Does Classic have more players than retail?

[Doomchicken]

Considering classic has far fewer servers in general, far fewer high population servers, and has opened a grant total of ONE realm in the last 6 weeks, a german RP realm, it seems very unlikely classic has anything close to retail numbers

[Low Hanging Fruit]

No one knows besides Blizzard. But I would doubt it based on sheer number of servers. The real question is who cares outside of people trolling a forum?

[varren]

I would say the numbers are probably even, maybe slightly in favor of classic at this point, things have cooled off quite substantially 2 months in.

[FlubberPuddy]

Classic is supposed to have similar sized servers like we had back in vanilla.

Untrue, they had a Blue post saying that Medium pop Classic servers today hold more than the fullest Vanilla servers back in 04 or w/e.

[Nnyco]

Untrue, they had a Blue post saying that Medium pop Classic servers today hold more than the fullest Vanilla servers back in 04 or w/e.

Even if that is the case we still have more full/high servers on retail than the total amount of servers in classic. Again, its basically a no brainer.

[Lashiec]

People who are saying 'we don't know', you're right.

People who are saying 'it doesn't matter', you're wrong.

It matters to future development. If Classic player count was even competitive with retail long term, that would be a big deal. I don't know exactly what Blizzard would do in response, but it would not just be business as usual. Would they shift some of their team to a new classic pipeline, would they just realize they've fucked up retail and need to change direction completely.. I don't know. I just know there would be repercussions.

[Akka]

Until they say otherwise a single layer realm is supposed to be capped at around 3000.

They said otherwise very long ago, when they explained that a "medium" pop realm was already "far bigger than a full realm during Vanilla", which means that a medium server is already significantly above the 3000 cap.
THEN they increased massively the realm capacity when they were faced with queue.
IIRC there were tests being made by people with the census add-on before it was disabled, and they calculated that the cap was at about 15000.

[MalfLFT]

When you log into even the biggest server on retail its basically a ghost town(Even with cross server) and there are fewer premade groups across the region than my single Classic server has. While even the medium pop servers on classic is full of people in every zone. No one knows but if you check it out for yourself it seems pretty clear that Classic is far more popular atm and probably will remain so until the next expac. ( Apart from the first few weeks of 8.3 )

[Aradur]

Well, like i said before....classic is already dying.

All people on my fl that played Classic are playing retail again or not playing at all.

How unexpected...not.

[Mirain1]

Well, like i said before....classic is already dying.

All people on my fl that played Classic are playing retail again or not playing at all.

How unexpected...not.

That's anecdotal.
Literally 1 person on my fl plays retail, the other ~40 (that play WoW) are playing classic. Quite funny how that works

[Aradur]

That's anecdotal.
Literally 1 person on my fl plays retail, the other ~40 (that play WoW) are playing classic. Quite funny how that works

Maybe because you added all the people in Classic while i have all my friends made in retail? Quite a few of them played Classic for a bit. Out of rose-tinted-Glases or curiosity i guess. But even the most hyped of them are already out. Plus Classic has a death end...so it’s just a matter of Time.

[JaneDove]

I'm hearing people saying that classic has more players than retail. How do you see that? How do they know? Is there a way to see classic and retail populations?

the truth is both have the same number

[Jurwi]

a lot of people in Classic refuse to use addons because they weren't popular during Vanilla

That's just a huge load of BS. Addons were more essential in Vanilla than they are in current retail. Blizzard adopted a huge amount of features from the good old Vanilla addons as part of core game, because the addons were so popular.

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I'm hearing people saying that classic has more players than retail. How do you see that? How do they know? Is there a way to see classic and retail populations?

It might've been pretty even on Classic launch, but no way they are even close right now. Classic player base keeps declining.

[Elias01]

Even if that is the case we still have more full/high servers on retail than the total amount of servers in classic. Again, its basically a no brainer.

Classic realm can hold up far more players than retail ones. Just look at world pvp. Ypu can easly have 120vs120 fights with minor lags but retail alredy lags 40v40 in instanced content like AV. Also retail realm status is not based on how many players curently play game. It based on how many characters are created compared to highest populated realms.

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It probably does, not that it matters anyhow, its all money in Blizzard's pocket regardless of which version people prefer.

It does. Becouse if classic is more popular than retail ActiBlizz wont continue develop retail.wow for current audience they will start making changes towards classic audience. Why would they spent millions to develop retail for minority when they have chance to atract much bigger audience.

[Touchthereaper]

[QUOTE=Elias01;51782422]Classic realm can hold up far more players than retail ones. Just look at world pvp. Ypu can easly have 120vs120 fights with minor lags but retail alredy lags 40v40 in instanced content like AV. Also retail realm status is not based on how many players curently play game. It based on how many characters are created compared to highest populated realms.

Couldn't have anything to do with the stress difference in graphics...nope it HAS to be realm capacity....Hurp durp.

[Niwes]

i can just speak for myself, my subjective view and my realm(s):

i often play deeply in the night (2:30am - 6:00am). for the last 6-7 weeks or so i had not logged in into Retail WoW. the last week i again played at 5 nights. and the change was tremendous. in the complete year before wow classic i found at this time:

- around 30-40 m+ in pug tool
- around 8-12 raids in pug tool
- around 50 ppl or more in orgrimmar/stormwind (list shows max 50 ppl)

so, complete last week i found

- around 15-20 m+ in pug tool
- around 3 raids (mostly 2 world bosses) in pug tool
- around 5-8 ppl in orgrimmar / stormwind

thats just that time frame and just my realm. this doesnt say anything and i do not want say anything with that. just the view through my personal window to retail changed sinced wow classic.

since i am also a classic player and favor some of its game design over retail, i assume that a „specific part“ of ppl maybe is playing more classic than retail. that specific part may have a big amount of the players that normally play hard, long, often, or... deeply at night. so this says nothing about numbers overall, but it seems to me that a big amount of some specific kind of players maybe switched to classic and the meta effects of that specific kind of players (i.e. that they play deeply in the night) are directly tied to that kind of players. and therefore, since i am one of those, it may look for ME, as one of them, that a lot of players leaved retail.

what i try to say here is, that it is difficult to objectively say something about the relations/numbers since classic launched and that you must be carefully that you are not falling into the subjective perception trap here.

maybe you just see through a small window, because you are a specific kind of player, and because of other properties of these kind of players a lot of them switched to classic. and since you watch only through that type of player window you falsely think ALL players switched to classic (hard said).

so, my result here is:

- objectively i can not say if and how numbers changed.
- subjectively, for my kind of playing wow, retail lost a lot.

which one matters in the end, is a view point thing. since i am also no longer often in wow retail deep at night and instead also playing classic, in the end, it doesnt matter or i dont care.

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When you log into even the biggest server on retail its basically a ghost town(Even with cross server) and there are fewer premade groups across the region than my single Classic server has. While even the medium pop servers on classic is full of people in every zone. No one knows but if you check it out for yourself it seems pretty clear that Classic is far more popular atm and probably will remain so until the next expac. ( Apart from the first few weeks of 8.3 )

are you plaiyng at specific times or completely random ovr the whole day ?

is this statement from one realm or from more realms (i.e. i have 6 horde chars on 1 realm and 5 alliance chars on another and play both factions the same amount) ?

just curious.

[Donald Hellscream]

Classic realm can hold up far more players than retail ones. Just look at world pvp. Ypu can easly have 120vs120 fights with minor lags but retail alredy lags 40v40 in instanced content like AV. Also retail realm status is not based on how many players curently play game. It based on how many characters are created compared to highest populated realms.

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It does. Becouse if classic is more popular than retail ActiBlizz wont continue develop retail.wow for current audience they will start making changes towards classic audience. Why would they spent millions to develop retail for minority when they have chance to atract much bigger audience.

It doesn't but okay.

Think about for half a second, whats the point of Classic existing if they just gonna turn retail into Classic, there is absolutely no point whatsoever.

[FlubberPuddy]

Even if that is the case we still have more full/high servers on retail than the total amount of servers in classic. Again, its basically a no brainer.

Sure, just wanted to correct that misinformation

[Krille]

i can just speak for myself, my subjective view and my realm(s):

i often play deeply in the night (2:30am - 6:00am). for the last 6-7 weeks or so i had not logged in into Retail WoW. the last week i again played at 5 nights. and the change was tremendous. in the complete year before wow classic i found at this time:

- around 30-40 m+ in pug tool
- around 8-12 raids in pug tool
- around 50 ppl or more in orgrimmar/stormwind (list shows max 50 ppl)

so, complete last week i found

- around 15-20 m+ in pug tool
- around 3 raids (mostly 2 world bosses) in pug tool
- around 5-8 ppl in orgrimmar / stormwind

thats just that time frame and just my realm. this doesnt say anything and i do not want say anything with that. just the view through my personal window to retail changed sinced wow classic.

since i am also a classic player and favor some of its game design over retail, i assume that a „specific part“ of ppl maybe is playing more classic than retail. that specific part may have a big amount of the players that normally play hard, long, often, or... deeply at night. so this says nothing about numbers overall, but it seems to me that a big amount of some specific kind of players maybe switched to classic and the meta effects of that specific kind of players (i.e. that they play deeply in the night) are directly tied to that kind of players. and therefore, since i am one of those, it may look for ME, as one of them, that a lot of players leaved retail.

what i try to say here is, that it is difficult to objectively say something about the relations/numbers since classic launched and that you must be carefully that you are not falling into the subjective perception trap here.

maybe you just see through a small window, because you are a specific kind of player, and because of other properties of these kind of players a lot of them switched to classic. and since you watch only through that type of player window you falsely think ALL players switched to classic (hard said).

so, my result here is:

- objectively i can not say if and how numbers changed.
- subjectively, for my kind of playing wow, retail lost a lot.

which one matters in the end, is a view point thing. since i am also no longer often in wow retail deep at night and instead also playing classic, in the end, it doesnt matter or i dont care.

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are you plaiyng at specific times or completely random ovr the whole day ?

is this statement from one realm or from more realms (i.e. i have 6 horde chars on 1 realm and 5 alliance chars on another and play both factions the same amount) ?

just curious.

Or you know, every patch has its own life and its at the very end right now. The Azshara patch has been out since early july, it's very close to 8.3. At this point you will see the least amount of people on retail. It's not guesswork, thats facts, confirmed by Blizzard several times.

Population on retail will always swing because of patches, end of story. Come back when 8.3 has just been released and make the comparison again.

[Gasparde]

I don't get u people, all retail realms are a ghost town, even medium sized servers, have u been on a medium server in Classic?.

I'm sure that's got nothing to do with Classic servers hosting 10k people on a single layer while Retail servers are hosting like 500 people on 20 layers.
But I'm sure amount of people in OG/IF checked like once on a saturday evening vs the amount of people in Boralus/Dazaralor checked like on a thursday morning is a 100% reliable source to draw conclusions from.