What went wrong over the years? Why won't blizzard open

Horde was utterly and completely ruined when they added blood elves

>>386978697
They probably could pull it off if they really wanted to but as it stands Warcraft is just to keep their share prices steady. Its much more profitable to sell a new xpac than it is to potentially (not that I really agree with this argument) compromise it by investing in the old game.
Also I genuinally believe a lot of people would see just how souless modern WoW has become, it would be embarrassing for the new devs and the company. Also bear in mind these people unironically said "You think you do, but you don't." that's almost as bad as that 'fun is a buzzword' guy.

>>386978786
They needed a way to add paladins for horde to balance the factions.

>>386978697
they made the game less focus on the MMO subject and focus more so everyone could play it and fell special.

>>386978951
Blood elves were added Horde mainly for faction imbalance, unless I'm mistaken. I'm pretty sure that was the official reason, I think.

>>386978697
cross-servers
garrisons
everyone is the chosen one.

inb4 "Muh woman hiring SJW Blizz"
>>386979106
>Everyone is the chosen one
This has been going on since Wrath.

>>386979246
The only person that has brought that up so far is you.

>>386978697
I think what went 'wrong' is they decided they wanted to appeal to a broader audience to rake in money, and in doing so dumbed down game so exponentially its completely unrecognisable. 'Modern' 'gamers' want instant gratification, and apparently they want MMO's to be single player experiences. Ultimately I would say its down to Blizzard being money hungry. There's definitely a market for the old school experience but Blizzard obviously believes its not as profitable as repackaging the game every xpac for $60 a piece. Maybe in the future when the subs run low enough they'll offer legacy servers. By then however I expect most of us will be in our thirties.

>>386978951
And now the Horde is 90% elf shitters and thus no longer horde.

>>386979027
The excuse was that alliance numbers on servers trumped horde numbers by a 3:1 ratio. Yet Horde won 90% of pvp echanges.

>>386978951
>implying Blizzard wasn't ready to rape the original Warcraft lore however they wanted
>implying Tauren paladins didn't come soon after
>implying

>>386980151
>The excuse was that alliance numbers on servers trumped horde numbers by a 3:1 ratio. Yet Horde won 90% of pvp echanges.
Yeah I thought it was something like that, I did play back then its honestly been a very long time.

>>386979389
Yeah, and hopefully it stays that way.

>>386978697
Blizzards official answer to why there is no vanilla is it's to much work.

>>386979998
Partially this.
They have "trimmed" a lot of features over the years that have made the game less of a World of Warcraft, and morphed it into a raid treadmill. Shit like Hunter Pet Happiness, a lot of "fun" abilities, and much more flexible character construction was torn down to make way for dungeons being king. It used to be that dungeons weren't the norm, and it was a real accomplishment to get one done. Now, characters hit level 15 and never need to do another quest again.
Shit like Heirlooms have made the game virtually unplayable for anyone new, since everyone else has outright silly stats and levels faster, and has mounts out the gate leaving the new player slogging through a shitty grind simulator not balanced for them for a gorillion years until they get to be one of the cool kids who skip the game as well.
Most of the quests are meaningless collections of animal parts, or else epic awesome dudebro shit that ruins immersion, and the game has fucked up timeline shit, where your place in time varies wildly based on what area you are in and what the developers have decided to move around, destroying any narrative value the game could have, even moreso than other MMO's.

PvP has always been a lost cause, and largely is only used to grief people outside of battlegrounds, which combines with the embedded oldfag root to make the game very unwelcoming to newcomers, even beyond the actual structure of the game.

Basically, the game is now only for the people who are already there forever, making it unpalatable garbage for anyone with the slightest ability to discern taste at all. It's actually pretty sad. It used to be popular for a reason.

Does it even really matter if vanilla servers are made? The only fun that came from vanilla was the social aspect and the fact that you didn't know everything about the game because data-mining wasn't a thing.

The actual game aspect of vanilla WoW was fucking awful and spending time on Nostalrious just solidified that for me. Having a fucking quest item needed that had a low droprate, but also also like a bunch of other people camping and killing said quest mob sucked dick. Wouldn't accept any group invites or invite me to theirs, fucking bullshit.

>>386978786
>just queue for random dungeon for leveling
>every single person i get is a blood elf

>>386981215
>but also also like a bunch of other people camping and killing said quest mob sucked dick. Wouldn't accept any group invites or invite me to theirs, fucking bullshit.
I had some of that in my experience but overall I honestly felt like the gameplay experience was recreated. Especially the WPVP I forgot how much fund it could be, though the ganking was could be silly several months in it wasn't that drastically different from Al'akir EU PVP. The PVP server did have selfish people but it was very rare that stuff like that happened to me, the PVE server was filled with friendly oldfags if my experience is anything to go by.

>>386981787
ganking was silly at times several months in*

People don't miss actual vanilla or TBC. They miss the social interactions they had, but they will never have those again since gaming communities have gone to shit thanks to programs like Skype and Discord.

>>386982261
>You think you do, but you don't.
There's that meme again.

>>386980249
>soon after

Tauren Paladins were quite a few years later.

Because it's a very big bruise to the ego to admit that there is a considerable chunk of players who prefer the game how it was in the past.

Personally I say embrace it. Old School Runescape often beats RS3 in terms of current players online but I don't think Jagex mind one bit when it's time to head to the bank.

Stop the Vanilla meme
We want new gender/sex, trannies and the end of Horde-Alliance war.

>>386982632
Hasn't Old School Runescape retained the majority of its initial subs as well, something like 90%?

>>386982638
Players only want more of one of those four things.

Blizzard saw the success of EQ and thought, "What if we took EQ and made it completely soloable and extremely casual?".

Blizzard then released World of Warcraft to great success enticing people who normally couldn't dedicate enough time to MMOs before it.

The issue here is that World of Warcraft broke all the rules of what makes MMOs MMOs.
>No need for player interaction
>Extensive use of built-in fast travel (not player run)
>No penalty upon dying
>Monsters aren't difficult to kill nor pose any danger
And it only got worse from there as the game went on..
>Cross server content
>Dungeon finder
>Portals in every major city to every major city
>Flying mounts

WoW turned modern "MMOs" into Facebook/MSN/Myspace.

Now every other AAA publisher saw what Blizzard did and wanted to make a quick buck as well. So for the next 10 years we got these HUGE budget WoW clones expecting to build up the same subscription numbers as Blizzard. Well it turns out that the target audience wasn't as big as these companies expected and almost every single one of these games crashed and burned.

Meanwhile anyone still playing MMOs before WoW are growing up. They don't have 8 hours a day to put into FFXI/EQ/DaoC/etc. They start playing WoW/WoW-clones as well. Younger people have no idea what MMOs were before WoW and play WoW-clones as their "first" MMOs.

We'll never get another true AAA MMO, but that's okay. There are some niche games coming from veteran developers who worked on the classics. Pantheon, Ashes of Creation, Camelot Unchained, etc. And bigger publishers are starting to get more experimental, but unfortunately still playing it too safe with how casual the games are. We should be happy with that. In the meanwhile, private servers like project99 are extremely populated and great fun.

It could be a while, but there'll be a return of true MMOs.

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235KB, 1152x864px

>>386978697
I'd be happy with just some lvl 60 PvP now and then.

>>386983738
/spit

>>386982347
A few years is like 10-20% of WoW's life span.

>>386983563
>The issue here is that World of Warcraft broke all the rules of what makes MMOs MMOs.
>No need for player interaction
>Extensive use of built-in fast travel (not player run)
>No penalty upon dying
>Monsters aren't difficult to kill nor pose any danger

None of this was true when the game was released, though.

>>386987815
Tauren paladins came in 2010, the game came out in 2004

>>386988151
All of those were true for Vanilla.

If you think having to repair your armor is a penalty for death or having to run back to your body, you're a 2004-babby.

>>386978697

they tried to appeal to a casual audience and alienated their 'hardcore' gamers. now they have a player base of dilettantes and soccer moms with zero loyalty.

>>386988736
>>386983563

you could solo level , but if you wanted any loot beyond greens you needed to find groups that were somewhat competent. Vanilla was pretty punishing compared to neoWoW, but certainly not as punishing as EQ.

>>386979246
And Wrath was the beginning of the end.

>>386978697

why are these guys standing next ot each other

shouldn't they be fighting

>The excuse was that alliance numbers on servers trumped horde numbers by a 3:1 ratio. Yet Horde won 90% of pvp echanges.

The numbers thing was at least partially down to the alliance having much better starting areas than horde. Both better designed and more aesthetically pleasing (kalimdor is mostly barren wilderness).

PvP is mostly due to the horde having vastly superior PvP racials in those days and the fact horde has always attracted the edgy teenage crowd that was more inclined to PvP anyway.

>>386990056

probably like the best guilds on their server that co-operated to get the AQ event done , not level 20 plebes that kill on sight

>>386983563
Sounds like you didn't play in vanilla because a lot of that wasn't the case. Even doing simple quests in the starting zones you'd team up with a random guy and still probably die pulling 1 or 2 extra mobs. Players and classes were shitty back then so if you wanted to do anything off the main road it was best to get at least another person to help you.

Gryphons and wyverns were used but just getting to them was the difficult part as you couldn't get a mount til 40, and even then it was hard to afford one.

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207KB, 600x453px

>>386980313
Did we ever get solid PvP Numbers during Vanilla/BC days? I started off as Alliance for my first Char and everyone was constantly going on about how "the horde always kick our asses". Eventually I wanted to try out "the other half" of the game and made a Horde character. Everyone was constantly saying how "The Alliance always kick our asses"

>>386990920
Alliance dominated Alteracy Valley on my server and then my battlegroup when crossrealm BGs happened. Horde tended to do well at WSG, AB, EotS. On Al'akir EU it was pretty much 50/50 split but overall the playerbase was majority Alliance. There's probably some somewhere but digging them up is a hassle and I'm lazy.

>>386978697

One of the reasons, among many, is because people would just eventually get bored.

I did, multiple times throughout vanilla, BC and eventually private servers. Even when I was GMing two heavily populated servers over the past decade it was still boring.

>>386991373
>people would just eventually get bored.
Yes and no, I think there would be a core audience for it. I definitely think Blizzard could come up with a system to make things, at least having people be subbed/owning the latest xpac.

>>386990920
Horde won a majority of pickup games on most servers with some notable exceptions. Alliance did do better in AV on most servers, however.

premade groups almost always stomped pickups into the ground, however, hence creating the perception that the other side dominated. If two premades ran into each other the faction that most often won pickup games on the server would defer and let the other team win so they could easily get into another game.

>>386990920
>>386992337
alliance typically does better in AV because of the bridge
that stupid fucking bridge