Doesn't this graph show that current numbers of subscriptions are roughly equivalent to the number of subscriptions to so called "Vanilla" WoW, if not a little better initially?
Statistics are such slippery little devils ...
Slope's pointing down. Your calculus is weak.
Not as flaccid as your English.
That's an allusion to Mark Twain's quote about types of lies. The point of which is that anyone can look at that graph and draw any conclusion they prefer.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
What about a million? Would Blizzard care about a million subscriptions?
I'm pretty sure a half million would get Blizzard's attention enough to do something. But in a provable form, not an internet petition that could have been signed by a guy's 8 year old son and 12 year old daughter.
Even if they get a typical retention rate of 20-30% after the first month, that would leave 100k to 150k players; that is enough to fill two servers. They would likely at least think about it in that case. Once they fix all of the exploits they have taken care of over the years, the dev team would be minimal, since they would not be adding any content other than event content, like a Christmas event. And a 4-6 man dev team supporting a pair of servers with 150k players would make them a good amount of cash.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
But.... I played on Nostalrius for over a year. My enjoyment of Vanilla WoW is real and lasting. Nostalgia has nothing to do with why I play Vanilla.
oh no one (or at least not I) is questioning that some really like vanilla WoW. But that is not the point. There are those who still like text adventures too .. do you see a big come back of text adventures from AAA companies?
But.... I played on Nostalrius for over a year. My enjoyment of Vanilla WoW is real and lasting. Nostalgia has nothing to do with why I play Vanilla.
oh no one (or at least not I) is questioning that some really like vanilla WoW. But that is not the point. There are those who still like text adventures too .. do you see a big come back of text adventures from AAA companies?
Yeah, that's a fair comparison .. the most popular MMO history, with over 100 million registered accounts ... against text adventures ... lol.
Keep going, guys ...
Yeh ... that is as good a comparison as the fast food analogy, or whatever other stuff people dragged up.
Doesn't this graph show that current numbers of subscriptions are roughly equivalent to the number of subscriptions to so called "Vanilla" WoW, if not a little better initially?
Statistics are such slippery little devils ...
Slope's pointing down. Your calculus is weak.
Not as flaccid as your English.
That's an allusion to Mark Twain's quote about types of lies. The point of which is that anyone can look at that graph and draw any conclusion they prefer.
You think you want to quote, but you don't.
Fixed it for you. A conjunction gets a comma, not an ellipsis.
My point is still valid. People read data through the lens of their biases and bend it to fit their theories. Just because someone in a Black Robe or a White Lab Coat says it doesn't make it so. Remember that the Wizard of Oz was an expert. That is all beside the fact that nothing said or done here will change Blizzard's mind. The only hope is to hit them in the wallet where they'll notice it. We're all just performing for each other on these little stages.
I'll bet the Blizzard employees are enjoying their popcorn while we put on our little outrage play.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
But.... I played on Nostalrius for over a year. My enjoyment of Vanilla WoW is real and lasting. Nostalgia has nothing to do with why I play Vanilla.
oh no one (or at least not I) is questioning that some really like vanilla WoW. But that is not the point. There are those who still like text adventures too .. do you see a big come back of text adventures from AAA companies?
Yeah, that's a fair comparison .. the most popular MMO history, with over 100 million registered accounts ... against text adventures ... lol.
Keep going, guys ...
Yeh ... that is as good a comparison as the fast food analogy, or whatever other stuff people dragged up.
If you don't think it would be profitable, you're wrong. It's that simple. Drag up all the irrelevant comparisons you want.
Really the only reason here. It would be profitable sure but just how much to make it worth Blizzard taking notice?
As is it looks like they just don't care about 100k potential subscrtibers, which would make sense since they have banned that many before.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
If they had it like Nostalrius did, then yes. If they have an older client version, with the older graphics, none of the updated systems, none of the things that made it easier for people, then I would go play it. But that won't happen unless they hire people who cared or knew how to do it like they did.
I would have considered it before I saw that mouthy douche at blizzcon tell everyone what they want, or rather, what they should want.
Its people like him that have driven this genre so far into the ground it would take a miracle to resurrect it.
Dullahan,
What Blizzard should do is leave the Vanilla and TBC servers alone and let the community run them. Runescape has classic servers which they manage, however the community runs them. If the community does not have a 75% agreement vote on changes to be made then the change does not get made. If Blizzard was to do that with a TBC server you could see things like the WOW in game calendar in and the group finder tool but not LFD or LFR. That would keep blizzard from running the game.
If they had it like Nostalrius did, then yes. If they have an older client version, with the older graphics, none of the updated systems, none of the things that made it easier for people, then I would go play it. But that won't happen unless they hire people who cared or knew how to do it like they did.
There are only 2 things I would put in that would make it easier. I would replace the old Raid Browser with today's Looking for Group tool and it would be server only. Basically I could post my group and people could message me to join. Good tool not community breaking. And the in Game Calendar.
If you don't think it would be profitable, you're wrong. It's that simple. Drag up all the irrelevant comparisons you want.
You keep saying that... but that does not make it true.
Several people over several threads have pointed out how monumental of investment this is if it is to be done "right" by Blizzard standards. All you can offer in return is "it will be profitable" based at best at some joypill estimate extrapolated from a online petition and WoW sub numbers.
I can make math like that work too... but ain´t no biz in the land that will take that budget.
I would because WoW during Vanilla and BC had the leaving breathing world feeling which is the number one thing for me in a MMORPG.
Today's MMORPGs, including WoW, either do not have it at all or have a very watered down version of it. The "MMORPG" in MMORPG games is pretty much decimated in favor of in game convenience (example: teleportation, dungeon finder), and easier and cheaper development (example: phasing, instancing, crafting made obsolete).
So, yes I will pay and go to a World of Warcraft which was an actual MMORPG.
If you don't think it would be profitable, you're wrong. It's that simple. Drag up all the irrelevant comparisons you want.
You keep saying that... but that does not make it true.
Several people over several threads have pointed out how monumental of investment this is if it is to be done "right" by Blizzard standards. All you can offer in return is "it will be profitable" based at best at some joypill estimate extrapolated from a online petition and WoW sub numbers.
I can make math like that work too... but ain´t no biz in the land that will take that budget.
If you read here about Runescape you will learn that they made a profit. Most of the work done out in the community for private servers could be grabbed and used. You think its hard and costly. I know its not because I work in IT. I can tell you they likely have a backup somewhere of their code in SVN.
He essentially said it, it's not that they wouldn't make some money but they could take the same amount of money and use it to make more money.
Some of us have been saying this ad nauseum.
I'd be curious if you saw that a company within your investment portfolio took "your money" (obviously it's not your direct money) and used it to make a bit more money but then you found out they could have taken that money and more than doubled it, if you would be cool with that?
I wouldn't.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
If you read here about Runescape you will learn that they made a profit. Most of the work done out in the community for private servers could be grabbed and used. You think its hard and costly. I know its not because I work in IT. I can tell you they likely have a backup somewhere of their code in SVN.
A: They themself say they do not have a working version of the code. And unless someone can prove elsewise i´l take them on their word.
B: The community will not be given keys to run servers... Blizzard is way to protective of their brand.
C: Easy you say... to get a set of servers running on legacy code that work as good as the live servers. Well seeing how i am not a network engineer i will have to take your word for it. But i have my doubts.
So no... there is no point in reading about "how runscape did it" because Blizzard will not go down that route, as evident by the whole discussion. So if you want a working budget you will have to do it from the point of Blizzard running the show.
If you don't think it would be profitable, you're wrong. It's that simple. Drag up all the irrelevant comparisons you want.
I am wrong because?
And who says merely profitable will interest Blizz. If it is not as least as big a ROI as hearthstone, why would they even care?
Jeez.. What happened to caring about the community? Profits alone don't make a company great.
Making good games make a company great. Not even players care that much about community. I doubt companies need to.
Plus, there are so many communities. Why does Blizz need to care about a small community that wants to play vanilla WoW. There are plenty of bigger fish to fry .. like building an Overwatch community.
He essentially said it, it's not that they wouldn't make some money but they could take the same amount of money and use it to make more money.
Some of us have been saying this ad nauseum.
I'd be curious if you saw that a company within your investment portfolio took "your money" (obviously it's not your direct money) and used it to make a bit more money but then you found out they could have taken that money and more than doubled it, if you would be cool with that?
I wouldn't.
And this is exactly the reason why publishers don't belong being publicly traded. First there is 0 guarantee in the gaming world you will make massive amounts of money off of games if you invest in making them. SWTOR, ESO, Thief, Caslevania, Sims4, Aliean Isolation, Driveclub, Destiny, farcry 4, Sword Cost Legends and so on. All of these games didnt turn out what they were hyped up to be. A lot based around trying to get as many people into the game as possible so the company can min max their profits. Take Sword Cost Legends for example, the D&D crowd didnt like the ruleset and it was likely done to make it easier for new players to get into D&D. When trying for a larger player base the game had issues.
Publishers should make games because they love to, and their direction should be driven by developers who love games not by stockholders.
If you don't think it would be profitable, you're wrong. It's that simple. Drag up all the irrelevant comparisons you want.
I am wrong because?
And who says merely profitable will interest Blizz. If it is not as least as big a ROI as hearthstone, why would they even care?
Jeez.. What happened to caring about the community? Profits alone don't make a company great.
Making good games make a company great. Not even players care that much about community. I doubt companies need to.
Plus, there are so many communities. Why does Blizz need to care about a small community that wants to play vanilla WoW. There are plenty of bigger fish to fry .. like building an Overwatch community.
'Making good games make a company great' World of Warcraft is extremely boring, easy and casual at the moment, them releasing progression servers would bring a major amount of the player base back. The fact that you say a 'small' community wants to play vanilla WoW makes me laugh, I understand because you don't like it so you wouldn't know.
If you read here about Runescape you will learn that they made a profit. Most of the work done out in the community for private servers could be grabbed and used. You think its hard and costly. I know its not because I work in IT. I can tell you they likely have a backup somewhere of their code in SVN.
A: They themself say they do not have a working version of the code. And unless someone can prove elsewise i´l take them on their word.
B: The community will not be given keys to run servers... Blizzard is way to protective of their brand.
C: Easy you say... to get a set of servers running on legacy code that work as good as the live servers. Well seeing how i am not a network engineer i will have to take your word for it. But i have my doubts.
So no... there is no point in reading about "how runscape did it" because Blizzard will not go down that route, as evident by the whole discussion. So if you want a working budget you will have to do it from the point of Blizzard running the show.
Good luck with that.
C. I am am a Sr. Windows System Engineer. I have 100 different applications all running on legacy code. Several of which years ago said no these applications can not be virtualized. Well guess what, they are all running in VMware 5. It is very easy today to take and run old legacy code in a virtual environment and they work just as well. So its not hard to do it
A: Depending on which source code tool they are using you can easily see what was changed when in your code. For example if I look at an XML file in SVN I can see what was changed and who changed it. I can also go back many versions. I also would have a hard time if they didnt make 1 last backup of their Vanilla code onto a few LTO 4 tapes and throw it in a save somewhere. I done that plus I have developers who do that until the application is completely off line.
B: If you read "How Runscape Did it" You would understand because you are assuming I mean let the Community run private servers. I am not. Here is the Quote. "Although the Old School community saw themselves as purists they still wanted change, so to ensure the rate of change was acceptable to those players we allowed them to vote on every update that happens to the game. If 75% of those voting did not agree, the update didn’t happen. This gave a very strong sense of ownership of the game to the community; they were in control." So I am talking about this. Let the community vote on the changes that will take place. This will make sure that the vast majority of players will want the changes so Blizzard does not force the changes.
What Blizzard can do is ask the community to prove them the code. In the state of Nostalrius was they were going to add in AQ40/20. Blizzard could easily hire a few of these developers. Take the code at the point it was, shut down any of the 100 dead servers they still have online and slap the code on these servers or in a virtual environment. The new Blizzard employees who were hired from Nostalrius can give out the specs of the server that ran 18K players at one time to make sure the server is stable. Then see what kind of response happens.
Lets just for argument sake just say 150K players sign up and want to play. Thats $2.250 Million per month, and lets say you are spending $500K a year in salaries for these Dev\Ops guys. Thats a $26.5 Million profit. Its small but its a profit. And you only need 5 Dev\Ops guys to run 1 server and the code to it. Could easily do 2 or 3 servers with 5 people. O and 100K is around what you will pay for IT people give or take 50K depending on skills and experience.
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거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Even if they get a typical retention rate of 20-30% after the first month, that would leave 100k to 150k players; that is enough to fill two servers. They would likely at least think about it in that case. Once they fix all of the exploits they have taken care of over the years, the dev team would be minimal, since they would not be adding any content other than event content, like a Christmas event. And a 4-6 man dev team supporting a pair of servers with 150k players would make them a good amount of cash.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
oh no one (or at least not I) is questioning that some really like vanilla WoW. But that is not the point. There are those who still like text adventures too .. do you see a big come back of text adventures from AAA companies?
My point is still valid. People read data through the lens of their biases and bend it to fit their theories. Just because someone in a Black Robe or a White Lab Coat says it doesn't make it so. Remember that the Wizard of Oz was an expert. That is all beside the fact that nothing said or done here will change Blizzard's mind. The only hope is to hit them in the wallet where they'll notice it. We're all just performing for each other on these little stages.
I'll bet the Blizzard employees are enjoying their popcorn while we put on our little outrage play.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
As is it looks like they just don't care about 100k potential subscrtibers, which would make sense since they have banned that many before.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/And who says merely profitable will interest Blizz. If it is not as least as big a ROI as hearthstone, why would they even care?
What Blizzard should do is leave the Vanilla and TBC servers alone and let the community run them. Runescape has classic servers which they manage, however the community runs them. If the community does not have a 75% agreement vote on changes to be made then the change does not get made. If Blizzard was to do that with a TBC server you could see things like the WOW in game calendar in and the group finder tool but not LFD or LFR. That would keep blizzard from running the game.
Several people over several threads have pointed out how monumental of investment this is if it is to be done "right" by Blizzard standards. All you can offer in return is "it will be profitable" based at best at some joypill estimate extrapolated from a online petition and WoW sub numbers.
I can make math like that work too... but ain´t no biz in the land that will take that budget.
This have been a good conversation
Today's MMORPGs, including WoW, either do not have it at all or have a very watered down version of it.
The "MMORPG" in MMORPG games is pretty much decimated in favor of in game convenience (example: teleportation, dungeon finder), and easier and cheaper development (example: phasing, instancing, crafting made obsolete).
So, yes I will pay and go to a World of Warcraft which was an actual MMORPG.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-official-legacy-server-avoided-kemp
Some of us have been saying this ad nauseum.
I'd be curious if you saw that a company within your investment portfolio took "your money" (obviously it's not your direct money) and used it to make a bit more money but then you found out they could have taken that money and more than doubled it, if you would be cool with that?
I wouldn't.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
A: They themself say they do not have a working version of the code. And unless someone can prove elsewise i´l take them on their word.
B: The community will not be given keys to run servers... Blizzard is way to protective of their brand.
C: Easy you say... to get a set of servers running on legacy code that work as good as the live servers. Well seeing how i am not a network engineer i will have to take your word for it. But i have my doubts.
So no... there is no point in reading about "how runscape did it" because Blizzard will not go down that route, as evident by the whole discussion. So if you want a working budget you will have to do it from the point of Blizzard running the show.
Good luck with that.
This have been a good conversation
Plus, there are so many communities. Why does Blizz need to care about a small community that wants to play vanilla WoW. There are plenty of bigger fish to fry .. like building an Overwatch community.
Publishers should make games because they love to, and their direction should be driven by developers who love games not by stockholders.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
By his other comments in other threads, I would wager to guess that he cares not much for real life communities either.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
A: Depending on which source code tool they are using you can easily see what was changed when in your code. For example if I look at an XML file in SVN I can see what was changed and who changed it. I can also go back many versions. I also would have a hard time if they didnt make 1 last backup of their Vanilla code onto a few LTO 4 tapes and throw it in a save somewhere. I done that plus I have developers who do that until the application is completely off line.
B: If you read "How Runscape Did it" You would understand because you are assuming I mean let the Community run private servers. I am not. Here is the Quote. "Although the Old School community saw themselves as purists they still wanted change, so to ensure the rate of change was acceptable to those players we allowed them to vote on every update that happens to the game. If 75% of those voting did not agree, the update didn’t happen. This gave a very strong sense of ownership of the game to the community; they were in control." So I am talking about this. Let the community vote on the changes that will take place. This will make sure that the vast majority of players will want the changes so Blizzard does not force the changes.
What Blizzard can do is ask the community to prove them the code. In the state of Nostalrius was they were going to add in AQ40/20. Blizzard could easily hire a few of these developers. Take the code at the point it was, shut down any of the 100 dead servers they still have online and slap the code on these servers or in a virtual environment. The new Blizzard employees who were hired from Nostalrius can give out the specs of the server that ran 18K players at one time to make sure the server is stable. Then see what kind of response happens.
Lets just for argument sake just say 150K players sign up and want to play. Thats $2.250 Million per month, and lets say you are spending $500K a year in salaries for these Dev\Ops guys. Thats a $26.5 Million profit. Its small but its a profit. And you only need 5 Dev\Ops guys to run 1 server and the code to it. Could easily do 2 or 3 servers with 5 people. O and 100K is around what you will pay for IT people give or take 50K depending on skills and experience.