Right now everyone is unified behind Classic because there is no other option (relative to the question posed by the OP). Classic’s launch will pretty much be as good as it will ever be in terms of a robust community population.
Over time, that population will fade and the quality of the game will suffer.
Launching new Classic servers for a ‘fresh start’ will divide players who stick to old servers from those who roll on the new ones.
Launching TBC servers will have the same split effect as there will be those who wish to remain on Classic
Either way, the player base will be split into smaller communities than what we will see when Classic launches. Neither will be a great solution.
I think the best solution for recapturing that initial collective robustness would be to upgrade all Classic realms into TBC realms. By removing the choice, you would have an undivided (among those who still play) community which is basically what you have naturally when retail launches an expansion.
It’s not perfect. I know many would be upset by that decision. Many people don’t want TBC. But by that token, there must be people who want TBC and not Vanilla so I don’t think one camp has more of a valid claim than the other. Classic isn’t going to continue existing in a healthy state forever. Blizzard will either have to let it limp along or rejuvenate the community in ways that don’t have diminishing returns.
A big part of this game is the community. I love vanilla when I’m leveling and am joining groups to get quests done and can see everyone else doing the same… Or when I’m forming a dungeon group and have 20+ people to hand pick from each zone… Or clearing new raids for the first month and helping everyone gear their characters. I don’t love vanilla once those things have gone by the wayside. It’s not so great after that. The idea of ‘Classic Forever’ is not one has any basis in reality, the game simply doesn’t work forever. For anyone who wants Classic: Great news, you’re going to get it. But you may need to concede that you will only get what you want for a year or two before the party is over.
Yes, but not all. IF BC servers come online, they still need classic servers. Allow transfers from Classic servers over but thats it.
Edit - One thing I have seen in other games. New server launches build a lot of hype. They get interest. Blizzard could have a lot of built in interest if they release servers say 6 months apart. It also helps if someone wants to play Classic but feel they are behind because every server has most characters max level.
Say A) you can have 5,000 people playing Original-Classic, and 5,000 people playing BC-Classic. Total players: 10,000.
Or…B) you can have 4,000 people playing BC-Classic (because in situation A I’m happily playing BC-Classic, and in situation B I’ve quit playing any official server because I don’t trust Blizzard to leave the ground under my feet alone and I’d rather leave before they wreck the game with Cataclysm again). Only. Total players: 4,000.
You’ve got some messed up priorities if you think the one with an “undivided playerbase” is better. Setting aside the fact that you’re treating all the players as meaningless numbers.
And it stops being a museum the day after TBC would have launched. How many times does that need to be explained to you people?
Are you really trying to imply that a player making a character on a top heavy stagnant realm already progressed through Naxx is AT ALL the same as a player making a fresh character on a fresh realm???
You said it yourself, a MUSEUM RECREATION… and if you want that museum recreation to be authentic, it must also include early parts of vanilla, not just the endgame for the majority of the time, and certainly not some nonsensical and non authentic time period that never existed…
There’s a reason we’re getting a content progression schedule, instead of releasing everything at once… After 2 years that game driving engine shuts down, without a TBC server present… There is a cost to remaining time locked in the vanilla era. Thus far, the best plan, the ONLY plan, is using resets to do that. If you want to avoid resets, then actually come up with a better plan than “lol stagnate and watch the game die”. The entire history of retail and pservers all suggest that stagnation does not and can not work long term.
Or maybe 1.12 with some new content added over time <<< I agree with this.
Many missing projects like quests, areas and stories never added to old vanilla or old developers just ignore it, It is time now for new developers to add this things.
And it is ok if they create new awesome ideas to develop old areas but inside classic boards.
And they’ve already gone on record saying they don’t care how many people play, and that if it is somehow successful they’ll be changing Retail and not Classic. Classic’s here to stay. Exactly as it is.
I’m ok with it only if blizzard keeps the level cap at 60 and Azeroth gear is “dampened” in outlands. Likewise, outlands gear is dampened in azeroth. In bgs, t1=t4, etc. I think one of WoW’s biggest weaknesses is the play the expansion/patch mentality.
Since you seem entirely incapable of grasping basic concepts… Let me give you a comparison.
Patwerk is a boss fight in Naxxramas that has an enrage timer. You more or less have to kill the boss before said timer expires, because Patchwerk is gonna start killing everyone still alive if you don’t. That time limitation is part of the encounter design. If you remove that time limitation, does the encounter change?
There is absolutely no evidence as of yet to confirm this statement. The idea that the servers are going to be permanent and static is quite literally just rather stupid assumption made by people who have proven to be nearly invariably short sighted and selfish on the topic.
You are replicating a PERIOD OF TIME, then trying to argue that time is not a factor… it’s unbelievable the amount of mental gymnastics you people will do to try and get a Game Genie added to vanilla.
The once off content patching is a concession to players. If they didn’t feel like being nice they could have just dumped all the content in at once. Be thankful for them being nice.
They have repeatedly said its a museum recreation so people can always come back and experience it. They’re not building a new game that will repeat progression indefinitely.
Until Blizzard actually addresses this issue, it is not considered settled.
You can still experience it, even with resetting servers… The game has not gone away.
They have said absolutely nothing to that effect. And there is zero evidence they will.
No, I’m yelling at overly entitled players who think plugging a game genie into the game is somehow authentic, and what’s more are acting entitled to the right for said Game Genie, even when literally every shred of evidence in the game’s entire shared retail and pserver history directly opposes that being a viable possibility.
If you want to avoid resets, come up with a better solution than
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