I would definitely come back to a vanilla server but, looking at it realistically, I would probably not stay for an extended period. BC was my favorite. I remember spending hour after hour after hour in AV. The Horde ice monster - man I had SO much fun.

Actually it does not matter, there is NO way that Blizzard would do this.

Originally posted by delete5230

Why not, someone give me/us a real answer. 

Humpty doesn't go back in the shell.

Apparently at least one company refuses to pander to the reactionaries. And it's difficult to argue if their bottom line would be improved by doing so; several companies in the past have been fervently assured how incredibly profitable "classic" servers would be...actual results, on the other hand, have always been dubious at best.

Originally posted by Istavaan

Originally posted by Vannor

Like all 'fond memories' of games, if you played it again.. now.. it would probably ruin your fond memories.

Vanilla WoW was good because, at the time, it was original and we'd never seen it before. It just wouldn't be the same after all we've been through.

It's like the D3 issue. Everyone wanted it to be like D2.. but why arn't they playing D2 then? Because they probably tried it again and it's just shockingly bad compared to todays games. Memories are relative to the time they took place.

What exactly was original about it?

1) The most fluid animations of any MMO. Nine years on there are only a few that can match Classic's animation quality. Look at the cat Night Elf mounts for evidence.

2) Leveling through questing via ! and ? above heads. This was the first game that had those glyphs. EQ2 came close but it didn't show the feathers above NPC heads (in the game world) until much later.

3) Balanced death penalty. Everyone else had either live, naked corpse runs or dead corpse tombstone grabs with XP loss.

4) Battlegrounds.

5) Instanced tiered dungeons starting at level 15 for Horde and 18 for Alliance.

6) This was the first game where there wasn't zone space just for the sake of zone space. If an area existed, by and large, it had a reason. There were no wide open spaces of nothing.

7) Fast travel from nearly every quest hub to every other quest hub on the same continent.

Originally posted by ScaryMonk

Originally posted by tom_gore

Millions? Yeah I can also go and pull numbers out of my ass. You don't think Blizzard hasn't done any research about it? If they knew they would really get millions of players on vanilla servers AND keep them, they would open those in a heartbeat.

 

It would undermine their game in its current state.  It would almost be an admission that they have taken the game in the wrong direction or dumbed it down, or at least the press would treat it as such.  It would be a PR disaster.   

It would also risk losing revenue and activity from the those players who stick with it because it is wow, but never-the-less are underwhelmed by the direction it has taken.  An emptier world in their expansions is not good for business.  

 

 

This is the best explanation of why Blizzard would never do this that I have seen. Right on the money!

I've been rooting for vanilla servers for the longest time, i left blizz servers shortly after cata launch and have played on a vanilla private server ever since. What nostalgia-freaks like me and OP really miss is the community. The game was bugged, the grind was serious and the balance was bad. Making a vanilla server won't remake the old community, some things are just gone - playing on a private server gets closer, but it'll never truly be classic wow.

Originally posted by PieRad

Originally posted by delete5230

I love how the same five people say everything is fine.

1) Thousands come and GO, bashing the game for the same old.  Easy, level too fast, dungeon finder, expantion prices, transfer prices and a few others.

2) How many stopped playing and are not saying a word......More are just walking away without saying anything as to the people being vocal about it.

3) I know at least 15 people in real life that hate the game as it stands now.

4) The mmorpg.com community makes up about .000001% of the people that ever played WoW. I for one don't know even one person that knows about this site, do you ?.......Just think how many walked away.  You guessed it millions !

You know, pulling #s out of your ass is a bad idea, especially if you're bad at math.

 

He loves do that doesn't he? hahaha.... love it how this guy makes up statistics on the fly.

I was reading a developer interview from the Asheron's Call team a while back, where they were talking about the mistake of releasing Asheron's Call 2 while Asheron's Call was still up and running. Basically, they said that releasing AC2 split the Asheron's Call community, and instead of growing it, it shrunk and hurt both games. I could completely see this happening if they released vanilla WoW servers, because it would basically be like 2 seperate games at that point.

Also, not to mention, they would have to have a small seperate dev. team just for maintaining the vanilla game, which would potentially detract from their ability to maintain and add content to current day WoW. 

Oh, and notice how I'm making my argument without the terribly old and trite "rose tinted glasses" attack? I thought and still do think that Vanilla/BC were great games.

Originally posted by endgame1

I was reading a developer interview from the Asheron's Call team a while back, where they were talking about the mistake of releasing Asheron's Call 2 while Asheron's Call was still up and running. Basically, they said that releasing AC2 split the Asheron's Call community, and instead of growing it, it shrunk and hurt both games. I could completely see this happening if they released vanilla WoW servers, because it would basically be like 2 seperate games at that point.

 

Also, not to mention, they would have to have a small seperate dev. team just for maintaining the vanilla game, which would potentially detract from their ability to maintain and add content to current day WoW. 

 

Oh, and notice how I'm making my argument without the terribly old and trite "rose tinted glasses" attack? I thought and still do think that Vanilla/BC were great games.

 

 

Right on the money...

It would cannibalize their their existing playerbase.  Yes, it would pull some folks that have moved on back in (like myself), but you also have to recognize that there is a significant crowd still playing because they are already established in the game, and nearly everything else worth it's salt out there essentially delivers the same experience.  These folks would likely split their time with the vanilla servers, and further lessen the shrinking pool of players in the new servers.

With that said, they could always consilidate servers (or enhance their cross server grouping / phasing) to address population problems.

I'd love to see it, just as I'd love to see EA release a vanilla UO server....but neither will happen.

if they put a classic server up and it out performs the expansion servers then, they would be forced to admit they butchered the IP for 9 years of development. Blizzard has the largest ego in the gaming industry, they don't want player to be proven right they screwed up with all the changes and nerfs for more then a decade.

Vanilla server would prove they took the wrong route.

Originally posted by Kedoremos

2) Leveling through questing via ! and ? above heads. This was the first game that had those glyphs. EQ2 came close but it didn't show the feathers above NPC heads (in the game world) until much later.

EQ2 didnt have feathers until later

but the EQ2 quest NPCs did signal you by waving their arms or calling out to you verbally

- which I miss

Originally posted by NC-John

if they put a classic server up and it out performs the expansion servers then, they would be forced to admit they butchered the IP for 9 years of development. Blizzard has the largest ego in the gaming industry, they don't want player to be proven right they screwed up with all the changes and nerfs for more then a decade.

Vanilla server would prove they took the wrong route.

...Pretty much this.

Even BC was okay (in my book)- But with WOTLK, DeathKnights and everything after I cannot stomach it. I remember that HUGE Patch where SW was revamped (right before Wrath) and there was some crazy invasion. I was soooo exited and hoped we would see the return of larger Raids, harder content, etc. etc. etc.

To me WOTLK killed WOW. BC was certainly a "step down" but I still thought there was some cool stuff (like my ROFL Copter) but was certainly the begining of the end.

I would sign up again in a Heartbeat for a vanilaa server. Other than that, WOW is dead to me- Dead I say. =P

Originally posted by delete5230

Why not, someone give me/us a real answer. 

Not sure. If you present the source of your data, we could take a look at it and try to work from there.

You have a link to your fact of the million people?

I'd like to see it...

No?

/thread

As someone had posted :

- It would be an admission of undermining their current state, this is a good one. 

- However, I would go with the marketing direction.  Level people faster to sell expantions and never murge dead servers, make people pay for transfers. Use the excuse that the game is too hard for my son to play. Instead of the F2P direction that many game developers are doing, just lower the price but never give them for free.

Millions have walked away from this game. Sure their are still millions playing. But because of the nasty changes Blizzard had made the population could be so much higher. 

I feel that Blizzard did make a big mistake. They could have gained the same results by making newer islands and diffriant races that way they could still sell expantions, because selling expantions is the real goal. Yes, I know they already made new races but players are outleveling them in two days, with fast leveling and a few chain quest they are short lived....They seem to insist on taking away the roll play and real life feeling. That is one that I and many others can't figure out, other than get your ass to endgame because you would have to have every expantion to do so.....Marketing !

Originally posted by delete5230

As someone had posted :

- It would be an admission of undermining their current state, this is a good one. 

- However, I would go with the marketing direction.  Level people faster to sell expantions and never murge dead servers, make people pay for transfers. Use the excuse that the game is too hard for my son to play. Instead of the F2P direction that many game developers are doing, just lower the price but never give them for free.

Millions have walked away from this game. Sure their are still millions playing. But because of the nasty changes Blizzard had made the population could be so much higher. 

 

I feel that Blizzard did make a big mistake. They could have gained the same results by making newer islands and diffriant races that way they could still sell expantions, because selling expantions is the real goal. Yes, I know they already made new races but players are outleveling them in two days, with fast leveling and a few chain quest they are short lived....They seem to insist on taking away the roll play and real life feeling. That is one that I and many others can't figure out, other than get your ass to endgame because you would have to have every expantion to do so.....Marketing !

Again, you are just pulling out cliche' after cliche' and unproven (i use the word very lightly) statistics.

Where is the proof that there would be 'millions' more players if the game had not evolved in any way what so ever? A lot of the players that left the game were turn and burn players who screamed through content within a month or two and then disappeared until the next expansion and did it all over again. That is my impression from the peak and fall you tend to see at every expansion.

Have millions left the game, undoubtedly, but would the majority have left regardless of what Blizzard did to the game, very probably, but i have no proof either way other than my own meandering experience in the game.

As for the faster levelling, it is great as a 'new' player to take an age to level your first toon, but when you are on your 10th or 20th character the last thing you want is to take 6-7 months to cap out so that you can continue to play the later game content. If you feel that you are levelling too fast, switch off your xp and enjoy it the way you want to, the options are there for you.

So many complaints about what Blizzard have put in the game to make it 'easy' mode, but the vast majority is optional and you are welcome to play the game the way you want to play it if you can resist the temptation to use those changes. Don't buy a mount until L40, don't use flight points for areas you haven't been to, turn off your xp every other level for a time determined by you, don't use heirlooms, don't use dungeon LFG instead form your own guild with like minded players and do it the old way.

For as much as some people complain about the changes that have been made, with a little will power and imagination you can make the game what you want it to be to a certain degree, but that is just too much effort for some.

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by Istavaan

Originally posted by Vannor

Like all 'fond memories' of games, if you played it again.. now.. it would probably ruin your fond memories.

Vanilla WoW was good because, at the time, it was original and we'd never seen it before. It just wouldn't be the same after all we've been through.

It's like the D3 issue. Everyone wanted it to be like D2.. but why arn't they playing D2 then? Because they probably tried it again and it's just shockingly bad compared to todays games. Memories are relative to the time they took place.

What exactly was original about it?

Love it when people say WOW was original. WOW stole more s**t from older mmorpg's than anything. Everyone says WOW clone this or WOW clone that, but they got their ideas from founding mmorpgs. WOW is a clone lol.

It had a huge IP to start with, a good company, during that time 40% more internet users, and was fantasy. Because WOW almost failed with its rocky launch.

Everything happened at the right time for WOW, now everyone tries to mimic it :/

Everything is a clone of Pong by your logic. Well done. WoW did tons of stuff that was never done in MMOs before. Visual skill trees being one example, basing an MMO on a well known IP from another genre being another... there are many more examples. It also felt and flowed completely differently to other MMOs. Saying WoW did nothing original is very naive.

I think vanilla wow would fail miserably. New generation of gamers would not like it at all. And old players... you know if you think about it seriously, you will find, that Molten core is incredibly boring and uninspired dungeon... BWL is not much better. AQ and Naxx are a bit better... but wow was so wonderful, because we were noobs and for many it was first MMO experience. Another thing is, content that was in vanilla would take about a year to beat for today's gamers (I\m being generous here).

As for Blizzard's view... I think the main problem is supporting such server. I'm sure pretty much everything starting with player databases and ending with tools for developers to work with server/client is VERY different. It would be quite difficult to assemble team, that will work with this ancient stuff. And don't be mistaken... people would still QQ and scream about bugs imbalances and what not.

Originally posted by delete5230

Why not, someone give me/us a real answer.  

Here's your real answer:

Millions bought multiple expansion packs for the game.

If suddenly the best and most populated servers were ones that didn't require any of those expansions pack that millions of people paid hundreds of dollars for, do you think they might be a little mad?

There is your real answer.

Originally posted by Shadoed

Originally posted by delete5230

As someone had posted :

- It would be an admission of undermining their current state, this is a good one. 

- However, I would go with the marketing direction.  Level people faster to sell expantions and never murge dead servers, make people pay for transfers. Use the excuse that the game is too hard for my son to play. Instead of the F2P direction that many game developers are doing, just lower the price but never give them for free.

Millions have walked away from this game. Sure their are still millions playing. But because of the nasty changes Blizzard had made the population could be so much higher. 

 

I feel that Blizzard did make a big mistake. They could have gained the same results by making newer islands and diffriant races that way they could still sell expantions, because selling expantions is the real goal. Yes, I know they already made new races but players are outleveling them in two days, with fast leveling and a few chain quest they are short lived....They seem to insist on taking away the roll play and real life feeling. That is one that I and many others can't figure out, other than get your ass to endgame because you would have to have every expantion to do so.....Marketing !

Again, you are just pulling out cliche' after cliche' and unproven (i use the word very lightly) statistics.

Where is the proof that there would be 'millions' more players if the game had not evolved in any way what so ever? A lot of the players that left the game were turn and burn players who screamed through content within a month or two and then disappeared until the next expansion and did it all over again. That is my impression from the peak and fall you tend to see at every expansion.

Have millions left the game, undoubtedly, but would the majority have left regardless of what Blizzard did to the game, very probably, but i have no proof either way other than my own meandering experience in the game.

As for the faster levelling, it is great as a 'new' player to take an age to level your first toon, but when you are on your 10th or 20th character the last thing you want is to take 6-7 months to cap out so that you can continue to play the later game content. If you feel that you are levelling too fast, switch off your xp and enjoy it the way you want to, the options are there for you.

So many complaints about what Blizzard have put in the game to make it 'easy' mode, but the vast majority is optional and you are welcome to play the game the way you want to play it if you can resist the temptation to use those changes. Don't buy a mount until L40, don't use flight points for areas you haven't been to, turn off your xp every other level for a time determined by you, don't use heirlooms, don't use dungeon LFG instead form your own guild with like minded players and do it the old way.

For as much as some people complain about the changes that have been made, with a little will power and imagination you can make the game what you want it to be to a certain degree, but that is just too much effort for some.

Again, you are controling this message board as you have been for the past few years, killing anything anyone would say that is negative about this game.

Anyway, WoW is the joke of the mmorpg.com community. Just bring up World of Warcraft and use it as an example in any other game board or in general fourms, then sit back and see what you get !.....Then go out in public and ask real life people what they think of World of Warcraft.  If they do know about it they would most likley say something to the effect like " I know that game, it kind of sucks anymore ".

Yet your pretending that everything is just great :)