Is it a Smart Business move to make "Classic" for all previous Expacs?

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I'm not here making a definitive claim that it is or isn't a smart business move to create a "Classic" edition of each previous expansion. Posing the question to the forum instead.


For better or for worse, WoW Classic had success. Blizzard taking surveys last year to gauge interest in a BC Classic must have been a sign that despite what the talking heads of the gaming world said about WoW Classic, it did well enough or continues to do well enough to justify spending time/money/resources to create BC Classic. And what if BC Classic does well? What if it does better than WoW Classic? There are a lot of "what if" scenarios that come into question when asking this question.


In my opinion, I think it is smart business decision... and that is if they keep the current model of having an active World of Warcraft subscription to access the Classic editions. I'm not going to pretend I know what it all takes to recreate those expansions as they were and keep them going as it goes with WoW Classic, but WoW Classic's cycle is over. The servers aren't shutting down anytime soon, if ever, so wouldn't that be the same with BC Classic and any other Classic versions of expansions if they choose to make?


And personally I would love to be able to pick up and play any of the expansions as they were back then, whenever I wanted to.


I know there are posters here that are more business savvy than I am and could counter my points above on why it's not a smart business move and I would love to see them.

[XDurionX]

It wasn't even smart for classic. This will only speed up WoW's demise at some point in the future. Classic already proved how boring and repetitive WoW was and that people quily lost interest soon after a new phase was launched. This will be the case even quicker for most of the xpacs.

[Enclave]

It wasn't even smart for classic. This will only speed up WoW's demise at some point in the future. Classic already proved how boring and repetitive WoW was and that people quily lost interest soon after a new phase was launched. This will be the case even quicker for most of the xpacs.

If classic wasnt profitable they wouldnt make TBC bro
I am almost certain classic pulls more subscribers than nopatchlands

[Scathan]

I think what people didn't take into account was that classic didn't siphon as many players off of live as they thought, not that it matters a sub is a sub. But that it brought people back in who quit a long time ago.

The problem with. Classic for me was that it was already solved, and so people brought in min max Culture hard, and there was no way to actually enjoy the game as it was originally. Entire guilds controlling devilsaur spawns and such. Trying to find a traditional group for things....

[XDurionX]

I am almost certain classic pulls more subscribers than nopatchlands

[Citation needed]

And i'm sure you're talking out of your ass because it suits your views. Even Blizzard probably doesn't know how many people subbed exclusively for classic.

Recreating BC once they've made classic is surely a very manageable risk with very little effort needed.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Recrating BC once they've made classic is surely a very manageable risk with very little effort needed.

I am of this belief as well, and I wonder if that would still apply if they were to create Classic editions of WotLK, Cata and MoP.


(While also maintaining them after the respective patch cycles of each expansion are done)

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I'd say it'd be smart to do it up to Wrath, it makes up what I see as the WoW trilogy, and I don't see folks waxxing quite as nostalgic for Cata onward.

[Ohvul]

Cost to reproduce classic servers / initial cost to produce expansion and all its features

Must be <

Anticipated number of players subbed solely for that classic server / number of players playing the expansion when it was relevant

Thats the most basic metric I can see for determining whether or not each expansion is worth redoing and creating classic.

Given that it seems like the playerbase is going to keep asking for more and more changes, in tbc its duelspec in wotlk its going to be transmog, in cata its going to be player models(if not sooner but I see cata as the candidate to match up with goblin and worgen) the cost and man hours required to produce these classic era servers is only going to keep climbing and I honestly just don't see anything past wotlk being feasible. Tbh I think wotlk classic will be worse than vanilla / BC, it'll shatter rose tinted glasses of the glory times in wows history, id rather not see wows peak fail in its second iteration because there's nothing to do but queue into broken unrated battlegrounds and clear the simplest version of hardmode to ever exist that were catered towards the developing player base.


Edit: one thing I would be for is blizzard doing public polls on which version of wow had the best rated pvp balance and developing a standalone classic which is managed with that purpose kept in mind. Then pushing esports there rather than retail which is constantly changing / a balancing nightmare / hard to follow for viewers when mechanics are changing for every class every hotfix

[Cæli]

of course...there's not even a debate here
blizzard don't need to make new xpacs, people will always play wow, most of the players never played the old content actually
one day the cost of making a new xpac will be superior to the cost of the extra subscriptions they get with that xpac, compared to classic
that's when retail will end
at which point a wow 2 could potentially attract new players, and make them fall into wow 1, or stay in wow 2

[kranur]

It wasn't even smart for classic. This will only speed up WoW's demise at some point in the future. Classic already proved how boring and repetitive WoW was and that people quily lost interest soon after a new phase was launched. This will be the case even quicker for most of the xpacs.

How do you figure? Minimum resources invested for A LOT of gain from classic only players that if they get bored may even try out retail and even buy the current expansion.

[enigma77]

I think what people didn't take into account was that classic didn't siphon as many players off of live as they thought, not that it matters a sub is a sub. But that it brought people back in who quit a long time ago.

The problem with. Classic for me was that it was already solved, and so people brought in min max Culture hard, and there was no way to actually enjoy the game as it was originally. Entire guilds controlling devilsaur spawns and such. Trying to find a traditional group for things....

I can only speak from my personal experience, but I just lost 5 good raiders after clearing Mythic Castle Nathria, because they're preparing for BC and intend to play that instead of 9.1.

I wish it weren't a thing, maybe they'd stick around then.

/sigh

[Viikkis]

Hard to tell. I'm part of the crowd who thought classic would never happen so I could be wrong again. But I think that at least up to Wrath they will release classic expansions. After that comes Cataclysm which was to a point WoW 2.0 at the time but then again there are probably many people who would want to play MoP so maybe there is market up to that... Then comes WoD which is probably still the "shit" expansion for many so it is really hard to imagine WoD: Classic.

One possible scenario is to do what Everquest does which is to keep releasing classic again in cycles so that people can always hop and play their favourite classic expansion and lets say for now that those would include vanilla, tbc and wrath.

Also worth noting here that Blizzard hired Holly Longdale from EverQuest team and she was responsible for the progression servers there.

[shadowroguetbc]

No it’s not, after awhile the cost of maintaining and recreating the expansions is a literal waste of money because of the very small amount of people who are interested to play again. Cata has almost no audience, mop MIGHT have enough to justify it, but everything else is a hard hard no.

[crusadernero]

well if we go 15 years in the future - can we really know people dont want to play BFA or SL? Who knows how wow is, or even if retail is going strong. Maybe the ultimate endgame Blizzard has with wow is having every damn xpac available as a sort of arcade feature? Were your account is tied into every xpac and everything you have, can be used in all xpacs. All tmog/mounts/achivs are on each xpac, but gameplay etc is limited.

[Stabbyfists]

Honestly - I only played Classic to experience the content I never had a chance to do growing up. Namely the 40 man raids. I also plan to do TBC Classic as I never had a chance to experience TBC Raiding as well. After that I would probably stop playing Classic as I started in Wrath, and I cleared everything on Hard Mode / Heroic back then. Same with Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor.

Classic and TBC are really the only servers I can see Justifying their existence - Because they contain content you can no longer play on Retail servers. The list of content removed or altered in Retail is extensive.

01. Naxxramas 40 Man
02. Onyxia's Lair 40 Man
03. Deadmines
04. Shadowfang Keep
05. Stormwind Stockades
06. Temple of Atal'hakkar
07. Stratholme
08. Zul'Gurub 20 man
09. Zul'Aman 10 Man
10. Ragefire Chasm
11. Scarlet Monastery Graveyard
12. Scarlet Monastery Cathedral
13, Scarlet Monastery Library
14. Scarlet Monastery Armory
15. Scholomance
16. Blackfathom Deeps
17. Razorfen Kraul
18. Razorfen Downs
19. Upper Blackrock Spire

These instances were either removed or altered in such a way they are almost completely different instances. Classic servers not only allow you to experience the old world before Cataclysm but also experience these instances as well. Also the Story of World of Warcraft was altered on Azeroth after Deathwing arrived so newer players might be able to go to Classic and Experience the storylines from that game as well.

So while I think Classic PAST TBC is not really needed as content was not really altered or changed until Wrath of the Lich King, I would not call them a failure in the slightest.

[Kauko]

Personally... I don't care, I did them once and don't want to do them again. There are much better single player games out there that are waiting to be played, so replaying a mmo is just weird to me.

BUT, WOTLK should be the last one. Everything after that is just to similar to current retail.

[Nnyco]

Easy money from people with rose tinted glasses, ofc it was.

[Exkrementor]

I'd say it'd be smart to do it up to Wrath, it makes up what I see as the WoW trilogy, and I don't see folks waxxing quite as nostalgic for Cata onward.

Most private servers are Vanilla, TBC or Wrath. I would love to play some Cata or MoP again but there are no real options for that. Maybe its because Cata and MoP are way harder than the first 3 games and private server players are not known for their competence.

[TJ]

[Citation needed]

And i'm sure you're talking out of your ass because it suits your views. Even Blizzard probably doesn't know how many people subbed exclusively for classic.

Recreating BC once they've made classic is surely a very manageable risk with very little effort needed.

Watch it boys, we've got a mad retail player in the thread.

OT: Yes, it allows people to play the iteration of WoW they enjoy and go back to the older style that some people prefer. I don't see any issue with people having variety and older players returning to the game. It also must be hella popular for Blizzard and making millions, even more when TBC/Wrath are released.

[GnomeEU]

Honestly - I only played Classic to experience the content I never had a chance to do growing up. Namely the 40 man raids. I also plan to do TBC Classic as I never had a chance to experience TBC Raiding as well. After that I would probably stop playing Classic as I started in Wrath, and I cleared everything on Hard Mode / Heroic back then. Same with Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor.

Classic and TBC are really the only servers I can see Justifying their existence - Because they contain content you can no longer play on Retail servers. The list of content removed or altered in Retail is extensive.

01. Naxxramas 40 Man
02. Onyxia's Lair 40 Man
03. Deadmines
04. Shadowfang Keep
05. Stormwind Stockades
06. Temple of Atal'hakkar
07. Stratholme
08. Zul'Gurub 20 man
09. Zul'Aman 10 Man
10. Ragefire Chasm
11. Scarlet Monastery Graveyard
12. Scarlet Monastery Cathedral
13, Scarlet Monastery Library
14. Scarlet Monastery Armory
15. Scholomance
16. Blackfathom Deeps
17. Razorfen Kraul
18. Razorfen Downs
19. Upper Blackrock Spire

These instances were either removed or altered in such a way they are almost completely different instances. Classic servers not only allow you to experience the old world before Cataclysm but also experience these instances as well. Also the Story of World of Warcraft was altered on Azeroth after Deathwing arrived so newer players might be able to go to Classic and Experience the storylines from that game as well.

So while I think Classic PAST TBC is not really needed as content was not really altered or changed until Wrath of the Lich King, I would not call them a failure in the slightest.

The only dungeon worth mentioning is probably Naxx 40, as that doesn't exist anymore in retail.
But all the other dungeons are level dungeons, that you will probably do once in your characters life.
Apart from the 60 dungeons that you farm 2-3 weeks until you get full blue gear.

The Test Realms already showed that Karazhan will be a 2 hour clear in blues.
I'm not sure what is so exciting about 10+ year old content.

If they have a good system now to easily add a new "Classic" Expansion, they will definitely do it, because its free money.