Unpopular opinion: J. Allen Brack was right

[Xyrax]

Everytime I see this thread I laugh.

The insecurity is so strong. Its like, if BFA is so great and Classic is so dumb, why arent you playing it? Why do you have so many posts on a classic wow forum, in a classic wow thread leading up to classic wow launch attempting to convince everyone that classic wow isnt fun as Blizzard literally panics about the overpopulated servers for like the third time since name reservations opened lol.

But nah, its okay. Continue posting here while the hype builds and builds and everyone gathers to enjoy the game. Any moment now you will successfully convince everyone that they aren't having fun, as they are.... having fun.

God speed.

[anon5123]

kid

Looks like you're not interested in rational debate. Okay then, to the ignore list you go

[Doffen]

Looks like you're not interested in rational debate. Okay then, to the ignore list you go

Lol, this guy. Using terms like kids about people playing BfA then comes with this shit.

How did the report thing go? You know, actually being honest and discussing properly would take you places. Every thread I have seen you participate in you either talk trash about people or using the good old " I ignore you and report your perfectly fine post" because the only thing you do here is talking bullshit.

[Bodakane]

Thats the same thing that idiots say about retail, do you have a brain?

You know that retail has new content on a schedule, and Classic won't? So yes I have a brain and can use it.

You?

[Gorsameth]

Judging by what we're seeing, they're actually worried they underestimated just how popular it is going to be. I'd fairly confidently say they've most likely already made back what it cost them to recreate it via the subs who kept / resubbed their accounts just to reserve names.

"you think you do but you don't!"
"people don't want vanilla!"

meanwhile, game hasn't even launched yet and blizz is having to open more servers due to overpopulation, and that's just the people that bothered to reserve character names
...no, I'm pretty sure we want vanilla because we enjoy it more than the dumpster fire that retail currently is.

It all still falls within 'you think you do, but you don't'.
"you think you do" makes you reserve names and prepare to play.
"But you don't" will be the 80-90% of people that stop playing within 1-2 months.

Blizzard isn't being stingy on servers because they thought no one would want to play, they are stingy because they fear most people will abandon it, leaving dead servers in their wake if they aren't stingy with them.

[Blayze]

A lot of people are hoping they'll feel the same way as back then, but even a mechanically-identical game wouldn't achieve that; even the people you'll interact with who were there back then won't be the same as they were at the time.

I could go and play some Team Aerial Combat on Tribes 1 today, but what made that game special for me at the time was always the specific people and clans I interacted with.

[anon5123]

It all still falls within 'you think you do, but you don't'.
"you think you do" makes you reserve names and prepare to play.
"But you don't" will be the 80-90% of people that stop playing within 1-2 months.

Yeah, and 2 months after release when the game is still thriving, you're going to say "4 months"

and then "6 months"

and then "a year"

and then "3 years"

and then....

It's pitiful that you can't find anything better to do with your time than sit around and shitpost on forums about a game you don't like, trying to convince people to stop having fun and stop enjoying the game, and that it's going to """""""""""fail"""""""""""" in some way that you keep changing the definition of.

[Thirza]

There is a good chance I'll be playing classic with some friends but I am going to boil down the main appeal for me.

- Actual RPG levels of immersion
- Epic gear actually feeling epic
- Monsters actually being dangerous
- Cool stuff not gated behind microtransactions
- Gold being valuable
- A lot of shitty story telling deleted

Unpopular opinion about fantasy settings: Facing adversity is compelling because it helps you relate to the character. Racism, sexism, religious zealotry(witch hunts, inquisition) are things that existed in the past and fantasy is the past + the magic that dissuades scientific progress. It is meant to be dangerous and exciting, not a utopian ethics lesson.

addendum: you can still show that racism is bad in a narrative where people are predominantly racist

[Gorsameth]

Yeah, and 2 months after release when the game is still thriving, you're going to say "4 months"

and then "6 months"

and then "a year"

and then "3 years"

and then....

It's pitiful that you can't find anything better to do with your time than sit around and shitpost on forums about a game you don't like, trying to convince people to stop having fun and stop enjoying the game, and that it's going to """""""""""fail"""""""""""" in some way that you keep changing the definition of.

I have no problem with you having fun, I have no problem with Classic being popular. I'm sure there is a group of people that will totally enjoy playing Classic.

But I also think 80+% of people that are now looking forward to Classic have an unrealistic view of what the game is and will quit when the find out reality doesn't match their expectations.

I played Vanilla, they are some of the best memories of my gaming life. Even if the game is the same the experience won't be. That feeling is gone, I was a different person then.

[Sensa1]

A lot of people are hoping they'll feel the same way as back then, but even a mechanically-identical game wouldn't achieve that; even the people you'll interact with who were there back then won't be the same as they were at the time.

I could go and play some Team Aerial Combat on Tribes 1 today, but what made that game special for me at the time was always the specific people and clans I interacted with.

the whole "you can't go home again" idea that people like yourself posit as a rationale for why people are being misguided in their enthusiasm for Classic and why it will ultimately fail relies on 2 basic premises that aren't true;

1) it assumes that Classic fans aren't rational to begin with and don't have the intellectual capacity to recognize that a) Vanilla had flaws and b) that they can't replicate their original experience fully;

2) it also ignores the fact that there are numerous design elements in Classic that differ dramatically from Retail and are, for many, more engaging and rewarding. Engaging and rewarding enough, in fact, that they will be sufficient to provide sufficient enjoyment even though it isn't 100% faithful to the original experience (the feeling you got the 1st time you did X in Vanilla and/or doing X in Vanilla with a particular group of friends).

But guess what the appeal of Classic goes beyond nostalgia and becomes a chance to make new enjoyable memories and meet new people and do things you didn't do the first time because the core mechanics of the game (flaws and all) hold up well and will still provide untold hours of enjoyment.

[Bodakane]

I neither hate nor love the idea of Classic. I'm not a fan boy of either side. I have questions though.

The Nilla Fan Bois, aren't happy if someone asks questions.

[MasterHamster]

The funniest thing about the "You think you do, but you don't" is that it's right and oh-so wrong at the same time.
At the time, it was uttering that players don't actually want classic. In that way he was completely wrong.

But the actual essence of what he meant was that just because a lot of people say they want x for the game doesn't necessarily mean that's what they'll actually enjoy.
Players don't know what they want, and if game development was a democracy WoW would have died before it's first anniversary.
Bosses dropping dozens of items, exp required per level at ridiculously low levels, reputation that can be maxed in an afternoon, gear vendors with tier sets from the previous raid tier. That's the kind of shit players would vote in a majority for. Always letting short-term "fun" beat long-term health of the game.
It wouldn't make for a fun game experience for long.

If you've ever jumped onto one of those dumb insta-max level private servers and got to buy full t3 and BiS weapons, you realize that the game is fun for about 15 minutes afterwards. There are no goals, there are no obstacles or challenges.
Game development is indeed very much about saving players from themselves.

And BFA is in many ways the epitome of player feedback.
It genuinely is what feedback has told them over the years, together with data of course regarding how people actually play the game.
But people don't like it.

[S7orm]

mop > wotlk/legion > cata > wod > classic/bfa, two worst eras of the game are gonna be out at the same time. so lame.

You forgot to include the best expansion

[Sensa1]

The funniest thing about the "You think you do, but you don't" is that it's right and oh-so wrong at the same time.
At the time, it was uttering that players don't actually want classic. In that way he was completely wrong.

But the actual essence of what he meant was that just because a lot of people say they want x for the game doesn't necessarily mean that's what they'll actually enjoy.
Players don't know what they want, and if game development was a democracy WoW would have died before it's first anniversary.
Bosses dropping dozens of items, exp required per level at ridiculously low levels, reputation that can be maxed in an afternoon, gear vendors with tier sets from the previous raid tier. That's the kind of shit players would vote in a majority for. Always letting short-term "fun" beat long-term health of the game.
It wouldn't make for a fun game experience for long.

If you've ever jumped onto one of those dumb insta-max level private servers and got to buy full t3 and BiS weapons, you realize that the game is fun for about 15 minutes afterwards. There are no goals, there are no obstacles or challenges.
Game development is indeed very much about saving players from themselves.

And BFA is in many ways the epitome of player feedback.
It genuinely is what feedback has told them over the years, together with data of course regarding how people actually play the game.
But people don't like it.

What you are describing, in many ways, is what WoW became not what it was. As I said before in this thread the "spirit" of that comment from J. Allen could be directed at Retail WoW as easily as it could at those wanting Vanilla. The problem with modern WoW is a singular lack of vision on the part of Blizzard combined with an acquiescence to player requests that in and of themselves may or may not have been bad individually but the combined effect of which has produced a very unsatisfying and soulless game.

[Kolvarg]

RS was completely dead. (...) RS, even with their “thriving” Classic servers that came out are still super dead compared to all MMORPGs, or at least the ones people have heard of.

Have any reliable sources on this? Google trends seems to show that while RS was indeed on great decline, it was nowhere near dead and in fact had more interest than other MMORPGs, and thanks to OSRS is still today on par:
https://trends.google.pt/trends/expl...%2Fm%2F0jt2y_q

Also, WoW has also lost "most" subscribers. By 2014 WoW had over 100M created player accounts. Even if there still would be 10M subscribers, that would still mean most people who have played are no longer playing.

[Gavll]

You seem to like dull gameplay. Did you play raids in all iterations?



You know nothing about majorities and minorities.



Well, or the classic hype is over. I am sure you find another game to hope it will be the next classic experience.

People like you do not get it is about the first time, and WoW classics biggest strength was massive novelty, even considering the fact it was the first MMORPG which also gave content to casual gamers.

Blizzard did not follow that path consequently. So here they are now, with retail being driven by a massive premade group bias from the devs, and classic being a big hype about outdated gameplay and attitudes, which may have been the first casual gamer content offering MMORPG of its time, but which is not adressing nowadays casual gamers anymore.

LMAO. Because I enjoy all the aspects of vanilla, I somehow don't get that I'm only supposed to enjoy it the first time I play it? Riiiiiiight. Gotcha.

I must've been mistaken when I was enjoying playing on PServers for 4 years! Silly me! And I'm clearly woefully mistaken in looking forward to enjoying it all over again for another 2 years!

And of course, you are the oracle of all knowledge regarding majorities and minorities despite providing zero evidence of any kind!

People like you don't get that other people enjoy vanilla for what it is and no amount of whinging by yourself will ever change that.

[pankind]

Yeah, and 2 months after release when the game is still thriving, you're going to say "4 months"

and then "6 months"

and then "a year"

and then "3 years"

and then....

It's pitiful that you can't find anything better to do with your time than sit around and shitpost on forums about a game you don't like, trying to convince people to stop having fun and stop enjoying the game, and that it's going to """""""""""fail"""""""""""" in some way that you keep changing the definition of.

The goalposts will be continually moved, eventually they will claim it will die when naxx is on farm for the majority of the population.

[Oomkinboomkin]

And if you actually thought about those numbers for 2 seconds you'd realize how much of an epic fail Nost was. 150k ACCOUNTS active after 12 months, 650k ACCOUNTS inactive for a FREE game that supposedly according to the classic fanbois "will be more popular than retail". It lost the majority of its playerbase in under a year before shutting down when it was free, and people think that now people have to pay for it, it's going to more popular? Sure, they can think that, but if they think that then I have a shiny diamond I want to sell them.

Imagine being this wrong

Instead they wasted resources on an experiment that will most likely fail and they just move on to give us another mediocre and bland xpac, no one will benefit.

hahaha, reading this forum is such a comedy gold mine

[time0ut]

I'm having a blast in Classic. It is everything I thought it would be. My guild, some of whom I've been playing with for almost 15 years, has a small thriving core and enough to fill a 40 man raid every week. It isn't the holy grail of gaming some people portray it as, but it is a great game, in part due to its shortcomings.

[TheFirstOnes]

As much as I love Classic atm, I always return to retail to see what's up. And while a lot of it is still real trash, I have a newfound appreciation for certain aspects of it. Specifically the raiding, art, and music. All 3 of those things are still neigh perfect in retail, and as much as I "like" raiding in Classic, the shit's just too easy. Hence, why I still play retail, for the actual hard raiding.