What is the long term plan, if any?

[Jurwi]

This question comes up a million times across a million threads though, it`s either the low chance of Classic+, or the TBC servers, but it`s anyones guess at this point

That's a no chance, not low chance. Classic doesn't haven enough players left to warrant investing so much into further developing it in the form of Classic+.

TBC I suppose could be a possibility since they already have the experience of refactoring retail client to run Vanilla content, so it should be fairly trivial to make TBC run on it as well.

[Relapses]

That's a no chance, not low chance. Classic doesn't haven enough players left to warrant investing so much into further developing it in the form of Classic+.

TBC I suppose could be a possibility since they already have the experience of refactoring retail client to run Vanilla content, so it should be fairly trivial to make TBC run on it as well.

There's still development time involved since they have to use the reference client to build the game. From the interviews I've read it's a bit like copying homework on a larger, more meticulous scale. TBC is definitely very exciting (for me especially since my own nostalgia brings me back here since it's when I first played WoW) but there are still issues to consider moving forward. The biggest being whether they're okay with fracturing an already-fractured playerbase. And then if so, whether to roll out TBC on everything, some TBC and some Classic or "progression servers" which constantly roll through a mixture of both. You won't find a consensus in this thread (or really anywhere) so that's why this topic is fiercely debated.

[NineSpine]

And how many of these other games have unique progression for each game mode? Progression that does not simply carry over to the other game modes? When you pick one of these game modes, how many LOCK you into that game mode forever?

You mean like how Retail and Classic work? Is that the dichotomy that you think is so implausible and impractical? Exactly what we have now?

No one has lied - people have quoted earlier posts of yours, which you have later tried to water down and alter the meaning of - When you say "everquest can do it" you very clearly are talking about the game development, not the playerbase. This is obvious because you did NOT say "everquests players dont seem to be confused" - no, you said multiple times that "everquest" can do it. From memory, EQ has like what, 8 servers total? This could be outdated, i havnt looked in quite a while, but it really is an entirely different scale.

I look forward to hearing your reply regarding my first sentence - just make sure you stretch before performing the mental gymnastics you are no doubt about to undertake.

When I brought up Everquest, it was in response to the following post: "That sounds like a logistical nightmare for Blizzard (and potentially very confusing to players). I actually mentioned this exact scenario a few pages back when I examined the Pros and Cons of each possible outcome. This option is many things for many people but may ultimately please nobody. When it comes to Classic, Blizzard's MO seems to be simplicity over everything else. This solution is anything but. I'm not discounting the possibility, but of the possible solutions it's one of the least likely."

The next time I mentioned Everquest, I stated following: “What I was referring to with my reference to Everquest was not the technical details. What I was referring to was your absurd argument that players will get confused and not be able to handle it.”

This was never about the technical details. This was always about how players would handle it, from the very beginning. You guys are deranged in your refusal to accept it. Do you think it's all an elaborate trick? Do you think I went back and somehow altered my old posts to just make it look like I was talking about something else?

Then why have you brought EQ up multiple times?

I brought EQ up once, as shown above, in response to a point about how confusing it would be for players. The next time I mentioned Everquest, I specifically clarified that I was not talking about technical details. Since then, the only people fixated on EQ are you guys, in this really bizarre attempt to put words in my mouth.

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There's still development time involved since they have to use the reference client to build the game. From the interviews I've read it's a bit like copying homework on a larger, more meticulous scale. TBC is definitely very exciting (for me especially since my own nostalgia brings me back here since it's when I first played WoW) but there are still issues to consider moving forward. The biggest being whether they're okay with fracturing an already-fractured playerbase. And then if so, whether to roll out TBC on everything, some TBC and some Classic or "progression servers" which constantly roll through a mixture of both. You won't find a consensus in this thread (or really anywhere) so that's why this topic is fiercely debated.

That is not how they described the process in the Blizzcon panel where they went into the details. That's not even close.

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That's a no chance, not low chance. Classic doesn't haven enough players left to warrant investing so much into further developing it in the form of Classic+.

TBC I suppose could be a possibility since they already have the experience of refactoring retail client to run Vanilla content, so it should be fairly trivial to make TBC run on it as well.

There are significantly smaller MMOs than WoW Classic that continue to be developed decades later. While I don't think Classic+ is likely, it's certainly possible. Even 100,000 players that are subbed because of Classic is ~1.5M per month in revenue. Clssic+ would probably build everything with existing assets, so there's no art or sound budget. It would just be a handful of designers, and even 10 designers at a labor cost of $100,000 per year each amounts to around 5% of the revenue. Obviously there are some additional costs, but the low design cost to revenue ratio shows that it really could still be a profitable enterprise.

[arkanon]

You mean like how Retail and Classic work? Is that the dichotomy that you think is so implausible and impractical? Exactly what we have now?



When I brought up Everquest, it was in response to the following post: "That sounds like a logistical nightmare for Blizzard (and potentially very confusing to players). I actually mentioned this exact scenario a few pages back when I examined the Pros and Cons of each possible outcome. This option is many things for many people but may ultimately please nobody. When it comes to Classic, Blizzard's MO seems to be simplicity over everything else. This solution is anything but. I'm not discounting the possibility, but of the possible solutions it's one of the least likely."

The next time I mentioned Everquest, I stated following: “What I was referring to with my reference to Everquest was not the technical details. What I was referring to was your absurd argument that players will get confused and not be able to handle it.”

This was never about the technical details. This was always about how players would handle it, from the very beginning. You guys are deranged in your refusal to accept it. Do you think it's all an elaborate trick? Do you think I went back and somehow altered my old posts to just make it look like I was talking about something else?




I brought EQ up once, as shown above, in response to a point about how confusing it would be for players. The next time I mentioned Everquest, I specifically clarified that I was not talking about technical details. Since then, the only people fixated on EQ are you guys, in this really bizarre attempt to put words in my mouth.

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That is not how they described the process in the Blizzcon panel where they went into the details. That's not even close.

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There are significantly smaller MMOs than WoW Classic that continue to be developed decades later. While I don't think Classic+ is likely, it's certainly possible. Even 100,000 players that are subbed because of Classic is ~1.5M per month in revenue. Clssic+ would probably build everything with existing assets, so there's no art or sound budget. It would just be a handful of designers, and even 10 designers at a labor cost of $100,000 per year each amounts to around 5% of the revenue.

You are STILL going on about EQ, and you have mentioned it in most of your posts in the last few pages. And now you compare wow classic Vs retail with individual servers having individual rule sets, game modes, limitations and exceptions. To try and measure your level of delusion, you claim to have understanding of how a version of the game would be that literally does not exist, and has never been spoken about by blizzard. "oh yeah this is PROBABLY how it would be done, and conveniently, it supports my argument! PHEW! isnt that lucky? My god thats just so convenient isnt it?"

I believe Classic plus would require a team of 40-50 devs, all on 140k per year salary. By the time Classic+ is being launched, i think its realistic to say classic has roughly 50k subs. When we start to take into account the full cost of each employee (if you think the only cost of each employee is their salary, you are completely clueless), hardware requirements, and the endless list of other overheads, suddenly it doesnt look so pretty.

See this is the problem with pulling numbers out of thin air to support your argument - both sides can do it and you are entirely unable to refute any of it.

[pinkz]

As much as I prefer Classic over Live/Retail for the MMORPG aspect, it's always been obvious that Classic lives upon burrowed time. Content that used to keep people surprised, confused and lost nowadays has a thousand and one guides exactly how to progress.
WoW classic raid content is being cleared near-ridiculously quickly, and people in Orgrimmar look like they've all been in Nihilum for half a year, gathering gear.

So what do you think Blizzards wants to do with Classic once Naxxramas is cleared? Will they keep players running naxx until people are decked in t3, or will they prefer resets?
I have to be honest, I'd prefer Blizzard doing server resets rather than people getting absolutely decked in T3.
WoW Classic will either need "resets" or Blizzard making BC/LK releases for Classic going forward.

Unless they're doing BC servers, I'd rather see them resetting everything 1-3 months after Kel'Thuzad is down, instead of watching everyone getting completely BiSed for all eternity :-P

there is no long term plan, many of the van wow key influencer's and advocate's said there will always be something to do, leveling was the beauty of van wow, along with pages more of lies...have mostly all reneged after the cash grab. key influencers are now off on other games, some come to classic wow, to grab viewers do 1-2 things then drag them to a cooking stream, GTA RP, POE, etc. etc. their talk has changed and are already talking fresh classic start servers. something they did when were hopping from one unauthorized servers to another.

[Relapses]

That is not how they described the process in the Blizzcon panel where they went into the details. That's not even close.

Except that is pretty much how they described it? I went back to watch the video from 2018 BlizzCon to make sure I wasn't missing anything just to be sure. They had a reference client that they loaded the data from 1.12 onto the modern 7.3.5 client and then realized everything was fucky so they went back and found ways to make the modern client properly interpret the data from 1.12. Without the reference client there wouldn't be a Classic WoW as we know it now so it's not incorrect to describe the process somewhat like copying homework.

[NineSpine]

Except that is pretty much how they described it? I went back to watch the video from 2018 BlizzCon to make sure I wasn't missing anything just to be sure. They had a reference client that they loaded the data from 1.12 onto the modern 7.3.5 client and then realized everything was fucky so they went back and found ways to make the modern client properly interpret the data from 1.12. Without the reference client there wouldn't be a Classic WoW as we know it now so it's not incorrect to describe the process somewhat like copying homework.

No. The abilities, quests, spawn points, and drop tables all loaded into the new client. That did not have to be copied or recreated. They go over that on the panel. What they had problems with were things like terrain loading incorrectly and some subsystems, such as hunter pet management. Some of those things needed to be massaged into place, such as the terrain issues. Others had to be recreated wholesale to be compatible with the new client, such as hunter pet management.

Making a client interpret data properly is not "copying homework". It means writing completely original code that performs the same function as old code, and it's very clear from the panel that this was a matter of copying some systems that interpret data and some subsystems entirely. Everything else worked. They didn't recreate the world. They didn't rewrite up all the quests. They didn't place all the spawn points and drop tables again.

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You are STILL going on about EQ, and you have mentioned it in most of your posts in the last few pages. And now you compare wow classic Vs retail with individual servers having individual rule sets, game modes, limitations and exceptions. To try and measure your level of delusion, you claim to have understanding of how a version of the game would be that literally does not exist, and has never been spoken about by blizzard. "oh yeah this is PROBABLY how it would be done, and conveniently, it supports my argument! PHEW! isnt that lucky? My god thats just so convenient isnt it?"

EQ keeps coming up because you people won't let it go, even when I've quoted it and shown you to be liars. That's why none of you can simply say "Here is a post about technical issues and here is where you replied to it saying EQ does it so WoW can". Instead, what we get is mealy-mouthed shit where you quote me and leave out what I was replying to or, in one case, literally leaving out the part where I said that I am not talking about technical issues.

Classic servers ARE progression servers. They already exist. All I have argued is that Blizzard is likely to expand on that currently existing paradigm rather than shift gears and go to completely static servers. You are all completely deranged, so you have somehow convinced yourselves that the currently existing progression server system cannot exist, even though it is ALREADY THERE.

I believe Classic plus would require a team of 40-50 devs, all on 140k per year salary. By the time Classic+ is being launched, i think its realistic to say classic has roughly 50k subs. When we start to take into account the full cost of each employee (if you think the only cost of each employee is their salary, you are completely clueless), hardware requirements, and the endless list of other overheads, suddenly it doesnt look so pretty.

You can believe that, but that is completely delusional. The original WoW team was 60 people. And now you think a game that requires no art development, no sound development, and just needs people to use existing assets to design new content still needs 40-50 people? That's crazy.

See this is the problem with pulling numbers out of thin air to support your argument - both sides can do it and you are entirely unable to refute any of it.

I didn't make up any numbers though. The median video game designer salary is ~65K. Your ludicrous $140K is just bullshit you made up. You know you can look up salaries, right? I don't know where you got the ridiculous idea that game designer is the job title that leads to riches.

I do appreciate how I said "labor costs" and you go "LOL SALARY ISNT ALL THE COSTS". Yeah buddy, that's why I said "labor costs'. Maybe stop jerking yourself off at how witty you are and read.

While we don't know the exact number of WoW classic players, we know the game launched with at least a million people playing, based on server queues alone. With no server closures and very few servers being dead, a ten-fold decrease seems pretty generous. There are 41 servers, one of which is still rated as Full, meaning it has reached maximum recently according to how Blizzard assigns status to servers and we know that maximum is many thousand concurrent players. Another 14 servers, more than a third, are rated High, which we know means close to Full according to Blizzard.

It simply does not make mathematical sense for the number to be 50,000.

[Relapses]

No. The abilities, quests, spawn points, and drop tables all loaded into the new client. That did not have to be copied or recreated. They go over that on the panel. What they had problems with were things like terrain loading incorrectly and some subsystems, such as hunter pet management. Some of those things needed to be massaged into place, such as the terrain issues. Others had to be recreated wholesale to be compatible with the new client, such as hunter pet management.

Making a client interpret data properly is not "copying homework". It means writing completely original code that performs the same function as old code, and it's very clear from the panel that this was a matter of copying some systems that interpret data and some subsystems entirely. Everything else worked. They didn't recreate the world. They didn't rewrite up all the quests. They didn't place all the spawn points and drop tables again.

So tell me, in your infinite wisdom, how exactly would Classic WoW as we know it today exist without a reference client that they... *ahem* copied? At this point, I don't even think you're interested in having a discussion, you're being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

Also, calling anybody who misinterprets your bogus claims earlier in the thread as "liars" doesn't really help your position. You're quickly moving into old man yelling at clouds territory here. Clearly you have this idea in your mind that Blizzard has all the tools to emulate progression servers as they exist in other games and your idea is so fucking good that anybody who doesn't agree with you is a dumb poo-poo head. You must be a blast at parties.

[arkanon]

While we don't know the exact number of WoW classic players, we know the game launched with at least a million people playing, based on server queues alone. With no server closures and very few servers being dead, a ten-fold decrease seems pretty generous. There are 41 servers, one of which is still rated as Full, meaning it has reached maximum recently according to how Blizzard assigns status to servers and we know that maximum is many thousand concurrent players. Another 14 servers, more than a third, are rated High, which we know means close to Full according to Blizzard.

It simply does not make mathematical sense for the number to be 50,000.

this was in reply to "By the time Classic+ is being launched, i think its realistic to say classic has roughly 50k subs."
Its troubling that you would try to use "ten fold" as a measure of decrease, although when people do use it in this way, its commonly accepted they are trying to say the new number is 10% of the original number. That would leave us with 100,000 right now. If you think that number wont half again when naxx is on farm, i dont know what to tell you.

You tried so hard, and got SO far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.

[NineSpine]

So tell me, in your infinite wisdom, how exactly would Classic WoW as we know it today exist without a reference client that they... *ahem* copied? At this point, I don't even think you're interested in having a discussion, you're being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

Also, calling anybody who misinterprets your bogus claims earlier in the thread as "liars" doesn't really help your position. You're quickly moving into old man yelling at clouds territory here. Clearly you have this idea in your mind that Blizzard has all the tools to emulate progression servers as they exist in other games and your idea is so fucking good that anybody who doesn't agree with you is a dumb poo-poo head. You must be a blast at parties.

They do have the tools to run progression servers. I know this because every classic server IS A PROGRESSION SERVER. Your continued denial of
This fact is growing more bizarre by the post.

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this was in reply to "By the time Classic+ is being launched, i think its realistic to say classic has roughly 50k subs."

You tried so hard, and got SO far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.

You think it’s realistic to say that classic wow will have less players than significantly less high profile MMOs that are even older than WoW. ok.

[arkanon]

You think it’s realistic to say that classic wow will have less players than significantly less high profile MMOs that are even older than WoW. ok.

Its troubling that you would try to use "ten fold" as a measure of decrease, although when people do use it in this way, its commonly accepted they are trying to say the new number is 10% of the original number. That would leave us with 100,000 right now. If you think that number wont half again when naxx is on farm, i dont know what to tell you.

Out of interest - how many of these less-high-profile games have mandatory $15 subs?

Yes, i absolutely am saying that.

[NineSpine]

Its troubling that you would try to use "ten fold" as a measure of decrease, although when people do use it in this way, its commonly accepted they are trying to say the new number is 10% of the original number. That would leave us with 100,000 right now. If you think that number wont half again when naxx is on farm, i dont know what to tell you.

Yes, i absolutely am saying that.

OK, enjoy your speculation.

[Drusin]

I doubt Blizz would do a reset since that would mean all your work is for nothing.

[arkanon]

OK, enjoy your speculation.

And you too! I mean to be fair, all i did was explaining YOUR speculation, but no drama! To be clear, i believe classic has twice the number you claim, sitting around 200,000 - but decreasing by the week.

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I doubt Blizz would do a reset since that would mean all your work is for nothing.

Yes, which completely goes against the "museum" design philosophy they have spoken about since day one.

[NineSpine]

And you too! I mean to be fair, all i did was explaining YOUR speculation, but no drama!

Sure, but my speculation has some basis. Runescape has 140,000 active players in the game right now and old school Runescape has another 110,000, this minute. Not just subscribers; People logged in right now as I type this. And you think WoW Classic is going to drop to 50,000 subs TOTAL at once. It's illogical.

[arkanon]

Sure, but my speculation has some basis. Runescape has 140,000 active players in the game right now and old school Runescape has another 110,000, this minute. Not just subscribers; People logged in right now as I type this. And you think WoW Classic is going to drop to 50,000 subs TOTAL at once. It's illogical.

How many are paying the sub? And remember it was YOU that said wow classic has 100k players.

[NineSpine]

How many are paying the sub? And remember it was YOU that said wow classic has 100k players.

I was simply presenting an absurdly low number just to demonstrate that even in that case classic+ could still be profitable.

Given how incredibly limited runescape is without a sub, the vast majority are likely subscribing. Without a sub the game is little more than a free trial.

[arkanon]

I was simply presenting an absurdly low number just to demonstrate that even in that case classic+ could still be profitable.

Given how incredibly limited runescape is without a sub, the vast majority are likely subscribing. Without a sub the game is little more than a free trial.

So your answer is "i have no idea"

[Heathy]

I think we'll probably see TBC I don't think it will ultimately matter a great deal, those guilds who wish to stay in classic would be able to do so and farm naxx until it falls over to alt runs, ultimately even if my guild wanted to stay in classic and farm t3, I would be ok with that, its likely to eventually reach a point where the majority of raiding guilds will just want new raid content. I don't think tbc was that much of a departure from the fundamental aspects of classic or at least what makes classic fun to play now was mostly still the same for tbc.

I'd like to eventually move onto a tbc server or have the realm upgraded to tbc but, I don't think i'm in a massive hurry, if it happened 6 months after the first KT kill that would probably be alright. I guess at some point pure classic servers will eventually be saturated in t3 so it only makes sense to soft reset and move the goal posts again.

[NineSpine]

So your answer is "i have no idea"

Right, Runescape is generating more than $50M in profit every year with ten subscribers. That must be what it is.

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So your answer is "i have no idea"

Here you go: 1.1M Subscribers

https://screenrant.com/runescape-1-m...aid-subs-2019/

But yeah, classic+ could only net 1/20th of what an older, smaller, less popular, less advanced, and far less well known game can today. Sure.