What is the long term plan, if any?

[Heathy]

Why would they force every Classic servers to become a TBC one?

because of saturation. perhaps not many ppl realise how broken the scaling becomes when large portions of the population are running around in t3. I guess we'll just see what happens. or rather its still a ways off. it should simply become apparent on its own.

[NineSpine]

because of saturation. perhaps not many ppl realise how broken the scaling becomes when large portions of the population are running around in t3. I guess we'll just see what happens. or rather its still a ways off. it should simply become apparent on its own.

I just don’t see “Classic is a mistake let’s get rid of it” as the solution to T3 being OP.

[Heathy]

I just don’t see “Classic is a mistake let’s get rid of it” as the solution to T3 being OP.

did I say it was a mistake?

i'm currently enjoying it, I have 1 binding so when baron drops me my other binding ill be getting a TF, maybe it'll drop this year, my gearing is going pretty well, i'd like to start doing zg sooner rather than later. ( i'm invested at least until my guild folds my desire to play is completely tied to my guild being able to progress or wanting to I play for them and ill likely keep playing so that the guild always has a tank, upto the point where it trails off and overall enthusiasm wanes )

I still think the game is going to end up broken if it doesn't ultimately move on. and you can bet that if my server didn't move onto tbc or if I couldn't copy my character across to a tbc server i would eventually stop playing the game. if they want me to keep subbing it would have to move on, eventually, because TF, no TF ill eventually get bored and stop logging in. there is no way that it can remain perpetually entertaining. I don't do pvp either so the bg imbalance wouldn't affect me all that much and I play on PvE so i'm not worried about open pvp. the issues for me is that at some point in the future i'm going to have a geared warrior that can't progress any more and my enthusiasm to log into to tank alt raids will dwindle. I can't be the only one that would like to continue onward and not simply end up with a character that is stuck in classic forever.

on the other hand I know there are players who don't want to move onto tbc, most likely even players in my current guild may have no interest in moving on, any concerns about community splitting are simply inherent. some ppl will want to move and some won't but the issue is ofc those guilds that don't want to move, will still lose key players that do want to move. losing certain players deep into progression, at some point you can recover but for the most part, having a guild be split 50/50 for moving and staying is practically a death knell.

at some point you've done all you can do. ideally i'd want to keep playing for the sake of the guild but at some point i'd be looking for someone to replace me if it wasn't going to continue on.

[NineSpine]

did I say it was a mistake?

i'm currently enjoying it, I have 1 binding so when baron drops me my other binding ill be getting a TF, maybe it'll drop this year, my gearing is going pretty well, i'd like to start doing zg sooner rather than later.

I still think the game is going to end up broken if it doesn't ultimately move on.

It will move on, but cyclically, not as one thing. This will be a rolling thing.

[Relapses]

Like, why would Blizzard want to drive the few die hard classic fans back to the private Server scene?

Key word in bold. There really aren't that many people who are playing Classic because it's an alternative to private realms. (Proof: Private servers still exist.) Upgrading to TBC may isolate some people but I believe this demographic is represented on forums far more than it is in the actual playerbase.

[Kralljin]

because of saturation. perhaps not many ppl realise how broken the scaling becomes when large portions of the population are running around in t3. I guess we'll just see what happens. or rather its still a ways off. it should simply become apparent on its own.

Again, not a problem.
Blizzard straight up said that they have no issues if even only 10 people play Classic down the line, the maintenance cost of it, especially past P6 are next to 0.

The game is essentially over at this point, let people go wild with their T3.

If Blizzard wants to built content atop Classic (a.k.a. Classic +), they need fresh servers anyway because anything belonging to Classic+ is technically not part of Classic and thus needs its own server.

Classic is a as close as possible recreation of Vanilla, not a product that requires ongoing updates unless absolutely necessary.

(Proof: Private servers still exist.)

Private Servers already had before Classic a rather large population of people that doesn't want to pay for WoW (or, based on their countries economic situation, cannot).
Like, you have to take a step back here and think over the fact that people who exclusively play Classic are still paying Blizzard a monthly sub just to get access to the servers, no real active development will take place there unlike on Retail.

On top of that, some people also see like things getting fixed such as batching and whatnot, so there's that.

[Relapses]

Private Servers already had before Classic a rather large population of people that doesn't want to pay for WoW (or, based on their countries economic situation, cannot).
Like, you have to take a step back here and think over the fact that people who exclusively play Classic are still paying Blizzard a monthly sub just to get access to the servers, no real active development will take place there unlike on Retail.

On top of that, some people also see like things getting fixed such as batching and whatnot, so there's that.

The argument isn't whether those people will stop paying WoW if Blizzard upgrades to TBC. It's the exact portion of the playerbase that the game stands to lose if it does nothing vs. upgrading. Rolling progressive servers are a terrible mess of an idea and I just don't see Blizzard rolling out that solution because of the logistical nightmare it presents to both players and the developers. A TBC upgrade is a simple, easy-to-understand solution that will isolate some players but has the potential of keeping even more subbed. Also, there's this prevailing myth that by upgrading to TBC all Classic content disappears. Compared to most other expansions, TBC is unique in the fact that it left most of the old world content untouched.

edit: Spell batching is one of those "acceptable changes" most #NoChanges people can get behind. It was a solution to problem that existed in 2004 but doesn't exist today.

[Kralljin]

Rolling progressive servers are a terrible mess of an idea and I just don't see Blizzard rolling out that solution because of the logistical nightmare it presents to both players and the developers.

What "nightmare" for Blizzard?
People act like launching new servers is some milestone event for Blizzard, yet the weeks leading up to classic has shown that they add can new servers rather easily.
(Remember, they wanted to launch Classic without language specific servers in the EU, now Germany alone has like 5 Classic servers).

Even if you hit "Version" on the Launcher, you'll see already four different versions, 5 once SL Beta hits, it's really not a big thing.

I reiterate: Blizzard has straight up said that they don't mind even if only 10 people continue to play Classic, there is no damn problem here.

Compared to most other expansions, TBC is unique in the fact that it left most of the old world content untouched.

Thinking that you can still somehow enjoy Classic "how it was" once TBC launches on the same servers is a myth.
You will no longer find people doing any level 60 endgame content, because no one will care about it, the new endgame will be level 70.
It's not like you can even play the content in the same fashion because TBC talents are a thing, throw in the fact that even more unique stuff such as Paladin / Shaman being faction exclusive also being gone, removes another layer.

Simply because the content still exists, doesn't mean you can still play the game in the same fashion as before, a lot of things also changed with TBC.

The entire change to the honor system breaks any progression within Classic anyway, getting gear that is equivalent to BWL / AQ by sitting AFK in BG's is a dealbreaker.

[Heathy]

some of the gear was still decent upto t5, even if the servers could continue on with skeleton crews it wouldn't be fun, I think the point is to try to retain those communities rather than just let them slowly diminish. i'd rather continue on with my guild into tbc than simply farm content to gear up alts that ppl hardly play. the progression is fun while its on going while there are bosses that haven't been killed by your guild, but I can't see it being something that is fun to continually farm.

I think ppl still made pugs for the legendaries in tbc. tf was still good for a while for most of tbc really it wasn't that bad less dps than other weapons but i think it took them a while to change the threat it generates not to mention elemental shamans were more viable and actually benefitted from the nature resist debuff along with most likely rogue and poisons. I didn't do naxx in old classic but I did do a run through there at 70. it was easy but the mechanics still one tapped if you failed.

I think tbc was better because of things like palas and shamans on both factions, it removed any perceived faction imbalance. neither faction could complain that totems were op or blessing were op because both factions had them, it was also more balanced in terms of pve for that same reason. neither faction had a class based advantage on specific boss fights, in classic at the moment alliance tend to have the fastest raid clears because of salvation. and there isn't much that can be done about that.

to me its better to have an even playing field when you're trying to have some competition. in classic at the moment its not much of a competition, between guilds in different factions, or even classes themselves, the additions brought in by bc made raid competition much better, i'm sure pretty much all dps classes were competitive and so were healers, even tanks had more chances to shine. although warriors were still king, there are definitely fights in tbc where its better to have a druid or pala tanking so they got some love and were somewhat useful. rather than being mostly useless past the first tier.

[Relapses]

What "nightmare" for Blizzard?
People act like launching new servers is some milestone event for Blizzard, yet the weeks leading up to classic has shown that they add can new servers rather easily.
(Remember, they wanted to launch Classic without language specific servers in the EU, now Germany alone has like 5 Classic servers).

Even if you hit "Version" on the Launcher, you'll see already four different versions, 5 once SL Beta hits, it's really not a big thing.

I reiterate: Blizzard has straight up said that they don't mind even if only 10 people continue to play Classic, there is no damn problem here.

It's more that if you split up servers like that you're going to have people split between wanting to stay on Classic vs. upgrading. If 2/3rds of the decent guilds on a server go to TBC the 1/3rd that remains will be fighting for table scraps just to stay relevant. It seems fine on paper but I think if Blizzard were to launch multiple progression servers each rolling through different phases and expansions it would server to only dilute the "authentic experience" and cause a lot of division among the already-divided playerbase. The two options I see most likely are nothing at all or a forced upgrade to TBC.

Thinking that you can still somehow enjoy Classic "how it was" once TBC launches on the same servers is a myth.
You will no longer find people doing any level 60 endgame content, because no one will care about it, the new endgame will be level 70.
It's not like you can even play the content in the same fashion because TBC talents are a thing, throw in the fact that even more unique stuff such as Paladin / Shaman being faction exclusive also being gone, removes another layer.

Simply because the content still exists, doesn't mean you can still play the game in the same fashion as before, a lot of things also changed with TBC.

The entire change to the honor system breaks any progression within Classic anyway, getting gear that is equivalent to BWL / AQ by sitting AFK in BG's is a dealbreaker.

Is it really Blizzard's fault if players miss the authentic Vanilla experience a second time? If you miss it the first time, don't care then are given a two-year window to experience it again then still miss it... is that really on Blizzard at this point? I get it, though. Museum piece. Keep it as a time capsule. That's a good argument, but it's an argument that Blizzard should do nothing. I just don't see a way forward with both TBC and Classic that isn't very player-unfriendly or divisive.

[Kralljin]

It's more that if you split up servers like that you're going to have people split between wanting to stay on Classic vs. upgrading.

Not like some people were and are still caught between retail and classic, so yeah, not that different.

If 2/3rds of the decent guilds on a server go to TBC the 1/3rd that remains will be fighting for table scraps just to stay relevant.

The Classic release has successfully killed the EP progression of some guilds on Retail and Blizzard didn't give a shit.
As said earlier, Blizzard said that they don't care if a skeleton crew is left on those classic servers down the line, that the playerbase will shrink over time is something that Blizzard has taken into account already and they say "yeah, that's okay".

It seems fine on paper but I think if Blizzard were to launch multiple progression servers each rolling through different phases and expansions it would server to only dilute the "authentic experience" and cause a lot of division among the already-divided playerbase.

It really wouldn't.
Like, it's new content, you can go and check it out and if you cannot manage to play both at the same time for a prolonged time, you need to make a choice.
Has happened during Classic release to a lot of people and will happen again.

All this "it would divide the community" concerns were also raised by Blizzard years ago in regards to Classic servers when it reality, it was just a technical issue.
Once that was solved, Classic servers happened.

At the end of the day, Blizzard will do that, which brings them the most profit, keeping the few bucks from people that badly want to play Classic and launch TBC without upsetting those is the superior option.
I don't see any serious financial gain in patching every Classic server to TBC, because server capacity is not a huge issue for Blizzard.

Is it really Blizzard's fault if players miss the authentic Vanilla experience a second time?

The entire point of the Classic server is to give people a window to experience the game "how it was back then", if you essentially remove any Classic servers with the release of TBC, you are basically closing that window.
The entire point of Classic servers is to play a retro game, not it being an ongoing service.

Like, i've joked about this in another thread, is Blizzards endgame the re re release of Classic in 2030 once those "legacy servers" caught up to retail or will they say after TBC / Wotlk, "nah, this is good, all those upcoming expansions actually sucked but please buy our 10th expansion!"?

[NineSpine]

It's more that if you split up servers like that you're going to have people split between wanting to stay on Classic vs. upgrading. If 2/3rds of the decent guilds on a server go to TBC the 1/3rd that remains will be fighting for table scraps just to stay relevant. It seems fine on paper but I think if Blizzard were to launch multiple progression servers each rolling through different phases and expansions it would server to only dilute the "authentic experience" and cause a lot of division among the already-divided playerbase. The two options I see most likely are nothing at all or a forced upgrade to TBC.

Guilds will sort themselves based on who is interested in doing what. That isn't new. If 1/3rd of your guild wants to move on, 2/3rds of someone else guild didn't want to move on. You keep making these mundane, simple things into catastrophic issues.

What part of the "authentic experience" is "diluted" by the events happening on a server that I am not on? What does "division" matter? I'm not playing with people on other servers already.

Is it really Blizzard's fault if players miss the authentic Vanilla experience a second time? If you miss it the first time, don't care then are given a two-year window to experience it again then still miss it... is that really on Blizzard at this point? I get it, though. Museum piece. Keep it as a time capsule. That's a good argument, but it's an argument that Blizzard should do nothing. I just don't see a way forward with both TBC and Classic that isn't very player-unfriendly or divisive.

This isn't about what is or isn't Blizzard's fault. What a bizarre, irrational argument to make. This is about what you put resources into and how you leverage those resources going forward. It sounds like you want Blizzard to have dumped all these resources into Classic for a limited time event so that they can go "Well fuck you, you missed it" just to be spiteful. Extremely bizarre.

You are still talking about this mythical "logistical nightmare" that you have yet to actually describe. Nothing is unfriendly or divisive or logistically challenging about rolling progression servers. It's fairly straightforward, not all that different than what D3 does, and is already being done by significantly smaller games with significantly smaller playerbases that somehow manage to survive despite it.

[Relapses]

It really wouldn't.
Like, it's new content, you can go and check it out and if you cannot manage to play both at the same time for a prolonged time, you need to make a choice.
Has happened during Classic release to a lot of people and will happen again.

All this "it would divide the community" concerns were also raised by Blizzard years ago in regards to Classic servers when it reality, it was just a technical issue.
Once that was solved, Classic servers happened.

At the end of the day, Blizzard will do that, which brings them the most profit, keeping the few bucks from people that badly want to play Classic and launch TBC without upsetting those is the superior option.
I don't see any serious financial gain in patching every Classic server to TBC, because server capacity is not a huge issue for Blizzard.

I'll be honest -- I held this opinion for awhile but then I started to think about how many dead/dying servers this would leave on the table and changed my opinion. It's not a matter of server capacity and things like that, it's the very real communities that rolling progression servers would disrupt. The question I have is long-term: How does Blizzard deal with the number of dead/dying realms rolling progression servers creates? Blizzard hasn't even figured out how to deal with this in retail, I can't see how they'd have better solutions for Classic.

The entire point of the Classic server is to give people a window to experience the game "how it was back then", if you essentially remove any Classic servers with the release of TBC, you are basically closing that window.
The entire point of Classic servers is to play a retro game, not it being an ongoing service.

The retail game is its own live service. Why can't Classic be its own retro live service? We really don't know what Blizzard's intentions are moving forward and while I get the cynicism of "invalidating" Classic with TBC, I really don't see it that way and it's not entirely clear whether Blizzard shares this perspective. For fans of Classic and the #NoChanges crowd, I understand the looming possibility of TBC is a distressing annoyance, especially if they're essentially forced to play it. But on the other hand, this is the solution that divides the community the least which is why I position it as more likely than rolling progression servers. Division in a community is bad, especially when it is as small as Classic's. "Just deal with it," to the people who don't like the idea of rolling progression servers is just as offensive to them as people who'd prefer a TBC upgrade telling the opposition party to deal with it accordingly.

[NineSpine]

I'll be honest -- I held this opinion for awhile but then I started to think about how many dead/dying servers this would leave on the table and changed my opinion. It's not a matter of server capacity and things like that, it's the very real communities that rolling progression servers would disrupt. The question I have is long-term: How does Blizzard deal with the number of dead/dying realms rolling progression servers creates? Blizzard hasn't even figured out how to deal with this in retail, I can't see how they'd have better solutions for Classic.

The servers eventually empty out onto static servers, just like how D3 handles seasonal characters. Again, a running theme here seems to be you acting like really simply logistical issues that have clear solutions are incredibly profound riddles that can't be solved.

The retail game is its own live service. Why can't Classic be its own retro live service? We really don't know what Blizzard's intentions are moving forward and while I get the cynicism of "invalidating" Classic with TBC, I really don't see it that way and it's not entirely clear whether Blizzard shares this perspective.

Blizzard doesn't share your perspective. They have given absolutely no indication that they consider Classic a temporary event, and the indications they have given are that they consider Classic part of the WoW service. The notion that they would simply delete Classic and replace it with TBC is deranged and counter-factual to every piece of evidence we have here.

For fans of Classic and the #NoChanges crowd, I understand the looming possibility of TBC is a distressing annoyance, especially if they're essentially forced to play it. But on the other hand, this is the solution that divides the community the least which is why I position it as more likely than rolling progression servers. Division in a community is bad, especially when it is as small as Classic's. "Just deal with it," to the people who don't like the idea of rolling progression servers is just as offensive to them as people who'd prefer a TBC upgrade telling the opposition party to deal with it accordingly.

The way to sow the least division is not to do something that gives a giant middle finger to their community and causes half of the people subbing for classic to cancel their subscription resulting in a giant bad media shitstorm toward Blizzard

If you don't like rolling progression servers you DON'T HAVE TO PLAY THEM. Your ludicrous, "fuck everyone" solution of forcing every server to TBC does not work that way. Do you honestly not understand the difference between "here's an optional way to play the game" and "fuck all of you, we lied when we made classic, haha now its gone you have to play TBC, thanks for the money losers".

[Relapses]

The servers eventually empty out onto static servers, just like how D3 handles seasonal characters. Again, a running theme here seems to be you acting like really simply logistical issues that have clear solutions are incredibly profound riddles that can't be solved.

At no point in WoW's history have servers operated the way you're suggesting here. "Just like D3" is absurd. You have no idea how servers work or if Blizzard is even capable of having WoW servers operate in this fashion. Holy shit. Your "really simple" solution requires Blizzard to do something that they've never done before with WoW.

Oh right, I forgot you're an operations engineer so this stuff is as easy as exporting a SQL database.

Blizzard doesn't share your perspective. They have given absolutely no indication that they consider Classic a temporary event, and the indications they have given are that they consider Classic part of the WoW service. The notion that they would simply delete Classic and replace it with TBC is deranged and counter-factual to every piece of evidence we have here.

There is no fucking evidence pointing in any direction. Zero. Zilch. No interviews, no game developers giving away top secret information. Nothing at all. My guess is just as valid as yours even if for whatever reason it pisses you off. They have said nothing about how they view Classic from a business point of view.

The way to sow the least division is not to do something that gives a giant middle finger to their community and causes half of the people subbing for classic to cancel their subscription resulting in a giant bad media shitstorm toward Blizzard

Got a source for that figure or are you just making shit up again?

The number of people who would feel violated or personally attacked by TBC is represented a lot higher on forums and if you were to gauge the actual playerbase most people wouldn't have a strong opinion one way or another. (You know, like most divisive issues in this game.)

If you don't like rolling progression servers you DON'T HAVE TO PLAY THEM. Your ludicrous, "fuck everyone" solution of forcing every server to TBC does not work that way. Do you honestly not understand the difference between "here's an optional way to play the game" and "fuck all of you, we lied when we made classic, haha now its gone you have to play TBC, thanks for the money losers".

Again, what is the shelf life of a live service like WoW? Is there actually a demographic of players who'd continue playing on eternal Naxx servers if they existed? Is this group of players smaller or larger than the group of players who'd prefer new content? Your idea of giving everybody an option to play WoW the way the want has the side effect of isolating people who's group of friends disagree with the best way forward. And your solution to this is "just deal with it."

Would forced TBC isolate some players? Of course. But the better question is would the number of players it isolates be more or less than the number of people who are similarly isolated by rolling progression servers?

Classic WoW wasn't intended to stay on Naxx patch forever. The idea of upgrading everything to TBC is not nearly as offensive to most players as you'd like to think.

[Kralljin]

How does Blizzard deal with the number of dead/dying realms rolling progression servers creates?

1.Merge Realms.
2.Screw it, Character transfers exist, the product is there, rest is up to the community.

Stop treating Classic as a game that needs updates in order to "survive", it doesn't need to, the maintenance costs of these servers is next to nothing for Blizzard.
It's a finite game, leave the people that want to play just classic alone.

The retail game is its own live service. Why can't Classic be its own retro live service?

Because it receives live updates that are newly produced content, whereas Classic receives by definition only content that has already existed at one point.

and while I get the cynicism of "invalidating" Classic with TBC

Okay, historical evidence is now called "cynicism"?
That's how it was once TBC came out, people just ignored any Classic level 60 content outside of vanity.

There was no one who did "Rend runs", no one seriously did Jumpruns for Arcane Crystals and so forth, people mostly treated the Classic content as a stepping stone towards 58.
Ignoring that TBC talents even made any endgame classic content an even bigger joke in terms of difficulty than it already is.

Division in a community is bad, especially when it is as small as Classic's.

Ever considered that TBC also brings in new people?
People who might enjoy Arena, improved class gameplay and overall more polished experience.

I'm not bashing Classic, nor implying that TBC is an objective upgrade over Classic, but it also brought in new content that can also attract a lot of people.
And once again, you keep ignoring that Blizzard said that it's okay for them if people leave Classic servers sooner or later.

[Relapses]

1.Merge Realms.
2.Screw it, Character transfers exist, the product is there, rest is up to the community.

1.) Blizzard doesn't do server merges. Like, ever. Connected realms are a possibility but I don't know if that fits with the theme of Classic.
2.) This is the solution on retail but you can understand the frustration people may have with having to lose a name they've had since launch. (And in some cases, prior to launch.)

Stop treating Classic as a game that needs updates in order to "survive", it doesn't need to, the maintenance costs of these servers is next to nothing for Blizzard.
It's a finite game, leave the people that want to play just classic alone.

I understand this sentiment, which is why I've repeatedly offered "doing nothing" as the most likely outcome. The disagreement here isn't that I don't think rolling progression servers aren't possible, I just think a forced upgrade to TBC is more likely (and less likely than nothing).

Because it receives live updates that are newly produced content, whereas Classic receives by definition only content that has already existed at one point.

TBC is the natural progression of that concept, isn't it?

Okay, historical evidence is now called "cynicism"?
That's how it was once TBC came out, people just ignored any Classic level 60 content outside of vanity.

There was no one who did "Rend runs", no one seriously did Jumpruns for Arcane Crystals and so forth, people mostly treated the Classic content as a stepping stone towards 58.
Ignoring that TBC talents even made any endgame classic content an even bigger joke in terms of difficulty than it already is.

Right, but compare TBC to retail. They just announced last-expansion rewards are getting buffed because too many people are able to solo it. In TBC, Thunderfury was still relevant until early BT. I know this isn't a perfect 1:1 analogy, but what I'm saying is that comparatively speaking when placed against modern expansions TBC still leaves a lot of the "old world" untouched and the content is still there to experience if you desire.

Ever considered that TBC also brings in new people?
People who might enjoy Arena, improved class gameplay and overall more polished experience.

I'm not bashing Classic, nor implying that TBC is an objective upgrade over Classic, but it also brought in new content that can also attract a lot of people

Of course TBC brings in new players, I'm not trying to argue otherwise. That was the whole purpose of Classic. But a lot of these arguments completely ignore the people who came back to play Classic then got bored and left or are simply unsubbing until Blizzard decides what they're doing next. When I talk about a division of the playerbase, though, I mean the ones who have stuck it out. They face potentially much more difficult choices than new/returning players because there are multiple options for them and some of them may mean saying goodbye to people they've spent months/years getting to know.

The thing with a forced upgrade to TBC is that while it will certainly upset Classic purists, everybody will be in it together and the endgame will be clear and easy to understand, not muddled in nuance as the rolling progression server idea is.

[Kralljin]

1.) Blizzard doesn't do server merges. Like, ever. Connected realms are a possibility but I don't know if that fits with the theme of Classic.

Connected servers are essentially merged realms except they avoided the wording.
Like, they can also sit on their arse and do nothing at all if they want to avoid the "bad press".

TBC is the natural progression of that concept, isn't it?

Considering that the product is called "World of Warcraft:Classic" not "World of Warcraft:Legacy", it isn't.

Right, but compare TBC to retail. They just announced last-expansion rewards are getting buffed because too many people are able to solo it.

The rewards from Classic that are still potent in TBC are not worth the effort.
TF still being viable in BT is just a meme, as Warrior get Devastate with TBC which does damage based on weapon damage.

TF has terrible weapon damage compared to weapon from SSC.
The weapon might be "useable" for TPS in Cleave / AoE situations, where a Tankpally will be better than any Warrior anyway.

To be clear, if you have these rewards from coming from Classic to TBC, you will have advantage, but i doubt that it's worth for a lvl 70 to go back to Classic content for those few items, unless you are extremely lucky and get them right off the bat.

They face potentially much more difficult choices than new/returning players because there are multiple options for them and some of them may mean saying goodbye to people they've spent months/years getting to know.

...what?
That's the very same choice a lot of people faced with Classic: Will they continue to play Retail or switch over to Classic, despite having a guild or whatnot on retail?
Like, imagine within that community / guild there are people that want nothing to do with TBC, because they want to play Classic, they'll probably quit altogther or go back to private servers.
Your concept really comes from this rather twisted PoV that you are doing people a favor by not giving them a choice, which is quite frankly a rather "odd" mindset to say the least.

Like, even retail has already an extremely divided community with X different game modes.
If you want to commit to a raiding guild, that will probably eat up a lot of your playtime that you previously spent with your nonraiding friends.

If Blizzards goal is to not divide the community, then they failed on that few years ago, especially because Classic "divided" the community even further.

[NineSpine]

At no point in WoW's history have servers operated the way you're suggesting here. "Just like D3" is absurd. You have no idea how servers work or if Blizzard is even capable of having WoW servers operate in this fashion. Holy shit. Your "really simple" solution requires Blizzard to do something that they've never done before with WoW. Oh right, I forgot you're an operations engineer so this stuff is as easy as exporting a SQL database.

At no point in wows history have there been updates and character transfers? Seriously?

The idea that wows servers are incapable of this is laughable. It’s not even an idea that makes coherent sense. They’re already doing it. There are servers going through updates and they have character transfers. That’s all that we are talking about.

But sure, Blizzard must be physically incapable of implementing things that cobbled together half baked private servers manages to do.

There is no fucking evidence pointing in any direction. Zero. Zilch. No interviews, no game developers giving away top secret information. Nothing at all. My guess is just as valid as yours even if for whatever reason it pisses you off. They have said nothing about how they view Classic from a business point of view.

They called it a museum. When asked what was next they explicitly stated that lots of players don’t want to go beyond classic. It’s been two and a half years since they announced classic and have not once called it a temporary event.

Got a source for that figure or are you just making shit up again?

Yes I was obviously presenting a specific figure. If you don’t think deleting classic would enrage a significant number of players and result in massive bad press, you are either delusional or a complete fucking moron. The more you drone on the more I move from the former to the latter.

The number of people who would feel violated or personally attacked by TBC is represented a lot higher on forums and if you were to gauge the actual playerbase most people wouldn't have a strong opinion one way or another. (You know, like most divisive issues in this game.

Classic is not a temporary event. Blizzard is not going to pop out after years and go “Haha just joking”.

Again, what is the shelf life of a live service like WoW? Is there actually a demographic of players who'd continue playing on eternal Naxx servers if they existed? Is this group of players smaller or larger than the group of players who'd prefer new content? Your idea of giving everybody an option to play WoW the way the want has the side effect of isolating people who's group of friends disagree with the best way forward. And your solution to this is "just deal with it."

Yet somehow, someway, Everquest continues running even though by your estimation the player base should all be licking windows screaming “I DONT UNDERSTAND HOW THIS WORKS IM SO CONFUUUUSED!!???!!!:!:!:!!!”

Would forced TBC isolate some players? Of course. But the better question is would the number of players it isolates be more or less than the number of people who are similarly isolated by rolling progression servers?

Classic WoW wasn't intended to stay on Naxx patch forever. The idea of upgrading everything to TBC is not nearly as offensive to most players as you'd like to think.

Nobody cares about being “isolated”. There are more than 40 American servers for wow classic. All of them are isolated. This is a fake issue.

The idea that blizzard is going to delete classic and say “its just a prank bro” to everyone remains the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.

[Shockzalot]

Transition to TBC and let the window licking FRESH crowd start from scratch on vanilla servers if that's what their little hearts desire.