What is the long term plan, if any?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

You got 2 easy streets which I imagine Blizzard will take one of. If not both. Fresh servers or TBC releases. As much as Classic+ would interest me... in the end I just don't trust Blizzard enough anymore to do it right. Not to mention that takes work, which means money, when the other two options are just small teams on short time type of projects. TBC will probably win out. Only because it gives investors another "release" and I am fairly certain it would drive up subs and such for a bit. Even if only a short bit. Which makes it the ideal choice to people addicted to not only cash but to all the money and when your an addict your not thinking about you hits years from now.. just the next hit to get you by and high even if its just for a moment.

[Craaazyyy]

they'll not reset

they might open new fresh Classic realms tho

but the obvious path which they will 100% take is TBC of course

they can do both

[Daedius]

Long term plan is for everyone to go to Goldshire and do some eRP'ing for the remainder of days.

[MasterHamster]

Think I'll have to add that I don't really think wiping everyones characters (on the 2019 launch realms) whether they want or not would be a good idea, so saying "server resets" was an unfortunate phrasing on my part, but I hesitated to say "fresh servers" (which is more driven by a demand to avoid existing servers being too full) as well because if you keep making new servers to create that fresh start experience, once everyone is "done" on their characters, you'll just keep spreading out the players leaving old servers behind. Naturally a very sizeable chunk wouldn't want to start over at all, so they have their old chosen servers since the 2019 classic launch.

I'd say a sort of compromise, would be to have a smaller batch of servers that actually do reset now and then (a set amount of months after the last phase is released), being clearly marked that they are (I dread using the word--) seasonal. A set of servers that do exist for those who want to attend a fresh start, if they want, maybe once every 12 months.
I personally think the early weeks/months of Classic is the most fun, and I think there's quite a latent demand for a way to get that rush recurringly, and to avoid stagnation (I mean let's be honest, content is being cleared too quickly no matter what side of the 'no changes/too easy' argument you're on)

BC was released about 6 months after Naxxramas was, I think Blizzard has to put forth some sort of long-term strategy on how, if anything, they plan to keep WoW Classic running once we've all cleared Naxx to avoid complete stagnation. I would frankly be very, very surprised if they announced that they are releasing BC as well (bit of a slippery slope to start essentially retracing your MMORPG all over again)

[deenman]

The day they release Wotlk servers (If ever) is the day I quit Retail.

eww no thnx,i prefer challenge in my raids,and other stuff to do outside of just raiding or pvp,tbc is better

[Zestyz]

Likely they'll have separate TBC servers that you can permanently transfer your Classic character, if that's what you wanted to do. Otherwise, current servers would remain the same. I could see them introducing additional seasonal servers to start fresh and restart the progression cycle with the option to transfer your seasonal character to permanent Classic servers.

[dispatchcrab]

eww no thnx,i prefer challenge in my raids,and other stuff to do outside of just raiding or pvp,tbc is better

I mean personally I did not play the last 2 expansions but found WOTLK too be the most challenging raid wise expansion, spent a long time on firefighter and no lights yogg and hard mode Lich, while I much preferred TBC I found myself much more engaged doing the hard mode versions of raids

[Unholyground]

eww no thnx,i prefer challenge in my raids,and other stuff to do outside of just raiding or pvp,tbc is better

Well if you ever have done a hard mode raid from Wrath you know it is pretty challenging, that being said I get what you are saying.

[Dalinos]

I mean personally I did not play the last 2 expansions but found WOTLK too be the most challenging raid wise expansion, spent a long time on firefighter and no lights yogg and hard mode Lich, while I much preferred TBC I found myself much more engaged doing the hard mode versions of raids

That's the thing though mate. In WOTLK, due to the "Multiple difficulties of raids", 90% of raiding was easier than TBC. In TBC, even freakin Karazhan was hard. Doing Curator in dungeon blues & questing greens was a tough DPS race, and Prince Malchezaar was fucked up, what with Infernals spawning and him throwing his Axe to create many zones you needed to move out from (fun-fact, that Axe he used/dropped was the inspiration for the Warrior skill, Heroic Throw!).

In WOTLK, Naxx10/Naxx25 was boring & a walk in the park, (my guild cleared it while still wearing our ilvl161 SWP gear cause it was better than Lv80 dungeon heroic gear due to triple gem-slots) Malygos was OK, Sarth + 3 was tough as fuck. Ulduar was stellar, TOTC and TOTGC were a disgusting excuse for a raid, Icecrown only had Proff Putricide, Blood Queen Lan'Athel and LK25HC who were hard, on heroic only. 1 raid +5 bossfights VS all raids and all bossfights in TBC. The hardest fights in WOTLK were on par with the hardest fights in TBC (M'uru, Kil'Jaeden, Brutallus) but the easiest fights in WOTLK were...heroic dungeon level in TBC.

[Chonar]

LFM Mythic+ Naxxramas key lvl 15, no paladins.

[hulkgor]

People underestimate how many people actually just want to play vanilla, i think the only reasonable thing to do is open BC servers a good long while after Naxx has been released, and offer character copies over to these new servers so that people can keep their vanilla characters aswell, and when the vanilla population dwindles, merge vanilla servers to keep those populations healthy and active.

This is very reasonable, and what i expect to happen.

I just hope there's a good amount of time after Naxxramas releases to give everyone time to do it. Yes, the top guilds will smash it first day, but regular, few raiding hours guilds will take months at it, and they shouldn't miss out like they did in Vanilla, with a super short raid duration.

[spaace]

A reset or force boost into a TBC server would an easily /quit from both retail and classic.


I think most of us want classic+... the stuff that should have been, and will be added to..

I'd be ok with many more QoL additions, as long as we have something to do...
...and no, it will not be boring with BIS nax gear. Maybe after ateish xD

[Dalinos]

A reset or force boost into a TBC server would an easily /quit from both retail and classic.


I think most of us want classic+... the stuff that should have been, and will be added to..

I'd be ok with many more QoL additions, as long as we have something to do...
...and no, it will not be boring with BIS nax gear. Maybe after ateish xD

That too. People underestimate how long it takes to craft 1 Ati'Esh, let alone craft 1 for each of their 6 mages and 1 for each of their 5 warlocks.

[Toxuvox]

What if Blizz were to go down a sort of cul-de-sac route? Retail is the main road carrying all the subscription traffic for the main game, with expansion "dead ends" branching off, each of which having no interaction with retail, or any of the other expansion cul-de-sacs. None of this Classic+ pish or the like; Just a pristine experience of each expansion as it played out, that as no effect on anything outside of itself. Retails rumbles on as is.

Would that satisfy everyone's needs, or would there still be folks whinging about "muh content"?

[StayTuned]

Honestly, if they announced a reset at the end of naxx, I'd quit today immediately.

If they want to, they can keep creating progress servers, where people race to clear naxx from level 1 on... whatever.

My idea of a Classic server is that it REMAINS CLASSIC. I don't want to upgrade to BC, either. That would make me quit as well instantly.

What I plan to do is what I did on pservers. Enjoy classic with all my chars, run the raids with different toons. Have some fun time in the endgame content, regardless of progress or not.

[Liftinmammals]

I would love a Classic+ but I don't really believe that would happen. I think classic was sort of a test run thing for Blizzard to make money off of those who were strictly playing on private servers and giving them a "retail version" to play at a price. The current direction for Blizzard doesn't strike me as a route for creating new content for an older version of the game. Would it be super cool if they decided to? Oh heck yeah. Just seems unlikely.

[Paulosio]

I don't think there is any chance they'd ever reset servers and wipe peoples characters... I also don't believe they'd add fresh content to classic or as some people have referred to it "classic +" content. The only changes I could maybe imagine them making would be to tune up the raid difficulty a bit but even that would be suprising.



I wouldn't be suprised to see BC servers but i'm not sure how they'd manage that. Because obviously you have to be 60 BC (or at least 58). I really can't see a good way to work a BC server. There are a few options but none of them seem good.

1.They create actual fresh BC servers that have Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms but with any updates that happened to those zones and the characters with the arrival of BC back in the day. Everyone starts at level 1 and have to level upto 58-60 before you can start BC.

2.Same as number 1 except you can copy a character from a classic server or use a premade level 60 to start in BC.

3.They ADD BC to the current classic servers. Any toons of the appropriate level (58 or above) can pass through the dark portal an continue levelling and gearing up in BC. This would be problematic. Lots of people would pass through the dark portal immediately while others would surely follow after having done the level 60 content for months on end. Those that chose to not go through the dark portal and remain at 60 on a PVP server are not going to have much fun while there are level 70s in Sunwell gear marauding around Azeroth. Another problem is that the player base would be diluted between the 2 xpacs. Some remaining at 60 for the classic content and others at 70 for BC content. It would make it harder for guiilds to recruit. Some classic guilds would lose their raiders.

4.???

[Nak88]

A reset or force boost into a TBC server would an easily /quit from both retail and classic.


I think most of us want classic+... the stuff that should have been, and will be added to..

I'd be ok with many more QoL additions, as long as we have something to do...
...and no, it will not be boring with BIS nax gear. Maybe after ateish xD

That Classic+ nonsense isn't going anywhere with this Activision Blizzard, stop it guys. And no, you are just a very small but vocal minority. Most people actually prefer TBC and then WotLK, just check previous polls in this forum, Reddit and official forums.

[arkanon]

A reset or force boost into a TBC server would an easily /quit from both retail and classic.


I think most of us want classic+... the stuff that should have been, and will be added to..

I'd be ok with many more QoL additions, as long as we have something to do...
...and no, it will not be boring with BIS nax gear. Maybe after ateish xD

You are wrong - you are just part of a tiny vocal minority.

Check out false consensus effect if you want to learn more about what is happening.

[Pohut]

WoW Classic is superior to anything and everything that came afterwards. I can easily see it lasting 10 more years without any unnecessary updates some people on this forum insist on. Why fix something that's already perfect?