Blizzard responds to Nostalrius discussion

From: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20743584206

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We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions.

Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.


We have been discussing classic servers for years - it’s a topic every BlizzCon - and especially over the past few weeks. From active internal team discussions to after-hours meetings with leadership, this subject has been highly debated. Some of our current thoughts:


Why not just let Nostalrius continue the way it was? The honest answer is, failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard’s rights. This applies to anything that uses WoW’s IP, including unofficial servers. And while we’ve looked into the possibility – there is not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.


We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW.


So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.


One other note - we’ve recently been in contact with some of the folks who operated Nostalrius. They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks.


You, the Blizzard community, are the most dedicated, passionate players out there. We thank you for your constructive thoughts and suggestions. We are listening.


J. Allen Brack

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This is the most interesting thing for me:

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One other note - we’ve recently been in contact with some of the folks who operated Nostalrius. They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks.

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Would you multibox on a classic realm? Honestly if they ever did this for a WotLK realm I'd probably never play current content again. Nostalgia so hard for Wrath.

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

Would you multibox on a classic realm? Honestly if they ever did this for a WotLK realm I'd probably never play current content again.

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so true Well If legion is like wod then i would not

am not sure about the realms with the slower leveling though to be fair. Or though i can really see blizzard doing something soon to be fair.

Attachment 1649

Depends. If they made the world mobs (e.g. the Fenris Isle gnoll castle just north of The Sepulcher in Silverpine) dangerous again, even to small groups, I'd be tempted. They've nerfed everything out in the open world so hard over the years, even Tanaan Jungle elites are more or less pushovers.

So, basically, make questing treacherous and aptly rewarding, and revert dungeons back to the pre-Cata-gratuitous-AoE mechanics, and yeah, I'd play there.

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

Would you multibox on a classic realm? Honestly if they ever did this for a WotLK realm I'd probably never play current content again. Nostalgia so hard for Wrath.

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Absolutely. It wouldn't surprise me if the game got to a point where legacy servers became more popular than the current expansion. I guess thats what happens when you cater to the call of duty crowd ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Sign me up for anything pre-Cataclysm. I spent weeks grinding my timbermaw rep solo in vanilla in crap gear. I have such fond memories of that time period and nothing can replace it.

I read the wiki on it and says they have between 8000 and 15000 online. Is that alot? For Blizzard to do something like that it seems like it will cost millions and millions just to earn them thousands and thousands.

But at least they're discussing it.

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Originally Posted by JohnGabriel

I read the wiki on it and says they have between 8000 and 15000 online.

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24/7 or just peak prime-time?

Did anyone here box during Vanilla? I two boxed until Wrath.. but I did it old school way until I discovered this forum during BC and the joy of 5 boxing! I would definitely make a group for that! What sucks though.. You wouldn't be able to make a paly+shaman team if it were a true vanilla realm. Were Bears tanks good in vanilla?

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Originally Posted by Lyonheart

Did anyone here box during Vanilla? I two boxed until Wrath.. but I did it old school way until I discovered this forum during BC and the joy of 5 boxing! I would definitely make a group for that! What sucks though.. You wouldn't be able to make a paly+shaman team if it were a true vanilla realm. Were Bears tanks good in vanilla?

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I dual boxed at the tail end of Vanilla (nothing like we do now), it was pretty rough. The game was pretty rough back then though. I think Warrior + Mage/Warlock/Hunter + Priest team would do really well.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

24/7 or just peak prime-time?

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Here is the quote.

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Nostalrius boasted a very high player base, regularly having over 15000 players online at peak times, with lowest points of 8000 players on at off-hours.

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http://vanilla-wow.wikia.com/wiki/Nostalrius_Begins

<Gentle reminder about not supporting private servers however this discussion is still interesting because of the implications of Blizzard actually implementing official vanilla locked servers so be careful what you link to>

I appreciated that they communicated about the issue. I sincerely doubt they will ever implement anything more legacy than the timewalk events, although they might expand those.

I miss real specs and wish the world was more dangerous.

I would most certainly love to multibox the rougher, more tedious content (e.g. 5/10-man dungeons), but it'd also be very easy for a multiboxer to actually raid with 30-35 other people (and include other multiboxers!) if we could go back to those days.

Arguably, you can still do this in LFR, but... eh...

However, I have no desire for a "pristine" realm.

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Originally Posted by JohnGabriel

I read the wiki on it and says they have between 8000 and 15000 online. Is that alot? For Blizzard to do something like that it seems like it will cost millions and millions just to earn them thousands and thousands.

But at least they're discussing it.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

24/7 or just peak prime-time?

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A few months ago, after its 1-year anniversary and prior to any C&D letters, Nostalrius released an infographic showing their numbers - http://i.imgur.com/jxtOQlu.jpg

Whether the information in that graphic is true or not is not something anyone outside of their team could possibly know, but if you've watched any of the "good-bye" videos over the past few weeks I would say that it's probably accurate. At the time of shutdown the numbers were apparently 800,000+ registered accounts and 150,000+ active—at least according to the Change.org petition that is currently running.

However, what I've read over the past few weeks (since I've been trying to keep up with it all as best as I could), retail servers back in vanilla had about a 2500 player cap according to Mark Kern—who is the ex-lead WoW developer for vanilla/classic—but I've also heard other people post this information randomly on the internet throughout the years before I had ever heard it from Mark Kern. So, 8,000-15,000 players on a single realm would be incredibly overpopulated, and this was what Ironforge looked like during its final minutes on the PvE realm, which was an additional realm opened after the original PvP realm to help offload those only looking for PvE.

Others have also pointed out that Nostalrius's numbers only account for a 10-day window, whereas any company reporting a subscriber base does it over a 30-day window, so it's likely a lot higher than that infographic shows (again, assuming it's true).

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As for 150k active, my understanding is that was measured over a 10 day window. The industry standard for measuring active is 30 days. I bet the 30 day number is higher, but even at 150k, during vanilla WoW we only expected around 450k active subscribers, and it would have been a huge success.

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Source

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Originally Posted by Lyonheart

Did anyone here box during Vanilla? I two boxed until Wrath.. but I did it old school way until I discovered this forum during BC and the joy of 5 boxing! I would definitely make a group for that! What sucks though.. You wouldn't be able to make a paly+shaman team if it were a true vanilla realm. Were Bears tanks good in vanilla?

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I didn't start multiboxing until TBC, and it was me just running two accounts and moving between them so that I could power level a second Warrior to avoid having to constantly respec my main Warrior.

I don't think any tanks were viable for any serious progression beside Warriors, but I remember playing with a Ret Paladin back in the early days and he tanked all of the instances. So... /shrug

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Originally Posted by MiRai

I don't think any tanks were viable for any serious progression beside Warriors, but I remember playing with a Ret Paladin back in the early days and he tanked all of the instances. So... /shrug

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I remember running LBRS with a shaman tank back in vanilla...

i doubt that this will have success, remember that the best gear was only obtainable by 40 man raids or playing pvp 24/7 with pocket healers or account sharing. Ok oneshotting cloth as enhance with random windfury proccs was fun and the world was more dangerous because everyone had shit gear except the few in top raid guilds. Other than that i would prefer bc/wotlk servers anytime.

without lfr/new honor system not a single casual (90% of todays wow population) is gonna play this

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

i doubt that this will have success, remember that the best gear was only obtainable by 40 man raids or playing pvp 24/7 with pocket healers or account sharing. Ok oneshotting cloth as enhance with random windfury proccs was fun and the world was more dangerous because everyone had shit gear except the few in top raid guilds. Other than that i would prefer bc/wotlk servers anytime.

without lfr/new honor system not a single casual (90% of todays wow population) is gonna play this

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wait until they see how useful meeting stones were in vanilla!

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

wait until they see how useful meeting stones were in vanilla!

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LOL! +1 internets to you, sir.

Casuals wont be able to use the meeting stone because if you click more than once the summon aborts, I don't know if that has ever been fixed but if not it's absolutely impossible for todays casuals to execute a teleport via meeting stone

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

Casuals wont be able to use the meeting stone because if you click more than once the summon aborts, I don't know if that has ever been fixed but if not it's absolutely impossible for todays casuals to execute a teleport via meeting stone

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He has a point...
Sadly

thats just my experience from the few times I went lfr, 80% of those people would simply never get access to epics in vanilla aside from the stuff you can grind (i.e. battleground factions)

leave a random mc raid in vanilla after 2 bosses, gl finding another raid in the future

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

thats just my experience from the few times I went lfr, 80% of those people would simply never get access to epics in vanilla aside from the stuff you can grind (i.e. battleground factions)

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I've spent more time in LFR than non-LFR Raids since it was added to the game. I feel like this is a bit of an exaggeration. Depending on the group or even time of the week can greatly impact the quality of your LFR experience.

The true failure can be seen during timewalking events where pugs wipe over and over on the ICC 5 mans, or End Times where the boss mechanics are flat out not forgiving.

I can tell you now, on Nostalrius you were able to see how many people were online with the /who function. I did a couple of 18 hour stints on it and constantly checked it, the pvp server always had over 10k people online, always.

I had a blast, was so good going through questing areas WITH OTHER PEOPLE. The zones were PACKED!! STV was a warzone. I missed that about WoW. It took me back to when I first started playing. I would pay for a chance to play Vanilla again. It was slow, painful, frustrating, unfair to some classes, but it was epic, and the eventual rewards made you feel good.

Nostalrius was good because it wasn't just claiming what the people wanted, it proved it!

I'm hoping they at least restore the old world in some fashion and deal with the anachronistic mess that is the games plot post-caaclysm. I am glad they realized that leveling is grossly out of tune, sandwiched between the two extremes of "I want to explore the world and enjoy leveling up" and "got to go fast, have to hit the cap and start raiding".

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Originally Posted by Bigfish

I'm hoping they at least restore the old world in some fashion and deal with the anachronistic mess that is the games plot post-caaclysm. I am glad they realized that leveling is grossly out of tune, sandwiched between the two extremes of "I want to explore the world and enjoy leveling up" and "got to go fast, have to hit the cap and start raiding".

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Yeah, I definitely love questing, but I sure do miss the old world. One of my issues with today's questing (in Azeroth) is all of the pop culture bullshit. Sure, back in the day we had quests that referenced Zelda/Link (out in Un'Goro) or quests like The Scrimshank Redemption in Tanaris (a play off of The Shawshank Redpemption), but nothing that I can remember which encompassed an entire zone. I'm just so tired of going into Westfall, only to be shuffled from hub to hub which are all 500 feet from each other while playing the CSI game, or going through Redridge Mountains and its heavily phased A-Team/Rambo-esque railroaded storyline. While it's all incredibly quick and easy, and rewards good XP, it's all a gigantic snoozefest to me.

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

i doubt that this will have success, remember that the best gear was only obtainable by 40 man raids or playing pvp 24/7 with pocket healers or account sharing. Ok oneshotting cloth as enhance with random windfury proccs was fun and the world was more dangerous because everyone had shit gear except the few in top raid guilds. Other than that i would prefer bc/wotlk servers anytime.

without lfr/new honor system not a single casual (90% of todays wow population) is gonna play this

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Appealing to the lowest common denominator is probably a reason most original players left the game. I remember when getting gear was actually an accomplishment, compared to getting a full set in a week with WOD.

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Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

Appealing to the lowest common denominator is probably a reason most original players left the game. I remember when getting gear was actually an accomplishment, compared to getting a full set in a week with WOD.

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A fair point. The most fun I had in-game was WotLK doing justice points in heroics on my 5x prot paladin team and getting those achievements. I had to grind the easy ones first to get the JPs so my gear was up to the point of being useful, which took me a few months, but I never felt like I was being gimmick-bombed by "we're too lazy to balance difficulty anymore so we're just gonna make everyone jump around like chimpanzees on a OD of snickers bars and red bull" crap that started in Cataclysm.

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Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

Appealing to the lowest common denominator is probably a reason most original players left the game. I remember when getting gear was actually an accomplishment, compared to getting a full set in a week with WOD.

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I don't think appealing to the commons was the issue. Heck, part of the reason WoW took off was because they dropped the "you must group to level" aspect that was common place in MMOs before that. Even Raidfinder is just entry level "you saw the boss of the expansion die, now quit or run the real raids". I'd blame the general decline on 2 aspects: long content droughts and the inability to pick up where you left off. Content droughts are pretty self explanatory. Going more than a year with no new content while paying 15$ a month is unacceptable. The big one for me though is that I can't pick up where I left off. Quit during cataclysm before downing Deathwing? Well you're not going to kill him at a level appropriate point now. Go level through the current content and grab your welfare epics from the catch up zone? Suddenly handling the last raid boss feels like a chore you forgot to do than the climax of an expansion.

Want to just level a new character and see the world again? Well 1-60 got replaced with chronologically disjointed mess that makes no sense, and was pushed to make even less sense as you out level and out power zones halfway through them, requiring players to pace themselves and do grey quests if they want to see the world, heirloom their way through dungeons if they want to skip it, or pay 60$ for a level boost.

The appeal of Vanilla is that convenience didn't kill conflict. I would say that's the number 1 lesson the current dev team needs to consider, although at this point I kind of wonder if they even have that much of an interest in the game. Really feels like they're developing the game because that's their job and they're not going to stop developing for their former flagship series, but no one has a clear vision of how to go forward. I mean we didn't have this problem until after wrath, when Outland and Northrend had been explored and we'd dealt with the remaining conflict of Warcraft 3.

well that's just the thing - by giving everyone easy and quick gear in addition to LFR/LFD, they've essentially killed the content. If you can see it all just by tagging along in LFR then why go beyond that? Why grind to have the absolute best gear when it becomes worse than the next content patches gear (which is essentially given to everyone free)? Why make friends and form a community when you can just queue from org/sw? Why grind pvp gear when stats are normalized? Why even go out and explore the world when everything is accessible from the comfort of the major cities?

I've been saying that for years @EaTCarbS.

They've essentially shot themselves in the foot with all conveniences thrown into the game. There are basic psychological principles in gaming and sport and then a few more for MMOs.

1. Challenge - doesn't really matter what the reward is here. It just has to be locked behind some effort.
2. Anonymity kills community. LFR and LFD killed community. That is indisputable.
3. Risk - nothing in this game is a gamble. Even time. You die you're right back in where you were before you died almost instantaneously. The rez timer is a joke.

There was an interview someone posted on the WoW general forum a while back that Watcher had. About combat pacing. This interview told me all I need to know that their focus is entirely on the wrong thing. When asked about combat pacing in questing he commented that they felt the battles ended too early. That they should be a few seconds longer. Well, that's the problem right there. That line of thinking.

Look at how popular Dark Souls is and ask yourself about pacing in that game. If you've mastered the game then nothing takes a great deal of time. The game can be done in an hour. But if you don't know the game it can take you weeks.

That is what is missing in WoW. The gap between novice and master is so blurred right now that nothing feels like a challenge nor something to get better at. It just feels like a waste of time.

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Originally Posted by MadMilitia

I've been saying that for years @EaTCarbS.

They've essentially shot themselves in the foot with all conveniences thrown into the game. There are basic psychological principles in gaming and sport and then a few more for MMOs.

1. Challenge - doesn't really matter what the reward is here. It just has to be locked behind some effort.
2. Anonymity kills community. LFR and LFD killed community. That is indisputable.
3. Risk - nothing in this game is a gamble. Even time. You die you're right back in where you were before you died almost instantaneously. The rez timer is a joke.

There was an interview someone posted on the WoW general forum a while back that Watcher had. About combat pacing. This interview told me all I need to know that their focus is entirely on the wrong thing. When asked about combat pacing in questing he commented that they felt the battles ended too early. That they should be a few seconds longer. Well, that's the problem right there. That line of thinking.

Look at how popular Dark Souls is and ask yourself about pacing in that game. If you've mastered the game then nothing takes a great deal of time. The game can be done in an hour. But if you don't know the game it can take you weeks.

That is what is missing in WoW. The gap between novice and master is so blurred right now that nothing feels like a challenge nor something to get better at. It just feels like a waste of time.

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This is so true, the same is kinda the same with Monster Hunter, at first it takes ages, then as you get better you can smash it out. But it takes a long grind to be able to get that skill, it isn't gifted in the form of powerful stats.

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Originally Posted by MadMilitia

2. Anonymity kills community. LFR and LFD killed community. That is indisputable.

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Fair enough, though some balance between that and the RAID OR DIE design decisions has to be maintained; I suspect LFR was the only way forward if raiding was the only way to succeed at the new challenge/mythic dungeon models.

I don't think LFG/LFR really killed the community. I'd blame shrinking/mismanaged server populations causing a feed back loop of the community getting worse so people quit so the community gets worse. LFG/LFR is a good tool, but it needs to facilitate guild recruitment and friending other players. I've met some great people in LFG, and the sad thing was I couldn't get to their server or play with them again because it costs money. Right now battle groups and cross realm zones are a confusing cluster. Assuming the structure hasn't changed from how I think it is. Not playing for years puts you out of touch with how things work.

All that and content droughts. It's real easy to come back, gear up, and clear everything, and quit again. No real reason to stick around, especially if your server sucks. I think that's a big part of the appeal of vanilla/ progress servers. You have people running content instead of having everyone at max level running 1 raid that means anything.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

Fair enough, though some balance between that and the RAID OR DIE design decisions has to be maintained; I suspect LFR was the only way forward if raiding was the only way to succeed at the new challenge/mythic dungeon models.

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Yup. Without lfr/lfd my wife and I would have quit in cata. Neither of us have any desire to return to raid or die or any facsimile of it ever again after vanilla, bc and wotlk.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

Fair enough, though some balance between that and the RAID OR DIE design decisions has to be maintained; I suspect LFR was the only way forward if raiding was the only way to succeed at the new challenge/mythic dungeon models.

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The balance is to just stop the raid or die nonsense. Clearly it isn't working even with LFR in the game.

It isn't unreasonable that a player should be able to get end game gear without raiding. Make difficult 5 man content already. This is usually where the peanut gallery says ho, ho, they can't do that!

Sure they can.

In fact they can make end game content for solo scenarios, 5s, 10s and 20s. Then counterbalance it with loot table drop percentages. So that solo play can reward the same end game gear but does so at a much slower rate than 20s. That fixes the problem with raid or die. LFR isn't needed.

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Originally Posted by MadMilitia

The balance is to just stop the raid or die nonsense. Clearly it isn't working even with LFR in the game.

It isn't unreasonable that a player should be able to get end game gear without raiding. Make difficult 5 man content already. This is usually where the peanut gallery says ho, ho, they can't do that!

Sure they can.

In fact they can make end game content for solo scenarios, 5s, 10s and 20s. Then counterbalance it with loot table drop percentages. So that solo play can reward the same end game gear but does so at a much slower rate than 20s. That fixes the problem with raid or die. LFR isn't needed.

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I don't disagree, but that discussion always goes in predictable ways when the WoW devs get involved.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

I don't disagree, but that discussion always goes in predictable ways when the WoW devs get involved.

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"You think you do, but you don't"

Yeah I've never actually talked to a dev on WoW regarding the raid or die ideology. Though I would love to.

Anyway I'd like to think those psychology credits in college could pay off at some point :D

after that discussion I had to dig out an ancient hard drive and actually found a screenshot of (probably) my very first oneshot lol, it was sitting (drinking) druid and back in the days the first hit on a sitting target was a guaranteed critical strike, so stormstrike+auto hit+windfury did all crit :D. Damn it now I really want to play that shit again lol

http://www.bilder-upload.eu/thumb/22f06e-1464525831.png

fyi: waffe des windzorns: windfury

And of course, not a single keybind haha

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

http://www.bilder-upload.eu/thumb/22f06e-1464525831.png

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dam look at all them spells!!!!