In the fast paced blog- o-sphere, a lot of really smart and insightful people have already weighed in on Blizzard’s recently announced plan to offer 5 man LFD support to Real ID.\u00a0 I intentionally waited a bit before I posted something.\u00a0 I wanted to read what a lot of others had to say, make time some great (and not so great) debates on the issue, and do some good old fashioned thinking.<\/p>\n
Let’s look at the background of WoW “extras” :
\nFor quite a while we’ve had
\n– Character Transfer (Move your characters to different realms or accounts)
\n– Faction Change (Change a character\u2019s faction (Horde to Alliance or Alliance to Horde))
\n– Race Change (Change a character\u2019s race (within your current faction))
\n– Name Change (Change your characters\u2019 names)
\n– Appearance Change (Change your characters\u2019 appearance (optional name change included))
\n– Pet \/ Mount store<\/p>\n
Recently, we’ve added a couple new ones and this is where people really started talking:
\n– Mobile Auction House access
\n– Mobile Guild Chat
\n– Real ID 5man grouping<\/p>\n
These extra fall into one of three categories:\u00a0 Mobile Access, Micro Transactions, or\u00a0 Premium Services.\u00a0 I kind of like the Mobile Access entries we’ve seen so far.\u00a0 It started with the AH and while it does allow people to make a bit more gold, it’s simply an additional way of accessing your inventory.\u00a0 The guild chat included with the Mobile App is great.\u00a0 It’s hard to hate on something that lets you chat with your guildies and build the community feel of the guild.<\/p>\n
Micro transactions are a good way to make money in a free-to-play game.\u00a0 “You want to power your toon up?\u00a0 No problem, toss us some dosh and we’ll give you stats.”\u00a0 I don’t like them personally, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that style of game.\u00a0 Thankfully, Blizzards approach to Micro-Trans has been non-combat items such as pets and mounts.\u00a0 It bothers me when the mounts that you buy with real life cash are more “awesome” that the ones you get from playing\/excelling at the game, but that’s a different issue.\u00a0 I’ve bought a couple pets from the pet store, but I didn’t buy the TRH (I mean Celestial Steed).<\/p>\n
The final category is the Premium, fee based, Services.\u00a0 For the most part I’m ok with these things costing IRL money as the cost is used as a deterrent from people clogging up the system and while it may show my nerd side, I don’t like constant character changes in an MMORPG, but having the option is ok. Faction\/race\/name\/server changes really are fine to me.<\/p>\n
The new service that has me disappointed in Blizzard comes from the following Blue Post.
\n
As this is a fairly complex service to develop, we don\u2019t have a release date to share quite yet. It\u2019s important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service. We’ll have more details to share with you as development progresses — in the meantime, you may begin to see elements of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft PTR.<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
I have a couple major issues with this, as announced.\u00a0 Unlike the other Premium Services, this provides in-game functionality…but only if you pay more.\u00a0 WoW is a subscription based game.\u00a0 Everything in-game is supposed to be provided for by that subscription.<\/p>\n
Arielle (@riftmaker), a contributor to theincbear.com and a host of the Team Waffle Podcast, and I had a brief discussion one night and one of his arguments for making this a Premium Service was that this is functionality well beyond the base of the game, akin to the customization services and server transfers.\u00a0 I disagree on the basis that these are all simple conveniences and time savers.<\/p>\n
I server transferred once (well twice if you count my trip back to Hyjal).\u00a0 It’s possible for me to level a new character on that second server.\u00a0 Paying the fee simply allowed me to save the time and energy of new character progression.\u00a0 It’s the same with the other customizations.\u00a0 If I wanted a Worgen Druid I could make one…and indeed I did (yes, I have at least two Moonkin on the same server).<\/p>\n
The problem with the new RealID grouping is that there is no way in-game to replicate this service.\u00a0 Sure I can roll a toon on my buddies server and play with him, but what about friends two, three, and four if they are on separate servers as well.\u00a0 MMOs are inherently social games.\u00a0 Charging me extra to be social is pretty lame.<\/p>\n
My next big gripe comes from the “development of this service is expensive and Blizz needs to recoup investment” argument.\u00a0 Acti-Blizz recently announced that Blizzard’s net profits last quarter were $170 million.\u00a0 The customers are already investing in development.\u00a0 That’s part of the subscription. With $170 million dollars left over, surely they can pay a coder to finish this idea.<\/p>\n
Other people defend Blizz this time with the idea that “Blizz has limited resources and if they assign someone to this task, it should make money.”\u00a0 Hold up!\u00a0 Now you think it’s ok for Blizz to limit the development of the game for all of us to better the lives of a few.\u00a0 That really doesn’t sit well with me.<\/p>\n
Still others argue that the subscription has been the same since Vanilla and ask if it’s better to separate charges than raise the subscription.\u00a0 If we have to start picking services we get a la carte then WoW has become a Free-play game.\u00a0 We currently pay a subscription and that monthly fee should cover all game functionality.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Granted, a lot of the time I like to argue things on the philosophical level and while this alone isn’t going to establish a new class distinction in WoW.\u00a0 I do worry about the precedence a decision like this will set.\u00a0 A lot of folks have no issue with the new service as advertised but I wonder if they will say the same when Hard Mode development is considered Premium since not all players raid hard modes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the fast paced blog- o-sphere, a lot of really smart and insightful people have already weighed in on Blizzard’s recently announced plan to offer 5 man LFD support to Real ID.\u00a0 I intentionally waited a bit before I posted … Continue reading