Well they did it

Time to go back and roll back.

R.I.P my life. Been nice knowing you guys, but the poop sock beckons me.

I dunno.. it seems like they're a little late to the party to me. With all the stuff happening early this year I'd guess most people interested already got their tasting sample. And from the sound of it this might not even be happening before 2019.

Dude, if they release all the expansions again gradually to those servers... They can replicate all the success of WoW forever!

I've put more than 3000 hours into vanilla private servers over the past few years. It was the most fun I have had in a video game in my entire life. It all came down to this.

Absolutely fucking amazing.

I'm so happy. One of the worst things about current WoW is the amount of people who sit in game and complain about how WoW sucks and Vanilla was the only time it was good. Now those people will have a place to go and let those of us who want to play the natural evolution of the game as it is. I have so many memories from classic, but I know it's 99% nostalgia and the actual playing of the game that existed in 2004 was more of a pain then it was a pleasure.

I hope those people legit enjoy their time, but I'm not gonna be surprised when I see people shocked classic isn't what they thought it was. But boy will I enjoy far less people complaining in trade about the "state of the game"

I'm so happy about this.

I'm incredibly excited/happy they are doing this. I doubt I'll stick with it for long, unless vanilla-WoW somehow draws me (we know it will), but it is super awesome to see Blizzard answering the call.

Never been too bothered about classic WoW but If I can get me some old school 8 hour long Alterac Valley I'm in 100%.

There will probably be some people who go back for nostalgia and then bounce off it, but there are absolutely people who will go into this hardcore and have the time of their lives, judging by how many thousands of people went so hard into the private emulated servers.

Not to mention how incredibly popular legitimized classic servers for other classic MMO's have been; project 1999 for EQ1 has overcrowding issues actually.

People tend to think that the big audience for classic servers are people playing nostalgia, reliving high school glory. But a lot of people on these servers never played back in the day, they try it out due to a friend, curiosity, or being dissatisfied with current MMO's, and end up loving it. The oldschool MMO hooks still work with a lot of people, the games were way harder to play back then and asked a lot of a player (40 man raids for example), but the payoff for people who enjoy that sort of gameplay, being okay with that lifestyle, can be really fun.

I say this as someone who played retail FFXI in the twilight years, and then got to get a little taste of what it was really like back in the day playing on a private server.

@belegorm: @takayamasama:

The fear many people have that once the rose-tint clears, the old game design will just be a cold shower that turns people away may be true for some, but it's largely overstated. Like I said earlier in the thread I've put countless hours into the near-perfectly scripted private servers of recent years so I have some experience. Vanilla does take getting used to, certainly, but once you become accustomed to the new-old way of how it works, playing it becomes second nature. Not only that, the way the game is designed means progressing through it is extremely satisfying and addicting almost to a fault.

That's not even getting into how unique it is in the way the multiplayer aspect of the game plays into things. The world feels huge and seamless, and there are fucking people in it, everywhere, and they're questing, traveling, fighting, teaming up, learning, engaging in huge battles, forming guilds, taking names. To even compete in the sphere of speedrunning 40-man raids you have to do serious raid preparation, which means going to various places in Azeroth to get 2-hour buffs that hugely increase your damage and healing, and dying once while making your way to Blackwing Lair and running into an enemy guild means your advantage is lost. It is intense on a different level. It's weird to say that a game from more than a decade ago feels like a breath of fresh air.

Vanilla World of Warcraft is absolutely nuts. No game has done multiplayer like it since. It's pretty exciting that it's finally going to be available officially.

@belegorm: The thing I just can't tell with those thousands of people on the private servers were how many only played because it was free. I think a large decider in how popular and how long people stick with the private servers will be cost. Will it cost extra to roll a private server characters? Will it be included in a monthly WoW sub? The answer to those questions and similar will make or break Classic servers, in my opinion.

Sweet. Can it also bring back the people that I used to play with back then? Because they were like half (or more) the reason for why I enjoyed playing the game so much back then. Without those folks, this is kinda, ehhh...

But sure, I'll at least check this thing out if the expansion's going to wake up that old urge.

I'll totally give it a try for nostalgias sake but I kind of doubt I'll stick with it beyond the first month, my tolerance for running dungeons/raids days on end isn't the same as it was in 2006-2009. I'm totally looking forward to leveling up a character ye olde way (aka very carefully) and running some classic dungeons like SFK, SM and BRD again though.

We gonna get a GB Clan on here?

I've semi-actively played WoW since it's launch in 2004, and have never understood the appeal of returning to vanilla. I enjoy the progress the game has made, where it's at, and being able to just solo all the old raids and dungeons when I want to re-visit that shit. The idea of classic leveling speed, skills, talents, etc. sounds pretty awful.

I messed with private servers a few times many many years back, and the fun in them was always killing 3 mobs that gave a billion exp, hitting the leveling cap, and buying high end armor for a few copper, then tearing shit up for 20 minutes before I was bored. (Not far off from the live game now, at the level cap.)

I mean, I'm glad people are stoked, and hope they enjoy it, but the only fun I personally can see in this is seeing some of the pre-Cataclysm zones. Not enough to actually play more than a few hours, though.

I had an absolute blast on the nostalrious server while it lasted. Can't wait for this. It will be interesting to see if they just pick a patch and leave it there, or if there will be some kind of progression, or even if they change anything at all.

@takayamasama: The play for free thing probably got a number of people that would otherwise never consider subbing for an MMO, to now consider it if there's a legit way to play with no chance of the server getting shut down by Blizzard.

At least from my own experience playing on a private FFXI server, the number of people playing who did because it was a free way to play a great MMO was very, very small. There's totally going to be some 13 year old playing on a private server because it's free, but there's so many free games that are easier to break into now that if someone actually wants to put in the work to play vanilla WoW (a pretty hard MMO) that tells me they really want to play vanilla WoW.

Also, P1999 wasn't the only success for classic EQ; official progression servers for EQ and EQ2 have been going for a while, and IIRC people do pay subs for those.

Finally, pretty much everyone always figured that Blizzard opening sanctioned classic servers would be great for people who want that (a large number of people), and should also be profitable. The usual reason given why they hadn't done it is that while it should definitely be profitable (like EQ/EQ2 progression servers are profitable), people speculated that WoW classic servers wouldn't pull in the billions of $$$ to make it worth Blizzard's time.

But apparently it is worth their time, and kudos to them! I'll be definitely considering giving this a shot.

Having played on many private servers for classic MMO's, I think this is great news, but my biggest worry right now is how "pure" an experience this will be; how many concessions to player convenience will be added, if any, and to what degree. Not to mention all the purely cosmetic things Blizzard might want to touch up.

Heh.

On one hand I'm happy that the people who want this are getting it, on the other hand, vanilla WoW was pretty broken in a lot of ways. In a way I kinda view it as desperation to get up the sub numbers from the old nostalgia loving WoW players. Congrats to them I guess.

Oh man. This is dangerous.

@frodobaggins: This was going to be my exact post. As someone that never leveled past 50, I've got such a strong itch to go back. I've never had the same experience in a video game as being the priest responsible for keeping a raid group alive.

Oh wow.. I think I just realized where my love for time management sims comes from... (i.e. Train Valley)

I still think there should be an option for a film grain graphics filter.

They should bring this to ps4.

As someone that never seriously played WoW before to begin with, this is probably the only means I would've ever gone back to experiencing it, so this is exciting to see.

Me and my Motley Crue are losing our collective shit. Blizzard just earned 6 resubs.

DAY. FUCKING. ONE.

To the people out there saying private servers were popular because of being free, you could not be more wrong. Don't be so dismissive! Vanilla rocks! Even some of the bad stuff like running cross map for 30 minutes to Scarlet Monastery as Alliance through Horde territory. Still rocks.

Had a level 60 on a private server about 2 years ago and you'd be surprised how easy it is, our server was packed and grouping was really easy.

While there is some stuff I will miss (dual talent spec), the reliance on interacting with other players will make up for that. WoW completely eliminated most of that in today's game and I freaking hate the transmog system, they made epic items feel more like throwaway blues as well.

If you're interested, my advice would be to jump on this bandwagon when it hits and ride that initial wave at least to 60.

There is an appetite for classic servers, but whether that can be sustained beyond the "new shiny" period of 3-6 months remains to be seen. I worry places with elite quests in the open world will become the barren unvisited wastelands they were in real vanilla after the first year or so. People will burn out, classic will die a little every time something is added to the main game, then come back during the lull between patches.

One thing about vanilla, was that servers had individuality. People used the server forums, you got to know people and guilds, and it engendered a bit of 'esprit de corps'. People weren't quite as quick to dismiss other players as meaningless names they'll never see again, which in turn could lead to better behavior on average. There was the usual bit of rivalry and drama, but they also served to give a server some character, and today theyre all interconnected anyway, so your server is just a name you click to choose your character.

Thanks to repeatedly mashing servers and battlegroups together, the WoW community has learned the vocal denizens of global chat are a bunch of terrible people - rather, the terrible people became the most vocal. It's nothing but smack and political shouting, these days. As a result, many players see the general population as something to be avoided outside of random dungeon groups. Today most people seem to find a guild, exist within that social sphere and generally ignore the "massively" part of the word MMO. Even when the random dungeon tool puts you in with randoms, nobody ever talks to each other beyond the requirements of explaining game mechanics.

I think at the end of the day, grouping will be easy at 60 - but the leveling curve and potential lack of non-60 dungeon groups could keep people away unless there are regular waves of people rolling new characters.

Cool. Now make a server for WotLK and we'll be golden.

@corvak: oh they can defiantly be sustained, especially with the playerbase Wow had.

had. Most people moved on. This will have hardcore players for sure, but Blizzard won't profit much from it.

@mcfart: dude there is a huge appetite for this kind of thing. Have you paid attention to EverQuests classic servers?

I don't get this, there is probably am arket cause otherwise Blizzard wouldn't jump in on this.
But, I don't want to go back 15 years, I would need it too improve, but at the other hand I wasn't playing and I think the monthly sub is way too high for how old a game. (Sure there is a ton of content, but it is a monstrosity build upon such an old foundation.)

I hope wow can finally die so we can get a Warcraft 4 finally. Although with how my stance is towards blizzard lately, I am not sure that would be for me either if they ever come out with that and I am sure it won't be soon so who knows what will happen.

I don't understand where the idea that it will fail is coming from. Between EQ and Runscape, there's consistent indicators that people will pay for classic content and stick with it long-term.

It's not for me.

Been playing since the beginning and the idea of going back to a game where the quests give you basically no xp so you have to grind for hours on end just to get a level as well as various other things just as frustrating sounds crazy to me

RuneScape also did the same thing years ago, and it was so successful that they actually hired a separate development team to start adding new content to the old branch. I think most of the people who think this will fail are generally out of the loop on MMOs.

@ajamafalous: absolutely. If World of fucking Warcraft can't make a classic server work then I'll be shocked. If EQ can have NUMEROUS classic servers, a game that had a fraction of the playerbase WoW did, I'm sure the MMO King can make it pay.

It's really easy to get to 60 without having to grind at all, doing only quests. It's not a Korean MMO. Should probably get a clue before you repeat common falsehoods like that.

But it does take around 150-200 hours for a relatively efficient player to reach max level, so some amount of dedication is required. It makes for a hugely satisfying experience.

Is that why the two most recent big vanilla servers reached a combined account registration of more than 1 million in the span of about a year and a half with essentially zero advertising other than word-of-mouth?

I havent played WoW for years but I would totally resub to play the classic servers. I just enjoyed how the game played more back then; the thought of playing my Paladin how he used to be played with the seals and auras and hands just makes me happy. I'm down day 1 for sure!

It's not a falsehood I lived it 12 years ago.

@shiro11: WoW has never been grindy like that dude, if you grinded to level up you missed quest hubs, I quested only to level.

Yeah, it really is a falsehood. Your recollection of 12 years ago is not better than the fresh knowledge of those who have played vanilla for years on end. It's pretty absurd to think it would be.

@darlingdixie:

Back then I tried to level with only questing but thottbot was new, wowhead didn't exist, and the quests gave barely any information to go on then if you managed to find the location nothing was highlighted so if it was a find so and so quest you basically had to pixel scan the area. Then you were given little xp for a quest that took a good amount of time to complete. So I grinded, I can't tell you how many hours I farmed xp from Stranglethorn goblins and Winterspring lake ghosts. I will admit I went from a Korean MMO directly to wow so I was already used to grinding.

"Vanilla" with the sort of engine/graphical/UI updates that have come through since Cataclysm sounds pretty cool! WoW isn't really my cup of tea but this is a good announcement.

@shiro11: There's absolutely no need to grind to level in vanilla WoW. It's sorta finnicky to do it by questing, but there's more than enough quests for both factions to get there. I've probably levelled close to 20 vanilla characters (one just earlier this year) and at no point have I ever grinded mobs for xp.

But when?!

I tried to go back to WoW last year and man, it just doesn't feel the same. I don't dig the new areas at all.
The Pandarea starting area/story was neat, but everything else is just lame.

I'm pretty excited to go back and just be in that place again, even for a little bit.

I doubt their going to bring the graphical updates to this, ppl who want the vanilla experience probably want it to also look like it did back then too.

I can see how you might end up just deciding to grind, some of those quests were not very clear but I did prefer having to figure out stuff for myself.

At least now, classic WoW will no doubt have Wowhead or all the other old sites with the quest info!

The only grinding I really did in vanilla WoW was when I was a bar or three away from levelling, so I just grinded instead of hiking to get more quests or to hand them in. I remember an exploit in Dire Maul East where Mages could grind mobs for insane XP, I abused that from level 53-57 lol, good memories.

For me I don't care about graphical updates, I played a private server and I think the old patches (1.21-ish) still hold up graphically. Just don't go looking at old low res screenshots, on your actual PC at modern resolutions it will look pretty good with anti aliasing up high. Supports high resolutions and widescreen no problem!

I wonder if they'll do a poll or something. They'll be starting with the modern engine as a base for the networking, but it sounded like they wanted to get player feedback for whether they should modernize parts or not.

As someone who recently tried a private server to see how my nostalgia holds up, I'm super excited about this. There's something so much more relaxing about Vanilla's Pace to me. Sure there are some less good things to deal with still but it felt nice to actually play the game at a pace less than breakneck. The only reason I didn't keep at the private server was fear of something happening to it. So having a legit way to do it has me very excited.