15 euros for an appearance change is a ripoff tbh

[JustRob]

I am not calling it that but you used it as a reason for wanting it did you not? Then you claim you don't rp or said it so which is it?
Talking out of both sides of your mouth makes your point you are trying to make look real bad

No I didn't, end of story. Wanting my character to look different is not using RP as an argument.

[Deleted]

No I didn't, end of story. Wanting my character to look different is not using RP as an argument.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...5#post39950285

You typed that merely 1 hour ago. You're just trolling at this point.

[Jewsco]

Maybe you change your mind later on? And customization in an RPG is pretty important

So this isn't you saying this then? Are you not saying in a rpg it is a big deal? Try to not make yourself look foolish

[Zka]

Then don't use it.

[Deleted]

So don't use it.

This is the hardest concept kids have these days.

yet its not there money there spending

[Incarnia]

-snip-

I'm sure you're right on this. However, it would be interesting to know how many more that would buy the services if the price dropped. I know I would be more willing to use them. Currently I don't, unless a sale happens. Which it does every once in a blue moon.

[JustRob]

So this isn't you saying this then? Are you not saying in a rpg it is a big deal? Try to not make yourself look foolish

Dude, just because you care about what your character looks like in an RPG, doesn't mean you have to RP.

God you guys are thick as fuck.

[Deleted]

I think its pretty clear if you cut a fair amount of income from a product, the product quality drops, regardless its current state.

Why do you think that? Blizzard said they doubled the WoW dev team in MoP, but the quality dropped. So clearly there is no directly link between resources used and the quality, or even quantity, of content in WoW. And it makes sense if you think about it for a bit. The quality of WoW depends on the passion, skill and dedication of the developer team, as well as the development process itself. Just throwing money at it is not going to fix any of the problems Blizzard is having with WoW, nor will throwing less money at WoW cause it to get any worse. Remember that Blizzard built a better version of WoW with less resources than they currently use.

Also, by making changes like stopping their anti-player ripoff pricing might very well lead to higher subscriber counts, which might end up generating more income.

[Micronetic]

You are 100% correct, it's nothing more than a rip-off. I'm pretty sure that with currently technology they could easily add both appearance and gender changes to the barbershop.

Nah it's too hard, like make the starter bag bigger :-D

[Deleted]

Dude, just because you care about what your character looks like in an RPG, doesn't mean you have to RP.

God you guys are thick as fuck.

But you did state customization is important for RP reasons. Which is exactly what you are now denying you said.
We're not talking about RP as in "/me drops on his knees at the crooked table in the common floor of the Goldshire Inn", we're talking about RP as "you are playing an avatar you created in a world where that avatar plays a specific role". Which is exactly what an RPG is about.

You're being thick here.

- - - Updated - - -

Why do you think that?

Read my posts, I explained it at length. It's basic understanding of P&L movements.

[Jewsco]

Dude, just because you care about what your character looks like in an RPG, doesn't mean you have to RP.

God you guys are thick as fuck.

But YOU cited it as a reason so who is now thick? Or are you now claiming you didn't type that?
I never said you had to rp YOU brought this up not me.

[Violetti]

in a subscription model appearance changes should be just as free as item recovery

i would not bother changing the ingamelook either way.

[Deleted]

Read my posts, I explained it at length. It's basic understanding of P&L movements.

Read my post, I explained why you cannot think about this in the simplistic terms that you're proposing.

[Deleted]

Read my post, I explained why you cannot think about this in the simplistic terms that you're proposing.

Just because you don't comprehend what I wrote doesn't mean it's simplistic. Have another go at it, I'll quote it again just so I can make sure you've seen it. I haven't seen you refute a single point of my analysis.

It's impossible to argue with people who are as business savy as a wet cardboard box. You can't apply flawed preschooler gutfeeling logic to business decisions with bottom line ramifications based on baseless conjecture and anecdotal lack of evidence.

In the end, Blizzard is running a business and no matter how nice all the corporate governance speak and stakeholder value models are, eventually a publicly listed business has to deliver shareholder value to stay afloat. And you don't deliver shareholder value with "Free", which does not exist in economics.

Depends if they measured the price elasticity for these kind of services. I imagine that the margin is fairly high, though I have no idea how high. Let's run some scenarios with a fictitious €20 service:

Price	Price Decrease	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%
19	-5%	+20%	+14.3%	+11.1%	+9.1%	+7.7%
18	-10%	+50%	+33.3%	+25.0%	+20.0%	+16.7%
17	-15%	+100%	+60%	+42.9%	+33.3%	+27.3%
16	-20%	+200%	+100%	+66.7%	+50.0%	+40.0%
15	-25%	+500%	+166.7%	+100%	+71.4%	+55.6%
14	-30%	Loss	+300%	+150%	+100%	+75%
13	-35%	Loss	Loss	+233.3%	+140%	+100%
12	-40%	Loss	Loss	+400%	+200%	+133.3%
11	-45%	Loss	Loss	Loss	+300%	+180%

Row 1, column 3-7 are different gross margin ratios. The value indicated in the table is the extra volume required to break-even with the original starting point of a €20 service for a given gross margin and a given price reduction.

Don't think for a second that Blizzard is not approaching it like this. Most people have no clue how big of an impact price drops have out of your own margin, especially if margins are on the low end of the scale.

That's not even factoring in an economical application of the Weber-Fechner law where a -5% in a €20 price range is less salient than a -5% for a €2000 price range, and thus will not trigger a similar volume uptake.

[JustRob]

But you did state customization is important for RP reasons. Which is exactly what you are now denying you said.
We're not talking about RP as in "/me drops on his knees at the crooked table in the common floor of the Goldshire Inn", we're talking about RP as "you are playing an avatar you created in a world where that avatar plays a specific role". Which is exactly what an RPG is about.

You're being thick here.

- - - Updated - - -



Read my posts, I explained it at length. It's basic understanding of P&L movements.

But YOU cited it as a reason so who is now thick? Or are you now claiming you didn't type that?
I never said you had to rp YOU brought this up not me.

You win, I give up

[Deleted]

Just because you don't comprehend what I wrote doesn't mean it's simplistic. Have another go at it, I'll quote it again just so I can make sure you've seen it. I haven't seen you refute a single point of my analysis.

It's impossible to argue with people who are as business savy as a wet cardboard box. You can't apply flawed preschooler gutfeeling logic to business decisions with bottom line ramifications based on baseless conjecture and anecdotal lack of evidence.

In the end, Blizzard is running a business and no matter how nice all the corporate governance speak and stakeholder value models are, eventually a publicly listed business has to deliver shareholder value to stay afloat. And you don't deliver shareholder value with "Free", which does not exist in economics.

Hey look, we found the first year community college econ major! Maybe next year they'll teach you why these toy models are not actually used in practice. And maybe you should reflect on why this has nothing to do with your original claim that "if you cut a fair amount of income from a product, the product quality drops."

[Glaziola]

I bought 1 appearance change and 1 server change within 10 years.
I dont care about the price, if you really want it, you will pay for it. If not live without it.

[Granyala]

I personally wasn't a fan of any of the new art work and thus went back to the original looks. To waste so much time and development on this art work when it wasn't really needed and on top of it being bad is pretty sad.

I wouldn't necessarily say that all of the new models are bad. The ones where they invested more time like the dwarf look good.

But it's painfully obvious that much of it was a rushed job and also it is obvious that these artists are not the same people that created the original models.
Hence the shift in design to more wild.star ish facial animations etc.

[Bapestar]

I want to download an album from itunes, there is no reason why that option should be excluded from just having itunes for free.

See how your logic fails there?

What? You can change hair color and a few other things but not skin color.

[Evilfish]

Since you can change most stuff now the service is kind of pointless. Never stopped Blizzard from asking money for it, but then again they have the support of their fanboys who disagree with you on principle when they can stop talking about developer abs or whatever elements found in the bottom of the askissery pit.