Cross-Realms Battle.net Invitation now Activated

Originally Posted by vertex705

perhaps this will shed some light on the matter

Why does that picture say Holland is in Belgium?

I don't understand people saying "I pay the subscription fee, why should I pay more to get more than what I get from the subscription fee?"Are these paople also saying "hey, I pay for main course, why should I have to pay for desert and drinks as well?"Also, I wonder if the subscription fee had been 13 dollars and they added a premium of 2 dollars - whould you be similarly upset as well, when you'd end up paying the same as you do today? Think of this as instead of an overall price raise, it is a price raise for those who want to pay some extra while no one else needs to.

I don't understand people saying "I'd gladly pay for something that takes next to zero development dollars just because Blizzard made it." This should have been in the game, there was no reason for it not to be. It probably took maybe a few thousand dollars, probably a few hundred dollars of time to actually implement this because most of the work was already done, but they're going to charge for it despite it costing literally pennies and they can potentially make tens of thousands of dollars? This is a nice feature, but its not game breaking, its pretty silly, actually. Blizzard can more or less do anything they want and an army of cock drunk Blizzard fanboys will rise to defend them, even if Blizzard just raped their mother and billed them for it. Also, quit buying the $25 mounts. They aren't worth it, you're stupid. Even the blizzard charity pets are stupid, I can't begin to understand why people would buy them. If you want to give to charity, give to a charity you believe in, don't buy a $10 moonkin pet or something equally ridiculous to give to a charity you don't know or care about. (but if you do care about that charity and want some sort of Blizzard pet, go for it (even though thats just buying a thing from Blizzard and not actually donating to charity in the first place)) Does all the income from the Charity pets even go to Charity? knowing how money grubbing Blizzard is, I really really doubt it. I'd guess 60% goes to charity. Fanboys are the root of all evil, fanboys are really why it still costs an insane amount of money for a fully automated process that needs no human interaction to transfer a character or race change or whatever. That service has already paid for itself a billion fold. Don't be stupid.

Originally Posted by inboundpaper

Neat. Can anyone confirm if you can Que for bg's with it?

Only dungeons atm.

Originally Posted by ez100

i really have to pay more money just to play with friends? /facepalm

hey at least they didnt put in another retarded looking mount on the blizzard store that every kid will buy

If Im gonna pay extra for this service I want to be able to group with any of my friends in the game, cross server or cross FACTION.

Originally Posted by LOLMUSTACHE

I don't understand people saying "I'd gladly pay for something that takes next to zero development dollars just because Blizzard made it." This should have been in the game, there was no reason for it not to be. It probably took maybe a few thousand dollars, probably a few hundred dollars of time to actually implement this because most of the work was already done, but they're going to charge for it despite it costing literally pennies and they can potentially make tens of thousands of dollars? This is a nice feature, but its not game breaking, its pretty silly, actually. Blizzard can more or less do anything they want and an army of cock drunk Blizzard fanboys will rise to defend them, even if Blizzard just raped their mother and billed them for it. Also, quit buying the $25 mounts. They aren't worth it, you're stupid. Even the blizzard charity pets are stupid, I can't begin to understand why people would buy them. If you want to give to charity, give to a charity you believe in, don't buy a $10 moonkin pet or something equally ridiculous to give to a charity you don't know or care about. (but if you do care about that charity and want some sort of Blizzard pet, go for it (even though thats just buying a thing from Blizzard and not actually donating to charity in the first place)) Does all the income from the Charity pets even go to Charity? knowing how money grubbing Blizzard is, I really really doubt it. I'd guess 60% goes to charity. Fanboys are the root of all evil, fanboys are really why it still costs an insane amount of money for a fully automated process that needs no human interaction to transfer a character or race change or whatever. That service has already paid for itself a billion fold. Don't be stupid.

Yeah, I'm consistently shocked by how much abuse fanboys will put up with. It's kind of sad, actually, given that they're being blatantly used by the very company they love so blindly.

I suppose much of it comes from their lack of knowledge of the development process, and just how little time it really takes to create recycled content or features like this cross-realm RealID (nearly the entirety of the back-end coding/"tech" for this feature has been in-game since patch 3.2, which in turn was based largely on coding/tech they'd done back in Vanilla for BG's - so much of the work for this has been done since Vanilla).

Originally Posted by k1037

Yeah, I'm consistently shocked by how much abuse fanboys will put up with. It's kind of sad, actually, given that they're being blatantly used by the very company they love so blindly.

I suppose much of it comes from their lack of knowledge of the development process, and just how little time it really takes to create recycled content or features like this cross-realm RealID (nearly the entirety of the back-end coding/"tech" for this feature has been in-game since patch 3.2, which in turn was based largely on coding/tech they'd done back in Vanilla for BG's - so much of the work for this has been done since Vanilla).

And even if it was timeconsuming, no argument can ever defend a premium feature within a pay to play game.

We'll see how it works out. I've written so many posts about this on various forums (being strongly against any premium or micro transactions within a pay to play game), and I'm drained, there's been no official reply except some political blahblah that essentially stated exactly what we all fear.

I did random troll heroics all night with 4 of my buddies from 3 different servers. It was awesome

While I do love this feature, I feel like paying for this would be like paying for the LFD tool. It has been possible to end up with people from other realms in your dungeons for a long time, and even requeing to a new dungeon with those individuals. Blizzard basically added the functionality to invite people cross-realm. And this is even limited to your RealID friends.

But I am actually a little excited to see how this whole Premium ordeal will turn out. I could see them giving a set amount of server transfers and recustomizations per month or something to any subscribers. And while I see your point, LOLMUSTACHE, you must remember that not all the realm transfers are going as planned - and fixing any mistakes or having support to deal with issues related to the service is costly. Making the service free would really hurt many realms, as players would swoop around at random and leave "ghost town" realms behind for good. Giving a set amount of transfers per month would also lead to some players feeling they *have* to use the feature and seek even greener grass on other realms. While slightly exaggerating, I feel having a slight cost to these services makes players think twice before they start moving around. But I could totally see Blizzard adding a "Move Guild" feature that would give players of e.g. a certain guild reputation level the ability to transfer freely for that *one* payment.

Originally Posted by davep

Why are you guys saying that this should be free? If this was free it would completely make paid transfers worthless.

Paid transfers costing as much as they do was a mistake in the first place. I know they want to "upsell" their existing customers, but playing with your friends in an MMO is the only reason you keep playing an MMO. Connecting you with friends is what retain subscribers long term.

After most of my guild got banned for botting (dumbasses) I still had friends on at least 4 other realms I would have gladly joined up with to keep playing. But the hell if I'm paying more money for them to deign to let me keep playing their game. I canceled and spent the $55+ on other companies' games instead, and get to keep my $15/month too. If Blizzard had let me play with those other friends I'm certain I would have gotten sucked back into raiding and leveling alts instead of quitting.

In short: retaining subscribers > upselling subscribers. That's why playing with friends should be free.