After playing the game, do you agree with Blizzard's expected "steep drop-off"?

[MoanaLisa]

Dude its going to have a bit of a steep off, but nothing more than what's bfa is getting atm, you remember BFA launch, Legion Launch etc.. Classic is way better at retaining players than launch of those expansions.

I think there will come a little drop off, then people will realize classic is way better mmo than retail and come back and it will grow in subs. Classic is like a fixed version of BFA tbh.

Calm down. I wasn't writing about a drop-off in BFA. The thread topic is about a drop-off in Classic which is clearly happening. No one but Blizzard will know how many subs are going to which game although if I had to bet the majority of them will be playing both. Also you nor anyone else here has anything more than faith about retention. Faith is fine; we all need some faith. I'm well aware that Blizzard designs to sell expansions and less about keeping people around.

The bottom line is play one, the other, or both depending on your mood. We should want both games to be successful.

[sephrinx]

Considering I had a Queue last night at 11pm to get onto my server, it seems to have MORE people joining up, instead of players dropping off.

[--Code--]

Yes. I think the game will drastically drop off eventually. I don't really know when, maybe 8.2.5 or 8.3 on retail? But it doesn't really matter because when a phase releases everyone will come back to play anyways.

[Spoonman]

As long as Retail is shit Classic will keep being extra popular

Classic isnt popular because its good. Its because its not as bad as BFA is

If they create something great for next expansion retail Im pretty sure you will see your steep dropp off at that time as all retail players will go back

[cparle87]

They are actually right, the every moment of playing Clasic is a suffering and the only reason I am playin it is that I didn't buy BfA in time, while I was to lazy to unsubscribe, so I'm actually only subscribed to Classic and now it's too late to buy BfA, so I'll just wait for BfA being merged into WoW Retail as all previous expansions couple of months before the release of next one. I will have to endure Classic until the next expansion arrives.

If only you knew how many times I've imagined how consistent and actually fun my leveling could have been in Retail and how it would be a valid story enveloping in the zone i'm in, not a sequence of unrelated quests text of which you would forget while struggling to complete them few levels (i.e. days) after you accepted these into your quest log

What do you mean it's too late? Eternal Palace is still relatively new, and it's still the Tomb of Sargeras, maybe even the Nighthold, of BFA. We have one more raid tier, maybe two, left in this expansion.

[NickCageFanatic]

It will take a deep dive in a month or so, due to lack of endgame outside raids

Because WQs and your weekly M+ are so much better endgame outside raids, right?

[arkanon]

Because WQs and your weekly M+ are so much better endgame outside raids, right?

Arena, IE, Warfronts, Bgs and RBGs.

[MoanaLisa]

Blizzard is still in a shit ton of trouble. They just don't release [compelling] products anymore.

I change the quote a little to highlight a big problem with Blizzard right now. Compelling or otherwise they haven't released anything really new since OverWatch.

Blizzcon this year is going to be a big thing one way or the other. Big because they're going to make a lot of announcements or big because they aren't.

They haven't really been the same since Titan collapsed. Some product, a few games, no new IP's. Their current IP's could use a rest.

[Zenfoldor]

One thing that is kinda different from me and the current retail mentality is farming. Back in the day, it wasn't necessary the progression raiding or the challenge I enjoyed, but it was playing in the raid with my friends, farming gear, and gearing up.

I think some in classic have this same mentality. It also seemed to take longer to gear up back in Vanilla. So for me, at least, I doubt the end game will be stale no matter how easy it is. It is the repetitive farming, and hanging out with friends, and enjoying the game that I liked, not the difficulty or lackthereof, of the raids. I think it isn't the same in retail, last time I played anyway. Raiding was stressful and a boring task. I think a less stressful raiding environment with longer gearing time and more repetition is funner, in a way, for my personal playstyle.

I can still remember farming MC for Perdition's Blade. It took me forever to get, but boy was I excited. BWL was one of my favorite raids ever.

Anyway, Kirtonos East PVP still had queues tonight, I was surprised, and felt good that it meant the server population was doing well, and steady there. With a name like kirtonos, surely the better named servers are still having heavy queues, lol. Honestly, I didn't expect queues this far into launch, but I'll take em. Good to see the game seeming to be healthy.

[Schattenlied]

What I see is people eager to group up but also to go their own ways right after a quest. To the most, including myself wow classic is a personal thing, or a thing with friends they already have. That shows a level of hesitation to commitment which in turn indicates a level of uncertainty about continuing the game.

Having said the above, I don't see myself quitting it anytime soon, but I do wish there will still be people around playing it after a while!

I did the same thing back in actual vanilla, most people I encountered did as well... I don't see how this is indicative of anything.

[Zenfoldor]

As long as Retail is shit Classic will keep being extra popular

Classic isnt popular because its good. Its because its not as bad as BFA is

If they create something great for next expansion retail Im pretty sure you will see your steep dropp off at that time as all retail players will go back

Yes, if retail got good again, I would be back in a second, but I won't be back for anything under the BFA header. That xpak burned me, so I'm waiting for the next one(which I expect to be a return to form).

[Cronovey]

I change the quote a little to highlight a big problem with Blizzard right now. Compelling or otherwise they haven't released anything really new since OverWatch.

Blizzcon this year is going to be a big thing one way or the other. Big because they're going to make a lot of announcements or big because they aren't.

They haven't really been the same since Titan collapsed. Some product, a few games, no new IP's. Their current IP's could use a rest.

I think part of the issue is that the demand for new branches of current IP's is so high (Diablo 4 anyone?) that they're struggling to meet the demands of their current players and simultaneously develop new IP's that are actually fun and will have staying power.

My guess is new WoW expansion and some sort of Diablo 4 announcement at Blizzcon this year, perhaps teasing at TBC/WotLK classic realms or some form of progression system for Classic.

As for the topic at hand, I think we all expected at least some drop off in play for Classic. It was inevitable; the odds of it launching and then growing in size after some of the hype wears down was so improbable that I don't think anyone was predicting that. The real question is how far will it drop off? The servers still being launched and transfers being offered means there's still a quite significant player base for the game but as people get further in and have to do more grinding and less of the easier questing at the start of the game, how many will tough it out? That's really the question we're going to have to wait for an answer to.

[arkanon]

It was inevitable; the odds of it launching and then growing in size after some of the hype wears down was so improbable that I don't think anyone was predicting that.

Did you ignore the countless threads and posts saying exactly this? That after launch, retail would die, everyone would swap over to classic, and it would grow to be some amazing juggernaut of an MMO (again) as millions upon millions of people realised they were wrong, and classic was the way forward in mmos.

This forum was littered with them, and still is at times.

[FlubberPuddy]

There's going to be a big dropoff for sure, this is why Blizzard instituted Layering instead of adding a crap ton of servers (then there was a large group of people picking one or two servers simply because they either wanted to "play with all the streamers" server or wanted the "I hate streamers"/"no streamers" server) so Blizzard created some more servers, but still much less then however many they had back in WoW's prime days.

Once the tourists leave, then the layers get smashed and you'll have your population without the excessive amount of those simply playing it because it's "the thing" right now.

[thatmikeguy]

They will get money from it somehow, probably will give things in retail for accomplishments, exactly as they said they would not do.

[Ticj]

And people are complaining about the grind in WoW today.

Azerite grind, Benthic gear grind, etc.

Nobody is complaining about the dungeons or raids or normal questing. It's complaints about dailies, complaints about reps, complaints about gear grinds, etc.

WoW classic had all of those, except in a much less varied fashion.

That something takes longer to do and is more time-consuming all the while does not make it more compelling in the long-term.

Are you saying there are dailies in vanilla? Because there aren't any. Honestly I think the appeal for a lot of classic players is the fact that WoW classic doesn't have that constant end game grind. There is a finish line, with endgame being an added bonus to finishing the journey.

[wageage]

Its gonna be intressting how many that will resub at the end of the month

[Raelbo]

My friend went through 10 years of painstaking med school, residency and than surgical residency, she plays some live but dropped classic because its too slow, does she lack patience?

Hopefully, as a successful doctor, she'll have many patients!

[Aeula]

I can’t speak for others, but for me I fell off around level 20. I arrived in Darkshore after clearing Westfall and Loch Modan of quests and just couldn’t be bothered continuing, it’s just not fun. Uninstalled not long after.

I think Classic won’t see a huge drop off for another month or so, once people hit 60 and realise there isn’t much to do.

[Aphrel]

tried to finish off some quests in winterspring yesterday. Was bloody impossible.. every quest hub was full of people camping the spawns.

The servers arent dying. they are just as full as ever...

No wonder everyone elvels in dungeons, blizzard is focing us to with having this fucking many people on each layer making questing near impossible.