Molten Core, honest predictions.

[Irian]

The raiding and in general online gaming community is leaps and bounds above what it used to be. On private servers, people have cleared MC with half or less of the players required.

Molten Core is going to get completely steamrolled, as will every other raid dungeon. Classic isn't going to be filled with people who don't understand WoW or WoW game mechanics, it's going to filled with veterans and addicts. If we go based on private servers, even Naxx is going to be cleared pretty effortlessly.

[D3athsting]

The raiding and in general online gaming community is leaps and bounds above what it used to be. On private servers, people have cleared MC with half or less of the players required.

Molten Core is going to get completely steamrolled, as will every other raid dungeon. Classic isn't going to be filled with people who don't understand WoW or WoW game mechanics, it's going to filled with veterans and addicts. If we go based on private servers, even Naxx is going to be cleared pretty effortlessly.

Private servers usually have badly scripted raid bosses

[Mysterymask]

Who is that everyone? I don't know strats or gear. And I'm going to main tank it!

I think its more...the guides have been up for a little over a decade now and have been refined throughout the years....I mean at this point Classic is a "solved" game so unlike back in the day the info is there

[quite an expert in wow]

i dont think it will be facerolled by the majority, in the beginning

but it will definitely be easier since there is so much content known nowadays: written guides, youtube videos, everything is written and discussed. what's left is absorbing the information and executing it

[Geran]

Just use a shield wall when he can't be tranq and switch tank...

You know that shield wall used to have a 30 min cd, dont you?

[Villentretenmerth]

MC can be cleared by 20 people in Blues. I except any Guild with somewhat half-serious members to clear it in the first ID. Ony will stay alive for longer because the Pre-Quest takes FOREVER.

[tratra]

Well we should take a few things into account before we make our assumptions.

The world record for reaching 60 is ~4 days and 20 hours /played.

By today's standards, vanilla's difficulty level is laughable ( doesn't mean that it isn't grindy.) And a lot of the raid difficulty came from glitches and just impossible encounters that had to be nerfed in order to get downed.

As well as that the information regarding class builds and raid guides is vastly more available to the public. In the past half of the players had no clue how to play and how to build their spec, even inspect didn't show the spec build I believe. So you couldn't just walk to that guy with sick gear and inspect his build to copy it. And online you had nothing close to what's out there today

Obviously there's more like mobs being different from private server making them either harder or easier depending on the mob. But I feel like these 3 are the main things to consider.

Lets start with a prediction concerning when max level will be reached. So currently the record is 4 days and 21 hours /played I believe. Now I've heard of players who'll do a 24,36 and even some who plan on doing even longer sessions on launch. Wetter that's to be believed is of course up to debate, but those players will obviously reach max level first. Now lets say every player isn't gonna fuck around and do stuff that's not needed to do or have a sub optimal quest route, they'll still reach max level with the same /played. That means that players who play 12 hours a day will take 9 day, 6 hours a day is 18 days etc. I think it's fair to say that 3 weeks to even a month is fair for your more dedicated casual players to just reach max level instead of that 1 week the more hardcore crowd will need.

Now upon reaching max level the most hardcore players will not go straight to MC because they probably have a few slackers in the guild(filthy casuals) so they can farm the devilsaur/herb spawn's right away after hitting 60 to farm gold and will do that for at least half a week/week before farming their BiS gear(or do it in between if multiple guildies are 60) because raiders who go for realm or world firsts will probably spend 1k gold a week on consumables etc.

I've also heard that MC is doable without getting your BiS gear if you have all your consumables lined up and you have a group that knows what's up, but you'll be expected to wipe a bit.

Now with this in mind I expect MC to be downed for world first about roughly a week or a week and a half after launch and will be downed by the more hardcore crowd for realm firsts 2-3 weeks after launch. And I expect the average crowd to down MC like a month and a half or 2 months after launch.





With a quick google search you'll know your BiS gear and the best strat/composition going into it. And with most good pve classes having 0 complexity in terms of rotation most of them are easy to pick up, you'll do fine.

Like for me I'm not going for realm or world first, I think vanilla is awesome due to one thing and one thing only and that's the community that it makes you build due to not having certain features and being dependent on your guild. Tons of other stuff is worse then retail in my opinion but all of that doesn't really matter to have fun in an MMO as much as community does in my opinion. The toughest thing for me is deciding if I want to roll something competitive like a pure dps with 1-2 buttons or a hybrid that offers a little more engagement.

On the level up bit, that record is a bit outdated and even Joana has said that he is planning to have much less played time reaching level 60 this time around.

There is a group of hardcore players that are leaded by Sonni that are supposed to play 18 hours a day reaching 60 and then beating molten core before the 1st reset.

In reality that goal is achievable, but its only achievable if everything goes perfect and you have 40 people determined to reach 60 in 5 days and then clear MC.

Will anyone actually be able to achieve it? I don't believe so. Its a very very very hard goal to achieve and also sonni and the people that he has gathered, never proved anything before.

Its not like method going out saying ok we are going to beat Ragnaros before the 1st reset. If method was to do that then I'd say its way more likely to happen as they have the resources, the players, the determination and generally they've proved themselves times and times again.

Now just having some streamers going out saying they gonna do it, its just hard to believe.

In all fairness I believe world first 60 is going to be at around 3 and half days played. Thats gonna be an easy class to level with as well - hunter. Other classes have a harder time leveling and I don't want to think how long paladins are going to take to reach 60.

Once enough people are 60 to get in a 40 man raid on the same server I believe MC is not going to last for more than a few hours. Don't forget that people reaching 60 that fast are going to be very well aware of every MC fight, they are not going to be the casual players checking out how classic is like.

[Rascal Bob]

On the level up bit, that record is a bit outdated and even Joana has said that he is planning to have much less played time reaching level 60 this time around.

There is a group of hardcore players that are leaded by Sonni that are supposed to play 18 hours a day reaching 60 and then beating molten core before the 1st reset.

In reality that goal is achievable, but its only achievable if everything goes perfect and you have 40 people determined to reach 60 in 5 days and then clear MC.

Will anyone actually be able to achieve it? I don't believe so. Its a very very very hard goal to achieve and also sonni and the people that he has gathered, never proved anything before.

Its not like method going out saying ok we are going to beat Ragnaros before the 1st reset. If method was to do that then I'd say its way more likely to happen as they have the resources, the players, the determination and generally they've proved themselves times and times again.

Now just having some streamers going out saying they gonna do it, its just hard to believe.

In all fairness I believe world first 60 is going to be at around 3 and half days played. Thats gonna be an easy class to level with as well - hunter. Other classes have a harder time leveling and I don't want to think how long paladins are going to take to reach 60.

Once enough people are 60 to get in a 40 man raid on the same server I believe MC is not going to last for more than a few hours. Don't forget that people reaching 60 that fast are going to be very well aware of every MC fight, they are not going to be the casual players checking out how classic is like.

Indeed if you have a group of 40 that are dedicated enough it's possible, though barely. Like I said you either need your gear or your consumables to run through the raid and both of which take up a bit of time once you hit 60. And I fully believe that the leveling record is breakable, I believe not too long ago the record for beating a 10 year old zelda game was bested again because you can still find ways to speed up the process. But at the end of the day you have classes that won't be able to do that which are still required for your raids.

That's why I'm expecting that people who reach max level the soonest are just gonna farm gold and gear until the rest hits 60 and will take roughly a week and a half to down MC and at least a full reset. But that's just because I believe that finding 40 people crazy enough to play 18 hours a day is pretty difficult. But I could very well be wrong and an organized group might actually do it. At the end of the day I don't think server or even world firsts are gonna mean anything, speed runs will be the thing that keeps competitive PvE players happy since world firsts and server firsts are probably very short races compared to how it was. And that's probably better as well because it becomes more skill based and not just which of us idiots played the longest. I believe on nostalrius the difference between first and second wasn't even half an hour and after that night's sleep a dozen other guilds had it cleared as well.

[wysimdnwyg]

Wow, lots of people on both extremes (it will be stupidly easy vs anything but the top 1% will fail miserably). In all likelihood, the top 1% will kill Rags within 3 weeks (1 week to get people to 60, 1 week to get enough gear - including fire resist, and 1 week to clear the raid), but that's the top 1%. (My guess for the first kill is within 10 days, accounting for the typical hardcore/elite play style that basically cuts every time period in half given they spend twice as much time playing.) Normal guilds - those who weren't killing Rags until the summer of 2005 - will take longer, but not nearly as long as it did in Vanilla. My guess is that typical raiding guilds will be clearing MC within 3 months.

[Rascal Bob]

Wow, lots of people on both extremes (it will be stupidly easy vs anything but the top 1% will fail miserably). In all likelihood, the top 1% will kill Rags within 3 weeks (1 week to get people to 60, 1 week to get enough gear - including fire resist, and 1 week to clear the raid), but that's the top 1%. (My guess for the first kill is within 10 days, accounting for the typical hardcore/elite play style that basically cuts every time period in half given they spend twice as much time playing.) Normal guilds - those who weren't killing Rags until the summer of 2005 - will take longer, but not nearly as long as it did in Vanilla. My guess is that typical raiding guilds will be clearing MC within 3 months.

I think everyone that has some knowledge about the difficulty level of classic will realize that MC will be cleared very shortly after release. As for the more casual crowd there are some uncertainties but I expect them to clear it as well like a month and a half or two months in.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Classic is going to be incredibly popular at the start, in the millions for sure. The vast majority of PS players play on those because its free.

Private servers may well be free but the real ace in the hole which the Classic server offers is that there's no inherent risk of it getting shut down at any given time or simply collapse from within. Scripts and uptime too but only to a certain extent since private servers have come a long way over the years in regards to both.

I will not be surprised if Blizzard becomes far more aggressive once Classic is released with their cease and desist letters but then again these servers are likely hosted in countries who throw C&D letters in the garbage so nothing will really change.

[Rafoel]

Except they learned how to play the fucking game over the past 14 years. The information is much more readily available, and people will know what BiS actually means.

You re going to have less servers, so you will have plenty of knowledgable people on each server, as opposed to 2-3 guilds who actually knew what was going on.

Counterargument - Back then playerbase was used to games that acturally required thinking and preparation, instead of serving everything under player's nose. Specifically, back then games didn't protect players from themselves. In RPGs, you could easily fuck your character up so much it was literally impossible to progress. Nowadays not only is every decision reversible, players are blocked from making decisions that would hurt their character power in any way.

The amount of complete idiots might just as well be far higher than it ever was in vanilla.

[tratra]

Indeed if you have a group of 40 that are dedicated enough it's possible, though barely. Like I said you either need your gear or your consumables to run through the raid and both of which take up a bit of time once you hit 60. And I fully believe that the leveling record is breakable, I believe not too long ago the record for beating a 10 year old zelda game was bested again because you can still find ways to speed up the process. But at the end of the day you have classes that won't be able to do that which are still required for your raids.

That's why I'm expecting that people who reach max level the soonest are just gonna farm gold and gear until the rest hits 60 and will take roughly a week and a half to down MC and at least a full reset. But that's just because I believe that finding 40 people crazy enough to play 18 hours a day is pretty difficult. But I could very well be wrong and an organized group might actually do it. At the end of the day I don't think server or even world firsts are gonna mean anything, speed runs will be the thing that keeps competitive PvE players happy since world firsts and server firsts are probably very short races compared to how it was. And that's probably better as well because it becomes more skill based and not just which of us idiots played the longest. I believe on nostalrius the difference between first and second wasn't even half an hour and after that night's sleep a dozen other guilds had it cleared as well.

Yes I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if someone did it tbh. I am watching Method trying to down this boss literally for 15 hours a day since last Wednesday and while its something I was doing in Vanilla, nowadays I look at it as a crazy unbelievable achievement. So yes we never know.

About gear and consumables I wouldn't bet much on that tbh, they've done pure green run MC before on private servers and whilst difficulty might differ a little bit they beat it without much trouble. Its just that people nowadays have so much understanding of the game that in all fairness kitting adds on ragnaros won't be as hard as it was during vanilla where you'd wipe on adds phase because people didn't even know how to nova them.

[Machismo]

Counterargument - Back then playerbase was used to games that acturally required thinking and preparation, instead of serving everything under player's nose. Specifically, back then games didn't protect players from themselves. In RPGs, you could easily fuck your character up so much it was literally impossible to progress. Nowadays not only is every decision reversible, players are blocked from making decisions that would hurt their character power in any way.

The amount of complete idiots might just as well be far higher than it ever was in vanilla.

The amount of idiots may be higher, but we were idiots back then. Most people had no clue how to gear a character, not by a long shot. They weren't spamming Rend runs to get the Dal Rend's set. They weren't running min/maxing gear, and didn't even know what BiS was. You generally had 2-3 guild per server who actually knew the game well.

I agree that the number of idiots will be high, but a lot of that prep work is made easier with experience. Hell, back in vanilla, most people weren't even running elixirs, much less flasks and food. Most of the people who don't know what they are doing, probably won't even make it to 60. That is a LOOOONG grind, and not one that a lot of people will want to do. There will be a fair number of devoted people pushing as hard as they can to 60, and pushing content. There will be those who are interested, but never played Vanilla. They will have a huge group of people to teach them as they level, and as they do dungeons at 60.

[anon5123]

even with having the gear its not as easy as watch video and instantly know the fight.

except it literally is

Most bosses in MC only have 2-3 mechanics. You think 2019 gamers will struggle with "move out of the fire" and "if you get the bomb, run away" ?

- - - Updated - - -

Counterargument - Back then playerbase was used to games that acturally required thinking and preparation, instead of serving everything under player's nose. Specifically, back then games didn't protect players from themselves. In RPGs, you could easily fuck your character up so much it was literally impossible to progress. Nowadays not only is every decision reversible, players are blocked from making decisions that would hurt their character power in any way.

The amount of complete idiots might just as well be far higher than it ever was in vanilla.

And these complete idiots will struggle to even make it to level 20 before ragequitting the game. So us vanilla veterans shouldn't have to worry about them until a couple months or so after hitting 60.

[Chaelexi]

"Everyone" yeaaa only a tiny % of classic will be private server players, like sub 1%. For everyone else they will definitely be wiping on garr.

Garr is a joke, trap and banish the adds, spread out and kill adds one by one while the MT holds boss. As he said all of the bosses in MC have one gimmick, if you can preform that gimmick you win.

[Tumile]

A single WoW server, you know, the one that started it all for the community wanting classic, had 150k active players (800k players total). We take half that, we get 75k players--from a single server. You have no idea what you're talking about currently. You're, like arkanon said, pulling numbers out of your butt with a complete lack of evidence for any of your claims.

On topic, a few friends of mine and I have bets about how long it will take for the first guild to clear MC. His guess is 10 days from launch. Mine is 15. (Have to give leveling time) I guess we'll see where it lands haha (could be longer, but I'd have serious doubts). The game that Classic was is substantially easier than the game we have today. On the flip side, managing 40 players is a hell of a lot harder than managing 20 or less.

Depends on what you consider difficult, personaly Raid leading, and figuring out everything about Jaina, her 4 different spell Queues in p1, her 3 different spell Queues in P3, and calling all of it out while also doing the mechanics was insanely easy, there was no difficulty in that compared to playing high level League or CSGO. Vanilla has different challenges, which revolve heavily around your character, and pre-planning way in advance. this will rarely ever be "difficult" its not like u are gonna sit there and get a headache trying to figure out what consumeables or gear you need, but it does take effort. and it will always require effort, unlike Retail wow atm where the hardest part is accepting that atleast 10 people on your raid roster doesnt even have the brains to let someone else play the game for them, and just following the handhold calls that are being made. that issue will not be as prevelant in classic. as personal responsibility is genrally limited to a few select people who can carry the rest and the encounters are designed around having dead weight.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Wait what? What is this based on?

Given the info we've been privy to thus far for Classic, Molten Core seems like it could be rather tough

Raids are only tough because you need to learn the encounter.
I'm sure there will be people who wipe in there. I was in a guild on Elysium that wiped for like 3 weeks in MC without getting to domo, then the guild just disbanded lol.
But that's basically just noobs causing that.

Seems like everyone wants to be a noob again, so feel free if that's your thing, but serious players will stomp over every raid until naxx, and after a few months of that they will be speedrunning it in an hour and a half again.

PVE is only challenging because you need to learn and solve the puzzle.
When there is no learning needed, its just executing, which takes about 20 some pulls at max.

[Thrif]

Counterargument - Back then playerbase was used to games that acturally required thinking and preparation, instead of serving everything under player's nose. Specifically, back then games didn't protect players from themselves. In RPGs, you could easily fuck your character up so much it was literally impossible to progress. Nowadays not only is every decision reversible, players are blocked from making decisions that would hurt their character power in any way.

Not sure how this is relevant to the topic at hand, as WoW never was one of those games, even in vanilla. I came from playing those games and remember that I was bored out of my mind at the start of WoW because it was so breathtakingly boring and easy and impossible to fail at, it just took a long time to get things done.

If you mean that people were better players back then because they were used to harder games in general, that's partially true, but raiding is probably the only part of the game that hasn't been incredibly much dumbed down over the years, quite the opposite.

[Senel]

MC is a joke by todays standards. Even if somehow 39 ppl go in "blind" one guy can trivialize the raid by explaining what little there is to do. It's gonna be stomped with 1.12 gear.