People deserve each Expansion Classic Era like TBC,Lich King,Cataclysm to not expand.
They also should have the option to transfer toward those server as one way paid Migration (optional) as solution to their sleeping Top Tier Characters to continue on their Adventure.
Also don’t invent those Boost Packages like it was featured on Lich King and so on.
Make the Game as the latest original Patch.
Could possibly add hard features like removing the extra Bonus Stats from Wrath of the Lich King, similar to the feature removed in Classic World of Warcraft, where Meeting Stones and Innkeeper are not searching for Group as they used to in Classic Original.
I agree, we should have Era servers for every expansion released in Classic thus far. But I don’t think it’s a good idea for migration, people would abuse that on every new fresh server. Keep fresh servers fresh and let everyone start from scratch!
I agree it would be nice if there was an Era for those expansions but “people deserve” is a bit much lol.
This is capitalism, there is no deserve. What makes sense(profit) makes sense.
Running water? sure, human rights? sure, fair representation with a jury of their peers? sure. The people certainly deserve those. Versions of a computer game? maybe not a “the people deserve” category… lol.
The best thing about capitalism is that companies tell/show you how important something is simply by how much effort goes in. For context sake, WoW classic wasn’t even mentioned in Activision Blizzard’s earnings report…let alone microsofts.
Lets take Activision, the average Call of Duty warzone player spends more in a month on cosmetics and battle passes than you and 3 of your friends do on your sub.
Its 2024 and a game made 20 years ago with no monetization literally couldn’t get any further from their concerns. The sad reality is that although you can vote with your wallet, WoW classic has as close to a 0.01% impact of revenue as you can get. Lets argue that there are 6000 players on firemaw (and pretend none of them play any other version), thats £60000 a month.
In 2022 Microsoft cleared 200billion in cold hard revenue. 60,000 into 2000,000,000.
Microsoft, charge you more to create a Word document than they do to play any/all versions of WoW. The entire classic team is smaller than the FAQ publishers for 365.
Voting with your wallet(even en masse) kinda stops working with companies when half the board team are on their 3rd Yacht.
Well, my sub goes into the same bucket the other WoW versions go to.
Once up and running, the upkeep costs of a TBC Era server are minimal. They really don’t need a big team for the casual bug fix to the old environment. And I do not expect them to do any hasty thing.
WoW is and likely will be the only online game I’m playing. So they either want that money and keep that old legacy stuff alive or they don’t. Whatever floats their boat is fine by me.
What they will not get, is money for any other project out there. Because I haven’t seen anything else besides EVE Online that was of any real interest to me personally.
I will not buy any fluff shop stuff. Not interested. I haven’t done that in 8 years in EVE Online either. And I won’t play any of their other fancy games. None of that stuff floats my boat.
I would consider another MMORPG with a strong RPG flavor. But even that would have to suit me and do a lot of things right to make me switch games. We both know how likely that is to happen.
So, to sum it up, I do not care about being an “important” customer. I’m fine with being that other guy, who regularly contributes some to the baseline of their games.
If they let me know it’s no longer appreciated, I’ll put it into something else.
Exactly, that’s all the sub “pays” for and that’s why it has never increased. Modern server infrastructure is a completely different landscape from 2004-2005 and like you said it’s cheaper, faster and carries very little overhead. Containers and VM’s running a 2017 engine with 2004 assets. Minimal impact.
What was your “box price” on Classic? TBC? WoTLK? It was zero.
Like I said that shows you how very little revenue is generated from you, me, us all playing this 20 year old re-release (that had no box price). Sure you can vote with your wallet, people have been doing that specifically in WoW for 20 years now, we can’t hear them because they can’t talk.
Again, the publishers are showing you how much ‘output’ is generated simply by how much ‘input’ they put in. You are and have been shown how important WoW classic is to Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. It’s up to you if you want to be here but unlike an airport…departures don’t need to be announced.
They get our sub, which for my part would not get if only Retail there.
And I dare Blizz to separate subs … but will never happen - they too afraid to show world how small is some versions.
I must admit for a while I felt like there might have been more people playing Classic. Looking at the raiding data along with the fact BG’s pop constantly in retail I’ve kinda changed my mind.
Era is by far the smallest, it’s effectively 2 servers (PvP, PvE) and 2 “low” HC (if you count that as Classic Era or not.)
I like to split in 3:
Retail
Classic One - to include Era, HC and any other build on Vanilla, TBC and Wrath.
Classic Two - Cata and what after - to include their seasonals.
If more split - put HC/Era alone - and then also “untie” to SoD and Cata for server, maintenance etc engine, so we not get their lag and problems.
I not know numbers, but I think Era with HC more populated than numbers show, as many not raid there.
HC is strange to show Low even with layers often ???
The Low, Medium, High in server list is strange, dynamic thing, and would not surprise me if totally random
Layering exist on HC for a different reason than population caps. In a nutshell it’s stop you being de-layered, moved into another and then having 5-6 mobs on top of you.
See it more as layers stick around longer in HC. It’s basically the same in the Era but the reason they altered the de-layering was to stop all those unfair HC deaths.
I rarely see any 60’s on Era that aren’t T1-T3, for sure there are many players who do not raid but far more raid now than ever. It’s not 2005 where 4% have even stepped foot in Naxx.
Era+HC have nowhere near the population of Retail if that’s what you are implying. Remember it’s clustered servers, that isnt open for “guessing”…it’s literally 2 servers. There’s probably more people on silvermoon alone than the entire of Era.
btw I don’t play retail, this isn’t a retail vs classic discussion. I just don’t talk/accept nonsense when the data is pretty much clear, at least as can be. Retail is significantly more populated than Era.
As you say, not Retail vs. Classic, most of all because wtah I know of Retail is 6 years old now
You just look to mine, none of them any Raid gear at all
Of course more raid, as more now reach end
But in HC mostly many either stop or go again when reach 60.
And my reason to spli up, not to primary see how many, but to encourage Blizz to do more to have more subs. And for me to not plaay for Retail - quite egoisic
I’m paying my sub which, stretched over a year, are about two boxes. Blizzards “problem” is, that I’m no longer paying for boxes at all. Last time was back in 2018 with BfA. That’s basically 6 years. An eternity in the game industry. They never sold Shadowlands or Dragonflight to me and they won’t sell the next one either. I’m done with retail.
So without classic, they’d nothing at all to sell to me. With a couple of six month subs I’m part of their baseline. Not a big one probably, but unless they do show at least some interest every other year, I may lose focus eventually. And my focus is pretty narrow really.
I did play the original WotLK in a progression oriented environment. And in the end my conclusion was, that WotK was not as good as it looked overall. So I skipped the iteration already. Not to speak of Cata…
SoD is clearly going into the wrong direction. Bye, bye.
So I’m sold on a fresh TBC Era really. And while I’m waiting, I do spend some time every now and then in HC or Classic Era.
But my RL is changing too. I’m turning 60 next week. And after quite a couple of years of treatment, doctors recently and unanimously stated they can’t help me any further and that I will never be able to do again, what I used to do for 45 years in RL.
So just may be I’ll decide to say bye bye to Azeroth for good. And reinvent myself and look forward to new things in another RL.
On the other side, TBC Era might help somewhat lower the chance of me leaving Azeroth. And keep my subscription fee finding it’s way into Blizzards baseline bucket. We’ll see. Eventually, I’ll be fine with whatever happens.
I agree to this! … last game I bought was BfA and for that and previous expacs I got only game, no frills. And only once I ever payed character transsfer … This in Classic So if no good Classic, bye, bye me.
I hope for you have better life despite problems and hope for time for Azeroth as well.
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