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World of Warcraft: Blizzard: $60 for Level 90 Boost Explained
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Speaking to Eurogamer, Blizzard's Ion Hazzikostas explained why the cost of leveling a single character in World of Warcraft will cost $60, a price many feels is too high. Blizzard wants to allow players to boost more than one character without, he said, the need to purchase a second copy of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. The $60 price point, however, was chosen so as to "not devalue the accomplishment of leveling".
"If our goal here was to sell as many boosts as possible, we could halve the price or more than that - make it $10 or something. And then hardly anyone would ever level a character again.
"But levelling is something that takes dozens if not over 100 hours in many cases and people have put serious time and effort into that, and we don't want to diminish that."
He added: "I am not an economist, I'm not the one setting the dollar value myself, but it's not the profit maximising price. That was not our aim here."
Does this new information and explanation assuage concerns over the $60 price tag? Leave us your thoughts in the comments after reading the rest of the interview at the link above.
Comments
they've got a good thing over there. a subscription game with millions of subscribers. and a micro-transaction shop that probably makes more money than all f2p titles out there.
but selling lvl 90 boosts does just what he said he didn't want to do. it devalues leveling. no matter the price.
This is why I don't play WoW anymore. Everything that happens in WoW is aimed at nullifying or diminishing all accomplishments at least once a year.
Every expansion the same people would work hard for the best gear and dedicate serious time and effort to their choice niche in WoW. Then along came something 'to create an even playing field' aka 'help the bads catch up' and you'd spend the next 6 weeks trying to figure out who these new guys are who don't pay attention or cooperate or anything.
The best and most challenging dungeons in WoW are still Vanilla BWL and MC and AQ20/40 and ZG. I never got done with AQ40 before it was replaced with more kid friendly content in BC that allowed everyone to get a trophy.
That's what's so fun about WoW, everyone gets a trophy.
To be fair I think that all started in WotLK
it sure makes GW2 cash shop look like a harmless gingerbread house in the rainbow island.
cant wait whats Blizzards next cash shop item.
Ps.they really should raise their sub fee a bit since they have invented so cool new item that people can play with.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
I'm not on about that. I'm saying WoW was toned down alot after TBC, why do you think it was at it's peak in Wrath? Because welfare gear was thrown at the player base
/nvm
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Blizzard, you wanna know what really devalues the accomplishment of leveling? Selling max characters does.
I have 11 90's and I'll tell you leveling get really old really fast.
Devalues the exp rofl, it saves your sanity of playing old content that no one does.
It's another cash grab by a failing game. The game is still strong, but its on it's last legs I think.
WoW 11 characters at 90, now i know why you are tired of leveling. Gratz in a sense. But why should all the new players or the ones that just came back or will be coming back should feel like putting 60$ to get instant 90 just because some like you have 11 x 90's.????
That's the point they are trying to make. It is not the altoholic they want to feed here, that wants them at 10 or 20$ they want to help those that barely have a toon or none at all get into the new content. Thats what a mmorpg is about to level up
Edit : thats why it is 60$
I think buddy it is time to change game in your case because the new xpac is 10 level not 5 like the last 2 : cata and mop.
You are barely gona make 1 or 2 to 100 this time to that level. Otherwise you might end up playing another 1 to 1 and a half year to have all those 90 to 100
Or you might be able to pull it off quick but to gear them all good luck
Edit 2 : 1 other thing if you are in a guild it is possible easily to levelup those characters to 100 inside a week by grouping 5 people together and quest + dungeons or quest and pvp all the time . Makes you more socialize at the same time . So why make the price so low. to raid faster and listened to people complain a few months after again that there is no content end game???
The difficulty was getting nerfed a lot even before TBC. Molten Core was nerfed multiple times so that random guilds could do it that shouldn't have been able to. I knew one guild that was able to clear it despite having a tank and raid leader who insisted that Onyxia didn't have an agro table (and they wondered why they struggled to clear her).
The difficulty was getting butchered even without Blizzard directly nerfing it. I cleared much of MC before any raid add ons and before decursive. Decursive, by itself, changed Lucifron from a pretty difficult entry level fight due to the amount of planning and organization required to a fight any retard who could download an add on could easily clear. They nerfed pretty much every raid after it was released so that guilds could clear it with minimal effort.
On another related side note, I think it's interesting that so many people have railed against large scale raids. MC was the most populated instance according to Blizzard up until the release of TBC. MMOs are social games and non-trivial objectives that require larger numbers of players promotes a more social environment largely through making guilds and a friend list relevant. Remember the time you ran UBRS or Dire Maul and no one said anything the entire run? Neither do I. Dire Maul required some coordination, UBRS was largely a snooze fest until it required coordination. Random group / raid I get stuck in from Raid or Group finder does not require coordination or communication. Maybe a few words get uttered once a blue moon, but for the most part, it feels like drones going through the motions.
I think deep psychological issues and mmo gamers go hand and hand. Can someone explain to me how someone paying $60 and boosting to 90 diminishes my sense of achievement from leveling to 90? It only can if I let it. If I really enjoyed the leveling process, the quest, the stories, the zones, how could it all go to shit cause some other player I've never met chose to spend $60 and skip it all? How? Please explain it to me.
The problem is that everyone is too damn concerned with what people they don't even know are doing. The value of playing MMOs at all is something personal. Trust me, employers and teachers don't give a turd about you're raiding gear.
Just enjoy yiurself. That's the purpose.
Bash it all you want, it is a good business decision and lets not forget that this is a business, employees get paid to make these games. For people that don't have a lot of time to level a character this is a good deal.
Actually compared to many f2p games this is cheap. Heck it is easy to spend $30-50 for a mount in many PW games.
The only thing that I disliked in the story was the indication that the new expansion will cost $60, that is rather high for an expansion cost and none of their expansions have been that encompassing lately. This one had better be a dozy.
This is just a shot in the dark here... But I assume they don't do that due to the fact that they are a business. I believe they may need money to pay people and whatnot, and giving away free boost to 90 everyone someone hits 90 would be an epically bad business decision.
Then what you said doesn't really make sense. You're OK with the $60,to boost a character, but not OK with the expansion price if $60. You get a character boost with the expansion, which is a $60 value on top of the $40 expansion. Therefore, you're actually getting a $40 discount in their eyes lolBoobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.