Yeah, I am betting are reading more into what I am saying than I am actually saying. That or willfully being disagreeable.
1 shard vs another shard is still 2 shards even if one is on BfA and one is on Classic. 2 shards worth of a load no matter what.
This is why Classic is being rebuilt to work on the BfA infrastructure.
No where have a said they canât tell the difference. They wonât care to look is what I am saying. Not for the purpose of tourists.
The issue is that patches have so little content now that a patch drops, people sub, beat it in a month, and quit til the next patch drops.
By shoving classicâs release in the middle of the development cycle, and timing the content buckets to land in the middle of the gap between retail content drops, they can get those people who would normally just sub on an al a carte basis to go to a recurring subscription.
Never underestimate Activisionâs willingness to sacrifice player experience in pursuit of a little more money.
Are you really trying to equate two different games as two âshardsâ of the same game?
Thatâs like saying that FF14 and SWTOR are two shards of the same game.
Is Classic not still going to be there during that content drought if classic and that major BFA patch were released at the same time?
Not what I am saying in the least.
I am saying itâs 1 infrastructure.
Itâs not about getting people to play X hours, itâs about getting them to play every day, or at least enough that they keep their sub up. Itâs about keeping âfreshâ content up as much as possible. That kind of time gating has been a thing since lich king.
Itâs still two different games, NOT two shards.
Classic and the major BFA patch do not need to b released at separate times to get people to play every day and âkeep subs upâ.
Letâs say that Blizzard launches classic and a major BFA content patch at the same time.
Letâs say that the retail player about which you seem to be so concerned plays every day until the have consumed all the new BFA content. At that point they have classic available to them to consume. They can play every day consuming that classic content.
Oh, when the next major BFA patch drops, theyâll just stop playing classic and consume that new BFA content, after which they will flock back to classic.
Nonlinear parallel. Completely different subjects.
2 different games, yes. 2 different shards, yes.
Saying it slowly: 1⌠infra⌠structureâŚ
Their load is the same. Doesnât matter which game we log into.
Two different games is NOT two different shards, no matter how much you wish to misrepresent them as such.
Were Stormreaver and Stormscale just two different shards in vanilla? they both used the same infrastructure, after all.
Theyâre not going to do that because they will want to report as high as numbers possible for Classic WoW on release.
Also Blizzard now panders to streamers and the top 1% in pvp/pve. I canât see them putting pressure on their âfreeâ publicity.
Umm, you are the one trying to make it sound like thatâs what I am saying. It is not.
1 shard on a game + 1 shard on a different game. Both shards on the same infrastructure.
Itâs not complicated.
I am not looking to score points or gain supporters.
My point of view is simply this: I could give a ratâs rectum if people want to play both games. I want to play vanilla/classic⌠period. I do not want my experience of playing something I have been waiting over a decade for diminished because someone getting to play it for ZERO additional expenditure, literally getting it for free with their existing sub to a different game. The shark has already been jumped by blizzard twice: combined subs and announcing a release window. I will lose approximately 0 sleep if players of modern WoW actually have to make a choice between which game they are playing on release day.
So yeah, please tell me exactly why I should care a whit:
Nothing whatsoever would block modern retail players from playing classic. It is merely a choice of what to do the first couple days, and a couple days of less tourists at classicâs release would be HUGELY important toward making classic server populations healthy.
Blizzard doesnât care which version of wow youâre playing, so long as youâre playing WoW and actively subscribed.
All pushing classic out during a major content patch for BfA will do is cripple peopleâs desire and opportunity to try both.
Instead, itâs almost a guarantee that Classic launches during BfAâs biggest post patch slump, there by ensuring the maximum number of people actually even try Classic.
As for dealing with launch day stress, there are other ways to do that, that are much simpler. For example, launch it 11:59pm on a Tuesday.
People with jobs are barely going to be able to do more than reserve a name.
Neckbeards will play all night and power through the first zone or two by the end of business on Wednesday
Super casuals/weekenders wonât even be on until Friday, meaning neckbeards will already be past 40, and people whoâve been playing a couple hours a night are at least in the 15-20 range.
Congrats, I just spread out your launch day problems without sharding or sabotaging a large chunk of Classicâs playerbase by trying to ensure they donât even try it.
What you are saying is not complicated, but what point you are trying to make is. So what if both games are on the same infrastructure? What does that have to do with anything?
Going back to your original question of âwhat about people who intend to play both?â what about them? They can still play both either way. No one outside of a very few no lifers will have the time to dedicate to both games. Everyone else who intends to play both will ultimately choose one over the other. A main and an alt if you will.
People who main BfA would play the BfA patch first, and then create a character in classic later. People who main classic will be in the initial lvling wave at launch, and will check out the most recent BfA content later. That is the whole point of having classic launch at the same time as a major BfA patch.
It remains to be seen whether classic and a major BFA content patch will be released concurrently or at a different times.
Until such time as Blizzard makes that decision and advises us as to what they decided, Iâll continue to advocate that classic be released concurrent with a major BFA content patch.
Hooray, yet another idea that punishes those who have been waiting for over a decade for vanilla/classic.