Will they stop after Classic WoTLK or keep going (Classic Cata, MoP, etc.)

[anon5123]

I said it in a previous post, Cata in the grand scheme of things merely solidified changes that were already in with Wotlk.

people say the same thing about TBC
"oh it started the systems that continued in wotlk and then got refined in cata, so tbc is essentially retail"

it's kinda insane tbh

[Kralljin]

people say the same thing about TBC
"oh it started the systems that continued in wotlk and then got refined in cata, so tbc is essentially retail"

Just a slight difference whether you compare two expansions with a 2 year gap between its launches and two expansions with like 15 years between its launches.

[sam86]

i don't see them at all going cata, so either they will jump directly to MoP (then legion, then DF i guess?), or stop after wrath
if they go cata it will bomb no doubt, few to none miss cata, cata doesn't even rank in top 5 fav exps of wow in any poll

[Khaza-R]

i don't see them at all going cata, so either they will jump directly to MoP (then legion, then DF i guess?), or stop after wrath
if they go cata it will bomb no doubt, few to none miss cata, cata doesn't even rank in top 5 fav exps of wow in any poll

They will definitely do Cata. Because its basically free money to them. If nothing else, streamers will hype "hard heroics" before people realize that shit is boring to run for months on end.

But when it inevitably bombs and can barely fill a single server, they will backtrack and focus on super Classic. Although parallel development on MoP classic is definitely possible, I think too much of the damage will be done at that point.

[Krewshi]

How cool would it be if they kept going (cata, mop, wod, etc) but added in all cut content/im proved qol changes on day 1 (IE: Purchasable legendary items in Legion on Day 1)

[Erolian]

Personally, I’d rather have first patch Cata any day than MoP. People talk about Cata as the end of the classic era and that’s true to some extent, but MoP was the start of the systems era - the first patch of MoP was a dailies nightmare, and in later patches you had to navigate the unholy pairing of LFR and the legendary quest every time you started an alt.

MoP did have some good things - proving grounds, brawler’s guild, and Timeless Isle - and that separates it from some of the more nightmarish recent systems driven expansions - but to me it’s where the downhill slide started.

I'd agree that the dailies sucked but they also didn't even come close to being the entire first patch lol. It was basically a few weeks of needing the rep in the lead up to the raids releasing and then just never thinking about it again unless you for some reason wanted to keep grinding it for a bunch of optional stuff

Also you should think about doing those questlines on your alts without LFR. LFR is basically the only reason those questlines were sort of tenable for alts. I'd expect them to address that and change something much like they have for wotlk classic by shifting rewards around instead of just making it the worst thing ever if they did MoP classic

[MiiiMiii]

Even WotLK just being on Ulduar it's losing popularity. People realise the values of Classic Vanilla is kinda lost in WotLK.

I think start another Season of Mastery in Classic soonish would be the best move. The idea was good, the timing was not good. Now, it's good timing.

Maybe a hardcore realm but I don't really see more than 1 PvE realm being nessesary for that.

[sam86]

They will definitely do Cata. Because its basically free money to them. If nothing else, streamers will hype "hard heroics" before people realize that shit is boring to run for months on end.

streamers won't hype it unless payed, we talking about cata here, few interested in it, and cata 'hard' hcs were flat out just overtuned dungeons with zero mistake and healers oom in 3 slow heals or 1 flash heal (they really overnerfed healers)

[Nak88]

Even WotLK just being on Ulduar it's losing popularity. People realise the values of Classic Vanilla is kinda lost in WotLK.

I think start another Season of Mastery in Classic soonish would be the best move. The idea was good, the timing was not good. Now, it's good timing.

Maybe a hardcore realm but I don't really see more than 1 PvE realm being nessesary for that.

Do you realise WotLK, even in Ulduar downtime, has more players than "godlike" Vanilla and TBC has ever had? Just check WL numbers.

[crusadernero]

Do you realise WotLK, even in Ulduar downtime, has more players than "godlike" Vanilla and TBC has ever had? Just check WL numbers.

Sure, but how many of those just raidlog?

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i don't see them at all going cata, so either they will jump directly to MoP (then legion, then DF i guess?), or stop after wrath
if they go cata it will bomb no doubt, few to none miss cata, cata doesn't even rank in top 5 fav exps of wow in any poll

Its free money and it can fill a content void whenever they want to release it. Should it be released? Personally, i'd say no. By that point, just play retail.

[bbr]

I feel it is weird they decided to push classic to the burning crusade... kind of defeats the idea of classic.
And whole reason for classic servers to have existed in the first place.

[Tuor]

Personally, I’d rather have first patch Cata ...

So... You want to keep running Zull'Aman and Zull'Gurub 4ever, thanks a lot, i have been there so i'll just pass... Never again.

[kranur]

Do you realise WotLK, even in Ulduar downtime, has more players than "godlike" Vanilla and TBC has ever had? Just check WL numbers.

Actually if you do check it, it comes out that it doesn't.
Naxx had around 16k.
Sunwell had around 16k.
Ulduar has around 14k.
t7 did actually get to 22k.

Also looking at https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/ there are 411k chars. Pretty sure they were above 500k in TBC.

[Xkiller9000]

Id be ok with either tbh, Ill do a fresh Classic but id also like to do Cata and MoP

[shise]

Currently, classic era is growing. Lots of people joining vanilla again. I think the absolute majority of us who went to classic wanted to experience the good old wow. You see, it was not about nostalgia as some claimed, now it has been proven that we simply prefered that state of the game.

WotLK was fun, and good lore. But as it stands, it is not as fun as vanilla and BC... WotLK is where you start focusing too much on the latest content and screw all else.
In BC you were still 60% focused on Vanilla content, because leveling and dungeons were still a BIG fun deal. Then the other 40% was purely BC content. Vanilla was still the greater part of your game unless you didn´t play a single alt.

In WotLK you focus 20% on vanilla at most, 5% on BC because you have to go through it for.. an evening? and then it is an absurd 75% on WotLK... which is great all the way til Ulduar, new and fresh... but once Ulduar comes out and you cleared all the HMs a few weeks in a row you realize... how there is nearly nothing else to do anymore (out of achievements).

[meheez]

just seeing all the Deathwing stuff on retail convices me its gonna be Classic Cataclysm.

But I dont care, because retail is pretty fun imo. The raids and dungeons are much harder than anything wotlk or vanilla, except its all in the difficulties rather than just the instance.

[Nak88]

Actually if you do check it, it comes out that it doesn't.
Naxx had around 16k.
Sunwell had around 16k.
Ulduar has around 14k.
t7 did actually get to 22k.

Also looking at https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/ there are 411k chars. Pretty sure they were above 500k in TBC.

https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/overall/

It's pretty simple dude, just check out those charts. WotLK beats Vanilla and TBC by a mile.

[crusadernero]

Have you guys checked the realm status on Classic Era? I did last night when logging my HC character. Ok, I expected the HC server to be on full but there maaany pvp & pve servers with "full" capacity. On classic era servers. In 2023. When literally NOTHING is going on there, except the HC challenge on one server.

That says everything Blizzard needs to know.

What comes after cata? Give players a raid+dungeon lobby. No leveling, nothing like that. max level chars were you can do the old raids and nothing else.

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https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/overall/

It's pretty simple dude, just check out those charts. WotLK beats Vanilla and TBC by a mile.

WotLK has reached the stage most players were(are) excited about. Ulduar is out, soon ICC is coming. ToC is in there, but almost doesnt count.

Besides, vanilla was hardly 99% about the raids. Its so much more. While on WotLK we can already see where 99% of the attention is. Raid.

[God Save The King]

Actually if you do check it, it comes out that it doesn't.
Naxx had around 16k.
Sunwell had around 16k.
Ulduar has around 14k.
t7 did actually get to 22k.

Also looking at https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/ there are 411k chars. Pretty sure they were above 500k in TBC.

I mean, your own 'source' disproves you. Highest peak in TBC was 404k. The very first week of WOTLK was 409k (meaning more people leveled to 80 and raided in the first week than the highest peak of TBC). Only the weeks of Christmas and New Years had less players than the peak of TBC, but other than those 2 weeks, every week in WOTLK has had noticeable more players than the absolute max TBC saw.

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You see, it was not about nostalgia as some claimed

No one claimed that every single person interested in Classic was only nostalgic.

The argument was that for the overwhelming majority of players, it was purely nostalgic. Which there is ample evidence to support. About 80-90% of Classic characters didn't reach 60 and quit. For that 80-90%, the desire to play classic was clearly just nostalgia. They got into it, tried it, and was like 'oh right this is what it was like' and quit.

Which was the argument being made.

Which turned out to be 100% correct.

For what it's worth, I played and actively play Classic/TBCC/WotLKC. Currently have 3 60s on Classic Era and all classes at 80 in LKC. But there's no denying that the overwhelming majority of the playerbase who joined first week of Classic has quit.

[Kralljin]

The argument was that for the overwhelming majority of players, it was purely nostalgic. Which there is ample evidence to support. About 80-90% of Classic characters didn't reach 60 and quit. For that 80-90%, the desire to play classic was clearly just nostalgia. They got into it, tried it, and was like 'oh right this is what it was like' and quit.

Seems silly to assume that everyone that tried Classic actually played Classic back in 04-06, because people that didn't play it back then cannot be nostalgic about it.

And i would really love to see your evidence to showcase that that 80-90% of players quit before 60.
Not because i doubt it, but simply because i want to see the source.

But there's no denying that the overwhelming majority of the playerbase who joined first week of Classic has quit.

WoW also had over 100M accounts created by the time of Cata, when WoW had like 10-12M subs, which is also a ~10% Retention rate.

Remakes / Remasters / Relaunches by their design will always tap into a nostalgia factor, but that doesn't matter when you retain more than enough players.

Which was the argument being made.

Which turned out to be 100% correct.

The argument also often followed up with "this is why Classic will fail".