I still see it with alot problem. If Blizzard gave people a Vanilla server as I see it will not end there. People are going to want more over time and more it won't end just on this. Like what if that happen on first few months people got all excited wanted to play a Vanilla. Then people end up dropping off and then they will tell Blizzard we need more people to play with or mess other problem in how many exploit that the old code of wow brings.
Regardless of the players wanting it, I feel like Blizzard should open up a "Day One" server for purely historical reasons. WoW has become such a huge cultural icon that I think it should be preserved in it's original form. This would also be a way for Blizz to give this minority what they want, and still save face regarding the "story". What have they got to lose?
Indeed. Potential subscriber money ... that they won't receive until they do this.
You are very misguided ...... of the 75k sigs , maybe 1/2 would sub .. Most are there hoping to play a free game .. .. Maybe 1/2 .... and the rest isnt enough to set up / maintain,tech/acctmgnmt/forum etc to pay the bills
Regardless of the players wanting it, I feel like Blizzard should open up a "Day One" server for purely historical reasons. WoW has become such a huge cultural icon that I think it should be preserved in it's original form. This would also be a way for Blizz to give this minority what they want, and still save face regarding the "story". What have they got to lose?
Indeed. Potential subscriber money ... that they won't receive until they do this.
You are very misguided ...... of the 75k sigs , maybe 1/2 would sub .. Most are there hoping to play a free game .. .. Maybe 1/2 .... and the rest isnt enough to set up / maintain,tech/acctmgnmt/forum etc to pay the bills
To assume you know the numbers based on this 4-day old petition is misguided. A couple days ago you were saying the same thing when the petition was at 30,000 subs. What would you say if 200,000 people identified themselves saying they wanted it? What excuse would detractors lean on then?
The interest is there regardless of whether folks like yourself want to see it.
I dont need or look for any excuses , but , i told you then that even 300k may get them to lift an eyebrow , but wouldnt be enough ...
Blizz is a Co. that is forward thinking always has been ,they arent looking back ... particularly to curb the whining of 75k ,100k,200kthousand thieves ...........
And ill tell ya another thing , when they have there qrtly board meeting , and they discuss ..
Earnings... Sales ...projections... Stocks.. inverstors.. movement ... legal ....HR...
Wow ... Hearthstone......... D3....... Overwatch............. Heores of the Storm......... Starcraft............
anything else to discuss? And honeslty you would be lucky if if it even got mentioned
well ....................... we have this petition with 75k sigs for vanilla Wow .....
Ok .. meeting is closed ..................whos buyin lunch... i could go for a Vanilla Shake
A vanilla server would be a massive flop, you are talking about paying a monthly fee for a game that would never get updates...ever.
I mean just think about it.
This is all purely nostalgia, almost everyone would quit playing it in a few months. The private server was popular because it was free and not because it was vanilla. Blizzard aren't not offering vanilla because they are asshats, it would be a huge waste of money and they are not a tinpot company. They are a serious company with shareholders, they can't just do this to prove people wrong.
Well said, people are just constantly longing for vanilla WoW, yes it was amazing and I miss it sometimes, but a vanilla server just isn't a good idea long term. Vanilla was great, playing the content and eagerly anticipating the next new updates, but playing all that frozen in time is just pointless, even if they do present it like they did originally and not have everything open at once. Enjoyment from nostalgia is very, very short lived, are you people really going to just keep playing through the content over and over? And aside from all these points it just doesn't make sense fiscally for Blizzard so just let it go. The only reason I would want Blizzard to do this is so everyone could finally see how wrong they were and the subject would finally be forgotten.
Seem to me, the smartest thing for Blizzard to do is to follow Daybreaks example with project 1999. Make a deal with the top private servers that ensures some kind of control by agreeingon some rules. That would be spinning it to their advantage, by being the "bigger" person and sharing. I mean it is not like the emu servers are serious threats or competing with the same player base, I think.
eh, the things is "why" did daybreak approve those servers.
Maybe they think it will help funnel players to a decent private server where they can also have some control. Additionally, it also helps advertise the Everquest brand which, though historically significant, isn't really that huge today. Or to be more precise, it's not as large as World of Warcraft as far as a known brand to the average person.
Blizzard on the other hand has a very known brand, they have, as SB Ford mentioned, metrics that pretty much tell them how they should spend their money. They have a movie coming out, they have a direction they want to go with as far as the future of the brand.
They probably don't want private servers diluting their brand and don't feel it offers them anything. Now, some players will say it's good will for them to open up Vanilla Servers and they might just say that their money is budgeted elsewhere and they are more interested in using their money to sustain current players and attract new players.
It's possible that they have looked at the costs and figured out that regardless of it being a good will gesture, using x amount of dollars for Vanilla servers could be better spent in other ways that will make them more money. Because, again, they are a publicly traded company and everything they do has to make their shareholders happy. If they make "current" players happy then that makes shareholders happy. If they can spend that x amount of dollars to keep current and future players happy then that's good for the bottom line.
Well I look at this in a different way. First of all, there is no chance they can close many emu servers down, they can hit a few for show and maybe show a sign of not being totally passive, but most will just find new places to get hosted.
So with that in mind, I believe it is a question of doing damage control, rather than trying to eradicate emu servers. In my opinion, going for a witchhunt against emu servers can lead to no good for Blizzard.. they risk bad publicity, they risk angering some nasty personalities with ddos powers and again with SOE as example that stuff cost millions to protect against. Personally I think Blizzard are playing a risky game, that could easily blow up in their hands. While taking a less confrontational approach it might turn out as good publicity for them instead. It is Blizzards right to protect their ip, no doubt about it - I am just questioning whether it is a smart move to play hardball.
Blizzard making their own vanilla/progression servers is not very likely, but if they are, of course that changes everything, then they have to go after emu servers.
Meh, I might play it for a couple hours, but I know for a fact I wouldn't enjoy it more than the WoW of today. I didn't enjoy the end-game back then, so only leveling was any fun (and even then got old around the 40's as quests were much less entertaining), along with bg's after they were introduced, though they had long queues and only a couple maps, and AV would go on and on for hours with little progress. Didn't like AV then, don't like it now even when it's changed to be much shorter. Not to mention the classes were way more boring and imbalanced.
So, anyway, for me personally, I would never want to revert back. Aside from content issues, I think WoW is in a decent place, and is looking to be in a better place than ever come Legion.
I'd rather they not create a progressive server until the game is on its last legs as a last effort to keep it afloat. I would rather they not split up the community unnecessarily.
What part about NO dont (you) people understand? They stated it's not going to happen, move on! Or stay stuck in the past and watch as WoW continue to steamroll through all competition..
Well I look at this in a different way. First of all, there is no chance they can close many emu servers down, they can hit a few for show and maybe show a sign of not being totally passive, but most will just find new places to get hosted.
So with that in mind, I believe it is a question of doing damage control, rather than trying to eradicate emu servers. In my opinion, going for a witchhunt against emu servers can lead to no good for Blizzard.. they risk bad publicity, they risk angering some nasty personalities with ddos powers and again with SOE as example that stuff cost millions to protect against. Personally I think Blizzard are playing a risky game, that could easily blow up in their hands. While taking a less confrontational approach it might turn out as good publicity for them instead. It is Blizzards right to protect their ip, no doubt about it - I am just questioning whether it is a smart move to play hardball.
Blizzard making their own vanilla/progression servers is not very likely, but if they are, of course that changes everything, then they have to go after emu servers.
Well, let's look at what you said ...
First of all, I'm sure they weigh their options when it comes to trying to close down any illegal server. yes it probably is damage control but they have to show that they are willing to do damage control. Remember, publicly traded company. Again, look at your own investments. you probably don't want to have money in a company that is not willing to maximize your investment and do its best to protect your investment. I'd be curious to see what their stock price did when this was first announced.
They aren't going to risk bad publicity against the official Blizzard customers. The only players they risk bad publicity with are those who are pissed off at having their servers closed.
Which brings us to your post about angering nasty personalities. The internet is full of nasty personalities. The bottom of the barrel are always going to be out there. And any company is not going to please everyone. If they capitulate toward every self interest group out there they might as well not run a business. So they aren't going to start making policy decisions based off of that. Additional, given how many "unsettled" personalities out there, I imagine Blizzard has already gotten attacks. They have pissed off enough players out there over the years that I would find it hard to believe that some group hasn't nerd raged against them at one point or another. I'm sure they are prepared for it on all fronts.
Given the amount of money at their disposal and the amount of money at risk I highly doubt they have sat on their thumbs thinking that they will never be a target.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
lets be frank, only someone that have never played vanilla wow would say it is all the same , it is not ,there werent any arena , pvp was done in ss or other area world was livelier because you werent hidden in an instance .pvpve was vibrant etc . i dont say that wow shouldnt evolve . it should. but wow is one of the very limited game that had a very niche way of doing things that have stood the test of time .private server is proof of this . blizzard might try to shut thos all it want . but it would be simpler for blizzard to ask their fan a cd pack of the original wow ( want one blizzard ? i got one original. or at least tell people how they can be only in vanilla. even if it means opening a new account etc i am positive it is a market people want , why because vanilla wow doesnt play the same way at all vs the rest of wow
WoW sub numbers are in a very significant decline.
Imagine if Vanilla WoW proves to be more popular than the current version. It would be a major embarrassment for Blizzard.
All the talk about lost code and crap is just bullshit. If 30 volunteers can get a high quality Vanilla server running, Blizzard sure in the hell could
I think if WOW did put up Vanilla WOW\TBC WOW servers it would prove to be an embarrassment to Blizzard because it will prove that chasing cash for stockholders is not possible in the MMORPG genera. The problem is right now the MMORPG genera together is already showing this because no one is making stockholders happy from a good MMORPG. Why? Because its the community that is the core of any MMORPG not a stockholder
Great article ... With the slow decline over the years of WOW's Sub numbers Going this route may be the only way to get the subs back up. Maybe it is time the focused on the Player rather than the stakeholder to get those numbers back. There are a number of servers that are near dead. Change one server to a Vanilla, BC and Wrath Legacy server. Keep the newer graphics, but restore the way it was at that time ... I may cause some to move .. or even bring the numbers up a bit more, or do nothing and let the game tank.
Yep the problem is Mike Morheime is trying to make the Stockholder the most money he can. Yet I don't think he nor the stockholders realize that MMORPGs are not an area you can make money off of in stocks. If you do something that players don't like and try to appeal to everyone which is what Blizzard did no one is going to like it and you are not going to make money off the product. Your better path is to put your customer base first and what the stockholders want dont matter.
In Truth I think Blizzard should spin WOW off into a a private company because WOW is not making them money with stockholders and marketing managers thinking of ways to min max profits. It just does not work, it has proven it has not worked since WOTLK and some games are better left to privately owned companies and not publicly owned companies.
"The developers however prefer to see the game continuously evolve and progress, and as such we have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms."
Therein lies the problem with the gaming industry. Forgetting who is paying the bills. I'm not a fan of the original WoW, but it's obvious that enough people are and that many of those people aren't playing the current version. I'm sure a server with different rules could be set up as an experiment. They are making more than enough money still to support that. But once again some clueless board members will make the *right* decision according to the way business works and the game will lose even more players. Go modern business management!
Well I look at this in a different way. First of all, there is no chance they can close many emu servers down, they can hit a few for show and maybe show a sign of not being totally passive, but most will just find new places to get hosted.
So with that in mind, I believe it is a question of doing damage control, rather than trying to eradicate emu servers. In my opinion, going for a witchhunt against emu servers can lead to no good for Blizzard.. they risk bad publicity, they risk angering some nasty personalities with ddos powers and again with SOE as example that stuff cost millions to protect against. Personally I think Blizzard are playing a risky game, that could easily blow up in their hands. While taking a less confrontational approach it might turn out as good publicity for them instead. It is Blizzards right to protect their ip, no doubt about it - I am just questioning whether it is a smart move to play hardball.
Blizzard making their own vanilla/progression servers is not very likely, but if they are, of course that changes everything, then they have to go after emu servers.
Well, let's look at what you said ...
First of all, I'm sure they weigh their options when it comes to trying to close down any illegal server. yes it probably is damage control but they have to show that they are willing to do damage control. Remember, publicly traded company. Again, look at your own investments. you probably don't want to have money in a company that is not willing to maximize your investment and do its best to protect your investment. I'd be curious to see what their stock price did when this was first announced.
They aren't going to risk bad publicity against the official Blizzard customers. The only players they risk bad publicity with are those who are pissed off at having their servers closed.
Which brings us to your post about angering nasty personalities. The internet is full of nasty personalities. The bottom of the barrel are always going to be out there. And any company is not going to please everyone. If they capitulate toward every self interest group out there they might as well not run a business. So they aren't going to start making policy decisions based off of that. Additional, given how many "unsettled" personalities out there, I imagine Blizzard has already gotten attacks. They have pissed off enough players out there over the years that I would find it hard to believe that some group hasn't nerd raged against them at one point or another. I'm sure they are prepared for it on all fronts.
Given the amount of money at their disposal and the amount of money at risk I highly doubt they have sat on their thumbs thinking that they will never be a target.
no effect on the stock at all... the usual up .30 down .34 up .42 in the past week it basically has stayed the same 34.20
Nothing will change. Blizzard won't open legacy server(s) soon, private servers as general phenomenon will continue to exist even if they will get close&desist individually.
Private MMORPG servers is not something new. They existed almost as long as MMORPGs existed. Ultima Online got them quite fast, as some game updates were not liked by big enough portion of playerbase.
Yep I remember pub 16 which made resist useless when it took me 3 years to get resist to nearly GM. Add to that I went from having a 86 to 90 level skill bard who was running the shadow wrym room, plus able to provoke Blood Eleys and Balrons to I had to go back to taking on Water and Air Elys. It pissed me off to the point I quit and considered playing on private servers because the change they made screwed over the game.
"The developers however prefer to see the game continuously evolve and progress, and as such we have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms."
Therein lies the problem with the gaming industry. Forgetting who is paying the bills. I'm not a fan of the original WoW, but it's obvious that enough people are and that many of those people aren't playing the current version. I'm sure a server with different rules could be set up as an experiment. They are making more than enough money still to support that. But once again some clueless board members will make the *right* decision according to the way business works and the game will lose even more players. Go modern business management!
See thats the misconception and appraoch that people take ... Blizz understnds that the people that want a vanilla server are an extreme small minority , and they havent been paying the bills on the contrary they have been loggin into illegal severs , The other 99% that are the paying customers are the players that Blizz is catering to ..
Is there a universal definition of 'Vanilla WoW' then or would it just give 1% what they want and the remainder saying it is not what they asked for?
Are we talking removal of all maps, dungeons and other content released or are we talking about keeping all of that and changing the rules?
Unless you know what you want exactly, what chance is there if getting it?
The universal definition of vanilla WoW is that version of WoW which ran on the servers when it was originally released. In other words, vanilla WoW includes everything up to and including the original Naxxramas as it was released. The day that they altered to the game to prepare for the first expansion (The Burning Crusade), is the day that vanilla WoW ceased to exist.
Vanilla WoW is not the old game in a fancier coat of paint with better group finding tools, it is, in fact, the old game, as it was, bruises and all.
"The developers however prefer to see the game continuously evolve and progress, and as such we have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms."
Therein lies the problem with the gaming industry. Forgetting who is paying the bills. I'm not a fan of the original WoW, but it's obvious that enough people are and that many of those people aren't playing the current version. I'm sure a server with different rules could be set up as an experiment. They are making more than enough money still to support that. But once again some clueless board members will make the *right* decision according to the way business works and the game will lose even more players. Go modern business management!
You could not have said it much better. The problem is the Board members are thinking of Massive money and massive payouts to Stockholders. Yet that methodology of business overall is not working. I will not get to political but that is why this years election is as charged as it is, because these business people want to go Public and are for only the stockholders. Going public with some industries work well, example is LG who makes TVs, dishwashers, washers,driers and so on. Companies that go public like Blizzard is not good when it comes to a genera like MMORPGs which by design are best in P2P realm with a steady subscription base. The F2P cash shop to hell looking at massive numbers might work for 1 or 2 MMORPGS but it does not work for the entire genera and that path is showing not to be as business savvy as people think.
Thats why I say privately owned businesses are best for MMORPGs because they dont need to worry about Stockholders. Stockholders want massive payouts every quarter. A privately held company most of the time is being run because they love what they do and they want to make money off it. While they are making money off it they are not looking to min max profits for stockholders and are going to take care of the customer first. Not a distance second.
WoW sub numbers are in a very significant decline.
Imagine if Vanilla WoW proves to be more popular than the current version. It would be a major embarrassment for Blizzard.
All the talk about lost code and crap is just bullshit. If 30 volunteers can get a high quality Vanilla server running, Blizzard sure in the hell could
Iv always felt this is precisely what its all about. Lets not forget as fans and average joes going about our lives we also dont see or know the current or past relationships of blizzard with the origianl devs who worked on vanilla, perhaps blizzard had quite the falling out with them, and maybe this is nothing more than what could be a blow to their over inflated ego. We have no idea whats truly going on behind the scenes at blizzard and there real motivation for not giving the fans what they want.... Illl say this though, Blizzard is slowly becoming the NEW EA. They can keep Draenor and there ever evolving story...
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
Vanilla without the vanilla bugs would be cool. Resource management and my SP being a mana battery. Take out the endless FP loop bugs. Anything pre wrath baby era would even be a step forward. And I love losing xp when grinding too heh.
"The developers however prefer to see the game continuously evolve and progress, and as such we have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms."
Therein lies the problem with the gaming industry. Forgetting who is paying the bills. I'm not a fan of the original WoW, but it's obvious that enough people are and that many of those people aren't playing the current version. I'm sure a server with different rules could be set up as an experiment. They are making more than enough money still to support that. But once again some clueless board members will make the *right* decision according to the way business works and the game will lose even more players. Go modern business management!
You could not have said it much better. The problem is the Board members are thinking of Massive money and massive payouts to Stockholders. Yet that methodology of business overall is not working. I will not get to political but that is why this years election is as charged as it is, because these business people want to go Public and are for only the stockholders. Going public with some industries work well, example is LG who makes TVs, dishwashers, washers,driers and so on. Companies that go public like Blizzard is not good when it comes to a genera like MMORPGs which by design are best in P2P realm with a steady subscription base. The F2P cash shop to hell looking at massive numbers might work for 1 or 2 MMORPGS but it does not work for the entire genera and that path is showing not to be as business savvy as people think.
Thats why I say privately owned businesses are best for MMORPGs because they dont need to worry about Stockholders. Stockholders want massive payouts every quarter. A privately held company most of the time is being run because they love what they do and they want to make money off it. While they are making money off it they are not looking to min max profits for stockholders and are going to take care of the customer first. Not a distance second.
Without the stockholders that invested in Blizz in those early years ,( and i did) , they wouldnt have been able to deliver the games , we gave them the freedom , resources and backing needed to make the games (Wow included) that the public got to enjoy and praise .. Going Public is what built Blizz into what it is today and gave you all those games to enjoy, it was public investors that could see the vision and believed in a small company ... To give millions of people .. millions and millions of hours of enjoyment ..
"If Blizzard’s findings indicated that enough money would be made to offset the cost of bringing classic realms online with all the attendant financial commitment that would be required, they would do so. "
To reinforce statements from folks like blueturtle I want to highlight that this statement is not entirely accurate. We're not talking about an indie developer that gets by on profit margins, this is a large company with measurable success. The opportunity cost of devoting resources to a vanilla server project would dwarf the cost of maintaining it.
IF the suits thought the profits would be comparable to that of their current developments THEN you might see the idea get the light of day. Unfortunately 15,000 subs is not remotely close to this.
In the past several years I've met dozens of other x-WoW players who can't say anything but nice things about Vanilla WoW, but vow to never return to it's current state. I'm fallen into the same boat after skipping the last expansion and now planning to skip all the rest as well. The introduction of an official Vanilla Server requires several small steps such as the work needed to host it and the leap of faith expecting a significant showing from the player base.
Yet, it offers a very large potential for increasing their total sub base and overall revenue. Even if it did take people away from the current version, find another way to bleed your costumers dry then with boring expansions, I'm sure they'd find a way. Either way a decline is a decline no matter what you call it, find something to grab onto or your just going to keep falling.
didn't EQ try and the bump was small....
EQ's most populated server is a progression server, it's a fact. besides, i would argue there are many many more potential customers that would come back to wow to play vanilla than there was for EQ.
EQ in it's prime had 500k players which was a lot less players than wow even back in the early vanilla days. it's already been proven a vast amount of people want to play on a server like this, people claiming they don't are doing so out of blind support of blizzard.
just stick to the legality aspect of the discussion, it's the only leg blizz has to stand on at this point, when it comes to this topic.
Comments
Blizz is a Co. that is forward thinking always has been ,they arent looking back ... particularly to curb the whining of 75k ,100k,200kthousand thieves ...........
And ill tell ya another thing , when they have there qrtly board meeting , and they discuss ..
Earnings... Sales ...projections... Stocks.. inverstors.. movement ... legal ....HR...
Wow ...
Hearthstone.........
D3.......
Overwatch.............
Heores of the Storm.........
Starcraft............
anything else to discuss? And honeslty you would be lucky if if it even got mentioned
well ....................... we have this petition with 75k sigs for vanilla Wow .....
Ok .. meeting is closed ..................whos buyin lunch... i could go for a Vanilla Shake
First of all, there is no chance they can close many emu servers down, they can hit a few for show and maybe show a sign of not being totally passive, but most will just find new places to get hosted.
So with that in mind, I believe it is a question of doing damage control, rather than trying to eradicate emu servers. In my opinion, going for a witchhunt against emu servers can lead to no good for Blizzard.. they risk bad publicity, they risk angering some nasty personalities with ddos powers and again with SOE as example that stuff cost millions to protect against. Personally I think Blizzard are playing a risky game, that could easily blow up in their hands. While taking a less confrontational approach it might turn out as good publicity for them instead.
It is Blizzards right to protect their ip, no doubt about it - I am just questioning whether it is a smart move to play hardball.
Blizzard making their own vanilla/progression servers is not very likely, but if they are, of course that changes everything, then they have to go after emu servers.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
So, anyway, for me personally, I would never want to revert back. Aside from content issues, I think WoW is in a decent place, and is looking to be in a better place than ever come Legion.
I'd rather they not create a progressive server until the game is on its last legs as a last effort to keep it afloat. I would rather they not split up the community unnecessarily.
Witty & Wicked
First of all, I'm sure they weigh their options when it comes to trying to close down any illegal server. yes it probably is damage control but they have to show that they are willing to do damage control. Remember, publicly traded company. Again, look at your own investments. you probably don't want to have money in a company that is not willing to maximize your investment and do its best to protect your investment. I'd be curious to see what their stock price did when this was first announced.
They aren't going to risk bad publicity against the official Blizzard customers. The only players they risk bad publicity with are those who are pissed off at having their servers closed.
Which brings us to your post about angering nasty personalities. The internet is full of nasty personalities. The bottom of the barrel are always going to be out there. And any company is not going to please everyone. If they capitulate toward every self interest group out there they might as well not run a business. So they aren't going to start making policy decisions based off of that. Additional, given how many "unsettled" personalities out there, I imagine Blizzard has already gotten attacks. They have pissed off enough players out there over the years that I would find it hard to believe that some group hasn't nerd raged against them at one point or another. I'm sure they are prepared for it on all fronts.
Given the amount of money at their disposal and the amount of money at risk I highly doubt they have sat on their thumbs thinking that they will never be a target.
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
I think if WOW did put up Vanilla WOW\TBC WOW servers it would prove to be an embarrassment to Blizzard because it will prove that chasing cash for stockholders is not possible in the MMORPG genera. The problem is right now the MMORPG genera together is already showing this because no one is making stockholders happy from a good MMORPG. Why? Because its the community that is the core of any MMORPG not a stockholder
Yep the problem is Mike Morheime is trying to make the Stockholder the most money he can. Yet I don't think he nor the stockholders realize that MMORPGs are not an area you can make money off of in stocks. If you do something that players don't like and try to appeal to everyone which is what Blizzard did no one is going to like it and you are not going to make money off the product. Your better path is to put your customer base first and what the stockholders want dont matter.
In Truth I think Blizzard should spin WOW off into a a private company because WOW is not making them money with stockholders and marketing managers thinking of ways to min max profits. It just does not work, it has proven it has not worked since WOTLK and some games are better left to privately owned companies and not publicly owned companies.
Therein lies the problem with the gaming industry. Forgetting who is paying the bills. I'm not a fan of the original WoW, but it's obvious that enough people are and that many of those people aren't playing the current version. I'm sure a server with different rules could be set up as an experiment. They are making more than enough money still to support that. But once again some clueless board members will make the *right* decision according to the way business works and the game will lose even more players. Go modern business management!
Yep I remember pub 16 which made resist useless when it took me 3 years to get resist to nearly GM. Add to that I went from having a 86 to 90 level skill bard who was running the shadow wrym room, plus able to provoke Blood Eleys and Balrons to I had to go back to taking on Water and Air Elys. It pissed me off to the point I quit and considered playing on private servers because the change they made screwed over the game.
You are doing it wrong.
The universal definition of vanilla WoW is that version of WoW which ran on the servers when it was originally released. In other words, vanilla WoW includes everything up to and including the original Naxxramas as it was released. The day that they altered to the game to prepare for the first expansion (The Burning Crusade), is the day that vanilla WoW ceased to exist.
Vanilla WoW is not the old game in a fancier coat of paint with better group finding tools, it is, in fact, the old game, as it was, bruises and all.
Thats why I say privately owned businesses are best for MMORPGs because they dont need to worry about Stockholders. Stockholders want massive payouts every quarter. A privately held company most of the time is being run because they love what they do and they want to make money off it. While they are making money off it they are not looking to min max profits for stockholders and are going to take care of the customer first. Not a distance second.
Aloha Mr Hand !
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
To reinforce statements from folks like blueturtle I want to highlight that this statement is not entirely accurate. We're not talking about an indie developer that gets by on profit margins, this is a large company with measurable success. The opportunity cost of devoting resources to a vanilla server project would dwarf the cost of maintaining it.
IF the suits thought the profits would be comparable to that of their current developments THEN you might see the idea get the light of day. Unfortunately 15,000 subs is not remotely close to this.
EQ in it's prime had 500k players which was a lot less players than wow even back in the early vanilla days. it's already been proven a vast amount of people want to play on a server like this, people claiming they don't are doing so out of blind support of blizzard.
just stick to the legality aspect of the discussion, it's the only leg blizz has to stand on at this point, when it comes to this topic.