TBC 2: Crusade Harder • Do you think Blizzard will run a user poll?

[munkeyinorbit]

Blizz said launching a TBC server would be easier than launching Classic (likely because they have server / DB backups of it) and considering how wildly successful Classic has been, releasing "Classic: TBC" would be a no-brainer.

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You do realize that "pre-nerf", less than 5% of the playerbase cleared most TBC content, right? Most of sunwell was nigh-unkillable before nerfs, with everyone's favorite M'uru being a guildbreaker due to how retardedly overtuned it was.

"nerfs" aren't a bad thing when the content is still hard afterward, which is very much the case with TBC.

Also how has Classic been a "big disaster?" Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's a "disaster".

The Classic WF race lasted 41 minutes. Imagine if the real WF lasted 41 minutes. It would be a disaster.

Just because you like something doesn't mean it wasn't a disaster. People liked BfA but it was a disaster. Blizzard thinks it's a disaster. You can tell because if the 50% discount aimed at Classic players . People need to stop hurrying their head in the sand.

I don't know what is needed to fix TBClassic but they cannot use the Classic model.

[willtron]

TBC was my favourite expansion, but look how hard people are try harding PvP in classic - TBC introduced arena and it will be fucking awful.

Classic+ on a similar model to OSRS would be my preference, but it's less likely.

[Zentail]

I think it would be good to poll players, but the poll should only be in 1 place: in-game. On login, there should be a pop up (like current Retail patch days) that goes over it. If you’ve voted, the message won’t pop up on login anymore. People online/emailed would give bad results as people can vote who aren’t necessarily playing and maybe won’t play even if they say “Yes”.

The alternative option would be the same as above, but include an email-out option. In this case, it would be that Blizzard has determined that, for example, only 25% of the initial player base is still playing Classic and they want to know if people would come back for TBC.

[Monster Hunter]

I'm 50/50 in if tbc will ever happen.

It will be likely alot more popular than classic

Buuuut I can some very nasty gotchas and potential negative effects from doing it.

[Kralljin]

TBC will most likely happen, even if just to boost subs for a short time.

Making it more difficult is however unlikely, too much work, requires testing and yadayada.
The better question in regards to difficulty will be whether they use 2.4 as template like they used 1.12 for Vanilla or will they progress through each patch.

I went through the patchnotes of each major TBC patch on WoWpedia and basically every patch nerfed Raids, Heroics or both.
2.4 is a totally different story than 2.0.

[Seranthor]

I'm seeing a lot of people in favor of, and against, a TBC-servers release to follow up on Classic.
I'm personally not invested in either option, but what I am interested in is the decisionmaking progress for Blizzard.

Do you think they will run a poll to gauge interest?
Do you think it will be up to the players to decide whether or not it's gonna happen?
Or will Blizzard simply run the effort/reward potential calculations and let The Algorithm™ decide?
And if they DO run a poll, do you think the userbase of MMO-champion will be the majority of people voting on it?
Or will it be a far larger group of people with potentially surprising results?

No matter what option Blizzard choses to pursue there will be a vocal cadre ready and willing to dump all over Blizzard for not chosing the option that the dumper wanted.

[Mermeoth]

Honestly. There will be no poll. We will see forums full of #nochanges

[munkeyinorbit]

That is actually a very interesting post..interesting as in: the conclusions you make:

Source on people liking BfA? Not according to the threads that are made here
Source on BfA being a disaster according to Blizzard

No..a 50% discount on Classic is NOT a source..it is a connection you are making - and I have no clue how you are making it. Maybe just maybe offering a mount for a sub is an argument...or the RAF that allows you to RAF yourself in a very convoluted way is....or adding a mount to WC3 re-forged. But on the other hand they have been offering incentives like discounted subs even when the game had more subs (yeah..technically we don't know how many subs it now has) - like the annual pass with a sub discount, a mount AND free D3. Now THAT sounds desperate

Read the front page for once. It shows the offer.

This website has lots of people saying they like BfA even though most people say it is a disaster as per this site.

Blizzards actions have shown they know BFA is a disaster and their recent actions have shown they think the same thing is happening to retail. You don't guy your main expansion features when they aren't a disaster.

[kaminaris]

TBC mite happen, it is relatively simple task considering how much they learned from doing classic. So this should be even easier now.

Pool? unlikely, unfortunately.

Considering costs vs profits I would say they will probably go for it. But not after classic will be in final stage for a couple of months.

[RoKPaNda]

I doubt it's worth it for them with as fast as Classic died off. I'd like to see it, it was my favorite version of WoW, but I doubt it's worth it for Blizzard.

[kaminaris]

I doubt it's worth it for them with as fast as Classic died off. I'd like to see it, it was my favorite version of WoW, but I doubt it's worth it for Blizzard.

Yes it is, even the initial hype will cover most of the expenses. Remember, they are not making any new assets, no new story and just data is there to convert.
It may take some time but it will not engage entire team. They have also learned a lot with making classic.

[Bramickias]

If TBC Heroics and Raids are tuned to 2.4, it would be a disaster.

Magtheridon alone would switch from being a roadblock for most guilds to being a free kill like Onyxia is.
Karazhan loot starting in their buffed versions would make people strong enough to enter T5 after a clear or 2.
There wouldnt be any easy heroic 5man (mechanar) and hard heroic 5man (shattered halls), they would all start at easy from the first day.
And no matter when the Isle of Queldanas arrives, it would then make most of the 5man content irrelevant until the last day of the server.
Having more blanced/strong classes by playing on the 2.4 patch would be ok, or at least better then having a nerf/buff every couple months.

I'd love to see TBClassic servers, but im afraid how gutted everything would be if we judge by Classic standards.
And arena would be beyond boring with everyone playing the OP comps since day 1.

[RoKPaNda]

Yes it is, even the initial hype will cover most of the expenses. Remember, they are not making any new assets, no new story and just data is there to convert.
It may take some time but it will not engage entire team. They have also learned a lot with making classic.

Uhhh you're vastly underestimating the amount of work that had to go into Classic and has to continue to go into Classic.

[Arainie]

I don't think there will be any kind of poll, because eventually, like for any company, the decision will be down to whether or not it makes sense financially.

The user base of MMOC is a drop in the ocean of all WoW players. I don't understand how anyone could even begin to think that "we" here matter in any broader sense, I don't even think 5% of the WoW playerbase frequent MMOC even if more than that probably have an account.

[Craaazyyy]

I would want them to release a Classic TBC like how it was released back in the day. Patch by patch so the raids aren't hella nerfed from the start.

yep, i don't want to be stuck in 2.4.3 forever, so many things were being changed during TBC, so many fun things were nerfed/removed..

[Thetruth1400]

Didn't one of their earnings call basically say that WoW Classic tripled their active players?

If so, they 100% will do a TBC and even a WotLK as time progresses, as those were the Classic Era of WoW when the game was at its most popular.

[Craaazyyy]

Didn't one of their earnings call basically say that WoW Classic tripled their active players?

If so, they 100% will do a TBC and even a WotLK as time progresses, as those were the Classic Era of WoW when the game was at its most popular.

ye, classic caused a record sub number growth and their sub revenue tripled

after almost half a year since classic launch their wow sub numbers are still a double of what they were before august of 2019.. and remember that Rise of Azshara released late June, so there was no content drought on retail at the time either

i think that TBC is inevitable, i just hope that now they will release it patch by patch

[Arainie]

As of just now:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/forum.php

Members: 595,293
Active Members 11,883

There are currently 3076 users online. 287 members and 2789 guests

Most users ever online was 253,388, 2014-04-08 at 05:12 PM.

Make of that what you will, but seems MMO-C isn't doing so well either

I'll attribute that, with great confidence, to the fact that most of the posts here are filled with negative garbage about anything and everything. The little rays of positivity (be it actual game discussion or creative criticism) that you come across once in a while are quickly tainted by a stream of averagely negative posters.

I used to take part a lot more in the MMOC discussions but I can just feel my inner peace suffering every time I spend more than a few minutes at a time on here.

[RoKPaNda]

Seriously interested what amount of work goes into it. I mean..yeah..obviously they cannot just grab 1.12 from 2005 and put it online. But what are we talking about? 100 ppl working 6 months to do the necessary programming and converting to release it and then 10 ppl monitoring and fixing problems when it is live? (That would actually be a cost of sth like 300.000 dollars per month to get Classic going, if I take a monthly salary of 3000 dollars....indeed a ton of money...not that much if you can entice 1 million players paying 15 dollars a month to come back though.

I have no clue about that part and the effort it takes, so I am happy to learn

It took them a lot longer than 6 months to get it up and running. Setting up everything on the modern client to work exactly the way it did in the 1.12 reference client is a massive amount of work, especially for a game this size. Recreating a lot of the quirks and bugs takes a lot of work. Getting a large number of players to come back for a month is nice and all, but from a business perspective there are a lot easier ways to generate money than going through the hassle of recreating an ancient MMO in the modern WoW client and selling it for essentially $15. The character services sale, the rat mount, etc for example. Now if it sold for $15 a pop and had some massive player retention it would be different, but Classic didn't have that. The Classic population took a massive nosedive after the first couple weeks which is why Blizzard has sped up their classic release schedule a couple times now. It's really about efficient use of resources to generate revenue.

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As of just now:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/forum.php

Members: 595,293
Active Members 11,883

There are currently 3076 users online. 287 members and 2789 guests

Most users ever online was 253,388, 2014-04-08 at 05:12 PM.

Make of that what you will, but seems MMO-C isn't doing so well either

Forums in general aren't doing so well. It's much harder to find a written guide for things now from DIY projects to gaming to whatever because everything is in video format now. Content creators moved to YouTube because it's easier to monetize their work, forums and such fell behind. Discord takes a further chunk out of that with WoW theorycrafting happening there instead of on forums. Unless you count things like Reddit comment sections, forums are going the way of the dodo.

[kaminaris]

It took them a lot longer than 6 months to get it up and running. Setting up everything on the modern client to work exactly the way it did in the 1.12 reference client is a massive amount of work, especially for a game this size. Recreating a lot of the quirks and bugs takes a lot of work. Getting a large number of players to come back for a month is nice and all, but from a business perspective there are a lot easier ways to generate money than going through the hassle of recreating an ancient MMO in the modern WoW client and selling it for essentially $15. The character services sale, the rat mount, etc for example. Now if it sold for $15 a pop and had some massive player retention it would be different, but Classic didn't have that. The Classic population took a massive nosedive after the first couple weeks which is why Blizzard has sped up their classic release schedule a couple times now. It's really about efficient use of resources to generate revenue.

No, not really. Amount of work is not even comparable to amount needed to release expansion.
First of all they needed only to fix what has been broken because they did have all the data.
So data conversion -> fix what is broken.

Client is literally 8.X client with different lua code (mostly code cut and some patches)
Data, world models are 1:1 conversion
Spell data has been converted and fixed.