If this goes live, it is intended for people that subscribed only for classic and not the other way around. It is way of getting people that only like classic, to try and play retail.
For retail users, it does not really matter. If you feel obliged to level a char to 60 on classic to have those rewards, you should think again because the time it takes to level to 60 on classic can easily get you 2-4 chars to 120 on Retail. So it is not even slightly worth it
It’s so funny how many of you don’t understand why this isn’t going to happen for a heckuva long time.
WoW Classic works because of its community-building mechanics, not because it has massive amounts of end-game content.
You’ll find those players duelling outside Orgrimmar, not playing Retail. Sorry.
Actually, they did btw. Minithor from Starcraft 2, Hearthsteed from Hearthstone, just sayin’…
The elemental cat mount for Heroes of the storm as well, though admittedly this one is by far the biggest one yet in terms of both time commitment (reaching 60 in classic takes a lot of time compared to the objectives the preveious crosspromotions required) as well as value, a 110 boost and bfa is a pretty big gain for people who dont have bfa.
So yes it’s far from the first one but the first one that is this big by not a small margin.
Yeah that’s true, although if someone who actually doesn’t want to play Classic does it for the boost, it’s just ridiculous. Leveling to 60 in Classic takes longer than leveling to 110 in retail. 
They are desperate to have people in retail. It’s a huge marketing opportunity for them to push the returning players into retail. BFA is an absolute joke, but it’s a smart move from Blizzard.
Oh yeah for sure and admittedly all cross promotions have this problem, there are people who stick around, and there is also the people who play it just to get the reward without caring which usually makes it less fun for everyone who plays with them, should be okay in wow but I remember in hots it really sucked to play without a full group whenever these promotions happened cause either you or the enemy team had the one guy who just didn’t give a damn, which sucks in a pvp game XD
I still play (retail) with the people I met in vanilla WoW. No need for me to play Classic. If you’re a social person and make an effort, you’ll always be able to build a community within any game, including the BFA incarnation of WoW. This isn’t something that can only happen in Classic.
The problems, like toxic behavior, egoistic ambitions (other people being a mean to an end), are the same everywhere, too, because the people are the same. A modern WoW player doesn’t somehow become a different person because they play a 15-year old version of the game.
That actually doesn’t address anything I said.
I can get a community to play friggin’ Bubble-Bobble with me. That’s not the point.
It happens so much easier in Classic. Like, way easier. And it’s even more easy if you play on a dead server on retail.
There are so many people whose community just straight-up quit retail, and they have a really hard time finding a new one.
Why do they have a hard time? Let’s explore some differences:
The list can go on and on and on, but I’m getting tired.
World of Warcraft vanilla certainly made me a vastly different person back then, and I have no doubt it’ll happen today. World of Warcraft is amazingly good at getting you out of your shell, and it really rewards just being nice.
If you think WoW Classic cannot change lives or behaviour, you know nothing about it.
If you play on a dead server (which will happen in Classic also), modern WoW still allows you to use the Communities feature, the friends list, the forum, etc. Classic doesn’t have any community features or tools that retail doesn’t also have.
Its main advantage right now is that it’s “new” and that people who play it see themselves as a separate and superior community, which at the core is the source of many social problems, because this same mindset will lead to the eventual exclusion of people who don’t play meta classes or otherwise don’t “fit in”. This happened in vanilla too once the game had been out for a while. The elitism was very strong back then, to a point where some people were socially ostracized and driven off the server.
None of your points are limited to Classic. In retail, if I want to do normal EP because my group now only does HC, I can find others to do it with. Not just during prime time, but pretty much at any time. Same with M+, PvP islands, arena, rated BGs, etc. In vanilla, a year in, all leveling dungeons were dead on my server, you simply couldn’t find a group. In retail, you can always find people to do something with – and you can befriend them and play more with them, just like in Classic. Yes, people grouped for 3 minutes to kill an elite, just to disband again and likely never see each other again until they made a social effort. The same social effort needed to make friends in BFA/retail.
Classic forced social behavior (to a degree) because there were no alternatives. You were social or you were excluded. In retail, you have a choice: you can be social and probably have a better time, but you don’t have to. You still have LFR and other automated matchmaking systems, so if you’re an introvert, have social anxiety, play in the off hours, have a baby or are a caretaker and need to step away from the computer unexpectedly often, you still have options.
I just don’t believe that lack of choice makes for a better game or for a better, more diverse community. If the “one choice” of Classic works for you, you’ll flourish socially. If you don’t fit in, too bad, you’ll probably be excluded from the active community. If you do fit in, you probably never had social or acceptance issues in retail, either.
No disagreement here. I’m equally sure it can drastically change lives and behavior for the worse. I’ve seen people completely drive their lives into the ground in vanilla or become total jerks. If they were leaders of big guilds, they got away with it too because there wasn’t much choice for others. The very community aspects that you praise and cherish are also fertile ground for many unpleasant social developments, like feuds, gossip, ostracism, elitism. And it’s much harder to escape them than in retail.
i presumed that classic AV and the rewards were taking part in retail, not classic? i am guessing i presumed wrong then?
as for the 110 boost and free BfA copy. try not feel too bad. there is only ONE reason why blizzard is doing this.
Greed.
a lot, like a LOT of classic players are people who have not played retail for a LONG time, or maybe never. blizzard is using a trick to try lure in private server players and people who quit 5 or 10+ years ago to try BfA.
thats all it is. its a greedy trick.
i can understand your concern about AV rewards if i am wrong about their source, and anything else which needs to be done in Classic to get BfA rewards in the future, but the boost and BfA copy dont worry about. its not aimed at people like me and you. they are focus targeting a specific group of players.
be sick at their blizzards ethics, not the boost reward.
It does seem to work, i actually see quite alot of returning people on my server/guild now, while the players that already were playing bfa before seem to be still gone. either to classic or unsubscribed
’coz Blizzard need more clients
Me personally i like the leveling of classic, once i hit 60 i’l either go back to retail or start leveling another alt
But those community features don’t do anything. We already have chats where we can all be chatting together. Classic has the friends list and the forum and the guilds and everything else. It’s just communities. I don’t know anybody who uses them. We’re all on Discord anyway.
Nobody thinks the Classic community is somehow superior. They think it’s a better game they’re playing.
Retail is far, far more elitist than Classic game. Not only is there a bigger gap between the lowest and highest difficulty level on retail, but there is also an inability to even find the good players if you’re bad. They’re just not around - they’re always in instances or CRZ’d away from you.
In Classic you know where to find them and you know what they look like. The only thing standing between you and them is the chatbox.
It’s the whole big city vs small town thing again.
Classic is like a small town; it can be difficult to find groups but you’re more likely to hold on to them, and you’re more likely to meet people repeatedly even if you don’t intend to, eventually making a lasting contact, and there is incentive to be nice.
Retail is like a big city; you can find a group to do anything, but you’ll never see them again unless you go out of you way to find them.
I’m an introvert, and I know a few people playing WoW who have social anxiety. They still prefer Classic.
Retail is better if you want to consume the content quicker. It has nothing to do with being an introvert.
If you are introvert to such a degree that you don’t want to talk to anybody at all, ever then an MMORPG (emphasis on Multiplayer) might not be the game for you, but even then WoW Classic easily offers 300 hours of content for you. BfA, assuming you use the boost, runs out of solo and levelling content in around 30 hours, and then you need groups.
There isn’t just one way to play Classic just because there are no queues. That’s ridiculous.
Any social contact can end in tears, but I still think it’s better to try.
People spending so much time in WoW that they forget IRL is an issue, but it’s really a personal problem. If you can’t stop yourself, make someone stop you.
I’d like to comment about the “big city vs small town” because it’s a topic that always interested me. One doesn’t need to have social anxiety so to “not fit” in a small community; it’s enough if he doesn’t like some people there. Reasons for this might be various. Like age differences/intellectual differences for example. But in a small town he has no choice. He can move to another guild more suitted to him, but the number of guilds is very limited and there’s no guarantee he will find such a guild. In the end he will be trapped in this “small town”, the only option is to move to another server, with yet another limited and closed community.
On retail he will have: his own server’s guilds, communities, cross realm activities via bnet; in the end if he still can’t fit somewhere, he has the option to pug and have peace of mind, although playing solo, but not bothered by unwanted drama or individuals.
If Classic community model was something sucessful, Blizzard wouldn’t have moved away from it in its next expansions. No one likes forced things. The gameplay might be better (again a matter of personal opinion), but forced interaction and one’s progress’ dependence on other people, are not.
Ah yes, regarding elitists. They are everywhere, but on retail one can save himself from them by just not interacting with them - but it would not impact his gameplay and progress. In Classic, as a part of a small community, this freedom is much harder to achieve, if not at all. Also…I’d like to expand on what Murr said - IMO closed communities might gradually begin to impact people’s behavior. Force humans into a tight close space, and observe the results.
It was wildly succesful. They got 12 million subscriptions using that model!
Are you suggesting that Blizzard would never make a colossal mistake?
You can always do that.
The key to making sure that the community doesn’t become overly competitive and hostile is to make sure that the number of people is low relative to the number of resources. Obviously though the world shouldn’t be a ghost town either. It’s certainly a balancing act - a balancing act Blizzard has now thrown out the window and failed completely.
That’s why there are so many servers in older versions of WoW. They wanted people to be in a lot of smaller servers.
the expansion’s nearly at its end phase. and this promotion is to inspire classic fans who came back after a long time of not playing wow, to give BFA a try. It’s a marketing scheme. Giving incentives for people to see and feel how things are and to stay. Because let’s face it. Classic will not last for too long. Eventually, after 2~3~4 months, most casual players will be done with everything they plan on doing there. And then, giving them the opportunity to stay with BFA, is something a lot of them might consider.
Not exactly this model, 12m was in woltk, with added LFD.
They wouldn’t have added it if there wasn’t a dire need.
I agree, but “resource” is not only ores/herbs, it’s also people. I mean it from psychological point of view. When you play with strangers whom you’ll never see again (like in retail) you do not take it so personally as when playing with people which you will 100% see on your next log in. Limited number of people means you get known, and because of this you begin to build a certain image of yourself. Not only the community creates an impression of you, you strive to create an image. And there comes the unpleasant part with some individuals (the more you get to know someone…no, the more you’re forced to get to know someone), and others who begin to feel alienated…all the tiny details of a small town community life.
A closed community begins to mirror a RL environment - like office/work environment. We can say that indeed, that’s how a real MMO should be. But do we want this?..
Because Blizzard is getting desperate. There are mild Bethesda vibes going on here and there in last few years. Lets pray to all gods around the multiverse that it will never succumb into Fallout 76 level…