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

[anon5123]

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.

You're assuming that "nostalgia" is literally the only reason someone would stop playing. Big hole in your argument.

Also like the guy above me said, even back during retail wotlk/cata, the retention rate was only ~10%. So no, people can quit for reasons that do not involve "nostalgia". Even back in 2005, the majority of players did not make it to level 60. Even on private servers where most people were specifically fans of Vanilla, there would be a massive boom of population at launch which would reduce to less than half by the time BWL was out.

[Makaloff]

well i dont know how far they will go, ill guess they might go until legion? Personally i only stick around until MoP, everything after that was just downhill in every way, especielly class design (yes im still mad how legion ruined hunters, its been garbage to play ever since)

[Akka]

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

WotLK is much more raid-oriented that Vanilla, so obviously it will get more logs in raids. One of the main attraction of Vanilla (and to a lesser extent TBC) was the "world" as a playground and not just "raid".

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.

Pretty much. The difference between "old" WoW and "modern" WoW is, as said above, that the original WoW was developped with the entire world as a playground, while more and more the game has become a treadmill of "only latest patch is relevant".

- - - Updated - - -

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.

And yet 4 years later there is still hundred of thousand, if not millions, people playing. Your conclusion seems to be pretty dumb actually.

[FAILoZOFF]

Pretty much. The difference between "old" WoW and "modern" WoW is, as said above, that the original WoW was developped with the entire world as a playground, while more and more the game has become a treadmill of "only latest patch is relevant".

That's not quite true, like what exactly would you want to do in Elvynn Forest as lvl 60 rogue? Pickpocket these lvl 8 defias thugs?
Idea behind it is nice, but in reality there's not even all that much going on in open world while lvling purposes besides quests and gathering profs.

[Noffub]

That's not quite true, like what exactly would you want to do in Elvynn Forest as lvl 60 rogue? Pickpocket these lvl 8 defias thugs?
Idea behind it is nice, but in reality there's not even all that much going on in open world while lvling purposes besides quests and gathering profs.

Can you describe what do you do in the open world in Northrend?

The majority of the population is yelling in Dalaran LFM GDKP, when you go to the world to do questing, even in Gehenass, the world is empty and I have leveled recently 4 chars to 80 in the most populated server in EU, and you hardly find a dungeon group or need to compite from resources or mobs to complete quests/farm.

Game is dead besides the latest patch which is Ulduar and GDKPs.

Even it is hard to find an HC+ that is not the daily one.

[FAILoZOFF]

Can you describe what do you do in the open world in Northrend?

Yeah exactly the same, altho is a fair bit faster, so what even was you point again?

[Akka]

That's not quite true, like what exactly would you want to do in Elvynn Forest as lvl 60 rogue? Pickpocket these lvl 8 defias thugs?
Idea behind it is nice, but in reality there's not even all that much going on in open world while lvling purposes besides quests and gathering profs.

The path to 60 was a significant undertaking in original WoW and you were not supposed to reach it quickly (even if some determined players did it). It made for a much larger part of what the game was about, getting gear was much slower and overall the time spent outside raids was a larger part of the game pie.
The game constantly accelerated and reduced the significance of the pre-raid part, and by WotLK it was just a quick trek to max level and then a quicker rush to grab raid-level gear, making WotLK the "last patch raidlog" experience we are talking about.

I mean, that's basically a copy-paste of the discussions people had before Classic on the same subject. You'd think that with the recent evidence with Classic, people would actually get it, but it seems it's just a neverending cycle.

[RobertMugabe]

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

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

Vanilla beats both Wotlk and TBC by a lot actually.

Ironforge.pro even tells you right on the front page that they only consider Warcraft Logs and PVP leaderboards (since TBC).
This means that Wrath's actual pop is a lot bigger than this site reports, but Classic Classic was MUCH BIGGER than Wrath, at least the first couple of months.

I mean otherwise this whole chart makes no sense if you don't consider that, as it looks like that Classic gained player over time and no one played at launch lol, while the first couple of months were clearly insanely filled with large queues on almost all servers.

All in all: the chart you have shown is a chart on the raiding population (and arena players), not the actualy full playerbase, which know of were a small subset of Classic's pop, while the only reason to play Wrath for the most part is for raids and arena.

[FAILoZOFF]

The path to 60 was a significant undertaking in original WoW and you were not supposed to reach it quickly (even if some determined players did it). It made for a much larger part of what the game was about, getting gear was much slower and overall the time spent outside raids was a larger part of the game pie.
The game constantly accelerated and reduced the significance of the pre-raid part, and by WotLK it was just a quick trek to max level and then a quicker rush to grab raid-level gear, making WotLK the "last patch raidlog" experience we are talking about.

Times change. Game got "solved" and people pick more efficient routes as well as information in general spreads far more rapidly. We already know this.
What did classic world offer besides quests and gathering nodes again, especially in context of endgame? Nothing. It was always about raids and to far lesser extent- dungeons. All instanced.

[Akka]

Times change. Game got "solved" and people pick more efficient routes as well as information in general spreads far more rapidly. We already know this.

Hu yeah, old content gets solved. The point is about the design which gave birth to such content.

What did classic world offer besides quests and gathering nodes again, especially in context of endgame? Nothing. It was always about raids and to far lesser extent- dungeons. All instanced.

You seem to just keep on dismissing the point while not registering it.