A lot of people will play again just to run the old content.
If people dont want to play the current expac, why not give them an option to play on which Expac was memorable for them?
I reckon it will make a lot of players go back, and actually make a community for big battlegrounds such as Alterac Valley.
This is my only one request. Some People like me are kind of Sick Running End Game Content. But Highly Enjoy Running Past Content as a result.
It’s already free in the sense that you can play 1-110 without buying the game. All it costs is a monthly sub.
I think 20 is plenty for F2P players.
Create alt guild and all turn off XP @ 70?
Seems like those 2 things could easily be mutually exclusive.
Aren’t folks on Alpha reporting that 1-50 only takes a few hours now? As in… massively faster than the current leveling speed, even with our double XP?
If that’s the case, just pull the trigger and make all of 1-50 free. New players get to try out various classes, learn most of their abilities, see lots of cool zones, etc… and as per the usual, nothing outside of the current expansion really matters so it isn’t hurting the game integrity.
Just slap some restrictions on them to combat would-be abusers using them as farming bots.
1-110 is basically playing most of the game normally and so would need an active sub. That’s well beyond that a free starter account should do.
Yes, on alpha speed runners are completing 1-60 in about 5-6 hours IIRC.
Can say this about any free game. Why would Blizzard want “a lot of players back” if those players aren’t paying a sub?
Depends on the game; GW2 (lol guild wars) is entirely free it’s just limiting on what you can/can’t buy or speed thru
Man, I used this double XP buff to level every class to 120 (on Stormrage Alliance) and I’m sorta regretting it now based on that.
Then again, it was mostly a fun experience so I guess it wasn’t like I wasted the time. Suppose it’ll be easy to get a core set of Horde characters together in SL.
What you say is true - a lot of people will player lower content if they implement your suggestion.
Why would Blizzard implement it though? It’s a huge monetary loss when they know there’s a significant playerbase that would still pay and do lower content anyway.
Guess it comes down to weighing the potential outcomes. Will more new players join because the free-to-play experience is more robust and made them want to take part in the end-game, or will revenue be lost would current subscribers cancel in favor of being purely 1-50 levelers?
I don’t think the latter case would be very common, personally. Most people, after getting a taste of end-game, don’t want to be locked out of it again. Sorta like getting a membership in RuneScape back in the day - free-to-play content loses its luster a little bit by comparison.
I used to give Blizzard a lot of credit, assuming they’d have teams of game developers/psychologists (a real thing… people whose job is to figure out what gets you to stay invested and stay paying) analyze these kinds of decisions and make recommendations. Now… I think they’re kinda just winging it.
Problem is, when SL launches, making that content “free” won’t matter again, because they are revamping the entire thing, hopefully making it somewhat relevant again.
Just spitballing here, but my guess is that professions and gear will all be equal for all the old xpacs (including BfA) because it would only make sense that a chest piece at level 30 would be the same whether you’re in Vanilla, MoP, or Legion.
You’re a couple years late on this request.
I’d say they have to wing it because before they had the option of building upon W3 lore to make a new story. But they’ve covered a lot of the bases so I understand what the struggle would be.
I agree, it would boil down to weighing the value proposition of taking those players on.
My reason for saying what I did was that I have recently done a chunk of the content for Legion (including PF) and endgame for Legion is very enjoyable in it’s own right. It’s comparable to playing at endgame 8.3 now (since we’re done with raid and the only meaningful progression are heart and cape resistance).
Comes down mostly to what each player is looking for, I guess. While a solid number of players are content with solo content like that, at the end of the day WoW is still an MMO and being locked out of end-game content (where 99% of the players are) would be a strong motivator to cough up the money.
Not to mention that some of that fun previous-expansion solo content wouldn’t necessarily be available to free-to-play players; just because they could level to the new 50 (i.e. 120) doesn’t mean all the restrictions would come off to let them do anything they wanted. If not for financial (subscription) reasons, then because it would open it up to a lot more abuse by botters.
If they keep the restrictions to like what a starter edition would be like but for 1-50 (SL) then yeah definitely. I could support that.