Blizzard Responds to Nostalrius Server Closure Complaints

[Arnoxthe1]

I seriously do not think that many people now could go back with a fresh start and grind their asses off for weeks or months to get to 60, just to experience that raiding again. I just seriously don't.

Dude... Do you not know what WoW is about? Just saiyan.

 

[CritialGaming]

I seriously do not think that many people now could go back with a fresh start and grind their asses off for weeks or months to get to 60, just to experience that raiding again. I just seriously don't.

Dude... Do you not know what WoW is about? Just saiyan.

It aint about that.....not anymore. Leveling and getting raid gear took months.

Now it takes a week....or two.

I'm not saying that people won't do it. I'm just saying there wont be a justifable number of people that will do it.

 

[Politrukk]

This is just a blatant lie, a playerbase ranging from 100 to 200 thousand is absolutely not an amount one should neglect.

You're apparently thinking in some ludicrous EA kind of standard where you have to sell 5 million copies for your game to even compete.

If Nostalrius wasn't this popular it wouldn't have had to be shut down, this isn't even taking other private servers into acount.

It isn't a lie. 150k isn't that much.

And that's 150k people playing on a free server. How many of those stick around if they're paying 9.99 a month for it? (I don't know the US sub cost). Personally, I can't consistently afford the regular WoW sub cost, and I'm not the only one.

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

 

[CritialGaming]

This is just a blatant lie, a playerbase ranging from 100 to 200 thousand is absolutely not an amount one should neglect.

You're apparently thinking in some ludicrous EA kind of standard where you have to sell 5 million copies for your game to even compete.

If Nostalrius wasn't this popular it wouldn't have had to be shut down, this isn't even taking other private servers into acount.

It isn't a lie. 150k isn't that much.

And that's 150k people playing on a free server. How many of those stick around if they're paying 9.99 a month for it? (I don't know the US sub cost). Personally, I can't consistently afford the regular WoW sub cost, and I'm not the only one.

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

As far as I understand it. Nostarius didn't charge people anything. They ran the game completely free, this included not even having a donation or patreon page set up. That is what helped add so much fuel to the fan rage at this issue in the first place. The people running the private server did it competely out of their own pockets and did not accept anything in return.

That was my understanding of it anyway, I could be wrong. But if they had micro transactions or even a donate button in which they could receive funds for Blizzards IP, then all argument they have for running the server is thrown away because now suddenly it is not only theft, but robbery. They CAN NOT have received ANY funding from this server in any way, or Blizzard would have further recourse to sue them outright.

 

[Dragonbums]

No. If Blizzard did nothing then they would still have the ability to close down any server they didnt like.

No. They literally wouldn't. If they let Nostralious continue as it is they lose any rights in the courts to take down any servers using their Vanilla game.
That's the whole fucking point. You can't say 'nu uh' because you don't believe it. If they let that server continue to run than in the eyes of US copyright law Blizzard through inaction has taken action by stating that this is okay with their IP so if some other server comes along, starts making bank simply booting up their old game on a server and Blizzard tries to take them to court, they would have no standing and their case would be dismissed.

 

[Politrukk]

This is just a blatant lie, a playerbase ranging from 100 to 200 thousand is absolutely not an amount one should neglect.

You're apparently thinking in some ludicrous EA kind of standard where you have to sell 5 million copies for your game to even compete.

If Nostalrius wasn't this popular it wouldn't have had to be shut down, this isn't even taking other private servers into acount.

It isn't a lie. 150k isn't that much.

And that's 150k people playing on a free server. How many of those stick around if they're paying 9.99 a month for it? (I don't know the US sub cost). Personally, I can't consistently afford the regular WoW sub cost, and I'm not the only one.

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

As far as I understand it. Nostarius didn't charge people anything. They ran the game completely free, this included not even having a donation or patreon page set up. That is what helped add so much fuel to the fan rage at this issue in the first place. The people running the private server did it competely out of their own pockets and did not accept anything in return.

That was my understanding of it anyway, I could be wrong. But if they had micro transactions or even a donate button in which they could receive funds for Blizzards IP, then all argument they have for running the server is thrown away because now suddenly it is not only theft, but robbery. They CAN NOT have received ANY funding from this server in any way, or Blizzard would have further recourse to sue them outright.

I wonder if discussing other private servers is considered part of discussing piracy, so I can't go into this further.

 

[LetalisK]

No. If Blizzard did nothing then they would still have the ability to close down any server they didnt like.

No. They literally wouldn't. If they let Nostralious continue as it is they lose any rights in the courts to take down any servers using their Vanilla game.
That's the whole fucking point. You can't say 'nu uh' because you don't believe it. If they let that server continue to run than in the eyes of US copyright law Blizzard through inaction has taken action by stating that this is okay with their IP so if some other server comes along, starts making bank simply booting up their old game on a server and Blizzard tries to take them to court, they would have no standing and their case would be dismissed.

You're confusing trademark and copyright. Trademarks can be lost if the mark in question becomes common use. Copyrights are lost if you give them to someone else, you work for a company that owns all your work in the first place, or you die then 70 years later the copyright will be lost. There is also a three year statute of limitation on suing an individual for violating your copyright, but that is a far cry from "defend it or lose it".

Not to imply that is the end-all-be-all, considering we're discussing a topic that rivals the tax code in complexity. Rather it's the broad strokes.

 

[Strazdas]

No. If Blizzard did nothing then they would still have the ability to close down any server they didnt like.

No. They literally wouldn't. If they let Nostralious continue as it is they lose any rights in the courts to take down any servers using their Vanilla game.
That's the whole fucking point. You can't say 'nu uh' because you don't believe it. If they let that server continue to run than in the eyes of US copyright law Blizzard through inaction has taken action by stating that this is okay with their IP so if some other server comes along, starts making bank simply booting up their old game on a server and Blizzard tries to take them to court, they would have no standing and their case would be dismissed.

Nonsense. They loose absolutely no rights. There is aboslutely no requirement to police the internet for infringements and it is entirely up to the companys discretion to decide what to do whe they see such infringements. Just because some companies (IE: Blizzard) are stupid enough to attack all infringements does not make it a legal requirement.

the mental gymnastics required to even come to your conclusion is a wonder on itself. This is not how law works.

 

[LazyAza]

And we all know why they won't; fear. They're afraid if they cater to a specific niche crowd that only wants an old game that doesn't sell anymore they'll lose more people from their new products and those will sell less. Its all marketing business crap. They want big bucks and catering to the people that want old wow support would mean admitting they've failed to properly evolve the game and keep it highly successful. Which they absolutely have. WoW could have lived for forever and after countless idiotic decisions whether they be gameplay or even writing related, people are just sick of what they've been doing. Lich was the peak of the game, and its only gotten worse ever since and the insane drop in subscribers showcases that perfectly.

The claim that WoW could have lived forever does not sound realistic by any means. Nothing lasts forever, not even interest in a game. Regardless of content, or even if the quality of the story was on par with what WC 3 set up in the first place, the subscriber base would decay still. Wasn't it King Terenas that said that no king rules forever? People's lives and interests change. People get married, get new jobs, have kids, new interests. The vanilla servers came out when I was 14 years old. I'm 26 now, and in grad school getting payed to do physics research. And whatever leftover money is being used for cosplay and food. I don't have that much of an interest in playing WoW that much any more. Heck I had friends in high school that left soon after BC because of waining interest in the game.

Same goes for any game out there. The online servers for PS2 just shut down, over a decade after the console launched. It's a long time, and PS2 was an awesome console, but it doesn't make it immortal.

No shit sherlock. I was exaggerating to make my point. Its obvious the game wouldn't literally last for forever but it would be doing infinitely better now many years later (its basically lost 80% of its subscribers since lich) if they hadn't made bad choice after bad choice, whether it be reducing talent trees to nothing, making epics feel worthless, taking away the satisfaction of earning loot almost entirely by reducing it all to mere grinding, killing larger raid fights, dramatically lowering the difficulty of everything and generally making the game pander more to the twitchy 12 year old shooter crowd more than the methodical rpg crowd that made the game a success in the first place.

You're personal story has nothing to do with the overall situation, people came and went all the time, as they do with all mmos, but any that is healthy and well-maintained has a constant influx of new players and long time dedicated old players. Of course their would be a natural drop off over time, but like I said blizz dramatically spead up that process with their own stupidity. It was the only mmo to ever exist that had they evolved it correctly it would be maybe 70% of what it was today rather than 20%.

 

[Aeshi]

It was the only mmo to ever exist that had they evolved it correctly it would be maybe 70% of what it was today rather than 20%.

And are you basing this off of... what exactly? The idea that the people who played WoW when they were 16 will still be able to make time for the 3-5 consecutive hours Vanilla Raiding could take[footnote]Not counting all the grinding for the various resist gear you'd need to be considered for a raid in the first place.[/footnote] at 26?

Seriously, name one mainstream[footnote]i.e. No niche stuff that has the luxury of basically zero competition[/footnote], non-free MMO game anything that still has 70% of its original userbase after 10 years.

 

[Slenn]

No shit sherlock. I was exaggerating to make my point. Its obvious the game wouldn't literally last for forever but it would be doing infinitely better now many years later (its basically lost 80% of its subscribers since lich) if they hadn't made bad choice after bad choice, whether it be reducing talent trees to nothing, making epics feel worthless, taking away the satisfaction of earning loot almost entirely by reducing it all to mere grinding, killing larger raid fights, dramatically lowering the difficulty of everything and generally making the game pander more to the twitchy 12 year old shooter crowd more than the methodical rpg crowd that made the game a success in the first place.

You're personal story has nothing to do with the overall situation, people came and went all the time, as they do with all mmos, but any that is healthy and well-maintained has a constant influx of new players and long time dedicated old players. Of course their would be a natural drop off over time, but like I said blizz dramatically spead up that process with their own stupidity. It was the only mmo to ever exist that had they evolved it correctly it would be maybe 70% of what it was today rather than 20%.

No offense, but the story does have something to do with the situation at hand. Regardless of what decisions Blizzard has made to the gameplay or story, people are going to grow up. And I seriously doubt that the majority of people who played vanilla and BC would go back to return to play on a vanilla server. Simply because of their new time allocation. Sure a game can be maintained by a constant flux of new players to counterbalance old players leaving. But there comes a point when the novelty of the product wears off. WoW was indeed the first major mmo outside of Runescape, Everquest, and Ultima Online.

But now other MMOs are competing with WoW. There are far more streamlined games out there. And that crowd who played in Vanilla is more than likely going to be playing more contemporary games. The competition has grown and more companies come out with newer games.

And 70% seems extremely generous for a prediction.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I would like to offer a different take on the situation from all the copyright stuff swirling around, because quite frankly copyright law is a broken mess that needs serious revision for the digital age.

Speaking as a history buff, one of my concerns with gaming as a whole is the issue of preservation, from the industry's lack of interest in backwards compatibility to the forced implementation of patches that fundamentally change certain games forever. Video and computer games are considered art now, after all; would people stand for permanent changes to famous paintings or sculptures (this is commonly considered to be vandalism in the art world)? Would they accept explanations of "you think you want to see the Mona Lisa or Picasso's 'Guernica' in their original form, but you really don't?" Future generations will want to understand how the medium got to where it is, and they'll never get the full picture if original versions of games like vanilla WoW aren't available to provide at least a glimpse into their initial success.

 

[elvor0]

So many internet lawyers. Seriously guys, while it is a shame that Nost got shut down, from a museum, preservation perspective, you don't know your way around IP law. If that's the case, that is the fucking case. Unless you've got articles, clauses, specific laws and an actual argument other than "omg blizzard is lying, I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT BECAUSE I AM PSYCHIC AND NOT JUST RAGING.", shut up.

So many Blizzard employees too, who'da thunk it? Some dudes running a private server for a significantly smaller number of private customers is not the same as Blizzard as a company running Vanilla servers. You are literally comparing apples and oranges here.

Stop it.

 

[irish286]

Blizzard just needs to get off it's bloated ass and make legacy servers already. The market is there. They just don't want to risk the losses they will suffer to the main game. It's especially stupid because they'll be losses to something they own.

 

[Zepherus14]

What I've never understood with these sorts of situations, is why not just hire the people that are doing a job you 'can't do'. Blizzard is saying "We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW."

Well Nostalrius was managing to do it for over a year on their own, so why not instead just say. "Hey, you guys have been doing a real solid for our stuff getting this working, why don't you guys run our servers for legacy stuff to make it all legal. You guys get the servers, we don't have to run them fully ourselves, and we all get some money out of it."

Maybe I'm missing something here but this seems to happen time and time again where the company could be making more money than it already does, but doesn't. Or am I missing something in all of this?

 

[spartandude]

I hate, HATE, it when developers of a game claim something is too hard to do but a bunch of fans can do it for free in their spare time.

Blizzard, if you actually do like the idea of older versions of WoW, why not contract and brain storm with the guys that made this server. It's not like you are hurting for money.

 

[aeroblaster]

We aren't sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community

The closure led to a petition calling for the reinstatement of the server, which has since gathered over 235,000 signatures

lol

Blizz is so clueless. Just implement the "pristine realm" as a kind of hardcore mode. Problem solved.

 

[Flathole]

"You think you do, but you don't" video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuOYmqSF6OQ

It's not even Blizzard anymore.

It's Activision-Blizzard.

THIS is Blizzard. THIS is what Blizzard WAS.


Bobby Kotick has long since slain them and raised their corpses to do his bidding.

They could easily set up separate servers for different expansions. Classic server, BC server, WotLK server, etc. But that wouldn't be profitable enough. Lawsuits are where the REAL money's at!

 

[Politrukk]

Plenty of people dropped WoW because they felt the newer expansions ruined the game and private servers tend to offer paid incentives, they've been making money off of this that's why Blizzard went after them.

When WoW started all those years ago people were astonished at the playerbase reaching into the millions, a playerbase of 100 thousand players is still a significant addition.

Actually, the majority of people dropped WoW because as the games industry expanded, there was a huge surge of new MMOs which were built from the ground up on better engines with superior gameplay, cleaner mechanics and better visuals. The gameplay quality of WoW wasn't 'killed' by an expansion, but there are simply better games out there.

The only appeal of Nostalius is nostalgia. In an alternate reality where WoW was relatively stagnant with no new expansions to "ruin the game", they'd still lose all their subs over time, because WoW simply isn't as good of a game by today's standards.

Seriously, if neither modern WoW or vanilla WoW ever existed, and both games were suddenly introduced as two new IPs, the modern WoW game would be more popular, because vanilla WoW is just simply a bad game.

It's just so easy to be nostalgic for something you played 10 years ago.

And no, the people running Nostalrius were not making money. At all. But at the same time, no one was ever paying money. It's literally the equivalent of having a game accessible for free on a torrent website.

Nemmerle
28 Apr 2016 3:11 pm

@Politrukk: yeah, that's fine. Just don't link to them or blatantly promote it. Feel free to quote me in your post so it doesn't get moderated by mistake.

Okay so this is a bit late but I only just read I was allowed to go into this(so the reply is partially catered but not just to you sorry if I'm going a bit broad here):

The big point is that Nostalrius is not the only server and playerbase that's out there there are servers like for example Molten Core that offer a layered version of WoW with Microtransactions.
Servers like these don't just cater to the Vanilla lovers crowd theirs also a big market for players who want to play the game up to and including Wrath of the lich king.

People are pretending there isn't a demand for this but I think you can make a full server list of at least 20 big private servers that are currently running micro-transactions or not that have not been shut down by blizzard yet and have vast communities.

A quick google search shows a ranking of top WoW private servers lists and reddits that have a very broad range. 250 servers with a 1000 players each is still 250.000 people playing on private servers, now one could again answer that this is simply because it's "free" but then the micro-transactions and how lucrative they seem for some reason tells a different story.

You say the appeal of private servers is nostalgia.

I say the appeal seems to have a wider range :
Instant level boosts (this is why WoW has started selling and marketing these) for people who just don't have the time.
Old PVP focus with the old Ranking system and instant arena
Customizable settings.
Old content that people love or have missed to be played in its original form. (sure you can solo the Lich King nowadays but where's the fun in that).
The microtransactions are actually a favourable influence on some servers where they allow players to buy certain difficult to farm/grind weapons be it for the skin changes you can do these days or just to get up to that raiding level quicker.
Better pacing

I actually wonder if Nostalrius even was the big behemoth out there or just one of several that happened to be hit.

So many internet lawyers. Seriously guys, while it is a shame that Nost got shut down, from a museum, preservation perspective, you don't know your way around IP law. If that's the case, that is the fucking case. Unless you've got articles, clauses, specific laws and an actual argument other than "omg blizzard is lying, I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT BECAUSE I AM PSYCHIC AND NOT JUST RAGING.", shut up.

So many Blizzard employees too, who'da thunk it? Some dudes running a private server for a significantly smaller number of private customers is not the same as Blizzard as a company running Vanilla servers. You are literally comparing apples and oranges here.

Stop it.

So how about those of us who do know their way around the law?

I can tell you this : it is logical that Blizzard is shutting down every private server they can find and muster the possible legal fees/resources for from the laws point of view.

The hosting old content servers on the other hand... that's pretty simple, the easy answer here is if you think it can't be done then why is it being done?

Did Blizzard throw out all their old infrastructure and if so do they not have the knowledge/ability to reclaim it? they're the creators how could it be impossible for them to revert to an older version?

 

[Politrukk]

I say the appeal seems to have a wider range :
Instant level boosts (this is why WoW has started selling and marketing these) for people who just don't have the time.
Old PVP focus with the old Ranking system and instant arena
Customizable settings.
Old content that people love or have missed to be played in its original form. (sure you can solo the Lich King nowadays but where's the fun in that).
The microtransactions are actually a favourable influence on some servers where they allow players to buy certain difficult to farm/grind weapons be it for the skin changes you can do these days or just to get up to that raiding level quicker.
Better pacing

-Okay, first, the reason that Blizzard offer level boosts is because a lot of the community (myself included), wanted them so that we don't have to spend a ton of our time trying to level alt #19 through the same zones which we have played to absolute death. It isn't to simply cheat.
-And 'customizable settings' is pretty vague. Outside of private servers which let you equip yourself with the strongest gear (which are boring as hell, trust me, I've played them). There's really never been an appeal there.
-PvP was never too great in WoW. It has almost always been overrun with unbalanced classes and twinks. They are doing a better job of rectifying this in Legion.
-Old content is accessible in Blizzard's WoW. It's the entire reason that Timewalking dungeons are a thing now.
-Blizzard's WoW has microtransactions.

In reality. The only two major drawing points of private servers are 1. There are legacy servers, and 2. They're free servers. Literally the equivalent of torrenting a game. It's pirating.

If Blizzard did bring a legacy or pristine server to WoW, the majority of people would remain on the private servers, simply because they're free, and it doesn't take very long for the enjoyment of nostalgia to fade.

You're literally assuming that the second that Blizzard launches a new server, that every private server is suddenly going to vanish, and every single player on every single server will flood back to WoW.

-The micro transactions are different, you can purchase certain loot items.
-I think it is naive to believe that Blizzard only started offering level boosts by community demand, the rise of private servers that offered this will definitely have influenced it and still private servers offer that service for free.
-The same goes for faster paced leveling which had been a thing on private servers for years before Blizzard finally got to adjusting the rate and even then they didn't offer the variety that private servers do.
-You must not have played WoW in the old days because apparently you've forgotten that Azeroth looked completely different before the Cataclysm and people yearn back to that sense of comfort, they like the world they knew and felt it had been changed for no good reason, even at the release of Cataclysm there was backlash for that choice although it made sense for the story it made no sense for some of the playerbase.
-You also underestimate the appeal the old ranking system in pvp had alongside with the popularity of maps such as Alterac Valley which are played to death to this day the same as people still play games like the earlier versions of Battlefield and Call of Duty or even Age of Empires.
-Lastly but most importantly you seem to be confusing your experience with that of thousands of others, the market exists otherwise we wouldn't even be able to talk about this.

So currently you are discounting the leveling,gear purchase, and interest at the very least.

Blizzard will just keep catching flak if they do things like they're doing them now, especially with pretending there isn't a way to do it.