Freemium WoW is not something Blizzard is 'spending a lot of time thinking about'

*takes off his pants and builds slow clap to a rapidly increasing bravo clap*

Needless to say; I've been boned by reply fail again.

At least it used to be my fault...

@3dpenguin It's pretty clear you don't actually play WoW. First off, the idea that people only play the game for that reason is absolutely anecdotal, as well as insulting, bullshit. It's an exceptionally well made game, and not developed half assed or lazily as you so crudely imply. Stepping between the world of Vanilla WoW and Wrath of the Lich King, you'd have to try, very very hardly, not to see the leaps in bounds they've made in terms of game design, hell even graphics despite peoples complaints.

@TheDarkWayne /starts a slow clap for TheDarkWayne

DarkWayne is right,

The problem I have had with getting through WoW is Azeroth, which (bar Northrend), is mostly an endless cycle of fetch quests and ganking. Cataclysm is exactly what WoW needs, as it is essentially an update to the old world to keep it up to date with Blizzard's MMO game design as shown in WotLW.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
*builds up slow clap*

@TheDarkWayne No, he's spot-on, in fact. All their content updates are merely palette swaps on creatures that have been in the game since the beginning. It goes up 10 levels and gets called a frenzied so-and-so instead of just a regular so-and-so. The gameplay is all really just click this, click that...with every action reusing a few basic set of animations. It doesn't really evolve are become more engaging as you go along. What you do the first 60 levels is pretty much what you'll do in every expansion after till either you run out of money or Blizz finally shuts the servers down for good.

In any other game, this would lead to disinterest and eventually the death of the franchise. WoW works because people become addicted and as mentioned above, are compelled to remain competitive with their friends.

@TheDarkWayne
You're not biased at all.

@McDude This guy got to lvl 30 and ragequit.

@3dpenguin
Actually Dark Wayne I've a few friends who play only to stay upto date that's it.

@TheDarkWayne No it is exactly why my freinds who play wow still play it. And they even admit they don't even like the game anymore. Its a chore they pay for. Before it was the same for me towards the end. The illusion was broken for me anyhow, enjoy the same content over and over again. (I have 2 80s and one in good gear for when I quit.

@TheDarkWayne

Well obviously you're playing a different game or you fall into the one of the category of the friend your friends are trying to keep up with. I have a level 80, only one. Why? Because no matter what class you play its the same friggin experience, just a different set of commands doing the exact same thing.

The lower level instances are fun when done at the right time, but the problem now is people try sneaking their lvl 80 friends into there to avoid the on slot of trash mobs which are in there, soot I've been brought in for that. The upper level instances/raids are filled with whiny players who complain because they know all (when they don't know jack), loot stealing leaders which nothing can be done to other than booting them from the group, and a bunch of elitist players who think that Blizzard should focus more on instances/raiding and PvP than game play because they have all that crap memorized now and don't want to play any other way.

I've been playing the game since 6 months after it came out and let me tell you I've gotten screwed over every way Monday through Sunday by Blizzard due to their play changes to try to keep people playing. Changes to get people to level quicker, which in some cases is a good thing while in other cases just creates a lot of lvl 80 noobs who didn't buy their characters.

The developments of certain classes which are a hodgepodge of ability creating self sufficient characters which can clear anything except the highest level content by themselves, we aren't talking solo runs at level 80 through level 70- instances, we are talking taking on classic raids by themselves and not dying, raids I might add still give most classes problems in small groups.

There are a bunch of noobs running around that think they know everything there is about the game even though the only reason why they've made it as far as they have is on the backs of people who've played the game through good and bad, with quite a bit of bad, and then they mouth off about them not knowing what they are talking about like a bunch of little spoiled brats who think they know better than their parents, and I suspect they mouth off to their parents also too.

The game is a bunch of lack luster quests, a bunch of instances which are basically all the same, there are a few here and there which are original, but most of the are start here end here and do crap in between, and a bunch of players who have nothing better to do than sitting around main cities making dirty jokes.

If you need more proof that Blizzard just wants to get and keep players playing/paying. Why do you think they changed the recruit a friend reward?

@3dpenguin What are you expecting? Enlightenment? It's a commercial game. Like any commercial game in a capitalist economy, it's chief measure of success and primary means of corporate survival is making money. Other objectives may be important, but are secondary.

Blizzard is a money-grubbing corporate whore just like every other corporation. However, the devil in the details: how well the company is able to merge its ability to fiscally survive, with its secondary goals, like its vision and mission--which could be something loftier, like "make awesome games".

I'd say Blizzard is better at that than most companies out there. Even their 5+ year old, over-milked, overwrought, overtweaked MMO is better than pretty much all its competition. You can call WoW unoriginal if you want, but at least they're being unoriginal within their own game. I feel twice as much pain for their competition, which generally seems content with making entire new games from an unoriginal core.

Again, I blame capitalism for this. Money is king, so when there is a formula, people stick to it. We're dependent on visionaries who don't give a crap about the status quo to bust some new moves out there. Most people making games probably don't feel they have a lot of leeway for experimentation, because hey...experimentation involves many failures...and failures don't pay the bills.

I'm not ragging capitalism, I like it for a lot of things...but I don't think there's many (any?) modes of thought out there that are perfect for every situation, and I don't think a money-necessity is good for artistic endeavors like games..

(oh wait, games aren't art...I forgot)

@3dpenguin There's nothing about this I can't support. That game is populated with a bunch of low self esteem rejects who scratch and claw over scraps to feel like they're somebody in a game, and the whole time you're trying to enjoy yourself, you gotta put up with that. As if the stale gameplay wasn't bad enough, you now gotta babysit baby huey....make sure not to upset him.

Was just a totally unenjoyable experience.

Then ignore them. I was able to find a good guild that I regularly went raiding with. The real draw of WoW comes when you actually get into the guild community, which allows you to regularly have fun events and raiding and the such.

@finnith WoW and all MMO's are a waste of time and money. They're just little skinner boxes to fill the void of sad people's lives.

The level of commitment required to excel in one, to schedule your life around a video game in any capacity, it's just dysfunctional.

@Fo0dNippl3

And in some places in the world microtransactions and virtual money are still illegal or up for debate.

@Abriael
Apparently Turbine is making a killing off DDO's freemium model.

@The Aquacharger
them saying "oooh yeah it's going great!" doesn't really constitutes "making a killing" revenue wise. Or maybe you expect them telling "no sorry, it's a completel failure, don't come play our games please, it's not worth it".
I would wait for an actual earnings call before talking about "making a killing".

As of now, the result I've been is a big bunch of newbies that disappear after two days. I seriously doubt they bring in a decent revenue.

@(Unverified)

None of those previous games except Diablo 2 ran on their servers, either. Battle.net was a matchmaking service, and all games except closed Diablo 2 Battle.net games ran on the players's computers. They didn't run on thousands of servers.

@Haggard

That's actually a pretty good idea. Leveling up, it's nearly impossible to find anyone who actually cares enough to bother with Classic raids, because they'll just get better content with a few extra hours of work.

Setting a level cap for F2P players would make PvP zones like Silithus and the Plaguelands actually something useful, instead of a depressing reminder of what once was

@Haggard Great idea... but Blizzard is about to redo all the old zones. For all players, not just people who buy the next expansion.

@Powerlord
I am pretty excited about the revamping of the old zones, and I guess that will entail changing the levelling process from 1-60 (or whatever), but it seems such a shame to just throw away all that awesome old content that could have been an awesome experience for new players.

@Rallion

"WoW players already freak out about people being able to get ahead in the game by spending cash,"

Doesn't everybody do this?

Because you should.

@Rallion Actually, they freak out about cosmetic changes that don't get you anywhere further than the next guy -_-

And no one is freaking out over the Space Pony mount anymore, that was last month.