"Old" WoW Servers

This picture depicts the final bosses of the 5 versions of WoW so far.

This post is about something that Blizzard (the company behind World of Warcraft) has said on their official forums they will not do, but is something I would like if they did it with their game, World of Warcraft. I also think it would bring back many players who left the game over time.

WoW is a nearly 10 year old game and has changed drastically since its release, and with an upcoming expansion it will change even further. Over time many patches, but especially expansions have changed the game a lot, and many players lost interest when things changed in a way did they not like.

Now, it is my perception that there is a large and growing nostalgia amongst not only the older players, but also ex-players for the older versions of the game. I even considered trying a "private" vanilla (Original WoW) server myself, but I don't see the point if when I'm done with the content there I can't move on with my toon to a BC (Burning Crusade: first expansion) server to continue my journey there.

Right now most of Vanilla WoW is just gone, and replaced with an upgraded version in Cata (Cataclysm: the third expansion). It was lorewise "aged" 10 years, with updated zones and quests and such. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful in itself, but I can never go back and experience the original game now, unless I go play on some private server.

You can totally still buy Vanilla WoW though, only thing is, there's no Vanilla server, so what happens is, it gets patched into compatibility with current servers and you still have to play in the "aged" Cata version of the game. Here's the thing: I don't think it would be hard for Blizzard to open up some "older version" servers.
They:
- know the hardware specs
- have the software
- have the know-how

All they need to do is:
- build an "old" server (can be for Vanilla, BC, WoTLK, Cata..)
- install the last version of the game before a new expansion (again, can be Vanilla, BC, WoTLK, Cata..)
- give people the option to have separate installations (in different folders) of the game for the different versions they want to play.

Right now the battle.net launcher has a section for each of the 3 major games (Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo), they will likely add more for the other games, but for WoW they could also add a sub-section for each old expansion, which will have a slightly modified install in that it will not patch past the specific expansion, and will connect only to their respective "old" servers.

The one thing I would want in addition though, would be to be able to transfer my character to any server, be it a an "old" server of the next expansion or directly to the current servers. I think it should be obvious though, that you should only be able to transfer your character to a newer version of the game, and not to an older version. I expect this would not be as easy as moving characters is now, since I expect the character databases of the different versions are incompatible, but it is not something that can't be figured out.

The reason Blizzard has for not doing any of this, from what I've seen from my search on the subject, boils down to "We want the game to keep moving forward.", which I can respect, but I think that a huge amount of players would love to have the option to play on "old servers", and it could mean a huge influx of nostalgic ex-players, increasing the playerbase, which means a ton of more subscription money for Blizzard. So even from a business point of view it makes sense. Unless, that is, somehow, I'm underestimating the costs.

In conclusion, I respect Blizzard's stance on the subject, but am hopeful that someday they will change their minds about it, just like when they said "We will NEVER add pandas to the game!". Probably the best way to actually gauge interest would be for Blizzard to put a poll on their website with the question: "Which of these would you prefer:
a) "old" servers
b) dance studio
c) some world event maybe
d) well, you get the idea.."

I am curious about how others think about this, so please leave a comment is you have one, and thanks for reading! :)