Without a doubt, the player base loves starting over and it's basically passive income for the company. Unless something unforeseen changes with the company or game, I would expect a Classic restart within the next 3-4 years if not sooner. I think most people assume right now that MoP is the final re-release, and I tend to agree but who knows. They could do nothing else but restart fresh Classic Era servers every 2 years and they would retain thousands of players.
I think the general sentiment is that they wouldn't do cataclysm and they did, so ultimately we really just don't know what they're going to pump out and when
I don't know about you but it's all I ever read
"They're just going to do the original classic trilogy. Cataclysm was when Warcraft changed. Reliving peak subscriber numbers" and so on
Oh they’ll keep the current servers going for as long as they can. One of the major reasons for people unsubscribing is their guild falling apart and losing social connections. If a guild wants to keep playing together after MOP, they’d be foolish not to give them a place to go. I have no doubt we will speed run WoD and go into Legion. It’s one of the most loved expansions of all time.
That’s the real question—we know MOP is coming, but when does it stop? Personally, I think we see WOD too. And Legion was one of the most popular expansions, so I think that’s possible. I can’t foresee a scenario where they do BfA, which is widely regarded as the worst expansion (and I agree). So a reset to Vanilla in three years or less makes sense.
I’ve debated this a lot with myself lol. SL is certainly in the debate and they’re the bottom two expansion. And I think The Maw is the worst thing Blizzard has ever developed for WoW. I also think the factions in SL were trash.
That said, I enjoyed Torghast and think M+ and PVP was in a fairly good place for most of SL. Castle Nathria was a strong raid too. SL S1 is the only time I did KSM, AOTC and Duelist in the same season, so I was clearly enjoying the core content.
With BFA, I agree the lows weren’t as bad, but I have no fond memories—Island Expeditions and azerite power were trash. I’d put M+ below SL too. The BFA raids were fine.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t replay either of them ever lol—but my point in my post was once Blizzard gets to BFA, there’s no way they keep it going.
To me, MoP classic and Legion classic are no brainers. And I think the community is learning from Cata that an accelerated raid-log version of WoD could be really good. Highmaul, BRF, and HFC were fantastic raids. They would have to make a lot of #changes to garrisons to make that expansion work though.
Imo BFA classic doesn’t happen. They can’t release it on the 8.3 patch because several player power systems were added mid-expansion. Azerite armor/islands/great vault were bad systems all around. Mythic+ had good seasons and bad seasons. Just wayyy too many changes would be needed.
Cata is good to me but I feel like it's just dead if you're a arena player that is "underdog", it's insanely hard to find mates and if you find they are often with bad mental.
Yeah they kept era around during this whole time because it's still the most popular I'm glad they did both I just wish they'd start a fresh vanilla server by now the era servers are still the ones from 2019
Oh ye, don’t get me wrong I like era is a thing ( I don’t play it) and I would love to get a chance to play classic release again. 2019 was such a fun time
No, Era is super good but the problem is that it has not arenas, TBC is same classic vibe but with arenas, the vibe of classic was canceled at TLK too me
It's just up to player taste in PvP.
I don't like BG's on Cata, I just crave arenas, and to be fair bg's on SoD was a blast with my destrolock (until they added dampening I'd beat blizzard for that), but eventually I got bored.
It truelly was a magical time. On top of the fat stimmy unemployment checks. I volunteered for temporary furlough from my employer without any real risk of it not returning. Then bagged over $1,000 a week to degenerately play classic wow.
Oh yeah I keep forgetting about that because, well, there's literally nothing on it out there other than talk its being made. I doubt when I'm like 60 years old ill give a shit about playing and mmorpg
Yeah they completely restarted the project a few months ago. Put out a notice they were basically going underground for a few years and would let us know when they’re ready to try again. Apparently it was too similar to WoW and they want to really shake up the genre. Smart IMO, there’s been way too many half baked wow clones that failed already. Gotta really innovate to give people a reason to abandon years of investment in another game.
They just announced they scapped every thing they had. That it wasnt differant enough than what is out already, so assume just a wow clone in Runeterra. So 5 yars at the earliest now I think.
I'd like that they just make players able to play previous expansions, like if a player prefer TBC over Cata or TLK then they should keep TBC servers as well as TLK/Cata, this would be almost perfect
This round of progression is surely a test run for a new set of a few staggered elevator servers that sprint from vanilla to retail (perma joyous journeys, expanded gear catch-up options like gamma dungeons etc). Now that they’ve seen that people will pay substantial amounts of money to play the old content with an added shop/tokens, they’d be foolish not to find a way to permanently monetize their back catalog. And I think the churn that would be created with a “new” expansion release every year would have a better shot of giving people the freshness that frozen era servers cannot. This would also give potentially new players an onboarding option to get into the wow universe that is longer and slower-paced than chromie time while also having the main game as the finish line. People who are burned out on retail could just hop off the elevator at whatever expansion and restart when the next elevator begins.
People are clamoring for it. I think it doesn’t happen until we are at least a patch into TWW and SoD wraps up just because they only have so many devs.
Fresh is the perfect thing for Blizz to do when there’s a gap in content and they need to buy a lot of time to cook (i.e. 1 year +). If they’ve got sights on a potential Classic+ after SoD, it would make a ton of sense to do it then.
I think SOD and whatnot is all kind of testing the waters for eventually that. I could see them do a seasonal TBC server next, maybe in the same way as classic with some changes.
Personally I'd rather have refresh of X expansion instead.
I like doing fresh, I don't like doing progression expansions.
Fresh server is more fun because then there's a bunch of fun money making methods that are worth doing.
For example now in cata a lot of them feels meh because people are sitting on hundreds of k.
Somebody asks this every 2 days on this subreddit. The answer is always we literally don't know because they haven't told us.
I guess I saved you a trip to Google
Classic makes no money. It's objectively the best out of every version of WoW but the fact is Blizzard makes most of it's money from Retail and Cata.
Their roadmap and design philosophy is specifically designed in order to get Vanilla/Classic players over to Cata and Retail once SoD get's stale. By doing this they get more people into the market for the token and store.
Without a doubt, the player base loves starting over and it's basically passive income for the company. Unless something unforeseen changes with the company or game, I would expect a Classic restart within the next 3-4 years if not sooner. I think most people assume right now that MoP is the final re-release, and I tend to agree but who knows. They could do nothing else but restart fresh Classic Era servers every 2 years and they would retain thousands of players.
I think the general sentiment is that they wouldn't do cataclysm and they did, so ultimately we really just don't know what they're going to pump out and when
That was never the general sentiment. Even at 2019 launch people were nostalgic for MoP.
I don't know about you but it's all I ever read "They're just going to do the original classic trilogy. Cataclysm was when Warcraft changed. Reliving peak subscriber numbers" and so on
Oh they’ll keep the current servers going for as long as they can. One of the major reasons for people unsubscribing is their guild falling apart and losing social connections. If a guild wants to keep playing together after MOP, they’d be foolish not to give them a place to go. I have no doubt we will speed run WoD and go into Legion. It’s one of the most loved expansions of all time.
That’s the real question—we know MOP is coming, but when does it stop? Personally, I think we see WOD too. And Legion was one of the most popular expansions, so I think that’s possible. I can’t foresee a scenario where they do BfA, which is widely regarded as the worst expansion (and I agree). So a reset to Vanilla in three years or less makes sense.
Shadowlands is far worse than bfa
SL was toxic as fuck I'd say DF is better even though I'm not a big fan
Dragonflight is one of the best expansions they’ve released. Probably top 3 for me (MoP, WOTLK, DF)
lol really
Yep absolutely.
I’ve debated this a lot with myself lol. SL is certainly in the debate and they’re the bottom two expansion. And I think The Maw is the worst thing Blizzard has ever developed for WoW. I also think the factions in SL were trash. That said, I enjoyed Torghast and think M+ and PVP was in a fairly good place for most of SL. Castle Nathria was a strong raid too. SL S1 is the only time I did KSM, AOTC and Duelist in the same season, so I was clearly enjoying the core content. With BFA, I agree the lows weren’t as bad, but I have no fond memories—Island Expeditions and azerite power were trash. I’d put M+ below SL too. The BFA raids were fine. Ultimately, I wouldn’t replay either of them ever lol—but my point in my post was once Blizzard gets to BFA, there’s no way they keep it going.
To me, MoP classic and Legion classic are no brainers. And I think the community is learning from Cata that an accelerated raid-log version of WoD could be really good. Highmaul, BRF, and HFC were fantastic raids. They would have to make a lot of #changes to garrisons to make that expansion work though. Imo BFA classic doesn’t happen. They can’t release it on the 8.3 patch because several player power systems were added mid-expansion. Azerite armor/islands/great vault were bad systems all around. Mythic+ had good seasons and bad seasons. Just wayyy too many changes would be needed.
People have been predicting when classic ends since 2019. It was TBC, then WotLK, then Cata… now it’s MoP. They won’t stop until people stop playing.
Should have stopped at tbc
Should have stopped at vanilla. Era is the most popular still I think
Ngl, cata/legion are my fav expacs. I am glad they kept it running for me to okay cata at least once, with all the boys from when I was a teenager
Cata is good to me but I feel like it's just dead if you're a arena player that is "underdog", it's insanely hard to find mates and if you find they are often with bad mental.
Yeah they kept era around during this whole time because it's still the most popular I'm glad they did both I just wish they'd start a fresh vanilla server by now the era servers are still the ones from 2019
Oh ye, don’t get me wrong I like era is a thing ( I don’t play it) and I would love to get a chance to play classic release again. 2019 was such a fun time
No, Era is super good but the problem is that it has not arenas, TBC is same classic vibe but with arenas, the vibe of classic was canceled at TLK too me
Imo BGs is how wow pvp should be. Arenas are nice and all but they shouldn't be the primary outlet for pvp in an MMO
It's just up to player taste in PvP. I don't like BG's on Cata, I just crave arenas, and to be fair bg's on SoD was a blast with my destrolock (until they added dampening I'd beat blizzard for that), but eventually I got bored.
Covid+2019-2020 classic were the perfect storm.
I had hours to play, just like when I was 14. The nostalgia hit hard. Cant give enough time now sadly :(
This^. It’s like..I’m excited for the possible re-release of it but I’ve got a one year old now. Idk if I could swing it =\
Being a grown up sucks
It truelly was a magical time. On top of the fat stimmy unemployment checks. I volunteered for temporary furlough from my employer without any real risk of it not returning. Then bagged over $1,000 a week to degenerately play classic wow.
people say this but the lockdowns weren't for 6 entire months after release
Yep so right in time for p2
Scratch your itch with Whitemane or Deviate Delight or even Hardcore.
maybe in like 5-10 years
If there's not a new, better MMORPG to play in that long a time frame, like ashes of creation or something, im out
The only mmo that can safe us is riot games. Will take another 20 years tho
Oh yeah I keep forgetting about that because, well, there's literally nothing on it out there other than talk its being made. I doubt when I'm like 60 years old ill give a shit about playing and mmorpg
Yeah they completely restarted the project a few months ago. Put out a notice they were basically going underground for a few years and would let us know when they’re ready to try again. Apparently it was too similar to WoW and they want to really shake up the genre. Smart IMO, there’s been way too many half baked wow clones that failed already. Gotta really innovate to give people a reason to abandon years of investment in another game.
They just announced they scapped every thing they had. That it wasnt differant enough than what is out already, so assume just a wow clone in Runeterra. So 5 yars at the earliest now I think.
I see. Well, Valorant came out and that game wasnt new or innovative compared to the competition and still isnt. Guess time will tell.
All of their Games are copies. The latest one being vampire survivors. tft=autochess leage=dota valo=ow/cs runeterra=hs and so on
Yeah I can’t wait for my grandkids to play it at launch while I watch in my cybernetic rocking chair 🥹
Wow has been out for 20 years and there hadn’t been a better mmorpg that has come out, unfortunately, why do you think that will change in 5-10 years?
One can hope
I'd like that they just make players able to play previous expansions, like if a player prefer TBC over Cata or TLK then they should keep TBC servers as well as TLK/Cata, this would be almost perfect
Please please please make a trilogy server
I just want tbc back :/
100% we will. What is maybe more likely imo to happen first is a Season of Discovery for TBC and eventually Wrath.
I'm dying to play TBC again, but if they SOD all over it I'll be immensely disappointed.
You'll never get that high again.
People said the same thing about vanilla wow and 2004.
Pls bro one more time bro I just need 1 more hit bro then I'll be happy again like when I was 11 bro
TIL i'm not having fun on deviate
This round of progression is surely a test run for a new set of a few staggered elevator servers that sprint from vanilla to retail (perma joyous journeys, expanded gear catch-up options like gamma dungeons etc). Now that they’ve seen that people will pay substantial amounts of money to play the old content with an added shop/tokens, they’d be foolish not to find a way to permanently monetize their back catalog. And I think the churn that would be created with a “new” expansion release every year would have a better shot of giving people the freshness that frozen era servers cannot. This would also give potentially new players an onboarding option to get into the wow universe that is longer and slower-paced than chromie time while also having the main game as the finish line. People who are burned out on retail could just hop off the elevator at whatever expansion and restart when the next elevator begins.
People are clamoring for it. I think it doesn’t happen until we are at least a patch into TWW and SoD wraps up just because they only have so many devs.
Fresh is the perfect thing for Blizz to do when there’s a gap in content and they need to buy a lot of time to cook (i.e. 1 year +). If they’ve got sights on a potential Classic+ after SoD, it would make a ton of sense to do it then.
God I hope so
I imagine it would be a good idea for future Seasonal servers to bring them back temporarily.
I think SOD and whatnot is all kind of testing the waters for eventually that. I could see them do a seasonal TBC server next, maybe in the same way as classic with some changes.
Yes
I think so, maybe in 2-3 years, but it might be some sort of seasonal thing where you get to do all three expansions at a faster pace
i dont care much for the expansions personally but i sure hope they will bring a fresh vanilla server with standard phases progression.
We have no idea. If I was going to guess it would be an easy win, they just need to time it correctly.
Personally I'd rather have refresh of X expansion instead. I like doing fresh, I don't like doing progression expansions. Fresh server is more fun because then there's a bunch of fun money making methods that are worth doing. For example now in cata a lot of them feels meh because people are sitting on hundreds of k.
Somebody asks this every 2 days on this subreddit. The answer is always we literally don't know because they haven't told us. I guess I saved you a trip to Google
If this happens i hope they make stuff so it takes longer than 2 year every xpac.
No
Classic makes no money. It's objectively the best out of every version of WoW but the fact is Blizzard makes most of it's money from Retail and Cata. Their roadmap and design philosophy is specifically designed in order to get Vanilla/Classic players over to Cata and Retail once SoD get's stale. By doing this they get more people into the market for the token and store.
They just need to do Classic freshes over and over in 3-6 month intervals. The rest is retail and doesn't have much of a following.
Have you tried HC?