Do you think Classic will Overtake Retail?

[KaPe]

Other than that, I would argue that a decently sized portion of those 8 millions came from Warcraft 1/2/3 fans that came to play the next game in the franchise.

You can also argue that a large part of those 8 millions joined in because WoW was *the* most casual MMORPG around, which certainly isn't the case for Classic 15 years later. Plus we didn't have many different popular genres back then, which attract far more attention than WoW ever did.

[Velerios]

People complain about leveling in bfa, people complain about grinding in bfa. How do you think those people will fare in Classic? I hate to say you're divisional if you think classic is going to overtake.

The biggest issue of retail is simply that the leveling seem pointless. Why bother, when everything you do is useless in the next expansion. Or that professions you level are useless too. There are no events in the leveling zones, nothing that you would care. That's the biggest issue.

If for example zones would be important no matter if you are at 20 or 120, then leveling would be far more interesting.

[joggerwearerlol]

biggest mistake they did was increasing the level cap every fucking expansion
they should stick to a level cap and release content for it. i dont give a shit about leveling as it only serves as time gating

i was trying to get some friends into wow
u know why they didnt join?
who is in the right mind to level from 1 to 120 just to start playing what the game is all about lol

[Socialhealer]

biggest mistake they did was increasing the level cap every fucking expansion
they should stick to a level cap and release content for it. i dont give a shit about leveling as it only serves as time gating

It was ok when we got new abilities or new ability levels, but the last 3 xpacs are literally LUL WE CHANGED YOUR TALENT TREE AROUND A BIT.

thats not worth fucking leveling for at all.

[mysticx]

Frankly, not a chance, with the ever-lengthening “No, that’s not a bug, Classic really was that way”-list on the official forums, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that people playing retail *really* aren’t going to play Classic, not for long, anyway.

[Zantera]

It's interesting to me how almost every classic-related post is about how great the leveling was because it took 3 hours of questing to get a level and if you pulled more than 1 mob you died and had to corpse run for 9 minutes across the zone, and repair wasn't as easily available so you had to run to the nearest city 5 mins away to repair and then every level you got a 1% more crit talent and you met some guy called Bob who you would see 7 days later and you would team up to kill a big crocodile because the toolkit available made it impossible to solo, so on so on.

(I don't mean any of this in a negative way really, I had fun leveling back in the day like most people)

But there's almost nothing about the lack of content once you hit max level. Personally I like challenging content and that's why classic isn't appealing because outside the leveling being harder there's nothing else to appeal to me. A high m+ or mythic raiding is infinitely harder than the equivalent of 5-man dungeons and raiding in vanilla. I would also agree with people saying that just because it took longer to do things doesn't mean they were necessarily hard.

[Zyky]

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

Look at the stats, At WORST BFA has 2M active accounts. There weren't even 300k active players on Nostalrius. Vanilla is niche, not retail.

[joggerwearerlol]

It's interesting to me how almost every classic-related post is about how great the leveling was because it took 3 hours of questing to get a level and if you pulled more than 1 mob you died and had to corpse run for 9 minutes across the zone, and repair wasn't as easily available so you had to run to the nearest city 5 mins away to repair and then every level you got a 1% more crit talent and you met some guy called Bob who you would see 7 days later and you would team up to kill a big crocodile because the toolkit available made it impossible to solo, so on so on.

(I don't mean any of this in a negative way really, I had fun leveling back in the day like most people)

But there's almost nothing about the lack of content once you hit max level. Personally I like challenging content and that's why classic isn't appealing because outside the leveling being harder there's nothing else to appeal to me. A high m+ or mythic raiding is infinitely harder than the equivalent of 5-man dungeons and raiding in vanilla. I would also agree with people saying that just because it took longer to do things doesn't mean they were necessarily hard.

i wonder what they mean by hard all the time i read those shitty comments..

it wasnt hard.. it was painful. sitting down drinking after 1-2 mobs is hard? no its a waste of time. aint that hard to click 1 button to start drinking
not having enough quests to lvl up to get to the next questhub? well too bad, have fun grinding xxx mobs
etc

[shoegazing]

Look at the stats, At WORST BFA has 2M active accounts. There weren't even 300k active players on Nostalrius. Vanilla is niche, not retail.

private server vs retail, totally invalid comparison

[Big Thanks]

It's interesting to me how almost every classic-related post is about how great the leveling was because it took 3 hours of questing to get a level and if you pulled more than 1 mob you died and had to corpse run for 9 minutes across the zone, and repair wasn't as easily available so you had to run to the nearest city 5 mins away to repair and then every level you got a 1% more crit talent and you met some guy called Bob who you would see 7 days later and you would team up to kill a big crocodile because the toolkit available made it impossible to solo, so on so on.

(I don't mean any of this in a negative way really, I had fun leveling back in the day like most people)

But there's almost nothing about the lack of content once you hit max level. Personally I like challenging content and that's why classic isn't appealing because outside the leveling being harder there's nothing else to appeal to me. A high m+ or mythic raiding is infinitely harder than the equivalent of 5-man dungeons and raiding in vanilla. I would also agree with people saying that just because it took longer to do things doesn't mean they were necessarily hard.

I see max level content in Classic as a "collector" mini game. As you are collecting better gear you become stronger...which is incredibly noticeable in PvP.
Its easier than retail, ofcourse, it doesnt challenge your APM keyboard leet skillz.
But its incredible difficult to collect the godamm items to improve your item level...and power in PvP.

And dont get me started on the PvP Ranking grind :S its insane

Everything to collect the godamm items...

IMO its more a collector game than a game to challenge your APM keyboard extravaganza.

[Vynestra]

Did you even take a look at Twitch? Pretty much ALL the top streamers are streaming classic beta these days. This might not be the case years from now, but it is the case right now.

Theyre talking about bfa launch, which classic #'s have come nowhere even close.

But the point still stands, twitch is a horrible way to gauge a games success or failure.

And secondly, classic is all the hype right now, sure it's going to be top.

But other games had shit tons of hype too - like wildstar, and where is it now? Dead, gone.

Let's stop using twitch #'s.

[Twdft]

But there's almost nothing about the lack of content once you hit max level.

Quite a lot of players used WoW as a very pretty IRC client back then.

[Ielenia]

You can also argue that a large part of those 8 millions joined in because WoW was *the* most casual MMORPG around, which certainly isn't the case for Classic 15 years later. Plus we didn't have many different popular genres back then, which attract far more attention than WoW ever did.

Pretty much, yep.

[Zyky]

private server vs retail, totally invalid comparison

Private servers, specifically Nostalrius, is the only reason Blizzard is doing Classic in the first place.

[wargone]

it wont. For serveral reasons.
first of all, people want new content, and Vanila will come out with more, but nothing new.
Vanila is to easy for hard core raiders. The only hard part about Vanila was getting 40 people together that was not afsleep at their desk. A Mythic raiding guild would be bored out of their ass.
Vanila is probaly to hard for most "casual", I will imagine at first lots of people will play but will quickly fall off

[Sansnom]

The biggest issue of retail is simply that the leveling seem pointless. Why bother, when everything you do is useless in the next expansion. Or that professions you level are useless too. There are no events in the leveling zones, nothing that you would care. That's the biggest issue.

That has been around since the first XP.

[Wingspan]

they are gating it into 6 phases with each of the raids basically being a phase, it's just launching with the 1.12 balance changes and systems so certain specs don't have to spend all of classic as a dead spec like vanilla; they will be instantly viable in round 2.

- - - Updated - - -

Live is a video game that wants you to log in, que, have fun, and get out when you want. It's quick to remind you at every turn that it's a game.

Classic is a WORLD that you just happen to be a part of. They provide a different feeling and appeal to different gamers

No doubt that they appeal to different types of players. I just think that the fresh, new feeling of Classic will fall pretty quickly in a world with far more options then we had back then.

Since I now know that they are going to stagger it in release phases, it puts a whole new light on how quickly it is likely to fall. Six months in, almost no one is going to be interested in helping someone new to gear up (because people won’t fundamentally change in this regard).

Very few were interested in it back then either but there was a perpetual flood of new players, so there was always someone in your same situation to join up with. The flood this go round will be short-lived, maybe a few months... definitely not for over 2 years, so that random player that joins in 6 months later probably isn’t going to get anywhere (ever) unless they already know someone. So they will likely either make the move to retail or move to another large MMORPG (big choices that did not exist back then).

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Lol, do you realize that there are players who have 15 characters? All it takes is one +2 key on every character over several months.

If you think there are 2.4 million players because there are 2.4 m characters on raider.io I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you.


This is a more accurate look at the actual player numbers: http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census...ervertypeid=-1

Retail WoW is as good as dead. The actual number is most likely slightly higher, as there are some servers that are so dead that no one bothers to run the census addon on them. Imagine that.

The data isn’t accurate as it has realms win no data at all.

[glowpipe]

Lol, this is common knowledge. He shouldn't need proof. Some people cant believe how big if a joke leveling is now.

so is vanilla leveling. For different reasons. Grinding, waiting for respawns, endless amount of downtime. its all part of bad game design. A game should be engaging and not make you sit and wait and go semi afk cause you can't do shit.

[Big Thanks]

so is vanilla leveling. For different reasons. Grinding, waiting for respawns, endless amount of downtime. its all part of bad game design. A game should be engaging and not make you sit and wait and go semi afk cause you can't do shit.

Its incredible game design because everything you said promotes "community" gameplay and grouping.

Retail promotes solo-play.