As far as customer service and staying true to orginal, direct and vison of a game. Blizzard is far worse than EA.
what does this mean? blizzard's games are all original IP's
to the OP: EA is a bad comparison. they buy out games, make them worse but somehow turn a profit off destroying them.
blizzard is arguably one of the best computer game company's ever. there games all have extreemly long shelf life. before WOW they were known as one of the few company's that actually listened to there customers in regaurds to battlenet. then they even took the step in WC3 to let players generate there own content. now i think the problem is you can't possibly please 5M customers but i think they try. i know when i played wow and ran a raiding guild whenever we had loot problems or even when the master looter acidentally gave pieces to the wrong people blizz answered our tickets and resolved the problem that night. anyway im sure i'll get labled a fanboy but im not i quit not long after BC cause it ruined the game IMHO.
I will say that LOTRO is far from a niche game....its a pretty standard MMO. Gandalfs WoW...if you will. EVE, though, is a niche game. I'm also not so thrilled about people trying to BE WoW. But, the market IS better for that style of game right now. Designers haven't quite figured out that FFA PVP ensures a sandbox game will become super niche.
Whats the definition of a niche game? Eve has more subs than lotro currently (from available info)..both seem to be growing slowly as they should. Only difference is EVE was made to be succesful with 25k subs..now its at 225k. Not disagreeing with you..just confused i guess..im slow. By niche you mean will never reach a certain sub count? People said they would never reach 50k, then 100k, then 150k, then 200k...at what point do you drop the niche label. Not when you're in the top 5 western mmos? Is EVE super niche in your opinion since they have FFA PVP mostly? Just asking out of curiousity, nothing more. I am of the thinking that if your game is fun, whether its FFA PVP, or doesnt have PVP, or is a connect the dots MMO,alot of people will play it. Do you think that most WOW players know what a linear game is compared to an openended game? Or care? I see niche and EVE seem to go hand and hand...just wondering what peoples definition of niche is..if anyone else would like to share their definition of a niche game id be happy to hear too.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
You see this is what I find funny. People will complain about Blizzard's customer service or their product but yet they still are playing Blizzard games. If people really feel that they are being slighted in any possible way then the best way to make a statement is to not buy their products. It's just that simple. Gamers have more say into what should be made or done by companies more than they realize it.
I'm still playing World of Warcraft? Really? Last I heard, I quit 2 weeks ago. My forum account is still active until the 12th, though... and I was trying to help someone with a Mac technical problem this morning, which was damn near impossible until I had the bright idea of downloading NoScript and using it to block the stupid "lol" stuff.
Was just a general statement,certainly not directed at anyone here
Remove the lower level limitation on LFG? - if you remember why they put that system in you'd know why they wont do that.
I stopped playing WoW a short time ago but in the 2 years I played I have not seen too many bad decisions come from them except at the behest of players. I came across only 2 broken quests and both were fixed by the time it took me to level a toon past that area again. I never saw a GM online flexing their GM muscles to the fanbois like you see in some games; hell, i never even saw one in the 2 years I played. The only problem I had with the game, aside from 2 bugged quests, was a chat problem and the CS department sent me a fix the next day. My billing stopped the month I stopped it and when I left they asked me why I was leaving and you suggest they don't care?
Blizzard is a game company and I shudder to think that there is a game company that doesn't like to have fun, so maybe they go a little crazy with the hijinks on april fools day - we can live with that because it is April fools day and we all know what to expect by now.
In my eyes Blizzard is a pretty damn good game company - I'd list them with Bioware and Bethusda any day. Admittedly, the other MMORPG I played before WoW was SWG and after SOE everthing tastes like ice cream.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
They have poor customer service, constant hardware and/or software problems despite a steady influx of cash (and lots of it), a horrible community they've never made any attempt to police (the whole stupid "lol" thing on the forums for April Fool's is a good example of their tolerating and even encouraging acting like an idiot) and they tend to ignore pretty much any customer request, no matter how reasonable (removing the lower level limitation in the LFG tool). So long as they get their money, they'll do what they like. Obviously, no company is perfect, but when you take a look at Blizzard's attitude towards WoW players, as opposed to let's say Turbine's, there's a pretty obvious lack of respect that shows through, which bothers me more than their mediocre game (which really only suffers from being shallow, it's got good basic gameplay), to be honest.
I disagree with many, if not all, of those points.
For customer service, WoW is MUCH better than turbine. Having to deal with both a lot, I think I can speak very well on the subject.
When dealing with WoW, I 9times out of 10 get somebody who understands the game. As well they usually can solve my issue or I can get somebody who can relativly quick. Even for ingame matters like picking the wrong peice of armor from a quest. They will help you with that.
Turbine didnt. They tossed me around a bit, then said they couldnt do anything, when I was asked for the guy looking over his shoulders email, I was givin one and this is what followed.
We recognize that mistakes can be made while performing various transactions within the game.
However, we are not in a position to arbritarily determine what constitutes a mistake, and what
actions should be considered intended...
We apologize if you are not in agreement with our policies regarding this, but they will stand, and
there is nothing further that we can assist you with in this matter.
was how the email ended. For the record, I was scammed.
After days of dealing with customer service people I got this.
With Blizzard, after about 5 min of talking with a GM , my guilides item was in the mail and the guy logged of and hasnt been online since.
Blizzard 1, Turbine 0
As for WoW's community, its crazy, but its strong. There are some very constructive things on the forums, you just gota weed through the crap, and to be honest blizzard is dealing with a community larger than any before. You post can be moved to the 5th page in a matter of minutes. Short of 100 well coordinated moderators I dont see how it could be possible to rule with an iron first. I think they do a damn good job.
As for customer requests. Players are stupid. A lot of those design decisions are there for a reason. If the cusomer requests were worth more than their weight in air, they would probably be implemented.
Blizzcon, the dev posts. Their hillarious and clever april fools day tradition. Their ingame events. Their interviews. I think they treat the players damn well. They keep em informed and deal with issues. Ive played both LOTRO and WoW, I quit WoW for LOTRO, but I came back to WoW and honestly I dont regret it at all.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
EA destroyed UO. Until Blizzard destroys WoW in the same way EA destroyed UO (read: really not a possibility) they can't even be put in the same category.
First expansion ruined it as much as EA has with expansions. Blizzard just stopped caring, and it is obvious.
I have to admit a some points you are completly right. The customers service of Blizzard isn't good at all. But when you say the community are all idiots I have to disagree. The jokes Blizzard made yesterday I tought where very funny and people who played WoW really loved it! This doesn't encourage idiot behaviour imo.
EA destroyed UO. Until Blizzard destroys WoW in the same way EA destroyed UO (read: really not a possibility) they can't even be put in the same category.
Blizzard did destroy Warcarft. It used to be a game about winning and losing as Horde or Alliance in a major war. Now its about gaining Honor and getting l33t items. Where is the war?
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
EA destroyed UO. Until Blizzard destroys WoW in the same way EA destroyed UO (read: really not a possibility) they can't even be put in the same category.
Blizzard did destroy Warcarft. It used to be a game about winning and losing as Horde or Alliance in a major war. Now its about gaining Honor and getting l33t items. Where is the war?
In reference to a post I read over on the official WoW forums, I thought I'd bring this up here to see what you all think of it: Blizzard's pretty much become the new EA. They have poor customer service, constant hardware and/or software problems despite a steady influx of cash (and lots of it), a horrible community they've never made any attempt to police (the whole stupid "lol" thing on the forums for April Fool's is a good example of their tolerating and even encouraging acting like an idiot) and they tend to ignore pretty much any customer request, no matter how reasonable (removing the lower level limitation in the LFG tool). So long as they get their money, they'll do what they like. Obviously, no company is perfect, but when you take a look at Blizzard's attitude towards WoW players, as opposed to let's say Turbine's, there's a pretty obvious lack of respect that shows through, which bothers me more than their mediocre game (which really only suffers from being shallow, it's got good basic gameplay), to be honest.
This was Blizzard at wow's launch, this was the way Blizzard handled things on Battle.net. Why would anything have changed over the past couple years? People pay them, and have paid them and apparently will continue to pay them so what impetus does blizz have to change anything?
Blizzard did destroy Warcarft. It used to be a game about winning and losing as Horde or Alliance in a major war. Now its about gaining Honor and getting l33t items. Where is the war?
You are not very well informed, the game was never about some huge war between the Horde and the Alliance, you just assumed that because you had to side with one or the other that meant it was war.
Yes, killing Alliance/Horde during the old world 100vs100 battles was fun, but it never felt like a war either.
WoW is a PvE game with PvP thrown in to appease a particular crowd of players, its always been about killing bosses or monsters for "elite items", but different methods of aquiring loot have been made available to all types of players, allowing for a more level playing field on all fronts.
If you want to fight a war go play America's Army, because WoW will never deliver a true wartime experience or feel, no matter how disillusioned you might be or badly you want it.
Other games have 1/10 of WoW's subscriber base tops, cut Blizzard some slack, they do a fucking good job for a company that has to babysit the accounts of 10 million people, most of whom are whiney children with little to no patience or respect themselves.
Yeah yeah yeah, everybody hates Blizzard and WoW. They suck, they are horrible and they are destroying WoW. The fact they have millions of players is just an accident. Soon, they will fail and burn in hell for eternity. Ive heard that since early beta: "WoW sux, it will never survive"; "WoW will never have more then 10000 players"; "WoW will fail, and so will Blizzard".
Yeah, CS isnt that fast, but you try to handle hundreds of thousands of complaints? And people do complain for trivial reasons. Even if you put a big fat red sign that reads DONT ASK GMS FOR DIRECTIONS, there will always be an idiot or two who will ask GMs for directions and claim they did not see the warning sign.
The "lol" event on their forum is also no indication of their downfall. In fact, I liked it. Nobody was hurt, crippled or offended by that little trick. If you are trying so hard to find negative signs in that little PR trick, then you have WAY too much time on your hands. Might as well wrap your head in foil because aliens, government or Blizzard is trying to read your thoughts.
Lighten up, people. Just play the game if you like it or dont play it if you dont like it.
Even though I myself do not enjoy wow (yes I played it once upon a time), I will give credit where credit is due.
Simply put, WOW brought mmo gaming to the masses, like what MTV did for the music video. They have 10 million or so people playing their game, so that must be a seriously heavy workload for them and their CS team. Imagine what its like trying to please an audience of that size and diversity. Reminds me of the movie "Bruce Almighty", where Bruce (Jim Carrey), has to figure out how to answer the prayers of every person on earth. You know what I mean if you seen that flick.
Comments
what does this mean? blizzard's games are all original IP's
to the OP: EA is a bad comparison. they buy out games, make them worse but somehow turn a profit off destroying them.
blizzard is arguably one of the best computer game company's ever. there games all have extreemly long shelf life. before WOW they were known as one of the few company's that actually listened to there customers in regaurds to battlenet. then they even took the step in WC3 to let players generate there own content. now i think the problem is you can't possibly please 5M customers but i think they try. i know when i played wow and ran a raiding guild whenever we had loot problems or even when the master looter acidentally gave pieces to the wrong people blizz answered our tickets and resolved the problem that night. anyway im sure i'll get labled a fanboy but im not i quit not long after BC cause it ruined the game IMHO.
P.S. 2 weeks doesn't count you will go back
Whats the definition of a niche game? Eve has more subs than lotro currently (from available info)..both seem to be growing slowly as they should. Only difference is EVE was made to be succesful with 25k subs..now its at 225k. Not disagreeing with you..just confused i guess..im slow. By niche you mean will never reach a certain sub count? People said they would never reach 50k, then 100k, then 150k, then 200k...at what point do you drop the niche label. Not when you're in the top 5 western mmos? Is EVE super niche in your opinion since they have FFA PVP mostly? Just asking out of curiousity, nothing more. I am of the thinking that if your game is fun, whether its FFA PVP, or doesnt have PVP, or is a connect the dots MMO,alot of people will play it. Do you think that most WOW players know what a linear game is compared to an openended game? Or care? I see niche and EVE seem to go hand and hand...just wondering what peoples definition of niche is..if anyone else would like to share their definition of a niche game id be happy to hear too.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I'm still playing World of Warcraft? Really? Last I heard, I quit 2 weeks ago. My forum account is still active until the 12th, though... and I was trying to help someone with a Mac technical problem this morning, which was damn near impossible until I had the bright idea of downloading NoScript and using it to block the stupid "lol" stuff.
Was just a general statement,certainly not directed at anyone here
Remove the lower level limitation on LFG? - if you remember why they put that system in you'd know why they wont do that.
I stopped playing WoW a short time ago but in the 2 years I played I have not seen too many bad decisions come from them except at the behest of players. I came across only 2 broken quests and both were fixed by the time it took me to level a toon past that area again. I never saw a GM online flexing their GM muscles to the fanbois like you see in some games; hell, i never even saw one in the 2 years I played. The only problem I had with the game, aside from 2 bugged quests, was a chat problem and the CS department sent me a fix the next day. My billing stopped the month I stopped it and when I left they asked me why I was leaving and you suggest they don't care?
Blizzard is a game company and I shudder to think that there is a game company that doesn't like to have fun, so maybe they go a little crazy with the hijinks on april fools day - we can live with that because it is April fools day and we all know what to expect by now.
In my eyes Blizzard is a pretty damn good game company - I'd list them with Bioware and Bethusda any day. Admittedly, the other MMORPG I played before WoW was SWG and after SOE everthing tastes like ice cream.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
For customer service, WoW is MUCH better than turbine. Having to deal with both a lot, I think I can speak very well on the subject.
When dealing with WoW, I 9times out of 10 get somebody who understands the game. As well they usually can solve my issue or I can get somebody who can relativly quick. Even for ingame matters like picking the wrong peice of armor from a quest. They will help you with that.
Turbine didnt. They tossed me around a bit, then said they couldnt do anything, when I was asked for the guy looking over his shoulders email, I was givin one and this is what followed.
was how the email ended. For the record, I was scammed.After days of dealing with customer service people I got this.
With Blizzard, after about 5 min of talking with a GM , my guilides item was in the mail and the guy logged of and hasnt been online since.
Blizzard 1, Turbine 0
As for WoW's community, its crazy, but its strong. There are some very constructive things on the forums, you just gota weed through the crap, and to be honest blizzard is dealing with a community larger than any before. You post can be moved to the 5th page in a matter of minutes. Short of 100 well coordinated moderators I dont see how it could be possible to rule with an iron first. I think they do a damn good job.
As for customer requests. Players are stupid. A lot of those design decisions are there for a reason. If the cusomer requests were worth more than their weight in air, they would probably be implemented.
Blizzcon, the dev posts. Their hillarious and clever april fools day tradition. Their ingame events. Their interviews. I think they treat the players damn well. They keep em informed and deal with issues. Ive played both LOTRO and WoW, I quit WoW for LOTRO, but I came back to WoW and honestly I dont regret it at all.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
First expansion ruined it as much as EA has with expansions. Blizzard just stopped caring, and it is obvious.
Hi,
I have to admit a some points you are completly right. The customers service of Blizzard isn't good at all. But when you say the community are all idiots I have to disagree. The jokes Blizzard made yesterday I tought where very funny and people who played WoW really loved it! This doesn't encourage idiot behaviour imo.
Greetz2Z
Blizzard did destroy Warcarft. It used to be a game about winning and losing as Horde or Alliance in a major war. Now its about gaining Honor and getting l33t items. Where is the war?
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Blizzard did destroy Warcarft. It used to be a game about winning and losing as Horde or Alliance in a major war. Now its about gaining Honor and getting l33t items. Where is the war?
So, it's just like real life?
This was Blizzard at wow's launch, this was the way Blizzard handled things on Battle.net. Why would anything have changed over the past couple years? People pay them, and have paid them and apparently will continue to pay them so what impetus does blizz have to change anything?
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
If they put in game ads ino SC2 like they said then they lose my support, till then I love em.
You are not very well informed, the game was never about some huge war between the Horde and the Alliance, you just assumed that because you had to side with one or the other that meant it was war.
Yes, killing Alliance/Horde during the old world 100vs100 battles was fun, but it never felt like a war either.
WoW is a PvE game with PvP thrown in to appease a particular crowd of players, its always been about killing bosses or monsters for "elite items", but different methods of aquiring loot have been made available to all types of players, allowing for a more level playing field on all fronts.
If you want to fight a war go play America's Army, because WoW will never deliver a true wartime experience or feel, no matter how disillusioned you might be or badly you want it.
Other games have 1/10 of WoW's subscriber base tops, cut Blizzard some slack, they do a fucking good job for a company that has to babysit the accounts of 10 million people, most of whom are whiney children with little to no patience or respect themselves.
Far too many companies a lot worse than blizzard. No one is perfect and there are better companies than them, but not many.
Yeah yeah yeah, everybody hates Blizzard and WoW. They suck, they are horrible and they are destroying WoW. The fact they have millions of players is just an accident. Soon, they will fail and burn in hell for eternity. Ive heard that since early beta: "WoW sux, it will never survive"; "WoW will never have more then 10000 players"; "WoW will fail, and so will Blizzard".
Yeah, CS isnt that fast, but you try to handle hundreds of thousands of complaints? And people do complain for trivial reasons. Even if you put a big fat red sign that reads DONT ASK GMS FOR DIRECTIONS, there will always be an idiot or two who will ask GMs for directions and claim they did not see the warning sign.
The "lol" event on their forum is also no indication of their downfall. In fact, I liked it. Nobody was hurt, crippled or offended by that little trick. If you are trying so hard to find negative signs in that little PR trick, then you have WAY too much time on your hands. Might as well wrap your head in foil because aliens, government or Blizzard is trying to read your thoughts.
Lighten up, people. Just play the game if you like it or dont play it if you dont like it.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Even though I myself do not enjoy wow (yes I played it once upon a time), I will give credit where credit is due.
Simply put, WOW brought mmo gaming to the masses, like what MTV did for the music video. They have 10 million or so people playing their game, so that must be a seriously heavy workload for them and their CS team. Imagine what its like trying to please an audience of that size and diversity. Reminds me of the movie "Bruce Almighty", where Bruce (Jim Carrey), has to figure out how to answer the prayers of every person on earth. You know what I mean if you seen that flick.