Retail vs Private Server Dev Creativity

There are tons of videos of retail-style WoW private servers that do some crazy things like no classes—you can pick any skill you want with limits. Others have way more classes like Necromancer, Tinker, etc. They have Heroic L60 dungeons. They use pre-Legion clients, so there are no borrowed power systems other than gear.

I don’t play them because I don’t trust the providers and I think many are pay-to-win, but for the people that do play look like they are having a lot of fun with what appears to be high quality refreshes of WoW. I short, they look like they were designed with fun in mind, as opposed to copying a formula.

If some rando private server people can do crazy things like this that at least look really fun, then why can’t the Blizz Devs? It probably goes back to the corporate view of reduce risk and go with what worked in the past instead of inventing something new.

Blizz needs to do something really outside the box for 10.0 instead of following the Legion cookie-cutter system. Legion worked because it was so different. But instead of copying it, Blizz needs to do something totally different.

Giving players more choice in 9.1.5 is great, but it is still shackled to the terrible borrowed power systems that are a result of poorly imitating Legion rather than doing something truly new and exciting.

I’ve loved this game since launch, and hope nothing but the best for the dev team.

P.S. I’m not saying class-less WoW is the answer. Honestly, it watching the videos, it seems like picking abilities from every class would be a bit overwhelming.

My point is twofold:

  1. Private server devs have the ability to make radical changes to WoW in a short timespan, so Blizz devs should also be able to do that.

  2. The pservers have flaws, but they also have some good ideas Blizz should at least consider and might be very well received by the playerbase.

More character customization, races and classes have been widely requested and popularly received. On the other hand, non-gear borrowed power systems and repetitive dailies are generally looked down upon by the community.

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Private servers are basically modded WoW. Now look at all you can do with Skyrim, each person’s game tailored to their own specific taste (or each small community’s taste, for private servers).

Can’t do that with retail. Retail needs to be one common experience that will be balanced and drive engagement for the largest common denominator.

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OP is of course free to play those private servers if they provide the system setup he is looking for.

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Well the dev team has obviously been failing in this area, as player engagement is at a 5-year low, and likely lower. The fact they hit the panic button and pulled the ripcord just underscores how bad it is.

I’m not advocating for modding if WoW. I’m advocating for CREATIVITY from the WoW team instead of just copy/pasting borrowed power systems from Legion and BfA and giving them new names.I

If some private server modders can make fresh and exciting changes to the game in such a short amount of time, there is no reason Blizz can’t do the same.

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Why should they? I think all of that sounds terrible and dislike things such as this. The RPG side of the MMO shouldn’t be overshadowed to look like some circus of a game on mobile, imo.

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No one tlel him about retail wow

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There’s 100s of wacky toys to play with in retail. Enjoy those for “creativity”

Private servers are awful.

Blizz needs to do something original and not copy/paste the Legion approach which was good for that xpac by didn’t translate well into BfA and SL, hence the garbage subs and the playerbase leaving en masse.

The story sucks too.

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I didn’t say to copy/paste anything.

And they don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

That’s exactly what they need to do, because using the same old broken wheel obviously ain’t working.

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Then go and play on your private servers lol. If everyone liked that it would have more players and you wouldn’t be here posting about it.

No it isn’t. Every time they try, it just screws the players and the game.

The fact that Blizz player engagement is at an all-time low and the team pulled the ripcord on just about everything in the last 2 weeks after ignoring player input since SL beta shows how bad the dev system is and how focused they are on using the same, old broken wheel.

I don’t play on private servers. I only wish the Blizz dev team showed the same focus on creativity as some of the pserver devs by thinking outside the box.

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So blizzard should do private servers because 2% of playerbase likes playing there? are you trolling ?

Please show me how the Vault, the crap droprates and the millions of currencies are anything like BfA or Legion or Warlords, etc. and how that’s the “same old broken wheel.”

You’re right. Blizz took the Legion borrowed-power template and made it worse with the three things you mentioned.

I stand corrected.

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I dont know but I am really jealous they can use a Taunka and we cant.

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Seriously, that would be awesome. Or Tuskarr!

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Nothing about Warlords or now is anything like that.

Yes, and the immediate community reaction is to organize popular builds into tier lists because 90% of what you can do with that sort of freedom is create semi-useless garbage builds in comparison to what the people aiming for “strong” over “fun” are doing.

It’s not that “fun” isn’t a good thing, but with the way endgame functions, “fun” will be denied entry in favor of only inviting meta builds. Much worse than it is now.

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