🚀 go-pugleaf

On 14 Apr 2016 11:36:05 GMT, Urbin <urbin@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 14:25:48 +0100, Catriona R wrote:
>>  depending a lot on numbers, but the interest level is very much there, so
>>  it's certainly something that they should be at least considering I
>>  think.
>
>Here are some of the numbers it would depend on:
>- how many players would be interested
>- how many of those interested would be intetested to pay for it
>- how would that impact current subscriptions, i.e. how many would
>  - leave the game for another game wihtout vanilla servers
>  - change the "normal" subscription for a "vanilla" sub
>  - pay for both a "normal" and a "vanilla" subscription
>
>- how much effort would it be to re-create a running version of vanilla wow
>- how much effort would be needed to patch that version to fit into their
>  current, changed environment (authentication, hardware, infrastructure)
>- how much effort would it be to deploy it to servers
>- how much effort would it be to keep such servers running (both technically
>  and support wise)
>- how much manpower would it detract from other projects (that may or may
>  not offer better return on investment)
>- how might vanilla servers increase or decrease the number of people
>  willing to come back for/prolong their subscription for the next expansion
>
>We know very little about anything except some rough estimates for the first
>point (you claim it was somewhere between 150k and 800k).

I don't claim that; Nostalrius do:
https://en.nostalrius.org/medias/infographic.jpg - 800k accounts
created, 150k of which were active (ie, logged in at least once) in
the last 2 weeks, according to them. I can't verify it, but can
certainly believe it; across the two servers there were definitely
over 15k people playing simultaneously at EU peak times, and, well,
there were two additonal peak times due to high populations in all
three major regions. Given not that many of those people will be
playing more than 4-5 hours a day, yet there never seemed to be really
"quiet" times, then yeah, it will be a far higher figure than 15k
active, and 150k is believeable.

>So the question remains whether it would be financially viable. And I very
>much doubt that they will be willing to "give up" on their IP rights so some
>independent entity could run the servers for them, unless that entity would
>be willing to cough up some serious dough.
>
>In addition to all that, we haven't even considered what their legal
>department might have to say in the matter. Then add the fact that they have
>a history of being fairly resistent to their player base's feedback.

True indeed. 

>> >- they might have feared that they were losing paying customers fed up with
>> >  current content to those private servers (and I think they probably were;
>> >  I just don't think those customers will come back as paying customers now
>> >  that the private servers are gone)
>> 
>>  As with other forms of piracy, I doubt the removal of the illegal
>>  option will make people pay for the legal one if they don't consider
>>  it worth the money
>
>I totally agree with this. However, they might see it differently (many
>software companies - at least officially - don't see things your or my way).
>Also, while it is unlikely that somebody who cancelled their subs to go play
>vanilla, it might also be about people sitting on the fence no longer being
>tempted to try out vanilla and then decide to cancel the sub.

I think many of those I knew had cancelled regardless of vanilla
existing and would be playing LOTRO, SWTOR or other MMOs in the
absence of vanilla; the discussion in my vanilla guild about where to
go next bears that out; the popular options are another MMO or another
private server, only those of us who already are subbed to retail are
interested in going there right now (Legion will probably convince a
few more to return, but in the big content drought now... nobody's
interested)

>Anyway, as I said above, it's really a moot discussion, knowing Blizzard,
>it's unlikely to happen and if it did happen after all it's unlikely we'd
>get a lot of advance warning.

True enough, I only hope they do seriously consider it instead of just
hounding those who want to play their old game legally but haven't any
means of doing so! 

>Cheers
>Urbin, who doesn't miss WoW any more but has a sudden yearning for a couple
>of hours of vanilla play ;-)

Hehe :-) I'm glad I had a while to re-experience it, it really brought
back the memories, and did a great job of showing me the changes over
the years - some are good and some less so! I think it's evolved so
much that they're two separate games set in the same world now, rather
than something that acts like the same game at all, hence why I really
do feel it's time for legacy servers, but like you say, it's
Blizzard's decision, not ours. 

I'm inclined to stop now, having experienced it once, but to stay with
the friends I made there will require another private server so I'm
unsure at present. A number of them seem keen on a new TBC server
which doesn't excite me, given that Outland and all its content are
still in the retail game, almost untouched; there's a much more strong
sense of nostalgia for vanilla, which cannot be experienced at all in
its original form!