I do not fear Blizzard will give us a fun game with Vanilla game play.
I do not fear Blizzard will add flying, store, LFG or other ant-classic things that rip the heart out of the game.
I fear Classic will death spiral after launch and not enough players will continue to play the game.
Dead servers are no fun, dead classic servers are like sandpaper underwear.
One of the reasons I was open to Blizzard (for example) - slightly tuning hybrid classes (not class balancing they suck at that) was to keep more players interested.
Warriors, Mages, Rogues would still be gods but actually giving Ret Pally, Protection Pally, Feral and Balance druid, Elemental shaman (even shadow priest) a little help would just add to the appeal of the game.
I know that makes me the devil to some of the #nochanges crowd but MMO needs other people to be an MMO.
The sole reason I stopped playing on private servers was the lack of permanence. (pre 2010)
I want Blizzard to host their damn old game so that I can actually expect my character to stick around for the years to come.
We may see a sharp drop after the first few months, but it will stabilize shortly after that and then after a few years we will likely see another drop. After that server merges may become necessary, but I can pretty much guarantee there will be a healthy population of 100,000 or more per region for probably at least a decade.
No. Not going to happen. They gave a hard no to this at Blizzcon and the community has made it known that itâs not wanted.
Classic class balance is exactly how it should be. If people donât like it then thereâs BfA.
Iâm going to be maining a druid. Eventually Iâll PvP with a feral/resto hybrid spec. But I expect to be resto for quite some time before that. Possibly for up to two years until I get what I want from raiding. People need to stop whining and accept their class as it is. Embrace the classes as they are in Classic or go play BfA. Itâs just that simple.
I believe your under estimating how many people will be play vanilla. Dying server can be a problem but you can transfer to another , not an ideal fix but a fix none the less, gl.
If you look at the active population on pservers I donât think the classic servers will die for a very very long time. There is huge demand for this and many of the pservers are closing down after classic launch (at least temporarily in case blizzard screws this up which is a very likely outcome given their recent track record).
So yeah, I think it will be very healthy once the large drop of âwrath babiesâ and beyond realize the lack handholding classic has.
if they implement the next 2 expacs, and require each prior game be finished the way they did originally, classic wow will have years and years and years (deep breath) of playability.
for example: you had to be at least 58 to go to outlands in original vanilla. and you had to be at least 68 to go to northrend. require new players to play thru original vanilla, to open outlands and then they can make chars on tbc. then require they play thru tbc to open northrend, then they can make chars on wotlk.
if you buy a second account, that account has to level thru classic vanilla to get to classic tbc, etc. so people who want to multibox will be running thru classic vanilla. people who prefer vanilla, will be running alts thru vanilla. new players will be running thru vanilla. vanilla has a great shelf life.
This is the actual issue. Same issue that brought us xrbgâs, sharding, and connected realms.
All of which needed addressing while the sub counts were high.
So yes I can see your concern with this.
Hereâs another kicker.
Would any of this have ever been needed if the faction segregation had not split the pool of players to draw from right out of the gate?
So many issues can be tied directly to that very mechanic.
Faction imbalance, dwindling of wpvp, dungeon ques, bg ques, raid groups, and even guild recruiting are all hampered by a divided player base.
They need to keep Classic expansions separate. Introducing Burning Crusade to a server before players are ready for it will ruin the game for them. Enjoying vanilla world PvP for a level 60 would literally become impossible with level 70s running around one shotting all the level 60s. Not to mention the introduction of 41 point talents completely trivializing raids.
Vanilla classic servers absolutely need to remain isolated from any potential Burning Crusade or Wrath of The Lich King servers.
oh of course. you would just be allowed to make a copy of your qualified vanilla char, who would still be playable on classic vanilla. youâd be twins. hehe and later, triplets. classic vanilla you. tbc you. and wotlk you.
the big issue would be the spreading out of the population. i have a solution for that but its so hard to explain that people freak out before it finally sinks in what iâm saying.
oh i was referring to the thinning of available players as a result of some being on classic tbc, while back on classic vanilla, your guild has finally gotten all the bells and whistles to run 40 man naxx but are missing 1 geared tank. convo goes thus:
guild leader: oh whereâs charile the geared tank ?
other geared tank: heâs playing tbc now.
guild leader: ah crud. we need another tank.
other geared tank: most of them are playing pally tanks on tbc now.
guild leader: /curses the day tbc opened.
thereâs a solution for this, but as i said, itâs so complicated people freak out until i explain it all, and itâs exhausting to go thru the whole thing again (i should copy it to a .txt file)
Sounds like a job for backwards compatibility into a previously viable state to run the specific raid. Maybe you are not eligible for all the loot but there should be some kind of incentive to go back in time to help your buddies out (or maybe not and just do it to be nice).
well dont forget, you still have a copy of yourself on the classic vanilla. so youâd just have to login to that char. but youâd have to know youâre needed.
/cracks knuckles
okay here goes: if they eventually open a classic tbc server and you wanted to open it by having a level appropriate character copied over to it, youâd be automatically put on a server with the same name (like say youâre on classic vanilla stormrage⊠so thereâs a brother version- classic tbc stormrage, that way youâre always leveling with people from the same population you leveled with on classic vanilla) the chat box on classic vanilla would have a looking for group/raid tab, specific to classic tbc that can be seen on classic vanilla and vice-a-versa: the tbc chat box on classic tbc, would have a looking for group/raid tab, specific to classic vanilla.
the advertisement would look like this (for example):
looking for geared tank, vanilla naxx.
or
looking for healer, tbc sunken temple.
etc.
this way you can continue to draw from the same pool of players you played with on classic vanilla. and they are alerted that you need a tank for naxx or a healer for sunken temple, etc.
lets say youâre that geared tank and your doing nesingwayâs nagrand quests, meanwhile a guild back on classic vanilla, needs a geared tank for naxx and you havent finished naxx on your classic vanilla tank. you wont know they need someone unless they have some way to put out the call across all stormrage servers for classic vanilla/tbc.
that keeps the population functional even into expacs, without an auto lfg/lfr thing and keeps it on the same server essentially, also.
So, tiered servers.
Characters duplicate upwards only.
Players can interact across the entire tier via a global type chat.
Old content isnât instantly trivialized and can be experienced in its original âfinal stateâ which is expansion specific.
I can get behind this and I would probably still be subbed so I could play the older versions.
Your suggestions arenât radical at all and are pretty tame compared to other MMOs and the sort of features that are in BfA.