The people who play retail might love it but let's not forget there's fewer and fewer than ever. If you're happy showing off something that nobody knows or cares about to an ever dwindling amount of people, then go you.
When there's 10 things, everyone can know those 10 things. If one of them is super rare, it stands out.
When there's 100,000 things, nobody cares anymore.
--- Want any of my Constitutional rights?, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
I come from a time and a place where I judge people by the content of their character; I don't give a damn if you are tall or short; gay or straight; Jew or Gentile; White, Black, Brown or Green; Conservative or Liberal. -- Note to mods: if you are going to infract me have the decency to post the reason, and expect to hold everyone else to the same standard.
There's no way that what they'd create would be better than or even comparable to TBC, so no ty.
Wow, when you are so desperate you necro a months dead thread to add your 2c, and STILL get it wrong.
The only data is that MAU increased. The end - that's it.
You know what other game launched with a lot of players? Anthem. I'm not saying classic = anthem, but measuring a subscription mmo success WITH NO BOX PRICE off the first few weeks, based on a passing comment by a person talking to shareholders is pretty desperate.
Hmmm two choices, I wonder which is the smarter pick for Blizzard?
1. Classic+ which will keep some Classic lovers around after Naxx. Possibly wildly successful, but unlikely, due to existing issues with Classic such as un-engaging dungeons with basic mechanics, limited class/spec viability, debuff limit, leeway, batching, and all the other absolute garbage you 'no-changes' die hards fought SO hard to keep.
2. TBC again, which is guaranteed to bring in HUGE numbers of players waiting in the wings, some for re-sub nostalgia, some to stay, many of whom started the game in TBC back in the day and have/had no interest in Classic. Guaranteed massive hype and re-subs galore. Two extremely popular races, one being the most popular in the history of WoW, some beloved dungeons, arguably one of if not the best PvP eras of WoW, and more exciting raids.
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Okay there's so much wrong in your post it actually made me a bit angry to read it, so let's break things down:
1. They're not going to 're-play every expansion'. This isn't a snowball turning into a snow boulder as it rolls down a mountain. They don't HAVE to do all the games over again. I think the majority of people would prefer they stop at Wrath, and going beyond that would make very little sense.
2. Any 'splitting of the playerbase' is exaggerated given that a huge number of people waiting to play TBC literally aren't playing Classic because they don't care about it. And even if it does split the playerbase, servers can be condensed.
3. Logical point here: Some people are going to quit anyway if they don't get TBC, because not everyone wants to play Vanilla forever. At least with TBC they don't quit entirely, they're recaptured in a different product. As for Classic+ nobody can seem to agree on what it should be, so that's a fractious idea. Classic+ is a stupid idea and it's that simple.
4. They literally did not tell us how they plan to launch (or even confirmed yet) and here you are jumping to conclusions on how a TBC server is going to roll out?
5. Again, you 'assume' there won't be time gating? That's just a massive assumption you just made to try and prove a point of some sort. I quote you: "The only way to release TBC is all at once?" Seriously, where's the Blizzard proof of that because you're just making that up. You don't KNOW that to be the case at all.
6. Go back patches? What?
7. No, the reason there aren't many good TBC servers is because it's the expansion dataminers have the least reliable and least accurate code for. TBC servers are tough to pull off accurately. And to claim TBC isn't "beloved" is to my mind questionable, given that it's probably the 2nd most popular expansion after Wrath according to almost every single opinion poll and survey I've ever seen over the years.
Last edited by Will; 2020-08-26 at 02:59 PM.
That's not all we know. We also know that it exceeded Blizzard's expectations drastically, based on how ill prepared they were for the influx. We also know that they haven't been merging servers or anything like that, and the only problems we see seem to be about overpopulation. Looking at server health, we can see that only three American servers are low last time I checked. Blizzard added many more servers after the queues built up at launch, and for the server health to stay this high with MORE servers than they thought they would need, its safe to say that at the very least Classic has very seriously exceeded their expectations.
Meanwhile, retail seems to be merging more and more servers.
"stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
-ynnady
Classic may have stabilized, but it clearly stabilized at a point FAR above where Blizzard anticipated it was going to.
Retail, meanwhile, appears to be continuously bleeding.
My argument isnt that more people are playing classic than retail or anything like that, but anyone who denies that RELATIVELY SPEAKING classic is a huge success and retail is having trouble isn't living in the real world.
"stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
-ynnady
Since they have TBC Classic running internally I think we know the answer. Anyone who thinks they don't already have a version of it running internally is truly foolish after that survey asking about TBC Character transfers and what not. I would not be surprised if TBC Classic is ready to go into public beta already.
Do they have resources for Classic+? Retail team works on Retail, Classic team moves to TBC.
Or maybe there will be a new team to work on TBC, and classic boys continue on Classic+. But can a multidollar company afford that?
Shadowlands will bring more people back as with every expansion, at the height of a new expansion the retail population is always going to be higher, period. There is no way more people are going to play classic over a new expansion, it is just not realistic to think that will be the case as many people like how convenient wow has become vs time spent and that plays a big role on the version they play.
What does it say about classic and retail if retail attracts people who bail quickly after the expansion starts and then it bleeds for a year and a half, while classic seems to be incredibly population-stable? This is a subscription based game. What holds subscriptions is what equals success, not what attracts people for three months who then bail.
A player that stays subbed for two years is significantly more valuable than a player who buys an expac and then plays for three months and leaves for a year and a half.
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This is exactly why a lot of people can't stand retail wow by the way. This isn't anything near a universal positive.
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This may be a shocker, but people don't want to play casually for two weeks and feel like they've seen all the content in the expansion.
"stop puting you idiotic liberal words into my mouth"
-ynnady
Resources aren't necessarily the problem, Profit is.
If there is profit to be had, Blizzard will most certainly hire people or allocate resources towards it.
(They're still hiring people for WoW "Classic" btw.).
Problem with Classic+ (In the sense of it adding new content) is that it is very difficult to built on Classic after Naxx without some form of "squish" that brings playerpower down to a reasonable level and unless they throw out a barrage of content, it won't have much juice.
Let's just say they release another raid Classic, which will then get stomped within a week, strategies become public and everyone who has a modicum of Naxx gear proceeds to stomp said content as well...won't add that much the game.
Classic as the game stands right now cannot be easily built upon, yet there we tread more into the "Classic Remastered" area than "Classic +".