Blizzard's Power Leveling Stance 1 Year Ago

[Randec]

Well, do you have an article or something that says that's the exact reason? Or did you post it already and I missed it.

These Bots are designed to engage in re
petitive and elongated play of WoW for the
player while he or she is away from the com
puter or engaged in other activities. (Rice
Decl. ¶¶ 22-23.) Players who purchase the Bo
ts can use them to exploit WoW’s reward
system by collecting virtual currency, items,
and experience without actually playing the
game, including for periods of time impossible for human players (for example, through
the night or for
hundreds of hours without interruption). (Id.
) In game play, a player’s use of bots allows
him or her to gain an artificial advantage over players who don’t use bots but who devote
the same actual game play time.

http://legal.ceilingfansoftware.com/...3-09-24%29.pdf

[Nurvus]

Be glad that Blizzard is the one company in the MMO business willing to honestly change their view and make such drastic changes to the game.

Giving new players the opportunity to have a "blank" Lv90 to play with their Lv90 friends when WoD comes out IS a good move.
This "blank" Lv90 has no meaningful amount of "virtual currency or items", and its 8000+ gold worth of riding skill will not make a difference in WoD as you will not be able to fly.

Maybe one day Blizzard will be the company unwilling to admit mistakes or change philosophy that you seem to wish for.
I hope I'm done with WoW way before that.

Ungrateful little victim wannabes.

[Pann]

Be glad that Blizzard is the one company in the MMO business willing to honestly change their view and make such drastic changes to the game.

And giving new players the opportunity to have a "blank" Lv90 to play with their Lv90 friends when WoD comes out IS a good move.

Maybe one day you will get just that - a company unwilling to admit mistakes or change philosophy.
I hope I'm done with WoW way before that.

Ungrateful little victim wannabes.

I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. We should be grateful that Blizzard will change their point of view if it gives them the opportunity to charge us more money?

[Jester Joe]

http://legal.ceilingfansoftware.com/...3-09-24%29.pdf

Just poking through it a bit, but I found this in what appears to be like an opening statement
"Blizzard seeks summary judgment regarding Defendants’ liability on a claim that
Defendants knowingly and tortiously induced Blizzard’s game players to breach their a
term of their contracts with Blizzard that prohibits the use of the type of software
programs sold by Defendants. Blizzard also seeks summary judgment on a related claim
asserted pursuant to California Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”). Finally, Blizzard
seeks summary judgment that the individual Defendants, who were also Blizzard’s game
players in their own right, breached their contracts with Blizzard that expressly prohibited
the use of the software programs."
So far to me it sounds like the original claim was because of breaking the ToS to make a profit, and that the rest was to convince them to rule in favor of Blizzard, and that it allowed people to get an advantage over other players, which there are tons of threads already debating about if the level 90 boost is an advantage, I'll just say that I disagree that it is, and say that the Guardian Cub was more of an advantage over others than the level 90 boost to me, but I can't honestly find anywhere of them saying it was the fact that they were skipping content was what really made Blizzard push to sue, just that they were able to do inhuman amounts of farming with it.

I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. We should be grateful that Blizzard will change their point of view if it gives them the opportunity to charge us more money?

You completely missed what they said. The level 90 boost is a good move to get more new players.

[Yimereh]

Blizzard is responsible for the burden that is leveling, they made it the way it is not the players. If Blizzard decided to do the moral thing and give experienced players alternative options to level after proving themselves, far less people would be complaining and far more would be praising(other then the people who have made it their purpose in life to complain). The problem with this is that Blizzard created this mandatory 48 hour tutorial and now you can pay to skip the tutorial.

If Adobe's products required you to go through a 48 hour tutorial every time you started a new project before being able to use the full product and then decided to charge people money to skip it, that would be criminal in the community's eyes. When Blizzard gates each class behind a 48 hour tutorial that barely teaches you the practical uses of your class and gives you the option to pay to skip it the community has every right to feel betrayed.

This sets the precedent that Blizzard isn't particularly interested in making the leveling process more intuitive and rewarding for experienced players. Right now what reason do we have to believe that Blizzard plans to fix early game leveling now that you can pay to skip it. From my perspective this pay to skip is their solution and considering how much money has been invested into this game by the players it honestly isn't enough and personally quite insulting.

In Vanilla we had a game with good leveling challenge but terribly broken classes. To compensate for this they dampened the leveling challenge while trying to fix the classes. Since Cataclysm(and quite arguably Wrath) the classes have been fixed in this regard but they never reimplemented the challenge, if anything they made it even easier and that's the problem. Blizzard made the leveling process garbage, it's their design and making the players pay for their mistakes after the amount of money the players have invested is insulting.

[Nurvus]

@Yimereh

Try looking at it from the perspective of a new player.

The prospect of having to level to 90 without heirlooms just to start playing the expansion content with their friends is greatly discouraging.
Blizzard gives you a blank Level 90 - no professions, no reputations, nearly no gold, and expensive riding skill that will be worthless in the flightless expansion.

If you want 600 in your professions you need to level the character to 60 first, which represents a considerable amount of time investment.
If you don't do that, you will then have to farm the professions from 1 to 600 with your newly acquired 90.
You will also have to farm any and all reputations.
Mounts, pets, etc.

I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. We should be grateful that Blizzard will change their point of view if it gives them the opportunity to charge us more money?

I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. Blizzard gets the opportunity to charge you more money for a service you don't need, gives the user no advantage, and apparently you are not interested in?

Look at the other MMO companies and their stances on community feedback.
They either make no changes, or change when it is convenient to them.
FFXIV:ARR is the latest case of developer stupidity.

[ComputerNerd]

Aaaaand here come the Blizzard apologists.


There's no such thing as a contradiction when Blizzard says it!

The community made those services appealing, so stop the mindless bashing with the latest bandwagon.
Look at the childish bashing of LFR, the kicking of people from groups if they bought store items.
Fanboy arguments are simply a tool used by people who have nothing else, nothing valid to support their view.

Rushing of dungeons with players geared to the teeth through heirlooms are making the leveling process horrible for anyone wanting to actually learn in random groups.
That is a player problem, and one that blizzard are offering an alternative to with the boost.
If you don't like it tough, but there are lots of players who disagree with you, as proven by its introduction in the first place.

If someone is against the store, they should put their money where their huge overworked mouth is.
Stop playing, tell blizzard why and move on, and grow up.

[Deleted]

Another useless thread, another not so smart poster.

There's a big difference between purchasable 90 at the start or at the end of MoP. Currently most people that want to play, or have played a lot, have dinged a year ago. Most people that really wanted to play their alts, have dinged those alts to 90 a while ago. The only difference is now that they can get a character boosted on say a different realm or faction and play with your friends on the opposite faction. Or even because of need, ding the character because the guild needs it.

If blizzard would have sold the 90 from the start of mop, then they would have changed their opinion. But as of now they haven't.
(That's the reason for the high price aswell, it's there if you really need it, but not to release an army of dinged 90's).

Imo they haven't done anything that changed the view on the game or their own philosophy, they just help you a bit forward because 0-100 will feel very long for new players, and giving them the chance to have a 90 from the start will only appeal them more and will help wow gain more players to offset the quitting players. If I have to be honest, is that the 90 boost system is actually a QoL change, and it's only going to help the game in the long run.

- - - Updated - - -

@Yimereh

Try looking at it from the perspective of a new player.

The prospect of having to level to 90 without heirlooms just to start playing the expansion content with their friends is greatly discouraging.
Blizzard gives you a blank Level 90 - no professions, no reputations, nearly no gold, and expensive riding skill that will be worthless in the flightless expansion.

If you want 600 in your professions you need to level the character to 60 first, which represents a considerable amount of time investment.
If you don't do that, you will then have to farm the professions from 1 to 600 with your newly acquired 90.
You will also have to farm any and all reputations.
Mounts, pets, etc.


I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. Blizzard gets the opportunity to charge you more money for a service you don't need, gives the user no advantage, and apparently you are not interested in?

Look at the other MMO companies and their stances on community feedback.
They either make no changes, or change when it is convenient to them.
FFXIV:ARR is the latest case of developer stupidity.

0-60 doesn't even take a day. You get like 2 levels per new dungeon, and a dungeon takes like what? 15 min?
(Yes that's without heirlooms, with heirlooms you easily get 3-4 levels).

[Pann]

You completely missed what they said. The level 90 boost is a good move to get more new players.

How is a level 90 boost a good move to attract new players? If the battlechest plus MOP are not worth playing why would they pay for them and then pay for WOD in order to skip the games they have just paid for?

[NoiseTank13]

I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. We should be grateful that Blizzard will change their point of view if it gives them the opportunity to charge us more money?

Psst.

You don't -have- to give them your money. Unless you want to buy the WoD expansion, because yes that is indeed a lame move on their part- if the free 90 is indeed the reason for the price increase.

But otherwise, you don't have to.

People who whine, stomp their feet and cry about Blizzards item shop remind me of people who pay 15 bucks every month voluntarily to go to a carnival and constantly complain that they don't offer concessions and booth tickets for free. 'But damnit, I paid to get in here, how dare you charge for popcorn!'

[Pann]

The community made those services appealing, so stop the mindless bashing with the latest bandwagon.
Look at the childish bashing of LFR, the kicking of people from groups if they bought store items.
Fanboy arguments are simply a tool used by people who have nothing else, nothing valid to support their view.

Rushing of dungeons with players geared to the teeth through heirlooms are making the leveling process horrible for anyone wanting to actually learn in random groups.
That is a player problem, and one that blizzard are offering an alternative to with the boost.
If you don't like it tough, but there are lots of players who disagree with you, as proven by its introduction in the first place.

If someone is against the store, they should put their money where their huge overworked mouth is.
Stop playing, tell blizzard why and move on, and grow up.

How is this a community created problem? Did the community make 90 levels to play through before reaching the part of game where they can play with others? Did the community make those levels dull and repetitive? Did the community make levelling dungeons really easy? Did the community create heirlooms that apparently make the levelling experience horrible?

It seems to me that this is a Blizzard created problem which instead of fixing the issues with levelling they are charging for an alternative.

[Yimereh]

@Yimereh

Try looking at it from the perspective of a new player.

The prospect of having to level to 90 without heirlooms just to start playing the expansion content with their friends is greatly discouraging.
Blizzard gives you a blank Level 90 - no professions, no reputations, nearly no gold, and expensive riding skill that will be worthless in the flightless expansion.

If you want 600 in your professions you need to level the character to 60 first, which represents a considerable amount of time investment.
If you don't do that, you will then have to farm the professions from 1 to 600 with your newly acquired 90.
You will also have to farm any and all reputations.
Mounts, pets, etc.


I am really not sure if your post was supposed to be sarcastic or not. Blizzard gets the opportunity to charge you more money for a service you don't need, gives the user no advantage, and apparently you are not interested in?

I should clarify, I'm not really offended by paid 90's so much as I'm offended that Blizzard is using it to bypass the real problem which is the current leveling system.

That being said, you are correct it is very discouraging for a new player to have to go through the current system just to play with their friends. Paid 90's helps fix that problem but personally it is a very poor way of doing so. There isn't anything wrong with having some sort of mandatory tutorial, so long as it is challenging and rewarding.

Lets create a hypothetical scenario, imagine blizzard dedicated some time in creating a very minor revamp of the leveling dungeons giving each one a "Leveling challenge mode" set at their appropriate level. The dungeons only dropped gear(quite generously) but you only gained experience for completing the dungeon. After you completed a challenge dungeon it would unlock the next set of challenge dungeons. Due to the vast amount of dungeons currently in WoW lets say each tier provided you with 3 dungeon options.

The design philosophy would be to challenge the players with gradually increasing max level flex raid circumstances but by the time they complete the final tier they reach max level and theoretically have 483 gear just like a paid purchase. Wouldn't this be a far better way to introduce new players into the game while also allowing experienced players to try a class/spec they haven't played before. You wouldn't have to grind out the same dungeon continuously and learning your class would be encouraged. I would love to do something like this with my friends, we would probably be leveling classes all the time if this existed. This is the same reason ladder resets in Diablo II were so awesome even though not a single thing changed.

Keep the paid to 90 thing but start adding more fun and interesting ways to level.

[ComputerNerd]

Blizzard is responsible for the burden that is leveling, they made it the way it is not the players. If Blizzard decided to do the moral thing and give experienced players alternative options to level after proving themselves, far less people would be complaining and far more would be praising(other then the people who have made it their purpose in life to complain). The problem with this is that Blizzard created this mandatory 48 hour tutorial and now you can pay to skip the tutorial.

If Adobe's products required you to go through a 48 hour tutorial every time you started a new project before being able to use the full product and then decided to charge people money to skip it, that would be criminal in the community's eyes. When Blizzard gates each class behind a 48 hour tutorial that barely teaches you the practical uses of your class and gives you the option to pay to skip it the community has every right to feel betrayed.

This sets the precedent that Blizzard isn't particularly interested in making the leveling process more intuitive and rewarding for experienced players. Right now what reason do we have to believe that Blizzard plans to fix early game leveling now that you can pay to skip it. From my perspective this pay to skip is their solution and considering how much money has been invested into this game by the players it honestly isn't enough and personally quite insulting.

In Vanilla we had a game with good leveling challenge but terribly broken classes. To compensate for this they dampened the leveling challenge while trying to fix the classes. Since Cataclysm(and quite arguably Wrath) the classes have been fixed in this regard but they never reimplemented the challenge, if anything they made it even easier and that's the problem. Blizzard made the leveling process garbage, it's their design and making the players pay for their mistakes after the amount of money the players have invested is insulting.

Utter rubbish.
A player chooses to not let a newbie tank actually tank.
Blizzard did not make a player be an ass, only the player dictated that.

The community sucks ONLY because of the players making it that way.
Try asking a player to level without heirloom, and see their reluctance.
See the threads whining about how the game is now "too easy".
See the contradiction there, how for experienced players and even newbies the levelling is easier than it has ever been, but there is a greater rush than ever to reach level cap.

You can't cater to the experienced players in levelling content without hurting those who aren't.

If you want challenge, go look for it.
Go solo stuff above your level.
Don't ask for challenge to be handed to you on a silver platter, and whine when it isn't.

[Pann]

Psst.

You don't -have- to give them your money. Unless you want to buy the WoD expansion, because yes that is indeed a lame move on their part- if the free 90 is indeed the reason for the price increase.

But otherwise, you don't have to.

People who whine, stomp their feet and cry about Blizzards item shop remind me of people who pay 15 bucks every month voluntarily to go to a carnival and constantly complain that they don't offer concessions and booth tickets for free. 'But damnit, I paid to get in here, how dare you charge for popcorn!'

I am sorry where did I say that people had to give Blizzard their money? I simply asked a question as to why a company changing its direction in order to charge its customers extra is something that we, as customers, should be grateful for.

[NoiseTank13]

I am sorry where did I say that people had to give Blizzard their money? I simply asked a question as to why a company changing its direction in order to charge its customers extra is something that we, as customers, should be grateful for.

Your first mistake is speaking for all customers. You don't speak for me, or the next guy. Some won't be grateful, some will. Blizzard obviously anticipated a far greater margin will be grateful, thus the policy change.

[Csnyder]

so what, nothing has changed, raf got you an 80, now the new level 90....youll still have to level to 100 yourself, its the same thing as a year ago
they didnt change their minds on anything, nothing has changed at all in their stance on power leveling or gold selling
he said ' there are many in-game and promotion related options available to help you level, to get a friend into the game, but much of it still needs to be done by you.' and its still the same exact thing as before
those create drama over nothing are refered to as drama queens....nothing has changed there either

[wych]

Blizzard lost most of their integrity when they sold out originally to vivendi or whoever it was

[OzoAndIndi]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8568378868#18

The above is a link to a Blue Post from a Blizzard rep. explaining how skipping content in this fashion ruins the game.

Emphasis mine.

What can I say, it's not illegal for them to change their minds and businesses sometimes decide (or need) to change course. Though perhaps that's why it has a hefty price tag by many people's standard, to allow it but discourage people from only doing that.

Although personally I would not call it power leveling by way of the suggested highlighted 'definition.' Power leveling still suggests leveling work to be done by someone, as they also point out. Skip-leveling is more like it.

[Deleted]

Things change.

Once upon a time, the democrates were more moderate than the republicans.

[Frozenbeef]

We do not because we value the integrity of the game

So...they no longer value the integrity of the game? yay....