Making vanilla profitable to Blizzard.

Abuz0r

Without arguing about opinions on the subject of an official vanilla server, I'd like to pursue ideas about making it profitable for Blizzard and therefore a priority.  Many of us would shell out big bucks and reopen multiple accounts to play vanilla again.

Here are my ideas, please share yours:

1) Official licensing proposals to Blizzard.  3rd party host and customer service paying fees to Blizzard and charging customers similar to the situation with Darkfall.

2) Kickstarter or GoFundMe for the estimated setup costs to contribute to Blizzard in exchange for a commitment to bring vanilla servers online if targets are achieved.

Thanks for helping, I loved playing World of Warcraft and no longer have a game to call home.

CrazKanuk

Abuz0r said:

Without arguing about opinions on the subject of an official vanilla server, I'd like to pursue ideas about making it profitable for Blizzard and therefore a priority.  Many of us would shell out big bucks and reopen multiple accounts to play vanilla again.

Here are my ideas, please share yours:

1) Official licensing proposals to Blizzard.  3rd party host and customer service paying fees to Blizzard and charging customers similar to the situation with Darkfall.

2) Kickstarter or GoFundMe for the estimated setup costs to contribute to Blizzard in exchange for a commitment to bring vanilla servers online if targets are achieved.

Thanks for helping, I loved playing World of Warcraft and no longer have a game to call home.

You can scratch #2 because Kickstarter doesn't allow for that. At least not the last time that I checked their TOS. 

On the first item, I don't think that you ever get official licensing from Blizzard. Nost had, what appeared to be, an opportunity to work with Blizzard. My assumption is that it's more about Blizzard not segmenting their users than it is actually getting a couple bucks out of it. 

That's why I would question whether you'd even see Vanilla offered by Blizzard. Maybe if they did it as an additional $5 surcharge on top of the current $15? So you'd be paying $20 monthly? 

Abuz0r

I'd pay 30 or even 40 a month to play vanilla.

Scorchien

you cant

Loke666

To be fair do I think a vanilla server would be profitable if they just launched it.

If they want it way more popular they make a good graphics upgrade but leaving everything else as it was and skip ever releasing the expansions. Maybe a bit new material like dungeons at times.

The thing is that too many expansions hurt a MMO and while some love them not all players do. A graphically updated vanilla would keep at least a million players which easily would earn in any cost fast. Blizzard wont do it though because their point is that Wow is better then ever and releasing a prettier vanilla might contradict that.

In fact, chances are that it would pass current Wow and you can't make expansion money on a vanilla game.

We wont see a vanilla Wow except by illegal private servers.

Abuz0r

Loke666 said:

To be fair do I think a vanilla server would be profitable if they just launched it.

If they want it way more popular they make a good graphics upgrade but leaving everything else as it was and skip ever releasing the expansions. Maybe a bit new material like dungeons at times.

The thing is that too many expansions hurt a MMO and while some love them not all players do. A graphically updated vanilla would keep at least a million players which easily would earn in any cost fast. Blizzard wont do it though because their point is that Wow is better then ever and releasing a prettier vanilla might contradict that.

In fact, chances are that it would pass current Wow and you can't make expansion money on a vanilla game.

We wont see a vanilla Wow except by illegal private servers.

I'm sure WoW is better than ever, but it's not the game I originally signed up for, and it's been made easier and easier as far as grouping ETC.  I like the updates, I like the cross-realm PVP, I like WoW in general, but if vanilla were an option I'd subscribe my account and play that.  Expansions are super painful because it's such a reset.  I've only ever quit right before an expansion.  It may seem like a great 'expansion' but it's also a great time to cancel and leave.

DeadSpock

I started playing WoW when The Burning Crusade released before they made everything easy back when even in the starting area you aggroed and even died. I would most defenetly subscribe to WoW if it was as hard as back in the days it dosnt matter vanilla or full expacs just hate to play the WoW of today with the stupid pet fights. It feels too kiddie.

MadFrenchie

Abuz0r said:

I'd pay 30 or even 40 a month to play vanilla.

You can play it sans the subscription right now.

Abuz0r

Yes I know that.  Also minus professional servers and cross-realm pvp. Also minus Zul'Gurub and BWL, ETC.   Naxx...  Full flavor vanilla would be amazing.

MadFrenchie

Abuz0r said:

Yes I know that.  Also minus professional servers and cross-realm pvp. Also minus Zul'Gurub and BWL, ETC.   Naxx...  Full flavor vanilla would be amazing.

True, there's a timeline for those, though.  So they should be available eventually.  And, speaking from experience, there's no issue with the server.  I don't remember vanilla originally having cross-realm PvPing.  I was pretty sure cross-realm grouping was something added much later.

Malkos

Honestly it's not about making it profitable and it is most definitely something that is possible to do, I mean just look at all the private servers that have a small team. Blizzard most definitely has the resources, even if they have to redo or adapt a lot of the old code.

They CAN do it but they wont because for them it doesn't make any sense to from a design standpoint. As someone in the thread mentioned earlier, they don't want to admit that rereleasing a state of the game from 10+ years ago would be fun or popular. There is a clear want for the product and people are more than willing to pay for it and it would also solve a lot of issues they have with some private servers. But they don't want to be caught with egg on their face at the end of the day.

Wizardry

I would not shell out a single dollar for vanilla or for what they are selling right now.
I need to see MANY changes before i want to play a game called Wow.
Better graphics,daily PVE "server wide" events ,NO dailies nonsense,housing,NO linear questing,NO xp for doing quests,far less instances and NO linear progression to do the NEXT tier of content as you SHOULD be able to pretty much do any content with NOOB gear by playing your class well and with lots of quality spells and abilities to guide you through tougher content.
OPEN world content instead of ALWAYS aiming at instances better combat design with more depth for player to player team work.

So yeah Wow needs LOTS of help before i would consider it even remotely a good game and one i would play.

Abuz0r

That's going to work... Tell the biggest and most historically successful game they need to make a lot of changes before you're willing to play.  

I made this thread to brainstorm ideas about how to sell the project to Blizzard not to make assumptions about how Blizzard feels or why they will or won't do it.  Every company has sales goals and you guys keep attaching petty emotional flaws to a giant and otherwise impersonal company.

I think subscriptions are their number one priority and they are primarily worried the vanilla audience plays vanilla because they're getting it for free and not because they like vanilla. We have to show them that's not the case.

botrytis

Hasn't Blizzard made enough money off of this 10 yr old game?

Nilden

How exactly would vanilla NOT be profitable?

cheyane

Even if they charge $20 a month it would be preferable to playing on Blizzard servers than some lousy, unstable private ones.

Albatroes

I wouldn't brush off "time-locked" servers just yet, especially since they were thinking about the idea and how to execute it for most profit of course, until Nost had a total meltdown and released the code and then had another meltdown regretting what they did. Those events aside, Legion's "glory" is starting to fade for a few and blizzard keeps going backwards (literally releasing scaled up versions of old content or scaled down I suppose). The company is honestly running out of ideas and has more misses than hits in recent years when it comes to the game.

Thane

this never was about "making it worth" for blizzard.
blizzard was always about being as good as they can, and yes, they made mistakes too.

non the less, they always tried to set a new scope for upcomming games, and they did so quite good.

"vanilla WoW", as you like to call it, was way from perfect.
i actually doubt you remember it ^^

blizz has advanced the game for over 12 years or more now, and they will not go back on that process.

delete5230

cheyane said:

Even if they charge $20 a month it would be preferable to playing on Blizzard servers than some lousy, unstable private ones.

I play on one that's Rock solid......Stable, packed with players and less than 2% broken quest. I don't even think that.

alterfenix

Thane said:

this never was about "making it worth" for blizzard.
blizzard was always about being as good as they can, and yes, they made mistakes too.

non the less, they always tried to set a new scope for upcomming games, and they did so quite good.

"vanilla WoW", as you like to call it, was way from perfect.
i actually doubt you remember it ^^

blizz has advanced the game for over 12 years or more now, and they will not go back on that process.

Well I do remember both vanilla and tbc not being perfect nor even aiming for perfection really. But I also remember it to be lots of fun despite it's flaws. You could say that I probably just got tired of the game which is why I prefer vanilla/tbc and skip i.e. Legion completely but then modern WoW is just way too fast to enjoy for me - that was not the case of vanilla. Note that there are still some games with slower progression through content and yes - I do enjoy them so much more than modern WoW. Just like I did enjoy WoW 10+ years ago

gervaise1

Problem.
Its not money, Blizzard could fund vanilla if they want to. Its not resources either - Blizzard could hire more devs if they wanted. Lets say they do and:

Blizzard open - or allow a third party to open - vanilla servers. 
The servers are flooded (lets assume) as a mixture of nostalgia and novelty rule.

Problem Phase 1:
Desolation sweeps the official servers. Those not interested in vanilla are left bemoaning the destruction of guilds and the lack of population. They want mergers and they want them now!

Problem Phase 2.
Fast forward a month or so.
As the nostalgia and novelty pass players leave - not everyone of course. Basically think of vanilla as a new mmo - initial surge then a huge drop off.
Some vanilla players stay; some leave; some leave but go back to the non-vanilla servers - were chaos reigns. 

Problem Summary. Chaos and Risk. 
Huge population issues to manage.
Damage to the current server populations. Post launch population vanilla server population issues.
Possible: net loss of population. Has happened in the past when servers have been merging etc., new-old servers being introduced etc. Whether or not this does happen Blizzard will peg it as a risk and want a solution to prevent it.

Solution Maybe?
My thoughts are that:
- Blizzard would have to restrict access to the current WoW population. Basically make the vanilla server experience a glorified Time Walking episode.
- As a minimum limit the size of the vanilla population initially- a hard numerical cap. As such some system will have to be put in place to decide who gets to go, who doesn't. e.g. continuous months subbed; or historically months subbed; a combination of current + historical; random lottery - possibly quest linked, some new quests or based on old quests.
- the hard cap could be raised over time;
- make it easy for people to stay in touch with any friends or guild.
The aim is to avoid the chaos.

This approach though would almost certainly have people complaining that they want to play vanilla "now" and under whatever rules Blizzard device they won't be able to for x. y. z. Unhappy people making unhappy posts. So Blizzard would have to sell the message and keep pushing the message.

Ultimate question: would they make any money? Everyone would have to be subscribed. And they could lock the Time Walking experience behind the latest expansion. So vanilla players would have to sub and buy the latest expac or even expacs.

Would it work even if they believe they could make a profit? Not sure. 

TalulaRose

Unfortunately the dozen people saying they would pay don't speak for the masses.

Nilden

TalulaRose said:

Unfortunately the dozen people saying they would pay don't speak for the masses.

Right because it's not like vanilla started it all and had millions of people paying to play it, oh wait...

Akulas

They should do modern day WoW with an upgraded vanilla combat but it still being vanilla combat and questing. I don't want to log in and go to a place and press lfg be put in an auto group and mash random buttons to win.

FrodoFragins

I really enjoyed leveling to 60 on a private vanilla server earlier this year.  But then I realized that I didn't want to manually keep making groups in the hopes of getting pre-raid BiS gear.  Once was enough for that and since I went to an older server it was even harder to find groups.  Fighting over those drops makes it even more of a nightmare.

I did it once when it came out and enjoyed it, but these days those design choices don't really fly.  I still think they should offer a vanilla server and a year later open a BC server.  Maybe make some changes to make certain things a little less painful.

Kevyne-Shandris

Loke666 said:

We wont see a vanilla Wow except by illegal private servers.

The truth is they don't want a divided population. They want the cattle to stay penned in one version of the game (no EQ and EQII divide). With the game essentially 5 or so million players active, I'd be hard pressed to find if even 2.5 million humans playing the game (many are multi-boxing).

If Blizzard added vanilla, current WoW would be a ghost town, as so many multi-box for the illusion OF a MMO. As soon as Blizzard has an Overwatch promo, WoW empties. So the game really doesn't have many humans playing to split between old and new WoW.

Then what tech or new content will keep their designers happy creating?

So they're stuck in new WoW and anything else old will have to be third party (which Blizzard is very greedy about not doing).