Cross-Realm Dungeon Feature Coming Soon

[Jaerin]

The great thing about this situation, though, is that I'm sure most people happily accepted the status quo of not being able to do this, because Blizzard said it would be "really really hard to do". Now, however, that Blizzard is showing that they can in fact accomplish this "monumental task in programming" (), but will only provide such functionality to people who are willing to pay extra... yeah. People are kinda miffed, to put it lightly... lol

Imagine that they tell you that something costly might be possible, you tell them that you want it anyways. They say, okay, but we can't do it for free. Now people are bitching because they are getting what they wouldn't ever get before and to do it they require the people who want the idea to pay for it. Sounds to me like they are asking the people who will use the service to pay for it. How does this affect the status quo again?

This is just like a gas tax to pay for roads. Seems pretty logical to make the people who use a specialized service pay extra for that service rather than making all of us pay for it.

[Kelathos]

Pay EXTRA for the ability to play with my friends... thanks Blizzard.

Why am I subscribed again?

[Maniabe]

They're obviously running out of "Titan" funds so they have to charge us for an easy to develop service.

[Ranor]

Pay EXTRA for the ability to play with my friends... thanks Blizzard.

Why am I subscribed again?

I dunno. You don't have the ability to play with your friends now. Why ARE you subscribed?

[Deleted]

There's absolutly no reason for this to require a premium account. The fact that you can see and talk to real ID friends, and the fact that when in a dungeon with random other server players you can keep joining new dungeons proves that they are flat out lying, and are just after cash.

[Belloc]

its not being greedy, i have that money, and i could pay 100$ a month for it if i wanted.. the thing is that this is Activisions doing.. this is their playstyle in business

people have to stand up and defend their money and ideals
if everyone would had stayed quiet and let the "Real Name on forums" thing pass .... by now we would have Facebook in-game in the Real-ID tab, and a chat tab with your facebook friends

if we let this one pass, they know they can push it further.. they like $$$ so they will see how much of it they can squeeze out of us
we will see next, Premium Bosses on raids, Premium bags and bagslots, etc etc

and the game will be ruined

The community is going to ruin the game, not premium services. If you don't like the service, don't pay for it.

All I see here are a bunch of entitled brats, most of whom probably don't pay for their own subscription. Let this be a lesson: When you spend money to create something, you generally do not provide it at no charge. Your subscription fee provides you with access to World of Warcraft. This planned service hasn't been a part of your subscription before, so why should it be now?

Your conspiratorial worries will not come to pass just because Blizzard is deciding to charge for a service that is going to require a substantial investment of resources.

People asked Blizzard for server transfers and they were provided as a paid service. People asked for race/faction changes and they were provided as a paid service. People asked for... cross-realm RealID groups -- and they'll be provided as a paid service. As long as people keep asking for non-content services, Blizzard will continue charging a fee for them. You're generally supposed to thank people when they provide you with what you've been asking for.

[Jaerin]

Pay EXTRA for the ability to play with my friends on a completely different server anytime I want... thanks Blizzard.

Why am I subscribed again?

So you're complaining about the fact that now you might get to play with RL friends that you couldn't before unless you paid $25 and gave up all your current WoW server friends. I'm guessing this will probably be no more than $5 and only 1 person has to pay for it.

Are you guys really this cheap and stupid. Yes they taking away a feature that you never had before and telling you that you have to pay for it. Makes sense to me why you're upset...

I guess you'd rather pay $25 every time you want to play with some of your other friends

[Recoverus]

Not a chance, not a fkin chance in hell will I pay for this. Stick it up your backside and swivel Blizzard.

[Chozobo]

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[azurrei]

This doesn't affect me at all because I would not use this feature, but it concerns me because who is to say that cross-realm BoA won't be premium...or the dance studio (rofl like anyone cares about that)...or when/if they FINALLY implement armor dye or a wardrobe type feature.

This could essentially set a precedent for a new type of "premium service," one that actually affects your gameplay and will surely make myself and many other people quit.

[isendims]

I dunno. You don't have the ability to play with your friends now. Why ARE you subscribed?

Then who are we playing with if we don't have the ability now?

[Deleted]

I really hate over reacting, but this is blatant greediness and things like this will cause me to reconsider my ongoing subscription.

[Xenofreak]

This could have been great news, but now it isn't.

For those saying re-roll or transfer, really? I have friends on other servers, sure, but I also have friends on the one I'm currently on. As do they. And I'm sure their friends have other friends that are on that server and others that they'd like to play with. There's no way everyone is going to be playing with their friends in the current system unless Blizzard somehow creates some unimaginably powerful server that can hold everyone on one realm. Which is impractical in a lot more ways than just the technical. But this, this has the potential to fix that. Able to play with your friends despite whatever attachments you might have to whatever servers you're on. Then they're kind of taking a crap on it saying "We've got this great new things that greatly improves the game! But...you have to pay us to use it." The worst part for them is, the competition will likely find a way to copy it and not charge for it. One of the massive downsides of MMO's has the chance to be semi-vanquished with this, but sadly Blizzard is just kind of taking a crap on it by charging for it.

It's not that I don't appreciate the work that goes into it. I do. But improvements to the games core functionality should not be on a charge basis. At least not after years of being on a subscription basis.

So you're complaining about the fact that now you might get to play with RL friends that you couldn't before unless you paid $25 and gave up all your current WoW server friends. I'm guessing this will probably be no more than $5 and only 1 person has to pay for it.

Are you guys really this cheap and stupid. Yes they taking away a feature that you never had before and telling you that you have to pay for it. Makes sense to me why you're upset...

So you would have had no problem with the LFD tool had been a premium only thing? I mean, it's a feature that we never had before. Or Guild perks/levels. Barbershops. Cross-realm battlegrounds. All sorts of new "features" over the years that we've never had before. But here's the thing. All of those introduced to either deal with flaws or improve gameplay, much like this one. Charging for horses, transfers, race changes, sure. But actual parts of the gameplay being charged for in addition to the subscription fee? No.

[Archermit]

only a matter of time before horde and alliance can lfd together

To be honest, if it is a paid service, you would the fastest queue possible so why not allow horde and alliance team up

[Deleted]

Where does it say they are bleeding subs again? Look at the historical numbers there is always a post-expansion dip...why would you expect this one to be different? They lost 5% of their subs...hardly detrimental to the health of the game considering 5% was pretty much what the #2 game has active in the US if they are lucky.

I don't remember Blizzard posting about a similar loss 3 months after TBC or WotLK.
Before Blizzard admitted the subscribers loss, fanbois vehemently negated any drop in subscription in every thread hinting at that.
After Blizzard admitted the subscribers loss, fanbois say it's normal.

[Scratches]

Imagine that they tell you that something costly might be possible, you tell them that you want it anyways. They say, okay, but we can't do it for free. Now people are bitching because they are getting what they wouldn't ever get before and to do it they require the people who want the idea to pay for it. Sounds to me like they are asking the people who will use the service to pay for it. How does this affect the status quo again?

This is just like a gas tax to pay for roads. Seems pretty logical to make the people who use a specialized service pay extra for that service rather than making all of us pay for it.

Sorry, but that's a false analogy.

We already pay a fee to help offset the costs of all development.

But since you like analogies so much, try this one: Valve Software. They put a game out for ~$40, and 4 years later are still pushing updates and content patches for the game, without asking for or requiring a single additional fee. My oh my, if development costs were so astronomical, as many people suggest, they shouldn't even be in business any more... especially not at the rate that they release games!

Also, to the people who are saying that people always drop off after an expansion... sure, that happens, yeah. But 600k within the first 3 months? Morhaime himself said that such a loss, so soon after the launch of an expansion, was unprecedented. Go ahead and laugh it off though; it's only 5%, though, right?
You're not the one that has to answer to investors as to why your product generated $9M less income than it did 3 months before...

[Deleted]

I am now willing to take a bet that when Blizzard figures out how to do cross-realms BoA transfers, it will be a premium service as well.

[Knightsun]

This is a pretty hard post not to get infracted on.

The problem I'm hearing in this thread is that it's going to be hard to convince your parents to pony up so you can play w/ off-server friends.

"Buuuut, maaaaaaaaa'aaaaaaaam!"

Seriously. I'll bet Blizz would be happy to trade you inflation on their monthly fee for everything 'Premium' they will ever sell. Think about how much more expensive energy and everything else is than it was 7 years ago. Think about how many CS people they had to hire just to help the millions of unwashed compewter newbs that can't keep key loggers off their systems.

Sure, I would really love it if they had a clear demarcation between a team that we paid our $15 a month to for further development, and the team that designs bonus 'Premium' content, but that's just not how game dev works.

I'm willing to bet that the pricing they announce isn't even going to turn a profit- it's likely going to be just enough to break even, so that they wouldn't be diverting resources.

Not making apologies here, but seriously...

Do you get pissed at Wendy's when the guy behind you gets bacon and cheese?

See, I've wondered about that, but that goes under the assumption that a.) when the game came out, they were breaking even at $15. b.) they haven't grown in subscribers. Both of which I believe are false. They were without a doubt making a profit at $15 a month, I can't fathom them setting a price to break even. WoW is without a doubt more popular than it was in it's first few years.

Of course the price of operation has gotten more expensive, with rising energy costs, hiring more employees, maintaining the servers, however the increase in popularity of the game has been enough to cover all that and then some. According to ActiBlizz's financial report on May 9th, 2011, they've posted record profits from the 1st Quarter of 2011, with Blizzard bringing in $170 million of that. Obviously Blizzard has other games out, but the only one other than WoW who could make significant contributions to the profit is StarCraft 2, and that's almost a year old now so it's not like they got a huge profit boom from the game being released.

Blizzard is in no way breaking even on anything involving WoW. They're making a profit, a big one. They just want more, which is what any company worth it's spit will try and do.

[Jaerin]

There's absolutly no reason for this to require a premium account. The fact that you can see and talk to real ID friends, and the fact that when in a dungeon with random other server players you can keep joining new dungeons proves that they are flat out lying, and are just after cash.

Lying about what exactly? The fact that they need to develop a means to invite anyone from any server at any time. We're not talking about only having to deal with the people that happened to be queued at the time, but this could be a request to invite anyone. So yeah there probably are a lot of logistical issues with that.

Also now that you are allowing player control over invites and such there is probably much bigger potential for exploits and the like. Not to mention looting issues, unless you are going to force everyone to still use the Need/Greed system in place now.

Just because it doesn't seem like it should cost anything to implement a feature like this doesn't mean that it doesn't have huge costly problems associated with them.

[Suikoden]

I can already see Tb's rage over this

He rages about everything o.O;