Occasionally something rare and exquisite happens. What I speak of is my astounding ability to let my own stupidity get ahead of me just so it can ruin my day, and today is one of those days folks. I was perusing the World of Warcraft news world like any other day and I happened to stumble upon this. It would seem that Blizzard, in one of their intermittent strokes of genius, decided to buff the Scroll of Resurrection beyond the point of helpfulness all the way to absurdity in a ploy to gain some subscriptions.
Now this sort of stunt doesn’t usually bother me as I either ignore them or jump on them like a house cat in heat as I did with that Diablo 3 deal (that was totally worth it whenever I get to play that game) but one little bit of this news piece caught my eye as I drunkenly ingested my morning’s ration of coffee-flavored bliss:
· A single character immediately boosted all the way to level 80 -- DING!
If it hadn’t been my 23rd consecutive waking hour I would literally have spit out the caffeine-delivery liquid all over my keyboard and proceeded to drink more just to spit it out on the parts of the keyboard I missed. I really want to type in all caps:SERIOUSLY BLIZZARD, REALLY NOW, IS THIS WHAT IT COMES TO? I CAN NOW SKIP THOSE BORING AS A SEMINAR ABOUT STANDARDIZED PAPER THICKNESS REGULATIONS IF I CON ONE OF MY GOOD FOR NOTHING FRIENDS INTO SUBBING AGAIN? OH GLORIOUS DAY!
Then I proceeded to read more carefully after a few minutes of elysian-like joy only to find that this free level-capping is only available to the returnee.
Oh.
Don’t mistake my inordinate amounts of anger over an internet news posting for justified rage or academic disgust or any such legitimate thing though, please. This is purely a case of “me too!” syndrome.
Yes, you heard me right, me too! Why can’t I get a free boost to 80? What in the narliest hells of Azeroth makes it okay for someone who has hence stopped playing the game to get a free ding! And yet a consecutively paying customer who is locked into a year’s worth of time because he got a bit too excited about an unreleased game can’t get a single eek or squeak out of a bell? Come on Blizzard!
Okay, hold-on; let us think about this in a logical, rational, and articulate manner now. This is obviously a rather ingenious tactic by the ironically named ice storm development team to garner some higher subscription numbers in light of their recent losses. Before this egregious and rather insulting buff to the Scroll of Ding, the refer-a-friend bonus included a nifty enormous experience booster that only applied when playing with the friend who referred you. This was evil scientist level genius because it ensured players who came back got attached to the game somewhat vicariously by forcing them (with a rather blunt implement mind you) to actually socialize and entertain the fun parts of the game rather than the mind-numbingly boring part of levelling a character alone in the big empty world of rush to level cap and then do dungeons. Hell, it worked on me. I can admit that running my mage from level one to level fifty-five in three days was pretty exhilarating after it used to take ten times as long back when I played in vanilla. It made want to play the game legitimately! The only way to describe how incredibly successful this evil concoction of brilliance was is to equate it to some sort of mechanism that can not only control tornados, but control what they drop. Picture it now, a tornado that drops cupcakes.
At a speed that wouldn’t kill you. Delicious.
)
I’m becoming tangential though; the point is that before refer-a-friend was a successful venture that actually made people play the damn game. Now people who gave up on Blizzard get rewarded for abandoning them with free level-cappings. Meanwhile paying customers get a cookie with hand-me-down mounts that some particle-producing schmuck was too lazy to color in. As one of those paying customers who would theoretically get rewarded with this spectral slap to the ass I feel a bit betrayed. I’m loyal with my year-long sub, so can I get a free level 80 too, please?
I’ve been wanting to try out another class for ages now but I just don’t have the patience to waste my time levelling, regardless of how painless it may now be. I simply have better things to do with my time, and have done the level-trip plenty of times already. You know, I have to do stuff like: writing in my diary, planting petunias, feeding the homeless, taking out the trash, or whatever other unnecessarily problematic actions I don’t really worry about doing. Obligations I literally can’t be arsed to accomplish are more problematic than levelling an alt through old content.
And now the quitters get free 80’s.
I think at this juncture I’ve sufficiently reiterated the crux of the problem enough times to choke a goat so I’ll wrap it up in the only way I know how, with capital letters.
Blizzard: I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY IF YOU LET ME SKIP LEVELING UP TO EIGHTY.
You know my email folks; let me know what you think of my proposition.
Sincerely,
A Man Who Now Needs a New Keyboard
