New Stuff Coming to the Pet Store!

[Deleted]

Here is a (better) analogy

That was a total fail, sorry.

You're buying 2 separate products from 2 different manufacturers who are not in any way affiliated. Why would you even try to compare that to a sub-based game that is allowing microtransactions? You don't pay the gas station $15 every month. The only thing you provided an analogy for is not having enough money to afford a luxury. That has nothing to do with the current situation. The point is - you already pay Blizzard regardless of whether they provide any new content that month or not; therefore, any and all art/sound/story assets they create IN HOUSE (so books, cards, toys are exempt as they don't make those themselves and it isn't a drain on the resources you are paying for) should be put in the game FOR FREE because you have already paid for its development cycle.

Also when I said extortionate fees I was talking about their whole ethos of charging for anything they possibly can; faction and realm transfers for example - those are pretty "essential" to the play experience. They seem to think so too actually, considering the amount of energy they are spending just now (only took them what, 5 years?) looking to implement new realm-tech in an attempt to save their ailing game population.

[Shaley]

You don't pay the gas station $15 every month.

You're right, I pay the gas station 150 dollars a month. Guess what? The dollar soda on the inside doesn't come with the purchase of Gasoline.

That's it. I'm done going to that Gas Station. It's unfair that I pay so much for gas and I don't have free access to everything inside.

[Zaries]

So what if this is a method of recuperating revenue from lost subs? The money is going towards the game you're currently playing!

Or maybe half of you aren't playing and just like to pitch a bitch. Honestly not sure which scenario is worse.

[Xiphan]

Case in point.

"The art looks great though, I hope all who get them will enjoy them" hardly comes across as raging. That's not to say there aren't people who're getting disproportionately frustrated, but theredviola acted quite composed.

[Shaley]

"The art looks great though, I hope all who get them will enjoy them" hardly comes across as raging. That's not to say there aren't people who're getting disproportionately frustrated, but theredviola acted quite composed.

I was mostly talking about the:

Well, guess this seals the deal. I'm not returning to WoW until it either goes B2P or F2P

"Cosmetic shop that is no different than the TCG? That's it! Final straw!"

[Demona3]

Not my cup of tea. I for one will not buy any of those items. Then again, I'm female, and I'm tired of seeing all this stuff geared towards the male population of the game. (I know I'm going to catch some flak here).
Here is what I would love to see - and perhaps you men might go for some of this too. =P

Lets have the fun side. Remember that murloc costume that some people have from blizzcon? I would like to see other full body costumes like that enter the game. I know it sounds stupid, but I always loved that little murloc costume and wish I had gotten one. Anyway, I would like to see other costumes like that in game. Like hey, why not a fox costume? Cat costume? - holiday costumes, be that witch for Halloween. Be a reindeer on Christmas (not some stupid gnome). I would LOVE to see an antler headband complete with a red nose. =P A cupid costume for Valentine's day. A 4th of July outfit. The list can go on.

I just really wish they would explore other options than making everything look... dreary.

[Hitei]

Pay per view charges aren't set by a cable company though; they're set by the manufacturer of a separate product (Ooh let's say a WWE show for example) because that's how they generate revenue.

Blizzard isn't regularly a platform for other services now, is it? Your point would make sense if other artists were creating items for sale through the store; they're not though.

You pay them a sub, which has traditionally allowed you access to anything/everything they develop in-house (TCG actually does match your point btw; it's a tie-in product created by *another* company who charges you for it, and a perk is provided in-game, but Blizzard themselves don't directly take money from you for the item). During Wrath they started allowing mounts to creep on, then pets for charity, then pets purely for profit and now we have them claiming "oh this art is too much work" and "oh that art is coming along, but limited artists and such you know " then you have shit like this coming out, off the back of an absolutely abysmal tier preview for T16 (don't even dare try telling me a single one of those sets even matches their respective class).

The analogy stands, you just assumed "the cable company" is who sets PPV charges. They aren't.

I didn't assume that they did.
I pointed out how your example of "Charging extra" makes absolutely zero sense.
Blzzard isn't forcing you to buy cosmetic stuff from the store, or even the convince items if they get implemented. They've come up with a new service, that people may choose to pay for that has no serious impact on the original service. That is why I used the ppv analogy. Because it's the same thing, you pay for regular cable service, and then if you feel like watching a brand new movie, you can buy a little extra to watch it. You pay to play wow, and your sub lets you do that, and if you feel like having one of the store mounts/pets/transmog items, you can pay a little extra to get it.

When you order a large pizza, you generally get a large pizza with a set number of toppings, and if you want extra toppings you pay a little extra.
When you buy an expansion for Wow, you can just buy the expansion, or pay a little extra and get a pet and the soundtrack and extra artwork, etc.

Please don't act like this is not a very, very common business practice.
It is.
And it's existed in wow since vanilla in the form of collector's edition. The only difference is now you can get subjectively neat looking helms in addition to subjectively neat looking pets.

Also, I find Tier 16 to be quite well done on the whole. The only disappointing set so far has been warrior.
And really, "off the back of an absolutely abysmal tier preview for T16"? The helms were data-mined in early 5.2 PTR, so if you're going to whine about how the art team is spending time on store items instead of raid tiers, you'd be whining about T15's quality.

[Rude Hero]

he guys what if new tier sets didn't have new armors but they released new armor sets on 'pet store' every tier?

its not influence the game and it's not like it affects you

[azwesjr]

Going to say the same thing I said on MMORPG - I pay 30 a month for cable and anything "extra" I want I pay some more, want a DVR - $5/month want a movie $5 single charge - want a .... and it goes on and on - What is the difference between cable and wow?

[the9tail]

Well I think this is close to the final straw in the fact they are putting transmog items on their looking better than tier items.
The ice helm screams DK and should be apart of a set.
The fire helm is as easily a mage helm, as it could be a paladin helm.
The shadow helm is warlock or even rogue.

The love for paying playerbase is being shunted for a quick dollar.

[Pacster]

Are all the helmets great? No! Is the ice-skull-helmet somewhere in the top 5 list of helmets? FOR SURE! They will make good money with 2 of the helmets and the third one is just there to calm down people and say "look here, not all of the shop-helmets are superior looking". That's how marketing works...

I think that's a pretty cheap move by blizz. Either make the game free to play and sell cosmetic stuff...or make people pay a monthly fee and give them access to all the stuff. Making them pay twice is just a bad joke.
The good thing about it: Finally the whole set-collectors notice what pet and mount collectors have been complaining about for quite some years already. The group of pissed off costumers gets larger.

The move fits pretty much in line with how Blizz didn't help dead realms to profit from transfer fees and lately made the cheap transfer week just before announcing the virtual realms thing.

[Deleted]

The person you are quoting is saying that these people do not quit the game because of these issues, they just like to complain and make meaningless threats.

Which is largely true, since we see those same people make the same threats whenever these issues come up on these forums.

Like doesn't that implicate what I just said? Even if they dont quit in the end, most of those threads are hardly meaningless if you consider that people want to express their opinion. Obv it has to happen under certain circumstances and most of the time people don't actually quit the game. And since I don't really follow this forum, i am hardly able to judge if there is much ragin and trollin around. But saying that people can't judge wether its right or wrong for them to add specific features into the game is just wrong.

[Deleted]

You're right, I pay the gas station 150 dollars a month. Guess what? The dollar soda on the inside doesn't come with the purchase of Gasoline.

That's it. I'm done going to that Gas Station. It's unfair that I pay so much for gas and I don't have free access to everything inside.

Can you read?

If you go into a gas station and buy gas from TheGasCo. or something, they don't also produce Coca Cola. The two have nothing, nada, zilch to do with each other; they are isolated, separate products.

Why would buying gas entitle you to a product made by a different fucking company genius? It would be like saying because you pay a WoW sub you should get Saints Row IV for free when it comes out. That is essentially what you have just said. What universe would that be the case in?

Not the same thing. Blizzard is taking money from its customers, paying its artists and running its offices with it, then selling the end product BACK to the customer who has already paid them.

Get it now?

[But I Hate You All]

Predictable response to sub loss.

The game is going to feature a full-featured F2P iteration someday and corporate bean-counters and savvy devs/execs are looking to transition to that eventual model and wisely starting now. There are lots of reactions to dramatic and sizeable sub losses; this one should not have been unexpected.

Blizzard apologists and fanbois offer the expected myopic logical fallacies while alarmists envison a forthcoming P2W scenario. Reality lies in the middle.

[BetrayedOf52]

And this is how they slowly role out gear to be sold.

If you really think blizzard will ever be pay to win, you're not a very smart person.

[Deleted]

I didn't assume that they did.
I pointed out how your example of "Charging extra" makes absolutely zero sense.
Blzzard isn't forcing you to buy cosmetic stuff from the store, or even the convince items if they get implemented. They've come up with a new service, that people may choose to pay for that has no serious impact on the original service. That is why I used the ppv analogy. Because it's the same thing, you pay for regular cable service, and then if you feel like watching a brand new movie, you can buy a little extra to watch it. You pay to play wow, and your sub lets you do that, and if you feel like having one of the store mounts/pets/transmog items, you can pay a little extra to get it.

Saying it twice, just reworded, doesn't make it right.

A PPV service is like a WoW book; Blizzard doesn't make that book - Christie Golden writes it, and her publisher gets it to the point of sale. Blizzard gets a small cut of the profit, but it hasn't taken any of their time, money or resources to produce.

You pay a sub to Blizzard to access their game, you can pay for a tie-in book produced by a different company, but you aren't actually paying Blizzard for that product because they didn't manufacture it.

You pay a sub for your cable to access their channels, you can pay for a one-off PPV or movie rental produced by a different company on their service, but you aren't actually paying your cable company for that product because they didn't manufacture it.

In the case of the helmets/mounts/pets/ongoing bullshit, you pay a sub for access to their game, then you can pay a fee for a product made by the same company in the same game that you are already paying for. You are giving them money for a product you already helped fund the creation of.

Geddit? It's not hard.

[kilkiboy]

Well, in no time they are going to introduce entire gear sets for money....I quit just in time.

[BetrayedOf52]

Going to say the same thing I said on MMORPG - I pay 30 a month for cable and anything "extra" I want I pay some more, want a DVR - $5/month want a movie $5 single charge - want a .... and it goes on and on - What is the difference between cable and wow?

Great point IMO. Seriously though a polished game like blizzards + in game store = better then any sub or f2p.

[Pacster]

Next thing in the tube are:
-unique cosmetic glyphs that change the color of spells or shadowform....
-mounts that can carry a group($50), raid($100) etc....
-additonal bank/bag slots...

You don't need it and it doesn't hurt your game experience if you don't have it...after all....right? ;-)

[BetrayedOf52]

Well, in no time they are going to introduce entire gear sets for money....I quit just in time.

Maybe you should stop visiting WoW articles and move on.