Concerns About the Future of WoW Classic

Hey all,

So this isn’t another thread that’s griping about the balance of pvp, I’m one of the few alliance pvp server players that are mostly okay with it.

I’m concerned about the pacing of WoW classic content releases and Blizzard’s long term intentions for this game.

Content is being released very, very quickly. At this rate, within a year or two we’ll burn through all Vanilla content.

My question is, what then? Do you think it’s Blizzard’s plan to let the game stagnate and die, eventually forcing players to switch over to retail or quit entirely?

Is WoW Classic intended by Blizzard to be nothing but a gateway drug to WoW Retail?

Or do you think Blizzard is intending to have future unannounced content like WOTLK etc?

I’d be curious to hear the community’s thoughts on this.

4 Likes

Honestly… since content updates have changed so much in the past 15 years (to no surprise) i think they are rushing it.

I’m curious though if any future classic xpacs would be a seperate server or it’s all progression.

2 Likes

I certainly hope they leave it alone once all the phases are out.

It’s meant to be a recreation of Vanilla.

6 Likes

Sure - but to what extent? By “Vanilla” do they mean just World of Warcraft with no expansions? Or do you think they’re intending to keep Classic going for 5 or 10 years?

If they stop releasing content with the final phase this game will have a lifespan of around 2 years tops I’d estimate. Probably more like 1.

Right now I think Blizzard is being reactive with Diremaul, honor, and battlegrounds.

I think after phase 3 has come around, they will slow down as they teeter between Classic and retail with updates. Of course that’s my personal speculation. I was already wrong once though—they released BGs much earlier than I thought they would.

1 Like

Ah, so you think they’ll try to artificially prolong the lifespan by greatly slowing down content updates?

I don’t know if that will necessarily help though, or at least it will be a very fine line to balance. How many phases are there? 6? Even if they only did 3 per year that’s a two year life span, or so.

I rather play candy crush before touching retail. Scratch that I rather put a fork into my left eye then play retail. You must not play many games to think we would be converted to that pile of hot trash.

10 Likes

Supposedly they’re trying to revise and fix it. But yes, I agree, when I tried it a few years ago it was a dumpster fire and I lasted less than a week.

By Vanilla I mean everything that existed before BC came out. I do not agree that it will die within a year without going down the same path again. I never did the illegal server thing, but apparently some of them ran for a very long time with healthy populations. The demand is there. RP servers can last indefinitely, they make their own content. For me, I do not see a time limit on enjoying logging in to play some BGs.

If they want to make BC servers, that’s fine, but I want classic to be left as is. Once they change it, it won’t be Classic anymore! They have retail to constantly pump out new stuff to keep those with short attention spans entertained.

RP players create their own content, definitely true. For the rest of us, however:

BGs will be fun until we max out our gear, they may even stop being fun before then depending on how badly the imbalance of pvp is on your server. You’ll either face excessively long bg queues or tryhorde pvpers in raid gear with hundreds of g in consumables.

For some, I grant that BGs will be fun forever, but I suspect those players will be in the minority.

I have a bad feeling we’re looking at BGs as a great long term solution, and to our surprise they may not necessarily be so. At least not for the majority of players.

I’d love to see them add things past Naxx patch. Say a legion raid where the closed gate is at in Azshara where the Timbermaw furblogs are guarding it. Would be a great additional vanilla + content. They could do a vanilla + Uldum instance. There are loads of unfinished pieces of the world here and there in vanilla that they could build off of. The emerald dream and the portals could be another vanilla + exclusive content.

IF they wanted to they could expand on this and build content and charge for a premium sub. I’d be willing to pay for it. I’m sure others would as well.

Unfortunately, I think they’ll just try to milk this for what it is and do the least amount of work possible.

2 Likes

Bummer. That’s my concern too. And I’m seriously debating how much time I want to sink into this if it has a 1 or 2 year shelf life.

I’m not looking at anything as a long term solution. Nothing needs to be solved.

So if they get concerned it will die and go down an expansion path, how long before they re-release Classic wow?

1 Like

If the pacing gets us to BC in November 2020 that is a win.

1 Like

Classic is, and always was, at its core a hammer to smite pirate server operators, especially in areas with more permissive court systems where they would claim that Vanilla was ‘abandonware’ and no longer supported. If they have a couple Vanilla servers running, then they are supporting that version of the game, and they can unleash the lawyers on people. You protect the IP or you lose the IP.

Everything else is bonus points.

7 Likes

Yes.

1 Like

And if they “continue releasing content,” the game will have a lifespan of…about one week after they make it clear that they have no intention of actually continuing to provide Classic.

If you want a continually changing morepig called World of Warcraft, it’s Modern. People spent years begging to have Classic back, and you’re saying Blizzard should take it away again.

I don’t know if the basis behind your repeated “I estimate” is a teleological fallacy that morepigs must change because that’s part of the definition of morepigs, or an appeal to novelty fallacy that no one can possibly actually play old games. But either way it’s fallacious. And now I’m going to go play the original Baldur’s Gate.

1 Like

I personally would like to see fresh vanilla servers with absolutely no layering pop up a few months after Naxx, then character copies to TBC servers when available but with our vanilla characters intact where they are.

60 Liq vanilla Kromcrush copies to 60 Liq TBC Kromcrush would be how I would do it.

4 Likes

Never gets old.

1 Like

Stagnate would imply that they’re releasing content too slowly.

Which no one wants.