And it still is, but that ocean is shrinking fast World of Warcraft subscription numbers are dwindling. That’s the number of people who “don’t want this”.Īt one time, those numbers would have been a drop in the ocean. At peak times, that number would almost double to fifteen thousand three times the usual capacity of official Blizzard servers. Nostalrius boasted nearly a million registered accounts, with usual active server populations of eight thousand people. A product that near single-handedly brought Blizzard to the prominence it enjoys today.īut, Blizzard believes that we don’t really want this. What it must be to have such faith in your product. It’s not hard to believe that they see classic WoW as outdated, archaic – a product of its time, now regarded with disdain by its creators. Patronisingly, Blizzard sees us as children, expecting us to drop the mode after a few weeks. So why haven’t Blizzard created classic servers of their own? Because they firmly believe that people don’t really want it. It’s not abandonware, but only by a technicality. But this means that everything Nostalrius Begins recreates is no longer available. And despite my past insistence that Cataclysm cured me of my Warcraft addiction, there’s little merit to the idea that this was a bad thing. Every piece of content that was present when World of Warcraft originally launched in 2004 was completely remade in the 2010 Cataclysm expansion that famously “broke” the old world and allowed Blizzard to re-envision Azeroth as a more modern MMO experience. The thing is, “Old Azeroth” no longer exists. Technically, Nostalrius Begins does this, and it’s Blizzard’s duty to see that World of Warcraft’s rights are upheld. I’m being melodramatic – Blizzard has the right to close down anything that infringes on their copyright. Many an hour was spent here, waiting for raidsĪnd now it’s gone – killed by the very company that originally created it. Gone were the heirlooms, hastened levelling curve, and the ridiculously easy early dungeons that now pollute the WoW experience – and back was the pure MMORPG experience that so many of us knew and loved. The original World of Warcraft experience. Unlike other private realms, Nostalrius Begins spurned the idea of faster levelling, increased gold gain, and purchased bonuses in favour of delivering the only thing that mattered to a lot of people. I have supped from the cup of nostalgia and played on Nostalrius’s server. In a bittersweet post on their front page, World of Warcraft private realm-providers Nostalrius Begins have revealed that Blizzard Entertainment have begun legal proceedings to shut them down. Gerry Rafferty sang this about the nature of London – but these days, it’s clear that various video game companies fit that criticism just as well. It’s got so many people, but it’s got no soul
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