Because it happens with literally every game, there’s a lot of bandwagon gamers that will play something for a month, then drop it for the next hot new release. That’s not the only reason though. Modern players, if they’re playing modern, they clearly like the game. If these players truly felt Classic was a better game, they obviously wouldn’t be playing modern. Yes, there are people who like both, but chances are if they’ve been playing modern as long as they have they’re going to default back to modern and maybe tag into classic between expansions. Would not expect most modern players to stick around.
Many of them were outright even speaking negatively about Classic when it was announced and made it clear they had no interest in it, but oh look as soon as the hype starts building everyone’s on board cause bandwagon, that’s why they’re fair weather fans. Honestly? As much as people LOVE complaining about the streamers, I don’t think they’re gonna be sticking around long term.
Even further, it’s not just them either, I hate to say it, if you quit WoW after vanilla, you probably weren’t that dedicated to WoW to begin with. People looking for that nostalgia and magic feeling they got when they started, that’s all gone and that reality will present itself rather soon. Won’t have a good time if you’re expecting to relive past memories, but will if you’re okay with the reality your past WoW life is dead, this is a new beginning where new memories can be made.
I’m not trying to be a **** here and rain on peoples parade, but it’s just reality. I’ve got 2 friends who I recently learned are all the sudden interested in Classic. I’m betting they’ll quit within 2 months at the most. It may be harsh of me to say, but I really can’t wait until the fall off happens because then I’ll know who I can befriend and they’ll be there a year from then.
For reference this ends at the end of 2017, 9 months before the mobile release.
OSRS was going to die, horribly before they started updating the game. However, thanks to jagex being intelligent with their game updates and maintaining the integrity of their polling system OSRS is now more popular than RS3 and its player count higher than launch.
I see the same thing happening to classic wow. Sure there will be a lot of players to start with, But just like OSRS the player count will fall drastically if the game stays stagnant. That’s why I’m hoping desperately that they choose to do the same thing Jagex did with OSRS.
I have to stop right here and address this, did time work differently in 2004? I keep seeing this argument pop up, but it confuses me. We had people that had full time jobs and kids raiding with us back then. We had people in college, we had people that had limited raid time. Also there are new people that exist in the world today that didn’t exist in 2004, or at the very least were too young to play.
I do not understand this argument at all, even Blizzard somehow falls into this trap and says it from time to time. It is pure nonsense and has no basis in reality.
If a game is good enough, they will make time to play it, rearranging their schedules to play, they will also pay for that game. I really wish this argument would stop because it makes no sense at all.
I beg to differ with that statement. Sub counts leading up to Wrath prove otherwise. Cataclysm was the FIRST time I ever quit the game. Not surprisingly, that was when Ion and his team took over, but I didn’t even know they existed at the time. I simply didn’t like the sudden shift in direction the game had taken. Specifically the complete alteration of Azeroth as we knew it. I was very much dedicated to the game as were several others, until the game changed so drastically that we couldn’t even recognize it anymore. It’s just gone downhill ever since and finally after making us wait almost a YEAR to release Pathfinder part 2 in BFA I had had enough…Sorry but that statement was blatantly FALSE
my honest opinion is once all these entitled players realize just how much work had to be done in vanilla, you’ll see the numbers fall.
honestly, i don’t care if classic succeeds or fails; it won’t affect me in the least bit. i’ll probably play for a bit too just from the fact i’m getting so burnt out on trying to gear alts… especially in the essences department.
We are all now wired for instant gratification. Some of us will rewire ourselves to enjoy classic but the vast majority of us will quit after level 40 something
Because there are obviously a ton of people who want to change Classic to have some of the best parts of more modern version of WoW. People who don’t want a recreation of Vanilla, but some kind of “best hits” WoW with all their favorite features from different times.
Bliz has gotten surprisingly close to “Vanilla”. I’m one of those people that thinks there will be a drop off, because there seems to be so many people with the “wrong” expectations.
I am bringing 8 to 10 new players from our D&D group. They are excited to play a version of a rpg that is a little closer to a D&D game than a first person shooter like retail.
That’s the appeal of classic for many frankly. Yea, I agree it’s gonna get stale, but a stale game that you can rely on is better than one that continually has new content added to it that’s completely detached from its roots and having endless false hope on a 2 year cycle it’ll return to the game you once loved.
Modern is like an ex with a drug addiction who you’re hoping will one day realize has a problem, but never does. You keep giving it chances because you’re deeply in love with it, but you soon realize that love will never be returned because the drugs always come first.
I’d argue that the success of OSRS proves you wrong.
Runescape is probably the grindiest game I’ve ever played in my life. This is a game where people will click the same god forsaken tree for over 200 hours just to level from 70 to 99 woodcutting. This is also considered to be one of the easier 99s to get in the game yet OSRS is proving to be very successful.
Hell, the majority of people’s favorite skill in that game is slayer, and slayer is by far the slowest 99 to get in the game.
Is it as big as WoW? Not even close, yet it proves that there are people out there who are willing to play a more grindy game.
There is also historical that every classic release of other MMOs have experience the same pattern, big population numbers at release and a massive drop off in population after 1-3 months which that classic MMOs would never reach again.
I used to work a 60hr week, I was on call-out duty 1 week in every 4, Had 2 kids aged 5yrs and 2yrs, Wife to appease ( impossible as it turns out ) and I was to cook at home for meals at night…oh and my wife was my healer for all runs lol.
I was the guild’s MT for MC, BWL and AQ40, a guild leadership team member, The guilds fire resist gear crafter ( I never wanna see blackrock depths again … ). Longest stretch of continuous play was 40hrs straight ( I only went to bed because the walls started moving ), and used to game around 60hrs a week consistently for several years.
I’m now semi-retired due to health issues ( not gaming related lol ), still with the same wife ( 23 yrs and counting, i dunno how she puts up with me ), have 4 kids and cook all meals in our house. Yes, the wife is comming back to classic too
I’d expect we’ll get a large-ish dip in player numbers post release as all the tourists leave, and then we’ll see them grow slowly as old-schools filter back into the game.
I’ll be straight up in saying that I’m a classic tourist. I’m probably going to level to 60 and maybe do some group content but I mostly just want to see how the game was back in the day. I feel like there’s a lot of people that feel the same but they’re going to end up being the silent majority.
because there are a lot of people like me who played and raided vanilla but have lives and jobs now that we didn’t have at 20 or whatever. I can’t put in 35 hours a week on a mmo anymore. I’ll probably play some at launch but there’s other requirements on my time.
Because people will get bored of the immensely slow pace of classic and go play one of hundreds of other games they could be playing?
Many people will go to try it to see what it was like if they never played. Many people who actually played it will play it for nostalgic reasons. Very few will be committing to a 15 year old MMO long-term.
WoW, especially Classic, is immensely time consuming and I don’t think a lot of people will want to repeat it, even if they currently think they do.
It’s not a doom and gloom thing. When I talk about the fall-off, I’m not saying Classic won’t be successful. It’s just…gonna happen. I am looking forward to the population settle, when things get stable and the long-term folks can be identified.
Very few people who actually intend to play are predicting a failure when we speak of the drop-off. That isn’t what we think at all. It’s just something that will happen and we should all be looking for it and understand what it actually is when it starts happening. It won’t mean people are leaving and Classic isn’t going to be a go. It will mean that the tourists are done playing, now, and the people who remain are the Classic players.
Other people exist and have the exact opposite position you have.
There are people with more free time now that can play.
The reality is that people will make time to play the game if they want to, they will rearrange their lives and schedules around things that happen in game, just like the guys with full time jobs and kids back in 2004-2006.
