How long will retailers last on classic?

[Cyberteamsix-azgalor]

In blizzards eyes theres only 2 sorts of people, people paying and those that are not.

what is your argument

[Bayel-area-52]

Well, when the ONLY “hard” content in the game is beyond heroic raiding, that’s a problem.

Vanilla at the extreme was easier, as a whole it was much more difficult.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

I say 90% of retailers will quit before level 10.

I can guarantee that no vendors will be removed from the game, only added as their content patch comes around.

[Celessi-turalyon]

The only hard content in vanilla was raiding. Raid on mythic and there’s your challenge.

But from a personal perspective, vanilla raiding was extremely simple compared to today.

[Levillum-stormrage]

Personally, I don’t think it really matters how many enjoy it as they are no the target demographic for these servers to begin with.

If I had to absolutely guess I’d say only a handful. There are a ton of factors from age, convenience lovers, play styles, etc. that would sway the numbers.

I think the bigger question is “how many people will return to play classic and stick around?”

[Winchestor-proudmoore]

Why do you think most Classic players will be retail tourists? There are over 100 million individual WoW accounts created over the years, and what? Like 2 million, maybe left in retail?

There are a lot more former players who hate the change from old school RPG to Lobbycraft, than there are retailers to poach. It won’t be hard to exceed retail subs, and if you’re still enjoying retail, Classic is not likely for you.

[Dealloc-dethecus (Dealloc)]

Will they add enough servers to handle the number of players or will they simply choose to extend sharding and use it extensively?

The community has strongly expressed their concerns about this. It’s in Blizzard’s hands to handle this the way the community has asked. If they screw it up it’s entirely on them. We’ve done what we can.

[Tinkertoys-shandris]

Depends when boredom sets in for them. The pacing is either something they can adjust to and are fine with. Or it just completely turns them off.

Just a reminder, there are still quite a few “retailers” who played vanilla back in the day and will play both. I expect huge influx of people who play more retail WoW around the content drops.

[Kerg-scarlet-crusade]

I’m going to go the other way. I think humans naturally want to be challenged and just don’t know it. I think self pride will drive them to stick it out because they don’t want to be the loser who couldn’t hack it. I think you’ll see retailers finally “get what it’s all about” and potentially decide they like Classic more.

This is my hope as well. I think the majority won’t like it. But some will find their competitive backbone that they didn’t even know they had. And next thing they know, they’re hooked.

I also think some younger people, after hearing all the stories from us old vets, will see Classic as “retro” or “edgy” or “hardcore,” and they will be drawn to that like a millennial who listens to classic rock.

[Mistwynd-lightbringer (Mistwynd)]

Why do you think most Classic players will be retail tourists? There are over 100 million individual WoW accounts created over the years, and what? Like 2 million, maybe left in retail?

Here’s why:

• Many past WoW players have moved on with their lives and are no longer interested. They might have been in college or high school during Vanilla. Now they may have families, jobs and kids.
• Many past WoW players have no interest in playing Classic. They’ve already been-there-done-that.
• Many past WoW players won’t want to pay $$ to resubscribe to a game with ancient graphics and gameplay when they could play a modern new game like Final Fantasy or something else.
• Many past WoW players don’t even know Classic exists.
• Retail Players all know about Classic.
• Retail Players are ALREADY paying $15 per month for a subscription which includes classic. Essentially Retail players get it for free, while everyone else has to pay $15 per month.
• The market for Classic is probably very small. Yes, perhaps 50 or a 100 million players have played WoW at some time over the years. But if all of them were only interested in Vanilla WoW how come we don’t see 50 or 100 million people playing on Pirate servers?

There are a lot more former players who hate the change from old school RPG to Lobbycraft, than there are retailers to poach. It won’t be hard to exceed retail subs, and if you’re still enjoying retail, Classic is not likely for you.

As far as WoW being an old-school RPG … it’s not and never was. Yes there are a lot of quests, but they were all fairly simplistic and there was never much in the way of plot.

True “old-school RPGs” like Neverwinter Nights and Baldurs Gate I and II had much more in the way of “RPG” than WoW ever did.

Vanilla WoW also isn’t that much different from Retail WoW in how the quest experience plays. Apart from having actually useful quest rewards, extra help on the map, and unified quest hubs, questing in WoW today plays a lot like it did back in Vanilla.

[Mcpurple-muradin]

As much as some people here have a hard on for hating on BfA players

People here aren’t openly hostile towards retailers…at all. They are hostile toward the current state of the game, which is understandable.

Classic people here, from what I’ve read since they opened these forums, seem to really want to help retailers get in the ‘Classic’ feeling/spirit and show them strong community. They don’t want to welcome tourists as much when some retailers threaten to come over to Classic just to troll.

[Buffblitz-area-52 (Buffblitz)]

20-30 I’d say. I was a retailer too at one point and I always quit around the 20s (thank the heavens i’m cured).

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

i’m a retailer. also played vanilla. can’t wait for classic. i also play old school everquest.

[Sabetha-turalyon (Sabetha)]

People here aren’t openly hostile towards retailers…at all. They are hostile toward the current state of the game, which is understandable.

Classic people here, from what I’ve read since they opened these forums, seem to really want to help retailers get in the ‘Classic’ feeling/spirit and show them strong community. They don’t want to welcome tourists as much when some retailers threaten to come over to Classic just to troll.

Some people absolutely are hostile towards retail players in addition to the state of the game.

There’s plenty of it in this thread.

[Twoimponecup-dalaran]

Retailers will stick around for the memes.

[Thundathys-amanthul (Thundathys)]

People here aren’t openly hostile towards retailers…at all.

The title of this post says otherwise. I don’t know why people treat it as a badge of honor not to play retail.The immediate implication that someone plays retail means that they can’t handle simple tasks like
-Pull one mob at a time.
-display patience.
-manage a single button/low apm rotation.
-research stuff.
-Have plenty of time to spare.

Classic isn’t going to be leet or hardcore, it’s going to cater to people with plenty of time to spare.

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

2 different approaches. retail is action . classic is rpg . i like both types of games.

[Furidar-emerald-dream]

What does someone’s past of playing on private servers have to do with anything lol

I’m sure they really don’t care that much, they just want to play classic without having to deal with buggy/laggy servers. Whether or not someone is a “loyal blizzard subscriber” really doesn’t lend itself to any kind of argument…

[Thundathys-amanthul (Thundathys)]

Whether or not someone is a “loyal blizzard subscriber” really doesn’t lend itself to any kind of argument…

in theory some of their subscription cost over the past 14 years (or however long they’ve been paying) has gone into the development of classic.

[Datbubbledoe-bleeding-hollow]

my guess is around lvl 30, for the hard core retailers . they wil realize there is no hope of them making it to 40 and haveing the gold for a mount and will complain they have to walk everywhere, and just give up