How is it a bad comparison? Classic is going to get regular updates for at least a year. Then there is discussion of TBC that is not out the window. So please tell me how this is a bad comparison?
This thread is too long to read, so this has probably been stated already but I’m sure a fall-off is bound to happen.
It has to be inevitable, especially since this Classic experience will have a cap on it. It doesn’t go beyond that, so really there’s no rush to do what you have to do. It’ll be an experience that people aren’t really in a rush for, so they might decide to take a break then come back.
It’s not like Retail will be to where it’s ever-evolving and constantly moving forward.
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It is a bad comparison because OSRS took an old game and updated it with new things to do and new items to get. The WoW community has specifically stated that they want no new content, just the old good stuff. And we have absolutely no time table of when BC will be released, if ever. This company has gone back on its word many times, don’t take speculation as fact. If classic is out for 2 years people will stop playing once they get their fix. More people will also join, but as I stated earlier, why does it matter? As long as we enjoy the game we will play it, that’s it.
Ok? 2 years from now has nothing to do with drop off soon after launch, like the OP discusses and has been talked about throughout the comments on this thread.
I’m not sure i would want a TBC again, I think they should just add more Vanilla content, TBC really was the beginning of the end. Though I liked what they did with Ret in TBC, Arena and Flying , downsizing raids and all that came with that is not something I like to see again.
Today there are a slew of popular MMORPGs, MOBAs, and battle royales that didn’t exist in 2004-2006. Not to mention all kinds of other ways to spend one’s leisure time online.
Logical people will always strive to maximize their leisure time and dollar. Back in 2004 that might have meant playing WoW. That all those people will find Classic WoW to still be best way to spend their leisure time and dollar in 2019 is absurd.
People will try/come back to Classic for various reasons, but the market conditions are not the same, and we shouldn’t expect people to make the same choices they made in 2004 just because the game itself will be the same (mostly).
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I’m not sure the drop will be bad, whats the difference from back in Vanilla when someone joined played for a month then /quit to the upcoming Retail players joining finding no insta wins quit playing. There will be fluctuations but I think overall a strong classic community and servers will be the end results.
Unfortunately to the detriment of retail, I know as a player for 14 years now, i’ll be on classic 90% of my time and I’m pretty sure I’m in a fairly large minority. I’m guessing at about 25% of the game.
Um, WoW killed many popular MMORPGs that existed in 2004, it also pulled people from other genres of games.
Right off the top of my head Vanilla WoW killed
Star Wars Galaxies
Everquest
DAOC
Lineage
and
Asherons call
As well as a slew of other smaller ones. I am so confused right now.
There were a lot of mmo’s back in 2004-2006, though none of them compare to WOW, i’m guessing the same is true now, though I no longer follow launches like i did back then.
Vanilla WoW did not grab 7.7 million players from existing MMORPGs and online games.
Most players were college age when Vanilla came out- those players now have full time jobs, families, etc… and if you have the same amount of time to play game now as you did in college, then all power to you- but nobody I know does.
This is not going to attract new players- today’s college/kid generation doesn’t want games that require effort, this is the gimme gimme me2 generation that needs everything now.
This will appeal to far fewer people than you think, the crazy thing is anyone saying this game’ll have over a million subs. It might get that to start as people try out the ‘new’ thing- but by year end it’ll be lucky to be over 100k. And for an ancient, grindy, niche game that’s amazing.
The real problem is all the people acting like if the game doesn’t keep a million or more it means its failed. Or even crazier, acting like its going to be more popular now when there’s a dozen good wide appeal mmos on the market- than it was back then when it was the only good wide appeal mmo on the market.
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and than of course there will be the Ret Paladins, Spriests, Feral Druids, Survival Hunters etc etc that get tired of being bad with no actual light at the end of the tunnel, no “hope” things will get better.
pair that with player attitudes now, we are far more restrictive now because simply we know better we are used to expac after expac and developng way to weed players and specs and classes out.
think about the people who are going to play vanilla with the full knowledge of what things were brokenly OP (looking at you green whelp armor) and what classes and specs weren’t.
What’s going on right now is a case in point. Every stress test they have had so far reveals they have grossly underestimated the amount of people who want to play. The servers crash from the load of people logging in. Even if half drop off within a few months it will likely be more people than usual playing. The forums are unstable right now just from people reserving names on a character creation screen. What does that tell you?
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LOL can confirm. I had the 500 Bad Gateway error code for several minutes after I reserved my chosen names 
You took a look at population numbers from over 10 years ago and are assuming that Classic will follow the same curve. That nothing has changed since then.
There are a lot of flaws in your logic:
- Retail Tourists - my guess is 90% of the initial Classic population will be Retail tourists. I expect most will quit without getting very far in Classic. Leveling in Vanilla was extremely boring and slow compared to Retail. I expect most Retail players won’t make it to 60. And even for the ones who do, many will still choose to main in Retail. I wouldn’t be surprised if Classic sees 2 million accounts created the first month, with a drop down to 50,000 or less regular players within a month.
- The available playerbase is different from what it was 10+ years ago. MMOs have been becoming less popular over the years. They are no longer the dominant form of gaming they were back then.
- WoW Vanilla was new content, Classic is not. Classic is a re-release of VERY old content. Classic is more like a “remastered” version of Blizzard’s other games than an initial release. As such, I expect Classic to follow a substantially different population trajectory than a new release of original content. The type of player who is eager to play a state-of-the art new-release game is not necessarily the same as one who wants to plays a 15-year-old game.
- I expect almost no new players - New players tend to be attracted to new original content… not re-releases of ancient content. WoW has been around so long that pretty much anyone who might have any interest in it has already played some version of it. I also do not expect that Blizzard will pay for the kind of expensive advertising campaign needed to draw in new players (the kind they do for each WoW expansion). Also, new players with no previous interest in WoW aren’t likely to be attracted to Classic’s antiquated gameplay, obsolete graphics, and few options compared to Retail. Nor will they want to pay $15 per month to play an obsolete game.
- Vanilla had no real competition, Classic does. When it came out Vanilla was orders of magnitude better than any competing MMO. Classic can’t say the same since it is competing with Retail. Retail has a lot of flaws, but in many ways it is a much better game than Vanilla was. Also, players who are established in Retail may not want to throw away characters they’ve spent years nurturing to swap to Classic.
I expect 3 kinds of players will play Classic:
- Tourists from Retail - by far the biggest group, but probably the one with the shortest staying power.
- Private Server players - a fairly small, but dedicated group of aficionados who prefer Vanilla’s gameplay to Retail. Note that not all private server players will come. Many players play on private servers because it is free, or because they enjoy some other version of the game than Vanilla (there are TBC and WOTLK private servers for example). Those players will not play Classic and will continue on private servers.
- Returning WoW players - some former WoW players might hear about Classic and come back. I don’t expect that many will do so or stay for the long haul. But some will.
The playerbase for Classic isn’t the same as the playerbase for Vanilla was. As such, I expect a substantially different population trend as Classic progresses than Vanilla had.
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Very well said.
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I agreed with the entirety of your post aside from that last statement. Retail and Classic each have their own development teams, so the idea of them splitting their resources and not getting much done on either, or favoring one or the other is not true. That being said, since retail is ever evolving/changing and Classic will only get predetermined timely updates to release later raid content up to Naxx, yes in that sense retail will see more development. Now the playerbase part you referenced is most likely true for the people who are still able to tolerate playing retail. I personally will never go back until/unless Ion and his team are no longer taking part in the creation of content or direction of the game
Except classic is nothing like D&D, how’d you sell that ridiculous notion to them?
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Retail and Classic each have their own teams and they do not split resources.
But that said, the development team for Retail probably has 100x as many people in it as the development team for Classic. It takes enormously more resources to design and build completely new content and art assets than it does to release old content.
Retail has probably 100x the budget for both development and advertising, and Blizzard has multiple expansions in the pipeline at a time. Based on that I have to assume that Blizzard considers Retail to be their flagship MMO while Classic is just an afterthought.
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Because if even ond player quits classic with out clearing naxx and logging in daily the clearly its not the true classic experience. Dont you know every one who installed vanilla never quit playing