It's in maintenance mode.
Like, simply because there is one successful version of an MMO that has stood the test of time, doesn't mean the genre as a whole is still alive.
However, arguing whenever a genre / game is dead is pretty subjective anyway.
But i doubt that there will be game studios now suddenly produce new MMO's (At least in the scale of WoW), Classic also did most likely rely on current / previous WoW Players to be successful.
A new MMO needs to basically draw in these players (which hasn't worked for almost no MMO) or attract new people, which is extremely difficult.
Even then, let's not forget that Classic production cost were most likely extremely low, having a handful of engineers making an old code run on new server infrastructure is a daunting task, but didn't include a single game designer, artist or anything else that you would have to also include if you create a game from scratch.
The game was there, all Blizzard had to do make is to make work.
Man, it's a good thing that this completely new and never heard of newcomer mmorpg named 'wow classic' showed us that SO many people are eagerly waiting for a new, fresh, new and fresh mmorpg. It surely is the living proof that all if needs for any new mmorpg to succeed is a loving and caring developer team and nothing else. Because if wow classic can become a fan favorite out of nowhere then that surely means that just about everyone wants more new and innovative mmorpgs.
Some people are just so smart and so aware, I just can't understand why they're not president instead of mr orange man.
This whole "MMORPG genre is dead" is a horse crap coined by corporations because they can not grow exponentially developing an MMORPG. There is an healthy community out there that sustains bunch of businesses.
I really liked the model of old Lineage 2, yeah they released expansions, but the lvl cap hardly went up, and old raid boss items were still relevant even 3-4 expansion laters. Sure the game was trash in other ways (like hardly any content outside of eternal grinds for mats to craft the best gear), but I liked the gear progression and World pvp side of the game a lot,
So, I've just decided to check. Right now retail has 15 full and 50 high pop servers while vanilla has 30 layered and 2 high pop servers.
On top of that I'm pretty sure that "retail high" is much higher than "vanilla high" because of sharding.
I am not denying that Classic was successful, but a lot of classic sycophants paint it much larger than it really was. An important bit to understand is price difference. Person who plays BfA now has paid for it at least 100 dollars if not more. Horde that crowded servers on launch day paid 13 dollars.
"Game vs. Game" type threads don't tend to produce much in the way of constructive discussion or debate. Closing this.
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead