"Who would actually pay for Classic?"

[Deficineiron]

LOL. Jokes aside, there are no tangible stats you fucking lemon. There's only opinions from what seems to be 2 camps apposing each other constantly on every classic subject so it's hard to take either camp seriously. I refute plenty of opinions because there's strong counter arguments... you know like that big fucking petition that was signed by hundreds of thousands people currently playing on private servers that practically begged Blizzard to offer a service (for money) to allow access official Vanilla servers. Dunno, maybe my critical thinking skills are out of whack.

I don't think there has ever been, before or since, a petition for a video game re-release on the scale of the classic petition. also, unless that poll was available in chinese, it likely excluded about half?? of classic ps players. This is a material data point because any classic release may well be licensed to Netease in china as well.

the biggest tell (which most opponents have conceded, if implicitly) is that a/b feels that there is sufficient demand for the product to justify green-lighting classic. (quibble - what 'classic' is going to be exactly still is not getting discussed in detail by blue, though they did give us a clue with their question about whether class balancing would 'feel classic.')

I think most people arguing for a few thousand eventual classic players, or 1 server per region, etc., are (whether they realize it or not) arguing that blizz marketing is wrong. I would never EVER bet against blizz marketing folks.

[Morbownz]

There are private servers take them and blizzard does internal polling. Blizzard verifies accounts though and I was criticing you for being unable to understand the two. Your still failing to grasp that.

Private servers have polls? Me too, I have made polls and I have lots of data. Unfortunately even though I can process the data and draw conclusions, my progress halts when I realize there's nothing I can do with the data, you know... making it worthless.

Blizzard do internal polls? For what good? You talk like someone in the know, so please, expand on this point, I'd love to hear more about it, in particular any polls related to peoples willingness/refusal to pay for classic WoW.

[Unholyground]

Considering they moved WoW to just a sub fee for all content up to current expansion, I think it will be 2 separate fees but no purchase for the game OR Buy to play.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

I can't even process whatever point the original poster thinks he's trying to make.

Sorry, but the vast majority of people playing on private servers are only there for one of two reasons: 1.) Mommy wouldn't let them use the credit card for retail WoW, or 2.) they got their asses suspended or outright banned from retail WoW. Sure, there's a minute handful of people who are there to reminiscence or who just enjoyed the game better in vanilla, but they are a very small percentage of the people there.

That said, "Classic WoW" is neither going to be free nor cost anything extra. That's all but guaranteed. If you have an active WoW account, you'll have access to both it and retail WoW. That's the whole damn point of them doing it in the first place, to lull people back into playing retail WoW because they know most people who try the Classic WoW will be "this is awful" but won't want to just throw their subscription fee away, and thus will at least give retail WoW a shot.

Well that and so that they can go after the people running private servers even more fiercely since they will, without question, be stepping on their legal copyright and trademarked rights by harming their sales.

[Morbownz]

I don't think there has ever been, before or since, a petition for a video game re-release on the scale of the classic petition. also, unless that poll was available in chinese, it likely excluded about half?? of classic ps players. This is a material data point because any classic release may well be licensed to Netease in china as well.

If my memory serves me well, the questionnaire that Nostalrius created was available in different languages, including Chinese.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Private servers have polls? Me too, I have made polls and I have lots of data. Unfortunately even though I can process the data and draw conclusions, my progress halts when I realize there's nothing I can do with the data, you know... making it worthless.

Blizzard do internal polls? For what good? You talk like someone in the know, so please, expand on this point, I'd love to hear more about it, in particular any polls related to peoples willingness/refusal to pay for classic WoW.

Your polls aren't controlled like blizzards the same goes for most private servers. I don't want to explain basic things like that to someone unless I'm getting paid but feel free to use google.

I'm being a dick but this is common knowledge. Blizzard can verify paying customers and send them survey to collect opinions and data. They can also see how often something being played or queued and ask people why they like it. The feature they use for this is called analytics and most gaming engines let you do it with prefabs. I doubt most private servers bother with this and I can't confirm there methods unless I interviewed them which I'm far to lazy to do. Blizzard also has a backlog of veteran email address to send surveys to as well. They can collect data on a level most private servers can't and it helps them gather opinions and develop the game for it's player base.

They have a lot more credibility and way more marketing potential than private servers. The amount of ears there stuff can reach versus nos is insane.

I kind of wish they could ask nos for there backlog of email address for data collections or purchase it, I honestly doubt most former nos player would give a shit.

Random polls you create don't control for bots or trolls. It's like going to twitter and posting a poll about poltics and than claiming it's accurate when bots or trolls can flood the fuck out of it. Pollsters can collect adresses and send that to actual humans being. They can even keep taps on the people and see how there opinions changes but not on the level of a game because blizzard can see actual activity. Pollster can't stalk players but blizzard can that's what's so awesome about it. In most games players have unique Id that can track them indivisually and shit. Built in analytics came later like 2010 before that they need to code it from scratch. Which means private servers most likely have to code that infrustruce and that what makes me down it's on blizzards level.

I doubt any private server can do on a proffesional level equal to blizzard.

[Aydinx2]

You kinda ignored the bit where Classic won't get any content updates or quality of life improvements the way WoW has always had.

>inb4 yes it will

Then it isn't Classic and it just proves people don't know what they want.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

You kinda ignored the bit where Classic won't get any content updates or quality of life improvements the way WoW has always had.

>inb4 yes it will

Then it isn't Classic and it just proves people don't know what they want.

I think it will get updates if the games succesful but only updates that align with the spirit of the game there is also unrelease content that could be added later.

[Morbownz]

Your polls aren't controlled like blizzards the same goes for most private servers. I don't want to explain basic things like that to someone unless I'm getting paid but feel free to use google.

I'm being a dick but this is common knowledge. Blizzard can verify paying customers and send them survey to collect opinions and data. They can also see how often something being played and ask people why they like it's called analytics and most gaming engines let you do it with prefabs. Most private servers probably don't bother with this and I can't confirm there methods unless I interviewed them. Blizzard also has a backlog of veteran mail address to send surveys to as well. They can collect data on a level most private servers can't and it helps them gather opinions and develop the game for it's player base.

I kind of wish they could ask nos for there backlog of email address for data collections.

Random polls you create don't control for bots or trolls. It's like going to twitter and posting a poll about poltics russian bots will flood the fuck out of it but pollsters can collect adresses and send that to actual humans being.

Riiiight. So after 14 years of Blizzard saying "no" to Classic, they were able to have their minds changed by a private server poll. Sounds to me like they haven't ever been polling for Classic, don't you agree? Which slightly contradicts everything you've said from the start.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Riiiight. So after 14 years of Blizzard saying "no" to Classic, they were able to have their minds changed by a private server poll. Sounds to me like they haven't ever been polling for Classic, don't you agree? Which slightly contradicts everything you've said from the start.

I personally think they're riding a wave. I've never claimed they used private server polls to justify making classic... I said they could use enternal polling to guage interest, I did nothing but question private server data collecting. I also called your knowledge of it into question but never praised private server anayltics.

They could look at the success of other legacy content and guage private server popularity but that's it.

You like made this super ignorant comment about creating your own polls. There a poll and a than there is a scientifc poll you don't know the difference. I criticized you for that.

I originally disagreed with you on the majority reason for playing on private servers. I also said you had a victim complex.

[arkanon]

I have never played Vanilla in a private server, but would instantly pay for blizzard-quality Vanilla servers. Why? Because private servers don't always work properly and there is a risk of them being shut down, meaning you lose all progress. The monthly payment in wow is anyway so low that I rather pay it than play a poorly executed version for free. Yes, this is anecdotal evidence but this same applies to all my irl's who still play wow; they are willing to pay for blizzard made Vanilla, but never even tried those free Vanilla servers.

Hell, I have always preferred monthly cost games over free ones, because too often free games have had excessive pay to win mechanics. Only recently it has become so that they make enough money by selling cosmetic items or something else useless that doesn't really affect the gameplay.



Vanilla had quite a few subs in the past, which means that people have paid for it in the past. By applying your logic it seems that anything that isn't current is not evidence (which makes me think that you don't quite understand what evidence means).

If someone stole like a rare diamond today that hasn't been for sale in the past 3 years, we cannot by that imply that people want the diamond only if it's free, anyone that even tries to use logic would instead look at other things to determine whether someone would pay for that product or not. I think you weren't completely serious though because I want to believe that people aren't actually so stupid here.

We are not looking for evidence that people WERE willing to pay for it 12+ years ago, we are looking for evidence that people are willing to pay for it NOW (or more accurately in 18-24 months when they launch it).

your logic is so stretched and warped its scary.

[Deficineiron]

If my memory serves me well, the questionnaire that Nostalrius created was available in different languages, including Chinese.

thanks. my comments above subsequent to that clause are excluded now.

- - - Updated - - -

I personally think they're riding a wave. I've never claimed they used private server polls to justify making classic... I said they could use enternal polling to guage interest, I did nothing but question private server data collecting. I also called your knowledge of it into question but never praised private server anayltics.

They could look at the success of other legacy content and guage private server popularity but that's it.

You like made this super ignorant comment about creating your own polls. There a poll and a than there is a scientifc poll you don't know the difference. I criticized you for that.

I originally disagreed with you on the majority reason for playing on private servers. I also said you had a victim complex.

the last 10q directly discusses 're-imagining' multiple large IP's. This is in reference to activision but it isn't rocket science to think the other major older IP-owning subsidiary might look at the same thing.

[Triptych]

I'd be happy to pay a subscription for Classic, but I'm not sure if I'd pay full price over and above what I currently pay for my retail sub. I'd be more likely to go one or the other, rather than two subs for two MMOs : I don't have that much free time!

I would raise an eyebrow if they charged me a "box price" or purchase price though, since I technically already bought it 14 years ago. Mind you, it wouldn't be the first time that I've bought re-mastered or re-released games a second time ... I do it semi-regularly on GOG, with all my old favourites from the 90s.

[Deficineiron]

You kinda ignored the bit where Classic won't get any content updates or quality of life improvements the way WoW has always had.

>inb4 yes it will

Then it isn't Classic and it just proves people don't know what they want.

it isn't about what people want.

it is about what blizzard decides to do.

a parable:

A farmer has some sheep. he rotates them between various pastures over the course of the year, and has a shepherd to watch over them.

The sheep are opinionated. Some prefer this field, some that other, some want to change fields now, some aren't ready yet, some are never ready. Some want their wool sheared now, some not. The flock watches the choices the shepherd makes with interest to see how attentive he is to their desires, since it is obvious the shepherd makes changes/decisions based on what the flock wants. When the shepherd makes a choice which pleases some and displeases other sheep, it is clearly favoritism by the shepherd.

The shepherd, of course, isn't aware of much of this, and the rest he disregards as irrelevant. He gets told where to move the flock and when by the farm owner. He gets them into place for shearing annually (which is in part a schedule determined by outside factors), and helps separate the lambs when it is time for slaughter. while he tries to keep the flock healthy and safe from predators, he often is thinking of his own interests and goals while tending the flock.

[Taurous]

I would not pay. I cant afford more than one game subscription.

[Doomchicken]

Considering a certain private server that's not allowed to be named in a year had 650 thousand accounts out of the 800 thousand accounts that had been created in the first year inactive when the year ended, when it was free, that's telling you something. And that's not something good.

[munkeyinorbit]

Whenever there have been figures that have shown the hundreds of thousands (if not more) players who have played Classic on private servers, these numbers are immediately dismissed with rhetoric like "they're only playing on there because it's free, they wouldn't actually pay for Blizzard's official Classic WoW".

Yet when the cost of WoW in general is being discussed, it is often these same people who then turn around and say things like "WoW is so cheap, it costs less than a movie ticket".

So why would the cost of Classic all of a sudden be a barrier to entry? Why would those hundeds of thousands of engaged players (presumably) not pay less than a movie ticket to continue enjoying what they were on private servers?

The greatest vanilla server of all time (starting with N) couldn't survive. Some figures put it up to 800K cumulative subs. The main reason why they folded so quickly when Blizzard went after them is that the most popular and highest quality server ever were not making enough money. They couldn't afford to run the servers because the players that were playing on them were so cheap. Remember. This is the greatest private server of all time and had "Blizzard-like" stability. If such a high quality product couldn't financially survive there is only one reason that this could be.

The main attraction to WoW private servers is that they are free.

[Deficineiron]

The greatest vanilla server of all time (starting with N) couldn't survive. Some figures put it up to 800K cumulative subs. The main reason why they folded so quickly when Blizzard went after them is that the most popular and highest quality server ever were not making enough money. They couldn't afford to run the servers because the players that were playing on them were so cheap. Remember. This is the greatest private server of all time and had "Blizzard-like" stability. If such a high quality product couldn't financially survive there is only one reason that this could be.

The main attraction to WoW private servers is that they are free.

so what do you make of blizzard's decision to release classic?

yours was a reason common on the mega-thread as to why blizzard would never do it. now they say they will. why?

[MrMatticus]

No. I don't have rose-tinted glasses. Vanilla was terrible.

[Willhouse]

I'll play it if its free just like 90% of retail community otherwise its gonna get shut down within six months.Classic is like battle pets,mini game just to pass some time while playing real WOW.