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Blizzard shuts down legacy WoW server hours after launch

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

The demand is there
Either you mean two to four times the typical normal Vanilla Private Server numbers compared to the other servers, then yes, I can see that. If you mean actual live vanilla numbers.. lmao no.
 

Dezzy

Member
I just don't understand why people want to run Molten Core for the rest of their lives. It's fun to revisit the past, and maybe I would too, but it'd get pretty boring with no new content ever and the nostalgia wears off.
 

Fularu

Banned
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.

He means 2 to 4 times a normal vanilla server. That's between 10 to 20k people, which is a negligible amount.
 
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.

...I'm talking about the single server population
 
He means 2 to 4 times a normal vanilla server. That's between 10 to 20k people, which is a negligible amount.

Fair enough, but being the most populated small community doesn't matter when a new WoW expansion gets 4-6m new people to subscribe to play WoW-proper again, plus the initial purchase price. You know even if Blizzard did offer a Vanilla Server but required you to sub most people would just bitch since the content already exists--despite the massive cost of supporting a second version of the game--and refuse to subscribe. A lot of the people that play on these private servers have no interest in resubscribing to WoW, and that's why Blizzard doesn't cater to them.
 

Spuck-uk

Banned
I think they should probably let these emulated servers run just long enough for everyones rose tinted glasses about 'classic' WoW to fall off.
 
But again: how many of those people are willing to pay monthly?

I don't know, that's a good question a company should commission research on instead of nuking a well scripted private server.

Either you mean two to four times the typical normal Vanilla Private Server numbers compared to the other servers, then yes, I can see that. If you mean actual live vanilla numbers.. lmao no.

I'm talking about peak server numbers, which was around 2.5K to 3K during vanilla.
 

Flakster99

Member
Hey Blizzard, I appreciate that this is your IP and you dictate it's future as you see fit. There are many of us that are interested in playing legacy type content and servers, look to how Everquest has capitalized and incorporated that type of interest into their business. It brought me back to Everquest multiple times over the years and it could do the same with World of Warcraft.
 

Fularu

Banned
I don't know, that's a good question a company should commission research on instead of nuking a well scripted private server.



I'm talking about peak server numbers, which was around 2.5K to 3K during vanilla.

Two things :

1 - You don't know that Blizzard didn't do a market research, you're assuming they didn't because they aren't offering said service
2 - A 3k players server during vanilla was considered a dead server

Elysium doesn't proove anything beyond the fact that a very vocal super small number of people want to play 9on vanilla servers in any serious capacity.
 

Ambient80

Member
I don't know, that's a good question a company should commission research on instead of nuking a well scripted private server.


You think Blizzard hasn’t done any research on this? They almost certainly know more than anyone involved in this conversation, including those running Elysium and other private servers.
 

Fularu

Banned
Hey Blizzard, I appreciate that this is your IP and you dictate it's future as you see fit. There are many of us that are interested in playing legacy type content and servers, look to how Everquest has capitalized and incorporated that type of interest into their business. It brought me back to Everquest multiple times over the years and it could do the same with World of Warcraft.

The whole worldwide EQ population is probably lower than the number of people playing on Illidan in the US.
 
...what did they think was going to happen?

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

Gummy's reasoning was that since his previous server, Scriptcraft, did not get any attention from Blizzard even though it was hosted in the US he thought he was in the clear as long as he didn't accept donations or any other monetary gains. Considering that was 5 years ago, before the explosion of Nostalrius and private servers in general yeah that's very dumb. The only way to not get C&D is to not host or distribute the client file, not use any copyright materials on anything (blizzard images on a website, etc) and not hosting or promoting a running server. This means privately coding a server or dumping and contributing to it on a public repo like github is ok which is why Mangos never got anything from Blizzard.

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???

WoW changes massively every expansions, you could use the Thesus ship thought expirement to argue it's not even the same game. Some people prefer the game design of certain expansions over the new stuff. Myself I love cataclysm heroics at launch, it was the best healing model they ever had in my opinion. Wrath of the Lich King had the most fun PvP for me. Burning Crusade had the best class synergy design imo (everyone -but rogues lol- brings something to the table for the raid).

Two things :

1 - You don't know that Blizzard didn't do a market research, you're assuming they didn't because they aren't offering said service
2 - A 3k players server during vanilla was considered a dead server

Elysium doesn't proove anything beyond the fact that a very vocal super small number of people want to play 9on vanilla servers in any serious capacity.

I very very much doubt that. WoW servers increased caps multiple time along its lifespan, 3k I'm pretty sure was medium-high at the very least in vanilla. Servers didn't hold much more people than that.
 

Fularu

Banned
I've had 3k+ queues at the Start of BC on Dragonmaw, a mid population server on the west coast.

3k total population on a server was in the low pop zone, that's a fact
 
I've had 3k+ queues at the Start of BC on Dragonmaw, a mid population server on the west coast.

3k total population on a server was in the low pop zone, that's a fact

At the start of BC every server was pop locked with queues from the launch hype lol, doesn' mean anything. From my personal experience of today's private servers with those numbers the density of players running around feels like a medium-high vanilla server.
 

Jolkien

Member
I thought most server supported 5k at launch except Stormrage, Illidan and Tichondrius which were a lot bigger.
 
WoW changes massively every expansions, you could use the Thesus ship thought expirement to argue it's not even the same game. Some people prefer the game design of certain expansions over the new stuff. Myself I love cataclysm heroics at launch, it was the best healing model they ever had in my opinion. Wrath of the Lich King had the most fun PvP for me. Burning Crusade had the best class synergy design imo (everyone -but rogues lol- brings something to the table for the raid).

Yeah but you'll be playing the same static game over and over...
 
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???

Also, that's not how it works.

There are servers that do progression. The start of an expansion and the end of one don't have the same amount of content, servers go through content patches adding content and allowing guilds/players to get gear, and then release the next wave of content.
 
Yeah but you'll be playing the same static game over and over...

Obviously you wouldnt play it for 10 years like current wow but easily 1-2 years if you like the expansion, which is not too shabby for me personally as I find myself bored of most games lately in a matter of days :p. You could make seasons or progress through expansions for those looking to spend more time though.
 

SargerusBR

I love Pokken!
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???

For me personally, I would only play legacy vanilla for the old zones questlines that got revamped in Cataclysm, lorewise if you create a new character now on official servers, your character never defeated LK or went to Outland. So, basically RP reasons.

One other reason I think is PvP with the old talent system since it allowed to create more diversified builds.
 

Yea, I like how he used the LFG as a positive thing, when most of the people who are interested in legacy specifically don't want cross realm features that destroy server communities.

You think Blizzard hasn't done any research on this? They almost certainly know more than anyone involved in this conversation, including those running Elysium and other private servers.

Well, clearly they don't view it as worth while enough at the moment to attempt to make a legacy branch of the game.

Which is understandable, that costs money. I think there is a greater population of the game that has never even played the original content, had to deal with the "struggles" and challenges of the vanilla and TBC, which is a reason why people go to private servers. A lot of it comes down to wanting the game to feel like an actual MMO and have a community, and I would argue cross-realm and all that stuff effectively shrunk the world to nothing and destroyed a lot of the allure of the game.

I know I would be interested in it, with a mix of modern QoL improvements, I would personally play it with some friends.

I think it's ridiculous that Blizzard just wants to snuff out the flames and pretend that there isn't some interest in it. Private servers have been around forever, they clearly aren't a legal threat in terms of their IP, and if the threat to their income was large enough then that in itself is a clue of an untapped market.
 
The people who start these communities need to run them more like private torrent trackers if they actually want to see their work pay off.
 

Fularu

Banned
Uh... yea, it's an expansion launch.

That doesn't change the fact that average peak server was around 3K.

http://progression-annexe.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-many-players-was-there-on-vanilla.html

All the numbers I find online range from 2.5K, to 3K, and some estimate up to 4K.
You're confusing server population and concurent players

A server with a 3k population was a dead server, a server with 3k concurent players peak was a mid pop server back in vanilla

Also the fact that BC was an expansion launch is irrelevant. WoW was gaining subscribers monthly at the time, I had queues daily for the 6 months that preceded patch 2.0
 
You're confusing server population and concurent players

A server with a 3k population was a dead server, a server with 3k concurent players peak was a mid pop server back in vanilla

Also the fact that BC was an expansion launch is irrelevant. WoW was gaining subscribers monthly at the time, I had queues daily for the 6 months that preceded patch 2.0

I was always talking about peak population, I made that point in a post you even quoted.

Peak implying players currently on the server. That's not that hard to understand.
 
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???

Play the game? I simply enjoyed the way the game played on some older patches and I liked various different points of balance. I'm not constantly seeking new content like most WoW players so that's not an issue for me.
 

Fularu

Banned
I was always talking about peak population, I made that point in a post you even quoted.

Peak implying players currently on the server. That's not that hard to understand.
No you weren't

You've been implying from the start that elysium has 2 to 4 times the number of players of a vanilla wow server (which you purposefuly failed to mention in order to inflate the tiny number of players actually playing). That would mean anywhere between 6 to 12k concurent players, which is definitely not what the Elysium population looks like.
 

Syf

Banned
I'm still hoping they'll at least try the pristine server idea next expac. The current content is excellent but you do lose a sense of community with group finder and especially cross-realm zoning.
 
No you weren't

You've been implying from the start that elysium has 2 to 4 times the number of players of a vanilla wow server (which you purposefuly failed to mention in order to inflate the tiny number of players actually playing). That would mean anywhere between 6 to 12k concurent players, which is definitely not what the Elysium population looks like.

No I wasn't. I clarified my post in response to the confusion, you just decided to run with something I already clarified for some reason.

And peak players is on average 7.5K basically for Elysium, with the entire realm of Elysium/Anathema/Darrowshire being around 10K total if you combine the peak populations.

In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot compared to the total playing population of WoW. My point is, and has always been, that with that number of average peak server populations, you could have a few legacy servers be perfectly healthy population wise at the current rate of active players.

http://vanillaradar.com/elysium-stats/

My argument is I think there is a larger population of players that would be interested in legacy servers, and that we're talking about a small group that go out of there way to attempt to play legacy. If you were to have a simple, easy way with better customer service, no admin BS, reasonable QoL improvements within legacy that people can agree on (like talent respec cost not being 50G), the overall population would be much higher than it is now in a single vanilla realm.
 

Pilgrimzero

Member
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???


Look up Project 1999. There is still a desire for classic MMOs when the game didn't hold your hand and you actually had to socialize.


Did Blizz once say they couldnt integrate classic WoW to their servers due to how it all works now (IE can't have Classic and regular at the same time due to how they have thier stuff set up?)
 

Hari Seldon

Member
I would come back to wow to check out an official vanilla server. Vanilla eliminates a lot of the terrible design decisions they have made such as cross server queuing and the limited character customization with the gutting of the talent tree. I didn't even make it a month in the last expansion before I noped out of that.
 

Blam

Member
Look up Project 1999. There is still a desire for classic MMOs when the game didn't hold your hand and you actually had to socialize.


Did Blizz once say they couldnt integrate classic WoW to their servers due to how it all works now (IE can't have Classic and regular at the same time due to how they have thier stuff set up?)

It was just a bunch of PR talk Even the Elysium guys said they'd help with setting it all up and blizzard refused.
 

Linkark07

Banned
I understand why Blizzard doesn't want people to make private servers, it is business. They can close any WoW private server they want; it is their property.

What I don't understand is Blizzard insistence of not opening up official vanilla WoW servers. People want them. People would return to WoW just for play vanilla. See how Jagex was successful with RS 2007, despite them believing their little experiment would fail. And now, both current Runescape and 2007 Runescape are running fine, with people having the choice to play the new version or the older version whenever they want.

They are missing money by being stubborn.

Hell, I would return to WoW if they opened Vanilla and BC servers.
 

TheYanger

Member
There are tons of private servers operational, just don't host them somewhere it will get shut down - not that complicated.

Also, they all still aren't that accurate which is the main reason they suck.
 
Reason is WoW users have no idea what they want. They want Vanilla WoW with nothing changing forever or they want BC that's static and boring. You can't recreate the Vanilla feeling of your first MMO.

I understand why Blizzard doesn't want people to make private servers, it is business. They can close any WoW private server they want; it is their property.

What I don't understand is Blizzard insistence of not opening up official vanilla WoW servers. People want them. People would return to WoW just for play vanilla. See how Jagex was successful with RS 2007, despite them believing their little experiment would fail. And now, both current Runescape and 2007 Runescape are running fine, with people having the choice to play the new version or the older version whenever they want.

They are missing money by being stubborn.

Hell, I would return to WoW if they opened Vanilla and BC servers.

Who wants them? People are acting as though millions of people are demanding legacy servers. A few hundred to a few thousand are NOT representative of the whole population.
 
I thought Blizzard was going to do its own Legacy servers?

Why are they surprised?

They have made no indications they are going have legacy servers

Reason is WoW users have no idea what they want. They want Vanilla WoW with nothing changing forever or they want BC that's static and boring. You can't recreate the Vanilla feeling of your first MMO.



Who wants them? People are acting as though millions of people are demanding legacy servers. A few hundred to a few thousand are NOT representative of the whole population.

Nobody arguing for legacy servers has ever said they represent the entire population...
 

Berordn

Member
I thought Blizzard was going to do its own Legacy servers?

Why are they surprised?

Blizzard has only ever expressed an interest in making a sort of "pristine" server that they would remove a lot of the cross-account bonuses for characters on it.

They later decided they weren't going to pursue that either.
 

Linkark07

Banned
Reason is WoW users have no idea what they want. They want Vanilla WoW with nothing changing forever or they want BC that's static and boring. You can't recreate the Vanilla feeling of your first MMO.



Who wants them? People are acting as though millions of people are demanding legacy servers. A few hundred to a few thousand are NOT representative of the whole population.

Have I mentioned millions? Nope, I mentioned people want them. How many, I don't know, but for sure there is an interest of people wanting to play vanilla WoW.

Blizzard can do a little experiment, just like Jagex did with RS 2007. If it doesn't work, and people leave, they can shut down the server and say people don't have interest in it. But they don't even try.
 

Gxgear

Member
Instead of trying to stop their work from being celebrated, BLizzard should instead think about how they can profit off of it. You know, like a company trying to meet a demands that is clearly there. I say hire these guys running legacy severs and have them curate the content.
 

CHC

Member
Yeah... I'm gonna call bullshit on that claim, unless you have proof to share ? That would make more player on Elysium then on the live servers.

He means on an individual server. I remember Nostalrius usually had something like 7000 online at once, which is indeed much more than even a busy official server.
 
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