Originally posted by Ozmodan I do not understand what the uproar is about. If people want to pay it let them. It certainly does not effect anyone else.
But it does effect everybody else.
It will effect the way in which the games and the gameplay are designed in the future. Are you one of those who believe that the RMAH had no influence on how loots drops were designed for D3?
I am especially amused that over 95% of the posts on this thread are talking as if everyone doesn't already get a free 90 with the xpac....this is just an option to buy more if you so choose, rather than people buying multiple copies of the xpac just for the 90s....nobody is getting an endgame toon while you are forced to level one from scratch...
Originally posted by Righteous_Rock I won't be playing anymore, sub runs out today and I canceled a few weeks ago. For a ten year old game to pull this off is impressive and blizzard knows they need to cycle thier player base to new blood because many of the old dogs like myself are bored and moving on. It was great once but now, It's boring. Eventually everyone gets to that point. The old dogs want something new, but not so foreign that they feel out of place. It's why I predict Wildstar to do well. It often gets compared to wow, but it gives enough twist to make it different and it keeps enough of the wow concepts to appeal to the burned out wow players.
That's what I thought when I originally left World of Warcraft back in the fall. Unfortunately, once you get out of World of Warcraft and try to find a fresh experience in the MMORPG genre, you end up finding so much is the same that it's hardly worth the effort to play. I've never seen a genre so saturated with competitors, all of which are trying to target the exact same gargantuan segment of players. Richard Gariott and Chris Roberts at least have the proper sense to make games for those who are under served at the moment.
Originally posted by Righteous_Rock I won't be playing anymore, sub runs out today and I canceled a few weeks ago. For a ten year old game to pull this off is impressive and blizzard knows they need to cycle thier player base to new blood because many of the old dogs like myself are bored and moving on. It was great once but now, It's boring. Eventually everyone gets to that point. The old dogs want something new, but not so foreign that they feel out of place. It's why I predict Wildstar to do well. It often gets compared to wow, but it gives enough twist to make it different and it keeps enough of the wow concepts to appeal to the burned out wow players.
That's what I thought when I originally left World of Warcraft back in the fall. Unfortunately, once you get out of World of Warcraft and try to find a fresh experience in the MMORPG genre, you end up finding so much is the same that it's hardly worth the effort to play. I've never seen a genre so saturated with competitors, all of which are trying to target the exact same gargantuan segment of players. Richard Gariott and Chris Roberts at least have the proper sense to make games for those who are under served at the moment.
Richard Garriot's game serves the wealthy though, not a run-of-the-mill MMORPG player. At least, currently. To have property and modify it, it costs major $$'s. This game fell off my radar, but the costs are huge $$, if I recall, in the hundreds, thousands? For property. Anyone else who didn't contribute can't buy land, even after launch? No thank you.
"once you get out of World of Warcraft" there is no other place to go than SotA. Mmm Hmm..
There are plenty of other MMORPG's to try.
Of upcoming sandbox / sandpark games, how about The Repopulation, or ArcheAge? Of far away releases, EQN / EQL, Black Desert?
Otherwise if themepark is desired, Wildstar has a similar humor to WoW, so the transition will be easy. I hate telegraphing but, that is another story. Some people say they like ESO too.
Blizzard may have had ankle biters, but they were apparently never in direct competition. I'm confused why they just didn't make the game better, instead of more monetized. Blizzard rakes in $1 billion+ a year... they think monetization is good for long term growth?
Originally posted by Ozmodan I do not understand what the uproar is about. If people want to pay it let them. It certainly does not effect anyone else.
But it does effect everybody else.
It will effect the way in which the games and the gameplay are designed in the future.
No it wont.
ITS A TEN YEAR OLD GAME WITH MINIMAL NEW PLAYERS
And its only to skip the old leveling content, not the current leveling content.
Originally posted by Ozmodan I do not understand what the uproar is about. If people want to pay it let them. It certainly does not effect anyone else.
But it does effect everybody else.
It will effect the way in which the games and the gameplay are designed in the future.
No it wont.
ITS A TEN YEAR OLD GAME WITH MINIMAL NEW PLAYERS
And its only to skip the old leveling content, not the current leveling content.
And you think people who worked in-game for their levels should accept this?
You have to consider that many unsubscribed players occasionally return to WoW. So those returning players are now lower level than someone else who just bought advancement? It's not floating well with me.
WoW is known to have a huge churn in their playerbase. Paid Leveling to max is not enticing returning players. It's not enticing me, at least. It's disgusting. Why would I come back? To be lower level than someone who had more money to burn?
If Blizzard really wanted to eliminate levels, then make everyone the same level. But nope, pay for it. I'm apparently not on the same page with Blizzard.
It's not worth your time thinking about what other people do with their money. Unless you are trying to take it.
Love the language used in these threads as well. Get a dictionary; you're using words wrong.
You might wan't to take your own advise as it's "you're using words wrongly" not "you're using words wrong". Egg on your face ?
As to the discussion then well , it stinks , not the discussion but the fact they are giving and selling maxed characters ( well level 90 characters ).
The person on the first page that said it won't affect them in any way is wrong , unless he/she solos exclusively.
Cheers,
BadOrb.
Actually 'wrong' is being used correctly here. The word 'wrong' is acceptable in informal communication and must follow the verb. If the writer is worried about formality and their target audience then they should use wrongly (which can both precede and follow the verb), but wrong is not incorrect. The language is living and evolving and grammar rules change. There is no "egg on your face" here.
Instant 90s are bad because you say so? How about providing a reason for that? You may not like it, but what does that matter? I don't like raiding either, but that doesn't stop others from doing the deed.
I'm not taking advice from someone using advise as a noun.
Originally posted by Ozmodan I do not understand what the uproar is about. If people want to pay it let them. It certainly does not effect anyone else.
But it does effect everybody else.
It will effect the way in which the games and the gameplay are designed in the future. Are you one of those who believe that the RMAH had no influence on how loots drops were designed for D3?
just from your 2 posts on this thread i figured out i like you
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Originally posted by Soki123 I enjoy the game, I still play it, I could care less if someone pays $60 to boost their char. It doesn t effect me in anyway shape or form. I say good on Blizz, if they sell a lot of them.
Seriously, tell me the same thing if you're running a dungeon with one of these insta-level people in the postion of tank or healer and you keep dying over and over and over again because they have no idea of what they are doing from gaining the experiences of doing it for the last 89 levels....
And you think people who worked in-game for their levels should accept this?
You have to consider that many unsubscribed players occasionally return to WoW. So those returning players are now lower level than someone else who just bought advancement? It's not floating well with me.
WoW is known to have a huge churn in their playerbase. Paid Leveling to max is not enticing returning players. It's not enticing me, at least. It's disgusting. Why would I come back? To be lower level than someone who had more money to burn?
If Blizzard really wanted to eliminate levels, then make everyone the same level. But nope, pay for it. I'm apparently not on the same page with Blizzard.
In my mind: "Greed".
You just dont get it.
First off, level 100 is max level with WoD, not 90. Its possible there is a small window before WoD when it gets you to the current max level, but thats pretty insignificant. This is NOT a boost to max level for people returning with WoD
Second, everyone who buys WoD has the option to start a character at level 90 if they want. So if you are really bothered that someone who you have no reason to care about will reach max level a couple days before you (why you would care is just mind boggling really) you can just take advantage of your boost to 90 that comes with WoD
Third, this been proven to be a non issue in other games. EQ2 players paniced over it when it was announced and nothing changed at all. And the EQ boost was significantly more powerful than the WoW boost because of AAs as well.
As for the price, Ill agree its ridiculous. $60 is high. But at the end of the day I don't care. It has zero impact on gameplay. People can talk about slippery slopes all they want, but given the very small amount of cash shop pets and mounts compared to the metric crapton of them they keep putting in the game Im not worried in the least
You can say "greed" all you want, and while you aren't wrong the whole point of a business is to make money. Its a luxury item that is ultimately meaningless. There are much worse ways to try and make money.
I agree, it is a horrible idea to sell level capped characters. Good thing level 90 isn't the level cap come Warlords of Draenor.
This will become a non-issue for most people that play WoW, but it gives something for people who have some irrational vendetta against WoW to latch on to. It isn't going to hurt my experience any to have someone jump to level 90 with an alt so they can skip TBC / Cata content.
This is one of the few reasonable posts in this thread.
Also, the article title is misleading and needs to be changed.
The only impact this will have is dependant on server populations. I could care less if people skip all the content they paid for and become really bad level 90 players... unless I'm leveling a character and feel like doing dungeons or raids that aren't level 90 dungeons or raids.
Any played Rift? That was a fun game, unless you weren't keeping up with the herd. Then you hit the mid 30's and discovered that there was never ANYONE else on that was playing the content you were now stuck in. Without other players to help, it wasn't possible to close rifts, which meant you could either grind stuff that was too low for you, or repeat the same boring dungeons over and over again.
In the case of WoW, you will simply have to plod your way through the quests to level, and forget about ever seeing all the really cool Burning Crusade level 70 raids, because nobody will ever want to do them when you're of the right level range to do them, and the dungeon finder won't let you queue for stuff that's too low level to gain XP.
It's not about whether it effects me or not. For me, personally, I have to answer the question do I want to support a company that encourages its player base to skip 90% of the content. For me the answer is no. I realize many will disagree with me here, but there is a huge difference in offering a 1 time only free level 80 boost via scroll of resurrection and offering $60 instant 90s.
Many have argued (with varying degrees of success) that Blizzard has been "slipping" as a company for years. The Blizzard I grew up with ceased to be just before the launch of WoW and began practices and policies that would steer them away from the principles they had in the past. Like it or not, selling 90s marks a major shift in Blizzard's business philosophy rivaled only by the company's decision to introduce a real-money auction house in D3. It is something I simply can't condone, and I no longer give Blizzard my money as a result. It's not a boycott, nor is it me trying to say that others' decisions affect me adversely. It's simply one consumer making a decision not to buy a product that I am unhappy with.
I can't believe I'm about to say this . . . but I'd give anything to have those two asshats from EQ making the decisions again.
Let's forget that they are charging for it just a second, let's talk about skipping the content. If we compare the time it took to level a character when content was current(1-60 in vanilla, 60-70 in BC, etc...) and added all that together and compared it with the time it takes to level today, I have a feeling we already are basically skipping the content. When you consider how fast you can currently level a character to 90 you save maybe a few weeks. It took a lot longer than that just to level to 60 in vanilla.
Don't get me wrong I am against this type of thing to the very core. I couldn't be more disgusted by them selling levels. However the reality is that they destroyed leveling in this game long before they even started talking about selling 90s. It hasn't been a journey for quite some time now.
They have made this change much like they have made most of their other bad decisions. Gradually so that people barely notice. Just like they destroyed their talent trees to get people behind them removing them. Just like they added pets for charity, then just pets for money, then mounts, then items. They have gradually run the game into the ground, but I guess as long as people will still pay to play it and then pay for all the other stuff(including paying not to play it), they are cool with what the game has become. As someone who was along for the ride since the beginning I am not cool with it and haven't been for some time. Paying for levels to me is neither here nor there though, they destroyed leveling a long time ago.
Honestly this seems to defeat the point of playing a game.
If I was a game designer and I spent months upon months making zones and bosses to only have the higher ups say "Hey lets just let everyone get instant max level so we can make a profit" I'd loose it.
This is only going to hurt the game. It will only help further empty out the zones.
Have we become so lazy that we cannot even play the game anymore?
For people leveling alts and dont want to do it anymore... its good for them this option, however there are a lot of lazy wannabe gamers out there will just jump to the end mostly casuals who never have time to play MMORPGs their main excuse all the time.
The funny thing with so call survey that no one of friends that play WoW or guild mates or me did not get to this so call survey so we all wonder how can those who got the survey and answer represent the majority of the player base and also how many did get this so call survey was only people from US community or what????
Honest i think to cancel my account for im not go to play game where you can pay to skip content and blizzard is as company is promoting this P2S feature in there advertising for WoD serious blizzard may be nr 1 on mmorpg market but the should honest be ashame for use feature like this why should people pay real money when we are pay a subscribe fee to play there game it is one of thing that i think of cancel my account.
Why not do as SWTOR, LOTRO have for those people that pay there subscribe fee get free in game coins each month the subscribe to game which there can spend in there in game shop but not in WoW everything out side the game cost extra money it is sick
Its bad for the industry because it puts expectations on competing MMORPG's to offer the same service. How fun would SWTOR be if you got an instant level 50, or ESO, or even Wildstar.
A one time thing would of been OKAY, like getting an instant high level with an expansion, but to make the option availiable at a players whim takes the idea too far.
And you think people who worked in-game for their levels should accept this?
You have to consider that many unsubscribed players occasionally return to WoW. So those returning players are now lower level than someone else who just bought advancement? It's not floating well with me.
WoW is known to have a huge churn in their playerbase. Paid Leveling to max is not enticing returning players. It's not enticing me, at least. It's disgusting. Why would I come back? To be lower level than someone who had more money to burn?
If Blizzard really wanted to eliminate levels, then make everyone the same level. But nope, pay for it. I'm apparently not on the same page with Blizzard.
In my mind: "Greed".
You just dont get it.
First off, level 100 is max level with WoD, not 90. Its possible there is a small window before WoD when it gets you to the current max level, but thats pretty insignificant. This is NOT a boost to max level for people returning with WoD
Second, everyone who buys WoD has the option to start a character at level 90 if they want. So if you are really bothered that someone who you have no reason to care about will reach max level a couple days before you (why you would care is just mind boggling really) you can just take advantage of your boost to 90 that comes with WoD
Third, this been proven to be a non issue in other games. EQ2 players paniced over it when it was announced and nothing changed at all. And the EQ boost was significantly more powerful than the WoW boost because of AAs as well.
As for the price, Ill agree its ridiculous. $60 is high. But at the end of the day I don't care. It has zero impact on gameplay. People can talk about slippery slopes all they want, but given the very small amount of cash shop pets and mounts compared to the metric crapton of them they keep putting in the game Im not worried in the least
You can say "greed" all you want, and while you aren't wrong the whole point of a business is to make money. Its a luxury item that is ultimately meaningless. There are much worse ways to try and make money.
And you think people who worked in-game for their levels should accept this?
You have to consider that many unsubscribed players occasionally return to WoW. So those returning players are now lower level than someone else who just bought advancement? It's not floating well with me.
WoW is known to have a huge churn in their playerbase. Paid Leveling to max is not enticing returning players. It's not enticing me, at least. It's disgusting. Why would I come back? To be lower level than someone who had more money to burn?
If Blizzard really wanted to eliminate levels, then make everyone the same level. But nope, pay for it. I'm apparently not on the same page with Blizzard.
In my mind: "Greed".
You just dont get it.
First off, level 100 is max level with WoD, not 90. Its possible there is a small window before WoD when it gets you to the current max level, but thats pretty insignificant. This is NOT a boost to max level for people returning with WoD
Second, everyone who buys WoD has the option to start a character at level 90 if they want. So if you are really bothered that someone who you have no reason to care about will reach max level a couple days before you (why you would care is just mind boggling really) you can just take advantage of your boost to 90 that comes with WoD
Third, this been proven to be a non issue in other games. EQ2 players paniced over it when it was announced and nothing changed at all. And the EQ boost was significantly more powerful than the WoW boost because of AAs as well.
As for the price, Ill agree its ridiculous. $60 is high. But at the end of the day I don't care. It has zero impact on gameplay. People can talk about slippery slopes all they want, but given the very small amount of cash shop pets and mounts compared to the metric crapton of them they keep putting in the game Im not worried in the least
You can say "greed" all you want, and while you aren't wrong the whole point of a business is to make money. Its a luxury item that is ultimately meaningless. There are much worse ways to try and make money.
It's technically correct that there are worse ways to make money but if we keep it relative to the area, it's a pretty bad one as far as mmo's go. That being said, I also would go so far as to add that it does lend itself to the bigger problem of mmo's and what players are now making a general norm: endgame content being the focus and ignoring content.
Endgame is important but we're now at the stage and level where its almost pointless at some stage in mmo's because players are racing to endgame as fast as possible and everything in between is filler. Personally I just find doing the same instance over and over and over again is pointless. This "cash grab", and let's not fool ourselves to assuming it's nothing less than one, just reinforced that mentality.
Hey I'm all for endgame and while I don't like grinding when you can hit endgame content in under a month I feel like the point of the game is lost somewhere and that all developers just now focus on the endgame as its the only worthwhile content.
well this seals it... I've said it for years and now Bliz has just confirmed it... they suck the dicks of all the pvp players.
INSTANT level 90 is for the PVP players benefit ONLY. it actually hurts PVE players because not only do they have to gather the gold to train their skills and builds and get glyphs and stuff BUT now they have to find decent gear to allow them to raid by doing quest and catching up in crafting and such making even more work than it would have taken getting that stuff while you level up. PVP players however can put on any junk they find and jump into a team battleground and start to earn the free kills to get the PVP gear.
Way to go Bliz... next stop.... making the game a DOTA. that cash cow has been dead for years now. It's a zombie and its giving sour milk.
the whole point of bussiness is to make money, but WoW is still P2p and has millions of players playing and buying pets/mounts/hats from the Cash shop. plus expansions.
feel free to correct me but isnt wow the first pay to play with max lvl boosting with cash?
Wow has better ever questing and leveling system (big MINUS for talent tree introduced with MOP), incredible worlds, ... would feel cheating leveling any of my alts instantly. Leveled all my 11 alliance alts with great (and sometimes less great :-)) pleasure, enjoying in full beautiful wow world(s). I'm close to max with half of my horde alts. And still enjoying a lot.
But I guess there are people to which endgame means everything. Or PVP. Not for me. There will never ever be so much end game content as game itself can offer through expansions. From this perspective to pay 60 (+ 1 free with expansion) is more then fair.
Comments
But it does effect everybody else.
It will effect the way in which the games and the gameplay are designed in the future. Are you one of those who believe that the RMAH had no influence on how loots drops were designed for D3?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I am especially amused that over 95% of the posts on this thread are talking as if everyone doesn't already get a free 90 with the xpac....this is just an option to buy more if you so choose, rather than people buying multiple copies of the xpac just for the 90s....nobody is getting an endgame toon while you are forced to level one from scratch...
That's what I thought when I originally left World of Warcraft back in the fall. Unfortunately, once you get out of World of Warcraft and try to find a fresh experience in the MMORPG genre, you end up finding so much is the same that it's hardly worth the effort to play. I've never seen a genre so saturated with competitors, all of which are trying to target the exact same gargantuan segment of players. Richard Gariott and Chris Roberts at least have the proper sense to make games for those who are under served at the moment.
Richard Garriot's game serves the wealthy though, not a run-of-the-mill MMORPG player. At least, currently. To have property and modify it, it costs major $$'s. This game fell off my radar, but the costs are huge $$, if I recall, in the hundreds, thousands? For property. Anyone else who didn't contribute can't buy land, even after launch? No thank you.
"once you get out of World of Warcraft" there is no other place to go than SotA. Mmm Hmm..
There are plenty of other MMORPG's to try.
Of upcoming sandbox / sandpark games, how about The Repopulation, or ArcheAge? Of far away releases, EQN / EQL, Black Desert?
Otherwise if themepark is desired, Wildstar has a similar humor to WoW, so the transition will be easy. I hate telegraphing but, that is another story. Some people say they like ESO too.
Blizzard may have had ankle biters, but they were apparently never in direct competition. I'm confused why they just didn't make the game better, instead of more monetized. Blizzard rakes in $1 billion+ a year... they think monetization is good for long term growth?
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
No it wont.
ITS A TEN YEAR OLD GAME WITH MINIMAL NEW PLAYERS
And its only to skip the old leveling content, not the current leveling content.
And you think people who worked in-game for their levels should accept this?
You have to consider that many unsubscribed players occasionally return to WoW. So those returning players are now lower level than someone else who just bought advancement? It's not floating well with me.
WoW is known to have a huge churn in their playerbase. Paid Leveling to max is not enticing returning players. It's not enticing me, at least. It's disgusting. Why would I come back? To be lower level than someone who had more money to burn?
If Blizzard really wanted to eliminate levels, then make everyone the same level. But nope, pay for it. I'm apparently not on the same page with Blizzard.
In my mind: "Greed".
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
I'm not taking advice from someone using advise as a noun.
Cheers.
I'm a MUDder. I play MUDs.
Current: Dragonrealms
just from your 2 posts on this thread i figured out i like you
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Seriously, tell me the same thing if you're running a dungeon with one of these insta-level people in the postion of tank or healer and you keep dying over and over and over again because they have no idea of what they are doing from gaining the experiences of doing it for the last 89 levels....
Worst idea ever.
Why would you even want to play an MMO if it had a "Buy instant max level" stuff period...?
Ruins the game forever and is a major "Will NEVER play that game" for me..
You just dont get it.
First off, level 100 is max level with WoD, not 90. Its possible there is a small window before WoD when it gets you to the current max level, but thats pretty insignificant. This is NOT a boost to max level for people returning with WoD
Second, everyone who buys WoD has the option to start a character at level 90 if they want. So if you are really bothered that someone who you have no reason to care about will reach max level a couple days before you (why you would care is just mind boggling really) you can just take advantage of your boost to 90 that comes with WoD
Third, this been proven to be a non issue in other games. EQ2 players paniced over it when it was announced and nothing changed at all. And the EQ boost was significantly more powerful than the WoW boost because of AAs as well.
As for the price, Ill agree its ridiculous. $60 is high. But at the end of the day I don't care. It has zero impact on gameplay. People can talk about slippery slopes all they want, but given the very small amount of cash shop pets and mounts compared to the metric crapton of them they keep putting in the game Im not worried in the least
You can say "greed" all you want, and while you aren't wrong the whole point of a business is to make money. Its a luxury item that is ultimately meaningless. There are much worse ways to try and make money.
This is one of the few reasonable posts in this thread.
Also, the article title is misleading and needs to be changed.
The only impact this will have is dependant on server populations. I could care less if people skip all the content they paid for and become really bad level 90 players... unless I'm leveling a character and feel like doing dungeons or raids that aren't level 90 dungeons or raids.
Any played Rift? That was a fun game, unless you weren't keeping up with the herd. Then you hit the mid 30's and discovered that there was never ANYONE else on that was playing the content you were now stuck in. Without other players to help, it wasn't possible to close rifts, which meant you could either grind stuff that was too low for you, or repeat the same boring dungeons over and over again.
In the case of WoW, you will simply have to plod your way through the quests to level, and forget about ever seeing all the really cool Burning Crusade level 70 raids, because nobody will ever want to do them when you're of the right level range to do them, and the dungeon finder won't let you queue for stuff that's too low level to gain XP.
It's not about whether it effects me or not. For me, personally, I have to answer the question do I want to support a company that encourages its player base to skip 90% of the content. For me the answer is no. I realize many will disagree with me here, but there is a huge difference in offering a 1 time only free level 80 boost via scroll of resurrection and offering $60 instant 90s.
Many have argued (with varying degrees of success) that Blizzard has been "slipping" as a company for years. The Blizzard I grew up with ceased to be just before the launch of WoW and began practices and policies that would steer them away from the principles they had in the past. Like it or not, selling 90s marks a major shift in Blizzard's business philosophy rivaled only by the company's decision to introduce a real-money auction house in D3. It is something I simply can't condone, and I no longer give Blizzard my money as a result. It's not a boycott, nor is it me trying to say that others' decisions affect me adversely. It's simply one consumer making a decision not to buy a product that I am unhappy with.
I can't believe I'm about to say this . . . but I'd give anything to have those two asshats from EQ making the decisions again.
Let's forget that they are charging for it just a second, let's talk about skipping the content. If we compare the time it took to level a character when content was current(1-60 in vanilla, 60-70 in BC, etc...) and added all that together and compared it with the time it takes to level today, I have a feeling we already are basically skipping the content. When you consider how fast you can currently level a character to 90 you save maybe a few weeks. It took a lot longer than that just to level to 60 in vanilla.
Don't get me wrong I am against this type of thing to the very core. I couldn't be more disgusted by them selling levels. However the reality is that they destroyed leveling in this game long before they even started talking about selling 90s. It hasn't been a journey for quite some time now.
They have made this change much like they have made most of their other bad decisions. Gradually so that people barely notice. Just like they destroyed their talent trees to get people behind them removing them. Just like they added pets for charity, then just pets for money, then mounts, then items. They have gradually run the game into the ground, but I guess as long as people will still pay to play it and then pay for all the other stuff(including paying not to play it), they are cool with what the game has become. As someone who was along for the ride since the beginning I am not cool with it and haven't been for some time. Paying for levels to me is neither here nor there though, they destroyed leveling a long time ago.
For people leveling alts and dont want to do it anymore... its good for them this option, however there are a lot of lazy wannabe gamers out there will just jump to the end mostly casuals who never have time to play MMORPGs their main excuse all the time.
The funny thing with so call survey that no one of friends that play WoW or guild mates or me did not get to this so call survey so we all wonder how can those who got the survey and answer represent the majority of the player base and also how many did get this so call survey was only people from US community or what????
Honest i think to cancel my account for im not go to play game where you can pay to skip content and blizzard is as company is promoting this P2S feature in there advertising for WoD serious blizzard may be nr 1 on mmorpg market but the should honest be ashame for use feature like this why should people pay real money when we are pay a subscribe fee to play there game it is one of thing that i think of cancel my account.
Why not do as SWTOR, LOTRO have for those people that pay there subscribe fee get free in game coins each month the subscribe to game which there can spend in there in game shop but not in WoW everything out side the game cost extra money it is sick
Its bad for the industry because it puts expectations on competing MMORPG's to offer the same service. How fun would SWTOR be if you got an instant level 50, or ESO, or even Wildstar.
A one time thing would of been OKAY, like getting an instant high level with an expansion, but to make the option availiable at a players whim takes the idea too far.
It's technically correct that there are worse ways to make money but if we keep it relative to the area, it's a pretty bad one as far as mmo's go. That being said, I also would go so far as to add that it does lend itself to the bigger problem of mmo's and what players are now making a general norm: endgame content being the focus and ignoring content.
Endgame is important but we're now at the stage and level where its almost pointless at some stage in mmo's because players are racing to endgame as fast as possible and everything in between is filler. Personally I just find doing the same instance over and over and over again is pointless. This "cash grab", and let's not fool ourselves to assuming it's nothing less than one, just reinforced that mentality.
Hey I'm all for endgame and while I don't like grinding when you can hit endgame content in under a month I feel like the point of the game is lost somewhere and that all developers just now focus on the endgame as its the only worthwhile content.
well this seals it... I've said it for years and now Bliz has just confirmed it... they suck the dicks of all the pvp players.
INSTANT level 90 is for the PVP players benefit ONLY. it actually hurts PVE players because not only do they have to gather the gold to train their skills and builds and get glyphs and stuff BUT now they have to find decent gear to allow them to raid by doing quest and catching up in crafting and such making even more work than it would have taken getting that stuff while you level up. PVP players however can put on any junk they find and jump into a team battleground and start to earn the free kills to get the PVP gear.
Way to go Bliz... next stop.... making the game a DOTA. that cash cow has been dead for years now. It's a zombie and its giving sour milk.
the whole point of bussiness is to make money, but WoW is still P2p and has millions of players playing and buying pets/mounts/hats from the Cash shop. plus expansions.
feel free to correct me but isnt wow the first pay to play with max lvl boosting with cash?
(eq2 but was f2p when SoE added lvl boost )
Wow has better ever questing and leveling system (big MINUS for talent tree introduced with MOP), incredible worlds, ... would feel cheating leveling any of my alts instantly. Leveled all my 11 alliance alts with great (and sometimes less great :-)) pleasure, enjoying in full beautiful wow world(s). I'm close to max with half of my horde alts. And still enjoying a lot.
But I guess there are people to which endgame means everything. Or PVP. Not for me. There will never ever be so much end game content as game itself can offer through expansions. From this perspective to pay 60 (+ 1 free with expansion) is more then fair.