Don’t count out people who began in BC and WotLK that are really into a pre-Cata version of WoW, even if Vanilla might not have been their ideal (since they didn’t start their WoW time there), and will be playing Classic.
BC Boy here, super excited for Classic.
Though if they ever did World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic then I’ll probably bow out of Vanilla in a flash and go back home again.
Im really hoping Blizzard goes with a Character copy model for TBC so that we can continue on in the TBC Classic servers, but still have that level 60 character in the Vanilla Classic server. The best of both worlds.
The 1-60 leveling experience on a TBC server would be dead. At least at launch. The only characters who would be leveling are Horde pallies and Alliance shaman, and players who want the new races.
I would say if they ever add a TBC server it should be a fresh start.
It launched with 400k, and was designed with mass appeal for a time when the larger gaming audience didn’t know much about MMOs at all. It’s been 15 years, on the other side of MOBAs, more complicated online games, mobile games, etc.
Now you are pitting a retro game versus the modern market. Retro games and consoles don’t pull in 6-8 million. Even the Nintendo Mini or SNES mini sold 2-3 million.
mmmm I really would rather not go through that level grind again. I wouldn’t play TBC if I had to start from scratch.
If they say “only one level 60 for character copy” then players will still make an alt. I would make an alt. But having to start from scratch would turn me off from that server.
It would also be a shock to the server’s economy. Immediately you have these characters with hundreds or thousands of gold. Still…that’s not unlike what happens when an expansion gets added. I just think it’s key to separate Vanilla Classic from a potential TBC Classic.
That said, I’d prefer a copy over a transfer. Transferring 60s right off of Vanilla would leave those servers rather empty at the top.
And of course all this relies on Blizzard even making a TBC server, which they’ve said they have no current plans to do.
ActiBlizz doesnt really care about subscription numbers or the revenue they create its the expansion sales that move the stock numbers with classic all you need is a sub you wont have to buy the next expansion to play it so maybe the attitude towards subs will change for the better.
Actually, it’s the opposite. ActiBlizz relies on the steady income from WoW. They don’t have to spend money on development as long as the subscription brings in consistent revenue. The sales numbers of expansions are rarely as big as would change the outlook fo the Stock, but the amount spent does. This is why Activision-Blizzard diversified and bought King Candy. More revenue streams, very little fanfare.
ActiBlizz has not relied on WoW since Cataclysm to move their products, but WoW was stable as a consistent revenue stream until this most recent expansion. Other games like CoD and Overwatch are what move the needle in terms of stock prices. They tried with Destiny, but we know how that worked out.
Their primary profit isn’t box sales or subs; it’s microtransactions.
Microtransactions are the primary profit for other games, WoW’s not needed microtransactions, but has added them because profit.
It’s why sales expectations are so much higher for non-WoW games - Destiny, CoD are pushed to sell above 10 million, and then they throw microtransactions on top of that. And that’s where those games make profit.
Free to play games have to cast a much wider net in order to gain the same amount of money. League needed to get 100 million MAU in order to gain profit off of a small percentage of people who buy microtransactions.
Whoa there hoss, I know main land China likes to consider Taiwan as a part of china, but I promise you they’re entirely different.
They don’t even have the same ridiculous restrictions and very very different mainland Chinese censored servers.
China WoW is an entirely different game, they might not even have access to BFA because it can take a long time to get approval from the CCP.
They do have BfA, they’re completely up to date on all the patches as well.
While Vanilla ended with 8 million, only 6 million experienced more than half the expansion… And only 3.5 million experienced the second quarter.
Most importantly, only about 300,000 people experienced launch of Vanilla.
Even at 8 million vanilla players, there are, at minimum, 4 million players that never played Vanilla… and because WoW caused so much trouble with kids missing and doing poorly in school (and let’s face it… lot’s of college kids and even adults) Many of these quit voluntarily or forcibly along the way for those reasons. So that number is likely a million or two higher.
Then you have people who came on board after Wrath. Even with WoW in decline, WoW sitll garnered new players… it’s just that more left than joined/stayed. So you have quite a lot of people who never experienced older WoW at all. And that is especially true of those players who came in at Cata or later and never experienced EK/Kalimdor before the great Cataclysm.
Does all this mean we will see 8 million players return to Classic? Truth is… we just don’t know. Classic lovers want it to so badly… and modern WoW players aren’t keen on the idea of their version of WoW taking second place to a reboot.
But either way… Classic is good for modern WoW. At the very least, a portion of Classic players will kick the modern tires. At the very best… Classic will re-kindle a fire for older WoW development style that will carry over to future expansion for WoW. Revitalizing the game once more to have over 10 million players again.
Or it will flop after a few months, modern WoW will continue to decline, and Blizzard will move the IP to mobile. I would think realizing this, that ALL PC WoW players would feel like they were on the same team.
The real question is.
Will classic have more players than retail.
Retail was “leaked” to be under 2 mil.
I am in the belief that classic will have more than retail and that will mean something.
I think that’s a real mystery to be honest. You are talking about re-releasing a 14 yr old game. How much of it is nostalgia vs just more enjoyable game mechanics?
It will be interesting though if new players who try out retail and quit then try out classic and stay if blizz will take notes on those statistics and change retail to be more like classic.
Prime example would be aoe fest dungeons in retail vs slow and steady methodical approach in classic. Or making loot harder to attain, dungeon sets existing, etc.
Also look at the differences in what blizz calls “catch up gear” in vanilla vs bfa. BFA definition means be raid ready in 2 days while in vanilla means it’s going to take you a while to catch up running dire maul, zg or aq 20.
The solo players in vanilla could slowly acquire their dungeon set and then upgrade it. The gear wasn’t amazing but it was more than enough to have fun in the game and keep you on a competitive level in pvp or get invited to a raid once or twice.
Ninja and fam are litterally going to play… play vanilla… that means hours of advert time. i wouldn’t doubt its over 8mil and launch might not even be the biggest numbers vanilla sees.
Nobody taking this into consideration.
It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of effect the big Twitch streamers are going to have on Classic WoW. A LOT of the big ones played WoW back in the day so it’s going to be the biggest channel on Twitch for a couple days.
The big WoW streamers garnered maybe a couple thousand players when they were doing their Project 60 stuff, so Ninja and some others may have marginally more involvement.
Project 60 does not equal Classic WoW though.
Classic is an entirely different game on its own.
What’s going to be really hype is when the top PvP players get recognized and stream. Watching top PvP players the Grand Marshals and High Warlords is going to be big.
I hope Classic sees a resurgence in machinima content.