The WoW Classic community is entering a civil war.

[MoanaLisa]

would you like to put some numeric range predictions here?

Predictions are completely pointless. A lot of people will go in at the start and people will begin to leave a month or so after. Whether or not more people leave in Month 3 than sign up is unknowable here and Blizzard is vanishingly unlikely to discuss "subscribers" or whatever revenue model they use which will allow us to track usage over time. So it's pointless to make some prediction that you'll never know the answer to. Common sense would say that there will be high numbers at the start and it tail off until it reaches some level after which it might end up acting more or less like D3 with seasons. Lots of people back for something new, if it's something like a progressive server, and tailing off again.

The revenue model will matter.

[elwarriors]

It s fake only shitty panda players are here whinning about how hard the game could be and they want light version of vanilla. rekt

[KyrtF]

Guess what? Classic isn't for you.

That's your opinion. It isn't his.

Truth is - we don't know what version of Classic WoW Blizzard will offer. We don't know what criteria they will set.

They COULD release it as it was...bugs and all and just mirror the patch cycle day by day, month by month. Including all those raids that were impossible because of bugs.

Or they COULD release it all at once...Naxxrammas and AQ40 and all that on Day 1.

They COULD keep the systems intact as they were back then. Or they COULD add in all the QoL changes that have been put in place since then.

Because YOUR opinion that the "original" version of Vanilla WoW is just as valid as those whose opinion is that QoL changes are desireable. Neither of you is right, neither of you is wrong.

It's already been said Blizzard doesn't care how popular the servers are, they are going for the most authentic vanilla experience they can.

It's also been said they will be looking to rebalance and change the classes...and if they do that, then all bets are off. QoL changes may or may not be included. It's too early to say. Plus, there is also the question as to what IS the "most authentic vanilla experience".

[Jastall]

Why is it more likely to be true? Why would one of blizzard's lead designers tell an outright lie? You people are desperate as fuck.

Who said anything about a lie? ''As close as possible'' doesn't mean copy-paste, and is the sort of statement that allows you to backpedal if you want to add a few features. In the official forums, the CMs seemed interested in discussions about class balance, for example, so at the very least it means they are considering the issue even if they might not actually do any changes.

Plus, Blizzard has never been above going back on their word, times change as Garrosh would say. Classic servers alone are proof enough of that.

[therealbowser]

I'm suggesting that they ignore feedback initially to get the servers up and running so they can see who will actually invest time and energy into that iteration of the game.

I fear that right now we have "feedback" coming from too many people, many who will most likely not play the game for more than 20-30 hours (I suspect anyway).

To me it makes more sense to get an iteration of the game up and running, see who ends up playing with it then get feedback from those people.

If they rush the game and make a version that people are not interested in playing, then the people who are not interested in playing will... that's right... not be playing.

I simply don't agree with this. Blizzard can sort through the feedback to see what people want, and if people can't agree, well.. that shows Blizzard that they need to find a compromise since the community clearly cannot.

I'd rather them take the time needed to launch the best possible classic server than to rush it, end up with crap that few people enjoy and even fewer stay to play on. Fortunately, Blizzard's track record shows that they will probably take the time to listen to feedback rather than rushing the product.

[Deficineiron]

Predictions are completely pointless. A lot of people will go in at the start and people will begin to leave a month or so after. Whether or not more people leave in Month 3 than sign up is unknowable here and Blizzard is vanishingly unlikely to discuss "subscribers" or whatever revenue model they use which will allow us to track usage over time. So it's pointless to make some prediction that you'll never know the answer to. Common sense would say that there will be high numbers at the start and it tail off until it reaches some level after which it might end up acting more or less like D3 with seasons. Lots of people back for something new, if it's something like a progressive server, and tailing off again.

The revenue model will matter.

I thought

It's likely to be much smaller than people imagine.

was a prediction

smaller than the 100k folks, or smaller than mine?

also - you know they will discuss initial player levels, and one suspects they will discuss said numbers later if favorable.

so some component of the predictions is likely to have specific validation, and other parts may have partial validation later.

- - - Updated - - -

Who said anything about a lie? ''As close as possible'' doesn't mean copy-paste, and is the sort of statement that allows you to backpedal if you want to add a few features. In the official forums, the CMs seemed interested in discussions about class balance, for example, so at the very least it means they are considering the issue even if they might not actually do any changes.

Plus, Blizzard has never been above going back on their word, times change as Garrosh would say. Classic servers alone are proof enough of that.

actually they can change everything and claim to have preserved the 'classic gaming experience,' so they are covered on that one.

[Hctaz]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

There is DEFINITELY a divide. The guys who are claiming that people are simply "trolls" trying to tarnish the good name of Classic are deluded. The reason a lot of people accepted Vanilla as it was is simply because that's the only official thing we had. Not every single person was 100% happy with the state of the game, but there was literally nothing that could be done about it. That group was certainly NOT going to put the task of altering Vanilla WoW up to some random people. nor would anybody even be able to do that if we HAD asked. We were not about to ask a small team of people to make hard decisions on balancing changes or itemization changes. That would be absurd. Now that Blizzard is going to make this official, that group of people is now trying to get things like Class balance and potential future updates going as well.

I'm a player of Old School Runescape and I had been for a long time. What happened there was unexpected, but also beautiful. They ended up creating an alternate reality game that is essentially a "what if we didn't fuck up" scenario for a lot of the old playerbase. I would think that Blizzard (after a few years of keeping Vanilla AS VANILLA AS POSSIBLE mind you) would be able to go this route as well. A lot of the things that people want are not absurd to ask for, it's just a matter of wanting to have Vanilla progress forward without those stupid changes that ended up making the game a lot worse. They removed a lot of the RPG and community elements of the game, and none of the changes that people (aside from the real trolls who are asking for LFR and flying) want have any effect on this aspect. Nobody is asking for the game to die slowly.

We've seen what types of changes ended up ruining the game, so we know what to avoid. OSRS ended up being a game that was basically made by the community. Nobody waited around for the devs to tell them what was coming in the next expansion, they VOTED for it (with an active membership of course). They've managed to keep the integrity of the game intact while still providing new content. They've even added new content into the game that was from the Runescape 3 version of the game, but altered it to work within the confines of the old style. I would totally love to see a world in which new content was added under the pretext of "This HAS to feel like Vanilla"

[arcaneshot]

Did you read my post? WoW Classic doesn’t need a healthy player base. If there’s only tens of people playing, that’s fine too.

What I can guarantee you is that if they make too many changes to what vanilla was, all of the purists who have been asking for it for so long will just leave it alone and instead continue to play on their private servers. So if they want WoW Classic to be dead on arrival, they should totally go for that.

If 'purists' think threatening to keep doing what they're already doing is going to make Blizzard change their minds they've got another thing coming.

[MoanaLisa]

smaller than the 100k folks, or smaller than mine?

Depends on the revenue model and how long after launch. Also definitions: concurrent users, unique users in a week, month, day? None of which we'll know.

"Smaller than people imagine" is a reaction to the idea that a year after launch Classic will very definitely absolutely have more players than the main game. I don't think that's true but again, it's going to be hard to know.

Main point though is that without a revenue model to talk about, there's no way to even predict.

[LazarusLong]

I think that the experience should be the same, with the bugs fixed, simple as that. It should be like 1.12, without any modern addition, especially no LFG.

So only three viable hunter weapons in entire game and blue with +weapon skill is better than epics.

Good times!

I also wonder how people will play without addons. Doubt they will add deprecated API's

[Nefastus]

Comparing a random world boss to a mythic encounter raid end boss top kek

You won the title of Emperor of autism ruler of the galaxy of Down syndrome of all the multiverse

I don't know why you are being rude but maybe you are confusing the word bosses of today with the ones back then.

Back to the mythic vs World Boss, Lets compare:

Mythic encounter in Warlords of Garrison Xpac, a PvE encounter that won't inovate in any way, repeat the same strategy no matter what, can be raid locked so you can face it for as long as you want, in the age of addons and trash mobs don't even spawn anymore (not sure about this one acctually). In short, the only thing limiting your sucess is your patience, nothing more. No one could steal your boss.

VS

A World Raid Boss that was up in the game for the first time EVER (patch that first added outdoor raid bosses to the game), in a PvP server, in fact, one of the highest populated PvP servers back then, fighting overwhelming numbers of Alliance players (my guild was Horde side), including the top server guild that was also in the Alliance side. Add to that the fact the lag was a real big issue back then when too many players were in the same area. Repeating again, it was the very first outdoor Raid Boss in the game so the ammount of players atracted to it was huge.

Imagine fighting all those odds.

Yes, Azuregos hands down.


I did hear world bosses of today are just loot pinatas and world pvp isn't that common but I am talking about the peak times of WoW, before cross servers, when competition between guilds in the same server were brutal.

When the Nightmare Dragons came it was no walk in the park either. For all outdoor Raid Bosses the top guilds had alt "spotters" so once one was up you had literally a couple of minutes to gather your entire guild (I was one of the spotters for my guild), move to the area the boss was up and get ready to fight the boss plus the main guilds of the oposite faction.

Eventually it got easier to fight those bosses as Vanilla was aproaching its end, near BC but when the bosses first came up it was hell.

Hope this clears up, I supose you didn't see the full picture. I am not acusing you of trolling or anything. Moderation in here is pretty good and they are banning the trolls attacking these topics anyways.

[Deleted]

I don't know why you are being rude but maybe you are confusing the word bosses of today with the ones back then.

Back to the mythic vs World Boss, Lets compare:

Mythic encounter in Warlords of Garrison Xpac, a PvE encounter that won't inovate in any way, repeat the same strategy no matter what, can be raid locked so you can face it for as long as you want, in the age of addons and trash mobs don't even spawn anymore (not sure about this one acctually). In short, the only thing limiting your sucess is your patience, nothing more.

VS

A World Raid Boss that was up in the game for the first time EVER(patch that introduced them), in a PvP server, in fact, one of the highest populated PvP servers back then, fighting overwhelming numbers of Alliance players (my guild was Horde side), including the top server guild that was also in the Alliance side. Add to that the fact the lag was a real big issue back then when too many players were in the area. Repeating again, it was the very first outdoor Raid Boss in the game so the ammount of players atracted to it was huge.

Imagine fighting all those odds.

Yes, Azuregos hands down.


I did heard world bosses of today are just loot pinatas and world pvp isn't that common but I am talking about the peak times of WoW, before cross servers, when competition between guilds in the same server were brutal.

When the Nightmare Dragons came it was no walk in the park either. For all outdoor Raid Bosses the top guilds had alt "spotters" so once one was up you had literally a couple of minutes to gather your entire guild (I was one of the designated players in my guild), move to the area the boss was up and get ready to fight the boss plus the main guilds of the oposite faction.

Eventually it got easier to fight those bosses as Vanilla was aproaching its end, near BC but when the bosses first came up it was hell.

You mean that boss that is being chain farmed today with the event of today. The pinnacle of difficoulty. You should become the new Method raid leader, so next tier they will not wipe 800+ times to beat the last boss. Now go back to class, i bet your support teacher is worried and he is looking for his "Special" student.

[Nefastus]

You mean that boss that is being chain farmed today with the event of today. The pinnacle of difficoulty. You should become the new Method raid leader, so next tier they will not wipe 800+ times to beat the last boss. Now go back to class, i bet your support teacher is worried and he is looking for his "Special" student.

Seems you didnt read a single line of what I wrote. A.single.one. I even used bold to make it clear the diferences from back then vs now...

EDIT: Nvm, I just saw your post history, you seem to troll every single topic avaliable in the forums of MMO Champion. They are always filled with insults and sarcasm. Thats really not necessary. Lets avoid any sort of insults please, keep things pleasant, at least in this forum sub section. How do we say in english, keep things civil, I think.

[Deficineiron]

Depends on the revenue model and how long after launch. Also definitions: concurrent users, unique users in a week, month, day? None of which we'll know.

"Smaller than people imagine" is a reaction to the idea that a year after launch Classic will very definitely absolutely have more players than the main game. I don't think that's true but again, it's going to be hard to know.

Main point though is that without a revenue model to talk about, there's no way to even predict.

concurrent users - appears no-where in my post prediction. is there any real dispute on what a concurrent user is? in all my years I have only seen one (number of users logged in at time x) what does this have to do with sub/active user predictions?

active users - I used blizzard's own china definition, logged in in last 30 days, as noted in my post.

revenue model - is there any sense in not using 'part of standard monthly sub, no box sale' at this point? it is ok to assign reasonable estimations on unknowns as long as they are labeled as such.

finally, we will get feedback from a/b on this. in cc's only if not stellar, in pr's and brags from blues if stellar. if there is a box sale we will certainly hear the 24 hour sale number.

aside from your initial not-prediction (smaller than people imagine) you are adverse to speculation?

[MoanaLisa]

aside from your initial not-prediction (smaller than people imagine) you are adverse to speculation?

I think it's pointless. It's one reason why we close overtly "how many subs" threads. Blizzard isn't saying and the arguments are not going to be answered.

And I wouldn't be so sure about the revenue model at this point. I can easily see them going for some sort of B2P thing. I agree that "required sub" is a place to start as a default but I am very skeptical that people will pay $120-$180 dollars a year to play a vanilla server.

[Nefastus]

I think it's pointless. It's one reason why we close overtly "how many subs" threads. Blizzard isn't saying and the arguments are not going to be answered.

And I wouldn't be so sure about the revenue model at this point. I can easily see them going for some sort of B2P thing. I agree that "required sub" is a place to start as a default but I am very skeptical that people will pay $120-$180 dollars a year to play a vanilla server.

I was about to ask you about that, do you think they should do some sort of free to play system for the classic servers? I mean, its an old game and it could get them some players for the retail version further on. I am not sure how classic vs private servers will work right now. I assume that at least some people that play in private servers do it because they refuse to pay a subscription. I belive its not because of the price itself but the idea and feeling of having a "contract" to play the game and kinda feel obligated to play more because of it.

[rootbeerboy]

I was about to ask you about that, do you think they should do some sort of free to play system for the classic servers? I mean, its an old game and it could get them some players for the retail version further on. I am not sure how classic vs private servers will work right now. I assume that at least some people that play in private servers do it because they refuse to pay a subscription. I belive its not because of the price itself but the idea and feeling of having a "contract" to play the game and kinda feel obligated to play more because of it.

People wanted official classic. Now they want it free! AYY LMAO

[MoanaLisa]

I was about to ask you about that, do you think they should do some sort of free to play system for the classic servers? I mean, its an old game and it could get them some players for the retail version further on. I am not sure how classic vs private servers will work right now. I assume that at least some people that play in private servers do it because they refuse to pay a subscription. I belive its not because of the price itself but the idea and feeling of having a "contract" to play the game and kinda feel obligated to play more because of it.

I think that some sort of B2P revenue model where you buy the game for $20 (U.S.) and then can play it without any further subscription would be profitable for them. It would need to be tied to a Battle.net account but that doesn't necessarily mean it requires a subscription. I could see them doing something like B2P to start and a yearly renewal fee of $15-$20 bucks just for maintenance costs, support and whatever. Everyone seems to assume a monthly fee and I can understand that. But there's no reason it has to be monthly. It could be for a quarter, half-year or whatever.

Completely free? That's not really Blizzard's way. I don't have anything to say about private servers because they're irrelevant as a discussion topic on this site.

I would be careful about tossing around F2P with respect to this. For many that implies a store for items and that's a can of worms that they shouldn't open except for perhaps plushy toys or something. There's going to be enough problems with this without opening up that Pandora's Box.

But given the heavy interest in it, a B2P model with a very modest yearly renewal would keep the game funded at a break-even or mildly profitable level likely forever.

[Sinyc]

Who would have imagined that having a company revive a 10+ year old game that is barely recognizable, besides the name, in the present would have so many issues? Wonder if that's why they didn't give in before..

[Flarelaine]

Did you read my post? WoW Classic doesn’t need a healthy player base. If there’s only tens of people playing, that’s fine too.

What I can guarantee you is that if they make too many changes to what vanilla was, all of the purists who have been asking for it for so long will just leave it alone and instead continue to play on their private servers. So if they want WoW Classic to be dead on arrival, they should totally go for that.

Assuming, of course, that there will be private servers. Blizzard has teams of lawyers as well as devs.