I really enjoyed Vanilla WoW but my fondest memories came from BC & WotlK (not nearly as much afterwards). If this project continues I think a good way ahead is run separate servers with each expansion. Then allow players to copy their characters to the next expansion’s server (it may force name changes). People can stay WoW Classic, advance to BC & beyond, or (if they want) both! It could be a way to draw in players that started later.
I doubt Blizzard is willing to do so and I doubt this would change with time.
Call my blindly optimistic but I think Classic is going to be a huge success. Successful to the point that they will release bc servers 3-4 years after the launch of classic.
Classic WoW makes sense only because of everything that changed in Cataclysm. You can’t do a lot of the vanilla content anymore because it has changed or been removed altogether.
You can still go do BC and WoLK quests, dungeons, raids, none of that has changed.
So, what are you looking for exactly? Is it to restore the same game (im)balance, mechanics, no world-scaling? Or is it the community of people to do these things with?
I don’t think many will play Classic WoW long term to wander through the huge zones to poor storyline quests (relative to retail). I would gather most are looking for the community and mechanics that they loved. There are no level 60-85 communities today, nor is the gameplay fit to play previous expansions seriously.
Define “long term”. The Vanilla 1-60 speed run record was something like 4d20h. If a normal casual person plays a few hours a day, that’s 38+ days of playing… if you match the speed run. Okay, not quite because of rested exp, but you get the idea. What I’m saying is that the 1-60 experience alone will keep many (not all) people busy for a couple months. That might not be “long term”, but compared to the handful of days that it takes to level from 110-120 in retail, completely different.
“Long term” = meet or surpassing ActivisionBlizzard’s subscription predictor algorithm. They expect to slowly bleed subscriptions, if they hemorrhage them the future products and support will be cut. It’ll be the community & mechanics don’t keep people subscribed not the pre-cataclysm zones.
I worry that wow classic is going to do more harm than good for the wow community. I think it is pretty obvious that the player base is on the decline. I think wow classic is only going to divide the player base more than attract new players. Having BC, WoLK servers would even further divide the community. Sure, some would progress to BC, but some would just stay on classic. It will only fracture an already shrinking community, and I worry that will spell the end of the game. We’ll see. I hope I’m wrong.
I have mixed feelings. On one hand I want wow classic, but it is mostly from the perspective of having a slower and harder game. I want that vanilla experience. On the other hand, vanilla wow is kinda ugly by today’s standards. Sure, I can still see it with my 2004 eyes and love it, but I have to admit it looks pretty dated.
So, what do I want? I want a wow expansion that takes a month or more of play to get to max level. An expansion where the world is as rich and beautiful as BfA, but where it also has a sense of danger. I want a game more like vanilla where item upgrades are a less common, so the upgrades are noticeable and feel rewarding. I don’t want artifact items that have 50+ incremental levels of power gain where each upgrade is so marginal it isn’t noticeable. I would rather have gear like the Warlords legendary rings that have a small number of power gains that you feel the upgrade. Items that develop through story content, rather than just grinding some world quest currency to fill a progress bar.
But, do I want classic? Not really, but I guess I’ll take it over what we have with retail today.