Dragonbums said:
If This is the big thing here. IF .When a company like Blizzard needs to make decisions on revamping an old code to integrate on a new server they can't go on 'what ifs'. At the very least they need a good enough definite to feel comfortable in investing in something like that.
You also chose to completely ignore the simple fact that Nostalrius had an entry point of zero fucking bucks. Of course something would grow when nobody is obligated to pay for it.
Unfortunately companies like Blizzard can't operate on free crap, and most of the people on that server were very vocal on how much they don't like new WoW anymore and are wholly disinterested in re subbing.
Do you honestly think these same people would pay $15 a month just to access a 10 year old version of the game when they could of done that for free?
The fact remains that Blizzards claims of it being "too hard" fall flat in the face that a purely volunteer team managed to do it and do it for a year having to re-engineer and recreate the programming needed to get the server up and running and for quite a large number of people too. We're not talking about 5, 10, or 20 servers. We're talking about blizzard putting aside ONE server, just one. And the development time and costs can be looked into by putting aside a small team to look at the feasibility and work with the Nostalrius volunteers to see if there is a way to put a cost effective server together.
And if 800k people would look at it as a passing fancy, and 150k would play actively, and then 240k would sign a petition asking blizz to either come out with their own legacy servers or make some kind of provisional license for non-profit private servers... I'd say there's a clear demand there.
and who cares if they don't like modern WoW anymore. We're talking about a shitload of people interested in a legacy product. And apparently you're psychic with the way you're speaking for 800k accounts and 150k active players wishes contrary to the 240k signatures on that petition.
You are under a very big assumption that these same people whining are actually going to put their money where their mouth is and re sub, and do it long enough to actually make it worth it. Servers are not a one time cost. They are a continous thing that requires paid mods, customer service, a debug team, etc.
How much do you think a server costs to set up and run? We're not talking about WoW sinking half a million dollars and two dozen people into this. 2004-2008. Blizzard has spent 200million total on their upkeep for WoW. That's through growth, setup, and their absolute peak of 12-13 million subs. If you do some quick math that's around 120k a month on a per server basis. If you do some basic cost cutting measures like consolidating a single pair of low pop servers. You've now essentially removed the server hardware cost, one of the biggest costs, from the initial money sinks. Then add on the fact that server costs and setup has gone down over the years.
As people have already pointed out before in this thread, this dude worked on only one WoW expansion. His business ventures after Blizzard were utter dogshit and someone who couldn't even keep another company afloat for a fraction of the time of his previous employer shouldn't be 'tsking' and lecturing Blizzard on how to run a business.
He worked on WoW, in vanilla, and has flat out said that server costs, setup, and maint have only gotten orders of magnitude easier compared to the old days. So the man is speaking from personal experience with the exact state of the game he helped create in the first place. To somehow cite he's unqualified to comment on modern WoW is irrelevant. Because
we're not talking about modern WoW. And if you look at the situation with Firefall that was immense meddling from corporate and internal conflict hampering development of the game. If Mark Kern was the reason Firefall failed, the game would have improved when he left the company. Guess what? The game bombed twice as hard, twice as fast, and really sunk into a spiral of pure shit after he was no longer at that company. So that kind of shoots the "Mark Kern is a bad developer" argument in the foot.
No it's not. From what they described it literally means all they have to do is remove all updates and settings to anything considered 'post' vanilla and slap it in a server. This is a much different ballgame than rising a corpse game out of the grave and trying to get it to work on 10 years advanced software and hardware.
You keep arguing like getting a working Legacy server is some impossible feat. Nostalrius running as well as it did for as long as it did proves that argument false. The game was growing, about to release Ahn'Qiraj, and only shut down because Blizzard exercised their legal rights to shut down an infringement of their IP.
Their Pristine server idea isn't to revert the game to a Legacy setting or update. It's leaving the gameplay as is (which wouldn't be legacy) and stripping out all the exp boosts, returning the exp needed to level to its original point, and removing the time saving/catch up mechanics from the current retail game. This is not only not satisfying a Legacy experience, it's also breaking their own current game design. If they reverted the game to a state like that it would take as much or more work than a Legacy server would. And if they just would do one stable patch of that, and then abandon it as is? well guess what, that's what a Legacy server would be. If they didn't abandon it and kept having to update and tweak it? Guess what, they're now supporting two versions. The thing they're complaining about.
Did you take into account that most of those people are still active paying members of those games?
Active paying members? From a pure business standpoint any non-sub model game has already got all the money it will get out of those people. A game that's 15+ years old is not bringing in new income. It's costing Blizzard money to support it. Don't get me wrong. I very much appreciate and applaud blizzard for taking the time and money to support those legacy products. I'm merely pointing out that perhaps developing and offering another legacy product could earn them NEW income. Rather than good will on income long since spent and done.
Or how they may still have the old codes to those games mostly intact? Or how they continuously updated the game unlike Vanilla WoW which saw a huge overhaul and abandonment? There are a lot of factors at play for them to be able to do things with one set of games, but not the other.
And yet again, Nostalrius worked well, it has functional code and was running pretty stable at a relatively huge number of active players. If Volunteer programmers can get a private server running Blizzard should be able to. Especially since Nostalrius has said multiple times they're more than willing to work with and help Blizzard set up their own Legacy server. And then what about the fact it ran stable for ten times the number of players on a high pop server for retail WoW?
Let's be honest. The argument against how feasible or possible setting up the server has been time and again been proven to one of two conclusions. Either modern day blizzards staff are incompetent and less skilled that multiple private servers volunteer staff. Or from a coding/hardware standpoint it IS doable. And it's a matter of how financially feasible the idea is. Of which I'd point you at the large number of players playing on Nostalrius alone and then if you factor in every other private server with no mods it gets pretty big.
They only had growth. Not success. Financially they were in the red big time and they were slated to shut down anyway because they couldn't deal with server costs.
Yes, server costs for hosting 10 times the normal high pop server count of active players. Around 20-30 servers worth of accounts. And this is an irrelevant point because no one who signed that petition and no one that I've seen are arguing that blizzard should run their server for free. If nothing else this could be argued in support of it being financially feasible for blizzard to do it. They already have staff, hardware, and professional programmers/developers in house to put together a working Legacy server or more if it's more profitable. Once again, no one is asking blizzard to do this at a loss or to offer these servers for free. Just to offer them or at least make an honest attempt to try.
Remember, one single month of a full Legacy server would give blizzard 225,000 dollars in that single month.
And someone above you has stated that it costs that much just to upkeep one server A DAY in other words, it's garbage profits. In fact, that it's not a profit.
Fucking WHAT? Okay now you're talking out of your ass. Blizzards own financial reporting states they've spent 200 million on all their maint costs, hardware, staff, servers etc. over the 4 most populated years of the game, 2004-2008. If you do some quick math that works out to around 120k a MONTH per server. And mind you that's including WoW at its peak. If it was one server a day for 225k that wouldn't work at all. That would bankrupt the game even at it's peak. There's no way a $15 a month sub would support that. Come on, man. Actually read what you're posting.
A couple weeks? With only 3-5 people? Are you kidding me dude? Those 5 fuckers must of really pissed off the boss if they got delegated to something like this.
Kern and others in software development have stated that you could get a working model of what it would cost, and the time it would take by having a group of 3-5 people take a weekend. And that likely, even without support, they can get something like this working on a back-end. Where the front end, blizzard ui/overlay integration might add another week or two to the project.
So tell me, what's your background in programming and game development that contradicts the opinion of multiple professionals who've said its very doable?
Do you not take into consideration at all that Blizzard is working on multiple projects, have multiple live games up that need maintaining. Not to mention conceptualizing, creating, and launching assets for said current projects to keep people invested in subbing?
You cannot compare hobbyists who have free time to do this for free and no other game studio obligations to a company that has to keep the ball rolling on multiple fronts. These situations are not comparable at all.
And do you think hobbyists have all the time in the world? They're not hermits who have nothing but passion and free time. Many of these people have full time jobs, school, families, and social lives. If THEY can do it, but Blizzard can't with professionals on a payroll who would be putting 8 hours a day into the job can't. Then this either shows Blizzard's got incompetent staff, or Nostalrius' volunteers should have been hired yesterday because they're rock star coordinators and developers.
and no one's telling them to develop a whole new game. The proof of concept is already done. Dozens of private servers work on modern server hardware with modern computer systems. The hard work would be integrating the legacy server on the back end into blizzards hardware and on the front-end with their UI/overlay setup with their launcher. You're talking about polish/post-beta programming. And WoW already has a staff of over 100 people. You're telling me they couldn't shave off half a dozen people or less? Legion is releasing on August 30th. Even with a break neck development pace the team could be parsed down a very small margin of half a dozen or less to at least prototype a legacy server after the launch of Legion.
And that's assuming a 10% Nostalrius active user number in subs.
A really big assumption.
You think a rate of 1/10 is unreasonable high? The fuck?
There's a solid chance it could be higher.
No there isn't.
Nice opinion there.
Especially over time. It seems a small financial risk for a potentially big gain. And Kern's reiterated that there's a LOT of reasons to at least try to setup a legacy server.
Unless you are in charge of and have in depth knowledge of Blizzards financial records and income you cannot assume this would be a 'small financial risk' for the company to do.
And fat change getting more users to play Vanilla WoW. At most it would be a cursory curiosity for the people who weren't still in their diapers in 2002 but most people won't give a shit or will probably hate how broken/grindy it is and go back to the current version.
Look at blizzards own reported numbers and from the people who've worked at the god damn company and in game development. I can't make speculation about the game because I'm not a current employee or developer. But that doesn't stop you from contradicting and shutting down the statements made by a game developer and Blizzard vet who worked on the fucking game.
And there we go back to the same old excuse, "People would get tired of it and quit!" Look, I get that it's a favorite of people who hate the idea of Legacy servers. But the simple fact remains that a SINGLE private server had almost a million accounts and nearly 10 full servers worth of active players. There's demand there and interest. The "they'd get tired of it and quit" argument is flying in the face of that clear and present demand. Would they all pay for it? Probably not. Would a significant number of them? Well if you take every single vanilla/legacy server out there, added their numbers together, and then lets say... 5% which is 1/20th, would add up to several full servers worth of players who would be paying a sub.
If you're going to tell me, with a straight face, that 5% is too high to assume for global demand then I don't know what to tell you. Because literally nothing will convince you then. Even suggesting fractions of a single percentage point is like suggesting a miracle will happen to you.
It doesn't help that blizzards reasoning sounds more like excuses.
It doesn't help that most of the people 'calling them out' on it have no fucking clue what they are talking about.
Says the person who is talking over a former developer, and who won't even reference officially reported income and costs. Where's your evidence? Because I have a lot of speculation, but I'm also backing it up with numbers and the statements from professionals not only in the game industry, but who've worked on the game in question.
