BLIZZARD RESPONDS - BLUE POST

[Benny&thejetz]

I remember reading somewhere that in the US active playerbase was down to 790,000 & in EU around 500,000. Data taken from realmstats or some other site. Given the data that Blizzard last published, that could very well be true. They were in a nosedive in 2015 and stopped reporting at 5 million subs. I'm willing to bet they probably still have 2-3 million subs, with most of said players not even bothering to log in to play.

I, uh, I spoke quite firmly for someone who saw a graph on the Internet and can't even remember where he saw it

Satisfied? Honestly it doesn't matter if its 790,000 or 3 million. The fact that the game lost 8 million+ subs speaks for itself. There is a disconnect between the existing development team & the rest of the world. Rather than reflecting on what made vanilla WoW > everything, they continue to cater to a niche crowd who are more interested in playing a single player game than an MMO. Retail has no community & 99% of the content can be played without any interaction with anyone. Players being "the chosen savior of Azeroth" is the cringiest garbage imaginable.

[illutian]

Poster linked the wrong chart to Kern...should have linked this one:

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php

1.3 million across all servers (NA + Euro).

[melak]

I remember reading somewhere that in the US active playerbase was down to 790,000 & in EU around 500,000. Data taken from realmstats or some other site. Given the data that Blizzard last published, that could very well be true. They were in a nosedive in 2015 and stopped reporting at 5 million subs. I'm willing to bet they probably still have 2-3 million subs, with most of said players not even bothering to log in to play.

I, uh, I spoke quite firmly for someone who saw a graph on the Internet and can't even remember where he saw it

Satisfied? Honestly it doesn't matter if its 790,000 or 3 million. The fact that the game lost 8 million+ subs speaks for itself. There is a disconnect between the existing development team & the rest of the world. Rather than reflecting on what made vanilla WoW > everything, they continue to cater to a niche crowd who are more interested in playing a single player game than an MMO. Retail has no community & 99% of the content can be played without any interaction with anyone. Players being "the chosen savior of Azeroth" is the cringiest garbage imaginable.

Indeed, retail IS a singeplayer game, calling it an mmorpg is an insult to the genre

[Gaze]

I've been a lurker here for some time, but this post finally prompted me to make an account because I am mad as hell. This is YET AGAIN another instance of Blizzard ignoring the community & doing whatever the hell it feels its entitled to.

They own the game, they are entitled to whatever they want with the rights they own on the game. If it will lead to a loss in subscriptions, then they will deal with it but they still manage the game and make decisions on what will happen next.

None of us ignored the fact that private servers are illegal when we joined Nostalrius and that, therefore, this could happen. The only reason it happened as well is because Nostalrius is victim of its own success, much like a drug dealer expanding his business and getting so many customers that everyone knows him.

I started playing on Nostalrius on the French version when we were stoked to see 300 players peak. We had a smaller community and we always use to complain because we wanted more players to have real Vanilla again. When Nostalrius was reborn a year ago, the population became massive and Blizzard starting hearing about it.

Because Nostalrius did not aim to make profit, because we simply wanted to relive something that Blizzard did not offer anymore did not mean that it was legal according to the Intellectual Property law. It is something that always lurked upon private servers and Nostalrius and because the success became so large, the retaliation came as well.

You can't blame Blizzard - that actually loses more money because they have to hire lawyers each time a private server becomes too popular - for respecting the laws that are established in their country.

Also, another point, they are a business, they try to make money so often they will find the easy way out, even if it could mean ruining the original game. Making money is a common concept in the real world of business.

[Benny&thejetz]

Also, another point, they are a business, they try to make money so often they will find the easy way out, even if it could mean ruining the original game. Making money is a common concept in the real world of business.

You're right & I do not fault them for that. I do fault them however, for straight up lying to their customers faces.

Blizzard can't sit there & tell the WoW community they love classic vanilla WoW, when for years they have been deleting/censoring any related discussion on the topic on the official forums. You can't belittle what was clearly a very passionate fan who spent money & attended Blizzcon by telling him "You think you do, but you don't" when asked about legacy servers. That is a complete shift in ideology from "Yeah we love classic vanilla wow!". Its damage control. Note that all this came only hours before Mark Kerns video. It was no coincidence.

Telling the WoW community creating a vanilla server would be extremely difficult/impossible, when 30 fans managed to make it in their free time with their own funding also rings hollow. Blizzard is a billion dollar company. If they actually wanted to have it done, it would be. Also the Nost devs said they would help them set it up if needed.

Offering "pristine servers" only insults the community further. Imagine for a moment you walk into a restaurant that is renown for its famous burgers:

You: Hello, I would like a burger please!
Waiter: Hi, we do not serve burgers.
You: Oh...well then I guess I will take my business elsewhere.
Waiter: WAIT! I know you were interested in a burger today...but how about some horse manure?
You: Umm no...absolutely not. I was interested in buying a burger not sh*t. I will take my business elsewhere thank you.

Blizzard already knows what the consumers want, but absolutely refuses to offer it out of fear & greed. They fear that if legacy servers were released they would be more popular than live which is going against what they are trying to promote. They want players to spend into the future, & buy expansion packs. Not enjoy themselves in the past. Honestly, I think most vanilla players would be willing to buy the latest expansions just to have access to vanilla servers even if they weren't interested the current content but Blizzard won't even present the opportunity.

They need to leave their ivory tower & realize 75% of their playerbase does not want to play retail and left. We want our MMO back not a single player game. If we wanted to play a single player game there are literally thousands of alternatives for that. There are no alternatives for vanilla WoW that are legal.

[Gaze]

You're right & I do not fault them for that. I do fault them however, for straight up lying to their customers faces.

Blizzard can't sit there & tell the WoW community they love classic vanilla WoW, when for years they have been deleting/censoring any related discussion on the topic on the official forums. You can't belittle what was clearly a very passionate fan who spent money & attended Blizzcon by telling him "You think you do, but you don't" when asked about legacy servers. That is a complete shift in ideology from "Yeah we love classic vanilla wow!". Its damage control. Note that all this came only hours before Mark Kerns video. It was no coincidence.

I agree with that but unfortunately that is how they seem to handle PR which also shows how their main focus seems to be profit now. That's annoying for us but it's the way it is.

Telling the WoW community creating a vanilla server would be extremely difficult/impossible, when 30 fans managed to make it in their free time with their own funding also rings hollow. Blizzard is a billion dollar company. If they actually wanted to have it done, it would be. Also the Nost devs said they would help them set it up if needed.

Offering "pristine servers" only insults the community further. Imagine for a moment you walk into a restaurant that is renown for its famous burgers:

You: Hello, I would like a burger please!
Waiter: Hi, we do not serve burgers.
You: Oh...well then I guess I will take my business elsewhere.
Waiter: WAIT! I know you were interested in a burger today...but how about some horse manure?
You: Umm no...absolutely not. I was interested in buying a burger not sh*t. I will take my business elsewhere thank you.

Blizzard already knows what the consumers want, but absolutely refuses to offer it out of fear & greed. They fear that if legacy servers were released they would be more popular than live which is going against what they are trying to promote. They want players to spend into the future, & buy expansion packs. Not enjoy themselves in the past. Honestly, I think most vanilla players would be willing to buy the latest expansions just to have access to vanilla servers even if they weren't interested in them but Blizzard won't even present the opportunity.

They need to leave their ivory tower & realize 75% of their playerbase does not want to play retail and left. We want our MMO back not a single player game. If we wanted to play a single player game there are literally thousands of alternatives for that. There are not alternatives for vanilla WoW that are legal.

First, I don't think it's so easy to create a server and then to also adapt it to the current game (which means additional forums, servers, managing, etc... - there is a lot more than developing behind running a game). In addition, as you mentioned, it took 30 developers several years (I know Daemon has been working on Nostalrius for at least four years now and you have to include the entire Mangoos team which started the original DB for this particular Vanilla's server) to create this version of the game, which is still unfinished.

I don't think it would be financially viable for Blizzard unless they were sure to receive a large crowd (much larger than Nostalrius since they would have to pay for all the work). I do think you might be overestimating the number of players that would come back to WoW just for Vanilla. You will certainly have a population large enough to recreate Vanilla but not to give Blizzard enough revenue to put all the effort into this. You do have to remember that a lot of players simply quit the game because they don't have time anymore, have other occupations, etc... - I know I did, I wouldn't play WoW anymore even on legacy servers.

The burger example is misinterpreted though, if you want it to link to Blizzard, you would have to say:


You: Hello, I would like a Vanilla burger please! (Vanilla burger would probably be awful though)
Waiter: Hi, we do not serve Vanilla burgers anymore but we do have WoD burger and our new burger, the Legion (it has extra blood on top) is coming out soon.
You: Oh...well then I guess I will take my business elsewhere, I really came for the Vanilla burger.
Waiter: That's alright, we still make a lot money without your business, go f*ck yourself *big smiley face*.
You: Thank you, go f*ck yourself too.

That's how it compares to Blizzard.