How long will the Classic servers actually last?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

A lot of people are going to rush in at first, stop playing in a month or two and then small community of vanilla fans will probably play for years.

As it should be.

Undoubtably will have a rush. It will be a combo of the new shiny, trolls, honestly curious, and the people that always wanted it. Many of the new shiny people will eventually leave to the next new shiny. Not saying some won't stay but its how these poeple are to move on. Trolls will be HARDCORE at first but eventually they will be known and ignored and move on to the next big troll score. Honestly curious folks will show up and some will stay some will move on. Then the people that always wanted it, play it now on "other realms" will most likely stick around as long as Blizzard doesnt burn it down.

It will be healthy if "other servers" indicate anything and it is all way got to go with right now that isn't just pure "well I believe" territory / agendas.

[FelPlague]

Just wondering - what happens when the content is cleared (yes, it will take months to gear up), and everyone is decked out in T3?

What are the actual plans for these servers long-term?

Well it will most likely take up to a year.
but we dont know, even blizzard doesent know, that is what they are working on, and trying to find out from the community, but the community is so split and toxic i think they wont be able to get a solid response.

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Everyone is gonna play it at start,within a month its gonna drop to 50-100k ppl,within two months its gonna drop to 20k and stay like that for a year before blizz shuts it down.

lol yeah no... There is more then 20k people on elysium alone...

[Deleted]

Just wondering - what happens when the content is cleared (yes, it will take months to gear up), and everyone is decked out in T3?

The game is fundamentally different from today. It's not a rush to "clear the content", nor will everyone be decked out in T3, ever. Personally I never did a single raid in the whole of vanilla, and could've kept playing it far past the time TBC released. I see no reason why I couldn't play WoW Classic indefinitely. The game was actually fun to play, rather than an endless drip feed of "content" and epics to addicts—it has tons more replayability than modern wow.

[Powerogue]

Wow, do u really think vanilla will be ball-crushingly hard these days? Raids will be like cleared on their release date/ID, vanilla raid content wasn't hard at all especially on todays standards (if there is no retuning and 1.12.1 talents what most people expect atm).

You can't level 1-60 back then in a day, and you certainly can't collect millions of runecloth/red snapper/etc for AQ's opening in a day. There will be less people in it than its release, even with the highest projected success, and they'll mostly be adults with less free time, making gathering people for those big 40 man raids even harder, etc.

That's the stuff that will take time.

[Youn]

What they should do for 'Classic' servers is release 1 pvp and 1 pve classic server each year starting at day 0. And put normal patch cycles at same intervals as happened in the original. Then when the TBC patch occurs open another 1 pvp and 1 pve server starting at day 0 again. Keeping the original classic servers on the same patch cycle.

This means 12 years from now the original 'Classic' server pair will reach legion. With each pair being approximately 2 years behind each other. They don't have to do anything special at all. Just release the exact same patches they did previously.

That way, people that want to keep going back an playing day 1 vanilla can do so each 2 years. People that want to only play TBC can each 2 years.

Yes, those servers would be crowded at the beginning but oh, well. That is the vanilla experience.

[Eurhetemec]

on topic, We dont know yet, some have suggested resetting the server at set intervals to allow for progression, some have suggested releasing Tbc servers some time after classic naxx got cleared by enough people. and some have just suggested leaving it be, since its increadibly painful to even get one group through naxxramas. let alone "everyone"

Given what happened on Vanilla servers post-Naxx, at least in the EU, an awful lot of people will just stop playing.

That was the issue with Naxx - not only was it tough, far more demanding than earlier raids (in terms of how well people had to play and what percentage of the raid had to play well), but it was extremely tough to even qualify for (though people will now know pre-emptively how to qualify for it), so basically Vanilla just "ended" for an awful lot of players at that point.

I can't speak for the US servers, but EU servers saw a noticeable decrease in player-numbers, even though BC wasn't that far out.

I would anticipate similar on Classic servers. If Naxx still seems tough (it might not, but it probably will), we'll see more people at least try it, but I think we'll see the same feeling of "game over" for an awful lot of players.

If they do restarts, I suspect the same thing will just happen increasingly earlier in the life of the server.

If they want to keep a decent pop long-term, they really will have to do the "Classic Expansions" idea that's been floating around.

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Yes, those servers would be crowded at the beginning but oh, well. That is the vanilla experience.

They wouldn't just be "crowded", they'd have maxed-out queues pretty much permanently.

Further, Blizzard doesn't have the back-end data for earlier patches. Even re-creating 1.1 through 1.12.2 would be a huge, epic deal. Re-creating every TBC and Wrath patch on top of that would be insane, and I'm not sure they even kept Cata ones (though I think they might have started keeping data after that).

[Queen of Hamsters]

They won't be shut down.

And there are players having spent the past 10 years playing Classic over and over on Private servers, so there's literally no reason to believe that the official, secure Classic servers won't last in the same ways.

And less than 1% saw Naxxramas.

It must be hard to be so salty though

That number is entirely different, naturally, on servers perpetually locked in that content though. I'd link the tracker of guild raid progress across Private servers, but I'm sure I'd be infracted...

Also:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...%94A-Look-Back

"Over the year and a half to follow, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and the original version of Naxxramas were introduced, providing an increasing level of challenge for groups that had already completed Molten Core. These raid zones all were tuned around both a full 40-player group and the expectation that players possessed a significant amount of raid gear, which meant that by definition fewer and fewer people were able to participate in each successive tier of content. New players joining the game during the summer of 2006, at the height of Naxxramas progression, had virtually no hope of ever seeing Kel’Thuzad. At best, they might level quickly and get enough dungeon gear to join a guild that was still doing Molten Core."

[Youn]

Did they not keep patches saved in a repository? That seems very dangerous to code without a version control system. I have a hard time believing a AAA company would do that.

[Hellrime]

I generously will give it about a year. There will be a spike at the beginning, but the majority of the population will drop off when they don't get their way with Candy Land Classic, i.e. with all the obnoxious changes being suggested. That will only leave the people that actually wanted Classic, which isn't enough to justify the resources to keep going, especially if people gripe about having to have an active subscription, because you know, server management doesn't cost anything, lol.

[Willhouse]

Classic will last one month.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

It's a finite experience to be sure but I suspect that, barring a niche community, it'll rely on a revolving door of subscribers and given the progressive nature of vanilla it could mean that content at every tier could be engaged at any given time due to the progressive nature of the game.

Or I could be wrong.

[Jellybear14]

Untill WoW is no more.

Blizzard said themselves they will sustain it untill the end of WoW. So they will probably add tbc and wrath later down the lines i personally think.

I can honestly see them doing this as there is a good size player base for it to happen. Personally I like the idea of TBC & Wrath been added has they were some of the happier times in wow :P

[God Save The King]

If they launch with all content, 6 months for the more hardcore, 12 for the more casual, assuming they want to kill KT and call it a day. Naturally there will be people who have other reasons for playing, but most, at this point, will just want to get the final boss down.

If it's progressive, probably the first two weeks that Naxx is out.

[Aggrophobic]

Just wondering - what happens when the content is cleared (yes, it will take months to gear up), and everyone is decked out in T3?

What are the actual plans for these servers long-term?

If you actually put your mind to it? Maybe a month or so. The raids are really simple.
Most players will never get to max level and will end up leaving pretty fast.

[Linri]

i think they will last quite a while back then it took a long time to level up, and u really quested through almost every zone, even at some times i remember just grinding monsters to get exp or reputation (furlbolgs come to mind)

[epLe]

People should really stop comparing anything on pirate servers to vanilla or classic.

Tuning is so far off on those servers, that the experience in Naxx is much closer to WotLK version.

[babyback]

If you actually put your mind to it? Maybe a month or so. The raids are really simple.
Most players will never get to max level and will end up leaving pretty fast.

A month? Bosses don’t drop enough loot for you to gear up that fast. Also tier 3 loot was gated behind rep. There are also a few gear check bosses on the way. Im pretty sure Patchwerk is impossible unless you have a stacked group with AQ gear.

[pateuvasiliu]

and even more did Patchwork, the amount of guilds that died off due to that fight...

was horrendous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd1ylt88LQ0

example dps waiting 20 seconds before damaging for tank threat,

Tanks being at 10% health every 2nd hit, hunters feign deathing to drink water mid combat.

that alone will make people quit the most.

If a hunter goes OOM at that level he's bad.

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People should really stop comparing anything on pirate servers to vanilla or classic.

Tuning is so far off on those servers, that the experience in Naxx is much closer to WotLK version.

The most popular vanilla server uses patch by patch itemisation. The only thing that's 1.12 is the talents.

[MoanaLisa]

"I think there will be a lot of tourists," he adds. "But it doesn’t matter what I think because once we’re committed to doing this at a Blizzard level, which we are, whatever happens is going to happen. If millions of people show up and play for years, that’s awesome. And if just tens of people show up and play for years, we’re fine either way. What’s important to us is that we have this Classic experience people can enjoy, that people do have the opportunity to go back to. This is an important game in videogame history and there’s not a way to go back and experience that today. This is also about preserving something that we think is really important.

J. Allen Brack on server longevity.

[arkanon]

The servers will be 2-3 years away, i have no doubt in my mind about that one. They would be foolish to release it in "competition" with another 'vanilla' themed expansion. so lets say its released april 2020. There is roughly 3 years of 'progression' for the realm as a whole. yes, some will clear faster than that, but overall, it should have a similar lifespan to original. thats april 2023. sure, you could counter argue and condense that down to maybe 2021, but thats still a bloody long time away.

My point is, lets not worry about the year 2023. I realize some people think the release of wow:classic is only months away, maybe a year at the most, but i just really dont see anything of the sort happening, not even close. my HONEST opinion is that IF they release it at all, assuming its not just another dance studio, it will be released with 9.0 patch.

yes, NINE POINT ZERO. not 8.0. NINE. the end of the next expansion. There could be an argument that they want to release it early, around 8.1 or something, to try and cross pollinate players between the expac and classic, and boost their overall numbers, but i just really only see that hurting their main cash cow in the wow game, and thats the core, current expansion.