Would you be willing to make a stand against the X-Realm friends fee?

[mercutiouk]

The alternative is to do what's been suggested. Go cancel your subscription. As the reason give other, other etc till you get a box to write "premium services" as the reason for cancelling.

You can go reactivate but the shot "across the bow" enough people doing that brings should make the point.

[Tic Tacs]

As long as my favorite company, Blizzard, makes lots money and develops new games. I don't care much. Mike Morheim ftw!

[Deleted]

Yeah go ahead people click "yes" and let Blizzard know that you are willing to pay extra to whatever they introduce. Well done people /salute

[Deleted]

You are wrong, dear sir. You currently only have the option to group up with people on your realm before joining the queue and being grouped with people from other realms. There will be protocol and large chunks of code changes to make it so cross realm groups can be formed via RealID.

The LFD queues do not place you in a party with any other participant that has not queued with you from your realm until the group is full and all participants have clicked to enter the instance. This is adding another layer of protocols to group people cross realm before the LFD tool is used.

I wouldn't consider rerolls as gas costs, more like special hunting trips with a fiery bromance. I also wouldn't consider realm transfers gas costs, thats more like deciding your friendship means more and picking up to move so you can do everyyyyyything together.

You can get realid friend from lfd (sync join and get lucky) and finish dungeon and the queue to new dungeon. You can leave instance and stay in party with your realid friend (you can even see him from your map when outside of instance where he is on hes realm) and if others than your realid friends leave party then that group is like cross realm party and you can even queue to new dungeon. Even if you don't get lucky and get your realid friend to same group from random lfd, but if you get anyone from hes realm, then after run or when someone leave group you can ask that player to invite your realid friend to that group. Basic functionality of this feature is already in game and only need changes + little addition to gui and it's far from other complex features added to game which Blizzard was able to provide to use with simple monthly fees+expansions. So why this is premium service? Because they know it will effect profit they are making from realm transfer.

[korvmoj]

I am one of the few here who likes the game World of Warcraft, plays it regularly and who wishes for Blizzard to have all the resources available to improve the game and make my experience better. If extra cash for premium services can give them that, then I approve. I won't buy it myself but I'm confident that there are people who benefits from the features and therefor will sign up for them.
Any way, I don't lose anything out of it. I win.

[Combatmedic]

Have allready changed subscription to 1 month basis.
I for sure will leave the game for a month or two, if microtransactions becomes a reality.

[Liara]

First of all you should "expect" regular content updates, not because you pay $15 a month but because you actually bought those "regular content updates" when you bought the box. Blizzard is releasing those on their schedule and not because you're some special snowflake!

Actually, you didn't buy anything. You licensed their game client.
And you've never bought regular content updates, ever. All you get for your 15$ a month is server access. That's it.
I wish people would stop making these assumptions. Read the EULA and the Terms of Use before jumping to conclusions.

[Crucialus]

Meh, all of my real ID friends are in the same realm as me except like... one. So it doesn't bother me at all. Optional is optional and I won't pay for it either way.

[Crazypants]

You can get realid friend from lfd (sync join and get lucky) and finish dungeon and the queue to new dungeon. You can leave instance and stay in party with your realid friend (you can even see him from your map when outside of instance where he is on hes realm) and if others than your realid friends leave party then that group is like cross realm party and you can even queue to new dungeon. Even if you don't get lucky and get your realid friend to same group from random lfd, but if you get anyone from hes realm, then after run or when someone leave group you can ask that player to invite your realid friend to that group. Basic functionality of this feature is already in game and only need changes + little addition to gui and it's far from other complex features added to game which Blizzard was able to provide to use with simple monthly fees+expansions. So why this is premium service? Because they know it will effect profit they are making from realm transfer.

It's like you grasp the concept of what is happening, but don't fully understand it. You are placed onto the instance server when the group is fully formed, if all party members stay in the group or just some of them, the system sees them as still participating in the instance. They don't lock you out and force quit the group when the final boss is killed. This gives players the option to continue with the group that is already formed on the instance server, whether or not they lose one or a few people. If you get someone that happens to be on your friends server, yes they can invite if they have the lead, because they are on the same realm, it is not as if you can invite any person from any realm while in an instance. The system just does not work that way, and they are willing to change the LFG system AND RealID system and charge a premium for it, which is quite understandable if you can comprehend how both systems currently function and what will be reworked.

I actually had an experience today where I met someone new to Cata while on my alt, we ended up talking on vent and doing dungeons for over 3 hours together. Kinda sadface I can't always queue with them, but I do not feel entitled to the new feature being free for me to do so. I'd pay a couple bucks a month or a flat one time fee to have that option in the future. I'd gladly pay it if I were so amazingly popular that I had so many friends split on so many servers that it was absolutely a dreadful and depressing thing that we couldn't queue together.

[velde046]

. So why this is premium service? Because they know it will effect profit they are making from realm transfer.

And why shouldn't they? They are a business. I have friends on different realms and I like the fact I can chat with them ingame even while they are playing different games. I'd like to play with them too on occasion, but the monthly fee is not woth the money imo, so I'll pass on the feature. If it's important to you, you pay the price. Or leave it. No use in whining over it. Blizzard is not required to bring out a feature like this.

Also on a technical note, this is much more complex than it would seem. The RealID chat is a completely different network than the LFD tool. The LFD tool runs within the game network for WOW, and the RealID outside, (or did you think that your friend playing Starcraft was doing it on a WOW server?). Though it may seem simple there's plenty of development costs involved in a matter like this to make the communication and synchronization between different networks operate smoothly and efficient.

Over time who knows, they might raise the monthly subscription by 1 dollar/euro and have it standard. This will depend on how many people actually would care for the paid version. If the number of players that get the premium is high enough, Blizzard may find it's apparently that much desired that subscription fees are raised a little and it becomes standard then.

[Deleted]

People need to stop looking at WoW as a game and instead remember Blizzard see it is a business first and foremost. If the premium feature is a success then they will only expand it again and again until the point when it will become mandatory. I like Blizzard products i wont be paying for premium as i wont use it but i do not have any problem with people voicing there anger at such a service. I will still play Blizzard games as long as there is good content and wont quit over a service i do not intend on using.

[Deleted]

Lol at all the poor people who cant pay for alittle Game bonus, god. you kids Whine about everything. get a job you chavs. >_>

[Deleted]

Im going to use my option to not pay for an optional service, it in no way affects game play but tbh the wow community will complain about EVERYTHING that blizzard does. If you're such good friends with the people you dont even play with stop being lazy and roll a char on their server I KNOW LOGIC IS HARD

[Iosif]

No.

Best way to take a stand against a premium service is not to use it.

If no-one uses it, then Blizzard will know they were wrong to charge for it. If people use it and pay for it, they know they were right to charge for it, and ignore all the ranting certain forum posters are doing about it.

Really why will they care to them it will fall in to the "sunk cost" its like the cell phone company they spend 20million on new infrastructure to make 2G before they can get it all installed and configured 3G comes out and they scrap the current installation plans and buy all new hardware and start installing. The cost is always passed to the end consumer, you have already payed for it, anyone that subscribes to it will just be a bonus to them.

Does anyone really think that companies pays taxs on anything? You pay their taxs every time you buy something, for that matter do you think they pay for legal cost/settlements? Some lady spills hot coffee on herself and get awarded X-amount by the court, do you really think they are going to eat that cost? No, they are going to raise the cost of all items on their menus nationwide by 5 cents, then use it as an excuse to earn 0.02% larger profit margin for the year.

[Deleted]

300 votes for yes, about 299 of them are full of shit. The 300th one misclicked.

Quitting the game because you don't get one little feature for free is retarded. If they actually change your gaming experience (ie: add premium weapons that people you face in arenas use) then you have a point, quitting over this is stupid. You might as well quit because you can't get mobile auctioning for free.

[psdew1813]

long answer: i don't have friends that play wow nor do i have the money for it. also i really could care less about something that (like i said earlier) doesn't apply to me.
short answer: mmmmm. no.
again with these things are OPTIONAL (aka you don't have it pay for it!). god why cant people ever get their head wrapped around that.

[Aurora]

I pay enough money to this game as it is. I've never bought any of the vanity pets/mounts before and would have never even considered them. I wasn't concerned they existed since they didn't affect my game. If there was a sort of two tier system where certain people had access to game enhancing features that others did it'd affect my own enjoyment so I'd probably consider quitting WoW for good, not out of protest just out of it being the final nail in an already disappointing expansion.