I have a friend that wants to buy a couple of them. I know you guys need the money and all since all the servers are fucked up and you can’t afford to fix or replace them. I mean 12 million times $15 a month isn’t enough to pay for a self respecting health club for your low paid executives right?
So Blizz, I have an idea, why don’t you sell players the ability to make their dude toon a chick for some RL dollars and if enough people pay, you can get out of that crappy SL class you are in and into something that might get you a trophy wife. Oh wait, you’ve already tapped that resource. Ok, how about faction changes for $30 a pop. People like Drayner, if he still played, would be all over that shit and you could afford to fill up that Leer jet. Oh damn, you beat me there too. Ok, how about race changes. I know lots of people want to be sexy Blood Elves. Ya, that would work. How much would that cost? I think it would sell good too. Whoa shit… already there. Well, damn guys, you’ve tapped all the resources already. Lowered the time requirements to transfer, added sex changes, faction changes, race changes, but you still haven’t fixed the fucking servers. What will you ever do now?
OMG. I got it. Sell in game items for cash, similar to the Trading card game loot cards but instead of making us bust packs, we can just pull our wallets out again. Oh wait, again? Collectable Pets via Blizz Store!
What a damn shame Blizz. What’s next? $200 bones for an instant, pre-geared 80? Don’t laugh folks, it’s not far fetched.
So where $180,000,000.00 a month from subscriptions, extra loot from the transfers, cosmetic surgery center, and these stupid pets going? Throwing it all into another basket for the next generation of MMOs?
Yes readers, it’s me Drayner bitching and whining again. Get over it. It’s what I do.
Image Credit: EBSQArt
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51 Comments until now
I would have bought a 80 if I could.
Leveling sucks balls.
for someone that doesn’t care or miss this game you sure seem to have a lot of anger and resentment for it
I don’t understand what your problem with it is. Their goal is to make money and by adding these things they accomplish that. They are optional things and most people that play the game are probably happy that they exist. It just seems like a stupid thing to bitch about.
*Standing ovation clap* hell ya Drayner. I mean you litterally pulled this shit out of the same thought process thats been going threw my head. I mean fuck, I had been telling my gf about this stuff ever since the announcement of faction changes, they will not stop, what ever is easiest to make the quickest buck. In no time we are going to be looking at stuff that you can buy fully pve geared characters or fully pvp arena rated characters, or heres a great idea for 75$ you get 200 times the experience gain, or hey how about the ability to teleport anywhere is just a /teleport command? Its just a matter of fucking time, and well for us people that has been playing since before BC, Its like seeing everything get top heavy and its a matter of time before it busts and we loose the game we absolutely loved.
When something stinks, it’s worth a mention and this stinks. I’ll be honest here though, if I didn’t own this site and still care about the bulk of it’s members, I would be less inclined to “care” a little bit. The plain and simple fact is that I “do care” about the site, the members, and how Blizz’s fuck ups affect both. Life has been great funneling my time into other areas, but I still have to take care of this site. In the process of deleting a bunch of spam the morning I saw the thread I linked and I was a tad pissed to see another money making attempt.
he is right though, they are making all these ridiculous features just to squeeze more $$ out of people. i mean, if they’re that desperate that their selling …INGAME PETS, that don’t even do anything, is it really so absurd to suggest for them to just sell gear to players?They could put offers on them too like migration! “due to lack of well geared mages on realm XXX” T9.5 Mage gear is available to be sold for only $50. offer ends November 14th. you will also receive a free, ingame-pet as our thanks for purchasing our products.
I’ll back you up 100% Drayner, I agree with you on this one. Why not just give 100% of the profits to make a wish? If they really cared, the profits wouldn’t even matter. Blizzard is using their shady tactics to make them seem all helpful and caring, but they’re just in it for the money.
Greedy bastards.
blizzard has stepped away from the purist attitude that it once possessed. With the merger of activision a while back their sole concern is now money stock options, and etc. They realized that virtual goods are worth real life money. Next we can buy gold and like you said have level 80 toons for a $100 or so… also this just in agm will no longer function in arena’s
And the money Blizzard makes from the selling of the Pandaren Monk goes towards the Make A Wish Foundation.
Yeah Blizzard, how dare you.
long live drayner
\m/.
I can’t believe I am actually angered by people’s stupid comments.
You know rogan (purge), if you would put your dislike for me personally down and bury your long lost love affair with pendepot and actually read what the fuck people are writing here, you might actually like something someone says or does here. Instead you sit back like a little bitch and whine about my whining. Which is worse?
As for my complaints, they are valid. Blizzard, with all these additional services are taking the purity of the game out. I’ll leave at this though, if you don’t understand why these things, this direction is bad, then you won’t ever and there is no use debating it.
You’re not allowed to bitch about this if I’m not allowed to bitch about the changes in Cataclysm
.
JK, love you to pieces Drayner.
They need to hurry and start selling gold. That way people won’t get hacked.
I don’t see what’s so bad about them selling in game pets. Especially when 50% of what they get for the monk is going to charity. They don’t give anyone an advantage in game… so what’s the issue?
As for the other changes, It’s not like we’re forced to xfer servers, or faction/race change, or pay to change a chars names/looks. You don’t have to do any of these things to enjoy the game.
Did you even fucking read what I said? You try to say the pet store is another one of Blizzard’s greedy money grabs, when it fact it is for a good cause.
I have no hatred for you, but it would be awesome if you fucked off.
Yes, I read what I needed to read in what you said. It was just another “Rofan-like” comment. They follow most of my posts. It’s ok though dude, I don’t blame you for being how you are. I would be too if I were you. I will make it easier for you to enjoy the site in the future. Very soon, you won’t have to read my bitching anymore.
Guys, many of you are missing the point here. It’s not the ONE issue that set me off here. It’s a string of events. I could care less that 1/2 the proceeds are going to charity. That is a super gesture and I do appreciate it, but the point is that a game run a by company that bans people for buying/selling in game items is now doing the same and at the pace that they are introducing other ways to monetize the game, it won’t be long until we see a test server where buying and selling is facilitated and endorsed by Blizzard. (I bet they would get a cut too) I think EQ2 has a server or two like this already.
So yeah, really, it’s not the pets, it’s the string of events leading up to it. The pets were just the right straw to set off my rant. Advantage said it best mentioning that all this started about the time that Activision took over.
Like I said a few posts ago, you are going to see what you want to see here. If we all agreed on everything, this world would be a boring place. The sad thing is that I used to feed these fuckers blindly with xfer after xfer, 5 accounts worth of monthly fees, name changes, I planned to do the faction change, and to be honest I would have bought these pets for all my toons if I were still playing. The thing is, looking at the game from the outside looking in, it looks much different and I realize I did a lot of things out of pure addiction rather than logic.
Check D&D online for direction that many MMO games will likely take.
(its very unlike WoW, being a fully instance based game but its damn good at what it does (which fails completely to appeal to me)
Point being that its free to play… and you can spend all the RL money you want to on goods and services in game
Obvious they just tossed that in there to get a bigger return on “their” 50%.
” woohoo… we have another tax write off guys! the suckers bit right into it! “
“While probably your above statement may be true, it still doesnt warrant being said.
grow up Mr. I don’t play any more.
Im not normally one to flame, but that reeks of ego”
lolcats @ your 3rd person refference too >.<
@Ðetøur – I have a simple question? Why did you quote your own text there? I don’t get it.
Obvious they just tossed that in there to get a bigger return on “their” 50%.
” woohoo… we have another tax write off guys! the suckers bit right into it! “
Who cares why they do it? Money still goes to dying children, I can’t see any fault with that.
Oh hey Nit! Give me a yell some time dude.
@Rofan:
It’s not a money grab because 50% of the money is going to charity. Really?
Adding a charity aspect to vanity pets encourages more people to buy, and the people who buy to pay more. Do they actually lose any profit by donating 50% to charity? I doubt it. And for something that costs them practically nothing to make or distribute, they are only giving 50% of their money to charity. It’s kind of weak, in my opinion. People should be encouraged to donate to an actual charity, rather than this where only a small percentage of your money will actually go towards a good cause.
That’s quite a bee in your bonnet over what amounts to cosmetics.
@ Admin – reffer to your own blog > Best Comment in the Forums!!! Page 59. Thus the quote…
Flame ON !
@Ðetøur – Oh I see, that was 3 years ago I think. What I don’t get is how it applies to my rant? What the F does my rant have to do with ego? Using quotes from others should probably be used in context better. No worries, just some extra comment fodder for folks to wade through.
@Tenma – meh, don’t try to reason with that one, if the post was made by anyone else he would probably not feel the same way. Besides, I think he will find another outlet for his anger.
@roguedubb – Again, I am not ranting about the actual product. I am ranting about where Wow is going with progression that they are taking with the products… Gold Sales, Ready made 85s, etc… Wait and see. PS. Love the bee in the bonnet reference. Fitting.
I don’t get the posts here. Blizzard is a business its what they do. Its not all happy go lucky people working on a game because they love the game or you, its for money. Period. All these services they currently offer are if you WANT to. Its completely optional.If peopel want to spend their money for these services then its their option. Wtf is with all the anger, you don’t have to touch any of these things or mess with them in any way. You act like their taking advantage of people when in actuality their offering more services to make the game more enjoyable for peopel who want to shell out the cash. Nothing they sell, nothing at all, helps with the leveling process, gets you better gear, or puts you a step ahead of anyone minus switching factions for faction specific gear.
Oh, and btw drayner, I gots no animosity towards you in any way but it seems kind of silly to come oon here and bitch out blizzard when you have taken advantage of every single thing you bitched about except for the pet, and that’s only because you dont’ play anymore.
so much angst
As far as where that 180 million goes each month, try employee payroll, utility bills, property costs, advertisement, research and development, etc etc. I’d be willing to bet that out of the 180 million they are pulling in every month, 170 million is going out for the expenses above. Think about it.
Christmas bonuses are around the corner and I’m sure Blizz employees will be happy
Drayner is back in full force!
Drayner, I know you quit WoW, but they actually did fix the instances. The stupid part is, they did it about 24 hours after announcing the fix. And this was after GMs saying that they “knew” about the “…additional instances cannot be launched at this time…” problem for almost a year. Sounds to me like Blizz was nothing but lazy. I mean, you’re absolutely right, hundreds of millions of dollar$ & it took them close to a year to fix a problem…with the solution implemented in 24 hours. /superfacepalm
And while we’re ranting, how about the BOP item looting changes? BOPs can finally be traded to other party members, fixing the problem of “accidental” roll misclicks…& it only took Blizzard 5 years to figure that one out.
@ the ppl who don’t get why Drayner is ranting:
It’s not that the optional paid services exist; it’s that Blizzard seemingly spends more time/is more concerned with developing new paid services than it spends time/is concerned with fixing broken mechanics of the game.
I”ll say two things to everyone here.
First, each one of us spent hundreds of dollars in subscription fees, transfer fees, and that’s nothing compared to the countless hours we spent grinding for gear. We have threads of misery for fishing items, deadman’s hands, Revelosh gear, you name it. And you know what? As much as that sucked, it was worth it for me. It was worth it for a chance to play with and against you all. With all its flaws, WoW was worth it, thanks to you all.
Second, there will come a time when it’s not worth it anymore. I salute every one of you who finally broke orbit with WoW. I know you all cared enough to spend the time and money. But WoW is also a business. This is not a marriage, and it’s not family. I respect that so many of us care about our time in WoW. But WoW doesn’t love us. It never did. So stop acting the victim: play hard, or leave. Because it takes guts to do either.
And when your WoW time comes to an end, leave with the memories of the good times you had, the good people you met. Leave with what you learned about dedicating yourself to playing better. Leave with the respect of knowing you were one of the few who drove your character to the peak of performance. If you’re honest, WoW gave you nothing worthwhile other than that. Nothing.
You want something worthwhile? Start twinking your gear, your skills, and your stats in the real world. You think you blew the minds of people in your bracket with your gear and your skills? You should see what happens when you start doing it in real life. Some of the rules are just as dumb, some of the gear is ridiculously hard to get, and some of the skills take a long time to master. But the rewards are way beyond. You can hate the times where you have to grind, but if you want to play with fellow twinks, it’s worth it.
Bwappo
@bwappo: /applaud
Very well said.
Now consider this:
RPGing is nothing new. Many of us have already been implementing the skilling up/twinking out mentality since childhood. It’s called self improvement & striving for perfection. Many of us are already reaping the benefits of having made ourselves experts in our individual pursuits in real life.
In WoW, we are paying customers. Our money talks. Blizzard is the service provider. They should earn their revenue by producing exactly what we demand (for example, fixing broken instances before introducing new, pointless bells & whistles), instead of producing only satisfactory results.
It’s that simple.
That said, you’re right in that, if you don’t like the service, don’t pay for it anymore.
I, for one, am eagerly awaiting SW:TOR as my personal Blizz-killer. And guess what, Bwappo? I’m still enjoying my real-life skilling up & epic questing. MMO hobbying is just one part of real life, and since I’m a paying customer, I expect superb service from what is supposed to be the premiere brand.
The charity thing is just used to calm down whiners and critics. They don’t give 100% to charity (hey they could, implementing an ingame pet surely isn’t expensive) but only 50% and they haven’t introduced the pet store to raise funds for future charity projects but for making extra cash. Wanting to make cash is per se not a bad thing but looking at all the problems WoW has these days (especially in PVP) and how long it takes them to solve them you can only hope the money from the pet store goes into the PVP department.
so true the comment, reminding me of tim buckleys ‘blizzards HQ on their Mountain Of Gold’ Picture …
espirit and the good human values already leaked out of this game way ago .. long live COMMERCE
$2.16 billion a year sounds like a lot of money, but you need to understand that all of that money is not going to just one person, it is going to a company. They need to pay their employees, (and they have a lot of those) future projects, (it is not surprising for a company like Blizzard to pour several million dollars into a project and then trash it, WoW isn’t the only thing Blizzard is doing and of course that means more money, but you need to spend money to make money) as well as other etc. costs.
I am not trying to say that no one at Blizzard is a millionaire, but not everyone working there is a millionaire. Blizzard is constantly hiring new people everyday to work on new and existing projects. I don’t mind paying a fee to play WoW if it means that they will always uphold the best interest for their players. (they gave you EXP toggle, took them long enough, but you got it) What about Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony? Are you going to complain that they make billions because of their game sales?
~Zuty
Zuty, it’s not just how much the company makes. The point is, in effort for them making even more money, they are comprising the game. So far, none of what they have done is truly detrimental to the game, but they are on a path that might be. Making the game 10x easier for casuals makes the game bad for some. Making it so easy for someone to rip off a guild then change names, looks, or whatever they want to change also hurts. It’s not just a pet that irks me, it’s not the fact that the company is doing so well, it’s the purity of the game being compromised and the overall direction that bothers me. If it doesn’t bother some, that’s fine, but that won’t change how I feel. Everyone that has read my rant has interpreted the overall meaning of what I had to say differently and that is ok. We won’t all agree on everything, ever.
I am a business owner myself, so I do understand costs associated to run a company. I do understand and enjoy making more, but at what cost. Really. Moves that Blizzard has been making are great for investors, great for their employees, from techs all the way up to top tier exec, but the method at which they are making more I consider selling out. Kind of how I lapsed on my judgement and showed gold ads for a few days. Sure it would make me tons more rl gold, but at what cost really. I felt bad having them up, so I took them down.
Anyhow, my views won’t change on this. The site is mine and It allows me a voice. I am sorry to those that my voice might offend, but I am going share them here and there.
With all due respect Drayner, I am very thankful for all the support etc during these times, but how is this relevant and/or helping Twinkinfo? With rage against Blizzard? Seriously, now when you only are lurking in the back I want to have interesting topics by eg Duckhunt on frontpage, not flame war topic where people is throwing crap at each other.
It won’t help no one.
And people wonder why there’s war raging in the world…
@ Admin – Again ‘What about Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony?’
Popular franchises are becoming more and more easy to fit the needs of casual gamers. On top of that, you have all the merchandise being made using said franchises. (Halo 3 Mountain Dew Drinks and Mario Clothing) Blizzard is doing the same with WoW and they have been doing so with Warcraft in general on a smaller note. What about all the Warcraft novels, mouse pads, t-shirts, keyboards, TCG, etc.? They add nothing to the game and yet people eat it up all the time. While we are on TCGs, why not bring up the loot cards. Not only did it help push the cards out the door, but it caused the price of certain sets to sky rocket as well as go out of print. As a traditional gamer, that is bad for me because I have to spend ~$8 for a pack of cards (or certain cards I need are out of print), but it is good for the company because they are making money. So what if 90% of the people buying the cards are just throwing them away as they rummage around looking for a loot card; money is money.
Blizzard would be CRAZY to turn that down. Any opportunity they have at making money they will do it. Blizzard is a company and while the customers matter, they will gladly lose a couple thousand members if it gave them even a slight chance at making more money from casual players joining the game.
Business is never about making friends. It’s about making money and if that means selling out they’ll do it. It’s the way business has been and always will be.
~Zuty
It’s easy to look at this game and lament what it has become. It took many of us a long time to realize that Bizzard had no interests in the hardcore players; whether it was the 1-2% of players that finished 40 man Naxx, 5-7% that cleared Sunwell or the less than 1% of us that twinked.
The game was repeatedly dumbed down to be made more accessible. Things were brought in to make it easy; BOA’s, faction changes, race changes, shortened transfer durations, paid pets (No doubt mounts will be next.) and like it or not purchasable tier gear will be brought in.
It probably won’t be the current stuff it will follow the arena and tier set that preceded it. You can buy Tier 10 when 11 comes out, Tier 11 when 12 comes out etc. It’s going there and the rest of you know it.
Aside from the addiction part of WoW I got tired of everything I labored for being given away with badges/marks/honor. Now in the not too distant future you can just buy your gear. Need those revenue streams to support any failed Activision titles ya know?
‘Making the game 10x easier for casuals makes the game bad for some. ‘
– How does someone else having an easier experience ruin it for someone else? If you had the ‘real’ experience and they didn’t, surely you are 1up on them.
‘it’s the purity of the game being compromised and the overall direction that bothers me’
– WoW hasn’t been through three months without some fairly large changes, it’s not a static game, there is no mythical pure state. So someone can buy a pet, whoop-dee-shiz. When it looks remotely like people could buy anything that matters, then start howling. Frankly I find all this pre-demise howling idiotic.
– How does someone else having an easier experience ruin it for someone else? If you had the ‘real’ experience and they didn’t, surely you are 1up on them.
Answer, when you’ve leveled an 80 on both factions because you have friends playing both sides and now all you have to do is faction change? Get back to us.
Do you honestly think anyone wanted to do levels 1-80 on both factions for the sake of doing it?
– WoW hasn’t been through three months without some fairly large changes, it’s not a static game, there is no mythical pure state. So someone can buy a pet, whoop-dee-shiz. When it looks remotely like people could buy anything that matters, then start howling. Frankly I find all this pre-demise howling idiotic.
We warned anyone that would listen when they started taking away earned gear that twinking was going to die.
Likewise now people are looking at the amount of BOA’s, paid faction changes, race changes and other “time saving” features as a sign of things to come. The paid pets are yet another subtle change to get us used to more “paid” services that will be introduced.
If you thought it was BS to get tier sets with tokens in TBC, paying honor for previous season’s honor gear, or getting top flight gear for doing nothing but heroics? Just wait.
They can’t lay down paid tier sets without making everything else “more accessable” first like they’re doing now. Just look at Blizz’s track record for dumbing down everything and you’ll come to the conclusion those stating it’s going to happen are not some kind of loons looking to get attention. They know the history of the game and how Blizz drips, drips, drips things into being accepted without question.
I think Dray has every right to voice his opposition to the slashing and burning of the Wow we once loved to play as it undergoes some Obamaesque “fundamental transformation”. Blizz made literally billions off of our years of loyal subscription fees and never once in all that time did they even bother to survey us to see what improvements people really wanted in the game. Through all that time they allowed the personal peeves of individual developers (e.g. Kalgan) to warp the game into something it never should have become. Now they have someone in charge who has made it their personal mission in life to destroy twinking, while at the same time introducing more and more BoA items that are somehow “ok”. Oh the hypocrisy!
People who worked toons to max level, earned things like HWL gear at 60, completed end game instances, and/or attained high arena ratings for gear have a perfect right to dislike the handing out of XP, gear for badges, and the elimination of the meaningfulness of achievement titles they gained when it was actually (more) difficult to do.
Wow is in a slow death spiral, imho, for no other reason than that Blizz lost interest in maintaining the incredible cash cow once they had saturated the world wide market. They went into “cost cutting” mode and started the process of making anything buyable for RL money because no more subscription boosts will be forthcoming. They put their “A Team” devs on other projects and left Wow with clueless morons like Zarhym to run the show.
It is perfectly normal for people who have spent years of time playing this game to resent wholly arbitrary changes which have sucked all the fun out of it for them. I don’t know why some seem to think you have no right to bitch, but in actuality, you have EVERY RIGHT TO BITCH!! Blizz doesn’t have to listen (in fact it is real obvious they don’t care) to complaints, but that doesn’t invalidate the logical legitimacy of the information.
Yeah, yeah, if you don’t like it, quit. Well, I have done that, just like Drayner. I’m waiting and hoping for something new and of good quality to try instead. But if someone wants to talk about the state of Wow on this venue, and the site owner (Drayner) considers it appropriate, then it IS fine. If your fragile minds cannot handle topics beyond stat comparisons for bracket gear, then I suggest you not read threads such as this. Personally, I’m happy to unload a little of the frustration that the idiotic management of Wow has caused me and made the game unplayable for me and many of my friends.
Is this the Torkd from Malygos?
Yes, I’m afraid so.
Oh please, why are people making out that Blizzard is JUST keeping their head afloat.
These guys have profit margines that make Microsoft look like a third rate outfit. MMORPG’s once the framework is there are massively profitable.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if Blizzard are owned by the Rockefellers. There’s a difference between being profitable, and being greedy. These guys are swinging the largest cocks in cyberspace, and we’re all getting fucked completely.
Just step back. Think about it. Faction transfer and Realm transfer, £35-£40 or w/e it is. That’s a weeks food for most people, in exchange for editing some data entries.
I don’t recall anyone saying Blizz was “just keeping their heads afloat”. I said WoW is in a slow death spiral, and it is. Blizz has plenty of other projects to work on, but WoW is simply being left to wither and die with third rate devs trying to do surgery on it with butter knives.
Visit Ultima Online if you want to see what happens over time to great games that are abandoned by the first rate talent that created them.
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