On April 14 2016 04:38 Plansix wrote: I am sure Blizzard has a very clear idea how many people they are losing and business expectations for WoW. These vannila WoW are just an IP issue they need to address because its a protect it or lose it system.
On April 14 2016 04:37 ref4 wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:33 Gorsameth wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:19 ref4 wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:02 Disengaged wrote:
On April 14 2016 03:58 ref4 wrote:
On April 14 2016 02:28 Godwrath wrote: Thanks to blizzard's advertisment, i am playing vanilla on Kronos, it seems like a good server which got a good amount of nostalrius players.
inb4 Big Brother Blizzard closes down Kronos too
God forbid they do what is within their god given rights as IP owners.
Blizzard has every right to do whatever the hell they want with their IP like shutting down private servers or dig a deeper grave for WoW with each expansion.
That being said, maybe they should have some humility and learn why they're bleeding subs left and right and there is such a strong vanilla Wow underground community. I mean they probably know the reason but they just have their heads way too high in their asses to address the problem.
I especially love that they will stop reporting their sub # after their last quarterly report. Panic Mode Panic Mode! Quick, let's shut down Nostralius that will bring all that 150K users back to our retail servers!
"all those 150k" Im sorry but no the Vannila WoW unground community is not important to blizzard. Your forgetting that this big vanilla server is ~3% of WoW's actual population. They are vocal and determined yes but their not a strong community that Blizzard needs to be listening to.
Blizzard is well aware that WoW will someday need to shut down or go free to play. Nothing lasts forever.
That is true, but those 5-6 millions were lost all in one expansion, as opposed to over several.
If this doesn't say WoD is all hype and no substance I don't know what is. Largest cliff-dive of playerbase in any game's history probably ever.
IDK, this is a weird topic, because I'm uncertain if we're debating "Modern WoW" or "WoD"... its like no shit its the worst expansion ever, but does that necessarily mean it's forever this way ? WoD was amazing for the questing experience and that's pretty much all it offered.
I'm not sure if im making excuses or whathave you, but its not even a discussion of Modern WoW vs Classic WoW at this point, its just everyone beating on the agreed upon worst expansion.
I've been hearing the latest expansion is the worst since BC (which is now apparently considered the best). I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that people have played the game for years. You get bored with it eventually.
This would make sense if the game was the same game as it started.They are very different games right now, and each expansion has been changing the game, so it's only natural for different people, X, Z or Y expansion would be worse.
On April 14 2016 04:38 Plansix wrote: I am sure Blizzard has a very clear idea how many people they are losing and business expectations for WoW. These vannila WoW are just an IP issue they need to address because its a protect it or lose it system.
Blizzard is well aware that WoW will someday need to shut down or go free to play. Nothing lasts forever.
That is true, but those 5-6 millions were lost all in one expansion, as opposed to over several.
If this doesn't say WoD is all hype and no substance I don't know what is. Largest cliff-dive of playerbase in any game's history probably ever.
Since WoW is one of the most popular long running video games in the world, its not that huge a deal. Once again, WoW has far exceeded its lifespan. They are just going to keep on trucking. Even if WoW ends 2 years from now, it will be a legend in the game industry for the next 30 years.
You miss the point. Do you actually think Blizzard doesn't care about losing ~100 million dollars A MONTH just because it has already made 1000 times more profit than expected? It still has a potential player base that is 2-3 times the current amount.
Based on what? Moon logic and dreams. Of course Blizzard is going to try to keep people playing and keep it interesting. These private servers are not going to change that. The conversion rate of people who are playing for free on these servers to those who would pay for a vanilla server is going to be comically low.
Based on what? Based on the fact that subscriber numbers doubled close to the release of WoD. And that was before the expansion was released. Common sense dictates that there are several million players that would have subbed pr resubbes based on positive reviews and/or recommendations from their friends IF the expansion had actually delivered
End of MoP to start of WoD was a spike from 7.5 to 10mil. It has since dropped to ~5mil. That is not doubled but fine, whatever.
I would argue that a large part of those 2.5mil people that came back and left again would have never been satisfied because they want a feeling back they can never gain. That feeling of playing a new game, of feeling kinda lost and overwhelmed.
That's why people keep flocking to every new MMO that gets released and then leave it again a month or 2 later, they are chasing a ghost.
I can't prove you wrong, but a decline of >50% within one year should tell any game developer that they are on the wrong track. 5 million people don't just quit a game because the gaming world has changed.
How often do I have to undermine the 5mil number before you stop beating a dead horse? I even spelled out the numbers for you...
The might only have increased by 2.5 million towards WoD, doesn't change the fact that they lost those 2.5 million new players, plus 2.5 mill from MoP.
On April 14 2016 04:38 Plansix wrote: I am sure Blizzard has a very clear idea how many people they are losing and business expectations for WoW. These vannila WoW are just an IP issue they need to address because its a protect it or lose it system.
[quote] Blizzard is well aware that WoW will someday need to shut down or go free to play. Nothing lasts forever.
That is true, but those 5-6 millions were lost all in one expansion, as opposed to over several.
If this doesn't say WoD is all hype and no substance I don't know what is. Largest cliff-dive of playerbase in any game's history probably ever.
Since WoW is one of the most popular long running video games in the world, its not that huge a deal. Once again, WoW has far exceeded its lifespan. They are just going to keep on trucking. Even if WoW ends 2 years from now, it will be a legend in the game industry for the next 30 years.
You miss the point. Do you actually think Blizzard doesn't care about losing ~100 million dollars A MONTH just because it has already made 1000 times more profit than expected? It still has a potential player base that is 2-3 times the current amount.
Based on what? Moon logic and dreams. Of course Blizzard is going to try to keep people playing and keep it interesting. These private servers are not going to change that. The conversion rate of people who are playing for free on these servers to those who would pay for a vanilla server is going to be comically low.
Based on what? Based on the fact that subscriber numbers doubled close to the release of WoD. And that was before the expansion was released. Common sense dictates that there are several million players that would have subbed pr resubbes based on positive reviews and/or recommendations from their friends IF the expansion had actually delivered
End of MoP to start of WoD was a spike from 7.5 to 10mil. It has since dropped to ~5mil. That is not doubled but fine, whatever.
I would argue that a large part of those 2.5mil people that came back and left again would have never been satisfied because they want a feeling back they can never gain. That feeling of playing a new game, of feeling kinda lost and overwhelmed.
That's why people keep flocking to every new MMO that gets released and then leave it again a month or 2 later, they are chasing a ghost.
I can't prove you wrong, but a decline of >50% within one year should tell any game developer that they are on the wrong track. 5 million people don't just quit a game because the gaming world has changed.
How often do I have to undermine the 5mil number before you stop beating a dead horse? I even spelled out the numbers for you...
The might only have increased by 2.5 million towards WoD, doesn't change the fact that they lost those 2.5 million new players, plus 2.5 mill from MoP.
And none of this has anything to do with the 150,000 people playing free vanilla wow.
That is true, but those 5-6 millions were lost all in one expansion, as opposed to over several.
If this doesn't say WoD is all hype and no substance I don't know what is. Largest cliff-dive of playerbase in any game's history probably ever.
Since WoW is one of the most popular long running video games in the world, its not that huge a deal. Once again, WoW has far exceeded its lifespan. They are just going to keep on trucking. Even if WoW ends 2 years from now, it will be a legend in the game industry for the next 30 years.
You miss the point. Do you actually think Blizzard doesn't care about losing ~100 million dollars A MONTH just because it has already made 1000 times more profit than expected? It still has a potential player base that is 2-3 times the current amount.
Based on what? Moon logic and dreams. Of course Blizzard is going to try to keep people playing and keep it interesting. These private servers are not going to change that. The conversion rate of people who are playing for free on these servers to those who would pay for a vanilla server is going to be comically low.
Based on what? Based on the fact that subscriber numbers doubled close to the release of WoD. And that was before the expansion was released. Common sense dictates that there are several million players that would have subbed pr resubbes based on positive reviews and/or recommendations from their friends IF the expansion had actually delivered
End of MoP to start of WoD was a spike from 7.5 to 10mil. It has since dropped to ~5mil. That is not doubled but fine, whatever.
I would argue that a large part of those 2.5mil people that came back and left again would have never been satisfied because they want a feeling back they can never gain. That feeling of playing a new game, of feeling kinda lost and overwhelmed.
That's why people keep flocking to every new MMO that gets released and then leave it again a month or 2 later, they are chasing a ghost.
I can't prove you wrong, but a decline of >50% within one year should tell any game developer that they are on the wrong track. 5 million people don't just quit a game because the gaming world has changed.
How often do I have to undermine the 5mil number before you stop beating a dead horse? I even spelled out the numbers for you...
The might only have increased by 2.5 million towards WoD, doesn't change the fact that they lost those 2.5 million new players, plus 2.5 mill from MoP.
And none of this has anything to do with the 150,000 people playing free vanilla wow.
It does have with player retention, something retail WoW barely manages to do.
On April 14 2016 04:48 Plansix wrote: [quote] Since WoW is one of the most popular long running video games in the world, its not that huge a deal. Once again, WoW has far exceeded its lifespan. They are just going to keep on trucking. Even if WoW ends 2 years from now, it will be a legend in the game industry for the next 30 years.
You miss the point. Do you actually think Blizzard doesn't care about losing ~100 million dollars A MONTH just because it has already made 1000 times more profit than expected? It still has a potential player base that is 2-3 times the current amount.
Based on what? Moon logic and dreams. Of course Blizzard is going to try to keep people playing and keep it interesting. These private servers are not going to change that. The conversion rate of people who are playing for free on these servers to those who would pay for a vanilla server is going to be comically low.
Based on what? Based on the fact that subscriber numbers doubled close to the release of WoD. And that was before the expansion was released. Common sense dictates that there are several million players that would have subbed pr resubbes based on positive reviews and/or recommendations from their friends IF the expansion had actually delivered
End of MoP to start of WoD was a spike from 7.5 to 10mil. It has since dropped to ~5mil. That is not doubled but fine, whatever.
I would argue that a large part of those 2.5mil people that came back and left again would have never been satisfied because they want a feeling back they can never gain. That feeling of playing a new game, of feeling kinda lost and overwhelmed.
That's why people keep flocking to every new MMO that gets released and then leave it again a month or 2 later, they are chasing a ghost.
I can't prove you wrong, but a decline of >50% within one year should tell any game developer that they are on the wrong track. 5 million people don't just quit a game because the gaming world has changed.
How often do I have to undermine the 5mil number before you stop beating a dead horse? I even spelled out the numbers for you...
The might only have increased by 2.5 million towards WoD, doesn't change the fact that they lost those 2.5 million new players, plus 2.5 mill from MoP.
And none of this has anything to do with the 150,000 people playing free vanilla wow.
It does have with player retention, something retail WoW barely manages to do.
10 year old game has declining player base, but is still larger than all other player based in the same genre. And much like the arguments of piracy isn’t a problem, these are not players that would pay to play anyways.
On April 14 2016 04:38 Plansix wrote: I am sure Blizzard has a very clear idea how many people they are losing and business expectations for WoW. These vannila WoW are just an IP issue they need to address because its a protect it or lose it system.
On April 14 2016 04:37 ref4 wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:33 Gorsameth wrote: [quote] "all those 150k" Im sorry but no the Vannila WoW unground community is not important to blizzard. Your forgetting that this big vanilla server is ~3% of WoW's actual population. They are vocal and determined yes but their not a strong community that Blizzard needs to be listening to.
Blizzard is well aware that WoW will someday need to shut down or go free to play. Nothing lasts forever.
That is true, but those 5-6 millions were lost all in one expansion, as opposed to over several.
If this doesn't say WoD is all hype and no substance I don't know what is. Largest cliff-dive of playerbase in any game's history probably ever.
Since WoW is one of the most popular long running video games in the world, its not that huge a deal. Once again, WoW has far exceeded its lifespan. They are just going to keep on trucking. Even if WoW ends 2 years from now, it will be a legend in the game industry for the next 30 years.
You miss the point. Do you actually think Blizzard doesn't care about losing ~100 million dollars A MONTH just because it has already made 1000 times more profit than expected? It still has a potential player base that is 2-3 times the current amount.
Based on what? Moon logic and dreams. Of course Blizzard is going to try to keep people playing and keep it interesting. These private servers are not going to change that. The conversion rate of people who are playing for free on these servers to those who would pay for a vanilla server is going to be comically low.
Based on what? Based on the fact that subscriber numbers doubled close to the release of WoD. And that was before the expansion was released. Common sense dictates that there are several million players that would have subbed pr resubbes based on positive reviews and/or recommendations from their friends IF the expansion had actually delivered
End of MoP to start of WoD was a spike from 7.5 to 10mil. It has since dropped to ~5mil. That is not doubled but fine, whatever.
I would argue that a large part of those 2.5mil people that came back and left again would have never been satisfied because they want a feeling back they can never gain. That feeling of playing a new game, of feeling kinda lost and overwhelmed.
That's why people keep flocking to every new MMO that gets released and then leave it again a month or 2 later, they are chasing a ghost.
I can't prove you wrong, but a decline of >50% within one year should tell any game developer that they are on the wrong track. 5 million people don't just quit a game because the gaming world has changed.
well it could be and is probably a lot of things... at the end of the day I think it's less the wrong track... and more there's just so little content... no new bgs, arenas, classes , gameplay elements . It's just lacking on all fronts.
its also an old game... its also super expensive... 180 dollars a year on top of the 50 dollar expansion. its not like theres another MMO that has 12 million subscribers that everyone is flocking to.
On April 14 2016 04:38 Plansix wrote: I am sure Blizzard has a very clear idea how many people they are losing and business expectations for WoW. These vannila WoW are just an IP issue they need to address because its a protect it or lose it system.
On April 14 2016 04:37 ref4 wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:33 Gorsameth wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:19 ref4 wrote:
On April 14 2016 04:02 Disengaged wrote:
On April 14 2016 03:58 ref4 wrote: [quote]
inb4 Big Brother Blizzard closes down Kronos too
God forbid they do what is within their god given rights as IP owners.
Blizzard has every right to do whatever the hell they want with their IP like shutting down private servers or dig a deeper grave for WoW with each expansion.
That being said, maybe they should have some humility and learn why they're bleeding subs left and right and there is such a strong vanilla Wow underground community. I mean they probably know the reason but they just have their heads way too high in their asses to address the problem.
I especially love that they will stop reporting their sub # after their last quarterly report. Panic Mode Panic Mode! Quick, let's shut down Nostralius that will bring all that 150K users back to our retail servers!
"all those 150k" Im sorry but no the Vannila WoW unground community is not important to blizzard. Your forgetting that this big vanilla server is ~3% of WoW's actual population. They are vocal and determined yes but their not a strong community that Blizzard needs to be listening to.
Blizzard is well aware that WoW will someday need to shut down or go free to play. Nothing lasts forever.
That is true, but those 5-6 millions were lost all in one expansion, as opposed to over several.
If this doesn't say WoD is all hype and no substance I don't know what is. Largest cliff-dive of playerbase in any game's history probably ever.
IDK, this is a weird topic, because I'm uncertain if we're debating "Modern WoW" or "WoD"... its like no shit its the worst expansion ever, but does that necessarily mean it's forever this way ? WoD was amazing for the questing experience and that's pretty much all it offered.
I'm not sure if im making excuses or whathave you, but its not even a discussion of Modern WoW vs Classic WoW at this point, its just everyone beating on the agreed upon worst expansion.
I've been hearing the latest expansion is the worst since BC (which is now apparently considered the best). I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that people have played the game for years. You get bored with it eventually.
Yep, as someone who has played since Vanilla this argument gets me laughing every time. Wotlk is by many now considered the height of WoW (and in subs it is) but god if only you were around at the time. WotLK was the death of wow, its all over. daed game!.
I agree, I also have been playing since 2005 until last year and on and off since 2010. At the time, I really did not like many things about Wrath. I did not like raid having multiple difficulties (except Ulduar...that was done masterfully). I did not like getting raid gear from grinding heroics and gathering badges. I did not like many other things.
However, now that I look back, I think that was the last time the game was still good. Maybe it wasn't great compared to TBC and Vanilla, but it was still good. Arthas' presence was also a huge factor for me, he was a villain I could relate to from playing WC3.
Ever since Cataclysm, it all went downhill sadly. I only liked MoP PvP since then, and that's because I played a warlock and could two shot people. Ever since Cata I wished the game could get better.
On April 14 2016 04:53 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: [quote]
You miss the point. Do you actually think Blizzard doesn't care about losing ~100 million dollars A MONTH just because it has already made 1000 times more profit than expected? It still has a potential player base that is 2-3 times the current amount.
Based on what? Moon logic and dreams. Of course Blizzard is going to try to keep people playing and keep it interesting. These private servers are not going to change that. The conversion rate of people who are playing for free on these servers to those who would pay for a vanilla server is going to be comically low.
Based on what? Based on the fact that subscriber numbers doubled close to the release of WoD. And that was before the expansion was released. Common sense dictates that there are several million players that would have subbed pr resubbes based on positive reviews and/or recommendations from their friends IF the expansion had actually delivered
End of MoP to start of WoD was a spike from 7.5 to 10mil. It has since dropped to ~5mil. That is not doubled but fine, whatever.
I would argue that a large part of those 2.5mil people that came back and left again would have never been satisfied because they want a feeling back they can never gain. That feeling of playing a new game, of feeling kinda lost and overwhelmed.
That's why people keep flocking to every new MMO that gets released and then leave it again a month or 2 later, they are chasing a ghost.
I can't prove you wrong, but a decline of >50% within one year should tell any game developer that they are on the wrong track. 5 million people don't just quit a game because the gaming world has changed.
How often do I have to undermine the 5mil number before you stop beating a dead horse? I even spelled out the numbers for you...
The might only have increased by 2.5 million towards WoD, doesn't change the fact that they lost those 2.5 million new players, plus 2.5 mill from MoP.
And none of this has anything to do with the 150,000 people playing free vanilla wow.
It does have with player retention, something retail WoW barely manages to do.
10 year old game has declining player base, but is still larger than all other player based in the same genre. And much like the arguments of piracy isn’t a problem, these are not players that would pay to play anyways.
You are repeating yourself, it's stupid not to try to find out why your player retention is dropping out of aging which is not the only reason as you try to make it, simplistic as it sounds. If you don't manage to get new players in, you should start thinking about how can you do it, or you are just giving up on the idea that you are just going to milk the cow until it does. Something that for other games may be true, but for MMORPGs, 10 years is not exactly a point of no return for a succesful game.
And the second statement is barely true nowadays. Some wouldn't pay, but you are doing a generalization. Thinking that none of those who play on a private legacy server or people who don't actually play on private servers wouldn't pay to play on a legal legacy server is as dumb as you can get. Specially since you can't really talk about the demand of a service that can't be bought nowadays.
And it goes both ways, 150k accounts on nostalrius means nothing or very little either. Posts like the reddit one have more value than that, or any signed petitions.
I don't get how a legacy server possible COULDN'T make sense.
I have a level 60 warrior on a Vanilla server that's being maintained by two amateurs, and they got 99% of the Pre-Naxx content working perfectly.
So if Blizzard, with all their resources, made a server like that, luring in at least half a million people for nostalgia reasons alone, and even if only ten percent of those stay for a couple of months until they've all cleared the content, they'd make a huge profit.
Now Blizzard, as part of Activision, must has done the profit- and loss-analysis, I'm sure. But I can't conceive of a any way how that would not be profitable.
On April 14 2016 06:20 DickMcFanny wrote: I don't get how a legacy server possible COULDN'T make sense.
I have a level 60 warrior on a Vanilla server that's being maintained by two amateurs, and they got 99% of the Pre-Naxx content working perfectly.
So if Blizzard, with all their resources, made a server like that, luring in at least half a million people for nostalgia reasons alone, and even if only ten percent of those stay for a couple of months until they've all cleared the content, they'd make a huge profit.
Now Blizzard, as part of Activision, must has done the profit- and loss-analysis, I'm sure. But I can't conceive of a any way how that would not be profitable.
Yeah, the reason is mostly about their proudness on their own baby, and being more worried to not alienate their current playerbase than growing it. Many people are very vocal against legacy servers as they fear it would take resources away from the main game.
On April 14 2016 05:31 Plansix wrote: The decline is going to happen, it’s a 10 year old game and there are thousands of other options out there in the world. F2P MMOS have improved and other games like LoL, hearthstone and Dota 2 provide service based social entertainment. It’s a new market.
WoW’s decline is just going to happen because its old and what people are looking for in games shift.
I agree with this. However, I also think that there's a reasonable argument that Blizzard's team approached this new gaming world with the wrong design strategy.
In analyzing how the WoW team changed the game over the years, we have to distinguish between features that are focused on player acquisition (i.e. making the game easier for a new player to get into) vs. ones that are focused on player retention (i.e. making veterans feel like they have things of value invested in the game). Many of the things that have been added to the game don't act on these axes and are straight improvements (e.g. UI improvements). There are also many player acquisition focused changes that do not detrimentally affect the game on a player retention axis (e.g. leveling changes--impacts the veteran player very little, but impacts the new player a lot). In some cases, Blizzard has even added retention-over-acquisition features (e.g. heirlooms).
However, many of the changes that are decried by veterans are changes that are focused on player acquisition. This is because in many ways, player acquisition and player retention are at odds with one another--a design problem which isn't very easy to solve. On the one hand, player retention needs to make the player feel like they've achieved something, that the things that they did in the game have value, and that leaving the game would waste the hard work they've put in to get where they are. However, on the flip side, player acquisition needs to make the new player feel like these things that veteran players already have are not insurmountable and that the new player can "catch up" to those at the top. Things like 5-mans in current content obsoleting raid gear of the previous tier are examples of acquisition-over-retention design. They make it easy for the new player to jump into current content, but they also implicitly reduce the value of what the veteran player accomplished by completing that prior raid content. Note however, that the things a player achieved in a game does not just include in-game accomplishments such as getting gear of a certain quality or completing a raid. It also extends to meta-game accomplishments such as forming player relationships. In this way, features like LFR are also examples of acquisition-over-retention design since they exist to allow new players to "catch up" without the barrier of first forming the social relationships that used to be necessary to experience the content, and likewise making veteran players feel like those relationships are no longer important.
The problem is this--no matter how much Blizzard tries to improve WoW on a player acquisition axis, they're ultimately fighting a losing battle against F2P games. No matter how easy your game is to get into, if you're trying to go up against an F2P game with a retail subscription game, at the end of the day the new player is going to jump into the game that doesn't cost them any money to play first. And in focusing on player acquisition, the game has to sacrifice on some fronts with respect to player retention. Would WoW be better off if the WoW team accepted that they were never going to beat F2P games at player acquisition and focused on player retention and the veteran player experience? It's impossible to know for sure, but it is a stance that can reasonably be argued for.
EDIT: It's also very reasonable to see how this player acquisition focus arose in WoW's design. At it's inception, WoW's advantage over its competitors was in player acquisition--it was just an easier game to get into. It slowly lost this advantage over time as games copied it's design, and F2P games began to take over a larger and larger share of the market, at which point, the prevalence of F2P games meant that WoW was generally at a disadvantage when it came to player acquisition purely by nature of their business model.
In fact, placed in this context, the trajectory of WoW's active subscriber count actually makes a lot of sense. Despite the fact that WoW's design has always had this player acquisition focus, this design strategy continued to pay dividends all the way through WotLK until early Cata. Cata marks the beginning of the F2P explosion, as LoL really started to take off and punctuate the success of F2P business models. This is the turning point in WoW's subscriber curve, and also the turning point where WoW went from being advantaged compared to its competitors w.r.t player acquisition to being disadvantaged.
On April 13 2016 00:07 NonY wrote: I think Blizzard is afraid that current WoW looks worse if they support vanilla WoW. I don't know how many subs a legacy server would get but the numbers Nostalrius put up aren't that great. They're good enough that it's imaginable Blizzard finds a really cost-effective way to do it (if they sacrifice some of the standards they usually hold themselves to) that they'll make some money off of it. But how much do they lose from potential current WoW subs? This is the kind of thing that a person without anything invested will rationalize away and pretend is not an issue at all. But for the people whose jobs are on the line and whose company stands to lose millions, it's a worrying question. MMO's are things of momentum and reputation. Supporting legacy servers is saying that your game development has been a sidegrade. Expansions for every other Blizzard game have been clear upgrades that stood the test of time. It's not about the fact that Legacy players are going to play legacy or nothing. It's about what the rest of the world thinks of WoW.
It seems like no legacy player is able to withhold their moaning about all the ways current WoW went wrong. Not a good idea to start justifying those attitudes. If people were more respectful of the two different kinds of games, it might be a different story. But Blizzard still stands to make more money from current WoW than legacy. Justifying the aspersions of a portion of the community mainly just to satisfy them (not as a good strategy for making a lot of money) is kind of a ridiculous idea. These are the people who couldn't just quit playing when the game went in a different direction, but rather had to tell everyone they know how bad WoW is nowadays. The petition is just funny, like a child getting in trouble and saying "I'll be good now if you just give me what I want." I sympathize with Blizzard standing behind their product.
If a new MMO came out that was grindy (by today's standards) and had shit gameplay (bad class design, bad boss fights, horrible PvP system) with very little convenience but had a lot of exploration and open world interaction and yielded awesome communities, everybody would be like "yeah that's a niche MMO that hopefully finds enough stability to live for a while to satisfy the people who want that." Even if it's enough people to justify its own existence, it's still a small number of people.
The two things that I'd be focused on if I wanted vanilla WoW back: 1. Work on a new rule set for current servers that makes the game more difficult in the ways you want and forces a server community in the way you want.
2. Wait for WoW to die and for it to make sense for Blizzard to say "for those who want to relive the experience one last time, we're making legacy progression servers". Because as long as current WoW is better business than legacy WoW, you're fighting an uphill battle. Someday it'll die and it'll make a lot more sense for Blizzard to do legacy servers then.
I don't think the point is one game being better than the next. Classic / BC WoW and current WoW can be appreciated for entirely different reasons. It's not even about which one is better, it's about the fact that those are very different games, one of which is now no longer available to play.
As for losing current WoW subs for a Classic Server... Negro please, I doubt there's much overlap at all. And even if they did lose subscribers on current WoW, they'd be losing business to themselves. Because we're not demanding that the game be free, we're just wishing for it to be available at all.
On April 13 2016 00:07 NonY wrote: I think Blizzard is afraid that current WoW looks worse if they support vanilla WoW. I don't know how many subs a legacy server would get but the numbers Nostalrius put up aren't that great. They're good enough that it's imaginable Blizzard finds a really cost-effective way to do it (if they sacrifice some of the standards they usually hold themselves to) that they'll make some money off of it. But how much do they lose from potential current WoW subs? This is the kind of thing that a person without anything invested will rationalize away and pretend is not an issue at all. But for the people whose jobs are on the line and whose company stands to lose millions, it's a worrying question. MMO's are things of momentum and reputation. Supporting legacy servers is saying that your game development has been a sidegrade. Expansions for every other Blizzard game have been clear upgrades that stood the test of time. It's not about the fact that Legacy players are going to play legacy or nothing. It's about what the rest of the world thinks of WoW.
It seems like no legacy player is able to withhold their moaning about all the ways current WoW went wrong. Not a good idea to start justifying those attitudes. If people were more respectful of the two different kinds of games, it might be a different story. But Blizzard still stands to make more money from current WoW than legacy. Justifying the aspersions of a portion of the community mainly just to satisfy them (not as a good strategy for making a lot of money) is kind of a ridiculous idea. These are the people who couldn't just quit playing when the game went in a different direction, but rather had to tell everyone they know how bad WoW is nowadays. The petition is just funny, like a child getting in trouble and saying "I'll be good now if you just give me what I want." I sympathize with Blizzard standing behind their product.
If a new MMO came out that was grindy (by today's standards) and had shit gameplay (bad class design, bad boss fights, horrible PvP system) with very little convenience but had a lot of exploration and open world interaction and yielded awesome communities, everybody would be like "yeah that's a niche MMO that hopefully finds enough stability to live for a while to satisfy the people who want that." Even if it's enough people to justify its own existence, it's still a small number of people.
The two things that I'd be focused on if I wanted vanilla WoW back: 1. Work on a new rule set for current servers that makes the game more difficult in the ways you want and forces a server community in the way you want.
2. Wait for WoW to die and for it to make sense for Blizzard to say "for those who want to relive the experience one last time, we're making legacy progression servers". Because as long as current WoW is better business than legacy WoW, you're fighting an uphill battle. Someday it'll die and it'll make a lot more sense for Blizzard to do legacy servers then.
I don't think the point is one game being better than the next. Classic / BC WoW and current WoW can be appreciated for entirely different reasons. It's not even about which one is better, it's about the fact that those are very different games, one of which is now no longer available to play.
As for losing current WoW subs for a Classic Server... Negro please, I doubt there's much overlap at all. And even if they did lose subscribers on current WoW, they'd be losing business to themselves. Because we're not demanding that the game be free, we're just wishing for it to be available at all.
Your points are the ones I'm responding to haha (not that I quoted anyone in particular, but just addressing those mindsets). I guess I just didn't explain myself well enough. I understand that they're different games, and many enthusiasts who are crazy enough to play on private unofficial servers and get in discussions on forums are able to understand that they're different games. But for the mainstream reputation of the game, officially supporting this split is not an easy thing for Blizzard to agree to. I think if it actually was a different game and not just previous expansions and vanilla, then it'd be a lot easier situation. They'd have their convenience>community MMO and their community>convenience MMO. Even that would be a tricky thing to do.
As for overlap between current wow subs and a classic server, I agree there's not much overlap. That's not the concern. The concern is about the health of current WoW. The people who want classic server don't give a shit about the health of current WoW. They already see current WoW as dead and see no value to it. But Blizzard is still making a ton of money off of it. Their main business AND their main opportunity to give people a better experience is with current WoW. One reason WoW has dominated is because MMO's require a lot popularity and momentum to be successful. It still has the #1 spot and undermining that in ANY way is an extremely unwise thing for Blizzard to do. Competing against yourself and splitting your community is a good way to make yourself vulnerable to competitors, especially for MMO's. If the idea of playing classic catches on and starts attracting the attention of current WoW players, then THOSE players see current WoW as shit. The "disease" spreads. And along comes a new MMO marketed toward vanilla WoW players and now that MMO has stolen players from current WoW subs, along with the vanilla WoW players, who now have an MMO to play that isn't guaranteed to be a dead end. I mean, who would ever think that "launching" an MMO with a defined end point would be a GOOD thing anyway? That's why I say it becomes a much easier decision when current WoW is dying anyway. It's just inappropriate, unwise, risky, kinda crazy to do such a thing when the latest expansion still sells well and current subs are in the millions, despite how much they've fallen from WoW's peak.
Look IDK if it'd be a good business decision or not. All I'm saying is that it seems like a lot of people aren't really putting themselves in Blizzard's position and their calculations aren't considering a lot of factors that could be really important. It does not become an easy decision until current WoW loses a TON more subs. Even then it might not be worth it to them. It's just not as simple as "the only way blizz is ever gonna get money from me is with a classic server, and there are a lot of people like me, so it's dumb that blizz doesnt just do it and take our money". I'm not even trying to argue with people or try to act superior like I understand the situation better. Honestly I'm just trying to throw some ideas out there so people who are frustrated by the whole situation might be a little less frustrated.
Oh on another note, I was kinda skeptical whether or not Vanilla would do well long-term. I'd imagine it would put off casuals as theres not much content for them, (so I thought) besides like levelling alts and being fodder for people who love to one shot kids in their BiS PVE gear.
However, On Nostralius, they full cleared BWL in a pug the month after it came out, and there were apparetly several 80 minute BWL pugs running amok when it was the most challenging content. thats pretty nuts from what I imagined it would be like.
On April 14 2016 13:33 lestye wrote: Oh on another note, I was kinda skeptical whether or not Vanilla would do well long-term. I'd imagine it would put off casuals as theres not much content for them, (so I thought) besides like levelling alts and being fodder for people who love to one shot kids in their BiS PVE gear.
However, On Nostralius, they full cleared BWL in a pug the month after it came out, and there were apparetly several 80 minute BWL pugs running amok when it was the most challenging content. thats pretty nuts from what I imagined it would be like.
The Feenix-server was pugging AQ40 before they decided to "upgrade" it to TBC (by replicating the launch event and everything) - which then made people leave the server.
On April 14 2016 13:33 lestye wrote: Oh on another note, I was kinda skeptical whether or not Vanilla would do well long-term. I'd imagine it would put off casuals as theres not much content for them, (so I thought) besides like levelling alts and being fodder for people who love to one shot kids in their BiS PVE gear.
However, On Nostralius, they full cleared BWL in a pug the month after it came out, and there were apparetly several 80 minute BWL pugs running amok when it was the most challenging content. thats pretty nuts from what I imagined it would be like.
The Feenix-server was pugging AQ40 before they decided to "upgrade" it to TBC (by replicating the launch event and everything) - which then made people leave the server.
What, you're telling me Vanilla isn't the most HC of all time and raids were super hard?
Honestly it's so tiring to read the same things over and over when anyone who actually played during vanilla knows shit was easy, not targeting anyone here just general ranting by reading the stupid arguments about pservers. But then again most of the complainers probably have never even attempted things like HC Ragnaros and Lei Shen so they don't know any better.
I don't believe Vanilla servers would last super long either, after content would be done or enough time had passed so that finding groups for fresh max level characters would become harder and harder the numbers would start going down afterwards.
Seeing this thread made me check wow vanilla maps...NOSTALGIA HIT LIKE A SLEDGEHAMMER
I remember me and a friend of mine telling each other 'warcraft III was good, but no way we are paying a monthly fee'. Then first trailer comes out ( )...and next I am begging my mum to pay it for me (I was 15 back then).
Now I am seeing all those places again...damn the feeling when I reached Stranglethorn valley for the first time. The beauty of RedRidge mountains...damn, I forgot all those places. The feeling of power I got when I was able to withstand the Western Plaguelands...
Thanks for the chill, I will monitor this thread. I stopped playing wow before the first expansion because I didn't have many real life friends playing it and everytime I logged in at 60 I needed at least 3/4 hours to do a raid. I wanted something more casual at that point...
On April 14 2016 13:33 lestye wrote: Oh on another note, I was kinda skeptical whether or not Vanilla would do well long-term. I'd imagine it would put off casuals as theres not much content for them, (so I thought) besides like levelling alts and being fodder for people who love to one shot kids in their BiS PVE gear.
However, On Nostralius, they full cleared BWL in a pug the month after it came out, and there were apparetly several 80 minute BWL pugs running amok when it was the most challenging content. thats pretty nuts from what I imagined it would be like.
The Feenix-server was pugging AQ40 before they decided to "upgrade" it to TBC (by replicating the launch event and everything) - which then made people leave the server.
What, you're telling me Vanilla isn't the most HC of all time and raids were super hard?
Honestly it's so tiring to read the same things over and over when anyone who actually played during vanilla knows shit was easy, not targeting anyone here just general ranting by reading the stupid arguments about pservers. But then again most of the complainers probably have never even attempted things like HC Ragnaros and Lei Shen so they don't know any better.
I don't believe Vanilla servers would last super long either, after content would be done or enough time had passed so that finding groups for fresh max level characters would become harder and harder the numbers would start going down afterwards.
Relax man... You are entitled to your opinion just like others are to theirs. Had you told me back when I was playing vanilla on Blizz servers that I would one day clear AQ40 in a PUG and consider it no big deal I would've laughed you in the face.
As for the longevity of a legacy server: I played on Feenix for a good 1½-2 years or so - and I was still a rather "young" member compared to others. Vanilla servers definitely could have a decent lifespan and definitely provide a ROI if you looked at it isolated (but as Nony point out, that is not really the correct way of evaluating such a thing).
EDIT: For me it has always been Blackrock Mountain that gave me that feeling of "home" in Vanilla. The PvP in there was glorious.
EDIT2: I can also highly recommend looking at some of the old PvP videos of people that were considered good. None of us had much of a clue until TBC came around it seems
EPT
