Cross-Realm Dungeon Feature Coming Soon

[webdonkey]

With the lack of people making use of our o so pro Dungeon Finder, many Dev's have been asking for a way to get that last nickle and dime out of your pocket. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about something we have ready for months that will allow players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon.At least that way we get some more people in teh dungeons. You know we implemented RealId long ago, and you thought we gave in by protecting your data after 2000 pathetic QQ posts, but instead of actualy reading your whining crap, we planned this to be implemented just to make sure RealId has a use, and it makes us more money!

As this service was ready for months, we didnt want you to know that ofc, so <tinfoil hat> you didnt hear a thing, it’s important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, To make sure you will use it for now, we grant the one that pays invite status. Since you will be to stupid anyway to find out wich of your friends payed and wich not, it doesnt realy matter anyway. When we see that this premium service will be a hit, we somewhere along the way tell you some bullshit story about ingame programming problems with this, and we will make sure ALL of the party members will have to buy it. We'll have more details to share with you whenever we get out of our basement playing Rift, cause that game, the graphics, we can learn a lot from it -- in the meantime, you may begin to see elements, wich we can apply with a mouseclick, but then again, you wont even see the difference, we just tell you it took months again ---of the feature appear on the World of Warcraft Public Screw-over Realm.

Regards,

Bliztard

[Zaflis]

I can understand how this kind of feature can be very hard to make with the current server setup. Battlegroups themselves are propably sorted by distance, area and other numerous factors so that they are most beneficial to connect together. On what server do you host a game that serves for the whole continent? How do you reliably and efficiently update character databases and everything out of characters original realms? It will most likely demand buying and upkeeping many new server rooms across the world... In best case scenario they may centralize them in current battlegroup hosts.

Anyway i will never pay for a feature like that and by the comments seen so far, it seems nobody else will either. So just leave the feature out completely?

[Kaeleena]

Incorrect, you are paying them over time in return for access to CURRENT content - that's it, game over, period. Additional content whether added via patch or expansion is completely up to Blizzard as to whether or not they charge. The reason they add content for free is to entice players to continue paying for the subscription, but no where does it say that you are entitled to any additional content. They also add content for free because that's a fairly standard business practice for MMOs to do, in order to retain members; but it doesn't mean that is what you're paying for. I suppose you feel you shouldn't have had to pay for BC, WotLK, or Cata either? Because that's the thought process of 'subscription=more content.' Honestly the community should feel blessed. Play any other MMO and see if you get half as much free additional content as WoW provides.

China gets all their expansions for free included in the cost of their subscription which costs 8 cents an hour.

The fact is that when you purchase an expansion you're purchasing an incomplete game with only the word of Blizzard to on that they promise to finish development of the expansion by the time the next expansion goes live and in-fact without even having an active subscription you can still download every patch the game offers without ever having to log in.

You're paying for access to the servers and continued access to new features they develop in the game. You already payed the price for the development of these new features when you bought the original expansion box. This is simply them asking a you a pay a third time for access to new and future features they may develop.

You're paying to have access to a game that's in permanent development cycle.

[Deleted]

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[muindaur]

Premium? Premium? dont we f**ckin pay a monthly fee for playin a game, and now they are asking to pay more money to be able to queue with your friends from different realm. HAHA! Big joke. Hopefully the idea will die, cause if that goes live its going to be a major failure from Blizzard's side.

My brother was thinking about coming back to WoW, but he said with some of the changes post Cata combined with this he'll wait for The Old Republic Online to come out. I've set up D2 for once my sub runs dry as I've found only achievements to pass my time. I'm just disappointed that Blizzard is going back on their word despite making so much money (they said only things like remote AH, pets, and transfers would be premium.) For me it hit the point of burnout combined with the standard MMO death slope for me. I left Dark Age of Camelot because of Labyrinth of the Minataur. RVR became very laggy after they released it, then there was the pastel colors on all the abilities with changes to rangers, and huge restrictions on Animist shroom stacks to become all animists in an area so you had to fight with twenty others for 15 max. Blizzard can say, like Mythic, that getting bought had nothing to do with their changes. I know that it's all a lie. Activision is the parent, and they control the direction things go in the subsidiary Blizzard.

Activision is like all failing companies that buy successful ones. They promise not to mess with the successful ones formula, but in the end don't.

Yes, I have looked at their income statement for 2010. With their subscribers almost half the gross is from WoW subs. Other games account for the rest (Blizz is rolled into the financials for Activision for reports in the consolidated income statements.) Their citation of development costs is a huge stretch based on their Gross and Net After Taxes.

The year that Blizz and Activision combined a net loss of 100 Mil was posted. I'm willing to bet it was all Activision, because, as I stated above, Activision was failing like EA was. So they bought a company to fix it(net loss doesn't mean bankrupt.) So they use their retained earnings, or sell some assets to lessen the blow by acquiring a good company.

I understand there are good companies that buy other good companies to make more money. Though I've noticed in the game industry the high overhead results in failing companies doing that buying to prevent death.

[Khadir09]

So, since they're able to program that ... they should be able to initiate cross realm BOAs :/

Yesssssssss. So much yes.

[Duster505]

This is a feature that should be free like any other LFD feature. If BLizzard needs to put so much money into this to justify it... then wait to next expansion? Letting ppl pay extra should never be an option. Thats the bottom line and no matter how ppl try to justify it... It can not be justified.

BLizzard is in real pickle atm. Personally I would rather pay 20$ per month across the board than have a premium service. The thing is... BLizzard really cant raise the price of monthly subs because the game has been doing absolutly horribly so far in CATA - releasing less amount of content than ever before. Next raid content will have the lowest number of Bosses ever released for a tier and its coming months and months after what has has been released in former Expansions.

I dont know what will be included in this premium package in the end. BUt its not a good way to make money.. specially considering it might actaully loose BLizzard more ppl than justifies the exta charge.

Going the LOTRO way of premium and bla bla is not a good way. I know alot of ppl that dont play LOTRO simply because of this.

[Deleted]

I really hope this paid stuff doesn't carry on, especially with features associated with battlenet accounts . Where you use apps to do stuff in game i sorta understand, but for things that aren't really external from the game? That's a bit shitty imo :/

[Harthmut]

In the future, we might hear:

Welcome to [Instance name], you don't seem to have purchased the premium account!
To fully enjoy and experience the finest of WoW gameplay, please insert 20$ to spawn mobs and bosses here.
Thank you, and enjoy your stay!

[mordale]

what i don't get, who the fuck actually needs this?
shouldn't you be on said server with your friends?

[Shmiles]

In the future, we might hear:

Welcome to [Instance name], you don't seem to have purchased the premium account!
To fully enjoy and experience the finest of WoW gameplay, please insert 20$ to spawn mobs and bosses here.
Thank you, and enjoy your stay!

Seriously, stop posting shit like this. It's ridiculous this thread is up to 1732 posts with over 1000 attempting to bash Blizzard for wanting to make money. How dare a business try to profit from customers.
Blizzard owes idiots like you nothing.

[Harthmut]

Seriously, stop posting shit like this. It's ridiculous this thread is up to 1732 posts with over 1000 attempting to bash Blizzard for wanting to make money. How dare a business try to profit from customers.
Blizzard owes idiots like you nothing.

It's all about the context.
I'm perfectly fine eith Blizz charging for a monthly fee, the Blizzcon and anything from the Blizzard Store.
But when they start selling options or shit like premium accounts to fully access the game, that's not okay.
There are many free MMO's out there, and they too have premium accounts for premium stuff, but in that case it's okay, since you don't already pay a monthly fee.
That's the same reason i don't buy dlc stuff or a PSN gold account on the PSN.
They charge you for something you already have on your disc, and yet you still have to pay again to use it.

Besides, you shouldn't insult people, just because their opinions differ from yours.

[Kiro]

Not the thing to announce while you're hemorraging subscribers. Blizzard merging with Activision was the worst thing that could have ever happened. People thought that Blizzard was untouchable, just like IW which made them TRUCK LOADS of cash, but IW was destroyed and now just an empty husk with their vital developers and leaders gone. They had to bring in two other development teams to make sure MW3 made it to store shelves this year, and we'll see where it's quality ends up. Blizzard is no different just within their own realms, WoW's key developers and leaders gone onto other projects, and as we speak, WoW's quality and Blizzard's care for the consumer is in absolute free-fall at this point.

But it wasn't only Blizzard's fault, it was numerous sheeples that allowed this to happen to their game of choice. An utter laughable drought of content, thrown together recycled content, recycled assets, premium services, pay-for mounts and pets. This is your WoW that you guys helped create.

I knew WoW wouldn't live on forever, but I didn't expect it to die this fast.

Kotick's midas touch in full effect once again.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Seriously, stop posting shit like this. It's ridiculous this thread is up to 1732 posts with over 1000 attempting to bash Blizzard for wanting to make money. How dare a business try to profit from customers.
Blizzard owes idiots like you nothing.

you are absolutely right. Blizzard are perfectly within their rights to charge what they want, and how they want.

and we are perfectly within our rights to say "fuck you" and walk away from what this game is becoming.

[AlucardzBelmont]

Here's what they should be doing instead to get back the 7$ Million (average) per month they lost:

1- Stop wasting money on paid WoW services (like this one)
2- Invest the devs in D3
3- Make sure D3 gets released in December this year
4- Profit.

[Rooflesstoofless]

macrosub + microsub = failsub.

[Aldrox]

I am quite happy with the feature planned and don't have problems to pay for it.

[Kaminiri]

Seriously, stop posting shit like this. It's ridiculous this thread is up to 1732 posts with over 1000 attempting to bash Blizzard for wanting to make money. How dare a business try to profit from customers.
Blizzard owes idiots like you nothing.

On the contrary I pay my $15 a month so Blizzard owes me a quality gaming experience and last I checked, Premium shit does not, in fact, fall into that category.

[Deleted]

On the contrary I pay my $15 a month so Blizzard owes me a quality gaming experience and last I checked, Premium shit does not, in fact, fall into that category.

The terms of service want to have a chat with you.

[LuminaL]

its JUST a step of making all of wow premium!
today this
tomorrow something else
and at last all of the world of warcraft
why blizzard should make this new feature only for who pay to become premium? why? its like other systems we had on wotlk .

wow dont even have 10 battle ground! and even that few bgs have the same rules!
the game have too many bugs and nobody fix them ..
and now they want us to pay for patch features ?!?!
im 100% sure we see more pays for the game on future ....
and blizzard I TELL YOU , you lose even more ppl .