World of Warcraft Classic coming this Monday!

TheCount

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lol, they still don't get it.

This should be Free-to-Play for everyone. Those of us that remember the "Classic" era and have moved on from WOW, are not going to start new subscriptions just to relive those days.

The biggest games in the world right now are free to play, and these guys are still trying to get people to pay $15 a month.
 

JohnnyTheFox

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lol, they still don't get it.

This should be Free-to-Play for everyone. Those of us that remember the "Classic" era and have moved on from WOW, are not going to start new subscriptions just to relive those days.

The biggest games in the world right now are free to play, and these guys are still trying to get people to pay $15 a month.

As far as MMO's go WOW is still the king, so not sure what you are talking about. To play FF14 you have to play the 15$ a month, Elder Scrolls Online you still need to purchase the game and there is the ESO store where you can purchase DLC as well as a ESO plus membership which makes life much easier for 15 a month. LOTRO is a free to play model but a lot of content is locked behind a pay wall. Most of the other MMOS are Eastern MMO junk.
Anyone can dl the free version of WOW which includes every expansion except the last and play free until level 20, after that its 15 a month.
Most of the other MMO's out there are Eastern Junk. And no Fortnite is not a MMO.
 

Reality

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lol, they still don't get it.

This should be Free-to-Play for everyone. Those of us that remember the "Classic" era and have moved on from WOW, are not going to start new subscriptions just to relive those days.

The biggest games in the world right now are free to play, and these guys are still trying to get people to pay $15 a month.
Game companies monetize their games through three methods.

They charge monthly subscriptions and/or they focus heavily on a cash shop and/or they regularly release paid DLC addons.

While I've only dabbled in WoW a few times but never got anywhere close to "high level" or "end game", the game is still extremely popular and one of the reasons so is that they do not put everything behind a cash-shop/loot-box paywall.

The reason games like Fortnite, PUBG, Apex Legends, etc. are popular is because they use the "drug recruitment" approach of offering the game for free so they can hook a lot of young players into playing and then hit them with skins, upgrades, unlocks, etc. once they are hoked.

At least with subscription games that do not push loot boxes and other must-have upgrades in their cash shops, you know you're spending a set amount of money and that's it. A lot of gamers appreciate a flat rate subscription fee.

Every time I have tried a free to play game, or even buy to play in many cases, it turned into a beg-a-thon or spam-a-thon for the game's cash shop items.

For example, Fortnite is free to play but EA made $2.4 billion from it in 2018. Doesn't sound like much a "free" game to me.

I heard a comedian joke the other day talk about how he could only afford a "free dog" but then realized later that the dog was not "free", it was just given to him for free. The real expense of owning the dog came after he had the dog when he had to spend a lot of money on vet bills, food, etc. for the dog.

As for WoW Classic, unlike other companies that have simply locked post-launch content out of their current games (which have changed considerably over the years) and labeled them classic/launch versions, Blizzard actually spent months rebuilding the original game.

While I don't plan to play it, I have kept up with it and it's amazing the effort Blizzard has gone through for Classic.
 

YosemiteSam

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You can complain about it all you want, but none of the games are free. If you are going to play the game. They're going to monetize you one way or another.

I've easily spent more money on a free to play games than I have on any games that required a subscription combined.
 

YosemiteSam

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oh, btw. I'm waiting for Warcraft III Reforged. I had Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne addon, but I lost my WCIII stuff and now I only have the frozen throne addon which is unplayable without the original game. :(
 

JohnnyTheFox

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TheCount

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You can complain about it all you want, but none of the games are free. If you are going to play the game. They're going to monetize you one way or another.

Yes, this is commonly understood.

My point is that they could have made Classic free to play as a gateway drug to get the older player that bailed years ago, the ones that actually remember the "Classic Era", onto their paid product.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding the WOW Classic launch material, it seems you need a paid subscription to get access to the Classic servers. This is not a "Play to Level 20 for Free" situation, that's for the main product.
 

YosemiteSam

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Yes, this is commonly understood.

My point is that they could have made Classic free to play as a gateway drug to get the older player that bailed years ago, the ones that actually remember the "Classic Era", onto their paid product.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding the WOW Classic launch material, it seems you need a paid subscription to get access to the Classic servers. This is not a "Play to Level 20 for Free" situation, that's for the main product.

You know. I played WOW years ago for a few months. I recently started again mainly as a way to hang out with my father who loves games. (we play on teamspeak) When I can anyhow. Anyhow, maybe my memory is terrible, but it kind seems like the same exact game as I used to play. I even remember the different areas and playing the different quests. They are exactly the same.

What exactly is new here? The graphics or something over the same game? Like what they are doing for WCIII? Why in hell would someone pay for that when they could play the new one which would be the exact same?

Either that or when I played years ago. It was already the new version of WOW.
 

TheCount

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You know. I played WOW years ago for a few months. I recently started again mainly as a way to hang out with my father who loves games. (we play on teamspeak) When I can anyhow. Anyhow, maybe my memory is terrible, but it kind seems like the same exact game as I used to play. I even remember the different areas and playing the different quests. They are exactly the same.

What exactly is new here? The graphics or something over the same game? Like what they are doing for WCIII? Why in hell would someone pay for that when they could play the new one which would be the exact same?

Either that or when I played years ago. It was already the new version of WOW.

If your question is why anyone would play Classic, especially at $15 a month, then that's the same question I'm asking.

I started playing well before the first expansion, when endgame was level 60. The level cap is now 120, so understandably a lot has changed since those days.

I still remember when they introduced flying mounts to the game, that was a seismic shift in gameplay and I imagine there have been other similar changes to game mechanics, community, lore, etc since 2010 when I stopped playing.
 

Shinaoi

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I haven’t played wow since cataclysm, and I said I was done with the game. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to go back to classic wow at least for a month to look at it for old time sake. I have a lot of nostalgia for the game pre expansions.
 

Reality

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Yes, this is commonly understood.

My point is that they could have made Classic free to play as a gateway drug to get the older player that bailed years ago, the ones that actually remember the "Classic Era", onto their paid product.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding the WOW Classic launch material, it seems you need a paid subscription to get access to the Classic servers. This is not a "Play to Level 20 for Free" situation, that's for the main product.
There are 100+ levels in the regular WoW game so giving away 20 is not a big deal. On Wow Classic, it's a different story.

There are several reasons why Blizzard will not do this ..

1) Blizzard has had a development team rebuilding this game for a while so it's like launching a new game for them and there is no reason to give it away for free when just the name reservation process two weeks ago led to their servers getting overloaded to the point they have added more Classic servers and plan to add even more (9+ servers) when it launches.

2) WoW is still free to play up to level 20 so why do you NEED the new servers to be free too? You have a ton of servers to play on now for free up to 20. If someone wants to try classic but doesn't want to pay initially, just play on the regular servers for 20 levels, then make up their mind if its worth it to them.

3) Giving away 20 levels free in a max 60 level game would be giving a third of the game away for free. Anything less than 20 and it's not really going to give anyone a true idea of the game.

4) Free to play leads to a lot of bot players and gold farmers.

5) .. and this is the most important one .. there are already too many people that are going to be playing WoW Classic. The stress test alone has been flooded with players to the point that Blizzard has warned that there will be massive login queue wait periods for many players, especially on the streamer-heavy PVP servers.

Free-to-play is a strategy for game companies who 1) want to lure people in so they can fleece them in the cash shop or 2) know their game would not get enough subscribers required to operate the company and neither of those affect Blizzard, especially given the projected number of players expected to be subscribing and playing WoW Classic.
 

Shinaoi

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My biggest issue with free to play is it does bring in a lot of people who don’t care and drag the community down. The 14 dollar a month price barrier is almost worth it just for the gate that keeps out some of the riff raff.
 

Reality

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My biggest issue with free to play is it does bring in a lot of people who don’t care and drag the community down. The 14 dollar a month price barrier is almost worth it just for the gate that keeps out some of the riff raff.
While I have a couple of friends who play F2P but purchase content/DLC unlocks so they can avoid adding more monthly subscriptions, I agree that overall, the F2P player base tends to negatively impact in-game communities. When you don't pay for something, you have nothing to lose.

The one thing I would like to see game companies do is to setup F2P servers .. meaning servers where ONLY F2P players play .. and when/if they decide to subscribe, give them a free one-way transfer to one of the subscription servers.
 

JohnnyTheFox

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Most of your MMOs out today have gone the FTP route, especially your Eastern ones. Would rather pay the 15 a month and get everything than to have content/quests/dlc locked behind a paywall and or cash shop.

Arche Age was a brilliant game in testing but the added cash shop ruined it. There is another new version AA Unchained that is coming soon with all and everything related to the cash shop being removed and players are excited about it.
Both EQ and EQ2 have been ruined by Daybreak and their FTP model, last time I logged in I had no trouble with mobs that were much more difficult in the release versions.
Ditto for LOTRO, loved the game in its original form and have played about 250 hours on the FTP model and just cant stick with it. Yes you can play for free but there is a ton of content including questlines locked behind a paywall. And as mentioned above the difficulty has been altered by Turbine/SSG. Used to be much harder.

Its weird back in the day WOW used to be considered a casual MMO compared to its competition. Over the years MMO's in general have became easier, when WOW classic opens tomorrow it will be considered more hardcore than most. Easily harder than your big name ones out today, ESO/FF14 and GW2
 
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TheCount

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There are 100+ levels in the regular WoW game so giving away 20 is not a big deal. On Wow Classic, it's a different story.

There are several reasons why Blizzard will not do this ..

1) Blizzard has had a development team rebuilding this game for a while so it's like launching a new game for them and there is no reason to give it away for free when just the name reservation process two weeks ago led to their servers getting overloaded to the point they have added more Classic servers and plan to add even more (9+ servers) when it launches.

2) WoW is still free to play up to level 20 so why do you NEED the new servers to be free too? You have a ton of servers to play on now for free up to 20. If someone wants to try classic but doesn't want to pay initially, just play on the regular servers for 20 levels, then make up their mind if its worth it to them.

3) Giving away 20 levels free in a max 60 level game would be giving a third of the game away for free. Anything less than 20 and it's not really going to give anyone a true idea of the game.

4) Free to play leads to a lot of bot players and gold farmers.

5) .. and this is the most important one .. there are already too many people that are going to be playing WoW Classic. The stress test alone has been flooded with players to the point that Blizzard has warned that there will be massive login queue wait periods for many players, especially on the streamer-heavy PVP servers.

Free-to-play is a strategy for game companies who 1) want to lure people in so they can fleece them in the cash shop or 2) know their game would not get enough subscribers required to operate the company and neither of those affect Blizzard, especially given the projected number of players expected to be subscribing and playing WoW Classic.

1. Development isn't the issue, upkeep is. Regular joes were running private vanilla servers with 100,000's of thousands of player, assuming Blizzard didn't send them a cease and desist. I'll give you that Blizzard's approach is obviously going to be cleaner and more efficient.

2. WOW is free to play, Classic is not - again, given I am understanding the written materials correctly. I've stated why I believe they should have made the Classic version free to play several times already.

3. I didn't say they should give away 20 levels of Classic away for free.

4. This is true. Although I'd assume bots are easier to catch today than they were in 2008 with the rise of machine learning and AI.

5. Again, I'm talking about luring back players that left and are 10+ years removed from the current game. Obviously, if you already have a subscription, trying out Classic is no skin off your back.

I'm not arguing pro free-to-play, I'm arguing that the people that look back fondly at Classic and aren't currently subscribed, are unlikely to sign up for a $15 a month subscription to relive the glory days if they are currently unwilling to do it to play the modern game.

My argument is a very specific one that you guys are making about a bunch of other stuff that I'm happy to discuss, as long as words aren't being put in my mouth.

For one, a monthly subscription is an antiquated model in my opinion. There are so many other ways to FAIRLY make money on a game that shouldn't require a charge every month, whether you play 1 hour a week or 50.
 

JohnnyTheFox

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1. Development isn't the issue, upkeep is. Regular joes were running private vanilla servers with 100,000's of thousands of player, assuming Blizzard didn't send them a cease and desist. I'll give you that Blizzard's approach is obviously going to be cleaner and more efficient.

2. WOW is free to play, Classic is not - again, given I am understanding the written materials correctly. I've stated why I believe they should have made the Classic version free to play several times already.

3. I didn't say they should give away 20 levels of Classic away for free.

4. This is true. Although I'd assume bots are easier to catch today than they were in 2008 with the rise of machine learning and AI.

5. Again, I'm talking about luring back players that left and are 10+ years removed from the current game. Obviously, if you already have a subscription, trying out Classic is no skin off your back.

I'm not arguing pro free-to-play, I'm arguing that the people that look back fondly at Classic and aren't currently subscribed, are unlikely to sign up for a $15 a month subscription to relive the glory days if they are currently unwilling to do it to play the modern game.

My argument is a very specific one that you guys are making about a bunch of other stuff that I'm happy to discuss, as long as words aren't being put in my mouth.

For one, a monthly subscription is an antiquated model in my opinion. There are so many other ways to FAIRLY make money on a game that shouldn't require a charge every month, whether you play 1 hour a week or 50.


I know of at least one private server that was shutting down operations when Classic was released, I expect any others to follow que.
They couldn't just revert to version 1.12, its not as easy as that. They put time and man hours in development so why should it be free? The version has also been optimized for modern systems and has 2 graphics settings, classic will give the graphics circa 2006 while the normal will give you all the bells and whistles. The game in 4K with render scaling bumped up over 100% looks very good.

Don't think a monthly sub is antiquated at all, you get all the content plus it pays for the cost of the servers. Go take a look at LOTRO and its cash shop, areas and questlines are locked behind a paywall. You can purchase literally any and everything in the cash shop. Ditto for Elder Scrolls Online, take the crafting bag for example. If you like to craft having the bag makes life 100X easier, you get the bag by{you guessed it} a 15$ a month sub. Once the sub runs out the crafting bag vanishes from you inventory.

The only problem I do have with a monthly sub is feeling obligated to get on and get my moneys worth each and every day.
 

TheCount

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I know of at least one private server that was shutting down operations when Classic was released, I expect any others to follow que.
They couldn't just revert to version 1.12, its not as easy as that. They put time and man hours in development so why should it be free?

I've literally answered this question 3 times already.

Making a game "free-to-play" doesn't mean they can't make money on it.

The only problem I do have with a monthly sub is feeling obligated to get on and get my moneys worth each and every day.

That's certainly a part of it.
 

Reality

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I've literally answered this question 3 times already.

Making a game "free-to-play" doesn't mean they can't make money on it.
Yes, and if Blizzard was out to fleece their WoW players like most Free-to-Play games do (including their others) with a massive cash shop and DLCs, then the majority of the player base would be the "nothing to lose" F2P players who don't care about getting banned because they just create a lot more accounts a few minutes later which leads to a horrible and abusive player base.

F2P is designed to present a game as "free" when in reality, it could not be further from that. It's just like drug dealers giving away samples for free so they can hook users into spending a lot more in the future.

In any case, you have dozens of WoW servers to play on. If you don't want to pay, then go play on those servers up to level 20. Problem solved.

If you are the type of person who wants everything for free I suggest you go play any of the hundreds of other free-to-play games that are available on the internet. Again, problem solved.

In the case of WoW Classic, those servers are going to be saturated with players at launch and for several weeks/months and Blizzard has been warning players over and over that there are going to be long login queue wait times. The last thing they (or gamers) would want to do is add a ton of F2P players who will make that situation exponentially worse.
 

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For those that do not know, the 3-character limit on the WoW Classic servers has been removed now that the game is close to launching.

You can now create up to 10 characters per server and 50 characters per account.

The servers are not playable yet though as they should open up to play around 6pm EST.

I am not playing, but have been keeping up with the information as I have some friends that will be playing.
 
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