What If... They SKIP BC?

[kail]

I would be disappointed... But I have a theory.. What if Blizz doesn't change the level cap in classic but releases wrath and TBC (Maybe make a new system to make up for the levels. Perhaps prestige?) It would give classic more content. Though I still want 70 and 80 realms

They would have to vastly rework the talent trees again or rework how the new points are awarded beyond level increases.

And to OP: Noty. While I enjoyed just about all of Wrath's content, it did start the degradation of WoW in more ways than one. Gutting stats, gutting class specific roles, turning dungeons into AoE fest, PvP became more plagued with burst/CC combos, and so on. This is all simply my opinion and there were some good changes to class play like Arms warr/Disc priest/Arcane Mage making them viable in a PvE environment, but ultimately Wrath had more "bad" changes compared to tBC.

[Relapses]

Man you dont get it... People asked for Vanilla because the game ideology of modern wow is bad. It started going bad with Wrath of the Lich Kunt. The designers who worked on vanilla and TBC were gone. It is Wrath that killed the game.
- Vanilla subscription growth = 2-3 millions per year
- TBC subscription growth = 2-3 millions per year
- WoTLK growth = zero
The continent of Outland has a lot in common with vanilla (with introduction of quest hubs). The continent of Northend was designed like pandaria/cataclysm/broken isles and..
You can't talk for what vanilla fans want if you think Wotlk was good.

This is the most infuriatingly stupid argument I see parroted by Classic fans. Please stop and think for a second. Please, I fucking BEG you. Think.

Do you actually think that WoW could have kept growing subscribers exponentially? If you do, you’re wrong. There is a concept known as market saturation. Educate yourself.

Further, the reason subs were steady through WotLK isn’t because all of the subs who were there at the beginning stayed subbed through the whole expansion. It means that new player generation offset the number of people cancelling. This is a concept known as churn. Check it out.

Alright, now that we’ve established that market saturation exists and we know what churn is, let’s talk numbers. WotLK had two full fucking years of subscribers above the 12M mark. That’s nearly 5 billion fucking dollars in cyclical revenue for Blizzard. FOR A SINGLE EXPANSION.

You guys love to make these stupid fucking arguments that the post-WotLK changes ruined the game and “stopped” subscriber growth but you would have to pretend both:

a.) subscriber growth is somehow immune to market saturation and
b.) the only reason people ever quit WoW is because of changes YOU don’t like. People rarely cancel their subs due to gameplay changes. (You don’t have to take my word on that, though, here’s a testimonial from a developer who has actually seen the retention data.)

I mean fuck, I’m not even a fan of WotLK but it is extremely grating to see this idiotic argument crop up in nearly every single discussion about other Legacy expansions. It’s dumb. Knock it off.

Thanks.

[keyboardshinobi]

In my opinion, BC is a 'side story' and going to another planet so early in the life of an MMO was probably a mistake (don't get me wrong I love BC)...

What if Blizzard changed it up a bit. What if after Classic; they move straight to Wrath? BUT... Instead of grinding it out to 70 or 80 they introduce some other type of time constraint and leave us at 60... And never introduce flying mounts; or dungeon finder... Obviously a few aspects would have to be changed, places that require flying, etc.

So Wrath would just end up being a really long extension of Classic, basically.

I know demons are central to the Warcraft story, but to me it just feels like Blizzard went about it all wrong.

If you don't introduce flying how would you get the Ulduar? Also does this mean removing NAXX 40 and going straight into NAXX 10/25, or just leaving it at NAXX 40 and reworking all teir 7 gear into 2 dugeons rather than 3, which then leaves Wrath raiding at the start with just 2 single encounter fights until Ulduar comes out which you wouldnn't be able to get to because of the lack of flying. Bad idea is bad.

[Coldfire989]

Nope. No changes to the XPacs if you go right to Wraith then flying and LFG come too and they will so you may as well get over that.

[StationaryHawk]

Couldn't even begin to imagine what would make TBC a "side story," especially given how directionless Vanilla was.

[Bodonius]

If a TBC comes, i wont play it. Might make a twink it was the golden age of twinking (leg enchants)

[Nefastus]

TBC and wrath was wow at it's peak so no, TBC is where I loved wow the most and had the most fun so they better release TBC servers.

I say they stop after wrath and before they destroyed the world with the cataclysm.

Yeah, Cataclysm was the death of the game for me and for my friends that I played with since vanila. What a disaster, from the bad gameplay to the awful lore (at least TBC had nice gameplay even if the lore was terrible).

[Relapses]

I like your points, but you should have served them ice cold and with razorblade logic. Swearing only attracts mods and infractions - and allows your opponent to flame back and reject everything because of hurt pride .....

I’m attacking the argument not the person. And I dislike filtering myself because I think we’re all adults here.

[Mirishka]

Personally, I would be extremely disappointed. I found BC to be the best of the expansions. I still see Wrath as a very good expansion, but it was also the beginning of the "Go go go" nonsense that drives Retail and the beginning of the gutting of what made WoW an MMORPG.

Yeah... no.

Once word spread of paladin tanks and their uber AOE threat, dungeons all but abandoned CC and became about pulling as much shit as your tank/heals could withstand. For a while paladin tank was the only tank people wanted in BC dungeons/heroics for exactly that reason.

This behavior was further reinforced when warriors got significant AOE buffs, in the form of Thunder Clap hitting unlimited mobs and Shockwave. I would pull entire rooms in Shattered Halls once warriors got those buffs.

- - - Updated - - -

but several difficulties are still sth that people attack about WoW....

Only the babies who are angry raiding is no longer just for them.

[Trend]

What I'm saying is, they get rid of the go go go. They basically just use the Wrath content as an extension of Classic.

So how would players get from 60-70? What gear would they have going into Wrath? A magical bump to 70 and randomly assigned late BC gear? That's not going to happen. And they're not going to rewrite Wrath to be based on starting with Vanilla gear at level 60.

[Hinastorm]

Wrath is closer to retail design wise than it is to classic. Group finder and easy raids being the 2 big points. BC is still old wow, which myself and many others argue is best wow.

[ghays]

Didn’t most if not all of that come with Cata? I don’t remember any of that in Wrath.

[meroko]

TBC was the pinnacle of WOW, it was everything classic was but better...so yeah they'd be seriously stupid to skip it

[Bodonius]

If classic ever evolve to something else im out. I play something blizzard im sure but not that one

- - - Updated - - -

TBC was the pinnacle of WOW, it was everything classic was but better...so yeah they'd be seriously stupid to skip it

No TBC was the start of ruining it. Arena + flying killed pvp and then came x-realms making it all dead

[Relapses]

If classic ever evolve to something else im out. I play something blizzard im sure but not that one

- - - Updated - - -



No TBC was the start of ruining it. Arena + flying killed pvp and then came x-realms making it all dead

Here’s my hot take: I think Classic is inherently flawed (though still a great game) and the retail game has systematically changed the game in ways that have made the game easier for me to play. Funny how opinions work, huh?

[Bodonius]

Here’s my hot take: I think Classic is inherently flawed (though still a great game) and the retail game has systematically changed the game in ways that have made the game easier for me to play. Funny how opinions work, huh?

Im fine with people playing whatever, I would play retail alot if my friends still played. But would i join TBC even if all my old friends started playing, no i wouldnt because TBC sucked in my opinion if it was lich then maybe

[LionSinMaikeru]

Blizzard has been pretty adamant about #NoChanges, and this sounds like big changes to me.

So, no.

Blizzard was also pretty adamant about #NoClassic and look what happened.

It almost seems like they change their mind whenever. :O

[lummiuster]

This is the most infuriatingly stupid argument I see parroted by Classic fans. Please stop and think for a second. Please, I fucking BEG you. Think.

Do you actually think that WoW could have kept growing subscribers exponentially? If you do, you’re wrong. There is a concept known as market saturation. Educate yourself.

Further, the reason subs were steady through WotLK isn’t because all of the subs who were there at the beginning stayed subbed through the whole expansion. It means that new player generation offset the number of people cancelling. This is a concept known as churn. Check it out.

Alright, now that we’ve established that market saturation exists and we know what churn is, let’s talk numbers. WotLK had two full fucking years of subscribers above the 12M mark. That’s nearly 5 billion fucking dollars in cyclical revenue for Blizzard. FOR A SINGLE EXPANSION.

You guys love to make these stupid fucking arguments that the post-WotLK changes ruined the game and “stopped” subscriber growth but you would have to pretend both:

a.) subscriber growth is somehow immune to market saturation and
b.) the only reason people ever quit WoW is because of changes YOU don’t like. People rarely cancel their subs due to gameplay changes. (You don’t have to take my word on that, though, here’s a testimonial from a developer who has actually seen the retention data.)

I mean fuck, I’m not even a fan of WotLK but it is extremely grating to see this idiotic argument crop up in nearly every single discussion about other Legacy expansions. It’s dumb. Knock it off.

Thanks.

You don't just need to know the terms man. You need logic with it.
- There is a market saturation ok, why the hell did you decide it would be 12 millions?
- The growth was not exponential. It was linear. Look at the graph again. It ended literally 1-2 months after WoTLK. You can't go from a growth of 1.8M per year to 0 in 1 month and blaming it on some terms you learned in high school lmao. For real though, if it was reaching the saturation point, we would have seen the growth slowing down from 1.8M/y to 1M/y to 500k/y till we reach it. But instead it completely stopped after 1-2 months.
- And so the very most likely scenario is that people kept subscribing (because there is no such thing as steady 1.8M/y growth for 3 years to 0 in 2months) but after trying the game, they would quit after 1-2 months.

Man you really aint good in market analysis lol. Like how the hell did you think one second that such a steep stop in growth could be natural. What is this dumb academy you went to.

[Relapses]

You don't just need to know the terms man. You need logic with it.
- There is a market saturation ok, why the hell did you decide it would be 12 millions?
- The growth was not exponential. It was linear. Look at the graph again. It ended literally 1-2 months after WoTLK. You can't go from a growth of 1.8M per year to 0 in 1 month and blaming it on some terms you learned in high school lmao. For real though, if it was reaching the saturation point, we would have seen the growth slowing down from 1.8M/y to 1M/y to 500k/y till we reach it. But instead it completely stopped after 1-2 months.
- And so the very most likely scenario is that people kept subscribing (because there is no such thing as steady 1.8M/y growth for 3 years to 0 in 2months) but after trying the game, they would quit after 1-2 months.

Man you really aint good in market analysis lol. Like how the hell did you think one second that such a steep stop in growth could be natural. What is this dumb academy you went to.

If you don’t think two whole fucking years of the same exact subscriber levels isn’t indicative of market saturation I don’t know what to tell you. Do you really think that WoW would have kept gaining subscribers until the end of time if they had kept the game like it was in Vanilla/TBC?

[lummiuster]

If you don’t think two whole fucking years of the same exact subscriber levels isn’t indicative of market saturation I don’t know what to tell you. Do you really think that WoW would have kept gaining subscribers until the end of time if they had kept the game like it was in Vanilla/TBC?

No you are not looking at the relevant information. The key point is 1-2 millions growth per year for 48 months drastically stopped at the same time as an event happened. This event is a new expansion. Also a subscription lasts at least 1 month (1-2 months are enough to try the product) and somehow the growth flattened exactly around 1 month after the event. Like it couldnt be more obvious than that lol.
On top of it (if we look at the critics and leave the analysis alone), most of the things people dislike about retail wow has been introduced in WoTLK. A new annoying class, looking for group, death of social, old content totally irrelevant, different raid difficulties and... So you even have the forums to help you guess the obvious conclusion from the graph analysis lol.