How confident are we that the phase scheduling will hold?

In my book, Classic+ is not really a thing, its more a community concept that has a bit of traction with the non-puritan segments of the Classic community, just like TBC/Wrath continuations are popular with other segments, and cycles of classic are popular with others.

The way i see it, is that Blizzard (Activision) will milk this as much as possible, while attempting to limit its impact on retail popularity. I would imagine a conservative schedule, that sees Retail content releases during Classic down periods, and Phase inclusions during slower parts of Retail. This has potential to bounce people between Classic and Retail, and would be a good way to retain revenue.

I think, at least for the coming year or so, that Classic will unfold at a relatively stable and conservative pace - without ruling out what happens next; be it Classic+, TBC or a restart.

The way i see it, is that Blizzard (Activision) will milk this as much as possible, while attempting to limit its impact on retail popularity. I would imagine a conservative schedule, that sees Retail content releases during Classic down periods, and Phase inclusions during slower parts of Retail. This has potential to bounce people between Classic and Retail, and would be a good way to retain revenue.

I think, at least for the coming year or so, that Classic will unfold at a relatively stable and conservative pace - without ruling out what happens next; be it Classic+, TBC or a restart.

Great points. I do foresee blizzard trying to push people back and forth between editions with content releases. The question is - is that realistic?

The few friends of mine that are still exclusively active retail players don't see classic as something that will succeed "long term" - I continually hear from them that classic is a fad that will die, and that "then everyone will move to retail." This is obviously insane: I think the vast majority of people still playing classic are not interested in switching over. I also think that any supposed "Quality-of-life" improvements (including any classic+ content) from retail will be extremely controversial and possibly not worth the trouble to implement in classic from Blizzard's perspective.

Making Classic revamps is like printing money. Low effort, high reward. We will likely see Classic TBC. We probably wont see Classic+ content. There is a possibility that we could see both. If I were a betting man, I would bet that TBC gets re-released. Why? Because businesses like money and Blizzard is a business. There is very little overhead to rereleasing content. The Classic team was small, the financial yield was very large. The TBC team would likely be smaller because they have already solved many of the issues that releasing TBC would present, yet the financial yield from releasing TBC would be relatively high.

We will see TBC because TBC would generate a lot of revenue and requires very little effort in contrast to building new content.

But... there is always a possibility that a massive organization uses their heart to make decisions and tries to create some frankenpatch version of vanilla taking all of the best aspects of each game and patchworking them together to make a super fan project because they dont care about money and they just want to make a reaaaaally cooOOooOoolll game...... .................... /s

The few friends of mine that are still exclusively active retail players don't see classic as something that will succeed "long term" - I continually hear from them that classic is a fad that will die, and that "then everyone will move to retail." This is obviously insane: I think the vast majority of people still playing classic are not interested in switching over.

That's indeed insane, and quite delusional.

If interest/popularity grows enough, I could see the devs being motivated to go through phases faster to approach a classic+ scenario if they see that as a path to more revenue.

I don't see that happening. They will most assuredly progress through the phases gradually (as they declared they would) and then maybe release TBC servers 2+ years down the road.

Most players right now just want to play Classic, they aren't thinking about what the future brings. I doubt anyone at Blizzard is seriously discussing Classic+ at this point in time, so I don't see how this "motivation" to blow through the phases is even within the realm of possibility.

I just wanna play the game, and right now I don't care about what will happen in 3 years.

I'm not confident because Blizzard is a shit and doesn't understand what people liked about Classic in the first place.

Edit: The title of this thread vs. the actual original post feels very misleading, so below I have an answer to the question of the title of the thread. All I'll say is that most of the Classic+ or otherwise chatter on this site has been pretty much canned just because there's hundreds of pages of speculation already here and on Reddit about it and more speculation doesn't get much done. I'm down for Classic+ or BC, whatever. But speculating when it won't happen for 2+ years seems silly.

I think Phase Scheduling will hold just fine. I think that with every content release you'll have people kicking down the door super fast and clearing whatever raid in a day or two. But that's always been the case. I think the 2.5-3.5 months between phases definitely makes sense, though I'd expect a pretty quick implementation of Phase 4 after Phase 3, b/c the time between the release of BWL and ZG was only 2 months. And casual players won't be in BWL but they will be in ZG and will probably need more content by that time.

What schedule? Did blizzard even publish a date for phase 2 yet? Did I miss something?

What schedule? Did blizzard even publish a date for phase 2 yet? Did I miss something?

i am as confused as you are. No, nothing has been announced.

The only way i see them releasing phases at a faster pace would be if subs started dropping.

Even so there is no calendar yet. We’re barely a month in and i imagine phase 2 won’t be around too soon.

And after that yes, probably classic TBC. Which i have mixed feelings about.

If anything the decision of developing Classic+ would make Blizzard slow down on the phases release schedule, as they would need time to assess the topic and actually develop the content. If they were to actually develop Classic+ they surely wouldnt want a prolonged gap between phase 6 and Classic+.
All that being said, stfuppercut allready explained why Classic+ is unlikely and "TBC Classic" is to be expected.

Regarding the release schedule in general: Blizzard stated their intention of recreating the original schedule. Its reasonably to assume this includes not only the release order but time frames as well. Looking at the original time frames, we would expect the phases to last roughly 4 months, give or take 1 month. Not following that would suggest that Blizzard prioritizes other factors - for example keeping layering around longer than initially expected, without breaking their promise to remove it before phase 2 drops.

What schedule? Did blizzard even publish a date for phase 2 yet? Did I miss something?

It's been ballparked at around 2-4 months per phase, though the amount of content per phase and the calls for more content from the playerbase could push them out quicker. But I'd reread the original post, because you, and I as well, initally responded to the title, but the content of the post seems quite different.

Man, classic+ is THE REAL you think you do, but you don't. Do you guys really trust Blizzard not to fuck classic+ up? Because thats how you get the cash shop in classic wow.

Just let us play the game as it has been when Blizz was actually worth their salt.

We will likely see Classic TBC.

And after that yes, probably classic TBC.

That's literally not possible because it's a self-contradictory and nonsensical phrase. "Classic TBC" makes exactly as much sense as "Cataclysm Legion".