Earlier this month, Blizzard angered fans when they have decided to close down a World of Warcraft server called Nostalrius. After keeping mum on the topic for a long time, the company has finally broken its silence over the server shutdown.
According to GameZone, Blizzard announced that they are shutting down Nostalrius, a fan-run server that let players experience World of Warcraft as it was before it received any expansions. Now, Kotaku is reporting that the company has finally explained why they were forced to close its doors.
"Why not just let Nostalrius continue the way it was? The honest answer is, failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard's rights," World of Warcraft executive producer J. Allen Brack noted on the game's forums.
He stressed that while the company understands the frustrations of their fans, the situation was legally tricky and they were left with no choice but to shut down the server.
In his post, Brack also shared that Blizzard has looked into running a similar to Nostalrius "classic" server on its own, but unfortunately, the developers cannot push a button to get the server started.
"If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would," he said. "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."
That being said, Blizzard also came up with an idea of a "pristine realm," which would be a purer experience, with no shortcuts such as leveling acceleration, character transfers, character boosts, heirloom gear.
Brack also added that Blizzard has been in active discussions with the team behind Nostalrius and will continue to talk with them going forward. He said the company has been in touch with the people that ran Nostalrius.
As a further sign that Blizzard is listening to their fans, Brack ended his post by saying, "We thank you for your constructive thoughts and suggestions. We are listening."
Blizzard finally breaks silence over 'vanilla' World of Warcraft server Nostalrius' closure https://t.co/EsING4UOpJ pic.twitter.com/XH70p745Eu
— Gamasutra (@gamasutra) April 26, 2016
