New Real ID Party Feature Now Available for Testing

Originally Posted by Tharkkun

Oh the subs lost argument again. Let's see some numbers right now.

Free account/trial account has always been there. It just doesn't expire now and stops at 20 which is similar to other games.

RAF to 80 is a no brainer. Who's going to recruit a friend and stop 25 levels before the max. It should have been upped every time the level cap raised. Don't confuse Blizzard with being naturally slow to react to things with desperation.

The free account giveaway he was talking about was the full game (classic, then free upgrade to TBC) given to veteran wow players. They weren't trials.

Tbh i do everything with my guild .. i dont really care about this twoddle .. esp payin extra for it

Originally Posted by Gigantus

Yeah it's not like we WoW is a subscription-based game and we have to pay a monthly fee in order to fund running and development costs.
Oh wait...

Oh wait... The same monthly fee that hasn't gone up in almost 7 years. But i'm pretty sure the cost to run the game and for develoment stay the same huh?! Oh wait... Lets not raise the cost of the monthly fee, lets just something that only a few people might so we don't have to raise cost?! Oh wait...

Originally Posted by Tharkkun
You are right. That's brand new then. They are trying to salvage a dying game. Wow is not!

Originally Posted by bubblehearth

looks at the subs lost in march
looks at the free account give away
looks at raf changing to 80

i beg to differ

Like whit Rift. All this is B/C WoW sadly is dieing. Its 1-aid to keep the customer staying and paying.
What WoW needs is something new that bring WoW in the front of all MMO. To charge more money is not the way.

wow, this is quite the big deal to people. am i missing something, or can't you just not pay for it if you don't want it? :x

can u inv a player to dungeon finder not from your battlegroup? i mean ex i have some friends in the french server.

Premium services? what is this EA? deal breaker for me and so many other people...not looking good blizzard

Originally Posted by ordhor

If this gets to be a paid feature expect more ingame features to be changed to premium.
It will be the start of WoW change to be a Free For All game, with stuff like Dungeon Finder to be premium

The downfall of warcraft will begin with Blizzard saying this Real ID party feature to be premium

Whoa, I think your tinfoil hat came off.

Besides, it's been stated that only the *inviter* needs to have paid for this premium addon not the other members of the party.

Originally Posted by Amerrack

Oh wait... The same monthly fee that hasn't gone up in almost 7 years. But i'm pretty sure the cost to run the game and for develoment stay the same huh?! Oh wait... Lets not raise the cost of the monthly fee, lets just something that only a few people might so we don't have to raise cost?! Oh wait...

Oh goody, so more people playing the game than ever before all paying a monthly subscription, and paying for expansions doesn't cover that? A Blizzard store selling vanity items, and a premium remote AH feature doesn't cover that? You are talking out of something that isn't your mouth. I suggest you get a clue.

Now gold transfer between realms becomes limitless.

If Blizzard makes the party feature a premium membership deal they will get my middle finger because no one will use it for what it's really worth then: the ability to make friends in LFD groups and party with them again. The way Real ID works now makes it a feature only worth using for close chat buddies but with this feature LFD dungeons might stop being alienated by anonymity since e.g. if you befriend that tank instead of pissing him off you could group with him again and not have to wait 30 minutes to get into a dungeon.

I think this decision will be important to the future of WoW: Cataclysm isn't doing as good as WotLK because of its lack of new features and if Blizz decides new features should be sold separately from expansions then it will truly be the mark of the game's downfall. I don't think Blizz will even make as much from making this a premium feature as they would from adding it for "free" since it might bring more customers back to the game/keep people playing for longer.

Is this live on EU yet?

The fact that they are letting us test it for free tells me something. Being able to use this gives people a chance to judge it. If it really is such a big deal im sure something would be done about it, because people are not paying for it and calling it a greedy thing or something(i dunno), and blizzard is being sent complaints. They seem aware of cost conserns so who knows what could happen. Maybe the costly features wont be the most obvious ones. And if it is maybe they'll remove the price from that part and add something else in place. Many wow players have realID friends. Just wait til testings over. Then they'll judge whether its worth buying. It doesnt even seem like that big a deal but the players might think otherwise. (think of it as a guy taste testing a new product and not buying it.)

Thats the best answer I can give.:/

ill say hurray for the honor points

WoW Killer = WoW It's self... Blizzard is going to gouge it's community on one title, only to piss them off enough to goto the next title they release, 'cause they won't charge for w/e.

(e.g.) Blizz high-up #1: "Oh no, we're losing subs for WoW.. How will we ever get them interested in our next game?

Blizz high-up #2: "I got it! We'll make them almost hate us for charging for every little thing in WoW. That way when we release our next one and call it free, (for the most part) they'll flock to it!"

Blizz high-up #3: "Genius!"

NEED THIS IN EU :-( wana play with my friends on other realms ((((

Premium!??!? Why on earth should you pay for services in a game that cost money to play, this is the most silly thing ever..

Originally Posted by Violent

WoW Killer = WoW It's self... Blizzard is going to gouge it's community on one title, only to piss them off enough to goto the next title they release, 'cause they won't charge for w/e.

(e.g.) Blizz high-up #1: "Oh no, we're losing subs for WoW.. How will we ever get them interested in our next game?

Blizz high-up #2: "I got it! We'll make them almost hate us for charging for every little thing in WoW. That way when we release our next one and call it free, (for the most part) they'll flock to it!"

Blizz high-up #3: "Genius!"

i remember when i said i would never pay for ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE SUB ITSELF

.... server transfers, pets, name changes, faction changes... ya, ive done those

Originally Posted by Soapie

Basically what I'm seeing this is as their attempt to double charge customers. I am perfectly fine with charging for things that are outside of game play such as the mobile armory and some of the special pets. However out subscription fee is supposed to go to maint. development and access to everything within the game. By even thinking of charging for a feature that is inside the game, using a feature that is basically forced upon everybody they are planning to double charge customers.

And you don't think our subscription fee isn't spend on those pets/mounts/oustidegame features? Of course it is. The mounts and pets and mobile AH was just the start of this all, as many people stated back then, and here we are. Surprised I haven't seen a "told you so" post yet, to be honest. The pets and mounts was just paving the path for more, mellowing us up for more premium crap, and this too seems like a small feature, so after pets and mounts, why not.... Etc.

I understand Blizzard is a company but if they'd up the quality of their game they wouldn't have money/stockholder/CEO issues to begin with. We're 6 months into this game and look in what state Cata is? I mean I'm not complaining, I'm enjoying Firelands progress, but let's be fair, the majority of players can't touch that content with a 12 foot stick and they're stuck doing the same shit they've been doing for months on servers that get emptier and emptier by the day. I for one am absolutely sick and tired of ZA/ZG, I mean I was sick and tired of them when they were raids, and I don't even do them so often, so yeah I can imagine why people just unsub this game. Why would they pay for the same grind for months?

That's the bottomline. They're pumping subscription money in mounts, pets, mobile AH, now this real ID feature, instead of improving the quality of the game overall. It's a bandage to an issue that can only be fixed by improving the quality of the game.

---------- Post added 2011-07-15 at 03:39 AM ----------

Originally Posted by kittenboots

wow, this is quite the big deal to people. am i missing something, or can't you just not pay for it if you don't want it? :x

It's about the principle behind it. We already paid for the development of it with our subscription money, so no, we can't decide to not pay for it - and besides, where does this end? Are we gonna be paying for premium features from now on with our sub money, and will normal content available to everyone come even more scarcely than it is currently?

I think these are valid concerns and yes it pisses me off no end that Blizzard is trying to milk customers this way instead of improving their game so people actually want to stick around (see my previous post).

Originally Posted by reverendball

so

let everyone test it for free

then make everyone pay for it once they decide they like it




sigh

gg

Agree...depending on which way they go with this it could be really good or really bad.

Premium?? WTF do we pay each month?

Other games let you xfer servers once a week...