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Denver, 9:12 AM
Sun Nov 15
20 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
[forums.worldofwarcraft.com] #blizzcon10
11/12/09
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11/13/09
The Beta process is meant for this kind of process of refinement. A Beta is not "it's perfect, let's let people play it." A beta is meant to find bugs, improve quality, and balance the game. It's generally considered silly to "perfect" your balance internally, because developers are classically similar minded. You need a broader audience to run into cases of "huh, I didn't think of that."
Also, six months is an extremely long beta. If everything is supposed to already be perfectly balanced, I have no idea why they feel the need to spend so much time in it. #diabloiii
11/13/09
11/12/09
11/12/09
11/12/09
also, i love that not only is WoW in all three categories it's in 2010 twice. blizzard knows where its bread is buttered.
11/12/09
11/12/09
11/04/09
When Bethesda started selling horse armor in Oblivion, people freaked out too, but selling meaningful items in multiplayer games hasn't become prevalent, and it's not going to happen on WoW, either. There is an enormous difference between selling cosmetic perks and statistical upgrades, and while the former may not be pleasant or palatable as far as those unwilling to shell out the cash required are concerned, most players either don't care or are perfectly willing to drop five dollars here and another five there. For the purists this will still be unacceptable, but for the majority of the people who play the game, it's a non-issue, and I'm sure I'm not the only WoW player who has noticed that Blizzard *gasp* has been catering to the average player's whims for several years now. Yes, this is how companies make a profit, but this is also how said companies keep their customers happy. We are not dealing with economics on a macroscale, supply does not create its own demand within the microcosm of the game world; Blizzard is selling pets because they know that enough people will buy them to turn a profit, which is among other things one of the reasons that the company exists--to make a profit for its shareholders. If you are uncomfortable with that, don't play, better yet, play indie games that have absolutely none of the wicked taint of capitalism. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Personally, I find this deeply alarming. I dislike it for the reasons that have been mentioned- price for the content, the tax deductibility BS, but there is a bigger reason for me. WoW is deeply addictive, I think this is pretty well documented. I'm not saying most people get addicted, I'm not, but a lot of people do. And this move clearly caters to the addicts.
The problem, then, is one of philosophy- how can anyone remain loyal to a company that instead of regretting the addictive nature of their game, decides to capitalize and profit off of it? This is the black side of capitalism. It's not the same extreme, but it's the same thought process as drug dealers and war profiteers. In my eyes, this move is nothing short of evil. I dropped my WoW subscription two weeks ago because I was getting tired of it. I'll be honest, with as much work as I've invested, and as much as I enjoy it, I will probably be back. But this certainly gives me pause- and any progress in this direction (further, more grand microtransactions) would cause me to quit the game, if only because of how much I despise it. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Honestly I knew Blizzard had sold out their moral values when they decided to allow race changes/faction Changes.
I used to to think that Blizzard would never go so far as to have all of this "Pay for extras" garbage but let's be honest, how long is it before you have to pay $5 to access the newest raid dungeon or play in a new battleground? Things are going downhill fast for Blizzard/WoW and it seems like their stockholders are gaining too much ground in the company.
Mark my words it's only a matter of time before they implement more and more drastic things that you can pay real money for to do in the game rather than make the awesome free content they have in the past. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Seriously, these allegations are ridiculously paranoid. For starters, any free items. dungeons, or any other general content Blizzard elects to put in the game is done purely out of their good will toward players. What you pay for when you purchase the game is the content that is there, and an unspoken promise that things that are broken or imbalanced will be fixed as the issues are discovered. You continue to pay for this support, as well as the right to use Blizzard's servers, as you pay the monthly fees.
Receiving free dungeons is not part of this detail. However, new raid content has been released for free by Blizzard in the past, as well as numerous other elements. This is another sort of unspoken agreement wherein Blizzard sets a certain precedent of behavior. With the sort of support WoW receives, it would be dangerous to act outside of that precedent and do all of these paranoid things that are being claimed, e.g. charging for raid content.
Honestly, the kind of slippery logic being used to prophesy the downfall of WoW is very much akin to diagnosing cancer from a sneezing fit. These charges are purely cosmetic, and the only impact they have on the game is that some people will want them and can't get them, and others will look at them at the great portent of Doomsday. Everyone else will play the game, and as long as the standards Blizzard has set for actual, playable content remain the same, that set of 'everyone else' will do just fine to ignore the hell out of the conspiracy theorists. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
I think most people feel this newly popularized trend of micro-transactions is smearing the lines of ethics in an burgeoning market that is relatively unregulated. I personally, drew less on the obvious logic that Blizzard is a business and first and foremost their responsibility is to their stockholders and not the consumer and had an emotional reaction. I think that's what is happening with many of the posters here. #worldofwarcraft
11/05/09
I will freely admit that you are obviously paying for any new content as you pay the subscription fee, but what is really relevant from a consumer standpoint is what you feel like you're paying for. Granted this is anecdotal, but most of the players I've met don't think about the fees going toward new content. They take for granted that they are paying 15 dollars a month to access Blizzard's servers, and that's where they leave it.
I think this sentiment is somewhat apparent in the above arguments, seeing as one expressed concern is that we might be charged for raid content. Well, we already are, but so long as no extra costs are applied, it appears as though all changes made are free within the package we purchased. It's more a question of psychology than anything.
That said, Blizzard has been successful for a long time, and I highly doubt that their business managers would make such a huge misstep as charging for things they're already doing. I don't really see this move as being any different from giving Grunties to people who paid to watch the Blizzcon feed. It's fun to have if you've got the money, but it's completely unnecessary otherwise. #worldofwarcraft
11/05/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
They also didn't just lose an entire country of subscribers. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
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