What team did you work on at Blizzard? I mean if you say you know something 100% absolutely, you must have first hand knowledge.
Either that or I’ve run into yet another time-traveling oracle. So many of them on this forum.
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Eloraell, I see you’re passionate about Classic and I LOVE that.
I have to disagree. They’ve given assurances that Classic is here to stay, but they by NO means said that they’re not looking to make it a wild success.
I don’t agree that their only incentive for server transfers is $$.
But if the idea is that Blizzard EXPECTS Classic servers to fizzle out and die, I think you’re very wrong.
In the history of the game they have offered three server migrations and those were from older medium pop servers to new servers not strictly low population. The fact that you have spent $100s on transfer just reinforces my point, this was just about an alternate revenue stream.
In my experience most people that took the free migrations ended up paying to xfer back to high pop not long after realizing no one likes playing on a dead server.
Server transfers came out in 2006. They should be in Classic and the Classic team even stated that some services were in the shop at the time (meaning this one).
I expect to see it included.
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J Allen Brack: I think we want to make sure that it’s very maintainable. I think the challenge of us being able to resurrect classic WoW in its original form is—it has a certain amount of complexity. But that game was very difficult to manage. It would be effectively like us managing two MMOs, which is not something we want to do. The world has moved on. If you think about the infrastructure—if you think about anything, there’s a really good cooking analogy. There is no way to remove the oregano from the spaghetti sauce. You just put the oregano in, and now how do we deal with that?
Now don’t get me wrong. My hope is that when they see how many people enjoy WoW Classic, they’ll invest into a new MMO built on the same community paradigm without all the QoL changes that broke apart the community.
But little old WoW Classic will remain a museum piece to be dusted off when people want to show their kids where all these games came from.
This is the correct answer.
Uh yeah sure if you really want me to. Paid server xfers and name changes were undoubtedly used by a minority of players. And even when they were used it wasn’t that big of a deal as the amount of people who did it was minimal. Then you make this funny little joke implying that server mergers is better for a community and blizzard messed up by not doing this (LOLOLOL).
Server merges/sharding/crz/faction changes had WAAAYYYY more of an impact on server communities than paid server transfers could have ever dreamed of doing. The first 3 I mentioned was not voluntary and it for sure didn’t cost users money that would steer them away from acting on them. It took your community and completely changed it without your consent that effected EVERYBODY playing, and not just that random guy on your friends list who happened to transfer off to play with his roomate.
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If you’ve ever dealt with any director level discussions for any large business you’d have a clue on what actually goes on. This is the stuff I do on a day to day basis.
There has never been a boardroom discussion about “what about the feelings of our players”. Obligation to shareholders > players feelings. You’d be laughed out of there so fast you wouldn’t even have time to say “but my feelings”.
As you shouldn’t =D
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Server transfers are the root cause of dead servers.
Every dead server I can think of lost it’s playerbase to greener pastures years ago.
No, I do not think it should be a paid service available to Classic players.
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Did you even play in Vanilla?
When server transfers opened up almost every mid-low pop server started bleeding top players to top servers. Populations on servers like Tichondrius and Black Rock exploded overnight with massive influx of players that wanted to see Naxx/AQ40 and would never have a chance if they stayed on their server.
By the time Merges/Sharding/CRZ was implemented the local server communities were already dead and people were only following top guilds not servers.
I transferred off a PvP server to a PvE to play with friends towards the end of Vanilla.
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Elo, I think you have this out of context. This is referring to the infrastructure that Classic is based on. This is why they chose to bring Classic to a more modern platform.
I don’t believe this in any way precludes content patches or tweeks to Classic. They’ve already invested tons of money in development, and will continue to invest in upkeep, a bump up to updating the game is not much more with the potential for increased interest.
I find it extremely hard to believe you’re at any level of upper management. I wouldn’t even believe middle management, the way you carry yourself isnt consistent with that.
There is a care about player feelings, because generally good player feelings means successful game which means happy shareholders. If you have no customer, you have no profit.
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Most people don’t understand corporate, and they are not likely too. I know every big corporation has it’s own culture; blizzard is no different, but there is a lot that’s also the same.
You and I both know this.
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Lol yes, yes I did. Which is why what you’re saying is freaking ridiculous.
Lol no… omg no it didn’t JFC you are such a drama queen.
Yeah dude, TBC and WotLK had terrible server communities amirite??? /s
I definitely see your point here.
However, I’m not sure how healthy it is to have “top players” marooned on low pop. servers stuck doing charity work.
I’d rather have them playing the game than quit because they’re miserable.
For clarity as the precision-bot here, forced server merges and high pop transfers were happening in Vanilla as early as April 2006.
I mean if there were no server xfers and someone really wanted off the server to go somewhere else, they can just reroll and the same outcome just happened. It’s literally no different. So what you left their character on that server they didn’t want to be on, doesn’t make a difference when it’s never being logged onto anymore.
No.
Now, I realize it was added in mid-2006, so the only “maybe someday” I have on that is maybe, two or three years down the line, well after the Naxx stage of content release, when community is strongly enough developed.
And if it is added eventually, how about have the vanilla limitations as well - such as a 6-month cooldown between transfers?
There are many reasons people use realm transfers - good and bad.
Should players who destroy their reputation on one realm be able to hop around freely for fresh starts, leaving behind drama and upset instead of dealing with the consequences?
Should players on a lower populated faction be allowed to jump ship, leaving even less players on that faction, and join a realm where they have the numerical advantage - worsening the imbalance and making even more players want to jump ship?
Should someone who is being harassed be able to escape that by changing realms? (Not that this works against hard-core stalkers, but it is one case.)
Leveling takes a finite amount of time. Some people will be 60 in a week or two. If someone really really wants a 60, they can follow a guide and get there in 5 days /played.
Building community, on the other hand, takes a long time. It comes of crossing paths with other players on the realm, getting to know them by grouping or seeing their behavior in the world, talking to them in capital cities, etc.
WOW Classic will be around for years. Plenty of time to roll multiple characters, get them to max, and build communities on multiple realms. Rerolling won’t be as penalizing, especially after all stages are out and there’s no psuedo-progression race.