What is the draw of these Vanilla servers if you have extensively played vanilla when it was live? You have seen and done everything, with various alts, and the game cant progress since bc isnt vanilla anymore, there cant be anything new? Or do I miss something about these private servers?
People might just enjoy the core gameplay even though they have already done the content 10 years ago. Also because of how active and impactful other people were on your experience in vanilla it's going to be quite different if played again today I think.
It's also important to consider how many people who played during early WoW actually have "seen and done everything, with various alts," like you might have leveled a character or two but how many people who currently want a legacy server actually did like Naxx 40, or AQ opening gates event or even AQ itself or the rank14 grind or thundery questline ? There is also the whole thing of people playing only from the perspective of one faction and stuff. In regards BC I think that most people want a progressive server that offers the ability to eventually transfer the server characters to a fresh TBC server(and so on through the expansions) once Naxx has been farmed(this the plan with nost) so that people who want to play TBC after being done with the vanilla experience can do that.
I only got to level 30 something on Nost but the early questing and adventuring was comfy as fuck even though I basically knew what almost everything was like and had an overreaching databse with any additional information easily available to me.
Questing in the early alliance zones, forming a group for the Rare Foe Reaper spawn in Westfall that ended in an anticlimatic stomp and no drop, going into Deadmines as a level 16 and actually having to use downranked heals to not run OOM always and sometimes even have to use bubble + loh so we wouldn't wipe, going Deadmines like 3 more times because I wanted more loot and I liked the dungeon and I didn't have the VC q the first few times
Helping a nelf hunter that barely spoke English and had all equipment broken tame the spirit cat(the one from the statues) in Darkshore and getting a white kitten non combat pet and a few gold coins(character was probably an alt) as a reward. Feeling like the richest guy ever afterwards and buying some Auction House greens.
Organizing a group to Wailing Caverns and tanking it after a journey through STV and Barrens(instead of just being lolported there) and having the Murlock boss drop me my sweet breastplate that I was still using when the servers got shutdown, following and chatting with the healer after the dungeon because he know where to hand in the quest from the last boss and I didn't.
Spamming /chicken on Horde in contested zones until they turn on their PvP(I was playing on the PvE server because the PvP one was unplayable because of pop reasons) and we can fight each other, flagging other ally players with PvP after they buff me.
Organizing and healing a group to Shadowfang Keep for the Paladin quest which rewarded you with a fucking amazing hammer and having to try 4manning Arugal because "afk 1 min", eventually kicking the guy and inviting another one to finish the dungeon. Instigating a pretty big group fight in front of Shadowfang Keep between the alliance and horde lowbies in front of the entrance after we were done.
Grouping for elite qsts in almost every zone with other people. Tagging Stiches before it reached Darkshire and looting off the femur after the guards and players killed it.
Dying in Ashenvale a few times because the horde I /chickened were a few levels above me and I had cooldown on loh. Healing a Blackfantom Depths run and getting the blue leather healslut leggings
Smacking people around with Verigans Fist once I finally completed the q, feeling unstoppable after getting the Onyxia buff from a guild handing in the head
Playing the auction house with 1c lowest bid and normal price buyout for all of my leathers
Going 2-2 on kills with an Orc hunter in STV before he ran away from our fighting place, dying to a subhuman UD priest because I had to go afk mid fight.
Running into the same guy a few times while qsting around in Arathi and learning that he was an alt of the second best raiding guild's GM, talking with him about lategame stuff for a bit.
Meeting the same druid in both a RFK group and a SM:G/L group and adding each other.(she was p good and knew the details of all the fights so I wanted to inv her once I was ready to tank cathedral and armory)
The journey was still fun for me in the same way as re watching Deadwood after a year was fun for me last month or how jerking off to my favourite porn scene is fun for me over and again. Quality experience lasts through time and even repeated consumption.
Like to be completely honest I would prefer a fresh game made with the same tenets and quality as Vanilla/TBC WoW but far as I know there is nothing like that in production so old WoW is the best bet currently.
While regular WoW still has millions. Don't forget that Nost was free, it's a big question how many people would have played if there was a sub.
And how many people didn't play on Nost because it was unofficial and "wrong" in their eyes?
they would have to iron out bugs while keeping the game mechanics as they were, and that would be quite a bit of work.
Nost literally has an almost perfect core available that I'm sure they wouldn't mind sharing with blizzard. And if a bunch of people can make the game work in their free time can a gargantuan company not manage it itself much easier ?
