Cross-Realm Dungeon Feature Coming Soon

A paid feature when some people are already paying a monthly fee for years? Even during the months and months of draught of content.

Sounds like Blizzard is milking the cow for what it's worth while it declines and they move on to Titan.

do you know if this will work for every eu-realm or only cross-battlegroup?

And so begins the downfall of Blizzard Ent.

Originally Posted by Bidelle

What's the point of paying for a premium service to play with others from a different realm when I can just.... oh I don't know.... move to that realm for a one time fee? So stupid, I really hope that decision gets put down before it's implemented.

Unless you want the other features that the premium fee gives you access to, you are totally right. Im sure there are those people that have friends on multiple realms, but most people (I believe) only have friends on their own realm or maybe one other. The issue is, if you have friends in just one realm (the one you arent on) then its cheaper to do a transfer - one time fee so cheaper. If you have friends on your realm AND another.... what then? You cant transfer to be with your friends as you wont then be with the friends on your original realm.

I think this should not be charged extra for (turning premium features into an increase in subscription fees because they havent gone up before is sneaky), same as guild chat. Guild chat is basically an IM client that doesnt have the features of most IM clients AND you pay for - thats handy. However, although I think it should be included in the monthly cost (I'm not saying free - it shouldnt be "free" they should charge for it - but only as they charge for the game - it should be included), it wont be. It will be premium, will have a fee, and many many people will pay for it.

---------- Post added 2011-05-18 at 09:51 AM ----------

Originally Posted by alms1407

Don't know why this is a paid service, maybe they miss the money they lost from the declining players.

Very nice idea though, hopefully they won't charge too much for this service because it already feels like a shit deal.

They dont HAVE any declining players. The 600k drop in players is because Cataclysm hastnt been launched in China yet and China has a LOT of players. Once its launched there the numbers will go back up again. Its not so much declining players... more LAGGING players.

Originally Posted by Cassidin

They dont HAVE any declining players. The 600k drop in players is because Cataclysm hastnt been launched in China yet and China has a LOT of players. Once its launched there the numbers will go back up again. Its not so much declining players... more LAGGING players.

Originally Posted by greyghost

Agreed. This is also making me afraid of the possibility that the Cross-server BoA items will be a 'premium' feature, too.

Cant see Cross-Server BOA being a subscription premium service. Maybe a one time fee (which would HAVE to be much lower than a character transfer or you could just do that instead). A monthly fee for it just wouldnt work, people would get the BoA's and just send them once - not every day. If it was a monthly fee people would just pay for one month then stop.

Originally Posted by Gaexion Ramza Beoulve

The problem is that the technology already exists, it is already there, they just aren't unlocking it. Charging money for this is about as ridiculous as a CPU manufacturer making 2.5ghz processor that is actually a 3ghz processor but can only be unlocked by buying a premium code.

Bad for business all around. This is like buying CD and paying extra for a digital copy that comes in the deluxe edition...

At the end of the day selling digital products successfully is about showing respect for your customers and providing value in your product. It doesnt take a genius to see what a rip off this is. Creating premium accounts will create a divide in the community, an echelon only attainable by those with money.

Dividing your player base again? Now their will be premium horde and premium alliance and it will be a matter of time before guilds start taking Premium only members.

Indeed. All of the functionality that enables this--short of the button in the friend list menu--already exists in-game. Who wants to pay more for them to uncripple their software?

Originally Posted by Farora

Massive lol.

Originally Posted by Dad

They also state before that they aint going to add micro transactions buz players could feel betrayed..and now we have premium accounts here..

They also said they wouldn't do the PVE->PVP thing but someone could easily pay $25 to transfer to a PVE server, level from 80 to 85, then transfer back to the PVP realm.

Originally Posted by Cassidin

They dont HAVE any declining players. The 600k drop in players is because Cataclysm hastnt been launched in China yet and China has a LOT of players. Once its launched there the numbers will go back up again. Its not so much declining players... more LAGGING players.

Wrong it was subscriptions lost not how many people haven't gotten Cataclysm yet. Wow is declining because the game is getting old even with new content and shit like this.

Originally Posted by Myzou

The "Premium" thing goes through, I leave.

I hope they understand that by attempting to get more money out of the remaining subscribers, something like this will make them lose AT LEAST double the amount they already lost.

As they didnt lose any... thats double zero yes? China hasnt got Cataclysm yet hence the 600k "lag" in players.

Originally Posted by Cassidin

They dont HAVE any declining players. The 600k drop in players is because Cataclysm hastnt been launched in China yet and China has a LOT of players. Once its launched there the numbers will go back up again. Its not so much declining players... more LAGGING players.

Gotta love the Blizzard Defense Army.

CEO of Blizzard - "What we have seen so far is that people have been consuming this content very quickly, and so the subscriber levels have decreased faster than in previous expansions"

BDA - "They dont HAVE any declining players."

Rock on, guys. Rock on.

Originally Posted by hawtlol

Wrong it was subscriptions lost not how many people haven't gotten Cataclysm yet. Wow is declining because the game is getting old even with new content and shit like this.

True, but as China hasnt got Cataclysm yet a lot of Chinese players are not currently playing so their numbers do not show up on the subscription numbers.

Originally Posted by Cassidin

As they didnt lose any... thats double zero yes? China hasnt got Cataclysm yet hence the 600k "lag" in players.

The playerbase is declining. Get over it. It's ok, you can still play your game. It's a long, long way from being a problem for them. But pulling this sort of crap isn't going to get them any new subs, or re-subbers either.

Originally Posted by Cassidin

They dont HAVE any declining players. The 600k drop in players is because Cataclysm hastnt been launched in China yet and China has a LOT of players. Once its launched there the numbers will go back up again. Its not so much declining players... more LAGGING players.

WoW didn't lose 600k player. WoW lost OVER A MILLION players and gained less than 1/2 of them back as new players. It's called subscription turn over. Estimates put WoW total subscriptions including inactives at over 40 million. In 2006 when Blizzard stopped announcing bans, they were laying the banhammer on over 300,000 accounts per month when the population was less than half. It's easy to surmise that that number has likely doubled by now. The reason China is still on Wrath of the Lich King is because just got it last August. This draw down of players is because Cataclysm, as a whole, has been a failure of cataclysmic proportions. They lost all the subscriptions they gained from Cataclysm's launch, and then lost more beyond that, plus player bans, and didn't gain enough new players to offset the loss. This has been happening since Burning Crusade came out and WoW reached 10 million subscribers ironically Blizzard never updated their numbers at their quarterly investor meetings except during the peaks in player activity and never the valleys. Unfortunately, Cataclysm peaked faster than either BC or WotLK and Blizzard couldn't hide it any longer.

The 600k lost players aren't from Asia. They're from the US and the EU.

Simple solution, don't pay for the premium element of this service if you don't want to.

The truth of it is the cost will be chump change which I have no problem paying for it it means easy grouping with my RL friends located on different servers.

Originally Posted by hogomojojo

I forgot to mention, any of you guys ever consider inflation rates? WoW has been $14.99 since the release in 2004, if anything we should be thanking blizz for not raising the price. There has been a 19.1% inflation rate since 2004. Technically for blizz to be making the same money they made from subs in 2004 the currently monthly fee should be $17.85 Every year taxes go up, and the dollar goes down. Every year stores and services raise their price a little. Blizzard never has. If anything people who subscribe to the premium service will be helping blizz break even.

So you're suggesting that everyone subscribe to the premium services, regardless of whether we want to or not, just to say "Thank you, Uncle Blizz," and to help them "break even" even though they're already making record-breaking $300M+ quarterly profits? Trolololol
Oh yeah, and that's in today's dollars too, not '04's.

You really have no idea how much of that $15 monthly subscription is pure profit for Blizzard, do you...

Anyway, let's do it, sure. Let's take that road and convince Blizzard that, because of inflation and poor markets and such, they need to raise the subscription fee to $18/mo (I rounded it; gotta keep it simple). And when they do, let's watch how fast their profits soar! ..or fall, whatever... lol

The general consensus among MMO developers is that $15 is the de-facto break point. Through extensive industry polling and surveying done throughout the late nineties and early aughts (remember those cards that used to come inside game boxes?), they found that pricing an MMO any higher than that, even by just a dollar or two, risks alienating a LOT of potential customers. They found that it's all about perceived value, and at anything higher than that, the risk that someone will immediately dismiss it simply because of the price rises exponentially. Why do you think it rose sharply from ~$8 to $15 in less than a decade and has plateaued ever since?
The great thing about that $15 price point, though, is that it's so high (relatively speaking) that a game that takes, say, $80M to develop (from the ground up) can be insanely profitable with even just 2 or 3 million box sales and steady subscriptions.

Now, where does that put Blizzard in relation to that, with their 12 million monthly subscribers? Yeah, definitely not in the "barely getting by, we need help to break even" category. More like in the "we just posted a $300 million quarterly profit (not revenue), by ourselves, even after losing 600,000 subscribers" category.

So forgive me if I find your notion that Blizzard deserves corporate welfare absolutely laughable, at best... lol

Originally Posted by Cassidin

True, but as China hasnt got Cataclysm yet a lot of Chinese players are not currently playing so their numbers do not show up on the subscription numbers.

Source for this? Or are you just pulling it out of your Blizzard Defense Force hat?

Originally Posted by Cassidin

True, but as China hasnt got Cataclysm yet a lot of Chinese players are not currently playing so their numbers do not show up on the subscription numbers.

Which expansion you have doesn't affect how many subscribers there are. Stop being so ignorant and just open your eyes to see WoW has in fact seen a drop in customers.

Originally Posted by Fraza

Gotta love the Blizzard Defense Army.

CEO of Blizzard - "What we have seen so far is that people have been consuming this content very quickly, and so the subscriber levels have decreased faster than in previous expansions"

BDA - "They dont HAVE any declining players."

Rock on, guys. Rock on.

If you are suggesting im defending Blizzard, you are wrong. I don't think this is good at all, I'm just saying that they will do it as they said, and LOTS of people will pay for it. People are suggesting that it will make Blizzard lose more players and I'm pointing out that until China has Cataclysm its impossible to say that they actually HAVE lost any players as a LARGE number that play this game are currently NOT playing it due to not having access to Cataclysm.

I'm pointing out that this will not hurt Blizzard - it wont be "the doom of them" as some are suggesting. It's sneaky and underhanded of them but they will get away with it as always.