Era is not worth playing anymore

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I do not think that is a fair take though. The classic community played classic (era) for a year. And moved forward with the expansions. Because they had just played era for a year. We wont see many people playing cata in a year from now either. If they had released era, tbc, wrath and cata at the exact same time. I would have played era, I think many other would have as well.

I am using era as short to mean classic vanilla, or classic 2019 or whatever it should be called. Realize I do not actually mean “ERA” as it stands now.

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102

It would appear that you are confusing “currently popular” with “successful”. Those two are not the same things. Era does not have to have the most subscribers for it to be considered a success. You seem pretty comfortable in ignoring the fact that it’s generating at least 3.6m in passive income for very little effort on Blizzard’s part.

Additionally, it would appear that more people are playing Era now, five years after release, than played on private servers prior to Classic’s introduction in 2019. At least as far as the numbers I could find would indicate.

I would go so far as to say that would indicate Era is more long-term successful than those numbers would indicate.

The man himself owned up to his mistake, yet you cannot. You made some accusations of denial earlier, I believe…?

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103

As usual somebody online defends their position by calling the other person either stupid or an a$$hole, not considering the fact that some people actually have different and valid points of view and opinions.

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104

Yea pretty much.

Classic isn’t making them any extra money except the shop on wrath/cata right now with tokens and other store items.

When classic happened all it did was shift the playtime of most players, it didn’t create too many fresh subs to WoW or returning subs, just shifted the player from retail to classic.

If there was substantial profits from it then it would have happened ALOT sooner, around 2011-2013 and sustained itself until now with ERA realms for Vanilla, TBC and Wrath.

Back then no one would want Cata at all due to how recent the downfall was. So we’d have the basic trilogy and be happy. Instead of being broken and divided as we are now…

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105

Simply not true. I would not have paid one red cent to Blizzard if not for classic, and I literally have not had the retail client even installed on my computer since Legion. You may want to discount us, but there are others like me out there.

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106

Also, just to further debunk. They recently released a chart of subscribers which shows that WoW subscriptions literally doubled when Classic was released back in 2019.

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107

I can’t help that but that doesn’t mean I am being unfair. Im looking at the bigger picture here. Thanks to the launch of Classic and where it has gone, we have a complete picture to settle the matter once and for all. So lets look at it.

Forgive the oversimplification but Brack said you think you want Vanilla WoW but you really don’t because you the majority of WoW players like all the QoL.

A portion of players responded by saying, no, we actually want Vanilla because we don’t want all the QoL. That’s the main crux of the debate here. Brack said you think you do but you dont and we said you think we don’t but we do.

So, with the way all of Classic has played out (which I covered) and where we are today, is it fair to suggest Brack was right? Yes or no? Seeing as we have multiple options available and 99.6% of subs do not play Era is it safe to conclude that the majority of players prefer modern WoW or more modern versions of it as opposed to Era?

That’s the debate Im having. You tell me what the answer is if its not we thought we did but we didn’t. Not individually or just as the Era community but the WoW base a whole because that was the comparison being made.

Im not talking about whether Classic WoW was a success or not. That’s your non sequitor spin move to take the focus off of how bad the truth makes you look. Or maybe Im giving you too much credit and you really think you are saying something.

Im wondering why anyone would argue with the blatantly obvious fact that WoW players as a whole do not prefer vanilla just like Brack said we didn’t. You seem to think Era’s mere existence proves him wrong somehow. Its the opposite. Its Era existence in relationship to the rest of WoW that proves his point.

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108

I think it was the Bellular (WoW youtuber) video I referred to earlier that surmised an estimate of roughly 300,000 classic players left. Assuming its near the mark that would mean 90% of those returning 3 million subs are gone or went to retail.

Most of those left prefer SoD and Cata over Era. If you told Blizz back in 2013 that Vanilla like servers would give them an extra 10-20k subs they would have been like, yeah, so what?

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How do you figure?

110

Sure you are. Here, I’ll quote your exact text right back to you…

You’re entire argument is based on the premise that the majority of players don’t prefer vanilla, therefore JAB was correct in his statement that we did not want it. You’ve doubled down on the assertion that this statement was made as a global reply as well, instead of a direct reply to the person who posed the question in the first place, and the small subset of WoW players that he represented.

You can throw all the insults and dismissive statements you like, it doesn’t change that. It also doesn’t change the fact that your ferver in defending a statement made by a man who later admitted his mistake is misguided.

I look forward to your next round of insults offerred to disguise the fact that you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute here but are simply unable to change your outlook :slight_smile:

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111

That’s not an argument - that’s a fact. 0.4% of subs pal. Im giving you the simple facts. Youre the one making an argument out of it.

Im pointing out the majority of WoW players don’t want vanilla - which is literally what Brack asserted - you think you do but you don’t. You = the larger WoW subscriber base.

Almost 100% of WoW subs do not play Era. A literal fraction of a percent - to the hard of thinking this means the overwhelming majority of WoW subscribers don’t want to play vanilla.

Oh boo hoo, you’re a victim now. You engaged me, I didnt seek you out to have this convo. But Ill apologize anyway - Im sorry for some of the things I said, its not really personal. People who engage me and then can’t handle basic facts and logic are a real test to my patience. Its one of my failings.

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112

Same, take away Era and I am gone instantly.

Before that blizzard didn’t have a sub from me since like 2009

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113

Nobody is saying that there are more people playing Era than there are.

This is also not in question.

What is in question is whether or not the people who thought they wanted Vanilla actually did, indeed, want Vanilla. Given the very large quantity of subscribers who played from 2019 to 2021 prior to TBC (making up a significant portion of WoW’s active subscribers), that statement was incorrect. JAB acknowledged this, it’s interesting that you seem to be unable to.

The fact that a minimum of 17k subscribers continue to play (and pay) for the Vanilla game even now is testamony to the fact that maybe that really wasn’t the best way to respond to that question. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the raiding Era players alone (never mind the non-raiding population) is generating enough revenue to pay for the development staff of SoD.

Which you seem unable to appreciate, because it’s not big… because in spite of your protests, all your words so far really seem to indicate that you think big is better and worthwhile. That’s kind of a shame, if I’m being honest.

Haha I never said I was a victim, I just indicated that I’m amused by the fact that you seem unable to respond without insults. That usually says something about a person. It definitely says something about your arguments.

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114

Me too - you’re not alone. I made this account solely in order to play Classic.

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115

How on Azeroth and beyond do you get those numbers?

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I think the flawed assumption is that the sub numbers went down because of QoL etc. And not the players having gotten everything out of the game they wanted. Like r14 or seeing/clearing original raids. There was very likely a bit of every reason. And much of the QoL stuff suggested/wanted was a function of blizzard mis-managing bots, bugs, server pops, etc, causing players to leave prompting changes to address issues from lower pops. Thats not really a function of ytydbyd, but rather we expected better from bliz.

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117

You really think ANY company would not be interested in an additional 1.8-3.6 million dollars in revenue per year?

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118

Because it falls under the same sub we all use for the other versions and the classic shop is small in comparison to retail. They prob would have been better off selling box price of 39.99$ for Vanilla.

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Apparently not. Next to no one plays in it comparison to retail/Cata right now and when it was “relevant” the population got smaller with each passing week and the bulk of the people that did play it did so in an RMT/mage boost/WBs/parsing/mafia bracket/exploitation/gdkp hyper min/max fury warrior speed run meta.

Then they begged for TBC, got it with the paid boosts they wanted (lol) and there were single TBC guilds on lone servers that had more active players than all of Era combined all while they begged for Wrath and retail QoL. Then they got Wrath and whined about no RDF which Brack actually referenced as something players enjoyed and didnt want to play without - which was disputed by players - and then ended up being true anyway.

You’re making it sound like all 3 million stuck around for the whole thing and enjoyed an authentic vanilla nostalgia trip down memory lane and parted ways in good faith. That’s not what happened.

Yes, there are people who wanted vanilla, I know I did. Im sure some people played it like vanilla, I did. Yes there are people who still want it, play it and like the old school gameplay. But the question was how many in comparison to retail and it turns out its not a lot when you add the rest of the subscriber base which is who and what Brack was talking about. For the 8th time, we’re the exception, retail is the rule.

Discussions can get seriously side tracked if you focus on the exception so lets stick to the rule.

You dont understand the answer or don’t want too. They knew people wanted official vanilla servers. They were not oblivious to this. People had been asking as early 2010 if not before. They didnt think there was enough demand to warrant it, which they were on record as saying before Brack’s PR blunder. And the demand isn’t even what got us official servers anyway - IP and Abandonware laws did most of the heavy lifting.

Yeah so strawman me while youre at it. Ive made my case very clear. With regard to Brack’s answer and in the context it was given, Brack was right. He didn’t say Tubbly doesn’t want it, he didn’t say nobody wanted it, he said the majority of people who subscribe to play WoW don’t want it because they would rather hit a button for groups. And he would know.

Now that Era is sitting somewhere around 17k raiders after a couple of years of being totally dead and the other few hundred thousand are in Cata hitting a button for groups like they wanted and asked for, it would appear, at least on paper, that Brack was at least, mostly correct.

Lets just agree to disagree.

I already stated where I got them from. Just read the thread. A WoW youtuber covered an actual subscriber count from a leaked document from Blizz (5+ mill) and the ironforge pro website that tracks active raiders has Era at roughly 17k.

Even if theres another 20k active non raiders thats still not even a half of a percent of the overall subscriber base.

If you’re talking Classic there’s probably a ton of reasons. I dont think perma P6 servers were ever going to maintain a million subs for a decade. I also didnt think it would be this low either.

Blizz is a billion dollar multinational corporation that makes games for mass market audiences. WoW isn’t even close to being their biggest IP anymore. Im sure they appreciate it but theyre not in the business of making games for 10k people.

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But this operates under the false assumption that everybody who plays Classic (whichever flavor) is also playing Retail and would be if Classic didn’t exist. The fact that subs doubled when Classic was released proves that this assumption is false. MANY people came back to the game when Classic was released, some moved to retail, some play both, and some play only classic.

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