I wonder how long it will last until it loses popularity? Hopefully, it stays a "thing" for awhile.
Not long! The rose tinted glasses will come off very quickly, when people find out its just the same old same old, just a hell lot more tedious than today´s WoW.
There might be a hardcore niche that will stick around and have the time of their lives, but the vast majority cannot handle this kind of old school gameplay anymore and the sheer time commitment that comes with it.
Most of the launch period WoW players have moved on. Gotten older, having family, kids, etc.... different priorities in life.
I was single back then myself and had all the time.... not so anymore today. Wish I could play it a bit with my son, but he is too young still and more interested in Roblox lol.
I really can't wait to see the point where the nostalgia runs off, the rose-tinted glasses are forced off and the hype mellows down.
People actively forget that this is not just a relaunch, it's them going back to the game's original state. They will NOT be making new content for it, they already confirmed they don't really have plans to do things like Wrath of the Lich King [meaning content WILL just stop before it] and Blizzard is simply not insane enough to re-launch WoW and take a completely different path than before while still having current WoW.
Don't forget we already had a moment where players thought some actual features in Classic were bugs, just imagine once the normal players who never touched the game before start to touch those extra-hard dungeons, the raids, THE ATTUNEMENTS.
Well if they not going to release the expacs over time, like TBC and then WotLK, etc.... then even the most hardcore peeps will give up after a year tops!
I am pretty sure, if we all are proven wrong and Classic becomes such a success that it overtakes current retail popularity, that they will prep The Burning Crusade expac for the Classic Servers and the next after that, etc. Like a time progression server. Especially WotLK is considered WoW´s most popular rated expac pack.
Just remember that unlike the vanilla launch in 2004 this time around everything is 100% already known, there is a guide for fastest way to do everything
_____
Of course, 15 years are a long time, we are all older and more experienced. Classic will never be able to fully replicate the 'original' experience, but it is the closest thing we can have and I am going to enjoy every minute of it. I am not really nostalgic, I am just a fan of good games, and WoW classic is one because it allows people to rediscover a way of gaming which is quite rare today. Of course it won't be for everyone and the novelty may even wear out after a while, but the fact remain...here we are 15 years later and WoW can still brings a lot of people together to have fun and create memories.
Reading the FAQ and the news notes they dont hide the fact that the actual management team hate their old school playerbase.
They are angry with the bunch of people that say that would prefer to play a 15 years old game than their current superduper version of said game and has forced them to retrace their game.
Its mesmerizing seeing the acid and bitterness that downpours from every answer, news and comment about Classic WoW.
Lets see if this initial success forces them to eat their arrogance. Again.
so frustrating seeing streamers try to talk up how HARD classic was, like WOW wasn't the most boiled down easy to access child friendly game on the planet.
Congratulations, Classic players. You are now special time travellers, running around capital cities how they looked before and doing exactly the things you might have done 15 years ago, and giving Blizzard sub money to do those same things you have done many times before. I should open an MMO, the gullible bucks would be welcome.
Logged in right at 6 last night. As soon as my character spawned so did 100's upon 100's of others. Then it was a mad dash to the wolves and the slaughter began. I immediately started sending invite any random near me so we wouldn't be fighting over the same mobs. After a couple hours, doing starting area quests, sending random invites, I started to notice more and more people were grouped. Which was good, and thought maybe the community can learn early and grow early.
I had fun, but I'm not sure WoW is for me. Just wasn't feeling it, maybe the art style, I don't know. I'll give it a couple months (thats what I subbed for) and we'll see.
But it is the only thing out there right now that is playable. Gran Skera, Project Gorgon, Arcfall, Saga of Lucemia aren't ready yet, but I'm more interested in all of those more so than WoW.
so frustrating seeing streamers try to talk up how HARD classic was, like WOW wasn't the most boiled down easy to access child friendly game on the planet.
Vanilla WoW was the most casual MMORPG in its time.
How quickly people forget
In its time. Well said.
Except .. not anymore. Vanilla WoW is one of the hardest and time consuming game right now.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
so frustrating seeing streamers try to talk up how HARD classic was, like WOW wasn't the most boiled down easy to access child friendly game on the planet.
Vanilla WoW was the most casual MMORPG in its time.
How quickly people forget
In its time. Well said.
Except .. not anymore. Vanilla WoW is one of the hardest and time consuming game right now.
Project 99 wants to have a word with you
..decent game I mean There are also some very grind heavy Korean MMO's out there, but .. are just bad games in general.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
so does WOW now have the biggest and 2nd biggest launch lol, I had a queue of 19000 at one point last night, did some stuff came back 17000, went to low server right in, stood around for an hour got 2 kills
so does WOW now have the biggest and 2nd biggest launch lol, I had a queue of 19000 at one point last night, did some stuff came back 17000, went to low server right in, stood around for an hour got 2 kills
Yea, is a mess right now, but for me, is a pleasant .."mess".
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Well, with 100's of other people trying to get the same kills, you should have started sending out blind invites. Thats what I did. Quests moved fast and I talked to everyone that grouped with me. Can't say I made any lasting friendships, but I was cordial and friendly. And had a good time.
Well, with 100's of other people trying to get the same kills, you should have started sending out blind invites. Thats what I did. Quests moved fast and I talked to everyone that grouped with me. Can't say I made any lasting friendships, but I was cordial and friendly. And had a good time.
yah I eventually did, but wasn't a big deal, wasn't on the server with my guild it was just nice to be back in game
So they are using layering for classic servers - and if you are not familiar with layering- this is Blizzards term for a full Azeroth world instancing.
They are expecting to turn off most layering very soon as population spreads and thins out
Yea, I know. Still doesn't help with the queues nor I saw a difference yesterday while leveling, as they were still hundreds in the same "layer" with me.
Still 30 mins to wait now in que, while my server shows "Medium"
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Had a lot of fun playing yesterday. I got onto one of the bigger servers (after a 3+ hour queue) and played with a couple friends for a few hours. Quite a few people just standing around talking, we dueled a bunch in the starting area. It was really nice.
The phases / layering did make it a lot easier to get quests done, I hardly waited for anything and you can always just invite people to your group if you want to kill something that only has one spawn at a time.
The queues are turning quite a few people off from playing at the moment, I had like 3 or 4 friends who gave up and played other games instead, but this was at the point where every server (minus the new couple) were at 8k+ queues, I think Whitemane had a 27k queue at one point.
It was also interesting to see people on my Battlenet friends log in who hadn't logged in since Wrath of the Lich King.
Had a lot of fun playing yesterday. I got onto one of the bigger servers (after a 3+ hour queue) and played with a couple friends for a few hours. Quite a few people just standing around talking, we dueled a bunch in the starting area. It was really nice.
The phases / layering did make it a lot easier to get quests done, I hardly waited for anything and you can always just invite people to your group if you want to kill something that only has one spawn at a time.
The queues are turning quite a few people off from playing at the moment, I had like 3 or 4 friends who gave up and played other games instead, but this was at the point where every server (minus the new couple) were at 8k+ queues, I think Whitemane had a 27k queue at one point.
It was also interesting to see people on my Battlenet friends log in who hadn't logged in since Wrath of the Lich King.
I waited for a about 45 minutes before giving up last night, ill try again later
What I dont understand, is how is a stagnant game (wow classic) gonna keep all these players? Look how games get backlash when there games are not being updated with new content every few months. I mean, lets be real here, anytime when retail WoW went months without new content people throw there arms in the air.
They will maintain a small playerbase after a few months surely, but to think this will be a blockbuster in any shape or form is kinda silly. Kano seems harsh, but white knighting against him seems like a losing battle.
To the social aspect, of course its gonna seem really social right now, everyones happy. See in a few months when everyone starts moving on, or back to other games.
I know steam stats are not the end of all stories, but Warframe is the top MMORPG on the list most times, and its 60k-80k.......theres too many games to play (just cause some people dont like the new games doesnt mean they suck) There is 100 pct no chance for a game that will not update EVER to be a contender for even the top20 most played mmo's after several months.
About 80% of playerbase will come to the same conclusion over the next few weeks.
Nostalgia is stronger than common sense
You are going to be proven wrong. This is not nostalgia. It’s people wanting to play a real social MMORPG. WoW Classic will be popular for a very long time.
The only question is: will it be more popular than retail? My guess is, it will be.
If by popular you mean total population -i will not be wrong
WoW classic will never hit 12million subscriptions, which was retail peak - that ain't happening.
That's beyond wishful thinking.
Masses dont want to socialize anymore - majority wants to solo along others - aka pseudo-socializing
I doubt Blizz will LET it get bigger than retail.
Blizzard is all about $$$ - so if there was demand - of course they would let it get bigger than retail.
But let's get real
Retail NA realms 242 Classic NA realms 24
Yeah, about that
Retail Servers are smaller than Classic and they are all pretty much empty.
But yes, of course Classic won’t reach 12 millions, no one is saying that.
2 Millions though is achievable, which for a game Blizzard didn’t want, is not too bad.
2 million is still less than retail, no? Also that is speculation as we don't know how high classic will peak.
Also you say that retail realms are smaller - do you have any details here?
I mean why would Blizzard keep 242 "pretty much empty" realms running? Doesn't that seem strange?
Blizzard said Classic Servers have a much bigger capacity because they need to take into account the player drop after few weeks, and they want an healthy population even after the drop.
Also Retail has Cross-server technology which means that up to 5 servers are lumped together to give the impression that each server is somewhat populated. So they are not forced to merge the servers.
The reason why Blizzard keep 242 Servers empty is because: 1) It doesn’t cost them any more than having 50, as the servers are virtual and on a cloud network. They are also modular, which means they pay only for the usage. The less players they have, the less they pay. 2) Paid Transfers: Merging Servers for free, means less money from paid server transfers. But I don’t have to explain you that.
Lastly the last unofficial numbers about WoW subscriptions was around 1.8 Millions subs. So it doesn’t matter if they have 1000 servers, the active accounts are still 1.8 millions.
But how long will it remain fun compared to the 1st time?
That is what every relaunch always comes down to
Usually what ruins it is the mad rush to get gear and levels in a blink of an eye, since everyone already has every class build, and every leveling and gear guide ready to go.
It's sort of just like following IKEA assembly instructions - that's what most mmo relaunches are like.
We all get that you're not interested (you flat out say so), so why do you keep posting your wet blanket opinions?
You actually have no greater insight than anyone else into what people want or don't want, like or don't like, will play or won't play.
If you're right, time will tell. You don't need to pound the nail any more.
What I dont understand, is how is a stagnant game (wow classic) gonna keep all these players? Look how games get backlash when there games are not being updated with new content every few months. I mean, lets be real here, anytime when retail WoW went months without new content people throw there arms in the air.
They will maintain a small playerbase after a few months surely, but to think this will be a blockbuster in any shape or form is kinda silly. Kano seems harsh, but white knighting against him seems like a losing battle.
To the social aspect, of course its gonna seem really social right now, everyones happy. See in a few months when everyone starts moving on, or back to other games.
I know steam stats are not the end of all stories, but Warframe is the top MMORPG on the list most times, and its 60k-80k.......theres too many games to play (just cause some people dont like the new games doesnt mean they suck) There is 100 pct no chance for a game that will not update EVER to be a contender for even the top20 most played mmo's after several months.
Well they are doing rolling releases of content on the classic server (I think it was 6 phases over time, similar to retail patches at the time), so it's not necessarily stagnant. They also stated depending on the popularity they may bring out expansion specific servers and allow character copies over to them.
I don't think the playerbase will be as small as people seem to think, but only time can tell with things like that. We will start to know after the first month how fast the population will drop. I personally see myself playing it for a long period of time, just because leveling takes so long and making multiple characters will be entertaining, as well as PvP in classic.
so frustrating seeing streamers try to talk up how HARD classic was, like WOW wasn't the most boiled down easy to access child friendly game on the planet.
Vanilla WoW was the most casual MMORPG in its time.
How quickly people forget
In its time. Well said.
Except .. not anymore. Vanilla WoW is one of the hardest and time consuming game right now.
Ironic isn’t it?
The most casual game of 2004 is now the most challenging in 2019.
That shows how badly MMORPGs ‘evolved’. And there are people who think this is a good thing.
Congratulations, Classic players. You are now special time travellers, running around capital cities how they looked before and doing exactly the things you might have done 15 years ago, and giving Blizzard sub money to do those same things you have done many times before. I should open an MMO, the gullible bucks would be welcome.
Who cares how people use their money, some people want to go back, some people just want to see what it was like, some people will love it and some will stay a week and leave.
No reason why a company that offers a service shouldn't get paid for that service. Not sure what world you are from. 15 years ago? So what.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Retail Servers are smaller than Classic and they are all pretty much empty.
But yes, of course Classic won’t reach 12 millions, no one is saying that.
2 Millions though is achievable, which for a game Blizzard didn’t want, is not too bad.
Just no, 2 mil new subs? 2 mil combined new subs for classic + already active accounts playing classic for abit yes. But for total subs that are classic players only, no chance. A brand new AAA MMO wouldnt touch that. So no, a 15 year old game will not.
Im glad people are happy they got what they think they wanted in WoW classic, but can we be realistic when discussing the actual potential this has?
I havea feeling at 1 year, blizzard will either regret this choice. My opinion.
Congratulations, Classic players. You are now special time travellers, running around capital cities how they looked before and doing exactly the things you might have done 15 years ago, and giving Blizzard sub money to do those same things you have done many times before. I should open an MMO, the gullible bucks would be welcome.
Is that thing inside your skull so small that you cannot comprehend others may like something you do not? It doesn't make them gullible, but this does make you sound stupid.
Comments
Not long! The rose tinted glasses will come off very quickly, when people find out its just the same old same old, just a hell lot more tedious than today´s WoW.
There might be a hardcore niche that will stick around and have the time of their lives, but the vast majority cannot handle this kind of old school gameplay anymore and the sheer time commitment that comes with it.
Most of the launch period WoW players have moved on. Gotten older, having family, kids, etc.... different priorities in life.
I was single back then myself and had all the time.... not so anymore today. Wish I could play it a bit with my son, but he is too young still and more interested in Roblox lol.
I am pretty sure, if we all are proven wrong and Classic becomes such a success that it overtakes current retail popularity, that they will prep The Burning Crusade expac for the Classic Servers and the next after that, etc. Like a time progression server.
Especially WotLK is considered WoW´s most popular rated expac pack.
I had fun, but I'm not sure WoW is for me. Just wasn't feeling it, maybe the art style, I don't know. I'll give it a couple months (thats what I subbed for) and we'll see.
But it is the only thing out there right now that is playable. Gran Skera, Project Gorgon, Arcfall, Saga of Lucemia aren't ready yet, but I'm more interested in all of those more so than WoW.
Except .. not anymore. Vanilla WoW is one of the hardest and time consuming game right now.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Still 30 mins to wait now in que, while my server shows "Medium"
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
The phases / layering did make it a lot easier to get quests done, I hardly waited for anything and you can always just invite people to your group if you want to kill something that only has one spawn at a time.
The queues are turning quite a few people off from playing at the moment, I had like 3 or 4 friends who gave up and played other games instead, but this was at the point where every server (minus the new couple) were at 8k+ queues, I think Whitemane had a 27k queue at one point.
It was also interesting to see people on my Battlenet friends log in who hadn't logged in since Wrath of the Lich King.
Aloha Mr Hand !
They will maintain a small playerbase after a few months surely, but to think this will be a blockbuster in any shape or form is kinda silly. Kano seems harsh, but white knighting against him seems like a losing battle.
To the social aspect, of course its gonna seem really social right now, everyones happy. See in a few months when everyone starts moving on, or back to other games.
I know steam stats are not the end of all stories, but Warframe is the top MMORPG on the list most times, and its 60k-80k.......theres too many games to play (just cause some people dont like the new games doesnt mean they suck) There is 100 pct no chance for a game that will not update EVER to be a contender for even the top20 most played mmo's after several months.
Also Retail has Cross-server technology which means that up to 5 servers are lumped together to give the impression that each server is somewhat populated.
So they are not forced to merge the servers.
The reason why Blizzard keep 242 Servers empty is because:
1) It doesn’t cost them any more than having 50, as the servers are virtual and on a cloud network. They are also modular, which means they pay only for the usage. The less players they have, the less they pay.
2) Paid Transfers: Merging Servers for free, means less money from paid server transfers. But I don’t have to explain you that.
Lastly the last unofficial numbers about WoW subscriptions was around 1.8 Millions subs. So it doesn’t matter if they have 1000 servers, the active accounts are still 1.8 millions.
I don't think the playerbase will be as small as people seem to think, but only time can tell with things like that. We will start to know after the first month how fast the population will drop. I personally see myself playing it for a long period of time, just because leveling takes so long and making multiple characters will be entertaining, as well as PvP in classic.
The most casual game of 2004 is now the most challenging in 2019.
That shows how badly MMORPGs ‘evolved’.
And there are people who think this is a good thing.
Who cares how people use their money, some people want to go back, some people just want to see what it was like, some people will love it and some will stay a week and leave.
No reason why a company that offers a service shouldn't get paid for that service. Not sure what world you are from. 15 years ago? So what.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Im glad people are happy they got what they think they wanted in WoW classic, but can we be realistic when discussing the actual potential this has?
I havea feeling at 1 year, blizzard will either regret this choice. My opinion.
Is that thing inside your skull so small that you cannot comprehend others may like something you do not? It doesn't make them gullible, but this does make you sound stupid.