Exactly. All that WoW is lacking is an ingame store. But certainly that isn't as big a difference.Sleekit said:
Rumor: World of Warcraft To Add Microtransactions
- Thread starter Cognimancer
- Start date
They already do.Evil Smurf said:
Well, pets. And mounts.
I mean: Saying that WoW is adding microtransactions is a bit misleading. As people has pointed, they've already got a store to buy cosmetic stuff for characters.
I've been seeing people go on about this crap on the official WoW forums and it's easy to pick out those who don't really know what they are on about. The most common complaint I'm seeing "it probably stacks with other bonuses, leveling will only take a few hours, holy crap!". Which isn't what is really going to happen. Assuming that it stacks with every bonus you can get (full upgraded heirloom set, holiday bonus, RAF bonus, rested bonus and, if you're a monk, that monk only one hour bonus) you'd get something like 300% or 400% exp bonus, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. That's...really not much exp, in the grand scheme of things. Sure, the first 25 levels will wiz by, but it'll all even out after that point. Leveling is still work, even if you're abusing the dungeon finder.
As for the micortransactions themselves, who care? Someone wants to spend money on it, let'em.
As for the micortransactions themselves, who care? Someone wants to spend money on it, let'em.
If they start selling something that drops XP by half I might actually buy it. Since Cataclysm there are at least dozen zones that I haven't played trough despite making 5 characters since then because each of them breezes extremely fast trough levels and by the time I finish story chain of some zone I'm already too high level to do quests there so eventually I just don't even bother and I start to grind instances.
TLDR at the bottom.
This news is a great excuse for me to talk about my WoW experience thus far (been playing for a month now), and what I think is the real problem with WoW at the moment: virtually everything before level 90 is devoid of challenge and has become throwaway content.
Now don't get me wrong: I really, really enjoyed being able to get my first character to level 90 in a week (and this was during college, so I was even doing papers and shit in between stuff). But once I had my first character at 90 and got to experience 25 man raids (the first thing in the game that is actually not roll-face-on-keyboard easy), I had something occur to me: why was everything before this so... lifeless? This started bugging me even more three weeks ago when I had my first 10-man raid, and my guild wiped HARD. Finally, I had something I had to TRY to beat, and the feeling was glorious.
So where was that feeling before?
Part of the problem is the way Blizzard has decided to handle their content pipeline. If you're level 60 (the vanilla level cap) you have two choices: play level 60 raids every week for gear that gives you +50 to stats... or start questing in the next expansion's area immediately and get gear that gives you +70 to stats. The choice is obvious: why play content that you can skip and get better stats for it? The numbers are a complete asspull here: but you get the general idea.
This means that all raids prior to Mists of Pandaria are completely pointless. Moreover, a lot of the dungeons from prior expansions have apparently been nerfed hard in order to let people breeze through them for easy XP. I was questing with my brother (a returnee from Lich King days) and we did a bunch of Lich dungeons... he found them pathetically easy compared to what they used to be.
Basically, the entire game has been altered so that new players and people leveling alts can breeze their way to 90 and immediately play the new content. But this means players don't have any sense of challenge getting to 90: it's mostly just busywork. And even when you're level 90, there isn't any sense of challenge until you start doing 25 man raids. This begs the question: if you want me to play only this content, why on earth is there all this bullshit in-between me and it? Why bother even having levels in a game where only being 90 counts?
This is to say nothing of professions/the crafting system, which is horrifically broken (with one shining exception, Inscription: and even that doesn't escape certain issues.) Old recipes are basically worthless and learned only to level your professions: even crafting gear for alts feels pointless as you could spend the time grinding for mats powering your way through quests on said alts.
I probably didn't explain my feelings that well - it's 4 in the morning here. But I'm planning on writing out a more detailed post, or maybe making a video about this, because I really think that a lot of cool stuff is in WoW's pre-Pandaria content - and a lot of it is going to waste right now.
[HEADING=3]TLDR:[/HEADING] Ultimately the big problem with WoW is that it's an old game by this point, and Blizzard seems to think that the old content has become nothing but walls in the way of the new content. I think Blizzard's approach has been to avoid fixing old content to make it relevant, and trying to shove it out of the way as much as possible so that people can get to the new content. This is an approach that lays waste to roughly 30-40% of the game, which no longer sees any use - a damn shame IMO.
EDIT: Oh fuck, forgot to talk about the main topic. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard wants to sell XP boosts: it's just confirmation that the only thing they care about is that you're playing Pandaria content. I'm also not surprised that they'd want to add microtransactions, though if they think they can milk me for more than my subscription, they're crazy. Either go FTP with micro or stay as a pure subscription service: doing both just feels like a cash grab.
This news is a great excuse for me to talk about my WoW experience thus far (been playing for a month now), and what I think is the real problem with WoW at the moment: virtually everything before level 90 is devoid of challenge and has become throwaway content.
Now don't get me wrong: I really, really enjoyed being able to get my first character to level 90 in a week (and this was during college, so I was even doing papers and shit in between stuff). But once I had my first character at 90 and got to experience 25 man raids (the first thing in the game that is actually not roll-face-on-keyboard easy), I had something occur to me: why was everything before this so... lifeless? This started bugging me even more three weeks ago when I had my first 10-man raid, and my guild wiped HARD. Finally, I had something I had to TRY to beat, and the feeling was glorious.
So where was that feeling before?
Part of the problem is the way Blizzard has decided to handle their content pipeline. If you're level 60 (the vanilla level cap) you have two choices: play level 60 raids every week for gear that gives you +50 to stats... or start questing in the next expansion's area immediately and get gear that gives you +70 to stats. The choice is obvious: why play content that you can skip and get better stats for it? The numbers are a complete asspull here: but you get the general idea.
This means that all raids prior to Mists of Pandaria are completely pointless. Moreover, a lot of the dungeons from prior expansions have apparently been nerfed hard in order to let people breeze through them for easy XP. I was questing with my brother (a returnee from Lich King days) and we did a bunch of Lich dungeons... he found them pathetically easy compared to what they used to be.
Basically, the entire game has been altered so that new players and people leveling alts can breeze their way to 90 and immediately play the new content. But this means players don't have any sense of challenge getting to 90: it's mostly just busywork. And even when you're level 90, there isn't any sense of challenge until you start doing 25 man raids. This begs the question: if you want me to play only this content, why on earth is there all this bullshit in-between me and it? Why bother even having levels in a game where only being 90 counts?
This is to say nothing of professions/the crafting system, which is horrifically broken (with one shining exception, Inscription: and even that doesn't escape certain issues.) Old recipes are basically worthless and learned only to level your professions: even crafting gear for alts feels pointless as you could spend the time grinding for mats powering your way through quests on said alts.
I probably didn't explain my feelings that well - it's 4 in the morning here. But I'm planning on writing out a more detailed post, or maybe making a video about this, because I really think that a lot of cool stuff is in WoW's pre-Pandaria content - and a lot of it is going to waste right now.
[HEADING=3]TLDR:[/HEADING] Ultimately the big problem with WoW is that it's an old game by this point, and Blizzard seems to think that the old content has become nothing but walls in the way of the new content. I think Blizzard's approach has been to avoid fixing old content to make it relevant, and trying to shove it out of the way as much as possible so that people can get to the new content. This is an approach that lays waste to roughly 30-40% of the game, which no longer sees any use - a damn shame IMO.
EDIT: Oh fuck, forgot to talk about the main topic. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard wants to sell XP boosts: it's just confirmation that the only thing they care about is that you're playing Pandaria content. I'm also not surprised that they'd want to add microtransactions, though if they think they can milk me for more than my subscription, they're crazy. Either go FTP with micro or stay as a pure subscription service: doing both just feels like a cash grab.
Why stop there though? If they make enough money off this why not add some purchasable gear?Aeshi said:
Sword of Instant One Shot - $5000
Haha nobody will buy that! Except... y'know the people who have nothing better to spend money on.
Except for that analogy to work said sword would also be obtainable normally via crafting/grinding/whatever.DugMachine said:
I'm starting to think "P2W" is just a buzzword people slap on any cool-to-bash game with Micro-Transactions, regardless of whether said game actually IS P2W or not.
Yeah, pretty much. "P2W" is more often than not thrown around by people who think microtransactions are at their core an evil greedy thing, when like any business model they CAN be used to good effect.Aeshi said:
To the guy saying "What's stopping them? Why stop there?": Shut your ignorant mouth. What's stopping them is that Blizzard doesn't handle WoW that way. They never have, and they 99% likely never WILL. I am a WoW vet, I haven't played it in recent months because I FINALLY pulled myself away from it, but I played it religiously for about 7 years and kept plugged in on all the news, all the "scandals" all the nerdraging that happened with every expansion, every modification, every easing of the core gameplay to make things more accessible.
And Blizzard's held pretty damn strong in all that time that they will never move themselves to a model of "pay to win" or simply paying for the gear or materials for end-game content. (Endgame content being anything that occurs at level cap for the current expansion). They'll bend over backwards to let you GET to the endgame quicker, because that's where all their focus is going and that's where all the guilds and pvp are at (hell they don't even balance the classes for anything below max level cap these days) but once you hit 90 you're on your own. That's where their whole game is; heroic runs, achievements, daily quests, point cap totals, etc. You think all the people who have been complaining and leaving the game when blizzard made accessing raids a little easier was something to talk about, you just try and think about how much of what's left of their subscriber base would abandon them in droves if ACTUAL pay-to-win came into play.
Blizzard's entire mentality at level cap is finding ways to keep the players OCCUPIED while they're writing up the next patch of content; pray tell, what purpose is all those daily quests, all those reputation rewards, and differeng tiers of raid content if they're going to just let people buy it outright? A bored playerbase in a subscription-model MMO is one that leaves you for something more fun.
Get your facts straight before you start throwing your mindless accusations.
I'm of two minds about this.
On one hand it's a step towards "pay for gear" which...I highly doubt they would do but it's still a concern.
On the other hand I'd gladly give Blizzard $5.00 for every character that I didn't have to level through Outland again.
Dead serious, here's five bucks now give me 10 levels so I can be on my merry way to Northrend.
On one hand it's a step towards "pay for gear" which...I highly doubt they would do but it's still a concern.
On the other hand I'd gladly give Blizzard $5.00 for every character that I didn't have to level through Outland again.
Dead serious, here's five bucks now give me 10 levels so I can be on my merry way to Northrend.
This isn't me "throwing mindless accusations". You're not the only "WoW Vet" here. I played since day 1 Vanilla and I can tell you this game is not the same. I know they want people to experience their end game but the fact that they are even considering adding an item that you can buy with REAL money that's not just a fucking cosmetic change is what has me worried.Kuurion said:
I was throwing out a hypothetical situation. I didn't say they will and you're right, it would be highly unlike blizzard to ever add true "Pay to Win" but it's not off the table. You're not the only person that's played this game for more than 5 years so I'd like it if you kindly didn't tell me to "Shut your ignorant mouth". I know my World of fucking Warcraft.
the already have 'micro-transactions' in wow, it's just through their battle-net store,
putting this in game and expanding on it seems reasonable so long as the restrain themselves to cosmetic or conveience things - ie. pets or faster leveling, not gearing related advantages.
putting this in game and expanding on it seems reasonable so long as the restrain themselves to cosmetic or conveience things - ie. pets or faster leveling, not gearing related advantages.
Ive heard people buying and selling their level 60 characters for money. Thats kinda the same. I played wow for about 1 month and it was a god awful grind fest. I got to about level 32 and ended up making bags and giving them to the newly born gnomes in their starter zone. lol. That was the best part of wow, having a ton of level one gnomes fighting me for fun (wasnt pvp, and didnt kill any). 
OT Thing is even if someone pays to win, they still have no experience and skill at playing the game. An those people will be noticed a mile off by high level players. Im not against micro transactions but then in an online game (an not single player), wouldnt that give them an unfair advantage over other players in pvp? Also if your just going to pay to win then why bother playing in the first place?
Only positive thing i can think of is if you are a few levels below your friends you could buy a few potions to boost to their level. Hopefully they will leave the high level loot alone and allow that stuff to be earned.
OT Thing is even if someone pays to win, they still have no experience and skill at playing the game. An those people will be noticed a mile off by high level players. Im not against micro transactions but then in an online game (an not single player), wouldnt that give them an unfair advantage over other players in pvp? Also if your just going to pay to win then why bother playing in the first place?
Only positive thing i can think of is if you are a few levels below your friends you could buy a few potions to boost to their level. Hopefully they will leave the high level loot alone and allow that stuff to be earned.
Yeah, that sounds like the PWI I left behind back in 2011. Started playing right when the servers first went live and it took me a year to hit 100 on my barb, then by the second year PWE had learned how much people were willing to pay for trivial shit, and kept those damn general summers sales going.KoudelkaMorgan said:
I lived with all that bullshit, until I started having to solo instances like Twilight Temple on my pure vit barb because of all the -interval gear that was available, that a lot of people were willing to spend $1000 on (at the time) just to be extremely OP.
That broke the game. When entire classes become obsolete and unwanted for the majority of PVE content due to all the high APS assassin's and BM's having a monopoly on tanking (two classes never designed for that)and breaking the in game economy at the same time, you know something is wrong.
The issue with the Experience gain bonuses in WoW is that it basically throws the players outside of the questing curve. Entire quest chains get abandoned in perfectly good zones because the player is wearing heirlooms and out-levels everything too quickly. Heck, I've experimented in the human starting zones, and without heirlooms you get to experience the entire defias brotherhood post cata story, all of red-ridge, and the good stuff in duskwood. With the heirlooms on you complete about 40% of the quests in Westfall, maybe half of the quests in Redridge, and just skim the surface of quests in duskwood.
With the +100% experience boost to stack on top of heirlooms, I don't think anyone is going to even know what is going on in any of the early zones. They're just going to be leveling so fast the entirety of the first half of the game is going to be a blur.
But "all that matters is endgame" is the mantra now it seems. Seriously, how anyone suffers this game after Raid Finder got introduced is beyond me.
With the +100% experience boost to stack on top of heirlooms, I don't think anyone is going to even know what is going on in any of the early zones. They're just going to be leveling so fast the entirety of the first half of the game is going to be a blur.
But "all that matters is endgame" is the mantra now it seems. Seriously, how anyone suffers this game after Raid Finder got introduced is beyond me.
BanicRhys said:
Thing is, there's a strong temptation to eventually start designing *for* those boosts, not the other way around. Is leveling a breeze and people are not buying enough boosts? Let me handle that (...) done, now it's slightly grindier, rejoice. Were people complaining about that other area being too grindy? Psh, not going to bother balancing it better now, when we can sell workarounds instead. Are those items desirable but only few people are buying using cash and avoiding a grind? Let's say they are periodically destroyed unless you have cash-only prevention. Ofc it will be introduced as loot, saying "look! we do listen to players!", but later, preferably after a pile of money is collected. At the same time another cash-only gimmick will be introduced and the cycle will continue, with more and more resources being focused on... gimmicks. While WoW is not there, this kind of stuff is not a theory - look at LOTRO, for example.
In more general sense: introduce quest markers/guides -> clear and detailed descriptions from questgivers become optional -> they are moved down on priority ladder -> they are more likely to be skipped when deadline is closer ->suddenly you have no option than to use quest markers/guides. Various in-game boosts don't have to be a "forced purchase", but something that can happen after they are established will have much to do with "forced" and limiting player's choices.
That's what it eventually is going to come down to. It's kind of like this weeks Rhyme Down Spectacular with Yahtzee presenting the logical extreme of the NRA arguments. Eventually they are going to "strip" all the problems away and then they are going to be left wondering why people are leaving the game. Oh wait, that is happening right now anyway.eberhart said:
I guess you're right, but the sparkle pony still required you to get to level 20 and then buy your riding skill, which admittedly isn't that great of a feat. It wasn't like other MMOs where buying the mount would let you use it level one and it would give you the max riding speed available.Sleekit said:wow has had "microtransactions" in all but name for eons
what was "the sparkle pony" if not a "microtransaction" ?
i mean look here http://wow.joystiq.com/tag/sparkle-pony/
eh ?
Anyways the microtransactions along with a sub and retail game cost will always rub me the wrong way. At least when RIFT added microtransactions they went F2P first and retroactively gave veteran rewards to players who had subbed in the past. Doesn't matter as I kinda dropped WoW. The memories are better than the game is now so I have no reason to play. *Non Sarcastic Sniffling*
It still annoys me how Blizzard payed artists, writers, animators and everything to completely remake Azeroth during the cataclysm, but then also added XP boosts in gear and guild rewards, which meant you had deserted questing zones up to level 80 and now even to 85. Add that to the new leveling flask and you will be absolutely ALONE in an MMO until you hit level cap. ALONE in an MMO.
While they may already have microtransactions, they only have character customization options now. Adding in xp boosts will put them in line with all the other microtransaction games, while still charging a sub.
This article misses the point by quite a bit. The guy argues that leveling should be long and challenging in MMO's and that... that's why many hardcore players have lost interest? Leveling is completely irrelevant to the motivations of hardcore players. It used to take longer, but leveling has never been "challenging" in any MMO ever made, and I've played most of them. Hardcore players just got bored of raiding on a (very strict) daily schedule, and they are not being replaced that fast because the complete domination of MOBA's is taking away tens of millions of players, who would rather play them instead. As for people rushing through leveling areas and missing out on great content, that's sad, but if they found the content engaging enough, I think they wouldn't rush through it as much in the first place. In any case, when an MMO like WoW has been around for 8 years, you have to speed leveling up a bit, you don't really have a choice, it would be way too daunting for new players to be expected to play for 2 or 3 thousand hours to get to max level and join their friends in doing endgame stuff.heroicbob said:
At least he's not blaming a perceived lack of endgame challenge as the reason why hardcore players have become fewer, because whenever I read that I roll my eyes as it becomes instantly obvious that the person who holds that opinion has not played WoW in many years and is commenting on "facts" that exist only in their heads. As an active WoW player, I can assure you that the heroic version of each new raid tier is absolutely murderous and the vast majority of guilds don't get anywhere close to clearing them before the next tier comes out. Also, the rate at which Blizzard currently releases endgame content is quite astonishing, and it's not rushed content either, it's actually really well designed and thought out. They don't recycle areas like they used to, there are no 5-boss raid tiers like in Cataclysm, and most bosses have fresh and unique mechanics to them and feel incredibly satisfying to beat.
As for the introduction of a cash shop, I am skeptical towards it. When I'm already paying a subscription, in my opinion there should not be a cash shop, unless its contents are incredibly minor. Not for cosmetics either. Blizzard are already selling mounts and pets for a long time, most of which look awesome, and I am very opposed to that. Part of my subscription goes to the development of new content, not just server maintenance, and all content, even cool mounts, should be obtainable by me in game as a paying customer. Does it make me want to stop playing the game? Not yet. I am annoyed about it however. Whenever Blizzard does something extremely greedy like that, it takes a toll on my loyalty towards Blizzard as a customer. The next time they roll out a mediocre game, I will not think twice about not supporting them, because I will end up fed up with their bullshit and not giving a fuck about them. In my opinion, cashing in brand loyalty for small-term financial benefits is a TERRIBLE idea. You should, as a developer, make players feel that they are getting their money's worth and that they are not being exploited, the moment you start making them feel like walking talking wallets to be broken into at any cost, you fucked up. In time, they will realize that themselves the hard way.