World of WarCraft - Transmog Helmets Coming to Store

It's not so much beginning as continuing. I'm trying hard to get up in arms about this, but I just can't.

Scratched wrote:

It's not so much beginning as continuing. I'm trying hard to get up in arms about this, but I just can't.

Why? It's just cosmetic stuff from what I see.

obirano wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It's not so much beginning as continuing. I'm trying hard to get up in arms about this, but I just can't.

Why? It's just cosmetic stuff from what I see.

F2P micro transactions in a sub based game?

garion333 wrote:
obirano wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It's not so much beginning as continuing. I'm trying hard to get up in arms about this, but I just can't.

Why? It's just cosmetic stuff from what I see.

F2P micro transactions in a sub based game?

They aren't taking anything away from those who are paying the sub. Don't buy them if you don't want to.

What I was getting at is that this is not a new road for them to be going down, they already sell cosmetics (pets, mounts) and have done for years so it's just further steps down that road.

This is the first piece of equipment you can buy. And they will be offering exp boosts as well for sale. So it will not stop just here.

Again, experience boosts aren't anything new, although possibly the only way you could get them for cash earlier was with another account.

With all the changes that WoW has had over the years, I'm just struggling to see this one as a major gamebreaker by itself or the straw that breaks the camel's back.

obirano wrote:
garion333 wrote:
obirano wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It's not so much beginning as continuing. I'm trying hard to get up in arms about this, but I just can't.

Why? It's just cosmetic stuff from what I see.

F2P micro transactions in a sub based game?

They aren't taking anything away from those who are paying the sub. Don't buy them if you don't want to.

Yeah. I don't see any harm in purely cosmetic microtransactions of this kind. There is zero incentive to add them to the game if they're not going to charge for them, especially reading just how much detail is going into some of those items.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

This is the first piece of equipment you can buy. And they will be offering exp boosts as well for sale. So it will not stop just here.

Getting exp in Wow is trivial already, and the vast majority of their player base is up at max level. Now players that want to level alts have an alternative to cut down on the time investment. Hardly what I'd call a competitive advantage.

I think it'd be wise to save our vitriol for F2P models that are actually damaging to the player base and overall experience instead of every new one that is revealed.

I just wish they'd go F2P already.

garion333 wrote:

I just wish they'd go F2P already.

With around 8 million subscribers, I just don't see why they would want to yet.

It probably depends on the market. Remember that that 8m isn't all in one region, and the regions are very different.

I can agree with the F2P sentiment though. I bailed out a few years back, and wouldn't mind looking around again, but needing to pay a sub and buy the latest expansion(s) is a bit of a hurdle. Properly going F2P would require quite a bit of work and redesign.

obirano wrote:
garion333 wrote:
obirano wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It's not so much beginning as continuing. I'm trying hard to get up in arms about this, but I just can't.

Why? It's just cosmetic stuff from what I see.

F2P micro transactions in a sub based game?

They aren't taking anything away from those who are paying the sub. Don't buy them if you don't want to.

I posted a slightly longer version of this on a blog, but the short version is that you're wrong. When you're taking folks off of making art assets to go in the game without passing through the store to make things for the store, you're absolutely taking away value from folks who are paying and forcing them to pay extra.

Calling it now; someone's gonna get pissed and GC's gonna try and pass off the pet store art team as separate, which is a big bag of malarkey. Splitting off artists to make pay stuff is crap, same with hiring new ones for the same.

Really? Is it really going to be that big an impact? For a game the size of WoW?

Given that they've all but shelved 5 mans for small group content in favor of LFR and scenarios? As much as I wouldn't think it's an issue, it appears to be an issue.

AnimeJ wrote:

Given that they've all but shelved 5 mans for small group content in favor of LFR and scenarios? As much as I wouldn't think it's an issue, it appears to be an issue.

I'm sure that decision has nothing to do with the vast majority of players being laser focused on "OMG RAID PURPLEZ!!" and not really caring so much about what's done with 5 man content.

Elycion wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:

Given that they've all but shelved 5 mans for small group content in favor of LFR and scenarios? As much as I wouldn't think it's an issue, it appears to be an issue.

I'm sure that decision has nothing to do with the vast majority of players being laser focused on "OMG RAID PURPLEZ!!" and not really caring so much about what's done with 5 man content.

You'd be surprised. There's been enough of an outcry about the lack of 5 mans in every patch that there's been a dev blog about it.

5 mans are brutal these days.

They're almost impossible to screw up because most everyone in a group is so OP.

But they're also impossible to run in a heal or tank off-spec because everyone is in there to collect their VP and woe to the person who slows down that train. (I've been that guy. Not fun.)

Scenarios at least have the pretense of being fun, and LFR has the pretense of needing some skill.

AnimeJ wrote:

Splitting off artists to make pay stuff is crap, same with hiring new ones for the same.

What? I can ALMOST see where you are coming from with the first point, but bringing in new artists to work on Microtrans stuff? How does that negatively affect the game?

Honestly I can't see why people get all worked up on optional cosmetic items for microtransactions. It's a good way for a game to get a revenue stream without negatively impacting the gameplay experience for those who don't want them.

Valmorian wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:

Splitting off artists to make pay stuff is crap, same with hiring new ones for the same.

What? I can ALMOST see where you are coming from with the first point, but bringing in new artists to work on Microtrans stuff? How does that negatively affect the game?

Honestly I can't see why people get all worked up on optional cosmetic items for microtransactions. It's a good way for a game to get a revenue stream without negatively impacting the gameplay experience for those who don't want them.

I explained it previously, but the short version is that at some point in time, they've had to take time and money away from the game itself to pay artists and developers to create something that costs money above and beyond the sub.

If WoW was modeled such that the store was a primary source of revenue, I've got no gripes about them using previous funding streams to bring in new hires to finance stuff to go in the store to have more money to keep the game rolling as a whole. But in this case, where subs are the primary funds source for development, in addition to being a not insubstantial amount of money, they're taking away from what people are paying their subs for, and putting that towards store items, which is pretty crap.

Sure, that developer time doesn't come free, but you're talking a handful of helmets or armour sets in a game that's got hundreds if not thousands of them, and it's not exactly a high-fidelity game that requires painstaking modelling for every one. At this point rolling out a piece of armour is just executing a process for them.

It is, but the argument is that there's definitely a good bit of work going into those; as much if not more as is going into raid quality gear. And even though it is all just part of design process, the thought is that those hours could be better spent elsewhere on things that are going to better subscribers directly, rather than providing store content to provide funding streams that are, in all likelyhood a higher profit ratio.

Business wise, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the decision; it's better for the bottom line, and the stockholders are all about increased monetization of everything and anything out there. But I'm not a stockholder, I'm a customer, and to me, even if I'm impressed by the design, or like it, or even spend money on it, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't prefer them to be putting those artist's hours on something else that I'd rather see[size=1]coughcharactermodelredesigncough)[/size]

Speaking of shareholders, Activision Blizzard bought back a huge chunk of Vivendi stock, and Blizzard is down to 7.7 million subscribers (minus 600K for the quarter).

I think the biggest footnote in all this is that Chinese web portal Tencent is part of a consortium (led by A-B CEO Bobby Kotick) that now owns about a quarter of Activision Blizzard.