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Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

en.nostalrius.org

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Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#71

Post by glastra »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #51
yarou wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate on your reasoning? The people playing on Nostalrius aren't suddenly going to switch to the latest expansion, so there's literally zero incentive for them to go after it.

It's exactly main reason: Blizzard have right to control the history and evolution of the WoW universe. Players can still play on old locations even on official servers, but things like game balance, economics - it's all was made by Blizzard and they have right to change it, for good or bad.

> Players can still play on old locations

That is not true, unfortunately.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#72

Post by pluma »

fabulist wrote: post #52
yarou wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate on your reasoning? The people playing on Nostalrius aren't suddenly going to switch to the latest expansion, so there's literally zero incentive for them to go after it.

It seems likely to me that they executed this maneuver for similar reasons to the kik/azer fiasco that happened on NPM; if they didn't sue, they would lose their trademarks. I think a better response would've been to purchase Nostalrius (the organization), and offer it as a value-add for their players. But it seems clear Blizzard is extracting whatever value it can from WoW before it dies, rather than truly serving t…

Kik interactive never sued NPM. Kik tried to strongarm azer via indirect threats but NPM gave Kik the package name at their own discretion (arguing that it might confuse people looking for the kik packages).

Also, the "trademark means you must sue" myth has been debunked by the EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#73

Post by pluma »

victorp13 wrote: post #62
clevernickname wrote: post #55

Suddenly Blizzard's April Fools tweet seems cruel. Re-Live the old worlds of warcraft with our legacy servers coming this june! Starting with vanilla! https://twitter.com/Blizzard_EN/status/716004308043624448

That's a fake account.

It's not verified but I'm missing the obvious clue as to why you think it's fake. They seem to post genuine tweets and link to official marketing websites.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#74

Post by pvg »

kriro wrote: post #66
pvg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've answered this directly numerous times. Compared to their user base, the demand is essentially zero while the development, maintenance and support costs are massive. More importantly, the resources they have are better used developing new things for their existing properties which is what statistically all their paying customers actually want. The most persistent and universal complaint about Blizzard is that…

They could still outsource running old versions to a third party (with some sort of revenue share). They could have let these guys continue to run, sanction it but demand they charge X$ and pay y% of that to Blizzard. There are some pretty obvious downsides to that plan but it's an option.

It amounts to the same thing - 'they can do some deeply convoluted, labourious thing for a few thousand nostalgic players' or 'they can focus on meeting the needs and collecting the payments of their millions of existing customers'. It's hard to see how the former makes the slightest bit of sense for them.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#76

Post by Shivetya »

unknownzero wrote: post #37

It's worth noting amidst all the debate about whether it's feasible or worthwhile to offer older versions of the game as server options, blizzard has already done this for a long time with Diablo 2. You could (can still) choose to play classic or expansion on the legit battle net servers, and both had ( possibly still have ) vibrant communities. So it's not like this would be particularly novel as an idea to them, I'…

with their constantly dropping subscription numbers it might just be a good idea for them business wise to open specific expansion set servers.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#77

Post by mfukar »

bitwize wrote: post #68
zanny wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that is an argument about expansions in the first place? Significant player dropoffs in WoW happen in the last patches before new expansions. The userbase usually spikes up on new releases, but almost always drops lower every time, predominately because new releases gate players who were on old versions against those on the new one. Friends stop being interested, unsub, and never come back because the player…

Blizzard isn't interested in "building a living world" and never has been. From its inception the purpose of WoW has been to farm the likes of you for gold.

If you look hard enough, you'll realise "a living world" is used as a synonym to "a market".

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#78

Post by thenomad »

eterm wrote: post #59
venomsnake wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last good patch was Ulduar for me. ICC was big disappointment. Ulduar was the game at its peak. All downhill from there. I still hate how they crippled the hard modes afterwards.

Everyone has a patch they loved and was a peak for them. There are people who joined during cataclysm and think that was the best before "Panda" ruined the game. Plenty of people think BC was the peak and LK ruined everything. I personally think ICC was amazing and the peak, because that's when I played. MMO experiences are always the best when they are novel, there is something really special about the first time yo…

Counterpoint: I played since a month after Vanilla launched until about half-way through WoD.

By your logic I should be a hardcore "Vanilla was the best" player, but actually, I'd argue that most of the game peaked in TBC (the first expansion) and raiding peaked in Wrath.

Re: Blizzard shutting down Nostalrius, popular WoW private server

#79

Post by JimmyM »

tikhonj wrote: post #21
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that the Lich King was the last "good" patch for WoW. What I've never understood though was there is clearly some residual demand for "down rev" versions of the game where the mechanics favored a more engaged play style, why not facilitate it? How much does it really cost to run a single realm at the Vanilla, TBC, and LK levels? So many new players where their first experience with Onxyia was soloing…

As an interesting illustration of this idea, RuneScape (a popular freemium MMORPG) has done just this: they split up into the modern game and "Old School" (OSRS) which is based on the game in 2007. Some people heavily prefer one or the other, and by now the communities feel very distinct. I don't know exactly how well it's working out for them. Now they have two games to support and promote, with about the same numbe…

RuneScape did this in the past, they've got previous experience here. RS Classic ran alongside RS2007 for absolutely ages, and it seemed to work pretty well.
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