Last edited by Nyel; 2021-04-06 at 10:31 AM.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Depends what you consider to be minimal. I'd say anywhere from 10-25% of the Classic player base (those that hit 60 and raided BWL) would have transitioned to Retail. You're quite right though in that they are separate entities. I've nearly always played the release and then quit since WoD while in Classic I played the whole way, there is just something quite different in the original version that felt more meaningful but I do still enjoy both.
On being casual friendly, Retail is to WoW Classic as Wow Classic was to EQ.
It was, I even agree on that. The first weeks for Shadowlands were really good. But the fall after honeymoon might be even harder than with BfA, which is... something. I think even WoD managed to have a less steep decline because BRF came 2.5 months after release and people were busy by that. WoD just plummeted after the horrible 6.1 and BRF was done. Shadowlands right now just exists and this will be the status quo for at least 2-3 more months. I mean from BRF to 6.2 it was only ~ 4.5 months, so that helped as well, but people were burned out by the lack of content. I still can’t believe that Shadowlands‘ first content patch comes after the same time as WoD‘s last.
Last edited by Nyel; 2021-04-06 at 10:33 AM.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Maybe if SL had new content patches a lot more frequently like in Legion it might have been climbing the ladder in popularity. As of now all I see is an empty game getting even emptier with no sign of the upcoming major patch coming anywhere close. I'm actually afraid to see what the 9.1 PTR has in store because if it ends up being dissapointing then we're stuck with it for another 6 months at least. There's also no certainty that we even get a 9.3 and that we might lose yet another raid tier like in WoD, considering how long it takes for them to release patches nowadays and they would rather move into the next expansion if the current proves to be unpopular. A quick look at Google Trends shows how much less interest there is and its a rather steep decline, it has less searches than both Classic WoW, ESO and FF14 who all seem to be growing in popularity instead. And yes I know Google Trends is not reliable but its not like I can fully trust Blizzard and their sweet talking either.
As for my experience I still barely meet anyone in the game anymore and I don't feel like participating in most content. I still have to finish Twisted Corridors, and every weekend I keep telling myself to just go ahead and run but then I realise how long and wasteful it feels and I'd rather do something else instead. Raiding has gotten boring now and I'm not a fan of Mythic+. I started to level a new alt to experience another covenant campaign but the questing feels so bland. This expansion overall has a low effort feeling all over the place. Really hope it gets better because I stil llike WoW, but not the current iteration we are in which is why I mostly stick with Classic.
People prefer sensational claims like "Wow is dead/dying!" It's been a thing since 2004.
In other news this is only slightly ahead of my playtime in Cataclysm where I quit right after gearing for the first raid. I mean I still play albeit waaaaay more casual. I've just grown tired of people only taking meta for mythic plus atm and I used to skirt around this by tanking on different classes but I just want to warlock now and be as brain dead as all the meta catering noobs in keys atm. Let me go do my mount farm while occasional keys.
Honestly TBC classic feels more casual and enticing to me compared to retail because I know there will be no mandatory homeworks that I have to do every single day to stay relevant. Not a SL exclusive problem though because it really started in Legion. The attunements feel like god's blessing compared to the AP/Azerite/Covenent/Whatever timeblocks we have now.
Sure, but at least WQs in Legion were far, FAR less annoying than their SL iteration.
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In BC, professions allow you to craft some quite nifty gear, which will last for much longer than the initial month of the xpac, which is a huge boon for casuals, or at least people who cannot/doesn't want to commit a lot of time to raiding. Also f**k M+, at least in their current version.
It isn't, though, outside of your imagination. And WoD lost somewhere around 70% in the first two months, going from over 10m back down to somewhere around 3, so... well, calling it "less steep" is somewhat inaccurate. BRF was pretty irrelevant since most players don't raid much.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...umbers-anymore
5.5 million was the last reported count in September 2015.
Yeah, this is a question I was asking myself as well. Maybe they never planned a 9.3 after they realized they didn't meet the initial release date. Maybe there were plans for 9.3 back during they pitched the concept for Shadowlands' two or three years ago.
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Only if they're willing to sacrifice 4-6 months to keep a very low sub number around. And regarding how excessive Blizzard's monetization has become, I very much doubt this. More $$$ -> win.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
It makes sense when you view content design as an arms race between blizzard and players. Blizzard doesn’t want people to be done too quickly so they pace consumption rates around the tip of the spear population (doesn’t matter what, can be any form of content). Naturally everyone else is going to be way lower than them and when blizzard ups the requirements they increase the pace of the treadmill for the population.
Also they no doubt want content to bleed over to future expansions in order to milk out the legacy transmog players and their frustrations at being unable to complete things but still remaining subbed (much like right now with mythic legion raid content not being really feasible for avg skill level until above 220+).
I think we will still get a .2 and .3, Im willing to bet that they are making a huge patch and they will just cut it in half and move on. So expect more shallow and heavily time gating..
I feel that way about raid gear drops, definitely felt artificially stretched out.
I just think most of what was planned for 9.2 and 9.3 has been reiterated where they kept the important stuff, threw out all the unnecessary stuff and mashed two content patches into just one. Maybe they'll give us zone / story in 9.2 and the raid in 9.2.5, that's a possibility on how to time gate stuff.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again