Classic Vanilla WoW runs its course giving us an almost 2 year life span from launch to finish. The long awaited official Vanilla server was a massive success and brought an entire generation back to the game and also introduced a lot of the newer generation to what made so many long term fans crave Vanilla WoW.
2021-2022
The Burning Crusade is released in the early summer of 2021 and goes for just over 1 year ending just before the fall of 2022. The second expansion, which some were saying would surpass the love of Vanilla, came and went with mixed reviews. With a "Gruulingly" long (no pun intended) first patch the game picked up around phase 2 with SSC & TK. Arena was introduced and to some it made the expansion and to others it was just a chore to get some pieces you might need.
During this time Classic ERA was also going on. This was where all the Classic Servers got mirrored and merged allowing you to play permanently in the last patch of Vanilla WoW with the character you played with in 2019-2021. These were at first insanely dead but now that the hype for a fresh Vanilla is coming back these servers have exploded in popularity.
Lastly while Phase 2 of TBC was going on Blizzard threw us a curveball and released Season of Mastery. A new and improved version of Vanilla Classic WoW where more changes were added such as experience rates, boss mechanics, and the removal of boosting. For die hard Vanilla fans this was just the thing they needed but for many they felt releasing this so fast after TBC came out just split the community up.
Wrath of the Lich King, one of the most iconic expansions of all time, has re-released in Classic form. This expansion is still going on and is in its Phase 2. Wrath's population seems to be pretty healthy despite a lot of people temporarily or permanently swapping to retails new hyped expansion Dragonflight. Wrath is also expected to end before 2023 is over.
So this is where we are and the question now is where do we go from here?
More Season of Mastery's.
I think no matter what the answer for post Wrath is the people will always want new fresh Vanilla Classic servers therefore more Season of Mastery's is a low cost way for Blizzard to keep the subscriptions going for a lot of these old school fans. There is already talks of what is to come in the next one and when it will come out. Things such as official hardcore servers are in the midst of these rumors. Nonetheless, no matter what is included in this next Season of Mastery the question then becomes will people eventually want an original Vanilla Classic again? World buffs, old lotus timers, no changes (except the ones made in 2019), etc. I think the answer to that will eventually be yes after a few more Season of Mastery's.
This to me is the biggest no brainer and easiest money printer Blizzard could create. There's so much to dissect here though. For starters is it going against what Classic stands for to go to an expansion known for the beginning of the end to Classic fans? Some people thing they should just keep it the trilogy of Vanilla, TBC, & Wrath. But on the other side of the coin implementing Catacalysm is probably not a ton of dev work considering all of it is in retail still and I imagine you can port over all of it quite easily. Another point that can be brought up if Cata does come out is whose the target audience? Cata just feels like retail-lite but not like Classic. It does have some of the best dungeons and raids that ever existed and you can raid for the same gear in just 10 man making participating in the end game content very accessible. But is that enough to get enough people on board? Do enough Classic players want Cata? Do enough retail players have nostalgia for Cata that they would split their hours on retail or drop them completely for it? I am not sold on either of those things personally yet I still think it would be insanely profitable due to the ease of access of implementing it.
What are your guys thoughts? What is the future of Classic WoW for Blizzard?
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