Originally posted by streea

But no. Instead you spent all that time going "STOP QQING!" by... QQing. No insight into the industry aside from "the more you yell, the less they'll listen to you" (which is only true of companies that honestly don't care about their playerbase). Not actually adding anything to the massive 200+ string. Instead, it was a giant nerdrage where you're right and they're wrong and those against this should shut up.

This.

Jon was biased and rude in his tone.

Does Blizzard advertise on this site?

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Charging players 2/3s of the monthly sub fee for a single pet is absolutely ridiculous.

THEN DON'T BUY THEM...NO ONE SAID YOU HAD TO...GEEEZ!!!

Meh.

Thats all I really have to say.

If they want to sell items such as non-combat pets and other cosmetic fluff items, more power to them. If people want to spend the money on these fluff items, then by all means go for it. Its not going to break the game or give someone a 1 up over anyone else.

"OMG not cool! He has the Monk pet! My whole game experience is ruined!" /nerdragequit.

Its not like they are selling Tier armor or potions of uberness.

When they do though, then you could have something to complain about. Untill that time comes...

Meh.

Originally posted by Drakonus

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Charging players 2/3s of the monthly sub fee for a single pet is absolutely ridiculous.

 

THEN DON'T BUY THEM...NO ONE SAID YOU HAD TO...GEEEZ!!!

but if they do not they will not be 'cool' any more. 

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

I hereby reserve the right to claim "I told you so" when things do go south Jon.

I never said things wouldn't ever go south. I just said that what happened yesterday isn't actually proof of anything and that if people keep losing their minds over things that prove nothing, when real proof emerges, and someone cries foul over it, no one will listen.

Things like this (charging subscription fee AND RMTs) rarely happen in big steps. Champion Online started with worthless, fluff items but then now recently introduced a free respec.

That is how it starts, harmless things at first, but later more and more are sneaked in. Just wait and see...

Originally posted by Drakonus

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Charging players 2/3s of the monthly sub fee for a single pet is absolutely ridiculous.

 

THEN DON'T BUY THEM...NO ONE SAID YOU HAD TO...GEEEZ!!!

Noone said you have to play WoW or MMORPG either, that is not the point. The point is that MMORPG devs are now starting to introduce subscriptions and RMTs and the only ones getting screwed will be us customers.

Originally posted by Cursedsei

Originally posted by nkryptik

First off you dumb asses that cannot read are missing the point that the pet only costs 5 bucks the other 5 goes to a very worthwhile charity and 2nd of all it is a bout damned time Blizzard did move to micro transactions since almost every other game company is doing it and with this it would kill off the gold farmers and spammers, so the only one bitching should be those that make money from gold being sold.

 

Nuff Said.

 

Well, you already included something I was going to call you in your own post, so I wont bother re-typing it.

First off, ONE pet, just one, is having half its profits going to charity, not both.

Two, its ten bucks, don't try to hide behind the charity. If I wanted to give a charity just 5 bucks I would, and I wouldn't spend another 5 on top of that to do it. Oh, and the charity is only for ~2 months, it isn't permanent.

Third, how in bloody hell do you come to the conclusion that buying 10$ pets will mean no more gold sellers?

And fourth, how is it about time? Was Acti-blizz running out of cash, and had to pay for the servers with their own credit cards and pennies? Hell, I bet you also think every other MMO in existence needs to all become the same game, just because only two other companies are doing it.

 

 

I been playing WoW the better part of 5 years and this game has been nerfed to make items so easy to get it would just as well if Blizzard decided to let us buy Tier Gear instead of earn it.  Just let me say to see a company take the time to actually promote a charity is well worth the extra 5 bucks they will need to cover the extra bandwith and bank charges that will be associated with the usage of credit cards.  Knowing the charity will get the full 5 bucks per donation rather than the 1.50 left over after all the charges of using a credit card are taken out when you donate directly to the charity makes it that much more and just to note you that cannot read they have the bear and the Mini KT so learn math that is 2 not one pet.

I have seen so many changes and ranted against so many of them over the years I have finally gone to the point I just gave up and decided I can either move a long with the changes or not play the game, if it is not a game interfering issue we can bitch all we want it will not stop it from happening.

My advise, either pay 10 bucks and let 5 go to charity or don't pay 10 bucks, the bottom line is it is your choice to do it or not to do it.  I just really find it funny how this much BS never happened when they made all the raw cash off the Pepsi / Mountain Dew promo last summer.

Originally posted by Ruyn

Originally posted by junzo316

Originally posted by Kensan_Oni

A lot of you are being reactionary and stupid.

Blizzard is having a Charity Drive event. They are being nice to give something to people who donate to the event. They COULD have just asked for money and everyone would have gotten less.

This is a win/win/win situation. It's a Win for Blizzard, as it gets attention to the charity and good press for doing so. This is a win for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, as they will use the money for a good cause. This is a win for the pet collector, as they will get a limited edition pet for their collection.

So get over yourselves. This is for a good cause, and you are letting your own paranoia get in the way of what is a good thing.

 

Ummm, that's all well and good, but only one of the pets is for charity, and only 50% of that.  So of the 2 pets sold, blizzard will keep 75% of the profit (if both sale in equal amounts) and give 25% to charity.  Kinda shitty.  If it's for charity shouldn't all proceeds go to the charity.

I have a better idea.  Quit WoW, donate $10 to the make a wish foundation and play a sub based MMO without a cash shop.

That's probably the best thing you can do to show Blizzard (and maybe some other game companies thinking of doing this) where you stand on the issue. Plus giving to charity for the sake of giving, and not just to get some stupid little toy or pet, is always good too.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Drakonus

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Charging players 2/3s of the monthly sub fee for a single pet is absolutely ridiculous.

 

THEN DON'T BUY THEM...NO ONE SAID YOU HAD TO...GEEEZ!!!

Noone said you have to play WoW or MMORPG either, that is not the point. The point is that MMORPG devs are now starting to introduce subscriptions and RMTs and the only ones getting screwed will be us customers.

This is true but only as long as we don't have a choice.  There are still companies out there that offer subscription based without a cash shop...although the future does look bleak indeed.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

I hereby reserve the right to claim "I told you so" when things do go south Jon.

I never said things wouldn't ever go south. I just said that what happened yesterday isn't actually proof of anything and that if people keep losing their minds over things that prove nothing, when real proof emerges, and someone cries foul over it, no one will listen.

if no one cries over it now you can bet there will be a reason to cry later.

double post

Originally posted by Yamota

Noone said you have to play WoW or MMORPG either, that is not the point. The point is that MMORPG devs are now starting to introduce subscriptions and RMTs and the only ones getting screwed will be us customers.

And what is anyone going to do about it? 

Absolutely.  Nothing.

Or...stop playing MMOs?  Best of luck to ya.

The rantings of people that are not only addicted to a genre of games, but when not gaming, must sit on forums discussing those games...they know when they got someone hooked.  And if someone isn't subscribed, and complaining about it...why would Blizzard care about non-customers? 

Originally posted by Stradden

Look, I'm not giving Blizzard or any other company a free pass to screw people over, or to compromise the integrity of the subscription system in their game. I'm simply saying that context is very very important in this case.

You're doing more than giving them a free pass - you're telling us there's nothing to get worked up about.

Does Blizzard advertise on this site?

Originally posted by Horusra

Originally posted by Drakonus

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Charging players 2/3s of the monthly sub fee for a single pet is absolutely ridiculous.

 

THEN DON'T BUY THEM...NO ONE SAID YOU HAD TO...GEEEZ!!!

 

but if they do not they will not be 'cool' any more. 

HAHAHA!!!!...If that's what it takes for them to be 'cool', they have bigger underlying problems than that...
 

I will gladly sell used condoms to anyone who wants to buy one for $10. It's not a rip off because i'm going to give 50% of that to charity!

Anyone who has been following WOW for the last few years will know that they have consistantly changed their attitude to certain procedures we were assured would never ever happen. I just know this wont be the last RMT for in game items Blizzard announce. This is only the beginning!

I am extremely disappointed Blizzard have gone down this route!

ps. does anyone else suspect that the money grab techniques brought in over the last year or so, is to help project WOW's income as growing, to hide failing subscription revenues?

Bravo, i completly agree with you...

The thing is that the average age of a WoW player probably has the mentality of an 11yr old, even if some are biologically 40... this mentality is proven by the gross over-reaction and poorly spelt hate messages towards Blizzard... I guess the only reason they're venting their anger on forums is because their parents wont let them stay up late to protest outside Blizzard HQ. lol

Originally posted by Infalible

Mr Wood,

What you've done here is taken a, "professional media backdrop," and pasted the rantings of a well worded World of Warcraft fan boys over the top of it. I can't really expect much more of you though. It's probably why they only let you write lists.

Comparing this announcement with the micro-transaction based revenue model is perfectly acceptable and your inference that it is not is... well... not acceptable lol What Blizzard have done here is introduce a micro-transaction based in-game store which is - shock horror - the same system that most MT based games use. The only differences are that (a) you have to pay a subscription fee to access the in-game store to them buy the pets, and (b) they are only planning to add vanity pets to the system and not game changing items or other things. Not apples and zebras, like you claim. Dullard.

As for this protecting the baseline? That's just simply not the case. In September last year Blizzard reported that they had ONLY JUST spent $200 million supporting the infrastructure for World of Warcraft over the (near) four years of its life. This is a company that reported a $2 billion revenue in 2008 - 2009 as well as a company that made enough of the World of Warcraft subscription alone to fund 4 other development teams working on 4 other titles. This isn't about covering the base line. This is purely about making yet more money and has nothing to do with covering their basic costs. That was a rubbish point and I' sure that you are aware of that ;-)

I also think that - if you support the idea of double dipping - then you are a greedy, selfish, untalented - clearly - man. However your point is flawed. If Blizzard felt that this would not interest the majority they would not have implemented it. As it stands however there has been a clear effort on their part to drive players into collecting vanity items such as pets, tabards, mounts etc. They've been churning over this since TBC. This is yet more one step on the ladder. Pets are a widely popular area of the game. It wouldn't be so bad if these items were available in game as well but the fact that they are shop exclusives is pretty reprehensible.

You know what? I'm fed up of reading your articles and having to deal with your opinion. You're a glorified fan site editor and nothing more and - most of the time - you are wrong ;-)

 

Nonsense. Those who look at this and start foaming and frothing at the mouth, are the leading edge of one of the problems facing the industry.  That being that you have forgotten that this is a GAME.  Its an option, not a necessity. The same goes for this site. and this particular writer. Might I suggest that if you find either offensive, that you not participate?  As for the charge of "double dipping", no one is forcing anyone to purchase those *vanity* pets. Nor any of the other services that are offered.  None of them are necessary for enjoyment of the game.

Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood uses his column this week to look at the recent announcement that Blizzard will be offering in-game pets for real life money and the fan reaction, or over-reaction to the news.

Yesterday, Blizzard announced that they would be adding an in-game shop where players could buy vanity pets, and in characteristic fashion, the MMO world went bat dung crazy. Even my Facebook, which is loaded with MMO folks, was taken over by posts about Blizzard moving to microtransactions.

I swear, the way people react to these things you'd think that item stores were Godzilla and Western players were the poor residents of Tokyo just trying to get away from the damned thing, wrecking everything they know and eating everyone they love.

For the record, they're not, but we'll leave my personal opinions about item mall based games for another rant entirely. Instead, we'll focus on this particular announcement. Comparing this announcement, by the way, with microtransaction revenue models games, is like comparing apples and zebras. It just doesn't make any sense.

Read Wood: WoW Pets and Boy Who Cried Wolf.

I find it weird how this gets ripped on and it is going to a charity but yet there was no big press blow out when you had to buy trading cards to get the in game items, or the Pepsi / Mountain Dew robots and I have never seen it blown up how you have to pay all that cash for Blizzcon tickets to get a murloc or a bear with a murloc on it's head so why does it have to be a charity event to get the press and start everyone hating on it?

I DEMAND A RETRACTION AND AN APPOLOGY TO THE CHARITY!

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Drakonus

Originally posted by Euphoryk

Charging players 2/3s of the monthly sub fee for a single pet is absolutely ridiculous.

 

THEN DON'T BUY THEM...NO ONE SAID YOU HAD TO...GEEEZ!!!

Noone said you have to play WoW or MMORPG either, that is not the point. The point is that MMORPG devs are now starting to introduce subscriptions and RMTs and the only ones getting screwed will be us customers.

If you're talking to me...I'm not the one that has a problem with it, I can kill all my subscriptions and I'd be just fine.  So, with that in mind...that is the point, It's my choice.  You almost had it right with the first sentence, no one said I had to play any of them.

Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood uses his column this week to look at the recent announcement that Blizzard will be offering in-game pets for real life money and the fan reaction, or over-reaction to the news.

Yesterday, Blizzard announced that they would be adding an in-game shop where players could buy vanity pets, and in characteristic fashion, the MMO world went bat dung crazy. Even my Facebook, which is loaded with MMO folks, was taken over by posts about Blizzard moving to microtransactions.

I swear, the way people react to these things you'd think that item stores were Godzilla and Western players were the poor residents of Tokyo just trying to get away from the damned thing, wrecking everything they know and eating everyone they love.

For the record, they're not, but we'll leave my personal opinions about item mall based games for another rant entirely. Instead, we'll focus on this particular announcement. Comparing this announcement, by the way, with microtransaction revenue models games, is like comparing apples and zebras. It just doesn't make any sense.

Read Wood: WoW Pets and Boy Who Cried Wolf.

good article and conclusions.

Originally posted by nkryptik

Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood uses his column this week to look at the recent announcement that Blizzard will be offering in-game pets for real life money and the fan reaction, or over-reaction to the news.

Yesterday, Blizzard announced that they would be adding an in-game shop where players could buy vanity pets, and in characteristic fashion, the MMO world went bat dung crazy. Even my Facebook, which is loaded with MMO folks, was taken over by posts about Blizzard moving to microtransactions.

I swear, the way people react to these things you'd think that item stores were Godzilla and Western players were the poor residents of Tokyo just trying to get away from the damned thing, wrecking everything they know and eating everyone they love.

For the record, they're not, but we'll leave my personal opinions about item mall based games for another rant entirely. Instead, we'll focus on this particular announcement. Comparing this announcement, by the way, with microtransaction revenue models games, is like comparing apples and zebras. It just doesn't make any sense.

Read Wood: WoW Pets and Boy Who Cried Wolf.

 

I find it weird how this gets ripped on and it is going to a charity but yet there was no big press blow out when you had to buy trading cards to get the in game items, or the Pepsi / Mountain Dew robots and I have never seen it blown up how you have to pay all that cash for Blizzcon tickets to get a murloc or a bear with a murloc on it's head so why does it have to be a charity event to get the press and start everyone hating on it?

 

I DEMAND A RETRACTION AND AN APPOLOGY TO THE CHARITY!

Some people did moan about the TCG, but then again, the TCG is a stand-alone product, that they chose to incorporate some things (mainly fluff like biscuits, fiery steps, and the like) to try and get WoW players to try the card game out, I dont need to play WoW to like a Warcraft-based card game.

The Battle-fuel bots were part of the promotion for the WoW-inspired Mountain Dew Horde and Alliance drinks, it cost NOTHING to get the pet bot.

Blizzcon tickets are also a stand-alone thing. YOU dont have to go to Blizzcon, its just Blizzards way of saying "thanks for spending the money to come here", on top of EVERYTHING else that comes with the tickets.

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by Infalible

Mr Wood,

What you've done here is taken a, "professional media backdrop," and pasted the rantings of a well worded World of Warcraft fan boys over the top of it. I can't really expect much more of you though. It's probably why they only let you write lists.

Comparing this announcement with the micro-transaction based revenue model is perfectly acceptable and your inference that it is not is... well... not acceptable lol What Blizzard have done here is introduce a micro-transaction based in-game store which is - shock horror - the same system that most MT based games use. The only differences are that (a) you have to pay a subscription fee to access the in-game store to them buy the pets, and (b) they are only planning to add vanity pets to the system and not game changing items or other things. Not apples and zebras, like you claim. Dullard.

As for this protecting the baseline? That's just simply not the case. In September last year Blizzard reported that they had ONLY JUST spent $200 million supporting the infrastructure for World of Warcraft over the (near) four years of its life. This is a company that reported a $2 billion revenue in 2008 - 2009 as well as a company that made enough of the World of Warcraft subscription alone to fund 4 other development teams working on 4 other titles. This isn't about covering the base line. This is purely about making yet more money and has nothing to do with covering their basic costs. That was a rubbish point and I' sure that you are aware of that ;-)

I also think that - if you support the idea of double dipping - then you are a greedy, selfish, untalented - clearly - man. However your point is flawed. If Blizzard felt that this would not interest the majority they would not have implemented it. As it stands however there has been a clear effort on their part to drive players into collecting vanity items such as pets, tabards, mounts etc. They've been churning over this since TBC. This is yet more one step on the ladder. Pets are a widely popular area of the game. It wouldn't be so bad if these items were available in game as well but the fact that they are shop exclusives is pretty reprehensible.

You know what? I'm fed up of reading your articles and having to deal with your opinion. You're a glorified fan site editor and nothing more and - most of the time - you are wrong ;-)

 

 

Nonsense. Those who look at this and start foaming and frothing at the mouth, are the leading edge of one of the problems facing the industry.  That being that you have forgotten that this is a GAME.  Its an option, not a necessity. The same goes for this site. and this particular writer. Might I suggest that if you find either offensive, that you not participate?  As for the charge of "double dipping", no one is forcing anyone to purchase those *vanity* pets. Nor any of the other services that are offered.  None of them are necessary for enjoyment of the game.

There is clearly a divide between the readers here.  In one corner you have people accepting Blizzard's new RMT model as a positive and it won't effect them in any way plus a bonus of blizzard giving 25% of the proceeds to charity (1 of 2 pets).  In the other corner you have people who are very upset because they can clearly see the road ahead with Blizzard filling the store full of epics etc and how a subscription based payment model using RMT will be copied by every other company in the genre.

Originally posted by Bruwin

Originally posted by Ruyn

People are deluding themselves if they think the RMT will stop at meaningless pets.

Soon it will be standard to play an MMO with a subscription plan and you will have to buy items to experience all of the content.

Personally I could care less what Blizzard does.  I just worry about the trickle down effect that will happen when the copy cat companies follow suit.

 

You make the false assumption that Blizzard is the first to have done this. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard is following a trend that was already there, and there have already been people saying they were willing to pay extra for vanity items.

Do I believe Blizzard will go and start selling gear? No, not at all. Frankly, they've made it so it's incredibly easy for anyone to get geared in a short amount of time as long as they play. And that's what Blizzard really wants. People playing.

No. They want people PAYING. If they wanted people playing, those pets would be a quest reward. You can't play to get them, you have to pay.

You can come back and feed me my own hat if they do decide to sell gear, but I'm willing to bet they won't. There's no reason to, and likely won't ever be a reason to.

They will - and I hope you are roasted like the other deniers when it happens.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

I hereby reserve the right to claim "I told you so" when things do go south Jon.

I never said things wouldn't ever go south. I just said that what happened yesterday isn't actually proof of anything and that if people keep losing their minds over things that prove nothing, when real proof emerges, and someone cries foul over it, no one will listen.

Are you seriously suggesting that the introduction of a microtransaction cash shop is not evidence that things are heading south?  Right, and high brazil wasn't sinking either. 

Two days ago the likelyhood of blizzard directly selling in game items [of ANY magntitude] was closer to zero than it was yesterday.  In fact blizzard is no longer in the category of companies that might directly sell items, because now they clearly do and they.

That is a gigantic step towards things heading south, as you put it.   Not to mention that almost every other game that has gone this route has indeed headed south with the items they introduce in their cash shops.  You suggesting people not worry or "cry wolf" is rediculous to say the least.  People now need to look at the direction other games have gone with their cash shops as it is the likely path blizzard will follow.  You know, just like they added a cash shop yesterday. 

Suggesting apathy as a course of action until things get bad is a really naive suggestion. 

I can't even believe I have to explain this to people on this forum, let alone you.  I just can't shake the image of you sitting on top of high brazil.