Legal threat closes WoW's largest pirate vanilla server

[Tony Cipriani]

Ah the nostalgia! Fave memories would be MC, Onyxia and the events leading up to the opening of AQ. I started playing with an undead warlock on Barthillas and then a human mage on Frostmourne.

[Feliz]

Huh, I thought GP had a "no private servers talk" thing? Regardless, I will admit to playing on private servers, I get the appeal of old versions, they're usually buggy messes that I eventually give up on, but there was a different feel to the game and sometimes I just had to scratch that WoW itch, especially since "world of garrison micromanagement" was very much not my thing...

[Kog]

Nice, this means we can now talk about PRIVATE SERVERS and WAREZ

[KrimzinZV]

I think my brother just started on this not so long ago, will enjoy telling him his fun is coming to a soon end.

[Bt]

If they're going to pull shit like this, they need to reinstate Vanilla and expansion servers themselves.

**** the abortion the game is now, tbh.

[Pickle Rick]

Huh, I thought GP had a "no private servers talk" thing?

Whoops! Quite right. Have removed that link.

I think talk of private servers in this thread is okay, just don't do as I did and link to 'em!

[Viilai]

I think my brother just started on this not so long ago, will enjoy telling him his fun is coming to a soon end.

You heartless bastard!

[fira]

Expected this to happen sooner. I never really bothered with private servers, but I can see the appeal. It's just not for me.


Video related.

[Sea Monkey]

Whoops! Quite right. Have removed that link.

I think talk of private servers in this thread is okay, just don't do as I did and link to 'em!

too late I booked marked it!!!!! :P

[SSlukes-JK]

Older players found on the Private Servers, not as much content but far more enjoyable as you don't have a large amount of teenagers who quit half the time. Blizzard should follow up on a Vanilla server, the "worst case scenario" these people pay to play the vanilla experience and the company makes a profit.. No brainer considering the code and overheads etc would be in place for the most part already..

[Sea Monkey]

Older players found on the Private Servers, not as much content but far more enjoyable as you don't have a large amount of teenagers who quit half the time. Blizzard should follow up on a Vanilla server, the "worst case scenario" these people pay to play the vanilla experience and the company makes a profit.. No brainer considering the code and overheads etc would be in place for the most part already..

You would think so right? They should make it like the PTR you can opt in or not.

Problem is that they might not make as much money from it... its vanilla... it wont have expansions like current content would, for games sales etc. Or possibly people could enjoy it more and not play the current expansions. I guess they want a unified server player base.

Kind of sucks that they cant at least throw a bone to people that want to reminisce with older content and game play styles, talent trees. Actually people might find that the game used to be so much better than what it is in its current state... and realise how wow has gone downhill somewhat!

:P

[Feliz]

You would think so right? They should make it like the PTR you can opt in or not.

Problem is that they might not make as much money from it... its vanilla... it wont have expansions like current content would, for games sales etc. Or possibly people could enjoy it more and not play the current expansions. I guess they want a unified server player base.

Eh, there's a proven market for it, right now that market is giving them $0, if they had a "wow classic" via a discounted subscription, or even a fully store funded (in which case they'd need to update it, keeping the 1.12.x core gameplay with some of the modern conveniences of stuff like the "collections" UI instead of items for mounts/pets/toys etc.) server like the current "veteran mode" setup they'd be making something off it instead of nothing..

[Sea Monkey]

Eh, there's a proven market for it, right now that market is giving them $0, if they had a "wow classic" via a discounted subscription, or even a fully store funded (in which case they'd need to update it, keeping the 1.12.x core gameplay with some of the modern conveniences of stuff like the "collections" UI instead of items for mounts/pets/toys etc.) server like the current "veteran mode" setup they'd be making something off it instead of nothing..

I understand that. But they don't seem to want to split the the userbase... if they do a percentage would be paying monthly subs only for vanilla and as a result potentially NOT buying expansions... they wouldnt need to for a capped experience. I guess I'm saying that they seem to prefer to have one userbase that buys expansions. Perhaps their bean counters prefer it. Who knows we can only speculate.

In all honesty I think it would be awesome for blizz to have vanilla or bc servers dont get me wrong

I would prefer it myself, rather than "world of garrison micromanagement" as you said earlier

[Bloody]

given the proven appeal and the minimal effort for Blizzard to set it up, the only reason is the need to keep pushing the subs to buy new expansions

[fira]

It's absolutely not minimal effort

[sorceror]

what the game needs is *new* content, not old expansions returning

[Sea Monkey]

what the game needs is *new* content, not old expansions returning

Couldnt agree more about more content

[Bloody]

It's absolutely not minimal effort

the code already exists, the artwork is done, they have far more infrastructure in place . So yeah compared to making a new expansion? it is minimal effort. And the playerbase already paid for the server maintenance many times over ..

[fira]

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. Even if the code still exists from back then, they still need to re-fix 10 years worth of exploits/severe bugs, and it will be very difficult to do so, since nobody will be familiar with the old codebase. Their infrastructure has changed completely from back then, it wouldn't even be compatible anymore. It would require a shit ton of testing, even more than a new expansion would. We're talking about Blizzard here, they don't release half-assed products.

And it's much more effort than making a new expansion, since they've streamlined their development process so much, there's really not as much that needs to be done. They've built tools to make creating content as easy as possible.

It is not minimal effort.

[Bloody]

LOL you are thinking that they NEVER kept backups on their original builds, they NEVER kept a copies of their original server builds, their backups for the original expansions etc and how when they applied things they never made copies and builds for testing, changes and successful builds. You give Blizzard credit for being not half assed but you assume they have no idea how their own game works? which is it? Are they half assed amateurs with only 1 server build they continuously update or do you really think they have 10 years of back ups , test builds, cloned builds and templates for their servers and their game?

are you suggesting that a bunch of amateurs fluked it and kept vanilla wow going easier than the multi billion teams that Blizzard, the original creators can do?

[dragunks]

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. Even if the code still exists from back then, they still need to re-fix 10 years worth of exploits/severe bugs, and it will be very difficult to do so, since nobody will be familiar with the old codebase. Their infrastructure has changed completely from back then, it wouldn't even be compatible anymore. It would require a shit ton of testing, even more than a new expansion would. We're talking about Blizzard here, they don't release half-assed products.

And it's much more effort than making a new expansion, since they've streamlined their development process so much, there's really not as much that needs to be done. They've built tools to make creating content as easy as possible.

It is not minimal effort.

If a bunch of guys can do it in their spare time, I'm sure a billion dollar company can handle it.

[fira]

LOL you are thinking that they NEVER kept backups on their original builds, they NEVER kept a copies of their original server builds, their backups for the original expansions etc and how when they applied things they never made copies and builds for testing, changes and successful builds. You give Blizzard credit for being not half assed but you assume they have no idea how their own game works? which is it? Are they half assed amateurs with only 1 server build they continuously update or do you really think they have 10 years of back ups , test builds, cloned builds and templates for their servers and their game?

are you suggesting that a bunch of amateurs fluked it and kept vanilla wow going easier than the multi billion teams that Blizzard, the original creators can do?

If a bunch of guys can do it in their spare time, I'm sure a billion dollar company can handle it.

It's not as simple as just deploying old builds. They need to fix 10 years worth of exploits. The result will be a mess of old code and new code, and fixes for things in current WoW will not be applicable in the vanilla codebase. And most of their current employees have probably never even looked at the old codebase before. I never said it was impossible for a billion dollar company to do it, but you are vastly underestimating the amount of work that will be required in doing this. You are seriously naive.

Private servers are never fully scripted properly. They're all fairly broken, e.g. mobs don't aggro as they're supposed to, boss mechanics simply do not work, etc. They're still missing some pretty basic functionality. Also, I am pretty sure Nostalrius was built on top of MaNGOS, which has been in development since 2005.

[Analgia]

hosting private servers is explicitly against Blizzard's terms of use

[SL1CKSTA]

So it seems they are back again with all of the original characters bring preserved. Personaliy i am looking forward to it. http://www.pcgamer.com/the-vanilla-w...er-a-new-name/