I am lost they are concerned about low pop "classic era" servers. what about TBC?

[erifwodahs]

Go to a “full” retail server and see if it puts you in a queue. It doesn’t. It does in classic. Just stop dude.

You don't play retail, do you? Because it certainly does put you in ques on bigger events. And you are comparing something what on retail has way bigger capacity due to sharding and the que in retail moves way faster than in classic.

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It's like you're not even hiding shitposting at this point. What's your argument for Blizzard labeling 'empty' servers as 'Full'?

...not to mention it has nothing to do with my latest post, but I learned to not expect too much.

From previous interactions with this guy, he is ignoring anything what he can't twist into his narrative.

[NineSpine]

It's like you're not even hiding shitposting at this point. What's your argument for Blizzard labeling 'empty' servers as 'Full'?

...not to mention it has nothing to do with my latest post, but I learned to not expect too much.

I never said they were empty. I said full means different things on each side and comparing them is meaningless as a result.

There is no discussion or debate to be had here. It’s very, very simple: the way the population is indicated on each side is totally different and we have absolutely no idea how each sides designations relates to actual numbers, so any comparison is pointless.

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You don't play retail, do you? Because it certainly does put you in ques on bigger events. And you are comparing something what on retail has way bigger capacity due to sharding and the que in retail moves way faster than in classic

So what you are saying is that the population designations mean different things in retail and classic, so comparing them is silly? Wow, it’s almost like that’s my exact point but you are too busy trying to look right rather than be right.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You don't play retail, do you? Because it certainly does put you in ques on bigger events. And you are comparing something what on retail has way bigger capacity due to sharding and the que in retail moves way faster than in classic.

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From previous interactions with this guy, he is ignoring anything what he can't twist into his narrative.

Had queues out the wazoo during SL launch despite Retail's much bigger server capacity. 85 servers listed as Full/High in EU alone.

That dude does the same thing over and over, expecting different results which he won't be getting since he's arguing and shifting goalposts against facts. There's a hint. Truth hurts to those hinging their well-being upon falsehoods.

[NineSpine]

Had queues out the wazoo during SL launch despite Retail's much bigger server capacity. 85 servers listed as Full/High in EU alone.

That dude does the same thing over and over, expecting different results which he won't be getting since he's arguing and shifting goalposts against facts. There's a hint. Truth hurts to those hinging their well-being upon falsehoods.

People who are right don’t have to spend inordinate amounts of time talking about how right they are.

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Do you actually believe that it is a “fact” that full means the same thing in classic and retail despite blizzard explicitly stating it doesn’t? You accuse blizzard of an elaborate conspiracy and then tell me I don’t like the facts:

[TJ]

Had queues out the wazoo during SL launch despite Retail's much bigger server capacity. 85 servers listed as Full/High in EU alone.

That dude does the same thing over and over, expecting different results which he won't be getting since he's arguing and shifting goalposts against facts. There's a hint. Truth hurts to those hinging their well-being upon falsehoods.

I'm not getting involved into any arguments or lighting any fires, but I don't understand the amount of servers argument.

Classic has always had the same amount of servers, yet it nearly tripled revenue upon release: https://classic.wowhead.com/news/cla...-august-295273 https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...uperdata/88911

So how does the amount of servers hold any weigh in an argument when it's been reported it nearly tripled the sub numbers and the amount of servers has not changed? Retail also hasn't suddenly gained a load of high/full pop servers, so nothing has changed since Classic's release.

I'm assuming these claims are legit since there is a few of them from various sites, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't researched it in depth.

[NineSpine]

I'm not getting involved into any arguments or lighting any fires, but I don't understand the amount of servers argument.

Classic has always had the same amount of servers, yet it nearly tripled revenue upon release: https://classic.wowhead.com/news/cla...-august-295273 https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...uperdata/88911

So how does the amount of servers hold any weigh in an argument when it's been reported it nearly tripled the sub numbers and the amount of servers has not changed? Retail also hasn't suddenly gained a load of high/full pop servers, so nothing has changed since Classic's release.

I'm assuming these claims are legit since there is a few of them from various sites, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't researched it in depth.

They don’t live in the real world man. That’s why they are desperately grasping at ideas like “blizzard is lying about what full means”.

[Azerate]

Anyone who argues classic population based on raid logs is a clown who doesn't understand that barely anyone logs normal and heroic raids on retail + half the people logging mythic do so privately, while classic is basically all about raid speedruns. You can't compare these in that way and draw conclusions.

And yeah, Classic has been dead for a while, after most of the remaining people migrated to TBCC it's gotta be a deserted place I imagine.

[T-34]

I'm not getting involved into any arguments or lighting any fires, but I don't understand the amount of servers argument.

Classic has always had the same amount of servers, yet it nearly tripled revenue upon release: https://classic.wowhead.com/news/cla...-august-295273 https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...uperdata/88911

Just to clarify: WoW didn't triple its revenue at release of Classic according to Superdata, but the subscription revenue tripled according to Superdata.
Superdata also clarified that the total revenue was higher at BFA launch than at launch of Classic.

And then we can discuss till the end of days how on Earth Superdata calculates "subscription revenue" as Blizzard hasn't published any data on the number of subscribers for many years.

That Classic was a success is quite obvious, but what could be interesting to know is whether Classic has experienced the same/slower/quicker decline in active users after launch as Retails does after an expansion launch and whether Classic experiences the same ups when a patch comes out.

But at the end of the day it is the total revenue that is interesting and here the Retail business model seems to be better, which can explain the introduction of various paid services, mounts etc. in TBC Classic.

[NineSpine]

Just to clarify: WoW didn't triple its revenue at release of Classic according to Superdata, but the subscription revenue tripled according to Superdata.
Superdata also clarified that the total revenue was higher at BFA launch than at launch of Classic.

And then we can discuss till the end of days how on Earth Superdata calculates "subscription revenue" as Blizzard hasn't published any data on the number of subscribers for many years.

That Classic was a success is quite obvious, but what could be interesting to know is whether Classic has experienced the same/slower/quicker decline in active users after launch as Retails does after an expansion launch and whether Classic experiences the same ups when a patch comes out.

But at the end of the day it is the total revenue that is interesting and here the Retail business model seems to be better, which can explain the introduction of various paid services, mounts etc. in TBC Classic.

It’s not very shocking that a product with a box price (bfa) resulted in a larger revenue boost than a product without one (classic).

What we can say is that classic server health has been profoundly stable since shortly after release. Even up until this week, the proportion of servers in each population designations was pretty much the same ever since about a month into classic. The opposite is true for retail, which experiences giant swings in player count, and that is a phenomenon that is also not mirrored in wows biggest competition, FF14, which has very strong subscriber retention based on their shareholder calls. And on top of that it also has box prices and micro transactions.

I think it’s fair to say retail is better at generating revenue, due to box prices and micro transactions, but revenue isn’t profit, and retail takes magnitudes more resources than classic. So, there is no way for us to declare which has the better business model.

[Diatribe]

This.

If Blizzard were to put out numbers of Classic vs Retail we could prove the argument one way or the other.

*Insert the parrots saying "BLIZZARD DOESN'T WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT CLASSIC IS BETTER THAN RETAIL" here*

Well, we can all safely reason that there are a couple hundred thousand players playing classic/tbc that are only subbed to wow for that and that alone. We all know that wows overall sub count has shrank to a much smaller % than its 12 million it once was at (we can assume a ~3.5 million as of SL launch, but has dropped substantially since then by investors reports). So, it's not much of a stretch to assume that current classic/tbc players represent a significant portion of the overall playerbase.

[Dracullus]

Well, we can all safely reason that there are a couple hundred thousand players playing classic/tbc that are only subbed to wow for that and that alone. We all know that wows overall sub count has shrank to a much smaller % than its 12 million it once was at (we can assume a ~3.5 million as of SL launch, but has dropped substantially since then by investors reports). So, it's not much of a stretch to assume that current classic/tbc players represent a significant portion of the overall playerbase.

Don't confuse day 1 sale with sub count. During Wrath they had 2.8M, from Cata to Legion 3.3M (with exception of MoP), BfA 3.4M, SL 3.7M.

For subs they only told us WoW has most active players in 10 years. For me it's good enough to assume we had usual ~10M, Cata/MoP/WoD had over 10M. There was also info from Chilton (official game director at that time) that Legion reached 10.1M, although Blizzard denied these are official numbers.

Of course half of these people stay just for month or max two. Strange that community is always surprised when they come and when they go (any many more events that came like on clockwork every year or expac, but that's another topic).

I'm not getting involved into any arguments or lighting any fires, but I don't understand the amount of servers argument.

Classic has always had the same amount of servers, yet it nearly tripled revenue upon release: https://classic.wowhead.com/news/cla...-august-295273 https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...uperdata/88911

So how does the amount of servers hold any weigh in an argument when it's been reported it nearly tripled the sub numbers and the amount of servers has not changed? Retail also hasn't suddenly gained a load of high/full pop servers, so nothing has changed since Classic's release.

I'm assuming these claims are legit since there is a few of them from various sites, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't researched it in depth.

Of course, first month of Vanilla Classic was bigger that any WoW expansion. With same amount of servers as now it means long queues. Which we had, people waited literally hours for their turn.

[TJ]

Just to clarify: WoW didn't triple its revenue at release of Classic according to Superdata, but the subscription revenue tripled according to Superdata.
Superdata also clarified that the total revenue was higher at BFA launch than at launch of Classic.

And then we can discuss till the end of days how on Earth Superdata calculates "subscription revenue" as Blizzard hasn't published any data on the number of subscribers for many years.

That Classic was a success is quite obvious, but what could be interesting to know is whether Classic has experienced the same/slower/quicker decline in active users after launch as Retails does after an expansion launch and whether Classic experiences the same ups when a patch comes out.

But at the end of the day it is the total revenue that is interesting and here the Retail business model seems to be better, which can explain the introduction of various paid services, mounts etc. in TBC Classic.

Yeah, subscription revenue is what I meant. That implies it tripled the amount of subs I guess. As I said, whether that's completely true I don't know. Whilst Blizzard don't release sub numbers anymore, I think you can delve deep into their financial records and investigate the quarterly results when announced. I guess that's where reports have come from, not sure exactly what Blizzard themselves said on the press release regarding Classic's success.

My take is that it's straight forward why retail has the "better business model", it's more profitable due to its micro transactions and such. which is also one of the reasons why some of the people that play Classic iterations left the game. They wouldn't be able to get away with all of that. Look at the outrage over the boosts and Dark Portal pass implementation xD They're really on the border of acceptable, atm. If they go any further, then they might just be shooting themselves in the foot and losing a massive source of revenue.

[RobertMugabe]

I logged on to see what was going on and if they would use this expac as some reason (as if there wasn't one before) to help balance out grossly over/under populated servers.

I see Classic Era is merging, what about TBC? my alliance server is islanded atm to 98% horde. merge please!

In original TBC your only option was to faction transfer.

But yeah I can see blizz connecting realms together soon, but they will NEVER merge them (as in remove a server and move its entire pop to a different server)

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Anyone who argues classic population based on raid logs is a clown who doesn't understand that barely anyone logs normal and heroic raids on retail + half the people logging mythic do so privately, while classic is basically all about raid speedruns. You can't compare these in that way and draw conclusions.

And yeah, Classic has been dead for a while, after most of the remaining people migrated to TBCC it's gotta be a deserted place I imagine.

Not at all dead. I was myself surprised just how much activity there was still in classic outside of raids.

However you are right that comparing logs is quite stupid as most people in classic only raid log, while in retail there's so much more than just that. At this point, I'd argue, that most people on retail don't raid at all, in fact I doubt that most people do any type of "traditional" endgame content that is generally logged besides maybe some m+.

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Just to clarify: WoW didn't triple its revenue at release of Classic according to Superdata, but the subscription revenue tripled according to Superdata.
Superdata also clarified that the total revenue was higher at BFA launch than at launch of Classic.

And then we can discuss till the end of days how on Earth Superdata calculates "subscription revenue" as Blizzard hasn't published any data on the number of subscribers for many years.

That Classic was a success is quite obvious, but what could be interesting to know is whether Classic has experienced the same/slower/quicker decline in active users after launch as Retails does after an expansion launch and whether Classic experiences the same ups when a patch comes out.

But at the end of the day it is the total revenue that is interesting and here the Retail business model seems to be better, which can explain the introduction of various paid services, mounts etc. in TBC Classic.

I cannot provide you with any source, but I am sure that I've read here on MMOC from an interview, that classic basically performed quarter on quarter as an expansion at release and after. So yeah, Classic was absolutely a success, but at this point it is also clear that it wasn't as disruptive as some were suggesting.

[Ielenia]

I logged on to see what was going on and if they would use this expac as some reason (as if there wasn't one before) to help balance out grossly over/under populated servers.

I see Classic Era is merging, what about TBC? my alliance server is islanded atm to 98% horde. merge please!

That is not what merges are for. Merges happen to join together two serves with overall population being low. It has nothing to do with faction imbalance. That's what free server transfers are for.

[T-34]

Look at the outrage over the boosts and Dark Portal pass implementation xD They're really on the border of acceptable, atm. If they go any further, then they might just be shooting themselves in the foot and losing a massive source of revenue.

I'm convinced that Blizzard has a quite good idea of the demographic of its Retail and Classic player-base.

I'll postulate that the average age/disposable income/willingness to pay for QoL/lack of time is considerable higher today amongst both Retail and Classic players than it was when Vanilla and TBC were current.

I'll also postulate that Blizzard calculates that the losses it might incur from the loss of subscription-income from the "purists" that are against various micro-transactions will be more than compensated from the sales of said micro-transactions to the average modern TBC Classic-player.

The question is not only how big part of TBC Classic's potential player-base is made out of the "purists", but also how big part of the potential revenue can be made from said "purists".
Blizzard has shown us for quite a few expansions that "subscriptions" isn't the only factcor, and maybe not even the most important factor, that decides whether WoW is profitable or not.

[GrinnersGrin]

some will return when TBC has some downtime, the community will grow for vanilla-classic.

Lmao what is this line of reasoning and how much peacebloom do I need to smoke to get like this?

[Dracullus]

Vanilla private servers had plenty of players years after naxx launched because people enjoy it. Of course it'll live, the servers just have nobody on them right now because people are checking out the TBC pre-patch right now.

That said I think fresh progression servers would do well.

you don't have to be toxic, its just my opinion

Sure why not, since it doesn't cost much. Even if it will be just usual legacy crowd, there will be enough to fill few servers. But rest will go their own way, casual that want experience old world will pick Wrath (imo it will become most popular non-current Classic version), raiders would probably rather reexplore (or explore) Cata+ (especially MoP/Legion).

Something like 2019 Classic will of course never return. It was very unique - 15 year old game with huge nostalgia and no (legal) way to experience it, cause that whole world was almost gone after 2010.

[crusadernero]

Sure why not, since it doesn't cost much. Even if it will be just usual legacy crowd, there will be enough to fill few servers. But rest will go their own way, casual that want experience old world will pick Wrath (imo it will become most popular non-current Classic version), raiders would probably rather reexplore (or explore) Cata+ (especially MoP/Legion).

Something like 2019 Classic will of course never return. It was very unique - 15 year old game with huge nostalgia and no (legal) way to experience it, cause that whole world was almost gone after 2010.

I too believe that WotLK will be the most popular. When it launches its going to be a huge hype. Arthas on the frozen throne is enough for that.

[Dracullus]

I too believe that WotLK will be the most popular. When it launches its going to be a huge hype. Arthas on the frozen throne is enough for that.

For sure bigger than TBC, but nothing close to Vanilla launch. I was talking more about years in the future (if they continue with classic expacs), among them Wrath will be most accessible way to experience old world.

[Hastis]

Its so stupid you cant lvl up in normal ways cuz everywhere are bunch of 60 with that stupid blood elves behiend them powerlvling and facerolling everything so you need to asap strike first you even dont have any ppl to help with quests cuz everywhere are those 60