WoW Turns 7! Anniversary Tabard now available in-game

Originally Posted by Landuril

I have to give credit to Blizzard for having completely turned the customer/service provider relationship on its head.

In most businesses, you strive to find new ways to attract customers and keep them happy with your product. You try and make your customers feel warm and valued by your business. You try and offer value and new exciting things. Why? Because then they will continue to buy your product, and won't leave to go to your competitors.

Blizzard has achieved the feat of having part of its customer base argue, on its behalf, that it doesn't actually owe anything to its customers. Whilst this is of course true, the subscription agreement doesn't "entitle" us to anything, I find it baffling that paying customers argue so strongly in favor of not being entitled to anything. "Just be happy you're getting anything" is a bizarre attitude to take in my opinion, are you so enthralled to Blizzard that you gratefully accept whatever rubbish they serve up? I really can't think of any other company where the customers would defend the right to receive so little.

Anyway, I am slightly surprised that they didn't make more of an effort, you would think 800k subscribers in 3 months would get them in gear. Again, it just doesn't make good business sense to me, all they had to do was reskin an existing pet and it would have earned them some fairly easy goodwill from the players.

A lot of us are just really bollocksingly sick of listening to people whine endlessly. It's been going on for years and has only gotten louder.

Originally Posted by ContentsMayVary

I'm happy enough with the Anniversary thing. I also have a SWTOR preorder.

What I'm not happy about is that it is becoming apparant that SWTOR is going to be swamped with a load of whiney little kids, judging by a lot of the comments on this thread. A shame they can't go somewhere else. Ah well, no avoiding them in any game these days, I guess.

Yeah,

A bunch of them went to Rift, and now a bunch of them are going to SWTOR... and we still seem to have a bunch of them staying with WoW. Or at least, staying on MMO Champ to complain about WoW.

So I agree: there seems to be no avoiding them these days.

I don't have a pre-order, but got a Beta key from Curse, and am looking forward to seeing for myself what SWTOR is like.

But I also signed-up for the 1-year subscription to WoW, so people can still feel free to call me a fanboi... cause that just cuts me to the quick. [not!]

Originally Posted by Namhcir

Zergal....


Let me help you out (this is me, I transferred several times since the pvp contest)


Nade on Turalyon (sorry, can't post links yet)


I'm kinda ticked if this does stick around. It's a symbol of something pretty darn rare. More rare than being a Scarab Lord, imo.

It prolly won't, hopefully.

Kinda agree its lame to give it away, but what they haven't gave away so far? Even the Scarab Lord mount can be earned now just by grinding. Thats part of the problem with the game atm, back in Classic and BC dedicated people were allowed to have rare and epic rewards to stand out, now they just give everything away in a way or the other. And its not like i have anything like Scarab Lord or whatever, its just lame for the people that do.

Originally Posted by Namhcir

Zergal....


Let me help you out (this is me, I transferred several times since the pvp contest)


Nade on Turalyon (sorry, can't post links yet)


I'm kinda ticked if this does stick around. It's a symbol of something pretty darn rare. More rare than being a Scarab Lord, imo.

Oh wow, I had hoped to eventually find someone that still had one of those around. Also nice Iblis + 2p Bonescythe, makes me nostalgic.

---------- Post added 2011-11-20 at 11:08 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Zergal

Even the Scarab Lord mount can be earned now just by grinding.

No, the Scarab Lord mount is the black one. The archaeology mount is identical to the blue one, which is still obtainable (and still only usable) in AQ40.

Originally Posted by Landuril

Anyway, I am slightly surprised that they didn't make more of an effort, you would think 800k subscribers in 3 months would get them in gear. Again, it just doesn't make good business sense to me, all they had to do was reskin an existing pet and it would have earned them some fairly easy goodwill from the players.

Strongly disagree.

Nothing would say "We're just phoning it in..." more than a re-skin of an existing pet.

Giving an annual pet was one of the biggest mistakes Blizz made, because it caused two problems:

1. A sense of entitlement, in which players expect a new, "better" pet each year.
2. Since everyone gets the pet, no one uses it because it isn't "special" or "unique".

How many Baby Blizzard Bears or Mr Chilly pets do you see?

How many other dime-a-dozen pets do you see people using?

Other than the Onyxia whelpling - which blows a smoke-ring - I can't think of any Blizz-gave-one-to-everybody pets that I've seen people using after the event has passed.

Granted, some people do use the "collector's edition" and/or Blizzcon pets, but those aren't something everyone has, are they? And they are having the same problem of coming-up with a "killer" pet each year.

Or....The requirement could be the FoS? Meaning it may well persist! (optimism to the max!)

People are actually crying because they want something for this event? Shows what most of the community has become.It's to celebrate a milestone, hell back in Classic/TBC you got nothing, nobody asked for anything. It's not always about getting a reward.

People should be grateful. Last year, we didn't get an item. Just a note in the mailbox and, I think, a Feat of Strength. In 2008 and 2009, we received a noncombat pet. I think that was Blizzard's mistake. Now people are expecting noncombat pets every anniversary, and they're disappointed and angry when they don't get one. Like someone else said, this is the equivalent of showing up to someone else's birthday party, demanding a gift, and then becoming upset when it doesn't meet your expectations. Stop acting like children! Be glad you got anything at all.

If they made it so it was a permanent feature then I'd be ALL up on this shit. The fact that it's gonna go poofey poofey at the end of the Celebration blows.

Its a pretty weak gift, oh wells.

Nice bonus for my lvl 85 char

Originally Posted by ordhor

a item that only lasts during wow anniversary. yeah, real nice....

And that anniversary is occurring during another holiday week, Pilgrims Bounty. So if you had plans for trying to level up your cooking skills on any of your alts, you have to make a choice on whether you'd want to level up your cooking or your Exp.

the community is at the lowest right now. if you would have given a pet, people would have complained too, if you would have given a mount people would have complained too. if you would have given NOTHING, people would complained too. is supposed to be an anniversary, ask any older married couple if they make anniversary gifts after 20 years of marriage, they barely even remember or care about it.

Originally Posted by rhorle

an item that grants 7% experience and 7% rep from now until December 3rd is anything but lame or uncool.

Actually it is because it only lasts until Dec. 3rd, they could have made it permanent like they did with the pets and like they did with other previous tabard rewards.

Originally Posted by WoodMcChuck

I guess I'd argue that back in Vanilla/TBC, we actually got a good game and good content and good patches.

Really shows the state of the game when people are worried about pets more than that because they've given up hope of seeing a quality patch ever again.

I think Blizzard is just a victim of it's own success. They put out some really fucking sweet Patches/Content over the years and that same quality hasn't gone down at all. We've just become USED to it that it feels lackluster, so Blizzard NOW has to work 2-3x as hard to put out Content/Patches that have the same "WOW(non acronym) effect!" that their predecessors have given.

That said, this "Gift" should be extended past the Celebration event and made into a BOA token.

Originally Posted by aztr0

Its a pretty weak gift, oh wells.

We shouldnt even be getting ANYTHING.

If people are pissed off that they didn't get anything good this year, then those individuals have too much time on their hands. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my Baby Blizzard Bear. =*

You have to think of it in a business sense, if Wow had made it be a pet im pretty sure there would be some people resubbing, even if its just for a month. Thats $15.00 in their pockets and even if those people stay for only one month, its more then what people would pay for a pet at the blizzard store. But instead they give a temp rep/xp ugly tabard that only increases your rep/xp gain marginally I used to get 12-13 rep from a mob now I get 17-18 rep.. not a huge increase, something that may have been a reason why its only temporary, but 7% is pretty much useless. They will happily put a guardian cub for people to pay $10.00 for a one time use, not a BoA, even if people can sell it. But instead of thinking that they could give a free mini pet for people that may give them an icrease in subscribers and please the customers they give this. Call it greedy, call it whatever but if you think how much money they make from subscribers, tcg, and the blizzard store I am sure they could afford to keep the customers happy even if it is just one month.

Originally Posted by Seribus99

Not sure if it's been said but the in game calendar has the time frame for wow's 7th from November 20th at 2am server to Dec 4th at 2am server.

I rechecked as I had assumed it was only a week. The start and end times seem to depend on server. On Azjol-Nerub it says 2AM but on Undermine it has 3AM start and end times. Yet on A-N my local time is 2 hours ahead of server time while local time in Undermine is the same as server time where I play from.