Would Blizzard Fuck Up Vanilla WoW With Character Boosts?

[Docholy]

If they go forward with legacy server they will not do in game stores, however they will try to "make that game better" as to put their own signature on it. I suspect it will revolve around class balance, summon stones, and other mechanics.

[Norjak]

My biggest concern about blizzard releasing a legacy server would be them allowing people to boost themselves to level 60 and buy things like epic mounts with real cash. This would total ruin the vanilla experience. We want the game to be exactly as it was. The way Nostalrius did it. I fear they will not understand this.

I agree - a worse outcome would be that Blizzard hosts "Vanilla" servers on their own, and then proceeds to change it so it less resembles the original game, possibly reducing the immersion & fun. The way Nost tried to control hackers & gold-sellers really impressed me, I thought they were doing a better job than even Blizzard themselves.
On the other hand, I think Nost could use their help with scripting, especially for the AQ & Naxx content. Even after 10 years, I still consider Blizzard to be the "masters" of their own game and I'm sure they are a better source of knowledge than an old Allakhazam or Wowwiki database...

Ironically they now need to recruit players from Classic WoW to tell them what to do with WoW. They have no idea what to do with the game anymore.

If they're able to have Jeff Kaplan etc (or similar original dev with an original perspective) help out with a QA pass, it would go a long way in helping to keep the game intact.

[Uidrae]

I think if they do this, we can expect them to add some form of extra monetization. Hopefully, they can control their greed and keep it minimal. If they add anything that makes Vanilla not Vanilla, they will shoot themselves in the foot.

I picture them doing a progressive thing (hopefully) and went it's time for BC, adding it as a separate server and charging a transfer fee to continue there. Not a fan of all their "microtransactions" (which really aren't very "micro"), but i think I could live with that if I got to play the game in its glory days.

[Undertanker]

I personally think there will be some item-shop items that can be purchased with real money. To name a possible few:

Mounts (remember the training is what is expensive so you still have to farm gold)

Tabards (has no benefit to customer advancement at all and can score some easy sales)

Companions (has no benefit to customer advancement at all and can score some easy sales)

Subscription Scroll (counter gold sellers and get gold safely with your RL cash w/o being banned or hacked)

Character Transfer (2 PVP Servers that you can transfer your Nost character to, all other servers fresh only)

Race / Faction Change (Force your guildies to change to the proper PVE/PVP race for the class they chose)

Character Appearance (No advantage here as well)


While I am not a fan of many of the above, from a corp standpoint w/o upsetting the core audience, expect things such as this.

One payable feature that I am always against is Name Change. This allows you to be a complete ass, ninja looter and earn a terrible rep on the server with no long term consequence. Just name change after you ninja a few items and then do it again. Many people would pay the $5 for their free snag at MajorDomo's chest - Shoulders / Band / CHT.

[Wulfgrin]

The only one of those I would consider is the token. Gold selling does seem to be a bigger thing when its a tight resource, like in early WoW. Since there are professional farmers selling gold anyways, I don't think of it as Blizzard adding p2w to the game, its already there.

I haven't been subbed to live game in a while. Anyone know how the token thing is playing out there? Less farmers? More or less bots?

[Undertanker]

I havn't subbed since Cata, but other games I've seen this used and it stopped gold sellers by far and large.