What happens when a car company says that customers can have any color they like as long as that color is black? Answer: customers buy a black car, and those who do not are not their customers. The product is theirs to make. Sometimes that creates a weird feeling for consumers when the company talks funny, like in the example.
The Classic WoW project is this type of case. Yes, 1.12 is not a summation of all that best exemplified the original experience. Yes, 1.12 did actually sunder foundational feature design premises in favor of expansions supporting things. What Blizzard is saying is that their customers can choose to have a vanilla experience as long as that aligns with patch 1.12 integrity. Meaning that if you do not want that, then you are not their customer.
they used the best patch of vanilla that had fixed bugs, improved classes, and fixed issues discovered since release to provide the customer with the best product they can.
I don’t feel the same as what you just said personally.
I see it this way. It’s not possible to please everyone. No matter how hard they try, it can’t ever be a reality. In the end some people aren’t going to be happy, while others will.
There is one huge thing we are still waiting to hear about that could truly be the deal breaker for me, and that’s sharding. I truly loathe it in live for many reasons I don’t have time to get into right now. While I am trying to understand their reasonings, my biggest fear is that it will continue past starter zones and early launch. As much as I like Blizzard, I’m just not confidant that they will stick to their word on that in the end. I have saw similar things happen in live and them go back on.
But, getting back to the main topic. As disappointed as I would be if sharding makes it into the game and quite possibly it would cause me to not play at all, I suppose I would end up being one of those people they didn’t please with that decision. So with that said, I stand by what I said. You literally can’t please all the people all the time.
Bad analogy.
In this case, the client gave out a specification of what he wanted.
The car is already made with all those specifications.
If they deviate too much, the client simply chooses not to purchase it, or possibly purchase it somewhere else where it does follow it.
And now the seller is stuck with a car whose buyer just left.
Don’t worry about sharding. It’s only going to be in the game for a few weeks, so it will be easy to avoid it by starting the game just a little later.
Feels bad that such a big and epic company has failed to instill confidence in you.
It is almost like the entire MMORPG experience hinges on a sense of community for you, whether you choose to engage with others or not. I empathize with that sentiment.
Good point. Those who do not want sharding must pray and wait to play. What an awful compromise, but I guess that is one way to thin the population on launch. Do something that causes eager potential customers to walk away.
No. No, it’s not. Never once was it promised that we’d get anything we wanted out of this project, which is what you’re implying here. After they announced, they simply said they were going to listen to what the community had to say on certain things-- and for the most part, that’s what they’ve done.
Blizzard has never said this, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be so rigid, but you are free to not participate in Classic just like you’re free to not play any expansion they’re put out in the past. They’ve said many times in the past that they don’t design by democracy. Frankly, I’m amazed that they’ve taken on as much feedback for Classic that they have.
If we don’t have sharding, people will get stuck in login queues and that will drive away vastly more “eager potential customers” than sharding in the starting zones ever would.
just cut the servers in half. have half of them be sharding servers and the other half be non-sharding. then ask the customer if they are new to wow or a returning customer. if they’re new, automatically show them a realm list with only sharding servers. if returning, ask if they want sharding or no. if they choose no, show them a server list of non-sharding servers to select from. problem solved.
If you played Vanilla, you would remember that getting stuck in login queues was the thing that made players rage the most on the forums. No one wants to be stuck in a queue. All of those players WILL re-roll on sharding servers so they can play the game.
By the time the player pop gets to 60, the servers that were originally sharded will have more players at the cap. I mean, that is literally 100% the justification for sharding in the first few weeks.
You can happily stay on a sharded server that the tourists will flock to and leave while we enjoy a non-sharded server that is filled with dedicated players.
But I don’t think you understand. By the time I get to 60, none of the servers will be sharded. None of them. But you will be on a lower-pop server and I won’t