Ha ha…She’s been playing on and off with varying levels of supervision for a long time. It’s actually pretty easy to regulate within reason.
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I guess I’m in the group that is thinking a huge drop off will happen. My guess is 80% of the players that start on launch will find out the game is not right for them. Which is fine since Classic is not for everyone. You have retail tourist, variety streamers, and old players that will come back or are new leave.
Then the servers will stabilize and the population will slowly rise. There are few games that give the feeling of accomplishment that Classic does. I’m not saying it will ever hit 7 million subscribers again, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see over 3 million subs after a year or so.
I got into WoW after a bad breakup and was over a friend’s house while he was raiding BWL. There will be a new generation of Classic gamers that want to get away from reality for a bit. Celebrities and even streamers that work all day during their down time after work log in and just relax. Sometimes it’s nice to just get away and not everyone has to stream WoW if they play games for a living.
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It is a old game and a lot of people who like live will join who will leave rather quickly. While I think it will be a success I find it hard to believe that there will not be a rather steep drop off a few weeks to months after.
You say their word should not be questioned?
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It’s my opinion based on my experience playing Vanilla, numerous other games and classic beta. I have multiple years of played time in WoW, I know I personally will never put the time into Classic that I put into Vanilla and many other people simply won’t want to put in that time either.
A drop off is very likely as many retail players will play and most likely not stick around for the long haul.
you are the people i hope to play with, people with passion in their gaming, just hope you arent a gnome!!!
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Once Population drops and most people have cleared the content i fully expect the BC Expansion be announced for Classic users to be upgraded.
Even if its 2 years away it will get people back on to play old school WoW for the played who thought BC was the best old WoW Expansion.
I can’t see Blizard running a Classic server forever just got a few 1000 subs to use.
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lol this drop off talk is just retail YT and twitch kiddies crying that retail is a failure, Blizzard needs the extra subs and realized classic will get atleast 300k solid players adding another 15$ a month. To even think drop off will be an issue is just idiocy. Yes SOME will drop off because classic is an actual game you cant AFK through it and you know thats a good thing. I don’t want any retail players who expect a retail experience in classic.
Classic Servers will last years because people on this forum still think 99% of peolple will clear MC within the first year and thats its just so easy to get to 60 because they saw someone on twitch who did it. Earth to forum kiddies most people work 40-60 hours a week, most people have friends and go out.
Classic is here to stay and people crying can just sit here and do that cry in the forums. This is why retail sucks because this forum has TOO MUCH POWER.
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I am 35. I played vanilla. I also met a significant number of ~20 somethings who have never played WoW who are going to play. They have no interest in the modern game.
I was shocked when I found out a lot of the COD friends I have don’t even own the game and have to buy it. Of those who have tried it none of them got scared away so far.
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I don’t think they need to buy it. Just have a monthly sub.
If they don’t want to play BfA there is nothing to buy.
That’s partially true…new players would still have to buy WoW, but they could just buy the base game without ANY of the expansions and log on to play classic. No need to grind reps for Pathfinder or do anything we have in retail. I’m actually envious of them in that regard 
Multiple Factors
- People join in and discover it is not for them.
- People do all the content available at launch in 2 weeks and have nothing else to do until the next phase.
- Content Patch for retail wow. I know I know… it’s insane that people still play that trash, but they do.
- Leveling takes too long. A lot of people will quit at or before level 30 because leveling is taking to long.
You can’t compare this to the launch of world of warcraft. At the time NOTHING like wow existed. In the last 14 years the MMORPG landscape has evolved and there are a great deal of additional MMO’s and game releases. So yeah, there is going to be a population falloff.
It’s inevitable. However don’t think of that as a bad thing. The population will eventually normalize. Those who quit may come back for a new phase. Those who quit may come back to give Classic another chance because retail is Diarrhea.
Comparing it to the launch of wow though is impossible. The world and gaming has changed so much. It is very difficult to keep gamers attention for more than a few weeks at a time.
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this is 100% anecdotal and to even think people besides twitch streamers and 1% of the WoW players are going to level to 60 in 2 weeks, get pre-bis and then beat Rag is just complete foolishness. I don’t blame you though you been watching too many YT and Twitch streamers.
No amount of information will ever fix the 20 people in raid who didnt read the strat, no amount of information will make doing 3 hour BRD and Strat Live runs any faster. You are going to deal with many different types of people. Sure you might get a smooth run here and there, but the variables are going to stop you from even thinking you will clear any content besides level 30 in 2 weeks. Unless of course you play WoW 12 hours a day. Then I ask do you have a life?
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I can only tell you what I think will happen to me…
I love the old NElf starting zone. In fact, I’ve lost count of the times I leveled through it making alts before Cata changed it, and after.
I see myself making a Classic BM Hunter, and I’m sure I’ll love going through that zone, (with the exception of The Relics of Wakening in the Barrow Den from Hades, which can die in a fire.)
I do really miss the Learn To Tame quests… but once I get to Darkshore with the endless running from one end of the zone to the other, and only one Flight Master in Auberdine, that will be the first wall I’ll hit.
Then having to buy and waste bag space with ammo.
Then having to feed my pet to keep it happy and prevent it from running away.
Then no mounts until level 40, which will take bloody forever because I don’t run dungeons.
Or… I might find it interesting enough to get to the Hunter leaf quest chain… which I’d really like to do, because I never got round to doing it before it was taken out of the game.
Also got far enough in The Secpter quest chain to get the epic recipe, then Cata hit… because I never bothered to do that one either. That might be fun, just not sure that’s part of their overall plan though.
I’d also like to do the old super creepy Stalvan quest chain in Duskwood, and the heartbreaking Little Pamela chain in Eastern Plaguelands as well.
That might be enough to keep going.
Not sure I’ll do the Winterspring Frostsaber mount grind again though.
It will have a drop off simply because of churn. Even Vanilla churned through players at an astounding rate. The players I played with when I started Vanilla mostly were gone by the time TBC hit. Classic will be no different. The minute they turn the servers on the churn will start.
Just because people think there will be a drop off doesn’t mean it won’t be successful. Just because you go from 3 million to 1 million doesn’t mean it is a failure. However, Blizzard didn’t just grab this notion out of thin air, it came from doing some research and some looking at past history.
Vanilla will be successful, but ever growing? I’ll have to see that to believe it.
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Part of the issue I see is that we aren’t really dealing with a game that is constantly being developed. We are in a solid 1.12 frozen state with content to be unlocked over time. What I mean by this is that if you were to go into the past and experience Vanilla in 05/06 you’d have the excitement of knowing there’s much more to come. A whole new expansion, new spells, class revamps, and more would happen normally.
So, with a frozen state of the game and no guarantee TBC will happen that excitement is gone. You get what you get and you either enjoy it or don’t. But on the other hand we’re able to go back and experience and older more rpg centric design that has tons of replay value. Eventually it will get old I suppose, but it could still have years of solid entertainment value before the population truly drops off.
Another issue is with the give it to me now mentality I think exists quite a bit nowadays. Classic is a game that you have to work at and persist through. It’s tedious, slow at times, and perhaps even annoying as well in some places. You aren’t going to level in a day to max, or even two days, but at least 4/5 days for one character alone to reach 60. On top of that there are no Queue’s for raids or dungeons at all. You either get a summon or you find the instance like everyone else. Some instances are quite hidden or a pain to get to as well. So, that said it might be very unappealing to those who don’t like the inconvenience of having to explore and also even to clear to an instance to even get into it.
Lastly, I don’t think Classic is anything like an Esports game. There is no real leaderboard at all. You can stand out and show your skill sure, but it’s not at all an Esports game. Those that love that constant need to measure up against others might find Classic not as appealing since it isn’t likely designed for that kind of thing. It’s a hardcore light mmorpg for the most part with some decent rpg depth to it.
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It’ll be interesting for sure. I think bliz is a little conservative in their estimate because the hype is very real among the extended circle of vanilla players IME.
I think vanilla brought something you couldn’t really get anywhere else, and that’s just as true today. If anything us older folks appreciate old school design even more now. Plus, people will have all the time they need to do what they want to do.
Two very biased examples. You have to go out of your way to play on a pirate server. That means you probably already know what you’re getting into… Most of those players are actually from Asian countries that want to play a free game. Over there, grindy MMOs are extremely common and is still kind of the norm, so they stick with it for that and the free aspect.
Classic, on the other hand, will see around 75% of players vacate by the end of the year. Not that they will stay 100% gone, some might play an hour or two here and there if they are super bored, but it won’t be something they drop any real time per month into.
Only 14 days left and not as much hype going on as I thought there would be. Hope things pick up.