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#102 Feb 26 2014 at 7:07 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:

"Go for it if you can afford it"
"Save yourself 45-60+ Hours"

And... Not P2W?

How is it not P2W? I mean, I literally don't understand the argument. It's a paid service to let you bypass one of the gating mechanics to access endgame on a new character. Something you HAVE to do if you don't want to pay the service fee for it.

What would you place as the point where a gate-bypassing service crosses into being P2W?


P2W = "Pay to Win"

Arriving at Level 90 and getting basic introductory gear (which is subpar compared to Timeless Isle gear) is hardly "Winning" in any sense of the word.

P2W is when you can buy items, equipment, etc that can compete (or beat) with the best equipment that is obtainable in-game without spending cash.

If Blizzard released an I-Level 600 line of weapons that you buy for $20 and there's no other way to obtain them, then that's P2W. If Blizzard released SoO Heirloom Weapons for $$$$, that's P2W.

483 and a Level 90 is not P2W, because anybody can get that with reasonable (but non-challenging) effort.

Edited, Feb 26th 2014 8:09pm by Lyrailis
#103 Feb 26 2014 at 7:50 PM Rating: Good
But it is not end game. I'm in the store right now, this option isn't even available. From what I understand, it won't be available until WoD comes out. Everyone who buys the expansion gets 1 free.
Endgame will not be at 90, you know this.

P2W would be letting me pay $60 to start at cap, with at least a full set of the last tier set (or the lowest [lfr] iLV of the current tier)
Just like Blizz did when they gave everyone a free 80.
I used that one on my rogue, she went from lvl 10 to 80, and had a full t10 set.
She was able to, if I knew how to play a rogue right, walk into the current raid at the time and be "ok". Instead she is a pack mule and my scribe.

This game is going to be 10 years old this year (20yrs for the Warcraft franchise). I think the game will be just fine if they let people have a one time free bypass of this gating mechanic, to get to level 90 and then do the last 10 level "old school" (having to quest, run dungeons, etc).

So more math, because I like you, do not understand your argument as to why the option should not be there...

Right now at gamestop I can buy WoW + all the expansions for $40. $20 for WoW, BC, LK, Cata in a bundle and $20 for MoP.
Lets ball park it and say WoD will cost $50, and let say MoP only drops down to $15 (and another 6mo to year later, at $10).
WoW will cost a new player $85. They have 30 days to decide if it is the game for them, before $15/mo kicks in.
You going to tell me a new player, new account, is going to make it from 1 to 100 to experience part of "end game" where, yes, the game really starts?
I doubt it.
New person bought the game because they saw the trailer for WoD, but new person isn't even going to touch that area for WEEKs. New person might say f-it, and not continue to play after 30 days.
* I know there is a free WoW, you can play up to lv20. It's limitations make it a ****** experience. The best option for a new person would be to pay just for the $20 chest (WoW, BC, LK, Cata) and only register the expansions as you go. If you find you do not like the game by the time you hit 60, at least you can try and sell the keys for BC+ online (or sell/give the account away).
They use the boost, and they get to play the part of the game that might have been a huge reason they even picked up WoW after it being out for 10years.
Down the road the decide to roll a new class, maybe they go back and see what they got to skip over. Or they say meh and pay to stay in current/new stuff.

The rest of us have spent WAY more money than the new person. We have bought the expansions as they came out, or even bought the CEs. We have been playing for years. We have $300 (base, saying each expansion was $50 [i do not remember]) in the games, up to $1,800 in bought game time (would be 180$/yr @ 10years). Anywhere between 1k-2k$ in this game (Math Shock? lulz). Maybe less if you have taken large breaks, I know people who have been subbed all 10 years...
Maybe more if you also buy stuff from the store (It cost me $125 to xfer the 5 toons), mounts, pets, helms, etc (I've bought some of this stuff).
WoD is giving me a free 90. **** yea I'll use it. Why? Save my self 60+ hours of play time over a month (so $15) to get to 90 to see new expansion. Skip over stuff I've seen so many times.
Decide I want to level maybe that last class I've yet to play, but do not want to do the grind. It is $60. The cost of a new game, but instead I stick with a game I know, just change the play style. Still have to level 10 levels. Plenty of time to learn a class/spec. Still will have to gain my Silver before doing heroics, and thus getting gear, to do raids, to get better gear, to do the higher raids, to get better gear...

So why not just remove all the old crap and just make everyone start at 90? I don't know.
Why not just make this an entire new MMO? Well then there would be that one person who would want to do the old stuff, either as a new player or to run it at cap..to just see it.
There is already EXP bonus at lower level, you do not get to see each zone like their glory days of past.

People could write to Blizzard and suggest a "boost" exp quest line. You just follow it from start to cap. Change the "?" and "!" to a different color (like red). If you do said quests, you get massive EXP bonus. Could be started at any level. If started at lvl1 people would get a "bridged" version of WoW. Want that unabridged version? Don't stack BoA and stay away from the bonus quests.

I had more to type, but I've been watching TV..so I lost focus. If it comes back I'll add it.
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#104 Feb 26 2014 at 9:20 PM Rating: Good
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P2W would be letting me pay $60 to start at cap, with at least a full set of the last tier set (or the lowest [lfr] iLV of the current tier)
Just like Blizz did when they gave everyone a free 80.
I used that one on my rogue, she went from lvl 10 to 80, and had a full t10 set.


Eh?

The only "insta-80" I know of, is for Scroll of Resurrection? *blinks*

And it didn't hand out T10, it gave... what was that.... crap... *looks up on wowhead* green 232s.

I suppose that 232 is technically equivalent to Ulduar gear (no set bonuses or gem slots, though!), and also the Frozen Halls Heroics.

So basically they gave you a suit of Heroic Dungeon Gear.

*shrugs*

This time, they're giving you 483, which is lower than the Timeless Isle gear. It is roughly the equivalent of LFR HoF/Terrace, IIRC.

Edited, Feb 26th 2014 10:20pm by Lyrailis
#105 Feb 26 2014 at 9:49 PM Rating: Good
Ah that is right, that is how I got the free 80. I had quit for about 2 or 3 months to go back to play FFXI because I disliked Cata. Friend kept sending them to me, and when the offer gave her a mount and me a free 80, I resubbed for a bit (she really wanted the mount).
I thought the gear was better then green tho, mine 80 runs around nakey :p
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#106 Feb 27 2014 at 6:15 AM Rating: Good
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Nope, it was this set (Hunter example):

http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=beastsoul

I don't know why it says vendors sell it... lol wait, the vendors DO sell that stuff? heh. Never knew that
#107 Feb 27 2014 at 9:39 AM Rating: Good
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Lyrailis wrote:
Quote:

"Go for it if you can afford it"
"Save yourself 45-60+ Hours"

And... Not P2W?

How is it not P2W? I mean, I literally don't understand the argument. It's a paid service to let you bypass one of the gating mechanics to access endgame on a new character. Something you HAVE to do if you don't want to pay the service fee for it.

What would you place as the point where a gate-bypassing service crosses into being P2W?


P2W = "Pay to Win"

Arriving at Level 90 and getting basic introductory gear (which is subpar compared to Timeless Isle gear) is hardly "Winning" in any sense of the word.

P2W is when you can buy items, equipment, etc that can compete (or beat) with the best equipment that is obtainable in-game without spending cash.

If Blizzard released an I-Level 600 line of weapons that you buy for $20 and there's no other way to obtain them, then that's P2W. If Blizzard released SoO Heirloom Weapons for $$$$, that's P2W.

483 and a Level 90 is not P2W, because anybody can get that with reasonable (but non-challenging) effort.

Edited, Feb 26th 2014 8:09pm by Lyrailis


Because you're deciding on a definition of "winning" that is entirely bound to what you, specifically, care about. You are viewing the game like it starts at endgame. That's fine, a lot of players do that.

But the brunt fact is that the game starts at level 1. If the content from 1->cap isn't enjoyable content, than that's a serious problem Blizz needs to fix. If they think that content should be skippable, they should implement a service built into the game to allow it.

The different between a P2W service and a normal service is that the player gets a tangible advantage relative to their own situation by paying to use the system. It's not a competitive environment in PVE. Buying a better set of gear, or buying 20 levels, are fundamentally the same - they have no impact on other players.

Paying to change my appearance offers no tangible advantage. It makes me like my character more, but in terms of progress I'm in exactly the same place.

Paying to bypass 90 levels worth of content has a huge, tangible effect on my progress.

MY OWN progress is the only possible measuring stick in a PVE environment, because the progress of other players doesn't influence me. They could sell me a raiding set with the absolute best stats in the game (exclusively), and that has the exact same effect on other players as letting me purchase 40 levels.

All it does is move my own progress further along the gating line, for a fee.

Selling PVP gear is an entirely different story. But there's nothing about selling raiding gear that is any different from selling levels. It might **** other players off more, since they care more about gear than they do levels. But there isn't actually any impact.

Setting the standard for "win" to what you personally care about is just insane if we want these to be actual terms we can frame a discussion around. If they mean something different to each of us, based on the point at which we start to care about a progress buff mattering, it's a completely useless term.

Whether or not there should be a skip to 90 option, how that should be implemented, if it's an issue that the leveling content isn't engaging enough, etc. are all other issues.

But the service is absolutely P2W. Just because it's not a way you "care" about winning. You're paying to advance your personal character progress without having to put the effort into doing it that is demanded of players who do not pay.
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#108 Feb 27 2014 at 10:30 AM Rating: Excellent
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P2W is such a loaded term these days, and everyone has a cash shop. Smiley: rolleyes

So buying pets is P2W for the pet collectors?
Buying mounts is P2W for the mount collectors?
Buying levels is P2W to the casual PvE player?

I'll second the thing about the leveling content needing to be worth not passing up though. I don't know how WoW gets there however, they're so end-game focused for an MMO, I can't see how they take time away from what they do best to concentrate on improving the leveling content. We get another long delay in expansions like we did in at cataclysm's release and people react with "Wow that's neat, but end-game sucks, they didn't put enough time into it, worst expansion ever, etc" Best to make money off of skipping something at this point I'm guessing?

Edit: Because you write then you post! Smiley: nod

Edited, Feb 27th 2014 8:49am by someproteinguy
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#109 Feb 27 2014 at 1:01 PM Rating: Good
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But there's nothing about selling raiding gear that is any different from selling levels. It might **** other players off more, since they care more about gear than they do levels. But there isn't actually any impact.


I beg to differ with this, actually.

With the Blizzard-implemented Lv90, they start off with 483, right? The worst that might happen is you might get one of these players in your LFR ToT run, but they *cannot* do LFR SoO until they get some gear first. These players are not going to be participating in the actual Endgame without putting SOME kind of work into their character.

Now, let's assume we use your theoretical situation where they sell a Lv90 loaded with 550 gear.

Someone might buy a Lv90, and then attempt to actually participate in Endgame. Then, it DOES impact the Endgame community, namely those in that raid and/or guild. If the player does not know how to play the class (and since achievements are account-wide, maybe they DID do the raids on another character/class), the raid ends up with a total failure of a player in their raid wearing better gear than half of the raid, even though he can't do the content whatsoever.

#110 Feb 27 2014 at 6:36 PM Rating: Good
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No, because your personal collection is not an established system of progression.

Leveling into endgame is a straight, clearly delineated progression system. It's incremental and each step flows directly into the next. The endgame gear grind isn't all that different from leveling in a meaningful way, it just means that the relative formulaic differences between you and the enemies you are fighting are halting (temporarily, until they change again with the next expansion). With the expansion of dungeon-based leveling and emblems-for-leveling-dungeons systems, that line has never been more blurred in WoW.

Quote:
I beg to differ with this, actually.

With the Blizzard-implemented Lv90, they start off with 483, right? The worst that might happen is you might get one of these players in your LFR ToT run, but they *cannot* do LFR SoO until they get some gear first. These players are not going to be participating in the actual Endgame without putting SOME kind of work into their character.

Now, let's assume we use your theoretical situation where they sell a Lv90 loaded with 550 gear.

Someone might buy a Lv90, and then attempt to actually participate in Endgame. Then, it DOES impact the Endgame community, namely those in that raid and/or guild. If the player does not know how to play the class (and since achievements are account-wide, maybe they DID do the raids on another character/class), the raid ends up with a total failure of a player in their raid wearing better gear than half of the raid, even though he can't do the content whatsoever.


Let's be blunt here, the endgame community in terms of raiding is largely decided by group admission. You suck, you don't get a spot in the raid. There's no room to complain there.

So we're talking about PUGs, here. You have to be REALLY bad, and really persistent at being bad, for it to be that severe of an issue in a PUG environment.

And at content below that level, let's be equally blunt - skill is a much smaller factor there. Yeah, an ATROCIOUS player is going to be a drain.

But that atrocious player is atrocious regardless of their gear. Their gear isn't an issue here, the problem is that they suck. At least they're sucking with better gear in this situation.

Realistically, getting your class to a playable point in terms of PUG content options doesn't take much.

Anything more than that, where skill actually matters, is on an invite-basis, not a PUG, and so unskilled-but-geared isn't really an issue.
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#111 Feb 27 2014 at 9:49 PM Rating: Good
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With the expansion of dungeon-based leveling and emblems-for-leveling-dungeons systems, that line has never been more blurred in WoW.


Or, perhaps, you're failing to see that the line isn't intended to be as clear as you think it is. You don't play the game and you're caught in the past. You keep theorizing.

Yes, when the game was new, there was some relevance to the 1-60 slog. We didn't get expansions, we got a patch which changed the game significantly -- changing some way the game worked, adding new territory, adding new instances. It was all fairly accessible to players.

Today, that has changed. Each expansion has brought changes to the game, some of which survive to influence subsequent ones and many of which quietly fade out. Yes, in a perfect world, they would redesign the existing world each expansion, but this is where one of WoW's strengths becomes a weakness. The baying masses on sites such as MMO-C are filled with guys who started at 12-13 years old and they're the self appointed prophets of WoW. They have the attention span of a fruit fly, they believe they see the one true vision of WoW and almost without exception they want new content to be end game content. WoW has gone into the realm of polyhedral dice and the Grateful Dead, it isn't going to get new players, so it has to satisfy the old ones and we have all done the grind. Most of us in this discussion have, at one time or another, done the alt grind repeatedly. Blizz can make us kill 10 of something instead of 30 for Nessingwary, but we've all seen Nagrand to the point we've seen every inch of it and there is no reason it should magically change to give us a new map (in the style of Cata). [More or less what Someproteinguy already noted above, with some extra wool gathering thrown in. Now, you kids, get offa ma lawn! Smiley: nod ]

I need to level a paladin something like 8 levels and I'll have at least one of every class at 90. I'll hit two of each at some point since I sometimes play both factions. When my latest Monk hits 90, she'll make my third, on four accounts. Analysis based on leveling through old content means jack all to me, and if you were to take your measurement over to a site that is still active (ZAM sacrificed this one to Wowhead) you would see that. It is at best a variant of "when I was a kid, I walked 9 miles to school, up hill, in the snow, and we liked it".
#112 Feb 27 2014 at 11:00 PM Rating: Decent
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Thats pretty high but I really don't care. Only thing I don't like is I feel like it will reduce the amount of players to group with in PVP and dungeons while leveling. I have 4 level 90's right now and 3 other toons 85+ so I can't make myself care either way. I think its silly to price it higher than the expansino though.
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#113 Feb 28 2014 at 7:13 AM Rating: Good
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Thats pretty high but I really don't care. Only thing I don't like is I feel like it will reduce the amount of players to group with in PVP and dungeons while leveling. I have 4 level 90's right now and 3 other toons 85+ so I can't make myself care either way. I think its silly to price it higher than the expansino though.


And thus the $60 price tag. I AM going to use my free on on a Shaman. I have decided this already.
I will probably never buy the boost, as the only classes I have left to level are: Paladin, Priest, Warlock, Mage, Shaman.
3 of these can mash their way through Dungeons the moment they hit 15 to they hit cap. The other 2 I would have to go back...and grind again. Paladin is the only class I have never played (well I have a lv8 one, but that doesn't really count). I've played the other 4 up to at least level 30 (or more) before stopping and then later deleting them. I've done this with Priest, Lock, Mage and Shaman many times (and hunters, it is kind of sicking).

The set the price that high for to be an option, but not one every single person is going to use every single time they roll a new character. I'm guessing that only a 1% would even use the service each time.
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#114 Feb 28 2014 at 7:14 AM Rating: Good
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I don't need to have a current sub to understand the scope of the landscape with regards to gearing, endgame, and the transition from leveling into the grind, as it stands now.

Because, shockingly, the entire system didn't get a complete revamp in two months. Crazy how that happens, isn't it?

Quote:
Today, that has changed. Each expansion has brought changes to the game, some of which survive to influence subsequent ones and many of which quietly fade out. Yes, in a perfect world, they would redesign the existing world each expansion, but this is where one of WoW's strengths becomes a weakness. The baying masses on sites such as MMO-C are filled with guys who started at 12-13 years old and they're the self appointed prophets of WoW. They have the attention span of a fruit fly, they believe they see the one true vision of WoW and almost without exception they want new content to be end game content. WoW has gone into the realm of polyhedral dice and the Grateful Dead, it isn't going to get new players, so it has to satisfy the old ones and we have all done the grind. Most of us in this discussion have, at one time or another, done the alt grind repeatedly. Blizz can make us kill 10 of something instead of 30 for Nessingwary, but we've all seen Nagrand to the point we've seen every inch of it and there is no reason it should magically change to give us a new map (in the style of Cata). [More or less what Someproteinguy already noted above, with some extra wool gathering thrown in. Now, you kids, get offa ma lawn! Smiley: nod ]

I need to level a paladin something like 8 levels and I'll have at least one of every class at 90. I'll hit two of each at some point since I sometimes play both factions. When my latest Monk hits 90, she'll make my third, on four accounts. Analysis based on leveling through old content means jack all to me, and if you were to take your measurement over to a site that is still active (ZAM sacrificed this one to Wowhead) you would see that. It is at best a variant of "when I was a kid, I walked 9 miles to school, up hill, in the snow, and we liked it".


Literally, NONE of this has anything to do with my point.

Me, like two posts up, and again in posts before the bump wrote:
Whether or not there should be a skip to 90 option, how that should be implemented, if it's an issue that the leveling content isn't engaging enough, etc. are all other issues.


Yeah, an option to skip the leveling content (or at least "accelerate" it to the point of ease), is probably necessary now, because leveling isn't fun for most players. Absolutely no argument about that to me. The chances of a quality revamp of the system are so utterly low, that I don't see many other options at this point.

BUT, It's also separate from the P2W issue. Because a leveling skip can be implemented both as a RMT service, as an in-game quest line, etc. There's nothing fundamentally P2W about a leveling skip, since there's no fundamental "P2" in the concept.

But when we have a system where the leveling content isn't fun or engaging, but is acting as a gating mechanism for new characters to reach the fun and engaging content, selling a service to bypass that gate is extremely problematic.

IF a level skip is necessary to improve the quality of the game to an acceptable point in the context of rolling new characters, but it is then locked behind a paywall, that is extremely problematic game design for the player.

The level skip has never been the problem here (or, if it is, it's a different issue). It's the paying for the level skip that is the problem.

This is the sort of service I would be likely to scoff at as P2W in a F2P game. Making it a paid service in a subscription game is just unacceptable. Subscription games are built on the foundation of paying for full access. The addition of purely-cosmetic items and services in a RMT shop was begrudgingly accepted, but services that actually augment the way players play and approach the game are fundamentally different from those.


If Blizz thinks that leveling content isn't enjoyable to justify its status as a required gate to access the content players want to play, then they should be implementing in-game solutions to that problem.

Implementing paid solutions to that problem is actually complete crap.
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#115 Feb 28 2014 at 9:09 AM Rating: Good
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If you have a bad healer or tank, chances are greater that they were bad at it from the start and no amount of running in the hamster wheel that is leveling will help them. If you have a bad damage dealer, they're probably wearing a bicycle helmet and licking the screen.

So I'm all for buying level cap and power levelling. 1 to (level cap - 1) are irrelevant levels in MMOs, especially when done multiple times. Leveling is not part of the journey; Leveling is the necessary gas station stops that delay the journey.
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#116 Feb 28 2014 at 9:10 AM Rating: Excellent
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But you can use the level skip without paying. Once. So it's not that big of a gating mechanism. Actually, you have full access to the game even if you are not using the free boost.

And only if you want to boost more than once, you have to pay. Or you could level the old fashioned way. That's a completely acceptable choice in my eyes.
Somehow this reads to me like the arguments of people who want to raid on 5 different characters at the same time and argue for an easier path of equiping if you have done so on another character already.
#117 Feb 28 2014 at 9:44 AM Rating: Good
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Yeah, you can.

But it's also true that leveling is the single largest gating mechanism in the entire game, to the point where fusing all other gates for endgame PVE content don't even begin to reach it.

In the time it takes a player to level 1->90, in full heirloom gear, they could have easily taken a new character from 90 to 100 and had them hard mode ready, because the endgame gating mechanism gets trimmed, allowing players to leapfrog up to the current tier right away. You hit 90 on day 1 vs. day 256 of an expansion, and the time it'll take you to access hard modes doesn't really change. And hard modes are where you spend the bulk of your time, if you're a progression raider.

So even if they let you bypass this gate once, for free, that doesn't really change anything. It's still the single largest gate in the game for creating new characters, and because classes are character-bound, having access to new characters matters.

Leveling teaches you very, very little about how a class plays. You're going to need to invest a lot of time into a class to get it to the working point where you have a solid understanding of the playstyle mechanics*, and leveling overall does NOT teach you what endgame performance is like. Maybe it turns out you HATE having to disengage from a mob entirely because you needed to dodge AoE, which you never knew because your first capped character could do melee and mid-range damage. Or maybe you thought that Kitty Druid sounded fun... but it turns out you hate how you actually have to play for optimal dps. Etc.

The game has 10/11 classes now. Even if you don't want to concurrently raid on multiple characters, switching classes is not an untoward desire at all. I doubt there are any players on this board who haven't switched mains in their WoW careers?

So the problem with having the gate-bypass mechanism being locked behind a paywall is that it's a direct, negative impact on the player who wants to try a new class, but doesn't want to face the grind, because they don't think the grind will be fun, and doesn't want to shell out an additional $60 just to have fun with the game they're already paying a sub for.


I agree the leveling process is tedious and grindy now to the point where you can't keep forcing players, for the health of the game, to face it if they want multiple class options at endgame.

Thing is, that's a game design issue. It should be solved in-game. Maybe boosting is a standard feature once you hit cap. Maybe it's a boosted quest line. I don't really care how they fix it (well, I have preferences, but a fix is better than no fix). But it has to be IN-GAME.

Monetizing that design flaw to leverage players into paying to bypass the game's largest gating mechanism, particularly when the gating mechanism isn't fun in the first place, is not okay.

As consumers of the product, we SHOULD be annoyed at this. Because the players are the ones that lose, since Blizz decided to monetize something that should be broadly available at this point.
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#118 Feb 28 2014 at 10:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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Literally, NONE of this has anything to do with my point.


You keep ducking the fact that you want to use a measurement that others are not using. It is ironic that you base your theory on a measurement that is merely a reflection of your own take on the game, while dismissing others that dare disagree with you:

Quote:
Quote:
MY OWN progress is the only possible measuring stick in a PVE environment, because the progress of other players doesn't influence me.

Because you're deciding on a definition of "winning" that is entirely bound to what you, specifically, care about.


Smiley: laugh See, Digg ... right here you clearly start massaging your definitions to call a chicken a turkey because they both have feathers.

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Idiggory wrote:
Because you're deciding on a definition of "winning" that is entirely bound to what you, specifically, care about. You are viewing the game like it starts at endgame. That's fine, a lot of players do that.

But ...

So buying pets is P2W for the pet collectors?
Buying mounts is P2W for the mount collectors?
Buying levels is P2W to the casual PvE player?

No, because your personal collection is not an established system of progression.


My point was simple. The yardstick that you want to use has been irrelevant for quite some time. Look at people's sigs, most of the content that you feel is a gate isn't any such thing, because the players have already done it. WoD might (it is unclear how this will work in China) give me one boost to 90 as part of the expansion. At that point I will literally have one of every class at 90, a number of alts on the other faction at 90 or close to it, and more than a couple of several. There is no need to go out to level, or even do instances. A character can be leveled through pet battles. I'd actually have to travel a bit, but I can level through gathering professions and archaeology. That's why I mention that you're caught in the past. Look around a bit, I CBA to make Google play well with the Great Firewall tonight, and you will find that Blizz has addressed the worry of people pre-ordering to get a boost before WoD goes live and they've already said that there just aren't many new players apt to be using that feature -- they expect most to either be active or returning players.





#119 Feb 28 2014 at 11:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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Rhodekylle wrote:
they've already said that there just aren't many new players apt to be using that feature -- they expect most to either be active or returning players.
How many new players does the game really bring in these days anyway? So many people out there that have played over the years. If there's not really that many people new to MMOs out there getting their feet wet in WoW, then this strikes me as a really good point. They should be able to pickup the game well enough through the new content, even if they've been gone a couple of years. No legions of noobish DKs in your Ramps PuG and such.

Part of me wonders if Blizzard would do away with the whole concept of "levels" if they were starting fresh and hadn't been using it for so long.
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#120 Feb 28 2014 at 11:42 AM Rating: Decent
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Eurogamer had an interview that addressed some of Blizzard's thinking about the boost. I suggest reading the full thing, but here is a quick review of the way it read to me:

Blizz acknowledges that it would have been possible to boost multiple characters by buying multiple copies of WoD. The paid boost is an alternative to that happening. They wanted to make it high enough to be a significant barrier, but feel that if they'd really wanted to maximize profit they would have made it more affordable. To their credit, they don't mention it but they could have padded the apparent popularity of the expansion by at least delaying the boost -- letting people go ahead and order multiple copies. At a guess, and this is purely my guess, $60 must be about what it would cost to buy a second copy and pay for transferring the boosted character.

Ion Hazzikostas wrote:
But why go for $60, a price point that came in higher than many were expecting? Because Blizzard didn't want to "devalue the accomplishment of levelling".

"In terms of the pricing, honestly a big part of that is not wanting to devalue the accomplishment of levelling," Hazzikostas said.

"If our goal here was to sell as many boosts as possible, we could halve the price or more than that - make it $10 or something. And then hardly anyone would ever level a character again.

"But levelling is something that takes dozens if not over 100 hours in many cases and people have put serious time and effort into that, and we don't want to diminish that."


Leveling worked in the days of PnP gaming, but as we see games about to break into three digits it may not be that efficient anymore. I wonder if they couldn't take a different spin on item squish and just give characters some form of bar that fills up to reflect your personal power as modified by gear (also doing away with iLevel as a way to gate entry to instanced play).
#121 Feb 28 2014 at 11:57 AM Rating: Good
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Goddamnit levelling is not an accomplishment. That's setting the bar so low that Harvey Elder would trip over it. Participation Medal at the Special Olympics.
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#122 Feb 28 2014 at 12:06 PM Rating: Excellent
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Rhodekylle wrote:
At a guess, and this is purely my guess, $60 must be about what it would cost to buy a second copy and pay for transferring the boosted character.
That's probably pretty accurate, at least that's about what I remember last time we did something like that at the beginning of this expansion. Bought the expansion for the Mrs. and transferred one of her characters she'd been playing on my account. I suppose having the service keeps people from buying up extra boxes at Gamestop just to have additional high-level characters, or cuts down on buying another copy and recruit-a-friend boosting themselves through content.
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#123 Feb 28 2014 at 12:20 PM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
Goddamnit levelling is not an accomplishment. That's setting the bar so low that Harvey Elder would trip over it. Participation Medal at the Special Olympics.


First I was confused who Harvey Elder is. Now I feel bad for not knowing. Smiley: frown
#124 Feb 28 2014 at 12:27 PM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
Goddamnit levelling is not an accomplishment. That's setting the bar so low that Harvey Elder would trip over it. Participation Medal at the Special Olympics.
Replace the leveling process with a mandatory sappy in-game 5 minute tutorial on how to play your role in a group, and I'll look the other way.
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#125 Feb 28 2014 at 12:47 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
You keep ducking the fact that you want to use a measurement that others are not using. It is ironic that you base your theory on a measurement that is merely a reflection of your own take on the game, while dismissing others that dare disagree with you:


No, I'm not. I'm approaching the issue from the actual reality of the gating structure of the game. How many times do I have to say that I don't give a crap if players can skip their way to 90?

You're dismissing P2W by trying to introduce a subjective definition of win relative to your own values rather than using one built on game systems.

I care that Blizz is making people PAY to skip their way to 90. It's P2W because it's allowing payers to bypass an immense progress gate on new characters. I think it's pretty damn obvious that P2W as a label was never meant to be subjective to what players should personally value as progress (for the exact reason that protein brought up earlier, no one would claim having exclusive cosmetic mount as being P2W, just because some people really care about the mount collection achievements).

I'm not calling this P2W because I'm so angry that people can buy their way to cap when I put so much energy getting my 3 characters up to the high levels. I don't give a crap about time spent. That was when the game was, frankly, a different game.



What I care about is where they're taking the game next. And where they're taking it is to a place where you either spend months to slog through the leveling gate, or pay a premium fee to bypass it.

That's my issue.
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#126 Feb 28 2014 at 1:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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Hippie.


Edit: Really it's not that I have some deep seated disagreement with your point or anything; I just felt like calling you a hippie. Smiley: grin

If they're giving away boosts with the expansion in an effort to get back old players, this kind of thing was inevitable, since you were going to be able to do it anyway. Is there a better way perhaps of hurrying old players to the new cap? I mean If you last played in BC and are coming back to see the changed world, there's a lot of outdated content that's less than relevant. That seems like the big issue here, selling the "lvl to 90" thing just seems to be a consequence of that.

Is there a better way to do it you think?


Edited, Feb 28th 2014 11:23am by someproteinguy
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