"Promised content"

[Mirishka]

Remember the glorious Alien Colonial Marines? :P

Big, big difference between what Gearbox did and what WoW has done.

Gearbox showed us beautiful demos of a game that looked like something from HD heaven, then quietly shipped a buggy, low-definition piece of crap that was essentially scrapped together by 3 or 4 different studios. At NO point did they mention 'hey, we've had to scale back the graphics, the sound, the... well, everything. That game we showed you is pretty much gone, replaced by something that wouldn't have impressed 10 years ago, let alone now."

Blizz is at least forthcoming about their changes. They say 'hey, this is being changed. This is being held back until a later patch.'

Yeah, some of their changes suck. But at least we're told. Nothing at all like Gearbox's debacle with A:CM.

[Spastic_Dreamer]

How do people come up with this shit? Why do people take announced pre-alpha features as something they are promised, that they deserve? What an entitled, childish way to view things. I keep seeing this thrown around, and seeing the latest bout of it just forces me to furiously ask WHY?

This game attracts some of the most greedy assholes I've ever seen. It's mind boggling. They don't owe you a thing! You are the one who decides to pay them! It's a fucking video game!

I think if a company makes a public statement regarding a change/addition to the product you're paying for, in an effort to entice you so that you continue paying for that product, it's promised content.

Here's a real life example. Say you're applying for a job/thinking about applying for a job. The person in charge tells you if you go with them you'll get full health benefits, 60k a year, and 30 paid vacation/sick days. Well of course you'll take it because it's a sweet deal. Upon signing the contract, you find the employer lied and you get paid half that amount, have 15 sick days, and no health benefits. You confront them and they reply: "Well, that was once what we were going to do, but we decided that we didn't have the means/technology to deliver on that."

That's essentially what Blizzard's doing. They make these big promises that they know they won't be able to deliver on and then once a few million people pre-order their game, they start going public with all the stuff they're no longer doing and/or removing. It's a terrible business practice and they should be ashamed.

[Krommm]

Hey, when you order something at a restaurant heralded as "best thing ever" or comes with "3 patties" and it tastes like trash and has one patty I'm absolutely sure you just deal with it. You would never complain about the " We promise you the best " slogan or the terrible food they had. Oh wait you would, nice try at brown nosing excessively though.

3/10 for master baiting

Alright, I'll bite without the sarcasm. It's blatantly false advertising if you must know why some people get upset or at the very least disgruntled.

[megasus]

I think the thought there is 'lets hype up whats to come, and even if we don't meet that hype, we're at least get the players hooked and still subbed'

So sharing a development process is now considered for only building up hype and hooking the players?

Hey, when you order something at a restaurant heralded as "best thing ever" or comes with "3 patties" and it tastes like trash and has one patty I'm absolutely sure you just deal with it. You would never complain about the " We promise you the best " slogan or the terrible food they had. Oh wait you would, nice try at brown nosing excessively though.

3/10 for master baiting

Except you can choose to buy a video game in the end or not, you know exactly what you get.

[Mirishka]

What's the source on this? I thought I had followed WoD development rather carefully, we all know it's coming at some point (probably first patch after people are attached to their garrisons) but I didn't think it had been discovered already?

Never happened, he is completely full of shit.

[Lessthanzer0]

I think the thought there is 'lets hype up whats to come, and even if we don't meet that hype, we're at least get the players hooked and still subbed'

thats such a vindictive way to look at it. they wanna do whats best for the game. if they have to remove a feature that they spent months working on because they don't think it worked out they way they hoped then that just means they care about the quality of their game. it does NOT mean they are trying to screw over their player base.

yeah i get that people get really hyped for some of these features but i got news for them....this is the real world and some times shit doesn't work out. this isn't some fantasy land where everything is all happy with rainbows. there is no need to throw a fit or tantrum just because they got rid of something that didn't feel right.

as for things like the heirloom tab getting postponed, we all know that something happened and they fell behind in development. if they wanna get this xpac out in a reasonable time frame then somethings gotta give. i'd much rather then push a small feature back a patch or two to focus on making a quality xpac in the other areas and release it on time than to have them half ass everything or push back the date just to toss in a heirlooms tab.

[Mirishka]

So sharing a development process is now considered for only building up hype and hooking the players?

Exactly. If Blizz doesn't share info, people whine that there's no news/updates. When they do share only to have things change, its some deceitful nazi regime-worthy act of evil and we should burn them at the stake. I can't even wrap my head about how stupid that is.

[Jtbrig7390]

So sharing a development process is now considered for only building up hype and hooking the players?
.

Nope....Having a big fucken event "Like Blizzcon" showing a trailer and talking about all these features then going quite for a couple months only to say you can pre-order now is only ment to build up hype. The Icying on the cake was the "Free" level 90 you got with ur xpac that cost $10 more. I am still wanting for them to show its worth the price hike. Even more so since the game will be coming out around the time like 10 other big AAA titles are coming out.

Blizzard has a shit tone of money from the pre-orders alone just off the hype.

[Lessthanzer0]

Nope....Having a big fucken event "Like Blizzcon" showing a trailer and talking about all these features then a couple months later saying you can pre-order now is only ment to build up hype. The Icying on the cake was the "Free" level 90 you got with ur xpac that cost $10 more. I am still wanting for them to show its worth the price hike. Even more so since the game will be coming out around the time like 10 other big AAA titles are coming out.

Blizzard has a shit tone of money from the pre-orders alone just off the hype.

well if you have an issue with the direction of the xpac then cancel your sub and ask for a refund for your preorder. stop acting like a child and move on with life. i'm so sick of people not understanding how shit works in the real world. not everything is gunna go your way.

[Lanesia]

Honestly if you believe everything that's shown a year or so before an expansion release then you're probably setting yourself up for disappointment. Things change over time and that's always been obvious to anyone that's played a long time, but I guess some people never learn.

[echoSAW]

Nope....Having a big fucken event "Like Blizzcon" showing a trailer and talking about all these features then going quite for a couple months only to say you can pre-order now is only ment to build up hype. The Icying on the cake was the "Free" level 90 you got with ur xpac that cost $10 more. I am still wanting for them to show its worth the price hike. Even more so since the game will be coming out around the time like 10 other big AAA titles are coming out.

Blizzard has a shit tone of money from the pre-orders alone just off the hype.

Then...attempt to get a refund? Unsubscribe? That's literally the only effective method of voicing discontent. Anything other than that is pointless.

[Wondercrab]

I'm as disappointed about the changes to planned content as anyone, but yeah, I feel like the various comments that use the words "promised", "lied", "misled" etc. are generally pretty dumb. It just comes across as angry customers trying to vindicate themselves.

This is how game development works literally all the time. Things get changed and iterated upon constantly. It's been happening ever since games have been around.

Now, it's totally reasonable and fine to be disappointed with the changes, but to try and use them as ammunition to brand Blizzard as liars and cheats isn't helpful or constructive to anyone. Call the decisions dumb, explain why they're dumb, make gosh darn sure you let the devs know you aren't happy with them, and you're much more likely to be able to do something about it than if you just start ranting about promises and lies.

Also don't preorder games. You are literally purchasing intangible hype and nothing more.

[Coombs]

People pre-order a game and sometimes these pre-orders are based on features mentioned. The company does this bullshit for hype and sly marketing with smoke and mirror tactics. It is absolutely foul and not so much a feeling of entitlement.

[Wewlad]

Supporting their use of lawyerspeak to dodge the prospect of actually addressing issues is only encouraging Blizzard and their reps to keep using it.

[Jofe]

So sharing a development process is now considered for only building up hype and hooking the players?

Except you can choose to buy a video game in the end or not, you know exactly what you get.

Yes, yes it is. They're not sharing the development process out of their hearts. They are attempting to build hype for the game,
Also on your second point. For the second time (I think) Aliens: Colonial Marines says hi. Sure WoD hasn't got there, the game hasn't released yet so you can't say that it was the exact same case, but the idea here is to prove that sometimes, even with games, you don't get what you were expecting/promised.

[Marrilaife]

I still remember that day when I bought boxed version of WotLK and it said on the box one of the features of the expansion is the dance studio.
2014, still waiting...

[Jtbrig7390]

well if you have an issue with the direction of the xpac then cancel your sub and ask for a refund for your preorder. stop acting like a child and move on with life. i'm so sick of people not understanding how shit works in the real world. not everything is gunna go your way.

First off in the real world if people have a problem they stand up and voice there opinion. That is what everyone is doing right now voicing there opinion.

You say people getting mad is acting like a child but in truth its the other way around. A child gets told what they are getting and is expected to stfu and take it. A Adult speaks up when they are pissed and that is what people are doing.

This "Real World" arguement people like you keep pulling falls flat on its face when you really do look at the real world.

Also to add I haven't gotten the pre-order because I know better then to pre-order anything from blizzard. Also I pay via time cards so my time runs out when it runs out.

[TheEaterofSouls]

Because the game promised little and is delivering nothing. The very few "features" of warlords that were announced at Blizzcon are being cut. What is the purpose of this expansion? What are the features? A new continent? Stat squish? That's it.

-Black Temple and Frostwolf keep no longer hub cities, just quest locations you visit once.
-New faction cities are copy pastes of the 4.1 krasarang wilds faction bases in ashran, an island in bumfuck nowhere
-Garrisons only in one zone now, no longer customization, no longer lets you name npcs, no longer has skill boosts, is just a daily quest hub phased to you.
-average class goes from 40 spells to 7
-no new skeletons or animations, literally every creature in the expansion is a remodelled creature.
-portions of entire zones are copy pasted from the BC devset
-the rest are not flying compatible and have 2d jpg mountains -now you know why shamans had far sight and hunters had eagle vision removed.
-now only 4 dungeons from level 90-100
-client code for garrison cash shop functionality discovered, quickly removed along with tweet mentioning it from cory stockton
-less raid content at launch than any expansion
-less dungeons than cataclysm had in PATCHES
-story is a barely canon side timeline alternate dimension just to give another enemy to fight while trying to lure in veterans with nostalgia and a 'veterans first!" beta access program
-almost all CC removed in pvp. totally removed in pve
-adding healing and tanking npcs in quests
-Heirloom and tabard storage tab just cut until "later"
-replacing quests with "dynamic, interactive world experiences" that appear once and when you do them disappear leaving huge swathes of zones empty.
-new models have a single face and the cosmetic choices in almost every model but undead simply adds a new texture to said single face.
-80% of announcements from blizzcon for the expansion are confirmed cut or extremely truncated in some way.

Literally everything cool that was shown at Blizzcon to hype people for the expansion were lies, and that's why people are upset.

Garrison cash shop?! Really? You'd expect this to get more flak than capital cities or no flying. That sounds like a bigger problem imo

[Jtbrig7390]

Then...attempt to get a refund? Unsubscribe? That's literally the only effective method of voicing discontent. Anything other than that is pointless.

Going to forums and posting there is another effective method of vicing discontent.

[Lessthanzer0]

People pre-order a game and sometimes these pre-orders are based on features mentioned. The company does this bullshit for hype and sly marketing with smoke and mirror tactics. It is absolutely foul and not so much a feeling of entitlement.

yeah cause blizzard wants all their players to be mad and pissed off. this game would've died a long time ago if they were blatantly trying to deceive people.

Supporting their use of lawyerspeak to dodge the prospect of actually addressing issues is only encouraging Blizzard and their reps to keep using it.

and what lawyersspeak is that? not using the words "promise" or "guaranteed" is not "lawyerspeak." every company tries to avoid phases like that because people twist them around but i guess what difference does it make since people are twisting shit around anyway.