Collector's Edition?

That’s a clever answer, but this topic is still about transferring something you bought for a different game and applying it to Classic. If that’s what people want, that’s what I want. I’ll say it’s a bad idea, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. But at least be honest about it. My first reply was specifically addressing Starman’s claim it’s not carrying over from one game to another. Because it very clearly is.

And Starman is also going to point to that whole matter that a subscription to WoW will be required in order to play Classic WoW. A subscription which is tied to an account which was created with a Collector’s Edition License.

So either that CE License is allowing him to play World of Warcraft Classic, or it somehow is, while it also isn’t.

I’m sure lawyers could tie the courts in knots over the same specific point. Although Activision’s legal team would probably be able to easily outspend and otherwise delay anybody silly enough to go about trying to push for it in court. They might manage to get a final court decision in about, oh, 6 or 7 years after they’re legally capable of “having standing” which wouldn’t be until after Blizzard came back with a solid “no” which they haven’t done.

Both arguments have valid points both for and against them, ultimately, it will be Blizzard that decides if those CE pets will appear in Classic.

My only “bone of contention” in this to point out there are arguments to be had “with legs” in favor of bringing those pets back.

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In the spirit of your analogy. If you wish to have a CE experience then, just as with vanilla, you would need to purchase the CE.

Having purchased the vanilla CE would not lock anyone into the Classic CE experience. (Incase someone wanted to have a non-CE Classic experience)

I’m fine with that, so long as the limit the number of “Collector’s Editions” they release to be in line with Vanilla. (IIRC, that was about 100K for NA)

I’m honestly not sure what you’re saying. A monthly sub will give you access to both games. What items you have in one, what you’ve unlocked in one, has no bearing on the other. And paying a sub for the past 15 years entitles me to jack squat in what I’ll have to pay in Classic. A person who’s never played WoW pays the same $15 monthly sub as I will when Classic launches, and we’ll both have access to the same games. Whatever I’ve earned in one game pertains to that game and has nothing to do with the other one.

Ok, I had to wander over to the Blizzard Store to check that out, seems you are correct. Makes sense that they’re doing it that way now, just didn’t realize they’d done that.

Used to be, once upon a time, that aside from “Trial accounts” which were capped at level 20 and could NOT subscribe directly, would have to purchase the “base game” and then buy into whatever the latest Expansion Pack is.

It seems there no longer is a “base game” to purchase, only the subscription. You still need to but the latest Expansion Pack if you want to play that, but that’s all.

So I will concede that point. The CE “base game” License is only significant for the pets at this point.

Not sure I can follow that reasoning. Are they going to limit the population along with it? Should it be a ratio? How would it be sold, first come first serve, highest bidder, vanilla CE holder first, etc?

Did Blizzard limit the vanilla CE?

CE was limited by things like how many copies each GameStop, BestBuy or EBGames got.

Yes, they limited the CE. There were only about 100,000 copies sold for NA. Europe and other regions had CEs as well, and they had much larger runs as I recall. but for NA they were very rare.

Remember, when they launched WoW, they thought they were going to take a year to sell 250,000 copies of the game. So 100,000 Collector’s Editions, given their increased cost, were expected to be sitting on store shelves for a LONG time in terms of retail inventory.

They didn’t do any additional CE runs for NA.

it would most likely have digital goodies for all their games tooo.

Mini Diablo doesn’t even look that great. lol

the panda was my favorite

I just got a laugh out of playing a healing-oriented Priest from the start, with Mini-Diablo, Lord of Terror at my side.

Oh, is that unreleased?

It has been released, it IS on backorder though, surprise surprise.

I have it. Very good read. Learn a lot of interesting things about WoW’s development.

I realize that the physical store front was the only venue for sales. However, was the product limited by design (offical statement) or was that a function of the limitation of printing physical copies.

Meaning, print an expected amount then print more as needed.

Once Blizzard started the Digital Deluxe style the upgrade is available for the full duration of the expansion.

I’m all for the limited supply but as I asked before. What’s the number based on? A ratio of expected players? A static number to drive up resale value? Or, a rolling number that keeps a low enough supply to give the illusion of rarity?

No, it’s not the same game.

It was limited by design(at least in part), in 2003, a “Collector’s Edition” isn’t much of “a Collector’s item” if everybody can get it. So it was a single production run per region, once they were gone, they were gone.

It wasn’t until later that the gaming industry developed other ideas as to what constituted a CE, and availability increased considerably.

If they had to do it over again for NA, they probably would have done a much larger run of (Vanilla) CE’s for NA as I believe they were targeting a specific ratio of CEs to “regular” versions. Although I’m sure their bigger concern was how many CEs might still be on store shelves in a year.

It just happened that their projections for first year sales wildly missed the mark, and it threw the target ratio badly out of whack.

It did mean that at the start, there was a point where the ratio was known to be about 2:5 as we know there were roughly 100K Collector’s editions out of initial release production run of 250,000 copies. For the first few weeks of release, that meant “just about everybody” had the CE pet, because you know the CE holders were the ones most likely to be playing on Day 1, unless somebody lucked into an unsold CE tucked away in the back corner of a store shelf somewhere months later. (I actually remember seeing a Vanilla CE on a Store Shelf in a WalMart in March of 2005, almost wish I’d grabbed it, but I didn’t)

But as the player population moved into the millions, the CE holders became an ever shrinking minority, and encounters with the CE pets became increasingly rare for most players on NA realms as “2 in 5”(250K players) became “1 in 5”(500K players), then “1 in 10,”(1 million players) then “1 in 20,”(2 million players) and so on(where things go off the rails as it becomes hard for the general public to be able to distinguish between regions, as I don’t think that data was shared by Blizzard).

When you start throwing in lost, stolen(hacked), and banned accounts, that number is probably much smaller today.

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What I am getting at is - “vanilla CE was limited to 100,000” and that limit is require for it to be authentic. I am not sure this statement holds water. (Forgive me if the paraphrasing is off I am going for the premise only)

If Blizzard released the vanilla CE with the intent to sell as many as people will buy. Only they underestimated. That’s not them producing a limited supply item.

If the CE limit was due to underestimation or limit based on shelf space. Then I say, use the modern methods of releasing a CE and let the customer decide.

Limited duration of availability, on the other hand, should be a given. Because that is effectively the same as keeping the CE items on sale in the store. If they don’t limit the duration.