Stfuppercut Its the closest to a finished "product", even if their decisions have been questionable towards game design etc. Every game has always been a blizzlike product with minimal bugs etc (compared to many other studios with this scale of a game). And they think players always want it super approachable, which is a bummer.

I kinda understand blizzards point when they do 1.12 only, they probably thought of it to be a minigame of sorts. You main retail and go fool around in classic abit. With that ideology the player wouldnt want a "bad" product, he would feel bad if you couldnt suddenly use your dots in a dungeon cos warriors sunders drop etc. He just wants to have some fun play around maybe go check out the new raids and be done with it. If you would have to put loads of effort into it, nobody would touch it ( in their minds) and thats why they also went the minimal effort route. I imagine this way they can cut off valuable work hours even if it wouldnt be much but if I have understood correctly blizz is not floating as well as before. Everything from upgrading loot tables researching talent things implementing em etc prolly cost thousands of dollars and would they want to sink em if they thought its not worthwhile. Would be fun if they tried launching progressive servers (maybe also modified servers?) like in a year or so, but I feel like its not coming, they have always been against things like these because it truthfully can be a bit confusing if you dont implement it right and splits the playerbase. But I still think it would bring fresh air to classic and keep it rolling like a boulder downhill.

I dont have a crystal ball but many things has pointed to some kind of version for this "fun goofing around nothing serious" vibe in blizzards interviews etc.

I think they just didnt believe, I hope they do somethin awesome next but I think its just gonna be blatantly TBC with 1 patch again like they did classic or something similar. Its still better than anything the market offers but it wouldnt be the "dream" decision for me.

There are countless of awesome options for blizz to keep this shit fresh and bring new longetivity but I fear its not coming.

Are they a euro guild.?

Well color me surprised. Grats to them!
I think I mentioned that there was a 30% or so chance to do a week 1 Rag clear, and I've been proven wrong (technically I wasn't wrong hehehe).

I think the "cannot be done" people were more focused on the rep requirements / getting enough people to max / near max level, and the logistics of things, and not the "Vanilla is harder than private servers" (Because we saw in various reports that pservers were upping the damage/HP of bosses/mobs in dungeons and raids to make them more challenging) approach.

I also don't think this takes anything from MY gameplay experience. This actually means the (earlier?) raids are more accessible therefore even casual / social guilds have a strong chance of setting foot in these raids. And since the content isn't going anywhere, people can take their sweet time getting there.

Stfuppercut Its the closest to a finished "product", even if their decisions have been questionable towards game design etc.

Was it? How can you quantify which is closer. Perhaps some of the values on private were inaccurate but layering has a massive impact on the authenticity of the project. What about raid difficulty? Classic values are more accurate BUT they lack progressive itemization and have more debuff slots... At this point I cant say either product is more or less accurate. I will say that private tended to capture or preserve more of the actual difficulty of vanilla while Classic runs a lot smoother and has some better scripting. I dont know if anyone could classify which product was more authentic due to the nuances of that discussion. However, private is more challenging flat out. Private servers were the heroic version of vanilla. Retail vanilla was normal mode and Classic is raid finder.

Dont get me wrong, I LOVE Classic, but I would also swallow a massive turd if it had Classic written on the side of it - I just like WoW period, even if Classic could have been a whole lot better.

As I said they just went the most user friendly, fun/goofingaround/minigame, most cost efficient route. Because they didnt believe.

I hope we get a prpgressive server launch but 99.9% there is no chance its gonna happen. And the sam3 thing is gonna happen with BC launch and its gonna take alot away from this project like it did here.

As I said they just went the most user friendly, fun/goofingaround/minigame, most cost efficient route. Because they didnt believe.

I hope we get a prpgressive server launch but 99.9% there is no chance its gonna happen. And the sam3 thing is gonna happen with BC launch and its gonna take alot away from this project like it did here.

I agree with all of this, but I also dont believe that it is the most accurate product to vanilla given the vast differences that have been created. There is an argument either way to which is more authentic, Classic or Private, but we can all agree that Classic is THE easiest version of vanilla we have ever played.

Probably and most likely yes, I kinda dont mind this version cos I know vanilla would not test my personal skill set unless heaaaavvily modified no matter the version (not a brag) , we doin circles now so lets hope blizz gets something out that would make us both even more happy down the road.

I am super happy that I got to experience private and for those of us who did, we understand how massive the nerf to difficulty is while entering Classic, especially in raids as private was intentionally tuned to be more challenging.

I didn't realize this. How "massive" is the difference, really?

I didn't realize this. How "massive" is the difference, really?

Really significant when you consider the massive shift in talents and class performance throughout the course of vanilla. You are getting the 1.12 version of classes. This is a big deal.

Debuff slots are insanely important, so consider that going from 8 slots to 16 allows raids to stack POWERFUL debuffs like https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=23653/nightfall and https://classic.wowhead.com/item=12798/annihilator but allows raids to avoid difficult decisions and allows them to simply use ALL of the valuable debuffs simultaneously. A luxury that wasnt present for people progressing through early vanilla. This obviously has significant impacts on a raids throughput.

No progressive itemization, so you are getting a very buffed version of many pieces of gear. So the gear you are acquiring in raids is often far more powerful during the initial game than it was in actual vanilla.

There are other nuances to consider as well but these are some of the most glaring indirect nerfs to the content.

Every half-decent *newly formed* guild can do this kind of kill (undergeared and undermanned) after a couple months leveling and coordinating their team.

These guys are not a newly formed guild, they've been doing this kind of thing on a perpetual PTR (to give an analogy everyone would understand) for years upon years.

Not a lot of guilds have the kind of people that would rush to 60 (or high enough level) in the first week and able to compress all that game time and experience in so short a period.
Yes it is an accomplishment but these are the parameters. Just to put it in perspective.

Now all the posturing about private servers being "harder" and this somehow being the reason the private server team - having beaten the harder version - stomped over Method is utter bullshit. :lol:
The two versions are similar and there's a lot of subtle mechanics that miss in private servers all over the game (RSTS being a very obvious example)
They did this despite playing a similar version of the game, not because of it.

Edit: I'm also happy and rooting for an amateur anything team beating a professional sponsored team, who doesn't love an underdog, so this is not me ragging on APES, just tone down the chest thumping a little bit :wink:

Too be honest I didn't think this would be possible not that guilds/people can't play every waking moment to get it done but server stability would stop it or slow it down enough to be a two week kill.

I mean I couldn't even log in the first day because of 7 hour queues...and I hear people getting kicked/disconnected and then cant join for 5 hours...
Not sure what server they are on, didn't look it up...
I thought it would be hard to get 40 people with the queues and issues to slow them down enough but I guess not lol

Grats to them

Now all the posturing about private servers being "harder" and this somehow being the reason the private server team - having beaten the harder version - stomped over Method is utter bullshit.

It's true that it probably dont make any difference. Vanilla is about preparation and knowledge first and foremost. But that being said, the private servers are grossly overtuned compared to Classic.