Blizzard is considering making its own official version of Nostalrius, following the controversy surrounding them banning the not-for-profit, fan-made World of Warcraft server.
In the company’s first official statement since they sent a cease and desist order to the creators of Nostalrius, World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack discussed the reasoning behind their decision to bring an end to the beloved server on the Battle.net forum, describing how “failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard’s rights.” Brack added: “This applies to anything that uses WoW’s IP, including unofficial servers. And while we’ve looked into the possibility – there is not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.”
Nostalrius was a big hit among old-school WoW fans, with it removing the many changes made to the game in favor of a replication of the vanilla version of the MMO. Blizzard’s banning of the server led to a great deal of controversy among the WoW community, though Brack has now revealed that this has led to them strongly considering introducing classic servers to the game, continuing: “We have been discussing classic servers for years – it’s a topic every BlizzCon – and especially over the past few weeks. From active internal team discussions to after-hours meetings with leadership, this subject has been highly debated.”
However, Brack then went on to discuss the “tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers,” adding that “ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW” would make it difficult to introduce them. He then proposed another idea, with Blizzard looking at replicating WoW vanilla in its very own realm. He continued: “So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years, we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence, that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder.”
He added: “We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.”
In more exciting news, Brack also stated that Blizzard had been in talks with the makers of Nostalrius, adding: “They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks.” This suggests that Nostalrius’ creators could potentially be involved in the development of the pristine realm, though this has not been confirmed.
So for those who were angry at the removal of Nostalrius, it seems that Blizzard could have something exciting up its sleeve for WoW vanilla fans in the near future. While Blizzard lost a lot of good will following the Nostalrius controversy, this could put them back in the good books of WoW players once again.
