Classic Servers

[utukali]

Hello there, I do not know if you guys heard but Blizzard announced that they are going to create Classic Servers for World of Warcraft. What happens in Classic Servers is that you play server with mechanics and environment of the game without and expansion packs. A lot of people hyped over this and I am guessing it will add massive playerbase back to Blizzard. So why not Lord of the Rings Online? I would love, I mean LOVE to see SSG do the same. It will not cost much since old files should be somehwre within reach, and if not creating old content again should be much easier than coming up with new ideas. So plase SSG, consider this. I am sure that you will make really good profit out of this.


RIP English

[Feadel]

Hello there, I do not know if you guys heard but Blizzard announced that they are going to create Classic Servers for World of Warcraft. What happens in Classic Servers is that you play server with mechanics and environment of the game without and expansion packs. A lot of people hyped over this and I am guessing it will add massive playerbase back to Blizzard. So why not Lord of the Rings Online? I would love, I mean LOVE to see SSG do the same. It will not cost much since old files should be somehwre within reach, and if not creating old content again should be much easier than coming up with new ideas. So plase SSG, consider this. I am sure that you will make really good profit out of this.


RIP English

There have been a few threads about this before. There are various reasons given as to why it can't happen.

Mainly, the Code for SoA no longer exists in a form that can be used. Years of patches, changes, revamps, etc. have altered the game so that it no longer exists in its original form. (This is paraphrased from various Dev notes and responses.)

Secondly, "Classic" LotRo wasn't nearly as good as everyone recalls. Do you really want to go back to paying 5 gold for a horse? Mob aggro range and density was much higher. Fellowships were required to do the Epics (and a lot of other content). Collecting legendary skill pages.

While there were some things that were 'better' about pre Moria SoA, most people forget the problems and troubles and only remember the 'good' stuff. It's an idea, but not really a good or feasible one.

A lot of people would rather see their money spent on fixing the game as it is, instead of trying to bring back the mythical glory days.

[ertr]

Hello there, I do not know if you guys heard but Blizzard announced that they are going to create Classic Servers for World of Warcraft. What happens in Classic Servers is that you play server with mechanics and environment of the game without and expansion packs. A lot of people hyped over this and I am guessing it will add massive playerbase back to Blizzard. So why not Lord of the Rings Online? I would love, I mean LOVE to see SSG do the same. It will not cost much since old files should be somehwre within reach, and if not creating old content again should be much easier than coming up with new ideas. So plase SSG, consider this. I am sure that you will make really good profit out of this.

This is something which has been discussed many times before, and there is at least one other active thread started due to Blizzard's announcement.
See some of those other threads for a more complete answer, but the short version is that it would be a lot more work to set up a "classic" LOTRO server than you realize. Besides, the people wanting a "classic" server do not all agree on exactly what such a server should entail.
Also, while lots of people would likely try out a "classic" server most of them would likely leave after a few weeks for various reasons - making it highly dubious that such a server would make enough money to make it profitable for SSG.

[Snowlock]

There have been a few threads about this before. There are various reasons given as to why it can't happen.

Mainly, the Code for SoA no longer exists in a form that can be used. Years of patches, changes, revamps, etc. have altered the game so that it no longer exists in its original form. (This is paraphrased from various Dev notes and responses.)

I don't know if this is true. It's been stated a few times, I agree. But so has things like, we can't do cosmetic weapons. We can't give mail to monster players. Sometimes Turbine just went with the easy answer of "We Can't." it seems. It could be true though. They've said the scaled instances they broke up can't be reverted as those previous versions don't exist.

Secondly, "Classic" LotRo wasn't nearly as good as everyone recalls. Do you really want to go back to paying 5 gold for a horse? Mob aggro range and density was much higher. Fellowships were required to do the Epics (and a lot of other content). Collecting legendary skill pages.

Well that's purely subjective. I'd pay 5 gold for a horse, and run until level 35. I'd love to have to group again, if everyone did so there was actually a community built around it. Collecting Legendary pages pales in comparison to the grind of Legendary Items and Essences, and trait points.

Because SOA itself went through it's own steady stream of revisions, it'd be interesting to see what point they decided to encompass. WOuld they simply pick Book 15 at the stopping point? Seems reasonable. That would give us crafting shards and battles and those writ things that I barely remember. But then we wouldn't get the "classic" Old Forest or Angmar. I think the big winner would be PVP.

A lot of people would rather see their money spent on fixing the game as it is, instead of trying to bring back the mythical glory days.

I don't think SSG is going to "fix the game" whatever that means, and I disagree this notion that you seem to think you are the authority over how people remember things.

The real obstacle I believe is that the Game Engine is updated and then the game is pushed to the servers so I don't think there can be two separate instances of different versions of LOTRO. But then again, that's what Turbine told us so...

[Constrictions]

you are the authority over how people remember things.

So ... tempting ...

LMAO. If only you could tag other forum users xD

[Mandura]

Mainly, the Code for SoA no longer exists in a form that can be used. Years of patches, changes, revamps, etc. have altered the game so that it no longer exists in its original form. (This is paraphrased from various Dev notes and responses.)

Any proper software developer uses some kind of version control to keep track of all changes made to a particular software product. Be that SVN, Git or something similar.
You are always able to check-out a previous revision in exactly the same state it was in when the revision was committed to the repository.

Saying the code no longer exist can only be true if they deleted those earlier revisions from the repository.
However, I can't think of any reason why anyone would to do that though.



I'd love to be able to play SoA again. Heck, even the other caps like MoM, Mirkwood or Isengard. Having these expansions get re-released on a legacy server over time would be great

But I highly doubt this will ever happen...

[Snowlock]

So ... tempting ...

LMAO. If only you could tag other forum users xD

Look, I don't know you or what you're butthurt about, but if you're going to follow me from thread to thread to troll, you should probably get a hobby or something.

[Denhith]

Classic servers will never happen in LotRO.
Blizzard has already stated they had to bring in an entirely separate team for the classic server.
SSG doesn't even have the resources to run LotRO (ideally).
Put it out of your mind, save yourself the disappointment.

[Ferathyr]

There have been a few threads about this before. There are various reasons given as to why it can't happen.

Mainly, the Code for SoA no longer exists in a form that can be used. Years of patches, changes, revamps, etc. have altered the game so that it no longer exists in its original form. (This is paraphrased from various Dev notes and responses.)

Secondly, "Classic" LotRo wasn't nearly as good as everyone recalls. Do you really want to go back to paying 5 gold for a horse? Mob aggro range and density was much higher. Fellowships were required to do the Epics (and a lot of other content). Collecting legendary skill pages.

While there were some things that were 'better' about pre Moria SoA, most people forget the problems and troubles and only remember the 'good' stuff. It's an idea, but not really a good or feasible one.

A lot of people would rather see their money spent on fixing the game as it is, instead of trying to bring back the mythical glory days.

Funny thing is those points and quotes are exactly what Blizzard said for a few years as well yet here we are with them announcing Vanilla servers.

That said I don't think Vanilla servers would be any good for Lotro. I suspect there is barely enough of a population in the current servers to even think about any more servers, vanilla or otherwise. Also, the forced grouping that was around when Lotro was released (no solo mode for the epics, needing groups for final quests of solo quest chains etc) almost killed the game back then never mind now.

[maartena]

There is a different way of doing this that MIGHT be possible:

Legacy Kinships

With this you would be able to form a kinship, and immediately set a level limit of level 50, 60, 65, 75, 85, 95, 100, 105 or 115 - depending on where you want to be. A member of this kinship cannot level beyond the level set by the kinship, and a person that is of a higher level cannot become a member of this kinship. The level change can either be done by a leader, OR it can be done by SSG so that all kinships progress at the same time.

A kinship like this will exist on the current servers, using the current patch level, the current loot rules and open tapping rules, etc, etc.... this is a compromise that can't be changed, as others have said above it will be very cumbersome and almost impossible to maintain two different patch level servers, especially since part of your client is also updated and patched with each patch. So the entire world would be available (meaning a level 50 max kinship member CAN make their way to Isengard or Rohan or Gondor if they think they can survive the journey.) Quests like Vol II book 1 would be available at level 50 max, and you could have your basic legendary item while on level 50 max setting. These things cannot be avoided....

But kinships like this CAN better focus on the end-content of the kinship level setting, without every single character having to buy a stone of the tortoise, and without members accidentally leveling to 51 or so.... At 50, your experience will stop until the kinship gets its level increased to the next expansion level.

There are advantages to both ways of setting the new level: If in control of the kinship leader, the level can be upped when they are ready. If in control of SSG, say on a 6-month interval, you may have a better chance of finding quest and/or raid buddies, as it could be your kinship is too small....

In addition to a legacy kinship, you should also be able to put your single character in legacy mode, meaning you won't level beyond a certain level. Additionally, if a legacy kinship member or a legacy mode character STARTS a group to run group content, no one higher than the level set is able to join the group.... so no sneaky level 115 in the back that will half-solo the whole bloody raid.

A special channel called /legacy or /l for short can be created so that legacy kinships and/or legacy mode players can find other players to group with. The advantage of doing this over launching a separate server is that you can play your regular character on the same server, and monitor the /legacy channel in case someone needs your level 60 guard for a Moria raid. You can then switch to your legacy character and join the raid....

This COULD actually work as it would require relatively minor program changes, and it would co-exist on existing servers. All you need is a character slot or two so you can build a few legacy mode characters!

[Elu-Thingol]

SSG has consolidated servers and presumably under-provisioned servers for expansion content. This would be an up-front cost to justify something that has largely had mild success in the Everquest realm of things (progression servers that unlock expansions on a calendar schedule), and in the free-to-play realm of the vanilla WoW 3rd party servers. I don't see this happening due to the posture of the current game in relation to resources allocated.

Furthermore, I would like to see more attention paid to the actual current version of LOTRO. There are many improvements that can be made and new content that can be worked on, instead of allocating resources to structuring a classic/progression release of the game and associated infrastructure to run it.

Also remember that most of those commercial classic/progression servers were directly looked-into because of a functional and popular 3rd party attempt to run a version of the game. Perhaps you can find like-minded people that have the software development skills to stand up a 3rd party version of the game.

[Rimenuir]

I would love to have one for 75 content... I have my captain rooted there, lots of fun.

[Constrictions]

Look, I don't know you or what you're butthurt about, but if you're going to follow me from thread to thread to troll, you should probably get a hobby or something.

Mate, I'm not butthurt about anything. I was just reading through this thread of my own volition when I saw that comment, which caused me to burst out loud given your treatment of Sezneg.

Carry on.

[Snowlock]

Mate, I'm not butthurt about anything.

Sure, k, mhmm. See you in the next thread where I'm on topic and you're crying at me I guess.

[Constrictions]

Whatever makes you feel better, dude

[BangoTwinkletoes]

There have been a few threads about this before. There are various reasons given as to why it can't happen.

Mainly, the Code for SoA no longer exists in a form that can be used. Years of patches, changes, revamps, etc. have altered the game so that it no longer exists in its original form. (This is paraphrased from various Dev notes and responses.)

Secondly, "Classic" LotRo wasn't nearly as good as everyone recalls. Do you really want to go back to paying 5 gold for a horse? Mob aggro range and density was much higher. Fellowships were required to do the Epics (and a lot of other content). Collecting legendary skill pages.

While there were some things that were 'better' about pre Moria SoA, most people forget the problems and troubles and only remember the 'good' stuff. It's an idea, but not really a good or feasible one.

A lot of people would rather see their money spent on fixing the game as it is, instead of trying to bring back the mythical glory days.

Poorly informed opinion presented as facts.

The simple fact of the matter is this - Blizzard are doing this because they see profit in it, just as Daybreak has with Everquest progression servers. SSG won't do it because they are incapable of delivering it.

[Hammadryad]

Poorly informed opinion presented as facts.

The simple fact of the matter is this - Blizzard are doing this because they see profit in it, just as Daybreak has with Everquest progression servers. SSG won't do it because they are incapable of delivering it.

I don't think that it will make any difference anymore. There were huge numbers of players who would have welcomed classic servers, but sadly the majority have quit the game since Helm's Deep and Trait Trees. The direction the game has been taking to appease and appeal to certain types of players has driven away most of the dedicated longtime players and I'm not sure that even classic servers will tempt them back now. If they had been introduced years ago we would still probably have 30 servers and not have had to be cut back to just 10.

Blizzard have the right idea in bringing back the more popular classic gaming experience, but even they only decided to do it after they realised that they couldn't make players come back to them by forcing the closure of the popular private servers running older versions of WoW!

[siipperi]

There is a different way of doing this that MIGHT be possible:

Legacy Kinships

With this you would be able to form a kinship, and immediately set a level limit of level 50, 60, 65, 75, 85, 95, 100, 105 or 115 - depending on where you want to be. A member of this kinship cannot level beyond the level set by the kinship, and a person that is of a higher level cannot become a member of this kinship. The level change can either be done by a leader, OR it can be done by SSG so that all kinships progress at the same time.

A kinship like this will exist on the current servers, using the current patch level, the current loot rules and open tapping rules, etc, etc.... this is a compromise that can't be changed, as others have said above it will be very cumbersome and almost impossible to maintain two different patch level servers, especially since part of your client is also updated and patched with each patch. So the entire world would be available (meaning a level 50 max kinship member CAN make their way to Isengard or Rohan or Gondor if they think they can survive the journey.) Quests like Vol II book 1 would be available at level 50 max, and you could have your basic legendary item while on level 50 max setting. These things cannot be avoided....

But kinships like this CAN better focus on the end-content of the kinship level setting, without every single character having to buy a stone of the tortoise, and without members accidentally leveling to 51 or so.... At 50, your experience will stop until the kinship gets its level increased to the next expansion level.

There are advantages to both ways of setting the new level: If in control of the kinship leader, the level can be upped when they are ready. If in control of SSG, say on a 6-month interval, you may have a better chance of finding quest and/or raid buddies, as it could be your kinship is too small....

In addition to a legacy kinship, you should also be able to put your single character in legacy mode, meaning you won't level beyond a certain level. Additionally, if a legacy kinship member or a legacy mode character STARTS a group to run group content, no one higher than the level set is able to join the group.... so no sneaky level 115 in the back that will half-solo the whole bloody raid.

A special channel called /legacy or /l for short can be created so that legacy kinships and/or legacy mode players can find other players to group with. The advantage of doing this over launching a separate server is that you can play your regular character on the same server, and monitor the /legacy channel in case someone needs your level 60 guard for a Moria raid. You can then switch to your legacy character and join the raid....

This COULD actually work as it would require relatively minor program changes, and it would co-exist on existing servers. All you need is a character slot or two so you can build a few legacy mode characters!

This is nothing classic servers are about as an idea... Your idea to classic experience is as close to it as running with 115 level doing lvl 50 content. Its not the same.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I don't think that it will make any difference anymore. There were huge numbers of players who would have welcomed classic servers, but sadly the majority have quit the game since Helm's Deep and Trait Trees. The direction the game has been taking to appease and appeal to certain types of players has driven away most of the dedicated longtime players and I'm not sure that even classic servers will tempt them back now. If they had been introduced years ago we would still probably have 30 servers and not have had to be cut back to just 10.

Blizzard have the right idea in bringing back the more popular classic gaming experience, but even they only decided to do it after they realised that they couldn't make players come back to them by forcing the closure of the popular private servers running older versions of WoW!

re WoW Classic - it's been confirmed that Blizzard are putting in a completely new team to deliver it - no begging or borrowing from the main dev team, no having to rely on devs doing it in their spare time as we've seen so much with lotro. It's even been suggested that they may be wanting to hire a some people in France who are behind one of the main private servers that got shut down by the lawyers.

[ertr]

There is a different way of doing this that MIGHT be possible:

Legacy Kinships

With this you would be able to form a kinship, and immediately set a level limit of level 50, 60, 65, 75, 85, 95, 100, 105 or 115 - depending on where you want to be. A member of this kinship cannot level beyond the level set by the kinship, and a person that is of a higher level cannot become a member of this kinship. The level change can either be done by a leader, OR it can be done by SSG so that all kinships progress at the same time.

A kinship like this will exist on the current servers, using the current patch level, the current loot rules and open tapping rules, etc, etc.... this is a compromise that can't be changed, as others have said above it will be very cumbersome and almost impossible to maintain two different patch level servers, especially since part of your client is also updated and patched with each patch. So the entire world would be available (meaning a level 50 max kinship member CAN make their way to Isengard or Rohan or Gondor if they think they can survive the journey.) Quests like Vol II book 1 would be available at level 50 max, and you could have your basic legendary item while on level 50 max setting. These things cannot be avoided....

There are already several groups and kinships who do old content while using the XP-disabler (Stone of the Tortoise) to avoid leveling past whatever level cap has been decided upon. This is nothing new.

Thing is - doing level 50 content while level 50 yourself is a very different experience today compared to what it was back in the day. Characters are much stronger, making much of the early content faceroll-easy when done on-level. (I was in one kinship that did this a few years ago, just after the release of Helm's Deep with all the character changes that brought. Turned out that most of The Rift can be three-manned at level 50 - all of it up to but not including the Balrog. Helegrod could be done by a mere five people - some of which had never set foot in there before.)

Doing things under-leveled by 4-5 levels gives about the right difficulty, but since so many CC skills will be unreliable due to the Deflection mechanic it will still be a different experience with different tactics needed than was used back in the day.

No, while running with a level-capped group can be a lot of fun, it is a long way away from giving the same experience as people would have had in the SoA days. (There are many other differences in addition to what I have mentioned.)

As for patching servers and the like, that is a managable problem. You would of course need separate clients for the normal servers and the classic servers - much like we need a separate client for the Bullroarer test server.

[ertr]

Poorly informed opinion presented as facts.

The simple fact of the matter is this - Blizzard are doing this because they see profit in it, just as Daybreak has with Everquest progression servers. SSG won't do it because they are incapable of delivering it.

Blizzard are doing it becuase they see profit in it, true.
SSG would likely have to do about the same amount of work as Blizzard need to do, and thus incur about the same costs as Blizzard for creating some Classic servers.
Problem is that LOTRO has (and always has had) a much smaller playerbase than World of Warcraft, and thus would attract far fewer players to a Classic server.
Fewer players means less income, means lower profits or even no profit at all but a loss.

Just because Blizzard thinks they can make a profit does not mean SSG would be able to - no matter how capable they are.

[DisplTru]

Poorly informed opinion presented as facts.

SSG won't do it because they are incapable of delivering it.

lul

[siipperi]

There are already several groups and kinships who do old content while using the XP-disabler (Stone of the Tortoise) to avoid leveling past whatever level cap has been decided upon. This is nothing new.

Thing is - doing level 50 content while level 50 yourself is a very different experience today compared to what it was back in the day. Characters are much stronger, making much of the early content faceroll-easy when done on-level. (I was in one kinship that did this a few years ago, just after the release of Helm's Deep with all the character changes that brought. Turned out that most of The Rift can be three-manned at level 50 - all of it up to but not including the Balrog. Helegrod could be done by a mere five people - some of which had never set foot in there before.)

Doing things under-leveled by 4-5 levels gives about the right difficulty, but since so many CC skills will be unreliable due to the Deflection mechanic it will still be a different experience with different tactics needed than was used back in the day.

No, while running with a level-capped group can be a lot of fun, it is a long way away from giving the same experience as people would have had in the SoA days. (There are many other differences in addition to what I have mentioned.)

As for patching servers and the like, that is a managable problem. You would of course need separate clients for the normal servers and the classic servers - much like we need a separate client for the Bullroarer test server.

Thing that really matters is different set of skills, totally different combat and so on. Rift itself was 5 manned and many of us 6 manned it regularly.

Blizzard are doing it becuase they see profit in it, true.
SSG would likely have to do about the same amount of work as Blizzard need to do, and thus incur about the same costs as Blizzard for creating some Classic servers.
Problem is that LOTRO has (and always has had) a much smaller playerbase than World of Warcraft, and thus would attract far fewer players to a Classic server.
Fewer players means less income, means lower profits or even no profit at all but a loss.

Just because Blizzard thinks they can make a profit does not mean SSG would be able to - no matter how capable they are.

This is probably years away anyway. At minimum probably full year. So they are kinda hyping non existing. I totally expect it not to be real vanilla experience but all modern conveniences casualising it.

[Denhith]

lul

As funny as that may appear to you, SSG has proven Bango correct. No matter how much the public may want it, SSG is incapable of providing a classic server.
Unless of course, you've been hiding under a rock the past year and all of their (many) blunders have missed your radar.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

This is probably years away anyway. At minimum probably full year. So they are kinda hyping non existing. I totally expect it not to be real vanilla experience but all modern conveniences casualising it.

I suspect they will try and deliver it in July 18 or when the 8.0 prepatch drops. Also don’t be fooled into thinking that substantial work has not already gone into wow classic - Blizzard never announce anything that they can’t or won’t deliver on.

As for whether it is real classic or not, the only changes I see being made are some of the classes and specs that were woeful in the original being given a bit of a lift so that it’s not just warriors, rogues and mages that can deliver for a raid.