Is Classic dead already?

[Bhanzai]

Still having a blast!

[Will]

Herp derp, let's use the forum popularity as a guide to how alive or dead the game itself is!

[Thelin]

ah another thread of classic vs retail. We all play WoW, lets collectively stfu for a change and enjoy whatever version of the game you play.

[Aggrophobic]

Well, they're not.

Ok, boss.
Not many players on the ones I started on in any case.

[MoanaLisa]

we just literally had 2 days ago a proof from blizz themselves that classic is alive more than wow was in years, meaning that either TBC or Wrath had more wow subs than classic has now

No, Classic is not dead. Some servers still require layering so the game is doing OK. Good luck to them after layering is turned off in a couple of days.

On the flip side what was really said two days ago is that classic had a great start in August-September. It's true, it did. That was a report on the results of a calendar quarter that ended six weeks ago with a very successful launch four weeks before that.

It says or proves nothing about where Classic is today. I hope it's doing well but no one can say for sure with respect to the realms that are less popular and this constant use of results that were current a couple of months ago to "prove" something about the game today is weak and transparently irrelevant.

[Xi Jinping]

Seems like people are still havin a blast in there

Personally I only log on once a week to clear Molten Core

[Schattenlied]

This is a pretty generous interpretation of the information given.

Ion literally said classic has millions of players, it's not an interpretation, he said those exact words.

[zetitup]

Say that to my login queue! "The game is dead, leave the queue!"
Also, phase 2 starting on thursday, i bet tons of ppl wants to pvp ;P

[Xjev]

Yeah numbers will go down and they may merge servers, however Classic is type of a game which will retain a sustainable number of sticky players for a long time.

[Utrrabbit]

I keep reading that everywhere.

Can classic players confirm or deny?

Not even close. In fact its already been shown that its still growing and has a higher playerbase than bfa.

[Kiri]

we just literally had 2 days ago a proof from blizz themselves that classic is alive more than wow was in years, meaning that either TBC or Wrath had more wow subs than classic has now

I will go out on a limb and say you are referring to this statement:

World of Warcraft® Classic drove the biggest quarterly increase to subscription plans2 in franchise history, in both the West and East.

But that statement actually doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. Because that does not actually doesn't make a statement regarding how well WoW was doing the past few years, period.

See, this is about a quarterly increase in subscription plans. I.e. going from Q2 to Q3, the number of subscriptions increased by a larger number than they ever before did from one quarter to the next. And yes, that includes both the increase from the release of Wrath and TBC. But that doesn't mean that more players are right now subbed than they were during either of those expansions. Why? Because it is just an increase in player subs.
Simple example of numbers (randomly taken): Say Vanilla had 2.5 Million players when the next expansion hit, TBC 3 and BFA 2 (when Classic hit). Now say that upon the expansion/Classic hitting, new subs were added like this:
Vanilla: +20 000, now at 2.52m
TBC: +25 000, now at 3.025m
BFA: +50 000, now at 2.05m

If you take those numbers, then Classic release would still cause the biggest sub increase in franchise history. Yet, there would still be less subs active than in either of the two periods before that. For that example, both statements are true. That's how math works.

Of course, we do not have the actual numbers for the current case. Maybe for those before, but I am too lazy to look for it. Either way, that statement quoted above means nothing other than that more people subscribed anew (or, more likely, re-subbed) for Classic release than did for the releases of those expansions. It's all we can say. And it does make sense, if you consider the Classic movement in general. Those people had allowed their subs to lapse, while those content with retail continued theirs. Hence, them all coming back at once creates the biggest bump, especially if the game also attracted new players with this version. A very predictable result, of course. This is not meant to somehow downplay that, just to rectify the incorrect assumption that a sub increase tells us much about relative sub numbers.

Sub increase has always been a flawed metric anyway, since the bulk of WoW players is continuously subbed. I mean, just last year around the same time we had this in the earnings call:

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth set a new day-one franchise record with more than 3.4 million units sold-through.

And that was clearly not the biggest sub increase in history, otherwise Classic couldn't be. In fact, the number has notion to do with that. It just sounds impressive.

The fact of the matter is: Acti-Blizz has a direct interest in cherry-picking information like that. BFA clearly was neither the best, nor most successful expansion there ever was in WoW. But it set that record, so that was reported. Likewise, they reported the best possible thing for Classic release. Now, that doesn't mean that Classic is doing terrible or anything like that. Just some perspective. Both of these records don't tell us the sub numbers at all. We can infer some things, maybe, but not make blanket statements about the health of the game solely based on that.

[Usernameforforums]

No its not. Millions are still playing.

Where’s the numbers?

[Nnyco]

Yep its dead.

[crakerjack]

I wouldn't say it's dead, but there definitely has been a drop off. Queues were insane at the beginning, even going into the 3-4 weeks afterwards. Now I can logon at any given point of the day, even on a tuesday without a queue and I'm on whitemane.

What people are overlooking is that Ion said this has been the biggest addition of subscriptions ever, meaning more people returned September 27th than at any other point in WoW's history. That doesn't address the current population. Without figures one can't definitely say how many are playing right now, but if 2.5+ million returned back then and queues were insane, even after the addition of more realms and free transfers, and now they're non-existent, that indicates that there are less people playing. Classic was severely hyped and rightfully so, but I'm curious how many people gave it a shot because they wanted a taste of the nostalgia or were convinced, but didn't enjoy it as much as they thought they would.

I know for me personally, I burnt out on classic after hitting 60. Did a couple MC's, engaged in WPvP and ran dire maul a few times, but I just wasn't hooked the way I was back in the day. I'll give it a whirl again come phase 2 when they introduce the PvP ranking system.

[Utrrabbit]

The lack of queues has nothing to do with anything. Blizzard released a post saying the upped the server caps.

Original server caps were 3x that of a retail full server and they doubled that. Thats why you dont see many queues. Servers are still full.

A low pop server in classic is actually the equivalant to a medium to high pop in bfa.

[Jurwi]

I wish it was.

Why? I mean seriously, what on earth would you gain from Classic being dead?

- - - Updated - - -

I keep reading that everywhere.

Can classic players confirm or deny?

It's not dead, no. Players numbers have 100% surely gone down already though. There just isn't that much (interesting) stuff to do in Classic to keep everyone interested.

[Utrrabbit]

A...single layer medium server in classic is nearly 4x the population than a full server in bfa.


Yup dying.

[munkeyinorbit]

It is absolutely hilarious that you're really non-ironically using WoD as an example. LOL.

If you think that 'WoD bump' in subscribers stuck around longer than a month, it really isn't a stretch to believe that you think there's still millions playing classic.

If you actually played in WoD you would know that WoD was highly praised. The launch was an utter shit cluster but after that everyone loved it. Then came the content drought...

Whether they stuck around for more than a month or not is irrelevent. It still had the biggest bump till now. I personally believe the bump we are seeing now is probably due people who are not that long out of the game with about 200k from long term unsubscribed. But that's an opinion but it could be confirmed\denied when 8.3 comes out. My theory is that most of the players that tried Classic played legion and BFA at some point. If classic has a lull while retail has a surge then that would confirm it with out a doubt. If it doesn't then I am wrong.

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A...single layer medium server in classic is nearly 4x the population than a full server in bfa.


Yup dying.

Head canon. At least 7 times more reliable than real data since 2004.

[lollerlaban]

Not even close. In fact its already been shown that its still growing and has a higher playerbase than bfa.

Now THAT'S delusional belief on an astral plane. You'd be lucky if Classic has 10-15% of it's original playerbase after all the tourists have left

- - - Updated - - -

A...single layer medium server in classic is nearly 4x the population than a full server in bfa.


Yup dying.

Retails are bigger btw

[FlubberPuddy]

Now THAT'S delusional belief on an astral plane. You'd be lucky if Classic has 10-15% of it's original playerbase after all the tourists have left

I'm ok with tourists leaving, it helps lessen queue times