Do you think Wrath Classic will be the last Classic expansion release?

[Aphrel]

pretty sure they will keep going. Its easy money.

Think on it this way. Its around 15-18 monthly subs. And a decent sized population of classic (maybe even a majority?) is only subbed due to classic. They don't care for retail.

[Onikaroshi]

There's no reason not to have "fresh" servers that go through the release cycle of every expansion. They'll probably rename it after WOTLK or Cata; but I expect there to be a re-release of every xpac.

Why is it only the landmass that matters to people? There's a lot of stuff from cata/mop era that doesn't exist or play the same anymore that people want to experience again.

[DeltrusDisc]

Basically, quite a few servers struggled with faction imbalance (sound familiar?), so WG ended up being very one sided there, the Tenacity buff couldn't compensate for everything, even if you were basically a raidboss, CC still worked on you and thus the minority faction lost and struggled to ever gain control of the Keep.

Thus in Cata, they changed the whole thing that only a limited amount of players (like 10-20) could get in and duke it out for the entire server.

WG is extremely reliant on a balanced faction population.

Tol Barad was way more than 10-20, are you kidding me? I recall the limit being either 100v100 or 200v200, just like WG.

I'm happy to say, I was WG Battlemaster server first (even though there was no server first FOS achievement for it, I know no one else got it on Thunderhorn US before me. I've since transferred though, but got it less than a month after Wrath's launch.) and I loved seeing the Alliance being way more coordinated, hats off to Meadows - Thunderhorn US <Twilight Alliance> for his endless desires to run WG and organizing the raid groups. We always had 2 to 3 full, coordinated raid groups for WG, it was intense and so much fun.

Then came TB, which I was on Zul'jin (A) for... it bounced between factions regularly but eugh. Gross. Was literally just a group up, charge the next flag, and hope your group can wipe out the folks camped there. Boring.

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Why is it only the landmass that matters to people? There's a lot of stuff from cata/mop era that doesn't exist or play the same anymore that people want to experience again.

I don't believe anyone is denying that, fyi.

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If I were Blizz, and I'm not, I would join WoW Classic with Dragonblight after they both end.

Imagine something like this: during Dragonblight, Infinite dragonflight returns in later patches, and they start messing with timeline... considering what happened in Icecrown in BfA which led to Shadowlands, and considering importance of Forge of Souls, their main focus is timeline between Wrathgate and Fall of the Lich King, focus more on latter... messing with the timeline, they end up in Classic, where we face off Infinite Dragonflight from both sides: Retail and WoTLK classic (WoTLK classic will get new content patch)... from then on, new expansion comes, classic and retail now make some sort of WoW 2.0... everything what happened on Retail stays relevant (new races, classes, lore development and similar), and for WotLK classic, it is like just new expansion which is not Cataclysm And they can actually reuse Arthas.. something on the lines off: we save him from Infinite Dragonflight, and he joins our cause as leader of the sentient Scourge...

No way anything like that would happen, as there is just to much game features which are different between them, plus other... but just an idea...

OT: they will probably stop at WoTLK, as this is when WoW was at it's peak... from then on, it started deteriorating (with some exceptions), and noone wants to relive half of those expansions

Dragonblight: zone in WotLK.
Dragonflight: more than likely new expansion.

Also: absolutely will not happen.

[Celarent]

WG is extremely reliant on a balanced faction population.

Wintergrasp is tons of stupid fun, though. Just the perfect combination of traditional PVP skirmishes and over-the-top, Halo Big Team Battle mayhem. People complain(ed) about FPS turning to seconds-per-frame during that final push but everybody knows how exhilarating it was.

Tol Barad couldn't recapture that.

Wrath just got a lot of things right on the nose.

[Mnemosia]

Lots of people have been saying that there won't be Cata but there's no official statement about it. We didn't even have an official statement about Wrath even though many of us already suspected it was going to happen like 99% sure. Around me almost everyone including me is thinking of not staying for Cata if it happens and I do remember a lot of people quitting back then. My guess is that Blizzard simply tests the waters and releases based on player response, but if we don't see Cata, then we don't see MoP either, which is a very acclaimed one by players, and I would certainly would like to play it, so it's a tough call.

Prob depends on resources. If maintaining Cata services and servers is less costly than the revenue, then I hope they do so and I come back for MoP. But it looks kinda bad from a marketing/image standpoint tbh.

Still if it ends with WotLK only I would be very happy I got to relive my two favourite expansions with such nostalgia. Not many games offers the opportunity of going back to your younger self and replaying everything as a more experienced player.

[ulillillia]

I wanne see MoP again

You still can. It's still in the game.

[Mnemosia]

You still can. It's still in the game.

Uhm, we all know that, but seeing an expansion while being max level or leveling through it is not the same as going with everyone else through it, raiding with a guild that is doing actual MoP content, etc. It doesn't feel the same at all.

I did go through a lot of old raids every week in retail because I'm nostalgic, but it's just not like being there when it's current and raiding it with appropriate level and gear with a group. Soloing content, or even bringing a small group for raid achievements or something is fun, and you do see that expansion's features, but is just not the same thing as 'seeing the expansion'.

Even if you wanted to find a group of like minded people to go as 10-25 through MoP content and make a guild (which is already very very hard to make and keep up), doing it in retail is still different as the game system itself (class mechanics, talent adjustments, gear adjustments) still makes it different. I love TBC raiding but I didn't really enjoy that much when they did Timewalking Black Temple on retail, for example. For some people it could be enough, but for people who want to live through the actual expansion when it's current it's not enough to just 'imagine' it's there while being on the map.

I would love to do the legendary cloak questline in MoP. It's not doable in retail right now, for example.

Or I crafted Val'anyr soloing the content but now that I'm main healer in TBC would really want to do it as part of a guild progressing through all the quests together. It's the same item, but getting it feels way more epic and it's just a different experience than farming it alone being high level.

[ulillillia]

Uhm, we all know that, but seeing an expansion while being max level or leveling through it is not the same as going with everyone else through it, raiding with a guild that is doing actual MoP content, etc. It doesn't feel the same at all.

Level stop guild.

[Mnemosia]

Level stop guild.

That is not as easy as just saying it and doing it. And even when it's done, it's still again not the same experience so there's no point. The game system has changed, itemization, class talents, how some classes work, how some spells react to X or Y mechanics, too many things change every expansion and every patch so it will never feel as actually going through the expansion.

And still, you can't do legendary cloak questline from MoP right now even if the expansion 'is available'. There's a lot of game experience that is not liveable in retail just because the expansion 'is available' in the servers. The raid content is not current, it's extremely hard to keep up a full guild of people with stopped leveling doing weekly runs of MoP raids, and even in the slight chance you could get one, it's still not the same experience as doing it when it's current because of all of the reasons listed above.

It's not that we are dumb and don't know that the expansion 'is there'. We do know it. We know that there's a stop leveling feature too. We simply also know that that's it not what we would like to experience and it's not even closer to what 'seeing the expansion' means in this context.

[ulillillia]

That is not as easy as just saying it and doing it.

How is it not? We've had those guilds for years.

And even when it's done, it's still again not the same experience so there's no point.

How is it different? MoP was not changed.

[Mnemosia]

How is it not? We've had those guilds for years.



How is it different? MoP was not changed.

The experience is different. Again, the simplest example is that you cannot do the legendary cloak questline. You can do the first ones but at some point Wrathion doesn't offer anymore and you can't even get the rep to exalted by the normal means (only by killing a weekly boss that gives 500 so it takes literal years to get to exalted). You can't get the cloak itself, neither jump to Ordos with it the normal way. If I remember correctly I couldn't even approach Ordos if I went through the seagull because I don't have the cloak. Content that is not doable with a locked level guild even if the expansion 'exists'. That is not 'same game experience' in my book.

The game experience is not just 'killing a mob inside a raid'. It's also the guild you're in, the progress through content/lore, the whole server progressing the same as you, the server being alive on those cities, trading the current expansion items, crafting the current expansion required items. Small little things that add up to the overall expansion feeling that everyone is playing the same game as you.

Doing a guild with 25 locked level people is just that, a locked guild of 25 people who do specific content from an expansion. That is cool, kudos to people if they do that, for sure. But it's not what 'seeing the expansion' means in the context of this thread. Seeing the expansion means actually going through it while everyone else is also going through it. It's not being locked to your guild you built specifically for locking level and doing the content. It's switching guilds, or doing PUGs, or having different chars on different guilds because all the guilds are doing the same expansion and everyone is in the same boat so the feel is 'being IN the expansion' not doing old content that the rest of the server already treats as old.

If just playing in a map of the expansion is exactly the same experience as wanting to see it in a dedicated server, then why did people come to TBC servers if TBC is already available in retail then? Isn't that just stupid given your reasoning? Why wasting server space if the expansion was already available for all players in retail and we pay the same sub? They didn't change the raids or the map or the quests, so... why waste time leveling in a completely new different server if the 'same experience' is already available in retail? Just wondering.

[ulillillia]

The experience is different.

Playing on WoW Classic servers is different than playing Classic from 2004-2007

[Mnemosia]

Playing on WoW Classic servers is different than playing Classic from 2004-2007

That slight difference is not the same as the massive difference of playing 'X expansion' in retail. The slight changes are mostly UX gameplay improvements which are actually good to have (a different client, fixes/correct talents from last patch, etc) and the mounts/packs things which yeah, are different but still don't affect direct gameplay like what you propose does. I don't think there's a ground to say that since Classic 2004 and Classic 2021 are slightly different then it should be fine for original MoP and retail MoP to feel massively different for the people who want to experience the complete expansion and not just going into a raid with a set group of people specifically made for the purpose once a week (which again, nothing wrong with that but it's just not the same thing we are asking for).

In your Classic 2004-2021 example both servers are in the same expansion for everyone even if they're slightly different. You're proposing to play an expansion inside a different one, instead of having that dedicated server with the old expansion being current. Your own example doesn't apply to the point unless you think that 'game experience' means killing some mobs inside a dungeon and nothing else, in which case we could just agree to disagree and call it a day I guess.

Again, if playing MoP or TBC or Wrath in retail is exactly the same exact game experience as playing it in a dedicated server, then why did people go to TBC server or are eagerly awaiting for Wrath to come? Isn't it the exact same game experience? Why would Blizzard invest resources on servers for that if players already have TBC available in retail then?

Also Ordos cloak where pls. It's beautiful.

[Kralljin]

Tol Barad was way more than 10-20, are you kidding me? I recall the limit being either 100v100 or 200v200, just like WG.

It was reliant on the population of your server as Tol Barad did not have a Tenacity buff.

If only 20 people queued up on the enemy faction, only 20 people from the other got in.
Fun times when 10 of those 20 were undergeared.

[unbound]

Most likely it will end with Wrath.

Subscriptions dropped from 11-12 million in Wrath to 7 million near the end of MoP. While those are better numbers than today, WoW Classic has maybe 1/4 of the activity compared to Retail (which is not much over 1 million active users on any given day). I don't see Blizz going with Cata or MoP which realistically won't get more than a few tens of thousands of players each.

[schwank05]

I hope they keep going I actually enjoyed Cata and MOP. after MOP the game ended IMO so I am good with going through that far. I will be copying my characters after Wrath though as I love that xpac and will want to come back to it from time to time.

[Mnemosia]

I hope they keep going I actually enjoyed Cata and MOP. after MOP the game ended IMO so I am good with going through that far. I will be copying my characters after Wrath though as I love that xpac and will want to come back to it from time to time.

Question, since I didn't go back to Classic and I'm full on TBC. Are the classic servers (not SoM) actually alive with people still playing? I do love the idea of keeping a character and just reliving it from time to time but not sure how popular that idea is and how many people would generally be on 'locked expansion' servers?

[Deventh]

They will stop making Classic servers when they see people stop playing them. Since WOTLK will 100% be played they will most likely make Cataclysm classic too, but if that is not played enough they will stop there.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

When Classic was announced:

"Oh boy! I'll get to comfortably level to 60, and then have -forever- to enjoy those raids for the first time! No rush. "

When TBC was announced:

"... Oh.. boy.. So, this is obviously going to Wrath- but are we stopping there? I never hit 60 in time, so I guess I missed out on Classic.. I guess I'll look towards Wrath and 80 content instead of TBC, since I won't reach 70 in time.

Yea! Then they'll keep Wrath forever... right? I'll finally be able to at least take part in Classic Raiding -ONCE-? ... right Blizz?"


When Wrath is announced:

"JFC YOU'RE GOING TO KEEP MOVING THE PLAYERBASE AWAY FROM ME!?!?! CATA IN 2 YEARS ALREADY ARE YOU SERIOUS? FFS! Will we never get a permanent home?!"

[RoKPaNda]

Cataclysm is the turning point in WoW's history. It went from absolute king in the MMO genre to contested game. Retail WoW is really bad and is not even a shadow of what prime WoW was. On my opinion, this means that it is not worth going beyond WotLK, after all the classic hype that made Blizzard take action and create it was the epicness aura that revolved around Vanilla/BC/WotLK.

Since retail is bad and WotLK is the last god-tier expansion

See you say that, but anyone who played Classic / TBC Classic has realized just how bad the game was. Balance was horrific. The only reason we're playing it is nostalgia and the only reason it wasn't a total joke in its time is that we were all bad back then. Things like "class identity" that get thrown around a lot really just boil down to inconveniences that some classes could overcome and some couldn't, or adding a really powerful buff or debuff to a shitty spec so that it gets brought to a raid rather than actually making it decent. During your "god tier" expansions players complained about the same things you're complaining about now with modern WoW. Modern WoW is objectively better in a lot of ways. I've been playing Classic TBC purely for nostalgia and the fact that SL didn't appeal to me. Modern WoW also just has better competition which highlights a lot of the flaws in WoW.

Churning out versions of Classic for free money while developing retail WoW has worked for me them so far, I don't see why they'd change it up now. Nostalgia sells.