Do you think Classic will Overtake Retail?

[ornichi]

Just wait they will be back for 8.1
Just wait they will be back for 8.1.5
Just wait they will be back for 8.2...8.2.5 ....8.3

Look until they fix the core problems with BFA no one will be back in any significant numbers . Odds are, they will come back for a bit, see that he classes and story is shit, go back to classic to play with their friends .

Classic Grinding had meaning and purpose and was rewarding at least . Nothing in BFA feels rewarding or meaningful. I kill a bunch of Alliance in a W who cares . The only way I can power progress is if I get lucky and a item WF or TF. The raids are meaningless unless you are mythic because the same level gear is out there just for doing a WQ. The story is shit . So what exactly is there to comeback for? Dead guilds? Seeing a bunch of people from phased connected realms that I will never see again? Transmogs?

Do you understand that the same can be applied to vanilla?

While I agree that BfA has many flaws and is far from best WoW expansion... I can't deny that vanilla is simply a "trend". It is being hyped hard right now and it will be popular for first couple of months, maybe half a year. But what's next? Clearing same raid for 6 months? Doing same 2 bgs for two years? Killing a bunch of Alliance in world pvp, who cares? The only way to progress in power is hoping for one item to drop once a week from one boss with 10+ more people contesting it.

As for raids being meaningless. What if I told you, that you do raids not only for gears, but for fun experience with your friends and your guild.

The story is shit? What exactly offers Classic after month long grindfest without any interesting story or questline whatsoever?

Clearing same 3 endgame dungeons and one raid with 40 people? Half of them will drop and you will end up looking for people more than actually playing the game. It will cause exactly the same burnout as BfA.

Yes, Asmongold hypes it because he has 12 hours per day and 50 people to leech from. But for your ordinary Joe it will be far away from top quality experience.

While I will try vanilla as well, I only hope for it to become strong platform for blizz to take some ideas and implement them to retail.

PS: Yea, I agree on CRZ, I hate it as well.

[Relapses]

Bellular just released a pretty good video on this subject:



He brings up a couple good points that I've echoed in my arguments for/against Classic vs. BfA. Highlights:

• Modern WoW is competing against far more "attention grabbing" services, therefore it makes sense that the game has mechanics which favor instant gratification
• Modern WoW's changes are in-line with how gaming trends have evolved since 2004
• For example, modern WoW and Activision's other big property, Destiny 2, share a lot of the same DNA; one being a MMO, the other a shooter
• Classic WoW's popularity is antithetical to the modern WoW due to its playerbase essentially already being "bought-in" to the slower pace

Bellular, in typical Bellular fashion, doesn't really state his opinion on the matter but personally I think it's hard to look at an open-ended assessment like this and not understand that there's enough broad appeal for both versions that they can coexist with one another without cannibalizing their respective playerbases. The only places that any amount of debate seems to occur is on message boards like this where we have two separate echo chambers competing against one another (pro-Classic vs. pro-retail) to prove their view point is the "real" vision for WoW. The reality is that most people likely care very little one way or another and all Classic really does for the game is provide increased value to the retail WoW subscription.

[Mirain1]

Do you understand that the same can be applied to vanilla?

While I agree that BfA has many flaws and is far from best WoW expansion... I can't deny that vanilla is simply a "trend". It is being hyped hard right now and it will be popular for first couple of months, maybe half a year. But what's next? Clearing same raid for 6 months? Doing same 2 bgs for two years? Killing a bunch of Alliance in world pvp, who cares? The only way to progress in power is hoping for one item to drop once a week from one boss with 10+ more people contesting it.

As for raids being meaningless. What if I told you, that you do raids not only for gears, but for fun experience with your friends and your guild.

The story is shit? What exactly offers Classic after month long grindfest without any interesting story or questline whatsoever?

Clearing same 3 endgame dungeons and one raid with 40 people? Half of them will drop and you will end up looking for people more than actually playing the game. It will cause exactly the same burnout as BfA.

Yes, Asmongold hypes it because he has 12 hours per day and 50 people to leech from. But for your ordinary Joe it will be far away from top quality experience.

While I will try vanilla as well, I only hope for it to become strong platform for blizz to take some ideas and implement them to retail.

PS: Yea, I agree on CRZ, I hate it as well.

huh weird! I'm an "ordinary joe" yet it offers me a top quality experience.

[Nnyco]

huh weird! I'm an "ordinary joe" yet it offers me a top quality experience.

Your definition of top quality experience is weird odd then.

[Shadowferal]

"They" have been saying "They'll be back" since...well, since I left back after WoD.

[Alkizon]

FIFA does not, as they understand how make a competitive product (and take bribes).

The Faroe islands (and Andorra) compete in the FIFA World Cup under the same conditions as France or Brazil (well, in the qualifying rounds at least).
And if 10+ players is too much FIFA also hosts Beach Football with 5 players on each side (and with other changes as well).

And FIFA doesn't prevent anyone else from playing either of these games - at their own level
(you still didn't understand what it means, what is their level = their stage of progress (wich should ≈ content) in expansion, I see that you think that you can hide behind E-sports alike system while you continue misunderstand even it, and which even in originally conceived state is still not applicable to this game; good luck on goof off for you then, I see no reason to validate myself at the expense of miserable people).

And similarly in other games - you are free to run 100m or marathons outside of the Olympics; and as long as the tournament has a certain level you are competing against the world records.


I see your vision, and it's a hollow wasteland. (no you don't )
(And I don't understand the nod to Ulduar - that had at least 4 difficulty levels and wasn't in Vanilla.)

Ulduar still have only 1 difficulty (players are free to complicate it themselves (but this is done through internal mechanics, and not through complexity choice) if they're in a hurry (so making encounter faster) or want to get a certain bonus, including optional bosses) and you literally understood nothing of FIFA explanation. All this continues to testify only about your absolute lack of understanding about discussed stuff. Strange creature you're

[Harbour]

Now its pretty much given. Twitch and Youtube gave WoW Classic an opportunity to spread around the social elements such as drama, epic and funny moments. Retail WoW lacks of it. I dare to say now WoW Classic gonna be more popular than WoW in 2004-5.

[glowpipe]

Now its pretty much given. Twitch and Youtube gave WoW Classic an opportunity to spread around the social elements such as drama, epic and funny moments. Retail WoW lacks of it. I dare to say now WoW Classic gonna be more popular than WoW in 2004-5.

You honestly expect wow classic to get over 7.5 million subs ?? Thats... just so not gonna happen EVER

[Raggun]

Not a chance, it appeals to a niche market who very much enjoy it but are nevertheless the minority.

Yeah the same niche market that wow was based on. HRM... We'll see is all I can add. No sense trying to guess.

[Sensa1]

Or you stopped enjoying the progression as it is inevitable similar contents followed by similar contents, and blamed it on some unrelated change.

And you don't have to do the contents on different difficulty levels in BfA; it's just that the option exists - and one could argue that TBC introduced it with ZA.

I stopped progression raiding for reasons unrelated to having to kill the same bosses at the beginning of a fresh lockout as you previously contended. You can keep trying to guess why I stopped raiding to justify your stance but it doesn't change the fact that "optional" different difficulty levels of the same content is different from progression raiding in Vanilla.

For many, such content is unenjoyable and a poor excuse for additional max level content. In fact, it's a cheap cop-out that requires little additional resources and is akin, going back to my original car building analogy, to producing identical cars with slightly more horsepower and calling it a day and otherwise not further differentiating between product lines.

[Fred Skinner]

Bellular just released a pretty good video on this subject

Well, Bellular mixes up the teachings of a management book with what is actually keeping people playing games.

I think he does a big mistake there. Playing games should not be about work and relationshiips, but just about having fun with great gameplay. And utilizing groups should be optional, and based on your expectations. Forcing people to play in groups is the wrong way to go.

[Vladar]

If they dont create new content for classic such as new raids and dungeons after Naxx the game will die off because its an MMO and need updates to survive long term.

[Sensa1]

Well, Bellular mixes up the teachings of a management book with what is actually keeping people playing games.

I think he does a big mistake there. Playing games should not be about work and relationshiips, but just about having fun with great gameplay. And utilizing groups should be optional, and based on your expectations. Forcing people to play in groups is the wrong way to go.

Gotta disagree here. Bellular made some very salient points and whether he referenced a book about management or a book about game theory it' pretty irrelevant as both deal with the psychology of how people interact and how to design systems to foster and promote that integration.

Based on your comment regarding being "forced" to group with others it's pretty obvious that Classic WoW is not the game for you. It's likely all the aspects of Retail that appeal to you and all the aspects of Classic that appeal to me are mutually exclusive. That's ok, by the way, because this really shouldn't be about "my version is better than yours".

With both versions soon to be available and my subscription helping to support the ongoing development of Retail (Classic will have little or no future development costs) it is really a win-win for those who prefer Retail. Unless, of course, Classic decimates the Retail population. As an ardent supporter of Classic who despises the current Retail version of WoW I highly doubt that will happen because, as Bellular repeatedly states, Retail is geared to a different generation of player most of which are unlikely to enjoy Classic. Retail will live or die based on how it competes for the attention of the new generation of gamers vis a vis other new games and not whether or not Classic does well.

The one point that I think Bellular fails to fully address is how much responsibility should be taken by the developers for the current state of WoW and how much responsibility rests with the player base. As he acknowledges, as the person with the fingers on the buttons the developers can incentivize almost any content to achieve a desired outcome. So some of the changes in WoW that he vaguely suggests were regrettable were the direct result of the developers incentivizing certain content. This does often, admittedly, become a which came first chicken (developers incentivize content) or egg (players demand changes that aren't good for the game) argument.

But you could also look at many of the changes to the game and accuse Blizzard of greed. A lot of the "mechanisms" that modern gaming rely on are monetization manipulations based on slot machine principles that promise, but often don't always deliver (RNG), instant gratification. Blizzard had a golden goose in WoW that was steadily increasing it's player base without many of the subsequent changes that were implemented. You could argue that the mistake made was trying to have WoW, instead of other Blizzard IP's, compete for players that prefer instant gratification. The end result of that was to strip core elements of what made Classic both great and very successful out of the game.

The dissatisfaction of the player base that Bellular refers to, generally, with Retail WoW is largely the result of the instant gratification monetization mechanics the game employs that while often giving you a quick hit, like any other addiction, are ultimately unfulfilling and coming down from the "high" is always a bummer.

Personally, I believe the game would have been much better off implementing a few of the subsequent QoL changes (emphasis on a few) and sticking to its principle game components and Blizzard developing separate IP's (like Diablo 3, Destiny 2 etc) to compete for gamers addicted to the instant gratification model.

[Trigsten]

I see the nay sayers are still alive and well in a dead game on a dead forum

[plz delete account]

I think a lot of players will realize they are wrong, whenever they start to play classic.

Have you guys seen venruki newest video, he was one of the biggest naysayer and retail baby, but look at him now.

No.
By the very nature of how paying for either/both will be (they come on the same subscription), they by very definition cannot overcome each other. Intrinsically intertwined.

[Kithelle]

I see the nay sayers are still alive and well in a dead game on a dead forum

Says the person who claims something is dead yet can't seem to get it out of his mind.

[Lurker1]

Did I comment in this thread already? I don't remember

Anyways, "overtake" meaning classic would have multiple millions of players? (inb4 omegalul retail has literally 5 players, omegalul Drusin)



Nah doubt it, on launch maybe.

I'll be there either way though Has Blizz released realm names yet? We gotta get together as nerds and decide what server we are playing on since we can't just realm transfer. And we have to force all the streamers onto one realm so we don't get infested

150k only is awful and that was FREE lol its going to be less then ouch.

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

What you been smokeing i want some inless your a grandpa in real life you will and most players will always want NEW content sooner or later and Classic is not that at all the main reason i and most players PLay a MMOrpg in the first place the endless content of expansions coming.

[Trigsten]

Says the person who claims something is dead yet can't seem to get it out of his mind.

This forum is a cesspool of shrills, including u.

[Lazuli]

Classic will be the pvpers haven, mark my words. Pve nerds will stick to retail after they nolife through vanilla content in a month.

[ness333]

I'm genuinely shocked that anyone at all still plays retail.