While I'm sure the initial response to the launch of Classic WoW will be huge, I feel like creating a comparable amount of servers to what we have now is foolish due to the probability that a large amount of folks will drop off or really not spend as much time as they think they will. Maybe 3 or 4 is a bit too conservative, but upwards of 50 is woefully overestimating how many folks are going to keep playing. The last thing they want, if they want this project to be successful, is a handful of dead servers that contain a limited playerbase because they stretched the amount of available realms to pick from too thin.
You're joking right? Vanilla servers had a cap of 2.5k players if memory serves. Let's guess a million people play classic once it's released, they would need 400 realms all operating at maximum capacity to get everyone logged in.
Hell, Nost had 150k activate accounts and that was on a private server you had to jump through loops to log into. One under the Blizzard banner? I'd assume it could easily draw 5x the number of regular users.
Edit: All depends on how many realms they can host per server I suppose.
servers are virtual as I understand it now so I am just using current 'server' numbers as a comparison. I know many retail servers now are said to be ghost towns, thus CRZ, etc.
Last I looked there are *500* retail US/EU servers. My suggestion of 100 is only 1/5th of that. that said, it may be optimistic, I did not consider that many retail servers are inactive.
Is there any known rule of thumb for the ratio of avg concurrent users to active accounts/server?
I think I am closer to right than wrong on my numbers. blizzard wont GIVE us numbers, of course, but I would think the long-term core playerbase of classic, if reasonably authentic, is going to be around a million EU/US. (and more china). If I were off by a factor of 2 either way it would not surprise me. That said, if A/B green-lighted this, it isn't to add a few servers and a couple hundred K subs. They think big.
Also, blizzard probably is aware of the potential for huge early initial response, followed by a taper to a lower longer-term sustainable level. It isn't beyond their ability to simply say from the beginning that we should expect mergers once the longer term sub level floor is reached, in as many words. They can keep faction balance better that way too. Also, I have been on a classic server with 9k logged in. It is madness. everything non-instanced is complicated to deal with as it is constantly being killed, esp. quest mobs/areas. They will need a lot of servers to start just to accomodate max concurrent users for the first x days/weeks.
so, a guess given the lack of useful detail from blizzard (such as just how frankenstein this project will end up being), I would think if wow has 3m active players today eu/na, about half of them will initially play on classic servers and another 2m formers will return. this is for the initial launch. Additionally, returning player will continue to trickle in for months at a lower rate, somewhat offsetting initial attrition.
I think at least 25% returning sub retention is reasonable. I base my guess on the following -
1) wow former playerbase is in the 10's of millions. some % of these have been literally waiting for blizzard to make such an option available. Contrary to naysayers here, this subset of players knows what it wants and will pay for it.
2) I am mindful of the relative participation in RSOS and the 'new' version.
Last edited by Deficineiron; 2017-11-10 at 12:51 PM.
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Remember, A Man may break a Woman's Heart - But a Woman will destroy a Man's life. - SJK @ the #Antiwokenessworld
at this point you are arguing that blizzard does not know their market (wow) and does not know how to recognize a way to make money?
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right, many players want classic but would like something from retail ported to it. they range from interface issues to minor functionality to whole-hog QoL/game/economy-changing modifications.
if you include everyone's wishes on this, you get essentially retail with a classic map. many people recognize this and, at the individual level, recognize that the only way to avoid this is just to say 'nothing from retail added' period. blizzard probably is going to see it a bit differently.
blizzard has to find the balance on this. they are certainly going to bring some features in.
they could well reduce mount cost and lower level to get each mount. this is a big change in most players experience with their first characters, but in retail they have demonstrated a great desire to never make anyone go slow.
i have wondered if achievements get put in. a 3.x engine would work on this. just remove the new zones, back the actual talents to 1.x, change some numbers back, etc.
you can go a step further. they could INCLUDE the blood elf and draenei starting zones, just make them part of the classic zone/map rather than bc zone (they were part of the bc zone instance). I am not saying they would or should. But they certainly could. Removes the shaman/paladin issue, and gives horde a 'pretty' race.
they are likely to eventually include tokens and instant 60 purchases. I am not sure they have a lot of choice over this. Maybe they way 6-12 months before introducing it.
Last edited by Deficineiron; 2017-11-10 at 01:00 PM.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.
Because it's only now that Blizzard have even met us half way and decided to give us a legacy server at all?
Why do people just assume that everyone asking for legacy servers were only ever explicitly asking for a carbon copy of what was available at 2007 and nothing else? I've been a vocal advocate of legacy servers for years on these forums, and never once called for anything at a more granular level than 'legacy servers'. The specifics of how they are delivered with regards to QoL improvements was never brought up, because no one was going to say "We want all old expacs as legacy servers AND we want them updated!" given that we didn't even get just Vanilla.
These bait threads are a special breed. I played Vanilla and everything since. Legion is much too polished for anyone who's used to it to go back to 2007 and enjoy the broken shit show of a game that it was. The core aspects that made it a great game can all be enjoyed to the full without limiting players to 5 class/spec combos, etc.
Also we're not getting "Vanilla" - we're getting "Classic". There's no reason that Classic can't be a remastered Vanilla. If those old fucks with their heads up their arses could join the rest of us in 2017, we could all enjoy a polished vanilla experience, but they want to alienate every player that didn't quit WoW in 2008, and want to be hipster as fuck while they play on Win XP.
Drop this notion of 'why now' and 'you asked for vanilla, you get vanilla'. We asked for legacy servers. We're getting one, now it's time for discussion on how to make it as successful as possible, which is in Blizzard's (and everyone else's) best interests.
Been banned all week so finally getting to reply to all these stupid threads.
It's funny that a few people saying this, when the vast majority of the old school gamers agree with @Frylord . I ve been bullied on other threads, of how I dare to talk like I represent some group.
Guess what.Yes, he does speak for everyone that loved vanilla. I speak for that community too.
If you want QoL, then vanilla is not for you. There is also going to be an expansion called "Battle for Azeroth, I don't know if you have heard. You can play that instead of vanilla, if you want QoL and class-balance (not that it exists, but meh)
I don't get this mentality at all. All I see here is someone trolling because they are annoyed its being implemented.
The other night I watched a stream, the streamer wants bugs left in.
His example was
The loot crouching bug. Sometimes when you looted youd get stuck in the crouch animation and be unable to loot until it randomly corrected itself - sometimes hours later and a reboot wouldn't fix it.
I can't fathom why fixing that would have any impact what so ever on Vanilla to make it "Not Vanilla"
so here is a good example for the thread. Jyggalag has determined that no one objects to mass auto-loot.
Others should chime in with things they KNOW everyone agrees with. Just saying it is so makes it true, so objections to any given feature won't be allowed. I will add a fun one.
No one MISSES threat mechanics. we need to use the 3.0 threat generation levels for tanks.
Authors I have enjoyed enough to mention here: JRR Tolkein, Poul Anderson,Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Glen Cook, Brian Stableford, MAR Barker, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, WM Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert SheckleyJohn Steakley, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Silverberg, the norse sagas, CJ Cherryh, PG Wodehouse, Clark Ashton Smith, Alastair Reynolds, Cordwainer Smith, LE Modesitt, L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Stephen R Donaldon, and Jack L Chalker.
To all those people saying "it's either untouched or you're not playing Vanilla" - well, hello, most people don't want a "Vanilla", but rather "Vanilla-feeling".
You can have lots of QoL and stability improvements and still provide the same feeling and game tempo. Heck, if you even fix some classes so they aren't benched throughout the whole raid experience, it would be nice. Like, have the same abilities and all, but tweak the numbers. You can still have a Vanilla progression system, raids, difficulty level, professions and all, packed in an improved client and UI. Why not?
The fact YOU won't play it and YOU don't want it doesn't mean a thing. Blizzard initially rejected the possibility, but now backtracked on this, because the response was so overwhelming. They have the stats, they see trends, if they decide they're gonna make Classic - they HAVE A REASON for it. It's stupid to think it's just "hey, let's give them what they want, they'll get bored after a week, then we can close it and say 'we told you so'". It's a business after all and they apparently believe in Classic, so they will cater to the community's needs (they actually confirmed that on Blizzcon).
Well, this - pretty much. You can have a Vanilla feeling, music, items, raids and dungeons, but without nuisances and guess what - it's still gonna be a proper WoW: Classic just how I remember it.
As a Classic hater(ive been 17 years old once, dont want to do that again), I completely understand that people want the real, orginal deal.
People demands Vanilla 1.0. Period. Maybe they could had patch cycles as original, that fixed the loot bug etc.
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THE REASON THEY HAVE...
Comes from so many people was playing a free game(the more they rejected the idea, the more would morons who NEVER tryed Vanilla before, stand up and whine, use the term as bashword towards Blizz and the retail product).
You say buisness, cool, pay up then. And no, there won't be as many when Classic is out compared to private servers.
We began this road trip a little over 10 years ago, and we are still steadily moving down the road. Where the goal is to make every class as similar as possible, and demand as little interaction as possible between the players. And don't call me out for slippery slope hysteria. The slope has been slipping for a decade.
Patch 1.12, and not one step further.
Hosting good quality servers of vanilla wow with current day hardware/software/virutualization implementations wont be an issue. Hardware and software was a HUGE bottleneck back then and virtualization wasnt really a thing. Nostalrius ran pretty great with 8-10k players online. It started to hickup around 15k.
The only thing i could possibly see not being an issue when these servers come out would be graphic updates, with the polygon textures, thats it. Honestly, the amount of people i see saying "balance specs" or "make some QoL changes", shit, ive even seen people begging for LFD and LFR lmao.
Thankfully, all of the interviews we've been seeing from the devs have been stating that none of this will be added. As i have stated, when they say something like "blizzard experience" the only thing i could imagine is better server stability, better graphics, and probably better addon support, which is obviously totally fine.
Asmongold said it best in his stream last night tho, when people go into BWL or AQ40 and have their weakauras tell them the one mechanic, theyre going to sit there and say "what the fuck is this shit?"
Not once has anyone suggested we homogenize classes. There's a big difference between "balance" and "similar as possible". It doesn't even need to be balanced to the point where classes are on equal footing - just make it so that average Johnny Hasn'tplayedvanilla can get into a group at max level without the disappointment of getting all the way to 60 and realizing he picked a bottom tier class/spec that can't compete. Make it so a bear druid becomes an option for raids so that 20% of the server pop isn't prot warrior, even if it's still a distant 2nd when compared to warrior. Also, a lot of the "make every class the same" argument came with pruning and sharing spell effects across classes, which no one is suggesting happen either.
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Aaaaahh almost mate. Half way there. No one does miss looting every single mob 1 by 1, but people do miss threat mechanics. It was an integral part of the combat experience given that mobs/bosses had far fewer abilities to deal with. Almost there though! Once you realize that shit mechanics =! good/challenging/interesting mechanics, we'll get the "Classic" we all want
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Have you changed your name? Machismo (idk how it's spelled) used that avatar. If so - YES this is the first time we actually agree on anything. 10/10 post would read again.