If you guys wanna play vanilla WoW so badly go look for the worst F2P MMO you can find (there’s lots now!) and start playing it. Play it as horribly as you can because it’s STILL gonna be at least 10% better than what vanilla WoW was.
“Blizzard won’t let me use their product in a way they deem inappropriate and I’m mad about it because I am a baby and don’t understand what licensing is”
“I miss the ~original~ game because everything after Cata is The Worst™”
“I miss the vanilla community but instead of moving on to different games like literally everyone else I’m going to play a shifty version of a 10yr old game so I can rub my rose-colored dick all over it and pretend 10 years haven’t actually passed since the last time I had fun”
People complaining about the private server shutdown need to cool it lol, like FOR REALS: WHAT DID YOU ALL THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN??? You’re so surprised! you feel betrayed!? as if Blizzard hasn’t shut down similar servers for similar reasons in the past! as if Blizzard, idk, doesn’t like it when people don’t pay them for their games!
STOP HARASSING BLIZZARD FOR NOT LETTING YOU PLAY THEIR GAME FOR FREE LOL gentle reminder that the rest of us PAY MONEY
I’m saying this because I love you: GROW UP and MOVE ON
These are players who want to play the game they payed for, but can’t because Blizzard decided to kill it and replace it with a different gaming experience. To pretend, to even make the slightest of allusions to the idea, that current WoW is the same experience as vanilla is a level of ignorance that shows you not intelligent enough to have a voice in this discussion.
WoW was fine with the private servers for fucking years. Fucking YEARS.
And now that WoW is hemorrhaging players because the current experience isn’t want the audience wants, they start killing these projects. Simply put, Blizzard is morally wrong here.
Expressing disgust/anger/annoyance isn’t harassment. Writing letters isn’t harassment. Criticism is not harassment.
tl;dr: OP is a pissbaby who thinks Blizzard can do no wrong.
Let’s review.
- “These are players who want to play the game they payed for”
They did get the game they paid for. You spend $15, you get one month of game time for the current game as it is that month. An expansion will come out, and if you want that content, you plunk down the money, and then your sub fee gets you a month of that content.
That’s the game we all pay for.
- “Blizzard decided to kill it and replace it with a different gaming experience.“
The game’s been running for 10 years. There have been five, soon to be six expansions. Does Theseus know Metzen stole his boat? Someone should tell him.
- “WoW was fine with the private servers for fucking years. Fucking YEARS.”
WoW has never been fine with private servers. I played on one back in college that got shut down, and surprise? I got over it, because it wasn’t my game in the first place. It was a copy that someone stole the art assets and mechanics to make. And then I moved on with my life. I could have played another MMO, I could have subscribed to WoW proper, I could have learned to paint landscapes. Blizzard is under no obligation to provide different versions of the game they make just because there’s demand.
- “And now that WoW is hemorrhaging players because the current experience
isn’t want the audience wants, they start killing these projects. Simply
put, Blizzard is morally wrong here.“I’m sorry the server got shut down for whatever reason. It wasn’t yours. If the current game isn’t what you want, feel free to not give those money-grubbers at Blizzard your sub fee, but don’t expect to be entitled to anything for the privilege.
- Expressing disgust/anger/annoyance isn’t harassment. Writing letters isn’t harassment. Criticism is not harassment.
People expressed their disgust, anger, and annoyance at Blizzard. Blizzard said they don’t want to make Vanilla servers. That’s the end of the criticism. Copying their game to play for free is no longer criticism, it is intellectual property theft.
Last I heard, that was the morally wrong part.
I don’t appreciate the OP creating a harassment narrative where there is no place for one, and I got really mad. So I apologize for my tone.
Now, my rebuttal.
Preservation of art history is not copyright infringement. And games are art, and can be Capital A Art. Regardless of what can be said about its own merit as a game, its cultural impact makes it Art.
Any legal gray area here comes from the argument that while WoW is not the same experience it once was, it may be the same artistic installation. That’s it. Because art preservation is not illegal, its not morally or legally wrong to preserve a game so it can be experienced. However, it is morally wrong to destroy art for financial or ideological reasons – which is why Blizzard’s unwillingness to support legacy servers makes it a moral imperitave that fans do it elsewhere.
Blizzard said they don’t want to make Vanilla servers. That’s the end of the criticism.
I’m sorry, but no. There is no end of the criticism. In fact, stonewalling in the face of fan demand calls for more criticism. Because they’re forcing the fans to step into a legal gray areas to preserve the art they love.
This is not art preservation. This is taking copyrighted materials outside of the existing terms of use.
Games are art. Artistic preservation is important. World of Warcraft is no one’s art but Blizzard’s, to do with as they want, and for other people who like that art to give them $15/month to play it.
If you want to preserve the artistic experience, wait for the copyright to expire and then raid AQ to your heart’s content.
Also, I don’t know what I’m doing out here at the 300 yard line, because this goalpost just got moved very far away from where it started.
I wasn’t intending to move a goal post. I simply calmed down reflected on why I was angry, and reassessed my opinion.
And my opinion is that artistic preservation falling under fair use even for games is more important than Blizzard being pissy over tanking subscription numbers.
As an artist myself, I do not get mad that my old art that I don’t like is still archived at places paheal where I can’t purge it. I have no right to, since it was released to the public and the fans, few as there may be, have every right to access it even now.
You keep banging on about just play the new game. But why? Why should I have to settle for the old game? Because Blizzard is afraid it will be more popular than newer stuff? I mean, they just killed a server whose admin were adamant that they created the server as art preservation, but also had something like 80,000 people who had made it clear that they like the older game over the newer one.
Now lets assume I didn’t drop the game once I made 70 on my pally in Crusade and still have an interest in playing MMOs. Or just wanted to get back into playing that one. Now I fire it up and I literally hate the gaming experience. Why can’t I just play the game I stopped playing? How is it consumer friendly or morally right to bar me from playing the game I invested money and time into? Nvm, you’re not going to answer that with anything that makes sense.
Blind fanboyism at its finest.
As an artist myself, I do not get mad that my old art that I don’t like is still archived at places paheal where I can’t purge it. I have no right to, since it was released to the public and the fans, few as there may be, have every right to access it even now.
That’s not how copyright works at all. As the creator you have exclusive control over how your work is reproduced and distributed. Anyone distributing it without your express authorization is violating your copyright.
Blizzard has this same right. They don’t want you setting up private servers, they have the copyright, you don’t get to set up private servers. If you don’t like it, get copyright law changed.