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Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

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Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#21

Post by ckaygusu »

jeremyjh wrote: post #16
dnate wrote: post #12

I was surprised to find a game as big as WoW to have a data strucutre which clearly violates some basic forms [1] of database formalization. Isn't database normalizaton something that any cs program teaches in the first few semesters? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

You can't always run a normalized database though; often you need to denormalize for performance reasons. In very massive systems, a normalized database is rare.

I'm yet to have the privilege to work on a database which I would call truly "massive", so I'm oblivious to how things work in such environment in reality. I've seen the question and the answer you've given repeats many times, but aren't there exists a plethora of tools like table partitioning, materialized views etc. to allow one to have the database in a normalized form and run it fast? Don't they work in practice?

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#23

Post by vcfg »

scrollaway wrote: post #19
dnate wrote: post #12

I was surprised to find a game as big as WoW to have a data strucutre which clearly violates some basic forms [1] of database formalization. Isn't database normalizaton something that any cs program teaches in the first few semesters? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

I RE'd WoW for ~10 years. You'd be horrified if you knew how many hacks and crazy-bad technical designs are in the game. The team sometimes infamously has (or had, as of a couple expansions ago) hundreds of thousands of open issues and sometimes squashes bugs which are several expansions old. Incidentally, they also quite often create new bugs in super-old content due to changes in newer content. I mean, the work the…

I think it’s a miracle old instances work. They rewrote some of them with Cataclysm, but others have been pristine for 10+ years. And they say Windows works hard for compatibility... :P

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#24

Post by toxicFork »

vcfg wrote: post #13
sverrirs wrote: post #9

Barrens. General. Chat... /shudder

That will be a huge culture clash there. Current servers have a very anti-SJW population. WoW classic really is a classic game. I expect to read lots of angry Kotaku articles, haha.

Hypothesis: Talking while playing - even in the original sense, at the playground, or at the street, but we're moving more and more to the digital avenues - are a big factor in how children and young people form ideas and opinions, to see what's "cool" and "lame".

The schools are where they are polished and shaped, with a tiny bit from parents - if they even talk about these things with their children anymore.

If in the future we see "anti-swj" be the norm we could say that "well, we saw it in barrens chat". Similar with 4Chan back in the day and probably still now.

I wonder if there are experiments going on using the data from ancient game chat and IRC channels (and so on) to verify this, and to check whether we can predict what may happen next.

One scary part is some people may consider this as yet another platform and opportunity to manipulate and control the minds of the future.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#25

Post by zeth___ »

booblik wrote: post #20
highace wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my prediction: if you didn't play vanilla when it was available, you're gonna hate it. If you did play it, you'll go back for the nostalgia but will stop when you realise how tough the grind was. Those players will be late 20s and beyond now and won't have the time for it. It'll be interesting to see how many of those calling for this to happen actually stick around.

Some of us are in the thirties already.

I was in the beta in middle school.

I'm in my 30s now. I won't be playing the game because it was about the people you met, not the places you went to.

There is that screenshot floating around of the last player left in a guild under the screenshot of the full guild back in 2005: https://i.redditmedia.com/m4I50ji3u80G3FjSkFCcSpqb2ZHr-4Rcf0...

Just made myself realize that it will be the same time delta between the first and second picture and between the second picture and next year.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#26

Post by falcolas »

makosdv wrote: post #3
vcfg wrote: post #2

I like wotlk better, I think it was the best expansion, and I’m sure wotlk servers have more players than vanilla servers now. I don’t know why they chose vanilla over wotlk. :/

A vocal minority of the community was pushing for vanilla. There was a somewhat popular (supposedly 150k active players) vanilla server setup by some people in the community (Nostalrius) that was shut down by Blizzard for copyright infringement. It's hard to say what Blizzard will do after they roll out the vanilla servers. They may create TBC, WotLK, etc. servers, or it may be a dud that they just shut down... I'm s…

There's also a vocal minority who are mad they're starting with 1.12; it has too many balancing changes for their taste.

And another minority who wants the equivalent of EQ's progression servers - they don't want to be stuck at 1.12, they want all the same content releases again.

And another minority who wants TBC. Another WotLK.

Blizzard is going to be disappointing someone with every choice when it comes to classic. And a lot more people are going to be disappointed when they actually go and play that game.

TBF, you couldn't pay me enough to go back and play a warlock with all the prep required to raid Molten Core (and all the "limited debuff slots" BS). That's a lie of course, I'd happily even mule a Paladin for your guild if you wish to pay me $300k+ a year.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#27

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

zeth___ wrote: post #25
booblik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us are in the thirties already.

I was in the beta in middle school. I'm in my 30s now. I won't be playing the game because it was about the people you met, not the places you went to. There is that screenshot floating around of the last player left in a guild under the screenshot of the full guild back in 2005: https://i.redditmedia.com/m4I50ji3u80G3FjSkFCcSpqb2ZHr-4Rcf0... Just made myself realize that it will be the same time delta between the fi…

That really reminds me of the Overlord anime / light novels, where the main character ends up alone after having had tons of achievements with his guild. He's the only one still logged in when the game shuts down.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#28

Post by falcolas »

nikanj wrote: post #11
maccard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of those 150k will convert to paying players.

The cost of running WoW servers per player must have plummeted in 15 years, thanks to both better devops and better hardware. They might be ok with a freemium model.

If they haven't moved WoW proper to a freemium model, I highly doubt they'll do it for Classic.

Look at EQ. The base game is freemium, but if you want to play on the latest progression servers, you need to pay their subscription price.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#29

Post by schaefer »

highace wrote: post #18
Vanit wrote: post #5

I'm really interested to see where this leads. They got some quick wins out of this, but they're going to need to somehow revert a lot of game systems to get it back to something approximating the vanilla experience.

Here's my prediction: if you didn't play vanilla when it was available, you're gonna hate it. If you did play it, you'll go back for the nostalgia but will stop when you realise how tough the grind was. Those players will be late 20s and beyond now and won't have the time for it. It'll be interesting to see how many of those calling for this to happen actually stick around.

As a former vanilla player (fond memories of 1.14 jumping physics bug), and current busy adult, I'm pretty excited about the idea of an MMO with a level cap. I can't keep up with new expansions every six months, but I can and will find fun things I'm interested in trying in an MMO with locked down talent builds and static endgame.

It won't matter if life gets busy and I can only log in once this week. At least I'm not aiming at a moving target anymore.

Casual gaming.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#30

Post by zeth___ »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #27
zeth___ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the beta in middle school. I'm in my 30s now. I won't be playing the game because it was about the people you met, not the places you went to. There is that screenshot floating around of the last player left in a guild under the screenshot of the full guild back in 2005: https://i.redditmedia.com/m4I50ji3u80G3FjSkFCcSpqb2ZHr-4Rcf0... Just made myself realize that it will be the same time delta between the fi…

That really reminds me of the Overlord anime / light novels, where the main character ends up alone after having had tons of achievements with his guild. He's the only one still logged in when the game shuts down.

Huh, interesting. Probably someone who experienced that themselves. I'll be reading that, thanks for the suggestion.
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