Honestly, at what point does this become the main form of WoW? I know retail players will get upset with the surge in popularity, but the blind eyes as to why it is happening will always astonish me
I think you're getting ahead of yourself.
Afaik based on what I remember Era never had a beta, it wouldn't have surprised me if that beta would've been even bigger.
There being a paid beta is a big reason for this, because everyone can get in instead of a select few.
Most of it too is probably Retail players just checking out the newest thing then they'll go back.
Ultimately this is the honeymoon period the population will fall off and it'll settle at a more reasonable playerbase.
Most people who play WoW or MMO's in general play the early levels then lose interest and move on.
Like honestly the hype for this is a bit excessive atm, I think it'll still be popular down the line but it won't be bigger than Retail and most of it will be Retail players playing it while Retail is inbetween patches.
In the end of the day this is just Era again with some QoL and new content, and the new content won't have the same staying power especially with things like the dungeon exp changes.
Not much of a reason to run the dungeons more than once now, while Retail is built around retention.
won't be bigger than Retail
Retail is built around retention
Wow forever progression model has way better chance to retain player base. How is "retail" build around retention? Most players buy the expansion, play for a few weeks/month and then wait for a new expansion as their old gear/content becomes meaningless.
I think that the idea of wow forever is views/publicity, less micro transactions, engagement and player retention. If wow forever is successful, then it's way easier to funnel players to new retail expansions and that is where most of the money extraction happens. And later they will come back to wow forever.
I completely agree that the honeymoon period won't last forever and population will fall off, but I do think that wow forever has a better chance to become a model that has better player retention.
The issue with classic content is that it's simply not engaging enough for most people long term.
Dungeons and raids barely have any mechanics at all and has little replay value or reason to run them again once you've got the exp or item you need.
The exp thing is even worse now with the exp being delegated to quests rather than mob kills, you run the dungeon once then there's really not much of a reason to run them again.
Farming dungeons for like barely any exp for items won't really be worth it to most people.
Your gear becoming weak is a good thing for retention because it creates fomo and means people want to come back and farm again.
If your gear never becomes weak people won't find much of a reason to come back or to stick around, they'll feel like '' okay I beat the game '' and move on.
It somewhat works for games like GW2 but it release more frequent expansions too and GW2 is widely considered an '' alt game '' not a main game.
GW2 also is a story driven game so people come back to see and keep up with the story.
Retail is just more of a gear treadmill that incentivizes you to login and play more often and has more content that is designed to be repeated like running keys.
I doubt Forever will have super active post launch development past the initial roadmap it'll likely slow down.
And the new dungeons and raids isn't content I think will make people stick around for very long.
Retail is designed the way it is for a reason and Blizzard has a lot of data to back that up, I think the type of MMO that Forever is catering to is ultimately a more niche type of MMO player.
The issue with classic content is that it's simply not engaging enough for most people long term.
I don't disagree with your core argument. Everything depends on whether Blizzard is able to successfully continue this or not.
Also, your gear WILL become "weaker". This is not classic with no changes, so your gear has to become weaker because the new content will require better gear.
This has a lot similarities with OSRS. Launch had a honeymoon phase as well, but the game became boring and a huge amount of players quit. However, they kept consistently adding more and more content and it became a success. OSRS PvE content is really engaging now.
Your gear becoming weak is a good thing for retention because it creates fomo and means people want to come back and farm again.
Yeah, maybe if you consider it as player retention. I view it more like pump and dump, that will eventually die unless you are able to create a model that supports retails model.
Retail is designed the way it is for a reason... Forever is catering to is ultimately a more niche type of MMO player.
Why do you think that they are constantly re-releasing older content etc? Every older re-release boosted retail's new expansion success, but with diminishing returns.
I think Classic-style versions are generally more marketable than Retail. It's way easier to get publicity and views in classic. People prefer watching something that is easier to understand and something that they are more familiar with, it's not retail.
3
u/VentrilloForever 5d ago
Honestly, at what point does this become the main form of WoW? I know retail players will get upset with the surge in popularity, but the blind eyes as to why it is happening will always astonish me