Warlords of Draenor Dev Interview, Season 15 Begins, Season 14 Titles, Blue Tweets

[Stormykitten]

I feel like the purchased level boost is such a good example of the instant gratification mindset steadily growing these days. I am in the camp that doesn't think it is a huge advantage, I just don't want the precedent of that feature (and those that come after) to be around in my gaming environment. It's a shame it doesn't seem so high prio with everyone to look at big pictures, though.

As for the game itself, I am confident they are crafting a decent experience; for example I think using the trinket effects from SoO as stats is a good idea. Though i think they were tests anyway.

[Deleted]

There you go. Mirror of my thoughts.

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Please, explain me how buying a character to be levelled to 10 levels below the cap has an effect so bad that people will leave over it as the sole reason.

Perhaps he dosen't like content being trivialized or design decisions that put profit before game play or two tier system that allows the rich have a better in game experience or people being able to purchase in game advantages with outside wealth which has no place in a subscription game.

If you want a full explanation as to how this can have an adverse effect on the game email Blizzard.

[Moradim]

actually, pricing it at $60 does make sense profit-wise. they wouldnt make as much if people just bought xpacs to boost characters.

$60 is essentially an xpac + transfer to your account which is $25. if the xpac is $39, then the boost is slightly cheaper than that approach.

[Nerraw]

Perhaps he dosen't like content being trivialized

As my esteemed friend above said, the RAF has been around for years where people have bought extra accounts for themselves to take advantage. So has 3rd party levelling services. Why is this any different? Just because Blizzard is offering an easier way, a way that doesn't risk your account or is more complicated than it should be?

or design decisions that put profit before game play

If they wanted profit, they'd have made it a price that was easier for the average person to pay. This price ensures that the majority actually has to make a concious choice about whether it is worth to skip levelling for 60 bucks.

two tier system that allows the rich have a better in game experience

How so?

people being able to purchase in game advantages with outside wealth which has no place in a subscription game.

I still have to receive an answer as to how exactly buying a character 10 levels below the cap gives an advantage.

If you want a full explanation as to how this can have an adverse effect on the game email Blizzard.

I'm asking you as you're the one making the decision to leave. I keep seeing how this or that is bad for the game, but when asked directly people rarely seem to give a thorough answer.

[Siddown]

Perhaps he dosen't like content being trivialized or design decisions that put profit before game play or two tier system that allows the rich have a better in game experience or people being able to purchase in game advantages with outside wealth which has no place in a subscription game.

If you want a full explanation as to how this can have an adverse effect on the game email Blizzard.

Hmm, so twice you posted that the level 90 had no impact on him, then you came up with a whole bunch of impacts. So which is it? And yet, you won't answer a simple question that has been asked of you directly at least twice, what advantage does someone gain from boosting to 90? Also, considering every customer will get one for free, doesn't that completely discard your "outside wealth" argument?

If you can't express how something negatively effects you, then I'm not sure why anyone should bother listening to you if you complain. It's not like anyone's asking for a complex argument, just "this negatively effects me by X, and this is how it does so".

So if you want to say "it trivializes old content", that's fine, but explain how it does, but also explain how RAF or Heirlooms didn't do the same thing. If your or he can't do that, then you really just complaining for the sake of complaining.

[Deleted]

As my esteemed friend above said, the RAF has been around for years where people have bought extra accounts for themselves to take advantage. So has 3rd party levelling services. Why is this any different? Just because Blizzard is offering an easier way, a way that doesn't risk your account or is more complicated than it should be?



If they wanted profit, they'd have made it a price that was easier for the average person to pay. This price ensures that the majority actually has to make a concious choice about whether it is worth to skip levelling for 60 bucks.



How so?



I still have to receive an answer as to how exactly buying a character 10 levels below the cap gives an advantage.



I'm asking you as you're the one making the decision to leave. I keep seeing how this or that is bad for the game, but when asked directly people rarely seem to give a thorough answer.

Allowing people to skip 90 levels completely is trivializing the content completely - it may as well not be there.
If the feature was put in for game play reasons it would be free. This is purely a profit making issue.
I fail to see how any one cant see how allowing people with money to skip content isn't a two tier system.
Leveling is always an advantage and this has the added advantage of time. If there was no advantage how on earth would you sell it?
As I said ask Blizzard about the potential dangers to the game. You yourself have said "If they wanted profit, they'd have made it a price that was easier for the average person to pay". Have you not asked your self why that is or are you too busy only seeing the facts you want to see while busily contradicting yourself.

BTW 3rd party leveling services will get you banned.

[Azrile]

actually, pricing it at $60 does make sense profit-wise. they wouldnt make as much if people just bought xpacs to boost characters.

$60 is essentially an xpac + transfer to your account which is $25. if the xpac is $39, then the boost is slightly cheaper than that approach.

Exactly, so many people are crying over this without realizing that selling level boosts was never their intention.

1. A lot of returning players and new players are put off about having such a long time after their purchase until they can play with their friends

2. Blizzard realizes that having a boost to 90 for free with an expac will drastically increase sales to returning players and new players.

3. Blizzard realizes that it will now be possible for current players to buy an extra ex-pac, boost a character to 90, then do an account transfer to get that character on their main account

4. Blizzard decides it is just easier for them to implement a cash-shop boost for the same amount of money as #3. Blizzard actually saves money because if a player does #3, it requires a human being employee to do the character transfer, but the character boosts they implemented for #2 is fully automated.

The purpose of all this was to get returning players and new players to not feel intimidated about the ´100 levels´ ... #4 was just a secondary thing.

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At launch they said that this game would ever sell anything with real money. Then they said that they will sell server transfers as a favour to us (instead of giving them free), but would never sell anything in-game related. Then they said that the mounts and whatnot are only cosmetic, and that they would never sell anything that has impact on the game. Now they are saying that they will never sell anything that has impact on max level, like gear, but I think everyone can see where we are headed in a couple of years with this trend.

And all the pricing choices are to maximize profit from the game as a whole. So when they are playing the semantics game and telling you that they choose the price not to maximize the profit (from that one particular services), they are taking you as a fool. Don't be one.

Quote please where the devs or anyone at Blizzard said they would ´never´ sell cash-shop items

Quote please where they said they will never sell in-game items

You are just making stuff up to feed into the slippery slope ´theory´.

Honestly, I have no idea why people would quit over a lvl 90 character with crap gear... Have you not heard of RAF? The Guardian Cub? If you were going to rage quit about something, you should be long gone with those two. Those two things completely gut your ´slippery slope´ theory because they are WORSE than the 90-boost...

But really, stop quoting Blizzard on things they never said. Blizzard is way smarter than you guys and never says never. You are just inventing quotes.

[Deleted]

Do you understand how much time consuming 1-100 will be?
Stop with the P2W bullshit, it's just a very expensive shortcut for someone who got money and not enough time, being max level doesn't wins you anything if you are incapable of end gaming PvP or PvE.

Yes, I know how much time 1-100 will take: exactly the same, or even less than what it takes to level 1-90 right now.
It's unreasonable to expect otherwise.

And that time is even lower than the time it took to level 1-60, 1-70, 1-80 or even 1-85, when Vanilla wow and those expansions were relevant.
The time it takes to reach max level is continuously decreasing due to nerfs to XP/level required and to the addition of Heirlooms. The number 100 is meaningless, even for a newcomer.

[Azrile]

Yes, I know how much time 1-100 will take: exactly the same, or even less than what it takes to level 1-90 right now.
It's unreasonable to expect otherwise.

And that time is even lower than the time it took to level 1-60, 1-70, 1-80 or even 1-85, when Vanilla wow and those expansions were relevant.
The time it takes to reach max level is continuously decreasing due to nerfs to XP/level required and to the addition of Heirlooms. The number 100 is meaningless, even for a newcomer.

That is just not true. You hear it all the time on MMO forums and I am sure Blizzard has extensive marketing that says that a ton of people do NOT return because they feel so far behind. In reality, you are correct, the time it takes to level to 100 is probably less than it took me to level to 60 the first time.. but there is a psychological component to it too. The bigger the number gets, the longer it seems to get there.

DDO has a lvl cap of 28, that sounds a whole lot more inviting then saying 100

[Deleted]

Exactly, so many people are crying over this without realizing that selling level boosts was never their intention.

1. A lot of returning players and new players are put off about having such a long time after their purchase until they can play with their friends

2. Blizzard realizes that having a boost to 90 for free with an expac will drastically increase sales to returning players and new players.

3. Blizzard realizes that it will now be possible for current players to buy an extra ex-pac, boost a character to 90, then do an account transfer to get that character on their main account

4. Blizzard decides it is just easier for them to implement a cash-shop boost for the same amount of money as #3. Blizzard actually saves money because if a player does #3, it requires a human being employee to do the character transfer, but the character boosts they implemented for #2 is fully automated.

The purpose of all this was to get returning players and new players to not feel intimidated about the ´100 levels´ ... #4 was just a secondary thing.

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Quote please where the devs or anyone at Blizzard said they would ´never´ sell cash-shop items

Quote please where they said they will never sell in-game items

You are just making stuff up to feed into the slippery slope ´theory´.

Honestly, I have no idea why people would quit over a lvl 90 character with crap gear... Have you not heard of RAF? The Guardian Cub? If you were going to rage quit about something, you should be long gone with those two. Those two things completely gut your ´slippery slope´ theory because they are WORSE than the 90-boost...

But really, stop quoting Blizzard on things they never said. Blizzard is way smarter than you guys and never says never. You are just inventing quotes.

Give me a link to all the old forums and I will. And in my opinion, even though if there was an option for a 'wow' without cash shop I would take it, I dont think any of the implementations have been damaging to the game directly, but combined with developers having to eat their words time after time, they do reveal a nasty trend that will lead to a game that I don't want to play anymore, so I'm talking against it while there is still time to avoid it.

Also while the crappiness of the current community and in-game mentality is a result of many small things, cash shop is one of them.

[Doomchicken]

I do not personally believe a thing such as paid 90's should exist in an MMO but at the same time I do understand that it's not 2005 anymore and that if such a service entices old players to come back then that will ultimately benefit the health of this game. It's not P2W, but skipping leveling is against the spirit of MMORPGs, even if it is an archaic spirit. But that is just my opinion of course.

[Deleted]

lol at the horde bitching and moaning about the 2 BG they don´t win all the time.

[Gray_Matter]

The majority of the people supporting the $60 price tag are those people who feel that boosting is bad or at least provides a gate to limit the number of boosts. These people have no intention of boosting characters and if they do, it will be at most one or two missing 90's. The people who would actually see a tangible benefit from the boosts are for the large part saying that the price is way too high.

If we take Blizzard at their word that the $60 price is to "devaluing the accomplishment of leveling" then I would say that they have made a terrible mistake by listening to all of the doomsayers. They did it with Cata and they are doing it again now. The game is only special enough for heavily invested people to pay $60 for a boost. i.e. The existing customers. The free boost might pick up a few renewals but the majority of people considering returning to the game will not fork out an extra $60 just to skip some boring content. They will rather just toss the game to one side.

There is absolutely no, zip, zero accomplishment in leveling to 90. If a bot can do it then it's pretty meaningless. It takes no skill. It's boring and just takes time.

All I can say is "Well done guys, you have gotten your wish. WOW is now even more exclusively yours".

Personally, I do think they priced it there to maximize profits. Why else did they cancel RAF? To encourage people to buy the boosts instead of using RAF for a boost.

[Nitrax]

Leveling is a chat window where you have to click a lot =) I have no problem with boosting to 90... and i won't buy the service. Actually I think it's great we have a bigger chance to get the right classes for our raids.

[Nerraw]

Allowing people to skip 90 levels completely is trivializing the content completely - it may as well not be there.

It would be. If...

If the feature was put in for game play reasons it would be free. This is purely a profit making issue.

...it was free. If it was free, anyone would take it at any time without a thought, except for the few hardcore who truly enjoy spending days on levelling a character. Hell, I'd take it for all my characters. As has been said many times, Blizzard has discovered, most often the hard way, that people take the easiest/least time-consuming/most profitable option, regardless of whether they would enjoy something else.

I fail to see how any one cant see how allowing people with money to skip content isn't a two tier system. Leveling is always an advantage and this has the added advantage of time. If there was no advantage how on earth would you sell it?

I do not deny the time advantage. That is the reason why people are willing to pay in the first place. However I don't see other advantages. The only other advantage there might be is learning to play your character. That has luckily already been addressed in that pre-levelled characters will go through a DK-like starting zone where abilities are unlocked over time to allow players to learn their character. And the new Proving Grounds requirement for certain dungeons will certainly weed out the worst there is. I see no other issues that a lack of levelling would provide. Especially not when you consider that you'll be receiving a character at 10 levels below the max.

As I said ask Blizzard about the potential dangers to the game. You yourself have said "If they wanted profit, they'd have made it a price that was easier for the average person to pay". Have you not asked your self why that is or are you too busy only seeing the facts you want to see while busily contradicting yourself.

Why is it then?

BTW 3rd party leveling services will get you banned.

Quite right. If they are caught. I'm sure there are people out there who will claim it has never happened to them.

[Deleted]

You could argue that in a PvP server it is p2w, because not everyone gets through leveling to max in PvP server without giving up. Also if two guys start at the same time, and one buys level boost, he will have huge advantage in world pvp due to using leveling time to get max level gear, when the other guy finally reaches max level. World pvp that could be about resources in a world where you can not fly, and those resources could get you max profession and earn you a spot in a raiding guild, while the non-boosted player gets left behind. It's highly theoretical, but you can't say that it doesn't have any potential to effect the game.

Some ask why drop RAF for this, well to go from "this game will not sell anything with real money" to "p2w" you need to take baby steps and this is one of those steps to conditionalize people to accept that in-game shops are normal and needed. Streamlining, especially is very slippery sloap argument. Afterall, you could always streamline people selling fully geared characters in ebay or whereever to the in-game shop.

[Deleted]

It would be. If...



...it was free. If it was free, anyone would take it at any time without a thought, except for the few hardcore who truly enjoy spending days on levelling a character. Hell, I'd take it for all my characters. As has been said many times, Blizzard has discovered, most often the hard way, that people take the easiest/least time-consuming/most profitable option, regardless of whether they would enjoy something else.



I do not deny the time advantage. That is the reason why people are willing to pay in the first place. However I don't see other advantages. The only other advantage there might be is learning to play your character. That has luckily already been addressed in that pre-levelled characters will go through a DK-like starting zone where abilities are unlocked over time to allow players to learn their character. And the new Proving Grounds requirement for certain dungeons will certainly weed out the worst there is. I see no other issues that a lack of levelling would provide. Especially not when you consider that you'll be receiving a character at 10 levels below the max.



Why is it then?



Quite right. If they are caught. I'm sure there are people out there who will claim it has never happened to them.

So now you admit there is an advantage one which is only available to those with wealth. It is clear that Blizzard see that allowing too many people to use the feature would be bad for the game (something you cant seem to see) and so they limit its use by imposing a high fee. They could have done this via other ways but instead they chose to make money out of it. They are effectively making money out of poor content with no replay value.

What they have done is made a 2 tier system making less well off players get level 90 characters in "a less reasonable way". In other words the wealthy get a better in game experience which I feel is unacceptable in a P2P game.

Interestingly, if you exploit your way to level 90 you would be banned, but the effect on the game is exactly the same as someone purchasing a boost via the shop. Why would you be banned?, for exactly the same reasons that allowing the skipping of content is a bad idea.

Blizzard used to believe in a level playing field, not so much these days.

[Siddown]

So now you admit there is an advantage one which is only available to those with wealth.

Blizzard used to believe in a level playing field, not so much these days.

Well, I guess we can argue about what your definition of "wealth" is. First off, everyone gets one free boost, so that eliminates that. Secondly, is $60 too much for a game that has a $15 a month charge, a $40-60 price for the expansion that requires broadband internet that runs at least $50 a month? Saying this particular $60 fee is suddenly an advantage is being a bit to cute. I'm not saying $60 is nothing, but the costs to play WoW (PC + Internet + Subscription + Expansion) is much greater than $60. And how come this subject never comes up about server transfers or buying a second account to RAF?

But ignoring the money, it still doesn't answer the question, if you are a player today and have a 90, where is the advantage that people are getting with "wealth"? WoD is probably four to six months away, there is plenty of time for a current subscriber to get any number of characters to 90 prior to the release of the expansion.

Personally, I will never pay for a boost, so I get you there. But it really seems like you're taking this to the extreme to try and find problems that don't really exist, or if they do you are greatly magnifying them to make them seem much worse than they really are.

[Kirtaner]

Why else did they cancel RAF? To encourage people to buy the boosts instead of using RAF for a boost.

...RAF isn't being retired though, your argument is invalid.

[Nerraw]

So now you admit there is an advantage one which is only available to those with wealth.

It is clear that Blizzard see that allowing too many people to use the feature would be bad for the game (something you cant seem to see) and so they limit its use by imposing a high fee.

If they wanted profit, they'd have made it a price that was easier for the average person to pay. This price ensures that the majority actually has to make a concious choice about whether it is worth to skip levelling for 60 bucks.

They could have done this via other ways but instead they chose to make money out of it.

How would you have done it then? I have seen this said many other times, but people rarely come up with viable alternatives.

They are effectively making money out of poor content

Personal opinion.

with no replay value.

If that is the case, then none of the game can be said to have any replay value. Why would you kill a boss again after the first time? The gear just makes you kill it faster next time, it won't be a new experience.

What they have done is made a 2 tier system making less well off players get level 90 characters in "a less reasonable way". In other words the wealthy get a better in game experience which I feel is unacceptable in a P2P game.

Again, personal opinion. If the level boost was easier to get, I'd take it like I've said before. Not because I dislike questing (I actually like it), but because it would get me to the endgame faster which, to be quite honest, is where most of the gameplay is located in the game currently.

Interestingly, if you exploit your way to level 90 you would be banned, but the effect on the game is exactly the same as someone purchasing a boost via the shop. Why would you be banned?, for exactly the same reasons that allowing the skipping of content is a bad idea.

Using the game in an unintended way can usually have some side-effects that are not always readily visible to an outside observer. And for reasons stated above, Blizzard clearly does not like the thought of making anyone able to skip to 90 as they please. But for other reasons they have also explained, they have wanted a catch-up method for a while. And that is why the expansion carries a free boost with it. And as they said just yesterday, people would surely buy more expansions in other to boost more characters. Blizzard likes to simplify things, if you believe what people are saying. Why should this be any different?

Blizzard used to believe in a level playing field, not so much these days.

If they were of that mindset, they'd start selling gear. If Joe buys a level boost to 90, Mark is no worse off than he would have been otherwise. Both still have to level 90-100 by themselves. They just arrive at the same destination a bit apart (and Joe has 60 bucks less to spend on RL stuff).

If however Mark bought the Conquest PvP weapon if that were available to buy for cash, then Joe would be at a rather severe disadvantage in the game. There's a rather large difference between a purely convenience-based advantage, and a player power-based one.