I did not expect this, but welcome it all the same even if it was delayed from its original launch date of today.
OPENING DATE UPDATE
We have an important update for fans. The opening of Bandai Namco Cross Store Minneapolis, MN and THE GUNDAM BASE Minneapolis at Mall of America has been postponed from its originally scheduled September 30 opening date.
My birthday is a week from today. If it's open by then, I'll try to get there. If not, as soon as it's open. This is enough for me to risk a trip to the Mall of America.
Archvaldor is notorious for his clever use of game mechanics in WOW Retail and Classic. His Patreon has more devious such stuff.
He cut this video last Wednesday. He shows why he comes to his conclusions and how; he's on to something here and folks ought to be paying attention to what he's saying.
People routinely ignore Second Order effects as a mechanism. Archvaldor shows one such example in action; Forever ressurected entire sections of YouTube and Twitch that had been withering on the vine due to how Retail and Classic had been and how hostile Blizzard is to private servers.
Furthermore, Forever fulfills the promise of a fully-enclosed Walled Garden that Preach explained years ago when they launched Classic.
The reason Forever will do this where Classic relaunches do not? No resets. No vertical progression, only horizontal.
The issue is that vertical progression--raised level caps, raised item level caps, new abilities, gear upgrades--means that content tied to a past tier gets abandoned and thus induced Fear Of Missing Out in players who could access it but aren't with the cresting wave and those too far behind might as well (and do) quit until the reset hits and then they can attempt to catch up to ride the wave thereafter.
This is a nightmare. It's stupidly expensive to run, only going up over time, and it is no surprise that this always results in a seasonal business model just like Fortnite or any other multiplayer game with a meta-driven endgame mode. Better and cheaper to avoid it entirely.
That's what Forever does. That's the source of the appeal.
For Blizzard it is the catch-basin. Retail/Classic turndowns are now caught by Forever, since the same subscription fee pays for access to all three modes. Retail players, finished for the patch, can come over to Forever and pick up where they left off without missing anything. Classic players, ready for another Wrath relaunch or the rumored (but WHY?) release of "Classic Warlords of Draenor") can safely bench their Forever toons knowing that whatever they're doing will be fine while they're rushing to punch Arthas in the face one more time or reliving why WOD was such a shitfest.
And for the aging core player audience, having a mode where they can fuck off for weeks or months at a time and not lose anything is HUGE. That's why we're seeing this do big numbers. This is a win for Blizzard, and that's going to reflect well beyond what is obvious; the new Official WOW D&D releases are going to do even better because of this, which makes that alliance between WOTC and Blizzard look even better now.
Don't be surprised to see Hearthstone rolled into Magic in the future because of this.
Last Wednesday, Roll For Combat talked Official Edition's previews for Universes Beyond.
They are doing the meme again.
They are willfully denying that D&D has a Brand Identity. They are willfully confusing D&D as a brand and d20 as a brand. They are showing their ass that they don't comprehend how this business actually works and two of them pay their bills pushing product for it. That's how incompetent most people are in Tabletop.
It is no surprise that the Cargo Cult gets rooked so hard by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro now that this incompetence is clear.
It is also no surprise that the #BROSR rooks the Cargo Cult either, as they actually see things for what they are instead of what the Cult deludes themselves into seeing.
One of the OSR Oldfags confess that their Temu D&D can't be done as a boxed set anymore.
Boxed sets are stupid.
Shut up and stick to books. Maps and so on can be published digitally and made available for home printing or as Print On Demand.
FUCK OFF-SET PRINTING! You're a joke pretending to be a business; you do not have the capacity to absorb that cost. POD exists; use it exclusively for print products.
Or, maybe, you can stop pretending at all and just do this as a self-funded hobby and not worry about all this crap.
Blizzard is Big Corpo. They answer to their parents, who in turn answer to Private Equity and PE gets assmad over anything at all resembling a Brand Risk.
Having seen several of the names people come up with, oversensitivity to Brand Risk must have had a fainting spell or 42 over the last few days. Slurs, pro-Commie faggotry, and more go on without issue; it's only those left of Mao or otherwise disliked by the mods. (Someone go for "Izzat Juggaad" and see what happens.)
Hell, I still remember when I got forcibly logged out just because some faggot didn't like that I named my Hunter's pet Gorilla "Harambe" (it was a white Gorilla too).
Therefore, shitposting via names must be done with subtlty and a bit of class. This is not the game of Tiggole Bitties anymore, and it hasn't been for many years.
The shill channels are cutting videos on the new WOW tie-in book for Official Edition.
Told you that this was a defacto merger strat. Now you're seeing it in action.
You can expect more of this when the Mouse Wars book hits.
The Networks are merging.
The end goal is that THERE IS ONE ENTERTAINMENT MONOCULTURE where all IP engagement is corpo-controlled across ALL media.
People refuse to look past their own noses, so I won't be surprised to see people being unable to comprehend this being the objective, but it is.
WOW Forever pioneeers official controller support for the MMO. That can be done with a Steam Deck, which means it's a half-step away from being playable on mobile.
Tabletop, via Official Edition, is also moving to being playable on mobile.
The mobile app for Official Edition is a few years away. The merging of the two games into a single property briding over multiple media is even further away, but it is now clearly on the table; Fortnite paved the way, and this is the next step in that same business model.
I underestimated how bad the commercial side of the cataclysm that came upon the Cargo Cult is, and how devastating this damage shall shake out to be.
