It's going to be hard to get 40 dedicated raiders together...

[Celista]

I love how many people comment on threads like this who never actually played Vanilla.

I think I was the only one who said I didn't play, lol. I've seen Vanilla raid videos and did that content at level 70, I remember that BC raiding was a lot more difficult and it wasn't just due to scaling. In the MC videos made during Vanilla there were DPS who would spam 1-2 abilities for most of the raid.

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The only solution to this is to have 1-2 raiding days a week. And have at least 50 raiders in the guild.

The number of guilds won't be many. But they will be very active.

I think there will be weekend raiding guilds. If people actually like Classic enough to get to level cap then I think raiding guilds will be fine.

[NihilSustinet]

I don't think we are disagreeing? I don't understand what your statement has to do with finding 40 players.

we didnt just invite anyone to have bodies to fill the raid. we had a 40 man raid and a 20+ man bench of the best players on the server, and hundreds applying every week. im just saying the good guilds didnt have to invite scrubs to raid.

[Logwyn]

I remember how difficult it was on a 30k server and I don't anticipate many full servers still cruising along six months after launch. My fear is that there will be zero room for 'casual' raiding guilds (those that spend a half year in MC/ZG and then creep their way through BWL for another six months--if they even finish).

You can do Molten Core with 25 people knowing what's going on and the other 15 being wand mages/locks or cloth wearing warriors. So if you get 30 people knowing what's up then you should be ok to grab 10 wanders. May take you longer to clear it but it's doable.

[UnluckyAmateur]

But it's not a paying job.

You missed my point, when I say "paying Job" I mean the expectation to give a large chunk of your life towards the effort.

[Celista]

I think the big issue honestly will be the number of servers. I'm not super impressed with the population numbers on private severs (one YTer talked about a survey that said something around 100k players) and I suspect that Blizzard will create more servers than necessary. Meaning that some servers will have a thriving population for raiders and some will be deserted wastelands. Faction balance will probably be another issue.

[Detritivores]

Vanilla is going to be a nostalgia trip that any decent player will quit after a couple months. You could probably get together 40 middle aged baddies to raid vanilla raids, which ironically will accurately reproduce the skill of the average raider at that time, but very few progression oriented people will stick around for the shit-show.

[mehow2g]

People have zero problem on private servers to get 40 guildes to raid, there are 30 odd guilds raiding on one server.

[Kaleredar]

You missed my point, when I say "paying Job" I mean the expectation to give a large chunk of your life towards the effort.

Exactly. The pool of people that can invest that kind of time, for free, is not particularly large.

[Celista]

Exactly. The pool of people that can invest that kind of time, for free, is not particularly large.

Which is why MMO popularity is overall in decline.

[Kaleredar]

Which is why MMO popularity is overall in decline.

I think people are, overall, misjudging the landscape of video games these days. Back in the mid 2000s it was seen as a lot more "normal" to dump one's life into long, grindy multiplayer games where you practiced/raided/whatever for days for peanuts. The vast majority of gamers these days no longer seem to care about such things.

like this:

People have zero problem on private servers to get 40 guildes to raid, there are 30 odd guilds raiding on one server.

A FREE private server.

WoW classic is not going to be free.

[Celista]

I think people are, overall, misjudging the landscape of video games these days.

Definitely are, was going to make a comment about how it is likely that Classic is going to be less popular than private servers for that reason.

[NihilSustinet]

Definitely are, was going to make a comment about how it is likely that Classic is going to be less popular than private servers for that reason.

yup. they arent offering a better service than what private servers offer, so i dont think will hold people's attention for long.

[PaladinBash]

I did it because I was 20 and worked two nights a week so I had heaps of time to pour into shit. Heaps of people now have that much time to do shit so they will do it again.

[Kurthos]

Key thing is to always be recruiting. If they keep servers consolidated, guilds who are not actively recruiting even when they have a full roster will struggle to compete.

[Badtank]

A solid 80% of the people who raid won't clear AQ or get anywhere past spider wing in naxx and for those people raiding can be way more casual than anything mythic in retail offers. You can raid 1 day a week and see the vast majority and honestly eventually (if you at least have a push day) all content vanilla has to offer on a LONG enough time scale. Getting 40 people together is the hardest part of the task sure but vanilla naturally promotes guild's, people seek out guild's and have a strong desire to join them. Handling the drama is the real raid boss of vanilla.

[h4rr0d]

The average age of a wow player back then was 28. They had jobs and families back then cause they weren't millinials

You got any source on that stat?

[Vorkreist]

A FREE private server.

WoW classic is not going to be free.

OH NOES? Its not free? Fuck! How am I supposed to raid if its not free ??? Theres magical forcefields holding your hands stopping you from raiding after you sub for classic.

[Woobels]

I think people are going to realize there is a reason 40 man raids went away. It's not 2004. People have lives, jobs, families etc and varying schedules that will make it a challenge to have the work/life schedules of 40 people align for several hours several days per week.

If nothing else it will be like Everquest raids where you have a ton of people but not a core due to schedules, but the *guild* can raid, not necessarily all the people in it. That way if 10 people have| plans, you have 10 more ready and available.

I don't really get this, people in modern WoW raid some ridiculous hours, even casual guilds on my realm (back in Legion at least, haven't checked for BFA) raid like 18ish hours almost. Did people not have jobs in 2004?

The biggest issue is how little loot there is, people aren't used to that and it'll cause drama or not motivate people to play.

I'm also somewhat worried about lower end raiding like the OP, depending on the attitude most players have going into this, I think it's really important to be 60 around the same time the average player will be or you might struggle to find players later depending on how many of them quit.

[CostinR]

It really won't be if private servers have shown people anything.

It does mean there will be fewer but bigger guilds with bigger officer pools but it's hardly difficult. It's not like requirements to raid MC or Onyxia are high.

[Devilyaki]

Hard no, long yes.