Do you think Classic will Overtake Retail?

[Lollis]

Seriously we are going to accuse people of ban evading now?

Your name is Jay"luck". You aint fucking fooling anyone.

[Flarelaine]

No - classic only has a finite amount of content, of which said content:

1) Is incredibly easy and will be finished the day it comes out (raids I'm referring to here)

Leveling alone will take days.

[Lollis]

I can tell you right now I'm not him. I'm a friend irl.

Sure you are mate, sure you are. Just a friend.

[Florena]

I doubt it.

I played WoW in vanilla. I liked it back then. But I don't think I could ever go back to it. I think the game is overall better now than it was in vanilla, and has more mainstream appeal than classic will in 2019. That's not to say the current game is perfect and classic will nothing i like. But I don't think I could ever go back to classic these days and I don't think classic will be anywhere near as successful in 2019 as it was in 2004.

[unbound]

There is a better than fair chance that Classic will overtake BfA for a month or two. I think BfA has lost a lot more players than Blizz is willing to admit.

However, I expect Classic will settle down after that, and I wouldn't be surprised BfA and Classic end up fairly close (which will be a win for Blizz).

Longer term, it will really depend on whether Blizz gets their collective heads out from where the sun don't shine and put out real effort on the next expansion. If they continue with the super-cheap ways, and the next expansion is as cheaply done as BfA, then Classic may indeed maintain higher subs than current.

[clausuk57]

Sure you are mate, sure you are. Just a friend.

Lollis, just wait and see, when classic comes out all you retail babies will have to admit your wrong..

[Lochton]

BfA is excelling in presenting a quest - the problem is, most quests are utterly boring and uninspired. Classic didn't excel in that regard, it was in many cases quite bland. But there were quest chains to remember (AQ opening, Onyxia pre quest, Dustmarsh traitor quest etc.).

Oh, indeed.

[clausuk57]

Oh, indeed.

And they we're a lot harder too though, just like PvP in general

[Lollis]

Lollis, just wait and see, when classic comes out all you retail babies will have to admit your wrong..

Wrong about what?

[clausuk57]

Wrong about what?

About which is gonna have the biggest impact, and player population.

[Lollis]

About which is gonna have the biggest impact, and player population.

Feel free to quote where I have talked about the impact/population

[Pheraz]

Wrong about what?

You need to stop to argue with him. He has a trump avatar. XD

People will realize hown wrong they are if they want to play anything else than the few specs that worked in vanilla.

Just let them have the illusion for some time.

[Flurryfang]

Classic is a timeless experience and it did grow to 8 millions sub back in the day, i think you will be quite shocked :-)

Classic is also an experience, which have been experienced before by 6 million people. Just because it is a long time ago people have played, does not mean that all 8 million will try it again or even have fond memories of it. Thinking that every player will not only try Classic, but stay subbed is a HUGE assumption and something that is very unrealistic, if not just direct imaginary.

Classic getting a high sub number is proberly in the 2-3 million, but higher? The marketing simply is not wide enough to allow it.

[Frogly]

None of you have any insight or actual arguments for either side. You're all basing your opinions on your subjective feelings about the game. Retailers are ranting how outdated and slow classic is while classic players are ranting how lifeless / non-mmo retail is. I'm more on the classic side but the truth is neither me nor any of you have a basic concept of how massive and different wow's playerbase opinions and likings are. Or people in general for that matter.

You'll have to wait and see, there is no divine foresight you think you all possess.

[clausuk57]

Classic is also an experience, which have been experienced before by 6 million people. Just because it is a long time ago people have played, does not mean that all 8 million will try it again or even have fond memories of it. Thinking that every player will not only try Classic, but stay subbed is a HUGE assumption and something that is very unrealistic, if not just direct imaginary.

Classic getting a high sub number is proberly in the 2-3 million, but higher? The marketing simply is not wide enough to allow it.

A lot of people who started in TBC, Wrath, Cata are also interested aswell.. And streamers will do a pretty damn good job advertising it to the broad audience.
What you don't realize is, a great product speaks for itself, it doesn't need millions of dollars on marketing, it will do its job on its own.

[trm90]

I played classic and I don't think I'll ever touch it again (way too time consuming), but I want it to succeed, at least for a while.

Modern online gaming is based around constant FOMO, daily/weekly rewards, RNG, people with no attention spans, every AAA RPG gradually transforming into something less RPG-ish over time, etc. I hope that in the bigger picture, a resurgence of popularity in classic WoW will prove to game publishers that we need to take a step back and slow down. Learn to make MMORPGs (or just online multiplayer games, even) where people will stop the smell the roses, to really take in the world around them, and make stories for themselves.

Blizzard, WoW and the 10 million+ people that played Classic/BC are a force to be reckoned with, so I look optimistically at the bigger picture and hope that it'll be one part in the change that affects the gaming landscape in the near future. If anything, we should combine the best parts of classic (pacing, more than anything) and retail (e.g. instanced content, different PvP structures and rating system etc) to make WoW a genuinely good game again.

[Soimu]

ofc not, why would a game with 15 year old graphics win.
if they would have done a remake of classic wow with upgrading all zones and stuff i am sure it will have overtaken.

[JohnnyMccrum]

I think it seems rather self-evident at this stage that people were always right about Classic. It's just a choice if retail players choose to accept the fact that Classic is a popular game. Retail players were clearly scared about the prospect of Classic and tried to denounce it.

[Elevenmad]

With the combined sub for both, no one will ever know the true facts, Great deliberate tactical decision by Blizz they can say either one is doing better than expected at any time, just more shuffling numbers and cloak and mirrors to look good for the investors.

Personally with the current state of the game and BFA pretty sure Classic will have far more players online than Live for at least the first few months, how this continues will depend a lot on Live patch 8.2 and to be honest that doesn't look that good at the moment, there's nothing really new or exciting, yeah there's the neck changes, but in reality they are just a continuation of the multiple band aid fixes we have had over the whole expansion for the Azerite system.

The next raid should be good, but otherwise there's nothing good coming in the future for live

BFA has been a disaster from day one, its been nothing but endless promises of a bright future From Blizz that they have never delivered, From a business point of view Classic is what will keep Blizzards head above water until the next X-Pac.

I think its funny the most exciting thing to come from blizz this X-Pac is a re-release of a 15 year old game, and yet they still say BFA is doing OK

[Flurryfang]

A lot of people who started in TBC, Wrath, Cata are also interested aswell.. And streamers will do a pretty damn good job advertising it to the broad audience.
What you don't realize is, a great product speaks for itself, it doesn't need millions of dollars on marketing, it will do its job on its own.

That first assumption is a bit wild. Just because people have not experienced Classic, does not mean that they aren't just tired of WoW in general. And streamers after a few weeks/months, follow the players. If Classic is not popular, streamers will not play it.

A great product does speak for itself, but you still need to make people aware of it.

Also, the product have spoken for itself, it did so 15 years ago, so what stops people from just saying it is something old and uninteresting. When people relaunched old products, they often have to justify the relaunch. Crash Bandicoot and Spyro did so with a complete graphic overall and with gameplay optimization. What does Classic have to hook in old and new players? If i already played Classic, had that experience and have no interest in doing that thing again, why should i play it.

I think that is Classics main problem with it comes to attaining subs. It simply does not sell anything new to players, who already had their Vanilla experience, unless you really hunger for the old days.