Do you think Wrath Classic will be the last Classic expansion release?

[Zka]

Game started to go shit in Cata. There were some better periods but generally it's been going down ever since.
It's gonna be a very hard to task to figure out how to continue after WotLK since I'm pretty sure most classic players aren't very keen replaying Cata and later expansions.

[SpaghettiMonk]

People talk about playing Cata again? unbelievable. I been here since day 1 of WoW, every xpac, hardcore. Cata was universally hated and the forums blew up daily about how bad of an experience it was yet here we are 10 years later and people are all, "cant wait to play Cata classic!" ...what?!

I can see it now in 5+ years people will be like "I cant wait to play WoD classic, it was so awesome!"
Threads like this convince of me of 2 things...WoW players don't actually know what they want or like & WoW players just like to dump on whatever xpac is current...as has been happening since CATA!!

For the record I liked Cata and I like SL as well
This should stop at classic WotLK before it gets any more stupid
Such short memories...

Honestly I would prefer Cata classic to first tier MoP with its endless dailies.

[Khaza-R]

I think Cataclysm Classic would be less popular than SoM

[delus]

Considering that the only content changed from wrath to retail was the old world leveling experience, I really see no reason to continue on. Instead, they need to bolster the time walking system of retail to allow playthrough of each expansion.

[Iain]

I don't really understand how conceptually anybody expects them to skip Cataclysm, and I don't really think they would in this hypothetical situation. Sure, Cataclysm as a whole wasn't as well received as the preceding expansions, but does anybody actually think Cata was BAD? Especially with BFA and SL to compare it to, Cataclysm had a rough raid tier, but on the whole, I think most people didn't mind it.

Cataclysm is highly underrated, the levelling experience was top notch. The problem is that the the abundance of levelling came at the cost of any decent end-game.

But that's fine. Simply means Cataclysm Classic has a shorter end game phase and people move on to Pandaria Classic faster.

[SpaghettiMonk]

I think Cataclysm Classic would be less popular than SoM

Cataclysm is effectively two different expansions. Tier 11 was polarizing, centered around hard heroic dungeons. The next tiers were very easy outside the raids.

I think they were struggling with how to extend playtime. In early Cata they did it with difficulty, then in early mop they did it with grinds. Eventually they settled on the leggo quest and systems.

[Phaqfu]

As long as classic is still popular, they will keep going on to the next expansion for classic. It is that simple.

[Velerios]

Game started to go shit in Cata. There were some better periods but generally it's been going down ever since.
It's gonna be a very hard to task to figure out how to continue after WotLK since I'm pretty sure most classic players aren't very keen replaying Cata and later expansions.

Speak for yourself, i would love to play Classic MoP; it's still the best expansion blizzard released, and yes, it was better than Wrath.

[Drusin]

Hope not, looking forward to MoP classic

[DeltrusDisc]

The box is opened with the first Classic release, there are fans for all expansions, so, I believe we'll see Classic continue forward as well.

Precisely this.

It hardly costs Blizzard anything extra to dedicate servers that used to be dedicated to the much thinner retail now to content people actually are interested in.

Provide end-game solutions/content for each expansion, yes even the widely disliked Cata, WoD, BfA, and SL (in time) and you'll have players focused on each.

At this point, besides actually making retail better and focusing on quality storytelling and game mechanics, this is the best way to retain subs. People want to play Wrath? Let 'em. People want to chill in their garrison back when it made gold...? Let 'em... x_x

Different strokes, as they say.

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Considering that the only content changed from wrath to retail was the old world leveling experience, I really see no reason to continue on. Instead, they need to bolster the time walking system of retail to allow playthrough of each expansion.

On one hand, I agree with this, on the other, I know people would love some of the systems from a given expansion again.

Hell, Legion is a very recent expansion that I'd love to play again simply because I think it was the most fun I ever had playing Shadow Priest.

[Schmilblick]

Personally, I'll stop at Wrath Classic than SOM Wrath if it will exist, unless the retail expansion is extremely satisfying, which is highly unlikely with the current Blizzard.

[neik]

It might just completely dilute communities and players who otherwise would like to be playing version that is set in stone rather than chasing a moving object, etc. Honeymoon periods tend to not last very long and there is a good chance that it would scatter classic playerbase taking players away from other expansions and leaving those communities completely dire.

Giving to players FF14 style timewalking and locking classic as early as possible is also a good idea. This comes from someone who would like nothing more but to play classic Mist of Pandaria permanently without having to start game over and over again.

[Drakainen]

They'll probably continue on with Cata/MoP/WoD, but Wrath will likely be the end for me as I will almost certainly skip Cata. I would consider coming back for MoP though since Wrath and MoP were the expansions I had the best times in.

[trodelphin]

Private Servers pretty much the canary in the coalmine i think, WoTLK always been most popular, lasted longest with some servers going 10+ years and tens of thousands of active players.
Anytime they bring on a new MoP or even BC they last a while then just die, while the WoTLK ones just keep chugging along.
Current Classic BC is just a waiting room for Wotlk for a lot and end of road also judging by Chat and guildies.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Kind of makes me wonder why they even did classic. My guess they will keep going all the way up to Shadowlands. Unless they do something really cool and maybe go an alternative route, thus appealing to a larger fan base while at the same time competing with their other product.

[Kralljin]

Current Classic BC is just a waiting room for Wotlk for a lot and end of road also judging by Chat and guildies.

Yep and awfully remniscent of the attitude a lot of people had in mid to late Classic.

"TBC when?"

[Phuongvi]

they will milk the cow as much as possible
Remember, it's a company

[Onikaroshi]

Considering that the only content changed from wrath to retail was the old world leveling experience, I really see no reason to continue on. Instead, they need to bolster the time walking system of retail to allow playthrough of each expansion.

What? Classes changed massively over that time, the classes we play now don't even remotely resemble classes from previous expansions. A lot of us want these so we can play the raids and classes as they were, warts and all.

[Tojara]

Probably not. It's a different topic but I'd argue that them axing 10 man raiding in favor of a fixed 20 man raiding size did far more damage to the raiding community as a whole, and that happened in WoD.

Regardless of your perspective of raiding and it's sizes, "classic" releases favor far more of a casual audience than it does hardcore. I personally think 10 man raiding appeases this subset of the audience more, and I wouldn't be surprised as classic iterations of the game push forward that guilds slowly start finding themselves hemorrhaging members. 10 man sort of fixes this, while maintaining the difficulty in addition to being far more flexible than a 25 man format.

Realistically I don't think the increased difficulty of the 5 man dungeons in Cataclysm would be much of a problem when reintroduced. Most of them are pass/fail mechanics with little emphasis on numbers (at least innately) and I can't imagine the current player base would have much issue with this design. I personally think the hurr durr mob hits hard with zero mechanics of TBC dungeons are far more annoying than anything that was introduced in Cataclysm, or the lack of any proper tuning that we got in WoTLK.

To me I think they need to change things up a little bit going forward. There's a lot of people who want things like it use to be, but also not really. Simply put, a lot of people think they do, but they don't. What that is, I don't know, but releasing WoTLK as a carbon copy of what it was would be a huge mistake in my eyes, and the same goes for Cataclysm and beyond. Retrospectively looking back I would hope they know what worked and what didn't work, and what they could get away with changing that would simply make the game better. That said, aside from their insistence on the terrible Classic WoW PvP system, the original Classic WoW launch would've been a lot cooler had it just been season of mastery instead.

[PaladinBash]

They'll stop because the vast majority of people that wanted Classic wanted Vanilla or Wrath and they'll have those. Classic is barely going now because it's infested with sweaters and zoomies, BC is holding onto some of them still for now and then Wrath? Well, I know I'll come back to relive Wrath Ret for a while and probably never fully quit it but I'll never play a later expansion because they are all universally shit for Ret besides a couple of brief flashes of playability. Wrath Ret was the best it ever was and I'd give anything to play it again. The day they announced Classic, even hinting at it, it's what I wanted. All I wanted. I'm gonna play the shit out of it and never let go until the servers die for it.

Forever Wrath servers are going to be real but if they keep going after that, such is life. The only things of value ever added to the game after Wrath were transmog and the token but the token had gigantic downsides that ultimately killed the whole game but it's still better than having paid to play the game all these years of decline.

What I'm getting at is I don't think Blizzard should make Cata or later. I don't think they will. There's very very little actual desire for it beyond nostalgia for Pandaria and shit but that's about it. You think they're gonna bother pushing through Cata for that? I don't think so. I know I won't.