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Xpack - should be free or not?
airstrike
Member UncommonPosts: 373
Ive being wandering,why a company that makes 9mil x 15$ a month (alot of freaking cash) cant release some free content/expansion,im not talking about dungeons,new classes,items ,areas to explore etc.Some games that dont even make 10% of what blizzard is making release Xpacks and new content for free with no extra requirments.Seems to me blizzard has adopted a SWG marketing program (not bashing any ,but it's what I see),they promise X and Y and for free and then they release it but you have to pay extra to get it.
Comments
It's called a business for a reason. They are paying programmers by the hour and I don't blame them one bit for charging for it.
They are giving the x-pac (TBC) away free in Korea? China? I don't recall which of the two countries.
Therefore... they A) Make it free.
Start supporting their community.
Retired Max LvL and Raiding for - EQ - DAoC - Dungeon Runners - WoW - LoTR:Online - GW/All Expansions - CoH/V - SWG *** Currently Playing EQ2 *** Awaiting - PoTBS!
You know nothing.
China pays a higher "monthly" fee than us. They also have a company called "The9" (I think that's what they're called) who takes care of business over there, so Blizzard probably struck a deal with them to be able to give it to them for free. It also came out half a year later than ours did.
Edit: And to the OP, Blizzard doesn't get all of that money. A good chunk if not most goes to Vivendi. Plus, they're already giving us free content patches every so often. Naxx, Dire Maul, BWL, AQ, etc all free. And no, they didn't promise us anything for free.
Since MMorpg started, there has been the business system of doing free content patches and paid bigger expansions.
Most MMorpg follow this scheme and WoW does the same. I do not see why they would stop following it as it is clearly working for them and for the competition before them.
Fact is the ones that do not follow the scheme are more the exception than the rule.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
The thing is,with the expansions forcing people to buy them if they want to advance is a good scheme,but it wont work that well this time,cause most people that have a life just started doing the TBC dungeons and once the expansion is out,again greens will be better than T4/T5 or even T6.If they would put up this expansion for free they would be increasing subs rather than loosing them,and since the content for northrend is +70,people who didnt get outland cant do much there.
Why do people make statements like "Well they have 9 million subscribers, they should release content for free". I mean, what kind of thinking is that? Should SOE release less content for free then Blizzard because hey, they have less subscribers? Thats rediculous. You get what you pay for, and it doesn't matter if there are 8.999.999 other people who are playing the game.
Could they do it? Yes. Should they do it? ofcourse not. Blizzard is a company that wants to make money. If they can make profit out of something, they will.
Well don't you think that with all those profits from the 9 million subscribers, they don't have extra to make the next expansion free?
I mean COME ON, aren't they capable? Other MMOs out there offer the installer for free, you only have to pay for the monthly fee. And others are really free, they just have an item mall. And the makers of those other MMOs have no profit as big as blizzard, but they can.
On the other hand Blizzard is just taking advantage of the situation. But this shit is too much.
Why should they make it free when people will pay?
All money 9mil users are paying montly is not only to cover wow costs but allso to develop other games n stuff. WoW is gold vein of Blizz and i hope they will use it to make good titles in future
-------------------->
Would you like some cheese with that whine?
you are all looking at this from a $$$ perspective...think about it on a system requirements perspective. WoW can be played by almost anyone with a computer, the internet and a graphics card. Expansions take up 2+gb of space. the majority of the WoW players cant download the 2gb+ of space for the expansion. i personally hate downloading full games/expansions and try to avoid it at all costs (even if that means i pay an extra $10 or $20 for the game)
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Blizz have been given free content to players ( at least to raiders) every now and then. Imagine if you are playing everquest, you will have more x-pac by now. So charging an x-pac per year is ok imo...
RIP Orc Choppa
It definitely shouldn't be free. Blizzard has put in a lot of free content before the first expansion pack. All Ab, AV, WSG, Nax, AQ, and ZG (i think dire maul and arena skirmishes too) were all free. What I would like for them to do, though, is be more creative. The last expansion was more of the same shit we were doing before. I would really like to see some new fresh ideas. Siege weapons and destructible buildings are a good start but not enough. The death knight is cool too i guess. I wouldve much rather had sub classes like FFXI. It wouldve gave everybody a whole lot more diversity. We will see how this expansion does.
Like I said before, a lot, if not most, of that goes to Vivendi. Blizzard doesn't get all the money from the 9 million subs.
Well don't you think that with all those profits from the 9 million subscribers, they don't have extra to make the next expansion free?
I mean COME ON, aren't they capable? Other MMOs out there offer the installer for free, you only have to pay for the monthly fee. And others are really free, they just have an item mall. And the makers of those other MMOs have no profit as big as blizzard, but they can.
On the other hand Blizzard is just taking advantage of the situation. But this shit is too much.
Again, you get what you pay for, it does not matter how many subscribers there are. Should toyota give you more accesoires in your car because they sell more cars? Ofcourse not.And there are lot of games who charge you for the client. Archlord, Asherons Call, Auto Assault, City of Heroes, City of Villains, D&D Online, dark age of camelot, EVE Online, Everquest, Everquest 2, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Lord of the rings online, The Matrix Online, Phantasy Star Universe, RF online, Roma Victor,Star Wars Galaxies (they used to), Ultima Online, Vanguard: saga of Heroes and I can mention many others.
Can they give the expansion for free? Yes. should they? Ofcourse not. Blizzard is here to make profit, not to give charity.
They should be free. Other games have free expansions. Also, they make all gear and everything you have void and out of date. EIther way, they'll continue to milk the kiddies parents credit cards as long as they don't mind.
Why are you even bothering to post here when you obviously hate Blizzard with a passion, you think we're all kids, and World of Warcraft sucks?
You're wrong. Go troll somewhere else.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
The only reason some other MMOs like DDO, EQ, EQ2, DAoC, CoX give out FREE expansions is because they have to to maintain their player base, they just cannot afford for any of their subs to not buy the expansion as it would hit the overall population. Blizz can charge cus losing say 10% of the population want realy be an issue.
But if TBC is anything to go by they have an almost 100% conversion rate, in march 2007 www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml blizz said they had an EU+US player base of about 3.5 million and the TBC sold around 3.5 million... with conversion like that why give it for free.
i want them to sell it...you see i'm addicted to buying collector editions on all games please blizz sell a collectors edition
also my murloc suit pwns :P
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
WoW isnt about charity ffs, and if blizz are into charity I sure hope they give it to ppl who need it not f*cking fat slobs playing WoW jeez.
What we should expect however is a good expansion this time around, BC wasnt exactly packed with stuff. And not just because we pay for the xpack, but because ppl should expect more from a company like Blizz tbh. BC at release was just laughable imo.
Well the likelihood is that atleast 80% of the people playing BC now will buy the xpac, even if just to check out the new content. As with the TBC xpac many who had previously stopped playing came back to check out the new content and some continued to play whilst others dropped out after the first month or 2.
Blizzard are a massive money-making business, and they're good at it, probably for reasons like not handing out free expansions which are likely to cost a brick and a half to make in the first place, if they were to hand it out for free, in my opinion the quality wouldn't be as good and the content not as diverse.
Hopefully we'll see many more subscribers after the expansion, but it's difficult to say at the moment. In conclusion - everyone is paying 15$ a month anyway, it's not exactly cheap is it? so most WoWers will probably have enough to spend on the new expansion anyway.
They do release new content for free, its called patches. Honestly there has been a huge amount of post-release content in terms of instances, game mechanics, and pvp for both the original and BC. I don't remember any companies giving away a retail expansion for free (at release). Some do give large updates comparable to a small expansion for free but the size of WoTLK is far beyond what I've seen any game release for free. Anyways, just be glad Blizz doesn't use the EQ model and release $30 expansions every few month (just about).
In the end, logic and reason always beat out fanboys.
i get tired of these kinda topics, i know i know don't read if you don't like, but thats not the point...i just can't understand why you all think everything should be free, its not just with wow i see it on the other forums, people need to understand this is business they are here to make money plain and simple, i know there are some mmos for free but they use other means to make money, other means i personally don't like, anyways blizzard has always sold their expansions and i hope they will continue to do so.
so why do you people always want everything for free?
edit: blizzard has since it came out added alot of content weather you personally consider it content or not doesn't matter, but they have added alot of free stuff to the game without charging.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas