I genuinely think Classic will have more players then retail does right now

[Zoreen-proudmoore]

After what Blizzard did with BFA / Legion with pre launch I lost interest with Classic for I don’t trust them anymore.

[Pintero-moon-guard (Pintero)]

Hah, yea i was one of those kids who’d walk to his local game-spot and buy the what was it, 30 usd for two month boxes always game with a 10 day trial box. Thanks for the heads up.

[Renim-aegwynn (Renim)]

I’m fairly confident the WoW Classic crowd will be massive upon release, and then die out from there into a very small community of dedicated Vanilla people.

My bet is in the first three months, it will have explosive growth. However, after about six or so months, I expect realization will dawn among most of the population. Most won’t even hit level 60 before realizing the amount of time dedication is required to play the game. Others will rush to 60 and then get bored waiting for the others to catch up before they’re able to raid.

All of the same stuff people complained about in Vanilla will become a concern in Classic, and the players will consume themselves fighting for #Changes and #NoChanges. Eventually, the #Changes people will leave once they see the writing on the wall, and then #NoChanges will die soon afterward after they realize there’s no one to play with. The only people remaining will be the extremely dedicated few that are willing to play through the same content endlessly.

I don’t think a themepark MMO can thrive without updates or changes.

[Måxx-steamwheedle-cartel]

I’m fairly confident the WoW Classic crowd will be massive upon release, and then die out from there into a very small community of dedicated Vanilla people.

My bet is in the first three months, it will have explosive growth. However, after about six or so months, I expect realization will dawn among most of the population. Most won’t even hit level 60 before realizing the amount of time dedication is required to play the game. Others will rush to 60 and then get bored waiting for the others to catch up before they’re able to raid.

All of the same stuff people complained about in Vanilla will become a concern in Classic, and the players will consume themselves fighting for #Changes and #NoChanges. Eventually, the #Changes people will leave once they see the writing on the wall, and then #NoChanges will die soon afterward after they realize there’s no one to play with. The only people remaining will be the extremely dedicated few that are willing to play through the same content endlessly.

I don’t think a themepark MMO can thrive without updates or changes.

Right, let’s ignore how popular private servers have been. 14 years later and thousands still play on private servers, yet people like you still want to tell us we don’t know what we want. Blizzard is not releasing this to us out of kindness. They see the numbers and realize they can make a killing. You naysayers can keep at it all you like. Once Classic comes out, just with the Classic content alone, I’m good for about 4 years. Time enough for them to realize they need to start catering to their old school players, and come up with something new for us.

[Arazlok-kilrogg (Arazlok)]

Do those people pay money to be on those servers? Majority of the big ones are free I thought? Big difference from being free and paying $15 a month tbh. I hope Classic is a big success and it makes some needed changes to retail.

[Måxx-steamwheedle-cartel]

Do those people pay money to be on those servers? Majority of the big ones are free I thought? Big difference from being free and playing $15 a month tbh. I hope Classic is a big success and it makes some needed changes to retail.

I don’t think they pay, but I couldn’t tell you for sure. Running servers costs money so there has to be some form of payment. Either way, private servers pathing is terrible, and while they do work, they don’t provide the best experience. Some of the biggest private servers have already acknowledged that they will be turning off their servers when Classic releases, because most people are going to move to the authentic Classic server over a private server. There are also a lot of people who will not play on an illegal private server. People have been asking Blizzard for years to give us Classic servers, so it’s not just people on private servers, it’s also loyal customers asking for this to happen. I have an overwhelmingly large gaming community, and the excitement with my group alone tells me Classic is going to be a big success.

[Åpocalypse-illidan (Åpocalypse)]

while i would like to believe you are right, because i believe classic is the better game by far, most modern gamers genuinely don’t like slower paced strategic games. they literally flew off the handle about leveling getting made slower in early 2018 even though after the nerf it was still slower to go from 1-110 then it was to go from 1-60 back in vanilla.

This… People are going to burn out super fast just getting themselves to 30… which is only 1/4 of the way to 60 by time spent.

Most people aren’t at all prepared for what Classic will entail, and are just hyped for something to capture their interest again, the way WoW used to.

[Nightsëa-nemesis (Nightsëa)]

And yet, they share a subscription, and by the looks of it, game client.

So, they are the same game with different rules sets and art assets.

From a technical standpoint, I am correct.

Netflix movies share subscription too, but don’t are the same products. Mario kart and Mario kart 64 have the same rules but are different games.

Wow classic is very different than bfa, they only share the same name,

[Savax-feathermoon (Savax)]

I’m fairly confident the WoW Classic crowd will be massive upon release, and then die out from there into a very small community of dedicated Vanilla people.

My bet is in the first three months, it will have explosive growth. However, after about six or so months, I expect realization will dawn among most of the population. Most won’t even hit level 60 before realizing the amount of time dedication is required to play the game. Others will rush to 60 and then get bored waiting for the others to catch up before they’re able to raid.

All of the same stuff people complained about in Vanilla will become a concern in Classic, and the players will consume themselves fighting for #Changes and #NoChanges. Eventually, the #Changes people will leave once they see the writing on the wall, and then #NoChanges will die soon afterward after they realize there’s no one to play with. The only people remaining will be the extremely dedicated few that are willing to play through the same content endlessly.

I don’t think a themepark MMO can thrive without updates or changes.

I love the way people think that Vanilla players don’t know what Vanilla actually was like. This game isn’t being made for Retail players.

[Péytón-stormrage]

Honestly dude, im gonna have to say the day classic comes out is when modern wow dies for a little lol. I know im going full classic mode when it comes out and ditching retail for a bit

[Felshout-mannoroth (Felshout)]

i think what they said was accurate tbh. for all their hype, the biggest private server has 10k people right now and its free. that isnt really a lot for a modern game. classic will have more than that, but i dont see it staying in the millions

i think it will do well for a niche game, but wont challenge modern games

[Nelthene-icecrown (Nelthene)]

Spot on. It IS the better game; for the original mmo gamers, who were the type to prefer rpgs and longer paced games.

The (relatively) recent influx of the twitch and competitive crowds have drastically skewed the formula, which prevents me from agreeing with OP.

In the end we slow gamers have always been the minority, and, for all intents and purposes, always will be.

[Modelcitizen-proudmoore (Modelcitizen)]

I doubt it will but in all honesty we’ll never know because Blizzard doesn’t report the numbers anymore.

Any public information declaring BfA “dead” is unreliable. Since Blizzard doesn’t release numbers they are at best anecdotal evidence(ie “my guild stopped playing, so clearly everybody else did!”) and at worst outright fabrications.

but I’m sure that wont stop people from proclaiming that it’s objectively true facts that you “can’t argue against” anyway =P

We all know BfA is dead. That doesn’t mean no one is playing it, but if you look at wow historically, this expansion and activision’s influence have pretty much killed the game. Just… look around. Open your eyes and ears. It’s ok that you don’t like that, can’t see that or want to ignore it. Life goes on.

[Mcpurple-muradin]

Speed was only part of the complaint. There’s also the lack of choice being added with 7.3.5 in regards to leveling and an erasure of power progression.

You must quest to level, really, as dungeon XP was nerfed.

Heirlooms were neutered.

Also, you don’t go from fast leveling to very slow in one patch without people noticing.

Leveling effectively died in 7.3.5.

[Matcauthon-steamwheedle-cartel (Matcauthon)]

Speed was only part of the complaint. There’s also the lack of choice being added with 7.3.5 in regards to leveling and an erasure of power progression.

when you slam through everything you fight regardless, power isn’t an issue.

You must quest to level, really, as dungeon XP was nerfed.

their was no choice to begin with. quests used to be drastically inferior then dungeons. sure i could do quests but i’d be traveling from one zone to another every 20 minutes killing my time and dungeons were quick and easy and took half an hour to gain 1-2 levels each dungeon.

Heirlooms were neutered.

heirlooms were taken from epic level stat boosts down to just shy of blue with the stats (the rest of the budget being the experience gains). this is the way they were always intended to be. they still beat almost everything you will get at the same level.

Also, you don’t go from fast leveling to very slow in one patch without people noticing.

it wasn’t from fast to very slow. very slow would be like vanilla leveling. it just toned it down so people weren’t going from 1-110 in 20 hours played. or did you really think that was intended? instead it took about 40 hours instead.

Leveling effectively died in 7.3.5.

oh please, dungeon leveling died, but the world of warcraft actually felt like a world again.

i’m sorry you feel like you somehow had a choice before, but that isn’t true. if it is true then you can’t say dungeon leveling died either.

[Nicho-muradin (Nicho)]

Remember how long it took for people to get bored of the last ‘major’ patch in BfA? Like what…a day? I believe BfA is going to continue down it’s path that it has been going on since it was launched and I honestly think the longer people are forced to play that trash the better chance that they switch to classic.

Sure, maybe launch day won’t be as hectic but I think Classic will honestly be the new mainstream WoW. Call me crazy, but I honestly think BfA is so bad that Classic will just be a better avenue for people and I think people will become accustom to the simplicity of it.

[anon95397287]

If it’s a resounding success at launch, I think they will talk about player numbers. They currently need some good news to circulate.

I personally think launch could be huge.

[Kelgar-the-scryers (Kelgar)]

It will classic wow is already better the bfa before it launches…lol.

Bfa will continue to go down hill until the end of the xpac.

[Auddoras-stormrage]

I believe even if they released a few new patches/expansion or whatever during classics release. Classic will still have more players.

Why?
Current wow Professions do not truly matter, ilvl doesn’t really matter only in raids/dungeons it does, you can easily see all content in about 20 mins (LFR), a catch-up is always every 3 months, and whatever else.

In vanilla no such luck everything matters.

Over a hundred ppl at my work stopped playing in vanilla and are happy when I said it’s coming back. All of them just bought a new laptop or desktop and are waiting for the summer. I hope it turns out like vanilla as possible or I am going to get a beating. So, about 300 ppl at my work out of that 1/3 will be playing classic that is just one place. They keep talking and doing research on builds.

[Tuathaa-wyrmrest-accord (Tuathaa)]

Remember how long it took for people to get bored of the last ‘major’ patch in BfA? Like what…a day?

Dont know i dont have BfA.
Legion soured me on any new content blizzard could release for modern wow. But historically people resub and the servers are full for a week or so when a major patch drops