My latest experiences in the WoW Classic Beta have made me more pessimistic about the success of the WoW Classic. To wit, the early zones, Elywnn Forest and Westfall, are already dead. Honestly, they died faster than many of the other "failed" MMOs which I've tried.
I ended up deleting all the characters I made and started fresh with a Priest. There are very few (like on the order or 5 or less) people in Elywnn Forest. Local chat is completely dead. I got up to Hogger, and then spent time on the weekend going, "LFG Hogger". After three different sessions, I finally got a level 9 dwarf hunter to take pity on me and we teamed up and killed Hogger.
Westfall is pretty much the same. There isn't even anyone just hanging out in Goldshire. In Retail, there's always people dueling or jumping around in Goldshire.
Classic is a game which requires other people. If there are no other people around, it becomes a very frustrating experience.
Now, maybe everyone is on higher level characters, and focusing on them. Though Stormwind was pretty empty as well. Maybe people aren't playing because it is Beta, and they're saving their powder for when Classic launches.
I guess my advice to people thinking about Classic is to make sure you do not miss the initial wave of players. If you fall behind, Classic will rapidly become a lot less fun.
With the latest announcement about the European realm structure I think we can be sure that there will be only 3 server for US and 3 for EU at launch with massive layering. 1 PvE, 1 PvP and 1 RP.
ReplyDeleteThey said: We think this approach will give players more freedom to move around to where they want, and find guilds and friends that best match their interests.
That, of course, only makes sense if you have a mega server. If you have multiple servers you can't "move around" regardless of if the server has the same or a different language.
With BfA they have nearly the same amount of German servers as English. The problem is not that the German server would be empty, the problem is that they will only create 3 servers.
And that explains why we won't get an RP-PvP server. Again, because they only want 3 servers.
Oh, and layering will not be gone by the end of phase 1.
With only 3 servers I doubt the starter zone will be empty within a month... or maybe it will because the just fucked up another project.
That's possible. I did predict that you could do something like this in my post on layering. And to be honest, I see it as a good solution.
DeleteI don't see layering as negatively as a lot of other people do. To me, it's pretty much the same as having multiple servers, just names need to be absolutely unique.
That reminds me of folks talking about EQ progression servers. Many (most?) are there to level in the initial push and if you miss that you can see dead zones.
ReplyDeleteI think the staged rollout of content will help. Just as patches help retail, the staged stuff should bring people back in. I suspect there will be an ebb and flow between the two versions so leveling may be easier when people are tired of retail and are mucking around on their Classic toons.
That's a good point. Ideally there will be several surges of interest in Classic.
DeleteEh, you can't compare a live game with a closed beta to which only something like 10,000 people have access to. (I think that's the number I heard getting thrown around somewhere.) How are the starting zones supposed to stay lively without a constant trickle of new players?
ReplyDeleteIf Beta is meant to mimic a single server starting with a 10K population, then it's a good projection of what will happen to that one server.
DeleteAgainst the constant trickle of new players, we balance that the cap is lower. Also since there's no point in grinding on a single character, beta players should be more likely to experiment by making new characters.
Are you on the PVP or PVE server? I keep seeing complaints on the Official forums that there aren't enough people on the PVE server to form groups. It may be that players just go in when new levels are available, so they're not in the starter areas. I do not think given all the excitement over Classic that the population will drop soon after launch. I don't agree with the "tourist" scenario.
ReplyDeleteAtheren
I'm on the PvE server. We'll see how things go at launch. I definitely think there will be some "tourists", but we'll see.
DeleteI'd be an ideal person to check out Classic, but I have absolutely no reason to subscribe until we close in on the release date. I think that is something that might be missed here: all of the people who are waiting until release to subscribe, because I'm not interested in the current state of WoW.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. Though, I wonder if that just means there's going to be a super-large launch wave, and nothing after that.
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