Patch 5.4 PvP Mounts, In Game Store Update, 5.4 PTR Notes Update, Blue Posts, Comic

[Daeaye]

For once, not keen on the Horde mount. There are already too many skeletal horses in game. Perhaps there are too many nightsabres, too, but playing mainly Horde, I don't notice much regarding the Alliance.

And I also have to say that this in-game store (or, more specifically the elixir) has really upset me. I'm usually quite pro Blizzard, because I believe they wouldn't do anything if they didn't have to. But this elixir has concerned me.
If it will only work on levels 85+ then great. But to be able to use it from level 1, 10 or 30 or anything like that seems a bit much. There are almost enough heirlooms in game to fully kit you out. Oh no! Some heirlooms don't go past 80! Oh well, just deal with those last 10 levels without two or three of your heirlooms.

What concerns me the most is that it's getting to the point now where it's all becoming a mad dash to the finish line. Perhaps it's just me, and perhaps most people want this, but I am concerned. The only thing that will set my mind at ease are restrictions, such as a minimum level needed to use the elixir rather than buy it. Call me selfish but it would ruin the game for me if other people were to be level 10 one day and level 90 three days later (that is, without insane grinding but just through casual-ish playing).

Still, my voice alone won't change things, I know that, so I'm giving my 2c here. Hopefully Blizzard will give us more details before too long.

[shadowfyre27]

I agree if they do expand the cash shop to sell a larger variety of items such as the xp buff, transmog armor (no stats on it), more mounts, pets then yea I would like to see the sub price lowered. They make a ton of money already with the pets and mounts they sell so with a larger amount of items they can afford a lower sub like say $10 a month.

[Spectre72]

So, one of the items Blizzard is trying out in their store is an Elixir that players can buy to help speed up the leveling process and players are upset over this why? Is it because this is perceived as a precursor to Blizzard adding other items that players feel will turn the game into more of a (p2w) model with a sub? Maybe this is Blizzards way of trying out the micro transaction model in World of Warcraft to see how well it does so as to move away from the Subscription based model. I'm not sure if that's the goal, but from everything I've read online the Subscription based model isn't doing all that well, and it would seem that the f2p with a micro transaction store is the way to go.

[Mrisacc]

Pretty sure it's impossible for a DK to have corrupted ashbringer since it was a Vanilla weap and dk's weren't active until two expansions later.

Impossible now maybe with all the fixes to transmog, but in the past there are a select few death knights that had the opportunity to tranmog corrupted ashbringer. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Raylonn/simple

[mistersamman]

I wouldn't mind dropping a few bucks to save some time leveling an alt.

[shadowfyre27]

It's not the xp elixir that has people upset as far as I know, myself included. It's them selling the lesser charms that is upsetting people. I have pointed out in my previous posts my PoV in that by selling the lesser charms they effectively selling gear which is what none of us thing is appropriate for a sub based game to do. I have no problem with the xp buff being sold that's fine but I do not and will never condone them selling lesser charms or gear or anything of the sort.

[fleps]

I don't understand why the Horde mount has "blueish" colors on it. It would make way more sense to be "redish".

And I think it's about time to make those new mounts flyable, so much work on it to just be able to use it on BG's.

[Duster505]

Why would anyone BUY lesser charms? The damn things are practically falling out of the skies these days, and I know no one in the US or EU is asking for it. I've got nearly 6000 of the damn things, and will likely have more than I need unless they're implemented as a mechanism in the next expansion.

It's almost as if it's a pressing need for a market where people buy time and have the ability to play only by the hour, where the biggest MMO names are all F2P.

You know, like Asia. Like the blue post says.

Stop greasing the slippery slope, guys.

If Lesser charms are easy to get now... doesn't mean that will be the case in 2 years time. And then you might need 1000 to just make one bigger one. Thats how these game claim they are making the game "easier" for players when in fact they can just develop it so that ppl are not forced to grind it. We can bet that we will see alot of grinding for lesser charms if they will be put into ingame store.

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I wouldn't mind dropping a few bucks to save some time leveling an alt.

I wouldn't mind Blizzard then going back and rebalancing the game back to 50 lvls instead of 90 so that the leveling experience for EVERYONE is fun and enjoyable... not just for those that pay extra to get rid of the grind.

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The thing is, and I've said this about other games, is that it's not really play 2 win, it's more play 2 speed up the process. If you want to take the slow and steady route to obtaining xp and charms, then you can, if you're willing to speed up the process, then there's a small fee. It's like how you pay to get into Universal Studios and then you can pay extra to jump to the front of every line. True pay 2 win would be "$50 gets you an uber elite group of NPCs that will clear any heroic raid for you."

It is pay to win. Imagine world first guilds spending hours upon hours grinding Lesser charms (Blizzard WILL increase the grind like every F2P game out there) when they can just buy them and spend more time on bosses. That would ofc be ok IF ppl were not already PAYING for just login in in the first place. Lesser charms should not be added into the game in the first place to "improve" the RNG.

The fact of the matter here is that Blizzard is trying to make new ways to make revenues cause they are loosing big atm in terms of subs. AB lost 28% in profit last year and WOW was the biggest loss of revenues of any AB game. THATS what is happening now... Game development has become last choice of interest for them. Its all about money.

[Revak]

Why not just let people pay for a toon to get boosted to either 60, 70, 80, or 85 (anything but the leveling of the current xpack). Blizz has made it obvious they do not care about the leveling process. I also think that maybe they could ease leveling further for those playing alts. When you have a toon hit 1000 valor all your other toons on that server get a 50% buff to the valor they acquire. Why not let your account get a 5-10% xp buff per character you hit max level on during the xpack. First toon has no bonus. After hitting 90 on that toon the 2nd toon gets a permanent added 5% boost, 3rd 10%, 4th 15%, so on and so forth. On top of the boa gear and guild perks.



Also, if they introduce all this "pay for" stuff on top of subscriptions I really hope they actually start releasing more content instead of less and less.

[Ganksinatra]

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Perhaps you should all take a deep breath an realize that it won't matter if someone buys 50 or 5 million LESSER charms from the in game store, because they can only redeem 50 a week. Jeez you all squirt out a litter of puppies every time they post something you think MIGHT effect you, and instead of actually thinking about it rationally, you spaz out and throw a toddler tantrum. And people wonder why Blizz has lost so many subs. It's entitled whiners like you that have made this community toxic, and a large reason why I left.

[markdall]

1. Maybe I need to finish my coffee but wtf is Counter Shot?
2. "as well as an alternate way to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune." and wow just became P2W.

[Deleted]

How much would you guys pay for a faster level flask? I assume it is Bind to account.

I'm thinking 9.99? But i imagine they are thinking 24.99.

Discuss..

[VanishO2]

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Perhaps you should all take a deep breath an realize that it won't matter if someone buys 50 or 5 million LESSER charms from the in game store, because they can only redeem 50 a week. Jeez you all squirt out a litter of puppies every time they post something you think MIGHT effect you, and instead of actually thinking about it rationally, you spaz out and throw a toddler tantrum. And people wonder why Blizz has lost so many subs. It's entitled whiners like you that have made this community toxic, and a large reason why I left.

"The sky is falling! You should all take a deep breath an realize that they're just pets and mounts"

"hi dear blizzard customers, we're implementing the realid system and thanks to the success of the pet/mount selling, we're selling it as a subscribe service and..."

See where we are going? Oh, you weren't around when they tried to $$ the realid? Sad.

And who said you won't be able to bypass the redeem limit? LoL... it's $$. That those charms will even obey the in-game redeem rules?

When you start charging for stuff, you actually need to make it viable and interesting to buy instead of farm. That's what every single cash shop game does. They're checking if they can deal with the uproar by releasing tiny infos about the itens... "ah, it's just a xp boost", "well... i don't even farm lesser charms anymore...", "hummm... an extra raid lockout per week? I guess it won't change the game...", always the "it's random drop anyway". "Increase your bonus roll drop chances with Store Fortune Elixer Boost...".

A game I've played for years before WoW, they started just like that, the game died. "it's just a xp potion", but the game started taking 1% xp of you if you died, "it's just a ticket for extra something"... in the end, you could buy even SELF-battle resses...

They start selling convenient stuff, things to just ease or improve QoL... but QoL, convenience, etc. is all relative. Soon buying a characters, gear, etc... can be considered improved QoL.

I can easily bet my money on a rep gain booster for next xpac with them going again with all this rep gatting madness for everthing in the game.

[Squirreludecker]

you wouldnt believe the anger that was set off on my mumble server when i said asia would get the cash shop "First". i guess now they can direct their anger toward MMOChampion too.

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"The sky is falling! You should all take a deep breath an realize that they're just pets and mounts"

"hi dear blizzard customers, we're implementing the realid system and thanks to the success of the pet/mount selling, we're selling it as a subscribe service and..."

See where we are going? Oh, you weren't around when they tried to $$ the realid? Sad.

They NEVER tried to sell the RealID system as a premium service. It wasnt even an option, just a rumor, spread by people who dont pay attention, such as you

[The Ogdru Jahad]

With these hunter changes incoming, and a lot of other classes getting some substantial ability/talent changes, even new glyphs which I've seen a ton of people excited for... I gotta say blizzard is really delivering some good class balance fixes this coming tier. I'm excited to see how it pans out for Pvp! But the SoO raid isn't really grabbing me yet. Still waiting on some more bosses!

[Worgoblin]

Conquest Point rewards for winning a random or call-to-arms Battleground match has been increased.

Nice. I love random BG's, so this makes me happy

[krabork]

The beginning of "pay to win".

[pepe2c]

they had 2 change WW mastery otherwise Rune of Re-Origination would had been the BiS till next Exp

[Ganksinatra]

"The sky is falling! You should all take a deep breath an realize that they're just pets and mounts"

"hi dear blizzard customers, we're implementing the realid system and thanks to the success of the pet/mount selling, we're selling it as a subscribe service and..."

See where we are going? Oh, you weren't around when they tried to $$ the realid? Sad.

And who said you won't be able to bypass the redeem limit? LoL... it's $$. That those charms will even obey the in-game redeem rules?

When you start charging for stuff, you actually need to make it viable and interesting to buy instead of farm. That's what every single cash shop game does. They're checking if they can deal with the uproar by releasing tiny infos about the itens... "ah, it's just a xp boost", "well... i don't even farm lesser charms anymore...", "hummm... an extra raid lockout per week? I guess it won't change the game...", always the "it's random drop anyway". "Increase your bonus roll drop chances with Store Fortune Elixer Boost...".

A game I've played for years before WoW, they started just like that, the game died. "it's just a xp potion", but the game started taking 1% xp of you if you died, "it's just a ticket for extra something"... in the end, you could buy even SELF-battle resses...

They start selling convenient stuff, things to just ease or improve QoL... but QoL, convenience, etc. is all relative. Soon buying a characters, gear, etc... can be considered improved QoL.

I can easily bet my money on a rep gain booster for next xpac with them going again with all this rep gatting madness for everthing in the game.

That's a TON of assumptions on your part. Since you're apparently some sort of psychic, can I get this week's lotto numbers? These are totally quality of life items they are selling. If they still gate xp gain at whatever it is for top output with the leveling items we already have, the only people who would buy these is those who don't have that gear already. Furthermore, getting the lesser charms is easy already. Merely being able to pay instead of farm for them is a QoL improvement. It is NO DIFFERENT than spending an hour doing dailies or farming Barrens bosses, they just have more income and less time. And I think this is what it really all comes down to. Jealousy has a way of tainting someone's perception of life.

EDIT: Oh, and I've played up until last month from launch. When my guild started screwing me out of loot with these odd rules, I knew that the community had soured enough for me to bail, and I am playing Rift until FFXIV:ARR or EQNext launches. There was NEVER a plan to sell RealId as an extra sub. It was more conjecture and assumption from people like you that started that rumor.

[Whopoppedhero]

The funny thing is that's pretty much what they are offering. Technically speaking by offering to sell lesser charms they are by proxy offering to sell you the best gear in game. You can't truthfully say that they aren't. As I pointed out lesser charms lead to a chance at gear. For heroic raiders this means that you can technically speaking purchase thunderforged heroic items. Is it a sure thing you will get a thunderforged heroic item? no, but then you can therefore it is by proxy technically selling BiS gear and that you can't say it isn't.

As per the "we'll never see this on western realms" can you absolutely with 100% certainty say this? Are you the person behind this idea and therefore know exactly where it will be deployed? If not then you can't say for certain that it won't be done here. That is the point many of us are making. We want to make our voices loud and clear now before Blizzard gets anymore of an inkling that this will be acceptable here. They have made it clear to us that the Asian market is only the first place they want to implement this which infers they have plans for other markets as well. And yes I know this isn't the official forums but they are currently down and there's a discussion about here so we are voicing our opinions here currently.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the massive hyperventilation that's going on here. Actually, it's not akin to selling gear. It's akin to buying Charms, which DO NOT guarantee gear. It's a gamble (everyone has the same chances), it's limited per week (everyone has the same limit), and more often than not, leaves you empty handed. That's the luck of the lottery. Let's be honest about what the real issue is here for all the whiners, at least regarding Charms, as we really have no other clue as to what Blizzard may or may not offer from an In-Game Store. It's not the purchase of Charms or other said convenience (EXP boost) items that irks them; they're butt hurt that others would be able to bypass doing dailies or other grinds for Charms. The real issue is time commitment; the whiners see their time and effort in game as more valuable than someone's time and effort out of game. Believe it or not, people who will pay for Charms are putting themselves more at risk that those who don't; if they lose on their bonus rolls, at least the person who didn't pay can say "well, my there goes the time I invested in grinding, better luck next week" whereas the person who paid loses both time AND money. Such is the nature of gambling. I say if people want to pony up and chance the odds, let them. Bonus rolls don't guarantee anything, you can't say otherwise.

I'm not arguing for or against an In-Game Store, but you make it seem as if heroic thunderforged BiS gear is going to rain from the skies. Guess what? It won't, just like it doesn't currently.