Why? Retail makes them more money. Possibly some game developer spite thrown in there too, who knows.
Heres the analogy. Try to follow me here.
Activision is a bakery. Classic Wow is a chocolate cake. People asked for it, but their money maker is their retail chocolate chip cookies. They had a mob of people outside their bakery demanding the cake, so Activision gave in. Except they added in a pinch of salt (batching, layering, server queues, lag, you name it). Just enough to make you not notice it… until you do.
Look at how much advertisement has been done for classic vs retail. Let them spin it any way they want to, they might not WANT classic to fail, but they certainly don’t want it to succeed.
Incompetent with their business model? I absolutely agree with you. But it’s important to not mistake incompetence with an intentional decision to put salt in the cake.
Incompetence when it comes to game design (ex: layers) and knowing the community (ex: population problems/queues).
I really don’t believe it’s intentional (except for maybe when they can profit from paid transfers), they really don’t know what they are doing and the proof of that is retail.
Like some other user said, Actibli$$ard business model is basically: “make the most money with least effort” shrug
Some light reading on the legal responsibilities of a board of directors would suggest that if your claim has any basis in fact whatsoever, there would be legal grounds to take action.
From “Introduction to Law for Paralegals: A Critical Thinking Approach,”
“The board of directors is responsible for the management of the corporation. The board stands in a fiduciary relationship to the corporation and to the shareholders. A fiduciary relationship is one in which a person in a position of trust is responsible for acting in the best interests of another party. In this case, the board is responsible for doing what is best for the stockholders of the corporation. The board typically makes major policy and investment decisions, as well as appointing, supervising, and removing corporate officers.”
I don’t like the legal approach, as I am not a lawyer. Nor am I sure that I understand what your opinion on whether or not Activision intentionally made Classic less appealing than* retail.
But, since you went there, I just want to bring up two thoughts.
That is the only reason that I can understand why they’d do it - they believe it is in the best interest of their shareholders.
Because it may not be legal does not mean that it has not been done, nor does it mean that the developers didn’t want Classic not to succeed.
It’s easier to just not support a company that I loved growing up.
You may not understand something. That’s on you. Learn stuff.
Yeah, that would be a direction to go with this, I suppose. Though, it seems like it would be incredibly ridiculous for a company to tank a product on purpose, and to do so with the best interest of their shareholders in mind.
Certainly.
Certainly.
Certainly. If you actually buy into the things you are claiming, I can’t see why you would support Activision Blizzard, unless you happened to really like their games.
The truth is Blizzard tried to deliver a product that lives up to the spirit of Vanilla WoW minus all the crazy exploits and people with rose tinted goggles got a rude awakening when it wasn’t what they expected.
No kidding :). Not to mention I had no idea these forums were read by so many people trained in running a global corporation. I wouldn’t think they’d have time for that with all the responsibility they’re shouldering.
Greedy corporation that doesn’t care about it’s most loyal customers.
Worse still, as a software technology company they are allowed to operate in unscrupulous and unethical ways that don’t break any laws or consumer rights.
I don’t see any sources here supporting that claim, so i can’t take it as a fact.
Well considering both of these things sound yummy to a general consumer, i have doubts with this analogy.
Except only one thing isn’t from Vanilla, and that’s the Layering. I don’t practically like Layering, and honestly, we should’ve done without it.
Also, how’s lag a vanilla thing? can you specify?
Doesn’t really make much sense considering the launch of WoW Classic helped propel the subs* by 223%. i highly doubt Activision would abandon WoW Classic, considering theirs still a niche that wants Vanilla WoW.
* = At the moment, the exact official number is unknown.
First, the chocolate cake (classic) and cookies (retail) are not sold seperately. Buying one buys you the other. Just because you prefer cake to cookies or vice versa does not mean you aren’t paying for both.
As a direct result, which would you advertise:
The addon to the cookies (shadowlands) which will generate an additional 60$ each
OR
The chocolate cake which you get for completely free with purchase of a cookie.
Finally, when Classic was being released, they did advertise it. A lot. But everyone knows if you go to that bakery, you get a free chocolate cake with your cookie.
Classic is and always will be a niche product. They are going to advertise it as such. That’s not a conspiracy to make it fail; it’s just good business.
Because vanilla never had the problem that Classic very clearly did have… mass population dropoff…
Layers had practically no actual downsides besides perception, and have basically no lasting harm.
However if layering was not used then nearly every server would be a ghost town and you would have seen multiple server merges doing far more disruption than layering, which would have done far more dmg to Classic.
So if someone actually wanted to kill Classic not using a solution like layering would have been the way to do it.
