Historic Servers

[Vladamyr 169]

Do you think Blizzard would ever be willing to host a few servers with old patches (like Vanilla, TBC & Wrath age servers)?

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

nice thought but no. there is major issies with doing that. updating the code taking it apart from the new content and unintergrating it with the current game. would take a long time to undo. and then they would have to update any changes they made to put it back to what it was and then they would need to update to take into acount the update harware. it like trying to run a old dos game on a new computer it can only go so far. i wish they would but i dont see them putting in the time or money

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

that and i think blitz has too much on there plate right now... mop is over next patch. we might end up doing a rebilding phase but mop is over. so where are they going with starcraft and diablo taking up a lot of there time. the next expanion is coming out some time early next year. then they have the end of wow and the next game to work on

[Vladamyr 169]

Isn't there private servers that are doing this now though?  Surely there are shelfed versions of patches and code laying around.

 

it like trying to run a old dos game on a new computer it can only go so far. 

 

That's what emulators are for :)

[Peelyon 416]

Pretty sure this has been debated quite a lot over the years.  I originally played when WoW was released (had a US account but played in the EU) before taking a break and returning towards the end of TBC.

 

Although I did enjoy what I experienced back then I think its maybe a bit too far gone to start recreating classic servers etc.

 

Plus doesnt everyone look back with rose tinted glasses as they say?

 

If they did recreate an original Vanilla server I'm sure it would prove to be a novelty with players who are from that era, but I think that even for the most hardcore players the sheer effort required to get from level 1-60 would people off wouldn't it? :P

[Nobleshield 15]

No, never.  To be honest though I don't know why they don't endorse one of the good private servers (make them pay some fee or something) and then present it as a legitimate way to play old WoW; they'd put most of the other private servers out of business and hype the good ones, and everyone wins since people go to private realm anyways.

[HollyC 9]

I'm not sure they can MAKE someone running a private server, pay a fee, although they can offer a deal where a private server owner who DOES, gets the stamp of approval and maybe even access to a special support forum. Bliz must know about the most popular ones but they've never pursued litigation. Probably the main reason is that they're far less likely to bother private servers that don't charge admission. THAT is the real no-no as far as private servers go; Bliz wants their moolah for their product, and attempting to make your own profit off it, that's definitely going to make them sic the fuzz on you.

 

I've run a private server for myself here and there, just to see some old content I missed. Once WoW has released its final patch for its final expansion I'll probably do it again for a little while, to finish seeing all the story content I never got to see.  I doubt I'd want to make a regular account on another one to try and do old raids "at level." I don't have the reflexes or coordination for it, and I can't remember enough keybinds by memory alone.

[Storm 426]

It would be cool as a novelty, I'd love to play on a servers capped at lvl 60, 70, 80, etc. I would certainly level up a character on each of those servers to participate in old content raids, but the problem is, how long would that really be fun for? How long would it really take you to get full T3, or T6, and once you have it what incentive would there be to continue playing on the server if that character is never going to get a new expansion. What you would likely end up with is a server that has 100,000 characters created, but only a few hundred active at any given time.

 

Blizzard may need to figure out some new infrastructure to handle the huge swings in player count, although it would probably be similar to the PTR, so they can probably handle it. 

 

If there was a server dedicated to each expansion then another cool feature would be the ability to transfer a character from one expansion to a server on the next expansion. This could get blizzard some extra revenue from the $25 transfers.

 

Although really if you can pick whichever expansion you want to "stop" in for a while and later decide to transfer to a new expansion it really isn't any different than just turning off leveling and finding oldschool raids through openraid. except for world pvp, and inspecting people standing on the bank steps.

 

I'm sure it all comes down to money though. Private servers are enthusiast, Blizzard is a business. The idea has come up enough that Blizzard has certainly looked into it, and come to the conclusion that any new players, player retention, or transfer revenue, would not make enough money to justify deploying more servers and paying a few more employees to maintain them.

[InannaMoon 0]

Love this idea and have thought about it before. Would be a great way to silence all the "They really messed up/nerfed/ruined the game with this patch/expansion/etc" people. I think too often have a rosey haze of what the vanilla actually was...