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Onyxia-Feature

Over the final nine months, we've discussed the fate of the legacy server Nostalrius. The project was first created by a squad of defended Globe of Warcraft players who wanted to experience the game as it existed prior to the launch of The Burning Cause in 2007. Information technology was then hit with a stop-and-desist club from Blizzard and forced to shutdown.

In most cases, that would've been the end of information technology. But the Nostalrius' story was big enough that Blizzard agreed to come across the squad in question, inviting them to visitor HQ and discussing the possibility of a legacy server project. When that coming together didn't produce the results the Nostalrius team hoped for, the group announced information technology had given the Nostalrius lawmaking and character records to a different grouping, named Elysium. Elysium was expected to bring compatible servers online, merge the codebase, and handle graphic symbol transfers.

On Saturday, Nostalrius author Viper posted to the Nostalrius message boards and, subsequently some dithering, fabricated the following request:

Nosotros ask Elysium to join this effort for Legacy realms by stopping to use information that we provided. We know they aim at official legacy realms as nosotros practice. We have already stopped the account transfer procedure from our side as a first pace. Nostalrius community is no longer about private servers, information technology is about official legacy realms.

We will also require your help. Yous are a massive customs and you already got heard. Now you got to explain and convince.

To recap: Nostalrius is requesting that Elysium, which already modified its lawmaking, basically change dorsum. The request seems to cover both characters and server data, since Viper makes specific reference to both. While he attempts to fence that only most x% of the 300,000 Nostalrius accounts had transferred a character to the new Elysium servers, dozens of forum posters immediately cast doubt on this, noting that the token arrangement for transferring characters has been broken for weeks and that few people had e'er had the opportunity to transfer in the first place. If nothing else, the thread seemed to make information technology clear plenty of people wanted to be playing their erstwhile characters just were unable to do so.

The argument Viper presents is giving Nostalrius' source code to Elysium was a mistake, because it may have damaged the crusade of getting official support for legacy servers. This isn't exactly world-shattering; I made a similar statement when Nostalrius appear it would give its code to Elysium. Only if handing code over to Elysium and defiantly declaring that Nostalrius would practise what Blizzard wouldn't was a mistake, then politely asking a separate server to cease using said lawmaking afterward months of piece of work is, at all-time, damned odd.

Elysium has announced that it will transition to a new cadre, codenamed "Anathema." Nostalrius characters that had already transferred to the server are expected to remain, but the Nostalrius-donated core volition exist removed. The team claims the game volition amend every bit a result of this transition, and writes: "Nostalrius handed us the torch, we take no intention of putting it out."

The full Nostalrius thread is here, though it's a veritable hotbed of conspiracy theorizing and insult-hurling. Explanations for this changeabout are thin on the footing, but that hasn't stopped people from arguing that Blizzard must accept some dirt on the Nostalrius devs, as if Mike Morhaime was Jason Bourne.

The legacy server outcome has faltered

Part of the reason why the legacy server move isn't sparking every bit much interest every bit information technology did is because Legion is mostly considered to be a much improve expansion than Warlords of Draenor was. Just part of it, I remember, is because it'due south genuinely difficult to imagine what a sustained legacy server initiative would look similar. I won't deny I'd savor running some old raids again, but would I actually desire to level up to 60 the "former" style, knowing that eventually, my guild is going to have Onyxia, Molten Core, AQ40, and even Naxxramas on subcontract status? What happens afterward? True, it would take years for a server to get to this point, merely Blizzard built Warcraft for the long booty and they're still minting coin, 12 years after.

Legion's gorgeous environments have won the game praise, but the gameplay is solid as well.

Legion's gorgeous environments have won the game praise, but the gameplay is solid too.

One of the features Legion implemented is known as "Timewalking." Every few weeks, a set of Timewalking dungeons from a specific expansion are available. Characters who play them are scaled downward to friction match level-equivalent abilities, and while the dungeons still tend to be easier than they were back in the day, it'south a useful way to showcase older content and give players the experience of running these instances. I don't know that Blizzard added the feature to appease legacy server fans, but information technology does give players the option to revisit old dungeons in similar fashion.

The fundamental problem with legacy servers is that they attempt to freeze the game in fourth dimension, when much of the appeal of an MMO is based on the idea that you lot pay a monthly fee in exchange for eventually accessing new content. Unless Blizzard wants to launch legacy servers for each of its previous expansions, its hard to see how the payment structure would role. The fact that Nostalrius and Elysium are all the same functional at all is prove that Blizzard isn't attacking this trouble as heavily equally information technology could, but these initiatives can only continue to exist until Blizzard says otherwise.