Do you think Classic will Overtake Retail?

[justandulas]

Your friends are part of the overhype for Classic. They are why others (myself included) think that people don't know what they're asking for. When your friends realize they are level 48 after 1 month play they will more than quickly revert back to retail. So you are right but only to a certain extent, classic will be gigantic, only for the first few months or so...

Did you read my post? My friends will be thrilled if they are only level 48 after 1 month. They don't play live WoW and have never tried WoW, because it's not old school enough. They are playing MUDs from like 1994 currently.

They are interested in a slower paced, EQ like WoW not todays WoW. They don't bash it, but they don't have interest in it and have never played it at all BUT when it comes to wow classic, they are all in so they could experience the WoW they want and missed, and not WoW as it exists today.

If anything, i'd call it UNDERhyped.

[Greengrim]

Did you read my post? My friends will be thrilled if they are only level 48 after 1 month. They don't play live WoW and have never tried WoW, because it's not old school enough. They are playing MUDs from like 1994 currently.

They are interested in a slower paced, EQ like WoW not todays WoW. They don't bash it, but they don't have interest in it and have never played it at all BUT when it comes to wow classic, they are all in so they could experience the WoW they want and missed, and not WoW as it exists today.

If anything, i'd call it UNDERhyped.

So your friends never once played WoW, but can't wait for Classic, because they also never played retail? Say whut? Sounds like we're adding more people in the pile of people who don't know what they're asking for....

[providewarped]

I don't think so at all, i think retail might be the niche market

I agree with you totally.

[justandulas]

So your friends never once played WoW, but can't wait for Classic, because they also never played retail? Say whut? Sounds like we're adding more people in the pile of people who don't know what they're asking for....

Yes. They didn't have gaming PC's in the 00's during their 20's, but now as adults with jobs, kids, and a stable schedule and gaming PC's... they are interested in WoW classic. one in particular is all in.

They want WoW that is more EQ than Diablo 3. They want a more old school version of WoW and are willing to wait. You act like you can think for them about what they want, but they are still playing MUDs that are 10000x more grindy, old school, and harder than WoW ever was.

They'd prefer a slower paced, old school MMO over the fast paced gear showering Diablo 3 like WoW that exists today.

They always wanted to play vanilla but couldn't afford it, and now have the chance, but current WoW has no appeal to them at all. I've tried to get them in. I grew tired of asking about it in Legion tbh, but they are NEW wow classic players who will fit in 100% with what is there, and they aren't alone.

There are plenty of old school gamers who never got to play WoW vanilla who will be in for classic, but who have no interest in retail. They will likely end up being like 10% of wow classic is new(ish) wow players.

Even my wife, who has never played a game, expressed interest in WoW classic if "i didnt mind if she held me back", but i'd have a better chance of talking her into a threesome than to play wow live.

[Sunblaze]

long term maybe (as content comes out, and tbc comes, etc). "retail" is not the beast with 12M players anymore. I think people overestimate how many ppl play BFA/current exp

[Celista]

that's your opinion and i feel 100% the opposite. And you know what? That's perfectly ok there's plenty of WoW for us all. Just because i prefer a more classic old school experience to match my old age, doesn't mean i'll belittle wow live players. many of my friends enjoy BFA, and so do many of our fellow forum posters.

We are all part of the WoW community. Instead of tearing each other down for minor differences of opinion, we should all be coming together to be glad that WoW classic is going to be coming out and not only breathing life into the game, but all that WoW classic profit is gonna end up directly going into WoW live development. It's a win/win for everyone

I'm not tearing anyone down, just sharing my opinion but agreed.

[Mermeoth]

Yes. They didn't have gaming PC's in the 00's during their 20's, but now as adults with jobs, kids, and a stable schedule and gaming PC's... they are interested in WoW classic. one in particular is all in.

They want WoW that is more EQ than Diablo 3. They want a more old school version of WoW and are willing to wait. You act like you can think for them about what they want, but they are still playing MUDs that are 10000x more grindy, old school, and harder than WoW ever was.

They'd prefer a slower paced, old school MMO over the fast paced gear showering Diablo 3 like WoW that exists today.

They always wanted to play vanilla but couldn't afford it, and now have the chance, but current WoW has no appeal to them at all. I've tried to get them in. I grew tired of asking about it in Legion tbh, but they are NEW wow classic players who will fit in 100% with what is there, and they aren't alone.

There are plenty of old school gamers who never got to play WoW vanilla who will be in for classic, but who have no interest in retail. They will likely end up being like 10% of wow classic is new(ish) wow players.

Even my wife, who has never played a game, expressed interest in WoW classic if "i didnt mind if she held me back", but i'd have a better chance of talking her into a threesome than to play wow live.

I would bet that even your dog is going to play WoW

[Gunrad]

Even my wife, who has never played a game, expressed interest in WoW classic if "i didnt mind if she held me back", but i'd have a better chance of talking her into a threesome than to play wow live.

The levels of bullshit in this comment are astounding. This thread keeps getting better and better, grabbing my popcorn.

[Zantera]

I think amount of people jumping on classic will drop by 50% or more after the first month.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Classic had a better leveling experience, period. I can remember zones, leveling up, abilities, talent tree's, etc... it felt like a real RPG. In todays game, i cant remember the last time my character got something i remembered of value, or had a zone i'd call memorable like vanilla.

Classic leveling was rather bad and the people who were willing to go though it dropped massively as time went on with 70% of new players not getting past level 10 in wrath. Rather it got better post cata Is debatable but it surly wasn’t good beforehand.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.game...-past-level-10

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are you not expecting new players to discover and fall in love with wow classic? because i know of at least 2 of those players who want to experience wow classic, but have no interest in live wow.

Most new players didn’t fall in love with wow when the market was worse off why would that change now when ever thing has moved to be faster?

[dewd]

with how much effort they put into ruining bfa one has to assume they want classic to overtake it.

[Raelbo]

Classic had a better leveling experience, period. I can remember zones, leveling up, abilities, talent tree's, etc... it felt like a real RPG. In todays game, i cant remember the last time my character got something i remembered of value, or had a zone i'd call memorable like vanilla.

Well, that depends on how you define "better".

For a first time player who is still very much unfamiliar with the game and whose ability to enjoy the immersion that the vanilla levelling experience provided, yeah, absolutely vanilla was better.

For a player who has been at this game for 10+ years and has little interest in focussing on becoming intimately acquinted with the world, the more streamlined levelling process is better.

Context matters. The vanilla levelling process was what it needed to be for the players of the time. The current levelling process is what it needs to be to cater for what the devs believe to be the most prevalent type of player. The big problem of course is that over time, what different players want has diverged significantly. During vanilla everyone was new to the game, so it was much easier to design a game that appealed to everyone.

Classes were balanced in an odd sense of paper, rock, scissors. You could be good at endgame pve, pvp, or leveling but not all 3. 2/3 is what every class basically had, and yes, leveling IS a pillar of vanilla so those classes that suck endgame do shine somewhere.

Firstly, I don't think classes in Vanilla were ever balanced. Secondly there were a lot let classes, the mechanics in general were a lot simpler, and the players were not nearly as experienced at figuring out how to min-max. Good players in Vanilla shone out regardless of their class, not because the classes were balanced, but because really good players were rare.

Dungeons were more unforgiving, which makes them harder by definition. You can screw up a good bit in todays dungeon, and as long as you have gear, you're good and can just aoe it all down. Try that in vanilla and you're gonna have a bad time. It was more tactical, requiring CC, and thus requires more out of the players. And, the gear drops may not even go in your favor so gearing up is more difficult THUS making it all more challenging.

Your comparison is invalid. Modern WoW offers dungeons with a massive spectrum of difficulty settings on offer, meaning that there is a suitable difficulty setting for everyone.

Yeah, sure, vanilla dungeons were a lot harder than normal dungeons. But they pale in comparison to top end M+.

What I will say is this: Dungeons were a lot less accessible to the vast majority of the playerbase back in Vanilla. That was not a good thing. The game back then survived, not because of how difficult the dungeons were, but because players were still experiencing them for the first time and enjoying the novelty of the experience. I think that the modern player who has been playing for years is a bit more fussy in that we've figured out what we like and how we like it, and we're not going to accept what we have on the basis that it is our only option.

[Coramen]

I'd say it's a possibility. I believe runescape had a similar situation and eventually the classic version overtook their live in popularity. But it all depends on the community reception of course, and I'd say what kind of communities are created.

[Raelbo]

Even my wife, who has never played a game, expressed interest in WoW classic if "i didnt mind if she held me back", but i'd have a better chance of talking her into a threesome than to play wow live.

The fact that she has never played a game suggests that her opinion of what she imagines she might like is subject to some mysterious bias. I wonder what that might be?

[Florena]

Vanilla dungeons weren't really 'hard' from what I remember. They required a bit more coordination, sure, than today's 'run in and aoe as much trash as you can' but today's bosses are definitely more intricate with more mechanics than bosses tended to be in vanilla, and the difficulty in trash was mostly just being more wary of patrols and having to wait for cc to get lined up every pull. Sheep sap trap kill skull kill x kill sap kill trap kill sheep rinse and repeat wasn't really hard in dungeons, just ever so slightly more complicated than today's dungeons but not in a different league or anything.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

with how much effort they put into ruining bfa one has to assume they want classic to overtake it.

Bfa has had more effort put into it then any other expan that’s just a fact.

[Gratlim]

I was sceptical at first but now I am pretty confident Classic will have more players than BFA at first. Especially with this nice CE. This is mostly due to how poor 8.2 happenened to be. 9.0 might take them back if Blizz do a good job on it. BFA being a filler, it might be good. Who knows . I am afraid the most talented people at Blizz (or what is left of it) aren't working on WoW anymore though.

We might have an issue with too many vets or bored BFA players to jump ship at launch but hopefully they will quickly move back to BFA. Overpopulated realms and queue is not something i look forward to.

[TheDeeGee]

I think both are dead 6 months from now.

[enigma77]

Vanilla dungeons weren't really 'hard' from what I remember. They required a bit more coordination, sure, than today's 'run in and aoe as much trash as you can' but today's bosses are definitely more intricate with more mechanics than bosses tended to be in vanilla, and the difficulty in trash was mostly just being more wary of patrols and having to wait for cc to get lined up every pull. Sheep sap trap kill skull kill x kill sap kill trap kill sheep rinse and repeat wasn't really hard in dungeons, just ever so slightly more complicated than today's dungeons but not in a different league or anything.

One thing to keep in mind is that while modern bosses may indeed have more mechanics that you need to keep track of, often in Vanilla boss abilities will hit much harder and are sometimes extremely punishing.

Everyone recalls how hilariously easy Wrath Naxxramas was compared to Vanilla. One of the reasons why that was the case is because many of the boss abilities in Vanilla dealt almost as much damage then as they did in Wrath, despite healthpools in Vanilla being much smaller.

Also trash would respawn every 30 minutes in the original Naxxramas and for example Heigen the Unclean (the guy where you need to dance, as the slime comes up from underneath you) used to engage immediately after finishing the gauntlet before his room.

So while bosses may be more complex nowadays, they do not necessarily punish you as much for mistakes. A boss can have 3 abilities but when they're absolutely lethal that means the boss is more difficult than a boss with 10 abilities that barely hurt you. On top of that in Vanilla most classes did not have a defensive cooldown whatsoever. Mages had Ice Block, Paladins had Bubble and Warriors had Shield Wall and that's about it (Barkskin only reduced physical damage tanken and only by 20%). No Cloak, no Cheat Death, no Unending Resolve, no Turtle, no Dispersion etc. Same goes for selfhealing. Chances were if you goofed up you died.

[digichi]

I don't think classic will overtake retail in the long run. Retail always has the potential of adding something new/innovative in terms of art/game mechanics/lore that will always keep people interested at peaking in, checking out old characters and seeing the game further progress. With classic you know what you're getting, where it's going, and you've probably already decided if you like to play it or not.