Blizzard: "you don't want private servers". Where have I heard this before?

[Nikkej]

The downfall of classic is the community. Every content patch we had until now did come with any form of exploit, content-rush, forum rants and whatsoever because of the min-max mentality of the community. It started with people rushing pre raid bis gear in a couple of days and then complaining about having nothing to do after their weekly mc/ony raid. Right now its the pvp meta, which completly went nuts because of premades and wpvp ganking. At least from my memory back in vanilla people were more chill about the gear and content mentality or at least we weren't that organised with premades, bis lists and so on. Blizzards surely can be made responsible for some parts (for example underestimating the impact of wpvp without bgs), but many problems are just community made. I guess thats what you get for playing a video game which came out 15 years ago, where everything is already figured out and fully documented. In my opionion classic lost a lot of its former charme because of this constantly content-rush (just look at the upcoming bwl release and everyone already planning to clear bwl in 2-3 hours).

For myself I have to say I'm still enjoying classic alot. I mean I had to burry my rank 10 dream which isn't achievable with a full time job right now, but the game really brought back good memories from my childhood.

This should be spread all over the net.

And I have 5 lvl60s, all with 100% mount and more or less fully geared. One char is rank 12 to.


Its all about The community. But you can avoid it by join some native guild and live in that bubble. Question is, how fun is that?

Imagine everyone know Who i am in classic, at my server. Some call me a legend, give me shit, some hate me obv.

If I login to retail and game, noone outside of the guild know Who i am or what i do, what i can perform or how good or bad of a player i am.

I am just reduced down to a ilvl number in lfg window.

[Satelliteyears0o]

Where are you at now bro? What do you have to say about the raging success that classic has been?

He wasnt wrong, classic dwindled down.

[scelero]

The amount of people who wanted to play CLASSIC servers are capped. I highly doubt there are people out there just now hearing about these servers and coming back.

You saw it's height within the first few weeks the CLASSIC servers went up. You won't see any more growth from here on out with it. You'll see it try and reach the numbers it had in the first week or two with content patches, but it's already lost players who aren't coming back.

I just don't see how you believe it's only going to get bigger when it's declining everyday just by simple logic.

[ZazuuPriest]

The amount of people who wanted to play CLASSIC servers are capped. I highly doubt there are people out there just now hearing about these servers and coming back.

You saw it's height within the first few weeks the CLASSIC servers went up. You won't see any more growth from here on out with it. You'll see it try and reach the numbers it had in the first week or two with content patches, but it's already lost players who aren't coming back.

I just don't see how you believe it's only going to get bigger when it's declining everyday just by simple logic.

itll get bigger with tbc and then explode with wotlk

[Maester]

itll get bigger with tbc and then explode with wotlk

If only they could make a retail expansion with similar design choices to TBC & WoTLK, but give us brand new content.

Maybe retail is too far gone...but they could give us a new Classic expansion instead then. TBC & WoTLK would be good fun but, been there done that so where's the true excitement once the nostalgia wears off?

[PenguinChan]

If only they could make a retail expansion with similar design choices to TBC & WoTLK, but give us brand new content.

Maybe retail is too far gone...but they could give us a new Classic expansion instead then. TBC & WoTLK would be good fun but, been there done that so where's the true excitement once the nostalgia wears off?

If a large chunk of people continue to play Classic - WotLK (Classic and WotLK will be the obvious ones which are more popular), then I'm sure Blizzard will pay more attention to the designs from back then and what made them fun. They already had their eyes on classic and realized, yeah, it's successful (To whatever degree). We're getting some flavor back in our classes with Shadowlands which at least shows they're looking and contemplating it.

[HulkSmasher]

The thing about private servers is they are quick to adapt. Like there is a Vanilla+ private server coming out soon that's fixing many of the flaws in Classic. Which is exactly what many people wanted.

[Akka]

Even as a classic fan, that dude clearly never played vanilla.

It used to be a thing to skip raiding on patch day or the day after because it would be a technical impossibility.

"patch day, no play"

---

For the rest of the thread, it's still funny to see the butthurt naysayers grasping at all straws available to try to claim that Classic isn't a success, even with factual facts hitting them in the face.

[arkanon]

"patch day, no play"

---

For the rest of the thread, it's still funny to see the butthurt naysayers grasping at all straws available to try to claim that Classic isn't a success, even with factual facts hitting them in the face.

Agree. It's obvious to anyone without a bias that classic has settled somewhere around 200,000 players which is amazing! I think classic settling down with roughly 10% of retails playerbase shows there really was a core playerbase committed to sticking with classic.

I hope it stays around this level and continues to enjoy the success it has had, and although only 10% of retails numbers, I hope it shines bright in it's big brothers shadow.

[clevin]

I want to know where the hell people are pulling these figures from, because besides a small mod which only a tiny percentage use, and a lot of speculation and guesswork, there is NO way to actually check, since Blizzard removed the capability to do so.

Yet here we are, people *still* raving about how popular it is, when they have no evidence to back it up beyond conjecture on both sides.
Good Lord.

And there's no way for the people who say it's Unpopular to back their assertions... but you didn't call that out. Hmm....

- - - Updated - - -

Um it kinda already has. I have friends who quit back in 8.1 who have just resubbed to play Classic, aswell as check out 8.2. I really have a hard time seeing classic as NOT a cash grab. "Let's bring back an old thing everyone loved. Make it free if they are subbed. We will get old players back, and even new players."

WHAT? People came back to play something they enjoyed? And a for-profit company gave people a product and CHARGED FOR IT? Alert the media!

[Kpmk]

This didn't age well lol

[Akka]

Agree. It's obvious to anyone without a bias that classic has settled somewhere around 200,000 players which is amazing! I think classic settling down with roughly 10% of retails playerbase shows there really was a core playerbase committed to sticking with classic.

I hope it stays around this level and continues to enjoy the success it has had, and although only 10% of retails numbers, I hope it shines bright in it's big brothers shadow.

I'll give you that : you're trying at least to find new way to spill your bullshit. Backhanded compliments instead of the usual straight dissing, that's a bit more subtle. Here is a cookie.

[lollerlaban]

Fixed for you.

That's pretty impressive considering there's dead servers all over the place less than 1 month ago.

[clevin]

Err...I have? Repeatedly?

I have stated multiple times that there is no way to count numbers or figures, so anything for either argument is entirely speculation and guesswork. And also said it doesn't matter, because the whole thing is so fucking childish, as to be unreal.
Hell, the quote of mine you did even states at the end "no evidence to back it up beyond conjecture on both sides"

Or did you ignore that totally so you could go on a little tirade of your own?

Good work, Broham.

Hey asshole? I quoted your entire post. where you called out Yet here we are, people *still* raving about how popular it is,

Your inability to make a point clearly is your problem. And no one is going to read the entire thread to see if you said something else. Oh and.. .that's not even close to a rant.

[arkanon]

I'll give you that : you're trying at least to find new way to spill your bullshit. Backhanded compliments instead of the usual straight dissing, that's a bit more subtle. Here is a cookie.

Which part is bullshit? Jesus you lot are so sensitive. Most data gathering websites have classic around 200k players - this is a number that has come up over various websites through various data gathering systems. Could they be wrong? absolutely! Those same websites track retail to have around 2M players currently, which seems about right.

I just dont see the issue here? Or are you one of those "classic has more players than retail" clowns?

- - - Updated - - -

And there's no way for the people who say it's Unpopular to back their assertions... but you didn't call that out. Hmm....

I think anyone claiming that there isnt a core demographic who absolutely love classic and think its the bees knees should be ignored. Secondly, i think anyone claiming that it is a raging success and has brought blizzard millions upon millions of dollars are just idiots who will believe anything Blizzard say without slowing down to read quotes carefully, and think through all the possibilities.

For example there remains a group of individuals who genuinely believe classic had ZERO cost to develop and launch, and therefore the game is pure profit - this is an idiotic notion. On the other side, there are those who believe classic is "dead" - an equally idiotic suggestion.

If Classic can maintain around 150-200k players, with it jumping up to 200-250k with each raid release, i think thats a real success.

[MoanaLisa]

Let's keep in mind that Runescape rarely tops out over 120,000 players and generally sits somewhere between 80K and 100K for EOC/OSRS combined. That's great for them but it's not close to WoW.

Success is relative. 120K for Jagex is awesome. Blizzard wouldn't likely find that acceptable to continue to support an IP.

http://www.misplaceditems.com/rs_tools/graph/ for Runescape population numbers (weekly granularity).

[chronia]

That's pretty impressive considering there's dead servers all over the place less than 1 month ago.

What do you consider "dead" though, even the server that was the first server to be pronounced "dead" (EU flameslash) with like 4% alliance and 96% horde pop still had almost a 1000 ppl publicly logging raids on warcraftlogs. Considering how low the number in % of active population is that not only raids, but also logs their raids publicly i really wonder how "dead" those servers actually are. In general ppl are using terms like "dead server", "dead game" way to loose.

I think anyone claiming that there isnt a core demographic who absolutely love classic and think its the bees knees should be ignored. Secondly, i think anyone claiming that it is a raging success and has brought blizzard millions upon millions of dollars are just idiots who will believe anything Blizzard say without slowing down to read quotes carefully, and think through all the possibilities.

For example there remains a group of individuals who genuinely believe classic had ZERO cost to develop and launch, and therefore the game is pure profit - this is an idiotic notion. On the other side, there are those who believe classic is "dead" - an equally idiotic suggestion.

If Classic can maintain around 150-200k players, with it jumping up to 200-250k with each raid release, i think thats a real success.

Your kind of contradicting yourself there though. 150.000 to 200.000 core player is already +- 2.25 to 3 million in revenue a month.
Now look at Blizzards own statement in their investor call, where they say that subs (subs not MAU's, this is important) have more than doubled since Q2, since more than doubled is hard to substantiate, lets keep it at double, ppl were guessing that retail had between 1 million and 3 million subs before Classic launched. Lets lowball that and go with 1 milllion. Double that means that classic would hae brought in +- 1 million players (maybe even a tad more since retail probably lost players in Q3 and Q4 due to the lack of content, but lets still lowball it).

So thats 1 million of subs from lets say september to 31/12/2019 as they stated the end of Q4, so thats 60 million in revenue.
Now you are right, Classic will have had devrelopment costs and it will have had ongoing costs, but its quite believeable that Classic will actually have raked in mllions of revenue ver the past few month and probably will keep to rake in millions of revenue the coming months if they can keep 66k+ subscribed.
What is actuall profit of that number is harder to guesstimate, but the millions of revenue should be there.

[ZazuuPriest]

If only they could make a retail expansion with similar design choices to TBC & WoTLK, but give us brand new content.

Maybe retail is too far gone...but they could give us a new Classic expansion instead then. TBC & WoTLK would be good fun but, been there done that so where's the true excitement once the nostalgia wears off?

anyone at blizzard who had the ability to make a game with any amount of soul has long since been sacked. Literally the best we can hope for is re-releases of TBC and LK.

[lollerlaban]

What do you consider "dead" though, even the server that was the first server to be pronounced "dead" (EU flameslash) with like 4% alliance and 96% horde pop still had almost a 1000 ppl publicly logging raids on warcraftlogs. Considering how low the number in % of active population is that not only raids, but also logs their raids publicly i really wonder how "dead" those servers actually are. In general ppl are using terms like "dead server", "dead game" way to loose.



Your kind of contradicting yourself there though. 150.000 to 200.000 core player is already +- 2.25 to 3 million in revenue a month.
Now look at Blizzards own statement in their investor call, where they say that subs (subs not MAU's, this is important) have more than doubled since Q2, since more than doubled is hard to substantiate, lets keep it at double, ppl were guessing that retail had between 1 million and 3 million subs before Classic launched. Lets lowball that and go with 1 milllion. Double that means that classic would hae brought in +- 1 million players (maybe even a tad more since retail probably lost players in Q3 and Q4 due to the lack of content, but lets still lowball it).

So thats 1 million of subs from lets say september to 31/12/2019 as they stated the end of Q4, so thats 60 million in revenue.
Now you are right, Classic will have had devrelopment costs and it will have had ongoing costs, but its quite believeable that Classic will actually have raked in mllions of revenue ver the past few month and probably will keep to rake in millions of revenue the coming months if they can keep 66k+ subscribed.
What is actuall profit of that number is harder to guesstimate, but the millions of revenue should be there.

As soon as an entire faction is gone <25% or less in ratio then it's dead. It doesn't matter if there's thousands of hordes when the server is dead with 10 people in Ironforge at peak hours, forcing the remaining people who missed the free transfer opening to buy a server change unless they want to be miserable.

Even worse when it's PVP servers who are now De facto PVE servers

[Darkimpact]

Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.

Uh what? Blizzard literally just had a discussion about how successful Classic has been and openly discussed future content post P6. If Blizzard wants to invest further it was successful plain and simple.