What happened to all of the Vanilla purists?

[Farora]

Except this statement ignores that the entire Blizzard / WoW leadership had to concede now multiple times that they completely underestimated Classic's success and frankly made them look like total idiots.

Seriously, do not take that the fact that the most unreasonable expectations of Classic's success did not come true somehow as a failure of the project, this is such a stupid view of things.

I reiterate what i said earlier in this thread: I have played Classic almost every day for almost two years, the fact that i'm now moving to TBC is not a concession that Classic somehow sucked.
Release some fresh Classic servers in a few months and i'd go back to play Classic again, but without anything that adds new content or a clean slate to start over again, i lose interest, simply because character progression means a lot to me and my character in Classic is effectively finished.

Indeed. And a few subtle tweaks to classic (like the change they made to world buffs) will mean a fresh classic will play out differently even. So bring it on.

[Selastan]

Its more just chasing fresh servers. They tend to die after AQ40 patch and then everyone jumps to another private server to do it all over.

As far as if they will recover I think once BC gets into farm phase which will be fairly fast they might recover. A MMO that doesn't update isn't much fun. If blizz releases fresh servers themselves after BC has been out for awhile they most likely would do well.

True words. The only reason why I stick to MMOs despite being a casual solo player is the constant updates. If a single-player RPG like Skyrim or Dark Souls got consistent content updates like WoW does, I would have no need of MMOs anymore. An MMO without an evolving and growing world is worthless.

[Mister K]

wrath was trash and everyone not a wrathbaby blinded by bias and nostalgia knows it

- - - Updated - - -



wrath is nr 1 easily,specialy now with vanila servers taking a decent hit

Wrath was a beginning of too many QoLs which contributed to the trash we have today. THAT SAID, it still is the best expansion. View the stats, stats don't lie, PServers clearly show its popularity. Arenas were the bomb in WotLK and AT was the living proof of it.

Try again.

[deenman]

Wrath was a beginning of too many QoLs which contributed to the trash we have today. THAT SAID, it still is the best expansion. View the stats, stats don't lie, PServers clearly show its popularity. Arenas were the bomb in WotLK and AT was the living proof of it.

Try again.

popularity=/=quality,its like i said,most people play games on easy mode

[Ange]

vaniila players are used to thier servers being shut down, then a new server pop up and they start a new. which kept them in a loop, so they kinda never ran out of content, which is why many asks for fresh servers.

big part of classic fans are also fond of tbc and somewhat wotlk. you know, the good ol days before wow became too normie friendly.

Thats just smearing dirt over vanilla players.

I dont understand this whitewashing of PRIVATE SERVER players - they played on PRIVATE SERVERS because they liked cheating, dont had the $5-10 for a monthly sub or simply never been old enough to play vanilla in the first place.

Stop with this private server whitewashing, call them as what they are.
At least Blizzard did the right thing with using the LEGION core as the Classic template, keeping the development low as possible with this nonsense mode with people who cant stand MMOs over extended time.

[clevin]

This shouldn't surprise anyone. Private servers aren't more popular, they just don't have 10k or 50k or whatever number spread out over a lot of realms, they're all on a handful (or one) so of course they feel more alive.

Most of us who came back for classic never intended to play it for years and years. We just liked revisiting the game we started with. In my case, I began a couple of months pre-TBC so I missed seeing a lot of stuff as it was in Vanilla too. So I came back as did some friends for that time. We had fun. We ran old stuff we'd done and made new friends in game and ran MC, BWL, AQ and Naxx a lot of which were new for some of us.I bailed after AQ, but I don't have any regrets at playing Classic and I have none in moving on.

For those few who want fresh Classic servers... do you REALLY expect Blizzard to release them just as TBC Classic launches? And as 9.1 retail is about to launch?

[Magical Mudcrab]

Vanilla is like a graveyard now. This after years and years of people either playing illegally on private servers (because it was so much more fun than retail) and/or demanding that Vanilla be re-released. I for sure thought they would play Vanilla forever. I guess 2 years was enough to satisfy the decade-long controversy.

It's because Blizzard more-or-less setup the Vanilla classic servers to die. Static phase 5 realms aren't attractive, especially given there's nothing about those realms that is particularly good (i.e.: leveling is slower, inherently will be a lower population, etc.). If Blizzard had vanilla servers that refreshed (i.e.: servers that start at phase 1 and then progress to phase 5, with 60's being migrated to a static 60 realm to be used whenever), you would likely see more vanilla players. As of right now, the realms are basically graveyards for unused characters.

[shoc]

It was all a psychological reactance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)

Reactance is an unpleasant motivational arousal (reaction) to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away their choices or limiting the range of alternatives.

Reactance can occur when someone is heavily pressured to accept a certain view or attitude. Reactance can cause the person to adopt or strengthen a view or attitude that is contrary to what was intended, and also increases resistance to persuasion. People using reverse psychology are playing on reactance, attempting to influence someone to choose the opposite of what they request.

Some individuals are naturally high in reactance, a personality characteristic called trait reactance.

People wanted Vanilla - not because they wanted to play Vanilla - but because Blizzard kept telling them that they couldn't, by shutting down legacy private servers by force. For many people the forbidden is irresistible.

It's the same reason why people stockpile guns when the Government tells them that they shouldn't, or why people become anti-maskers and neo-nazis. The 'authority' tells you that you shouldn't enter a store without wearing a mask, or that you shouldn't be a racist prick, it will cause individuals with high trait reactance to become contrarians. The silver lining is that these people are extremely vulnerable to reverse psychology and easily manipulated.

So the 'authority' in this case Blizzard telling players that they can't have Classic WoW is what caused people to want Classic WoW so badly. Not because they actually thought Classic WoW was the superior gameplay experience (the fact that it's dead now being pretty ample proof of that).

[hulkgor]

Are people still claiming Classic 'failed'?

[Relapses]

You thought they did, but they didn't.

This is... for once, actually accurate.

[spasut]

Thats just smearing dirt over vanilla players.

I dont understand this whitewashing of PRIVATE SERVER players - they played on PRIVATE SERVERS because they liked cheating, dont had the $5-10 for a monthly sub or simply never been old enough to play vanilla in the first place.

Stop with this private server whitewashing, call them as what they are.
At least Blizzard did the right thing with using the LEGION core as the Classic template, keeping the development low as possible with this nonsense mode with people who cant stand MMOs over extended time.

Wow, so much cluelessness in one post.
I am one of those whitewashers, I started playing vanilla back in 2006 when I was 23 years old. And since blizzard was just too dumb to deliver us the classic experience, we had no other choice than playing on pservers if we wanted to enjoy our old, beloved wow. I donated plenty of dollars to Nostalrius and other good servers, so money was never an issue. but keep living in your little bubble and enjoy the taste of AV's D.

[Djuntas]

They are simply playing the superior, more polished, balanced and varied version of Vanilla: TBC

This. TBC still has major flaws and idiotic things, but its the prime of wow for "the old age". WOTLK is also good through.

Also yes...shit its dead atm few days before TBC..:Even my high pop EU server...like 2000 items on the AH only lol.

[donjn]

Vanilla is like a graveyard now. This after years and years of people either playing illegally on private servers (because it was so much more fun than retail) and/or demanding that Vanilla be re-released. I for sure thought they would play Vanilla forever. I guess 2 years was enough to satisfy the decade-long controversy.

Give it a while after TBC is no longer fresh. Just wait and save my post.

[arkanon]

Give it a while after TBC is no longer fresh. Just wait and save my post.

Save what? What have you said that is worthy of saving? Are you suggesting that the idea of players dropping off as they complete their goals in game is some kind of noteworthy prediction?

I dont know a single person who genuinely believed thousands, or as some suggested, MILLIONS of players would stay in vanilla for more than a few months after Naxx was said and done.

[Rusken]

They’ll release seasonal era servers to revitalize MAUs near an end of quarter between expansions/patches.

“Hey, you’re months away from ZA, 9.2 isn’t even close to PTR, why not start fresh on Classic era? Remember that?”

Which I’m totally fine with.

This is very much what I see happening. They said they had no plans for fresh servers at launch but were possibly open to the idea down the track. Which to me directly translates to: "We know this is what Classic players want with Classic Era, so we'll milk them for Character Clones and then release fresh servers once everyone's cloned and realises the game is dead."

[Akka]

Just a bunch of sheep who follow to TBC. The "Classic" crowd was never a thing.

Must be the reason why Classic was such a huge success, because the people wanting to play it didn't exist

[greysaber]

In a couple weeks we'll know just how popular vanilla still is.

I'm sure people will filter in and out of it forever. New guilds will pop up with 30-50 people wanting to relive it... again. Everyone has sat on comms and got into the 'remember when' nostalgia conversation. But in the past, you could never go back and do it again.

Now we can. And that's a good thing.

[Yarathir]

Killed by retail players who went "yoink, now this is mine," I guess.

[kranur]

Just a bunch of sheep who follow to TBC. The "Classic" crowd was never a thing. Private servers? yeah whatever. But Blizz gave people what they thought they, the people, wanted and its basically been proven to have been untrue. Classic is a graveyard now. The player base didnt really want it except for 24 months...Blizz was right

The classic crowd is the hundreds of thousands of people who played the whole of classic and had fun.

If you expected them to play classic for 2 years and just re-play it for the rest of their lives, you are delusional.

[Rustaclut0]

As many other people have already said, I would assume the majority of the 'hardcore' vanilla players probably went back to p-servers given the era server will not reset and will remain on nax patch.

A lot of the p-server played would stick around until Nax and then the hosts of the p-server would introduce another realm which starts from the first patch again to experience it all again.

For myself once was enough and I had my fun with vanilla but I will look forward to TBC, WOTLK and hopefully CATA/MOP as I enjoyed all them expansion for different reasons