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World of Warcraft's Executive Producer J. Allen Brack released the following statement via Eurogamer, as a response to the Nostalrius server closure:

"Failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard's rights. While Blizzard had looked into the possibility of working with unofficial servers, there was not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions, added Brack. Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.

We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WOW.

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. 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 closing, Brack made reference to the 235,000 signatures for the petition to reinstate the server, saying: "They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks."

What do you make of all this?

In case you could go for a trip down memory lane, we've provided the original video that depicts the final few minutes leading up to the server shutdown:



You can also check out the compilation of screenshots depicting the original massive pilgrimage staged by players in response to the Nostalrius server shutdown, over here.

Assistant game director Ion Hazzikostas responded to a forum thread about expensive vendor items, and actively tried to dismantle the widespread belief that there exists a feeling of consensus in a world as massive and diversified as WoW's. He wrote:

"If I’d instead posted that we were going to reconsider and massively reduce the prices of the cosmetic items on this vendor, there would be other people feeling like their feedback was ignored.

It’s exceptionally rare that everyone wants the same thing,” he added. “And even then, there is a large silent majority that does not post on forums. If there were actual unanimity regarding a certain issue, we would change our design: For example, early on in Warlords, we changed Group Finder loot from Personal back to Need/Greed until we could iterate on Personal loot further, and the community overwhelmingly told us that was a dumb idea. The change was reverted within 2 days.”

He wrapped up his response by honing in on the value of tailoring different kinds of content to different groups, as opposed to just issuing one 'low common denominator' that lacks any real excitement, for anyone.

“If an awesome mount comes exclusively from PvP, the majority of players who don’t participate in PvP yet desire the mount would prefer that it were otherwise,” Hazzikostas explained. “If our goal were to please a majority, we would likely have to make a version of that mount also available through raiding, and one also available through outdoor questing and reputation, at the very least. But doing that would dilute the reward itself. Ultimately, the approach we take is usually to tailor different content and rewards that can feel special to different groups, rather than trying to come up with a lowest common denominator that isn’t special to anyone.”

Let's call him courageous writer Shivam Bhatt stole some time at the 2016 Game Developer's Conference held in San Francisco to chat with Blizzard Co-Founder David Brevik during a Q&A about Diablo. 

Bhatt carpe'd that diem and confessed to Brevik that he pirated the game almost two decades ago, offering up some cash on the spot for his transgression. Not only did Bhatt pretty much get rewarded with the most surreal reaction possible--Brevik taking a pic with him:



He even got a shoutout on Twitter from Brevik about the incident as well.

Yes, dreams do come true. Fans loyal to the series are well aware the Warcraft movie's taking it back to the earliest of days, before the Dark Portal even opened, and when the PC game storyline began. In this TV Spot we catch some glances of what look like Frost Wolves from the Frostwolf Clan kind of just sinking their teeth into everything they encounter. Plus the square-off between the human warrior and the mountainous, roid-enraged Hulk of an Orc gets all the adrenaline pumpin'. The Warcraft movie hits theaters June 10th.