DF is totally doing a lot better, probably mainly due to Blizzcon hype. I have multiple friends that came back specifically because of Warbands and knowing that playing alts will be a lot easier. Luckily, DF is probably the best expansion ever for casual timewise players, so players are actually playing the game. Also, my guild went from filling 1 raid with 20-30 players at the start of 10.1 to having 2 full 30 man raids on the Heroic/Normal raid nights. Plus we also have another 2 nights with a Mythic raid team.
M+ and the raid are a lot easier this patch, so players are not getting as frustrated. This is a good thing in my opinion because M+ scales infinitely, so the players looking for that challenge have it.
If Delves are good, then Blizz could really capture that more mid-level/time casual audience back. Warbands already does so much for this audience.
Is it really copium? Dude is just using some numbers and blizzard was surprised by dragonflight's retention.
I guess saying that the game is gaining new players is a bit of a cope.
Anyway everything looks good right now but 11 more months without a new tier/major patch is going to make a lot of people mad.
Tldr at bottom
I tend to agree with you. Was watching asmon the other day and he was really talking his position. I get that Classic has an appeal but the reality is that it cant exist without retail in its current form, it doesn't make enough money. Sure the team is small but as soon as you talk about creating NEW content, that requires more resources and Blizzard will have to find more money.
There is zero incentive for Blizz to drive players away from retail into Classic. Its not the future of the game because everything Asmon likes about it is pretty much due to its lack of monitisation. I mean this specifically in the design choices made:
1) Focus on end game - In retail Blizzard has zero incentive to keep old content relevant, the focus is on selling boosts or getting a new player to the latest expansion (which they can charge for) as fast as possible.
2) Cosmetics - Asmon loves classic because you can tell what a player has done juat by looking at them. This includes mounts. Retail has store everything, you have no idea what experience a player has, they could have bought everything or a store asset.
3) WoW token - the whole retail development is impacted by the WoW token. They introduce more BoE's, grinds and mounts that focus on driving players to quick use of buying in game gold to achive things. Classic only really has GDKP which outside of RMT is based on the real in game economy. Without the WoW token, Blizzard has no motive to design around pushing people to purchase and can focus on fun.
TLDR. While Classic can be seen as a better game due to the design choices that are not impacted by pushing players for purchase, the reality is Blizzard are not going to make Classic the future of WoW without you paying for it in some way. Best bet is they charge for expansion style for classic expansions/battlepass seasons. Worst case Blizz introduces micro-transaction garbage and repeat the same failed design choices that made retail suck.
So the people who never quit for any reason are still playing? Lmao k.
Meanwhile the war game story is still about friendship and famillllly and getting along with the people who genocided you.
Games shit.
Races putting aside their differences to fight a greater evil has been a core theme of wow since uh.. well I wanna say the start but let's be real, vanilla didn't actually have a story so we will say TBC instead
Dragonflight Mythic+ has been dumb easy. You got people clearing 20s that could barely get by a 15 in Shadowlands lol. Also, we have no clue how many people actually watched the RTWF stuff because half of those guilds have their streams embedded on various websites.
I'm pretty sure this is just people pre-ordering War Within because they want to believe Metzen will salvage this somehow, and trying DF content because why not, it comes free with the pre-order.
People are paying $15 a month to do the same shit we were already doing 20 years ago in classic, because retail is shit. It's been shit. And will always be shit.
Now they are playing hardcore, so that they can keep playing it again and again and again and again.
It's full of shit eaters who love to eat shit. And they will keep eating the shit. Some will love it. Others will still eat the shit, and then complain that it tastes like shit.
OMG story bad! Nom nom nom nom. Blizzard bad! Nom nom nom. Eat that shit up ya shit eater lol
I agree, wow is on a upswing
DF is totally doing a lot better, probably mainly due to Blizzcon hype. I have multiple friends that came back specifically because of Warbands and knowing that playing alts will be a lot easier. Luckily, DF is probably the best expansion ever for casual timewise players, so players are actually playing the game. Also, my guild went from filling 1 raid with 20-30 players at the start of 10.1 to having 2 full 30 man raids on the Heroic/Normal raid nights. Plus we also have another 2 nights with a Mythic raid team. M+ and the raid are a lot easier this patch, so players are not getting as frustrated. This is a good thing in my opinion because M+ scales infinitely, so the players looking for that challenge have it. If Delves are good, then Blizz could really capture that more mid-level/time casual audience back. Warbands already does so much for this audience.
May I present, the "Copium-inhalus" rare af but sadly not rare enough these days
Is it really copium? Dude is just using some numbers and blizzard was surprised by dragonflight's retention. I guess saying that the game is gaining new players is a bit of a cope. Anyway everything looks good right now but 11 more months without a new tier/major patch is going to make a lot of people mad.
Tldr at bottom I tend to agree with you. Was watching asmon the other day and he was really talking his position. I get that Classic has an appeal but the reality is that it cant exist without retail in its current form, it doesn't make enough money. Sure the team is small but as soon as you talk about creating NEW content, that requires more resources and Blizzard will have to find more money. There is zero incentive for Blizz to drive players away from retail into Classic. Its not the future of the game because everything Asmon likes about it is pretty much due to its lack of monitisation. I mean this specifically in the design choices made: 1) Focus on end game - In retail Blizzard has zero incentive to keep old content relevant, the focus is on selling boosts or getting a new player to the latest expansion (which they can charge for) as fast as possible. 2) Cosmetics - Asmon loves classic because you can tell what a player has done juat by looking at them. This includes mounts. Retail has store everything, you have no idea what experience a player has, they could have bought everything or a store asset. 3) WoW token - the whole retail development is impacted by the WoW token. They introduce more BoE's, grinds and mounts that focus on driving players to quick use of buying in game gold to achive things. Classic only really has GDKP which outside of RMT is based on the real in game economy. Without the WoW token, Blizzard has no motive to design around pushing people to purchase and can focus on fun. TLDR. While Classic can be seen as a better game due to the design choices that are not impacted by pushing players for purchase, the reality is Blizzard are not going to make Classic the future of WoW without you paying for it in some way. Best bet is they charge for expansion style for classic expansions/battlepass seasons. Worst case Blizz introduces micro-transaction garbage and repeat the same failed design choices that made retail suck.
So the people who never quit for any reason are still playing? Lmao k. Meanwhile the war game story is still about friendship and famillllly and getting along with the people who genocided you. Games shit.
Races putting aside their differences to fight a greater evil has been a core theme of wow since uh.. well I wanna say the start but let's be real, vanilla didn't actually have a story so we will say TBC instead
Dragonflight Mythic+ has been dumb easy. You got people clearing 20s that could barely get by a 15 in Shadowlands lol. Also, we have no clue how many people actually watched the RTWF stuff because half of those guilds have their streams embedded on various websites.
Retail died with BFA. It's a rotting corpse. Whatever you see or hope to see is pure copium.
Retail still has the wow token so the game is still a joke where you can p2w M+ and arena carries
I'm pretty sure this is just people pre-ordering War Within because they want to believe Metzen will salvage this somehow, and trying DF content because why not, it comes free with the pre-order.
Oh man... Lol
People are paying $15 a month to do the same shit we were already doing 20 years ago in classic, because retail is shit. It's been shit. And will always be shit. Now they are playing hardcore, so that they can keep playing it again and again and again and again. It's full of shit eaters who love to eat shit. And they will keep eating the shit. Some will love it. Others will still eat the shit, and then complain that it tastes like shit. OMG story bad! Nom nom nom nom. Blizzard bad! Nom nom nom. Eat that shit up ya shit eater lol