Before I'll continue, here is my feeling about this all, and not only about private servers, but also about all the people screaming at each other over the internet at the moment.
For those that played on Nostalrius (or are playing on a PS), what did you expect? You where basically playing an illegal copy of a game and the company that made it was not getting any money from it. That is the same as copying compact-discs and giving them away to your friends, or downloading a movie, both of which are illegal in most countries on this world. So now Blizzard decided to end it, which is in their rights. Accept it and move on. It doesn't matter if Nostalrius was a big server, and Blizzard once said that Vanilla-servers would not be feasible, that is another discussion. All the rights for World of Warcraft are with Blizzard (or Activision).
For those that didn't play on Nostalrius, why do you care? Some people on the internet where enjoying themselves with something that didn't hurt you, and didn't hurt anyone else. Do you care if someone is watching an illegal downloaded movie? And are all your disc original? Yes, I know that a lot of those PS-players thought they always knew better, or didn't paid for it, while you had to pay cash to play World of Warcraft, but did that really hurt you? Blizzard closed it down, a 'What did they expect' is all the thoughts you should have about it.
Yes, I know, it's the internet, everyone wants to reply to everyone. But do remember:
We are all World of Warcraft players
What I read on the forums was mostly Nostalrius players driving home that there where a lot of players that wanted to play Vanilla, while the non-PS players are mostly referring to laws of copyright, or 'don't look at the past'.
referring to the law, is of course correct, but really doesn't help any discussion, it is only inflamatory mostly. Everyone knows private servers are outside the law, but it wouldn't be a WoW-forum to really make sure you know...a hundred times over. There where also some comment about fair use, but a.f.a.i.k. this isn't true with private servers. Fair use does not give you the right to copy stuff outright, you may use some little parts, but not 90%.
The idea that many players wanted to play vanilla is also not completely correct. Nostalrius boosted about 150k active accounts. Which seems like a nice number, but if you think about it is actually not that big of a number. And how many of those 150k would actually pay for a vanilla-server. I think that if Blizzard actually could get money of vanilla-servers, they would make them.
There are also some 'don't look to the past'-posts. They come down to people simply saying play the current patch or bust. Who cares what came before. Why would you actually want to go back to that period. Normally followed by some rose-colored glasses, and 'but all was better back than'. Trust me, it wasn't.... having said that, all isn't better now either.
I've yet to see a single lucid argument as to why legacy servers shouldn't exist for those who want them. Everything boils down to one preference being more important than another, and I think that's a tragic way for a community to be reacting to itself. Rather than supporting one another and accepting the diversity of our preferences, the belief is that a sizeable chunk of the community should be chased off.
- C. Whyte (commenting on alternative-blog)
This remark really hits the nail on his head. This community should start looking at themselves. Especially posters on forums. What kind of message are we giving to the new players that come in now, or later this year, after the movie.
We should accept our differences, some like it red, some like it blue.
...and just as an afterthought,
I played on Nostalrius
After some posts about 'how it was', I wanted to refresh my memory, and do some blogposts about it, I was doing it for research :p. So, last week I made an account, and I just got my first level 20 last Wednesday-evening...
Time for you to guess how much /played was on that character..... some things were not that great.
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