How many people were playing on Nostalrius because they wanted a vanilla experience, and how many people were playing because they wanted a free game?
Reference SBFord's graph: if the majority of folks on private servers were merely concerned with playing for free, a server that included TBC and WotLK would, far and away, be more popular than a vanilla server. It simply wouldn't make sense to withhold all that extra content that was so popular at release if you simply wanted to play without a subscription.
Only if the other servers are as populated and well running... Nossy was according to people the smoothest and well populated of the servers, that usually weighs very heavy for the more casual players. Especially population.
So while you make i good point, it is very much flawed.
That's the thing: Nostalrius could have very well been a TBC/WotLK server. It could have contained those expansions from the start, or added them in later. They chose to remain truly vanilla, despite the expansions adding objectively more content for their players.
How many people were playing on Nostalrius because they wanted a vanilla experience, and how many people were playing because they wanted a free game?
Reference SBFord's graph: if the majority of folks on private servers were merely concerned with playing for free, a server that included TBC and WotLK would, far and away, be more popular than a vanilla server. It simply wouldn't make sense to withhold all that extra content that was so popular at release if you simply wanted to play without a subscription.
Only if the other servers are as populated and well running... Nossy was according to people the smoothest and well populated of the servers, that usually weighs very heavy for the more casual players. Especially population.
So while you make i good point, it is very much flawed.
That's the thing: Nostalrius could have very well been a TBC/WotLK server. It could have contained those expansions from the start, or added them in later. They chose to remain truly vanilla, despite the expansions adding objectively more content for their players.
That i would guess was partially personal preference of the people running it and partially out of necessity as it cut the content they needed to get working down to a minimum. They also knew that they could not make money from the server so there was no need to maximize appeal. They just had to be the best at what they did and people would come. Especially the people who wanted a good WoW experience for free.
Ofc if they could have made a WotLK server they would have had more people who where there to play for free. The vanilla tag most likely scared some people away.... But don´t trick your self in to believing that the conversion rate would be anyway near as high as some people make it sound like... My most generous guess would be 40-60%... People played for the free game... Greed and defiance trumps comfort.
It's amazing that since Dragonsouls release the gap between the final raid and a new x-pac hasn't soured the remaining 5 million people. This is the third time of content drought for this length, and this x-pac is the worst on content by far. How many more times will they do this till it sinks, I really doubt that this x-pac will push numbers over 7 mill or hell they might go under 5 mill with the release of an x-pac.
So many arguments about this but really, no matter how you spin it --->
The Vanilla WoW story has already been written and played.. you have a couple of years of progression then the story is done. there is not going to be more added or written in here...
Do you think that is worth it to Blizzard to do? It is a short time investment.
I would play on a Blizzard Vanilla server to relive the old but I also know when the progression is done i am as well...been there, done that.
Lol.. WTf .. another day and another Vanilla Wow thread...
Let it go ...
Its not going to happen , anytime soon , the very earliest Blizz woudl even consider this , is after Legion and they have collected enough data...
It doesnt matter how many sigs you get ..
It doesnt matter how many whiny threads you have ..
18 months out before they would even consider maybe .............
They have no desire to focus any resoruces on such a small amount of unpaying .. ... people.. when there focus is in delivering the best product they can to players who you know actually pay them ...
Lol.. WTf .. another day and another Vanilla Wow thread...
Let it go ...
Its not going to happen , anytime soon , the very earliest Blizz woudl even consider this , is after Legion and they have collected enough data...
It doesnt matter how many Isgs you get ..
It doesnt matter how many whiny threads you have ..
They have no desire to focus any resoruces such a small amount of unpaying .. ... people.. when there focus is in delivering the best product they can to players who you know actually pay them ...
Again, no.
your time and effort .....................................are wasted
"But doing so would also be an admission that the future of World of Warcraft isn't as enticing as they want you to believe it is"
I don't agree. WoW changed in Cataclysm inside out, it should not be called WoW anymore, it should rly be WoW2, and like EQ2 and EQ1 is going next to each other very well, a vanilla server wouldnt hurt.
Also forgetting the fact that Blizzard would probably gain more paying customers this way, than what they would loose agains the latest WoW.
i agree. its not the time for vanilla servers. look at lineage2 classic servers. they opened classic servers when new lineage is about to be released. Is world of warcraft 2 about to be released? no. thats why we dont have official vanilla servers. wow is not done yet.
You know I hope everyone gets what they want, Neckbeards and all others included. It's just a matter of whether it's viable for more than a year to offer as a service. IF this was a server guaranteed to be populated for a few years or longer, I wouldn't see it as being an issue. If they went the progression route like EQ, where everyone starts out at zero, and over time additions were added keeping it fresh as well as moving forward, that would make more sense (yet probably even more unlikely).
I just don't see it as being logical to just offer a Vanilla server locked in time, It just doesn't seem as something that would be viable past the short term. Especially if people had to pay for it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You know I hope everyone gets what they want, Neckbeards and all others included. It's just a matter of whether it's viable for more than a year to offer as a service. IF this was a server guaranteed to be populated for a few years or longer, I wouldn't see it as being an issue. If they went the progression route like EQ, where everyone starts out at zero, and over time additions were added keeping it fresh as well as moving forward, that would make more sense (yet probably even more unlikely).
I just don't see it as being logical to just offer a Vanilla server locked in time, It just doesn't seem as something that would be viable past the short term. Especially if people had to pay for it.
If they tweaked the RNG made some different playability options (like rs deadman and ironman) I see a lot of replayability but of course they have to make a profit off this there are ideas. Better than anything WoW currently offers lol.
Ah, once more the historical revisionists claim that vanilla WoW was nothing but sheer utopia, whereas the current version is naught but pure trash foisted upon us by the evil corporate overlords at Blizzard.
I guess I can understand why people would miss the class imbalance, content gaps & endless grinding, crippling lag, simplistic raid bosses, bugs bugs and more bugs, constant server downtime, lack of endgame, dull questing, broken abilities, and lack of social tools. Wait, no, I really can't see why people would miss that.
If Blizzard opened a vanilla server, it would be dead in three months, six tops. People would run right through the content and start whining about lack of endgame activities and game features before going back to current WoW or another game. And they'd probably find some way to blame Blizzard for 'ruining' vanilla rather than face the fact that their precious memories are nothing more than nostalgia fueled, highly romanticized bullshit.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
Ah, once more the historical revisionists claim that vanilla WoW was nothing but sheer utopia, whereas the current version is naught but pure trash foisted upon us by the evil corporate overlords at Blizzard.
I guess I can understand why people would miss the class imbalance, content gaps & endless grinding, crippling lag, simplistic raid bosses, bugs bugs and more bugs, constant server downtime, lack of endgame, dull questing, broken abilities, and lack of social tools. Wait, no, I really can't see why people would miss that.
If Blizzard opened a vanilla server, it would be dead in three months, six tops. People would run right through the content and start whining about lack of endgame activities and game features before going back to current WoW or another game. And they'd probably find some way to blame Blizzard for 'ruining' vanilla rather than face the fact that their precious memories are nothing more than nostalgia fueled, highly romanticized bullshit.
I love how some people on here claim to read others' minds.
The assumption is always made that the 4-5M players currently involved in WoW are somehow less significant than those who might like to see vanilla servers. That's simply not so. People don't play live versions of WoW because they have to, but because, believe it or not, they want to. Not everyone was enamored of vanilla either.
Also often dismissed are some of the other amazing moments in WoW's history including what many others (see what I did there?) feel is the best expansion ever, Wrath of the Lich King.
The bottom line is that the expansions since vanilla and up through Cata have been very successful and even through WoD, players continue to play and not because they "don't know better" or never experienced vanilla, which is an elitist line of thought. Many people today play WoW because it's fun an enjoyable to them. Who's to say that vanilla is better or worse, for that matter. They are two different states of the same game, much as raw cookie dough is a different state than the baked thing. Both have good flavor but don't appeal to everyone.
With Legion's launch less than 6 months away, it's unlikely that anything will come out of all of this for at least another year.
Some people like raw cookie dough, some don't. But that's never been the argument here. It's been about allowing the game to exist in the same state as it was originally released/purchased. Whether it was harder or easier or whatnot is not the issue at hand. We want to be able to play the game as it was intended and in a state that it was when we originally played it. You CAN'T play the original WoW on the retail servers... they completely changed the world, the quests, the mechanics... nothing but name remains of the former. That is the issue.
I don't want to play from level 1-60 in the bastardized version... I want to replay 1-60 in the version that I originally played from level 1-60. Playing as Alliance versus Horde was like playing two different games. Horde had classes that the Alliance didn't. The racials were different too. You had distinctive class quests. You could level in a variety of zones on two different continents to max level. Venturing into areas that you were not appropriate leveled to often led to a quick and swift death as almost everything in sight aggroed onto you. Crafting that had a purpose beyond merely making gold.
There are thousands of examples of how that version of the game is completely different than today's version. All we want is the version that we paid for to be playable again. That's it. The private servers provided that to as much extent as they could. I can assure you that there are a lot of players out there who never played vanilla who would like to just to see how different it was. It's not about nostalgia, it's about playing a game... and vanilla WoW was a game. TBC was a different game... and so on and so forth. Some people would like to play it. Maybe you don't, but then you don't have to.
To offer a time-locked vanilla option is almost the same as releasing an entirely new MMO to compete with themselves - something that very few developers ever do (I can think of EQ / EQ2 but then I run out of examples.) And if, god forbid, the vanilla server becomes more popular than the current WOW itself, it'd be like a non-confidence vote on every thing they have been doing for 10 years.
If they don't offer it, well then they're just corporate killjoys.
They can't win this one no matter what.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Millions of people also kept tuning into Keeping up with the Kardashians and buy Miley Cyrus albums. It doesn't take talent or good ideas anymore to be successful. You just have to shove your product down enough throats and eventually you will find enough people that are of like mind to pony up the dough required to be considered successful. WoW launched as the flagship of innovation and artistic expression and then sank into the sea of pandering and lowest common denominators. In the past, the could hold their head up high with pride over an amazing development team. Now the only thing they should be proud of is their advertising firm.
lmao .. neckbeard wants his free Wow back ..................... No WOW for you . yOu pay .. you Play ... Now go ....
As always, you completely missed the point of his video, and of this entire issue, actually.
No i didnt , and i know i dont , i understnd it far to well ... .. you on the other hand are delusioanl at best if you think for 1 minute that the depserate cries of .. hmm is it 100k thieves yet .. will influence Blizz you are sadly mistaken ... Like is said there focus is Legion and you have 0 chance of them even looking at you for a long time .......
You CAN'T play the original WoW on the retail servers... they completely changed the world, the quests, the mechanics... nothing but name remains of the former. That is the issue.
And it is not your place or any other person's place to steal their ideas with regard to World of Warcraft. The right to how the game is today is only in the hands of one group: Blizzard. It isBlizzard's right to do what they will with their property. It is no one else's.
Even giving a big long mile here and assuming that these people "coded
their own version of vanilla" (and that really tests the bounds of
credulity), nothing else belongs to them -- not the NPCs, not the
quests, not the creatures in the bestiary, not even Azeroth itself.
That, in a nutshell, is theft of intellectual property.
MMOs are not meant to stay static entities. They are designed to move forward. Vanilla's time is over as far as Blizzard is concerned, at least for the time being. Blizzard is not going to tackle this issue until after Legion launches, if it ever does.
You CAN'T play the original WoW on the retail servers... they completely changed the world, the quests, the mechanics... nothing but name remains of the former. That is the issue.
And it is not your place or any other person's place to steal their ideas with regard to World of Warcraft. The right to how the game is today is only in the hands of one group: Blizzard. ... ....
Which is why Blizzard should implement legacy servers. Hey look, we went full circle again!
And they will continue as they have for ten years to say no. So there you have it.
You CAN'T play the original WoW on the retail servers... they completely changed the world, the quests, the mechanics... nothing but name remains of the former. That is the issue.
And it is not your place or any other person's place to steal their ideas with regard to World of Warcraft. The right to how the game is today is only in the hands of one group: Blizzard. It isBlizzard's right to do what they will with their property. It is no one else's.
Even giving a big long mile here and assuming that these people "coded
their own version of vanilla" (and that really tests the bounds of
credulity), nothing else belongs to them -- not the NPCs, not the
quests, not the creatures in the bestiary, not even Azeroth itself.
That, in a nutshell, is theft of intellectual property.
MMOs are not meant to stay static entities. They are designed to move forward. Vanilla's time is over as far as Blizzard is concerned, at least for the time being. Blizzard is not going to tackle this issue until after Legion launches, if it ever does.
bunch of peoples who think they are revelent while no one realy care
blizzard have close the server because that illegal, they dont fear something who dont exist
nostalgia are a very minority, the game was free, peoples who are poor and unable to pay the game were probably playing there, also since that free im guessing many peoples have create a account just to see, and never played again, the whole numbers reality must be cuted of some zero....
peoples enjoy the current wow, the minority who dont, blizzard dont care, no one care, some build up story in your fantasy world.
im playing the current world of draenor and waiting for the exp, many peoples enjoy it too, my guild fulll, many peoples online.
remove these nostalgia google and stop with these conspiracy, vanilla wow was good back in vanilla wow, not that crap
It's amazing that since Dragonsouls release the gap between the final raid and a new x-pac hasn't soured the remaining 5 million people. This is the third time of content drought for this length, and this x-pac is the worst on content by far. How many more times will they do this till it sinks, I really doubt that this x-pac will push numbers over 7 mill or hell they might go under 5 mill with the release of an x-pac.
No. It is reasonable to assume that subs have falen further. Although AB didn't release the end Q4 sub number their results did show that WoW's revenue had fallen a further c. 16%. Now revenue isn't just made up of subs but with no xpac it isn't unreasonable to simply pro-rata the Q3 number of 5.5M. Doing that gives an end of year sub number estimate of c. 4.6M.
What the sub numbers are now? People speculate but maybe there will be revenue data in the Q1 fiscal report next month.
And I agree that as subs sink it will be harder to get them back up .... and with new games out there and more new games to come e.g. FFXV it could be very tough indeed. Maybe the film will have an impact but it has challenges of its own with a huge number of blockbuster sequels and titles launching just before and after its release.
If Legion is "flat" will that prompt AB to look at the possibility? Doubt it but anything is possible as they say.
Let's assume if Blizzard is going to host a vanilla server, it wouldn't be anywhere near how community perceive it, and they will screw it up, since they have a totally detached perspective about WoW different from the rest of the world.
You CAN'T play the original WoW on the retail servers... they completely changed the world, the quests, the mechanics... nothing but name remains of the former. That is the issue.
And it is not your place or any other person's place to steal their ideas with regard to World of Warcraft. The right to how the game is today is only in the hands of one group: Blizzard. It isBlizzard's right to do what they will with their property. It is no one else's.
Even giving a big long mile here and assuming that these people "coded
their own version of vanilla" (and that really tests the bounds of
credulity), nothing else belongs to them -- not the NPCs, not the
quests, not the creatures in the bestiary, not even Azeroth itself.
That, in a nutshell, is theft of intellectual property.
MMOs are not meant to stay static entities. They are designed to move forward. Vanilla's time is over as far as Blizzard is concerned, at least for the time being. Blizzard is not going to tackle this issue until after Legion launches, if it ever does.
You might be exaggerating their intellectual property rights over trolls, orcs and magic. To put it back to you, its not our place to assume what their lawyers could reasonably argue is intellectual property owned by them besides code and art assets that are explicitly copyrighted. Everything else is ambiguous enough to take years of court drama to rule on. Deliberately parodying something is different to copying something in order to trick the consumer into purchasing a fraud. This is particularly the case if the copy is meeting a need that the original producer refuses to meet, but that's for the lawyers to argue.
Comments
Ofc if they could have made a WotLK server they would have had more people who where there to play for free. The vanilla tag most likely scared some people away.... But don´t trick your self in to believing that the conversion rate would be anyway near as high as some people make it sound like... My most generous guess would be 40-60%... People played for the free game... Greed and defiance trumps comfort.
This have been a good conversation
So many arguments about this but really, no matter how you spin it --->
The Vanilla WoW story has already been written and played.. you have a couple of years of progression then the story is done. there is not going to be more added or written in here...
Do you think that is worth it to Blizzard to do? It is a short time investment.
I would play on a Blizzard Vanilla server to relive the old but I also know when the progression is done i am as well...been there, done that.
Let it go ...
Its not going to happen , anytime soon , the very earliest Blizz woudl even consider this , is after Legion and they have collected enough data...
It doesnt matter how many sigs you get ..
It doesnt matter how many whiny threads you have ..
18 months out before they would even consider maybe .............
They have no desire to focus any resoruces on such a small amount of unpaying .. ... people..
when there focus is in delivering the best product they can to players who you know actually pay them ...
I don't agree. WoW changed in Cataclysm inside out, it should not be called WoW anymore, it should rly be WoW2, and like EQ2 and EQ1 is going next to each other very well, a vanilla server wouldnt hurt.
Also forgetting the fact that Blizzard would probably gain more paying customers this way, than what they would loose agains the latest WoW.
The point is neckbeard...neckbeard.....neckbeard....he can make no arguments cause he can not rationally handle his facial hair.
WoW, as it was, is in fact done.
I just don't see it as being logical to just offer a Vanilla server locked in time, It just doesn't seem as something that would be viable past the short term. Especially if people had to pay for it.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I guess I can understand why people would miss the class imbalance, content gaps & endless grinding, crippling lag, simplistic raid bosses, bugs bugs and more bugs, constant server downtime, lack of endgame, dull questing, broken abilities, and lack of social tools. Wait, no, I really can't see why people would miss that.
If Blizzard opened a vanilla server, it would be dead in three months, six tops. People would run right through the content and start whining about lack of endgame activities and game features before going back to current WoW or another game. And they'd probably find some way to blame Blizzard for 'ruining' vanilla rather than face the fact that their precious memories are nothing more than nostalgia fueled, highly romanticized bullshit.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
I don't want to play from level 1-60 in the bastardized version... I want to replay 1-60 in the version that I originally played from level 1-60. Playing as Alliance versus Horde was like playing two different games. Horde had classes that the Alliance didn't. The racials were different too. You had distinctive class quests. You could level in a variety of zones on two different continents to max level. Venturing into areas that you were not appropriate leveled to often led to a quick and swift death as almost everything in sight aggroed onto you. Crafting that had a purpose beyond merely making gold.
There are thousands of examples of how that version of the game is completely different than today's version. All we want is the version that we paid for to be playable again. That's it. The private servers provided that to as much extent as they could. I can assure you that there are a lot of players out there who never played vanilla who would like to just to see how different it was. It's not about nostalgia, it's about playing a game... and vanilla WoW was a game. TBC was a different game... and so on and so forth. Some people would like to play it. Maybe you don't, but then you don't have to.
To offer a time-locked vanilla option is almost the same as releasing an entirely new MMO to compete with themselves - something that very few developers ever do (I can think of EQ / EQ2 but then I run out of examples.) And if, god forbid, the vanilla server becomes more popular than the current WOW itself, it'd be like a non-confidence vote on every thing they have been doing for 10 years.
If they don't offer it, well then they're just corporate killjoys.
They can't win this one no matter what.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Even giving a big long mile here and assuming that these people "coded their own version of vanilla" (and that really tests the bounds of credulity), nothing else belongs to them -- not the NPCs, not the quests, not the creatures in the bestiary, not even Azeroth itself. That, in a nutshell, is theft of intellectual property.
MMOs are not meant to stay static entities. They are designed to move forward. Vanilla's time is over as far as Blizzard is concerned, at least for the time being. Blizzard is not going to tackle this issue until after Legion launches, if it ever does.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not as cut and dried as you would like to believe. There are still many precedents to be written as yet when it comes to copyright law
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
blizzard have close the server because that illegal, they dont fear something who dont exist
nostalgia are a very minority, the game was free, peoples who are poor and unable to pay the game were probably playing there, also since that free im guessing many peoples have create a account just to see, and never played again, the whole numbers reality must be cuted of some zero....
peoples enjoy the current wow, the minority who dont, blizzard dont care, no one care, some build up story in your fantasy world.
im playing the current world of draenor and waiting for the exp, many peoples enjoy it too, my guild fulll, many peoples online.
remove these nostalgia google and stop with these conspiracy, vanilla wow was good back in vanilla wow, not that crap
What the sub numbers are now? People speculate but maybe there will be revenue data in the Q1 fiscal report next month.
And I agree that as subs sink it will be harder to get them back up .... and with new games out there and more new games to come e.g. FFXV it could be very tough indeed. Maybe the film will have an impact but it has challenges of its own with a huge number of blockbuster sequels and titles launching just before and after its release.
If Legion is "flat" will that prompt AB to look at the possibility? Doubt it but anything is possible as they say.