Blizzard "The technology for acct wide-heirlooms isnt here"?

[Chingylol]

I don't understand it when they said that. You can buy pets, mounts, and the helms now (actual pieces of armor) from the cash shop that go to all your toons but Blizz says that they just can't make it so heirlooms can be sent because it's too hard.

Believe it or are they just BS'ing? Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

[Illiterate]

they just care about making more money

[Deleted]

Ye jus fed up with bli$$ard now frankly

[SL1200]

The technology for replacing the income they get from server changes isn't here...

[George Costanza]

The technology has been there since you could cage pets.

[Robert3620]

The technology for replacing the income they get from server changes isn't here...

This is why I have a real hard time believing that VR will be very good. Find it hard to believe they will do anything to address server population issues when they are making money off of not addressing it.

[Holtzmann]

Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

Honestly? It just might be. Things that sound simple conceptually can take an annoyingly large amount of fiddling to get right, programming-wise. World of Warcraft is so old and its engine has been improved on so many times that its network and game code are probably the most macaronic collection of layers of fixes, kludges and improvements ever seen outside of Microsoft's own software factories. The technology to create and send items to characters from the web interface is indeed there, but there's a good chance doing so from within the game's own servers might have some technical quirk preventing it from happening.

Now, with the whole Virtual Realms idea they'll be rolling out, I expect that particular technological hurdle will be out of the way by then. I think they said something about that at some point while explaining how VR would work, but I'm not sure anymore.

[Illiterate]

Maybe if they showed they gave 2 fucks about their players, subs would stop declining for once

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

The technology for mailing across servers is not there.

What IS there is the technology for Battle.net achievements. Already WoW achievements are shared across your account, it should not be hard with the new Steam-esque Battle.net Desktop to move those WoW achievements to being just Battle.net achievements.

From there, you introduce a new vendor. "Achievement Vendors." They sell you rewards from getting these achievements.

You buy an heirloom, you unlock an achievement for it. Then the vendor would sell you the heirloom on any other character for a crazy discount.

[TS26]

They like the money they get from server transfer better.


They do not care about your convenience.

[Deleted]

No-one outside of Blizzard *knows* it is possible under the circumstances but cynicism seems to make them think they do. That goes for everyone who claims it is possible in this thread.

[skrump]

I don't understand it when they said that. You can buy pets, mounts, and the helms now (actual pieces of armor) from the cash shop that go to all your toons but Blizz says that they just can't make it so heirlooms can be sent because it's too hard.

Believe it or are they just BS'ing? Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

Blizz could do it with heirlooms but it would work much the same way as mounts/pets currently do.
Essentially every character you ever create would be mailed the heirlooms you have already unlocked on other characters.

It would be be extremely annoying having a bunch of mail/plate/leather heirlooms being sent to your new priest/warlock or w/e
(that said I would still prefer it over newly created toons on new servers having nothing.)

[vesseblah]

Believe it or are they just BS'ing? Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

The technology has been there since you could cage pets.

Characters and their bag space are saved on realm servers, list of pets and mounts is saved on login servers. Very easy and plausible explanation for why it's not really possible to move stuff between characters of two different realms. Work done on virtual realms now will probably enable moving of other gear between realms too at later date if they want to make crossrealm AH work.

It's something that made sense and saved time and money ten years ago, but today makes it harder to make any changes. It's totally normal that programmers take shortcuts that adds weeeks or even months of work at some later date if the old MacGyver hacks done with bubblegum, safety pins and duct tape needs to be altered significantly.

[Nobleshield]

I don't understand it when they said that. You can buy pets, mounts, and the helms now (actual pieces of armor) from the cash shop that go to all your toons but Blizz says that they just can't make it so heirlooms can be sent because it's too hard.

Believe it or are they just BS'ing? Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

Without knowing how the code is, as a software developer my answer is "It could be". I don't know how their items are set up; it could be something like the backpack slots where it isn't just a matter of changing for example int backpackSlots = 16 to int backpackSlots = 32 or whatever. Now, we know the technology exists for account-wide items (look at the store mounts and presumably the new transmog helms) so the question then becomes what makes that different, that is why when I create a new character do I automatically get any mounts I've purchased sent to my mail, but I don't get all my heirlooms.

It could just be they didn't think of that at the time, so the way those items are handled is completely different despite looking like the same thing (they're both items, right?) to the naked eye.

[Thyranne]

Characters and their bag space are saved on realm servers, list of pets and mounts is saved on login servers. Very easy and plausible explanation for why it's not really possible to move stuff between characters of two different realms. Work done on virtual realms now will probably enable moving of other gear between realms too at later date if they want to make crossrealm AH work.

It's something that made sense and saved time and money ten years ago, but today makes it harder to make any changes. It's totally normal that programmers take shortcuts that adds weeeks or even months of work at some later date if the old MacGyver hacks done with bubblegum, safety pins and duct tape needs to be altered significantly.

Then why not make you "learn" how to summon a heirloom item? Why not an account wide bank?

[Deleted]

Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

They may tell the truth.
The code dates from at least 2002-2003, it can be quite a hassle to adapt it to make heirlooms really account-wide.

That's the problem wih many non-programmer people, because when they see something, they immediatly assume that everything is possible, when it's not. They probably need to redo a whole lot of the code. The Blizzard Store is a relatively new thing, while the mail system dates from the Alpha (2003).

Things that are old are the most difficult to change. Look at the time it took to have the possibility to change the order of your characters in the char list for example...


I may be mistaken, but on the last PTR builds, I may have seen some client strings hinting over the possibility to cross-realm heirlooms.

[Haphe]

While I'm not a programmer, I do work in technology, and do understand that your normal user does not understand the difficulties that come from implementing something new into your current configuration. There are huge hurdles that your normal user often does not see, or bother seeing. Its very easy to sit on the outside and say "Just flip the switch and make it work! Its easy!" But Blizzard didn't create the largest MMO by haphazardly implementing something. You can talk all you want about ways to make it work in the current setup, such as offering it as an achievement? but thats clunky as hell. They're big enough that if they're going to do something, they're going to take the time to make it function properly and work right. Often times its why in enterprise we are a few versions behind your home computer. You as the user gets frustrated because your working on Windows 7, and believe that its just a matter of getting IT to "make it work" But as a matter of fact Windows 8 is SHIT for enterprise, and will probably be skipped by most places.

TLDR: Unless your a dev working on wow, your assumptions only make you look like an ass.

[Deleted]

There are 100s of ways to get around any coding issues.

Once you get the 25k Conquest point achievement you unlock Tyrannical gear for honour.

Give heirlooms a FoS/FoS are account wide/make it so the FoS allows you to buy them from a vendor. The tech already exists in the game.

[Chaltione]

The technology to *give out* items on all characters on an account is there, and now recently, the ability to have a list of pets and mounts that are available on all characters (faction allowing) on an account.

What isn't available is the technology to send your already-aquired items to other characters, except via mail.

They are talking about making the heirlooms some sort of "pick from a list" item, or some other system, which mimics the title/pet/mount system, which allows for unlocking heirlooms instead of purchasing them. But this afaik just something they are aiming at, not something that is even in testing stages.

[gamingmuscle]

I don't understand it when they said that. You can buy pets, mounts, and the helms now (actual pieces of armor) from the cash shop that go to all your toons but Blizz says that they just can't make it so heirlooms can be sent because it's too hard.

Believe it or are they just BS'ing? Any computer programmers here think it really is to hard for them to do that?

It depends...creating X copies of an item and sending it to X characters is different then Buying Item X on Server Y and it suddenly being available somehow to ALL other characters. While the solution could be to create copies and mail it to all characters that is an ugly solution. I don't need plate heirlooms mailed to my priest. But this solution may not exist 100%. The trigger being that you bought it from a vendor in game, instead of an outside of the game process triggering it. The item copy mechanic may exist purely outside the game, a tool kit blizzard has to manipulate the game, but the game can't actually make calls to it. So it is quite possible the tech doesn't exist.