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 Dreadwinter wrote:
You guys are aware that Blizzard has a subscription plan as well as a token plan(much like Wildstar), correct?

You can buy in game time without a subscription if you have enough gold.

Either way, Blizzard told us a long time ago that they would never do a vanilla server. Now they are walking that back. Saying they will never do something just because is not really a good argument when they themselves have looked at it and said "Yeah, maybe we should start thinking about that."

 Soladrin wrote:
Oh and using an online petition to see how many players you would get is nonsense, outrage culture is huge these days and you can bet your ass that maybe 10% of the signees would actually PAY to play vanilla. (and I'm being generous)

Ugh, I hate it when people do this. You are not being generous, you are bending what you said so you can make it fit your narrative. You have absolutely no idea what would happen if they opened a vanilla server. You really have nothing to base it on either. Do not come in here and shoot something down because you do not see it working then yell "FACTS!" Because there were none provided. Come on man, just because you do not think it will happen is no reason to come in here and act like that.

Nowhere do I use the word facts, that is you putting words in my mouth. I just made a generous estimate, nothing more, because I expect that number to be far lower. Have fun on your horse though.

Can't see Blizzard ever doing it. Cost would be the main factor, they don't want to pay additional staff (and it would require additional) to run a server that in all likelihood wouldn't be making enough money to justify itself.
More importantly they'd never split the player base, can't think of any MMO that has discovered that to be a good idea unless its got a free to play model which they aren't doing any time soon. Everquest being the most glaring example.

Everquest does it...

I played WOW on and off, but I was WAY into UO and EQ. Shadowbane and DAoC were great too, but I'm one of those people that love the danger of PVP.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Ugh, I hate it when people do this. You are not being generous, you are bending what you said so you can make it fit your narrative. You have absolutely no idea what would happen if they opened a vanilla server. You really have nothing to base it on either. Do not come in here and shoot something down because you do not see it working then yell "FACTS!" Because there were none provided. Come on man, just because you do not think it will happen is no reason to come in here and act like that.

Oh come on now man. We shouldn't have to demonstrate rigorously that

A) Getting people to say they want something is far easier than getting to pay them for it.
B) Online petitions generally very good indications of the level of passion or commitment to something.

These are long proven trends that should more or less be considered "Common Sense" at this point. This ain't an academic setting after all. Someone is far more likely to sign an online petition than they are to fork over $15 of their hard earned money for a month well-trodden MMO ground. The level of effort, investment and commitment needed to a sign a online petition are all basically zero. They aren't terribly meaningful.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
You guys are aware that Blizzard has a subscription plan as well as a token plan(much like Wildstar), correct?

You can buy in game time without a subscription if you have enough gold.

Either way, Blizzard told us a long time ago that they would never do a vanilla server. Now they are walking that back. Saying they will never do something just because is not really a good argument when they themselves have looked at it and said "Yeah, maybe we should start thinking about that."

 Soladrin wrote:
Oh and using an online petition to see how many players you would get is nonsense, outrage culture is huge these days and you can bet your ass that maybe 10% of the signees would actually PAY to play vanilla. (and I'm being generous)

Ugh, I hate it when people do this. You are not being generous, you are bending what you said so you can make it fit your narrative. You have absolutely no idea what would happen if they opened a vanilla server. You really have nothing to base it on either. Do not come in here and shoot something down because you do not see it working then yell "FACTS!" Because there were none provided. Come on man, just because you do not think it will happen is no reason to come in here and act like that.

Nowhere do I use the word facts, that is you putting words in my mouth. I just made a generous estimate, nothing more, because I expect that number to be far lower. Have fun on your horse though.

Oh get out of here with that. You came in here with absolutely nothing to back up what you said just to crap on the idea and I called you out on it. It sucks, but you can get over it. I know you can.

 Chongara wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Ugh, I hate it when people do this. You are not being generous, you are bending what you said so you can make it fit your narrative. You have absolutely no idea what would happen if they opened a vanilla server. You really have nothing to base it on either. Do not come in here and shoot something down because you do not see it working then yell "FACTS!" Because there were none provided. Come on man, just because you do not think it will happen is no reason to come in here and act like that.

Oh come on now man. We shouldn't have to demonstrate rigorously that

A) Getting people to say they want something is far easier than getting to pay them for it.
B) Online petitions generally very good indications of the level of passion or commitment to something.

These are long proven trends that should more or less be considered "Common Sense" at this point. This ain't an academic setting after all. Someone is far more likely to sign an online petition than they are to fork over $15 of their hard earned money for a month well-trodden MMO ground. The level of effort, investment and commitment needed to a sign a online petition are all basically zero. They aren't terribly meaningful.

Okay, for the second time you do not have to pay $15 to play WoW anymore, you do not even need a subscription to play WoW anymore. So really it is not "common sense" at all when you do not have a basic understanding of how the game works. Then you add in the fact that people have been asking about this for years and years, plus the amount of people who actually played on the player run server. Those same people are trying to get Blizzard to set up a new server and have been trying to do it for years. There is a pretty big following here, Blizzard can see it, that is why they are talking about doing it now.

But you are right, people are just signing a petition and petitions mean nothing. On top of that, they will never pay the subscription fee that you don't actually have to pay anymore if you go about getting your time a different way. Makes total "common sense" when you look at it!

 Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:
Can't see Blizzard ever doing it. Cost would be the main factor, they don't want to pay additional staff (and it would require additional) to run a server that in all likelihood wouldn't be making enough money to justify itself.
More importantly they'd never split the player base, can't think of any MMO that has discovered that to be a good idea unless its got a free to play model which they aren't doing any time soon. Everquest being the most glaring example.

Ugh! WHY PEOPLE?! WHY?! Blizzard currently has a free to play model where you can buy in game time with in game gold. It has already happened. You can play WoW for free right now.....

And what do you need in order to get gold?

An account.

Which you pay for.

Via subscription.

But by all means, don't let that fact discourage you from continuing to talk down to people and treating them like idiots because you don't like what they're saying. Mature discussion be damned, right?

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Okay, for the second time you do not have to pay $15 to play WoW anymore, you do not even need a subscription to play WoW anymore. So really it is not "common sense" at all when you do not have a basic understanding of how the game works. Then you add in the fact that people have been asking about this for years and years, plus the amount of people who actually played on the player run server. Those same people are trying to get Blizzard to set up a new server and have been trying to do it for years. There is a pretty big following here, Blizzard can see it, that is why they are talking about doing it now.

You understand that simply reasserting things over and over again does not make them true, right? WoW is not F2P. You can pay $15 sub fee, buy a $15 game card, or trade with another player for a in-game token with a comparable cash price. Even if we take the rather absurd self-defeating position that using the in-game tokens constitutes not paying for the subscription, even among the most dedicated part of the player base less than half use that option with a smaller portion still of anyone more casual doing it.

Never mind that having the trade able tokens would most definitely constitute a not true to form vanilla experience. You also have to remember there is no way this could be a service that's bundled with your base account. It require separate employees, separate servers, and separate support resources. It would have to be an entirely separate game or a high-cost premium service on top of the regular account.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
And what do you need in order to get gold?

An account.

Which you pay for.

Via subscription.

But by all means, don't let that fact discourage you from continuing to talk down to people and treating them like idiots because you don't like what they're saying. Mature discussion be damned, right?

Paying $15 for one month and consistently accumulating 30k gold per month to fuel future subscriptions isn't exactly difficult if you a) play the Auction House halfway well b) play remotely frequently at all. I was going through 10-15k a week while playing around 15-20 hours a week just hitting up old raids and selling pets/rare BoE armor drops. The real funny thing is that it's about a 33% discount to buy gold and use that to pay for the subscription than paying Blizzard directly. I wonder if that thought ever crossed their mind when they instituted that policy...

30k? Current figures show 43k for US, and over 80k everywhere else. 30k Is extremely generous for US servers, and completely inaccurate elsewhere. Hell, I've not seen it below 50k since I started playing again.

 Chongara wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Okay, for the second time you do not have to pay $15 to play WoW anymore, you do not even need a subscription to play WoW anymore. So really it is not "common sense" at all when you do not have a basic understanding of how the game works. Then you add in the fact that people have been asking about this for years and years, plus the amount of people who actually played on the player run server. Those same people are trying to get Blizzard to set up a new server and have been trying to do it for years. There is a pretty big following here, Blizzard can see it, that is why they are talking about doing it now.

You understand that simply reasserting things over and over again does not make them true, right? WoW is not F2P. You can pay $15 sub fee, buy a $15 game card, or trade with another player for a in-game token with a comparable cash price. Even if we take the rather absurd self-defeating position that using the in-game tokens constitutes not paying for the subscription, even among the most dedicated part of the player base less than half use that option with a smaller portion still of anyone more casual doing it.

Never mind that having the trade able tokens would most definitely constitute a not true to form vanilla experience. You also have to remember there is no way this could be a service that's bundled with your base account. It require separate employees, separate servers, and separate support resources. It would have to be an entirely separate game or a high-cost premium service on top of the regular account.

No, it absolutely would not. It can be something that is a part of the current system, just on a Vanilla server. A vanilla server is not that difficult to run, as seen by the people who ran it for free for many years. But lets just ignore that simple fact and keep reasserting things over and over again about how it is going to cost too much money and how it is not actually F2P, even when they have an in game F2P model. It isn't difficult to make the gold to pay for a token each month. If you are even remotely in to the game, you could probably make the gold in a few days.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
And what do you need in order to get gold?

An account.

Which you pay for.

Via subscription.

But by all means, don't let that fact discourage you from continuing to talk down to people and treating them like idiots because you don't like what they're saying. Mature discussion be damned, right?

These are also players who already have an account that want this. Their current fanbase wants this, so a lot of people would not have to pay for a new account. Everything you have just said has been disprove in this thread but you keep saying them with 0 proof or evidence.

Blizzard is in talks about doing this because they saw how much their fanbase wants it. Buuuuut, it will never happen because people keep saying silly things that make 0 sense with how the game currently works.

I will give you that I was a bit frustrated this morning(Got some very bad news IRL), but I probably would not have responded differently. I generally act the same when somebody comes in to a thread, speaks as if they know what they are talking about, but fails to read previous posts in the thread that clearly disprove their point.

Edit: It was 33k last time I played a few months ago, never really seen it lower. Either way, 33k gold right now is a laughable sum of money. If you tried, that is about a weeks worth of grinding.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
30k? Current figures show 43k for US, and over 80k everywhere else. 30k Is extremely generous for US servers, and completely inaccurate elsewhere. Hell, I've not seen it below 50k since I started playing again.

I haven't played in months, but it was in the low 30's then. I'm assuming they probably upped the price to combat gold selling.

 Dreadwinter wrote:


No, it absolutely would not. It can be something that is a part of the current system, just on a Vanilla server. A vanilla server is not that difficult to run, as seen by the people who ran it for free for many years. But lets just ignore that simple fact and keep reasserting things over and over again about how it is going to cost too much money and how it is not actually F2P, even when they have an in game F2P model. It isn't difficult to make the gold to pay for a token each month. If you are even remotely in to the game, you could probably make the gold in a few days.

Q: Why are Illegal pirate servers free?
A: Illegal pirate servers can use volunteer labor.
B: Illegal pirate servers are run by hobbyists who can take the operating expenses as loss.
C: Illegal pirate servers do not have to worry about insurance, customer support, service guarantees and other secondary business expenes.
D: Illegal pirate servers have no interest in maintaining brand identity, have no reason to be concerned about cannnablizing their own customer base.
E: Illegal pirate servers are not beholden to shareholders.


The costs and considerations involved in running a pirated server are not in any way equal or even comparable to the costs and considerations of running a for profit service sold to customers as part of huge multi-national brand. If you care to explain on how blizzard could set up these servers without incurring additional operating costs feel free to enlighten me. They're not a damn charity. They're not going to incur a whole bunch of additional costs unless they think it's going to bring in much more than proportional amount of extra money.

 Chongara wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:


No, it absolutely would not. It can be something that is a part of the current system, just on a Vanilla server. A vanilla server is not that difficult to run, as seen by the people who ran it for free for many years. But lets just ignore that simple fact and keep reasserting things over and over again about how it is going to cost too much money and how it is not actually F2P, even when they have an in game F2P model. It isn't difficult to make the gold to pay for a token each month. If you are even remotely in to the game, you could probably make the gold in a few days.

Q: Why are Illegal pirate servers free?
A: Illegal pirate servers can use volunteer labor.
B: Illegal pirate servers are run by hobbyists who can take the operating expenses as loss.
C: Illegal pirate servers do not have to worry about insurance, customer support, service guarantees and other secondary business expenes.
D: Illegal pirate servers have no interest in maintaining brand identity, have no reason to be concerned about cannnablizing their own customer base.
E: Illegal pirate servers are not beholden to shareholders.


The costs and considerations involved in running a pirated server are not in any way equal or even comparable to the costs and considerations of running a for profit service sold to customers as part of huge multi-national brand. If you care to explain on how blizzard could set up these servers without incurring additional operating costs feel free to enlighten me. They're not a damn charity. They're not going to incur a whole bunch of additional costs unless they think it's going to bring in much more than proportional amount of extra money.

And yet if hobbyists could mange it out of pocket you believe costs would be prohibitive enough that the people who would play wouldn't be enough to sustain it? Especially since the upkeep would be minimal at best? WoW isn't free, y'know.

 Chongara wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:


No, it absolutely would not. It can be something that is a part of the current system, just on a Vanilla server. A vanilla server is not that difficult to run, as seen by the people who ran it for free for many years. But lets just ignore that simple fact and keep reasserting things over and over again about how it is going to cost too much money and how it is not actually F2P, even when they have an in game F2P model. It isn't difficult to make the gold to pay for a token each month. If you are even remotely in to the game, you could probably make the gold in a few days.

Q: Why are Illegal pirate servers free?
A: Illegal pirate servers can use volunteer labor.
B: Illegal pirate servers are run by hobbyists who can take the operating expenses as loss.
C: Illegal pirate servers do not have to worry about insurance, customer support, service guarantees and other secondary business expenes.
D: Illegal pirate servers have no interest in maintaining brand identity, have no reason to be concerned about cannnablizing their own customer base.
E: Illegal pirate servers are not beholden to shareholders.


The costs and considerations involved in running a pirated server are not in any way equal or even comparable to the costs and considerations of running a for profit service sold to customers as part of huge multi-national brand. If you care to explain on how blizzard could set up these servers without incurring additional operating costs feel free to enlighten me. They're not a damn charity. They're not going to incur a whole bunch of additional costs unless they think it's going to bring in much more than proportional amount of extra money.

Can you tell me how operating one server is going to break the bank? Everybody keeps saying "It is going to break the bank!" but is it really? How much does it cost to operate a server for them? Even if only a small amount of people stick around on this vanilla server, how much will that make them? A lot of people have said for years they would love to play on a Vanilla server. It is brought up at every single Blizzcon in the Q&A. The only people that are against it keep saying it will cost too much. Okay, can you prove that? How much does running a server cost for them? How much revenue do you think they will bring in? A lot of people are wanting this and have wanted it for years, that is why the pirate server was so popular and had so many people that played on it. So, can you tell me how much of a deficit they will be running by doing this?

Not a single person in here said they would not incur additional operating costs. That is just a ridiculous statement, I know full well Blizzard is not a damn charity, having played the game for so long. What I do know is that a lot of people want this and they are willing to pay for it. But every time I say that you just ignore it by saying "server costs too much" and blah blah blah. Do vanilla servers cost more than their current regular servers? Do you think that if they do this, they will have a server sitting around with 0 Population doing nothing?

I just honestly do not understand your argument.

A Vanilla server is the only thing that would entice me back. Current WoW is noob-city with fast levelling, heirlooms, insta-high level toons and a dwindling population of people who were probably too young to catch the original ship to Azeroth.

Dreadwinter wrote:

Ugh! WHY PEOPLE?! WHY?! Blizzard currently has a free to play model where you can buy in game time with in game gold. It has already happened. You can play WoW for free right now.....

Actually a lot of people struggle to reach the gold required especially in the EU, and that still doesn't make the game free to play, it just changes real world currency to in game, you still need to play a lot just to reach that money, why most folks aren't bothering.

Let's not twist things here, we all are MMO players, we know what a free to play model is, this clearly isn't that.

trexmeyer wrote:

I haven't played in months, but it was in the low 30's then. I'm assuming they probably upped the price to combat gold selling.

Price is dictated by the players, its loads more in the EU as more people want them and not as many folks are using the system for gold as they obviously are in the US. Will be interesting to see how Legion is effected for the price when they cut gold production from garrisons, the only way a lot of folks have been able to buy them.

As a person who has been playing MMOs for a very very long time, I gotta say this is a free to play model. If you do not have to pay real world currency to play a game, then it is free to play. It might take some in game work and cost you some time, but you can play for free.

It is honestly better than most free to play models because you can still access all of the content in the game with no restrictions.

Not sure what is happening with the EU system, but it was incredibly easy to make the amount. Just run the Raid Finder on 2-3 characters a week and you are set.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
As a person who has been playing MMOs for a very very long time, I gotta say this is a free to play model. If you do not have to pay real world currency to play a game, then it is free to play. It might take some in game work and cost you some time, but you can play for free.

It is honestly better than most free to play models because you can still access all of the content in the game with no restrictions.

Not sure what is happening with the EU system, but it was incredibly easy to make the amount. Just run the Raid Finder on 2-3 characters a week and you are set.

As someone who currently plays WoW I can tell you that unless you put it in a lot of hours of work you will have hard come coming up with the cash necessary to get WoW tokens. It's pretty much something only really dedicated players can use as a reliable way to get game time. Most casual players will struggle to cough up the money.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:


No, it absolutely would not. It can be something that is a part of the current system, just on a Vanilla server. A vanilla server is not that difficult to run, as seen by the people who ran it for free for many years. But lets just ignore that simple fact and keep reasserting things over and over again about how it is going to cost too much money and how it is not actually F2P, even when they have an in game F2P model. It isn't difficult to make the gold to pay for a token each month. If you are even remotely in to the game, you could probably make the gold in a few days.

Q: Why are Illegal pirate servers free?
A: Illegal pirate servers can use volunteer labor.
B: Illegal pirate servers are run by hobbyists who can take the operating expenses as loss.
C: Illegal pirate servers do not have to worry about insurance, customer support, service guarantees and other secondary business expenes.
D: Illegal pirate servers have no interest in maintaining brand identity, have no reason to be concerned about cannnablizing their own customer base.
E: Illegal pirate servers are not beholden to shareholders.


The costs and considerations involved in running a pirated server are not in any way equal or even comparable to the costs and considerations of running a for profit service sold to customers as part of huge multi-national brand. If you care to explain on how blizzard could set up these servers without incurring additional operating costs feel free to enlighten me. They're not a damn charity. They're not going to incur a whole bunch of additional costs unless they think it's going to bring in much more than proportional amount of extra money.

Can you tell me how operating one server is going to break the bank? Everybody keeps saying "It is going to break the bank!" but is it really? How much does it cost to operate a server for them? Even if only a small amount of people stick around on this vanilla server, how much will that make them? A lot of people have said for years they would love to play on a Vanilla server. It is brought up at every single Blizzcon in the Q&A. The only people that are against it keep saying it will cost too much. Okay, can you prove that? How much does running a server cost for them? How much revenue do you think they will bring in? A lot of people are wanting this and have wanted it for years, that is why the pirate server was so popular and had so many people that played on it. So, can you tell me how much of a deficit they will be running by doing this?

Not a single person in here said they would not incur additional operating costs. That is just a ridiculous statement, I know full well Blizzard is not a damn charity, having played the game for so long. What I do know is that a lot of people want this and they are willing to pay for it. But every time I say that you just ignore it by saying "server costs too much" and blah blah blah. Do vanilla servers cost more than their current regular servers? Do you think that if they do this, they will have a server sitting around with 0 Population doing nothing?

I just honestly do not understand your argument.

People run server.
People want food.
Food not free.
Blizzard give money so people work.

Blizzard run business
Government want money
Government take taxes from blizzard

California have labor laws
Laws say insurance and sick day.
Insurance not free.
Blizzard pay money.

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WoW not free.
People pay money for WoW.
People play on server.
People pay money.
Money go to server upkeep.


See how easy of a solution that is?

Plus, why would a Vanilla server be more expensive to run than any other server? Blizzard runs a ton of them already and that doesn't seem to be bankrupting them.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
WoW not free.
People pay money for WoW.
People play on server.
People pay money.
Money go to server upkeep.

See how easy of a solution that is?

People already pay.
No extra money for new server.
For new money, need new people.
Server long time project
Need new people stay.
New people leave, again no extra money.
Old people stay, still don't count.

Warcraft brand valuable.
WoW brand 1 thing.
Old game, WoW brand now 2 things.
WoW brand might be less valuable.
Risk.

Blizzard have much money.
Tiny money no good for much money.
Server make money, but maybe not big money.
Server make money but tiny money.
Tiny money not loss but not good enough for much money blizzard.

For server good blizzard, big money, much time.
Extra money, brand value.
Extra money, focus loss.
Extra money, risk.

So... you didn't read the article which mentioned that there was a large community around the private vanilla WoW server which indicates that there is, in fact, demand for this? Not to mention the fact that players have been asking for this for years. And there is also the goodwill they would be building within the fanbase for this.

Plus, this wouldn't even cost that much more compared to running a regular server. All the data is already there. And Blizzard has already shown willingness to update older content.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
So... you didn't read the article which mentioned that there was a large community around the private vanilla WoW server which indicates that there is, in fact, demand for this? Not to mention the fact that players have been asking for this for years. And there is also the goodwill they would be building within the fanbase for this.

Plus, this wouldn't even cost that much more compared to running a regular server. All the data is already there. And Blizzard has already shown willingness to update older content.

Cost not more than regular server.
Cost in addition to regular server.
New cost same size old cost, worse cost because new.

Pirate server free.
Pirate server offer custom experience.
Pirate server established.
One pirate server gone.
Many still around.
Many more get made.
Can never stop.

Blizzard server cost money.
Blizzard server not custom.
Blizzard server only established for people already paying.

Blizzard make own server, pirate server still free.
Blizzard make own server, pirate server still custom.
Blizzard make own server.Maybe many people stay on pirate server.


Not impossible old game good idea.
Very possible old game bad idea.


Do nothing. Things stay as is.
Things as is still good for blizzard.
Do old game. Maybe things better, maybe things worse.
Failure cost more than money.
Risk.
Gains must be big for risk.
Gains unclear.
Risk unlikely.

Can you please not respond in that patronizing tone? Okay, so, as a rebuttal let's play the numbers game. The article cites 800,000 accounts registered on the private server. But you know, maybe most of those people only played once, for a limited time, gave up, only because it was free, etc. So, maybe only 1% of that group would be willing to play on a actual Blizzard server.

8000*15*12=1.4 million dollars a year. This server would have to crash and burn harder than Alien: Colonial Marines to fail. Even if just 1000 people played that is still 180k a year. Unless Blizzard shovels Bald Eagles and Gucci bags into furnaces to upkeep their servers that should be enough to cover their upkeep.

He cant, it would break up his narrative. He is under the impression that if Blizzard attempted to start a server, people would not play on it. Even though people have been begging them for years to have this exact thing. But since they didn't, people had to go to Pirated servers to get their Vanilla WoW fix. This is the crux of his argument, which is really flimsy. Why wouldn't they just go to the pirate server? Well, because Blizzard has shown us they are willing to shut down pirate servers and erase all the time invested in that server.

It makes sense for people to want an official server where they will not have the risk of their character being destroyed. But again, that doesn't really fit in the narrative he is trying to make. What matters is "RISK" and "MONEY" which he has yet to prove are huge hurdles here. Even though we have proven multiple times now that a lot of people want to play Vanilla and are willing to pay for vanilla.

If his argument made any sense, they would have never gone back and released new patches on Diablo 2. They would have also shut down Diablo 2 servers as soon as Diablo 3 came out. Buuuuuuut, we can see that didn't really happen.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Can you please not respond in that patronizing tone? Okay, so, as a rebuttal let's play the numbers game. The article cites 800,000 accounts registered on the private server. But you know, maybe most of those people only played once, for a limited time, gave up, only because it was free, etc. So, maybe only 1% of that group would be willing to play on a actual Blizzard server.

8000*15*12=1.4 million dollars a year. This server would have to crash and burn harder than Alien: Colonial Marines to fail. Even if just 1000 people played that is still 180k a year. Unless Blizzard shovels Bald Eagles and Gucci bags into furnaces to upkeep their servers that should be enough to cover their upkeep.

Sorry, I was told my points were incomprehensibly obtuse so I decided to make them as unambiguously simplistic as I possibly could.

Napkin math is just that. It's really not reliable. Whatever, we'll go with it. You've thrown out 180k gross as a worst case scenario for this. We'll put aside the fact you forgot to account for taxes for a moment and I'll just ask you one question: What do you think is the total cost for 1 employee, for blizzard. Inclusive of their salary, cubicle, work tools, insurance, benefits, training, average attrition? Assume they're a reasonably paid tech employee being given a competitive rate in California.

 Chongara wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Can you please not respond in that patronizing tone? Okay, so, as a rebuttal let's play the numbers game. The article cites 800,000 accounts registered on the private server. But you know, maybe most of those people only played once, for a limited time, gave up, only because it was free, etc. So, maybe only 1% of that group would be willing to play on a actual Blizzard server.

8000*15*12=1.4 million dollars a year. This server would have to crash and burn harder than Alien: Colonial Marines to fail. Even if just 1000 people played that is still 180k a year. Unless Blizzard shovels Bald Eagles and Gucci bags into furnaces to upkeep their servers that should be enough to cover their upkeep.

Sorry, I was told my points were incomprehensibly obtuse so I decided to make them as unambiguously simplistic as I possibly could.

Napkin math is just that. It's really not reliable. Whatever, we'll go with it. You've thrown out 180k gross as a worst case scenario for this. We'll put aside the fact you forgot to account for taxes for a moment and I'll just ask you one question: What do you think is the total cost for 1 employee, for blizzard. Inclusive of their salary, cubicle, work tools, insurance, benefits, training, average attrition. Assume they're a reasonably paid tech employee being given a competitive rate in California?

Why would this server need a dedicated full time tech employee? Unless you're going to tell me Blizzard has full time tech workers on Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Can you please not respond in that patronizing tone? Okay, so, as a rebuttal let's play the numbers game. The article cites 800,000 accounts registered on the private server. But you know, maybe most of those people only played once, for a limited time, gave up, only because it was free, etc. So, maybe only 1% of that group would be willing to play on a actual Blizzard server.

8000*15*12=1.4 million dollars a year. This server would have to crash and burn harder than Alien: Colonial Marines to fail. Even if just 1000 people played that is still 180k a year. Unless Blizzard shovels Bald Eagles and Gucci bags into furnaces to upkeep their servers that should be enough to cover their upkeep.

Sorry, I was told my points were incomprehensibly obtuse so I decided to make them as unambiguously simplistic as I possibly could.

Napkin math is just that. It's really not reliable. Whatever, we'll go with it. You've thrown out 180k gross as a worst case scenario for this. We'll put aside the fact you forgot to account for taxes for a moment and I'll just ask you one question: What do you think is the total cost for 1 employee, for blizzard. Inclusive of their salary, cubicle, work tools, insurance, benefits, training, average attrition. Assume they're a reasonably paid tech employee being given a competitive rate in California?

Why would this server need a dedicated full time tech employee?

First off at this point it's almost entirely different technology from their current WoW servers. Code bases evolve over time and you bet you bottom dollar there is going to be adaptation to do, bugs to squash as well as maintenance. They can't just flip a switch to turn off all the new bosses and zones on their existing stuff. They've either got to rebuild the vanilla stuff or work to adapt one of the pirate solutions. They also have to work to integrate things like the cash shop, time tokens, and other supporting features into the old servers since we're assuming that they'll have vanilla content but all modern supporting features.

Further there is so much we don't know about blizzard's internals. However if I was a wagering man I'd be willing to be there is at least one thing be it a support ticketing a system, systems monitoring software or account management that the old stuff would have to be rebuilt to accommodate no matter if they're pulling something out of the archives, or adapting a pirate solution.

This is probably not one dedicated full time employee but in reality, a handful. We're not even counting customer support load this might generate as WoW has GMs and guys who would need to spend time monitoring the new vanilla forums. This and more is all stuff that needs to be done. It's at least one employee's worth of load all combined even if they're just taking time across multiple existing teams (something has to give and someone new will have to be hired somewhere).

Reviving vanilla wow and doing it in a way that's stable, supportable, and integrated with their current systems is not simple endeavor. So I go back to my question? How much just does 1 Employee cost, or if you prefer to frame it that way 1-employee's worth of labor split among many that might have other duties.

Did I miss something? Has Blizzard lost that much revenue that they would be unable to pick up multiple employees or move people to work on this? I mean, they are talking about using what Nostalrius has been using. Which means there would be minimal work. You do not need most of the modern supporting features. No cash shop or anything like that. Time tokens would be useful, but as a feature that would not be super difficult to implement. GMs can just be moved or given extra duties on the special server. Unless they changed how GMs work, they are unpaid volunteers.

Forums are not really an issue because they use forum groups for moderation. The same Moderators will be mods in the Warrior Forum, Rogue Forum, Mage Forum. Adding one forum is not a big deal.

They may need to work on code for the Pirated version of the server, but that is also why they have invited the people that run Nostalrius to come and speak with them at Blizzard HQ.

Is Blizzard broke or something?

Has cost ever been a cited issue by Blizzard of why they don't do this? If I recall the stated reason was because they felt modern WoW was superior in every way to Vanilla.