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[LordOfLore]

Link.

Blizzard shut down a fan-run, legacy World of Warcraft server just a few hours after it went live, bringing four years of work to an abrupt end.

The "Felmyst" server was intended to emulate WoW's first expansion pack, Burning Crusade, which launched in January 2007. A Reddit post by the server's creator, who uses the name "Gummy52", teased last week's launch, stating an aim to, "set a new standard in warcraft emulation."

However, that dream was short-lived. As Ars Technica reports, Blizzard issued a cease-and-desist letter through the legal firm Mitchell Silberberg and Knupp LLP, which arrived at Gummy52's door within five hours of Felmyst going live, and cited breach of Blizzard's copyrights.

Blizzard has a track record in this area. In April 2016, it ordered that a vanilla WoW legacy server, Nostalrius, be taken offline. The company subsequently discussed the possibility of offering its fans a similar experience in an official capacity, but it hasn't committed to any specific plan.

Gummy52 had operated a WoW server in the past, called Scriptcraft, which escaped Blizzard's notice. In an open letter published after Felmyst was shut down, Gummy52 said, "I gambled that we could cap the servers at 3k and enjoy a close community." Ultimately, the public interest in Felmyst was its downfall.

More at the link. Lock if old.

 

[Fordy]

4 years of work? Damn. To be fair, what else did they expect would happen?

 

[Kaelan]

Reminds me of when I tried to run a few Runescape private severe. Putting in so much work only to get legal notices to shut it down. Shame blizzard still won't make this in official capacity

 

[Auctopus]

...what did they think was going to happen?

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

Reminds me of when I tried to run a few Runescape private severe. Putting in so much work only to get legal notices to shut it down. Shame blizzard still won't make this in official capacity

This is what bothers me. Their live service doesn't resemble what they consider "the competition" but Blizzard won't do vanilla servers. People who want a vanilla experience are SOL basically. I'm not one to gripe about expansions and updates ruining things because I think that sets a bad precedent (I didn't like X expansion so I should be able to open up my own thing).... But vanilla World of Warcraft is nothing like Legion, the game is more unsocial than ever. Sure, some of that is due to QOL improvements but now it's basically an offline RPG with a chat box and people running around with very little interaction.

 

[SPCTRE]

Gummy52 said, "I gambled that we could cap the servers at 3k and enjoy a close community.

they really should have adjusted their odds when the Nostalrius shutdown happened, especially since the project wasn't exactly hidden from the public eye

it's not like Blizzard tracked them down in the darknet.

 

[Sinfamy]

Is there a comprehensive guide on downloading the WoW server files and running it offline locally?
I didn't play until Cataclysm, want to see how it was like for the 2004 folks.

 

[Renekton]

What is Blizzard's motivation / reason for shutting down legacy servers?

 

[Zushin]

Is Elysium still up (Nostralius successor)?

 

[jipewithin]

They should just make legacy server/servers. I think people would pay even if it would be a little more expensive than normal.

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

What is Blizzard's motivation / reason for shutting down legacy servers?

No idea. They're to damn stubborn to set up a official legacy server for no reason. Legion won't compete with legacy.

They haven't said a word about legacy servers since last year. I'm guessing it's dead.

Is Elysium still up (Nostralius successor)?

Yes, it's still up and running. Played it a couple days ago.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

People need to learn that Blizzard doesn't want you touching their stuff. They want you to play their shitty version of the game and nothing else.

 

[Salty Rice]

What is Blizzard's motivation / reason for shutting down legacy servers?

Getting rid of a better version of their game people want.

 

[23qwerty]

4 years of work?? it was pretty damn easy to get a vanilla BC server going back in the day

 

[Trickster]

What is Blizzard's motivation / reason for shutting down legacy servers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKcZ5wtjrk

 

[Zushin]

Yes, it's still up and running. Played it a couple days ago.

Wonder why that is the case. Not that I mind. Blizzard needed something akin to Runescape 2007 long ago.

 

[Azoor]

Getting rid of a better version of their game people want.

If people kept playing the old versions, nobody would want to buy the expansions.

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

Wonder why that is the case. Not that I mind. Blizzard needed something akin to Runescape 2007 long ago.

The servers aren't within the United States. Believe they're in Russia.

 

[Charles Brandon]

If people kept playing the old versions, nobody would want to buy the expansions.

Yeah, it's really not hard to understand why they did this

 

[duckroll]

What is Blizzard's motivation / reason for shutting down legacy servers?

It's copyright infringement. I mean, it's hard to get mad at them specifically enforcing their rights and preventing a third party who has no ownership whatsoever of their assets, code, infrastructure, brand, etc from hosting an unauthorized service. Once you declare your intent in public, and a copyright holder knows about it, not enforcing your right can be seen as consent.

The better question is: why doesn't Blizzard offer such a service themselves if there is indeed demand for it? That's a more complex question and the most basic answer is probably that they don't see the demand as high enough to be worth their effort because Blizzard's resources are more valuable and better spent on current and future products rather than offering a complicated legacy MMO service.

If people kept playing the old versions, nobody would want to buy the expansions.

I mean, this isn't really true and hardly a large motivating factor. While there are people who will be willing to play old versions forever because they personally prefer it, the actual majority of WoW players are not going to be very interested in this over new expansions.

 

[dawid]

What is Blizzard's motivation / reason for shutting down legacy servers?

They don't like other people making money on their product. Much like every other company in the world.

 

[neurosisxeno]

I mean, this isn't really true and hardly a large motivating factor. While there are people who will be willing to play old versions forever because they personally prefer it, the actual majority of WoW players are not going to be very interested in this over new expansions.

You're just begging for tons of anecdotal evidence that suggest 30m people would sub to a WoW Legacy server.

 

[Zushin]

The servers aren't within the United States. Believe they're in Russia.

Ah makes sense. Thanks.

 

[zeox]

The better question is: why doesn't Blizzard offer such a service themselves if there is indeed demand for it? That's a more complex question and the most basic answer is probably that they don't see the demand as high enough to be worth their effort because Blizzard's resources are more valuable and better spent on current and future products rather than offering a complicated legacy MMO service.

Didn't they say at one point that they don't have the original values for stuff as it was in vanilla, so they can't reliably recreate the game as it was back then? I might be dreaming this up though

 

[divtacular]

4 years of work?? it was pretty damn easy to get a vanilla BC server going back in the day

This was a bespoke server written from scratch. It still is trvial to download Trinity or Mangos and spin up a server locally, but you're still lacking boss and events scripting. You've essentially an empty world to explore.

The bespoke nature of this server is what made it stand apart, it was head and shoulders above what could be achieved by extending the existing solutions.

I was very disappointed with this outcome.

 

[Azoor]

It's copyright infringement. I mean, it's hard to get mad at them specifically enforcing their rights and preventing a third party who has no ownership whatsoever of their assets, code, infrastructure, brand, etc from hosting an unauthorized service. Once you declare your intent in public, and a copyright holder knows about it, not enforcing your right can be seen as consent.

The better question is: why doesn't Blizzard offer such a service themselves if there is indeed demand for it? That's a more complex question and the most basic answer is probably that they don't see the demand as high enough to be worth their effort because Blizzard's resources are more valuable and better spent on current and future products rather than offering a complicated legacy MMO service.



I mean, this isn't really true and hardly a large motivating factor. While there are people who will be willing to play old versions forever because they personally prefer it, the actual majority of WoW players are not going to be very interested in this over new expansions.

Not just that, there are many private servers that ask for no subscription money, Blizzard would miss on that too.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Someone enlighten me- what's the point of playing an old static legacy server that doesn't change or add new stuff? I get the initial nostalgic value but I can't imagine it lastly more than a month or two.

Like, what do you do???

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

Didn't they say at one point that they don't have the original values for stuff as it was in vanilla, so they can't reliably recreate the game as it was back then? I might be dreaming this up though

I'd imagine it's more of an issue of updating the client and building the infrastructure to do legacy servers than anything else.

Someone enlighten me- what's the point of playing an old static legacy server that doesn't change or add new stuff? I get the initial nostalgic value but I can't imagine it lastly more than a month or two.

Like, what do you do???

That's why I don't like the legacy server idea, it fragments the community, the clients and it's just a mess overall. Why not do a sequel and address what people took issue with the first time around?

 

[RoadHazard]

Would you need a WoW subscription to play on this server? If not, DUH. Of course Blizzard would kill it. They don't want people accessing their content for free, shocker.

 

[rochellepaws]

This is what bothers me. Their live service doesn't resemble what they consider "the competition" but Blizzard won't do vanilla servers. People who want a vanilla experience are SOL basically. I'm not one to gripe about expansions and updates ruining things because I think that sets a bad precedent (I didn't like X expansion so I should be able to open up my own thing).... But vanilla World of Warcraft is nothing like Legion, the game is more unsocial than ever. Sure, some of that is due to QOL improvements but now it's basically an offline RPG with a chat box and people running around with very little interaction.

I reckon Activision Blizzard will have plans afoot to cash in on those classic WoW experiences in a time and way that suits them, probably after new WoW expansions dry up. They'd be leaving money on the table not to and that certainly wouldn't be like Activision at all.

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

Would you need a WoW subscription to play on this server? If not, DUH. Of course Blizzard would kill it. They don't want people accessing their content for free, shocker.

Anecdotally I can say the audience that are playing these servers are very unhappy with the direction the game took and I think it would be foolish to confuse potential earnings with lost earnings.

Fundamentally, I think World of Warcraft's themepark game design is deeply flawed and it's something they should address. Content can be cleared far faster than it can be created and there's very little reason to stick around between patches or 2-3 months after an expansion releases once every couple years. It's why I didn't bother with World of Warcraft much in favor of sandbox MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EVE where the community is the "content".

 

[Kresnik258]

I've always found it a little odd that these bigger servers get shut down so quickly, but smaller servers - which are still easily found by a simple google search - survive years without being touched.

I know I dicked around on a lot of private servers back in the day, can't remember the names but there's still quite a few bigger ones out there.

Mind you, if Blizzard provided an official alternative, I'd be all over that like a rash.

 

[Human Trashcan]

The main reason I don't think they want to do this themselves is probably time and money, and specifically because I don't think they'd want to just release vanilla or BC WoW exactly as it was back then without at least fixing bugs or implementing QoL changes they did later, which means it'd be even more work. And the demand for it is probably not large enough, despite a vocal subset, to make that worthwhile. And probably even the majority of people they say they want it would probably check out after a month or two after the initial nostalgia buzz wears off.

 

[Ambient80]

Anecdotally I can say the audience that are playing these servers are very unhappy with the direction the game took and I think it would be foolish to confuse potential earnings with lost earnings.

Fundamentally, I think World of Warcraft's themepark game design is deeply flawed and it's something they should address. Content can be cleared far faster than it can be created and there's very little reason to stick around between patches or 2-3 months after an expansion releases once every couple years. It's why I didn't bother with World of Warcraft much in favor of sandbox MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EVE where the community is the "content".

I mean, is it true that content is cleared faster than ever? From what I’ve read the final current raid was just beaten on top difficulty and it took several hundred runs to finally get it done.

 

[divtacular]

And probably even the majority of people they say they want it would probably check out after a month or two after the initial nostalgia buzz wears off.

[citation needed]

The numbers are alreadyhealthy on unoffical and buggy implementations. Here's just one example.

https://www.warmane.com/information (links to the server active player stats)

 

[Robin64]

I mean, is it true that content is cleared faster than ever? From what I’ve read the final current raid was just beaten on top difficulty and it took several hundred runs to finally get it done.

I'm with you there, but people consider it cleared on the lower difficulties.

 

[RoadHazard]

Anecdotally I can say the audience that are playing these servers are very unhappy with the direction the game took and I think it would be foolish to confuse potential earnings with lost earnings.

Fundamentally, I think World of Warcraft's themepark game design is deeply flawed and it's something they should address. Content can be cleared far faster than it can be created and there's very little reason to stick around between patches or 2-3 months after an expansion releases once every couple years. It's why I didn't bother with World of Warcraft much in favor of sandbox MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EVE where the community is the "content".

Sure, but that doesn't mean you should get it for free. It's like how pirating a game because you weren't gonna buy it anyway doesn't make it ok.

 

[Human Trashcan]

[citation needed]

The numbers are alreadyhealthy on unoffical and buggy implementations. Here's just one example.

https://www.warmane.com/information (links to the server active player stats)

Is that enough though? And the better question: how many people would actually pay for it?

 

[Lemonte]

Someone enlighten me- what's the point of playing an old static legacy server that doesn't change or add new stuff? I get the initial nostalgic value but I can't imagine it lastly more than a month or two.

Like, what do you do???

Burning Crusade had 3(?) content patches. I imagine they would put out the patches like on the live servers back in the day. Every 8 month or so...

I would love to play on legacy server but fear of losing all your progress any day keeps me away from these private servers.

 

[divtacular]

Is that enough though? And the better question: how many people would actually pay for it?

That's the real question isn't it?

I would, but that's anecdotal.

Many of these servers sustain themselves with purchases made by their players though, so there are people willing to spend.

Some survive with donations, but others use a different model and allow you to obtain gear through purchases. Obviously these are transactions can't ever be compared apples for apples.

So... we don't know?

Personally I doubt Blizzard knows either, which is the real problem. Especially when there are already existing models of success: Runescape and Everquest.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

They shut down Gummy's server???

 

[Freeman76]

How can they expect anything but this?

 

[Freeman76]

Anecdotally I can say the audience that are playing these servers are very unhappy with the direction the game took and I think it would be foolish to confuse potential earnings with lost earnings.

Fundamentally, I think World of Warcraft's themepark game design is deeply flawed and it's something they should address. Content can be cleared far faster than it can be created and there's very little reason to stick around between patches or 2-3 months after an expansion releases once every couple years. It's why I didn't bother with World of Warcraft much in favor of sandbox MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EVE where the community is the "content".

The main reason people play them is they are free. If all those legacy players had to pay there would be nowhere near as many, and if you think otherwise you are kidding yourself.

As for your second paragraph...damn.

 

[Yohane]

But how is elysium still alive?

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

The main reason I don't think they want to do this themselves is probably time and money, and specifically because I don't think they'd want to just release vanilla or BC WoW exactly as it was back then without at least fixing bugs or implementing QoL changes they did later, which means it'd be even more work. And the demand for it is probably not large enough, despite a vocal subset, to make that worthwhile. And probably even the majority of people they say they want it would probably check out after a month or two after the initial nostalgia buzz wears off.

Elysium is running somewhere between two to four times the normal vanilla population.

The demand is there

 

[Renekton]

Fundamentally, I think World of Warcraft's themepark game design is deeply flawed and it's something they should address. Content can be cleared far faster than it can be created and there's very little reason to stick around between patches or 2-3 months after an expansion releases once every couple years. It's why I didn't bother with World of Warcraft much in favor of sandbox MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EVE where the community is the "content".

The themepark design has been the core pillar for giants like WoW, Destiny and FF14.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Burning Crusade had 3(?) content patches. I imagine they would put out the patches like on the live servers back in the day. Every 8 month or so...

I would love to play on legacy server but fear of losing all your progress any day keeps me away from these private servers.

TBC also launched as a buggy mess, and it took them over a year to get most of those launch bugs fixed. It did launch with a kind of absurd amount of content though--I believe it launched with T4, T5, and parts of T6--although half the raids wouldn't work for months after launch. The first content patch (2.1.0) released the rest of MH, and BT. Then the second (2.2.0) was a ton of balance and the comically bad voice chat feature. The third (2.3.0) was Zul'Aman. The fourth (2.4.0) was the isle of Quel'danas and SWP.

So 4 content patches, although only 3 added actual content--2.2.0 was kind of a joke.

 

[divtacular]

But how is elysium still alive?

For starters the server is hosted outside of America and I believe the devs aren't American.

This makes things more difficult.

 

[Alex]

Anecdotally I can say the audience that are playing these servers are very unhappy with the direction the game took and I think it would be foolish to confuse potential earnings with lost earnings.

Fundamentally, I think World of Warcraft's themepark game design is deeply flawed and it's something they should address. Content can be cleared far faster than it can be created and there's very little reason to stick around between patches or 2-3 months after an expansion releases once every couple years. It's why I didn't bother with World of Warcraft much in favor of sandbox MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EVE where the community is the "content".

They're probably not going to upturn game design in an MMO that still gets 10,000,000 subs at expansion launch. Lapsed MMO players to be angry people, at least until the game is dead for a little while then the fond memories come out, and while I'll likely never play it again the game seems to be quite healthy still.

I think the next time they tackle an MMO, which has to happen eventually, it'll be something new to the genre but I doubt it'd ever be some sandbox affair. Sandbox titles tend to be smaller affairs that won't play as well with the marketing punch.

I loved UO back when I was a kid, played during T2A and it'd be fun to have something new like that, though.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Elysium is running somewhere between two to four times the normal vanilla population.

The demand is there

I refuse to believe that. Elysium is currently on patch 1.10 or so, and at that point WoW was at 6-7m people. I refuse to believe Elysium is rolling with 12-28m users, especially since their site says there are currently 6000 online. Not to mention with Vanilla WoW, all those users were actively paying for subscriptions--Elysium is free to play which should help them rack up the user count, but that remains to be seen.