15. You wake up
Classic in private servers is already much better/fun than retail. I can only imagine how much better it'll be in an official blizzard server without the constant threat of shutting down or the shady gold selling business that's been going on around...
Ya, I've been wondering if gold sellers will manage to be a thing again with classic servers up.
Also crossing my fingers for a PvP server without the new QoL change that they are adding to live that allows you to unflag yourself for PvP.
No porting into dungeons/flying is going to create some serious battles in game again, and I can't wait for it.
We are WARRIORS man! If we can't make it bleed, we will sure as hell dent the f%^ck out of it!
And the contents they added after classic also encourage replay: m+, achievements, transmogs, and weekly rotation of some things so that even without updates there is still different contents. I'm not saying that everyone enjoys that - but I highly doubt that OP's prediction will come true.
I saw that coming miles away. And then I have another prediction!
If classic does well - "LUL SEE NEW WOW IS TRASH?"
If it does poorly? - "IT'S BECAUSE OF THE CHANGES THAT BLIZZ MADE/DIDN'T MAKE!"
Personally? I see a lot of initial interest, then it falls off to a more focused group. Numbers wise? Let's say 8 million in the first couple months, cut to about 2 million after a year. If so long.
Simple logic explained:
PS is better experience
plus
PS is free
should equal to
PS population > retail population
Right?
No?
Nooooooooo.
Retail population>>>>>>>>>>>PS population.
Now go back to the two arguments that led to the false conclusion for a little fact check.
PS is free = check.
PS is better experience = ...
So the new conclusion: Vanilla type experience is better than retail for a small group of people, far from all.
My prediction:
Classic will have it's peak for about 6 months after it's release. By that time few things will happen:
1. Most of retail players will realize that they cannot manage to maintain two WoW games at the same time and will prefer retail
2. Many Classic player that came from PS will realize that now they are paying for something that they were getting for free before and will also leave
3. Old time players that have quit WoW for good will realize that the magic is gone and this game is not able to bring back their youth. And leave.
4. Other reasons to leave
5. Classic will anchor around 50-100K subs for a couple of years, after that fall into slow decline with no new content added in.
I doubt it. I do genuinely think it will have a lifespan for even the most hardcore, these are the player that have been playing it for the last 10 years on private servers. There is a solid community that usually end up rolling on new servers together and creating a competitive pvp/pve environment server, I hope that Blizzard identify this and stagger the release of servers over a period.
I expect mass hype, it's impossible to say how long people will stick it out.
1. Lot of people (3-4 millions?) will check Classic servers. Most of them will drop after few hours (I assume they will be free if you have active sub) shouting "what they hell is that".
2. Rest will enjoy their nostalgia trip, some will rush to max.
3. People that rushed will roflstomp all content (depend how it will be gated).
4. Population will stabilize around 300-500k people.
5. Community will call it fail.
6. "Legacy" community will blame Blizzard, because they have changed game, so it's no longer same experience (even if Blizzard won't change anything).
7. The End.
Bonus: J. Allen Brack will release video called: "You thought you do, but you don't" where he is smiling and drinking whiskey.
Don't get me wrong, I like that you'll have your servers. I will try them too (although I would prefer WoTLK to experience old world). But some of you are so detached from reality that it's not even funny. It may be painful when you hit reality.
This is the biggest reason Blizzard was disinterested in Legacy up until this point. No matter what they do, they'll never be able to live up to the nostalgia-dripping lunacy a vocal segment of this community believes in. Even if it's a carbon copy of Vanilla WoW, the fact that it isn't the year 2004 anymore is going to play a major part in how the game is perceived. Worse than that, there is the positively bewildering fact that there are people in this community who actually believe the game will somehow revert to the popularity powerhouse it was when it was released.
Ultimately, it's a "damned if they do," and "damned if they don't" scenario... I personally don't believe the risks outweigh the possibility of recapturing lightning in a bottle twice; it'll be interesting to see how everything pans out but I have extreme reservations it will result in anything positive.
Best case scenario, Legacy lays the groundwork for whatever becomes of WoW once Blizzard announces another MMO to replace it.
Last edited by arr0gance; 2017-12-04 at 02:17 AM.
If there's no gold sellers and a pile of dead body in Org making the url for the website it will ruin the Vanilla experience.
Arathi Highlands is for level 32+
Cant trust a person who doesn't know what he is talking about
I think that's pretty ambitious. Vanilla is a very unique type of game. I don't think it would be until we had a Wrath of the Lich King type of server that this kind of effect would start to take place.
But in many ways, I don't think you are wrong. I never played vanilla, I started playing the game at the tail end of the Burning Crusade. But even then, the game was not massively different from Vanilla and the game had a very certain appeal to it. You didn't just adventure to kill raid bosses - you adventured to run dungeons with people and complete difficult quests. It really showed you the meaning of the expression "it's about the journey, not the destination". Every day back then was an adventure.
People will act like you're crazy and tell you that your rose tinted goggles are wrapped around your head a little too tight and cutting off your blood circulation, but my best memories of wow aren't of raiding... They were about being in a guild and running out into the middle of buttfuck nowhere to help other people. It used to really feel like an accomplishment to explore the game's content or to run your lowbies through SM or even kill someone ganking them.
Now the game is about raiding. Everything is about raiding. There's no sense of adventure and everything is handed to you. Maybe some people like that, but not me. and I'm damn well not going to do a welfare legendary grind just for the opportunity, the privilege, just to stare at a dragon for 3 hours until it's dead. All of the recent developments to the game in the last, what, 4 years or so? They've done everything they could to turn me away from playing alts =/ I mean now you have to complete a (supposedly much longer than honor grind) grind to unlock pvp abilities and not gear... who's great idea was that? o__O
I'm really looking forward to classic servers and think it would be funny if things happen as you say, but I don't really care about all that. I'm just excited to play the game that I know and love again.
Or the 100 loud people will log in and wonder why the server is so dead while everyone else is playing the new expansion.
I predict most players will have quit anyway when WoW Classic releases in 2020