I actually do have SOME faith that a Blizzard without Activision's ever-watching eye might be able to make things a little better. That was always the sticking point for a lot of older devs who saw what Activision were up to and wanted them to keep their grubby paws out of WoW. Obviously, that didn't happen.
Case in point, between the periods of WoW Classic being announced and released, there was a small division of Blizzard that handled the game and were really good at providing technical overviews to the fans, getting feedback, implementing tweaks, it felt like a real passion project to a small handful of people. Not perfect by any means, but it felt better than it had in a long time.
Cue Classic release. By all estimates their WoW subscriber count doubled overnight. Even with big player drop-off, Activision had no idea what they had on their hands with WoW Classic. From day one there was a distinct radio silence from the actual Classic team as the CEOs clearly took notice of what was happening. From there, it only ever really got worse, to the point where TBC Classic released with a $50 "expansion pass" of items never originally available in TBC. Free server transfers to balance faction population? Not until they'd wrung every penny from people paying to transfer.
If Microsoft can get some fresh talent into Blizzard and keep the moneymen out just enough, maybe, just maybe, something positive might come of it. /blog
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