For those that feel that Blizzard would look like asses and dropped the ball if the legacy servers did better, need to look at Activision instead. Blizz wanted to keep the systems they had and Activision wanted more subs instead. Blizz was pushed to make things easier and easier to bring in more and more players until it is the faceroll that it is today. You used to have to think about what you were doing, now it is truly just spam until either nuke cool downs are up or they pop from random timing. No thought goes into builds, everyone gets to choose from the exact same pools as everyone else and it pretty much makes no difference. I played thru vanilla, thru all the expansions, and dropped my sub about a year ago and will not go back as it has lost all that it once was great at.
Why not work out some form of licensing. Blizzard could lay down some rules for quality and such and charge a fee for the license. It just seems to me to be a missed oportunity. And that would also make shutting down pirate servers alot more "tolerable".
I understand their reason for shutting down pirate servers, but i dont want to play wow in it's current form. They gain nothing from me for shutting down pirate servers exept maybe abit of bad will.
It's not nostalgia, is because the warcraft vanilla is better than WoD trash...
Hyperbolic opinion. Around 5M people disagree with you, though you are obviously entitled to your thoughts on the issue.
And 6 Million during vanilla would agree with him and 11.5 million in TBC would also agree with him and both had growing populations not decreasing.
But what of the other 100M? Anyone can throw numbers around.(Vanilla peaked at 8M and BC at 11M btw). We simply don't know.
What - I suggest - is absolutely certain is that if Blizzard opened some "new old servers" then some of the people on the existing servers would move and, if it was a free for all, many would "move" simply to try it out - potentially creating carnage on the existing servers. (And discontent amongst those who couldn't create characters / get on.)
So what could be done?
My suggestion would be something like:
1. Announce that they would open "vailla servers" and/or a WotkL server etc. 2. Key word: subscribers would be able to enter a server based draw with rukes. 3. The server based draw would ensure that the impact on anyone server would be limited. 4. Open the new server for winners of the draw. 5. Further draws would take place as player numbers decllined. Players who unsubscribe; players who don't play a minimujm amount, players inactive for a set period of time being removed. Character data could obviously be stored and players could go back in the draw. 6. Blizzard open new servers if / as they deem appropriate.
We do know the numbers. Blizzard was giving out the numbers during vanilla and TBC. So yes we DO KNOW.
They only need to do 3 things for classic servers.
Open a PVE and PVP server for both Vanilla and TBC. Have no server transfers so everyone has to start new. Have an Active Subscription.
If more servers are needed they have how many live servers that well have no population on them at all that Blizzard and redeploy.
In gaming in general I do not miss "old good times" because they were not at all so good. There were few games, now zillion of them. If for somebody "vanilla" mean forced grouping, no LFG, ... then for sure they have lost one subscriber.
What bothers me with Wow with WOD is lack of PVE content. Have spent 1/4 to 1/5th of time that I needed up to MOP, last great expansion.
They've already lost around 6 million of them, What's one more?
If you honestly think:
1) that only 6M subs have been lost over a dozen years; 2) that all 6M stormed off because they didn't like the development direction
...you're limiting your thinking. It's been 12 years -- many players who've played and moved on have moved on in their real lives as well. Children, jobs, lack of time, etc. all contribute to people leaving a title. I don't know the number, but my guess is that 100M people have played WoW over the course of its lifetime. People change, move on, find new things to do with their time including playing other MMOs in an ever more crowded market that 2016 represents.
Insinuating that all these former players left and would come running back for vanilla is naive. Peak population for WoW was in 2010 and the Cataclysm expansion when the game went into steep decline, not coincidentally about the time that the MMO market exploded with other MMOs and the F2P movement began.
Who do you think comes back to buy these Xpacs? New players?
Now every new Xpac fewer and fewer of us return. It's not because we tire of the game but it's because we tire of the direction.
Well, here's my position: either Blizzard implements Legacy servers themselves or they back the fuck off when the community comes up with their own solution, like Nostalrius. Because when Blizzard refuses to provide the solution people are asking for but then also seeks out and destroys community-created alternatives, they're being a bunch of assholes. Plain and simple.
Before these recent events, I'd never once considered playing on a private WoW server. Now? That's the only place I would consider playing. I'll not pay Blizzard another subscription fee until they get their collective heads out of their asses and address this issue appropriately.
Except it's their IP, and their property. I wonder if you would have the same attitude if some were to take your work and use it for something you didn't want it used for?
I strongly suspect you would be one of the first people to rain down holy hell on someone using something of yours without permission.
Tough to say .... could be you're right, but I'd have to be in that situation. However, I think if I were serious about protecting my IP I would provide the service to my customers myself, removing the necessity to seek illegitimate alternatives. Because that's the smart way of handling this. As opposed to the stupid way, which is them politically raping themselves by shutting down the service without providing a legitimate alternative.
The best way to combat gold sellers is the WoW token. The best way to combat private legacy servers is to create an official one. Give the customers what they want. Everyone wins. Refuse to give your customers what they want and you get this situation.
I think you need to think more like a larger company. Whenever people on these forums talk about game companies, especially large companies, they think like they are running a "small company".
Large companies are concerned about Brand Identity, how not to dilute their Brand. Additionally, if they are publicly traded then they have to show that they are doing everything they can to keep the shareholders happy.
Remember "you" are also a shareholder. Not sure in what but I imagine you have some sort of retirement fund going, even if it's supplied by your company. If you found out that the money you were putting in there could have been "more" but for the actions/inactions of the companies in your portfoliio you might be pissed.
If you and others thought that the companies you invested your money in were not handling it well, you could sue them. Probably another reason Blizzard shut these guys down. High profile company that is, to them, diluting their brand.
Lastly, is their budget for putting together a classic server? While Blizzard might have a lot of money, and remember they have to pay dividends to shareholders, they also have their money budgeted for most everything in their upcoming fiscal year. Including plan for how much they want to grow. If they are looking at X profit and them using money for something that is not going to bring them a lot of bang for the buck is going to affect that they aren't going to want to do it. And where is that money going to come from? whose budget?
You make some excellent points, but I believe the way Blizzard is handling it now is politically damaging to their brand. They killed a Legacy WoW server that has 150,000 active players without providing a legitimate alternative. Not smart. They make more than enough money to maintain the good will of Blizzard fans by creating and maintaining Legacy WoW servers. Even if it ended up in the Expense column rather than the Profit column of a financial spreadsheet, it's hard not to see a PR move like that being a huge win for Blizzard in the long run. And I'm sure the shareholders could grasp this if it were explained to them; Morhaime could start with small, simple words and go from there.
I can guarantee you that shareholders would 100% approve of their actions.
Oh, no doubt. From a by-the-numbers perspective, their actions make sense. But there's a bigger picture here. Blizzard should be smarter than this, and at one time they were.
well i highly doubt this will help with their PR image especially if this story explodes on gaming news site
In gaming in general I do not miss "old good times" because they were not at all so good. There were few games, now zillion of them. If for somebody "vanilla" mean forced grouping, no LFG, ... then for sure they have lost one subscriber.
What bothers me with Wow with WOD is lack of PVE content. Have spent 1/4 to 1/5th of time that I needed up to MOP, last great expansion.
They've already lost around 6 million of them, What's one more?
If you honestly think:
1) that only 6M subs have been lost over a dozen years; 2) that all 6M stormed off because they didn't like the development direction
...you're limiting your thinking. It's been 12 years -- many players who've played and moved on have moved on in their real lives as well. Children, jobs, lack of time, etc. all contribute to people leaving a title. I don't know the number, but my guess is that 100M people have played WoW over the course of its lifetime. People change, move on, find new things to do with their time including playing other MMOs in an ever more crowded market that 2016 represents.
Insinuating that all these former players left and would come running back for vanilla is naive. Peak population for WoW was in 2010 and the Cataclysm expansion when the game went into steep decline, not coincidentally about the time that the MMO market exploded with other MMOs and the F2P movement began.
Who do you think comes back to buy these Xpacs? New players?
Now every new Xpac fewer and fewer of us return. It's not because we tire of the game but it's because we tire of the direction.
Tell that to the 10M that Warlords brought in, only 2M off peak four years before.
Players don't stay because there's no reason to and there are 100 other MMOs out there that many are interested in exploring or they have other things they'd rather do. Buy an expac, play for 3-6 months until satisfied, move on until the next one. It's formulaic and proven with every bump in subs with every expansion.
Well, here's my position: either Blizzard implements Legacy servers themselves or they back the fuck off when the community comes up with their own solution, like Nostalrius. Because when Blizzard refuses to provide the solution people are asking for but then also seeks out and destroys community-created alternatives, they're being a bunch of assholes. Plain and simple.
Before these recent events, I'd never once considered playing on a private WoW server. Now? That's the only place I would consider playing. I'll not pay Blizzard another subscription fee until they get their collective heads out of their asses and address this issue appropriately.
I am not a wow fan. However, theft is theft. There is no grey area here, at all. Blizz has done this in the past, and will continue to go after anyone that pirates their software. Why you would condone this attests to your character, am i right?
That being said, i think the free server has shown enough interest that blizz should consider a few legacy servers.
When a vendor refuses to provide a service do I support the community providing that service for themselves? Absolutely! You're correct, that does attest to my character. I believe a company should do what is morally correct rather than flexing their legal authority to kill other people's fun. That's just a shitty thing to do and I will not support them in that. Is it their legal right to do so? Well sure. But that doesn't mean they aren't dickheads for doing it. Blizzard forfeited the moral high ground the moment they killed that vanilla server without having any plans to provide one of their own.
The moral high ground? Here's a moral high ground for ya: stop breaking the damn rules.
Remember when Gabe Newell said that piracy was mostly a problem of service and the solution to this was to offer a legal alternative that is easier than pirating?
The private server communities share code. Kill one private server, two more take its place. There are several that have been around for ages, untouched. Park them in the right country and you are immune to anything Blizzard wants to do.
this, so much this
Blizzard is just leading a losing battle here that only ends up making even of their supporters angry.
players want progression servers or at least vanilla servers. Blizzard wants money. Seems like a match made in heaven. When the developers start telling you what or how you should be playing, it's time to find another developer.
I don't blame them for protecting their rights, but they aren't being honest as to why they don't want vanilla servers. And I don't believe that the source code repositories from back then are lost.
I play blizzard games, but WOW isn't one of them. I tried Nostalrius briefly and I just can't commit to unofficial servers. Once they asked for money(donations) to keep the servers running they were asking for trouble. But that wasn't even needed as they gained too many players and WoD is a wasteland with no buzz.
I don't believe they wouldn't make money with vanilla servers. Although would it produce high enough profit margins? That I have no clue on. But it would garner goodwill with their former subscribers.
IMHO they are just making up excuses that basically all leads back to " we dont give a fuck what you want either way, sto stop asking"
In gaming in general I do not miss "old good times" because they were not at all so good. There were few games, now zillion of them. If for somebody "vanilla" mean forced grouping, no LFG, ... then for sure they have lost one subscriber.
What bothers me with Wow with WOD is lack of PVE content. Have spent 1/4 to 1/5th of time that I needed up to MOP, last great expansion.
They've already lost around 6 million of them, What's one more?
If you honestly think:
1) that only 6M subs have been lost over a dozen years; 2) that all 6M stormed off because they didn't like the development direction
...you're limiting your thinking. It's been 12 years -- many players who've played and moved on have moved on in their real lives as well. Children, jobs, lack of time, etc. all contribute to people leaving a title. I don't know the number, but my guess is that 100M people have played WoW over the course of its lifetime. People change, move on, find new things to do with their time including playing other MMOs in an ever more crowded market that 2016 represents.
Insinuating that all these former players left and would come running back for vanilla is naive. Peak population for WoW was in 2010 and the Cataclysm expansion when the game went into steep decline, not coincidentally about the time that the MMO market exploded with other MMOs and the F2P movement began.
Wait a second. Didnt WOD start out with 10 Million Subs and in 6 months drop down to 5.4 Million subs? That is a 46% lost in subs in 6 months. You cannot say that WOW lost 4.6 Million subs in 12 years. No they lost it because their current path is not enjoyable.
While you are right that massive amounts of players wouldnt come back, you would still get 200K to 500K subs back that would likely sit around for at least a year if not 2 because the content of that time took time to chew through vs today's content you are done with it what? 2 months tops?
In gaming in general I do not miss "old good times" because they were not at all so good. There were few games, now zillion of them. If for somebody "vanilla" mean forced grouping, no LFG, ... then for sure they have lost one subscriber.
What bothers me with Wow with WOD is lack of PVE content. Have spent 1/4 to 1/5th of time that I needed up to MOP, last great expansion.
They've already lost around 6 million of them, What's one more?
If you honestly think:
1) that only 6M subs have been lost over a dozen years; 2) that all 6M stormed off because they didn't like the development direction
...you're limiting your thinking. It's been 12 years -- many players who've played and moved on have moved on in their real lives as well. Children, jobs, lack of time, etc. all contribute to people leaving a title. I don't know the number, but my guess is that 100M people have played WoW over the course of its lifetime. People change, move on, find new things to do with their time including playing other MMOs in an ever more crowded market that 2016 represents.
Insinuating that all these former players left and would come running back for vanilla is naive. Peak population for WoW was in 2010 and the Cataclysm expansion when the game went into steep decline, not coincidentally about the time that the MMO market exploded with other MMOs and the F2P movement began.
Who do you think comes back to buy these Xpacs? New players?
Now every new Xpac fewer and fewer of us return. It's not because we tire of the game but it's because we tire of the direction.
Tell that to the 10M that Warlords brought in, only 2M off peak four years before.
Players don't stay because there's no reason to and there are 100 other MMOs out there that many are interested in exploring or they have other things they'd rather do. Buy an expac, play for 3-6 months until satisfied, move on until the next one. It's formulaic and proven with every bump in subs with every expansion.
I have to break it to you. I didn't stay because WOD was crap and the direction of WOW is bad. WOD lost 4.6 Million subs in 6 months. News Flash its the direction, not other MMOS because if it were other MMOs they would be a lot more populated than the 500K or so FFXIV has which is the top sub based MMO and F2P you cannot even look at numbers there because I could have 10 accounts on 1 F2P game. SO numbers there do not count.
I can guarantee you that shareholders would 100% approve of their actions.
Oh, no doubt. From a by-the-numbers perspective, their actions make sense. But there's a bigger picture here. Blizzard should be smarter than this, and at one time they were.
The "problem" is that they're not the mom-and-pop shop on the corner or the neighborhood kid with a lemonade stand. They are a multi-million dollar corporation that makes its decisions with metrics that lay out what will make them the most money. Apparently vanilla servers aren't on that golden list yet.
And that explains why the magic is "Gone baby Gone"
Have you played any Blizzard games recently?
The magic is all still there. It's just that the MMO genre has moved on from the days of Vanilla WoW.
WoW changed over the last decade because of player demand and cries for change.
They didn't add LFG and LFR because in some ominous investor meeting it was decreed, upon looking at their gold plated crystal ball, that putting LFG and LFR into WoW would make them more money...
They added LFG and LFR because players demanded and cried for better ways to play with other players, faster matchmaking, raid content they could enjoy without having to invest their life into a guild and DKP systems etc.
Then in the game director's statements to the board, they said "hey we are adding these features that players have been asking for for a long time. We think it's going to be really popular and cool."
At which the board replied... "Good... GOOOOOODDD...." in their best Emperor Palpatine impression as they stroked their evil white cats while sitting in their gold plated evil megamind chairs.
My comment isn't about things like LFG and LFR. It has more to do with things like Real Money Auction Houses, Cash shops in sub games, and next to zero added content for subs paid.
It's quite plain to see where the focus is. It's on the science of monetization.
Good for stockholders no doubt.
heerobya To add not the LFD/LFR comment. They Added it because they thought they would make more money period. Even if the community wanted LFR/LFD the Vocal Minority wanted it just like the vocal minority didnt want any more AQ events or events that lead up to WOTLK. Currently all my friends left WOW because they hate LFD/LFR. Yet the Vocal Minority wants these tools, My wife has posted maybe a dozen post ever on any MMORPG forum, yet she hates LFD/LFR and she voted with her Wallet and in the cancel sub page explained why. The same go for most of my friends who have played. They are the silent majority because they are not the 100th person to thumbs up or thumbs down to LFD/LFR chat. They just cancel their subs.
So you can talk all you want heerobya about the COMMUNITY wants it. Its the Vocal Minority that wants it which is what blizzard reads on the forum. They dont take into account really what is happening.
In gaming in general I do not miss "old good times" because they were not at all so good. There were few games, now zillion of them. If for somebody "vanilla" mean forced grouping, no LFG, ... then for sure they have lost one subscriber.
What bothers me with Wow with WOD is lack of PVE content. Have spent 1/4 to 1/5th of time that I needed up to MOP, last great expansion.
They've already lost around 6 million of them, What's one more?
If you honestly think:
1) that only 6M subs have been lost over a dozen years; 2) that all 6M stormed off because they didn't like the development direction
...you're limiting your thinking. It's been 12 years -- many players who've played and moved on have moved on in their real lives as well. Children, jobs, lack of time, etc. all contribute to people leaving a title. I don't know the number, but my guess is that 100M people have played WoW over the course of its lifetime. People change, move on, find new things to do with their time including playing other MMOs in an ever more crowded market that 2016 represents.
Insinuating that all these former players left and would come running back for vanilla is naive. Peak population for WoW was in 2010 and the Cataclysm expansion when the game went into steep decline, not coincidentally about the time that the MMO market exploded with other MMOs and the F2P movement began.
Who do you think comes back to buy these Xpacs? New players?
Now every new Xpac fewer and fewer of us return. It's not because we tire of the game but it's because we tire of the direction.
Tell that to the 10M that Warlords brought in, only 2M off peak four years before.
Players don't stay because there's no reason to and there are 100 other MMOs out there that many are interested in exploring or they have other things they'd rather do. Buy an expac, play for 3-6 months until satisfied, move on until the next one. It's formulaic and proven with every bump in subs with every expansion.
Except for myself and circle of friends all received our copy of Warlords as gifts. We wrinkled out noses when we installed our copies already not expecting much. We didn't last a month. Those numbers show that quite a few of that 10M felt just like we did. These folks that want legacy servers like me are fine with having an endgame we enjoy for years to come, no extra work needed. The in-game activity, players and world pvp kept it alive and until you realize that we aren't even talking about the same experience. If you think any of us are Legion investors you are kidding yourself. Also it didn't take this news story to motivate us to that end.
Happily playing Vanilla and BC WoW, again, since September 2016.
Tell that to the 10M that Warlords brought in, only 2M off peak four years before.
Players don't stay because there's no reason to and there are 100 other MMOs out there that many are interested in exploring or they have other things they'd rather do. Buy an expac, play for 3-6 months until satisfied, move on until the next one. It's formulaic and proven with every bump in subs with every expansion.
Except for myself and circle of friends all received our copy of Warlords as gifts. We wrinkled out noses when we installed our copies already not expecting much. We didn't last a month. Those numbers show that quite a few of that 10M felt just like we did. These folks that want legacy servers like me are fine with having an endgame we enjoy for years to come, no extra work needed. The in-game activity, players and world pvp kept it alive and until you realize that we aren't even talking about the same experience. If you think any of us are Legion investors you are kidding yourself. Also it didn't take this news story to motivate us to that end.
I am with Sedatekarma on this. I bought all the WOW xpac including WOD. I am not buying Legion period, neither is my wife, and of all my friends who did buy WOD only 2 are buying Legion and one is only buying legion so he can play Demon hunter for a little while and I expect him to maintain his same pattern of play he has since cata which is play the expansion for 2 maybe 3 months and quit until the next one comes out.
That pattern is not going to keep blizzard making money.
If you think any of us are Legion investors you are kidding yourself. Also it didn't take this news story to motivate us to that end.
Of course not. If something's not fun, don't play it. That's the smart thing to do. WoD did a lot of things wrong, no question and it shows in tanked subs. There won't be an uptick with Legion like WoD had that's for sure, as many will either pass or wait for reviews. It will remain to be seen if Blizzard will alter its long game or not. My guess is it won't until they are done with what they want to do with WoW.
If you think any of us are Legion investors you are kidding yourself. Also it didn't take this news story to motivate us to that end.
Of course not. If something's not fun, don't play it. That's the smart thing to do. WoD did a lot of things wrong, no question and it shows in tanked subs. There won't be an uptick with Legion like WoD had that's for sure, as many will either pass or wait for reviews. It will remain to be seen if Blizzard will alter its long game or not. My guess is it won't until they are done with what they want to do with WoW.
Thing is if they dont change their long game they will not have much of a chance to play the long game. The reason I say that is lets just say WOW releases Legion and the uptick is about 3 Million yet 3+ million leave because they dont like that within 6 months to a year. While they will make money for a short time it will hurt their ability to invest that money into development unless they tap other games' revenue to pay for a dwindling revenue for WOW.
trust me. they will do it. its just not the time yet. Look at lineage2 they made it at the most critical time. the game was literally dying (In KOREA!!!!). and its very successful. so now they're making another expantion. and also NA l2 going to open l2 classic server. so its all good. but for wow, when they planing to release legion and 1-2 expantions after that. its just not the time to open wow classic.
those classic servers means that you r not playing current expantion. so they loose money. what ncsoft did is very smart. l2 classic is p2p so they are not loosing money even if you r not spending money on the new content. for blizzard its kinda diffucult to do that because ppl buy expantion and also its p2p so with wow classic they are still loosing money because we are not buying new expantion and play the old wow. so that means wow classic server must be more expensive than regular server.
or they do it when the game is like not popular at all, they're not making new expantions and the wow is f2p so thats the time to make wow classic and again to make it p2p.
trust me. they will do it. its just not the time yet. Look at lineage2 they made it at the most critical time. the game was literally dying (In KOREA!!!!). and its very successful. so now they're making another expantion. and also NA l2 going to open l2 classic server. so its all good. but for wow, when they planing to release legion and 1-2 expantions after that. its just not the time to open wow classic.
those classic servers means that you r not playing current expantion. so they loose money. what ncsoft did is very smart. l2 classic is p2p so they are not loosing money even if you r not spending money on the new content. for blizzard its kinda diffucult to do that because ppl buy expantion and also its p2p so with wow classic they are still loosing money because we are not buying new expantion and play the old wow. so that means wow classic server must be more expensive than regular server.
or they do it when the game is like not popular at all, they're not making new expantions and the wow is f2p so thats the time to make wow classic and again to make it p2p.
The part holding them back is getting the mod-like systems working with the older WoW. They added things like gaining experience from herbing and mining, node highlighting for quests and gathering professions, more convenient quest logs, in game calendar, dungeon / raid journals, and a lot of other features that even Vanilla WoW really needed but was sorely lacking. Many people don't realize how many systems got put in that make life just a whole lot better in the game and what they really want is the leveling curve of the old World of Warcraft with the comfort features from the new one, albeit with a better implemented party finder and RF systems that actually makes people walk to the dungeon they want to group up for instead of instantly teleporting from out of the aether.
People don't want "everything" from vanilla wow. They want parts of it and that is the challenge.
You cannot say that WOW lost 4.6 Million subs in 12 years. No they lost it because their current path is not enjoyable.
They lost it because the game is over 10 years old. Nothing remains as fun for ten years... After all how many people still play the original Doom game.
At this point there is NOTHING Blizzard can do to stop the churn. Heck even giving people a vanilla server would only make a small ding in the decline. (much like how expansions work) heck the only reason most people would feel that "vanilla" would be fun is because they have not played it for 6 years. Give daily undramatic access to it and most will be bored within a month or three,,, Just like with expansions.
You cannot say that WOW lost 4.6 Million subs in 12 years. No they lost it because their current path is not enjoyable.
They lost it because the game is over 10 years old. Nothing remains as fun for ten years... After all how many people still play the original Doom game.
At this point there is NOTHING Blizzard can do to stop the churn. Heck even giving people a vanilla server would only make a small ding in the decline. (much like how expansions work) heck the only reason most people would feel that "vanilla" would be fun is because they have not played it for 6 years. Give daily undramatic access to it and most will be bored within a month or three,,, Just like with expansions.
After all... N good thing last forever.
I agree to a point. The problem is the changes were so drastic and it moves the game so far way from an MMORPG that people want to play that they quit playing.
O and BTW I sometimes play original games like Final Fantasy and so on. The thing is today's FFXV is a game I would stay away from compared to FF1 or FF6.
trust me. they will do it. its just not the time yet. Look at lineage2 they made it at the most critical time. the game was literally dying (In KOREA!!!!). and its very successful. so now they're making another expantion. and also NA l2 going to open l2 classic server. so its all good. but for wow, when they planing to release legion and 1-2 expantions after that. its just not the time to open wow classic.
those classic servers means that you r not playing current expantion. so they loose money. what ncsoft did is very smart. l2 classic is p2p so they are not loosing money even if you r not spending money on the new content. for blizzard its kinda diffucult to do that because ppl buy expantion and also its p2p so with wow classic they are still loosing money because we are not buying new expantion and play the old wow. so that means wow classic server must be more expensive than regular server.
or they do it when the game is like not popular at all, they're not making new expantions and the wow is f2p so thats the time to make wow classic and again to make it p2p.
The part holding them back is getting the mod-like systems working with the older WoW. They added things like gaining experience from herbing and mining, node highlighting for quests and gathering professions, more convenient quest logs, in game calendar, dungeon / raid journals, and a lot of other features that even Vanilla WoW really needed but was sorely lacking. Many people don't realize how many systems got put in that make life just a whole lot better in the game and what they really want is the leveling curve of the old World of Warcraft with the comfort features from the new one, albeit with a better implemented party finder and RF systems that actually makes people walk to the dungeon they want to group up for instead of instantly teleporting from out of the aether.
People don't want "everything" from vanilla wow. They want parts of it and that is the challenge.
I agree a lot with this. Better Party finders like they have now not LFD/LFR or FFXIV's Party Finder, and in game Calendars would have gone a long way back in Vanilla TBC without LFD/LFR
In gaming in general I do not miss "old good times" because they were not at all so good. There were few games, now zillion of them. If for somebody "vanilla" mean forced grouping, no LFG, ... then for sure they have lost one subscriber.
What bothers me with Wow with WOD is lack of PVE content. Have spent 1/4 to 1/5th of time that I needed up to MOP, last great expansion.
They've already lost around 6 million of them, What's one more?
If you honestly think:
1) that only 6M subs have been lost over a dozen years; 2) that all 6M stormed off because they didn't like the development direction
...you're limiting your thinking. It's been 12 years -- many players who've played and moved on have moved on in their real lives as well. Children, jobs, lack of time, etc. all contribute to people leaving a title. I don't know the number, but my guess is that 100M people have played WoW over the course of its lifetime. People change, move on, find new things to do with their time including playing other MMOs in an ever more crowded market that 2016 represents.
Insinuating that all these former players left and would come running back for vanilla is naive. Peak population for WoW was in 2010 and the Cataclysm expansion when the game went into steep decline, not coincidentally about the time that the MMO market exploded with other MMOs and the F2P movement began.
Who do you think comes back to buy these Xpacs? New players?
Now every new Xpac fewer and fewer of us return. It's not because we tire of the game but it's because we tire of the direction.
Tell that to the 10M that Warlords brought in, only 2M off peak four years before.
Players don't stay because there's no reason to and there are 100 other MMOs out there that many are interested in exploring or they have other things they'd rather do. Buy an expac, play for 3-6 months until satisfied, move on until the next one. It's formulaic and proven with every bump in subs with every expansion.
I was one of those 10 million. The hype was strong with Warlords. The time that players spend subbed with Xpacs is also on the decline.
Everything is whishy whashy, Blizzard is losing direction with WoW. They're losing their older players and not gaining newer players.
Good games and good game designs are timeless. I played Monopoly with my parents, I played with my kids. I have my first grandchild and I bet you dollars to doughnuts I'll be playing Monopoly with my grandchild along with his parents.
My grown up children love Risk, they have LOTR Risk, Walking Dead Risk and good ole Classic Risk.
What you call splitting your market, I call expanding your market.
After you play an mmorpg for a long time and spend time on forums you'll see this cartoon is completely wrong.
If you listen to mmo players they will tell you:
They want content that is challenging, but when it actually is hard to the point they can't beat in under 10 tries it they will say they want it to be easier (or they will turn into vitriolic plebs that kick anyone who isn't in the best gear possible to get), so in reality they want the illusion of difficulty or just something that lets them beat it but not others so they can puff their chests out.
That they want server merges so there are lots of people around, until lots of people makes them wait for a nanosecond to enter anything and then they don't wan big servers anymore. Same for lag (more people = more lag)
That they want lots of variety in dungeons and pvp but that they also want fast queue times, problem is you can't have lots of content and not spread the players out causing long queue times.
They say they want open world content, then complain because nobody is doing dungeons and they have a 30 min queue time.
That they want vanilla servers when in reality they will get bored of
the nostalgia in a month and all they did was either waste the company a
ton of money or make them create 2 dev teams to update both versions.
That they want easy upgrades and high drop rates. Then in a month when they have all the new gear and have capped they will say "I'm bored there is nothing worth doing, quitting!" I could go on but you get the idea, they put as much thought into their demands as they do brushing their teeth, then complain at the devs if they listen and the negatives impact them.
Not even counting that half your players will say one thing and the other half something totally different...but anyway
Listening to mmorpg players is like pressing a big button that says kill your game!.
So do you agree to their terms when you buy the game say in a store? Install the disk in your drive? Download it? What if someone bought the old disk at a yard sale? At what point was this terminology added that "everyone in the world apparently agrees to"
Comments
I understand their reason for shutting down pirate servers, but i dont want to play wow in it's current form. They gain nothing from me for shutting down pirate servers exept maybe abit of bad will.
We do know the numbers. Blizzard was giving out the numbers during vanilla and TBC. So yes we DO KNOW.
They only need to do 3 things for classic servers.
Open a PVE and PVP server for both Vanilla and TBC. Have no server transfers so everyone has to start new. Have an Active Subscription.
If more servers are needed they have how many live servers that well have no population on them at all that Blizzard and redeploy.
Now every new Xpac fewer and fewer of us return. It's not because we tire of the game but it's because we tire of the direction.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
well i highly doubt this will help with their PR image especially if this story explodes on gaming news site
Players don't stay because there's no reason to and there are 100 other MMOs out there that many are interested in exploring or they have other things they'd rather do. Buy an expac, play for 3-6 months until satisfied, move on until the next one. It's formulaic and proven with every bump in subs with every expansion.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Remember when Gabe Newell said that piracy was mostly a problem of service and the solution to this was to offer a legal alternative that is easier than pirating?
yeah, Blizzard may wanna remember this
this, so much this
Blizzard is just leading a losing battle here that only ends up making even of their supporters angry.
IMHO they are just making up excuses that basically all leads back to " we dont give a fuck what you want either way, sto stop asking"
While you are right that massive amounts of players wouldnt come back, you would still get 200K to 500K subs back that would likely sit around for at least a year if not 2 because the content of that time took time to chew through vs today's content you are done with it what? 2 months tops?
I have to break it to you. I didn't stay because WOD was crap and the direction of WOW is bad. WOD lost 4.6 Million subs in 6 months. News Flash its the direction, not other MMOS because if it were other MMOs they would be a lot more populated than the 500K or so FFXIV has which is the top sub based MMO and F2P you cannot even look at numbers there because I could have 10 accounts on 1 F2P game. SO numbers there do not count.
heerobya To add not the LFD/LFR comment. They Added it because they thought they would make more money period. Even if the community wanted LFR/LFD the Vocal Minority wanted it just like the vocal minority didnt want any more AQ events or events that lead up to WOTLK. Currently all my friends left WOW because they hate LFD/LFR. Yet the Vocal Minority wants these tools, My wife has posted maybe a dozen post ever on any MMORPG forum, yet she hates LFD/LFR and she voted with her Wallet and in the cancel sub page explained why. The same go for most of my friends who have played. They are the silent majority because they are not the 100th person to thumbs up or thumbs down to LFD/LFR chat. They just cancel their subs.
So you can talk all you want heerobya about the COMMUNITY wants it. Its the Vocal Minority that wants it which is what blizzard reads on the forum. They dont take into account really what is happening.
That pattern is not going to keep blizzard making money.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
those classic servers means that you r not playing current expantion. so they loose money. what ncsoft did is very smart. l2 classic is p2p so they are not loosing money even if you r not spending money on the new content. for blizzard its kinda diffucult to do that because ppl buy expantion and also its p2p so with wow classic they are still loosing money because we are not buying new expantion and play the old wow. so that means wow classic server must be more expensive than regular server.
or they do it when the game is like not popular at all, they're not making new expantions and the wow is f2p so thats the time to make wow classic and again to make it p2p.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
People don't want "everything" from vanilla wow. They want parts of it and that is the challenge.
At this point there is NOTHING Blizzard can do to stop the churn. Heck even giving people a vanilla server would only make a small ding in the decline. (much like how expansions work) heck the only reason most people would feel that "vanilla" would be fun is because they have not played it for 6 years. Give daily undramatic access to it and most will be bored within a month or three,,, Just like with expansions.
After all... N good thing last forever.
This have been a good conversation
O and BTW I sometimes play original games like Final Fantasy and so on. The thing is today's FFXV is a game I would stay away from compared to FF1 or FF6.
I agree a lot with this. Better Party finders like they have now not LFD/LFR or FFXIV's Party Finder, and in game Calendars would have gone a long way back in Vanilla TBC without LFD/LFR
Everything is whishy whashy, Blizzard is losing direction with WoW. They're losing their older players and not gaining newer players.
Good games and good game designs are timeless. I played Monopoly with my parents, I played with my kids. I have my first grandchild and I bet you dollars to doughnuts I'll be playing Monopoly with my grandchild along with his parents.
My grown up children love Risk, they have LOTR Risk, Walking Dead Risk and good ole Classic Risk.
What you call splitting your market, I call expanding your market.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
If you listen to mmo players they will tell you:
They want content that is challenging, but when it actually is hard to the point they can't beat in under 10 tries it they will say they want it to be easier (or they will turn into vitriolic plebs that kick anyone who isn't in the best gear possible to get), so in reality they want the illusion of difficulty or just something that lets them beat it but not others so they can puff their chests out.
That they want server merges so there are lots of people around, until lots of people makes them wait for a nanosecond to enter anything and then they don't wan big servers anymore. Same for lag (more people = more lag)
That they want lots of variety in dungeons and pvp but that they also want fast queue times, problem is you can't have lots of content and not spread the players out causing long queue times.
They say they want open world content, then complain because nobody is doing dungeons and they have a 30 min queue time.
That they want vanilla servers when in reality they will get bored of the nostalgia in a month and all they did was either waste the company a ton of money or make them create 2 dev teams to update both versions.
That they want easy upgrades and high drop rates. Then in a month when they have all the new gear and have capped they will say "I'm bored there is nothing worth doing, quitting!"
I could go on but you get the idea, they put as much thought into their demands as they do brushing their teeth, then complain at the devs if they listen and the negatives impact them.
Not even counting that half your players will say one thing and the other half something totally different...but anyway
Listening to mmorpg players is like pressing a big button that says kill your game!.