Should Classic be Free to Play?

[Piesor]

They will bind it to the current sub imo. The profit for Blizzard is the growth of the playerbase. There will be additional subs through Vanilla-only Players. They will also achieve to bring some of the new subs back to retail. At the end they just want the community to stay within their bnet client. That was also the only reason to bring destiny 2 to bnet. They just didn't want to loose part of the overwatch community.

[kamuimac]

I'm sure most of us who enjoy playing Vanilla aren't quite used to paying for it, I'm curious to see how much people will be willing to pay for Vanilla before we go back to our pirate ways.

truth be told - yes it should be free

i understand the notion the sub protects gamers from certain unwanted elements but we are talking about a game that will be over 15 year old by the time it launches

blizzard would get much better PR resoults by lettin people play for free - this would bring back milions instead of hundreds of thousands.

and to people "but you gotta pay for servers and stuff " - blizzard could just release 1-2 mounts in retail shop and sponsor few years of this runing.

modern gamers enjoy microtransactions in games they love.

[Deleted]

Considering Hearthstone, Overwatch, and even HotS are doing better than WoW now as F2P/B2P...
Well, actually, Starcraft and Diablo aren't doing so hot under the same umbrella.

So: could kill it, could save it. Either way, Classic would be a good testing ground for BFA to see if it works or not.

Regardless, Private Servers are F2P. So if they want to compete with those, it'll have to be.

compete haha ....If Blizzard is serious Private Server are gonna shut down left and right

[Raelbo]

It's f2p because you can play it for free

No, you can't play it for free. It costs a subscription fee. Tokens don't change that, all they do change is who pays. If my wife pays my subscription, that doesn't make it f2p. If I pay for my kids' subscription, it doesn't make f2p for them. If I perform sexual favours for someone and they pay my sub, it doesn't make the game f2p.

Yes, it is possible to play WoW without personally having to pay money to Blizzard, which might make my personal experience "f2pP", but that is woefully inadequate criterion to qualify the game as free to play.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Considering Hearthstone, Overwatch, and even HotS are doing better than WoW now as F2P/B2P...
Well, actually, Starcraft and Diablo aren't doing so hot under the same umbrella.

So: could kill it, could save it. Either way, Classic would be a good testing ground for BFA to see if it works or not.

Regardless, Private Servers are F2P. So if they want to compete with those, it'll have to be.

That particular nugget has nothing to do with pay model, and much more to do with incompetent game design

[Orbusg]

blizzard would get much better PR resoults by lettin people play for free - this would bring back milions instead of hundreds of thousands.

And 80% of them would be bots and gold farmers.
Trust me, if you've seen the state games like ragnarok online are in, there's nothing good to report about.
f2p is the quickest, sure fire way to introduce all of the worst elements to an mmo and huge amounts of it, and wow is the biggest fish in the sea.

[ComputerNerd]

It should not be free.
Retail players not playing classic should not be paying the same as retail players who are.

[Lochton]

I'm sure most of us who enjoy playing Vanilla aren't quite used to paying for it, I'm curious to see how much people will be willing to pay for Vanilla before we go back to our pirate ways.

No thanks, shouldn't be B2P either. Should be part of the primary subscription, which I almost feel it will be, for it would make the most sense of a company to try and earn something from all this extra work.

[Aggrophobic]

No, why should it be? It should be its own standalone game and subscription, of course.
If it was part of the retail sub then it would mean it takes resources from retail and vice versa. That would be a bad idea in every way and something Blizzard said would not happen.

You want to play classic, you pay extra for it.

[Razion]

That particular nugget has nothing to do with pay model, and much more to do with incompetent game design

Not so sure. For a similar pay model Overwatch pumps out a lot more regular content. You don't hear people complaining about how Diablo plays, but you do hear people grumbling about no new announcements for BlizzCon.

[Sar-]

Separate and more expensive.

Just to make up for all that lost revenue over the last few years and because vanilla whinebois keep telling everyone how it was better than the current expansion (it wasn't), so shouldn't a "superior" product command a higher price?

[WskyDK]

$15mo sub with no upfront buy cost.

[Elim Garak]

A player has paid real money for that token.

F2P lol.

What token lol? Anybody can go to blizzard site, create an account, download the client, install the game and play it for free.

No, you can't play it for free.

yes you can

Yes, it is possible to play WoW without personally having to pay money to Blizzard, which might make my personal experience "f2pP", but that is woefully inadequate criterion to qualify the game as free to play.

That's quite adequate. it's just a very strict f2p game. But because it's WoW no one bitches about it.

[Zuben]

Nah, just include it to WoW's general subscription.

[Frumpy Frumpy Frak]

Personally, I hope it's free to play with minor optional and easily ignorable microtransactions like WoW tokens, XP boosts and maybe cosmetic toys like the Arthas disguise.

[Blackmist]

It's going to be bundled under the same sub you already pay.

[Sierra85]

With minor optional and easily ignorable microtransactions like WoW tokens, XP boosts

it's not classic if you have those bullshit microtransactions...

hell why not take more pages out of EA playbook and have loot boxes

[Flatspriest]

I think that, as long as you have an active game subscription, then you should be able to play Classic as part of that subscription. If you let it lapse, then you would need to pay a $15 sub to play Classic or renew your retail release sub.

[kamuimac]

it's not classic if you have those bullshit microtransactions...

hell why not take more pages out of EA playbook and have loot boxes

people love their lootboxes though

just look at all the juicy $$$$ blizzard is making on overwatch and hearthstone miscrotransactions.

the only ones pissed about there are people with shit jobs who would do much better working then playing games 12 hours per day each day.

[pateuvasiliu]

No they're not.
They're launching Classic because tons & tons of "long-time" players have begged & begged for it.

There won't. They're launching Vanilla to get more players

Do you even read.

The people who want Vanilla don't play Retail ( most of them ). Hence them coming back counts as new players.