Activision Blizzard Q3 2012 Earnings Call

[Dasffion]

Some of us didn't play in TBC. I came in a year into WotLK from EQ2 (having burned out). For those not playing then, the grind is a grind. I finished the Aldor/Scryer achievement just before MoP was released, and the grind was switching to the other faction. I had to go from Aldor to Scryers in a day that didn't have the tokens to just buy to switch (and if any were available so expensive to not be worth it). So I spent days JUST grinding for those turn ins. It was remembering the endless shard runs from EQ2's TSO...the very reason I burned out of EQ2, again. I was so sick of Dampscale eyes that dropped like 1 in 4. As a Holy paladin I killed thousands of basilisks to get them.

Even 2 expansions later, it was a chore. I got so fed up with it, I stopped doing the last rep grind I had in TBC.

There's getting rep, and there's making a game a second job. TBC style grinding is not fun and turns out to be a job if you want to complete it within your lifetime (as you have to fit that grind into the current expansion duties, too).

You "had" to go from Aldor to Scryer? No, you didn't, especially since it's out of date content. Those factions were designed as a difficult choice and switching between them wasn't supposed to be easy. Also, those factions were more required in TBC than the factions now are because of the Shoulder Enchants. There was no where else to get shoulder enchants and they were BoP so you couldn't get them from the AH from someone who doesn't mind a little "work".

[Glorious Leader]

I suspect that you seem them as being less rewarding because you have not gathered their full fruit?

What? dungeons? Dungeons are less rewarding. That's by design. The overall game is also less rewarding on a daily basis but potentially more rewarding in the long run. Who cares though? In the long run were all dead. I'm not playing wow for what I can get 2 months from now. I'm playing today because I want to log on, run dungeons for a couple of hours and be rewarded. Not two months from now when they decide the next tier is out and you can suck it. Making boring and unrewarding content won't hold subs anymore than being to slow to release content. In the end boredom is boredom whether it's because of lack of things to do (ostensibly the cataclysm model) or because content isn't rewarding enough when it's fresh (mists).

[Cybran]

I suspect that you seem them as being less rewarding because you have not gathered their full fruit?

I don't know about him, but i am exalted with all daily factions except August. I am 18000/21000 with them will be done soon. I got the Klaxxi epic neck and ring as well since they are very well itemized unlike the MSV drops.

All in all i sat up will 2 am for 2 weeks to finish my dailies and felt like crap at work. I hated every second of the dailies, but they are mandatory.

[Glorious Leader]

I don't know about him, but i am exalted with all daily factions except August. I am 18000/21000 with them will be done soon. I got the Klaxxi epic neck and ring as well since they are very well itemized unlike the MSV drops.

All in all i sat up will 2 am for 2 weeks to finish my dailies and felt like crap at work. I hated every second of the dailies, but they are mandatory.

I've got bad news for you. Unless you change that position expect to have a shitty time in mists. My suspicion is that most of the content they are going to release in between raid patches will be more daily quest rep grinding. I understand why you feel they're mandatory though but you should probably abandon that philosophy unless you want to abandon the game.

[det]

Apparently numbers stayed at 10 mill and there will be no new info? (according to the newspage here)

[Dasffion]

Mike Morhaime was beating his chest that they are "happy more frequent content is being pushed"... but i'm not seeing it. No new raid in 5.1 and next tier will likely come with the next book around late April next year...

Dailies and the Brawler nonsense is not real content and they will figure that out when they hit 8 million subs in Q4.

Whether you think so or not, "Dailies and the Brawler nonsense" is real content. Raids aren't the only type of content that people care about.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

WHowever it's simply a non starter for discussion when people try and compare the rep grind in mists to TBC. It's simply not true and the ignorance on the large part of the community is so vast in this it's stunning. Even if it was true then it's simple foolish that the developers would turn back to this. It's not 6 years ago. The game moved on and progressed on. It should have kept doing that.

It's foolish that the devs returned to THE grind, after saying they don't want players to return to it.

The comparisons are there because it mimics that grind. Closest it got to TBC grinding in Cata was Molten Front and/or Avengers of Hyjal (which required downing raid bosses after revered...I refused to go back in after the nerf, too). I hated Molten Front but did it to level the guild so it had a purpose beyond the outdated gear. MoP they associated much more to the grind, which is there only as a means to gate players from eating through content. THAT is probably where the most disgust lies as it comes off so artificial.

There's better means to gate content instead of grinding, but for whatever reason Blizzard doesn't/hasn't implemented it into the game (like the HQs and/or Signature quests EQ2 has -- yes they're harder to produce, but the rewards are worth it, and 10x less grinding in that regard. Only one HQ I did required a grind, but that is better than all these reps in WoW to grind for gear that is worthless quick. How many grind Aldor/Scryers for the enchantments or tradeskill recipes these days, too? Few).

Put that money to good use on content that has better rewards regardless of expansion.

[Thetruth1400]

Considering that the expansion just came out, I'm not surprised that they're at 10 million again. In all honesty though, that's not a lot of players rejoining compared to other expansions. Q1 will be the real test though. Q4 will be a slight predictor, but the holidays may skew those numbers as well.

[Dasffion]

Considering that the expansion just came out, I'm not surprised that they're at 10 million again. In all honesty though, that's not a lot of players rejoining compared to other expansions. Q1 will be the real test though. Q4 will be a slight predictor, but the holidays may skew those numbers as well.

Everyone wants to keep pushing back the goal posts. Everyone said that the Q3 call would tell because that's after the annual passes started to run out. Now they say Q4 and you're even pushing it back to Q1. Why don't we just say Q4 of next year?

[Glorious Leader]

It's foolish that the devs returned to THE grind, after saying they don't want players to return to it.

The comparisons are there because it mimics that grind. Closest it got to TBC grinding in Cata was Molten Front and/or Avengers of Hyjal (which required downing raid bosses after revered...I refused to go back in after the nerf, too). I hated Molten Front but did it to level the guild so it had a purpose beyond the outdated gear. MoP they associated much more to the grind, which is there only as a means to gate players from eating through content. THAT is probably where the most disgust lies as it comes off so artificial.

There's better means to gate content instead of grinding, but for whatever reason Blizzard doesn't/hasn't implemented it into the game (like the HQs and/or Signature quests EQ2 has -- yes they're harder to produce, but the rewards are worth it, and 10x less grinding in that regard. Only one HQ I did required a grind, but that is better than all these reps in WoW to grind for gear that is worthless quick. How many grind Aldor/Scryers for the enchantments or tradeskill recipes these days, too? Few).

Put that money to good use on content that has better rewards regardless of expansion.

It doesn't mimic it though. I did the revered reputation grind for heroic keys in TBC on three toons. It was a PLEASURE compared to mists because even though it may have taken more time, the fact is that the majority of that time I was also getting gear from the dungeons. The rep grind was tied to getting gear so it ended making both activities super rewarding. I was constantly having reward thrown my way. Either through getting gear in the dungeon or getting rep in the dungeon. Now with mists I'm not, certainly not as much anymore. It really hid the "grind" of rep and made it as pain free as possible. Even scryers because I got turn ins for them in dungeons normal and heroic.

Having said that we can be fellow travellers in this discussion because even if they did mimic it (which would potentially be better) you would still be accurate in saying that it is a bad decision on their part. The game became a success by moving away from grind. By being more progressive than the other purist mmos who were stuck in outdated and outmoded models of doing things. Regressing back isn't the cure.

[ZenX]

I don't know about him, but i am exalted with all daily factions except August. I am 18000/21000 with them will be done soon. I got the Klaxxi epic neck and ring as well since they are very well itemized unlike the MSV drops.

All in all i sat up will 2 am for 2 weeks to finish my dailies and felt like crap at work. I hated every second of the dailies, but they are mandatory.

It only takes me a total of 2 hours to complete the dailies of War Factions.

Furthermore, I am working almost day and night nowadays making my sleep more precious for me than WoW, hence, I'm not really able to play except weekends but I have no problem at all since I know that I will eventually be there sitting at exalted with them somehow.

Your problem may be due to you forcing yourself to do them. If your problem is having to choose between a game due to monetary value I can understand your concern, however, other than that it might be better for you to stay away from the game for awhile(Granted that you will be going for august celestials and order for your alts) as long as this model persists.

It doesn't mimic it though. I did the revered reputation grind for heroic keys in TBC on three toons. It was a PLEASURE compared to mists because even though it may have taken more time, the fact is that the majority of that time I was also getting gear from the dungeons. The rep grind was tied to getting gear so it ended making both activities super rewarding. I was constantly having reward thrown my way. Either through getting gear in the dungeon or getting rep in the dungeon. Now with mists I'm not, certainly not as much anymore. It really hid the "grind" of rep and made it as pain free as possible. Even scryers because I got turn ins for them in dungeons normal and heroic.

Having said that we can be fellow travellers in this discussion because even if they did mimic it (which would potentially be better) you would still be accurate in saying that it is a bad decision on their part. The game became a success by moving away from grind. By being more progressive than the other purist mmos who were stuck in outdated and outmoded models of doing things. Regressing back isn't the cure.

So you got your Hellfire Ring as well then?

Asking this question as it seems that you like the diablo model more than you like WoW's, aka you are perhaps a bit reward-addicted...

[Kevyne-Shandris]

You "had" to go from Aldor to Scryer? No, you didn't, especially since it's out of date content. Those factions were designed as a difficult choice and switching between them wasn't supposed to be easy. Also, those factions were more required in TBC than the factions now are because of the Shoulder Enchants. There was no where else to get shoulder enchants and they were BoP so you couldn't get them from the AH from someone who doesn't mind a little "work".

Who are you to judge what I needed or not? You are not judge or jury.

I switched professions to Enchanting and I never got the Scryers BS recipes either (which were more Holy paladin like), so you bet I did it so I could clear up my missing recipe book.

For YOU you didn't need to do it, I did. Those are end-game pieces for level 70 twinks or trial users, and I got enough requests for TBC gear TO go after all world drops and more.

So YOU don't know what you're talking about "need".

[Glorious Leader]

So you got your Hellfire Ring as well then?

Asking this question as it seems that you like the diablo model more than you like WoW's, aka you are perhaps a bit reward-addicted...

Oh shit no. The only thing less rewarding than mists is Diablo 3. I gave up after getting my barb to 60 and hitting the inferno wall. Fuck that. I could farm act 1 till my eyes bleed and the only thing i'd have to show for it was a pile of gold which sadly meant very little in an inflated economy.

[Dasffion]

Who are you to judge what I needed or not? You are not judge or jury.

I switched professions to Enchanting and I never got the Scryers BS recipes either (which were more Holy paladin like), so you bet I did it so I could clear up my missing recipe book.

For YOU you didn't need to do it, I did. Those are end-game pieces for level 70 twinks or trial users, and I got enough requests for TBC gear TO go after all world drops and more.

So YOU don't know what you're talking about "need".

I'm not judge or jury but I can tell the difference between a want and a need. You didn't NEED to do that. You could have leveled an alt to do it so you wouldn't have to switch or you could have just not gotten it at all. You made the choice to do it because you saw profit in it. There wasn't anything requiring you to do it.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

It doesn't mimic it though. I did the revered reputation grind for heroic keys in TBC on three toons.

In TBC.

Now do them again not in TBC.

See the difference?

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 10:48 AM ----------

I'm not judge or jury

Then don't claim anyone that they don't need to do anything.

YOU don't need to do something, others will see that they do.

Learn the difference.

[Glorious Leader]

In TBC.

Now do them again not in TBC.

See the difference?

The difference is that the rep grind isn't couched as part of the normal dungeon progression. It's been delinked. However even in TBC it was combined. The current way of doing things is UNIQUE to mists.

[Dasffion]

In TBC.

Now do them again not in TBC.

See the difference?

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 10:48 AM ----------



Then don't claim anyone that they don't need to do anything.

YOU don't need to do something, others will see that they do.

Learn the difference.

You left the other part off. I can tell the difference between a want and a need. Why did you NEED to do those rep grinds? Oh right, you didn't. Learn the difference.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

You left the other part off. I can tell the difference between a want and a need. Why did you NEED to do those rep grinds? Oh right, you didn't. Learn the difference.

Your want is not my need and it's worthless.

Get it yet?

[Archidamos]

Q3 finishes at September 30 2012. Numbers will be heavilly pumbed by the new XPac sales.
Since they anounced already that game was at 10,2 mil by the end of first week of MoP, most likely the number is anywhere between 10 and 10,1 million subs having in mind that only the first 3 days of MoP count as "Q3" and on the other hand, that most of those that wanted to return to wow for the XPac must have done it asap.

For the reference, MoP box sold 33k coppies between 13 and 20th of october according to Vcharts.

[Glorious Leader]

Your want is not my need and it's worthless.

Get it yet?

Don't fucking bother. People like the guy your quoting are actually in reality REALLY entitled. They have all the presumption in the universe to tell you how to play and what you need and what you don't because they feel entitled to have everything and only have their way of play rewarding. Theirs no sense in talking to people like him because their view is so narrow.