Yeah, 5 million for sure imo.
Exactly, I think Blizzard will definitely keep their mouths shut, or just announce 'active subscriptions' rather than saying exactly who is playing retail vs. classic vs. both. I think Classic will bring in more subscribers than retail, until of course they do something drastic/big with retail to get everyone interested again.
This is absolutely right. The products are so incredibly different that I think they will strengthen eachother. After searching for groups in Classic, and getting beaten up by the world, it could be refreshing to jump onto retail and play around as a god for a bit, and the same can be said for retail players jumping on Classic. The shared sub indicates that Blizzard has no intention of pinning these communities against eachother. They definitely wont highlight the differences in population. Battlenet integration and other changes show every indication that they intend to merge these two communities and offer each of them an exclusive product.
Not going to lie, I will end up playing some retail. At each phase (depending on their duration) I will hit a point where I'm struggling to find things to do, and it will be nice to jump onto retail to experience some high tier PvP. I will continue to buy each retail xpac and when I get bored, I'll jump back onto Classic. Running these products together is brilliant. So much more value for a subscription.
Consider ALL those MMO's we have all purchased and temporarily tried during content drought's. Blizzard has given us a reason to keep subbed with them instead. Imagine if they go forward with Classic BC? WotlK??? SOOOO much value for a sub!
Boy this is easy. Those that were raised on the current WOW of instant gratification with little or no work at all, will bail out quickly after they realize....
1. you have to run everywhere for 40 grueling levels and then hope you have the gold for your mount.
2. you have to run to trainers all the time to level things up when you manage to have enough gold to do so.
3. It's takes a long time and a lot of work just to accumulate 1 gold.
4. Bags don't drop willynilly and you are stuck with very little bag space for quite some time.
5. Griffin stations are few and far between
6. etc. etc.
Man I can't wait
Vanilla made it a challenge, i will not have to worry about all the 12 year olds since when they realize how hard Vanilla is they will quit, way before level 40, my guess is they will quit when they get to SV and get perma ganked by awesome rogues :)...nowadays the game is pay to win for the most part
4-6m at launch.
2m after 6 months.
1~1.5m after 1 year.
A steady 1m+ after 2 years.
2~3m+ if they ever make Classic+ content, or even more!
I expect around a million subscribers for classic launch, maybe more but many will quit after the first month.
It'll peak at BWL patch with the serious players (ignoring the tourists quitting after the first few weeks) and then start to really dive as people will get burnt out due to MC/BWL farming and PvP rank grind. (Most will be burnt around R10-12)
Population will most likely half until AQ gates and then resurge before taking another dive after a month into AQ.
It'll be in a steady decline until naxx release. I don't see many coming for naxx-pre patch as its not as significant as the AQ gates.
Re-surge at naxx before quickly diving again as most people aren't getting into naxx.
Towards the end of the classic cycle until Classic+ or new expansion is in discussion I can see a pop around 100k maybe a little lower across all realms/timezones. Which is cool still. I'm just going off how every launch for private servers are like. Humans tend to do the same thing no matter the scale so I feel this is pretty accurate.
I'm not going to guess at random numbers. I just want enough people playing for the servers to stay up for a very long time to come.