Any plans for vanilla servers?

[xersues.7189]

Yeah it's called install the trial on a new account and don't buy anything. 

This game doesn't need a classic version, it needs a successor.

[Danikat.8537]

I've never played WoW but from what I've heard a big part of the appeal of WoW Classic is that various updates had completely changed some of the base game areas, so entire quest chains and storylines were unavailable and some places even looked entirely different. Classic is a way to not just play with an older version of skills etc. but mainly a way to re-play parts of the game that had been gone for years.

The GW2 equivalent would be when they brought back most of Season 1 after it had been removed and was assumed to be gone forever. Except they were able to do that within the actual game instead of making an alternate version. It would be good to see that finished. I suspect the Lost Shores weekend would require a lot more work to bring back than the rest of Season 1 did, which is probably why they skipped the Southsun storyline, but I'd love to see it happen. It would be nice to play through that without the bugs requiring some parts to be done out of order and without the final battle turning into a slideshow because even with overflow maps the game couldn't really handle everyone in one map at the same time. (And without having to hang around by the computer all weekend waiting for the next bit to be released.)

[Kiki.9450]

4 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I've never played WoW but from what I've heard a big part of the appeal of WoW Classic is that various updates had completely changed some of the base game areas, so entire quest chains and storylines were unavailable and some places even looked entirely different. Classic is a way to not just play with an older version of skills etc. but mainly a way to re-play parts of the game that had been gone for years.

The GW2 equivalent would be when they brought back most of Season 1 after it had been removed and was assumed to be gone forever. Except they were able to do that within the actual game instead of making an alternate version. It would be good to see that finished. I suspect the Lost Shores weekend would require a lot more work to bring back than the rest of Season 1 did, which is probably why they skipped the Southsun storyline, but I'd love to see it happen. It would be nice to play through that without the bugs requiring some parts to be done out of order and without the final battle turning into a slideshow because even with overflow maps the game couldn't really handle everyone in one map at the same time. (And without having to hang around by the computer all weekend waiting for the next bit to be released.)

You're right about that with WoW. The other main thing with WoW is how things in that game have changed over the years. Questing to level up takes a lot less time these days and we can use the automated dungeon finder, if desired, as a way to do dungeons. Class changes have had a significant impact on how players approach content too -- a warrior today can pull a pack of gnolls and AoE them down no problem. Back in the old days, that warrior would get eaten alive. Typically there was stopping to sit and eat/drink to restore health and mana between enemies.

One big part of what drove the want for Classic was wanting to replay what was lost, as you said. One was to replay how it felt back then. One was for how the community felt back then, before cross-realm dungeons and group finders. And of course, nostalgia.

GW2 hasn't had these problems, or has had missing content mostly returned.

[Assolador.3598]

On 12/20/2023 at 4:18 PM, Godfather.9058 said:

Why? If you wanted to ask. I realised that I don't enjoy a lot of the changes.

Core Tyria maps are dead.

Dungeons are dead.

Skyscale.

Elite specs overly focused on melee combat. With much faster paced gameplay.

Seizure inducing particle effects for the elite specs.

The new map design focused on extreme verticality.

The new "christmas tree on fire" skins I see everywhere.

I only agree with skyscale and dungeons

[IndigoSundown.5419]

Blizzard motivation for Vanilla WoW: "There is lots of demand and we can charge a sub fee to access it!"

ANet motivation for Vanilla GW2: "There is not a lot of demand and we don't have sub fees... 🤣"

[kiroho.4738]

No, no plans for Vanilla, Hardmode etc. servers.

https://wccftech.com/guild-wars-2-qa-arenanet-on-switch-to-yearly-expansions-secrets-of-the-obscure-learnings-and-2024-update/
 

Quote

 

There is a growing interest in alternate modes, like hardcore servers, classic servers, etc., in the MMORPG genre. Do you have any plans to offer anything like servers with more challenging PvE difficulty, for example?

It’s an interesting idea, but it’s not a priority for us. Trend chasing is inherently risky and can potentially alienate your existing fans if it goes poorly. From what we’ve observed in the industry over the past few years, it usually doesn’t pan out. For now, we’re focused on serving our current community and making Guild Wars 2 the best it can be.

 

 

[Kiki.9450]

2 hours ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

Blizzard motivation for Vanilla WoW: "There is lots of demand and we can charge a sub fee to access it!"

ANet motivation for Vanilla GW2: "There is not a lot of demand and we don't have sub fees... 🤣"

I do want to point out here for those that may not be in the know: they charge a sub for Classic, but that exact same sub grants access to retail as well. They didn't get the financial benefit at all from folks who actively play both, just those who weren't playing at all.

100% Blizzard wouldn't have done it if they couldn't monetize it. :P

[Danikat.8537]

9 hours ago, Kiki.9450 said:

I do want to point out here for those that may not be in the know: they charge a sub for Classic, but that exact same sub grants access to retail as well. They didn't get the financial benefit at all from folks who actively play both, just those who weren't playing at all.

100% Blizzard wouldn't have done it if they couldn't monetize it. 😛

I've heard that before Blizzard did it there were unofficial WoW servers running older versions of the game, and a significant number of people had quit playing the official version but were playing those ones, which convinced Blizzard there would be enough demand to justify an official version. (I assume this went along with shutting down the unofficial ones, which I doubt were legal.)

As far as I know nothing like that exists for GW2. I'm not sure if that's because no one wants it, or it's not possible to do or a combination of both, but it means Anet don't have the same evidence that demand is there. (Also whenever it comes up on the forum it's like this topic - one person suggests it for vague reasons and most responses are saying it'd be pointless in this game.)

There are players who do their own hardmode, perma-death, iron man, legendary survivor, whatever you want to call it runs (myself included) but I'm pretty sure we're a tiny minority, which again says there's not much demand for it. Especially since it would likely need a lot more work than when they added the Legendary Survivor title in GW1 - leveling up without combat is much harder in that game so it didn't need any additional restrictions to make it work.

[Kiki.9450]

3 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I've heard that before Blizzard did it there were unofficial WoW servers running older versions of the game, and a significant number of people had quit playing the official version but were playing those ones, which convinced Blizzard there would be enough demand to justify an official version. (I assume this went along with shutting down the unofficial ones, which I doubt were legal.)

Correct. Supposedly, Blizzard did work somewhat with the people running the biggest unofficial Classic server in an effort to recreate exactly what it was the playerbase wanted from it, and Classic is indeed successful here. I imagine it's a similar situation to what Runescape went through, though I've never played Runescape or looked much into it.

At this point, most private WoW servers seem to exist solely to either create their own version of "Classic Plus" or to just exist as a no-cost-needed version of WoW. Neither are acceptable to Blizzard of course.

Not sure if any GW2 private servers exist (and I imagine Anet doesn't want them to exist if they do), but at the same time, GW2 being free to play for Core doesn't provide much support for there to be such a thing anyway. It seems it'd only be a very small, niche group who would be interested in such a thing for these "Classic-style" or hardmode-enabled servers.

[notebene.3190]

Waiting for Wendy’s to do it. That holiday frosty tastes like toothpaste. 😡

[Pridedemon.3041]

GW2 really doesn't need vanilla servers as all of the content in gw2 remains relevant and gives appropriate loot by design.

When you compare it with other mmo's like WoW which have vanilla server, it makes sense in that game because every new expansion make the old content and maps completely irrelevant except maybe leveling. A World boss in WoW which required 40+ players to kill can be 1 shot by characters couple expansions later, this doesn't happen in gw2. Can you solo claw of jormag? I don't think so, all of the world bosses and meta events are already run regularly exceptions being the one's which aren't pugable (triple trouble for example).

Besides, there is no one forcing you to play elite specs, some vanilla specs are totally viable and still run regularly. Example being the vanilla support bunker guardian is currently meta in pvp.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Pridedemon.3041

[Danikat.8537]

I've sometimes wondered if some players could solo some of the easier world bosses. But I think it would be very difficult to even try, I've never seen one which didn't have at least 10 people fighting it. 

[kharmin.7683]

6 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I've sometimes wondered if some players could solo some of the easier world bosses. But I think it would be very difficult to even try, I've never seen one which didn't have at least 10 people fighting it. 

But I thought that the core maps were dead?  I keep hearing that.

[Kiki.9450]

23 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

But I thought that the core maps were dead?  I keep hearing that.

Gosh dang necromancers! /shakesfist

[starlinvf.1358]

On 12/20/2023 at 8:45 PM, Randulf.7614 said:

What would be included though? No wardrobe? No champ loot? No masteries? The original trait system? 

All maps - core, LS and expac - are well populated on EU. Maybe this is just an NA issue?

Unlike WoW, GW2 had a rough start.  The game's peak was at the start of POF.  And by then there was a massive amount of QOL/NPE revamps, several vertical progression systems, and a significant smoothing of the difficulty curve just to get that favorable outlook.  Yeah, theres not much to go back to, other than LS1.   And people complained about the fact those were originally gonna be "one and done" events.  

[Randulf.7614]

14 minutes ago, starlinvf.1358 said:

Unlike WoW, GW2 had a rough start.  The game's peak was at the start of POF.  And by then there was a massive amount of QOL/NPE revamps, several vertical progression systems, and a significant smoothing of the difficulty curve just to get that favorable outlook.  Yeah, theres not much to go back to, other than LS1.   And people complained about the fact those were originally gonna be "one and done" events.  

I fought a Champ Ice Drake in Frostgorge who was uncamped the other day. Then did a little run to the undersea frost wurm, Drakkar trio then back round to the troll. 

Oh the nostalgia..

[starlinvf.1358]

15 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I fought a Champ Ice Drake in Frostgorge who was uncamped the other day. Then did a little run to the undersea frost wurm, Drakkar trio then back round to the troll. 

Oh the nostalgia..

You don't know GW2 nostalgia, until you've seen a pile of dead bodies at the Fire Elemental meta thats been (no joke) running for 3 days now.    Trying to remember what other Noob traps existed back in the launch month.  

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

On 12/21/2023 at 11:15 AM, Godfather.9058 said:

It is horizontal in name only. Look at me with a straight face and tell me this: "The maximum DPS you can achieve right now is the same or roughly the same as it was in vanilla." If you can do that, then your statement that progression is horizontal is true. Tell me that a condi mirage does the same DPS as a core mesmer 10 years ago for example.

It's the same "horizontal progression" from World of Tanks. Newer premium tanks are objectively better than regular tanks of equal tiers. Just as newer lines are better than the equivalents from other lines.

It is horizontal though. A Core Guard isn't stronger now, because the player owns the expansions, it's stronger because over the years it was revised and changed. 

You don't need to grind gear every few months to have the best. If you got a set of Berserker Ascended gear when it became available that gear is still the same. In WoW my ilvl 415 gear was decent when I last played and now people arriving on the Dragon Isles start with better gear. My Reaper has been wearing the same armor since like.. 2020 when I finally decided to get Ascended for him as well. It's still the same gear, there isn't anything stronger in the game.

If I stop playing WoW for a few months my gear will be worse than expansion starting gear, if I stop playing GW2 for years my gear stays the same.

[Zebulous.2934]

On 12/20/2023 at 3:30 PM, Godfather.9058 said:

Which core maps exactly? I did a stroll through Metrica Province on a fresh character for example. Nobody. Other than 1 christmas tree on fire fishing. This isn't a wintersday thing. It's the norm.

I think you have failed to remember that Human female is the most popular character asthetic.  Naturally they start in Queensdale.  Then you have Norns for those who find abs and muscle attractive.  The sylvary for the people who enjoy thin slight bodies, and alien features.  That leaves Charr and Asura in definite minority.

I am not surprised that the tech-goblin's starter map was nearly empty.

[deatine.2498]

It certainly had a different feel back then, but that was also due to the players or rather, different attitudes and expectations back then. It was more of a fantasy world simulator rather than a typical MMO and it basically had no end game.

I don't think you can recreate the feeling you probably liked about that just by offering an old version of the game because very few people today would want to play it like that.
If you're into that, you'd probably go with much more advanced single player open world RPGs.

I also doubt that Anet still have all the old assets that would be needed.

[Donutdude.9582]

A Classic version of Guild Wars 2 will never work.  The expansions added so much QoL to the game that I'd NEVER want to go back to a vanilla/classic version of GW2.  I have been playing since head start.

Furthermore, your claims of core maps being dead is absolutely preposterous.  I find players in almost every, single map I enter in core Tyria.

Please stop inventing facts to support your arguments, thank you.

EDIT: Also, saw your comment re. World of Tanks and it is absolutely laughable.  Not only is it inaccurate, it does not relate to Guild Wars 2 in any way.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Donutdude.9582

[enigmatic.3576]

I don't see this as something that the GW2 team can support given how much they've dialed back on producing content.

Edited December 30, 2023 by enigmatic.3576

[Sparetent.9756]

I would LOVE Vanilla servers, so long as I don't have to start the entire game over. I miss the old game, the dungeons, the fun, the loot that used to drop and actually having value (not 20s exotics). But I'm not starting from scratch -.-

[Kelly.7019]

You can pretty much just go to lowbie maps they haven't changed that much and are still in game. Kessex is different but off the top of my head that's about it.

 

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

I miss not being able to use mounts or any other game-breaking mechanics on the main maps, but then again, there's nothing stopping us from not using them. 🤷‍♂️