Since the introduction of “Season of Discovery,” I’ve noticed a significant drop in activity in WoW Retail. As a result, the number of players in retail has decreased, and the game now feels empty, lacking the same energy it once had.
Unfortunately, it seems that Blizzard did not fully anticipate the impact of this phenomenon, which has affected the entire retail community. Players who have moved to Classic, including “Season of Discovery,” feel more connected to this version of the game because it offers a more direct experience, reminiscent of the early days of World of Warcraft. On the other hand, the retail version now feels like every new patch coming is just a reheated cutlet. It doesn’t help that the current expansion is a poorer copy of the previous one, and players are growing bored of the same formula.
As a loyal World of Warcraft player, I am disappointed to see retail losing popularity. The sight of empty zones and low activity in-game is a sad one, especially considering the potential that retail still has. I believe Blizzard should take action to attract players back to retail by making changes that could revive the version, such as simplifying certain game mechanics, adjusting the difficulty level to better meet player expectations, or increasing social interaction.
Most retailers went ahead and tried Classic but returned for every new patch update. I’ve seen it in my guild in Wotlk Classic. Every single time a major update came to the game, our guild became a ghost town.
In fact, a huge portion of Classic players come from private servers, so if anything, it just brought more players on board.
Retail is, in fact, a very seasonal game. There are ups and downs in the population numbers, depending on where we stand in a certain season.
Classic can never kill retail because they are two very different games, played by people with different needs and mindsets.
Retail has its issues but they aren’t Classic related.
M+ runs have seen pretty much the biggest drop off ever because of the ill-considered changes by ‘We’re (not) listening’ Hazzikostas.
I’m sure delves will be the same, they are a means to an end, pretty uninspired and repetitive.
You could just as well say POE2 killed retail cos thats where I am atm.
+0,5. Classic brought me back to WoW after a many-year hiatus, and once I completed my task of reaching level 60 as a healer, I moved back to Retail.
There are definitely game design options in Classic that could be re-implemented back in Retail as optional ones (even if optimal) that would possibly entice players from Classic to move to Retail without affecting the experience of Retail-only players. For example:
Implement an option at a new Bronze Dragon next to Chromie that affects difficulty of overworld and rewards accordingly. Players using this feature would not be in a different phase from others like Warmode, they would share the same phase and play together.
– Tied to the above and using the exact same tech as the World Soul Memory events, there could be additional harder enemies that can only be seen and interacted with by players in the “hard mode” overworld. This could be used to require players to park their characters in a safe spot to avoid a patrol while they are on their bio break.
Now that we have Follower Dungeons, there is no reason to not have long questlines that require us to run multiple dungeons, sometimes the same one more than once.
Some months ago I suggested an infinitely scaling Mythic- mode for dungeons which is the opposite of Mythic+. Whereas M+ focuses on enemies gaining hp and attack, affixes and a timer, M- would start from M0 difficulty and increasingly nerf players themselves so that methodically clearing dungeons through small pulls and use of hard crowd-control like Poly, Hex, Freeze Trap etc. would become necessary. No timer, no affixes. This would bring back the experience of classic dungeoneering.
A UI option implemented by Blizzard that shaves off zeroes from everything: HP, damage, stats etc. So players that prefer to see 2-4 digits on everything have that without affecting absolutely anything else or anyone else.
I disagree. Classic primarily attracted players who were already unhappy with Retail but didn’t have any other option to play the version of the game they preferred, so they stuck with Retail. Now that Classic is available, that community has naturally gravitated toward it.
However, there are still plenty of people who enjoy Retail because they appreciate how it is designed.I’m one of them. I tried Classic in 2019 and didn’t enjoy it at all because it felt outdated and too far removed from what I want in a game.
Retail players and Classic players are two completely different audiences, and it’s not fair or accurate to compare them directly. Each group values different aspects of World of Warcraft, and their preferences reflect that divide.
I think he meant that posts claiming Retail is doomed or dead always appear on forums when the Retail season is about 5 months old and nearly finished.
What killer retail for in favour of Classic is because of hardware.
I bought my current pc in 2020 for like 2.1k, with a 2060, i dont remember the CPU but it is a good one for that year.
Already in Shadowlands i had fps drops in raids (mythic) and for the litle time i played dragonflight it takes 1-2 min just to load the char selection screen and if i log in Valdrakken i have to wait to access certain zones like the pvp vendor because the building is black empty void.
In Classic i have noone of this issues even if it still the dragonflight client.
Second is that the content is really easy that you can pug all of it.
And last the change to the PvP rankings with mo more decay and set honor mark, making less stressfull going to rank14
