people you forgot 1 moment Nostalrius was F2P I doubt Official servers will be successful
yupp. If Blizz opens a vanilla server we can see a few dozens subscribing. Everyone else in nostalrius wanted WoW for free. Then vanilla closing down after confirming its not worth the hassle. My opinion.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
"Everquest's potential is spent, and at this point, I'm sure they're grateful for every customer they still have. But the same can't be said for World of Warcraft."
/disagree
All decade-old titles seem to share similar attributes; primarily "our best days are behind us" and the long, slow slide into irrelevance.
Legacy Server adoption is a signpost that irrelevance has arrived. Blizzard must soldier on, to milk whatever remains for as long as possible.
Corporations typically don't consult consumers about such decisions.
From a corporate or business standpoint, you're right.
However, Blizzard is an exception. They had the right thing at the right time. A phenomenon. To be blunt, they were extremely lucky. They seem to think they can do no wrong, even to the point that they are willing to tell people to their face that they don't want what they think they want. That pride and arrogance will be their death.
They need to realize this and get over themselves; To realize that their popularity was not a product of their amazing MMO making skills, and that their impending failure is not just because "the game is old" as people like to claim. The game was simply better when it first arrived, and once they reached critical mass, they could do no wrong.
Now their playerbase is dropping like a rock (I'd guess its down to 3M or less), they need to throw water on their face and come back to reality. They don't have the mass necessary to continue that viral level of success that they once had. They are going to have to return to the drawing board and figure out what made their game good to begin with. That means they either need to change the direction of their game or start offering the version of the game that made them what they are.
Wow is not a game that had 500,000 players at is peak it's a game that had 12,000,000 at its peak. IMHO having legacy servers for all Xpacs would be profitable. Maybe not profitable enough for a multi billion dollar Corp to bother with, but profitable none the less. I'd put money on that any legacy Xpac population would be larger than most other MMORPG's
They would need to double if not triple the number of programmers to maintain the code and expand their support staff to be able to offer at least some form of support (not to mention the increased workload of the CSR´s having to remember the ins and outs of 6 different games rather than one.
And no one sees that as a a problem? That a game with 5 expansions equals 6 different games.
And expansion, by the very definition of the word, should expand on what is already there, it shouldn't totally change it into a different game...
"Everquest's potential is spent, and at this point, I'm sure they're grateful for every customer they still have. But the same can't be said for World of Warcraft."
/disagree
All decade-old titles seem to share similar attributes; primarily "our best days are behind us" and the long, slow slide into irrelevance.
Legacy Server adoption is a signpost that irrelevance has arrived. Blizzard must soldier on, to milk whatever remains for as long as possible.
Corporations typically don't consult consumers about such decisions.
From a corporate or business standpoint, you're right.
However, Blizzard is an exception. They had the right thing at the right time. A phenomenon. To be blunt, they were extremely lucky. They seem to think they can do no wrong, even to the point that they are willing to tell people to their face that they don't want what they think they want. That pride and arrogance will be their death.
They need to realize this and get over themselves; To realize that their popularity was not a product of their amazing MMO making skills, and that their impending failure is not just because "the game is old" as people like to claim. The game was simply better when it first arrived, and once they reached critical mass, they could do no wrong.
Now their playerbase is dropping like a rock (I'd guess its down to 3M or less), they need to throw water on their face and come back to reality. They don't have the mass necessary to continue that viral level of success that they once had. They are going to have to return to the drawing board and figure out what made their game good to begin with. That means they either need to change the direction of their game or start offering the version of the game that made them what they are.
Technically the game "peaked" long after "vanilla"... at least according to information shown in regard to Subs within these discussions, which are official are they not? As Blizz reports Sub numbers (or at least used to) .
Secondly as it stands this would help nothing in terms of those falling numbers (if the numbers of those signing are to be considered representative of those wanting said server. 3mil to 3.1mil, isn't exactly an earth shattering recovery.
IMO Blizzards best chance at a resurgence, is a new game altogether, not trying to turn a dated game around.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Technically the game "peaked" long after "vanilla"... at least according to information shown in regard to Subs within these discussions, which are official are they not? As Blizz reports Sub numbers (or at least used to) .
<snip>
Raises an interesting point - when did the game peak? Not worldwide - we know that from the data - but on a regional basis. And, consequently, what was the "most popular" version?
WoW launched in Nov'04 in the US, later in S. Korea, EU, HK, June '05 in China, 2011 even in Brazil and there are other markets as well. New markets probably resulted in an upward blip in subs. Same with expansions Burning Crusade was Jan'07 in US but Sept '07 in China. So the blip due to BC was ..... good luck with that.
We look at the graph and interpret it as one line but in reality it is a composite of several lines. So we can't be certain we know which expansion was the most popular. Or when the decline really set it?
Ok, I understand a lot of members of the Nostralrius community are upset and I'm not trying to be mean, but I have to ask a question because I'm not understanding the underlying premise here. Somehow we've made a presumptive intellectual leap before we even have the discussion of whether Blizzard should do this, the players should do that and the game should do the other thing.
How is it that Nostralrius is being ennobled from theft of intellectual property to a desperate attempt to show Blizzard the error of its ways and rescue the game from imminent death? Why it is that Blizzard somehow "must" essentially reward 800,000
people who participated in the theft of their intellectual property?
The whole tone of this article is so bitter that it's off putting. I'm sorry but that first paragraph sounds like a child trying to argue that they shouldn't get punished for stealing cookies because the cookies were so excellent that they actually doing the world a favor by stealing and eating them. How do we make the logical leap from, "Well we weren't paying you for your product but you have to realize that the point really is that we're doing you a favor. By taking your stuff we're helping you realize that you're not addressing our needs!"? So Nostralrius existed to show Blizzard that they were ruining WoW? Isn't that like telling your significant other you cheated on them to show them you weren't having the right kind of sex? I quit reading after that paragraph because, frankly, that intellectual chasm from theft to martyrdom was just too wide to attempt to leap.
We've got to come back to Earth here a little bit. Nostralrius was fun. I get that. I understand there was a great community of great people playing a game together. I get that you'll miss all that. But Nostralrius wasn't conceived and dedicated to the idea that Nostralrius will serve as a shining beacon to all WoW players and Blizzard that all that was once good and great in the World of Warcraft universe can be restored if Blizzard will just put aside its greed and pride and listen to righteous pleas. It wasn't a revolution by gamers to secure them in their rights. At least admit this is revisionist history and be honest. People came to Nostralrius because it was a free party and stayed because they were having fun. Its that simple and the only thing wrong with it was the small technical fact that the gamers took Blizzard's property without payment. This was just like the music industry shutting down Napster. Corporations and people have the right to protect their investments and property. Its an old rule and a good rule and the existence of black markets doesn't negate the rule.
And remember that very single online game is subject to closure for whatever reason at whatever moment. It is a reality that every gamer deals with in online gaming. It is also a fact that things change all the time and we are all forced to deal with that. In fact I would argue its actually a worse thing then the Developers quit expanding the game and adding content because that is a clear signal that the count down to cyber oblivion has begun. The CoX players got a much harsher deal, honestly. Nostralrius vets have the option to go play WoW elsewhere. CoX players got the props kicked out completely.
Since the closure of Nostralrius we've been watching the disappointed be disappointed. I can live with that because I don't blame anyone for expressing disappointment when their game of choice is shut down. What is getting a little galling is watching the disappointed, intentionally or unintentionally, morph themselves, their server mates and their game into martyrs for a great cause who have been slain trying to show the cyber universe how desperately wrong it has all gone. Instead laud it as a great party and say you're sorry the cops broke it up.
This is a simple business transaction. It isn't some great last stand against corporate greed and insensitivity. Blizzard and their investors own the game and that makes them the stewards of the game. As a consumer you make the decision to consume it or not consume it. However if you quit consuming their product and then participate in the theft of their product then its at least a little unreasonable and intellectually dishonest to assert that what you were doing was trying to show them that they were destroying the product and you know better than them what direction that their product should go.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
You are talking about 800.000 accounts on Nostalrius, but you fail to acknowledge that those were all FREE ACCOUNTS (NO PAYMENT INVOLVED).
There are private servers with all xpax, that have thousands of players live, not because Vanilla was the best, or TBC or WOTLK, but because THEY ARE FREE! OPEN YOUR EYES!
Check out WoW Circle, they got various expansion servers that gathered have 40k ppl ONLINE.
If Blizzard will release Vanilla servers, probably a couple of people(myself included) are willing to pay 15$/month for that content, but they will play it 1-2-3 months and thats it.
Also please remember that private (free) servers have existed since Vanilla days of WoW, just because some people dont have the money or are not willing to pay for videogames.
I had a lvl 16 character on Nostalrius, while having an active subscription on retail WoW with 16x lvl100 chars, but trust me ... its all about nostalgy. If you got the money for the subscription on retail, once you start playing on a private server becouse of nostalgy, you will quickly realise that you miss so many QoL things that have been added in WoW in the past 5 expansion.
Last year I've leveled x1 exp rate on Hellground TBC server just to feed that nostalgy, I've seen the old places, old quests, but once I've dingged 70, I've returned to retail.
As I'm typing now, I'm leveling a 17nth character from scratch, reading all the quests, not skipping any and I'm enjoying myself.
Technically the game "peaked" long after "vanilla"... at least according to information shown in regard to Subs within these discussions, which are official are they not? As Blizz reports Sub numbers (or at least used to) .
<snip>
Raises an interesting point - when did the game peak? Not worldwide - we know that from the data - but on a regional basis. And, consequently, what was the "most popular" version?
WoW launched in Nov'04 in the US, later in S. Korea, EU, HK, June '05 in China, 2011 even in Brazil and there are other markets as well. New markets probably resulted in an upward blip in subs. Same with expansions Burning Crusade was Jan'07 in US but Sept '07 in China. So the blip due to BC was ..... good luck with that.
We look at the graph and interpret it as one line but in reality it is a composite of several lines. So we can't be certain we know which expansion was the most popular. Or when the decline really set it?
Its not about when it peaked, but when it reached critical mass. Critical mass being the number of players necessary to cause a chain reaction where the game went nuclear (or viral).
That happened long before the game began to change.
The assumption is always made that the 4-5M players currently involved in WoW are somehow less significant than those who might like to see vanilla servers.
Srsly are you guys get payed for that ?
That whole thing dont make any sense...
I dont play WoW and never have or will, but i totally understand WHY some ppl would rather play the "old" WoW then the new one, even if it would be MILES better.
Its just simply the game they enjoy more, and with the Numbers WoW had in the beginning, that will be more ppl then most ppl think they are.
And most important, some of this ppl wont play Wow like it is now, and IF Blizzard would just do 1-2 "Vanilla "servers, that are easy to maintain/serve, they would get all that money they other wise would not get.
To think they would LOSE ANYTHING, is just stupid, and so far from the reality, its not even funny, and brings me back to the Question, are you Guys get payed for this ?
I'm wondering the same thing. Looks like someone gets a kick back from standing there ground against this. The same assumption is made that the 10-15M players that were involved in earlier WoW somehow became less signigicant to their entire business operation. I was a paying customer on the forums long before my voice ended up on this end of the fight. This didn't swing me to the other side, it just makes me more aware of how important my money is to Blizzard. I'll just give it to another gaming company. If the earlier 10M wasn't important what makes you think your little 5M is more important.
Happily playing Vanilla and BC WoW, again, since September 2016.
Sad as it sounds, opening Vanilla Servers will translate into a sign of defeat, it will be a sign that Blizzard is giving up on the game.
But it doesn't have to be like this.
What people are asking is not necessarily Vanilla WoW, but a Vanilla WoW experience, which doesn't necessarily involve bringing back old code.
It can be accomplished by changing the priorities for future expansions, making the game more group oriented and more challenging like it was at launch.
Vanilla, released in 2004 The Burning Crusade, January 2007 Wrath of the Lich King, November 2008 Cataclysm, December 2010 Mists of Pandaria, September 2012 Warlords of Draenor, November 2014.
This is, of course, not speaking to the emotionalism that any given expansion embodies for certain players. And therein lies the problem, the never ending requests for vanilla pure, vanilla with improved UI etc., Burning Crusade pure, BC with improvements, WotLK...well, point made. Blizzard could never keep up with everyone's demands. Pretty soon, they'd just sell a single player WoW and call it a day.
I believe your presented data actually accurately represents my belief. And that is that the launch of Catclysm was the beginning of the end for WoW.
RIP
It actually shows how people take "rpg" of "mmorpg" so lightly. The story changed, thus it was necessary to change the world but nope, people still want to play in the old world untouched by deathwing's resurgence despite game story going forward. It only shows how pitiful most humans are, they constantly want to look at old times can call them golden times. Well i can understand how some people could think that, do you know in 1995 rape during war time was officially recognized as war crime? So before 1995 raping during war time was an acceptable practice, so basically time before 1995 was "golden time" for warmongers.
I think you should really take a step away from this thread and the issue in general. Considering your posts on this thread have been filled to the brim with comments such as how "pitiful" anyone disagreeing with you is, it's safe to say it's gotten a little too personal for you.
Debates can be had without personal attacks, and I really can't take your arguments seriously when they're littered with such attacks, man.
Sad as it sounds, opening Vanilla Servers will translate into a sign of defeat, it will be a sign that Blizzard is giving up on the game.
But it doesn't have to be like this.
What people are asking is not necessarily Vanilla WoW, but a Vanilla WoW experience, which doesn't necessarily involve bringing back old code.
It can be accomplished by changing the priorities for future expansions, making the game more group oriented and more challenging like it was at launch.
And I think this is absolutely the wrong way to be thinking about it. With the way the game expanded they created different markets for their own game. It's too late to go back, you would have just as many angry on the other side that likes the casual mmo. Just open both markets Blizz and profit. Some will play on both servers, some will be on one side or the other. If the newest version of WoW went free to play I still wouldn't be playing it, but would happily pay my monthly for earlier versions.
Happily playing Vanilla and BC WoW, again, since September 2016.
I love blizzard. I have since the days of StarCraft and Diablo II. That being said, I have progressively lost interest and faith in them as a company in recent times. Yes, I still play WoW (in its current and live iteration), but I do not enjoy it as much as I have in the past. If there were legacy servers, supported by Blizzard, would I play them? Probably not. But do I think they should make that option available to the people who want it? Absolutely and 100% yes. There is obviously a demand for it, and since Blizzard has effectively killed the supply of it, it is now on them to create their own supply. Even IF (and this is a giant IF) it does not end up being profitable, the amount of customer loyalty they would gain back is immeasurable.
Let's all be real honest here, cost, not having the code, you think you do but you don't are all complete bullcrap as proven by private servers run by volunteer teams with no funding pulling in tens of thousands of players.
So Blizzard should just tell their devs to work for free...?
Or how about telling their current customers that once legion is out there will be a delay of a extra year or more for the next expansion because 40-50k entitled brats demands a vanilla server... I am sure that will go down smooth.
The beauty of people working for free is that they have no accountability. Everything can be excused by "but we are doing it for free"
1. No one is working for free. They got paid for creating said content when it was created. They got paid for maintaining said content when it was still on the retail servers. They continue to get paid for doing work on new content.
2. No one is asking for Blizzard to host or maintain content currently only available on private servers. So there is no impact whatsoever on any current or future content being made. Players ask Blizzard to host vanilla servers because they want access to the old content again. Most are completely unaware that private servers exist. Blizzard shutting down private servers puts the responsibility of hosting vanilla content back in their court. The issue here is that they aren't going to. Hence the outcry for Blizzard to allow the private servers to do so.
3. Consider for a moment the very first Looney Tunes cartoon made in 1927... 80 some odd years later and it's still being viewed... only now it's in the public domain. Warner Bros. still owns the intellectual property for that cartoon, they just don't own exclusive rights to it's viewing anymore. The concept of public domain isn't unique to works of art... software has it's own term, called open source. It's where the owner of the code allows the code to be used in the public domain so long as it's not altered or sold. Private servers operate very much like a public domain. They host a version of the game that is no longer available. They aren't stealing from Blizzard because even Blizzard is no longer selling that version of the game. Most operate on donations only and are probably more not-for-profit than your not-for-profit charities out there.
Blizzard can totally control how their property is being used by releasing it to the public domain as open source with restrictions. They aren't losing money by doing so as they aren't selling it anymore. It's like having the cure for cancer and keeping it locked away in a box somewhere because they can. At some point, you have to ask yourself... just what good comes from denying people from playing your old games?
Your black and white view on the issue suggests that every computer game you have ever purchased in your lifetime should become unplayable at the will of the developer because they'd rather have you play their newest title instead. Forget the fact that you actually like playing Pac-Man even if it is extremely dated... the developers aren't making money off of you so you can't play it anymore, period. We're not talking about a game that was released last year here, we're talking about a game released over 10 years ago. I know of a lot of games being hosted for free that are that old that still get played and the developers aren't looking to sue them because they aren't getting paid anymore.
I think WoW is in the exact same spot as EQ was. And the same thing would happen with WoW...not much. They would actually gain quite a few players that have sworn the game off.
Edit: Just have the server progress into TBC at some point and freeze there.
I don't get what the big deal is about opening servers dedicated to each past expansion. All it would do is add subs. You don't charges separate sub you just put it into the current one. The people who want to play the new content will continue to buy the expansions and play that part and the people who don't want to will just add to the subs currently. Adding classic servers just would add to the current sub base recupping subs that would be completely lost due to those players not wanting to play the new content.
As a business it's the best way to get back all the players who left after each expansion and don't plan to come back to new wow. Blizzard doesn't quote sub numbers anymore just profits and getting those lost subs 15 a month will add a lot more profits. If wow goes back to 10 million plus due to people playing older content no one will ever know that since blizzard won't tell us but blizzard could still market it as having 10 million subs and use it anyway they want including making newer content look really popular since future customers won't know where those huge numbers came from.
Exactly. Blizzard shut down the private server because they were afraid of it. Because no matter how much they try to feed us that Legion will be a call back to the good old days, it wont. It cant! Warcraft isnt just a subscription anymore, its an entire system. A profit milking machine that they themselves have signed Warcrafts soul away in order to achieve. A "brand" as the article called it.
You CANT have a game like vanilla WoW and keep the extensive cash shop. You CANT have a game like vanilla WoW while keeping the easy faceroll "instant gratification" gameplay which keeps the other millions of remaining players paying. Vanilla WoW, and any hope Blizzard will give a flying fuck about any of their fans over cold hard profits, is dead.
The only way to make Blizzard do anything is to hit them where it hurts. Unfortunately, if that were possible, if gamers werent generally (that means not everyone) the ignorant complacent instant gratification content hogs they are, we wouldnt be where we are today with MMO's and the gaming industry in general.
The assumption is always made that the 4-5M players currently involved in WoW are somehow less significant than those who might like to see vanilla servers.
Srsly are you guys get payed for that ?
That whole thing dont make any sense...
I dont play WoW and never have or will, but i totally understand WHY some ppl would rather play the "old" WoW then the new one, even if it would be MILES better.
Its just simply the game they enjoy more, and with the Numbers WoW had in the beginning, that will be more ppl then most ppl think they are.
And most important, some of this ppl wont play Wow like it is now, and IF Blizzard would just do 1-2 "Vanilla "servers, that are easy to maintain/serve, they would get all that money they other wise would not get.
To think they would LOSE ANYTHING, is just stupid, and so far from the reality, its not even funny, and brings me back to the Question, are you Guys get payed for this ?
I'm wondering the same thing. Looks like someone gets a kick back from standing there ground against this. The same assumption is made that the 10-15M players that were involved in earlier WoW somehow became less signigicant to their entire business operation. I was a paying customer on the forums long before my voice ended up on this end of the fight. This didn't swing me to the other side, it just makes me more aware of how important my money is to Blizzard. I'll just give it to another gaming company. If the earlier 10M wasn't important what makes you think your little 5M is more important.
Sedated, I'm sorry but I want to be sure I'm not misunderstanding you.
Are you arguing that if Blizzard put up so called "Vanilla WoW" servers that their subscription numbers would return to 10 to 15 million as they were when the game was first released? Are you arguing that 5 to 10 million people have quit playing WoW because of the expansions? So is the argument that expanding the game is inherently "bad" and will automatically cause a drop in subscriptions so, therefore, every time a game is expanded new servers should be added that do not contain the expanded content to prevent the loss of players?
If you are then I don't agree with you. I watched Mythic put up so called "Classic" Dark Age of Camelot servers in an attempt to appease all the people who allegedly quit that game over the Trials of Atlantis server. (In the interest of honesty I was one of the players who claimed that until I realized the real reason I quit was I no longer had giant chunks of time to spend in game like I had before my wife and I had kids and I opened my own business.) Everyone swore the new servers would restore the subscription base because they all knew people who would "resub if we had classic servers".
So the Classic Servers opened to much fanfare. The classic servers did get a few older players to go back for a bit, but mainly the servers just split an already shrinking player base even more. After two or three months the newness wore off and numbers dropped again and a few of the current players went away with the "come back" players. In retrospect I'd say it hastened the game towards it's current state of one merged server housing the remaining active accounts. Based on that experience I can't imagine that opening Vanilla WoW servers will cause people who quit WoW to resub in significant numbers for any significant time.
Based on Nostralrius numbers I'd say the best Blizzard can hope for by opening Vanilla WoW servers is a 100,000 player bump in subscriptions. That would be a 2% bump in their 5 million player current subscription base. That is the actual number of people who availed themselves of the "Vanilla WoW" option and they did so in an environment where the "Vanilla WoW" was free. This includes the assumption that every single person who played Nostralrius would resub to pay to play Vanilla WoW servers. I don't think those are numbers that would attract Blizzard's attention.
If that's not what your saying then I misunderstood and I apologize.
I will point out that the Pink Elephant in this discussion is that it seems that we gamers scream for new content until we quit the game and then immediately point to the new content as the reason we quit. So new content is great until we quit because that content ruined the game.
Maybe that Blizzard employee wasn't so wrong in telling us what we didn't really want.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
New Coke anyone? The executives at Blizzard are never going to admit they made a mistake. Coming out with Vanilla servers would be them admitting that they made some wrong turns. They think by shutting down private servers that people will come back to the REAL WoW servers even though at this point it is a very different product than vanilla.
New Coke anyone? The executives at Blizzard are never going to admit they made a mistake. Coming out with Vanilla servers would be them admitting that they made some wrong turns. They think by shutting down private servers that people will come back to the REAL WoW servers even though at this point it is a very different product than vanilla.
Vanilla Coke rocks!
Sorry for the bad joke, but things are getting entirely too serious in here. I'm partially to blame for that so I thought I'd try to add a little levity.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
The assumption is always made that the 4-5M players currently involved in WoW are somehow less significant than those who might like to see vanilla servers.
Srsly are you guys get payed for that ?
That whole thing dont make any sense...
I dont play WoW and never have or will, but i totally understand WHY some ppl would rather play the "old" WoW then the new one, even if it would be MILES better.
Its just simply the game they enjoy more, and with the Numbers WoW had in the beginning, that will be more ppl then most ppl think they are.
And most important, some of this ppl wont play Wow like it is now, and IF Blizzard would just do 1-2 "Vanilla "servers, that are easy to maintain/serve, they would get all that money they other wise would not get.
To think they would LOSE ANYTHING, is just stupid, and so far from the reality, its not even funny, and brings me back to the Question, are you Guys get payed for this ?
I'm wondering the same thing. Looks like someone gets a kick back from standing there ground against this. The same assumption is made that the 10-15M players that were involved in earlier WoW somehow became less signigicant to their entire business operation. I was a paying customer on the forums long before my voice ended up on this end of the fight. This didn't swing me to the other side, it just makes me more aware of how important my money is to Blizzard. I'll just give it to another gaming company. If the earlier 10M wasn't important what makes you think your little 5M is more important.
Sedated, I'm sorry but I want to be sure I'm not misunderstanding you.
Are you arguing that if Blizzard put up so called "Vanilla WoW" servers that their subscription numbers would return to 10 to 15 million as they were when the game was first released? Are you arguing that 5 to 10 million people have quit playing WoW because of the expansions? So is the argument that expanding the game is inherently "bad" and will automatically cause a drop in subscriptions so, therefore, every time a game is expanded new servers should be added that do not contain the expanded content to prevent the loss of players?
Beginning with Cataclysm, the data supports the assertion that Blizzard dropped the ball with expansions and caused players to leave the game. Remember that TBC and WotLK caused a continuous, consistent uptick in player subscriptions for over a year after each expansion's release. Beginning with Cata, that began to stall (I'd argue that Cata wasn't the failure that MoP or WoD was due to the fact that a slight decrease in subscribers for an aging game is expected). After that, though, Blizzard did begin driving players away in droves with their expansion efforts. A gradual, uniform decrease would support the aging argument. The sharper decrease we see in less than 6 months after the expansions MoP and WoD suggests those expansions either failed to capture the longevity of TBC and WotLK or just were not adding quality content on the same level as the first two expansions.
I think the way it works is that companies are required to defend their licenses and copyrights or anyone can use them and list the private server as an example of WoW relinquishing ownership of those copyrights. So even if they really didn't care about private servers they must do something about it.
First and only factual post in this entire thread.
That is NOT how copyright law works. They can give special permission for a said company or group to use their trademark. They own it and they can do whatever they want with it. It's that simple.
On a side note I bet Games Workshop thinks all this talk about copyright and IP protection is pretty hilarious. Obviously WoW is different enough that GW could never sue, but still...
Until Blizzard actually tries this, there's no real evidence that it will cannibalize their base. In fact, the opposite.
I am of the mindset that a Vanilla service would only give WoW more money, at least in the short term. If the thing falls apart in 6 months, they could always shut it down and say I told you so.
Comments
Until Blizzard actually tries this, there's no real evidence that it will cannibalize their base. In fact, the opposite.
However, Blizzard is an exception. They had the right thing at the right time. A phenomenon. To be blunt, they were extremely lucky. They seem to think they can do no wrong, even to the point that they are willing to tell people to their face that they don't want what they think they want. That pride and arrogance will be their death.
They need to realize this and get over themselves; To realize that their popularity was not a product of their amazing MMO making skills, and that their impending failure is not just because "the game is old" as people like to claim. The game was simply better when it first arrived, and once they reached critical mass, they could do no wrong.
Now their playerbase is dropping like a rock (I'd guess its down to 3M or less), they need to throw water on their face and come back to reality. They don't have the mass necessary to continue that viral level of success that they once had. They are going to have to return to the drawing board and figure out what made their game good to begin with. That means they either need to change the direction of their game or start offering the version of the game that made them what they are.
And no one sees that as a a problem? That a game with 5 expansions equals 6 different games.
And expansion, by the very definition of the word, should expand on what is already there, it shouldn't totally change it into a different game...
Secondly as it stands this would help nothing in terms of those falling numbers (if the numbers of those signing are to be considered representative of those wanting said server. 3mil to 3.1mil, isn't exactly an earth shattering recovery.
IMO Blizzards best chance at a resurgence, is a new game altogether, not trying to turn a dated game around.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
WoW launched in Nov'04 in the US, later in S. Korea, EU, HK, June '05 in China, 2011 even in Brazil and there are other markets as well. New markets probably resulted in an upward blip in subs. Same with expansions Burning Crusade was Jan'07 in US but Sept '07 in China. So the blip due to BC was ..... good luck with that.
We look at the graph and interpret it as one line but in reality it is a composite of several lines. So we can't be certain we know which expansion was the most popular. Or when the decline really set it?
How is it that Nostralrius is being ennobled from theft of intellectual property to a desperate attempt to show Blizzard the error of its ways and rescue the game from imminent death? Why it is that Blizzard somehow "must" essentially reward 800,000 people who participated in the theft of their intellectual property?
The whole tone of this article is so bitter that it's off putting. I'm sorry but that first paragraph sounds like a child trying to argue that they shouldn't get punished for stealing cookies because the cookies were so excellent that they actually doing the world a favor by stealing and eating them. How do we make the logical leap from, "Well we weren't paying you for your product but you have to realize that the point really is that we're doing you a favor. By taking your stuff we're helping you realize that you're not addressing our needs!"? So Nostralrius existed to show Blizzard that they were ruining WoW? Isn't that like telling your significant other you cheated on them to show them you weren't having the right kind of sex? I quit reading after that paragraph because, frankly, that intellectual chasm from theft to martyrdom was just too wide to attempt to leap.
We've got to come back to Earth here a little bit. Nostralrius was fun. I get that. I understand there was a great community of great people playing a game together. I get that you'll miss all that. But Nostralrius wasn't conceived and dedicated to the idea that Nostralrius will serve as a shining beacon to all WoW players and Blizzard that all that was once good and great in the World of Warcraft universe can be restored if Blizzard will just put aside its greed and pride and listen to righteous pleas. It wasn't a revolution by gamers to secure them in their rights. At least admit this is revisionist history and be honest. People came to Nostralrius because it was a free party and stayed because they were having fun. Its that simple and the only thing wrong with it was the small technical fact that the gamers took Blizzard's property without payment. This was just like the music industry shutting down Napster. Corporations and people have the right to protect their investments and property. Its an old rule and a good rule and the existence of black markets doesn't negate the rule.
And remember that very single online game is subject to closure for whatever reason at whatever moment. It is a reality that every gamer deals with in online gaming. It is also a fact that things change all the time and we are all forced to deal with that. In fact I would argue its actually a worse thing then the Developers quit expanding the game and adding content because that is a clear signal that the count down to cyber oblivion has begun. The CoX players got a much harsher deal, honestly. Nostralrius vets have the option to go play WoW elsewhere. CoX players got the props kicked out completely.
Since the closure of Nostralrius we've been watching the disappointed be disappointed. I can live with that because I don't blame anyone for expressing disappointment when their game of choice is shut down. What is getting a little galling is watching the disappointed, intentionally or unintentionally, morph themselves, their server mates and their game into martyrs for a great cause who have been slain trying to show the cyber universe how desperately wrong it has all gone. Instead laud it as a great party and say you're sorry the cops broke it up.
This is a simple business transaction. It isn't some great last stand against corporate greed and insensitivity. Blizzard and their investors own the game and that makes them the stewards of the game. As a consumer you make the decision to consume it or not consume it. However if you quit consuming their product and then participate in the theft of their product then its at least a little unreasonable and intellectually dishonest to assert that what you were doing was trying to show them that they were destroying the product and you know better than them what direction that their product should go.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
There are private servers with all xpax, that have thousands of players live, not because Vanilla was the best, or TBC or WOTLK, but because THEY ARE FREE! OPEN YOUR EYES!
Check out WoW Circle, they got various expansion servers that gathered have 40k ppl ONLINE.
If Blizzard will release Vanilla servers, probably a couple of people(myself included) are willing to pay 15$/month for that content, but they will play it 1-2-3 months and thats it.
Also please remember that private (free) servers have existed since Vanilla days of WoW, just because some people dont have the money or are not willing to pay for videogames.
I had a lvl 16 character on Nostalrius, while having an active subscription on retail WoW with 16x lvl100 chars, but trust me ... its all about nostalgy. If you got the money for the subscription on retail, once you start playing on a private server becouse of nostalgy, you will quickly realise that you miss so many QoL things that have been added in WoW in the past 5 expansion.
Last year I've leveled x1 exp rate on Hellground TBC server just to feed that nostalgy, I've seen the old places, old quests, but once I've dingged 70, I've returned to retail.
As I'm typing now, I'm leveling a 17nth character from scratch, reading all the quests, not skipping any and I'm enjoying myself.
These are my 2cents.
That happened long before the game began to change.
This.
Sad as it sounds, opening Vanilla Servers will translate into a sign of defeat, it will be a sign that Blizzard is giving up on the game.
But it doesn't have to be like this.
What people are asking is not necessarily Vanilla WoW, but a Vanilla WoW experience, which doesn't necessarily involve bringing back old code.
It can be accomplished by changing the priorities for future expansions, making the game more group oriented and more challenging like it was at launch.
Debates can be had without personal attacks, and I really can't take your arguments seriously when they're littered with such attacks, man.
2. No one is asking for Blizzard to host or maintain content currently only available on private servers. So there is no impact whatsoever on any current or future content being made. Players ask Blizzard to host vanilla servers because they want access to the old content again. Most are completely unaware that private servers exist. Blizzard shutting down private servers puts the responsibility of hosting vanilla content back in their court. The issue here is that they aren't going to. Hence the outcry for Blizzard to allow the private servers to do so.
3. Consider for a moment the very first Looney Tunes cartoon made in 1927... 80 some odd years later and it's still being viewed... only now it's in the public domain. Warner Bros. still owns the intellectual property for that cartoon, they just don't own exclusive rights to it's viewing anymore. The concept of public domain isn't unique to works of art... software has it's own term, called open source. It's where the owner of the code allows the code to be used in the public domain so long as it's not altered or sold. Private servers operate very much like a public domain. They host a version of the game that is no longer available. They aren't stealing from Blizzard because even Blizzard is no longer selling that version of the game. Most operate on donations only and are probably more not-for-profit than your not-for-profit charities out there.
Blizzard can totally control how their property is being used by releasing it to the public domain as open source with restrictions. They aren't losing money by doing so as they aren't selling it anymore. It's like having the cure for cancer and keeping it locked away in a box somewhere because they can. At some point, you have to ask yourself... just what good comes from denying people from playing your old games?
Your black and white view on the issue suggests that every computer game you have ever purchased in your lifetime should become unplayable at the will of the developer because they'd rather have you play their newest title instead. Forget the fact that you actually like playing Pac-Man even if it is extremely dated... the developers aren't making money off of you so you can't play it anymore, period. We're not talking about a game that was released last year here, we're talking about a game released over 10 years ago. I know of a lot of games being hosted for free that are that old that still get played and the developers aren't looking to sue them because they aren't getting paid anymore.
As a business it's the best way to get back all the players who left after each expansion and don't plan to come back to new wow. Blizzard doesn't quote sub numbers anymore just profits and getting those lost subs 15 a month will add a lot more profits. If wow goes back to 10 million plus due to people playing older content no one will ever know that since blizzard won't tell us but blizzard could still market it as having 10 million subs and use it anyway they want including making newer content look really popular since future customers won't know where those huge numbers came from.
You CANT have a game like vanilla WoW and keep the extensive cash shop. You CANT have a game like vanilla WoW while keeping the easy faceroll "instant gratification" gameplay which keeps the other millions of remaining players paying. Vanilla WoW, and any hope Blizzard will give a flying fuck about any of their fans over cold hard profits, is dead.
Are you arguing that if Blizzard put up so called "Vanilla WoW" servers that their subscription numbers would return to 10 to 15 million as they were when the game was first released? Are you arguing that 5 to 10 million people have quit playing WoW because of the expansions? So is the argument that expanding the game is inherently "bad" and will automatically cause a drop in subscriptions so, therefore, every time a game is expanded new servers should be added that do not contain the expanded content to prevent the loss of players?
If you are then I don't agree with you. I watched Mythic put up so called "Classic" Dark Age of Camelot servers in an attempt to appease all the people who allegedly quit that game over the Trials of Atlantis server. (In the interest of honesty I was one of the players who claimed that until I realized the real reason I quit was I no longer had giant chunks of time to spend in game like I had before my wife and I had kids and I opened my own business.) Everyone swore the new servers would restore the subscription base because they all knew people who would "resub if we had classic servers".
So the Classic Servers opened to much fanfare. The classic servers did get a few older players to go back for a bit, but mainly the servers just split an already shrinking player base even more. After two or three months the newness wore off and numbers dropped again and a few of the current players went away with the "come back" players. In retrospect I'd say it hastened the game towards it's current state of one merged server housing the remaining active accounts. Based on that experience I can't imagine that opening Vanilla WoW servers will cause people who quit WoW to resub in significant numbers for any significant time.
Based on Nostralrius numbers I'd say the best Blizzard can hope for by opening Vanilla WoW servers is a 100,000 player bump in subscriptions. That would be a 2% bump in their 5 million player current subscription base. That is the actual number of people who availed themselves of the "Vanilla WoW" option and they did so in an environment where the "Vanilla WoW" was free. This includes the assumption that every single person who played Nostralrius would resub to pay to play Vanilla WoW servers. I don't think those are numbers that would attract Blizzard's attention.
If that's not what your saying then I misunderstood and I apologize.
I will point out that the Pink Elephant in this discussion is that it seems that we gamers scream for new content until we quit the game and then immediately point to the new content as the reason we quit. So new content is great until we quit because that content ruined the game.
Maybe that Blizzard employee wasn't so wrong in telling us what we didn't really want.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Sorry for the bad joke, but things are getting entirely too serious in here. I'm partially to blame for that so I thought I'd try to add a little levity.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
On a side note I bet Games Workshop thinks all this talk about copyright and IP protection is pretty hilarious. Obviously WoW is different enough that GW could never sue, but still...