Originally posted by Dakirn

The reason why you didn't get a level 80 is simple.

They already have you.

Why would they give you something for free when you're already giving them money?

With the scroll, they can "buy" other past players back. If they don't stay, Blizzard doesn't lose anything. If they gave YOU a level 80, you might get bored quicker and leave.

 

This is exactly right. Its all about the business not the player. You are already paying them, therefore you dont improve thier bottom-line or make them look better for stock purposes. What they need is an increase in number of active accounts. They could care less who you are, how many 80s or 85s you have, allthey want is more active subs to show stockholders they arent bleeding out. EoS. Ingenious.

Originally posted by aslan132

Originally posted by Dakirn

The reason why you didn't get a level 80 is simple.

They already have you.

Why would they give you something for free when you're already giving them money?

With the scroll, they can "buy" other past players back. If they don't stay, Blizzard doesn't lose anything. If they gave YOU a level 80, you might get bored quicker and leave.

 

This is exactly right. Its all about the business not the player. You are already paying them, therefore you dont improve thier bottom-line or make them look better for stock purposes. What they need is an increase in number of active accounts. They could care less who you are, how many 80s or 85s you have, allthey want is more active subs to show stockholders they arent bleeding out. EoS. Ingenious.

 

But I COULD help the business if they let me PAY for a free ding to 80.

I swear this is a gold mine and Blizzard is just barely tapping its true potential.

Originally posted by sanman7890

I swear this is a gold mine and Blizzard is just barely tapping its true potential.

The question is how far can they push things before there's a backlash.  They have a business model that works and works well.  If they push their luck in nickling and diming, there's a risk they could kill the golden goose.

i agree with the post im not an adictive player of WOW but i think it^s better to make WOW free to play i play jade dynasty buy ZEN and aion come^s also with free to play.

now you pay blizzard and so you must play and blizzard founds away to let the $$ come in

Originally posted by Loke666

To me it sounds like leveling have become boring and instead of fixing it they offer a levelup to old players comming back.

they are treating the symptom, not the problem.

 

They know it is too late to 'fix' it.

They tried to make 'levelling' itneresting again to WoW-average player in Cata by redoing 1-60 experience.

They made huge mistakes though.  They wanted to make it more interesting for players again ,but they speeded it up + soloized it more also in terms of visual experience by phasing you hardly see other players. Content don't require them to play it as well.

So instead of making it more interesting in long-term , they made it even more 'skippable'.

Of course making 'levelling' more 'demanding' a la WoW Vanilla , would also alienate some of their current playerbase - but Blizzard shaped this playerbase themself.

So there is no win for Blizzard imo.  It is just lose-lose strategy.  Many other mmorpg's have it similarly.

They don't want to resign from significant portion of their playerbase by making mmorpg's more like mmorpg's and less like lobby / instanced / solo games ,but at same time by doing what they are doing they have to compete with games like MOBAs and FPS - which is kinda ridiculous for me.

Anyway - WoW will not change. It is and it will be basically instance / cross-server based game like Starcraft. 

You play in instances (instanced dungeons , raids, BG & arenas) using matchmaking system a la Starcraft. 

Open world / virtual world - was sacrificed LONG ago. Now they just admit it more.

Saying that - for those that like virtual worlds mmorpg's - it is pointless to look for gameplay you want from WoW / Lotro / EQ2 ,etc - those games choosed their route long ago and consequently are doing it now.

Also some other mmorpg are following. For example FFXIV 2.0 will be basically WoW-clone - focusing on instances , cross-server LFG confirmed.

I'd be willing to bet the rationale behind the boost to 80 is that a majority of people playing for this long looking to get friends back already have toons at or near the level cap. In fact, I would say that the new SoR is functioning in much the same way the old one did: by giving the returnee a reason to keep playing with their high level friend instead of the high level friend rolling up a new toon from scratch just to play with their similiarly low level friend and content they've already been through half a dozen times.

If true, it aligns with the character xfer to the player's realm and the free upgrade to Cataclysm; effectively keeping both player and returnee together to redevolpe that insiduous habit forming relationship.

Looks like Blizzard is giving up on the levelling content and trying to focus people on the most boring and streamlined expansion ever. I used to be hardcore raider until everything seemed repeatable enough to ignore raiding and endgame altogether. During my last months in WoW the only thing I found enjoyable was PvP and levelling new characters. So what use is levelling to 80 to me, when it will just offer me to skip the thing I would potentially be looking forward to in an aging MMO?

I am sorry but to me the buffed up resurrection scroll is just a cry for publicity, which will eventually backfire (though it is debatable whether at this point there is any form of bad publicity for WoW in a year when so many new MMOs are coming out). Most people do not care about endgame. It's high time developers realise that. We can't stay kids forever and do the same mindless dungeon grind. Some of us grow into people with jobs and personal responsibilities which do not co-exist well with a gameplay style focus on endgame. We abandon games for that reason and our attention tends to only be grabbed by titles which allow us to get a quick "fix"and log out to make dinner for the kids (yeah, sorry, but this is in fact the majority of nowadays' gamers).

And don't get me started on what the new Scroll of Resurrection is doing with the current WoW population. I just got a resurrection invite from somebody whom I don't even know and that I ran 2 dungeons with on an alt 5 months ago. Sad day when people send invites left and right just for a shiny mount. I've no idea how exactly a scroll is sent to an inactive player, but there is no way that person knew my email address or account details, as I was not even using the Real ID feature.

You know, the problem is that levelling is boring, not that you can get to 80 instantly.

Levelling should not be an end in of itself... It's been reduced to 'something you have to do to get to the endgame' :(