How big is WoW classic going to be? Are the retail devs worried about their jobs?

[deniter]

You are EXTREMELY misinformed, or just making stuff up.....the mass exodus will happen within 3 months of launch. The level of interest in this product is HUGELY exaggerated by its fans. There only proof of interest levels come from a pirated, illegal, FREE version of the game.

There are pretty good data suggesting the opposite if you want to have a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAzZYGCOB-g&t=145s

Starting from 2:30

[Gaidax]

Likely it will be very very niche. You need to be quite delusional it will draw any significant numbers - the game simply is not on par with what 2k19 players want or look for.

[Devilyaki]

I don’t think it will be as popular as the lovers for it hope it will be. It’ll have its fans and players but nothing overly kill retail big, andso the devs are no more worried about there jobs cause of it than any othe blizzard project.

[TheDeeGee]

Probably gonna be big for 3-4 weeks, then people figure out how bad vanilla is in 2018.

I tried the Demo for 5-10 minutes untill i got the "been there, done that" feeling.

[Fascinate]

Probably gonna be big for 3-4 weeks, then people figure out how bad vanilla is in 2018.

I tried the Demo for 5-10 minutes untill i got the "been there, done that" feeling.

You sound a bit like this gal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLWuADfyq7E

She much prefers pet battles and convenience to solid role playing elements and rewarding game systems, and that's fine there is a game that exists today catered to suit those needs.

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I don’t think it will be as popular as the lovers for it hope it will be. It’ll have its fans and players but nothing overly kill retail big, andso the devs are no more worried about there jobs cause of it than any othe blizzard project.

I don't have any hopes for classic getting big i just know it's going to be, for me as long as there is enough to feel like an mmo im happy.

[klaps_05]

I think you should hope Classic to stay small, quiet and enjoyable, because if it does get even a million players, its gonna be time for cash shop, transmog, transfering stuff to live, etc.

[Fascinate]

Nobody knows. The one and only correct answer.

If you do know, it means you can predict sales and success without even having to analyse data...or by basing your analysis on this forum and what "people I see online say". In which case: Quit your current job and make millions with your gift.

Also you probably won't even be able to ever verify your guess, because Blizzard very likely won't tell us numbers (which in return will mean, we get a lot of "Classic is doing so great, they are scared to tell us numbers" threads.



Fair enough. Now figure in a tiny additional detail: This time round, people will not get free access, they will need a sub. No problem for the ones that already play, but what about all those who quit and would only come back for Classic and nothing else?

But yeah...while I won't play, I am happy for the people who want to re-live the experience. It is great if people return. Sure, we did have people hating / flaming each other over "My GW2/FFXIV/Rift/Wildstar is better than your WoW" - but in this thread, ppl now calling others "Retail fanbois" is just ridiculous. It is in essence the same game in two different incarnations.

But why am I surprised. I bet Star Wars fans flame each other if you happen to like the new films...same for Star Trk..and hey...look at that Ghostbusters remake and THAT shitstorm

Ya im a bit of a weirdo in that sense, because so many of the big questions facing humanity today are a best guess scenario i tend to drag that into the normal everyday conversations, i should probably stop doing that lol.

Either way its a fun exercise to speculate i think, gives me different viewpoints from people and the sort of lens they view things through.

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I think you should hope Classic to stay small, quiet and enjoyable, because if it does get even a million players, its gonna be time for cash shop, transmog, transfering stuff to live, etc.

Nah im not too worried about either front, they can adjust server caps on the fly to make them feel "vanilla like" and the other stuff you mention would actually lose them money rather than benefit from.

[ashblond]

As I has said earlier, Classic was an excellent game 14 years ago, in the standard of 2005 gaming market, there is no doubt about it.

It was pretty much the only big thing back then. There was no LoL, Dota, Overwatch, Hearthstone, or millions of other games we have today. And there was no twitch, netlfix or even youtube back in 2004.

The game was good + no competitor = big success.

But Classic in 2019? It is an seriously outdated game, or even trash game tbh. It is an 15 years old game that people already knew it inside out. There is no new content, no feeling of adventure or sense of exciting as it did in 2004.

No matter how trashy BFA is, and no matter how many people hate it, retail is better than classic in always every way for majority players.

And don't forget there are many other games today. If people would like to quit retail, why would they come back to play an inferior version of it? They may just quit gaming all together, just watching netflix, youtube, or twitch, without ever really play any games.

Classic will have its player base, the hardcore classic fans. But that will always be the minority of wow players. Most people won't enjoy the slower pace and more grinding play style today.

It is absolutely ridiculous that people think classic will be massively big or more popular than retail. It has no elements to be so in today's gaming market.

But anyway, there is no point to argue how many active players there will be. We will see the numbers next year.

[McCrazy]

You sound a bit like this gal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLWuADfyq7E

She much prefers pet battles and convenience to solid role playing elements and rewarding game systems, and that's fine there is a game that exists today catered to suit those needs.

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I don't have any hopes for classic getting big i just know it's going to be, for me as long as there is enough to feel like an mmo im happy.

I watched that video shortly after Blizzcon and I was rolling on the floor, laughing. She says: "he doesn't have a quest for me" and just leaves. (around 4:50 in the video) She should have waited to let the questtext be written to the end. Maybe even read it while waiting. That's so hilarious.

And that's how many 'not-having-played-the-original-classic'-people will react. Almost everything takes longer and many will lose patience for that. Well, I think it will happen to some.

In classic it was not the 'convenience' that made it good, it was the 'journey' from 1-60. The accomplishments you got on that journey that made it feel something special. Everything was something you had to fight for and when you finally got it, you felt good that you made it through all the hardships until you were rewarded with achieving your goal. There was so much to explore and see and hear for the first time. Around every corner could wait a big elite mob to kill you on sight, if you didn't pay attention where you were wandering around.
It was like a real big Baldur's Gate or something like that, but without a save-and-reload-option.

I farmed runecloth for weeks or months with my human rogue to buy reputation in Ironforge, because I wanted one of these rams. My human rogue rides this mount until today, because it was a goal I set for myself and I'm proud I made it. (At the time it was really rare to see non-dwarves on a ram).

There are many more stories over the years for things I 'worked' for to get it at the time and nothing can take that away from me. Like the swift zulian tiger. I don't know how many times I ran Zul Gurub with every alt that could make it to the boss and 3 weeks before it was patched out of the game it finally dropped. It's still one of my favourite mounts.

These things are, what made classic and some of the later stuff so special. Not the fast-port to instances or queueing with random people for lfr 'just to see the story'. It was the adventurer-feeling roaming about the world and find some gnomes on a hill far off every town, selling recepies for engineers.

I'm sure, I'm going to play a little, but I don't think it will be my 'main-time-consuming'-thing again. It will probably feel like if you start some old game you loved at the time and play a while, just to realize: Oh, I know whats happening next or stuff like that and you lose interest, because there isn't much that could surprise you anymore.

[deniter]

Fair enough. Now figure in a tiny additional detail: This time round, people will not get free access, they will need a sub. No problem for the ones that already play, but what about all those who quit and would only come back for Classic and nothing else?

I don't think this sub/no-sub issue is as big a deal as some people would want it to be. There are loads of free MMOs that are made in this decade for the modern hardware and yet this ancient and pre-historic relic draws more players than most modern AAA MMOs. As the guy on the video said, it can't be just a fluke.

The only way to play this game atm is to find a way to log on a pirate server that provides it to people illegally. They are more often than not filled with bugs and glitches, servers are overpopulated to the point playing is next to impossible, and on top of that servers may shut down permanently on a very short notice. People playing on these servers have prayed for the official servers for years. The only ones who will stay on pirate realms are some people from poorer countries who really can't afford $15/month, which is how much two pints of beer costs in my country.

[Fascinate]

I watched that video shortly after Blizzcon and I was rolling on the floor, laughing. She says: "he doesn't have a quest for me" and just leaves. (around 4:50 in the video) She should have waited to let the questtext be written to the end. Maybe even read it while waiting. That's so hilarious.

And that's how many 'not-having-played-the-original-classic'-people will react. Almost everything takes longer and many will lose patience for that. Well, I think it will happen to some.

In classic it was not the 'convenience' that made it good, it was the 'journey' from 1-60. The accomplishments you got on that journey that made it feel something special. Everything was something you had to fight for and when you finally got it, you felt good that you made it through all the hardships until you were rewarded with achieving your goal. There was so much to explore and see and hear for the first time. Around every corner could wait a big elite mob to kill you on sight, if you didn't pay attention where you were wandering around.
It was like a real big Baldur's Gate or something like that, but without a save-and-reload-option.

I farmed runecloth for weeks or months with my human rogue to buy reputation in Ironforge, because I wanted one of these rams. My human rogue rides this mount until today, because it was a goal I set for myself and I'm proud I made it. (At the time it was really rare to see non-dwarves on a ram).

There are many more stories over the years for things I 'worked' for to get it at the time and nothing can take that away from me. Like the swift zulian tiger. I don't know how many times I ran Zul Gurub with every alt that could make it to the boss and 3 weeks before it was patched out of the game it finally dropped. It's still one of my favourite mounts.

These things are, what made classic and some of the later stuff so special. Not the fast-port to instances or queueing with random people for lfr 'just to see the story'. It was the adventurer-feeling roaming about the world and find some gnomes on a hill far off every town, selling recepies for engineers.

I'm sure, I'm going to play a little, but I don't think it will be my 'main-time-consuming'-thing again. It will probably feel like if you start some old game you loved at the time and play a while, just to realize: Oh, I know whats happening next or stuff like that and you lose interest, because there isn't much that could surprise you anymore.

Ya it was pretty funny lol, she even saw the accept button show up and still walked away.

I like that youtuber btw she has pretty solid content for the type of people that like the game in its current state, but it just goes to show the drastic disconnect between OG players like myself and what people enjoy about the game today. When achievements first came out there was a huge backlash and the overwhelming majority were against it, now you see people asking for it in classic lol.

[sam86]

LOL, not even close m8

Classic is very niche, it won't even come close to being a "cash cow". Hell even Retail is not considered the "cash cow" anymore, Blizzard's main cash sources are Overwatch and Hearthstone by a large margin.

u mean hearthstone, ow is dropping lower than ever, they stopped saying how many ppl play it too (yes they kept saying that until early 2018 how many ppl online at peak hours etc), hearthstone however will always be cash cow because it costs nearly nothing to make a card game, it is design-wise like mobile games, we already know that hearthstone was developed by (if i remember right) a team of only 7 devs, they even used - back then - art from wow TCG since they didn't have artists, and used MANY wrong f8cking arts that still piss me off today (I look at u Malygos)
i don't expect hearthstone to ever die, it costs nothing to make or maintain, the problem is on heavier games

[Fascinate]

u mean hearthstone, ow is dropping lower than ever, they stopped saying how many ppl play it too (yes they kept saying that until early 2018 how many ppl online at peak hours etc), hearthstone however will always be cash cow because it costs nearly nothing to make a card game, it is design-wise like mobile games, we already know that hearthstone was developed by (if i remember right) a team of only 7 devs, they even used - back then - art from wow TCG since they didn't have artists, and used MANY wrong f8cking arts that still piss me off today (I look at u Malygos)
i don't expect hearthstone to ever die, it costs nothing to make or maintain, the problem is on heavier games

Ya i dont believe for a second hearthstone is blizzards cash cow, it has to be overwatch or possibly even WoW still. If were talking about the biggest return on investment obviously that would be hearthstone, but i dont think its raking in more money.

There is no question in my mind tho that after classic launches WoW is back as the top dog earner in their stable, no amount of OW loot boxes is going to overtake the subs classic brings back.

[Mister K]

People gonna get bored and streamers gonna jump on the next big thing after probably two months.

If I had your crystal ball, I would be a millionaire. May I borrow it?

[Twdft]

Twitch has a habit of getting games to #1 view due to big famous streamers.....then dropping to the bottom of the pit when those same streamers move on to the next game.

I don't even think twitch is going to help getting people back to classic.

In a world where most games are lobby based watching a guy walking 15 minutes to his quest, having to sit and eat after beating up 2 mobs or die when attacking 3, running 5 minutes back to his corpse because there is only graveyard in the entire zone... people will watch that a while and decide to get a pizza and a beer with their 13€ instead of playing classic.

[Deleted]

People will play it for a month or two maybe, then go back to retail or other games. It will be a flavor of the month release.

So to answer you, no I don't think retail devs are worried about their jobs.

yeaaaa....no

[edw]

It will be based on how many people from live move/like classic, it's a fantasy that people from private will move in mass to classic, probably a small percentage will come from there.

I think it will be a huge success in the first 2-3 months, after that it will go down very fast and probably stabilize to a relative small number, it will be like Diablo 3, when people have nothing to do in wow they will move there to chill for 1-2 months then go back to live.

[Deleted]

I will be surprised if a larger base of players than 0,001% of the retail base plays classic consistently.

[lonely zergling]

Problem will be current wow community is all assholes and will ruin classic experience for most people. You will only see "LFM Scholo run (flask reserved)" spam. Item reserve should be against TOS imho. If you dont have friends / guild you are fucked in classic dungeons.

[Eleccybubb]

Problem will be current wow community is all assholes and will ruin classic experience for most people. You will only see "LFM Scholo run (flask reserved)" spam. Item reserve should be against TOS imho. If you dont have friends / guild you are fucked in classic dungeons.

Why should item reserve be against TOS?

There is a workaround to it and has been a thing since before WoW. Make your own damn group. And yes items will be reserved. Just like they were in Classic. Let's not pretend they weren't back then. Pretty sure Ironfoe was a very coveted 1h mace.

Let's not blame the "current community" for a thing that has happened since this game started.