I think I figured it out!

[Uzephi]

https://youtu.be/hhTTY4-5E1s?t=1505

Afrasabi didn't want a recreation of the AQ event... Nost was close to releasing AQ event on Nost, they get formal letter.... Coincidence?!

/tinfoil hat off...

[Docholy]

https://youtu.be/hhTTY4-5E1s?t=1505

Afrasabi didn't want a recreation of the AQ event... Nost was close to releasing AQ event on Nost, they get formal letter.... Coincidence?!

/tinfoil hat off...

You're thinking to small man. Blizzard is not willing to reverse engineer vanilla, YES REVERSE ENGINEER!

They lost vanilla, they never kept the game in some backup mode over the years. They committed the greatest of sins and simply overwrote everything when Cata came with no regard for the past. Even if it took the smallest of pen strokes and a few bucks to backup. Here is where it gets crazy!

Blizzard knows the demand is there for all expansions pre Cata and NOS finally unlocked enough of the old game.
Now blizzard wants it and will eagerly pay a few old timers to finish vanilla before the end of wow comes to reinvigorate their bottom line 2-3 years from now.

Your tinfoil hat theory has been bested! Get on my level!

[Codeine]

I doubt they never kept a backup. Yes I know that has been their excuse in the past for why they cant do vanilla servers. But seriously, a company on the scale of Blizzard not keeping a backup, very unlikely.

[Remember_Nostalrius]

https://youtu.be/hhTTY4-5E1s?t=1505

Afrasabi didn't want a recreation of the AQ event... Nost was close to releasing AQ event on Nost, they get formal letter.... Coincidence?!

/tinfoil hat off...

You're thinking to small man. Blizzard is not willing to reverse engineer vanilla, YES REVERSE ENGINEER!

They lost vanilla, they never kept the game in some backup mode over the years. They committed the greatest of sins and simply overwrote everything when Cata came with no regard for the past. Even if it took the smallest of pen strokes and a few bucks to backup. Here is where it gets crazy!

Blizzard knows the demand is there for all expansions pre Cata and NOS finally unlocked enough of the old game.
Now blizzard wants it and will eagerly pay a few old timers to finish vanilla before the end of wow comes to reinvigorate their bottom line 2-3 years from now.

Your tinfoil hat theory has been bested! Get on my level!

This short-sightedness is a huge and terrible problem with the games industry in general. For example, when Trent Oster of Beamdog approached Bioware asking if they still had art assets or source code for Baldur's Gate, which they wanted to used to help improve the Enhanced Edition, Bioware looked at them as if they had lobsters crawling out of their ears. Preserving development materials for posterity just isn't on the radar for game studios, which is going to create a giant hole in the record in the future. This myopic focus on crushing the long-term in favor of short-term profits is, as much as anything else, part of the reason why video games are treated as not worthy of the label art.

[Docholy]

I doubt they never kept a backup. Yes I know that has been their excuse in the past for why they cant do vanilla servers. But seriously, a company on the scale of Blizzard not keeping a backup, very unlikely.

Though it is a bit farfetched I wouldn't put it past Blizzard with the sheer lack of aptitude they've displayed the last few years.

[Scamp]

https://youtu.be/hhTTY4-5E1s?t=1505

Afrasabi didn't want a recreation of the AQ event... Nost was close to releasing AQ event on Nost, they get formal letter.... Coincidence?!

/tinfoil hat off...

You're thinking to small man. Blizzard is not willing to reverse engineer vanilla, YES REVERSE ENGINEER!

They lost vanilla, they never kept the game in some backup mode over the years. They committed the greatest of sins and simply overwrote everything when Cata came with no regard for the past. Even if it took the smallest of pen strokes and a few bucks to backup. Here is where it gets crazy!

Blizzard knows the demand is there for all expansions pre Cata and NOS finally unlocked enough of the old game.
Now blizzard wants it and will eagerly pay a few old timers to finish vanilla before the end of wow comes to reinvigorate their bottom line 2-3 years from now.

Your tinfoil hat theory has been bested! Get on my level!

Can confirm this idea that they "don't have the data anymore" is completely false.

They clearly use some form of subversioning, just like every other company in the history of ever. You can't have the new code without also having the old code, because subversioning is based on storing the collective history of changes to the data.

Even if they don't use sub-versioning (clearly they do if you look at the patch numbers) do you really think they wouldn't have backed things up somewhere? No

It's just something from a blue post years ago taken out of context and rehashed. Don't believe everything you read on the "wall of no".

[Uzephi]

I doubt they never kept a backup. Yes I know that has been their excuse in the past for why they cant do vanilla servers. But seriously, a company on the scale of Blizzard not keeping a backup, very unlikely.

The backup might have been in Blizzard North (they oversaw Warcraft and some SC stuff) and we all know what happened with them....

[Remember_Nostalrius]

Again guys, there's no need to construct an elaborate conspiracy. The corporate enterprises overseeing game companies like Blizzard are notoriously shortsighted and it really would not be a surprise at all if they did destroy all legacy data at some point. They're just wrong that it would be too hard or expensive to reverse-engineer and reconstruct, which Nostalrius obviously did.

[Soulxlock]

^^
True, if they really were willing to bring back classic realms, they could work together with Nost staff. And even use their core and optimize it for Blizzards hardware. If there is a will, there is a way.

[SikSan]

^^
True, if they really were willing to bring back classic realms, they could work together with Nost staff. And even use their core and optimize it for Blizzards hardware. If there is a will, there is a way.

Yeap. This is ridiqulous. "We can't (don't want) to reverse eng Vanilla". Fking enthusisats can but the BIG company with billions can't. That is just silly.