Classic Wrath has done the impossible kind. It has shattered Classic Vanilla's Warcraft log upload records, which is a pretty good approximation for the overall health and player population of Wrath Classic.
Two weeks into Classic WotLK, more people rated than 26 weeks or six and a half months into Classic Vanilla. Classic Vanilla's absolute player peak occurred during the Blackwing Lair phase. I think that there is also the element of accessibility. It's easier to get a character or second character to level 80 than 60. So the rating is more accessible, having to take fewer people into the rating.
Classic Vanilla peaked at 489,000 players in March 2020. That's a lot of players, but Classic Wrath peaked at 540,000 on Oct 2022, and the number may get even bigger as we move toward two of WoW's most famous raids of all time, Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel.
You can also know that another interesting piece of data while Wrath Classic has around half the search traffic as much as Classic Vanilla on Google and YouTube, and that's no surprise. I think that Vanilla WoW was so popular that it hit the mainstream like everybody was talking about it. It was such a big release.
Of course, Wrath of the Lich King is very popular, but it is not that big of a splash. Vanilla WoW was around two times more search traffic than TBC, which was no surprise to anyone that played TBC. TBC ended up being a very average experience, and I would call it a relatively shallow gameplay experience, especially compared to Vanilla and Wrath.
These numbers also likely mean that Classic Wrath is currently the most popular MMO in the world compared to some of its other big competitors in the MMO genre.
It isn't hard to believe why we consider that. In 2009, Wrath of the Lich King was the absolute peak of World of Warcraft's subscription numbers, with over 12 million players worldwide. My dad can recognize one character in a while, and that's the Lich King, so why is Classic Wrath insanely popular back in the day and right now.
Well, I think the answer is pretty simple. There are a ton of things to do. Pretty much all of them are fun to do, and player progression systems are full & robust. Players feel a sense of accomplishment by playing games. There are multiple fun and rewarding characters as you always feel like you have something meaningful to accomplish in a positive way to spend your time.
Interestingly, if we look back at Classic Vanilla and Classic TBC, the number of players peaked during phase 2 expansion, according to the Warcraft log upload. So we can expect the same thing on Classic Wrath, but Classic Wrath's phase 2 will have the Ulduar raid, which is probably, as far as over half of the player base is, revered as the best raid ever released in WoW's history.
Ulduar is no joke, which is way harder. Players are talking about keeping it unbuffed. XT-002 Deconstructor is not even killed on the 25-man heroic dungeon until they nerf it. That is ridiculous, so I don't know if we'll see as many parses as you might imagine. That is hard, but I bet there are a lot of people who're going to try. It's concerned they'll be quick reviews the best ever released in World of Warcraft's history.
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The Final Phase of Classic Wrath will introduce a little raid called Icecrown Citadel, which is probably the other half of the World of Warcraft player base's favorite raid. So if you're worried about Classic Wrath's health as things go on and progress, I think you can probably take a big sigh of relief.
I think people will be sticking around for the long haul. Still, people will stick around more than Wrath because they want to level extra characters, and leveling up is a lot easier. They'll also stick around and Recruit A Friend (RAF) because PvP, heroic dungeons, and gearing up the characters are more fun to do.
All the content is quoted from Asmongold's videos.