[Insert US Navy Seal Copypasta]
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Orphan works have nothing to do with “abandonware” as you described it. Orphan works are copyrighted works whose rights holders no longer exist, not copyrighted works that magically become public domain because the rights holders haven’t sold or updated them.
It was never a secret. It was never club either.
I agree with your premise, but I have a different reasoning.
The people that were raiders in WoW vanilla are the ones that are going to be resubscribing to play it again. The casual person back then will not resubscribe.
All Orphan works are “Abandonware.”
Not all “Abandonware” are Orphan Works.
It also remains that some of the laws that have been put in place regarding Orphan Works internationally have created “legal grey zones” that few companies care to test in court even if they clearly are the rights holder.
Which brings us back to WoW Classic exists to get Vanilla WoW out of “abandoned” status, so legal actions in court can begin with one less wildcard in play.
I agree, I think they will try on the retail side, which is ok. They can do whatever they want with that abomination. 
When people run out of things to do, they will move on. However, when the new shiney dulls, they will probably return to old faithful. My prediction is that populations will ebb and flow with the times just like they always have.
Many of those “casuals” have gone on to become long time raiders in later expansions though. Which was my point.
bro this game is DOA.
you see that period? that’s a period bro, DOA.
This
I predict 15ish, but yeah, a pretty small number. They know realms will die fast, so they won’t open too many and with layering, it will be fine for the early influx of players.
This for sure. The forums are filled with a very small, but loud, vocal minority.
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I played from day 1 on bf account then got my own soon after. Am female in mid-50’s - returning for classic after losing interest part way thru wrath and quitting after Crapyclysm (Pandaland was nice for a bit). I have 2 Classic servers of 10 toons each mapped out with names, professions, looks, backstory (may try RP this time on some). My ex is also resubbing. He is 65. We will be playing til end of time just like Kills above. I believe that the amount of folks who will stick with the game pretty much forever is grossly underestimated. I have dreamed about Classic for 11 years, bawled my eyes out when Nost died - and I was not alone. This game will hook a whole new crop of players. Even the kids used to insta-epics and participation trophies will not be immune. They are still people and Classic will give them a way of life they have never known and don’t even know they need. btw the 65 year old man above used to make fun of bf and me about the nerdy game we played. He got an account to be able to reach me easier about a handicapped individual. Next thing I knew, this sports-watching jock had 6 fully geared toons and was in a raiding guild.
sports are just games really lol
but these kinda games are more interesting than put ball through hoop or goal etc
It would be foolish not to expect a playerbase drop off. Only during vanilla, tbc, and wrath did the game expand. And even during those times your friends would still naturally get bored and leave because on a micro level each individual may only care for so long. On a macro level its been a long time since WoW populations increased overall during an xpac.
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i dont think there is going to be a drop like folks think. To many people now have no idea that classic is coming because they dont play current blizzard games or watch twitch to see anything about it. IF blizzard would show a commercial, or ads somewhere a gamer might see it, you would have a much larger starting group of people playing. As of right now its going to take a few months of word of mouth before players start coming back…
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It doesn’t matter how far it drops off. They’ve said they’d keep it going. And if they don’t, I’ll move on. It’s just a game after all. I know I won’t be going back to retail though. I’ve tried 3 times since MoP and it was worse every time.
Also, it isn’t raid or alt. I did both. I raided on my raid nights and then rolled alts. Or pvped.
WoD, then Legion (and I’m assuming BFA but I never played) added all these carrots for me to chase and it just wasn’t interesting.
So what if Classic is just PvP, raiding, and alts. What more do you want? It could be that I’m remembering wrong, but I doubt it. Based on the reactions I’ve seen from people playing the beta, the magic is still there and I’m going to enjoy it. My only real concern is that I’ll go full no life again. I really don’t want to do that again.
I don’t get the drop off either as Classic will easily have over 10 million Subs. Since we got phases the Sub numbers will grow over time. I am most looking forward to the additional phases as well for PvP rank grinding and of course BGs. Then who doesn’t want to do Naxx and then PvP all day with this amazing gear.
Vanilla was addicting and Classic will be just that. Each phase will keep people playing and bring in new players as well. I think the latter Phases a year from now is when the game will peak. Phase 5-6 will yield record breaking Sub numbers finally beating WotLK.
Put it in the books!
Classic is the Future of WoW
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The Vanilla raider was a very small % of population. Only a small % of non-raiders even wanted to. Problem was/is that people making the game are raiders. It’s the casual majority that left due to game getting gutted that Classic will bring back. All some of us want to do is craft items, farm mats, quest, explore, lvl our skills and pets, make alts, duel, play AH, grief x-roads and Southshore and hang out with our remote friends… you know, all that un-fun stuff.
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Lol… These delusions just get greater and greater… Vanilla will be lucky to keep 300k after the first couple months. A good 90% of people that try it will get to around 25-30, experience the grindy crawl and nope the hell out. Don’t get me wrong though, the first week or so, it might have a million or so checking it out (worldwide).
The only reason why the biggest private servers had so many people playing was because 2/3 of them were looking for a free game to play.
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I agree with this thread wholeheartedly. I think the idea of Classic dying off when BFA is the only other option is completely laughable. Classic killed BFA for a month already at the end of 8.1 and people who stopped playing BFA weren’t even playing Classic because the Beta only let like a few thousand people in, instead they were just watching streamers play it.
Once Classic drops for everyone if you think retail is going to be able to come close outside of the first month of 9.0 you are insane.
No, people being done with the content patch killed BFA off for a month, at the end of 8.1. It would have happened if the classic beta was going on or not. It’s completely normal and has been the case in every major patch for a very long time.
Using this logic, based on the number of viewers on twitch, there were only up to ~150k people playing WoW at any given time…
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