Classic is the best thing that could have happened to retail.

[kaminaris]

I thought this too, and then I played it. I immediately understood BFA for what it is, its a slot machine inside a simulation created by statistics and algorithms. It's contrived, hollow and relies cheap tricks to keep us hooked.

Lets not kid ourselves. If anything is close to slot machine then it's a classic.
Pulling lever = killing mobs
Hoping 3 icons align = hoping quest items drops

And repeat over again.

Don't even try to use that logic on current wow because LFR player will never be as highly geared as Mythic players. Sure he will get lucky once in a while with titanforge. But it's not even close to RNG you have in classic where you won't see upgrade for months doing dungeons and raids repeatedly.

It's the classic to relies on heavy grind and low droprates that keep you hooked. It's not even cheap tricks, its obvious traps.

[Hyrja]

I definitely notice a huge chunk of the players on retail are playing Classic.
Dungeon queues on low levels are way longer than usual and many major cities are almost empty (argen dawn eu)

[oathy]

Know its very early days yet
but 2nd day running Rustfeather had just a few players killing it. Normally its 40+ per spawn.
already seen a difference on AH, Items that normally sell fast come back unsold.

Ion already mentioned about the pruning,Sincerely hope they take the lessons what people like
about Classic and reset retail to reflect that. when you make Classes/specs so Generic and boring
no matter what new zones or stories you add those classes feel stale.

[Armakus]

a split playerbase is never a good thing. Just look at the amount of toxicity everywhere they talk about wow now days. I firmly believe they should have focused on making retail better and get players back there. Not split the playerbase like this

But better is subjective. As someone who will be playing classic for the next few months/year, I also thoroughly enjoy retail. Legion is my favorite expansion, by far. They're practically different games.

[Revamp Man]

a split playerbase is never a good thing. Just look at the amount of toxicity everywhere they talk about wow now days. I firmly believe they should have focused on making retail better and get players back there. Not split the playerbase like this

I mean if you think about it

There's not much of a split

I have 3 friends who are playing classic but don't touch BFA and might come back if things change

This is 3 new players that otherwise wouldn't be playing this they aren't a part of a split community

- - - Updated - - -

Know its very early days yet
but 2nd day running Rustfeather had just a few players killing it. Normally its 40+ per spawn.
already seen a difference on AH, Items that normally sell fast come back unsold.

Ion already mentioned about the pruning,Sincerely hope they take the lessons what people like
about Classic and reset retail to reflect that. when you make Classes/specs so Generic and boring
no matter what new zones or stories you add those classes feel stale.

Give me master loot back and no more rental abilities

[Lahis]

The only thing stopping this is potentially you have to buy WoW + BFA (I think?).

You don't need to buy WoW. Subbing gives you access to Retail up to Legion and Classic.

Only BFA needs to be bought.

[Sariengrey]

In Blizz's, and Activisions eyes, I'm sure they are not seeing anything as split base. Everyone is paying that sub fee no matter which version they play and in the end this only happened because of money. Don't fool yourself thinking anything other wise. Business and Money. Period.

[Sansnom]

BFA caused blizzards stock price to increase by over 15%.

Just numbers. After all its important what you enjoy and not others.

Sadly that is not the case. For some, it is about what they have and what others do not have that is important.

[Madkat124]

Lets not kid ourselves. If anything is close to slot machine then it's a classic.
Pulling lever = killing mobs
Hoping 3 icons align = hoping quest items drops

And repeat over again.

Don't even try to use that logic on current wow because LFR player will never be as highly geared as Mythic players. Sure he will get lucky once in a while with titanforge. But it's not even close to RNG you have in classic where you won't see upgrade for months doing dungeons and raids repeatedly.

It's the classic to relies on heavy grind and low droprates that keep you hooked. It's not even cheap tricks, its obvious traps.

Quest drops are not slot machines.Only certain mobs can drop items, and you're constantly getting xp/gold/mats. You might not get what you want, but you're getting something useful.

I think what most mean by slot machine is titanforging. When any item can be a top item, they start to lose their identity and the game starts to feel weird. When you know Weapon A is best in slot, but get a titanforge on Weapon B, you're not going to feel satisfied. Or maybe you do get Weapon A but it's no the iLvl you wanted. Additionally, a lot of the "better luck next time" rewards feel useless. Azerite just goes in to artificially inflating your gear (making HOA level higher with very few things to distribute or see progression). Speaking of, Azerite traits are also terrible and adds to the slot machine feel (or did, idk if they changed that). Gold inflation also makes a lot of gold rewards seem pitiful.

It's weird, because you can't really point to a single problem retail has. A lot of criticism comes from wonky systems that interact with each other poorly.

[rrayy]

I'm planning to play both, with classic being the one I play way less from time to time. I agree that the existence of Classic is not hurting anyone, though I disagree that it's "funding" retail in some way. It really is not, retail will always be making significantly more not only due to subs, but also due to cash shop cosmetics and wow tokens.

it is funding retail. You have to sub to the retail game to get access to classic.

- - - Updated - - -

I like your enthusiasm and positivity..but saying that "stock was just reported to spike by 6%" is just bullshitting people like corporations like pull wool over our eyes.

Blizzard's stock went up from 45$ to 52$ and settled at 50$..sooo..whatever the math is...but it was at 80 $ in September 2018...so...really it is still not what it used to be.

And before you ask for a source or facts (that you btw never provided in your speculations) here it is:

https://www.wowhead.com/news=294755/...launch?webhook

Execpt that it did spike. IT doesn't matter what the stock price was in 2018. THe stock price spiked due to classic. The only oe BS'ing here is you as you are tryng tyo point to something to try to claim that spike didn't happen. The spike DID HAPPEN.

[Bane-Thunder-God]

I expect retail to undergo another class overhaul to make all classes extensively fun like Demon Hunters.
Dropping RPG altogether and usher into an Action game territory with a solid MMO base underneath.

OP is right!
We will always have Classic now, so Blizz are free to do any kinds of stuff on retail and something really cool can emerge.

This. This is I would like to see. Let them have fun with Retail making the game more fun which im all in for. I have no interest in Classic WoW been there Done it to Death.

[Pony Soldier]

I'm not against Classic I just think people are overreacting right now. Everybody is in a honeymoon phase right now saying how much better Classic is and how much more fun it is compared to retail WoW. It's all going to wear off and people will grow tired of it. Like a new expansion WoW always blooms for a while then dies off after a while. Same thing will happen here.

If anything were to come out of this Classic WoW thing is that I hope Blizzard learns what people want from WoW and realize that there were some things in Classic that actually worked and was liked by many core WoW players and they find ways to incorporate those things into retail WoW to hopefully make it feel like an RPG again. If they can do that then maybe we wouldn't even need a Classic WoW.

[Dundebuns]

I'm hoping they're looking at some form of metrics from Classic, to find out exactly what people find engaging about it and then start pushing those reasons into future expansions. We've lost a lot over the years, and I hope to see some of the better stuff come back.

[Bangdingow]

I'm hoping they're looking at some form of metrics from Classic, to find out exactly what people find engaging about it and then start pushing those reasons into future expansions. We've lost a lot over the years, and I hope to see some of the better stuff come back.

I think the beauty of Classic is that it's hard to quantify why it's so engaging. There is more of human element, the players experience feels less controlled by Blizzard and more impacted by themselves and the other players in the game. I think Blizzard needs to take some sociology courses rather than look at metrics.

[roboscorcher]

a split playerbase is never a good thing. Just look at the amount of toxicity everywhere they talk about wow now days. I firmly believe they should have focused on making retail better and get players back there. Not split the playerbase like this

It's not really split though. I'd wager that a majority of players will play both games on and off.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the beauty of Classic is that it's hard to quantify why it's so engaging. There is more of human element, the players experience feels less controlled by Blizzard and more impacted by themselves and the other players in the game. I think Blizzard needs to take some sociology courses rather than look at metrics.

I have been thinking about what makes classic more fun, and I think that some things can be fixed, but others cannot. For example, the big rush this week was playing on a FRESH realm. No one owned ANYTHING when they logged in on Monday. Right now, any minor upgrade you find is seen as a status symbol. On launch night, I was so proud to be the first guy running around with a 2handed shovel.

The devs can do a lot to make retail fresh and challenging (I like the idea of making professions more relevant to progression) but the only way they can mimic the 'fresh server' feel is by wiping our existing characters' progression (terrible idea) or by making them irrelevant (this happens with professions every expansion). The only other thing they could do is have seasonal servers, where each season boots the existing characters to other servers and then wipes the whole server clean. That could be a ton of fun too.

[Woobels]

Lets not kid ourselves. If anything is close to slot machine then it's a classic.
Pulling lever = killing mobs
Hoping 3 icons align = hoping quest items drops

And repeat over again.

Don't even try to use that logic on current wow because LFR player will never be as highly geared as Mythic players. Sure he will get lucky once in a while with titanforge. But it's not even close to RNG you have in classic where you won't see upgrade for months doing dungeons and raids repeatedly.

It's the classic to relies on heavy grind and low droprates that keep you hooked. It's not even cheap tricks, its obvious traps.

I think you completely misunderstood what he was getting at and you also completely misunderstand the issue, there's a definitive end to the rng in Classic quests, BfA is designed like a hamsterwheel that goes on forever, it's fine if you're into this (a lot of people are, see mobile games) but it's not the same in Classic.

[kaminaris]

I think you completely misunderstood what he was getting at and you also completely misunderstand the issue, there's a definitive end to the rng in Classic quests, BfA is designed like a hamsterwheel that goes on forever, it's fine if you're into this (a lot of people are, see mobile games) but it's not the same in Classic.

There is no such thing as hamsterwheel in current wow unless you make it yourself. It's a mentality problem because people want to chase non-existent bis and 0.1% upgrades. And funny enough, even worse "mental hamsterwheel" exists in classic. As the only way to get bis is to run raids and other stuff just to never see your item drop.

While, you can just clear content having a lot worse gear.

[ramayana1423]

All it has done is split the playerbase and reduce the amount of resources that should be spent on retail.

[unbound]

I my self won't be too invested in classic as I am with retail, though I will give it a shot.

That being said, I can't imagine why any retail players would be against classic. Classic is going to fund the hell out of retail with the retail sub being attached to it. Subs are climbing up because of it and Blizzard stock was just reported to spike by 6%. On top of that having classic means retail can go through drastic changes yet people will always have classic to go back to. This will be a great for both sides, can't wait to see what the future has in store.

Great idea, but you are only showing your naivety. Corporations do not invest additional money into anything because they made more money...that excess money will only be used for executive bonuses.

Blizzard stock going up is not actually a benefit to the customer. Beyond keeping it in business, the corporation simply keeps what they take. Investments are based purely on the likelihood of future income. Sorry if that bursts your bubble, but I understand the confusion as this aspect of corporate PR (that corporate stock prices somehow benefit more than themselves because reasons) has been playing out for most, if not all, of your lives.

The next WoW expansion will have exactly as much effort put into it as Blizz finds to be financially beneficial. It will likely involve more effort than BfA because, in reality, BfA cost less than any other expansion they have done to date, and the sub loss is more than they were expecting. This, however, was going to happen regardless of how well Classic did, how much money is coming in now, or any other factor people want to toss out other than Blizz's financial expectations resulting from said expenditures.

That said, enjoy Retail while I enjoy Classic.

[Purpleisbetter]

Yes it is.

Because it's a wake up call.

A reminder that you cannot cheap out on many things.

Time to reboot the franchise.