Is it a Smart Business move to make "Classic" for all previous Expacs?

[Not A Cat]

I imagine they'll do up through Wrath.

At least that's as far as I hope they'll go. Or, if they continue, I hope they'll skip Cata. I'm biased because Cata is my least favorite expansion to date (yes even more than WoD and BFA). Definitely wouldn't mind a Classic MoP. Highly doubt it will happen though.

[Relapses]

I imagine they'll do up through Wrath.

At least that's as far as I hope they'll go. Or, if they continue, I hope they'll skip Cata. I'm biased because Cata is my least favorite expansion to date (yes even more than WoD and BFA). Definitely wouldn't mind a Classic MoP. Highly doubt it will happen though.

Yes, they will definitely skip Cataclsym and go straight to MoP because that, like, a few random people on the internet don't like this expansion. That makes complete and total sense.

[Rootsbum]

No.
I know many people see MOP as the peak og talents, but anything after WOTLK isnt Classic anymore if you Ask me.
The world is destroyed and modernized, and I thought that was what people wanted: the Classic world.

[Ogarash]

Of course it is. It keeps people subbed. All you have to do is sub to play classic. You don't even have to own the latest version of the game you just sub and go.
It keeps the cashflow going. They went into Classic thinking a couple of servers would be enough and realized the demand was freakishly higher than that. How many servers do we even have globally today? And I expect even more people to play TBC since more people remember it, more new people will go back and a lot of the people, especially the high enders that have completed all there is to complete in Classic, will move on to TBC with at least one character.

Every day someone comes and spells doom over WoW but the fact is that is has been going, strong, since 2004. This year will be the 17th anniversary and contrary to many other games, WoW has never gone Free to Play etc. The closest thing to Free to Play I guess is buying tokens. But for them it evens out since people that DO pay a sub, like me, still get tokens because they can't be arsed/don't have time to farm gold, again, like me. It's a brilliant model.

Say what you want to say but they are smart about their stuff. I don't see WoW going anwyhere soon. People will play the shit out of SL. People will play the shit out of the next xpac. WoW will die only the day Blizzard decide to end it.

Which of course will not be the actual end because of all the Classic servers etc. Relive the glory etc. There is a reason people still play games from the 1980's and even 70's. Some stuff is just like that.

[korijenkins]

[Citation needed]

And i'm sure you're talking out of your ass because it suits your views. Even Blizzard probably doesn't know how many people subbed exclusively for classic.

Recreating BC once they've made classic is surely a very manageable risk with very little effort needed.

Sounds like you're the one talking out of your ass, given OP's point that they wouldn't bother doing BC classic if Vanilla hadn't been extremely profitable.

[Not A Cat]

Yes, they will definitely skip Cataclsym and go straight to MoP because that, like, a few random people on the internet don't like this expansion. That makes complete and total sense.

Good, Cata sucks

[Adamas102]

... the high enders that have completed all there is to complete in Classic, will move on to TBC with at least one character.

That’s kind of the issue. Each new Classic iteration is going to gut the one before it. I only have one friend who played Classic (since he didn’t get to play it when it was current) and he announced to us just last month that his guild has completely quit raiding until Classic TBC release.

While that’s only one example, it’s still an entire guild that is done with one Classic version because the next one came out. I’m sure they’re not the only ones, though.

[StillMcfuu]

I voted no, mainly because there isn't much of a point to release classic versions of expansions that weren't very popular.

There is an odd side effect that I can see occurring though. Because there is a faster patch cycle expansions like MOP and WOD may be more popular because their issues of content draught or just raw time on normal releases will be shorter. The strength of the class design may also win out compared to what we have now.

Although expansions like Cata will likely lose out, class design wasn't great, and the selling point of Cata was the old world revamp which is what we have now. Getting bad raid and world content faster isn't going to make Cata any better where it goes a certain distance correcting the issues of MoP and WoD.

[Mikah]

It wasn't even smart for classic. This will only speed up WoW's demise at some point in the future. Classic already proved how boring and repetitive WoW was and that people quily lost interest soon after a new phase was launched. This will be the case even quicker for most of the xpacs.

Well that's new!! The doomsayers have been predicting WoW's demise for at least 15 years now, and yet it is still going strong. Is it coming soon (tm)?

If anything, Classic allowed Blizzard to get back people that had left along the way. There is certainly a general interest to go into at least WotLK, so we will probably see another 4-5 years of strong interest on the classic side.

I really doubt there will be any demise anytime soon.

[docterfreeze]

I agree about MoP, but Cata?? Skill??

If you're talking about PvP, then Cata is my most disliked expansion for this exactly reason. Last Cata season was the worst PvP season in history of this game, and it was because of gear. Also, the devs made a grave mistake by making already strongest DPS classes in PvP - rogue and mage - even stronger than before, so they dominated Arenas from start of finish of this abysmal expansion.

All the expansion RM heavily dominated Arenas like never before, and in season 11 (DragonSoul) the obnoxious combo of legendary daggers + vial of shadows or unheeded warning (2 trinkets) completely obliterated everything else. A rogue having these could kill healer (even holy paladin) in 5 seconds, cause sometimes it happened so fast they could not even bubble due to GCD. Fire Mages were also extremely OP with Dragonwrath, etc. Skill mattered close to nothing in season 11, it was a horrible unplayable crap - worse, than today's Convoke meta even.

I don't want to experience Cata ever again cause of this crazy rogue-mage overpowered madness with PvE items ruining PvP. If this ever goes live on Classic servers w/o changes, Im quitting for good, maining a Ret in Cata... 2nd time no thanks.

Same deal with wrath. Last season plagued by PvE gear. You can't say cata classes didn't take skill though. Depending on spec, their skill ceiling was the highest or 2nd highest it has ever been.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Ask yourself...would you, if you ran a company ask a forum that has 3000 ppl visiting and 300 active posters currently if your decisions are "smart"?

Given that this website is my primary forum to discuss WoW things with other people, it's more about if other people feel it would be smart rather the head of a company in question.

I voted no, mainly because there isn't much of a point to release classic versions of expansions that weren't very popular.

Other than WoD, which expansions weren't very popular?


Or was WoD somehow a success in the eyes of Blizzard in terms of popularity that I'm not aware of.

[Vorkreist]

I'd say it'd be smart to do it up to Wrath, it makes up what I see as the WoW trilogy, and I don't see folks waxxing quite as nostalgic for Cata onward.

Its smart to make all of them due to the low costs. I think a lot of people would like to go another round through most of the expansions as well as people that didn't get to play back then.
I would love to replay Pandaria for example. I would love the first tiers of Cata and even the few pockets of content from Wod.
Having the option one day to just look at the complete list of expansions and just jump and play which ever is awesome.

[Tiwack]

I recon a lot more would be interested if they did a HD-texture update while rereleasing these - I don't think many, regardless of whether they played it or not back in the day, are interested enough to warrant the monthly sub to play any of these for very long. Blizz could be smarter about this, actually get old and new players to rebuy expansions with the HD-texture-relaunches like other old popular games but alas - I think WotLK is the final destination for these "Classic" public museum pieces. At the moment people would like to just buy a month of play every tier except now that's not even an option anymore. Blizz is screwing themselves imo.

[ParanoiD84]

If blizz think they can make money of later expansions too you can bet they will try they are all about the money.

Its also very easy money as subs is subs.

[Sunderella]

Since they are doing it, I would say yeah, it makes sense financially.

[msdos]

I've been playing mostly Classic and every guild I was in (I was in 3 or 4 since launch), the leadership struck me as being in a state of WoW addiction-based psychosis.

They all had this weird, inexplicable attitude about squeezing every bit of min/max into the raid as possible for no actual reason (clear the raid faster, not a real reason to hoard 1,000 mana pots in your banks or have 4 alts). Everyone needs to spam consumes and everyone needs to buff, even though the content is on farm. Why? We're not really sure, probably a D measuring contest to be honest!
Even the classic guild I'm in now, they're still raiding Naxx even though we killed KT a month or two ago?? They basically drag all the healers in there and any healer that doesn't have alts, basically just doesn't play the game I noticed, including myself.
People in Classic apparently don't understand the concept of finite, they think Classic is something you play every day, forever, but it really wasn't played like that. The moment BC was announced, people basically just stopped playing.
There's still novelty there for the people who didn't get to hardcore raid back in 2005, it's like 2 different perspectives.

No perspective at all can elude the fact that all the gear is about to be replaced anyway...

TL;DR: So I vote no. People know what's coming already and all of the versions of the game fracture the player base and make retail seem even more nonsensical to new players.
New comers are gonna look at retail and wonder why all the expansions aren't just accessible via retail WoW and everyone who already has a PC doesn't care about it and anyone who doesn't have a PC isn't gonna spend 1,000$ on a video card to play WoW from 2007, lmao.

[Woobels]

I feel pulling off a Cata Classic would be tough because of the controversial world revamp which might not go over so well with most Classic players. That said I could see them do it if it's not too much work, but they'd probably keep it somewhat separate from the vanilla/TBC/WotLK "era" of expansions.

[Prag]

People in Classic apparently don't understand the concept of finite, they think Classic is something you play every day, forever, but it really wasn't played like that.

This must be why so many want fresh servers (plus economy reset and chance at Scarab Lord). I see those comments and think, “wait, you want to do this again, and in perpetuity!?!”.

To each their own, but holy shit. That kind of nostalgic commitment for Groundhog Day WoW Classic is not what I was expecting.

Not shitting on people’s preferences nor calling it wrong. I wanted to experience WoW in the Vanilla era, and I definitely love it, but it is not the evergreen experience for me that it seems to be for others.

[sam86]

no it isn't
Classic biggest reason of success was it got released with BFA, a serious competitor for worst exp with wod, if classic was released in legion it would have portion of its playerbase
consumption of older exp is 10 times faster than how it was at its release, i don't see them possible to continue, not to mention how will they cross the 1st biggest bump: cata, yeah cata isn't worst exp anymore, but it doesn't rank top on any list either (something classic/tbc/wrath always take), if they cross cata they won't survive wod again to get to legion

If classic wasnt profitable they wouldnt make TBC bro
I am almost certain classic pulls more subscribers than nopatchlands

i don't think so, maybe now more play classic after they got bored with nopatchlands, but still
classic success was because ppl loved wow and legion renewed their passion, only for bfa to f8ck it, release classic during legion and no one would played it

[Kralljin]

Even the classic guild I'm in now, they're still raiding Naxx even though we killed KT a month or two ago??

Taking into account that some pieces from Naxx are pretty solid in TBC, it makes a lot of sense.

Take the Trinkets from the KT Phylactery, +150AP / +85SP vs. Undead / Demons is still pretty good in TBC.
Same goes for the Sapph trinkets, if you got one of those, you can basically skip buying one of the Badge of Justice trinkets.
Some Shoulder enchants are actually slightly ahead of the Aldor / Scryer enchants in TBC, so getting more of those makes sense.

Putting aside that some guilds are also hosting GDKP runs, which generate a ton of gold and that's going to be extremely helpful in TBC.

People in Classic apparently don't understand the concept of finite, they think Classic is something you play every day, forever

People are doing the same on Retail, quite a lot of people do play and raid throughout an entire content drought between expansions, so why it's so odd when Classic players do that?

I mean, there are people that did raid ICC, DS, SoO & Ny'alotha for almost an entire year, yet when Classic players raid Naxx for ~6-7 months, it's somehow weird?
Those raids didn't even drop items that actually were compareable to maxlevel items of the next expansion, unlike Naxx loot.

If you happen to play & raid on Retail, i got news for you, you've been raiding Castle Nathria for almost the same amount of time as people are raiding Naxx - probably even longer as most things are pointing towards TBC launching before 9.1 - and the gear from CN will likely not last as long as some Naxx pieces in TBC.