Originally Posted by
Milkwolfgang
I wouldn't go as far as to say that. Playerbase (aka Human beings) changed the Genre. There are way many types of gamers nowadays than 10 years ago. Should a company just ignore all these new potential subscribers/players and focus on the oldschool players?
There are plenty of players who still enjoy WoW, Rift, FFXIV:ARR, (Insert your MMO here). Having played WoW since BC, I prefer it nowadays. I'm surely aware it's not the same for everyone, but there are players who share the same feeling. Nowadays I can still go "Hardcore" mode and clear Heroic modes if I want or I can take a break and take it easy doing Flex. If time/schedule is the issue, I can even do LFR. People talk about community, but I've been adding people to my real ID just because of a small talk while doing Heroic Scenarios or World Boss Runs. There is way too much blame on the Game itself rather than "what can I do to improve my community?".
If a game launched with a gameplay similar to WoW Vanilla nowadays (but with updated graphics and bugs fixed) it wouldn't be the same thing. Well, maybe for a couple of months? Then the company realizes the market isn't the same. They can stick to that model and work with a smaller playerbase, but why? One could argue EVE does this, but EVE is largely different from MoP/Rift/FFXIV:ARR/etc, while WoW Vanilla would be more of a variation of these.
As always when someone brings similar topics up, you either provide relevant feedback to Devs (but not expecting it to be applied to the game, as it's just your opinion and might not reflect what is healthy for the game or even what other people want) or you quit.