After playing the game, do you agree with Blizzard's expected "steep drop-off"?

[Wingspan]

Well - Classic has finally done it, after 15 years - whilst I still want to play WoW - it has split our guild and people I raid/M+ with in two.

Haven't been doing raids, M+ - and just not enough to do stuff often in Classic.

So - I'm leaving, sad as I still want to play. But Classic is way to solo for my liking.

Your split guild brings up an interesting possibility.

There is a small possibility that Classic could actually kill WoW... not just retail, but ALL of it.

Many retail players have been unhappy for years but continue to play due to friends or feeling that all of sunken time has to mean something. In a case like yours, where a guild splits, it starts to chip away at the “friends” part of the equation. Meanwhile some of the people leaving for Classic will do something that they did not expect, and that is to break the retail addiction.

Throw in the many things in Classic that WILL drive some people away and you can end up disassociated from the game entirely, when you probably would have stayed in retail (unhappily) almost indefinitely.

This WILL happen but it’s hard to say on what scale. It will probably be minor but it could cause a bit of a landslide in both retail and Classic.

[schwarzkopf]

There is a small possibility that Classic could actually kill WoW... not just retail, but ALL of it.

More than a possibility ... the total number of people in our guild playing either WoW has dropped off dramatically in the last 2 weeks.

Originally it split into three - Retail, Classic PvE and Classic PvP.

I love playing Retail WoW ... I don't even want to stop playing, imagine all those people that were just hanging on.

[Akka]

And yet people are bitching and whining about layering...

The dropoff will happen once MC and Ony is cleared by the first wave. Then people will have "seen" the content and decide "oh, this 2 pieces of loot is bullshit for all this work" and then rightfully quit.

Weren't they supposed to realize that Vanilla was shit during the first week ? When they would face the "boring" gameplay and the "atrocious" leveling ?
Because that seem to be a mighty amount of moving the goalposts here.

I mean, yeah there will be a drop-off. But it's taking its sweet time, and I myself ma very surprised to still see so many people three weeks in. What I am NOT surprised of, though, is seeing anti-Classic people grasping at straws to claim that Classic is shit.

[kamuimac]

Queues are already dropping, and people reaching the endgame will eventually have nothing to do outside of PvP. It will drop off. Every game loses players in the first few weeks no matter how good they are anyway.

which ques. on EU you have only 5 server left with ques and most realms are already below 2k in que - so 30 minutes wait to log in .

in a month there will be 0 realms with ques and all which are high will be medium .

and people will start slwoly ask for realm merges.

[Akka]

Pushback is not hard, it's just annoying.

Nothing is hard because everything can be defined as "it's easy, you just have to do X". Useful tip for when you need to grasp at some straws.

[Kaleredar]

Lol probably longer than Legion and BfA's daily quest system. You don't realize how much more tedious something becomes when you're forced into certain areas.

Like being forced to grind certain mobs in certain zones for rep?

Yes, grinding mobs for resources/gold isn't "fun", but you can at least decide how you want to actually farm and what you want to farm for.

"It's not enjoyable, but at least it can look slightly different as you do it! And that makes IT INTERESTING!"

Is that really what you're going with right now?

If you need resources for consumables then you have a lot of alternative options. You can farm the materials yourself if you have a gathering profession,

Read, "running around a zone in circles, hoping you beat another player to the node or that they aggro a mob instead of you, for hours on end."

you can merch on the AH to make gold to just buy the resources, you can mass farm mobs for gold (and there are several options for that).

...again, spam killing nonsense.

It's a LOT better than being forced to complete 4 daily quests every day in certain zones because if you don't then you suck and fall behind. I got bored of Legion within the first week of doing world quests.

The world quests took, at most, 20 minutes.

Instead, you're saying you should be content to sit in a zone and spam kill the same 3 mobs for 4 hours.

I was actively forcing myself to log in since I was a mythic raider and decided that I couldn't afford to fall behind within the first month or so.
I quit BfA before the first month had even passed.

That's you pushing yourself to do that, not the game.

yes there is, quite a few actually, a few daily turn ins, "daily" crafting things, aswell as events that happen daily
also yes there is a finish line.
but the idea that anyone in the bottom 99.9% will ever hit that finish line is impossible.

The amount of people that in classics time will get a charecter in full BIS will be a fever dream, not a reality for even a small portion of the playerbase of classic.

we just downed garr, 35 people, 10 of them sub 60, and boy do i already feel the "So much time... SO MUCH TIME and frustration, for a 2 in 40 chance at a piece of loot.... yeah maybe not"

No, no, no, the reward is knowing that you spent a lot of time doing it! The loot is poisoning your mind, man!

You should be perfectly content that you spent dozens of hours doing inane, repetitive tasks to down bosses that were cleared 14 years ago!

Weren't they supposed to realize that Vanilla was shit during the first week ? When they would face the "boring" gameplay and the "atrocious" leveling ?
Because that seem to be a mighty amount of moving the goalposts here.

I mean, yeah there will be a drop-off. But it's taking its sweet time, and I myself ma very surprised to still see so many people three weeks in. What I am NOT surprised of, though, is seeing anti-Classic people grasping at straws to claim that Classic is shit.

"Sweet time?" It's been what, barely two weeks?

[lollerlaban]

Nothing is hard because everything can be defined as "it's easy, you just have to do X". Useful tip for when you need to grasp at some straws.

By that logic i'm not the one grasping at straws, he is.

[Vampyrr]

Can't wait for every one is raiding and realizing they have to share a few drops with 40 man. I have my popcorn ready! (i do like Classic for the 1-60 experience).

The content is easy enough I FULLY expect the higher end guilds to raid with less 25-30 to spread drops better

[Akka]

I could finally see some (roundabout) sign of population that might be shrinking.
Sunday morning is typically a rather quiet time. Server population are moderate as a result (lots of "medium" and "high" and few "full"). Despite this, there has been an unbelievable overpopulation of all quest zones this morning.
My conclusion is that they probably have reduced the number of layers on my server, which would imply a reduction in overall population.

The number of new characters is still as high as ever, though. So that might just be that a lot of people who are of the same level as me that just connected for the week-end

[thunterman]

which ques. on EU you have only 5 server left with ques and most realms are already below 2k in que - so 30 minutes wait to log in .

in a month there will be 0 realms with ques and all which are high will be medium .

and people will start slwoly ask for realm merges.

This is more because of server caps being extended massively the week after launch, than people leaving. I'm sure people have left already, and in large numbers, but on an individual server scale, its going to have 0 affect. Every single realm has more people online at one time than any server during Vanilla did.

[Wild]

The drop off is a good thing. So all the retail players and the anti-classic whiners will stop bothering the players who fully enjoy classic.
I think already at some point during leveling, a lot if players who aren’t really committed to classic will quit. So that leaves the game to the dedicated players.
This helps a lot with ‚noobs‘ in dungeons and raids later on.
I already noticed that in some dungeons: you can clearly see who played classic and who is only a retail player: i had a dungeon group with two mages and zero sheeps when needed. They even know they have a sheep button? What is a sheep? LuL
In classic you learn how to play your class to the max, and not just having to click the same two butttons over and over again.
So the noobs and retailers will be filtered naturally which is a great thing.

[TheRevenantHero]

The drop off is a good thing. So all the retail players and the anti-classic whiners will stop bothering the players who fully enjoy classic.
I think already at some point during leveling, a lot if players who aren’t really committed to classic will quit. So that leaves the game to the dedicated players.
This helps a lot with ‚noobs‘ in dungeons and raids later on.
I already noticed that in some dungeons: you can clearly see who played classic and who is only a retail player: i had a dungeon group with two mages and zero sheeps when needed. They even know they have a sheep button? What is a sheep? LuL
In classic you learn how to play your class to the max, and not just having to click the same two butttons over and over again.
So the noobs and retailers will be filtered naturally which is a great thing.

You had me up until "In classic you learn how to play your class to the max, and not just having to click the same two butttons over and over again." This is just not true. Example: Mages use a few frostbolts then wand the rest of the way. So ok, I guess it technically isn't two buttons....it's one. Classic is designed for noobs to MMOs so the fact that you're making a negative comment about them is just baffling.

[Specialka]

The drop off is a good thing. So all the retail players and the anti-classic whiners will stop bothering the players who fully enjoy classic.
I think already at some point during leveling, a lot if players who aren’t really committed to classic will quit. So that leaves the game to the dedicated players.
This helps a lot with ‚noobs‘ in dungeons and raids later on.
I already noticed that in some dungeons: you can clearly see who played classic and who is only a retail player: i had a dungeon group with two mages and zero sheeps when needed. They even know they have a sheep button? What is a sheep? LuL
In classic you learn how to play your class to the max, and not just having to click the same two butttons over and over again.
So the noobs and retailers will be filtered naturally which is a great thing.

If you need to cc in classic dungeon, you are bad btw xD There is absolutely no need to CC anything in classic if you are with competent players.

[Akka]

The drop off is a good thing. So all the retail players and the anti-classic whiners will stop bothering the players who fully enjoy classic.
I think already at some point during leveling, a lot if players who aren’t really committed to classic will quit. So that leaves the game to the dedicated players.

You're really optimistic. Just look at the forum to see how naive this wish is, neither the announcement nor the release of Classic did anything to dent the amount of trolling (if anything it only fanned the flames).

[Specialka]

You're really optimistic. Just look at the forum to see how naive this wish is, neither the announcement nor the release of Classic did anything to dent the amount of trolling (if anything it only fanned the flames).

I must say that the anty modern wow crowd is very active since the announcement and release of classic.

[Akka]

I must say that the anty modern wow crowd is very active since the announcement and release of classic.

Said by an anti-Classic troll on the Classic forum.

[Rogalicus]

I've already almost lost motivation to log in. Thanks to #nochanges mob I can't even find group for Gnomeregan as a healer on Mograine after spamming for an hour. Such a nice social experience, I'm so glad that population is split over couple dozen of servers and we don't have manual LFG from retail.

[d00mh4cker]

Ofc it will drop. The game literally has an ending. It will END.

[Specialka]

Said by an anti-Classic troll on the Classic forum.

I am not anti classic by any means. You can have your old product and have fun with its flaws as long as you do not belittle Modern wow.

[markos82]

I highly doubt the game will hold down customers for any considerable length of time.

Paying 15 dollars a month for questing that's years outdated and dungeons and raids that have a definite end? And for what? The pleasure of grinding all the while?

That's not what's popular today, nor do I see any indication that it's going to go back to it. And I'm sure some people will get to the point where it just becomes their "turn off their brain" activity and play the game for some time to come, like with Diablo 2. But that's going to be a very small number of people.

You do realize that tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands were donating money to play on private servers and for 10 years of not more? Friend was playing on one of the private servers for 5+ years and probably donated 500$ or more....

People now pay to do same world quests each and every fucking day, to do same dungeons over and over again and to do same raid for months until new one comes or until new expansion comes.

Also the question in classic/vanilla feel like real quests, questing feels like question, yes for lazy plebs it can be difficult to realize that but that's the life.