Game Design Article about Classic Vs BFA Analysis:

[Relapses]

I don't believe I said any of that. I said people don't stop doing something they love. In psychology, it is explained that humans tend to take the path of least resistance because we're wired to do things that make us the least uncomfortable / bring us the most pleasure. People don't just choose not to do something if it brings them joy. The only reason they'd stop is if changes were made that outweighed their love of said thing.

I also never said that nobody ever quit ever o.o. You're putting up strawmans here.

A strawman is the only way to combat an assertion as ridiculous as yours. “People don’t quit things they love,” you say, as if every player who has ever played WoW intended to play it indefinitely until the end of time. Games have a shelf life. Subscription services, especially, have a shelf life. There’s only so long people will subscribe to something no matter how much they “love” it. Your rose-tinted assertion assumes that everybody who played Classic played it because of the way it was and anybody who ever quit, quit because of the way it wasn’t. I simply cannot agree with this assessment because, as I mentioned on the previous page, we have first-hand accounts from people who have actually seen player engagement/retention data and game play changes are so far down the list of reasons people quit it isn’t even worth mentioning.

But there's a lot of proof that your theory of "if the game never had changes not been made, WoW wouldn't still be here today!" isn't logical.

For one, it's a popular franchise. There are tons of popular franchises that are still popular with their fanbase even after long periods of time with no major changes. There have been Vanilla private servers since TBC with some people playing for many years. Another good example is Diablo. Diablo 2's last expansion was released in 2001. Players continued playing the game and replaying for over a decade before Diablo 3 finally came out. Or how there was like over 14 years between Duke Nukem releases.

Don't underestimate fan dedication.

Fan dedication only means so much if the competition is putting out a better product. WoW might seem immortal today but I stand by the reason for that being that they were the leaders instead of the followers. All of the features you claim to be anti-MMO could have released in another casual-oriented MMO and had a significant impact on WoW. (Additionally, WildStar’s ultimate failure is proof that the demographic for the opposite of WoW, a “hardcore MMO,” is non-existent.)

Now, you can argue that I have no way of knowing this but yet again, WoW still being here 15 years later means something. You can’t have it both ways and argue that had WoW not made changes it would be more popular then use WoW’s now-proven immortality as a support of its staying power. We simply don’t know what would have happened, but we do know a few game developers did try to dethrone WoW and absolutely ludicrous amounts of money was spent trying to do so. I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to assume some changes added to WoW were added to keep themselves ahead of their competition.

For two, I didn't say NO changes at all. I said massive changes that made the game feel less like an RPG. That could be a huge reason why people walked away. It's like if you enjoy cheese sandwiches and get them for lunch every day. One day they're out of your favorite cheese, but offer you a slightly different one. This is fine, because it's still a cheese sandwich. But then one day they say we're out of cheese and give you a BLT. This is not the same sandwich you know and love.

This is what it's like comparing Classic to Retail. Two different sandwiches.

And yet again, you assume that what appeals to YOU must have appealed to everybody. WoW has such a broad appeal that it’s mind-numbingly reductive to refer to it as a fucking cheese sandwich.

[LionSinMaikeru]

A strawman is the only way to combat an assertion as ridiculous as yours.

That's again, not really an argument.

People don’t quit things they love,” you say, as if every player who has ever played WoW intended to play it indefinitely until the end of time. Games have a shelf life. Subscription services, especially, have a shelf life. There’s only so long people will subscribe to something no matter how much they “love” it. Your rose-tinted assertion assumes that everybody who played Classic played it because of the way it was and anybody who ever quit, quit because of the way it wasn’t. I simply cannot agree with this assessment because, as I mentioned on the previous page, we have first-hand accounts from people who have actually seen player engagement/retention data and game play changes are so far down the list of reasons people quit it isn’t even worth mentioning.

"games have a shelf life" really, can you explain this one? Can you explain how people go back and replay old games they've beaten dozens of times? Can you explain the large group of people who went from Classic server to Classic server every time one was shut down for over a decade? Or how Everquest has been out for over two decades(?) yet has thousands of people still logging in? Same with Neopets, Runescape, etc.

Your personal attacks don't detract from the fact that your premise is demonstrably inaccurate.

Fan dedication only means so much if the competition is putting out a better product. WoW might seem immortal today but I stand by the reason for that being that they were the leaders instead of the followers. All of the features you claim to be anti-MMO could have released in another casual-oriented MMO and had a significant impact on WoW. (Additionally, WildStar’s ultimate failure is proof that the demographic for the opposite of WoW, a “hardcore MMO,” is non-existent.)

You disproved yourself in this statement. There has been quite a few times during WoW's life where other companies have put out games that were superior in one way or another. Yet if you tally up the population of the largest Vanilla WoW servers, you'll have a higher population than some of these new MMOs which tend to die in 1-3 years. Can you explain that?

Now, you can argue that I have no way of knowing this but yet again, WoW still being here 15 years later means something. You can’t have it both ways and argue that had WoW not made changes it would be more popular then use WoW’s now-proven immortality as a support of its staying power. We simply don’t know what would have happened, but we do know a few game developers did try to dethrone WoW and absolutely ludicrous amounts of money was spent trying to do so. I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to assume some changes added to WoW were added to keep themselves ahead of their competition.

???

You're arguing something completely different. I don't think *some* changes weren't improvements, but I do think a lot of changes pushed people away. Even if WoW is still relevant (and it is) that doesn't mean the changes they put out were superior to other options on the market.

And yet again, you assume that what appeals to YOU must have appealed to everybody. WoW has such a broad appeal that it’s mind-numbingly reductive to refer to it as a fucking cheese sandwich.

I'm not assuming anything. The fact that subs have essentially tripled in the last two months is enough evidence to me, that a lot of people prefer the way WoW used to be vs. some of what it is currently. But clearly we're not going to agree on this, so I'll just say have a good day.

[Specialka]

This is getting hilarious at this point. How many times do I need to repeat myself? I am not defending WotLK and it's incredibly dismissive to imply I am. You want to talk about evidence supporting a world view counter to the facts but you're the one trying to place blame of modern WoW's issues on WoW's most successful expansion. (I also argue that WoW still being here is evidence these issues aren't nearly as bad as people on this forum like to imply.) So yet again, I repeat: I don't really care who is right or wrong, I care about people making shitty arguments and supporting their shitty arguments with completely unknowable information.

Dude, you are trying to educate a brickwall, good luck with that. He does not even know the life's circle of a product.

[Mukind]

article trying to force me to disable adblock?

no lol

BOYCOTTTT

[Notdev]

Compare the 12 quarters before WotLK was release with the quarters of WoTLK. Obvious dramatic change. Problem was WoTLK. Can't say blizzard would have lost subs with perfect xpac. Thats just not true. Ever since WtoLK, there has been people quiting the game asking for classic..

So you're saying with perfect xpacs WoW subs would have never stopped growing?
WoW was going to decline eventually. 5+ years in after the main/most popular story line concluded is pretty much where anyone would expect growth to stop. The vast majority of people don't stick with the same game for 15+ years..

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I'm not assuming anything. The fact that subs have essentially tripled in the last two months is enough evidence to me, that a lot of people prefer the way WoW used to be vs. some of what it is currently. But clearly we're not going to agree on this, so I'll just say have a good day.

Do you have a source for the tripled number?
Also, its still early. Does your point still hold true if 90% of people quit classic in 6 months? (I say this as someone who is 60 on classic if that means anything).

[sam86]

A long, meandering article that barely has a cohesive point and propagates the absolutely fucking idiotic idea that WotLK sucked because that's when subscriber growth ended

anyone who say that is an idiot who didn't even spend 1 micro second on check truth of that statement, entire china playerbase that was almost 4 million player in TBC were literally denied to play wow in wrath, wrath growth was pure EU+USA, no more china, china banned wrath and didn't allow it until massive changes that were done only prior to cata release by 2 weeks, u can even see that now with simple google to find that DK is called unhappy knight in china, and how entire mob modules were removed from wrath mobs/bosses etc
wrath had the most grow of all wow, and that was stupidly visible, if wrath grew only 2 million from TBC why suddenly everyone knew at least someone playing wow during wrath era, with ~13 million sub, 5 of them are from china (assuming zero grow in china), wow during wrath era was the hottest game and most ppl tried it, including casual players

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Do you have a source for the tripled number?
Also, its still early. Does your point still hold true if 90% of people quit classic in 6 months? (I say this as someone who is 60 on classic if that means anything).

we know that bfa has less than 2 million player total from the disaster leak early last year that everyone focused that it showed sub number and debate if it was true or false and ignored the fact that a f8cking data leak happened and should check their credit card in first place
how many play now zero idea, but BFA is lower than 2 million, and back then ppl should focused on fact that website had a security hole that show active subs, but since that is almost 2 years ago, we can now take from that incident the leak number without problem

[LionSinMaikeru]

Do you have a source for the tripled number?
Also, its still early. Does your point still hold true if 90% of people quit classic in 6 months? (I say this as someone who is 60 on classic if that means anything).

Yes, SuperData Research.

And it doesn't matter that it's still early or not. The point is that the number of people willing to come back and play the game as it was *years* ago is higher than the number of people willing to play the game as it is today.

[Specialka]

Yes, SuperData Research.

And it doesn't matter that it's still early or not. The point is that the number of people willing to come back and play the game as it was *years* ago is higher than the number of people willing to play the game as it is today.

If I am not mistaken, you only need the sub to play Classic while you still need to buy stuff to play modern wow.

And ironically, you need to commit more time in modern wow to achieve something than in Classic since the leveling in modern wow is only the doorway to end game.

[Kithelle]

A long, meandering article that barely has a cohesive point and propagates the absolutely fucking idiotic idea that WotLK sucked because that's when subscriber growth ended.

Fuck this article.

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...in your opinion.

WoW's biggest issue is that it appeals to an enormous playerbase. A playerbase that largely doesn't ever visit a forum or give the faintest fuck about how the game plays out. This article correctly identifies this fact then doubles down on the fallacy that because Classic is currently successful that WoW must've really screwed the pooch when Blizzard began to change things more accessible. The author of the article points to WotLK as the beginning of the end because that's when sub growth stopped. This is wrong for two reasons: 1.) The long term success of Classic is yet unknown and 2.) It's infuriatingly stupid to support any argument with subscriber levels since we don't have complete information.

Perhaps I'm too pragmatic for my own good but I would prefer to look at this from the angle that WoW wouldn't still be here today had the changes not be made. Regardless, it's still wayyyy too early to say whether Classic will have long term success and it's certainly too early to begin fantasizing about a version of retail WoW sans-accessibility.

Yeah...it's amazing...we're only a month into the game and only a fraction of the endgame has been released...layering isn't even removed yet and they celebrate like these will be the populations forever. Blizzard launched classic perfectly to entertain people between the gap of launch and Blizzcon.

People should be waiting till 2020 to see how things truly go but the classic fans want to gloat, and pretend like classic wasn't released to coincide perfectly with a time where BFA is going to be slow and people are waiting till Blizzcon to decide if they really want to stick around with retail. But they keep tooting their own victory horns even though there hasn't been enough time to tell if it will go the distance or it's just bored people looking for a alternative to BFA.

[Relapses]

Yes, SuperData Research.

And it doesn't matter that it's still early or not. The point is that the number of people willing to come back and play the game as it was *years* ago is higher than the number of people willing to play the game as it is today.

Nevermind the fact that Superdata's data is completely proprietary and they do not possess any more information than the average layperson (only internal metrics which cannot be substantiated), you completely failed to address the question that was asked. You love to frame Classic as evidence that players "prefer" the older game but you have absolutely no answer for the completely reasonable possibility that in a few months most of those players will be gone. If people really did prefer Classic and nobody ever quit a game they love, as you imply, we should be looking at about the same retention numbers six months from now as we did around launch.

(Here's where I remind you of a recent Blue post that indicated that all but six of EU's Classic realms are now down to one layer and playerbase contraction is becoming clearly evident.)

[Kithelle]

Nevermind the fact that Superdata's data is completely proprietary and they do not possess any more information than the average layperson (only internal metrics which cannot be substantiated), you completely failed to address the question that was asked. You love to frame Classic as evidence that players "prefer" the older game but you have absolutely no answer for the completely reasonable possibility that in a few months most of those players will be gone. If people really did prefer Classic and nobody ever quit a game they love, as you imply, we should be looking at about the same retention numbers six months from now as we did around launch.

(Here's where I remind you of a recent Blue post that indicated that all but six of EU's Classic realms are now down to one layer and playerbase contraction is becoming clearly evident.)

They're too busy celebrating victory to even be brave enough to address that one month is way to early to tell if something is a fad or phenomenon.

[Voidism]

If the game would've continued to grow, we'd be at like 1 billion players right now. I seriously doubt that many are interested in WoW.

[Frozenbro]

Compare the 12 quarters before WotLK was release with the quarters of WoTLK. Obvious dramatic change. Problem was WoTLK. Can't say blizzard would have lost subs with perfect xpac. Thats just not true. Ever since WtoLK, there has been people quiting the game asking for classic..

But classic doesnt hold 12M subs right? where are they? classic is a failure! see how dumb this argument is? thats how you guys look like when basing stuff on subs and growth, now give it a break and use your braincells to articulate better arguments.

[LionSinMaikeru]

Nevermind the fact that Superdata's data is completely proprietary and they do not possess any more information than the average layperson (only internal metrics which cannot be substantiated),

If you don't want to believe the data, I don't know what to tell you. It seems like you're only going to believe information directly from Blizzard when they made it clear they don't intend to give out that information anymore. Gee, I wonder why.

you completely failed to address the question that was asked.

I disagree.

You love to frame Classic as evidence that players "prefer" the older game but you have absolutely no answer for the completely reasonable possibility that in a few months most of those players will be gone.

You have no way of knowing that "most of those players will be gone", so this is you making an assumption.

If people really did prefer Classic and nobody ever quit a game they love, as you imply, we should be looking at about the same retention numbers six months from now as we did around launch.

If sub numbers go down it could be from BFA's side, not necessarily from the Classic side. It could be a result of people who are bored with BFA and uninterested in Classic who are unsubbing. But that's probably hard for you to imagine.

(Here's where I remind you of a recent Blue post that indicated that all but six of EU's Classic realms are now down to one layer and playerbase contraction is becoming clearly evident.)

And here's where I remind you that a lot of people didn't want layering in the first place so this is good + there's no evidence to suggest player contraction is happening. Where's your data for that? Because I've noticed no difference in the population of my server.

[Specialka]

If you don't want to believe the data, I don't know what to tell you. It seems like you're only going to believe information directly from Blizzard when they made it clear they don't intend to give out that information anymore. Gee, I wonder why.



I disagree.



You have no way of knowing that "most of those players will be gone", so this is you making an assumption.



If sub numbers go down it could be from BFA's side, not necessarily from the Classic side. It could be a result of people who are bored with BFA and uninterested in Classic who are unsubbing. But that's probably hard for you to imagine.





And here's where I remind you that a lot of people didn't want layering in the first place so this is good + there's no evidence to suggest player contraction is happening. Where's your data for that? Because I've noticed no difference in the population of my server.

You are funny. Classic fanboy classic attitude.

[LionSinMaikeru]

You are funny. Classic fanboy classic attitude.

You are also funny. Classic case of not having an argument so you resort to personal attacks.

[Specialka]

Just making a statement. If you find it insulting, /shrug

You dismiss everything that does not suit you. Remind me bit of north korea tbh.

[gamingmuscle]

Compare the 12 quarters before WotLK was release with the quarters of WoTLK. Obvious dramatic change. Problem was WoTLK. Can't say blizzard would have lost subs with perfect xpac. Thats just not true. Ever since WtoLK, there has been people quiting the game asking for classic..

Looking at a single metric does not give give you a good idea on the performance of a product. For every 4 people that played Vanilla, 3 quit. By the time WotLK was released WoW had probably saturated its market. Customer Adds as a whole had been declining way before WotLK. But churn had been decreasing which made WotLK better at keeping customers than classic was. It just wasn't adding them as fast enough to fully counter churn. Which frankly as the product ages was to be expected.

[Relapses]

Looking at a single metric does not give give you a good idea on the performance of a product. For every 4 people that played Vanilla, 3 quit. By the time WotLK was released WoW had probably saturated its market. Customer Adds as a whole had been declining way before WotLK. But churn had been decreasing which made WotLK better at keeping customers than classic was. It just wasn't adding them as fast enough to fully counter churn. Which frankly as the product ages was to be expected.

I wouldn't bother. I explained this exact phenomena to that dude in another thread here. Not only did he ignore this post, he later called me a moron for not agreeing with him that because more people use the internet in 2019 that Classic should be more popular than ever.

[Halyon]

Yet not everyone seems to feel like that. =X
I don't believe the article said that it was a clear majorital feeling, since it presented arguments that point in your direction too.

Why are you playing classic if you are not enjoying it? We have BFA live, with new content too. Just to understand why you were forcing yourselve to play it if you didnt enjoy, not saying that you should or shouldnt.

Then it's hardly academic, but more just another opinion. In the OP article I mean.

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If you've only been playing for 12 years I don't think that really qualifies you as a veteran.

Oh how gatekeeping of you.