Damn The Man: Fan-Run Vanilla ‘WoW’ server shutdown by Blizzard
I’ve never played on a Vanilla WoW server, but I respect it. This respect stems from the fact that while I enjoyed some of the WoW expansions, no moments from them resonated me with me as loud as the trying, sprawling, beautiful world of the launch content and its patches. So, fuck! Blizzard! #CmonManGif
This morning I’m reading about a fan-run vanilla World of Warcraft server being shut down after a legal notice issued by Blizzard’s lawyers.
It’s interesting to me because the subject involves keeping an older version of an otherwise changing game online and alive in some fashion and I have a background in heritage work/archiving. But first here’s what happened with WoW:
A small team of volunteers operated an international legacy server for the version of World of Warcraft which existed immediately after the game’s launch and ran until the first expansion, The Burning Crusade – it’s also referred to as “vanilla” WoW. Known as “Nostalrius“, the server has been running for about a year and apparently reached 800,000 registered accounts and 150,000 active players.
The idea, as per a forum post, was to provide “the adventure you always dreamed of, as it was just before the first expansion Burning Crusade, a golden age for most players”.The team also say “We passionately reproduced the original progression you created throughout patches and content releases. The mighty Ahn Qiraj raid was to be released next month.” – so a living version of vanilla WoW.