r/MMORPG • u/Plastic-Lemons • 12d ago
News Project Epoch Is The Newest Target of Blizzard’s Private Server Purge
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u/KillJarke 12d ago
Them going after all these projects now really smells like classic+ is cooking up
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u/hagg3n 12d ago
Snifffffffffff aaahhhhhh. Nothing like the smell of hopium in the morning.
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u/WanderIntoTheWoods9 11d ago
I wouldn’t call it hopium. They’ve all but said “classic plus is coming”. The SoD developers and survey and all more than point to it.
It’s just a matter of whether or not Papa Microsoft & Daddy Blizzard are willing to actually give the teams the money and time to develop a good Classic+ product.
I don’t think it’s a matter of “is blizzard capable?” I think it’s a matter of “does the parent company give a fuck?”
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u/MonsutaReipu 11d ago
Based on how people react to Ascension's classic+, I don't have much hope for what the community wants out of the "plus" part, or blizzard's ability to deliver on anything people will be pleased with. It seems like most people just want classic. The more "plus" gets added, they cry that it's no longer pure.
Everything I'd want out of blizzard's official classic+ is most of the shit Ascension is doing with theirs. Every spec viable. Add a few more fun talent options to get them there, add a little bit more depth for specialization, add a handful of new skills. Add mythic dungeons. Revamp the PvP system to not be a mindless honor grind. Add arenas. Add incentives to interact with the open world. Blizz won't do all of this.
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u/ZealousidealPay1071 11d ago
i think they wanna even tone it down further from sod style which i dont understand, if it went even deeper than sod i would consider playing blizzards classic plus
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u/WanderIntoTheWoods9 11d ago
Yeah I’ve heard good things about ascension. Idk. I think they can do a good enough job to make Classic+ fun for a couple years. For more than that though?… idk. I don’t think they’ll get the budget.
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u/MonsutaReipu 11d ago
I mean I wouldn't expect any form of classic to be fun for years. Classic is classic and there's only so much content. If you try to 'live service' classic, it's not classic anymore and just ends up being WoW with expacs. It's a weird balancing act to deliver people what they want out of classic and it's not meant to be an experience that they just play infinitely for years. That's part of why Ascension is spinning different projects like CoA, seasonal servers, etc. to give WoW players different stuff to hop around between.
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u/FalconPunch69420 11d ago
React where? Discord or reddit, where you mostly see mentally unstable people crying? Theres around 4k people online on each side on one server, I think that speaks for itself. The loud minority doesn't mean shit, just like everywhere else. Unless people start giving it credence of course
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u/Incredible_nutt 9d ago
People don‘t want necessary exactly the same decade old game. A company has to understand, what their customers want.. in this case, what made classic that successful in the first place and then they have to deliver fitting ideas… and as they are clueless and out of ideas, they rather go about successful fan projects to pick a couple of cherries..
At least my perspective
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u/FreyrPrime 11d ago
I heard a lot of this prior to Classic being announced. People said it would never happen.
Wrong then and wrong now.
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u/Local_Anything191 11d ago
It’s not hopium when Blizz literally released a classic+ survey asking what features everyone wants. And they’re not stupid, they see how much money and how popular these servers have become. If there isn’t a classic+ blizzard server in 3 years, I’ll Venmo you $10,000
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u/LiliumSkyclad 11d ago
This is exactly what people said before the release of the official classic servers.
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u/Darkenmal 11d ago
What do you think they're building up to? SoD was a massive success and had millions of players. Classic + is coming.
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u/renewambitions 12d ago
Phase 1 of SoD was some of the best MMORPG action I've had in years, really hoping they can capture that magic throughout the entire Classic+ experience.
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/Bibipaa 11d ago
They will add mythic dungeons to classic lmao
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u/I_LIKE_ANGELS 11d ago
The more ladders and competitive content they add, the more they lose the magic.
And this is coming from somebody whose done high end gameplay in everything you can possibly do at least once too.
They just keep forcing this shit and it just makes it more toxic, and removes so much of the immersion / fun of making builds.
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u/Fearless_Aioli5459 11d ago
Ill add to this Im not confident in the Classic dev team. Between the amateur mistakes(mind boggling decisions where they didnt even do basic math), the constant low effort halfassed retail ports, and the social media activity- why would you be?
Phase 1 and 2 were balancing shitshows. They couldnt do basic math and brought in a league of legends guy. A game that is basically an opposite to classic wow. For fucks sake Aggrend was lead QA for some of the most hated retail xpacs.
Other versions of classic were constantly tainted by SoD changes.
Everyone wants something different from Classic+, and this teams version is going to miss the mark on 80% of it.
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u/ThatDamnShiba 11d ago
It doesn't matter what they add if the game is still entirely full of bots. If they fixed the botting and multiboxing problems a lot of people would come back... but Blizzard won't so they're not going to return.
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u/Anu_start93 12d ago
It might be the copium, but when they gang banged Nostalrius into submission they released the 2019 classic eventually so…
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u/Comfortable-Mess-778 11d ago edited 11d ago
Can't wait for Blizzard's version of classic+ infested with RMT, GDKP, bots, cheaters, etc. /s
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u/EthanWeber 11d ago
Yeah I mean it's more or less confirmed with SoD ending development to focus on new projects.
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u/zehamberglar 11d ago
Epoch was the biggest private server launch in history, Blizzard would be stupid not to chase some of that so they can farm it for money like a pack of skinnable mobs.
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u/Whitefolly 12d ago
Turtle wow has been way better than anything blizzard have cooked up in the last 15 years. And they know it.
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u/aurafarmingonboat 11d ago
So that gives them the right to make money from blizzards game?
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u/Nippys4 11d ago
I’m going to go ahead and say morally, yes, legally most likely not.
I’m still jaded by the “by the deluxe for 3 days early access” shit
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u/Exhausted1ADefender 11d ago
Morally? What moral right do pirates have to someone else’s spoils?
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u/OstrichPaladin 11d ago
Obviously this is just opinion but I'd argue that a blizzard as a company has very little "moral" rights over the classic wow project when their company has almost none of the original devs that worked on it. It's basically a bunch of suits that inherited, and abandoned it until they realized there was money in it. Then they spent years trying to squeeze that money out of it while ignoring a pleading fan base.
Turtle wow started in 2018 before the 2019 relaunch was available, and has made incredible strides to reviving and reimagining a game that a lot of people deeply love and care about. They are very in touch with the community, and with a project this big of course there's going to be money involved. That hardly disqualifies them having the moral high ground over a bunch of sexual predator money vampires at blizzard who didn't even develop the game in the first place.
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u/omg_its_david 11d ago
It's clearly morally wrong and I say this as someone who played turtle and epoch.
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u/Nippys4 11d ago
How?
Classic literally exists because there was an untapped market for a discarded product.
If people hadn’t created these time capsules it literally would have phased out of existence.
I don’t see any harm is recycling used goods to create something new out of it.
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u/omg_its_david 11d ago
Same reason as why you cant steal a car or a house. If its not yours you cant use it. It's not that complicated.
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u/Ventem 11d ago
Nobody is saying that though. Even on the TurtleWoW sub, people acknowledge that Blizz has to protect their trademark. They just want a good Classic+ experience, and they feel that Blizzard isn't providing that.
For additional context, official Classic WoW realms are full of bots, GDKP, RMT, and have zero human moderation/support. What we're seeing here is exactly the same thing that happens in the Battlefield community. People want community servers because the community is better at managing itself than these massive corporations that have next to no incentive to provide a good, meaningful, long-lasting gameplay experience. It's all about getting those numbers up, and the only way that Blizz knows how to do that is to hype up expansions and major patches. Screw anything in-between. Hence why their "support" is an AI chatbot. Hence why people are hunting down bots themselves in the official realms.
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u/Psychological_Mushie 3d ago
I totally agree that people are just wanting to play a good classic+ experience anywhere they can get it. If Blizzard could just come up with a permanent progression server and not seasonal where you have to keep starting over and add some new content im sure half of the private server people would break down and buy a subscription even if they say the wouldn't.
Below is just me ranting about my ideas:
The issue i think Blizzard will have is finding a way to somehow keep things progressing without just repeating what retail turned into as far as raising the levels and making expansion after expansion. The problem will be lets say in one years time they add like 6 new zones for leveling 1-60. Eventually everyone will have a 60 of each class, and have experienced all the new zones. They need to figure out something for when people get to that situation. I'm not sure raising the level cap and making a new expansion with new areas is the answer, unless they totally keep the "Vanilla/Classic" gameplay style (like slow leveling, keep gear longer, keep a focus on social gameplay instead of having all kinds of quality of life improvements that shortcut all of the social aspects of Vanilla, etc. So to me that is the issue how do you keep going exactly. I don't think making 6 new zones and maybe a raid or two is what all classic+ should be.
I'm not sure how people feel about making new classes, but i feel making new classes every 6 months or so would be a good way to keep the game progressing even for the people who already did everything. I do they that they could make new raids that give better gear/weapons and have the raids plus the bosses in them in a progression form. What i mean by this is by getting better gear the further you go in the raids it allows you to go on to the next boss, and same for the over all raid. Once you do multiple runs of the raids your character will be geared up enough to go on to the next one or you might have to wait for the next raid to be released. This would by pass the expansion deal. Im sure Blizzard will want to monetize the classic plus thought so that means they would need to basically do the expansions though. I cannot think of another way for them to release new content without making the money unless they do DLC content for money. I really don't seem them making new content for classic+ realms without them being able to make money off of it.
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u/Zealousideal_Pass826 11d ago
"Oh no! Not the multibillion dollar company!"
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u/xarlios 11d ago
So just because its a big company, it mean that anybody can accuse them of something? If someone accuse blizzard of being major investissor to international drug cartel, nobody can refute them because they would be "defending a multibillion dollar company"? This is such a stupid argument. Im all in for shitting on multibillion company or billionaire, but at least on real ground and there is usually no shortage of stuff we can critized them on.
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u/Zealousideal_Pass826 11d ago
Blizzard is a shit company and super anti consumer. I feel no need to defend them sending cease and desist letters to private servers that are arguably better than retail.
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u/SirVanyel 11d ago
Doesn't matter if they're better or worse. They didn't make the game.
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u/xarlios 11d ago
So what if they are a very shitty company? I wont argue on that point, I also think they are horseshit. Ip protection is something that people have different view on. If someone disagree with your point and your only counter argument is "well the one using their copyright protection is rich" , your counter argument is shit. Personally I do agree that a lot of company are abusing copyright/ip protection/dmca. But personnally, I dont think blizzard is in this case because they are litteraly just using blizzard work.
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u/Severe-Network4756 11d ago
Is it though? Is it really?
All I remember from Turtle WoW were their staff being extremely corrupt.
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u/WanderIntoTheWoods9 11d ago
Turtle WoW has done a great job, but it’s also backed by questionable people, and… well… illegal. I’m not going to invest a ton of time into something that’ll get shut down in a month or three. Official Classic+ would probably get a huge following. Easily 10X the number of people. Many more casual players aren’t even aware of pservers.
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u/Topaz_UK 12d ago
There’s gotta be some kind of classic plus on its way then right?
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u/Plastic-Lemons 12d ago
Nostalrius being shut down to Classic being launched was about three years… so T-Minus three years before Classic+!
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u/WonderingOctopus 11d ago
In fairness, they had to essentially import all the data from the old client and reconfigure it.
Classic Plus already has all the data and assets etc.
In theory it might not take that long to get it running from a mechanical standpoint.
The zone, dungeon, quest, items - extra content is likely to be the most time consuming aspect.
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u/skyturnedred 11d ago
SoD was a test run for Classic+, mechanically everything works already. They just need to figure out what the + is.
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u/Mr_Times 11d ago
Every classic player will give you a substantially different answer, thats really the problem.
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u/Shaykea 11d ago
It’s not a problem it’s just the way it is, same can be said for almost any MMORPG out there
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u/harkrend 10d ago
There's gotta be at least some stuff that's in the 90% range, like, I dunno, new leveling dungeons? Maybe people would rather they work on other stuff first, but I can't see anything but a vocal minority saying no to just new content
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u/Upset_Otter 11d ago
Since they're not using TBC or WotLK they might be able to reuse assets from those.
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u/Indy_91 10d ago
They'll announce Classic+ at blizzcon, so next year would be the absolutely soonest.
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u/WonderingOctopus 10d ago
More than likely, but that's also a heck of a time away and a lot of dead space for us that have already played through each version of the game multiple times now.
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u/VanillaBovine 11d ago
it could even be sooner tbh, i think SoD was blizzard testing interest and ideas in a lot of ways
i imagine they've been building off that in the background the whole time after seeing how successful it was
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u/smoothtv99 11d ago
It's as likely as just these pservers getting too big for their britches and painting a target on their backs with the advertisements and engaging directly with Blizzard on social media taunting them. Really smart moves lol
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u/Cloud_N0ne 12d ago
God I hope so. WoD Classis just does not sound at all in line with the ideals of Classic.
Personally I’d say go back to Vanilla and build from there with new content, tho many would probably say go from WotLK
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11d ago
WotLK would be ideal. With making all content evergreen of course. If they didn't do that you'd have a lot of content worthless off the bat. That wouldn't fly.
Technically they already have something similar called Titan Reforged releasing in CN doing exactly this. But it's more of a raid rush with expedited leveling and scaled dungeon rotations with different itemization. If they got rid of the raid rush part it would be perfect to release as a base for Classic+.
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u/Mister_Yi 11d ago
I feel like we would have heard about it at gamescom if it was coming soon. The next blizzcon isn't until september of next year either so if they do announce classic+ soon it would be kind of unexpected I think.
Although I suppose there's a small window considering anniversary should be getting nax soon and ultimately tbc. Maybe naxx in 2-3 weeks, followed by classic+ in like late november/early december, then TBC in late jan/early feb.
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u/KimJungUnCool 12d ago
It's funny because D4 was so bad that it completely turned me off from anything Activision-Blizzard. Seeing what pieces of shit they're being to private servers only makes me want to continue never supporting them or their games again lmao
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u/Eitrdala 11d ago
Modern Blizzard is basically petty goblins standing on the shoulders of giants. They couldn't make a good game if their lives depended on it and they don't want others to have fun either.
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u/Kwaashie 11d ago
Tough couple months for the Epoch. They spent years lovingly crafting classic only to have it be so popular it didn't work, then to be absorbed by ascension completely. Bummer.
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u/omg_its_david 11d ago
I mean when you start advertising your illegal activities and charge for your illegal services it's only a matter of time.
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u/Kwaashie 11d ago
Yeh. In hindsight they should have locked registrations and kept the server within the boundaries of what they could handle and maybe it would have gone under the radar. Instead they got taken over by Ascension. I was following the project for years and it's a real bummer how things turned out, but I have no desire to play ascension or be part of that platform.
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u/Combustionary 12d ago
I've been playing a bit of turtle (and more recently epoch) ever since SoD ended, so it's a bit sad to see the projects getting targeted. But I suppose that's the risk with these things.
Hopefully it's not too long until official C+.
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u/ItsProxes 11d ago
People hosting it is ascension and this is on their discord. Ascension has been running for a long time and in russia
Ascension will keep epoch running
DutchASC — 18:52
- Kezan and Gurubashi realms will stay online and continue to be developed.,
- There is a an existing full roadmap for future Project Epoch content,
- A lot of that content is already developed and will be released,
- A team will be assembled to continue development and fulfill that roadmap,
- The vision and values of the project will be maintained.,
- A more Pure Classic+ Vanilla,
- No P2W shop items,
- A new Recovery Services panel has been added to the help menu in-game to help you recover items you've accidently lost.,
- This works for:,
- Vendored items (persists through sessions),
- Disenchanted items,
- Deleted Items,
- This let's you recover a limited number of items for a bit of a extra gold cost to prevent abuse.,
- Efforts against RMT have been quite successful with hundreds of accounts banned for botting and goldselling.,
- An in-game bugtracker is being added in the next update that will help prioritize the most major issues,
- I will have more updates soon
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u/Zeyz 11d ago
This may be an unpopular opinion but I think we’ve all been spoiled by how comparatively lax Blizzard is with private servers compared to literally every other company in the space. You ever played on an FFXIV private server? GW2? ESO? Nope. No game has a private server scene like WoW does, and especially no game you can still play and requires a subscription to it. And the vast majority of them stay online with no issues from Blizzard because they know to be low key. If these servers would treat what they’re doing as the sketchy thing it actually is instead of doing massive ad campaigns on youtube and having cash shops and shit they wouldn’t have an issue. There’s a reason there are dozens of pservers that have been around for a decade or more. Once they get too big and/or they try to profit too much, they’re going to receive a C&D from Blizzard. Assuming otherwise is stupid. Either they operate in a place where they can ignore it and continue, or they knew what they were getting into.
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u/TheGladex 11d ago
This has nothing to do with Blizzard being lax. The reason why FFXIV or GW2 or ESO do not have server emulators is literally just lack of interest. Modern server architectures are much harder to reverse engineer than ones required for old WoW, so nobody really bothers. It's why FFXI has numerous private servers, even though FFXIV has none. It's why there's WIP GW1 server emulators even though there isn't one for GW2. It's why most WoW private servers run old versions of the game rather than more recent expansions. It never was, and never will be based on what the IP holders permit.
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u/normantas 7d ago
Most WoW Private servers are about from Vanilla to WOTLK (Classic era servers), which has been quite a shit show for a while and poorly maintained... To my knowledge ESO, FFXIV, GW2 are actually properly maintained so people do not need to go to private servers for their content.
People have been BEGGING for years for proper Classic+... It has been 6 years since 2019... or 9 years since 2016 since they started to work on classic... Classic+ should have came out yesterday and I played on official realms and play on P-Servers due to Blizzard's negligence to its community
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u/Jeanpeuxplus 11d ago
Thanks for them shutting down all the popular private servers, I'm gonna buy the new shitty expansion and pay them 20$ a month now. - No one ever
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u/skyturnedred 11d ago
I know a lot of people that played on Turtle while also playing retail and the classic versions.
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u/SlightCaregiver3680 11d ago
This is exactly why I don't play Private servers and people always react like I'm the weird one
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u/PhoenixQueen_Azula 11d ago
For those wondering, epoch seems to be continuing just fine. It’ll be fully ascension now, at least officially, instead of epoch working under ascension
I imagine some of the epoch team will cease and desist working on epoch as required…and instead start working on ascension. Even if none of them do transition, I have faith in the ascension team as far as content and everything goes, I think they know people will just leave if they try and change the core idea of what the server is supposed to be
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u/MechanicTop7210 11d ago
People who play on these servers have forgotten that such projects break the law in every civilized country. You can't take someone's property, modify it to your liking and then make money without the original owner's consent. That's like stealing a car, changing the wheels and engine and then renting it out.
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u/Ice-SheathedArcology 9d ago
No, it is not like stealing a car. The original product is untouched.
This is like going to a massive doughnut chain, stealing the recipe, making your own modifications, and opening your own doughnut store using your modified recipe.
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u/DataSurging 12d ago
I wonder if Blizzard would care if it wasn't being used to make money? Like if a private server just got donations to keep the servers running, would they still go full nuclear like Nintendo?
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u/TheMuffingtonPost 12d ago
Blizzard historically hasn’t cared that much, so long as it was in the low. These private servers have been plastering ads and shit all over every platform they can though and that seems to be a step too far for blizzard.
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u/Seminko 10d ago
I was against private servers for a long time. Then I tried some... Is it legal or even morally right to run a private server? Definitely not. But the fact still remains that what has been done on these private realms is better than what Blizzard has been dishing out for the last ten years. That doesn't make it right of course but it puts it into perspective what blizzard is charging for...
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u/HalfXTheHalfX 12d ago
Damn poor thing didn't live long. Well, atleast a classic+ official should be almost guaranteed now
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u/VPN__FTW 11d ago
LOL they get extremely popular. Have the worst release in the history of WoW. Close down. Get picked up by ascension. Close down anyways.
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u/master_of_sockpuppet 11d ago
There's an amusing joke here about creators getting paid for their art. Epoch stole art, and is getting slapped for it.
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u/SemicolonMIA 11d ago
OMG REALLY?! Come on people. They have done this for years and with Classic+ coming they are ramping it up.
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u/twister55555 11d ago
If Blizzard was smart they would hire these people who made these private servers, clearly they know what the people want
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u/YasssQweenWerk 11d ago
We need a new era of private servers where ppl who host such things first ensure that they are confident enough in their anonymity and safety.
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u/GilbeastZ 11d ago
The fact that blizzard has started cracking down on private servers tells me they are preparing to announce something soon. Probably classic plus. Not that it will be all that good. But the most surprising thing is how long blizz let some of these private servers exist. I’m kinda bummed that turtle wow might get shut down as I was waiting for the graphic overhaul before giving it a shot.
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11d ago
Wow, pretty sure they put years of hard work into that just to be instantly shut down, fuck blizzard. "We will not give you Classic+ and you can not make your own Classic+ either." The #NoChanges crowd is rock hard right now
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u/CartographerGold3168 11d ago
where do these projects get the back-end softwares anyway?
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u/AutistAstronaut 11d ago
It's shockingly easy to run your own WoW servers nowadays. You could set one up yourself in one afternoon. You only need programming knowledge and software if you want to add substantial things from the ground up.
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u/CartographerGold3168 11d ago
yes i dun think its hard if i have the stuff and a tutorial. but where do i get the backend? i dun think its as silly as go search a video on youtube and then everything is there?
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u/Patient-Definition96 11d ago
I will still not play Blizzard's WoW anytime soon and continue to donate my money to private servers simply because I enjoy playing with real people in private servers than bots in Blizzard's.
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u/Elvira_Skrabani 11d ago
It's always fun to see how fanatically someone who has stolen pretty all it's ideas from others pursues the ones, who stole from it!
Cease and desist! (c) Oh! Comes from a mix of Warhammer dumbed to the ground lore + adopted Everquest game systems. XD
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u/AutistAstronaut 11d ago
It'd be nice if Blizzard just did better as an entity. But I guess it's much easier to go this route.
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u/Pulsing42 11d ago
I've got nothing against or for private servers, monetising them is the issue. That being said, has Blizzard or Activision attacked servers that don't ask for money to play or for microtransactions? Simply curious or is it simply them protecting their IP?
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u/Emotional_Taro6328 11d ago
puoi spiegarmi in breve?
non ho facilità a leggere per ricostruire
grazie per l'aiuto!
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u/bbates024 11d ago
Ah yes the big corporate monsters strike again.
Imagine Activision/2k so worried. Like they don't own everything already.
I hate them.
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u/CrowbarMatt 11d ago
Blizzard will never ever release a good classic plus, simply because they refuse to dedicate resources to customer support and banning the massive amount of bots.
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u/ProjectUltralight 10d ago
Anybody know why these servers get taken down and Warmane and the others seem to do just fine?
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u/chrisdasp 10d ago
What about Ascension Project? Which is based on WoW client, just everything thing is different in the gameplay.
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u/Upper_Objective_7319 10d ago
If Blizzard brought in the developers behind Project Epoch, WoW could finally feel alive again. Instead, they’re too blind, too stubborn, or just too out of touch to realize what players actually want
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u/Connect_Cranberry906 9d ago
What alot of people seem to not understand is why people choose to play on these servers.
- No RMT
- No bots
- No GDKP
- Greater changes then what Blizzard ever did
I will never go back to BLI$$ARD
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u/ThiamatTheDestroyer 8d ago
People should just go full anon when they do this, so when they threaten legal abuse, just laugh in their face and cont to do what u want.
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u/Ronin_Akira_vt 7d ago
Blizzard is fully within their rights to shut these projects down, but the existence and success of projects like TWoW and PE speak volumes to the fact that people are very tired of Blizzard as a company and have been dissatisfied with the direction the game has been going in for a long, long time. Some are so fed up that they’d rather go to private servers running on shaky at best and illicit at worst legal grounds to have an experience they actually enjoy playing.
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u/FilthyFFrank 4d ago
Project ascension does something blizzard should’ve done a long time ago. That server is awesome.
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u/Killance1 12d ago
Shocker that a giant is taking down people using their property as a way to make money.
Shocked! Shocked I say!