Blizzard's Classic+ Strategy — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:03] Blizzard's legal hammer has come down squarely on Turtle's exposed head and Blizzard have won. That's because now, 8 months after the explosive lawsuit involving the RICO Act and all that stuff, well, now, 8 months later,

[00:16] it's finally over. And on May 15th, Turtle WoW will shut down all of its servers for good. But, it's not the only one Blizzard's attack lawyers have destroyed. Blizzard are basically on a rampage here and they're targeting a

[00:28] very specific type of private server. And we all pretty much know why they're doing it. But, before I talk about that, first let's talk about the end of Turtle void chaos we should talk about cuz it's getting spooky. The UK government is in

[00:44] court trying to force Apple to weaken its encryption. I don't like that. The Online Safety Act just expanded again. Over in the States, you guys still don't have like robust federal privacy laws, just kind of a patchwork of state rules

[00:56] that, you know, are there while the data breaches keep on piling up. We're seeing privacy erode across the place. Even in the UK, the Home Secretary referenced a panopticon in a good way. I mean, she thought it was good. So, for reasons

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[02:02] on a 2-year plan at nordvpn.com/belly of Warcraft. Check it out. Thanks to Nord for supporting the show. Turtle WoW was a pretty big deal. It was a massive popular private server that I think is best described as being an

[02:16] unofficial classic plus. Everyone who played it basically has praised it for the tons of new vanilla-like content. And it's kind of amazing. Everything they added respected WoW's tone and expanded the lore in ways

[02:29] that people did actually like. GMs were active and visible, like they kind of were back in the day with real World of Warcraft. They were really good at look for Blizzard who were struggling with bots. But basically everywhere you

[02:43] looked, people were saying that they were doing classic plus exactly like we've all wanted from Blizzard. And it turns out that got them results to the tune of half a million players. That's pretty huge. But of course, the

[02:56] fact that we even know that was one of Turtle WoW's single biggest mistakes. were invincible. And not just through sheer hubris. They had servers in Asia, they had a leader in Russia, and that meant that they just believed the law

[03:10] didn't really apply to them. So much so actually that before the lawsuit, they were even poking the official Blizzard accounts on X in public. They were Now, that drew a hell of a lot of attention. Now, in many ways, that

[03:25] attention was great for the Turtle WoW wallet. But of course, it's not exactly the kind of attention you want if you want to avoid scrutiny. So, Blizzard were clearly onto them. But Blizzard first needed to build themselves a legal

[03:38] case. And they sure did. Not that Turtle seemed to care about that for what it's worth, because even after the lawsuit came down, Turtle just kept going saying their last big move was an open letter to Blizzard, one asking to work together

[03:53] on fan license servers, which is obviously an interesting idea, but also one that did not pan out. And as much as there was a lot of feel good vibes in their open letter, there was also a lot of interesting framing of other private

[04:07] server initiatives that yeah, didn't really pass scrutiny. now Turtle has actually been ordered to shut down. What's happened is that AFK Craft, the legal entity believed to operate Turtle, has now got to stop all

[04:24] operations related to the server and all operations related to anything Blizzard or anything Wow. And that means that with no other servers, no successors, no passing code off to another party, no forum post advertising other servers,

[04:37] any of it. And the same actually goes for Josiah Zimmer. He was their American marketing lead. And he was also their weak point. Because Blizzard is an American company. And that meant that in him they had an

[04:52] American that they could legally dog pile. And it actually seems that worked. Blizzard won. Now, of course, in all this legal stuff, there are other defendants that this doesn't apply to, but that's actually where the settlement

[05:07] comes in. Now, sadly, we don't know the teams that they decided on or if any money changed hands, but we do know this. Blizzard and the court consider it all to be done and the lawsuit will be closed in June.

[05:20] announced their shutdown, it does actually look like a complete Blizzard victory. But you may be thinking, "Okay, but will it stay a victory? And to what end?"

[05:34] Will this stay a victory for Blizzard? Well, Zimmer and AFK Craft are the only judgment. The other people behind Turtle, who are of course way less exposed to American courts, could totally just pick up new aliases and try

[05:49] all this again. And really it wouldn't be the first time that many of them have done just that. So in theory, a new AFK Craft could be up and running another month. And maybe they've already started. You see, whenever Blizzard hit

[06:03] them with a lawsuit, it actually wasn't just about Turtle. What Blizzard alleged was that the leaders of Turtle were running a full-blown mafia out of private servers. Now, our own research turned up a whole bunch of evidence that

[06:16] does actually back that claim up. Basically, the people in charge were knowingly using passionate developers to just make themselves rich as hell from cash shop sales. That kind of thing has almost been an open secret in private

[06:29] server communities. We've seen leaked private messages showing leadership talking their audience, ignoring Europe to focus on China to make more money, and all sorts of other behavior like that that isn't really a good look. And

[06:41] passion project, it was also a full-blown business. An illegal black market business at that. And to take it even further, one of the leaders is even said to use their position to spawn gold in their servers for gold sellers to

[06:55] in their servers for gold sellers to sell, of course, for a for a price. So exchanging some money, and then that gold is getting sold on. Now, of course, with free money like that, the chances

[07:07] of them fully disappearing forever are kind of slim. I mean, they found not try to do it in a way that Blizzard just can't really get them again in the future. Now, of course, we don't know everything. I wish we had the documents

[07:21] that Blizzard have, but look, even what we've seen, which is surely not everything, is still pretty damning. So anything that Blizzard got via the juicy. And in a situation like this, discovery is absolutely vital. It's one

[07:36] of the key parts of the process where Blizzard legally gets access to files from the American defendant in the case. That basically means emails, Discord messages, finances, everything. So, anything shared with that individual

[07:49] I'll tell you why all this has my eyebrow raised, right? Turtle shutting down is genuinely unexpected given all the legal protection they had. By which Russian, the servers are in Asia, it's all pretty far away from US courts. So,

[08:05] I think what we can deduce from that is that whatever documents Blizzard got from the discovery process are probably quite bad. Blizzard may actually have something on some of these people. But, of course, even if the

[08:18] people are out, you can't kill an idea. People want classic plus. Now, legally speaking, they're not allowed to share any of Turtle's assets. Yeah, there is already a Brazilian private server that's basically just using Turtle WoW

[08:32] as its base. There will be clones in the future, many of them, and Blizzard's lawyers absolutely know that. And they're probably happy enough. Cuz the more servers they need to take down, hey, the more money they'll all be paid.

[08:44] Turtle WoW is actually all the only server pulling the plug. You may not have heard of it, but it's now time to talk about Stormforge. with a few different offerings. They've got a TBC server, they've got a Wrath

[08:59] server with new unique content, and a Mist server that's going to progress to Warlords of Draenor and Legion this year. Well, that's not the only thing they have, cuz they've got an egregious cash shop. It sells XP, it sells Wrath

[09:11] potions, cosmetics, boosts, and even just straight-up gear. Thing is, though, it's also going to be dying on the 14th of May. According to them with a cease and desist letter, and they have actually complied. So, that

[09:26] means one thing is clear. Blizzard's lawyers are on the warpath. And now that think everyone knows Blizzard are serious. If you're trying to make money off a private server, you've got a target on your back. And that brings me

[09:39] to the last major private server project that I think we need to cover, which is Ascension. And if I were Ascension, I'd start thinking about my exit plan. As of the time of writing, Blizzard have not yet taken down Ascension. Now,

[09:54] there's a few possible reasons for that. One is that they just feel untouchable, like Turtle did. But Project Epoch is another classic plus server that also got hit by Blizzard last year at the same time as Turtle. And like

[10:06] desist letter without it actually going to a full lawsuit. But unlike Stormforge, they didn't actually stop. And that's where Ascension comes in. Now, Ascension is the classless

[10:18] Now, Ascension is the classless ARPG-like WoW projects. It's honestly perspective. And what happened is that Ascension took over Epoch, which is a fairly gutsy move because it places them squarely [music] in Blizzard's sights.

[10:33] And well, things are actually going to get a little bit worse. That's because Ascension are gearing up to a launch called Conquest of Azeroth, which is set to be a vanilla experience with a ton of custom classes. And literally right now,

[10:48] as I make this video, they're even selling access to the alpha. And that business using Blizzard's IP to make bank. Now that they're carrying on with this so brazenly is obviously a sign that they think they're invincible as

[11:04] well. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the news before too long. all of these things if they could. But Blizzard have only got so many lawyers. So, here's another question. Why did Epoch, Turtle, and Stormforge get away

[11:19] with this stuff for ages? Well, it seems simple to me. First things first, it's a no-brainer. It's almost guaranteed that classic plus will be a huge announcement this BlizzCon. Blizzard have basically teased that out themselves. Now, we've

[11:34] got no official idea what that will look like, but what we do know is this. Whenever it launches, every classic plus like server will be in direct competition with a real wild product sold by Blizzard. Blizzard is selling

[11:47] classic plus and a private server is also selling classic plus. Blizzard will obviously just kill that private server. That's why Turtle is dying. So, if you ask me, I think this is Blizzard clearing the field before their official

[11:59] classic plus launch. They're killing off the competition and they're making sure that the only offering in the markets is theirs. Now, that does sound really dastardly, but um obviously like World of Warcraft

[12:12] is theirs. It's not some open source MIT licensed project. It's actually their don't know, billion plus into the damn thing. Um it is fair enough that they, you know, defend their copyright and all of that stuff. And even the people

[12:27] engaging in these servers know that they are extremely shaky at best. So, I don't think that may even extend to why Ascension has at least found itself with a bit of a stay of execution. That's because a classless ARPG like World of

[12:43] Warcraft is just something Blizzard won't be offering anytime soon. So, if they've got limited legal resources, it's of course more important to spend them on the ones that will actually compete with their product, which is of

[12:56] course classic plus and progression servers. It's obvious Blizzard are doing all of this to pave the way for classic plus. Now, this is something that Holly hyped up. She hyped it up pretty hard

[13:08] actually, and we know that classic as it stands has pretty much been a ghost town for a while. Certainly has been pretty light in content. But of course, there are still developers at Blizzard. Those resources are going somewhere, and it

[13:21] definitely isn't on making the existing classic products perfect, because they're not. That means everything points towards Classic Plus as a major pillar of Blizzard's plan for World of Warcraft. Maybe it's even their Hail

[13:34] Warcraft. Maybe it's even their Hail Mary to revitalize the entire non-modern Now, as things stand, we're about 140-odd days away from BlizzCon. That's store. And if the hyper-round turtle is anything to go by, the plan should be

[13:49] fairly simple. Alliance elves, horde paladins, more zones, more quests, and more emphasis on the journey than just the end game. There's a hell of a lot and I think Blizzard know that full well. That team has obviously been

[14:03] operating in stealth mode for a good while now. And with all the Classic Plus project surveys out there, there's clearly more than enough data showing what'll actually get people excited. The only question then is can Blizzard

[14:15] actually make a Classic Plus, one that's good enough to replace the private servers that they've just killed off? That's what will matter to people at the end of the day. Blizzard wants players' money. The best thing that they can do

[14:27] is just provide a better product and earn the damn money. They've certainly I think it's pretty clear they've got the talent. So, that means they really don't have any excuses. And, you know what? I, for one, really excited for it.

[14:42] I think that a full Classic Plus could really be a new pillar of WoW in a way that the other Classic stuff hasn't. The other Classic stuff has always had an transient. We've always known where it's been going. But a Classic Plus that's

[14:56] just a new version of WoW that's going to grow over time, well, that truly is a big new exciting experience. It's certainly one that I can see myself know where you're at with this. But next, I think there's a video you got to

[15:09] watch because we have a bunch of like legit, respected industry analytics about World of Warcraft. And because of those analytics, we basically know how want to learn all about that, watch this

[15:22] want to learn all about that, watch this video next.