Classic Is Anything But

[Spiffums]

The content might be classic but the player base will not be. Maybe after the "newness" wears off it will be like it was but the same toxic player base will flock to the "new thing" for a while.

[Lolsteak]

It is only hard to accept a different point of view to your own when you are stubborn and ignorant. I am neither, and i also not a psychic. I dont pretend to "know" or "understand" other peoples motivation, until such time as they make it clear.

They've made it clear through all of the campaigning for classic wow and the noticeable private server population.

At this stage, an argument can be made that Classic is absolutely aimed 100% at current legion players who let their sub drop during content droughts, and this is a way to hopefuly encourage them to maintain their sub.

Classic is aimed at the current wow subscribers who want and enjoy all of the QoL changes? That's a new one, According to current players Classic is a massive leap in the past, And they want it changed to accommodate a lot of the new things WoW has introduced.

Your argument for it being aimed at Legion players is wafer thin.

It could be that they are hoping to attract an entirely new playerbase, who have never once logged into wow, because they heard about it too late and are intimidated by the multiple expansions and being too far behind, and classic is the perfect chance for blizzard to attract these players with a 'fresh start'

They've already made changes to the current game to better accommodate new players, Enticing new players to Classic is a step backwards in that regard, Again your argument is wafer thin.

It could be that they are hoping to draw the private server crowd back into the subscription fold, and are trying to offer a higher quality version of the same product.

That's the main reason.

It could be that they are using players nostalgia to try and lure them into purchasing a stand alone product at full retail.

It's not nostalgia when you've been playing it since.

It could be that blizzard have no intention of EVER releasing wow classic, and it was only used to pull numbers away from pirvate servers.

Now you're just being ridiculous.

See the thing is, i am open to considering all of those, and an endless list of other possible motivations, because i, have seen no confirmation from blizzard, and dont really expect to.

So Blizzard just magically decided to create Classic WoW despite all of the campaigning for it, Right.

It's hilarious that you're trying to even argue about this.

[ydraw]

I get a great giggle out of the private server crew who are convinced that "Classic" wow is aimed at them and that there will be "NO CHANGES!!!!".

They are going to be so pissed, lol.

You aren't going to get Vanilla WoW. You are going to get the content from Vanilla WoW using the engine and QoL improvements of the 13 years since. If you think otherwise you place way too much importance on what you prefer, and haven't put nearly enough thought into who Blizzard thinks the customer base for "Classic" WoW is.

[Lolsteak]

I get a great giggle out of the private server crew who are convinced that "Classic" wow is aimed at them and that there will be "NO CHANGES!!!!".

They are going to be so pissed, lol.

Again i'm left wondering who you're actually referring to, Every single person I know of is quite happy about bug/exploit fixes.

You aren't going to get Vanilla WoW. You are going to get the content from Vanilla WoW using the engine and QoL improvements of the 13 years since. If you think otherwise you place way too much importance on what you prefer, and haven't put nearly enough thought into who Blizzard thinks the customer base for "Classic" WoW is.

Source? None? K.

[arkanon]

According to current players...


It's hilarious that you're trying to even argue about this.

There you go, assuming you know what every single current player thinks about legion, thinks about classic, and thinks about vanilla. and what an absolute SHOCK, although you havnt provided a single example, all of these people agree with you? i am SHOCKED!

there is no argument from me. thats actually the entire point. there is only one group argueing at the moment, and its the "blizzard listened to ME and now they are making classic JUST FOR ME EXACTLY HOW I WANT IT ITS MINE MY PRECIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FelPlague]

Before someone says "Rose tinted goggles yeah yeah"
1. i would be playing vanilla now, if not for this, but now its like "well fuck why do this all if im gunna have to do it again in X time and all this will be wiped"
so i have stopped playing vanilla (that and i barely have to time to play current wow, i am 960 and havent even touched heroic... Really want to though...)
2. vanilla is great, its an amazing game, it isnt even the same game as current wow, or wow has been since lets say.... wotlk Bc and Vanilla had alot of the same, wrath and cata could be grouped together, then mop-current grouped together, all big phases in wows lifespan, and i loved all of them.
3. Love vanilla, how it feels like an actual RPG, how much customization you have with talent trees and spells (Even though it does end up all cookie cutter in raiding) and how it felt like a real adventure, and difficult (in a differant way then currrent wow) it was a journey, leveling was exciting and meant something now just a rush to endgame content.
4. I hate to criticize vanilla because i love it, one of the first games i played alot (well that and pokemon...) but here we go.... My iisues, my concerns, and my things i really think about with this classic incoming, and why i was one of the people who said "it would never happen" even though i wanted it to!
-------------------------------------------
1. everyone wants something different.
Now, private servers are good for this! 1000 differant serveres, differant patches, differant things, extra exp, extra loot drops, pure blizzlike,vanilla, bc, wrath, etc, transmog, earlier mounts, infinite raid lockouts, new classes, races, and cosmetics, now private servers allowed people to pick out the perfect server for them, but with this we will have very little choice, if any. So i still feel private servers (Atleast those that are not identical to the classic realms) will be big, people will still want to play a level 255 warlock in wotlk with all the talents and play the silly custom content.

2. Debuff slots need to change
yes this was a big part of the game in vanilla, but a stupid one at that, simply a limitation on what they could do, and in vanilla increased it. yes it will make some fights easier but god danm... having to go in raid with 8 debuff slots... i am not excited about having to do that all over again "Lol no one drops dots... EVER!"

3. realm sharding.
Now at launch, like any game, we will have a MASSIVE influx of players, this is a fact, and over time it will die down, again a fact. Everyone will want to be on as much as possible as soon as possible, but over time people will start playing at a normal pace when they can.

so lets say it launches 10,000 people per server, that is 10,000 peak people split over 6 zones (i did exact math somewhere else but this is just an example)
that is insane, now 3 weeks later, still 10,000 people on at a time, i am gunna say literally everyone who started at peak, kept playing. that is 10,000 now split over 30-40 zones, much more managable for quest mobs, quest items, and lag.

So Vanilla WILL NEED sharding at start, but once the craze dies down (im not saying people will quit on mass before you throw me to the gallows, i am sayng that people will not 48 hour marathon anymore, they will play when they can play, instead of like every games launch where everyone plays at once) or else it will be impossible, anyone solo will be fighting for hours to get 5 wolf kills, 5 man to 40 man groups will move to the secondary and third zones to make raids to try and gather just a tiny amount of exp, as the main areas will be impossible.

the starting zones can hold maybe 5-10 people tops starting at the exact same time before it goes "well fuck now there is people waiting for mobs to spawn..."
1000 people... it will be IMPOSSIBLE

So blizzard will HAVE TO DO sharding, atleast for the first month. after that players will be playing at a regular schedule (not all at once, all the time) and spread out (not over 6 zones, but 40)


4. LFG
now, im not saying looking for dungeon, or looking for raid, that is not vanilla, i am speaking LFG.

This thing, it was in vanilla, allthough super clunky and useless, on the meeting stones.
A system like this would stop the MAAAASIVE spam of trade chat, and the frustration of having to find these groups through the nonsense trolls.
If blizz does not add it, addon makers will (and had done it in the past) this would be good for the game, if anyone has any reasons why it wouldent, feel free to debate or speak with me, but really there is no downs, people will still need to talk, still need to walk to the dungeon, and still need to work together, all that is removed is the difficulty of spamming through trade chat yourself, or reading, and the annoyance of trying to remember what "LFM S" is....

5. Graphics update/transfer
now most are against this but i really think this would be good for the game.
in the options add a setting to veiw the new updated models, off by default, or upon launch it asks "what setting do you want? The authentic system or the new?"
Yes some hardcore might get mad but literally its just cosmetic for those who want it...
Transfer, is something i like the idea of, and i think blizzard might do with the addition of the new scarab lord mount, allowing us to either
A. collect transmogs on vanilla liek teir 3, removed items, mounts, pets, etc and have it sent to retail.
B. transfer a charecter to retail, allowing us to move charecters who are "done" with vanilla, and get acsess to all their stuff.
now i see the hardcore saying "but they dident earn those rewards when it was current i want my sp-" ah ah ah, but this will be current, and they will earn it.
The stupid thing to do is say "LOL YOU HAD NO MONEY/WERNT OLD ENOUGH TO PLAY YET SO I HAVE THIS AND YOU DONT, GET FUKT" Everyone having the CHANCE to prove their SKILL (or in the scarab lord dedication, it was not hard stop shitting yourselves, i did it three times, it was long, grindy, and required guild effort for ONE person to get the reward, a thing i did 3 times but still think super stupid to this date)
Adding items that take alot of skill to get is great, prestiege and awesome rewards, love it, i love my challenge mode armor, my raiding mounts (all 3 of them...) my titles and achievements.
but adding stuff then removing it and bragging about it to others because they wernt skilled enough to have it, when really they are, just they never had the chance as they wernt playing at the time is stupid. SO yes i think all items should be permanently obtainable in a game, just that they should always stay the same difficulty they were before, or if they are to become easier, do it much later so players have plenty of time to show it off, and have that date on their achievement log to say "i did it when it was hard"

I helped the gm, and the gms wife get the mount back in vanilla, i spent easily a week and a half playtime farming bugs, i spent days farming mats and helping them kill the special bosses, again doing this recently on a private server, do i get anything to show for it? fuck no, so if i had my say i would want blizzard to make the scarab lord mount not easier to obtain, but a group wide quest, the bug parts are quest items and given to every player, so are the next parts, so a guild can spend 2 weeks farming up the first quest, then move to the next, then the next, so on so forth, and get their whole guild the mount, as they all worked hard for it.

Those who brag about the bug mount either
A. were the Gm of a guild or fucking the Gm
B. did the exploit in WOTLK

And i really think it should be made obtainable to the main game to people who do the grind, bcause it was not hard, it was a long, painful, costly grind for a WHOLE GUILD for one person to get the mount.. ONE


I want changes, i want additions, i want minor slips and tweaks, but what i dont want is major ones ike lfr, lfd, class changes, transmog (Im iffy, i enjoy th concept of having to wear gear, but i also hate AQ and NAx warlock set and would much rather wear nemesis... so transmog is a "i would like it but i also wouldn't" kinda deal)

I am a vanilla player, but i am one who can see vanillas defects, see possible changes and additions that would make it much better for old veterans, and new players.

[Pull My Finger]

For all intents and purposes WoW Classic/Vanilla is a different game than retail.

No it's not. That's the big illusion people are trying to perpetuate. Like yourself.
Wow Classic is a reenactment of an older version of the same game. Quit fooling yourself people.

[Felaris Stormrage]

I doubt it will be successful.

Most people who played during Vanilla are likely remembering only the good memories. It's a recurring cycle for players' to absolutely shit on the current game and then, selectively remember only the good things about it, later down the line. The main problem with Vanilla is the lack of accommodation and quality of life features. It would be similar to giving a poor person the lavish lifestyle of a millionaire, then stripping them of this and sending them back into the life of a transient. Sure, you might be slightly nostalgic of the good times, but you sure as hell aren't going to be happy when you're back there.

It is going to be hilarious watching people create characters on the classic servers and make disgruntled posts on the forums. The fact of the matter is that majority of the community that wants these servers are too blinded by their "rose-tinted lenses".

[Lolsteak]

There you go, assuming you know what every single current player thinks about legion, thinks about classic, and thinks about vanilla. and what an absolute SHOCK, although you havnt provided a single example, all of these people agree with you? i am SHOCKED!

Legion is full of years and multiple expansions of changes, Including shit tonnes of QoL changes, Ofcourse they'd dislike Classic it's simple.

there is no argument from me. thats actually the entire point. there is only one group argueing at the moment, and its the "blizzard listened to ME and now they are making classic JUST FOR ME EXACTLY HOW I WANT IT ITS MINE MY PRECIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blizzard listened to the crowd that have been pushing for it for years, The crowd that played originally, The crowd that played on private servers, The crowd that signed that petition (That the current players laughed at) which got delivered to BlizzHQ, The crowd that played on the damn Nost server whose Dev's went to BlizzHQ and not only discussed Classic and why it should be brought back but also gave input on how they ran their server and overcame numerous problems.

You seem to want to ignore a whole lot of facts in your fantasy world, And 22 exclamation marks only shows how emotional you're becoming over this, Chill.

- - - Updated - - -

It is going to be hilarious watching people create characters on the classic servers and make disgruntled posts on the forums. The fact of the matter is that majority of the community that wants these servers are too blinded by their "rose-tinted lenses".

How is it nostalgia if people can and are playing on vanilla servers right now?

[Cempa]

Lolstreak point is valid that people are playing Vanilla as we speak. I can not -unfortunately- talk about that, but if we were allowed one could link sites that measure the participation of players on such servers, THEY ARE FULL and very active. People on those servers are mostly players who NEVER played Vanilla .. They are experiencing a brand new game and LOVING IT!

[FelPlague]

Lolstreak point is valid that people are playing Vanilla as we speak. I can not -unfortunately- talk about that, but if we were allowed one could link sites that measure the participation of players on such servers, THEY ARE FULL and very active. People on those servers are mostly players who NEVER played Vanilla .. They are experiencing a brand new game and LOVING IT!

to be fair though, they are 500k players TOPS within a month, among ALL private servers, not just vanilla.
but you also have to think of
1. will those players be willing to pay a sub (alot wont, i know a fair amount of people in private servers play cause its 100% free)
2. will those players trust blizz enough to play (Alot "Dont trust blizz" and wont)
3. also no not really, most on vanilla private servers allready played it, you cant claim "most of them arew new and loving it" yeah but for every 1 new player who tries it and loves it 10-20 are trying it and quitting right away or at level 20 when it gets SUPER grindy and long.
4. yes it will be a sucsess, but i dont see it reaching ANYWHERE close to live, or even 1 million players (maybe the first 12 months max, but will quickly die down to under 1 mil)

there are people claiming it will have 5x more subs then retail wow and retail wow will die out... no.... no it wont

[Roxyfoxy]

The people who claim that classic will crush retails sub numbers are delusional and have completely misunderstood why we have fought for vanilla all these years.

I think classic will be a big success, but we didnt fight for classic to "beat" the retail players. We fought for it so that we could play a game that we love without living in fear of all the time we spendt go to waste when the admin decide to run off.
Vanilla have a lot of flaws and bad designs if you look at it from a modern point of view, but those things also help giving the game personallity, and make the good things feel much better.

[Celarent]

I completely think it should have a totally separate subscription than retail because I don't want to support that junk at all. The other reason I would like to have a completely separate subscription is because I would like to support extra future content if it could be possible or just to support classics up keep in general.

My gut tells me Blizzard will make Classic free-to-play, and use it as a loss-leader to draw former subscribers to both the WoW brand and retail; as well as a retention device for disengaging retail players.

While Classic's niche suggests potential for premium pricing to a dedicated and dependent base, Vanilla's age and the manner in which Classic came about poses PR challenges for charging. This is not a product designed for monetary ROI, so why tackily squander goodwill for the brand with paid subscriptions?

[Cempa]

My gut tells me Blizzard will make Classic free-to-play, and use it as a loss-leader to draw former subscribers to both the WoW brand and retail; as well as a retention device for disengaging retail players.

While Classic's niche suggests potential for premium pricing to a dedicated and dependent base, Vanilla's age and the manner in which Classic came about poses PR challenges for charging. This is not a product designed for monetary ROI, so why tackily squander goodwill for the brand with paid subscriptions?

F2P would be a HUGE success ... It would be one of the best option dollar for dollar RPG on the market hands down. You get a AAA tittle experience for NADA!

Classic -once you get used to it and figure out how to level efficiently- is a joy to play .. especially Barrens Chat.

/world chat channel would be nice

[Powerogue]

I mean it won't feel like a "new" game any more than playing Half Life 1 would. It'd feel like an old game. Nevertheless a very different, unfamiliar experience for anyone who started after Cataclysm, for sure, which is why I support it.

F2P would be a HUGE success ... It would be one of the best option dollar for dollar RPG on the market hands down. You get a AAA tittle experience for NADA!

Classic -once you get used to it and figure out how to level efficiently- is a joy to play .. especially Barrens Chat.

/world chat channel would be nice

F2p or merged subscription I think, whichever works better for them. Either way I think if you've bought WoW, you should be able to play whatever they come up with under that title.

[Dakhath]

I really hope that to access Classic you need to have an active wow sub plus a 5 dollar classic fee. While I'm sure there are a lot of people that enjoy classic, most of the people probably liked it because it was free. A lot of the attitudes I see on here reflect that. I was pretty happy for those who wanted it when announced, but this forum has completely destroyed that. Put your money where your mouth is if you want to pay classic.

[Mjolknerd]

It is only hard to accept a different point of view to your own when you are stubborn and ignorant.

Here's the thing dude, opinions about things that are not a matter of opinion are not valid.

It is not a matter of opinion that Blizzard is releasing Classic WOW to cater to people who want to play Classic WOW. It doesn't require being psychic to know this, it just requires not being ignorant about basic things.

Back on topic: I would pretty much bank on access to Classic being free to current subscribers, and maybe having a modest subscription fee to those who are not currently subscribed to the latest version of WOW.

[munkeyinorbit]

While i do not agree about his last statement there, but blizzards intention and the target audience is pretty clear, and that is to grab a hold on the players who currently are not paying blizzard a sub, but rather play on private servers.

And that is something retail players don't seem to understand, that blizzard is making a game with the same name as the one they are playing, but is not aimed at them, they are of course welcome to play, but it's not the players they are focusing on in this, cause whats the point in that? using a lot of resources on people that are already giving blizzard money, to make something that the majority of them won't enjoy playing.

There is hostility on both sides here, most of it born from lack of knowledge from the retail players, about what classic will mean to them, which then aggrevate the vocal minority of classic players when the retail players (and especially the trolls) want to make classic something that it was not.

What you don't understand is that there isnt a lot of people on private servers. There are about 10k people actively playing right now. 10k of people is nothing to blizzard.

[Better]

Classic -once you get used to it and figure out how to level efficiently- is a joy to play .. especially Barrens Chat.

See you mention it's a joy to play, then give an example that has nothing to do with game design, and everything to do with community. There's no special reason Barrens Chat was the way it was. Players simply used it as a pseudo-chat room while leveling through the Barrens, and it gained infamy... mainly for Chuck Norris jokes.

The same can be said about a lot of things that the community remembers fondly. Tauren Mill VS Southshore was actually a community response due to lack designed PvP areas in the game. These are community things that weren't inherent to the design of the game, but rather something that just happened the way they did because the community pushed them as hard as they did.

So unless you're asserting that 85%+ of the players that will play on classic are the same players who played then (or are playing on illegal servers, and just trying to fit in with those players) it most likely wont be the same, and if 85%+ of the players that will play classic ARE those players the OP doesn't make much sense, because the game won't be "new" to them at all.

You can argue that players will just imitate these things, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a "new" experience, doesn't it? When 14 year old, bad jokes are brought back, and forced just through tradition is it really new?

[Eapoe]

For all intents and purposes WoW Classic/Vanilla is a different game than retail. It may be called WoW and share some names with what is on live from places to races and classes, but that is about all they has in common.

While it has been 14 years and 'classic' is what the very first WoW is called, playing it again will FEEL like a new game. If one would be able to play 'classic' today -hypothetically speaking of course - and was able to find a server that played like it was Blizz 2004, I'd imagine such a server would easily house 7k or 8k or even more active players -with no issues except during world events such as opening of AQ gates. Such a server could easily house players from around the world and be active 24/7. No phasing at all, and the world would feel MASSIVE again.

The gaming experience would feel new and fresh and quite a change from current WoW -you NEED to interact with people to play this 'new' game. For me at least, current WoW feels much smaller and quite anti-social. Current WoW I can play the entire game without actually saying much lol

I for one will sub for the next expansion (I bet that is the only way one could play Classic) but pretty sure will spend much of my time playing Classic .. Not for the nostalgia BUT because it is far more RPG than live today.

Never got these arguements. If you look forward to classic, grats! Stating things like "feels smaller" or "less social" is just misleading and disingenuous.
Retail is literally bigger than Classic. Feelings aside, it is.
It is just as much of an RPG now as it was then. Saying it's not is trying to sell something and failing.
You can literally play thru vanilla without saying a word to another person as well. You might not be doing dungeons/raids/etc, but that doesn't mean you have to be social. Hell, I could talk to people as much in vanilla as I do today. Sure, there's group finder, but I can easily whisper someone that spams "LF Tank MC" with "Prot warrior" and be done. That's not much different than today looking for a m+ or a heroic raid and whispering the leader "AotC" or anything else they require.
It's nice that you like classic better than retail, but at least keep the reasoning behind it grounded in reality. Most of the reasons people say they like 1 better than the other is based on opinion. It's fine to have those, but don't state them like facts.