XxGokuxX wrote:The guy who responded with the "wall of no" basically summed up why the legacy server is a nice idea, but won't happen
The Wall of No is an excessively long copy/paste to just point out 3 and a 4th attempt-at-argument that are easily debunked:
1) Blizzard doesn't have the code for Classic. Quite likely a lie or at worst a minor issue considering how amateur, unpaid volunteer teams could reverse engineer it, not with perfect accuracy, but with a high % of accuracy.
2) Moneyz. If Nostalrius proves anything is that there is enough demand to have a couple servers be populated enough to cover for their operational costs as well as leave a profit for anyone hosting them. 150k active accounts. Let's assume that only 1/4 of them (conservative number) will actually subscribe. That is 37.5k people. Now add in all the people that would pay to play Classic but don't know, or don't agree with private servers. Given how marketing was never done in Nostalrius and how the shadow of breaking ToS scares people, we can add in conservatively 10k more people. These are 50.000 people, assuming a ratio of 1/25 (probably lower than the real one, but let's go with this to please skeptics) is online at any given time, and how the average online population in retail servers oscillates between 2000 and 3000 people (skipping Low pop servers for argument's sake), this is enough to populate perfectly 2 classic servers.
3) Dev / GM split. Work on Classic only requires setting up, start-up time commitment, followed by periodic maintenance as there will be no patching/tweaking. This will in no way get in the way of the R&D department (or however they refer to it) and new projects being developed, once the setting up process is complete. If the argument is having to hire several GMs, I have to ask, does the act of hiring a dozen level 1 costumer service employees break Blizzard's work schedules? Their cash flow? If yes the company is in a really dire situation and should consider filing for government support soon. If no, then it's a non-factor.
4) Something about going forward rather than backwards.
Newsflash, chronology isn't normative. What existed in the 1970s isn't by default better than what existed in the 1910s. If a simpler product, from an older time, gives people more satisfaction than a visually cluttered new product, people will prefer the previous copy.
Software development isn't anyhow different. There's a reason why people hated Windows Vista and always praised Windows XP. It's pretty rhetorical to say: "Have to keep up with the times, man", but really ponder about it, is there any real reason for which chronology must result in quality? There isn't.
If the issue, as I quite suspect it, is not this rhetorical nonsense but rather pride from the new developers who don't want to lose the spotlight by older versions being revisited, then it's time for the Human Relations Department to step in and remind them that they're not hired to feel nice about themselves but to provide work and results for a company, if they don't deliver it secondary routes have to be taken.