Because I have years of first hand experience and also played in 2005
My guess is that private server experience has biased your opinion as to what Vanilla WoW was, in an incorrect manner. I could be wrong, but that’s the assumption I have.
There’s an interesting post on Reddit about why there are so many bugs on private servers, where someone is responding and speaking a little to the complexity of software development. I’m reading it now, and haven’t finished yet. Here’s one of the interesting parts:
“So you have to code the entire emulator with this data once you have figured it out, encode some sort of database system to store and load everything, work out what all the flags and enums mean (there are thousands), and code it all up. To put it in perspective, the current 3.3.5a TrinityCore emulator counts at about 300,000 lines of code if you run a line counter on all C++ files. And this isn’t just simple programming: you are concurrently writing to handle thousands of connections at the same time all actively requesting and consuming content.”
Ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/31k5yi/why_are_there_so_much_bugs_on_private_servers/
This question kind of gets to the heart of the issue. I’m not sure if you play FPS games, but for sake of analogy, imagine you were playing a ported version of Quake and realized players were shooting rockets through walls. Now, you know that’s not right. Why? Because you played Quake for hundred to thousands of hours and rockets were never able to go through walls. While you may not be aware of more subtle differences between the original game and the port, blatant differences are going to stand out.
The issue is that, when someone say “how do you know this” isn’t how Quake was back in the day, can you really prove it? Should you have to? If you ask a bunch of old school Quake players and the majority of them say “Wow, that’s definitely a bug”, is that enough? I think that Blizzard is exploiting the glut of video evidence of Vanilla gameplay to get away with gaslighting the community. That’s seemingly what Ravid is getting at with this post and it’s been a growing concern in my mind ever since I saw how poorly supported Classic has been regarding bugs.
On a private server that was markedly different from the original? And that that so biased my perspective that I have no idea what I’m talking about? Because that would be a very different claim.
Here’s another post from the comment section of that Reddit post, and I find it quite apt, with regards to client/server and mob behavior, encounter interaction, spells, etc., etc.
“The game you have on your computer is only the client. This includes all the animations, zones, icons. We have exactly the same client as people used on retail. The other side is the server. This includes all the mobs’ spawn timers, behavior, the spells they use, npc roleplaying, loot, boss mechanic scripts, spell mechanics and more. We don’t have access to the files on the servers from blizzard, so this has to be made from scratch. Because this is an enormous and hard job, it can’t be done by a few developers.”
Ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/wowservers/comments/31k5yi/why_are_there_so_much_bugs_on_private_servers/
NOTE: I’m not sure how to link directly to a comment there.
You should only have to if you want others to believe it.
I’ve actually spent very little time on private servers. Maybe a hundred hours tops on Nostal/Elys. In that time period, nothing besides spawn locations really stood out to me as different from Vanilla. Vanish worked properly (you could still get auto attacked/damaged out of it but the window was much tighter, i.e. Vanilla in function). I never played hunter but I didn’t hear any concerns about feign death not dropping combat. I doubt that amount of time did much to change my concept of how the game should function.
Ah, but there’s the problem. Blizzard has put the burden of proof on the players, when they know full well that the proof doesn’t exist because of the passage of time. They hold all the cards in that regard and seem to be using it to gaslight the community (a particularly screwed up method of abuse, by the way).
Sorry if I implied that as being a personal attack on your experience, it wasn’t meant to be. I want to point out that private servers are not representative of what Vanilla was. They may be representative of how the developers who recreated those scripts and behaviors for private servers remembered those encountered and/or developed based on third-party information given to them through forum feedback, etc.
I didn’t play Vanilla enough to have gotten to max level or raid. I think I only got to about level 28~ and then went back to CounterStrike, and Diablo II LoD, which were my favorite games at the time. And, although I maintained a top 5 spot on the D2 LoD ladders for several months, I certainly wouldn’t assert that my memory from 15 years ago is fact that you can bank on.
I picked up D2 LoD again about a year ago, and played for a couple of months, and there were a number of things that I had to re-learn. That was an interesting experience.
Now, is it possible that your memory is much better than mine? Sure. There is a lot that is possible.
Fair enough. And I doubt that as well. Some things are obvious, and that’s a fair point, I think.
The tone here seems like Blizzard is trying to pull a fast one on its fans. This is where I’m skeptical and not willing to jump on the bandwagon of blame without proof.
And it continues…
In any case though, it would be nice (or would have been nice) for there to have been some access to the “reference client” - or rather the “reference data and/or server configurations.”
If there is any argument to be made that such a nicety would result or would have resulted in any sort of benefit to Blizzard or its stakeholders, I have yet to see it.
And, for what I think the vast majority of the player base has been looking for in WoW Classic, if they haven’t found it yet, I would doubt that there is any solution that is technical.
It wouldn’t be the first time Blizzard has misled, patronized, or outright lied to the community. Blizzard, as it exists today, is not a particularly community oriented company. This is a whole other can of worms, but just look at the recent HK debacle. Some players were given 1000 years forum ban for mentioning it. They fired 600 customer service reps last February, apparently for little other reason than $$$. Sure, a company exists to make money. However, this company exists at the mercy of its community.
Whatever happened to the Blizzard we knew in Vanilla? (Well, we know what happened…Activision…) I remember getting a GM response, consistently, within 6 hours, tops, all the way until I stopped playing in Cata. Just the other day I had to wait 3 days for a ticket response that clearly indicated that no one had even read my ticket, and whoever was handling it just slapped a pre-written, non-applicable response on it. The response to some clearly game breaking bugs, bugs which I believe fall into what can be definitely be called the “obvious” category, have been met with radio silence by Blizzard. Even a “Thanks for the report. We’re working on fixing it as fast as possible, but there are technical limitations that are difficult to overcome” would be acceptable to many of us.
You lost me here.
Lost as in you aren’t aware as to what I’m referring to? Or as in you don’t care to read anything else I have to say?
Fair question!
Neither really. I’m aware of it, but I disagree it is a valid example of being or not being community oriented. The HK thing was political issue that, at least in my opinion, was something that got so grossly overblown due to current sociopolitical trends, and not something that should have anything to do with Blizzard. In my opinion.
It being raised, I see as a red flag that one would bring politics, and/or identity politics into an otherwise civil conversation about WoW Classic. But, perhaps we can agree to let that conversation be held somewhere else and away from game-related forums, and continue with the conversation about WoW Classic, Vanilla, Reference clients, and 15 year-old memories.
That’s fair. I brought it up moreso because I feel like banning someone for 1000 years is a bit, how shall I say, draconian? Idk. I have my own opinions on the whole situation, but I won’t get into that hear.
Yes. Things weren’t always rainbows and unicorns. I remember reading rants of people quitting due to game breaking changes potentially dropping and absolutely destroying one’s chosen class that they were so invested in, on any given Tuesday…
but yes, GMs were a thing, and response times were relatively quick. Are there currently any GMs? Has the role not been eliminated, and now we have Customer Service or something?
While I don’t disagree with this, I’m not familiar enough with precisely what these bugs are that you are referencing, so it’s difficult for me to have a strong sense of what we’re talking about.
And there’s that political stance again. Personally, I have quite a different view on the whole situation, but I’ll leave that out, as I don’t feel it belongs here, and certainly brings nothing of value to our discussion about Classic. 
I wish there were one or two that I was referring to, but off the top of my head: vanish not working, feign death not dropping combat, mobs inappropriately aggroing on threat generating abilities used by players who aren’t in combat with them, hunter pets losing happiness below zero, druids getting mana burned in shapeshift, execute/ferocious bite “eating” any rage/energy generated immediately after their usage, grounding totem not working, interrupts inappropriately triggering an additional global cooldown in addition to the spell lockout, mind flay getting knocked back through PWS, movement speeds being calculated based on WOD speed formula instead of Vanilla formula, etc.
Sure. That’s always been a thing. I’m talking about actual customer service and bug fixes, not class balance issues.
I’m actually not sure. I’ve yet to speak to one or hear of someone speaking to one.
So, to be clear, before I start looking up reports on the bugs forum, and cross-referencing with the Classic Not a Bug list, the following are what you are describing as clearly game breaking bugs that you believe fall into what can be definitely be called the “obvious” category and have been met with radio silence:
- vanish not working
- feign death not dropping combat
- mobs inappropriately aggroing on threat generating abilities used by players who aren’t in combat with them
- hunter pets losing happiness below zero
- druids getting mana burned in shapeshift
- execute/ferocious bite “eating” any rage/energy generated immediately after their usage
- grounding totem not working
- interrupts inappropriately triggering an additional global cooldown in addition to the spell lockout
- mind flay getting knocked back through PWS
- movement speeds being calculated based on WOD speed formula instead of Vanilla formula
- And others that have not been mentioned, so will be disregarded due to the nature of the question this is a direct answer to
Those are just off the top of my head. I could probably keep listing bugs but I really don’t feel like typing them all out. If you want an idea of the mountain of bugs I’m referring to, check Ravix’s druid bug list or the known issues list that’s been started by players. I believe the feign and vanish bugs have been blue posted on, yet not fixed (may be wrong on that, but that was my understanding last time I read those threads).
Fair enough. Perhaps we could discuss the point of it?
So far, here’s what I think may be a fair summary of this topic (please, let me know if/where I’m inaccurate):
- it would be nice to have (or have had) access to Blizzard’s reference client and server, so that we could verify what is and isn’t a bug
- it would be nice if there was more communication from Blizzard about the current state of certain bugs that some people care about
Am I missing anything?
Nope, sounds about right.
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There are so many bugs that if this were to ever happen, there would be a 100 bug reports posted by time the first player hits level 30. From that point forward there would be 1000 differences posted by 60 including pvp issues. Many of the bugs / differences are just that blatant and obvious but are still around, it’s like Blizzard just doesn’t care.
The boss mobs in UBRS being level 62s and not Skull / Boss level mobs is one right there…still not fixed.
bump for ref client access ! :-p