#1 - Aug. 11, 2011, 9:27 p.m.
WARNING: I do not intend to start a flame war of any sort and I am not trolling the forums. All I wish for is for my question(s) to be answered, and to know the communities opinion on this subject. And, since I do not intend to start a flame war or troll, I will not be replying to flamers or trolls. Thanks.
Alright, to start this off, let me tell you a tiny bit about myself. I have played world of warcraft since its US launch in November of 2004, and I feel in love the moment I started playing. It took me a while, but I eventually made it to level 60 after about 4 tries (changing characters, rerolling, ect.) and I joined a raiding guild whose name has slipped my mind in the flood of guilds I’ve been a part of over the years. We gradually grew to be a rather tight knit guild and progressed and a moderate pace, until we hit our biggest challenge: Naxxramas. We had gotten a late start, and had a rocky rise, but we were finally at the pinnacle of content, the penultimate boss: Sapphiron! Well, after many, many, attempts on Sapphiron we decided to take a week break to recuperate and get ready to down her! So I spent my week lounging and watching TV, I was 12 at the time, and then logged on on Tuesday ready to go, but I arrived to a guild message reading “Taking a longer break before BC, see y’all whenever”. Most of the guild left, for some unknown reason, and dispersed among the other guilds on the server. That was where I quit out of anger, I’m still not even sure why I was so mad, but I quit and blamed the Burning Crusade for the death of my Guild. And I did not log back onto WoW until Wrath of the Lich King, and things had changed.
TL;DR: BC came out, my guild died, I was sad :(
But, now to present my question to Blizzard; Blizzard, is there any mechanical reason for why you cannot and will not create some sort of version 1.12.1, or even earlier, World of Warcraft servers? I have read that you would rather look forward to the future than dwell in the past, but my question remains; Why? I can understand not wanting to dwell in the past, from a human standpoint, but, as a company, why would you not want to cash in on something that could potentially generate millions upon millions of dollars a year? I too get that with 10, or so, Million subscribers (150 Million dollars a month, or 1.8 Billion dollars a year) makes 3 million dollars look like nothing, but it is still revenue! I know dozens of people who would be willing to resubscribe and pay the 15 dollars a month to play classic again, and those dozens know dozens more and it creates a snowball effect. Many players have been driven to either different games or, worse yet, Private servers, to attempt to recapture what they felt so many years ago. I started this game as a young boy who loved the concepts of magic and monsters, dungeons and dragons, but I am now a young man who still yearns for the same things that I did years and years ago.
So, this is my cry out to you Blizzard, this is what shall earn me my seal of approval from myself. I have always wondered if there was any way to change things, and this is my attempt at doing so. So, just let me repeat my question; is there an actual, mechanical, reason that a Classic World of Warcraft server cannot be hosted by you? If the issue is not mechanical, and is merely you’re choosing to keep your head firming facing forward and refusing to glance back at the past, even for a moment, then I have another question to ask; is there a way I could change your mind? I am furiously passionate about this idea, and I will do anything to sway your mind if there is a way. Whether it be through petitions or letters or what have you, I will try everything to change your mind about this idea.
And now, community, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. Tell us your opinion, tell us whether you love to see something like this at some point, or if you would rather all the nuts like me would just disappear and you’d never need to hear the words “vanilla” “classic” and “wow” in the same sentence ever again.
-Livandria
