Does classic give "retail" the freedom for radical changes?

[tikcol]

More like with Classic coming, BFA and further expansions can continue to be shit with less backslash

[justandulas]

No, live team will just do them. I get what you're saying, but it shouldn't have any bearing outside of maybe some inspiration for gear, etc.

The REAL damage of classic is going to be to BFA. BFA is already an expansion that's teetering on the verge of failure. It has eclipsed WoD as the worst WOW expac by far according to every poll i've ever seen on here and reddit.

How is BFA going to survive when classic rips it's already dwindled player base apart? Personally, i'd go to classic and never look back. The game had more of a AD&D RPG element to it that i miss in todays ARPG inspired WoW.

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More like with Classic coming, BFA and further expansions can continue to be shit with less backslash

pretty much this

[valax]

Yes , I've seen classic release as a safe ship for nostalgia ridden people to jump to in case the retail team decides to go bonkers and fuck azeroth up more than the cataclysm

[Sansnom]

Pssssht...Honestly, I think people totally overestimate the impact that Classic will have. I think it will be a fun little side thing, that players of today will find totally outdated and inconvenient at every level. Hell..I played the shit out of Classic..and I will not touch it with a 20 foot pole. Been there, done that - but have fun with it if you want.

But at the end of the day, I will apply to myself what I accuse people of: I have no clue, no market research, no numbers, just my opinion and gut feeling.

Maybe. I do not know and I do not really care about Classic. It was great when it was new and fresh. If people are looking for that hit again, they might be disappointed. I remember the first time I saw Star Wars. It was wow!. While I still go back to it now and then, that initial burst of excitement and awe is not there anymore.

I think some people will stick with classic, like people prefer Jazz. Nothing wrong with that. it is just whole this whole Classic is better, Classic is what it should etc argument that gets pushed out at times.

These people who wants Classic will now get their Classic. I just hope it will be keep them quiet and content from now on.

[Freaking Frumpy Frak]

Nope.

Changes require time, money, effort and competence. Something Blizzard is totally devoid of these days.

[MoanaLisa]

I wonder what people do think and how it actually will work in Classic. Will they touch the XP needed? Even the faster guys (or me eventually on alts) took 12 days to lv 60...but that still is a hell slower than levelling is now. Imagine people actually complaining about level speed now and how it bores them. Well, it ate up my first half year in WoW in 2005.

Still, if I can imagine Classic being a wild success with millions of players still going after six months, do I also imagine that the developers will look at that and say, "Leveling 10 levels in an expansion needs to take two weeks." No, I can't. And that's pretty much my point about the lessons learned from Classic's still-to-be-determined level of success.

I do wish they had gone for pristine realms. There was a certain litany of consistent complaints about general non-expansion specifics of the game (mob difficulty while leveling for one, random groups, etc.) and their proposal on that solved nearly all of them. As a missed opportunity it's even worse as pristine realms would have covered the entire game instead of just vanilla content. I still hope they revisit it some day.

[kamuimac]

Doubtful. Best estimates that all the private servers held just a fraction of current retail player-base when Classic was announced. Most only played because it was free. Classic may be huge out of the gate because retail players will automatically have access to it and a surge of long gone players will check it out. After that first month I guarantee you participation rates will drop like mad, just like most new games, except this isn't a new game, it's a 14-15 yo PoS by today's standards.

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It's the bipolar player-base. Waa, the world is too big and hard to traverse in a timely manner. Waa, portals make the world feel too small and disconnected. Pick one and stick with it guys.

its gonna be much faster

first of all the initial "blow' will come from the fact that there will be ton of server ques because people will flock to try it out - wait in que for 4-6 hours then log in and realise "jezus this is what i was waiting for ? " when the reality of slow boring grind will become already on level 1.

then willcome 2nd blow in levels ....13-17 when everything slows down extremly compared to levels 1-10.

then 3rd blow will come somewhere between 25-30 and this will be the biggest on - slow slow slow slow slow grind and slow slow slow gameplay - 95% of people who will try game will quit here. Most of those who will push above level 30 will keep leveling but most probably with weeks of breaks between leveling sessions.

i cannot stress out to people who never tried vanilla how much ready they need to be for slow gameplay .

if you think FF 14 is slow .... vanilla is 20 times worse because FF is at least attractive visualy.

but i do wish they realese it as soon as humanly possible so those threads stop once people realise how garbage vanilla was in reality.

[justandulas]

Some of us know what we are getting into with Classic, and can't wait. Some of us prefer an older, slower style MMO that actually has RPG elements to it.

Current WoW has more in common with Diablo3 than Everquest (it's roots). There are no real RPG mechanics left in the game. It's a straight up MMO D3 at this point.

[Maudib]

Classic does allow for them to change the game even more drastically... which is why the next WoW game will be a mobile product.

Classic is actually more of a placeholder to stretch out BfA content as long as possible... 8.2 will likely not be around until December... meaning the 8.1.5 "non content" content patch will have to last another 9 months.... Plop Classic in between there and you have a "win" for Blizzard.

Then, come summer of 2020... when people are getting mindnumbed by WQs in BfA... they will announce the mobile game with playable demo at Blizzcon 2020.

[Aleksej89]

Blizz already did radical changes by gutting the classes to the point of being able to fit everything on an xbox controller.

Classic will make some extra cash because there will be players who have zero interest in Bullsh*t for Azeroth but do wanna enjoy some old classic.

[kamuimac]

Nah, the only chance to get amazing gear is to have a fixed schedule and do higher end raids. You have to have commitment and dedication to gain some of the best rewards and that's important in an MMORPG in my opinion.

Playing vanilla as a casual isn't daunting from how I see it. It's a slow, gradual progression & community driven RPG. There's great rewards available to all players through reputation factions, dungeons, quests, professions and even BoE epics that are available to find or buy throughout the world. The fact you think having to do certain elements of an RPG like use food, farm reagents or supply yourself with arrows is or could be seen as daunting bewilders me. It's what makes the game feel like an actual world. You work for everything you get in vanilla, and so when you do actually get what you want it's a very satisfying and rewarding accomplishment and often milestone for players.

what you are pointing out are clear differentced between mmorpg and arpg. WoW hasnt been "classic" mmorpg for years now only a fast pace arpg/dance dance revolution /frogger raid/dungeons symulator.

i do definetly agree that classic will bring this back but this also means its gonna gutt out any form of chalenge from it compared to current wow.

slow boring leveling is not a chalenge - its just a time gate .

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Classic does allow for them to change the game even more drastically... which is why the next WoW game will be a mobile product.

Classic is actually more of a placeholder to stretch out BfA content as long as possible... 8.2 will likely not be around until December... meaning the 8.1.5 "non content" content patch will have to last another 9 months.... Plop Classic in between there and you have a "win" for Blizzard.

Then, come summer of 2020... when people are getting mindnumbed by WQs in BfA... they will announce the mobile game with playable demo at Blizzcon 2020.

i wont lie - im waiting for a mobile wow game to enjoy it in work

[Dracullus]

It's not democracy, devs are in charge and they can implement any change. We only vote with our wallets and offer feedback (which they can listen or not).

[Tyszka]

what proofs do we have that the mmo genre is dying?
could it not be that wow just sucks so people stopped, and older mmos are old and people are just waiting for something new?

What proof is there that the genre is dying you ask? What triple A gaming company is masking them anymore? The risk vs reward isn’t there anymore. Not when you can make a battleroyal and almost guarantee a profit. Nearly every mmo that has come out in the last decade has been shut down. Except for the top four WoW, elder scrolls online, ffxiv, guild wars 2.
Yes there our others black desert, Tera, etc.

But when it comes to new development no one is really wanting to takethe risk, there’s maybe what 3 mmos in development that stand a chance? And one of them took a crap ton of Kickstarter money and made a battle royal instead of an mmo, looking at you ashes of creation. There’s pantheon rise of the fallen, and Camelot unchain, possibly crowfall if you can call that an mmo.

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its gonna be much faster

first of all the initial "blow' will come from the fact that there will be ton of server ques because people will flock to try it out - wait in que for 4-6 hours then log in and realise "jezus this is what i was waiting for ? " when the reality of slow boring grind will become already on level 1.

then willcome 2nd blow in levels ....13-17 when everything slows down extremly compared to levels 1-10.

then 3rd blow will come somewhere between 25-30 and this will be the biggest on - slow slow slow slow slow grind and slow slow slow gameplay - 95% of people who will try game will quit here. Most of those who will push above level 30 will keep leveling but most probably with weeks of breaks between leveling sessions.

i cannot stress out to people who never tried vanilla how much ready they need to be for slow gameplay .

if you think FF 14 is slow .... vanilla is 20 times worse because FF is at least attractive visualy.

but i do wish they realese it as soon as humanly possible so those threads stop once people realise how garbage vanilla was in reality.

It’s so bad that even private servers have over 5000 people playing on them consistently. Knowing that any time for any reason they could lose all that hard work in the blink of an eye. If you think classic won’t be a success you are in denial. I dont think it will be bigger then retail as some are saying but it’s definitely going to be big.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Even back then, walking until lv 40 was something I hated....and chances were you would still be walking at 50 or 60 if you didn't make enough gold. Now that my alts can use a chauffeur at lv 1 and ride at lv 20, revisiting Classic would be even more painful in that regard.

Without nostalgia classic aint worth much these days. Stuff like the mount system are based on 15+ year old game design techniques, many of which have been replaced by better ones over the years. In case of the mounts, one of the immersive yet still incentivising soltutions are mounts for rent for example. But since people really want the old feeling no matter what they can't even apply the ones that are less disruptive without a major shitstorm. The way the game is set up they also can't really develop the game further after the initial launch, which tbh seems like the most boring payed service without future possible. The only psotive about old systems like the mount one is that they help mask the endgame problems longer .

As for the point of the thread itself: They can already do whatever they want. The only thing holding them back is people, effort and the baggage of legacy systems. None of which will be affected by classic.

[Beet]

what proofs do we have that the mmo genre is dying?
could it not be that wow just sucks so people stopped, and older mmos are old and people are just waiting for something new?

The proof is in how few MMOs are made now compared to before. These companies have data to see how much money can be made off them and how many people will play them long term. Look at the year 2008 for example a decade ago. All the new MMOs either just coming out or being made from Aion, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Lotro, SwToR, etc. The MMOcraze is dead. Everyone kept bouncing from WoW killer to WoW killer hoping to find what they enjoyed originally in WoW and it never took.

[letssee]

The proof is in how few MMOs are made now compared to before. These companies have data to see how much money can be made off them and how many people will play them long term. Look at the year 2008 for example a decade ago. All the new MMOs either just coming out or being made from Aion, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Lotro, SwToR, etc. The MMOcraze is dead. Everyone kept bouncing from WoW killer to WoW killer hoping to find what they enjoyed originally in WoW and it never took.

Thats my point. How do we know that the reason people dont play them anymore is not because the genre is dying but rather cuz the game is shit, thus making devs believe the genre is dead.
All other mmos after wow failed because they were not as good enough like wow used to be

[Beet]

Thats my point. How do we know that the reason people play them is not because the genre is dying but rather the game is shit, thus making devs believe the genre is dead.
All other mmos after wow failed because they were not good enough like how wow used to be

I’d say because companies have resources about this. And it’s not worth investing into a new MMO if the players deem every single other MMO shit that isn’t WoW. If you want WoW play it. You even have classic now. It took these devs a long time to realize that it was never the MMO genre that boomed. It was WoW.

[letssee]

I’d say because companies have resources about this. And it’s not worth investing into a new MMO if the players deem every single other MMO shit that isn’t WoW. If you want WoW play it. You even have classic now. It took these devs a long time to realize that it was never the MMO genre that boomed. It was WoW.

Yea i see your point. Guess we'll never truky know unless it happens haha

[Nnyco]

/Shrug.

Majority will be playing Classic anyway so I guess they will just leave retail for those that want it.

good joke there

[Djaye]

im just hoping that classic is successful enough that they try other legacy servers. it would be amazing if they actually had servers for all their expansions so you could actually go back and experience them as if they were just out. get burned out on an expansion? transfer to the next one. they could rake in a ton of loot with this model.