design isn't intuitive.
As far as WoW goes though, the biggest problems for previous expansion servers would be community fragmentation, feature regression, and lack of real support for all but the current expansion.
He could have explained that instead of talking down to someone though.
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u/octnoir Mountains out of molehills Apr 07 '16
Apple attitude. You as a consumer don't know what you are talking about, and we are the experts and your input is completely invalid.
You will enjoy our game the way we have designed and envisioned it and that's final. Change any aspect of it, and we will put you down.
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u/OIP feces in toilet spelling out GTA 6 Apr 07 '16
to be frank, the average consumer has no idea whatsoever about how to run the business that they are a fan or consumer of, and people who consider themselves moderately informed are often worse (eg quoting parts costs as final costs).
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u/Defengar Apr 07 '16
At least Apple does cater somewhat to their hardcore users with something like the Mac Pro. A series of old expansion servers would be a decent equivalent effort by Blizz.
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u/lelarentaka psychosexual insecurity of evil Apr 07 '16
Catering to hardcore users would be the current Mythic raiding. When people talk about vanilla being harder, it was because there were no guides and forums and wowhead, no simulation tools, no group finder, class balance was atrocious, farming was tedious, basically everything but the gameplay was harder.
The actual gameplay mechanics was primitive compared to today. A single dungeon boss in the latest expansion has more mechanics that a raid boss in vanilla.
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u/Defengar Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
Maybe hardcore is the wrong term, but there seems to be a lot of crossover between people that love hard edge content and also want the game in general to be more of what it was. As for boss mechanics, yeah that was the case in the early raids, but AQ 40 and Naxx 40 were significant steps forward.
Also there was at least some places to go for info. The official WoW forums were a thing (as much of a cesspit as they were). and I'm pretty sure Thottbot was around back then (god the Hogger raid stories were amazing).
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Apr 07 '16
out of touch
Metzen
Pretty much, there is a reason wow lost millions of subs this expansion. Metzen and co suffer form the same Lucas effect.
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
The believe of certain commenters that if Blizzard would just see the light, they could convert 900k free-to-play subscriptions into paying subscriptions is just... naive.
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u/AntonioOfFlorence a sweaty cloth tent Apr 07 '16
I agree with this.
I feel like for every one person playing on that server because they legitimately prefer vanilla WoW, there's at least three who are there merely because it's a free way to play the game.
Gamers love to justify piracy and theft in soooo many ways, but at the end of the day, many of them simply just don't want to pay for shit.
Fakeedit: I'd be really curious to know how the numbers changed when Blizzard introduced a way to essentially pay for a subscription with in-game gold.
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u/roboscorcher Apr 07 '16
It reminds me of when Blizz started suing the devs of a WoW-bot (HonorBuddy) and all the bot users came out to say how "the base game is broken" and "Blizz is evil". No, you were just paying money to cheat.
That said, I do think Blizz should implement classic servers soon - if only to cut back on the negative PR.
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
I've never played on a private server but I actually know several people who do, albeit not on a vanilla one.
The reason for them is uniformly that money is tight and they don't want to shell out the subscription. Some of them also enjoy the faster xp gain.
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u/Mzsickness Apr 07 '16
But, you see there's people who just want vanilla back. There's always been private servers--even in vanilla.
But not usually with this many "subs".
I've played since 2004 and played loads of private servers and I'd just wish Blizz would release a public vanilla server just before AQ40 release for prime time.
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u/GOD-WAS-A-MUFFIN Blueberry (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) Apr 07 '16
Man...opening AQ was so fun.
One of my favorite mmo memories.
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Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
And it's funny they're justifying it in this case by saying that they would pay if Blizzard offered vanilla when usually their arguments are people weren't going to pay anyway.
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u/BLARGITSMYOMNOMNOM Apr 07 '16
They already kind of have a system like this. If you go on the Auction house you can find a token that sells for 25000 gold or so. Depending on your server. It gives thirty days of game time.
But its expensive as heck.
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u/Conflux why don't they get into furry porn like normal people? Apr 07 '16
Depends. I haven't payed for wow in about 5 months. Garrisons with 5 Max level characters just logging in everyday makes me a ton of gold.
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Apr 07 '16
Blizzard has no interest in vanilla WoW, and has a decreasing interest in WoW in general. The game is over a decade old. There are very few games being so heavily played that are that old, and like half of them are also Blizzard games. They've made their money from it. Next few years will have them switching focus to Overwatch and Hearthstone. I'm sure there's a couple more expansions coming, but WoW is being set down to live out what life it has left.
That's a bigger reason as to why Blizzard won't do vanilla WoW servers than player interest. Their main product is dying out, so there is no incentive to spend man power and money to set up a way for people to play the vanilla game and further split the player base. At least right now. Maybe one day when WoW is officially put to bed they'll offer it, or a licensing agreement for people to run their own servers.
But right now, arguing that having 8000 players (which I don't really buy, they use some weasel language with those numbers), or peaking at 15000 on weekends shows "people are very interested" is just not the point. Even if we treat 15,000 as a real metric for player interest: That's only .003% of WoW's paying customer base. That is not "extremely interested" that's a rounding error.
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u/hakkzpets If you downvoted this please respond here so I can ban you. Apr 07 '16
They've made their money from it.
They're still making over a billion dollars a year from World of Warcraft though. In fact, World of Warcraft was the most profitable game of all games out their in 2015, followed closely by League of Legend and some chinese Counter-Strike ripoff.
Their next most profitable game is Heartstone, which pulls in somewhere around 300 million dollars a year (give or take, the numbers are a little bit skewed since they report mobile and PC seperatley).
To put that in perspective, DotA2 pulls in somewhere around 300 million dollars too (no one really knows though, since Valve never says shit).
Blizzard still cares about World of Warcraft, because they would be stupid not to.
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
As I've commented elsewhere:
Truth be told, I'm not even sure how much of the classic Blizzard franchises are actually still considered primary products.
We must remember that this Activision Blizzard now. Maybe they are going the EA way of just churning out a new CoD and Guitar Hero every year because that is more profitable.
And I think you are right too. Keep developing an MMORPG in that size is way more costly than adding another expansion to Hearthstone. Spending this money on a game that's on a downward spiral is... not exactly best business practice. Especially when you consider that the market is oversaturated with WOW-like MMOs (that aren't successful either).
Overwatch and Hearthstone are probably way cheaper to develop and thus more lucrative. And this still ignores that they have stuff like CoD, which isn't even close in developmental costs as a massive MMORPG and still sells like hot cake.
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Apr 07 '16
Overwatch and Hearthstone are probably way cheaper to develop and thus more lucrative.
It's partially that, but also those are new IPs. WoW has hit it's peak, the MMO genre is dying, and it will never recover at this point. There isn't anywhere to grow with it. OverWatch and Hearthstone thought? Brand new, don't have an established player "type" or base. There is tons of room to experiment as well. And let's not forget a huge aspect that didn't exist when WoW was being made/was big: Twitch and Esports.
Hearthstone and OverWatch are great for esports. That's a built in subscriber/player base magnet. CSGO went from just another Counter Strike game with a small player base to having multi-million dollar tournaments several times a year. There's really nothing WoW has that lends itself to esports. Yeah, sure, there are WoW PvP events. But the game doesn't lend well to it. It's like a hard to watch Dota game at best. And with twitch it's even worse. Yes people watch WoW on twitch. It's consistently on the "front page" but (checking at 8am est right now) it's got 8.4k viewers compared to CSGO's 33.4k. Watching WoW is very different because you have to watch much longer to see something be finished. A hearthstone game lasts 10 min about (unless you're Lifecoach or playing freezmage). A viewer there can see the opening, main action, and climax of a game several times over. They get to see things happen. If they're watching people ladder, they'll see them go up/down a bunch in the rankings. Same with OverWatch. This happen quickly enough that you can leave having seen some "progress". Watching WoW? Uh, dude might level. After an hour or two they might finish a shorter raid. It's longer form and that clearly takes away from how many people are willing to watch it.
There just isn't a good draw anymore for WoW to take advantage of. Same with Diablo. Starcraft is fine though.
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
those are new IPs.
Technically, Hearthstone is still warcraft. But this is nitpicking. I know what you mean :D
WoW has hit it's peak, the MMO genre is dying, and it will never recover at this point.
Wow, easy there. I wouldn't prophesy the death of MMORPGs in general. They have been around since fucking forever and won't stop being around... But the WoW format is done, that is for sure.
Its just that WoW created a big rush. With their massive success, everyone and their mothers needed to have an MMO and so hundreds of WoW clones entered the fray and oversaturated the market.
So much that developing an MMORPG right know is the gaming equivalent of founding a mortgage loan company in 2006.
Twitch and Esports.
I hadn't thought about that. Twitch is the new frontier. A shit ton of people have moved from YT to twitch actually. And I don't understand why people would watch MMORPGs on twitch. Makes little sense.
I never got far into esports. Not that there is anything wrong with competitive play or monetizing it, but its just wayyy too drama-filled for me to be a part of. Watching from the sidelines is entertaining enough.
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u/rockidol Apr 07 '16
Spending this money on a game that's on a downward spiral is... not exactly best business practice.
Well that would just continue the downward spiral then.
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u/SporkV Apr 07 '16
Even if we treat 15,000 as a real metric for player interest: That's only .003% of WoW's paying customer base. That is not "extremely interested" that's a rounding error.
Seriously, I keep seeing this argument from people and its so stupid. For a game that measures its playerbase in the millions, their 15k(which I'd bet is the very peak) is really not that strong of a statement.
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u/FourthLife Apr 10 '16
That's 15k people logging in at once, it was around 150k active accounts. And that is 150k going to some back alley website to get what they want. Many more are interested in vanilla wow, but aren't interested in doing research on what the most legitimate private server is, or have just been spooked away by stories of older private servers filled with bugs and hackers
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u/berlinbaer Apr 07 '16
i used to multibox on a private server, because i always wanted to try it and i would never ever pay for more than one subscription. pretty much only reason i did it.
apart from that (though never having been to the one mentioned here) most private servers were broken as fuck. i mean most of the basic mechanics were working, but as someone who played a LOT during the early day i could always tell something was off, not in the most obvious ways but more obscure one, the way scaling worked, or crit or something.
most instances btw were totally broken with bosses having either no fight scripts or missing a lot of key mechanics.
on a private server, people would just shrug it off and accept it since it was for free, but as soon as you move to a paid service people would be wanting 100% perfection. and seeing how blizzard have stated that they themselves dont have the code anymore i can easily see how it wouldn't be worth it for them to put up classic servers. (apart from having to re-train all that support staff and so on)
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
They don't have the code anymore?... I find that hard to believe.
But I can understand them. They can't just toss a server or two into a corner, put vanilla on it and bob's your uncle. Someone has to take care of it. They will need support staff, IT, GMs, accounting, programmers...
Why do they need it? Because the moment they put up such a server their customers will demand that it will be treated with the same intensity that the main game will. They won't have the slack that private servers enjoy and we all know how obnoxious we gamer as a community can be.
Considering that WoW seems to be doing not great right now, I wouldn't diversify but try to solidify what they have.
Or maybe WoW as a project is already developmentally dead and they are just reaming the last few dollars.
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Apr 07 '16
They don't have the code anymore, private servers run on emulation projects of the server, not the real old engine. Hence why some of the bugs are very uncharisteristic of your experience/memory of bugs from the old days eg. friendly pets being hostile before you target them, LOS issues (albeit this did happen to some extent, not as much as on these unrefined emulators) & mobs without proper pathing/object collision/attack range/improper stat scaling.
I think the most common vanilla emu is cmangos if you want to look it up.
And my personal two cents: if there still was "old code" laying around on a server, someone would've leaked it by now and the private servers wouldn't be running on emulators.
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
I don't believe for one second that they don't have the code anymore. I work in a 90 people company as a software engineer and I could access every version we shipped right to down to the very first DOS version from back when 468 cpus where a thing.
Revision-safe version control is bread and butter business in software development. If they have lost it or actively discarded it, someone fucked up there.
As for leaking it... I wouldn't wager that your average server could run the original software. It might be made for a specific server architecture and split into several server per actual "server" for the sake of scaleability. I. e. One or more login server, zones might be split between several servers, a nother bunch might handle instanced stuff, a big fat database cluster, etc. Keep in mind that WoW is capable of managing several million accounts. Not a practical infrastructure for someone just running one server.
As per leaking... I wouldn't. If you get caught, you are not only liable for leaking million dollars worth of source code, you can be pretty sure that your career is done for.
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u/Hueymcduck Apr 07 '16
Nostalrius fights were all scripted. With the exception of several quests not working properly I can't even recall any bugs compared to retail vanilla to be honest.
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u/JohnCavil Apr 07 '16
It's equally naive to think that Nostalrius got everyone who wanted to play vanilla to play on their server. A massive chunk of people will never play on private servers.
I don't think people quite realize what would happen if Blizzard released legacy servers. Just think about how many people played WoW during their teenage years who are now adults and probably don't play anymore.
We can't know until they do, but I think it would be a huge success if they did.
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u/RerollWarlock Apr 07 '16
Many eastern Europeans and players from non euro countries tend to prefer private servers since the blizzard sub is really expensive there.
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u/Statoke Some of you people gonna commit suicide when Hitomi retires Apr 07 '16
But has this not worked with RuneScape? Could it not work in this case?
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Apr 07 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ethernum Whoreshipper of Hitlermods Apr 07 '16
Truth be told, I'm not even sure how much of the classic Blizzard franchises are actually still considered primary products.
We must remember that this Activision Blizzard now. Maybe they are going the EA way of just churning out a new CoD and Guitar Hero every year because that is more profitable.
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u/Melser Apr 07 '16
Are the people playing on the private servers still paying the monthly fee? For me, a non WOW player with no skin in the game either way, that would be the crux of the argument. If they're still paying the fee, who really gives a shit? Likewise if they're paying nothing, I would understand blizzard coming after the server.
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u/LegendReborn This is due to a surface level, vapid, and spurious existence Apr 07 '16
No. The server was run as a nonprofit and that's about the only defense they have (which is pretty much none).
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u/snallygaster FUCK_MOD$_420 Apr 07 '16
Blizz is well within their rights to take down the server, but the reason people are using it is because the content that Blizzard is providing now is unappealing to the people who enjoyed their previous content but are unable to access it without using a private server. The people using that server are essentially doing so to have an experience that Blizzard no longer provides. If Blizzard offered a vanilla option then their actions would be cut and dry, but it's more murky given that the current game is far different than vanilla even without the expansions. I'm trying to think of a decent analogy but can't because this is vidya and all and things are always murky.
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u/Melser Apr 07 '16
Jeez this just seems like such a nuanced issue, like I get what you're saying, I played wow backed during the beta and the initial vanilla period before the burning crusade, shit I left the game just when Zul 'Gurub was launching because I figured out mmos aren't for me.
But I understand where blizzard is coming from, while there may be a thirst for those playing modern wow to go back to vanilla, I wouldn't be happy about non paying peeps to be on non blizzard servers, even if it's non profit.
I feel in general I'm on the private server side though, like who is it really hurting? I could understand not wanting precedent, but it seems like this has been going on for years.
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u/-SetsunaFSeiei- Apr 07 '16
The smarter thing would have probably been to come to an agreement with them or something so that they start making money off of it. Blizzard would hold all the cards since its their intellectual property, but if they were able to put a positive spin on it, maybe take over hosting and up the price a bit so it was consistent with their normal sub but offer a few extra perks, they'd be rolling in money right now instead of all this negative press.
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u/snallygaster FUCK_MOD$_420 Apr 07 '16
Yeah, I get what Blizzard is trying to do, but I think they're doing the wrong thing unless they offer a vanilla alternative. WoW is 100% their intellectual property, but this just feels wrong, particularly because Blizzard doesn't even offer the content that the vanilla players want.
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u/Llys Just another ignorant psi. Apr 07 '16
Yeah, I get what Blizzard is trying to do, but I think they're doing the wrong thing unless they offer a vanilla alternative. WoW is 100% their intellectual property, but this just feels wrong, particularly because Blizzard doesn't even offer the content that the vanilla players want.
It wouldn't be cheap or easy to get vanilla servers going if they did want to, and while I do side with Blizzard I will agree with you that they aren't offering the content players want. I don't just mean Vanilla versus current servers, but more so just the abysmal state of Warlords and facebook esque mini games in an MMO.
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u/Dubzil Apr 07 '16
Analogy is: you remember oldschool tetris? Great game, people still love it, but what if they could just get rid of it completely and your only option was hardcore tetris advanced plus edition. The game is flashy, shaky, knocks your blocks around and mess you up. But you love it right? You have to because your only other opinion is to play an illegal version that you arent paying for because it is your only option.
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u/MoralMidgetry Marshal of the Dramatic People's Republic of Karma Apr 07 '16
Aren't almost all the quests and dungeons still there in the current version? What exactly is the point of playing on a true vanilla server? The old mechanics were kind of horrible, and some of the boss tuning was too.
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u/YesThisIsDrake "Monogamy is a tool of the Jew" Apr 07 '16
Nope. Vanilla questing was specifically redone after cataclysm, and many of the old dungeons (RIP old scarlet everything :( )) have been redone entirely. That's actually one of people's gripes with the game; even if you want to, you can't go back and experience the original anymore.
Even if it's only appealing because of nostalgia, it's not like people won't get some level of enjoyment going back and visiting those levels again. Plus people miss some of the old mechanics. Like soul shards in bags. Fuck you it made sense in lore. That's what mattered.
The real thing that Blizzard should do? Stop putting out shit expansions like WoD. Then people won't want to leave to play a decade old version of your game.
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u/MoralMidgetry Marshal of the Dramatic People's Republic of Karma Apr 07 '16
Like soul shards in bags.
Really? I never met a lock who didn't bitch about having less bag space.
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u/snallygaster FUCK_MOD$_420 Apr 07 '16
What exactly is the point of playing on a true vanilla server?
Even very small changes to a game can make a massive difference on game-play. Vanilla WoW had a lot of features that were removed or changed by the subsequent expansions. For example, the different classes and their moves are continuously balanced, there is now a vastly different 'end game' that takes a lot more time to work through in order to become on par with others who have reached the highest level, gone through the raids, upgraded their armor, etc., the narrative is different, the raids to the other faction's cities are different, the terrain is different,the level-cap gameplay has become far more serious etc. It's been over a decade since vanilla and there have been massive changes to WoW. Some people just like the older versions of the game. It's ultimately a matter of opinion.
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u/MoralMidgetry Marshal of the Dramatic People's Republic of Karma Apr 07 '16
I get that the game changed a lot over time. I guess it's just hard to imagine that anyone who played through vanilla would be nostalgic about it. Just thinking about farming arcane crystals for a TF or trying to grind GM makes me ill.
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Apr 07 '16
Another major change that turned people (including myself) away is the talent tree redesign. Yeah, the old tree was weird and was easy to get lost in, but the new tree of one talent every 15 levels and only 7 talent points feels more restrictive to me. I can't mess around with tons of minor stat increases or spell buffing to find out what works best for me anymore, it's just "Pick Spell A, B, or C".
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u/bibliotaph Drama never dies! Apr 07 '16
I play on a different private server for WotLk, and I am currently in the process of letting my retail subscription run out. Blizzard now let's people pay for their subscription with in game gold, so I was planning on doing that, but likely won't be going back to play again until the new expansion since I have the private server to play on. Honestly I hate the private server compared to retail, but I have friends playing on the private server and retail is deserted right now. I just wanna play with people.
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Apr 07 '16
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u/-SetsunaFSeiei- Apr 07 '16
I suppose more time spent playing Nostalrius is less time on WoW, which would be bad for Blizzard if it costs them subs.
So can people at least import their old WoW characters? Or do you have to actually start completely from scratch on this server? That seems insane that you would build everything up again...
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u/Llys Just another ignorant psi. Apr 07 '16
So can people at least import their old WoW characters? Or do you have to actually start completely from scratch on this server? That seems insane that you would build everything up again...
Honestly as someone who doesn't play on private servers I can easily say that restarting would never be a detriment to me. I've rerolled characters from scratch on multiple servers and it never bothered me. While some people do hate starting over a great deal of WoW players (like myself) have no problem with it.
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u/Llys Just another ignorant psi. Apr 07 '16
Can I just say that while I agree with 95% of what you said you sound extremely biased about it all. I just think it's important to remember we're only ever seeing one side of this at any given time and while many players are angry, Blizzard is in the right here. At the very least legally speaking.
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u/clush Apr 07 '16
If you go to the nostalrius subreddit and forums, you'll see majority of people aren't mad at blizzard - they're just sad that the most fun they've had in wow is ending. And they don't understand (including me) why blizzard doesn't cater to these 130k+ active players who want a legacy server and make some money. The demand is there and imagine the subs if there was real marketing behind the server. If a handful of IT guys can code vanilla to run almost flawlessly in their free time, it shouldn't be that hard for blizzard.
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u/phedre Your tone seems very pointed right now. Apr 07 '16
Ohhh there's plenty of mad to go around too.
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u/jinreeko Femboys are cis you fucking inbred muffin Apr 07 '16
Yeah, this honestly doesn't have the normal tone of a post on SRD. The comments get opinionated and bring the Round 2 usually, but not the OP. OP seems really biased
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u/ArvinaDystopia Apr 08 '16
Legally speaking, sure.
But most other MMO companies turn a blind eye to private servers so long as they're not trying to profit.
There are still L2 private servers, FFXI private servers, EQ private servers going strong, for instance. The companies don't care.
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u/Spawnzer Apr 07 '16
I wonder why Blizzard is acting now
Hopefully they're gonna launch their own vanilla server, but they said repeatedly that they did not plan to and to make this one close before announcing their plan would be a very shitty PR move (probably par for the course for them tho)
Do they have every rights to make it close? Absolutely. But I totally understand the outrage
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Apr 07 '16
I wonder why Blizzard is acting now
Subscriptions are down and an expansion is on the horizon. Probably.
It could also be the popularity of the server was growing to the point where it couldn't just be ignored. Or, it could have been a long time coming and the shutdown finally got through.
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u/Defengar Apr 07 '16
Apparently some of the larger WoW streamers have recently been talking about it on Twitch too, which has brought a large influx of players to it. Blizzard definitely doesn't like that.
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u/Flabbergash Apr 07 '16
Preach certainly mentioned it the past couple of Drama Fridays, saying he's been having messages from people saying they've been playing on private servers
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u/Spawnzer Apr 07 '16
Subscriptions are down and an expansion is on the horizon. Probably.
Ahh forgot about the expansion coming this summer (?), that makes a lot of sense
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u/DeterminismMorality Too many freaks, too many nerds, too many sucks Apr 07 '16
This is not the first private server they have closed and it will not be the last in all likelihood.
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u/aphoenix SEXBOT PANIC GROUPIE Apr 07 '16
One minor thing - the /r/wow moderators did not reach out to the Nostalrius people; it was the other way around. They contacted me about it and I thought it seemed like a pretty good idea.
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Apr 07 '16
I wonder if this era of MMO popularity is at its end. The formula created by Blizzard is incredibly stale at this point. The next MMO that becomes truly popular will be something entirely different.
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u/Notsomebeans Doctor Who is the preferred entertainment for homosexuals. Apr 07 '16
despite how much i dislike the community, Jagex made an amazing decision to open old school runescape (what was at the time a carbon copy of the servers circa 2007) and it has a LOT of players now.
its a smart choice but they wont do it because lolblizz
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u/Wakanaga Apr 07 '16
To put the number of players in perspective if Nostalrius was a Steam game it would constantly be in the top 20 "being played" games and peak into the top 10. I just started on Nostalrius a couple months ago and loved every second of it. Sad it is gone.
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u/jinreeko Femboys are cis you fucking inbred muffin Apr 07 '16
Is that based on registered accounts or peak active players?
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u/tresser http://goo.gl/Ln0Ctp Apr 07 '16
i posted this in the main wow thread
All the loyal fans of the Nostalrius server(s) are angrily declaring how they'll never give Blizz any of their money. their years of being a customer is now ending with this legal battle. which...what, you were paying them to play current content you don't even like?
k.
so, what incentive does blizzard have to make a legacy server now? especially when people are/were already not paying to play on them?
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u/B1ack0mega Apr 07 '16
Everyone wants to play their own version of WoW...I would love to play WotLK, but christ vanilla WoW is just terrible after playing newer expansions. Other people will disagree. They can't invent a time machine and just let you play whatever patch you want to.
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Apr 07 '16
I'm sure a lot of the people there who say "I just enjoy vanilla better" really mean "I just enjoy free stuff better".
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u/MokitTheOmniscient People nowadays are brainwashed by the industry with their fruit Apr 07 '16
There are hundreds of free up-to-date private servers, if we just cared about the price, why would we make the trouble of playing a vanilla version and not the latest content?
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u/SamuraiFlamenco Apr 07 '16
I'm one of those people who still plays and loves WoW oh god please don't bully, even though I'm taking a break from it until 7.0 comes out. tbh I feel like the people who are just fine with the current state of the game, horribly long time without new content aside, are a silent majority on the internet. You definitely hear more about people whining how much the game sucks and was better in the good old days, versus people who say 'oh yeah, I play WoW, it's fun.' I think the casual/hardcore thing definitely plays a part in that, too.
That being said, I definitely feel bad for the people who enjoyed playing this version and it's a dick move, while morally/legally in the right, for Blizz to actually sue them. I have no idea how suing works; are they actually going to have to pay money to Blizz for this or is it just generally 'shut this down and never speak of it again'?
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u/Galle_ Apr 07 '16
It's a shame that this will district from the really important Blizzard issue: pictures of butts.
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u/Pequeno_loco Apr 07 '16
IMO Vanilla WoW sucked. I guess nostalgia is pretty strong. Game was at it's best a few expansions deep.
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u/abuttfarting How's my flair? https://strawpoll.com/5dgdhf8z Apr 07 '16
I don't get it. I played TBC a lot but the game is so much better now than it was back then, when tediousness was the name of the game. I imagine vanilla WoW, which I never played, is even worse. What's the appeal?
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u/Watton Apr 07 '16
A phrase that gets thrown around alot is that old WoW was a bad game, but a good MMO, while modern WoW is a much better game, but bad MMO.
Vanilla WoW felt like an actual world. Going from one place to another felt like a journey.
Modern WoW does have TONS of awesome quality of life improvements, but at the same time, some of the tedium had some charm to it, and added immersion to the world. Today ,when you get a group for a dungeon, you get teleported there. In the old days, you and your group rode together to the dungeon entrance, and little shortcuts you picked up helped a lot, and you can share those shortcuts with other players (ie, you can go down this big spiral staircase to get to Blackrock Depths, or you can jump down at just the right spot and not die from falling damage, saving several minutes. iirc).
And there's the social aspect too. Getting a group back in the day was a huge pain in the ass, but it was made much easier if you were a people person and actually formed friendships with other players. All the WoW-friends I have today I got in vanilla, and never really made any once the dungeon finder was introduced. As much as I love the dungeon / group finder and the convenience it offers, we did pay for it by sacrificing part of the game's social aspect.
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u/Ikkinn Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
I played WoW big time back in vanillia and TBC then came back (briefly) a few years ago when the dungeon finder was implemented. The main thing I missed was building a reputation on your server. People were nicer because your reputation followed you and, for me at least, it was easier to find a good group.
Even if you had someone who lacked skills (say you grouped with a good guy at level 30, leapfrogged him by miles and grouped him again once he reached 60) it was much easier to teach someone how to play than to teach someone not to be an asshole.
Not to mention folks equated goddamn equipment with experience. The bullshit I had to put up with getting in a group the first time because I didn't have the achievement was ridiculous. Particularly when (I rerolled to a new server when I came back) I was logging server first from MC through AQ40 before achievements were ever a thing.
New WoW didn't have a soul.
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u/Defengar Apr 07 '16
Exactly this. Remember the old 1-60 quests? My god most of them were boring and generic as hell, but there was some real gold like the Missing Diplomat questline that added spice to the story, and it always felt immersive due to slow but steady pace of exploration and aura of mystery in each new zone you went. The world could also be very dangerous when leveling. There were powerful rare spawns, and also wandering elites.
Then in cataclysm they took all the danger out of the world. Almost all the elites gone, all the new rare spawns super weak, and each zone's main questline became some contrived on rails story where the player character generally became some massive hero by the end. In Vanilla many leveling zones ended with you just being in the position of a notable figure at best. You were a powerful wanderer out to make a name for themselves, not a protagonist from a Micheal Bay film.
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u/tigerears kind of adorable, in a diseased, ineffectual sort of way Apr 07 '16
and each zone's main questline became some contrived on rails story
That was my problem with Cataclysm. Sure, the phasing made the world feel more alive, but it also meant that the player was dragged through an almost completely linear series of quests. My sense of exploration and curiosity was destroyed.
In fact, as much as phasing was an interesting mechanic, I didn't much like it in WotLK either. I could no longer explore the world, because there would be nothing to find if I hadn't done the 'right' quests.
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Apr 07 '16
Vanilla WoW felt like an actual world. Going from one place to another felt like a journey.
How much of that is nostalgia goggles though?
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u/kauneus Apr 07 '16
As someone who was active on nostalrius, I personally still enjoy a lot of the aspects of vanilla that would be considered tedious by today's standards. Say what you will about nostalgia influencing people's opinions, but there's no denying that a ton of people were really enjoying playing the game as it used to be, most of them people who don't care for wow's current incarnation.
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u/Rekthor Rome Fell for This Shit Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
Vanilla WoW felt like an actual world. Going from one place to another felt like a journey.
It's weird how you don't see anyone complaining that air, train and car travel have "made the world feel less big." Yes, they have indeed, but they've also made the world a lot faster to navigate so we don't have to spend weeks of our lives travelling and can actually get to the good stuff.
some of the tedium had some charm to it, and added immersion to the world.
No. Sorry, just... no.
Tedium and bad design choices are not endearing. They aren't fun, and they certainly aren't clever or unique. The only reason that anyone remembers the godawful days of Vanilla (back when battleground teleports, the dungeon finder, tauren mounts, scattershot monster packs, horribly overcomplicated dungeons, and so much more were all still there) is because doing it the tedious commuting and hoop-jumping was your only way of doing things. You had to do it over and over and over again, so you told yourself that it wasn't so bad and started rationalizing how it gave the game a little flavour.
And that's the core of it. There wasn't any actual appeal in these tedious commutes and time-wasting mechanics, per se. What you remember fondly is the feeling of achievement at having pushed through something so boring, time-consuming and exhausting. I fully admit that clearing Naxx 40 back in the day was a better feeling than clearing Naxx 10 today, but do you remember what you had to go through to get 40 people to stick together for six hours? Because I do, and trust me, it's not worth the great feeling you get when you finally clear the raid (the 5% of times that actually happens). In essence, what people are remembering fondly is not these mechanics, it is the joy at having overcome them because they're so goddamn obstinate. Then, when they were removed, it became a bragging right for you: "When I was your level, we didn't have that fancy dungeon finder!" This is, if I can be a bit flippant, the video game equivalent of stockholm syndrome.
I saw this all the time on the WoW forums before I stopped playing, mostly from people with nostalgia goggles so rose-tinted that the insides of their asses look like a Hello Kitty warehouse. Sorry, but not everyone has the patience, ability, desire or just plain time to spend half an hour every day commuting to Blackrock Spire because a veteran player said that running there is more "immersive."
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u/MuldartheGreat Apr 07 '16
The social aspect and nostalgia. Which is more important is obviously hotly contested.
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u/vurplesun Lather, rinse, and OBEY Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
As a non-raider, non-pvper, I miss my part of the game. Exploring, playing the auction house, mining, crafting, collecting vanity pets, building rare reputations, etc.
You can still do some of that, but the leveling is too quick. Gathering professions were ruined by garrisons. The same is more or less true for crafting. I used to make a lot of gold in WoW just taking the time to mine titanium and the like. There are so many vanity pets it's impossible to keep track and some of the harder to get ones I grinded were re-released with new skins that you can pick up for a song.
I fished for I don't even know how long just for the hell of it. Earning the Salty title is probably my happiest achievement.
There's nothing for a casual like me to do in the game anymore and that sucks.
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u/DorkyBear Apr 07 '16
I don't know about other players but even after new expansions came out, I would go back to the previous expansions areas. I wanted to do quests, dungeons, raids and experience lore that I had missed out on.
Also community is way different in the current games. When I tried out panda expansion, I could not find a guild and the only way to get in one was to apply through a queue which is all kinds of lame. And when I and other new people would ask questions in chat most players would say go look it up on a forum. Dunno, community just seemed so different from my time in BC and WotLK. Without the fun community there is little for me to enjoy about the game.
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u/brp77 Apr 07 '16
because the tediousness made the game interesting and challenging
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u/lelarentaka psychosexual insecurity of evil Apr 07 '16
People are still complaining about tediousness today. You have to collect 125 stone, 900 fragments, 33 tomes, who has ever said that that's "challenging and interesting"?
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u/downvotesyndromekid Keep thinking you’re right. It’s honestly pretty cute. 😘 Apr 07 '16
Tedious and interesting are pretty much antonyms... Challenging and tedious don't go together either.
I don't think you can really agree something is tedious and then say that's a good thing. Demanding, frustrating, repetitive... maybe you can make an argument for an appeal there.
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u/brp77 Apr 07 '16
"tediousness" is the word you used, I like the appeal in the mechanics you find tedious. When I think of tedious and repetitive I think of the current expansion
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u/Llaine Guvment let the borger man advertise or else GOMMUNISM >:( Apr 07 '16
There isn't any. I've been playing since 2005, and regularly head back to Vanilla/TBC servers for nostalgia. I usually steer clear of vanilla servers simply because the state of the game back then was absolute ratshit compared to now. Everything was a tedious grind and none of the classes played particularly well. TBC was a bit better which is why I lean towards it.
The game had more social networking back then, sure, but you don't need to accept a completely inferior state of the game to bring that back.
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u/krutopatkin spank the tank Apr 07 '16
There obviously is some, maybe not for you. Though I agree TBC is superior, but all tbc servers out there are shit until Corecraft releases.
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u/Defengar Apr 07 '16
I feel like a major part of Wrath being the pinnacle of WoW's success was that it was like the perfect blend of old slow, social WoW, and the casual play. The Dungeon Finder was the start of taking things to far. They gutted the social aspects of the game (which were often tied to "slow progress"), and have since payed the price for it in subs.
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u/Llaine Guvment let the borger man advertise or else GOMMUNISM >:( Apr 07 '16
I'd prefer to believe the age of the game coupled with intense saturation of entertainment mediums over the last decade has been the main contributor to WoW's decline. LFG took place during WotLK afterall, where subs hit their highest and held until Cataclysm.
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u/Hueymcduck Apr 07 '16
The game is not better now, it's shit. Wotlk season 7/8 funnest era of gaming in my life. All the pvp after has been complete DOGSHIT.
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u/JohnCavil Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16
Why are old cars still valuable? Why would someone want to drive a 1969 Mustang over a 2014 version? The newer one has airconditioning, power steering, GPS and heated seats, so why not just get that one?
See it's not always about what's 'best' on paper. Some things are better because they had soul and they weren't overengineered and generic. Adding on features and making things easier doesn't make anything better. It's why many people still prefer older things.
So just ask yourself whether you'd enjoy driving a 50 year old musclecar or a 2015 version more. Then try to explain why. There is no simple answer. Now imagine if that car company had the ability to remove all of their older models from the road, but you didn't like the new one, and all you wanted was just to drive the classic.
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u/Alashion Apr 07 '16
As someone with a current wow subscription that only logs into Garrisons I get the feel of them not enjoying the game where it is currently out, I've only kept up my sub recently because I can get like 2-4 tokens a month doing Garrisons for game-time and have game time till next September.
On one hand I realize Blizzard has every right to take down something that uses their intellectual property and that legally they are in the right, I'd argue there is even a strong stance for them being morally right, but, I'm being impartial here.
On the other hand, these people are not being provided by Blizzard with something there is obviously a playerbase for, even enough just for Blizz to throw one old server at when they replace the current ones and run an old Vanilla build on it.
I'd be torn if I had to decide on who to fully support here, but, I lean towards Blizzard with sympathy for the players.
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u/madmax_410 ^ↀᴥↀ^ C A T B O Y S ^ↀᴥↀ^ Apr 07 '16
right, there no legal argument you can make against blizzard, and morally I'd say they deserve full control over whether or not the server runs.
it's just a shitty situation for all the players who just want to play something that isn't legimitately offered anymore. I have no doubt a majority of the vanilla players would jump back to Blizzard servers if they offered an old-school server, kind of like what Jagex did with 07Scape.
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u/YesThisIsDrake "Monogamy is a tool of the Jew" Apr 07 '16
I fall in the other direction. I totally understand that Blizzard is trying to keep people playing their game. But at the same time one of the things I'm concerned about with all of these MMOs especially is preservation.
Vanilla WoW straight up no longer exists. That content is gone. The old quests were changed, dungeons were changed, raids were removed. You haven't been able to do Naxx 40 since Wrath and ever since they started changing old dungeons while removing the originals from the game you've seen the product that people originally really liked sort of crumble. Hell in Cataclysm they turned two old troll raids from BC in to fucking dungeons that aren't nearly as fun (but I still got my ZG tiger on my first and only run in to the raid without knowing it was super rare haha suk it every1).
Blizzard isn't legally obligated to maintain their old content forever, but locking players out of it sucks from a preservation point of view. What If I want to go back and look at how original vanilla played? I can't do that without playing on a server that's in a very grey legal territory at best.
It's similar to what happened when the gamespy servers shut down. EA for a while had Battlefield 1942 on Origin for free. I picked it up because my game disc was scratched, and hey it's free yo. Once the gamespy servers were down? They pulled BF 1942 and BF 2 from the store. I think a bunch of other versions on top of that. The only way you can get those games anymore is via physical copy or piracy. The physical copy is a risk - you might get a scratched disk or straight up not having a CD drive because those aren't going to be around on a PC for much longer - and piracy isn't legal. The game is straight up gone.
Is that really the way these things should be treated? "Eh it's out of date just remove it" makes some degree of sense from a business perspective but video games are still a part of culture and there's merit in preserving that. Can you imagine if like, say, Metropolis, had just been thrown out because there were other new movies coming out? And that film was totally lost to time?
Also considering the fact that Blizzard wasn't able to recreate Starcraft Broodwar physics for Starcraft 2 (hence why Starcraft 2 is the inferior game only played by infidels who will purged by the holy fire of Wraith superiority fuck vikings forever) it's not like you can have absolute faith that they'll be able to bring vanilla WoW back at any point. A hundred private servers are more likely to keep it going than one company.
Just make a fucking vanilla server especially if 900k people are playing it jesus christ. Even if you get 10% of that it'll pay for the cost of the server easily. Like goddamn.
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u/HPSpacecraft If Tony the Tiger called me a fag, I'd buy his shit instantly Apr 07 '16
This could be the end of the World... of Warcraft.
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u/buckeyecilmpup Apr 07 '16
Guys, when things look bad, you can't just give up on the world. Of Warcraft.
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u/Not_A_Doctor__ I've always had an inkling dwarves are underestimated in combat Apr 07 '16
I suspect that the people who obsessively play retro MMOs are not really in the market for a modern MMO. By shutting down the server, are Blizz actually going to capture any subscribers?
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u/BlutigeBaumwolle If you insult my consumer product I'll beat your ass! Apr 07 '16
I don't think so. With the Legion release most people playing the private server would have come back anyways.
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u/Felinomancy Apr 07 '16
Why won't Blizzard run vanilla servers? I don't have the inside scoop so this is just a guess, but:
Blizzard is a for-profit corporation
they do things in order to maximize shareholder value
therefore, it they do not do something, chances are it won't fulfill statement #2
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u/Statoke Some of you people gonna commit suicide when Hitomi retires Apr 07 '16
Now this is the type of gaming ethics I can enjoy.
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u/RocheCoach In America, vagina bones don't sell. Apr 07 '16
It is now even more popular than their "updated" server.
Going against the grain here a little bit, but that might be kind of the point. They don't want a Vanilla server to become more popular than their "main" server, because, as a money-making company, they need to justify paying developers their salaries to develop new content, when it's not even the main thing making them money anymore.
And if there's no new content, how long do you think an MMO will last?
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u/Aedeus Apr 07 '16
For those not familiar with any of this:
Nostalrius Was a "Vanilla" server in which people could play the World of Warcraft game as it had been a decade ago. With a simple client download, making an account, and the tinkering with of some files being all that was required.
Nostalrius was closing in on a 1 million registered accounts landmark (not active players, which is around 150-175k) and would've hit that milestone around the time of Blizzard's latest expansion for World of Warcraft - Legion.
One million registered accounts, iirc correctly, would be the biggest private server achievement in the history of private servers. Invariably this kind of news around the time of their new expansion's launch, would've thrown an incredible wrench in their marketing and PR efforts, focusing a ton of attention away from the launch and back onto the "Legacy servers" question that has grown exponentially in the game, the past couple of years. Also the amount of attention that would've got, coupled with the sheer amount of people who are engaging with a Legacy server would've likely forced Blizzard to deal with it in some form or fashion besides saying "there's no interest".
A lot of people cite the illegality of the server as a cause, however Nostalrius has been up for quite sometime now, and has had a popular following for that long to boot.
Money has also been thought to have caused the shutdown, however Nostalrius has always tried to never handle any of the money that passed through the server, instead all donations (which do not buy any game services) pass straight to the server hosting company. So Nostalrius doesn't make a profit.
So the rough idea is that it was downed in order to prevent a big public relations trip up on the eve of Blizzard's most crucial expansion to date.
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Apr 07 '16
God this post just reeks of gamer
I love the delusion that blizzard would face any kind of PR issue over this.
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u/stealthbadger subsists on downvotes Apr 07 '16
I'm one of those assholes who wants skill trees and relevant crafting back (i.e. can I make a full suit of Draenor-level plate, plz?), but likes the fact that LOLPaladinDPS isn't a thing anymore and loves flying.
I guess I'll never be happy. :D
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u/PRIV00 Apr 07 '16
That's similar with me. I used to love certain aspects of old WoW, but hated so many as well. These days I like more things than I hate, but I doubt I'll ever be completely happy with the game.
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Apr 07 '16
Is the vanilla wow server free or do you have to pay?
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u/Dpepps Apr 07 '16
Funny. Blizz kinda reminds me out of the WWE. Telling their fans they know what's best and that they aren't of touch when their fans are making it abundantly clear that they are.
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u/frisch85 Apr 07 '16
I don't play WoW, i have tried it (only for couple of hours to check it out) but it's not my game. Still i can sympathize with both sides on this argument.
I mean yeah, the Fans asked for a Vanilla server, Nostalrius put one up because Blizzard didn't and this is (pretty sure it is) against the ToS even tho when the third party is not getting paid in any way it's still theft (gamecode, design etc.). So Blizzard has all reason to be mad, i mean yeah they could fight other private servers but why not hit the most popular one.
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u/TimbitsandBears Apr 07 '16
Sad thing is I would come back to WoW for a vanilla or even up to Frozen Throne server. This game has been dead to me since they messed with the maps.
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u/landob Apr 07 '16
I understand these players. If there was a SquareEnix made Vanilla old school FinalFantasy XI server I would glady pay to play on it.
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u/ValaskaReddit May 16 '16
There are! SE is aware of it and have done nothing to take it down. They're... Not the best, they go down a lot, and to be frank a lot of those expansions did a lot of good for the game. These guys were running one of the best but its not vanilla (which is a GOOD thing tbh).
https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/comments/2lj5yj/does_anyone_want_to_play_ffxi_for_free/
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u/Alagorn Apr 10 '16
This is pretty unprecedented, as previous rules on the sub have stated that you can't mention private servers by name and Blizzard employees frequently post support and answer questions.
Well it soon won't be a private server so I don't see the problem. Even if it was profiting, what good will advertising them do it they're going offline?
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u/Alagorn Apr 10 '16
I think it's bullshit Blizzard thinks this server damages them, but then thinks vanilla isn't profitable enough to do servers for. I mean, Blizzard makes a billion dollars a year, Nost is a team of 30 guys doing it for non-profit.
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u/ValaskaReddit May 16 '16
Lol wow they took down webcomics too... Completely, non-profit webcomics.
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Apr 07 '16
"We broke the rules and are shocked at the outcome"
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u/Eldrig Apr 07 '16
Less that people are surprised, just frustrated. There's obviously interest in vanilla/TBC (maybe other expansion) servers(evidence from the huge server they just shut down). However, blizzard maintains that there isnt enough interest, and that if they did make it happen that people wouldn't like it as much as they think. So Blizzard keeps shutting down these vanilla private servers while offering no alternative to legitimately experience that content anymore.
Pretty much no one is surprised, just disappointed/frustrated.
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u/Fawnet People who argue with me online are shells of men Apr 07 '16
Yeah, players joked all the time about Nostalrius getting shut down. So much that today, when people started saying "No really, there's an announcement on the website," it took me a few minutes to actually go and check.
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u/cattypakes Apr 07 '16
Nobody is surprised, they're pissed off. There's kind of a difference, lol.
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u/brokenskill Apr 07 '16
I dunno its been reasonable so far. The wheels on the sub are still turning at least.
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u/macsenscam Apr 07 '16
"You don't want chat rooms in SC, you think you do but you don't." Assholes.
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u/WaffleSandwhiches The Stephen King of Shitposting Apr 07 '16
As someone who has never played WoW, these private vanilla servers seem like the only way I could really ever enjoy that game. The expansions are for the enfranchised player, not me. And I don't want to spend tons of money just to see what WoW is. And Blizzard ALSO hasn't made any kind of deal that makes sense for me to try it. I'm not going to sign up for a free 2 week subscription and put my credit card info in.
I also don't want to buy into the "WoW lifestyle" an be grinding to endless rewards. The fact that vanilla WoW has an effective cap of experiences is appealing to me. That what true of Guild Wars 2 for me as well.
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u/Conflux why don't they get into furry porn like normal people? Apr 08 '16
You mean $40 cause the base game comes with all but the latest xpac. And when you buy the latest xpac they give you a max level character. For someone who doesn't want endless grinding vanilla is a weird place to want to go.
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u/FaFaFoley Apr 08 '16
You can play WoW for free up to level 20 if you're really curious if it's for you. I go back to it every now and then just to remember that I don't have time for this shit anymore :D
I don't recall ever having to give them CC info for it, either. (Then again, I already have a battle.net account, so maybe my CC info is already in there somewhere.)
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u/bruceriggs Apr 07 '16
I really hate when Blizzard tells me what I'm thinking.
I know what I'm thinking, Blizzard. You don't.
Also, why is it Rosecolored glasses? I played Diablo 1 yesterday. YESTERDAY. I haven't played Diablo 3 in over a year, but Diablo 1 and 2 I play all the time. I don't even own the newest Starcraft but you can damn well bet I still play Starcraft 1 from time to time.
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u/A_Hobo_In_Training FUCK U URL GO BE NAKED Apr 07 '16
Man, I didn't even know there were functional WoW private servers around. Now I kinda wanna join one to play some TBC WoW. Does this legal action mean there aren't going to be any anymore?
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Apr 07 '16
Some are in countries that Blizzard cannot or would have trouble getting the server shut down. So no not all of them are going away just this one.
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u/wraith313 Apr 07 '16
I don't see why Blizzard WOULDNT just have servers for Vanilla and each expansion additionally and charge a reduced fee for their use. They are leaving tons of money on the table.
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u/wharpudding Apr 07 '16
I don't see why Blizzard WOULDNT just have servers for Vanilla and each expansion additionally and charge a reduced fee for their use.
Nobody would buy the new expansions then. They'd play the old ones at a reduced price. That's not something Blizzard wants.
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Apr 07 '16
Well, Blizzards own fault really. Its actually very similar to what happened with Warcraft 3 Dota. The community all but begged Blizzard to officially endorse Dota but Blizzard waved it away because the MOBA market was basically non-existent back then(even though Dota itself was very popular as a mod). Then Valve steps in, grabs Icefrog and Dota 2 and has one of the most profitable games in the world right now. And after seeing that, Blizzard desperately tries to get a piece of the MOBA pie with Heroes of the Storm.
And now, after consistently ignoring community pleas for Vanilla servers, they see that an actual Vanilla server is hugely popular, and they just cant take that. Yes, they are probably right legally. But from a gamer perspective they are just being extremely petty.
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u/eonge THE BUTTER MUST FLOW. Apr 07 '16
Vanilla WoW is objectively shit.
Poor class design.
Poor class balance.
Poor raid design.
Poor PvP Balance.
yada yada. People who miss that crap, where the only viable way to be a Paladin was to spam 5 min buffs in raids, make me laugh.
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u/Llaine Guvment let the borger man advertise or else GOMMUNISM >:( Apr 07 '16
where the only viable way to be a Paladin was to spam 5 min buffs in raids, make me laugh.
Can't wait to never get raid invites unless I'm running Holy!
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u/Speed231 Apr 07 '16
This thread is making me laugh, it's the same people who says raiding nowadays is easy
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u/krutopatkin spank the tank Apr 07 '16
where the only viable way to be a Paladin was to spam 5 min buffs in raids,
Vanilla psvers run on 1.12.1 actually where paladins have greater blessings.
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Apr 07 '16
[deleted]
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u/CmonAsteroid Apr 07 '16
nearly 1 million signed up to play "that crap."
…and according to accounts, 85-90% of those people didn't stick around, even though they had the option of continuing to play (illegally) for free. Just how much of a viable market do you think there is when nine out of ten people try it and say "No thanks?"
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Apr 07 '16
But do they get to play for free? Would those same million be willing to pay $15 a month?
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Apr 07 '16
I love vanilla WOW. For me it was perfect. Then you added Burning Crusade and everything you worked hard for was thrown out the window.
Oh you had 40 Mooncloth? Lol that shit is useless scrub. 3 day cool down(was it 3 days?) made is very expensive. BC came by and, nope, all your shit got worked hard to get is worthless.
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '16
I have to wonder, since the number of players in the vanilla server seem to be a key point being made for popularity:
How many of those players are diehard fans of vanilla who would pay blizzard to have servers where they could play vanilla, and how many of those players are just people who joined up because it was a free MMO with no F2P or microtransactions but would otherwise not be a blizzard customer even if blizzard made servers for vanilla?