Blizzard met with Mark Kern to discuss legacy servers in World of Warcraft. A petition with 200,000 signatures was submitted.
Blizzard is in “Listening” mode
After the WoW private server Nostalrius was shut down under threat of punishment, fans of classic World of Warcraft were swept up in a huge wave of enthusiasm. Following a pretty extensive petition, Blizzard has now had its first meeting with a proponent of legacy servers. Mark Kern, the former head of World of Warcraft, recently had an initial meeting with Mike Morhaime, the CEO of Blizzard.
However, there was really no great surprise for Mike Morhaime. According to Kern, Blizzard’s head already knew everything that Kern had to say; nonetheless, they went through the points one by one and specifically elaborated on what the fans’ concerns were and why more than 200,000 signatures were gathered for it.
“What Mike definitely wanted to clarify was that the technology – while not unreachable – is definitely more complicated than we let it appear. It’s not as simple as just firing up a server, as Nostalrius did. Blizzard has a huge infrastructure and many systems associated with it. Moreover, they are very concerned about meeting quality standards.”
During this week, the second major meeting will take place, then with the operators of the former private server Nostalrius. A specific date for this has not been announced for security reasons. Generally, however, Kern sees these meetings as a positive sign, as Blizzard is definitely listening – and that is already more than many fans had hoped for over the years.
More news and articles about the game and the legacy debate can be found on our World of Warcraft game page.
The title image comes from Kern’s Twitter account as a sign that he (left) and Mike Morhaime (right) still understand fun after all these years.
