Nostalrius (Blizzard can't stop shooting it's foot)

[Goat]

Blizzard broke my kokoro over what they did to Nostalrius.

I take back my "Blizzard leads the way" statement, this **** was a ****** travesty.

Also, I know what some of you are ready to say. "They were taking profits away from Blizzard itself." The server only took what was needed to stay afloat, Blizzard has been bleeding subscribers for months and their PR has been atrocious in regards to how they're handling complaints.

Even Jontron made a video on this

I have had to show restraint when it came to the Tracer incident, which actually wrapped up pretty well in my opinion in comparison to what Nintendo pulls on a gamely basis when Treehouse is involved. But this?

Speaking as someone, who started back in 2007 and wound up quitting around the time the Catacalysm expansion was ending. I don't know what else is left to say, the company has been on a slow decline down the path to hell and this cruel move against people who just wanted to create and emulate an experience they have been constantly denied, mocked, shamed, and ridiculed tremendously. I was about to find myself joining them sooner or later, I learned more about them, AND THEN THIS HAPPENS!!!



This is a game I played with my dad, someone who I grew up barely being able to spend time with alone in the first place. The amount of crap and company worship shown by their loyalists amounts to bootlicking at this point. They don't respect us, they don't even like us, they just want people desperate enough to kiss their ass. Blizzard made a move that will be remembered for years to come.

I curse Overwatch to a fate worse than Wildstar.

[Crash32]

Normally when you make a thread like this, you actually, you know, explain what the topic is about? Instead of just a wall of angry text

[Goat]

Blizzard hit too close to home this time Crash, I'm not bothering with substance yet



Edit: Okay, I'm ready.

How did I fail to explain where they ****** up?

[Crash32]

I have no idea what you're actually talking about.
From what can I gather, Blizzard shut down an illegal server that allowed people to play their paid game for free? You're mad that they prevented some people from stealing their game?

[Goat]

The authoritarian in me has to admit you're right in the sense that this was an illegal server. The cynic in me has to also admit that they wont get the money the people from the server gave it.

Unless you're as interested in talking the morals like Crazo would be, let's look at a few things that Nostralius didn't have that other private servers do.

- Pay to Win
- Profit

Nostralius existed much in the same vein of ToonTown Rewritten, which is a private server that caters to people who cant play the original ToonTown game anymore. Privately upkept and maintained by a dedicated group.

In comparison, Nostralius had it's funds of upkeep and not profit come from sources that were dedicated to Vanilla Warcraft, something that doesn't actually exist anymore in any shape or form anymore in regards to World of Warcraft.

Now, I like to think Blizzard will pull a Tracer Ass and announce soon they'll be opening up Legacy Servers or that they'll be making World of Warcraft fully free to play. As it stands I don't think I or anyone else can rely on that kind of trust with something this brutish and profitless.

Keyword, profitless. Blizzard is acting like a desperate ex-lover in the choice to kill a profitless server, they have as much to gain from doing this as they would if they sued Riot Games over LoL just so more people would play Dota.

[Crash32]

So, the server that gave players free access to a paid game is okay because it wasn't making money off of it's piracy?
And what do you mean by nothing to gain? Perhaps some of these players will actually buy the game now?
Am I understanding this properly?

[Goat]

1. It would make more sense if this was a WOD private server, but it wasn't. It was Vanilla WoW, no one subscribes to Vanilla WoW anymore, Blizzard doesn't make any money off of Vanilla WoW. There's no way anyone could pay Blizzard and subscribe to Vanilla WoW either.

2. The game they were playing doesn't exist anymore, the game they asked for was publicly mocked and insulted by the developers.

[Pufflehugs]

Oh man, is this the TTR of WoW? Then what would be TTI? Also, I know that TTI isn't done for good, they've "closed" before. They'll be back and attacking TTR again before we know it.

[chaoadventures]

Maybe they took it down because the name sounds like a fatal nose infection.

This is like complaining that you can't download ROMs of old video games.
Except there's only one game for the company to track down, so they can just do that whenever.

You're in the wrong (legally) for complaining, yet your position is understandable.

That said, ROM sites go down all the time, but you expected this to last longer? And any company could have done this, to any of their products, therefore,
you have an extremely easy to gain grudge, against one company, for something EVERY COMPANY has.

Anyone with a copyright can do this, man. This happens all the time, in not-so-different situations. Just. Chill.
If Snow Storm or Cookie Ice Cream Cup or whatever the company's name is, is losing profits from it, that's their problem, from their choice, so if you just leave it,
everything will be fine. They'll lose money, and you won't pay them for that game and they'll be punished like that. The end.

Although, I will say having that server up will still essentially let people play the game without buying it, despite being extremely outdated.
If I wanted to pirate a game like that, I would try to find something like Nostril Flare Nostralius. I assume most people didn't come for that though.

But would you advise a company to allow people to play their game for free, while still selling it at the same time themselves? Nope, me neither.
Good intentions, bad outcome. Dynamite was for construction, not war, but it was used anyways.

[Goat]

Dynamite was for construction, not war, but it was used anyways.

The game that was anything like the game people here were playing has been gone since the third expansion pack where they removed everything from the old world.

If I were in charge, I would get Nostralius to work for me and have them be the ones in charge of hosting a legacy server. That way there's an outlet for people who want to pay and play the old game to pay and play the old game.

I'm going to get tired of repeating myself sooner or later, but not now. The code and rebuilding of the old game was Nostralius's work, everything Blizzard has since deleted and removed. These were people who wanted to play the old version, not the new version, these were people who asked to play the old version, and were told by the company itself "You don't want that."

They told us they're not going to give people the old experience, and they took away the only way to play it where people in charge genuinely cared about providing the same experience. They're acting like complete yandere's in the sense of "If I can't have you, no one else will".

As a business strategy, they're fundamentally bankrupt. They've turned away and refused any chances to get these people or their money back. Unless something changes, this gets them nothing.

[BlackLuigi7]

So, the server that gave players free access to a paid game is okay because it wasn't making money off of it's piracy?
And what do you mean by nothing to gain? Perhaps some of these players will actually buy the game now?
Am I understanding this properly?

Nostralius was a vanilla server where all the updates by Blizzard were rolled back. Essentially, that server was forever stuck in 2005-2006 WOW.

You are correct. It was an "Illegal" server. It was free to access. But it had little to none of the expansions or updates Blizzard put out. All the players playing the game weren't playing WOW specifically because they didn't wish to play WOW in its current force-updated state.

The server had been running with Blizzard's knowledge for a good while. I forget how long specifically, but they've known for well over a year and a half that this server had been running. General consensus was the Blizzard was allowing it to run because they didn't mind players playing what essentially was a completely different game, that they are currently putting out for free anyways, if you consider the fact that WOW F2P members have access to the base game, but are locked out of extra content and higher levels. On top of that, Nostralius worked off of donations to run, and didn't set out to specifically make any profit. Out of the blue, Nostralius got a C+D letter from Blizzard, and was forced to shut down.

When asked constantly about it, Blizzard has very plainly simply blown off fans and even outright told them that playing an older version of their game is stupid, that it would be impossible to ever implement an official legacy server, and that if they can't accept the fact that the game is like it is now, and will forever be changed, that they should have just jumped ship. This is where most of the rage comes from; it's a PR nightmare, and is only getting worse.

Many thousands of these players have gone on the record of saying they would gladly pay Blizzard a full subscription fee so they could have access to said legacy server, too. Most of these players are actually veterans who have been with the game for a long time, and once again, do not wish to play the new version of the game due to all the god-awful updates Blizzard has implemented.


That said, you are completely correct. It was essentially a pirated server, even though Blizzard themselves have said that that version of the game and their current version of the game they're selling are completely different, so it's kinda a grey area whether Nostralius has actually done anything "wrong" or not, because most people (again, including Blizzard) feel that 'nilla WOW doesn't directly compete or take away business from regular WOW at this point.

You can probably already see my bias. To me personally, it's really hard to justify Blizzard going in and shutting down a labor of love like this. It'd be like Nintendo finding poular New Super Mario Bros or Pokemon romhacks and completely and utterly shutting the distribution of them down. Sure, it's in their right. And sure, maybe a handful of people are going to play those and not buy the new games..but is that little drop in the bucket now really worth completely alienating your diehard fans in the future?

[Mint]

I'm bothered at the fact that you're misspelling Nostalrius. R.I.P though, I will miss my level 60 UD Rogue and my 19 UD Priest twink.

[Goat]

shhh

[Mint]

That's true love.

[Goat]

[Crash32]

They are adding the Nostalrius expansion pack! Complete with all new features! Coming soon