let me guess, another 5,000 word post, saying things you can’t prove.
It not so hard. I will try to said it simple.
There are people interested on Classic.
There are people interesed on TBC.
There are people interested on BOTH Classic and TBC.
That third group is the mayority. There are 100k that only want TBC that are not paying to Blizzard, so what? In that case probably there is between 700k and 1 millon people interested on BOTH Classic and TBC. Those are currently paying for Classic, and they will keep paying for TBC. Blizzard want those prople to pay the max the can for Classic and then pay the max they can for TBC.
It is not profitable to catter know to those 100k player, becuase there is a bigger fish in the pond, people interested on BOTH Classic and TBC that still are paying for Classic.
No, you are wrong, there is a majority interested on both. It is obvious, most of the original population was shared between both expansions, those 8 million players from vanilla and 11 from TBC were not two separate group of players, there were playrs who quit because of TBC but that wasn’t the norm, if it were the norm the game would go from 8 to 11.
If you thinking from the prespective of someone who should make the decission based on the profits of the company your would see that is the best profitable decission even if you as a player do not like it. Think as an executive, not as a player.
I repeat: there are over 100k players playing BC on private BC realms. There’s nothing made up about this. A simple google or reddit search will show you that. A single server holds between 5000 and 10,000 players. I just logged on to my BC realm now. There are 3027 players right now, at 4:49 AM server time. There were 6200 earlier during the day - everyone can see that by running “.info” on the server. There are 2 such realms on the server I play on right now - both “full”. Dozens of other private servers exist - again, look it up.
You’re going with “made up” when you can verify this in like 2 minutes…
…What?
OK, I’ll try to explain it, I can’t believe you fail to understand such a simple thing. I’ll give you a quote - look it up.
Nostalrius servers offered the vanilla WoW experience to 800,000 players since it first opened up and over 150,000 players have remained active to this day, according to a petition written by the Nostalrius team in an effort to get them to change their minds
(google it, I didn’t make it up).
150,000 active players. Just on Nostalrius. Activision wasn’t getting one red cent off them. This was, in fact, what triggered the whole Nostalrius shutdown/cease and desist thing and what convinced Activision to come up with WoW Classic - something they refused to do for years.
You’re asking “how can they make money on something that’s free”. It’s simple. Instead of abandoning those 150,000 players (just Nostalrius) to private realms, you release your own classic servers and those players suddenly flock to your servers.
What happened in reality was that according to Blizzard/Activision, TWO MILLION PLAYERS (figures provided by Activision, the exact quote is above, but I’ll provide it again) came back to play on classic realms, resulting in better than expected (177M extra) revenue FOR ONE QUARTER.
Here are the relevant quotes again.
Activision Blizzard shares rose 3.7% to $50.50 in early trading after touching an intraday high of $52.22. The company said late Monday that the classic, pre-expansion version of the game is being released for its 15th anniversary. “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.
So that’s how they make money on something “that’s free”. They provide a paid service for people who are getting that service free of charge, although they’d rather pay for it. They get back subscribers that have been lost due to changes made over time in various expansions. Those people suddenly come back and start paying again. Is it truly that difficult to understand?
It’s all I’m saying here. Why abandon over 100k BC fans on private servers when they could simply spin up 5-10 servers for them to play on and get money off those subscriptions? Why do you think Activision sent out that survey? Were they just bored, in your opinion? When was the last time you got a survey from Activision, asking your opinion on which way wow changes should be made? Not if, but how. Really…
…so they’re worth at least 12M/year - that is IF they’re just 100K. But like we’ve seen with Nostalrius and WoW classic, there weren’t just 100-150k, were there?
To me, that sounds like 12M reasons to come up with BC servers - and fast. I’m arguing for that here, hoping that someone at Activision takes note…sooner rather than later. Like I said, one can only hope.
…so what makes you think they’d stop paying for Classic, since they want classic? This makes no sense to me. It sounds like you think that spinning up BC servers would cause those 700k-1M players to stop paying for some reason. It’s simply not the case. I don’t know whether they’d keep playing Classic or whether they’d switch to BC, but does it matter? They’d keep paying anyway. No, not for two years. Vanilla private servers have been around (and populated!) since 2008, although most of them held at best 10k players (with the notable exception of Nostalrius, which had many times more). In short, people have been playing vanilla on private servers for 11 years before Activision released WoW classic. 11 years.
This is not about alienating classic players in any way. For some reason, you’re assuming that they’d stop playing (and paying) after two years…but there’s no reason to think that. History shows the opposite. I don’t understand this “two years” thing. People haven’t lost interest in Vanilla - released in 2004-2005. That’s why they’re playing it in 2020 - and they’ll be playing it in 2021. Do the math. It’s just not…“two years” to me.
Again Proof!
Then prove it.
No you have it wrong, they had a lot of accounts that NO ONE PLAYED ON.
No, that is so wrong they had maybe 10,000 regular players maximum. ie those that logged on to do their raid once a week and to get their buffs.
You are just making stuff up.
Show me those BLIZZARD figures please.
87% of statistics are made up.
It’s a bit sad, you think you know what you are on about but clearly you don’t. You state your opinion and made up stats as fact.
Those 700k-1M players won’t stop paying, they will switch from Classic to TBC. But eventually, they will stop paying, most players won’t keep paying forever without new content. As I said many times the life expectancy for expansions probably will be 2 years.
Those 700k-1M players have already paid 1 year of Classic. If TBC is launched those will switch to TBC and will be paying for TBC the next 2 years.
If instead TBC is not launched until the next year those 700k-1M players have already paid 1 year of Classic, they will pay the next year of Classic, and after that 2 years of TBC. Even if they switch late and keep right now in Classic it does not means TBC realms will be more than 2 years, because after that probably we will have WOTLK too.
That is why those 100k players minority is not worthy, having those 100k players now means reduce the life expectancy of the subscriptions of those others 700k-1M.
People lost interest on Classic in private servers too, that is why the meme fresh thing exits. Private servers could exits over 10 years but that does not means the same people has been playing 10 years. Some will keep playing, some new players could enter with any fresh realm but population will decline just like population decline in private realms.
And do not even forget how in official WOW servers any periodo of one year without new content has been always critized by players. Population will decline without new content and there is not enought content in any wow expansion for more than 2 years because originally not a single one lasted more than that.
This thread of mine might be more intended towards the older crowd of TBC players, but thinking it might be an idea to have one thread on the entire subject of tbc making it easier for the devs to read and get everything in a consolidated place 
I told you how you can find proof. Look up the number of private BC realms - those that are public, at least. Count them - and their population. If I could post links/urls, I would, but the forum doesn’t allow me to. So…I can’t post links, I can’t post screenshots, how exactly would I prove anything to you ? I mean, I told you how to verify this, something you haven’t done, yet you keep screaming PROOF, LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU, PROOF, NO I WON’T CHECK EVEN THOUGH IT’S EASY AND QUICK, PROOF.
I did…
So, uhm, the quote from Activision regarding the two million players on wow classic realms and their official revenue increase … that’s not proof for you. I guess you think they made it up too. PROOF!!!
You’ve got the quotes above. Copy them. Paste them into google - assuming that’s not too complex for you. There’s your proof, dummy.
PROOF! Wow…
Uhm, what? Really? They won’t keep paying forever without new content? Is that why they’ve been playing vanilla wow on private servers since 2008, WITH NO NEW CONTENT, FOR 11 YEARS?
So here’s how this works for us - those who play on these private servers.
We create a character (or more) on a private server. We play there, we make some friends, we start clearing PVE content (in phases), we do PVP, we create more characters, do the same thing etc etc. After a while - months, years, whatever - we’ve had it all, we’ve done it all. There’s no point in playing those characters on those servers anymore. There’s no reason to raid, we’ve got all the BIS items we could possibly want - perhaps on multiple characters. We’ve basically ganked everyone we wanted to gank. We’ve hit the desired arena ratings.
At this point (or even before), we start craving a fresh start. That feeling of joy of getting a new item, a new upgrade. But no new content is provided - no private server came up with a new raid, of course.
This is when new servers come up. Fresh ones, where nobody has anything. Where everyone starts from scratch, level 1 in Durotar. Where nobody has any gold or items. And we go do it all over again, because it’s so much fun, because nothing beats that feeling of joy caused by stepping through the Dark Portal into Outland, on the Stair of Destiny and it’s so awesome to get your blue set in heroic instances and then to start getting those Karazhan epics. And the cycle keeps going. We’ve been doing this for ages - 10 years at least. It’s just so much fun. I just hit 62 recently, I was barely able to buy my first mount at level 50. I got my second 16 slots bag at level 61 off a guy leveling tailoring in Hellfire Peninsula - I still had 4 10 slots bags at 61.
No, we don’t stop after two years. We keep going. It’s FUN (for us).
Some people did this with classic. That’s why there were still so many people on Nostalrius so many years after vanilla ended. Clearing Naxx and whatever for the 10th time, on the 10th char, on the 10th server.
Your theory regarding those 2 years has no basis in reality at all. If anything, reality shows that it’s completely false.
I played the original BC at that time. 12 years later, I’m still playing BC. I’m not alone, there are over 100k of us. AT LEAST. Again, google/reddit search and you’ll see it. Yet here you are, telling me that I’ll lose interest because there’s no new content. I don’t want new content. I want THAT content. It’s not about experiencing new content, it’s about experiencing THAT content with your friends. Over and over and over, because that’s what you all love.
…yet here you are, telling me we’re going to get bored after two years. We’re not bored after bloody TWELVE years. That’s why we’re asking for BC realms. How can you not understand something this simple?
This was me, 12 years ago, playing BC.
This is also me, a few days ago, playing BC.
(no, I’m not an youtuber/streamer, no worries).
You’re going “two years”. Words fail me…
The second video coincidentally shows how many people were logged on THREE BLOODY MINUTES AFTER THE SERVER WAS RESTARTED (regarding the PROOF! PROOF! PROOF! troll above…“sad, really”).
You are giving your opinion as proof so please provide it.
Nope, you didn’t. Saying go look up pirate realm stats is not proof.
So again you have no proof. sad really.
No, wrong, that is not true. I know it because I am a software developer and I usually check the public repositories of private servers source code just for professional curiosity, so I know the history of private servers development. Not as a player, I have never play in one, but as developer, i follow their development.
There were any viable vanilla private servers before Nostalrius because they were the first who took a Mangos WOTLK source code to create a vanilla version. Originally private servers where mostly based on 2 cores Mangos and Trinitry who started on Vanilla but just like Blizzard launched new expansions they were migrating to that expansion.
The first change in development happens with Cataclysm, the changes in the game were so big that for the first time developers opted to not migrated their code to the new expansion and instead focus on WOTLK. Because WOTLK is already ended means there is no new content added to the game, because before that Blizzard added content more quickly that private servers developet could implement in their code. Those cores eventually created versions of Cataclsym and other expansions but sill keeping the development of WOTLK.
That is the reason why WOTLK is the more stable code in private servers, it just has been the expansion with more time in development. At the same time because WOTLK contains most of TBC and Vanilla content Mangos backported their WOTLK code to Vanilla and TBC.
Nostalrius was the first server stable created from that version. And the biggest change Nostalrius did was to liberate their code, because that is the problem of private servers delopvment, everyone who actually create a server use the cores but those cores are not perfect and there is so much work to do to have a working server, and those people keep the code they made for themselves, they don’t give back their fixes to the open source core. Nostalrius based their code in a open source code and then they liberated their changes as open source too, so that means any vanilla private server code post Nostalrius is at least as good as Nostalrius. In TBC instead there was never a open source like Nostalrius and that is why TBC private servers are worst than vanilla ones.
Bla bla bla 100k, keep your 100k. 100k IS STILL A MINORITY COMPARED WITH BIGGER NUMBERS. Blizzard will give you TBC when they stop milking Classic because not having your 100k subscription is the option that gives then more profits.
You are not capable of seeing beyond your own nose. Forget for a moment that you want TBC and imagine for a moment that you don’t give a *** about Classic, your don’t give a *** about TBC and lastily you don’t give a *** about Retail. Now imagine that you are working for Blizzard if your work consist on make the best decission to increse the profits of Blizzard, even better imagine if your interest is your money and not Blizzard’s because if you are that person probably making the wrong option will impact your income. If you were that you will see waiting now is the right decision. You still think your decission is better? That means you are a incompetent and probably Blizzard will fire you, your replacement will make that the decission instead.
What you mean to say is that there weren’t any vanilla private servers as good as Nostalrius. I agree - Nostalrius was especially good, no argument there.
There were, however, private vanilla servers in 2007-2008. I know that for a fact - my manager at the time was trying to get me to play on one of them, where he played, but I was too hooked on BC to even care about that.
Yes, they were kind of broken, like 20-30% of the spells/skills didn’t work properly (charge was infamous) and so on. YET PEOPLE STILL PLAYED ON THEM, just like people still play on BC servers now, even though quite a few things are broken there.
This youtube video shows a private server from 2008 - it’s something you could easily google, you’d find dozens of videos. I’d expect a software developer to at least be able to google. I mean, that’s how I make a living - finding all those solutions on stack overflow sure pays well 
I count 400+ videos from 12 years ago on youtube showing private servers from back then.
No, they weren’t…“Nostalrius Quality”. Yet people still played there - not as many as on Nostalrius, of course.
If that was my job, you’d have BC servers up in a few hours - or at least the ball would be rolling - and I’d have a fat bonus waiting for me at the end of the quarter.
Your whole “argument” is built on the false theory that “people lose interest after two years”, something that’s obviously false. I mean, I’ve shown you videos - me playing BC 12 years ago and a few days ago, thousands of people logged on playing BC…and you still believe that people get bored after two years.
I mean, it’s right in front of you, but you still fail to see it, just like that PROOF! guy.
There are 4000+ people logged on right now (on a single server, you can verify it easily) and you still believe we care about “new content”. A simple google/reddit search will show you at least 30 populated servers online right now. We’ve been playing BC for 12 years, but here you are, convinced that we’d get bored after two. How come? What makes you think that? I guess you think we’re like those people who play retail, who subscribe for a month when a new content patch is released and cancel after that? We’re not like them at all - that’s why we don’t play retail, you know?
We don’t play for the new content. We never did. I guess you think two million players came back to classic due to huge amount of new content added to vanilla? I must’ve missed it.
I have not siad there were not private vanilla servers in 2007-2008. There were because private servers development started even before TBC was released. But the original private servers development cycle consist on developt what they can in the current expansion and as soon as a new expansion is launched switch and stopo deveping the previous expansion. Any vanilla private server from 2007-2008 was made based on one of the cores using the version when the core developers stopped at the moment they switch to TBC.
There was nothing with a quality above mediocre on any expansion until core developments change to stop in WOTLK instead of migrate to next expansion forgetting the previous one.
Yes, the quality sucked. So? People still played there.
Yes, the quality of private BC realms still sucks. So? People still play there. Surely you can see that in the video?
What’s your point? That private servers suck? YES, THAT’S RIGHT, THEY SUCK. That’s why I’m here asking for official Activision servers, you know? If private servers were awesome, I wouldn’t be here at all.
My point is that they could be people playing vanilla servers before Nostalrius but the populariity of those private servers sky rocket with Nostalrius. My point is because something has exists over 12 years does not means it has been popular over 12 years, it only became popular after Nostalrius.
Sure, but then you will lost your position eventually, when the reports proves to the shareholders that your bad decission has maden lost millions in potential incomes, for shareholders that is the same as loosing money. You made your decission based on the expansion you want to play and not for the interests of the company, that is not good for that job.
Yeah…I’m sure the guy who made the decision to release classic servers instead of repeating “you think you do, but you don’t” got fired when that unexpected 177M revenue for a quarter came in…they probably couldn’t wait to get rid of them. Nobody wants those people around, bringing in hundreds of millions. Everyone hates them in corporations, you know…
Sure it did. Quality tends to do that, but that’s not the point. The point is there are now over 100k people on private servers and the vast majority of those people would subscribe to Activision in a split second if they released BC servers. That’s extra income without removing existing income from retail or classic players - all for minimal effort.
You first disputed the numbers. I’ve shown you a video of a single server with over 3k people logged in 3 minutes after it had been (re)started. I also told you to look it up and that you’ll easily find 30 such servers.
You then claimed that people get bored after 2 years due to the lack of new content. I’ve shown you that that’s not the case - both with me playing BC 12 years ago and a few days ago (and now) and with thousands of players on the same server I’m on.
You then claimed there weren’t private servers back in 2008. I’ve shown you that there were. You switched that to “they weren’t Nostalrius quality”, as if I ever said they were high quality. I didn’t. They sucked. Really, they did.
Honestly, at what point are you actually able to admit (to yourself, not necessarily to me) that you misjudged the whole thing and that people play what they want, regardless of whether there’s any new content and regardless of where they’ve got legitimate (and high quality) servers at their disposal or not?
Try to understand that I’m not arguing about what’s better, what’s high quality and what’s not. All I’m saying is “we’re playing BC; we’ve been doing that since it was officially released and we’re going to keep playing BC because we love BC; we’re not asking for new content, we’re happy with that content; we don’t want you to change classic servers; we don’t want you to do anything about retail; we simply want official Activision servers too and we’re more than happy to keep paying for the service”. That’s all. No money lost at all - I’m here to politely request to be allowed to pay for the service HERE.
Players who love classic will keep playing classic. Players who love retail will keep playing retail. Good for them. All I’m saying is I love BC and I’m playing BC. I’d love it if I could play it on Activision realms and I’m hoping that they’re willing to provide the service, because I’m willing to pay for it. I’m not alone in this. Like I said, there are at least 100k+ players in the same situation.
Perhaps we matter. Perhaps we don’t. I don’t know. I’m asking. I don’t have much to lose.
Activision may choose to delay this for one year. Or two. Or three. I’m hoping they won’t play the “after Naxx is done with” card, but I don’t know. If they do that, all I can say is “that’s unfortunate, but well, my subscription here runs out in 8 days and I’m already 63 there, so eh…too bad”. I’m not in a position to force Activision to do anything they don’t want to do. But I can ask. Like I said several times, one can only hope.
Quite honestly, I’ll clear Karazhan and Sunwell with friends and we’ll get steamrolled in level 70 arenas regardless of whether I get a blue answer in this thread or not. Because that’s what’s fun for us. I’m just hoping that I’ll do it on legitimate servers soon, that’s all.
I am done. I do not even care to read anything from this last post.
Blizzard wont launch TBC now, I give you the reasons why that is what will happen.
You are not able to understand it so I am done with you.
It is absurd that I strill try to make you understand it, my purpose was not even to try to convice you of an opinion of what I want, it s to explain why Blizzard wont do what you ask. If you still believe you are right, good for you, it won’t happen. In one year, or less, Blizzard will prove I am right.
Is nothing personal but this is the internal, you are just a random person whose name I won’t remember in 5 minutes (no offence but usually I am not able to remember names of any other players from forums). So I will ignore you, mark this post as untrack so I won’t see this or any other of your posts. You can ignore me if you want, I don’t care.
Without further ado I say goodbye to you.
EDIT: I must add that the part of asking you to thinking about the guy on Blizzard who need to make this decission won’t make the same decission as you because that means he will be fired it was not imply any kind of personal attack to you, i just want to make it clear. I have readed again that part and I found necessary to clarify this specially given that I am going out of this conversation unilaterally. If I give you the wrong impression on that part I apology, that was not my intention.
I don’t know if you noticed, but my post was addressed to Activision, not to any of the people who replied in this thread.
You keep talking about what “Blizzard” will do. You have no clue of what they’ll do. Neither do I. Only Activision people know (maybe).
All you’re doing is to exhibit the typical retail player toxicity. I’ve come here to ask Activision for something - a service I’m happy to pay for. You - and a bunch of other people for whom googling is too complex - jumped to tell me that I won’t get what I want because …nothing. You’ve given me a bunch of stupid theories like players stopping because there’s no new content, when there are thousands of new players coming in to BC servers every day to prove that theory false. On top of that, you don’t even know what you’re talking about - claiming there weren’t servers back in 2008 and so on.
Honestly, you weren’t very useful to me anyway, so I’m quite happy that you’ve decided to forget about me, ignore me and whatever. In fact, I’d be quite happy if everyone here who’s not a blue poster would follow your example and ignore the thread.
I’ve seen so many of your kind before, back when people were asking for vanilla servers - and they all spouted the same type of nonsense. Blah blah, no new content, fad, nostalgia, rose-tinted goggles, profits, cannibalizing etc etc. All of it was nonsense. Millions of people came to classic and hundreds of thousands will show up for BC, when it happens. None of us care about new content. We care about doing the stuff we love with friends. Over and over again.
I can’t imagine what you people are like in real life. I wonder if you enter a store, wait for another customer to ask for a product and then jump him to tell him why he can’t get what he asked for - even though you have no idea of what the store employees are able and willing to sell or when, even though nobody asked you. I’m guessing that’s not the case - because if it is, your dentists must be filthy rich by now.
There lies your problem, Activision won’t read these fora, a point i think they themselves pointed to. So the whole thread is pointless if you refuse to read and understand what the other posters have tried to explain to you.
I don’t know whether that’s the case. What I do know is that you’re less likely to obtain what you want if you don’t ask for it.
If you have a better method of contacting them, please let me know. I see no need to involve other players in this - those players (and their opinions/theories) are of no real use to me anyway.
this thread is legit ‘give me my tbc now, i can not wait’
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