BC servers?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I have no idea of where to ask anything of Activision, so I’ll use this - please let me know if there’s another more appropriate (sub)forum for it.

This concerns Burning Crusade “classic” servers.

A while ago, you’ve sent out a survey which served to eliminate doubts regarding a “possible” burning crusade “expansion”. At this point, it’s all but certain that it will happen; it’s just a matter of how and when; and when I say “how” I’m referring to the fact that it’s unclear whether we’re going to be able to transfer existing chars or whether they’ll be servers that everyone will start on from scratch or from level 58 (ready to go into Outland).

So here’s what I’d like - and I’d appreciate blue feedback.

  1. Please clarify what’s going to happen. I’d like to know whether there’s a point in investing time in “classic” (level 60 chars) in order to then level them from 60 to 70. Certain classes work really well in classic, whereas others (druids, for example) are broken, but would be awesome in BC, consdering the talent changes etc. With that in mind, would there be any point for a player in leveling a warlock (For example) now, just to play it in BC or would they have to level it from scratch again when BC servers are released?

  2. Would it be possible to release burning crusade servers…NOW?

  3. When we get them, will Activision have understood that certain mistakes have been made with “classic” and will they make sure that those mistakes won’t be repeated (basically all content in t1-t2 has been stomped by using world buffs, gear and talents that shouldn’t have been available until mid-AQ/Naxx; like 90% of the “spelldamage” gear available at “classic” launch didn’t exist when vanilla launched back in 2004-2005). So when we finally get our BC servers, could they please be released with the correct patches? (2.0.3 etc, not 2.4.3 straight away…)

To be clear, I know what the flow was back in the day. But that was then. Right now…different people have different favourite xpacks; mine is BC, no doubt about it. I respect the fact that others prefer classic and I have no intention of trying to sway them my way, but I don’t share their enthusiasm. Many of us believe that classic/vanilla is/was broken beyond repair (with half the classes being fairly useless, locked into specs that barely ever worked etc; most Naxx raids had one druid in them - just because they wanted GOTW; otherwise the class was fairly useless; perhaps a decurse/innervate/combat res slave at best).

I understand that the “logical” flow would be to upgrade existing “classic” servers to BC, but I see two problems with that, problems I’m sure you’re aware of:

  1. Many classic players don’t want BC. Just like I prefer BC, they prefer classic and they wouldn’t want their “worlds” destroyed/deserted due to a ‘forced’ upgrade.

  2. Many BC players don’t want to have to wait for AQ clear (aq has just been released and probably not even unlocked yet - donations, bwl runs etc) and then Naxx and then 6-12 months after Naxx.

The way I see it, there’s no point in us (BC fans) having to wait for 1-2 years just to get what should already exist…and there’s no point in ruining the fun for those who prefer classic/vanilla. I have no interest in classic past tier2. AQ40 and Naxx weren’t my cup of tea. I’ve done them back in the day and the effort involved by farming/gathering buffs (world buffs, chocolates, jujus etc) was horrible then; it would be impossible now (I’m no longer a young man with all the time in the world; I can no longer farm, gank and be ganked for half a day in winterspring for ekos or in burning steppes/EPL for lotus)

As such, could you please clarify what the process for “migrating” to BC will be and when it’s going to happen?

Wanting to play Burning Crusade when there aren’t official Activision servers leaves us in a nasty spot, forcing us to make choices that don’t work for Activision and don’t really work that well for us either. There’s no point in “forcing” us towards servers provided by other entities.

Activision gains nothing from this and we gain little/nothing (besides having to deal with broken mechanics, scripts etc). It’s the same thing that happened with vanilla (Nostalrius and the rest) until Activision finally understood it would benefit them to give us what we want (and what we’ve already paid for years ago, if you don’t mind me saying)

To be 100% clear, I’m already playing BC. I’m just bitter about not playing it on the RIGHT servers. I don’t believe I need to say more about that - and I’m not looking to break rules by detailing that statement either. I’d be much happier to pay the right company for it.

I’m sure a number of people might think “he thinks he wants BC, but he doesn’t”. I’m hoping that the classic launch will have clarified that it’s not just “nostalgia” and that a great number of people actually loved old expansions and weren’t just thinking about them using rose-tinted glasses. So come on. You know what we want and you know we’re happy to pay for it. You also know that BFA/Shadowlands mean nothing to us due to certain things too toxic to bring up in this thread. So what do you say, Activision? We get what we want (our beloved game) and you get what you want (our money). How about that?

Thank you.

PS please understand that I don’t mean this in a negative way regarding classic. Playing classic has been the best wow experience since the end of BC for me - as broken as I think classic is, it’s still (at least) 200 times better than retail. But… here I am, debit card in hand, ready to pay again for what I’ve already bought once (more like 3 times, actually), offering to pay monthly for something you’ve already developed, something you could provide in a couple of days (if people not affiliated with Activision get servers up in 24 hours…I imagine you could do so much better).

Come on, guys. Take my money. Let classic players be happy with classic servers, let retail guys be happy with retail and give us what we want. Now? Pretty please? :slight_smile:

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announcement, few months of testing and finishing. Also would kill some Classic population so it won’t happen before naxx.

It won’t change much. How it will be launched is still up in the air but likely the rules will be from last patch while gear and content will be staged. So like mages will start with iceblock baseline but attunements will be preserved etc.

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With respect, this is not a legitimate concern. They’re merging classic servers anyway, so servers wouldn’t be left depopulated. Instead, they’d have servers full of people who love classic - not people like me who only logged in once a week for a while, for lack of a better option.

People (like me) who would play BC would just go to play BC because that’s what they want AND because they’re not “invested” in classic. To be honest, many of us are ALREADY playing BC on…other servers.

The choice (for Activision) is to either take our money…or not.

This argument has been brought forward before, back in the Nostalrius era. “Classic would be bad, it would have undesired effects on retail etc”. In reality, people who love retail still play retail; people who hated retail and unsubscribed ages ago subscribed again (in order to play classic); and people who played on private servers were brought back to Activision - all this at a minimal cost for Activision, who didn’t have to redevelop a game, but rather adapt existing code. Note that this would be MUCH easier (AND cheaper) for Activision this time, as they already stated that they have the BC code (unlike the vanilla code, which they said had been lost and presented technical challenges etc).

Look. People like me absolutely despise retail. We don’t want it, we think that it went in the wrong direction and it’s getting … wronger with each expansion. We can’t follow that direction and we don’t want to anyway. At the same time, we only played classic as a temporary fix while we’re waiting to get what we really want - a starter, if you wish, while we’re waiting for the main course. But it’s been one year and we’re getting really hungry, so we’re asking whether we could get that main course now or whether we have to go to another restaurant - which may serve shady food, but well, it’s something.

Classic servers are “losing” us anyway. Quite frankly, I don’t care about that - and I really don’t think any guild would miss players like me, who could barely be bothered to login for 1 raid / week.

Back when Blizzard died, when Activision took over, nobody asked me whether I wanted to not fly until it was too late to matter. Nobody asked me whether I wanted vehicle combat. Nobody ever asked me whether I wanted to depend on third parties (r…io and others) to be able to get a group. Nobody asked me whether I wanted sharding. Nobody asked me whether I wanted legendaries for everyone, the kind that you build (for no reason whatsoever) with endless grinding (anima, azerite, artifact power, whatever). Nobody asked me whether I wanted sharding. Nobody ever asked me whether I wanted world quests. Nobody asked me whether I wanted Diablo 3 systems in WoW (bounties = world quests; greater rift spam = torghast; etc etc). Nobody asked me whether I wanted “compulsory” daily quests (yes, a handful of dailies existed in BC too, in blade’s edge and in skettis; but they were in no way compulsory - you could completely ignore them and feel highly successful anyway; I know that because I did that myself). Nobody asked me whether I wanted people to buy mounts and pets. Nobody asked me whether I wanted modern pokemon implementations. Nobody asked me whether I wanted professions to be truly irrelevant and interchangeable at no cost, professions you could simply change at any point. Nobody asked me whether I agreed to someone with 1 mining skill to be able to mine the best nodes right away.

I would’ve answered NO to all those questions - with bold, caps, underline and a 72 font; in red, too. Quite frankly, the only good retail change I can think of since the end of BC was the recent AH change; I was truly impressed by that. Everything else has been horrible from my point of view.

But nobody asked. The powers that be decided that all of us would like those and we were left with no choice than to play on private servers, with all the pain that implies (unstable, poorly configured, with abusive systems and shops etc etc). I’m not going to lie about it, most people who configure them are simply after stealing some money by abusing what belongs to Activision. We play on them because we don’t have a better option, but that’s not what we want. We want to play on legitimate servers, even though that costs real money. We want a stable and fair environment and all that. So here we are (or rather, here I am), offering to pay for that service.

We’re the people walking into a Microsoft store, asking to buy a legal/legit copy of Windows XP. We’re being offered Windows 10, which some people argue is much better and safer etc, but we don’t like it. We’re being offered Windows 3.11, which is for the people who miss the old Windows, but we don’t like that either - it’s not our cup of tea. We want that Windows XP. Microsoft can choose to ignore us and they can choose to say “no” for various reasons, of course; in which case I guess we’ll have to download the .iso off a shady website/torrent. It’s unfortunate and it’s not what we want at all, but until we get a better option…it will have to do.

We’re not in a position to force Microsoft (or rather Activision) to give us what we want. We can’t force huge corporations to do anything. We can, however, ask. Worst case scenario…they can say no and we can take our money elsewhere. We’d rather not do that, but we are ready to do it - we’ve done it before. “Blue” people can see all the months/years I haven’t played on this account - those were months/years I spent playing…elsewhere. I never wanted to, but I had no better option - sorry to stress this so many times. That’s all I’m saying. Give me the option and I’ll be happy to pay. Why keep me waiting? What would Activision gain by doing this? Less money? Could that be a better business model? I don’t know - I’m not a successful businessman. I can only ask, which is what I’m doing here.

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The diffence in talent and skill changes between 2.0 and 2.4.3 is not so big as the differences between 1.1 and 1.12
I played in TBC and some content was easier in 2.4 like the original heroics but the biggest offender was the gear like Magister Terrace and bage of justice gear and also in some way Zul’Aman. I remember on that patch when i was tanking heroics I have problems because my gear has too much dodge, and that in paladin tanks means no aggro, so I was required for overgeared palatanks to remove gear, my choice was the pants.

World buffs are not a problem, that does not exits on TBC.

Spelldamage was change too on mid TBC but the purpose was that gear with healer stats to have a 1/3 spelldamage so healers could so something alone, it has no effect on group content.

And last, the attunement. There is no reason to believe attunements won’t be part of the phase system. Just like Classic have 6 phases TBC will surelly have its own phases, I don’t believe attunement will be removed from the start.

About when? It will be after Naxx, and definitevely it will be after Shadowlands launch. I don’t have a doubt about that. Blizzard will wait until the interests on Classic die before launching TBC, those kinds of servers will be sequential. And it will be after Shadowlands launch just like Classic was launched after BFA launch, comercially it make sense to launch classic versions in between retail versions. Because both versions are made by the same company, Blizzard won’t compite with Blizzard. It is like Marvel Studios movies, those are aired one after another, there are never two Marvel Studios movies at the same time on cinemas.

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And then there’re ppl like me who would rather (1) finish Classic and (2) go to TBC with these Classic chars. And we’re probably a lot more than you are.

They can probably wait for it - better than cannibalizing their own playerbase like this

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Sorry, but I disagree.

Activision already has 2 “competing” products (Retail and Classic). In reality, they don’t compete at all. People who want retail aren’t interested in classic and people who love classic wouldn’t touch retail with a barge pole.

BC servers wouldn’t change any of those things, it’s the exact same thing. At the end of the day, they’d mean more subscriptions for Activision - more money, not less; for code that has already been written. Basically minimal effort.

Apple/Google/Oneplus etc - they all sell different models of a phone. They don’t compete with each other, they’re not meant for the same people. They’re meant for people with different needs/priorities (and different budgets, let’s not beat around the bush).

I’m not asking to play BC for free. I fully expect to pay a monthly subscription. The only question is whether they want to get my money on a regular basis or not. I’m hoping that they do. I could be wrong :\

Well, you see, that’s a problem for me. I have no interest in AQ40 or in Naxx. I have zero interest in Shadowlands. So…how should I put this politely…I really see no reason to keep paying for 1-2 years for a game when it offers nothing I’m interested in.

Now, my money doesn’t mean anything to Activision, I realise that. 24 months * monthly subscription. Pocket change at best. But there are hundreds of thousands of people like me (if not more). It’s still not an impressive sum, I suppose, but that’s definitely no longer pocket change, wouldn’t you agree?

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There are players that want classic only, tbc only and both. Why some of them should be discriminated? Why those that want to progress Naxx should be hit by TBC talents, levels and itemization before they can finish?

I want to play TBC, I would want that they announce it early and some sort of character migration from classic so that so more players will join now to prepare etc. but don’t expect that Blizzard would launch TBC before Classic have done it full content progression.

And who cares? You want extra points for being edgy?

They have to announce it first, which can happen during digital Blizzcon in early 2021, later this year Shadowlands already launches. So if they announce TBC early 2021 it can launch mid/late 2021. Then you will be able to play TBC while Classic will likely get Naxx somewhere in winter giving months of time to finish stuff for those that want to move forward, while those that want to stay can play what they will reroll to on fresh.

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Yet those 2 products has been launched scalated to maximize profit so no, they are not competing at all. In part you are wrong about the players, most people who play on game won’t play the other, but there are some that will do it or maybe there will be some that will switch, specially those that stop playing waiting for new content. So, intercallating the games makes more sense.

Those subscriptions will have no matter they launch the game now or after Shadowlands. And that subscriptions will be peek like Classic between the first months and first two years no matter they launch the game now or after Shadowlands. So more money why waiting until Shadowlands so they sell all they can sell of Shadowlands before selling all the can sell of TBC. You won’t buy SL? Well, it does not matter, your money is guaranted anyway, they will wait because some others will pay for both.

Yet I am sure if you quit playing you will come back when TBC is launched, no matter it is launched in 3 months or one year. And given that Classic will have a finite live probably of two years like Classic that means… Blizzard gives your money for granted. Even if you quit now and come back latter for the fact that are other players who will pay now for Classic or in a few months for SL that means you quitting is what give more profits. Your money in those in between months is an acceptable sacrifice.

EDIT: Waiting gives more profits specially if we considered that you do not even want to wait to Shadowlands launch, that I would understand it because in general there is not so much collision between classic and retail players. What you saldo want to wait to Classic ends with Naxxramax. You can’t deny me that there are many players interested in both Classic and TBC.

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I don’t understand - and it seems like you didn’t understand either.

I never asked for classic servers to be converted to BC. In fact, I said they should be kept classic only, so that people who love classic can play classic. I wouldn’t ask for their fun to be taken away from them. Not at all.

The only thing those classic players would “lose” is … well, people like me. But 1. they won’t have us anyway and 2. I very much doubt we’d be missed, with our 4 logins/month, one month out of four, soon to be zero out of four.

I’m not asking you to care. I don’t know you. You have nothing I want. I’m asking Activision for a service, I’m stating that I’m already getting a… version of that service from other people and I’m saying that I’d be much happier to pay them to get that service.

They can’t “wait for it”. Let’s say they deliver that service in 2025 (just a random year, really). Well, of course, they’d start getting our money in 2025; but they’d miss out on 5 years worth of subscriptions from people like me, because we’ll be playing BC - at no cost - elsewhere. When we come back (in 2025), we’re not going to also be paying for the sub cost between 2020 and 2025. So it’s not about “waiting for the money”. They’re not going to get it.

The “cannibalizing” argument has been brought before, when people were asking for classic and it has been proven extremely wrong when classic launched. Suddenly, over 1M players came back - players they wouldn’t have brought back otherwise. Those weren’t 1M players who were playing retail and migrated to classic. There are countless guilds which played on private servers only (I don’t think I should them - the servers or the guilds), players/guilds I was seeing there before.

The people at Activision know this. They admitted they never expected the kind of success classic had.

I’m just saying “you misread the mood then and you’re misreading it now again, you don’t know what everyone wants because you never asked us”. I’m hoping they’re listening.

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There is many people interested in TBC or WoTLK servers so you aren’t anything unusual. You can post as much you want but it won’t change anything. Such big companies work with long schedules and if they plan to release TBC it’s already in the works and when it reaches appropriate state it will be announced. Reason why we don’t have any news on TBC indicates it’s not ready for announcement yet, simple as that. You won’t get TBC anytime soon as Blizzard schedule is always few months between announcement and release.

But those that want to play TBC and clear Naxx with “imminent” TBC release would have to move there and clear Naxx as TBC characters. Releasing TBC alongside or before Naxx would be a big problem for many players - a problem that doesn’t have to exist.

You aren’t that special. We all want given version of the game and that it would be cool but “my subscription” argument is quite shallow. It has no value as they already decided if and when TBC will be available. If TBC will be released it’s already in the works and the decisions were made months ago. And they aren’t even trying to force you into subscription - they didn’t even announced TBC yet and most of future TBC playerbase may actually be not subscribed at all.

So wait in line for TBC like others here.

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I…didn’t want to say it, but no, I have no intention of buying Shadowlands. I fully understand that many of the changes in retail are loved by many players, but like I said, I absolutely despise 99% of them. I do hope its fans are going to have a lot of fun playing it. I’m just not one of them.

It’s actually not.

Like I said, I have not paid a subscription for years (not consecutively), because I had no reason to. I was playing on vanilla servers that didn’t require a subscription…before Activision (re)launched classic. That’s years worth of subscriptions that Activision failed to get. I don’t understand how you think that they’re going to get the money anyway.

Sorry, the problem here is either your English or mine. What you’re saying makes no sense to me.

I’m saying that I won’t be buying shadowlands and that I won’t keep paying a subscription for 2 years for a game that I won’t be playing (retail or classic). You’re saying that 1. “Blizzard” (Activision, Blizzard is dead) is going to get my money anyway (how?) and 2. It’s an acceptable sacrifice (which implies that they’re not going to get it). These two don’t go together in my mind.

But I’m not denying that at all. I don’t see what would stop all of us from getting what we want. People who want classic can play classic now. If they also want BC, they can transfer to a fresh BC server when they’re done with classic. If not, they can stay on classic servers. I’m happy for them to play what they like.

All I’m saying is that I too would like to play what I want in the meantime.

Back in the day, during vanilla, Blizzard would create new/fresh servers from time to time, so people who wanted to start from scratch could do that. I would hope that they would keep doing that with classic and with BC servers from time to time. In Diablo 2-3 terms, a “ladder reset/new season”. There’s nothing wrong with that and I for one would embrace it. That way, everyone would get what they want.

I want you to have what you want. I just want to get what I want too. What’s the problem with that, in your mind? Are you saying that you can’t keep playing retail or classic if I’m not there because I’m on a BC server? Because I don’t think I’m contributing to your fun in any way whatsoever and, as far as I know, we never played together. So what exactly do you stand to lose?

I think you misunderstood.

My post is meant for Activision employees, not for you. I don’t think you’ve got anything I want, so I haven’t asked you for anything.

I haven’t claimed to be unique, special, unusual or any of those things.

I’m a customer asking a company whether I could buy a service. I don’t want to buy it from you. As far as I can tell, you’re not an Activision employee. Are you?

I’m asking them for an answer and I’m prepared to accept a “no” or “not soon”. They can do whatever they want regarding their money…I’ll do what I want regarding my own money. I’m hoping both parties will be happy. I don’t believe that this concerns you in any way, although you’re welcome to have an opinion, of course. I fail to see the relevance of what you think of me, but since you felt the need to communicate that…I hope it made you feel better in some way.

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You won’t die waiting until summer 2021.

I don’t see why I should have to choose between TBC launch of AQ/Naxx progression just because you can’t wait until Vanilla ran its course.

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No, I didn’t say Blizzard will get your money for Shadowlands. I say you are very interested in TBC so it makes sense to assume at the moment TBC is launched you will subscrive just to play TBC. If TBC is launched in 3 monts, November 2020, you and many other players will subscribe to play TBC and that subscription probably wont be forever, it is easy to expect a life expectancy of people playing TBC at max 2 years. If TBC is launched in August 2021 it will be the same, you and many others will subscrive to play TBC.

So, both options provide subscriptions for an expectancy of 2 years.

Now the different between both dates is Shadowlands launch and also Classic life expectancy.

I know that you don’t have the intention of paying for Shadowlands, I never imply it. But I will tell you something, you are not the only player in the world, your decissions is not the same decissions that others will take. Yes, I know, most Classic players won’t pay for Shadowlands, but SOME will do it, so Blizzard will wait for August 2021 (not official, just a made out example so you understand it) to have the money of your subscription because in between they will have the money of players who will pay for Shadolands and TBC. I repeat, players, in ploural, is a collective of more than one person that is not limited to you, and in particular those groups of players that will pay for Shadolands and TBC definitevely does not means you.

Now repeat that part about players who will pay for Shadowlands and TBC and do the same for players who are paying for Classic and will pay for TBC, that group of players that I insists it not means you is way bigger than the previous one.

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With respect, you are wrong.

There are two issues that you haven’t fully understood, I think.

The first one concerns how long we’d be paying for. You say it’s “two years”. You’re assuming we’d be playing for 2 years and that’s it, bam - done. This has already been proven wrong. People have been playing vanilla on private servers for over 10 years. Let that sink in. 10 years (over 10, in fact).

There’s nothing stopping Activision from releasing fresh BC servers every 1-2 years, providing a much needed fresh start for people “addicted” to BC. This is literally what they’re doing with other games (like Diablo 3, which was - I think - at season 21. Twenty-one. Again, let that sink in). And who knows? Perhaps classic players would eventually “migrate” to one such fresh BC server once they had their fill of Naxxramas. Or perhaps they wouldn’t, perhaps they’d stick to classic - whichever they prefer. But they’d have that option.

They wouldn’t get subscriptions for 2 years. They could get them for 10 if they wanted to.

The second part you failed to understand was that if they release it in 2021, they’ll miss out on revenue they could collect (from us, BC fans) between 2020 and 2021. It could be that they don’t care about that amount of money - a huge corporation like that may not care about that amount. But let’s run the numbers.

100,000 players (assume just that, it’s a minimal number; I’m quite sure there’d be MANY, MANY more) times 12 months (one year between 2020 and 2021, let’s assume it would be one year from now). Times 10/month or whatever it costs, I don’t even remember. Well, it kind of sounds like 12 million to me - that’s not including paid services like character transfer, character rename, whatever. All for minimal effort - they’ve got the BC code in place.

I don’t know. It’s not pocket change to me, but it could be to them. Perhaps you’re right. But perhaps you’re wrong.

Keep in mind that those numbers are valid for 100,000 players. But let’s quote “Blizzard”/Activision, shall we?

“Blizzard has continued to bring WoW Classic realms online around the world to accommodate the more than two million players who have created characters in anticipation of today’s launch, and will work to add more based on player population trends,” the company said in a statement.

Two million. For classic. I’d say 100,000 players for BC is really minimal. They’d get more than that if they forgot to announce that the BC realms were up. The BC server I play on has 6000 people online - and it was only started one week ago. There are many such servers - all populated; something you’re welcome to check, don’t take my word for it.

Last, but not least, some of you talk as if I want to take something from you. I don’t. Not at all. I don’t want classic realms to be converted to BC forcefully. I don’t want you to get BC talents (until you want them, if you want them). I don’t you to be forced to play BC - I would love it if you chose to, but it’s alright not to.

I’m simply making a case for Activision, hoping it will reach someone there, explaining why I think it would be profitable for them and great for those of us who want BC. Perhaps nobody at Activision will read this. But perhaps they will. One can only hope.

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Some players could play over 10 years, but the peek is 2 years. They could make fresh realms, and probably is what will happen eventually but you are not asking for a new 2 years fresh realm after the previous 2 years fresh realm. You are asking to have at the same time a fresh realm when the previous one is in half it life expectancy

The don’t miss out, they just postponed, instead of earning that money between 2020 and 2021 they will have it between 2021 and 2022 but they have the revenue between 2020 and 2022 of those players who play Classic now and will be playing TBC on the future.

Remove from that equation any player who is interested in playing both Classic and TBC. Vanilla ended 8 million players and TBC ended 11 million players. 70% of those numbers could be people playing both versions, so about those 12 million in reality Blizzard has already guaranteed 8,4 million and those players will play both so they will have 8,4 million now and the 12 million you said the next year.

I never said anuthing about effort, I always defend that once Blizzard has one legacy expansion having any additional is trivial. The effort to make Classic it is obviously reusable for future legacy expansions. At most the biggest effort (and not so big) in legacy expansion will be any feature that does not exits in Classic and does not exits in Retail.

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I think you failed to understand your own argument. Assuming your numbers are correct, 3 million people thought BC was better.

I’m not saying 3 million people will come back for BC. I said “let’s look at the numbers for 100,000 players”.

Quite honestly, it’s … naive to think they wouldn’t get that number. If it wasn’t against the rules, I’d easily list 30 private BC servers here, each of them with over 5000 active players.

95% of those players (at least) would happily switch to “official” Activision servers, just like 95% of vanilla players switched to “wow classic” when they finally brought up the servers.

Those don’t include players like my friend (who let his sub expire 2 days ago, but won’t join me on the BC server because he’s tired of people who run those servers eventually selling gear/mounts for real money - ahem, “donations”).

I assure you - 100,000 really is the MINIMAL number.

Activision representatives thought they wouldn’t get many classic players before too…and they woke up to find an extra 177 million in revenue for a single quarter from classic. I’m quite sure they’d get huge revenue from BC fans too. Unless you think that we’d stick to private servers because we enjoy Swamplord Muselek oneshotting us on normal due to broken mechanics/numbers on private servers, of course…

Please, do yourself a favour and take a look at google or reddit and see how many of us are on those private servers, waiting for Activision to do the right thing.

I’m baffled by your logic. I’m saying they could start making money off BC right now. You’re saying that it’s the same thing if they’re going to be getting money starting in 2021. It’s…just not how it works.

Your logic is something like “I can shut down my restaurant for one year, I won’t lose any revenue if I open the doors again in 2021, because clients will be coming back in 2021”. That’s…I’m just speechless. I’m trying to understand how you think, but I don’t think I can.

17

I was going to post a long answer to this but I will only say one thing, no confirmation of TBC realms, AT ALL!

And if they do it will be “We have no information on it until much nearer the opening date”.

Anyone can speculate but no one knows, even BLizzard

There was a survey but that’s all it is, Blizzard asking opinions.

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18

No, you are wrong. You do not even know what I want because I have never expressed on this topic a single word about what I want. I am not saying that I don’t want Blizzard to launch TBC, I am saying Blizzard won’t launch TBC now because that moves is not what gives Blizzard the biggest profit.

Do you want me to tell you that I want TBC tomorrow? Well, a big surprise. Yes, I want to play TBC as soon as possible. If Blizzard asks me if I want to play it tomorrow I will say yes, definitively.

But Blizzard won’t launch TBC tomorrow nor the next months, probably it will happen in one year. That is the reality and I have given you my arguments why Blizzard does not what to launch TBC until them. Not me, Blizzard. Just because I don’t like reality does not means is not real.

And I am telling you that if they start making money off TBC right now they will do it at the expenses of the money they are getting right now for Classic. What you do not seem to understand is that that money they could start to get from BC right now is for players that are already given money to Blizzard for Classic. They want to keep them paying just for Classic as long as they can, and when the population decline, probably in one year, TBC is launched so those who will quit they will instead switch to TBC.

No, my logic is I can keep the current menu of Italian food one year even if some clients only want Japanese food because no matter what most people want to eat the same food Italian or Japanese food over 2 years, and most of them want both, so better 2 years of Italian and 2 years of Japanese because the people who want both will pay during those 4 years. If we have both options those who want both will need to choose because people do not eat twice the same day, I don’t want them to choose, I want them to eat both. Well, actually that is wrong, that is not what I want, that is what Blizzard wants.

You are not able to understand the simple fact that I explain to you why Blizzard wants this does not mean I agree or disagree with that decision.

19

You are correct. However, that survey followed a 177M unexpected revenue due to WoW Classic.

While I don’t know anything about what’s going on at Activision, I worked for quite a few corporations and 177M extra gets wheels moving quite fast - hence the survey.

They - Activision - know they’re looking at tens of millions (extra) per quarter for BC, at the very least (possibly hundreds, but I’m giving conservative estimates here). They know. They wouldn’t have bothered with the survey at all otherwise. Like all corporations, they’ve got people hired to bring in extra money, to find extra income. There’s no corporation on this planet that would simply say “bah, 177M is not worth the trouble of having 5 engineers spinning up 10 servers, never mind that”. Not one. Not even big ones - FAANG - can let that pass. Not a chance.

It’s not a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN. They hesitated a lot with classic and they missed out on huge amounts of money. Sure, they made hundreds of millions with wow classic, but they could’ve made ten times more if they had released it earlier. People had been asking for years - years of revenue they missed out on. They know that.

This isn’t pocket change. Not even for Activision.

You are, however, correct. They haven’t officially confirmed it, as it were. What does it look like I’m doing here? I’m asking. When? How? I’m saying “please, release them NOW”. I have no reason to want to play on broken servers when I could be enjoying “the real thing”, mate.

…I don’t know which part you failed to understand, but there are over 100,000 players NOT playing wow classic or wow retail. Insted, they’re playing burning crusade on private servers, NOT paying Activision one cent - although they’d like to.

These are the people I’m talking about, people I interact with on a daily basis (well, not with all 100k+ of them, of course…)

These are players who would happily switch to official servers.

They’re not on classic - they’re not interested in classic.
They’re not on retail - they absolutely hate retail too.

I don’t know how you can fail to understand this simple thing. Nobody wants a broken server, a subpar service. We all want the real thing. We’re only settling for the broken version because we don’t have that option.

Your mistake lies with assuming that future BC players would be the same players that play Classic now. No, that’s not the case (of course, some people who play classic would switch to BC too, but these aren’t the 100k players I’m referring to).

20

That is completely made up, you have no idea what it will or won’t make, any more than I do.

Wow, you are just making it up as you go along.

How can they make money on something that’s free?

There is a phrase “weeing into the wind” which seems to fit. Blizzard management never ever read these forums.

and if these server are broken, don’t you think that TBC servers will be the same?

You won’t get true TBC but an approximation of them, which will be like Classic realms, starting on a patch near the end of TBC.

Edit: Also you really are verbose aren’t you? Why can’t you be succinct?