Vanilla had players starting throughout its entire lifespan. (I started June 2006 - Naxx was opened that day. Everything else was available. I had no less fun progressing through.)
Only some 200,000 players were logged in on Day 1. Only 1.5 million were playing by 1st Q 2005 (Dire Maul was released). Only 3.5 million were playing by 2nd Q 2005 (Honor system, BGs). Only 4 million were playing by 3rd Q 2005 (BWL, ZG). That means half the people who were playing by the end of vanilla weren’t playing until several of the “stages” were already part of the game.
Phases aren’t necessary to enjoy all of what WOW Classic has to offer, because there’s no insane scaling like Retail that negates prior content. (Seriously … Retail has a hotfix/patch to up the iLvL of World Quest rewards leading up to a raid tier opening so that more people will meet the minimum to queue for it. Why go back to the prior raid at all? citation
Classic has the prior tier to earn gear from. Sure, an alt can get carried by friends, but the gear sources are still going to be the “older” content.
For many of us, the experience of leveling as each class is great fun. What end-game content is available doesn’t change that. Doing each dungeon from a different role, from a different class, gives a fresh perspective. Working on each profession, collecting recipes, farming for random world drops or rep to get a certain mount on a different race.
No, I’m not saying YOU have to enjoy all that. However, just because you wouldn’t, just because you’re constantly champing at the bit for new, shiny raids and eSport highs does not mean WOW Classic is, or ever should be, modeled after Retail in that way.
You really shouldn’t make comparisons to BFA they are completely different games. In BFA a content roll-out means the old content is dead. In vanilla for the most part this isn’t the case. On the “unofficial” server i play on, they are about to launch Naxx. Some people are still running MC/Ony, a lot of people are still running AQ. Having a content schedule to keep up with the majority of raiders is great in vanilla because it keeps them going and doesn’t stop casuals from progressing through older content, unlike BFA.
As a point of note, your examples all relate to raiding. Rolling out Naxx, also means that the guy trying to do every quest in the game is largely unaffected too. Or the one trying RPing in a hut in Zoram Strand.
Week 1 might be a stretch but it IS do able. You may very well see it. If you think that Rag is going to live longer than week 2, you are High… and id like some of what you’re smokin!
I think the pre-raid BiS gearing is possible… I am not sure about the rep grind for the waters because of the lockouts but it will be interesting to see. Not my idea of fun but more power to the folks who want to be in that race.
No offense intended but I very much disagree. They had the casual player in mind when they decided to cut 40 man raiding, they had the casual player in mind when they gave us access to 300% speed flying mounts, they had the casual player in mind for LFG & LFR. They had the casual player in mind when they cut the honor system, they had the casual player in mind when they started giving epics out for doing quests. They also had the casual player in mind when they made raids have 3 different difficulty’s. They had casuals in mind when they added crossrealm technology. Look what catering to the casual got us.
Why is it an issue that players have access to BWL, ZG, AQ or Naxx when you’re still in MC, this isn’t BFA, where only the current content matters. And everything else is obsolete. This is classic where every single dungeon and raid is relevant throughout the course of the game.
I don’t think they need to base roll outs around casuals, but i don’t think they need to base it around the hard core either. there should be a nice middle ground in there some where.
no youre right you dont need 40 people. still need like 8? if i remember right. what if one or 2 of them dont show to the raid ? you gonna have to wait for them to go out to azshara and get a water and come back meanwhile trash is respawning lol.
Even though I am planning on being hardcore I actually agree that how fast they release the phases need to be according to the casuals.
Otherwise everything will just be sped up and no one will be able to stand by and smell the flowers. Even I want to make an alt and just be a complete casual on it.
i think the point they are making is that you got people who are aiming to have MC on farm by week 2. we shouldn’t do content releases based around groups like that. otherwise by 3 months we will already be working on AQ.
This isn’t BFA you can be a MC raider when people are in Naxx play at your own pace. This isn’t retail where each raid invalidates all previous gear MC has BiS even when you are a Naxx clearing guild. TBH the raids are not hard and will be cleared fast no matter what this isn’t brand new content so comparing it to BFA x-realm Mythic raid unlock is more than a bit ingenuous.