The Nostalrius Team Says Blizzard Wants Legacy Servers

[Nazulu]

I don't expect anything to come from it because this all sounds like absolute crap, but I'll probably join to see how accurate it is.

 

[Fimbulvetr3822]

As much as Blizzard has tried to push the new expansion to be like The Burning Crusade, it just won't be, it won't be anywhere near as good as The Burning Crusade was.

Screw Vanilla WoW legacy servers, give us TBC legacy servers. People would return in droves, I know I would... I definitely won't be returning for this Legion shit.

Blizzard has enough money and resources to basically put a B team onto a Burning Crusade legacy server, and even add new content to it, like an alternate WoW timeline.

They've got Jeff Kaplan, one of the greatest dungeon and raid designers (if not the single greatest) in the video game industry, on the TF2-clone FPS Overwatch for god sake.

It'll be better, if anything.

Burning Crusade was a pretty so-so expansion. Nothing was really changed. It kept pretty much every single problem of vanilla WoW, but threw in a couple of slightly improved raids/dungeons, and a couple of new races. Pretty much the only good feature were flying mounts.

Wrath of the Lich King was a far superior expansion.
-Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel were two of the best raids which have ever been in the game
-Looking for group was a godsend compared to standing in Dalaran typing "need tank and healer Violet Hold HC" for 30 fucking minutes
-Leveling was made way faster which in turn ended up being way nicer. People whine that "slower leveling feels like more of an achievement", but having high level content which you can never fucking play just sucks, and slow leveling is absolute bullshit to those who don't want to be locked into one specific class choice when they start the game.
-Death knights felt like actual new content, where Blood Elves and Draenei were glorified cosmetics.
-Questing was made better, with some quest lines which were way more interesting. Assault on Undercity felt really epic the first time I played through it.
-It was aesthetically better than any expansion before. The Nordic tones were nice, and the music was fantastic in some of the zones.
-Wintergrasp was really fun world PvP with the introduction of siege vehicles.

People look at vanilla WoW in rose tinted goggles, but Wrath of the Lich King was where the true quality was. Mostly because it was WoW before negative features like Raid finder and Guild leveling came in.

A WotLK legacy server would be the only thing that could get me to resub I think. It was wrath that got me into high level progression raiding and made I feel like a community. WoW started to die for me when they merged 10 and 25 man raids and the pug community and shortly after the whole community started to die

 

[Fimbulvetr3822]

They changed a lot in TBC, saying they didn't change much is a huge exaggeration. I don't look at Vanilla WoW like it's perfection, I know it wasn't that great, but I felt WoW peaked in TBC.

Wrath was fine, it was good, but for all those things you listed, there was also a whole lot of crap. You mention Ulduar (one of my favourite raids) and ICC (Overrated imo.. a lot of boring junk bosses and near-clone bosses in between a few gems) but Wrath also brought us Argent tourney.. and Naxx HD, both pretty awful raids, some of the worst ever.

The problem with Wrath for me is that Blizzard seemed to signal (with Wrath of the Lich King) that they were done with catering to the crowd that made the game so popular in the first place. I am not an elitist, I don't despise casual gamers, and I don't think that it's bad for WoW to be more inclusive, but Wrath was the slippery slope that lead to making a game almost purely for casual gamers in a bid to get more subscribers.

Subscribers peaked in Wrath of the Lich King, but if you follow the sub numbers quarter by quarter, the increase in subs was much slower than it was in TBC. TBC saw sharp increases every quarter, while wrath saw a sharp increase early on and really fizzled out, and overall Wrath gained less players from TBC than TBC gained from Vanilla. Subs did peak in Wrath but it remains to be seen whether those sub numbers would have been reached regardless of Wrath or not.

The problem with catering to a more casual crowd, and/or less experienced crowd is that, in general, they don't stick around as long as the dedicated MMO player that WoW used to be for. The casual crowd just move on to the next thing, or stop playing, or play so little that it doesn't sustain the game. You see it with every subsequent expansion, people flock in at launch and then they lose 2-4 million subs in a few months. This never happened in TBC, it kept growing, incredibly strong, throughout the entire expansion all the way until the end.

TBC had a good 7-8 million subs of mostly dedicated players and I always felt that Wrath marked the decision at Blizzard to go for pure subscription numbers over everything else, regardless of retention, or anything that may happen after they hit their next milestone.

I raided in a US (and briefly world) top 200 guild in TBC, Wrath, and Cataclysm, and while Ulduar is one of my favourite raids (Jeff Kaplan's last raid FYI.. and look what we got after he was moved to Titan), most of my favourite memories of raiding are from TBC, Wiping for weeks on Morogrim Tidewalker in SSC, TK and SSC were both amazing raids, Black Temple was amazing, Karazhan was stunning, I struggle to think back on any raid I didn't like in TBC, and none of them were as weak as some of the pathetic attempts in Wrath.

I liked Wrath, I loved TBC, and it will always be my belief that if Blizzard stayed on the same path as TBC the game would be far healthier today than it is.

I also just wanted to add that it wasn't like TBC was only for hardcore players, Blizzard took a number of steps to make it easier for the casual gamer, there were multitudes of casual raiding guilds, thousands of them. TBC had a good mix of elements for both the hardcore and casual crowd. Wrath tipped the game into casual's favour, and everything after that just made it worse and worse.

(P.S I know it seems like I'm really negative towards the casual gamer, but I am really not, I am mostly a casual gamer myself nowadays, I was just trying to get the point across that an MMO community is harder to sustain with a vast majority of it being casual gamers.)

See, that's the thing. You were in a top 200 raiding guild. The portion of the game that you experienced was only realistically accessible by about 0.05% of the playerbase. So while the game was all fine for you, it was pretty subpar for literally everyone else.

The game was just unforgiving enough that players couldn't get to high end content. At least from Wrath onwards, most players could actually raid.

And while Argent Tournament wasn't the best raid, the raid was more of an intermission before we got to Icecrown. Hell, the raid wasn't even the focal point of the patch. It also brought in mounted combat (a frequent request from fans), a dungeon, and a new daily questing area.

And Naxxramas wasn't a bad raid. It was yet another fan request. A lot of players constantly request for old raids to be updated, so they brought forward Naxxramas, Onyxia, and later on brought Molten Core. Sure, if you raided in vanilla, it was probably a disappointment, but the vast majority of vanilla players never hit end game, because it was literally THAT time consuming.

Wrath actually made the game accessible.

I couldn't agree more. I don't know about your server, but on mine as far as i can remember only 2 guilds were ever raiding Naxx at 60 beyond the first 2 or 3 bosses and until the wrath pre-patch only the top 3 guilds had even been inside Sunwell. TBC was great if you were top-end but for everyone else all it really did was raise the level cap and make most skill trees viable at end-game.

 

[shrekfan246]

You see it with every subsequent expansion, people flock in at launch and then they lose 2-4 million subs in a few months. This never happened in TBC, it kept growing, incredibly strong, throughout the entire expansion all the way until the end.

TBC had a good 7-8 million subs of mostly dedicated players and I always felt that Wrath marked the decision at Blizzard to go for pure subscription numbers over everything else, regardless of retention, or anything that may happen after they hit their next milestone.

(P.S I know it seems like I'm really negative towards the casual gamer, but I am really not, I am mostly a casual gamer myself nowadays, I was just trying to get the point across that an MMO community is harder to sustain with a vast majority of it being casual gamers.)

It's worth remembering that the market is very different now than it was nearly ten years ago when The Burning Crusade was new. We can theorize all we want about how people would come flying back to WoW in the millions for a proper legacy server, but the fact of the matter is that for every person who would there are probably ten who are completely burnt out on the game or MMOs in general or just simply don't have the free time anymore because, you know, they're ten years older now than they were back then. Quite frankly, as much as modern WoW might be bogged down by a lot of weird stuff, actually doing things back in TBC took forever, and that's a time investment a lot of people just don't have anymore. Blizzard started catering to the "casual" crowd because it was the only way the game was going to remain sustainable in a long-term sense; they were going to lose the "hardcore" players one way or the other eventually.

 

[MonsterCrit]

So I imagine you personally know more than Nostalrius and Blizzard about what assets have been maintained over the last decade, as well as the technical and financial hurdles in creating a Legacy server.

Well, let me ask you this... if these are such insurmountable challenges... how was Nostarilus and many other private sevrer runners.. able to do what they do. Seriously. Go play a few and you'll scarcely notice the difference between the blizzard servers and the private servers.

It's actually pretty sad. No matter what Blizzard, Nostalrius, or anyone else tells the mass playerbase, there're always fans frothing at the mouths, calling Blizzard greedy liers, and exclaiming about how they know more.

As said, go play on a private server sometime and you'll understand. I've been playing a Cata server for the last month and while it's not perfect, it is significantly capable. With the exception of some scripting most servers manage to have an 80% blizz-accurate experience. Hell, a few have even customized the game with custom classes and races. If they can do that with what they've been able to cobble together..Blizzard has no excuse.

They said that it was impossible to operate legacy servers... then explain Nostarilus, certainly did well enough to have a 150K people happily playing on it. What this is, is Blizzard trying to recover from the fact that their shut down of Nostarilus has ironcially brought the existence of these sorts of servers to light.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

I want many things too, blizzard. Like that super gaming computer.

But do I pay for it? End of story.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Also, Nostalrius employees were doing this as an unpaid hobby, paying out of pocket. You seriously can't expect Blizzard employees to do the same thing, on top of their current jobs.

And yet, they got it to work while doing their own jobs and familial obligations. STill not seeing the issue here.

No one is fucking lying to you. No one is trying to fool you in some big con. Both Nostalrius and Blizzard have stated the same thing. But you obviously don't believe either, since you evidently know better than both.

I believe what i see, what I see is many, many private servers being run by people out of pocket and intheir spare time without going into bankruptcy and more or less working blind.

You telling me Blizzard couldn't match that with even minimal effort?

They probably WILL create legacy servers at some point, but it'll be a pretty decent sized investment, taking quite a bit a money. They need employees, hardware, utilities, software, servers, etc. Until then stop pretending that you have the slightest amount of knowledge on the subject, because the fact of the matter is..

The hardware can't be that hard, because again, lots of these servers exist and are able to operate on a free to play basis. And rather that say trying to you know, work with the server runners they decide to take a hammer to them.

It's actually pretty sad. No matter what Blizzard, Nostalrius, or anyone else tells the mass playerbase, there're always fans frothing at the mouths, calling Blizzard greedy liars, and exclaiming about how they know more.

Blizzard are Greedy liars; they've proven the greedy part time and time again, and more thatn a few times, they've issued statements, like this one, that don't hold up to observation or scrutiny. They've basically done the equivalent of saying 'Bumblebess should not be able to fly'. But they obviously are. They say Legacy can't be done, but it *is*, and quite successfully, so either Blizzard is lying to deflect the questions of why they don't or they didn't know what they were saying and should perhaps look at how these many servers are able to operate and do what they claim to be impossible.

But of course they do not want to, it's much, easier to make half-assed excuses and ask people to fork over money for their latest pile.

You have your beliefs, I have mine, but I've spent the last month leveling on a cata server and I really, really can't see how Blizzard is unable to match what these people are doing. Try a couple and see for yourself.

 

[anthony87]

Blizzard are Greedy liars

I know right? How dare they not take the time, money, resources and manpower away from the MMO they're currently working on to have them work on an older version of the game that would in no way draw in the kind of numbers to justify the cost of doing so.

The bastards.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Blizzard are Greedy liars

I know right? How dare they not take the time, money, resources and manpower away from the MMO they're currently working on to have them work on an older version of the game that would in no way draw in the kind of numbers to justify the cost of doing so.

The bastards.

More like how dare they prevent me from playing the game i actually purchased.. If I wanted to see pandas running around, I'd have bought MoP. If I wanted baby's first skill system. I'd have Bought WoD. I didn't buy any of those. Ah well, I suspect Legion will be the last Expack they actually do. If it follows recent trends then there will be a brief spike in the player base six months later they will be experiencing what amounts to a net player loss. The subs have already reached a point where Blizz doesn't want to talk about them anymore.

 

[shrekfan246]

The hardware can't be that hard, because again, lots of these servers exist and are able to operate on a free to play basis. And rather that say trying to you know, work with the server runners they decide to take a hammer to them.

These servers are using the files from old versions of the game. In order to do what you appear to be asking, Blizzard would need to keep copies of every version of every expansion so that they could be distributed to people who only want to play a specific one (disregarding the fact that Battle.net itself has changed wildly over the years and older versions of WoW likely aren't even compatible with it anymore). If you don't see why that's a difficult/costly undertaking, then...

Online games change. They move forward. That's... kind of the thing you agree to when you sign up?

 

[MonsterCrit]

Well, let's just go over all of the stuff you decided to either omit, or you just outright missed the point of.

-Literally no one aside from clueless fans has ever said it's an easy task to do. And Nostalrius weren't pioneers with legacy servers, they just had the most popular one.

-Also, Nostalrius employees were doing this as an unpaid hobby, paying out of pocket. You seriously can't expect Blizzard employees to do the same thing, on top of their current jobs. (psst. this means that Blizzard has to hire NEW EMPLOYEES, they cost like.. $40k a year, each, at least.)

Did I ever say it was easy? Nope, just said it could be done.

-Something being a hobby does not equate to it being an easy task. It simply means that you're not paid for doing the task, which is what Nostalrius were doing. Blizzard are legally obligated to pay their employees. Their employees have no legal obligation to take this up as a hobby.

-I don't want to quote Synigma again, but refer back to their comment, considering that you conveniently pretended that it doesn't exist.

-When I stated hardware, I'm referring to the cost of buying proper servers, the cost of new PCs required for employees, proper equipment, etc. Besides, literally no one has said that it's cheap. You just assumed that it's cheap

I never said it was cheap, I just said it could be done on the cheap. Luv, you gotta stop putting words into other peoples mouths, , at least until you get the foot out of your own.

Let's be honest here. All of your ramblings are based on assumptions. Because, no matter what Blizzard, Nostalrius, or anyone else tells the mass playerbase, there're always fans frothing at the mouths, calling Blizzard greedy liars, and exclaiming about how they know more.

My point is based off the fact that many servers are doing what Blizzard states can't be done. So obviously something is not adding up. What you and the other kissers are also overlooking is that just about every other game company knows how to address that issue...make the server software available for use by those who want to take the time and money to set stuff up.

I mean honestly. It's not that Blizzard can't do it. It is that they do not want to do it. They do not see the value in doing it, but they certainly perceive those that do as enough of a threat to shut them down. Easier to destroy than make as they say. But I have said my piece. You should probably check out some of those private servers that are managing to do what Blizzard don't. I did and I can happily say Blizzard, can suck it.

 

[anthony87]

My point is based off the fact that many servers are doing what Blizzard states can't be done.

Are they though? To quote youself in this very thread:

Go play a few and you'll scarcely notice the difference between the blizzard servers and the private servers.

So there is a difference then?

I've been playing a Cata server for the last month and while it's not perfect, it is significantly capable. With the exception of some scripting most servers manage to have an 80% blizz-accurate experience.

I'd much rather have no exceptions and a 100% experience please and thank you.

Now what you and other pirates are doing - and make no mistake, you're endorsing video game piracy here - is ignoring the facts and logistics at hand so that you can continue to stick your fingers in your ears and go "Nuh uh! Blizzard are just big meanies!"

 

[MonsterCrit]

My point is based off the fact that many servers are doing what Blizzard states can't be done.

Are they though? To quote youself in this very thread:

Go play a few and you'll scarcely notice the difference between the blizzard servers and the private servers.

So there is a difference then?

I've been playing a Cata server for the last month and while it's not perfect, it is significantly capable. With the exception of some scripting most servers manage to have an 80% blizz-accurate experience.

I'd much rather have no exceptions and a 100% experience please and thank you.

Now what you and other pirates are doing - and make no mistake, you're endorsing video game piracy here - is ignoring the facts and logistics at hand so that you can continue to stick your fingers in your ears and go "Nuh uh! Blizzard are just big meanies!"

I can only speak about the server I play on, not all the serves are the same. Some don't even try to be Blizzlike, many actually attempt things differently, custom races, classes, quests, events, and the like.

Also this is not piracy, piracy is when you steal. I purchased Cata and now thanks to these servers I can Play cata again, or Vanilla or TBC, or WotLK whenever I damned well want. It's no more piracy than a group of fans running servers for a game long after the devs have shut down their own servers.

As said, there are differences, but sthus far, none of those differences have caused an interruption in gameplay. The biggest real difference is really just the player base size and for me that's not an issue, I have little problem getting into instances or raid, when I want to and the community is actually considerably less toxic than I found on the real Blizzard servers.

But hey, you can continue to shell out a monthly fee to Blizzacti and i will continue to enjoy the WOW I purchased, while spending what I might have spent on a Blizzard Legacy server if it existed... on STeam and Gog... which is having a nifty summer sale right now.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Spoiler

Well, let's just go over all of the stuff you decided to either omit, or you just outright missed the point of.

-Literally no one aside from clueless fans has ever said it's an easy task to do. And Nostalrius weren't pioneers with legacy servers, they just had the most popular one.

-Also, Nostalrius employees were doing this as an unpaid hobby, paying out of pocket. You seriously can't expect Blizzard employees to do the same thing, on top of their current jobs. (psst. this means that Blizzard has to hire NEW EMPLOYEES, they cost like.. $40k a year, each, at least.)

Did I ever say it was easy? Nope, just said it could be done.

-Something being a hobby does not equate to it being an easy task. It simply means that you're not paid for doing the task, which is what Nostalrius were doing. Blizzard are legally obligated to pay their employees. Their employees have no legal obligation to take this up as a hobby.

-I don't want to quote Synigma again, but refer back to their comment, considering that you conveniently pretended that it doesn't exist.

-When I stated hardware, I'm referring to the cost of buying proper servers, the cost of new PCs required for employees, proper equipment, etc. Besides, literally no one has said that it's cheap. You just assumed that it's cheap

I never said it was cheap, I just said it could be done on the cheap. Luv, you gotta stop putting words into other peoples mouths, , at least until you get the foot out of your own.

Let's be honest here. All of your ramblings are based on assumptions. Because, no matter what Blizzard, Nostalrius, or anyone else tells the mass playerbase, there're always fans frothing at the mouths, calling Blizzard greedy liars, and exclaiming about how they know more.

My point is based off the fact that many servers are doing what Blizzard states can't be done. So obviously something is not adding up. What you and the other kissers are also overlooking is that just about every other game company knows how to address that issue...make the server software available for use by those who want to take the time and money to set stuff up.

I mean honestly. It's not that Blizzard can't do it. It is that they do not want to do it. They do not see the value in doing it, but they certainly perceive those that do as enough of a threat to shut them down. Easier to destroy than make as they say. But I have said my piece. You should probably check out some of those private servers that are managing to do what Blizzard don't. I did and I can happily say Blizzard, can suck it.

Ok. Your strawman argument is that Blizzard don't want Legacy servers, which is evidently why they're considering them, and why they're talking with Nostalrius. They just haven't created private servers yet. It takes time, money and resources.

You think that it's easy and cheap, but it's not. I'm ending this here. Just refer back to my previous points as to why you're wrong.

Again, when did I say it was either easy or cheap, please do tell. I just said it was possible and could be done on the cheap. If they wanted to. See that's the thing. MAybe they will, and come that day I will take a hearty bite of crow sandwich. But so far, My estimations of Blizzard's actions and motivations have yet to be wrong.

You may just be the kind of person that will accept any PR dribble that comes out of a company. Anyone who has a concept of PR knows exactly what Blizzard is doing here and knows that they really have no true intention of doing it. We'd love to do it but our hands are just so tied' puh-lease.

But as said, y'all can keep paying Blizzard for the WoW *they* want you to play while I will keep playing the WoW *I* want to play on the cheap.

 

[anthony87]

My point is based off the fact that many servers are doing what Blizzard states can't be done.

Are they though? To quote youself in this very thread:

Go play a few and you'll scarcely notice the difference between the blizzard servers and the private servers.

So there is a difference then?

I've been playing a Cata server for the last month and while it's not perfect, it is significantly capable. With the exception of some scripting most servers manage to have an 80% blizz-accurate experience.

I'd much rather have no exceptions and a 100% experience please and thank you.

Now what you and other pirates are doing - and make no mistake, you're endorsing video game piracy here - is ignoring the facts and logistics at hand so that you can continue to stick your fingers in your ears and go "Nuh uh! Blizzard are just big meanies!"

I can only speak about the server I play on, not all the serves are the same. Some don't even try to be Blizzlike, many actually attempt things differently, custom races, classes, quests, events, and the like.

Also this is not piracy, piracy is when you steal. I purchased Cata and now thanks to these servers I can Play cata again, or Vanilla or TBC, or WotLK whenever I damned well want. It's no more piracy than a group of fans running servers for a game long after the devs have shut down their own servers.

As said, there are differences, but sthus far, none of those differences have caused an interruption in gameplay. The biggest real difference is really just the player base size and for me that's not an issue, I have little problem getting into instances or raid, when I want to and the community is actually considerably less toxic than I found on the real Blizzard servers.

But hey, you can continue to shell out a monthly fee to Blizzacti and i will continue to enjoy the WOW I purchased, while spending what I might have spent on a Blizzard Legacy server if it existed... on STeam and Gog... which is having a nifty summer sale right now.

You're playing a subscription based game without paying for it. That's piracy.

You win gold in the mental gymnastics or something?