This is why i stopped why, because each expansion they drastically changed the game and i had to start loving the game all over again. The way they increased stats each expansion aswell.. no logic.
Imo they are suffering population loss and decided to take down the biggest private server out there in an attempt to bring people to retail. They never before cared about Pirate servers and it's not like they didnt knew. I mean they would send threats as far as i remember to Molten and other big servers, why go to cort now and not back then.
I really wish Legion is the last expansion and they start working on making new MMORPG which i'm sure will be as legendary as World of Warcraft was/is.
Blizzard has every right to do what they are doing. But is that in their best interest to do so? They could open up Legacy servers and increase their subscriptions. What's the downside? Depending on popularity between legacy and retail, it could literally be the demise of retail WoW, by their own hand.......Although, that's looking rather inevitable now.
Blizzard has every right to do what they are doing. But is that in their best interest to do so? They could open up Legacy servers and increase their subscriptions. What's the downside? Depending on popularity between legacy and retail, it could literally be the demise of retail WoW, by their own hand.......Although, that's looking rather inevitable now.
I can almost guarantee that people would not play legacy servers for long. What is appealing to most who play on them is the fact that they are free. Private servers aren't going to go away even if Blizzard opens up legacy servers (which they have said no to for over a decade). Short term profit isn't enough for them as I am pretty sure they've done the longitudinal research indicating it's not financially feasible.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Blizzard has every right to do what they are doing. But is that in their best interest to do so? They could open up Legacy servers and increase their subscriptions. What's the downside? Depending on popularity between legacy and retail, it could literally be the demise of retail WoW, by their own hand.......Although, that's looking rather inevitable now.
I can almost guarantee that people would not play legacy servers for long. What is appealing to most who play on them is the fact that they are free. Private servers aren't going to go away even if Blizzard opens up legacy servers (which they have said no to for over a decade). Short term profit isn't enough for them as I am pretty sure they've done the longitudinal research indicating it's not financially feasible.
If you think that their appeal is purely due to cost, you obviously never played during vanilla.
My Sister-in-law only started playing WoW during MoP and she's always wondered what WoW was like at release and wished she could have played the game then. Her experience leveling from 1-90 was done in a matter of a few weeks because literally all of the original content was pruned to death just to get her to max level in the shortest period of time possible. She was not looking to raid with her friends, she was looking to play a game first, then possibly move on to raiding later. Today's incarnation of WoW is all about end game at the expense of everything else.
People who play vanilla WoW, do so because they miss the old content... they miss the danger of being a low level trying to navigate the continents to meet up with friends... they miss the epic battles of Alterac Valley... they miss the grand events like the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj... they miss the OWPVP that happened at the meeting stones... they miss a hell of a lot.
And as for it being short term nostalgia... no more short term than retail WoW if you ask me... only with vanilla, you're going to be playing longer than 2 weeks, unlike retail these days.
To be quite honest, having servers that run the content as it was released in addition to what it has become would have been a true gold mine for Blizzard. People DO PLAY old games... a lot in fact. But you can't play an old game if it has been morphed into something else. THAT IS WHERE BLIZZARD really screwed up. And Blizzard had screwed up a lot. It's really evident now that their flagship property only holds peoples attention for the time it takes to get to max level these days... which they've turned into a one-click and done operation to boot.
I am also willing to pay but you Dan and I and people like us who will pay are a minority. That is the reason they will not offer it. if we represented a lucrative market they would do it in a heartbeat. It's pipe dreams to think we represent a significant portion of the market.
I dont think we are in the minority, but we are not the majority either. We are a sector of the market is what I am saying. Is it lucrative and going to bring their stock up $10 per, Hell no. Is there at least a handful of servers plus maintenance worth of income for them. Yes.
The PROBLEM again is they are putting Stockholders first Customers last. If Blizzard was a privately held company today they would go after this sector because they will not be looking to make 30%+ margin on this market. They might make between 10% to 20%. Hell I bet they could make more by asking community members to become part time Blizzard employees. For example I am an IT guy, yes I am a windows guy and they likely build WOW On UNIX. But if WOW was on windows and they needed me to come in for 10 hours a year and gave me 2 months free access I would do it. I wouldnt doubt there are some Developers out there that might do the same.
You paint a nice picture of a "couple of servers" but that doesn't take into account the resources used and the return vs resources/return in another area. Suppose you get X back on nostalgia server and X+20% using those resources on a current product or X+40% on a new project?
Someone might suggest it would be "nice" to have the vanilla for the "fans" but you can't pay employees, taxes and other expenses with nice. Money does a great job of that and maximizing it makes sense.
Dude I am a Sr. Systems Engineer at a publishing company. I been in IT for years. I know EXACTLY what I speak of for Systems and Development. I have 13 years experience. It is not that dam hard to manage a few servers in today's day in age if you are getting the right amount of revenue and pay for developers. The Core problem Blizzard has is they think they need on going development to create new content for Vanilla/TBC servers. They dont they just need developers to fix bugs and to fix problems with the servers which is basically maintaining a legacy application which I hate to tell you I maintain over 100 legacy applications.
Well Everquest servers that used their vanilla version were packed initially and then they dwindle over time. If this type of servers were able to make a lot of money for Blizzard they would do it. They are in a better position from their own studies of the market and yet they do not offer it. Perhaps they do have an insight on how these populations do not last after the first few months.
I think companies are better suited to know their market then players who only see things from their perspective.
I also agree with your idea that a lot of players would not pay to play vanilla. They play on these servers because it's free. They may not even prefer vanilla, but they play there because they can get a decent enough experience without having to fork over cash.
The lack of overwhelming success for the EQ TLP and EQ2 TLE servers should be noted. There wasn't a mass conversion from p99 over to EQ TLP. A lot of TLP and TLE players were already All Access members with characters on Live. So all that accomplished was fracturing the community and increasing resource load.
I have to disagree with you here, Torval. There are far too many good F2P or B2P MMORPGs to think these people go through the trouble and risk of a private server just to play for free.
And DBG's bonehead move wasn't that they embraced the classic idea, but that they didn't just co-opt P99 as an official server. Maybe they just didn't reach an acceptable agreement with the P99 team, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that folks who had invested time in P99 weren't gonna drop everything to come to an official classic server without some kind of additional incentive. It wouldn't make any sense on the player's part.
God another post like this? You people think these people are playing on free private WOW servers to play for free? NO THEY ARE NOT! They want the Vanilla WOW periods Period. They are not playing for free. If they were playing for free why wouldnt they get all the gold they can handle in the current version and buy the tokens to play for free? Answer? They want vanilla that is the only reason.
I would bet if you wanted a Vanilla server they would want more commitment from people than a monthly sub for its development and upkeep. What if they wanted a year sub that is $180?
Again I am willing to pay $20 to $30 a month for a Vanilla\TBC Sub As long as I could do both times Vanilla and TBC servers and no cash shop. The only other catch is making sure they do fix bugs and keep it up dated. I am fine with paying a sub. Right now I am paying one for myself in FFXIV and my wife is paying for her FFXIV sub. Now if they put a cash shop in I would had a problem with a more expensive sub, well outside of the Charity Mounts deal, if they want to add in the $20 mount where $19 go to cancer research or something I am cool with that.
your 40 or 60 for 2 months of nostalgia does not a server deserve.
Sorry but I would likely be playing for a few years. I been playing FFXIV again Since Dec 2014 because its a hell of a lot better game than WOW is today. Wrong again. You are just throwing darts at a dart board because you THINK you know something, I am telling you I know because I truly do. I been playing MMOs for a long time, I made many friends over the years, still talk to many a few times a year, I understand why they liked Vanilla TBC WOW so much even if somethings would need to change today. I spent so many hours on forums and talking to people there, I talk to people who dont talk on the forums. You are listening to a business who puts stockholders before the customer. That's bad business and which is what is wrong with our economy.
then fork over the years sub to show loyalty to the product....
What is wrong with our economy is that people want everything for free not understanding the cost that goes into making, sustaining, or employing people.
Blizzard already got their money from the game. I would not call $49.99 or what ever vanilla used to cost for the initial game, when it first came out, free. Blizzard said they were not going to release a vanilla server so the private servers took over where Blizzard refused to. The private servers have proven that people were willing to play old content and people have donated to those servers for upkeep and running costs. There is a community that does want vanilla content not the updated garbage Blizzard has given us. They are the ones who dropped the ball not us.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
Blizzard has every right to do what they are doing. But is that in their best interest to do so? They could open up Legacy servers and increase their subscriptions. What's the downside? Depending on popularity between legacy and retail, it could literally be the demise of retail WoW, by their own hand.......Although, that's looking rather inevitable now.
I can almost guarantee that people would not play legacy servers for long. What is appealing to most who play on them is the fact that they are free. Private servers aren't going to go away even if Blizzard opens up legacy servers (which they have said no to for over a decade). Short term profit isn't enough for them as I am pretty sure they've done the longitudinal research indicating it's not financially feasible.
How do you know that people will not play on these servers for long? You are only going on what the market is doing now with a dozen WOW clones are doing which are very shallow in the experience. So no people dont play most MMOs now for more than a few months. Vanilla WOW and TBC People played nearly the entire time. The Only time that people stopped playing after a few months started during WOTLK because that is where WOW became a shallow experience.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Again I would and so many others would too as long as the developers take care of fixing bugs and keep the servers running which I hate to say it is not hard to do.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
Yea its not my idea - some other poster asked me this question and I answered truthfully.
I do not think that is the best way to go about it either, but truthfully paying 180 upfront would be the best value I could get: I know I would finally be getting a quality game for my money.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
Yea its not my idea - some other poster asked me this question and I answered truthfully.
I do not think that is the best way to go about it either, but truthfully paying 180 upfront would be the best value I could get: I know I would finally be getting a quality game for my money.
Most definitely, I think most people who realize they cant get the experience anywhere else would give it at least a shot.
I just look to RS to see how they os and classic servers are doing, Deadman and ironman modes seem to be very popular, a variant in WoW I think could breath new life into the game that a lot of people thought it lost.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
Zarriya's response is to Horusra's comment about would you pay $180 upfront for the server. Horusra keeps saying that people are ONLY playing vanilla WOW because they dont want to play Blizzard. Yet Horusra does not realize that there are current version WOW servers that are out there that very few people play on for free vs Vanilla WOW is overloaded. Add to that people can play WOW Clones for Free and can play WOW for Free by making a ton of gold and buying tokens. He has this set in his mind that the majority of these players on a private vanilla WOW servers want WOW for Free.
The fact is people like me would play vanilla WOW again, Well I would prefer TBC honestly but anyway would be willing to pay for an OFFICIAL WOW Classic server.
I also believe another solution would be for Blizzard to license private vanilla servers. Maybe be payed some kind of a royalty and have ground rules that must be followed.
edit: I absolutely believe that Blizzard should offer some way for people to play the product that they payed Blizzard for.
Todays WoW is nothing like the product I purchased back in 2004
Can't really do this, because it opens the door to entirely too much culpability, without the benefit of oversight. If something "bad" (stalking, abduction, any illicit trade communique) happens on "licensed 3rd party servers", Blizzard is still responsible, to a very real degree, what occurs there. Think of it as a restaurant corporation being responsible for behavior and quality at franchises. To make it all worth it, a private server would have to agree to this type corporate oversight, and well, since it's not really someone's time and money investment into a "brick and mortar distributorship", it might as well just be a Blizzard server by that point.
This shows how much desire there is to play vanilla WoW.
Not really. Private servers dont have enough player capacity to maintain a paid service running. Meaning, WoW has millions of paying players whilea private server has like 1k-5k free people? If Official WoW had that many people (even paying) it would shutdown so fast we never see it coming.
What this(private servers of existing games) does show is that a number of people dont want to pay for games.
actually, the people playing on the server would gladly pay blizzard to play on a vanilla server. Blizzard not making vanilla servers to capitalize on these people, sends them looking elsewhere. Easy fix. Give servers. Profit. Profit may not be that much, but hell it will save them the legal fees of all the Cease and desist orders they have to put out to shut these servers down.
I have to respond, since this is being re-quoted so much. The people on those servers are playing because they want classic wow. They would much much rather pay blizzard and be able to play on a stable server. The reason some of these servers are free are to prevent a criminal lawsuit. If those players wanted to play WoW for free there are other private servers that have all the expansions and if they just wanted free WoW they would not be on a classic WoW server.
Well Everquest servers that used their vanilla version were packed initially and then they dwindle over time. If this type of servers were able to make a lot of money for Blizzard they would do it. They are in a better position from their own studies of the market and yet they do not offer it. Perhaps they do have an insight on how these populations do not last after the first few months.
I think companies are better suited to know their market then players who only see things from their perspective.
I also agree with your idea that a lot of players would not pay to play vanilla. They play on these servers because it's free. They may not even prefer vanilla, but they play there because they can get a decent enough experience without having to fork over cash.
The lack of overwhelming success for the EQ TLP and EQ2 TLE servers should be noted. There wasn't a mass conversion from p99 over to EQ TLP. A lot of TLP and TLE players were already All Access members with characters on Live. So all that accomplished was fracturing the community and increasing resource load.
I have to disagree with you here, Torval. There are far too many good F2P or B2P MMORPGs to think these people go through the trouble and risk of a private server just to play for free.
And DBG's bonehead move wasn't that they embraced the classic idea, but that they didn't just co-opt P99 as an official server. Maybe they just didn't reach an acceptable agreement with the P99 team, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that folks who had invested time in P99 weren't gonna drop everything to come to an official classic server without some kind of additional incentive. It wouldn't make any sense on the player's part.
God another post like this? You people think these people are playing on free private WOW servers to play for free? NO THEY ARE NOT! They want the Vanilla WOW periods Period. They are not playing for free. If they were playing for free why wouldnt they get all the gold they can handle in the current version and buy the tokens to play for free? Answer? They want vanilla that is the only reason.
Again this is your opinion. Stop talking like it is fact.
Well Everquest servers that used their vanilla version were packed initially and then they dwindle over time. If this type of servers were able to make a lot of money for Blizzard they would do it. They are in a better position from their own studies of the market and yet they do not offer it. Perhaps they do have an insight on how these populations do not last after the first few months.
I think companies are better suited to know their market then players who only see things from their perspective.
I also agree with your idea that a lot of players would not pay to play vanilla. They play on these servers because it's free. They may not even prefer vanilla, but they play there because they can get a decent enough experience without having to fork over cash.
The lack of overwhelming success for the EQ TLP and EQ2 TLE servers should be noted. There wasn't a mass conversion from p99 over to EQ TLP. A lot of TLP and TLE players were already All Access members with characters on Live. So all that accomplished was fracturing the community and increasing resource load.
I have to disagree with you here, Torval. There are far too many good F2P or B2P MMORPGs to think these people go through the trouble and risk of a private server just to play for free.
And DBG's bonehead move wasn't that they embraced the classic idea, but that they didn't just co-opt P99 as an official server. Maybe they just didn't reach an acceptable agreement with the P99 team, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that folks who had invested time in P99 weren't gonna drop everything to come to an official classic server without some kind of additional incentive. It wouldn't make any sense on the player's part.
God another post like this? You people think these people are playing on free private WOW servers to play for free? NO THEY ARE NOT! They want the Vanilla WOW periods Period. They are not playing for free. If they were playing for free why wouldnt they get all the gold they can handle in the current version and buy the tokens to play for free? Answer? They want vanilla that is the only reason.
Again this is your opinion. Stop talking like it is fact.
His reasoning does make more sense tho. There are private servers with different expansions etc. they chose a classic one that was garnering a following. There is a demand for classic WoW if you couldnt tell that years ago your just not paying attention.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
the problem is EQ's legacy servers that people played for 2 months and left. then the few that stay want the holiday events. How long till people just leave cause the content is not moving forward. How long can people play the same things over and over? The supposed thousands that would play, I would bet many do not want just Vanilla. They want a return to Vanilla mechanics going forward. That is not going to happen. Why open that can of worms?
Well Everquest servers that used their vanilla version were packed initially and then they dwindle over time. If this type of servers were able to make a lot of money for Blizzard they would do it. They are in a better position from their own studies of the market and yet they do not offer it. Perhaps they do have an insight on how these populations do not last after the first few months.
I think companies are better suited to know their market then players who only see things from their perspective.
I also agree with your idea that a lot of players would not pay to play vanilla. They play on these servers because it's free. They may not even prefer vanilla, but they play there because they can get a decent enough experience without having to fork over cash.
The lack of overwhelming success for the EQ TLP and EQ2 TLE servers should be noted. There wasn't a mass conversion from p99 over to EQ TLP. A lot of TLP and TLE players were already All Access members with characters on Live. So all that accomplished was fracturing the community and increasing resource load.
I have to disagree with you here, Torval. There are far too many good F2P or B2P MMORPGs to think these people go through the trouble and risk of a private server just to play for free.
And DBG's bonehead move wasn't that they embraced the classic idea, but that they didn't just co-opt P99 as an official server. Maybe they just didn't reach an acceptable agreement with the P99 team, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that folks who had invested time in P99 weren't gonna drop everything to come to an official classic server without some kind of additional incentive. It wouldn't make any sense on the player's part.
God another post like this? You people think these people are playing on free private WOW servers to play for free? NO THEY ARE NOT! They want the Vanilla WOW periods Period. They are not playing for free. If they were playing for free why wouldnt they get all the gold they can handle in the current version and buy the tokens to play for free? Answer? They want vanilla that is the only reason.
Again this is your opinion. Stop talking like it is fact.
His reasoning does make more sense tho. There are private servers with different expansions etc. they chose a classic one that was garnering a following. There is a demand for classic WoW if you couldnt tell that years ago your just not paying attention.
The question is not the demand. The question is their dedication to actually paying for it longer than a 6 months here and there a year. When you show me one that is P2P and has a following I then it would be more than opinion, but he has not fact that people would pay for "years" like some here have said they would.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
the problem is EQ's legacy servers that people played for 2 months and left. then the few that stay want the holiday events. How long till people just leave cause the content is not moving forward. How long can people play the same things over and over? The supposed thousands that would play, I would bet many do not want just Vanilla. They want a return to Vanilla mechanics going forward. That is not going to happen. Why open that can of worms?
The problem (at least for me) with EQ/EQ2 legacy servers are that they do not reflect what EQ was back at launch. I played on a TLP server, but quit because I did not really get the feeling that I was playing classic EQ. Project 1999 does accomplish that. Nostralius was a server that was very close to classic wow. I would like to play on a server that is classic WoW then maybe Burning Crusade server- that's all it would take to keep me logged in daily for at least two years, which is more than I could speak to most current games and their expansions.
I personally would pay extra for a legacy server and would play it and the live version for a long time (played wow since vanilla). Look how long Project 1999 has existed there are people there that have played years. A lot of people play WoW in waves (every time there is an expansion they come for a short while) Vanilla WoW took a long time to play and accomplish goals - that there would probably give more longevity to the game than any recent expansion.
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
Yes I would also pay more :P
When did this come up? why would they make you pay $180 just to dust offf some old servers and tweak them a bit? To let them know theres a demand? There are better ways.
the problem is EQ's legacy servers that people played for 2 months and left. then the few that stay want the holiday events. How long till people just leave cause the content is not moving forward. How long can people play the same things over and over? The supposed thousands that would play, I would bet many do not want just Vanilla. They want a return to Vanilla mechanics going forward. That is not going to happen. Why open that can of worms?
There are other factors at play here, though. DoF and KoS were never, really, popular expacs. EoF was more popular and, knowing this, there might likely be a resurgence in TLE population soon. It probably won't last a really long time, few months, but it is what it is, too, a nostalgia experience.
I'm sure I'm going to stick with my earlier opinion, I would pay to play on a WoW vanilla server for a few months and I think many other people would, too. Not... years... but for a time I think I'd really have fun in it.
edit: I was focused on EQ2 TLE. EQ1 TLE might be another matter.
Comments
Imo they are suffering population loss and decided to take down the biggest private server out there in an attempt to bring people to retail. They never before cared about Pirate servers and it's not like they didnt knew. I mean they would send threats as far as i remember to Molten and other big servers, why go to cort now and not back then.
I really wish Legion is the last expansion and they start working on making new MMORPG which i'm sure will be as legendary as World of Warcraft was/is.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As stated to others would you pay $180 for a year sub upfront?
My Sister-in-law only started playing WoW during MoP and she's always wondered what WoW was like at release and wished she could have played the game then. Her experience leveling from 1-90 was done in a matter of a few weeks because literally all of the original content was pruned to death just to get her to max level in the shortest period of time possible. She was not looking to raid with her friends, she was looking to play a game first, then possibly move on to raiding later. Today's incarnation of WoW is all about end game at the expense of everything else.
People who play vanilla WoW, do so because they miss the old content... they miss the danger of being a low level trying to navigate the continents to meet up with friends... they miss the epic battles of Alterac Valley... they miss the grand events like the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj... they miss the OWPVP that happened at the meeting stones... they miss a hell of a lot.
And as for it being short term nostalgia... no more short term than retail WoW if you ask me... only with vanilla, you're going to be playing longer than 2 weeks, unlike retail these days.
To be quite honest, having servers that run the content as it was released in addition to what it has become would have been a true gold mine for Blizzard. People DO PLAY old games... a lot in fact. But you can't play an old game if it has been morphed into something else. THAT IS WHERE BLIZZARD really screwed up. And Blizzard had screwed up a lot. It's really evident now that their flagship property only holds peoples attention for the time it takes to get to max level these days... which they've turned into a one-click and done operation to boot.
God another post like this? You people think these people are playing on free private WOW servers to play for free? NO THEY ARE NOT! They want the Vanilla WOW periods Period. They are not playing for free. If they were playing for free why wouldnt they get all the gold they can handle in the current version and buy the tokens to play for free? Answer? They want vanilla that is the only reason.
They can even mess with loot tables /death penalties etc. to make it interesting trust me I would be all over it.
How do you know that people will not play on these servers for long? You are only going on what the market is doing now with a dozen WOW clones are doing which are very shallow in the experience. So no people dont play most MMOs now for more than a few months. Vanilla WOW and TBC People played nearly the entire time. The Only time that people stopped playing after a few months started during WOTLK because that is where WOW became a shallow experience.
I do not think that is the best way to go about it either, but truthfully paying 180 upfront would be the best value I could get: I know I would finally be getting a quality game for my money.
I just look to RS to see how they os and classic servers are doing, Deadman and ironman modes seem to be very popular, a variant in WoW I think could breath new life into the game that a lot of people thought it lost.
@Shrilly ;
Zarriya's response is to Horusra's comment about would you pay $180 upfront for the server. Horusra keeps saying that people are ONLY playing vanilla WOW because they dont want to play Blizzard. Yet Horusra does not realize that there are current version WOW servers that are out there that very few people play on for free vs Vanilla WOW is overloaded. Add to that people can play WOW Clones for Free and can play WOW for Free by making a ton of gold and buying tokens. He has this set in his mind that the majority of these players on a private vanilla WOW servers want WOW for Free.
The fact is people like me would play vanilla WOW again, Well I would prefer TBC honestly but anyway would be willing to pay for an OFFICIAL WOW Classic server.
Again this is your opinion. Stop talking like it is fact.
the problem is EQ's legacy servers that people played for 2 months and left. then the few that stay want the holiday events. How long till people just leave cause the content is not moving forward. How long can people play the same things over and over? The supposed thousands that would play, I would bet many do not want just Vanilla. They want a return to Vanilla mechanics going forward. That is not going to happen. Why open that can of worms?
The question is not the demand. The question is their dedication to actually paying for it longer than a 6 months here and there a year. When you show me one that is P2P and has a following I then it would be more than opinion, but he has not fact that people would pay for "years" like some here have said they would.
I'm sure I'm going to stick with my earlier opinion, I would pay to play on a WoW vanilla server for a few months and I think many other people would, too. Not... years... but for a time I think I'd really have fun in it.
edit: I was focused on EQ2 TLE. EQ1 TLE might be another matter.