Was anyone not happy with the announcement of Classic, and/or believes it could flop?

[xxcloud417xx]

This isn't a thread to bash and flame people for wanting Classic or not wanting Classic. This is mostly opinion based on things that I'm seeing or expecting and I will maintain civil discussion (I will, as in me, can't talk for others, but please try guys).

So, fairly simple question;
Was anyone actually unhappy at Blizzard's decision to release Classic or do you see it failing for actual reasons?

One thing that bothered me initially, and still does; I'm not sure that Blizzard really knew what they were doing with Classic other than just releasing a teaser to essentially make all the people crying out for Vanilla finally stop. I'm not a fan of pandering for the sake of it and this certainly feels that way. They had a Q&A that can be summed up by "we don't know yet", which just seems like they did this to shut you guys up and now that's it out there they have no actual clue. That's actually not fair to you guys that have been asking for Vanilla either.

One of the things that's been prevalent lately now too is the community itself essentially being divided and arguing over what Classic should be. QoL changes or not? Is it Vanilla, or Vanilla with chocolate syrup? Etc. I will say first off that it ties in to my first point in the sense that Blizzards lack of direction is leaving people with a lot of questions. However, the issue that I'm seeing here is that half the Vanilla community is seemingly proving the anti-Vanilla community right. What I mean here is that the biggest argument against Vanilla is that it's not as good as everyone claims; it's all rose-tinted nostalgia goggles and and people don't recall how poorly designed many systems and balance were. Now, the Classic community is now arguing over QoL fixes updates to models/graphics, class balance fixes, etc. Isn't this basically admitting that Vanilla wasn't that good? If Vanilla was so great back in the day that you want it back (add in the "expansions ruined the game" argument too), why are you asking for the extras that clearly make it not Vanilla? Maybe it's not as great as you thought, and you're starting to realize it?

Final point is a much smaller one. It's in regards to the dev team itself. I know Blizzard said it would just be a new, small team working on Classic, but it's still a bit irksome to those who still play retail to have even a small team break off their attention to work on what feels like a worthless product to some of us. There are things in retail that could have used attention and a small dedicated team could make a nuber of little cool things happen for the current version of the game. Again, not a huge point, but divided attention is still divided attention, no matter how small scale it is.

To sum everything up, and open up discussion (and again not a flame war, I'm happy to argue and defend my points civilly and even have my opinions changed, by all means try) I'm coming to this conclusion regarding Classic that is not good, and for the sake of the people who are going to try and enjoy this I hope I'm wrong. The thing is that I can't see the community, as fragmented as it is, playing Classic for very long because of the above points. There is zero way that Blizzard can not fuck this up. Not because they are going to do something wrong necesarily, but because there are so many varied opinions on classic, and a clear lack on their part of knowledge on where to even go with it. A large portion of you guys will see Classic as "not what I asked for" and not play it, or get frustrated after a week, or a month, etc. I'm not in support of Classic, I think retail is in its current state because that's what the Market demands. However, that doesn't mean I don't sympathize with you guys who are interested. It's in a way sad to me that something Blizzard announced to make a portion of their community happy, be such a potentially divisive and toxic subject now.

Again, hopefully I'm wrong for you guys' sake and Classic releases and everyone just forgets their gripes and enjoys it, but if anything this community has taught me is that one group's pro is another's biggest game-killing con.

[zinfandel]

I think it's too early to say how it's going to do. I have a *feeling* they may interpret the word **classic** as being very different to **vanilla** and use the vanilla world as inspiration for a new classic style game, with a lot of changes. If they do do that, it'll be interesting to see if they can find a market and people wanting to have that experience.

[xxcloud417xx]

I think it's too early to say how it's going to do. I have a *feeling* they may interpret the word **classic** as being very different to **vanilla** and use the vanilla world as inspiration for a new classic style game, with a lot of changes. If they do do that, it'll be interesting to see if they can find a market and people wanting to have that experience.

So like the term "Classic" is ambiguous enough to go either way, you're saying. It could be Vanilla at its pure form, but it could mean WoW in a Classic era and slightly better tuned. I can see that.

[Lightbull]

I think the majority believes it will flop. I still believe that Classic servers are going to be niche at best, but that's exactly what Blizzard was going for anyway.

[Pandragon]

It's not gonna flop, there will be a community for it. But it's not gonna "save wow" and be as amazing and popular as people are trying to convince themselves its gonna be.

[Saffa]

I have been playing 10 years but have not spent those years crying myself to sleep because vanilla went. The one thing people should remember is the game may be rolled back 10 years but the players will not be. You will be 10 years older, probably with more responsibilities in your life and less time to play. It will never be the same as it was, life does not work like that.

[Deficineiron]

I think the majority believes it will flop. I still believe that Classic servers are going to be niche at best, but that's exactly what Blizzard was going for anyway.

blizzard doesn't do 'niche.'

they will nerf classic model down to something fairly easy like 3.0.2-type tuning for leveling and instances/heroics. dunno about raids, maybe multiple difficulties.

I want to be wrong on that prediction but when I look at the potential target markets, there is no way they don't see advantage making most of the game easier than classic was. Only a player could want a harder game. A company wants more money.

[Alienshroom]

blizzard doesn't do 'niche.'

they will nerf classic model down to something fairly easy like 3.0.2-type tuning for leveling and instances/heroics. dunno about raids, maybe multiple difficulties.

I want to be wrong on that prediction but when I look at the potential target markets, there is no way they don't see advantage making most of the game easier than classic was. Only a player could want a harder game. A company wants more money.

The moment this announcement got the traction it did it was pretty much game over. They could see nothing but $$. They are trying to beat around the bush at the fact this is just a WoW reboot. The current game is beyond salvaging and they are going to do what Old School Runecape is doing and succeeded at only at a much larger scale. That of coarse being updating the game out the ass. This is going to be some weird ass new thing, thats probably going to be much better then retail but its looking more and more like it wont be an actuall vanilla server. Lets be real anyway, what did they say it could be years away? A team is being put together? Yea this shit aint that rough to put together I dont care what they say. This is the worlds biggest charade.

[Fexhound]

Final point is a much smaller one. It's in regards to the dev team itself. I know Blizzard said it would just be a new, small team working on Classic, but it's still a bit irksome to those who still play retail to have even a small team break off their attention to work on what feels like a worthless product to some of us. There are things in retail that could have used attention and a small dedicated team could make a nuber of little cool things happen for the current version of the game. Again, not a huge point, but divided attention is still divided attention, no matter how small scale it is.

The keyword is that it's a "new" smaller team working on Classic. They're not pulling resources away from current WoW to make classic. This argument is like saying that the Hearthstone team could be working on improving WoW, instead of dividing their attention into making a card game.

[Deficineiron]

The moment this announcement got the traction it did it was pretty much game over. They could see nothing but $$. They are trying to beat around the bush at the fact this is just a WoW reboot. The current game is beyond salvaging and they are going to do what Old School Runecape is doing and succeeded at only at a much larger scale. That of coarse being updating the game out the ass. This is going to be some weird ass new thing, thats probably going to be much better then retail but its looking more and more like it wont be an actuall vanilla server. Lets be real anyway, what did they say it could be years away? A team is being put together? Yea this shit aint that rough to put together I dont care what they say. This is the worlds biggest charade.

hundreds of millions of dollars are riding on how and at whom they try to target this, and it is activision-blizzard, so I don't personally see a reasonable basis to expect anything else. blizzard may still know better but they don't write the paychecks, in the end.

[Seezer]

This isn't a thread to bash and flame people for wanting Classic or not wanting Claasic. This is mostly opinion based on things that I'm seeing or expecting and I will maintain civil discussion (I will, as in me, can't talk for others, but please try guys).

So, fairly simple question;
Was anyone actually unhappy at Blizzard's decision to release Classic or do you see it failing for actual reasons?

One thing that bothered me initially, and still does; I'm not sure that Blizzard really knew what they were doing with Classic other than just releasing a teaser to essentially make all the people crying out for Vanilla finally stop. I'm not a fan of pandering for the sake of it and this certainly feels that way. They had a Q&A that can be summed up by "we don't know yet", which just seems like they did this to shut you guys up and now that's it out there they have no actual clue. That's actually not fair to you guys that have been asking for Vanilla either.

One of the things that's been prevalent lately now too is the community itself essentially being divided and arguing over what Classic should be. QoL changes or not? Is it Vanilla, or Vanilla with chocolate syrup? Etc. I will say first off that it ties in to my first point in the sense that Blizzards lack of direction is leaving people with a lot of questions. However, the issue that I'm seeing here is that half the Vanilla community is seemingly proving the anti-Vanilla community right. What I mean here is that the biggest argument against Vanilla is that it's not as good as everyone claims; it's all rose-tinted nostalgia goggles and and people don't recall how poorly designed many systems and balance were. Now, the Classic community is now arguing over QoL fixes updates to models/graphics, class balance fixes, etc. Isn't this basically admitting that Vanilla wasn't that good? If Vanilla was so great back in the day that you want it back (add in the "expansions ruined the game" argument too), why are you asking for the extras that clearly make it not Vanilla? Maybe it's not as great as you thought, and you're starting to realize it?

Final point is a much smaller one. It's in regards to the dev team itself. I know Blizzard said it would just be a new, small team working on Classic, but it's still a bit irksome to those who still play retail to have even a small team break off their attention to work on what feels like a worthless product to some of us. There are things in retail that could have used attention and a small dedicated team could make a nuber of little cool things happen for the current version of the game. Again, not a huge point, but divided attention is still divided attention, no matter how small scale it is.

To sum everything up, and open up discussion (and again not a flame war, I'm happy to argue and defend my points civilly and even have my opinions changed, by all means try) I'm coming to this conclusion regarding Classic that is not good, and for the sake of the people who are going to try and enjoy this I hope I'm wrong. The thing is that I can't see the community, as fragmented as it is, playing Classic for very long because of the above points. There is zero way that Blizzard can not fuck this up. Not because they are going to do something wrong necesarily, but because there are so many varied opinions on classic, and a clear lack on their part of knowledge on where to even go with it. A large portion of you guys will see Classic as "not what I asked for" and not play it, or get frustrated after a week, or a month, etc. I'm not in support of Classic, I think retail is in its current state because that's what the Market demands. However, that doesn't mean I don't sympathize with you guys who are interested. It's in a way sad to me that something Blizzard announced to make a portion of their community happy, be such a potentially divisive and toxic subject now.

Again, hopefully I'm wrong for you guys' sake and Classic releases and everyone just forgets their gripes and enjoys it, but if anything this community has taught me is that one group's pro is another's biggest game-killing con.

You're using "Pandering" as an excuse. For some reason people have turned this into an argument they think they have to win. Don't like it, that's fine. But for it to make you unhappy? That's a little crazy. Companies "Pander" to their base. That's what they do. Blizz has done it an endless amount of times. Pandered to the base. Again, you're looking for excuses to be upset.

-"A small team broken off to work on classic". That's not your problem. Teams have broken off for plenty of things that people don't agree with. Stop pretending like this is a reason. I don't like pet battles. They needed a team to work on them. But I don't give a shit. The game isn't going to suffer for it.

People think that somehow this is pandering to the "hardcores". And some people cannot stand feeling like those kinds of ppl are getting what they want. This is just your average control freak behavior. If you are going to view everything in life like this, you're going to have a hard time. Stop wanting to control things that don't affect you. And stop thinking of reasons why it will.

Vanilla wow is already developed. The team will be so small it will be negligible. Blizzard is massive.

[Mormolyce]

It didn't make me UNhappy, but since it doesn't really appeal to me it didn't really make me happy either.

I was sort of glad that those people who care about it would now get it. I didn't anticipate that they would immediately begin some kind of vicious civil war over whose idea of "Classic" is the one true vision... but I guess I should've.

I mean, I might play it for a bit, depending on a range of factors. But it's not something I'm dying to experience. A group of friends tried to convince me to play with them on a private server a year or so ago, they're fun to play with so I'm sure it would've been good but I said no because I just didn't feel like I had the time to invest in it and Vanilla itself doesn't sound very exciting.

[Zazeeth]

It mostly just got an eye roll from me. I don't really see the appeal of a classic server in the first place other than a way for people who want to attempt to relive their "glory days". It's an experience that can only be had once. The time to have had that experience was 13 years ago, when the game was new, and no one knew anything about the game whatsoever.

For me, the biggest turn-off with a classic server is this: It's going to stagnate. How is blizzard going to be able to keep something like classic fresh without doing something to improve upon it and potentially add content to it? If they want to keep it as close to the 'experience' of vanilla, the answer is that they can't.

There's a reason why QoL improvements were made, why new content was added in xpacs, why class reworks were done, why new mechanics were toyed around with, why they continue to try to iterate and improve. It's to keep the game alive, relevant, and (hopefully) interesting. Without any of that, the game would just die over time.

As for whether or not it'll flop, that's to be seen, because it all depends on how Blizzard handles the classic server. If they do a straight up copy + paste of vanilla, whether it's the release version or all the way up to the patch before BC, I don't see it having any longevity whatsoever, and the community on it being the small community of die-hard purists.

[rda]

I am completely fine with the announcement, but I don't think classic servers will be successful. I guess I have to answer "yes, I believe it will flop" to the question in the topic title.

[rda]

One thing that bothered me initially, and still does; I'm not sure that Blizzard really knew what they were doing with Classic other than just releasing a teaser to essentially make all the people crying out for Vanilla finally stop. I'm not a fan of pandering for the sake of it and this certainly feels that way. They had a Q&A that can be summed up by "we don't know yet", which just seems like they did this to shut you guys up and now that's it out there they have no actual clue. That's actually not fair to you guys that have been asking for Vanilla either.

I agree with this. I wouldn't say that they decided to do classic to make anyone stop crying, no, they decided to do classic to try and make people happy. But yes, the main point is that they didn't think much about it at all, that's just some cowboy move, and it will flop.

[Prokne]

I really don't have a problem with them making classic servers and I most likely won't play on them. If they had TBC servers I would, but not Vanilla. What I did notice right away was when they asked for input for how to do classic Vanilla servers, was that it was going to be a shit show. They should know better than to ask WoW players what they want. All they had to do was grab some of the guys at Blizzard that were around for Vanilla, make some decisions and stick to them.

- - - Updated - - -

I agree with this. I wouldn't say that they decided to do classic to make anyone stop crying, no, they decided to do classic to try and make people happy. But yes, the main point is that they didn't think much about it at all, that's just some cowboy move, and it will flop.

They didn't have a whole lot to show at Blizzcon this year. At least not new things. So they needed to throw in another announcement, this one about Classic servers, for a product that they haven't put hardly any development into in order to fill space.

[Synros]

I'm almost 100% sure it'll flop. People have this nostalgic feeling about Vanilla because they've never played something like it before. Myself included. But once it comes out and people play it for a bit, they'll start to realize that Vanilla wasn't actually that "good". This is usually the case with nostalgia in general. Our memories often remind of how we want to see things, not how they actually are.

[Aqua]

I think it'll be it's own thing, and I'm happy enough for the people that wanted it over all else. That was my reaction.

Whatever happens afterwards Is irrelevant, I'll likely play a character through to 60, enjoy my time, then continue on live.

[Lochton]

To be honest, wasn't happy nor upset about it. I just knew, as soon as Blizzard opened the sack of gifts, people would demand more and more - seems I was right.

I had hoped it was their pristine idea but alas, it wasn't.

[Zka]

I was not supporting vanilla realms, but since the announcement I'm really excited about them. I hope we'll get BC realms later, that would make me ecstatic.
I even rolled a characted on a private realm to see if I can still enjoy vanilla or not and yes, it's good. Very unforgiving and tedious, but good. I really hope they will NOT change any of the core values and features of the original game. Leveling, grouping and gearing must be slow, hard and tedious. There must be server communities, no cross realms, and so on.

If they stay true to the original spirit of the game, Classic will not flop. I expect that 5-15M people will check it out in the first few months, then a few 100K people will actively play for extended periods. Most of private server players will sub. Many people will revert to classic during content draughts at end of expansions instead of canceling. Overall that's a really good deal for Blizzard.