"Who would actually pay for Classic?"

[styil]

Whenever there have been figures that have shown the hundreds of thousands (if not more) players who have played Classic on private servers, these numbers are immediately dismissed with rhetoric like "they're only playing on there because it's free, they wouldn't actually pay for Blizzard's official Classic WoW".

Yet when the cost of WoW in general is being discussed, it is often these same people who then turn around and say things like "WoW is so cheap, it costs less than a movie ticket".

So why would the cost of Classic all of a sudden be a barrier to entry? Why would those hundeds of thousands of engaged players (presumably) not pay less than a movie ticket to continue enjoying what they were on private servers?

[anon5123]

Yeah, I never understood this "HURR PEOPLE ARE ONLY PLAYING VANILLA BECAUSE IT'S FREE!!" argument......uhh, there are tens of thousands of other "free" games. If the only reason they are playing is because "it's free", then why are they playing vanilla instead of any of those other free games? Herp a derp.

If you ask me, even if we have to pay a full $15 / month, that is more than worth it. Private servers are plagued with tons and tons of obnoxious issues:

-lag / high latency because the server is in Europe
-crashes daily, leading to rollbacks and item loss
-tons of language / timezone barriers, fragmenting the playerbase
-tons of chinese players
-tons of chinese gold farmers / botters
-tons of chinese gold spammers
-bad / broken / missing scripting
-bugs and glitches out the ass
-corrupt admins
-game masters working as volunteers in free time, leading to tickets taking 2-3 days to get an answer
-developers working as volunteers in free time, leading to bugs/glitches taking months to get fixed unless it's a gamebreaking issue
-pay2win donation crap
-threat of shutting down at any point due to blizzard C&D or any other reason

An official Blizzard server would fix literally every single one of these issues. I'd gladly pay $15 / month to get rid of all these headaches. But really I'm not expecting them to charge full price for a 14 year old game, it'll probably either be $5-10 per month, or just part of the normal subscription so that they can brag about higher sub numbers.

[fooliuscaesar13]

I'm going to play it, whether I have to pay for it or it comes with the current sub.

[Moozart]

You guys are living in a dream if you think its going to be free. it will most likely be part of the same sub we already pay, or maybe a few dollars added to it. if you think you will get off and not have to pay for classic and quit retail and just play for 100% free you guys are crazy. I would erase any iota of a thought that it could even remotely be free from your minds.

[Morbownz]

Well I don't know everyone else's finances but just having a price could prevent some people from being able to access the game. Generally I agree, I don't believe that the majority of people are playing on private realms just because it's free. The irony is, some of those people saying this are also telling us the game is terrible and not worth playing, yet they are convinced thousands will happily subject themselves to it for hours because it's free. Watching paint dry doesn't cost me a thing yet I never feel tempted.

[HuxNeva]

If they introduce it as an X-pac (technically a side-pack) where you buy the box I'd pay for it immediately, and I would also have no qualms about paying for expansions to classic.
However, if it required a a whole different sub as well, I'd either ditch Modern or Classic depending on which truns out to be the most fun. I'm not going to pay for two subscriptions to this game.

[ifrah]

I got a slight gut feeling that at the end of the day the real question is "is this fun enough to make it worth my time?" rather than whatever monthly subscription. Even more so after you have dinged 60, maybe (re-)witnessed how exciting the early raids (or even later ones) are or how enjoyable the honor system is. Or whatever. I place my final answer still on the "is this worth the time" rather than "is this worth the monthly subscription."

[Eurhetemec]

The vast majority of people who would pay to play Classic haven't played private servers, I suspect.

I see a lot of interest in it from ex-WoW players I know. And I know an awful lot of people who "used to" play WoW (most stopping by Cataclysm). Most of them are casuals and always were, and never would have got into private servers.

They'd certainly be perfectly happy to pay $15/month to play Classic, especially if the same sub also let them play "current" WoW, which is I suspect how Blizzard will do it. How long they'll stay sub'd is open to question, but if even, say, 10m people (out of the 100m+ which was the last figure I heard for ex-WoW players) came back over a year, and played for an average of three months each, that would be the equivalent of 2.5m people playing for a year, which would be huge money. And I suspect many will stay sub'd a lot longer than that.

I doubt they'll put an up-front cost on it besides the subscription, because they want the lowest possible barrier to entry, and they want people to sub. Sure, you could make it cost say $30+ up-front, and then have a sub, but you'll have deterred a bunch of people, which you really don't want to do. Equally you could make it $60 then be free, but that just seems like the worst of both worlds - deterring people and making no money long-term.

And most of these people will ALREADY have a WoW/Blizzard account, so may not be excited for an upfront cost.

Whereas if you just say "Okay, renew your sub", you're in a great position, because they've just added an auto-renewing sub to your game, and it's quite likely that they will trail off playing rather than outright quit (esp. if casual), and may well not cancel the sub until long, long after they've stopped playing. And you really want as many people to do that as possible.

[Healasouhait]

I think the odds are you will have to pay the game and it will be included in your monthly fee. Seriously doubt the game will be free to download. And seriously hope they make a physical collector. I want serious collectibles, not some silly pet in game.

The question is, for people not playing retail, will they have to update their account by buying BfA in order to play Classic?

By the way, I would be very surprised if they chose to make a different sub for Classic since having to pay x2 13€ /month, plus the price of the game is like making players milk cows (which we already kinda are).

[Nokami]

Vanilla will never release at all, that's what i think.

But a subscription would be not worth for blizzard, as 99% of the "initial Playerbase" will not play for more than 1 Day.

[Deleted]

Vanilla will never release at all, that's what i think.

But a subscription would be not worth for blizzard, as 99% of the "initial Playerbase" will not play for more than 1 Day.

That’s just an assumption though

[Moxal]

I would play it for a bit so my wife and I could experience some of it together (she didn't start until WotLK), but there is no way I'd be serious about end game content.

[Deleted]

I personally don’t care about the cost. I’d play it even if they charged me 60 bucks for the game and 15/month on top.
Yeah I don’t understand how people can claim that they only play on these servers because it’s free. There are tons of servers out there for later expansions (even Legion) and tons of other free games. Why won’t these people play on the legion servers then? Surely it’s because they enjoy classic more.

[33kamous3]

I'll poke into this forum from time to time to check for news or updates, and I think it's a really strange place. Obviously, you have a number of posters who are excited to speculate and discuss the possibility, details, and development of this Classic project, which is what the subforum was created for.

Then you have this other contingent who are committed to battling that enthusiasm and trying to convince everyone not to be interested. You see a wide spectrum of arguments grasping wildly for any possible reason that one could be dissuaded from playing or considering Classic/Vanilla, of which the question of cost is certainly one of the more spurious. Many of these posts make pretty wild, blanket assumptions about the potential playerbase (or, indeed, the existing pserver playerbase), about their habits, about their motivations, and so on. Many of these posts (nearly all) seem to come from posters who have never played on pservers, and therefore haven't played anything similar to Vanilla for a decade, if ever. They're telling players who have played on (and in many cases, donated to) these pservers for years that they "think they do but they don't" and "how long until they realize (X) about Vanilla." It's hard to take seriously arguments that come from such a pedestal of ignorance.

Official Classic servers still seem pretty far off from everything I hear that's not fanboy-speculation. I'm sure that whatever business decisions Blizzard make concerning cost and distribution of Classic will not be decisions made flippantly or without deliberation. I kind of expect some kind of bundle like they did with D3 and the annual WoW pass, but that's basically just a guess on my part.

There are some real issues that could be discussed about the cost. It's a fair point that paying full-price for what we're understanding to be functionally a port of a 14-year-old game doesn't seem right. On the other hand, it seems like Blizzard's development of this version, from a technical standpoint, basically does rival the creation of a new game, so they need to make that work financially somehow. There are certainly players who play on the pservers because they want to try the game out for free, but most I've talked to either don't like Retail or are going back for some experience, be it specific (Rhok, Naxx, etc) or general ("community" or that they simply enjoy playing that version).

You could also make the case that, if they made Classic F2P for everyone (which I doubt will happen) you would have some backlash from people who wandered into it not knowing what they were getting into. So it might be healthy to have some small barrier to entry. But I think that most of the people who are clamoring for it know what their asking for, and I think it's either wrong or disingenuous to suggest that they don't.

[fupr]

5, 10, 15, 20, 25 euro.. I dont care. I will pay.

[Lochton]

Whenever there have been figures that have shown the hundreds of thousands (if not more) players who have played Classic on private servers, these numbers are immediately dismissed with rhetoric like "they're only playing on there because it's free, they wouldn't actually pay for Blizzard's official Classic WoW".

Yet when the cost of WoW in general is being discussed, it is often these same people who then turn around and say things like "WoW is so cheap, it costs less than a movie ticket".

So why would the cost of Classic all of a sudden be a barrier to entry? Why would those hundeds of thousands of engaged players (presumably) not pay less than a movie ticket to continue enjoying what they were on private servers?

I think some of this got started by players who actually confessed to be playing private servers because it is free.

And no, I do not see nor do I hope classic will be free. I'm expecting it to be connected to the main franchise subscription. That would boost their numbers, as well as keeping the books together instead of creating a separate group for a museum.

[kaintk]

blizzard are not stupid, they will make it probably a server for each language and zone and be part of the actual subscription, ex-wow players would want to actually play a vanilla wow without all the problem of a private server so...

where blizzard is smiling at this is they will gain back a large of ex-wow players who quitted the game but will came back for the vanilla servers

[Healasouhait]

Wait wait wait...you have a problem with being milked and ask for a "serious collectible"? That is asking to bend over and not only be milked but....I leave the rest to your imagination.

Aside that I hate this passive attitude of claiming to be milked. It is like you have no input in this, no free will. As if you admit to be fine with being a sheep or a cow.....and all that over 13 euros a month? Which you probably easily spend on a pizza or some beer in a pub

Inconceivable to make this an issue

Actually I was referring to the (highly implausible) hypothesis where you have to pay 2 distinct subs to play both Classic and retail, which would be abuse and a pathetic attempt to make people pay.

Besides, I never claimed to be milked myself, I never bought a thing on the blizzard shop. I was talking about all those pets, mounts, helmets and packs, affordable on the blizzard shop that a lof of player pay for it, because you know, it's the only way to get it.

An other example of the being milked thing, is the quality and the price of the BfA collector edition, that I did not buy because it's a joke. Compared to the others, less stuff in it but more expensive. When i said "serious collectible", I was talking about a big ass artwork book, a 2h long behind the scene DvD. The last collector includes the same original soundtrack you can find on YouTube...wooot !!

[anon5123]

You guys are living in a dream
you guys are crazy.
I would erase any iota of a thought that it could even remotely be free from your minds.

Really angry that other people have an opinion that differs from yours, hm?

[jakeic]

I mean, I would pay for classic now even as someone who paid for vanilla when it was the live game.