The original Everquest ran a variety of different servers under different rulesets. I just checked and, suprisingly, they still do! At one point this included an unpatched version of the game as it was on release day, but no longer.
At this point in time the only appeal of the game to me is nostalgia. I don't think I'd care to log in and immediately upgrade my formerly maxed out character with 40 levels of free exp just so I can go to the latest newbie zone and not get slaughtered. That would sort of trivialize the entirely excessive amount of time I put into that character.
I played WoW's beta but then went entirely off of MMO's for good (such a waste of time!). I'm sure there are lots of people who would love to revist the release version of the game. Clearly, the demand is there. Instead of shutting Nostalrius down, the Blizzard team should be buying the server config and data off of the team that was running it and then keep it online. They have to protect their IP, but the cost of keeping long-time loyal fans happy (even if they aren't currently paying ones) happy is pretty minimal.
Or even turn it into a paid service! Seems to be an underserved niche fan base. I'm sure most of the players would be happy to fork over $15/mo. for an official "oldschool" server.
At this point in time the only appeal of the game to me is nostalgia. I don't think I'd care to log in and immediately upgrade my formerly maxed out character with 40 levels of free exp just so I can go to the latest newbie zone and not get slaughtered. That would sort of trivialize the entirely excessive amount of time I put into that character.
I played WoW's beta but then went entirely off of MMO's for good (such a waste of time!). I'm sure there are lots of people who would love to revist the release version of the game. Clearly, the demand is there. Instead of shutting Nostalrius down, the Blizzard team should be buying the server config and data off of the team that was running it and then keep it online. They have to protect their IP, but the cost of keeping long-time loyal fans happy (even if they aren't currently paying ones) happy is pretty minimal.