World of Warcraft: Forever Podcast & Brewfest in This Week's WoW Weekly
With WoW Forever not set to launch until Nov. 4 and instant, guaranteed Beta access behind a $60 bundle, it might've been fair to assume TBC Anniversary would still have a strong raiding population through at least WoW Forever's November launch. However, after just one week of the WoW Forever Beta, we're already seeing massive chunks of the raiding player base dissipate.
Additional WoW: Forever Collector's Editions Available
According to Ironforge.pro, which pulls raid log data from Warcraft Logs, TBC Anniversary had a raiding player base of 212,821 the week of Sept. 8 through Sept. 14. The following week, from Sept. 15 to Sept. 21, that number plummeted to 124,487. That's a drop-off of 88,334 raiders. Right now, TBC Anniversary is in Phase 3: Black Temple and Mount Hyjal. Zul'Aman and Sunwell Plateau are still to come.
From there, it's unclear if there are plans to go into Wrath of the Lich King Anniversary. In addition to the TBC Anniversary players, the Mists of Pandaria Classic player base is also awaiting insight into what will happen to their characters, which have been with them since WoW Classic launched in August 2019. Speaking of Mists of Pandaria Classic, that raiding player base fell from 33,125 to 24,971 with the launch of the WoW Forever Beta. In MOP Classic, that version of the game has been in its final phase since June, with the launch of Siege of Orgrimmar.
With their futures uncertain and no clear progression path, this data suggests players are either playing the WoW Forever Beta or waiting to hear what Blizzard plans for both game modes.
