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Blizzard are worse than SoE
happyclappy
Member Posts: 99
Am I the only one to notice ever since Activision merged with Vivendi, Blizzard's attitute has taken a turn for the worse. In my opinion they are worse now than SoE hours after the SWG combat upgrade! Blizzard no longer cares about how many gold sellers / farmers /bots are on their realms, they just do a "banwave" every now and then. I am predicting one near to wotlk release. This is effectively a gold sellers tax as they have made their money and by the time Blizzard take action the damage is done.
In March Blizzard said, no way are we doing PvE to PvP transfer now they have done a complete U-turn. The recruit a friend is marketing genius, but it has turned 1-60 into a joke and now there are just a load of dual-boxing asshats. The percentage of actual "friends" is tiny I imagine. Not only that but why issue a multi-GB pre-wotlk patch? What is in the boxed version?
Blizzard's 'personality' has changed and are in danger of turning players away. Games such as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, may not usurp World of Warcraft but they are nibbling away at its population. It's been over a year since we had a press release saying "WoW now reaches x million". That was shortly after TBC release and 2 months after there was a drop in population.
If we don't hear after WoTLK a similar press release than that is a turning point in Warcraft's future, look at all the charts for mmorpg's, once they have hit a peak, they rarely go back above it and in most cases trinkle off.
Comments
I tend to agree. World of Warcraft is clearly headed the casual route. But still I think the only game able to kill WoW (or take significant market share off it) will be the next Blizzard MMO.
.: mmogle.com - the mmo question hub :.
Um.. wow... just wow.. so many non-logical statements in one paragraph.
Let's tackle your craziness one point at a time.
1. What gold-farmers. There are barely any on the live servers.. it takes like 1 second for a player to report them and they are banned within a minute. About two years ago, they were mass banning gold-farmers in waves because there wasn't an easy way for players to do it. Now that players have the new tool, gold-farmers are being banned much faster and easier. I haven't seen a gold farmer in a long time (year).. and gold-spammers in cities get booted within a minute.
2. PvE to PvP - they never said never about the transfer.. in fact, they almost never say never at all. They always say " this is something we are not persuing at this time" or some other disclaimer. My guess is you read 'not now" as "never"
Now why did they do the pve to pvp transfers. The main reason is the expansion. All of the full servers are pve, all of the low-pop servers are pvp. A ton of players are going to be joinin/rejoining when wraith launches. Having people transfer from the highest populations servers to the lowest populations servers before the launch is a great way to make room for new players. Also PVP servers are more fun with more people on them.
3. RAF - Again.. 1-60 SHOULD be a joke... well not a joke, but Blizzard knows that the enjoyment of WOW is found with other players. Blizzard wants players to get to 60 as fast a possible so they are playing with the vast majority of other players.
4. The multiGB patch upcoming. Again you are showing your ignorance. I know you won't understand this, but some people will not buy the expansion right away.. there is a ton of content that non-wrath people must have in order to play the game... new talents, the new harbor at SW and zepplin towers. Even if you don't have the expansion, you still have to 'see' players who do have the expansion.. so you need some of that content anyway. What is actually in the box? How about the new continent?.. a huge freakin map with like 30 dungeons? All of the artwork for the 10+ new races that are in Northrend? I think your simple-mindedness just can't grasp the fact that not everyone is going to have the expansion on day 1 and those people must be able to play the game with people that do have the expansion. It's better to get that initial patch out of the way before wraith actually launches. They also did the same thing with Burning Crusade.. there was a big patch that introduced the talents and other basic stuff before the actual expansion
5. Actually the last press release was in March where they said they had 10.9M subscribers, which was a new all time high. It hasn't been 'over a year' and there was never anything released that showed subscriber numbers decreasing. And please don't compare WOW with Warhammer/AOC. you used xfire, so let's stick with that. WOW has been very steady over the past 6 months.. AOC is down about 90% since June, and Warhammer has lost 20% in the past two weeks and continues to lose players every day (comparing week over week numbers). This friday was 15% less than last friday and every other day had a similar loss.
And just to put it in perspective. AOC sold about 900k boxes total(to customers). Warhammer sold about 800k boxes total so far(to customers). On it's very first day, Burning crusade sold 2.4M boxes... and that was when WOW only had 7M subscribers. It now has almost 12M subscribers. In one day, Wrath will probably sell twice as many boxes as AOC and Warhammer have sold TOTAL...
if you don't hear something after the expansion it will be a turning point? haha.. to whom? you.. who cares. Quit WOW.. check amazon.com's sales charts. Vanilla WOW is still in the top 20... trust me, you will be easily replaced by those people who are just now buying the initial game.
{Mod. Edit}
$oe is the devil incarnate,
as for Blizzard.....he become apprentice(ahh,maybe not,just a little).
Yes, you're the only one.
Warcraft was casual the day it was released.....ANyone that played beta could have told you that it was a gold sellers paradise and they only catered to that more with TBC........Dont be angry at Blizzard be angry at lazy players that think buying gold is OK and doesnt hurt anyone......
Can't say that i would agree with anything that you have witten there OP and i would love to see your solid evidence to back up your points, especially that about losing players as my servers are much busier now than ever before. If you actually look back at the figures re TBC, you will find that there was a big rise in population and then you are right that there was a fall after a couple of months, but the subs level was still higher than pre TBC and rose steadily again after that.
Blizzard have never waivered in their opinion of gold farmers/sellers and Botters. They have put systems in place within the game to deal with them more effectively over various patches and only recently won a landmark case against a major bot software creator which sets a precedent for dealing with all of these types of issues further down the line. They have also given the rest of the MMO industry a way to deal with these issues too now if they are so inclined.
As i have said in previous posts i don't understand the whole 'major' issue surrounding PvE to PvP transfers, but then again i don't ever remember Blizzard saying they would 'never' do it, but i stand to be corrected on that one.
The recruit a friend thing is fantastic. My brother decided to come back to the game after a while away and we are currently levelling together and the speed of levelling is great. It means that he will be back playing at his previous level (he had 2 x L70's before which he decided not to restore) in a much shorter time. This is what the recruit a friend thing is all about, getting your friends in there and making sure you can play together at the same level much quicker.
On your overall point, i have seen no change in Blizzard' attitude at all, they have been just as open (if not more so) all the way through the new expansion and in pretty much everything else they have done. I would love to see just how open Mythic or Funcom are about their subs figures/future development in the coming months.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
You can't please everyone... I am one of those who does not like the way WoW is going, but I don't think it is some conspiracy, its a business choice. I find that WoW is looking more and more like a shooter than a MMORPG, but if that is where they can make the most money, good for them and I will go play something else. I am on break from the game now and feel no desire to rejoin when the expansion comes out.
As for the OP's points, gold sellers: much less than in the past and I haven't seen a botter in quite a while. So it looks to me that they have done a very good job.
PvE to PvP, while then never said never, they repeatadly made it clear that this was very close to never. I agree that the about face on this was very surprising and decieving.
Population, as others have said, there were a couple of announcements this year.
Eventually WoW will max out (maybe it is now) and slowly start to decline. That is normal, no game will last forever.
Check the Blizzard forum archives, I am sure you will find many times they stated they will not (never) open PVE to PVP transfers.
They did go back on there statment one time about 2 years in when Kalgan wanted to get his guild off a PVE server to a PVP one. They tried to mask it by opening up 6 servors but the player base caught on and a big stink went on about it in the forums for a long time.
After that they said they would never do it again, this was posted in the forums also.
The PvE to PvP transfers were a knee jerk reaction to WAR which was supposed to drain the PvP playerbase, that never happened due to WAR being nothing more than an average game. Throw the chance for Blizz to grab a little more cash and you have the instant recipe.
On the flip side, all the T6 geared players will find that just like when BC was released the gear advantage they have won't last long and then they will have to level on servers where all they have done is try to piss off the inhabitants since they arrived, which should be amusing in itself.
Were the transfers a good thing, in my opinion not really, in fact I think it was an insult to the the people who play on the PvP servers, but it's done now so whatever.
NM
2. The OP said no not Never.
And why are you comparing new games to Expansion that has 7 million player base? And you have to remember that most of WoW's player base is from Asia and AoC and WAR have America and Europe as their player base.
I agree with the OP Blizzard has changed for the better I don't believe so. I played WoW before TBC and then for 2 months not to long ago after TBC. Leveling was a joke and its not like it was a ghost town 1-60 there were still plenty of people playing Alts so finding a group to do Dungeons were no probplem. There were still plenty of people doing BG. I believe this game is going in the wrong direction so I quit, but hell if 10m others want to play to each their own.
Warcraft was casual the day it was released.....ANyone that played beta could have told you that it was a gold sellers paradise and they only catered to that more with TBC........Dont be angry at Blizzard be angry at lazy players that think buying gold is OK and doesnt hurt anyone......
Precisely,No Gold/Credit buyers = No Gold/Credit Farmers:P
what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WoW is a casual game and always has been. It's just the "gamers" who have turned it into something that it really is not.
Every person I know who plays WoW does not spend hours grinding out gear. They just play and log off.
WoW is the easiest leveling game there is and no, you don't need top of the line gear in order to enjoy it.
This is the easiest game that I know of.
As far as making it easier, this seems to be something that game companies just do so that newer players can join the ranks of the players who have been around for a while. It happened to my beloved Lineage 2. I'm not thrilled about that but there it is. But that's an actual pvp game where levels and gear are hard to come by and being competitive takes far more to maintain.
Secondly, as far as the op goes, they just won a court battle over someone who created a bot for WoW. I think they care as they spent the money to do this. They fight gold sellers. It's juts that it's an uphill battle. The gold sellers will never give up. They just won't.
Do you know what will erradicate gold selling? People not buying gold.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
What I love about the PVPers in WOW (just wow), is how tough they have it leveling. How it is dog eat dog. As if there are battles going on all the time.
Then something amazing happened a couple of years ago, which obviously would be a PVP server's wet dream. The Burning Crusade expansion would open up a whole new set of zones, where people would be able to play a PVP server the way it should be. Dog eat dog.
But what happened on that opening day? Was the server filled with that dog eat dog game style they bragged about for years? NO, there was geneal unspoken truce so people could level. They weren't trying to kill each other at EVERY opportunity, they were racing to 70. In my mind, that really ended the dog eat dog PVP server argument.
If all that's wrong with Blizzard is PvE-PvP server transfers, and the recruit-a-friend campaign I'd say things are looking pretty rosy.
how are they becoming a shooter? Far from a shooter...there is virtually no skill required. They just want more money, more money, more money. Thats what Blizztard is doing here...
DARKFALL 09!
Apparently 08 didn't make it
Sorros of Forumfall.
In a shooter you jump in play and leave. There is no persistant world, no leveling, no RPG elements and Blizzard seems to be removing all emphasis from these things.
Look at the Hero class, great idea in a RTS, but I find it is ridiculous in a MMO. But it saves a bundle of developpement costs since they do not have to create and balance the 1-55 experience. Of course the future will tell, other games have seemed to go this way then suddenly come out with an expansion that recreated the more traditional MMO experience .
Blizz, Sony & Vivendi are the same hawt in bed with EA.
I think people just need to stop putting so much thought to a game and company the apparently hate so much.
I mean, I don't like Halo all that much anymore after Halo 3, but do I go to Halo fan boards and make an ass of myself? No.
When someone says "do you like halo" I say no and move on.
You see, expressing so much hate for a game is really a big waste of time.
Groovy.
No, it's Wrath as in Wrath of the Lich King or are you speaking of an expansion unbeknownst to me?
Most of the people who earned Blizzard it's fame as a quality game developer are no longer in the company. What we're left with is another EA with a lot of bigass franchises to leech on. I do hope that Blizzard's future projects will be able to live up to their prequels, but in my opinion chances aren't really big.
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!
On we sweep with threshing oar, our only goal will be the western shore."
consumerist.com/5062655/blizzard-cant-refund-my-money-for-downloads-that-didnt-work
Blizzcon over the weekend cost $100 to enter or $40 to watch online, are Blizzard getting too big or greedy?
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/MMORPG
SOE has it own issues
but if this true, then it is new low for Blizzard
www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/14/paid-character-customization-on-the-horizon/
In a small BlizzCon '08 press conference about WoW and Diablo 3,
Production Director J. Allen Brack (whom we interviewed recently), mentioned that one day even the skin and face of your characters would be customizable through some sort of paid change, akin to changing your character's name
in EQ2,
changing your face / skin color already is part of the barber visit (no additional fees)
EQ2 fan sites
You are trolling your own troll post now.
Blizzcon did cost them money to put on you know, it wasn't run by volunteers in a free convention center.
Oh and btw, they are a business, not a charity. Expect them to want to make money.
Due to the way Blizzard has structured WOW, I can't see how anyone who buys gold gains any real advantage over those who don't. Not a valid complaint in this game, though it can be a problem for others. Also, Blizzard seems to do far more to combat gold selling than most companies, including sueing people to try and stop it.
PVE-->PVP transfer is sort of a BS move, but in the end, its not like WOW really has a PVP server a long the lines of a more hardcore, looting game, so whats the harm really? Not much, if people want to join their friends or bring over a character they leveled up, let them.
Not sure Blizzard's personality has changed much, when you sit on the top of the hill, and players continue to join your game there's little incentive to listen to alternate ideas or change the formula.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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