Getting people online, playing and interacting is obviously the overall goal for the Battle.net platform, and that includes allowing people to play across regional boundaries as they have in the past.
Unfortunately, there are a multitude of challenges we have to overcome due to the unique regional account and billing options that didn't exist in the past. But those hurdles aren't insurmountable, and we are looking into solutions that will allow interested players to obtain access to other regional versions without having to buy another full copy of the game. Those solutions are something we're currently planning to have available through Battle.net Account Management within the first few months of StarCraft II's release.
Before that solution is implemented though, you're correct in that you'd need to purchase a US copy of the game on launch day to play in the US region.
maybe for a cheap charge as low as $4.99 we'll be able to get access to other regions! i bet my ass it's a lot of work to do with a lot of hurdles and challenges (probably not really)
This is very good news, next we need an 'innovative' "Offline multiplayer" feature that allows users to play against their friends by connecting their computers directly together, and blizzard will have redeemed itself in the public eye...
On June 17 2010 Bashiok wrote: But those hurdles aren't insurmountable, and we are looking into solutions that will allow interested players to obtain access to other regional versions without having to buy another full copy of the game. Those solutions are something we're currently planning to have available through Battle.net Account Management within the first few months of StarCraft II's release.
I can almost 100% guarantee that this is going to be a paid feature. Just the way he worded it, plus with all the paid for features for WoW, its gonna cost something. Kinda curious as to see how much they charge though.
Wow, I wonder if that means I'll have to special order a copy of SC2 from any country in Europe to play, or if I can simply get two in the US and use different b.net accounts... Hope they clear this issue up a little bit more before it comes out. Would hate to buy two copies and then have two NA keys ^^ Thanks for posting this, keep us updated !
They are probably going to implement a fee if you want to do cross-regional play. If you really want to play cross-regional, you are likely to cough up the dough.
...due to the unique regional account and billing options that didn't exist in the past.
On June 17 2010 08:01 Shiladie wrote: This is very good news, next we need an 'innovative' "Offline multiplayer" feature that allows users to play against their friends by connecting their computers directly together, and blizzard will have redeemed itself in the public eye...
I'm sure they would have to overcome a multitude of challenges to implement such modern technology.
On June 17 2010 08:05 Sheth wrote: Wow, I wonder if that means I'll have to special order a copy of SC2 from any country in Europe to play, or if I can simply get two in the US and use different b.net accounts... Hope they clear this issue up a little bit more before it comes out. Would hate to buy two copies and then have two NA keys ^^ Thanks for posting this, keep us updated !
If they could just allow being able to play custom games cross region that would be good imo. It allows you the freedom to play with your friends around the world, without subjecting the players you get matched against any possible lag/delay issues.
On June 17 2010 08:04 Synwave wrote: I'll lay even odds it will be some nickel and dime pay to play concept. Add a region for 5 bucks or something to that effect.
If this is pay to play, I don't really have a problem with it. Think about it, with all of the people that are going to be on blizzards servers it would just be insanity to have them all on one. It would cause huge instability in the system, and immense lag if everyone could play on whatever realm they felt like. Making it pay to play would certainly limit the amount of people hopping back and forth, by restricting it to mostly hardcore gamers which is in the minority. It would keep the servers relatively stable and overall everyone's experience on battle net would be better.
Either pay to play or not, I would he completely happy with this.
I have no problem paying honestly. There are hardware concerns to be surmounted, regardless of the online bitching, and if paying a fee helps them to invest in better or more hardware to better the experience, I'm down.
Before this fix is implemented, the best players from each realm will just continue to borrow accounts from other regions to play in tournaments and such, much as many of them do now in the beta.
well if its not free it cant be battle.net 2.0, as that would be only be a step backwards in functionality... Something that was free, now has to be bought is not an upgrade.
the other question that this raises out of speculation, As we all know with the option of buying a copy of the game for a new region, we also had to buy the expansion packs for that region... Which makes me wonder if they charge for cross region for WoL, will that charge carry over to the expansions or will they make us rebuy it...
On June 17 2010 08:20 KiF1rE wrote: well if its not free it cant be battle.net 2.0, as that would be only be a step backwards in functionality... Something that was free, now has to be bought is not an upgrade.
We're already a step back on functionality. Several in fact. Any way they slice it bnet2 isn't measuring up to the old bnet1 that served us well for over a decade.
On June 17 2010 08:09 789 wrote: If they could just allow being able to play custom games cross region that would be good imo. It allows you the freedom to play with your friends around the world, without subjecting the players you get matched against any possible lag/delay issues.
Or they could let the AMM ping players before matching you up with them, but that's probably too 'modern'.
So the bnet0.2 design team is incompetent then? It wouldn't surprise me if they designed bnet0.2 the same way they designed the units. "Let's think up cool things, implement them and see what happens!!!"
looking into solutions that will allow interested players to obtain access to other regional versions without having to buy another full copy of the game.
Allow me to translate:
looking into solutions that will allow us to milk the cash cow by charging desperate broke nerds to obtain access to other regional versions without them having to pay for another full copy but at least half a copy (25€).
Sounds a lot like a possible microtransaction to me. Certainly better than buying a full game, and therefore it's good news I guess, but it's still a joke.
I'm pretty sure they won't charge a fee for something like cross-region considering that it's hard to justify when their two previous RTSs had free cross-region.
If they DO charge a fee for it, then for the love of god people, please don't pay for it. Companies charge microtransactions because you pay for them.
Another way to milk customers off of money I guess. That seems to be modern way of selling video games these days - as little content for as much money as possible.
This is just good business sense. The people who absolutely must play in other regions will still have to buy new copies of the game on release. Then they offer a cheaper alternative for those who want the service but weren't willing to pay the enormous premium.
Probably a micro-transaction, but worth it even in that case. If Blizzard does extra dev that won't be used by all customers, it's a likely micro-transaction. But, great news. We're talking about months here instead of years.
Like above posters, I believe blizzard would attempt to charge users for xrealm play. I am very curious if they will release the +lan professional edition/incorporate LAN functionality for free given the high demands of the community.
On June 17 2010 08:33 Hikari wrote: Like above posters, I believe blizzard would attempt to charge users for xrealm play. I am very curious if they will release the +lan professional edition/incorporate LAN functionality for free given the high demands of the community.
You realize that "professional edition" is nothing more than a dedicated server for tournaments, right?
On June 17 2010 08:10 StarStruck wrote: It's funny because this was never a problem over 10 years ago lmao.
Ten years ago there weren't nearly as many people playing the game (any game for that matter) than there are/will be today.
That has nothing to do with it. Don't put words in my mouth. The fact of the matter is they got a rid of a lot of features that were second nature to the old B.Net. You cannot argue that. It's only a cash grab now.
EDIT: I agree Half. It's kind of ridiculous, but many of us won't have a choice. The direction of paying for every little feature is stupid. What's next? Paying for each patch? I know it sounds absurd, but where do we draw the line is the question?
And developers wonder why so many people are anxious to rip them off through piracy. Maybe we should give each other a little more respect and maybe it wouldn't be as bad as it is. Not to say it would resolve piracy, certainly it won't but there would be a small improvement.
Blame society for this. Quite sad that businesses don't realise that screwing the customer for all they are worth will only hurt in the long run. Guess people truly on care about the here and now
I doubt it would be free. I see something like this being charged in a manner similar to WOW, where you pay $25.00 to switch a character across a realm, or $15.00 to switch factions. It's something that shouldn't cost money, but it's a good money grab for them.
On June 17 2010 08:36 Half wrote: idunno I find it kind of depressing that you people are so willing to accept paying for it.
Why not? I mean what's your alternative? You either pay for it, or you don't get it. You can raise holy hell and bitch and moan and try to avoid it getting added to other games, but that won't change the fact that for SC2 if they choose to charge you either pay or you don't get it.
So you're already paying $140+ for the 3 games. What's another $10 if what you get is the one single feature you wanted the most out of the whole feature set.
This is unlike something like chat. I don't see how they could ever microtransact chat. But, xregion is a database tweak. I can't see them doing that for free. WoW provides too many examples of this. But even still, why be so cheap about it?
I get that it should be free, BW had it, 10 years ago, BNet 0.2, blah blah blah. But in the end, if you want it, and they're making you pay for it, they have you by the balls. For $10 I'm not going to split hairs if that's what it ends up being.
I just hope its not like WoW character movement where you could only move every x months or something, as I used to play on Europe then move to US East when I played past midnight as that would be when all my US friends would get online and start gaming and Europe would be emptying out really fast after/towards midnight.
On June 17 2010 08:43 Salv wrote: I doubt it would be free. I see something like this being charged in a manner similar to WOW, where you pay $25.00 to switch a character across a realm, or $15.00 to switch factions. It's something that shouldn't cost money, but it's a good money grab for them.
See it isn't quite the same because those features are out of game features that still require "scarcity". Blizzard doesn't want people changing names or realms all the time, it detriments the game, but at the same time charging in game money would be dumb for meta-game services.
And requiring money is as good of a plan as anything. I mean, it cheaply and easily creates artificial scarcity and they make a some money.
This isn't going to be one time change, this is going to be something that anyone can use as much as possible. It isn't suppose to HAVE artificial scarcity, its a basic feature we've come to expect and frequently use in past Blizzard RTS's.
Does that mean they won't charge? No. Does that mean they shouldn't charge? Yes. Blizzard had (imo) good reasons for charging for what they had in WoW. They have none here.
Im pretty sure it will be like wow, a cross realm tournament server to opt in, probably half a year into the game or worse. they have this thing for under performing when its a community initiative.
I finally understand Blizzard's perspective in all this. They really want to charge people in China a different amount for the game than people in America, etc. etc., because the ideal pricing to maximize profits differs wildly between regions. What they want to avoid is people in Europe buying say the cheaper Chinese version of Starcraft 2 and then just logging in to their local server.
@ white knighters, dont forget if all else fails you can use the "Blizzard just wants to make your wallets lighter so you dont develop back problems later on" excuse.
I think it is great that they are actually commenting on the situation, even providing some hope that it might be free.
While it may be true that they are looking into paid services/options, there's no direct mention of that. Being an optimist, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they want to region-lock people during the first few months to avoid server overload. If you think about it, the last full retail game they launched (vanilla WoW) was absolutely plagued with launch issues due to server strain. The blizzard name is even more popular now, and while an RTS is probably not going to draw the same numbers, there is no doubt that SC2 will sell a ton of units on the first day.
As angry as people are regarding the lack of cross-realm support (which is obviously the far greater issue in the long term) there would be even more people angry if they couldn't log on and play with the game they just purchased.
And I would be happy to pay a small fee for cross realm support, as long as it is reasonable. Obviously it would have to cost less than a retail copy, else no-one would utilise the option, but the real kicker would be saving on the expansions. On a side note, it is interesting to note that you will be able to add multiple sc2 licenses (for different regions) to the same account.
On June 17 2010 08:48 Muirhead wrote: I finally understand Blizzard's perspective in all this. They really want to charge people in China a different amount for the game than people in America, etc. etc., because the ideal pricing to maximize profits differs wildly between regions. What they want to avoid is people in Europe buying say the cheaper Chinese version of Starcraft 2 and then just logging in to their local server.
On June 17 2010 08:36 Half wrote: idunno I find it kind of depressing that you people are so willing to accept paying for it.
Why not? I mean what's your alternative? You either pay for it, or you don't get it. You can raise holy hell and bitch and moan and try to avoid it getting added to other games, but that won't change the fact that for SC2 if they choose to charge you either pay or you don't get it.
So you're already paying $140+ for the 3 games. What's another $10 if what you get is the one single feature you wanted the most out of the whole feature set.
This is unlike something like chat. I don't see how they could ever microtransact chat. But, xregion is a database tweak. I can't see them doing that for free. WoW provides too many examples of this. But even still, why be so cheap about it?
I get that it should be free, BW had it, 10 years ago, BNet 0.2, blah blah blah. But in the end, if you want it, and they're making you pay for it, they have you by the balls. For $10 I'm not going to split hairs if that's what it ends up being.
There isn't any choice yet because pricing has not been determined. They're evaluating community response to determine adequate pricing. Every person that says "yeah whatever" is indirectly contributing to making us lose 10$.
If every single person said "No wtf we won't pay for whats been a free feature for the past 15 years", then Blizzard won't charge for it. If everyone says "yeah whatever", then Blizzard will. You have no reason to not stand by your interests as a consumer.
Blizzard isn't unethical or even greedy for charging for a feature most of you want to pay for. The question is why the fuck do you want to pay for it?
On June 17 2010 Bashiok wrote: Unfortunately, there are a multitude of challenges we have to overcome due to the unique regional account and billing options that didn't exist in the past.
Replace options with restrictions and append: that we created
But those hurdles aren't insurmountable
But we thought the technology just isn't there yet. /sarcasm
and we are looking into solutions that will allow interested players to obtain access to other regional versions without having to buy another full copy of the game. Those solutions are something we're currently planning to have available through Battle.net Account Management within the first few months of StarCraft II's release.
On June 17 2010 08:36 Half wrote: idunno I find it kind of depressing that you people are so willing to accept paying for it.
it is depressing... its kind of amusing to watch peoples reactions though... first when faced with the fact that you simply have to purchase another $60 client for each region people RAGE! give it a few weeks and then say that it will more than likely be a microtransaction and everyone jumps for joy! had they of initially just come out and said they were going to charge people a fee to play in different regions everyone would have been just as pissed as when they told them they have to purchase additional copies of the game! Its like telling them their car was utterly destroyed in the parking lot and than saying "nah its just a small dent", shock and awe....
On June 17 2010 08:49 Drin wrote: I think it is great that they are actually commenting on the situation, even providing some hope that it might be free.
While it may be true that they are looking into paid services/options, there's no direct mention of that. Being an optimist, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they want to region-lock people during the first few months to avoid server overload. If you think about it, the last full retail game they launched (vanilla WoW) was absolutely plagued with launch issues due to server strain. The blizzard name is even more popular now, and while an RTS is probably not going to draw the same numbers, there is no doubt that SC2 will sell a ton of units on the first day.
As angry as people are regarding the lack of cross-realm support (which is obviously the far greater issue in the long term) there would be even more people angry if they couldn't log on and play with the game they just purchased.
Why would people switch to one server in SC2? That function is only used when you want to play something specific/somebody specific from other server. It had never happen whit any other of the BN games, WOW is a mmorpg so there are diferent reason on why people want to join x server that Diablo/SC/WC players don't have.
Blizzard is a company that has a successful business model that they offer a product and charge for services. It's not like they are charging a sub each month for Starcraft 2. You want to do anything outside of playing the game on the region you bought then you gotta suck it up and pay more. It's heartbreaking I know. Any of you are welcome to go start your own game company and not have micro transactions for any of your products.
step 1. Blatantly leave out cross-realm options step 2. Respond by saying that "we have realized how important cross-realm play is to the community." step 3. Offer a new "service" whereby a fee is collected to "unlock" cross-realm play.
On June 17 2010 09:02 Baarn wrote: Blizzard is a company that has a successful business model that they offer a product and charge for services. It's not like they are charging a sub each month for Starcraft 2. You want to do anything outside of playing the game on the region you bought then you gotta suck it up and pay more. It's heartbreaking I know. Any of you are welcome to go start your own game company and not have micro transactions for any of your products.
Except the previously made several statements where we would be getting free service updates to b-net 2.0.
I would pay some money for cross region play, if blizzard is going to ride that dick.
I mean sure 10 years ago it was free, but it is a new consumer age and from a business point of view it seems okay to charge for cross region because basically they can.
On June 17 2010 08:36 Half wrote: idunno I find it kind of depressing that you people are so willing to accept paying for it.
Why not? I mean what's your alternative? You either pay for it, or you don't get it. You can raise holy hell and bitch and moan and try to avoid it getting added to other games, but that won't change the fact that for SC2 if they choose to charge you either pay or you don't get it.
So you're already paying $140+ for the 3 games. What's another $10 if what you get is the one single feature you wanted the most out of the whole feature set.
This is unlike something like chat. I don't see how they could ever microtransact chat. But, xregion is a database tweak. I can't see them doing that for free. WoW provides too many examples of this. But even still, why be so cheap about it?
I get that it should be free, BW had it, 10 years ago, BNet 0.2, blah blah blah. But in the end, if you want it, and they're making you pay for it, they have you by the balls. For $10 I'm not going to split hairs if that's what it ends up being.
There isn't any choice yet because pricing has not been determined. They're evaluating community response to determine adequate pricing. Every person that says "yeah whatever" is indirectly contributing to making us lose 10$.
If every single person said "No wtf we won't pay for whats been a free feature for the past 15 years", then Blizzard won't charge for it. If everyone says "yeah whatever", then Blizzard will. You have no reason to not stand by your interests as a consumer.
Blizzard isn't unethical or even greedy for charging for a feature most of you want to pay for. The question is why the fuck do you want to pay for it?
Thats just being a tool pretty much .
Once again, I see myself siding with this guy. Listen, if you don't stand up for your rights then who will? The fees are getting out of hand. When you buy something you expect no hidden fees. Obviously many of you aren't financially dependent. It will all add up in the long-run.
On June 17 2010 09:02 Baarn wrote: Blizzard is a company that has a successful business model that they offer a product and charge for services. It's not like they are charging a sub each month for Starcraft 2. You want to do anything outside of playing the game on the region you bought then you gotta suck it up and pay more. It's heartbreaking I know. Any of you are welcome to go start your own game company and not have micro transactions for any of your products.
Except the previously made several statements where we would be getting free service updates to b-net 2.0.
Yeah you get updates to battlenet 2.0 since that is part of the server platform. I really doubt that includes account migrations etc.
Yes we would all not like to pay for cross realm play. I really dont want to, I just dont think its something we can fight. Because I am sure blizzard is going to withstand all the heat they get until we just give in and say "okay lets fucking pay for something thats free"
Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
On June 17 2010 Bashiok wrote: Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
So they didn't even get started on crossrealm features yet.... I'm filing this one under: "Blizzard hits bottom, digs"
On June 17 2010 Bashiok wrote: Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
So they didn't even get started on crossrealm features yet.... I'm filing this one under: "Blizzard hits bottom, digs"
On June 17 2010 09:02 Baarn wrote: Blizzard is a company that has a successful business model that they offer a product and charge for services. It's not like they are charging a sub each month for Starcraft 2. You want to do anything outside of playing the game on the region you bought then you gotta suck it up and pay more. It's heartbreaking I know. Any of you are welcome to go start your own game company and not have micro transactions for any of your products.
No. Releasing a service with less features than the original and charging more is heartbreaking.
Once again we have a ton of random people making assumptions about the service requiring a fee before Blizzard even decides themselves. Hilarious!
Edit: To add my personal thoughts, I knew it'd be a feature to be discussed eventually. I had no doubts they'd add it in, regardless of how many people believed they wouldn't.
Yeah, it would be a slap in the face. What's worse is many consumers don't know any better.
Here Bill comes again with a remark. What makes you think they won't charge a small fee for cross-regional play smart ass? Unless they make it abundantly clear then there will be something to talk about.
You can let them walk all over you for all I care, but I won't let some corporate schmuck try to walk all over me.
Have fun purchasing your first car. Not everyone is a good negotiator. Car windows, steering wheels, brakes, etc. come in the initial pricing. GPS and other 'luxury' features cost extra. We expect to get the basic features of the original B.Net in the original price. The car dealer tells you before you buy your car, every basic feature might cost extra. It won't be in the initial price. Keyword is might. Do you not see anything wrong with that picture?
On June 17 2010 08:49 Drin wrote: I think it is great that they are actually commenting on the situation, even providing some hope that it might be free.
While it may be true that they are looking into paid services/options, there's no direct mention of that. Being an optimist, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they want to region-lock people during the first few months to avoid server overload. If you think about it, the last full retail game they launched (vanilla WoW) was absolutely plagued with launch issues due to server strain. The blizzard name is even more popular now, and while an RTS is probably not going to draw the same numbers, there is no doubt that SC2 will sell a ton of units on the first day.
As angry as people are regarding the lack of cross-realm support (which is obviously the far greater issue in the long term) there would be even more people angry if they couldn't log on and play with the game they just purchased.
Why would people switch to one server in SC2? That function is only used when you want to play something specific/somebody specific from other server. It had never happen whit any other of the BN games, WOW is a mmorpg so there are diferent reason on why people want to join x server that Diablo/SC/WC players don't have.
Well if people do not have any reason to join a particular server, then there would be no need for cross realm choice to begin with, bar the occasional tournament etc. Reasons for choosing a specific server include:
community size/skill level - if players perceive that they can improve quicker by playing on a particular server, they very well may do so.
online communities - if people are segregated based on region, members of international communities such as TL may all agree to join one particular server, so they can play with each other.
tournament/league activity. If a particular server has far more sponsored tournaments, players may want to play on that server as there would be more professional activity there.
time-zones and periods with low activity. Say you want to play at any time of the day, or say you work a night shift and play during non-peak hours, you may want to join a server in which people would be playing during that time of the day.
population issues post release. Say that one server has a far smaller population a few weeks after launch, for any of the reasons listed above or others. People buying the game would avoid the less populated region if they knew, slightly similar (although not very) to what happens with unpopular servers in WoW. And if no-one ends up playing on a set of servers, say the SEA ones, blizzard would most likely lose the money they have invested there.
Maintenance/stability issues. If one region is having constant stability issues due to the data centre there, people may avoid that region if it develops a bad reputation. Also people may switch servers if there is maintenance, although that would probably be temporary.
Some of these issues do not relate to the launch day scenario I mentioned of course, but they do highlight reasons why people may want to choose a specific region over another. And if enough (read: too many) people choose one region in particular come launch day, there could be server/stability issues.
On June 17 2010 08:04 Synwave wrote: I'll lay even odds it will be some nickel and dime pay to play concept. Add a region for 5 bucks or something to that effect.
Well I'm going to be the optimist here and say that it might be a pay once for an upgrade thing... maybe???
On June 17 2010 09:27 Tone_ wrote: Awesome. I'm actually in New Zealand during release, can anyone verify for me which region this is counted in?
It would be counted as the South-East-Asia region, which includes New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and perhaps a few other countries I forgot.
Also as bioshock said, it seems the region-locking will be based on the license attached to the copy you purchase (which is based on the purchase region) and not the address in your battle.net account. So if you buy the game in NZ, you will only be able to play the game on SEA servers, as it currently stands. To play on the NA servers, you would have to buy a NA copy.
Heres my idea on how a free version could work, originally posted on b-net. Free for people who buy full edition of the game.
Basically, on your SC2 license page, it says "Region: [current region]". You can click on that region and it brings you to another page where it displays a generic disclaimer about lag, and then below it are a bunch of shiny web 2.0 boxes that say U.S, EU, Asia, etc, etc. A full priced version of the game has all the regions lighted up. To change, you click, confirmation window -processing-, then you got it. Maybe limit changes to like 5 times per week to limit abuse, w/e.
If you bought a cheaper edition of the game, then other regions with different pricepoints have a muted grey lock and are greyed out. Hovering your mouse on them it says "You're account is not authorized to play on this region, do you wish to upgrade?". Clicking on it brings you to a billing/payment page where you can upgrade.
On June 17 2010 08:10 StarStruck wrote: It's funny because this was never a problem over 10 years ago lmao.
Ten years ago there weren't nearly as many people playing the game (any game for that matter) than there are/will be today.
That has nothing to do with it. Don't put words in my mouth. The fact of the matter is they got a rid of a lot of features that were second nature to the old B.Net. You icannot argue that. It's only a cash grab now.
I wasn't putting words in your mouth, I'm just suggesting that the reason this is no longer second nature is due to the significantly larger player base, and server instability as a result.
On June 17 2010 09:24 StarStruck wrote: Yeah, it would be a slap in the face. What's worse is many consumers don't know any better.
Here Bill comes again with a remark. What makes you think they won't charge a small fee for cross-regional play smart ass? Unless they make it abundantly clear then there will be something to talk about.
You can let them walk all over you for all I care, but I won't let some corporate schmuck try to walk all over me.
Have fun purchasing your first car. Not everyone is good negotiator.
What makes you think they will? It's all, once again speculation. Just like the speculation that Battle.net 2.0 would require a subscription. Just like the speculation that major tournaments would have to play on the official Battle.net servers. Just like the speculation that there would be no chat channels. Do I even need to continue? Bashiok even says himself NO details are known other than the fact that they want it. Please don't call me out for deciding to evaluate the facts when we get them, not before. What's the point of getting ahead of yourself worrying about stuff that has no evidence will ever happen?
I'm just going to point out not only is there nothing wrong with thinking this will be free, its actually a good thing.
Cynicism isn't always the route to go.
You know what is the core gauge of a companies willingness to charge for this? Whether fans think they will do it or not. Not polls on whether they like it, or use it, but consider it a possibility.
The only thing you need to do is desensitize you're fanbase. Not convince them to pay more money, but to make them jaded and cyncial yet still buying your product. Not convince them to like you.
On June 17 2010 09:24 Drin wrote: Well if people do not have any reason to join a particular server, then there would be no need for cross realm choice to begin with, bar the occasional tournament etc. Reasons for choosing a specific server include:
community size/skill level - if players perceive that they can improve quicker by playing on a particular server, they very well may do so.
online communities - if people are segregated based on region, members of international communities such as TL may all agree to join one particular server, so they can play with each other.
tournament/league activity. If a particular server has far more sponsored tournaments, players may want to play on that server as there would be more professional activity there.
time-zones and periods with low activity. Say you want to play at any time of the day, or say you work a night shift and play during non-peak hours, you may want to join a server in which people would be playing during that time of the day.
population issues post release. Say that one server has a far smaller population a few weeks after launch, for any of the reasons listed above or others. People buying the game would avoid the less populated region if they knew, slightly similar (although not very) to what happens with unpopular servers in WoW. And if no-one ends up playing on a set of servers, say the SEA ones, blizzard would most likely lose the money they have invested there.
Maintenance/stability issues. If one region is having constant stability issues due to the data centre there, people may avoid that region if it develops a bad reputation. Also people may switch servers if there is maintenance, although that would probably be temporary.
Some of these issues do not relate to the launch day scenario I mentioned of course, but they do highlight reasons why people may want to choose a specific region over another. And if enough (read: too many) people choose one region in particular come launch day, there could be server/stability issues.
Please understand that rts multiplayer does not in any way equal to mmorpg multiplayer. All battlenet does in an rts is to act as mediator between players, like a torrent. You're telling person x to connect to person y and then x and y play connected to each other with no further imput from battlenet. Now granted battlenet has changed somewhat with updated matchmaking and hosting custom maps but it requires nowhere near the same resources as wow. There's a reason why rts launches don't fail as hard with multi as with mmos. Oh and I also speculate that the vast majority of players won't even use the online functions until they've played/finished the campaign further diluting the launch stress.
That said I agree with your list of reasons for why cross realm is necessary. I play during odd hours and have friends in other regions I'd like to play with. However. I would be shocked if any region had any population issues post launch. It's not like every single european would suddenly decide to play exclusively on the american server. Or any similar nonsense.
That's Blizzard's problem. It wouldn't be a problem if they put other methods of playing in other than B.Net. On a related note, you do realize B.Net hosted WC3, Diablo 2 + expansion, Starcraft + Brood War and WC2 all-in-one. What I am saying is Blizzard is more than capable of handling the base.
Even then there will be a huge drop after the first couple of months. The casual gamers will disappear. RTS isn't for everyone. They will flock to Diablo 3 and other new releases.
To quote Bashiok: Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
edit: Also, with respect to 'being charged for the service', is there any reason why it is not reasonable to go to 'the highest regional price cap' for the region you wish to play in?
If Americans paid $60 for their copy, and New Zealanders paid $40, then is it unreasonable to say to new zealanders 'if you want to pay on american servers, then at least pay the american price', and have the 'unlock fee' be the difference in regional price (relative to the region you wish to play in)?
And don't think this means you'll need to 'pay more' for each region. It just means if you wish to play in all regions, then you need to pay the price for the most expensive region.
Goes back to what I said before Bill. If I don't who will? Like I said, that is how a company could walk all over you. You got to be clear on your expectations and demands, or else you will never get them.
That's the thing t. I for one, don't think they have it all sorted, but it is our right to make it clear what our expectations are. RTS gamers don't want to be treated like MMORPGs.
On June 17 2010 09:49 Tyraz wrote: To quote Bashiok: Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
It also means no pricing model has been set. Community. You know what we do here? We provide a unilateral message that we want core features we've had with the core game for 15 years to at least be free, if not at release.
None of this
"Blizzard just wants to make your wallets lighter so you dont develop back problems later on"
On June 17 2010 09:49 Tyraz wrote: To quote Bashiok: Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
Keep in mind I don't think they're anything wrong with Blizzard monetizing additional features with big development costs and selling them. For instance, Premium maps or Blizzard hosted tournaments or even weird stuff like Portraits. The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
On June 17 2010 09:49 Tyraz wrote: To quote Bashiok: Well let's not get crazy before there's actual information. Right now we're focusing on the game, the Battle.net infrastructure, etc. and making sure the launch goes smoothly. There's been no decisions or even design work done on how the cross-region licenses will work. We know that we're going to do them, but aside from that there aren't any details available. When we have some we'll definitely let you know.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
Um I have kinda...um a crazy ..um idea.
How about charging money for new and extra features instead of removing features and then putting them back in for a fee?
On June 17 2010 09:24 Drin wrote: Well if people do not have any reason to join a particular server, then there would be no need for cross realm choice to begin with, bar the occasional tournament etc. Reasons for choosing a specific server include:
community size/skill level - if players perceive that they can improve quicker by playing on a particular server, they very well may do so.
online communities - if people are segregated based on region, members of international communities such as TL may all agree to join one particular server, so they can play with each other.
tournament/league activity. If a particular server has far more sponsored tournaments, players may want to play on that server as there would be more professional activity there.
time-zones and periods with low activity. Say you want to play at any time of the day, or say you work a night shift and play during non-peak hours, you may want to join a server in which people would be playing during that time of the day.
population issues post release. Say that one server has a far smaller population a few weeks after launch, for any of the reasons listed above or others. People buying the game would avoid the less populated region if they knew, slightly similar (although not very) to what happens with unpopular servers in WoW. And if no-one ends up playing on a set of servers, say the SEA ones, blizzard would most likely lose the money they have invested there.
Maintenance/stability issues. If one region is having constant stability issues due to the data centre there, people may avoid that region if it develops a bad reputation. Also people may switch servers if there is maintenance, although that would probably be temporary.
Some of these issues do not relate to the launch day scenario I mentioned of course, but they do highlight reasons why people may want to choose a specific region over another. And if enough (read: too many) people choose one region in particular come launch day, there could be server/stability issues.
Please understand that rts multiplayer does not in any way equal to mmorpg multiplayer. All battlenet does in an rts is to act as mediator between players, like a torrent. You're telling person x to connect to person y and then x and y play connected to each other with no further imput from battlenet. Now granted battlenet has changed somewhat with updated matchmaking and hosting custom maps but it requires nowhere near the same resources as wow. There's a reason why rts launches don't fail as hard with multi as with mmos. Oh and I also speculate that the vast majority of players won't even use the online functions until they've played/finished the campaign further diluting the launch stress.
That said I agree with your list of reasons for why cross realm is necessary. I play during odd hours and have friends in other regions I'd like to play with. However. I would be shocked if any region had any population issues post launch. It's not like every single european would suddenly decide to play exclusively on the american server. Or any similar nonsense.
Oh yeah I agree with you for the most part :D I'm all for cross-realm support! Especially being in Australia, the SEA region isn't looking too hot right now, and we'll probably have a divided community at this point. Also that is an interesting point with the single player, I had not considered that to be honest.
And Europeans wouldn't really have that all many reasons to primarily play on the US server, while residents of another country, say Australia, most certainly would (and in fact many plan to do so already). While an extra million or so probably isn't too serious an issue, if people from Singapore (some who have also said they would) or other countries follow suite, you may indeed start to have a problem. Of course you can argue that the vast majority would probably play with whatever server is default for them, but it adds uncertainty to the mix. And when it comes to planning for server capacity/planning/costs, it all boils down to the numbers, which they would want to be damn certain of.
Remember, Blizzard planned well in advance for some serious strain on the WoW servers come release, but they had no idea it would be as serious as it actually was. Of course an RTS is different (requires far less bandwidth for starters) and I agree that it may actually not be an issue at all. However, given how badly prepared Blizzard was last time round, I can imagine that they would be extremely cautious now - never ever underestimate how popular a blizzard game might be.
Why was the blackrock server one of the most populated servers come WoW release? Because all the Australian gaming sites told Australians to create characters there, as it would be the unofficial oceanic server come launch. Now for sc2, even if various sites/communities suggested everyone play on the NA server, it would be restricted based on where you purchase the game and very few people would be determined enough to circumvent the default gateway.
In any case, I'm just trying to put a positive reason towards temporary region locking, other than the license/account logistics suggestion Bioshock mentioned. I hate region locking, and from my perspective find almost no reason to even consider it, let alone implement it. I'm already struggling to come up with the somewhat far-fetched reasons I've listed above.
I do however have faith that Blizzard will have a reasonable solution eventually, even if we have to pay slightly for it.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
Um I have kinda...um a crazy ..um idea.
How about charging money for new and extra features instead of removing features and then putting them back in for a fee?
Uhm I have kinda..um a crazy ..um idea. How about reading why this is a problem and what they are trying to do before suggesting that the world is the same as it was 15 years ago
We don't all earn the same $$ per week. If you had the same price, then it's not fair for the poorer countries (and blizzard would make less money)
Activision blizzard has been monitizing this stuff since the merger. Look at wow and how the microtransactions started happening right when the merger began.
I don't really mind paying for once-off things, but monthly is bullshit.
That being said, this has been free for a decade, so I don't think we should have to pay for it. At least we're getting some kind of response finally - although I'm still waiting for that big comprehensive address we've been promised.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
Um I have kinda...um a crazy ..um idea.
How about charging money for new and extra features instead of removing features and then putting them back in for a fee?
Uhm I have kinda..um a crazy ..um idea. How about reading why this is a problem and what they are trying to do before suggesting that the world is the same as it was 15 years ago
We don't all earn the same $$ per week. If you had the same price, then it's not fair for the poorer countries (and blizzard would make less money)
Oh I fully realize how ingenous the marketing guys were to come up with this scenario.
And frankly im getting tired of people saying "blizzard would earn less money" as a justifiable reason. Blizzard should earn money by giving users extra features not reselling old features.
They can charge for facebook integration all they want.
On June 17 2010 10:10 hacpee wrote: Activision blizzard has been monitizing this stuff since the merger. Look at wow and how the microtransactions started happening right when the merger began.
We're back to square one. Great. I understand your argument on the cost being different in every region, which I find kind of ridiculous to begin with. It's discriminatory at best.
Another side note: I think New Zealand and Australia got the short end of the stick during the beta. Just wanted to point that out, considering you are from NZ ;/
Back on track, China and Korea has a huge focus on PC bangs. Obviously something will be required for that structure, but to charge different prices to the consumers for the same product? Come on now.
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
Um I have kinda...um a crazy ..um idea.
How about charging money for new and extra features instead of removing features and then putting them back in for a fee?
Uhm I have kinda..um a crazy ..um idea. How about reading why this is a problem and what they are trying to do before suggesting that the world is the same as it was 15 years ago
We don't all earn the same $$ per week. If you had the same price, then it's not fair for the poorer countries (and blizzard would make less money)
Oh I fully realize how ingenous the marketing guys were to come up with this scenario.
Because different countries having different weekly wages is a theoretical marketing model that doesn't really exist in the real world.
How silly of me to forget that that was an abstract concept and has nothing to do with reality.
Blizzard games have had hiccups in the past, but in the long run I was always 100% satisfied, and remember them as being among the best games I've ever played. Despite a rough start to BNet 2, I remain optimistic that they'll get everything ironed out and pretty much everyone will be happy
I, for one, agree. The kid has a point; business is business. You can't expect to have full unrestricted cross region play with different business models for each region. They do have a right to make money from a game they made (contrary to what the train of thought tends to be in the rage threads). If the ragers think they've got it all sorted, then how about suggesting how the business model would work before jumping up and down about 'your rights as a gamer' and 'what the community wants'.
Um I have kinda...um a crazy ..um idea.
How about charging money for new and extra features instead of removing features and then putting them back in for a fee?
Uhm I have kinda..um a crazy ..um idea. How about reading why this is a problem and what they are trying to do before suggesting that the world is the same as it was 15 years ago
We don't all earn the same $$ per week. If you had the same price, then it's not fair for the poorer countries (and blizzard would make less money)
Oh I fully realize how ingenous the marketing guys were to come up with this scenario.
Because different countries having different weekly wages is a theoretical marketing model that doesn't really exist in the real world.
How silly of me to forget that that was an abstract concept and has nothing to do with reality.
They could easily charge a price for cheaper editions to switch regions, as I outlined.
On June 17 2010 10:10 hacpee wrote: Activision blizzard has been monitizing this stuff since the merger. Look at wow and how the microtransactions started happening right when the merger began.
WoW had microtransactions long before Activision.
It really took off after activision. Before, it was minor. Only after activision took off did they loosen the reigns.
To outline what I/Half suggested earlier: In this scenario we have 3 countries, creatively named A, B and C. The average income of A is greater than B, and the average income of B is greater than the average income of C. You can assume transitivity; that A has, indeed, a greater average income than C.
All relative prices will be in one currency, $. Theoretical costs per region: A: $100 B: $60 C: $40
Now the proposed model would be a 'highest common denominator'. This is to stop people from exploiting the system, and to ensure that they don't become 'micro transactions'.
This mean: A can play with A, B and C. B can play with B and C And C can only play with C.
So, in the following situation we have a customer who has bought a region C game: He now wants to play in region B. So he pays the difference ($20). After this, he finds he wants to play in A. So he pays the difference again ($40).
Note that should he wish to play in A, he will pay the difference ($60), but as this is higher than the cost to play in B, he can play in B as well.
Now, to appease the likes of Archer, this is NOT a 'microtransaction' model. If you want to play full cross region from the get go, simply buy region A and you will not be charged further. It simply prevents people from 'playing the system'.
On June 17 2010 10:10 hacpee wrote: Activision blizzard has been monitizing this stuff since the merger. Look at wow and how the microtransactions started happening right when the merger began.
WoW had microtransactions long before Activision.
It really took off after activision. Before, it was minor. Only after activision took off did they loosen the reigns.
Awesome, can we have some more inside info, I mean, you must work at Blizzard or something, right? I love inside information.
Well, this is good news for the majority of us. Still sucks for people like IdrA who will want to play in tournaments immediately after launch and will therefore have to buy 3 copies of the game.
On June 17 2010 10:10 hacpee wrote: Activision blizzard has been monitizing this stuff since the merger. Look at wow and how the microtransactions started happening right when the merger began.
WoW had microtransactions long before Activision.
It really took off after activision. Before, it was minor. Only after activision took off did they loosen the reigns.
Awesome, can we have some more inside info, I mean, you must work at Blizzard or something, right? I love inside information.
...
The guy probably played WoW through the merger and noticed such changes. Don't be condescending.
Probably going to be a pay feature, which is not unreasonable. What I think would be unreasonable is if you had to pay to add minutes (or just a monthly fee for cross-region play) to your account in non-native regions, although I doubt Blizzard would do that. It would limit cross-region traffic if they are concerned about stability issues but would also piss a lot of people off.
i can easily outline their problem if noone has managed to do so accurately in this 6 pages of degen. (no offense intended)
from what ive read, the game will be free to play for NAmerica region after you purchase the title, everywhere else is going to have to pay to play, most likely monthy fee.
therefore, it is impossible for blizzivision to implement free cross-realm play for NA customers, because if they did everyone from the other regions would simply bypass the pay-to-play system by purchasing NA titles, then cross-realming to their local realm.
so you can expect the bare minimum cost for cross realm support to roughly equal whatever it costs to play the game monthly in the region you are wanting to play in, if you are from NA. as for those who are elsewhere, you can expect to pay, at a minimum, the difference, if any, between your monthly pay-to-play and the target realm's monthly. as for pay-to-play regions cross-realming to NA servers, im pretty sure theyll charge you something for this, just because they have to handle the transaction, and the increased server load/complexity of the service.
so in short, expect to pay for cross-realm, expect it to be a recurring payment, not a one-time deal.
Awesome to hear, really hope something is done and you don't have to pay although thats wishful thinking. Worst comes to worst I hope its 5-10$, having to spend another dollar is pure fucking bullshit if its not an MMO, but whatever, 5-10$ is 'reasonable'
On June 17 2010 11:22 Jollyburner wrote: i can easily outline their problem if noone has managed to do so accurately in this 6 pages of degen. (no offense intended)
from what ive read, the game will be free to play for NAmerica region after you purchase the title, everywhere else is going to have to pay to play, most likely monthy fee.
therefore, it is impossible for blizzivision to implement free cross-realm play for NA customers, because if they did everyone from the other regions would simply bypass the pay-to-play system by purchasing NA titles, then cross-realming to their local realm.
so you can expect the bare minimum cost for cross realm support to roughly equal whatever it costs to play the game monthly in the region you are wanting to play in, if you are from NA. as for those who are elsewhere, you can expect to pay, at a minimum, the difference, if any, between your monthly pay-to-play and the target realm's monthly. as for pay-to-play regions cross-realming to NA servers, im pretty sure theyll charge you something for this, just because they have to handle the transaction, and the increased server load/complexity of the service.
so in short, expect to pay for cross-realm, expect it to be a recurring payment, not a one-time deal.
Except no. Sorry to pop your ego but NA is certainly not the only region unused to a pay to play system.
On June 17 2010 11:22 Jollyburner wrote: i can easily outline their problem if noone has managed to do so accurately in this 6 pages of degen. (no offense intended)
from what ive read, the game will be free to play for NAmerica region after you purchase the title, everywhere else is going to have to pay to play, most likely monthy fee.
therefore, it is impossible for blizzivision to implement free cross-realm play for NA customers, because if they did everyone from the other regions would simply bypass the pay-to-play system by purchasing NA titles, then cross-realming to their local realm.
so you can expect the bare minimum cost for cross realm support to roughly equal whatever it costs to play the game monthly in the region you are wanting to play in, if you are from NA. as for those who are elsewhere, you can expect to pay, at a minimum, the difference, if any, between your monthly pay-to-play and the target realm's monthly. as for pay-to-play regions cross-realming to NA servers, im pretty sure theyll charge you something for this, just because they have to handle the transaction, and the increased server load/complexity of the service.
so in short, expect to pay for cross-realm, expect it to be a recurring payment, not a one-time deal.
Europe says hi. There has not been any information suggesting that Europe will have to pay to play.
Also note that the pay to play versions will be a lot cheaper at initial purchase to offset this.
On June 17 2010 10:10 hacpee wrote: Activision blizzard has been monitizing this stuff since the merger. Look at wow and how the microtransactions started happening right when the merger began.
WoW had microtransactions long before Activision.
It really took off after activision. Before, it was minor. Only after activision took off did they loosen the reigns.
Awesome, can we have some more inside info, I mean, you must work at Blizzard or something, right? I love inside information.
...
The guy probably played WoW through the merger and noticed such changes. Don't be condescending.
If you'll take that as condescending, cool, but it doesn't make it any less silly to assume what Blizzard's intent or internal actions are, then state it as if it were fact.
On June 17 2010 11:22 Jollyburner wrote: i can easily outline their problem if noone has managed to do so accurately in this 6 pages of degen. (no offense intended)
from what ive read, the game will be free to play for NAmerica region after you purchase the title, everywhere else is going to have to pay to play, most likely monthy fee.
therefore, it is impossible for blizzivision to implement free cross-realm play for NA customers, because if they did everyone from the other regions would simply bypass the pay-to-play system by purchasing NA titles, then cross-realming to their local realm.
so you can expect the bare minimum cost for cross realm support to roughly equal whatever it costs to play the game monthly in the region you are wanting to play in, if you are from NA. as for those who are elsewhere, you can expect to pay, at a minimum, the difference, if any, between your monthly pay-to-play and the target realm's monthly. as for pay-to-play regions cross-realming to NA servers, im pretty sure theyll charge you something for this, just because they have to handle the transaction, and the increased server load/complexity of the service.
so in short, expect to pay for cross-realm, expect it to be a recurring payment, not a one-time deal.
Europe says hi. There has not been any information suggesting that Europe will have to pay to play.
Also note that the pay to play versions will be a lot cheaper at initial purchase to offset this.
On June 17 2010 11:32 kardinal wrote:
Except no. Sorry to pop your ego but NA is certainly not the only region unused to a pay to play system.
sry i should have emphasised that by no means do i consider what ive read to be the absolute fact. i meant to get a disclaimer line in at end of post indicating i could be totally wrong. i still believe what i said holds true, there will be pay to play markets, and there will be free to play markets. regardless of price offsetting, pay to play will be a recurring payment, be it yearly, monthly, or by the minute. hence, the system would be exploitable by all users in a region designated pay-to-play were they to implement the free-cross-realm play model some users are asking for, as undoubtedly the cumulative cost of pay-to-play will outweigh the costs of title purchase over a given timeframe, that frame being almost without a doubt less than 2 years. ergo, anyone intending on playing the game for more than a year or so would be far better served cheating the system (ignoring any possible legal/moral complications) as the "price offset" you are referring too shouldnt see more than a 200% variation of pricing @ then-current rates, globally. maybe im smokin on that one, i dont know. either way, pretty damn sure well see pay-to-cross-realm-recurring format, provided my pay-to-play-recurring format hypothesis proves itself.
Half, just to be clear, what type of microtransaction are you fearing here? Based on your proposed "free" solution, I don't think it matches what other people think it is.
Are you believing:
1) Say you have a NA account. If you want to play EU, you pay $X and get your acct flagged to EU. Then to go back to NA you pay another $X and go back to NA?
2) You pay $X and your account is unlocked for unlimited travel from your home region and one additional region. $X again for every other region you want to xfer to.
3) You pay $X dollars and your acct can freely travel to any region.
Because the only form of microtransaction that I'd be "ok" with on this top is #3. Anything else would be blatantly unacceptable. I think it's ok for them to charge for #3, as long as it's not prohibitive. Sure, I'd love for it to be a free service, and I hope for that, but I'd also like SC2 to be free as well, but that's not happening. I'd probably still play SC2 if it cost $10 more, so I'd probably be willing to pay that for Xregion also.
If you think the model is like #1 or #2 though I see where you're so violently afraid of it.
On June 17 2010 12:13 Takkara wrote: Half, just to be clear, what type of microtransaction are you fearing here? Based on your proposed "free" solution, I don't think it matches what other people think it is.
Are you believing:
1) Say you have a NA account. If you want to play EU, you pay $X and get your acct flagged to EU. Then to go back to NA you pay another $X and go back to NA?
2) You pay $X and your account is unlocked for unlimited travel from your home region and one additional region. $X again for every other region you want to xfer to.
3) You pay $X dollars and your acct can freely travel to any region.
Because the only form of microtransaction that I'd be "ok" with on this top is #3. Anything else would be blatantly unacceptable. I think it's ok for them to charge for #3, as long as it's not prohibitive. Sure, I'd love for it to be a free service, and I hope for that, but I'd also like SC2 to be free as well, but that's not happening. I'd probably still play SC2 if it cost $10 more, so I'd probably be willing to pay that for Xregion also.
If you think the model is like #1 or #2 though I see where you're so violently afraid of it.
Three and Two.
One is unlikely.
Why the hell are you "ok" with paying for a function that has been in every single Blizzard game at its core for almost 15 years? Especially when nothing has been implemented yet, so all you're "ok" is doing is allowing them to charge you more money.
On June 17 2010 12:02 Jollyburner wrote: sry i should have emphasised that by no means do i consider what ive read to be the absolute fact. i meant to get a disclaimer line in at end of post indicating i could be totally wrong. i still believe what i said holds true, there will be pay to play markets, and there will be free to play markets. regardless of price offsetting, pay to play will be a recurring payment, be it yearly, monthly, or by the minute. hence, the system would be exploitable by all users in a region designated pay-to-play were they to implement the free-cross-realm play model some users are asking for, as undoubtedly the cumulative cost of pay-to-play will outweigh the costs of title purchase over a given timeframe, that frame being almost without a doubt less than 2 years. ergo, anyone intending on playing the game for more than a year or so would be far better served cheating the system (ignoring any possible legal/moral complications) as the "price offset" you are referring too shouldnt see more than a 200% variation of pricing @ then-current rates, globally. maybe im smokin on that one, i dont know. either way, pretty damn sure well see pay-to-cross-realm-recurring format, provided my pay-to-play-recurring format hypothesis proves itself.
Wait, what? If a pay-to-play is just the full price spread over time, how does this change anything... At all...? The price difference would just be spread over time, rather than a lump sum.
I still think that people are missing Half's main point which he's been spamming over and over. Nerd-raging at Blizzard is pointless. They want to make money, OK, we get it. Do you honestly think that they wouldn't have charged $10000000 for SC1 if they could have? Times change. Pricing changes, based on basic supply and demand. If you don't want to pay for cross-server play, don't pay for it. Raging righteously will do nothing, you'll still buy the game while crying about it and Blizzard knows it. People seem to like thinking that Blizzard is full of stupid people; I'm not sure why. It seems like a backhanded insult against all the game developers who would like to work there but can't. In any case, their goal is not to make some short-term money off this, their goal is to make customers who will buy the next Starcraft, and the next one after that. If they think that they would gain more from trying to please the customers, that's what they'll do. I'm just not sure why people are demonizing Blizzard over this. If you're going to pay them, why shouldn't they take your money? This isn't medical care, this is a video game. Vote with your wallet.
On June 17 2010 12:13 Takkara wrote: Half, just to be clear, what type of microtransaction are you fearing here? Based on your proposed "free" solution, I don't think it matches what other people think it is.
Are you believing:
1) Say you have a NA account. If you want to play EU, you pay $X and get your acct flagged to EU. Then to go back to NA you pay another $X and go back to NA?
2) You pay $X and your account is unlocked for unlimited travel from your home region and one additional region. $X again for every other region you want to xfer to.
3) You pay $X dollars and your acct can freely travel to any region.
Because the only form of microtransaction that I'd be "ok" with on this top is #3. Anything else would be blatantly unacceptable. I think it's ok for them to charge for #3, as long as it's not prohibitive. Sure, I'd love for it to be a free service, and I hope for that, but I'd also like SC2 to be free as well, but that's not happening. I'd probably still play SC2 if it cost $10 more, so I'd probably be willing to pay that for Xregion also.
If you think the model is like #1 or #2 though I see where you're so violently afraid of it.
Three and Two.
One is unlikely.
Why the hell are you "ok" with paying for a function that has been in every single Blizzard game at its core for almost 15 years? Especially when nothing has been implemented yet, so all you're "ok" is doing is allowing them to charge you more money.
Hilarious.
Assuming the price is like $10... why are you not "ok" with it? No one WANTS to pay that money, but why would you not pay it if this is a functionality you honestly need badly? That's the disconnect here. It's the same argument we had prior to xregion and chat channels: most of us are "ok" with paying for SC2 without those features. We wanted them, but we're ok with that. Getting the features you want for a nominal fee isn't the end of the world. It really isn't.
It would be hard to see them charging more than $10 for it anyways. And that's not bad because a real service is being given. This is database work being done to allow these accounts to do something they aren't designed to do. It's an elective, optional service that won't be used by large large groups of the population. It's clearly possible to see Blizzard wanting to recoup some of the cost of that.
I don't know if that's what will happen. There's no clear sign they're going to charge. But what's the big deal, really? Are you that hard up for money? Do you not think you'll get your money's worth in enjoyment from the feature?
This is ridiculous, why are they making people go scavenger hunting for answers -- What's wrong with a comprehensive address =/
@ Takkara, it's like buying bottled water - I'm already paying for tap water so why the hell would I buy the same bloody water all over again? (note: if you live in an area where tap water isn't drinkable, disregard this).
International play isn't optional in an RTS, it's mandatory and has been in every Blizz game since battle.net was first created.
This is ridiculous, why are they making people go scavenger hunting for answers -- What's wrong with a comprehensive address =/
Blizzard likes promoting discussions because they generate a lot more valuable feedback then actual "Hey blizzard do this" threads. Its as much for us as it is for them.
A lot of the current problems with B-net 2.0 is a lack of understanding on what and more importantly why the community wants what it does.
On June 17 2010 12:29 Takkara wrote: Half, just to be clear, what type of microtransaction are you fearing here? Based on your proposed "free" solution, I don't think it matches what other people think it is.
Are you believing:
1) Say you have a NA account. If you want to play EU, you pay $X and get your acct flagged to EU. Then to go back to NA you pay another $X and go back to NA?
2) You pay $X and your account is unlocked for unlimited travel from your home region and one additional region. $X again for every other region you want to xfer to.
3) You pay $X dollars and your acct can freely travel to any region.
Because the only form of microtransaction that I'd be "ok" with on this top is #3. Anything else would be blatantly unacceptable. I think it's ok for them to charge for #3, as long as it's not prohibitive. Sure, I'd love for it to be a free service, and I hope for that, but I'd also like SC2 to be free as well, but that's not happening. I'd probably still play SC2 if it cost $10 more, so I'd probably be willing to pay that for Xregion also.
If you think the model is like #1 or #2 though I see where you're so violently afraid of it.
Three and Two.
One is unlikely.
Why the hell are you "ok" with paying for a function that has been in every single Blizzard game at its core for almost 15 years? Especially when nothing has been implemented yet, so all you're "ok" is doing is allowing them to charge you more money.
Hilarious.
Assuming the price is like $10... why are you not "ok" with it? No one WANTS to pay that money, but why would you not pay it if this is a functionality you honestly need badly? That's the disconnect here. It's the same argument we had prior to xregion and chat channels: most of us are "ok" with paying for SC2 without those features. We wanted them, but we're ok with that. Getting the features you want for a nominal fee isn't the end of the world. It really isn't.
It would be hard to see them charging more than $10 for it anyways. And that's not bad because a real service is being given. This is database work being done to allow these accounts to do something they aren't designed to do. It's an elective, optional service that won't be used by large large groups of the population. It's clearly possible to see Blizzard wanting to recoup some of the cost of that.
I don't know if that's what will happen. There's no clear sign they're going to charge. But what's the big deal, really? Are you that hard up for money? Do you not think you'll get your money's worth in enjoyment from the feature?
DLC isn't all bad, guys.
Jesus Christ you're dense. This is something EVERY SINGLE BLIZZARD GAME HAS HAD ON RELEASE.
This isn't omg ther selling me stuff I don't want or omg ther selling me wierd gimmicks I kind of do. This is there selling me core functionality that is necessary for any level of advanced play, and has been included in every multiplayer game since B-net original incarnation on Diablo 1.
If Blizzard doesn't know what and why the community wants what it wants, after all this time, I'd be shocked. I honestly don't buy that they are living in some ivory tower and are just completely baffled at our reactions.
I feel like that's giving them too little credit, I think they have a pretty good feel for what people are saying across the community.
On June 17 2010 11:22 Jollyburner wrote: i can easily outline their problem if noone has managed to do so accurately in this 6 pages of degen. (no offense intended)
from what ive read, the game will be free to play for NAmerica region after you purchase the title, everywhere else is going to have to pay to play, most likely monthy fee.
therefore, it is impossible for blizzivision to implement free cross-realm play for NA customers, because if they did everyone from the other regions would simply bypass the pay-to-play system by purchasing NA titles, then cross-realming to their local realm.
so you can expect the bare minimum cost for cross realm support to roughly equal whatever it costs to play the game monthly in the region you are wanting to play in, if you are from NA. as for those who are elsewhere, you can expect to pay, at a minimum, the difference, if any, between your monthly pay-to-play and the target realm's monthly. as for pay-to-play regions cross-realming to NA servers, im pretty sure theyll charge you something for this, just because they have to handle the transaction, and the increased server load/complexity of the service.
so in short, expect to pay for cross-realm, expect it to be a recurring payment, not a one-time deal.
Wrong for a few reasons:
1) The only regions with pay-to-play models announced are Russia and South America. 2) These pay-to-play versions of the game are in addition to the full featured game, which is identical to what you would buy in NA or Europe.
On June 17 2010 09:35 Half wrote: Heres my idea on how a free version could work, originally posted on b-net. Free for people who buy full edition of the game.
Basically, on your SC2 license page, it says "Region: [current region]". You can click on that region and it brings you to another page where it displays a generic disclaimer about lag, and then below it are a bunch of shiny web 2.0 boxes that say U.S, EU, Asia, etc, etc. A full priced version of the game has all the regions lighted up. To change, you click, confirmation window -processing-, then you got it. Maybe limit changes to like 5 times per week to limit abuse, w/e.
If you bought a cheaper edition of the game, then other regions with different pricepoints have a muted grey lock and are greyed out. Hovering your mouse on them it says "You're account is not authorized to play on this region, do you wish to upgrade?". Clicking on it brings you to a billing/payment page where you can upgrade.
Why would you limit the amount of times you can switch between servers? I'm not seeing the potential abuse so please elaborate.
On June 17 2010 12:38 FrozenArbiter wrote: If Blizzard doesn't know what and why the community wants what it wants, after all this time, I'd be shocked. I honestly don't buy that they are living in some ivory tower and are just completely baffled at our reactions.
I feel like that's giving them too little credit, I think they have a pretty good feel for what people are saying across the community.
Its easy feel that way, but realize that Blizzard is incredibly large, yet operate on a unified, centralized design team. Blizzard has 500 primary game development employees working in Irvine. B-net team was said to be at a hundred people.
From the SClegacy article (The writer is a professional consultant for Video Game companies and a gamer)
the decision-makers inside Blizzard are too insulated. Blizzard's isolated stance in conjunction with the tightly controlled message exemplifies groupthink, and this brings us to the second issue regarding the phenomenon: Blizzard is perhaps a victim of its own success. In many regards, they looked on a very high-level at what they have produced in the past and used that as their basis to move forward. To some extent they must feel that they know what is best, and it is evident from some of the interviews that they are in fact "telling" us what we want. A certain amount of "we know what you want" is noticeable. Realistically, while Blizzard has its own vision and desires for Battle.net 2.0 they can't possibly tell what we want. Now, granted that they aren't catering Battle.net just to us, but our concerns should probably still be addressed. It's just good business.
When people have spent years of their lives working on something very specific, tunnel vision is inevitable. Sometimes that works; look at many of the other products Blizzard has created without outside consultation. However, for many of the things that Blizzard and the community want to accomplish with StarCraft II, an open dialogue is important. This is where Blizzard has missed the proverbial bus. Despite the fact that our feedback could be communicated more effectively, they haven't yet figured out how to best receive and evaluate it.
It isn't purely that none of the Producers realized fans might want cross region play and chat channels. But I believe its moreso just design oversights and production decisions rather then business ones.
Realize that Blizzards reputation is built around quality, and their production standards are incredibly high.
I've seen a lot of people say "oh I could make chat channels in a week", and thats a dramatic oversight on how things are done at a company of 500+. I'm talking about a company of passionate 500+ people who probably enjoy what they do, but its still 500+.
When a companys that big with such high standards, they can't just tell like three programmers to make Chat channels in a week. I'd imagine first they'd have to start off with several design meetings to sort of pinpoint a general direction for chat channels. Intersparsed between them the individual lead designers of each time would probably have to produce a lot of data and mock-ups of potential systems.
A lot of powerpoints. I mean, its just incredibly bureaucratic, and this design process can stretch on intermittently across weeks.
Even if they sought to replicate B-net 1.0 exactly, they'd still have a shitload of technical questions. Whats the UI layout? Admin privelages? Tons of decisions to be made. Then once those are done the final product has to be evaluated and reiterate, and various UI designed need to be finalized. As it becomes finalized the the programming leads need to design an architecture, conceptualize it, and finally implement it. Then the implementation need to be reevaluated and reiterated again, possibly more then once, the code needs to be checked for consistency. Then once you have an alpha, it needs preliminary testing. If problems arise, those needs to be fixed.
Then. The dreaded words.
Localization.
I honestly don't have a fucking clue what that constitutes.
I mean, you get the general idea. I don't care how passionate you are about game design or just games, you'r going to get a little bit detached working in that kind of system.
Why would you limit the amount of times you can switch between servers? I'm not seeing the potential abuse so please elaborate.
I don't see potential abuse either, but then again I don't work for Blizzard. I didn't really see a potential for abuse with a lot of the stuff they changed with b-net 2.0. It just sounds like something they'd do lol tbh. Was just making an example about the flexibility they could have in its design. Its very "web 2.0-ey", its very centralized, sounds like something they'd like, but at the same time still has the functionality we gamers want.
Its probably also why every knee jerker and troll is just crying over Bobby Kotick. Really, I doubt Blizzards any more Greedy or there core values have changed or they've all become a bunch of suits who don't play games anymore.
They've simply grown in size ridiculously. Remember, Blizzard used to never work on more then ONE GAME AT A TIME. They weren't trying to "milk wow" from 04 to 10, they were just a small but enormously talented company.
Did you know that the SC1 manual, at the special thanks part, in the original prints had a dedication "to 420"? lol. I'd imagine the design meeting back in 98 were just a small group of people who knew each other well talking casually over a cup of coffee near a desk with some sketches.
We're in 2010 now, they've grown literally 10x in size in Irvine alone not to mention their like 5 other studios across the world. Thats the only thing thats really changed, but its pretty substantial.
Alright, I give up. It's a travesty. I'll be really really miffed with you guys if they end up charging us $10 for xregion and we all pay it.
That was my point the whole time. My only real point. I'm not happy with paying more money. I'm really not. But won't we all pay it anyways? If we were going to use the feature in the first place?
Honestly no use even getting in a fight over this until they release the details about the pricing scheme if any will even exist. It might be significantly worse or significantly better than any of us is rambling about.
On June 17 2010 12:47 Takkara wrote: Alright, I give up. It's a travesty. I'll be really really miffed with you guys if they end up charging us $10 for xregion and we all pay it.
That was my point the whole time. My only real point. I'm not happy with paying more money. I'm really not. But won't we all pay it anyways? If we were going to use the feature in the first place?
Honestly no use even getting in a fight over this until they release the details about the pricing scheme if any will even exist. It might be significantly worse or significantly better than any of us is rambling about.
You can accept it once its implemented.
Until then shut up or criticize it unless you actually want to pay 10 more dollars.
On June 17 2010 12:47 Takkara wrote: Alright, I give up. It's a travesty. I'll be really really miffed with you guys if they end up charging us $10 for xregion and we all pay it.
That was my point the whole time. My only real point. I'm not happy with paying more money. I'm really not. But won't we all pay it anyways? If we were going to use the feature in the first place?
Honestly no use even getting in a fight over this until they release the details about the pricing scheme if any will even exist. It might be significantly worse or significantly better than any of us is rambling about.
You can accept it once its implemented.
Until then shut up or criticize it unless you actually want to pay 10 more dollars.
Who is honestly going to come here and say "Hey half, I'd love to donate $10 to Blizzard." Haha. Trust me. If you made a poll, "Do you want to spend more on Xregion" it would come out 100-0 in favor of not paying more.
Everyone is, will, and should criticize having to spend more money on SC2. But the question once they release the pricing scheme besides "did this address the problem fully" will be "is this worth whatever cost they ask of us."
The real question is if it's worth whatever it's cost is (or free!). Of course NOBODY wants to pay more. You have literally zero fight on that.
On June 17 2010 12:34 FrozenArbiter wrote: International play isn't optional in an RTS, it's mandatory and has been in every Blizz game since battle.net was first created.
I guess the question is, if you had to, would you pay for cross region play? If the answer is yes, then Blizz is going to charge for it. I'm as much of a "get off my lawn" type as anyone, but unfortunately times have changed.
We've already seen them do this with WoW, even though the tech for it was in the game since the beginning (copying a caracter to a PTR is no different than copying to a diff server). But because I wanted to play with friends on a different server, I ponied up the $25 or whatever it was to do so. I expect the same to be the case here, and probably cost the same.
Game devs these days are all about monetizing their games after release in whatever way they can. The "back in my day" rebuttals don't work anymore, which is beyond sad, but just the reality of the situation.
On June 17 2010 13:04 vesicular wrote: International play isn't optional in an RTS, it's mandatory and has been in every Blizz game since battle.net was first created.
I guess the question is, if you had to, would you pay for cross region play? If the answer is yes, then Blizz is going to charge for it. I'm as much of a "get off my lawn" type as anyone, but unfortunately times have changed.
This isn't really how decisions like this are made lol. A lot more thought and a much wider variety of factors are considered.
This is a basic business strategy where you can make the most money.
I am 99% sure that Blizzard already knew exactly what the community wanted to see from Bnet 2.0. But they purposely have not implemented them (... because they don't have the technology?) so they can charge us through microtransactions.
This way, they are able to profit from every customer.
Exaggerated example:
People like Takkara will buy the game (e.g. 50$) and then pay the 20$ on top of it for cross-realm play. They are willing to pay any price to play SC2.
However, there are going to be people who could not afford to buy a $70 game, but are willing to pay 50$ just for the campaign and basic features.
Throw in a couple of other features, and you can cover everyone from those willing to shell out 50$ for SC2 at its most basic form, all the way to someone who will pay a premium for the "collector's edition", which doesn't really cost Blizzard any more to produce. This way everyone will pay some amount depending on how much they were originally willing to pay anyway.
On June 17 2010 13:07 shurgen wrote: This is a basic business strategy where you can make the most money.
I am 99% sure that Blizzard already knew exactly what the community wanted to see from Bnet 2.0. But they purposely have not implemented them (... because they don't have the technology?) so they can charge us through microtransactions.
This way, they are able to profit from every customer.
Exaggerated example:
People like Takkara will buy the game (e.g. 50$) and then pay the 20$ on top of it for cross-realm play. They are willing to pay any price to play SC2.
However, there are going to be people who could not afford to buy a $70 game, but are willing to pay 50$ just for the campaign and basic features.
Throw in a couple of other features, and you can cover everyone from those willing to shell out 50$ for SC2 at its most basic form, all the way to someone who will pay a premium for the "collector's edition", which doesn't really cost Blizzard any more to produce. This way everyone will pay some amount depending on how much they were originally willing to pay anyway.
I don't know how many times I've seen somethng like this suggested across countless amounts of gaming sites. 99% of the time it isn't the case, its just players being paranoid.
You find me one game wherein the producers deliberately ommited an expected feature and required the user to pay for it.
See MW2. Note the lack of a dedicated servers DLC.
It really is a "one time" kind of thing. People really do notice this kind of shit in the long term, and it might generate some initially higher profits, but if you keep it up, you're not going to have the same kind of fan support you did.
On June 17 2010 13:04 vesicular wrote: International play isn't optional in an RTS, it's mandatory and has been in every Blizz game since battle.net was first created.
I guess the question is, if you had to, would you pay for cross region play? If the answer is yes, then Blizz is going to charge for it. I'm as much of a "get off my lawn" type as anyone, but unfortunately times have changed.
This isn't really how decisions like this are made lol. A lot more thought and a much wider variety of factors are considered.
Of course, but this is the exact type of thing they have monetized in the past with their own games. The precedence is there for them to do the same with SC2.
On June 17 2010 13:04 vesicular wrote: International play isn't optional in an RTS, it's mandatory and has been in every Blizz game since battle.net was first created.
I guess the question is, if you had to, would you pay for cross region play? If the answer is yes, then Blizz is going to charge for it. I'm as much of a "get off my lawn" type as anyone, but unfortunately times have changed.
This isn't really how decisions like this are made lol. A lot more thought and a much wider variety of factors are considered.
Of course, but this is the exact type of thing they have monetized in the past with their own games. The precedence is there for them to do the same with SC2.
No they havent? wtf are you talking about.
If you're referring to changing realms in WoW, its a really flawed analogy. Beyond the fact that it was never something you'd expect from a MMO, and WoW was the first company to do this (unlike cross region play which is a fifteen year old precedent).
Its also something that requires "scarcity". Its an idea that doesn't work unless there is scarcity. People just can't go around hopping servers randomly. Money is the best, most effective, and cheapest way (negative cost lol) to implement scarcity. Plus, it was something the fanbase wanted as an additional feature. It wasn't like "HEY WTF WHERE ARE OUR REAL CHANGES", and then Blizzard trolls them with realm changes for 15$, it was like a bunch of fans going "OMG I WANT REALM CHANGES ILL PAY U". So Blizzard accepted.
Absolutely none of those factors are present here.
On June 17 2010 12:47 Takkara wrote: Alright, I give up. It's a travesty. I'll be really really miffed with you guys if they end up charging us $10 for xregion and we all pay it.
That was my point the whole time. My only real point. I'm not happy with paying more money. I'm really not. But won't we all pay it anyways? If we were going to use the feature in the first place?
Honestly no use even getting in a fight over this until they release the details about the pricing scheme if any will even exist. It might be significantly worse or significantly better than any of us is rambling about.
I'm not happy Lamborghini charge so much for their cars. I'm really not. I bought a car, I don't expect to have to pay for stupid crap like tires and petrol. They should just charge a one off fee for everyone that's the same price for everyone - all over the world.
For those who fail to see the analogy: Blizzard isn't an ISP. International traffic costs more. Internet traffic is differently priced in different countries (Here, for instance, if you buy a guaranteed bandwidth (i.e. not a datacap/commercial traffic), which is what businesses do, you are charged differently for national and international traffic).
So shit costs different amounts in different places, and the locals have different amounts of money to spend on things. Revelation of the century. What're ya gonna do about it, huh?
I don't really understand how involved with the company the blizzard mods actually are. They say 'we' to refer to blizzard and occasionally hint they've been handed inside info, but looking at the content of a lot of their posts they come off as no-knowledge flaks - basically, toadies getting off on the privilege of being on the inner outside of a game company.
On June 17 2010 12:47 Takkara wrote: Alright, I give up. It's a travesty. I'll be really really miffed with you guys if they end up charging us $10 for xregion and we all pay it.
That was my point the whole time. My only real point. I'm not happy with paying more money. I'm really not. But won't we all pay it anyways? If we were going to use the feature in the first place?
Honestly no use even getting in a fight over this until they release the details about the pricing scheme if any will even exist. It might be significantly worse or significantly better than any of us is rambling about.
You can accept it once its implemented.
Until then shut up or criticize it unless you actually want to pay 10 more dollars.
^this.... Blizzard has stated they will give us a "means" for cross realm play. As a community I feel its prudent to speculate on how they might go about making this feature available (honestly I don't think a microtransaction is far fetched in the least). That being said we SHOULD give our feedback/thoughts on the matter. There is nothing wrong with criticizing a possible (likely at this point) feature of the game. Posting on here is saying "while I'll just fork out the fee and so you will you" is not helpful! Imo its people with this attitude that make it possible for blizz to charge us for this kind of crap in the first place! Either jump on the bandwagon or STFU (and while your at it you can send Actiblizzard a blank check since you like pay to take it in the ass, *a small fee may be billed to your account for additional lube ) As for me I will keep my hard earned dollars in my wallet.... As far as an RTS goes there is NO reason (other than a greedy company) any of us should pay beyond the initial purchase price of a game for what is a standard feature... my 2¢'s
On June 17 2010 13:13 USn wrote: I don't really understand how involved with the company the blizzard mods actually are. They say 'we' to refer to blizzard and occasionally hint they've been handed inside info, but looking at the content of a lot of their posts they come off as no-knowledge flaks - basically, toadies getting off on the privilege of being on the inner outside of a game company.
Community Mods' job is just to shoot the breeze with the players. In addition, they are also responsible for compiling the voice of the forum goers and presenting it to the developers. When the developers or the company have canned PR information or development information to share they run it through their PR department, translate it to a bunch of different languages, and then post it to the forums.
When they post information, it's accurate. The rest of the time, they know not much more about what's going on than we do. They know a bit more than that because they get to hear some of the behind the scenes vision information that we don't get to, but they're not sitting in on developer meetings. They're like PR people and help-desk people rolled into one.
On June 17 2010 13:13 USn wrote: I don't really understand how involved with the company the blizzard mods actually are. They say 'we' to refer to blizzard and occasionally hint they've been handed inside info, but looking at the content of a lot of their posts they come off as no-knowledge flaks - basically, toadies getting off on the privilege of being on the inner outside of a game company.
My guess is their job responsibilities include
a) Overseeing general moderation (stand there and answer phone/guy who walks up to you) b) Coordinating with PR and Marketing (attend meetings, provide gathered info in powerpoints etc) c) Coordinating with Developers (Give little paper typeouts with bullet-points of community responses and analysis, email links) d) Get information about development (Attend meetings on a weekly or bi-weekly period, get phone calls, both concerning stuff they're doing) e) Community Manage-(troll forums) f) "Preparing for Blizzcon" (What they tell the community when their actually just sleeping....or mebbe help coordinate events) g)Community Representation (Stand there all funny at blizzcon with a sword)
On June 17 2010 13:11 Half wrote: Its also something that requires "scarcity". Its an idea that doesn't work unless there is scarcity. People just can't go around hopping servers randomly. Money is the best, most effective, and cheapest way (negative cost lol) to implement scarcity. Plus, it was something the fanbase wanted as an additional feature.
Everything you just wrote there applies to SC2 and cross region play.
On June 17 2010 13:11 Half wrote: Its also something that requires "scarcity". Its an idea that doesn't work unless there is scarcity. People just can't go around hopping servers randomly. Money is the best, most effective, and cheapest way (negative cost lol) to implement scarcity. Plus, it was something the fanbase wanted as an additional feature.
Everything you just wrote there applies to SC2 and cross region play.
Why the fuck does a feature that is not exploitable and existed as a core and integral part of gameplay since 1996 need scarcity all of a sudden?
Moreover, scarcity would be applied differently. It would limit realm hoppers, not realm hopping. Which is wholly redundant because the amount of people who actually played on other servers was a very low percentile of the population in the first place. (At least in EU and NA)
Second of all, the Fanbase is not demanding to pay money for an additional feature. They are demanding a core feature that should have accompanied the original game according to blizzards standards.
To be honest, I won't be surprised when a lot of the issues people are claiming to be "game breaking" in regards to SC2 and b.net 2.0 are in the game. Which is why I do not feel a huge need to express strong distaste towards Blizzard on the forums. I'm sure this is just some of the good news to come.
Yeah... let's wait to see what they will REALLY do. Cause the stuff like : " don't worry guys, we will do it after the release" it just sounds a bit like "just stop messing with us, buy our game and then after few months we will just delay and delay and delay the new feature and then say that we won't implement it" (they've allready done similar thing before) or "just buy the game and after few months we will miracly find a way to make it happen but of course it will cost you some extra $$$" (Wow-style...)
So it still a great news but I'm still a bit skeptical
I don't understand is it so hard to implement gateway like BW? Gateway would resolve the problem without any billing options or other shenigans as far as i know?
Blizzard: we need more money, how can we implement WoW like schemes and still come clean with sc2 tradition of things being "free" first, lets not give cross region playing ability, players will be unhappy and communities will rage. Then - lets "admit" that this is an issue and "see" if we can do anything about it. Finally lets "claim" that this is such a "hard work" to make it work (lets disguise the fact that it was possible in sc1 - by claiming how hard it was to build bnet 2.0 for 3 years), that we "might be forced" to charge small fee for such feature to be possible....= money inflow.....
On June 17 2010 13:13 USn wrote: I don't really understand how involved with the company the blizzard mods actually are. They say 'we' to refer to blizzard and occasionally hint they've been handed inside info, but looking at the content of a lot of their posts they come off as no-knowledge flaks - basically, toadies getting off on the privilege of being on the inner outside of a game company.
Community Mods' job is just to shoot the breeze with the players. In addition, they are also responsible for compiling the voice of the forum goers and presenting it to the developers. When the developers or the company have canned PR information or development information to share they run it through their PR department, translate it to a bunch of different languages, and then post it to the forums.
When they post information, it's accurate. The rest of the time, they know not much more about what's going on than we do. They know a bit more than that because they get to hear some of the behind the scenes vision information that we don't get to, but they're not sitting in on developer meetings. They're like PR people and help-desk people rolled into one.
So when they say 'we' the implication that they have anything to do with the decision making process is bogus... got it.
My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
On June 17 2010 09:57 Half wrote: The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
This assumes that providing said service today comes with the cost of yesterday. Not always the case given increased player base etc.
So no.
This assumes that development costs need to directly reflect sales points. In which case we'd all be paying 200$ for Starcraft 2 right now.
(hint: They don't because the market has grown, l2economics kid)
The only relevancy is profit margin and development costs. Starcraft 2 is estimated to make 6 million in a year, development costs estimated at 60 million. That means it recoups investment three folds over from 60$ per copy sold.
I can actually come up with legitimate, not completely retarded moronic arguments for why they could charge for this. I'm not going to though. Why would I? (hint: Nothing you guys said is even remotely true)
So when they say 'we' the implication that they have anything to do with the decision making process is bogus... got it.
Why on earth would you have the impression that Community Managers designed the game?
On June 17 2010 09:57 Half wrote: The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
This assumes that providing said service today comes with the cost of yesterday. Not always the case given increased player base etc.
So no.
Yes the cost of servers had really skyrocket in those 12 years, it is not like you can buy more powerful server for less now then 12 years ago. Also more copies sold = less cost for server per copy not the other way around, how can people be so naive seriously? You also believe that Blizzard have to charge for stupid things to make WOW profitable? Making a virtual horse cost over 2mln$ now? It has nothing to do with actual cost, it is about maximizing the profits.
i think a feature where you can log on to other servers and only be able to play custom games would be great so the servers wouldnt be burdened with ladderers and organizing tourneys or playing with friends wouldnt be a problem
however great news that they are working on a way :-)
On June 17 2010 19:31 Tyraz wrote:I'd like to know how much it cost to produce Starcraft 2. Considering how long they've been developing it, it wouldn't suprise me if it was over the $100 million mark.
We don't even know how long they were developing it, in some interview they had said that they didn't have the full team for long time (so it was only in the planing stage) becouse WOW had sucked they human resources.
On June 17 2010 19:31 Tyraz wrote:Now you may say 'oh, but they'll make FAR more than that in sales', but you simply can't know that. Further, this is no justification for them not to make money. Just because they sell more games than other game developers, doesn't mean they can't charge as much as your standard developer, either.
What does that even, since when paying for cross realm is even a standard? What I am saying is that they don't have to do it, they are just greedy, not that they can't do it. I only comment on it because there is a plenty of people that deny reality, and that is what annoy me. I have some truth fetish.
On June 17 2010 09:57 Half wrote: The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
This assumes that providing said service today comes with the cost of yesterday. Not always the case given increased player base etc.
So no.
This assumes that development costs need to directly reflect sales points. In which case we'd all be paying 200$ for Starcraft 2 right now.
(hint: They don't because the market has grown, l2economics kid)
The only relevancy is profit margin and development costs. Starcraft 2 is estimated to make 6 million in a year, development costs estimated at 60 million. That means it recoups investment three folds over from 60$ per copy sold.
I can actually come up with legitimate, not completely retarded moronic arguments for why they could charge for this. I'm not going to though. Why would I? (hint: Nothing you guys said is even remotely true)
So when they say 'we' the implication that they have anything to do with the decision making process is bogus... got it.
Why on earth would you have the impression that Community Managers designed the game?
l2economics kid? Wee, I feel enlightened now. Blizz is looking at their profit margin and reducing a feature that implies tremendous amount of ongoing costs. Sure, in bizarro world everything is easy, hardware is basically free, you don't have to support said hardware with x amount of technicians etc. etc. SC2 is not SC1 period. The amount of people playing SC2 will likely rival that of WC3, SC1, D1 and D2 combined. So your asking that Blizzard maintains the service to these games (which is highly unprofitable already) plus SC2. For free. By the same logic if once that guy gave you a ball of ice cream for free, he has to keep it that way forever. Even if the hole neighborhood of kids is swarming him now, because hey, its free ice cream.
Besides, nothings for sure at this point. We don't know if Blizz is going to charge for any extra features.
On June 17 2010 20:17 uberdeluxe wrote: I'm not too worried about online play, if bnet doesn't get the job done, iccup will surely open up a server of their own!
Yeah apparently with their new TOS or EULA (from what I heard), iccup won't have a chance. Can't modify/edit/touch etc.. etc... I'll never say never, but blizzard will probably be on top of that.
Now on the other hand, when someone leaks the Pro version of starcraft 2 (lan compatible version) and modify it for public use, that will be something to look forward to .
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
Not if it's like $4.99/month, which sounds reasonable. Plus, you gotta admit that they didn't develop that billing system and all the rest of it to suit the poor Russian and S.American gamers, - gotta use it.
I just wish they came out straight and just ADMITTED that they want to get some extra cash. Pretending that there are "technical difficulties", but "we will look into it" is just pathetic I hate all this political correctness BS.
There is absolutely 0 chance it's a per-month fee. 0. It would completely destroy their business model. It's awfully hard to be the only RTS on the market that charges a monthly fee. Blizzard isn't dumb, and if they're as greedy as everyone says, they wouldn't risk losing the customers.
On June 17 2010 20:17 uberdeluxe wrote: I'm not too worried about online play, if bnet doesn't get the job done, iccup will surely open up a server of their own!
Yeah apparently with their new TOS or EULA (from what I heard), iccup won't have a chance. Can't modify/edit/touch etc.. etc... I'll never say never, but blizzard will probably be on top of that.
Iccup was always illegal. Changes in TOS haven't changed anything in this respect.
On June 17 2010 09:57 Half wrote: The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
This assumes that providing said service today comes with the cost of yesterday. Not always the case given increased player base etc.
So no.
SC1 has had over 100,000 people on B.Net before, its actually no excuse at all. What is even the difference to them if i connect to the Euro or US server like i do in SC1? They pay for the bandwidth one way or another (although why should we be caring about bandwidth costs for a company offering multiplayer gaming, its never come up with another game). They say its the region pricing thats a problem, except why exactly is that a problem? Have the accounts tie across servers, someone who pays monthly should be allowed to play on any server and someone who doesn't should. There's no technical problem here its complete bullshit.
On June 17 2010 20:15 nyshak wrote: Blizz is looking at their profit margin and reducing a feature that implies tremendous amount of ongoing costs.
How does allowing me to log on to either the NA or the EU server cost them any money? It's not like I log into both at the same time and it's not like EU servers do not cost anything for upkeep (or require no technicians etc).
On June 17 2010 20:15 nyshak wrote: Blizz is looking at their profit margin and reducing a feature that implies tremendous amount of ongoing costs.
How does allowing me to log on to either the NA or the EU server cost them any money? It's not like I log into both at the same time and it's not like EU servers do not cost anything for upkeep (or require no technicians etc).
Because in SC2 world unlike SC1 world you keep a large amount of persistent, region-specific state with you. It was never intended for people to cross region boundaries, therefore a region-lock. It's a non-trivial amount of development to find solutions around the technical issues of the system they've established. You can say "BUT SC1 HAD IT IN THE STONE AGE?!" all day but it doesn't change the fundamental fact that SC1 != SC2.
All that being said, there's still no clear evidence they'd charge for it quite yet. There's a decent shot they find a good solution and just enable it on all clients. It's just that unlike chat channels it just seems from the outside to be ripe for a fee. Not the least of which because it reminds people of WoW server transfers.
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
Not if it's like $4.99/month, which sounds reasonable. Plus, you gotta admit that they didn't develop that billing system and all the rest of it to suit the poor Russian and S.American gamers, - gotta use it.
No, if they charge monthly for global play I will not buy this game, there is no such thing as a reasonable fee for this.
Because in SC2 world unlike SC1 world you keep a large amount of persistent, region-specific state with you. It was never intended for people to cross region boundaries, therefore a region-lock. It's a non-trivial amount of development to find solutions around the technical issues of the system they've established. You can say "BUT SC1 HAD IT IN THE STONE AGE?!" all day but it doesn't change the fundamental fact that SC1 != SC2.
I don't care if I can't bring my EU achievments to the US server - just let me create a separate account on each server lol
On June 17 2010 09:57 Half wrote: The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
This assumes that providing said service today comes with the cost of yesterday. Not always the case given increased player base etc.
So no.
SC1 has had over 100,000 people on B.Net before, its actually no excuse at all. What is even the difference to them if i connect to the Euro or US server like i do in SC1? They pay for the bandwidth one way or another (although why should we be caring about bandwidth costs for a company offering multiplayer gaming, its never come up with another game). They say its the region pricing thats a problem, except why exactly is that a problem? Have the accounts tie across servers, someone who pays monthly should be allowed to play on any server and someone who doesn't should. There's no technical problem here its complete bullshit.
I did not comment on cross-realm play specifically but on the issue of B.Net as a service as a hole. BNet 2.0 will be more expensive to keep up than BNet 1.0 because of the (supposedly) much bigger playerbase of SC2. So Blizzard is trying to keep it free but have to reduce the number of features. Yes I know, some here believe that the more traffic you have to pay for as a company the cheaper it gets in total but this is not so. There's a threshold where any company will ask "Can we do this for free like we did before?"
Also saying that bandwith probs have never come up with another game is kinda out of proportion. Games like C&C or whatever don't have such a huge fanbase I'm sure. Millions are going to play SC2 worldwide like they play WoW (WoWs still bigger yes, but you get the point), only SC2's main features are free of charge.
At the end of the day though, we will have to wait for cross-realm play to be implemented to see whats up.
Besides that Meff, I hope some of you realize there are many MMO's out there that don't incur costs to play on different regional servers. Sure, you will have to create a new character in most cases but this ties into how the old B.Net worked. New gateway = new nickname with a clean slate.
On June 17 2010 21:45 FrozenArbiter wrote:
I don't care if I can't bring my EU achievments to the US server - just let me create a separate account on each server lol
Precisely, most of the hardcore gamers don't care about achievements. All that stuff is icing on the cake. We just want to be able to enjoy the game no matter where we play it from.
Here's some trivia. Other than saying, "GL HF" at the start of the game what is the usual follow-up?
Why take the ability away to interact with all players? Besides that, it's bad practice to play against people only from Canada and the U.S. for me anyway.
Anyone playing in Asia will have an advantage. I hate to say it, but it's the truth.
I need to be familiar with all styles of play to have an edge. We don't need limitations.
On June 17 2010 20:15 nyshak wrote: [ l2economics kid? Wee, I feel enlightened now. Blizz is looking at their profit margin and reducing a feature that implies tremendous amount of ongoing costs. Sure, in bizarro world everything is easy, hardware is basically free, you don't have to support said hardware with x amount of technicians etc. etc. SC2 is not SC1 period. The amount of people playing SC2 will likely rival that of WC3, SC1, D1 and D2 combined. So your asking that Blizzard maintains the service to these games (which is highly unprofitable already) plus SC2. For free. By the same logic if once that guy gave you a ball of ice cream for free, he has to keep it that way forever. Even if the hole neighborhood of kids is swarming him now, because hey, its free ice cream.
Besides, nothings for sure at this point. We don't know if Blizz is going to charge for any extra features.
Load of bullshit. If operating SC2 was anything but overwhelmingly profitable, it would not have been made. Realize you are now suggesting in order for SC2 to be profitable 1% of the population needs to purchase a service that is going to cost a fraction of the games total price. That would mean that SC2 was operating so close to the middle line that a 1% difference in profit will make or break the product. That kind of operating ethic is not something Blizzard would do.
Moreover, the ability of SC2 not to be overwhelmingly profitable is absurd. 6 million customers in the first year with little depreciation and value, 2 expansions, and an expected lifetime by analysts of fifteen years. You know what the operating costs would have to be to offset this? It would need to be roughly half of WoWs. Which is absurdly implausible on a technical level due to the lack of required data to be stored.
Blizzard classic servers are actually maintained at a slight profit to blizzard, considering SC1 remains consistently among the top 20 best selling PC games per week lists. You know why that is? Because they didn't pull this shit (assume they are going to pull shit, otherwise, thx for ongoing awesome service)
tremendous amount of ongoing cost
What operating costs? I'll be fair, it could require a substantial amount of development costs. But operating costs? No.
On June 17 2010 20:17 uberdeluxe wrote: I'm not too worried about online play, if bnet doesn't get the job done, iccup will surely open up a server of their own!
Yeah apparently with their new TOS or EULA (from what I heard), iccup won't have a chance. Can't modify/edit/touch etc.. etc... I'll never say never, but blizzard will probably be on top of that.
Iccup was always illegal. Changes in TOS haven't changed anything in this respect.
No kid, ICCUP is not illegal. Piracy is illegal. Iccup is not piracy. Iccup is user modification of non-encryped channels of a digital product you own, perfectly legal under US and EU law.
Iccup is against the EULA. Breaking the EULA is not illegal, but means your contract of use can be terminated without legal repercussions for THEM. Great. They can ban you from Battle.net servers for not playing on Battle.net servers.
You can only be sued for breaking EULA if you break an already existing law in the process. If they put some irrelevent clause in the EULA "If you play this game while wearing pink", they could technically terminate you're account, but they could do that anyway for no reason what so ever. They couldn't sue you.
Operating Iccup servers is of completely questionable ethic. You are not operating a Iccup server tho.
On June 17 2010 20:15 nyshak wrote: Blizz is looking at their profit margin and reducing a feature that implies tremendous amount of ongoing costs.
How does allowing me to log on to either the NA or the EU server cost them any money? It's not like I log into both at the same time and it's not like EU servers do not cost anything for upkeep (or require no technicians etc).
Because in SC2 world unlike SC1 world you keep a large amount of persistent, region-specific state with you. It was never intended for people to cross region boundaries, therefore a region-lock.
First: if they never intended for people to cross region, they made poor design choices and it's their problem to fix them, not ours to pay. I do not consider solutions that "fix" a design flaw by making the customer pay more to be acceptable and that is true in videogames as it would be with a car or a chair.
That said: if storage space is an issue, I will happily pay 1 additional euro cent when buying the game at retail. That should more than adequately cover for the few extra kilobytes of disk space (or megabytes, if they've made a murderously inefficient data structure).
On June 17 2010 21:49 Half wrote: No kid, ICCUP is not illegal. Piracy is illegal. Iccup is not piracy. Iccup is user modification of non-encryped channels of a digital product you own, perfectly legal under US and EU law.
Iccup is against the EULA. Breaking the EULA is not illegal, but means your contract of use can be terminated without legal repercussions for THEM. Great. They can ban you from Battle.net servers for not playing on Battle.net servers.
You can only be sued for breaking EULA if you break an already existing law in the process. If they put some irrelevent clause in the EULA "If you play this game while wearing pink", they could technically terminate you're account, but they could do that anyway for no reason what so ever. They couldn't sue you.
Operating Iccup servers is of completely questionable ethic. You are not operating a Iccup server tho.
We are talking about Iccup server itself, "kid", and operating Iccup server is illegal. Nobody talks/cares about legality of playing on illegal server.
Please stop calling people kid, it's a bit disrespectful.
mmk. sorry just a bit grumpy tdaaay.
Anyway....yeah. I seriously don't get the logic of pre-emptively defending a corperations right to charge you more money. I mean, I have some serious respect for almost everyone who works at Blizzard, I'm a huge blizzard fan, and doing what you're doing is just absurd and counterproductive.
Even on the off chance that Blizzard is actually having an extremely tough time making ends meet (which is extremely unlikely), bitching about a price hike is almost always a valid consumer complaint unless you're like fighting nazis or something. It falls on the shoulders of the company to defend this kind of action, not the shoulder of fans.
On June 17 2010 21:49 Half wrote: Load of bullshit. If operating SC2 was anything but overwhelmingly profitable, it would not have been made. Realize you are now suggesting in order for SC2 to be profitable 1% of the population needs to purchase a service that is going to cost a fraction of the games total price. That would mean that SC2 was operating so close to the middle line that a 1% difference in profit will make or break the product. That kind of operating ethic is not something Blizzard would do.
What operating costs? I'll be fair, it could require a substantial amount of development costs. But operating costs? No.
Right there are no operating costs once you operate something. Hardware won't fail you. Ever. Admin staff, technicians? Blah, you can do it all on your own. Your superman. Kiddo. Wee, now I see what your about. Calling others kid makes you feel more mature eh?
Besides I never claimed what you said. I said that Blizz, like any company, has to make sure that they maximize their profits. Thats basic economics for you right there. If that means cutting costs and not providing service X for free then that is what will be done. Tough real world out there I know. That has nothing to do with if the development of SC2 is profitable at all.
Blizz is still doing way more than any other company out there. BNet 2.0s main features (though its a small list) are still free - and no that does not mean Blizz can run this for free on their end.
Please stop calling people kid, it's a bit disrespectful.
mmk. sorry just a bit grumpy tdaaay.
Anyway....yeah. I seriously don't get the logic of pre-emptively defending a corperations right to charge you more money. I mean, I have some serious respect for almost everyone who works at Blizzard, I'm a huge blizzard fan, and doing what you're doing is just absurd and counterproductive.
Don't know if you mean me or Blizzard by "you", I'm definitely on your side here :p
On June 17 2010 21:49 Half wrote: Load of bullshit. If operating SC2 was anything but overwhelmingly profitable, it would not have been made. Realize you are now suggesting in order for SC2 to be profitable 1% of the population needs to purchase a service that is going to cost a fraction of the games total price. That would mean that SC2 was operating so close to the middle line that a 1% difference in profit will make or break the product. That kind of operating ethic is not something Blizzard would do.
tremendous amount of ongoing cost
What operating costs? I'll be fair, it could require a substantial amount of development costs. But operating costs? No.
Right there are no operating costs once you operate something. Hardware won't fail you. Ever. Admin staff, technicians? Blah, you can do it all on your own. Your superman. Kiddo. Wee, now I see what your about. Calling others kid makes you feel more mature eh?
Besides I never claimed what you said. I said that Blizz, like any company, has to make sure that they maximize their profits. Thats basic economics for you right there. If that means cutting costs and not providing service X for free then that is what will be done. Tough real world out there I know. That has nothing to do with if the development of SC2 is profitable at all.
Blizz is still doing way more than any other company out there. BNet 2.0s main features (though its a small list) are still free - and no that does not mean Blizz can run this for free on their end.
Realize that they're are more ways of maximizing profit then charging consumers more for core features. You look at Starcraft, that games among the highest selling PC games...period. They didn't do that by charging consumers for patch 1.24 to offset development costs for it.
I have nothing wrong with Blizzard making some cool new service up and charging us for it. Premium maps (as long as they're good), whatever else they cook up I'm all for it. Personally I think all the stuff they sold for WoW was right on the money with the sole exception of not requiring players to pay 100g for that flying unicorn mount.
I do have something wrong with just being cheap, and charging for stuff we've had as an integral community and gameplay function for fifteen years.
Don't know if you mean me or Blizzard by "you", I'm definitely on your side here
Yeah I know, just came back from a morning class after barely finishing a 12 page assignment through the night (curse u tl :D), I probably was a bit out of line.
On June 17 2010 21:49 Half wrote: Load of bullshit. If operating SC2 was anything but overwhelmingly profitable, it would not have been made. Realize you are now suggesting in order for SC2 to be profitable 1% of the population needs to purchase a service that is going to cost a fraction of the games total price. That would mean that SC2 was operating so close to the middle line that a 1% difference in profit will make or break the product. That kind of operating ethic is not something Blizzard would do.
tremendous amount of ongoing cost
What operating costs? I'll be fair, it could require a substantial amount of development costs. But operating costs? No.
Right there are no operating costs once you operate something. Hardware won't fail you. Ever. Admin staff, technicians? Blah, you can do it all on your own. Your superman. Kiddo. Wee, now I see what your about. Calling others kid makes you feel more mature eh?
Besides I never claimed what you said. I said that Blizz, like any company, has to make sure that they maximize their profits. Thats basic economics for you right there. If that means cutting costs and not providing service X for free then that is what will be done. Tough real world out there I know. That has nothing to do with if the development of SC2 is profitable at all.
Blizz is still doing way more than any other company out there. BNet 2.0s main features (though its a small list) are still free - and no that does not mean Blizz can run this for free on their end.
Realize that they're are more ways of maximizing profit then charging consumers more for core features. You look at Starcraft, that games among the highest selling PC games...period. They didn't do that by charging consumers for patch 1.24 to offset development costs for it.
If cross-realm play is a core feature, yes. Its just that I doubt that. Core features are what the core or majority of players will use. Most players will play SC2 for fun and will be content playing in their region only. This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide. In that scenario, maximizing profits probably means providing the basics for free to keep a constant stream of new players over the years (by selling boxes) and charging for extra features. I don't like that too, I'd love to have everything in my life for free but sadly thats not how things work. I'm not trying to defend Blizz, I'm trying to put things in perspective. Blizz are not the evil doers some here make them out to be. They are a company.
Wont be paying an online fee for rts its ridiculus.
Spare me with blizzard making no money out of games , what do you think they are , unicef or something.
Just because they might not overcharge a game , which thats the way is happening right now , alpha protocol 60 euros any1 for that shitty game ? , doesnt mean they selling it for free to help the african kids or something.
blizzard started the bnet , ages ago when it was a small company and could have sustained it no prob , heack hackers could play for free with garena meaning it had so much unused badwith.
2010 and internet technology is basically lightyears ahead , heh in some countries is free , yet some blue posters come with idiotic arguments about players have to pay to play into another region , cause their problems that we dint have in the past , when net was in stone age Oo.
Add the th ing that there gonna be 2 more expansion for this game , meaning we get to have to buy the VERY SAME GAME 3 TIMES Oo just to play some different single campaign - like anyone give a f$uck about it - and it gets more funny
It seems to me that they just want to milk consumers beyond belief cause having a ferrari and a pool isnt enough nowdays and some want more .
On June 17 2010 22:17 nyshak wrote: If cross-realm play is a core feature, yes. Its just that I doubt that. Core features are what the core or majority of players will use. Most players will play SC2 for fun and will be content playing in their region only. This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide. In that scenario, maximizing profits probably means providing the basics for free to keep a constant stream of new players over the years (by selling boxes) and charging for extra features. I don't like that too, I'd love to have everything in my life for free but sadly thats not how things work. I'm not trying to defend Blizz, I'm trying to put things in perspective. Blizz are not the evil doers some here make them out to be. They are a company.
Then could we charge for editor then?
Why don't we?
You'll find much of the same reasons apply to to Cross-Realm play.
The only people who would ever use it should have it for free anyway. I mean seriously. Who are the people your penalizing? Pro Gamers, people in the armed services, people who travel a lot, people who are thoroughly integrated into the global community.
Who aren't you exploiting? That guy in his basement.
Amazing. You're like exploiting among the most respected customers in the world. And almost every one of the contributes to the value of your product indirectly.
Charging pro-gamers more is perhaps the most stupidest decision Blizzard could make. It would be like charging mapmakers for more. They're contributing hugely to the value of you're product. It would be to the point where if I bet collectively the mapmaking community has generated more customers then copies they have bought, and to a lesser, but still large extent, the progaming community.
The other people you'd be detrimenting are not audience base you should target for "explotation". Seriously. Thats a really asshat move you know? That frequent flier now has to pay a premium just to have some chill time when hes already away from family and friends, that guy with friends from all across the world who has this really open worldview now pays a premium, and that guy who just wants a little bit of chill time in Afghanistan. wtf.
And that slightly overweight suburban middle class dude in some American small large town who wants a flying pony? Fuck no, he doesn't give a shit.
You want positive exploitation. (lol). Give that downtrodden guy some instant gratification and satisfaction in exchange for money, and reward the progammer, the mapmaker, the internationalist, the guy in armed services, and that businessman who still plays games, all people who contribute to the value of you're product substantially and the gaming community at large just this extremely high quality game without any monetization schemes and other stuff they don't want to put up with.
On June 17 2010 22:05 nyshak wrote:Besides I never claimed what you said. I said that Blizz, like any company, has to make sure that they maximize their profits. Thats basic economics for you right there. If that means cutting costs and not providing service X for free then that is what will be done. Tough real world out there I know. That has nothing to do with if the development of SC2 is profitable at all.
Be careful not to get carried away to strange conclusions while focusing on the flame exchange with Half. While it is true that the interest of companies is maximizing their profits, the interest of customers is getting the best service or good for their money.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Do you not enjoy watching the sc bw // 2 competitive scene`?
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
YOU SHOULD SUPPORT THE ELITE BECAUSE WITHOUT THEM SC2 will just be another fad on the wall of esports.
The other people you'd be detrimenting are not audience base you should target for "explotation". Seriously. Thats a really asshat move you know? That frequent flier now has to pay a premium just to have some chill time when hes already away from family and friends, that guy with friends from all across the world who has this really open worldview now pays a premium, and that guy who just wants a little bit of chill time in Afghanistan. wtf.
Sadly thats how it ends up most of the time doesn't it? You can only exploit someone if hes got an interest. That guy with friends all across the globe might be the nicest person in history, but the thing is he's got an interest in playing worldwide, something the majority of your customers don't have in my eyes. Yes it sucks, but charging money for X because Y amount of people want it is just how things work on this planet. Utopia won't arrive for quite some time I'm afraid
Ofc, there's the possibility of increasing your profits by creating positive incentive to buy the game. BNet for one. Its always a trade of: will feature X create enough influx of new players (ie more profits) if its free so that the money we earn > we charge some of our existing playerbase for feature X.
Lets wait and see what Blizz will decide when the time comes. Ofc, showing Blizz that you really really really hate what they might be doing might keep em from doing it ; I did not want to stop anybody from telling them that.
Nice, the latency also improved when they changed to UDP, went from 700-800 to around 550ms to the Asia server without using any proxy services, US/EU improved a bit too.
The other people you'd be detrimenting are not audience base you should target for "explotation". Seriously. Thats a really asshat move you know? That frequent flier now has to pay a premium just to have some chill time when hes already away from family and friends, that guy with friends from all across the world who has this really open worldview now pays a premium, and that guy who just wants a little bit of chill time in Afghanistan. wtf.
Sadly thats how it ends up most of the time doesn't it? You can only exploit someone if hes got an interest. That guy with friends all across the globe might be the nicest person in history, but the thing is he's got an interest in playing worldwide, something the majority of your customers don't have in my eyes. Yes it sucks, but charging money for X because Y amount of people want it is just how things work on this planet. Utopia won't arrive for quite some time I'm afraid
Ofc, there's the possibility of increasing your profits by creating positive incentive to buy the game. BNet for one. Its always a trade of: will feature X create enough influx of new players (ie more profits) if its free so that the money we earn > we charge some of our existing playerbase for feature X.
Lets wait and see what Blizz will decide when the time comes. Ofc, showing Blizz that you really really really hate what they might be doing might keep em from doing it ; I did not want to stop anybody from telling them that.
Look, I'm not argueing ethics. I'm argueing business. Its just a shitty business practice. You have a group of people who basically aren't contributing to the community except as a consumer, and they demand more things to consume. You "exploit" (utilize) them, and sell them monetized things in which they actually want.
Then you have people who are more reciprocal. They are producers, and form the backbone of the community, and are just generally more productive within the context of the game community. These people don't want to be exploited. Moreover, by not exploiting them and fostering there interests, you make the game better because they PRODUCE THINGS FOR FREE. Whether literally (A map or progaming replay), or figuratively (An important community member).
These are going to be the people producing love after you've stopped, and will be providing incentives for your group of consumers to consume long after you've stopped.
Moreover, the second group as a minority. So selling to them is going to produce limited results. I mean, how many people are actually going to buy this? 1% maybe?
For instance, the Korean progaming scene has easily generated more copies for Blizzard then they themselves have actually bought. (or didn't buy )
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
To be honest, the criticism here of Blizz is far more tame than it was prior to announcing chat-channels would be in the game. There were people talking about walking to their local Blizzard office and firebombing it back then.
It's perfectly rational and fair for people to talk about what this functionality is worth to them. To some it's only worth free. For some it's worth more. For some it's worth a monthly fee.
Personally, I'd be willing to endure $10 for it. Anything more and be as irate as Half. I don't want to have to pay for it. I don't think I should. No one should think they should. But as they all say, we all have a price.
It's good to raise a fuss about the pricing because it'll cause Blizzard to realize there is a sensitivity to these things. WoW just released a poll the other day that asked if players were open to paying extra for an extra character slot. Blizz is definitely feeling out the community in terms of what it'll bear for the cost of the feature. It's just not worth being overly hyperactive about it. It's not like they're deciding pricing this morning. The feature isn't even implemented yet. We'll know more in the future.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
You haven't provided any constructive criticism this entire thread. Instead, you've rallied against people that have.
Most people on these forums are bashing Blizzard as of late, there's no arguing that I think. "OMG there won't be chat channels (which turned out to be not true), OMG no cross-realm play!!! I AM SO NOT going to buy that game, BLIZZ SUCKS!" etc. yadayada.
I tried to explain why Blizz do what they do and that there's nothing inherently evil in there. So that, once we got past the bashing, we could come up with something better. If you look at the first guy I quoted, he's one of those guys who jump to conclusions. The rest of this has been our private argument.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
You haven't provided any constructive criticism this entire thread. Instead, you've rallied against people that have.
Most people on these forums are bashing Blizzard as of late, there's no arguing that I think. "OMG there won't be chat channels (which turned out to be not true), OMG no cross-realm play!!! I AM SO NOT going to buy that game, BLIZZ SUCKS!" etc. yadayada.
I tried to explain why Blizz do what they do and that there's nothing inherently evil in there. So that, once we got past the bashing, we could come up with something better. If you look at the first guy I quoted, he's one of those guys who jump to conclusions. The rest of this has been our private argument.
They have a right to bitch. I hate it too, but the fact is, regardless of how moronically illogical there ideas are, they are doing so because they feel let down. Because they no longer feel like they can trust Blizzard. Because they don't like the direction of the industry.
The ideas and goals they've valued in gaming are being eroded more and more with every passing generation. Developers like Blizzard are literally among the only companies in the entire freakin industry that will cater to them. Cater to a mode of play and entertainment they've valued their entire lives. And they feel like bit by bit, they too are slipping away. The last vestige of Geertz's Deep Play in mainstream gaming.
You cannot blame them for being angry.
And their voice is every bit as valid as yours.
What are you going to say? You're mode of entertainment is not valid? Passive consumption is better? You can't. They're delaying the inevitable. And passion is the least of their vices.
On June 17 2010 23:08 StarStruck wrote: I believe many of us here have made constructive criticism. Stop blowing things out of proportion.
I'm pretty sure we can apply this to half's above post as well. Sounds like a Braveheart speech. You can take our monthly fees, but you can never take, OUR FREEDOM!
Rhetoric on both sides needs to calm down. There's a false sense of urgency present in all these arguments. There's no need to "win now". Nothing's changing today.
On June 17 2010 23:08 StarStruck wrote: I believe many of us here have made constructive criticism. Stop blowing things out of proportion.
I'm pretty sure we can apply this to half's above post as well. Sounds like a Braveheart speech. You can take our monthly fees, but you can never take, OUR FREEDOM!
Rhetoric on both sides needs to calm down. There's a false sense of urgency present in all these arguments. There's no need to "win now". Nothing's changing today.
Posts like this just piss me off. I don't even agree with those peoples perspective, but it is a valid perspective. I'm trying to illustrate how they feel.
On June 17 2010 23:10 Half wrote: The ideas and goals they've valued in gaming are being eroded more and more with every passing generation. Developers like Blizzard are literally among the only companies in the entire freakin industry that will cater to them. Cater to a mode of play and entertainment they've valued their entire lives. And they feel like bit by bit, they too are slipping away. The last vestige of Geertz's Deep Play in mainstream gaming.
You cannot blame them for being angry.
I don't blame them for being angry. But you said it yourself: Blizz is one of the only companies that care about their fans still. Insulting them will, if anything, speed up the process your describing. Noone likes to listen to the angry nerd-kid flaming. Yes, there's good reason to be angry, but venting that anger on forums does not help. Instead our valid concerns get drowned in a torrent of gibberish.
On June 17 2010 23:20 nyshak wrote: Insulting them will, if anything, speed up the process your describing.
I feel like you're the opposite of them. You also recognize Blizzards the only people doing what they do and you're desperately clinging to them trying to keep them afloat in there current incarnation superficially.
But the thing is, companies don't grow when customers do that. And if you don't grow, you regress.
They also don't grow when people just shout insults about their management being a Zionist conspiracy, don't get me wrong. But both extremes are equally invalid. You're the other extreme.
On June 17 2010 23:08 StarStruck wrote: I believe many of us here have made constructive criticism. Stop blowing things out of proportion.
I'm pretty sure we can apply this to half's above post as well. Sounds like a Braveheart speech. You can take our monthly fees, but you can never take, OUR FREEDOM!
Rhetoric on both sides needs to calm down. There's a false sense of urgency present in all these arguments. There's no need to "win now". Nothing's changing today.
Posts like this just piss me off. I don't even agree with those peoples perspective, but it is a valid perspective. I'm trying to illustrate how they feel.
Is that perspective invalid? I don't get it.
Is there an entirely separate debate to be had about the future of the gaming industry? Yeah, of course. I've had it quite a bit with my friends about whether the Wii is the portent of a coming gamepocalypse. No need to get into it now.
But do I think it's valid to say that whether or not Blizzard charges for cross-region support is truly the final frontier of the battle over the gaming industry's soul? No, no I don't. It's melodrama.
There's tons to talk about as to the worth of this feature and whether it should be free, without having to tie it back to cock-fighting, the future of the gaming industry, the death of the hardcore gamer, etc, etc.
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective.
Cross realm lies in the future, these people wish to make sc2 their living and a delayed xrealm is not only severly detrimental to this line of thought but it forces a part of the community to buy the game 3 times. Because if they dont they wont be able to compete.
IT just goes to show how blizzard has taken a very casual stance towards Esport, but most of us are impatient.
here's a false sense of urgency present in all these arguments. There's no need to "win now". Nothing's changing today.
I for one would rather be able to view another Europe vs Asia showmatch than have chat channels upon release. I DONT WANT TO WAIT 5 months to a year just to have something that worked fine in beta to happen again. ;/
On June 17 2010 23:24 Takkara wrote: Is there an entirely separate debate to be had about the future of the gaming industry? Yeah, of course. I've had it quite a bit with my friends about whether the Wii is the portent of a coming gamepocalypse. No need to get into it now.
But do I think it's valid to say that whether or not Blizzard charges for cross-region support is truly the final frontier of the battle over the gaming industry's soul? No, no I don't. It's melodrama.
There's tons to talk about as to the worth of this feature and whether it should be free, without having to tie it back to cock-fighting, the future of the gaming industry, the death of the hardcore gamer, etc, etc.
You know whats melodrama? That in this day an age anything can be so simply and romantically encapsulated in a single event.
But anyway, I totally agree its kind of melodramatic. But realize its I'm trying to illustrate THEIR perspective, not mine. My perspective is "hey this is stupid so ima criticize it for being really stupid"
If you didn't rage or criticize, I don't care. But once again, you have no reason go around provide justifications for blizzards actions. Especially when your pool of knowledge is so limited.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
Let me say I have read every single post in this thread, especially you two fine players trilling like overexcited schoolgirls the last 4 pages. Nyshak has a point, but really only one. Charging for extra features is good from a pure revenue stream point of view. A firm must take into consideration the "worst-case scenario" for their sales/revenue. Blizzard expects, due to marketing research, past experience, a loyal consumer base, etc etc., that their "worst-case" scenario (i.e., how much money they can still make if x# players do not buy the game based on such and such decision). is still a viable revenue stream for the goals they have internally set. From this view, Blizzard has it right from a purely economical perspective.
On the other hand, Half has everything else right. So does JinRo. Why should we, the consumers, aggregate the collective "I don't care", or "if Blizzard charges, I'll pay" opinion? Going back to the above paragraph, it would be correct to say that this is as much a time period for Beta Testing gameplay/balance, as it is a time period for market research and consumer feedback probing. No product should go to market without a limited release, a prototype, a beta test. Blizzard is not stupid. They know about TL.Net. They know people do not want to pay for features we have had 10 years ago. They know.
They don't want to know whether or not we want to pay, they want to know whether or not we are willing to pay, when the shit hits the fan, so to speak. So, allow me translate from a forum post, to Corporatese. Typical forum post: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". What a corporation reads: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". Their train of thought: "We already knew they didn't like it. Disregard. Oh, this guy would pay $3.99 a month, more likely $5 a month. Tally that up with the rest."
Blizzard is a company, a corporation. You, me, we, all of US, we are the consumers. It is not, and has never been, "Blizzard vs. The People". Consumerism has not changed...a business must, (and not exclusively because) by obligation to its shareholders (by law) make successful business decisions to maximize revenue, and must thus make the most money from consumers * as the consumers are willing to shell out for the product.
This Beta? Us Beta Testers? We're testing a game, but Blizzard is also testing the market as the same time; Blizzard is testing us. The more we give in a game of attrition, the more we give in the game of $$$Money$$$. The less we accept and say "oh, that sucks but I'd pay for it, the less of a viable idea it becomes to start charging for basic features. An EXTREMELY important facet of a successful marketing strategy for any product is knowing what the consumer expects their product to do. By giving the ground that you "saw this coming", "it's viable", "I'd pay xxx dollars" to Blizzard, you give them them favorable market research to at least try out the pay-for-service model. When they do implement that test, and they don't lose the number of subscribers to the service to outweigh the cost of implementing it, then the theory works. It becomes a profitable service for them.
Also, once you buy the game, they already made that money. You can throw the game away, they still get the green. So, by trying out pay-for-service ideas, they don't lose money. They can only gain, UNLESS THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH USERS TO JUSTIFY THE MAINTENANCE COSTS. I think you see where I'm going with this.
So, to paraphrase those immortal words of [the not so immortal Frank Pearce]... Do you REALLY want to tell Blizzard to charge you more?
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
(Edit: Note that "you" is a collective term based at anybody reading, not specifically at *YOU* Mr. Jinro. Just clarifying!) Similarly so for myself, good sir. The consumer holds the power. StarCraft is not a survival need, regardless of how BAWWW you might be without it. It's a luxury item. You don't buy it, you don't die. You don't buy it, Blizzard loses money. I will likely not quit SC2 right away, but if the pay-for-xxx model is sustained and implemented on a permanent basis (say, by the time the xpac rolls around?) I won't give them any more money. I'll enjoy the purchase I made and agreed to make, buying SC2:WoL but I will not pay for an expansion with the same system, and I will not ever pay, or even be able to justify CONSIDERING paying to have something that I have not only come to expect, but do indeed receive from not only every single other Blizzard game, but every video game with a social aspect to have ever existed.
/[longwinded thought-out post.] I await the flame. Just please have something logical to say. I don't find flaw in my argument, if anybody does, please make sure you make it very difficult to make somebody (me) make you look like a fool. Otherwise that's no fun ))))
On June 17 2010 23:20 nyshak wrote: Insulting them will, if anything, speed up the process your describing.
I feel like you're the opposite of them. You also recognize Blizzards the only people doing what they do and you're desperately clinging to them trying to keep them afloat in there current incarnation superficially.
But the thing is, companies don't grow when customers do that. And if you don't grow, you regress.
They also don't grow when people just shout insults about their management being a Zionist conspiracy, don't get me wrong. But both extremes are equally invalid. You're the other extreme.
I'm not. I voice my concerns, but as you already noticed not in this particular thread. The reason for that is, that I just quoted some random guys post that struck me as flawed without the intention to do anything more
The rest has been our priv. argument here. Sry 'bout that.
I'm sorry, but increasing B.net 2.0 support cost cannot be the reason for regional lock. Blizzard said they were going to eventually do away with it, which is probably true, leaving two options:
1. They are seriously concerned about excessive ping and negative response from all the new players, simply put, - Blizzard will add a "Play with your friends from all over the world" sticker to the game, ppl will buy it, and will realize that Japan vs Latvia doesn't feel playable ping-wise.
2. Their goal is to sell as much copies as possible for every single region during the first couple of months. It's probably true, but it shouldn't really hurt anybody except for non-Korean StarCraft community which is pretty small by itself, and facing the choice 3/4 would buy it anyway. (as several 'voting research' threads indicated).
Chat is more of a worrying issue for Blizzard than region locking, in terms of the possibility of losing old and/or new players.
First of all. Not all of us are nerds. Second of all, flaming, or constructive criticism? Where else do you propose we discuss this? Get a plane ticket and fly down their main office to complain? Send them a complaint via Email that most likely would get lost in the process? Not discussing issues in public is counterproductive to making any sort of change. You can talk to someone at customer service one on one, but not much will materialize. That is why we have forums. They make a great tool for feedback.
You can nitpick all you want with people like Half. I doubt you can say the same for people like FA or myself even. There's a reason why you don't see my posts quoted. Generally that means people agree with what has been said, or they understand the viewpoint and feel no need to respond.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
Let me say I have read every single post in this thread, especially you two fine players trilling like overexcited schoolgirls the last 4 pages. Nyshak has a point, but really only one. Charging for extra features is good from a pure revenue stream point of view. A firm must take into consideration the "worst-case scenario" for their sales/revenue. Blizzard expects, due to marketing research, past experience, a loyal consumer base, etc etc., that their "worst-case" scenario (i.e., how much money they can still make if x# players do not buy the game based on such and such decision). is still a viable revenue stream for the goals they have internally set. From this view, Blizzard has it right from a purely economical perspective.
On the other hand, Half has everything else right. So does JinRo. Why should we, the consumers, aggregate the collective "I don't care", or "if Blizzard charges, I'll pay" opinion? Going back to the above paragraph, it would be correct to say that this is as much a time period for Beta Testing gameplay/balance, as it is a time period for market research and consumer feedback probing. No product should go to market without a limited release, a prototype, a beta test. Blizzard is not stupid. They know about TL.Net. They know people do not want to pay for features we have had 10 years ago. They know.
They don't want to know whether or not we want to pay, they want to know whether or not we are willing to pay, when the shit hits the fan, so to speak. So, allow me translate from a forum post, to Corporatese. Typical forum post: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". What a corporation reads: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". Their train of thought: "We already knew they didn't like it. Disregard. Oh, this guy would pay $3.99 a month, more likely $5 a month. Tally that up with the rest."
Blizzard is a company, a corporation. You, me, we, all of US, we are the consumers. It is not, and has never been, "Blizzard vs. The People". Consumerism has not changed...a business must, (and not exclusively because) by obligation to its shareholders (by law) make successful business decisions to maximize revenue, and must thus make the most money from consumers * as the consumers are willing to shell out for the product.
This Beta? Us Beta Testers? We're testing a game, but Blizzard is also testing the market as the same time; Blizzard is testing us. The more we give in a game of attrition, the more we give in the game of $$$Money$$$. The less we accept and say "oh, that sucks but I'd pay for it, the less of a viable idea it becomes to start charging for basic features. An EXTREMELY important facet of a successful marketing strategy for any product is knowing what the consumer expects their product to do. By giving the ground that you "saw this coming", "it's viable", "I'd pay xxx dollars" to Blizzard, you give them them favorable market research to at least try out the pay-for-service model. When they do implement that test, and they don't lose the number of subscribers to the service to outweigh the cost of implementing it, then the theory works. It becomes a profitable service for them.
Also, once you buy the game, they already made that money. You can throw the game away, they still get the green. So, by trying out pay-for-service ideas, they don't lose money. They can only gain, UNLESS THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH USERS TO JUSTIFY THE MAINTENANCE COSTS. I think you see where I'm going with this.
So, to paraphrase those immortal words of [the not so immortal Frank Pearce]... Do you REALLY want to tell Blizzard to charge you more?
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
Similarly so for myself, good sir. The consumer holds the power. StarCraft is not a survival need, regardless of how BAWWW you might be without it. It's a luxury item. You don't buy it, you don't die. You don't buy it, Blizzard loses money. I will likely not quit SC2 right away, but if the pay-for-xxx model is sustained and implemented on a permanent basis (say, by the time the xpac rolls around?) I won't give them any more money. I'll enjoy the purchase I made and agreed to make, buying SC2:WoL but I will not pay for an expansion with the same system, and I will not ever pay, or even be able to justify CONSIDERING paying to have something that I have not only come to expect, but do indeed receive from not only every single other Blizzard game, but every video game with a social aspect to have ever existed.
/[longwinded thought-out post.]
I have this nasty tendency to disagree with people who are supporting my point if they're being kind of irrational. If I got rid of it I think I'd be a great politician. Too bad.
Its too much of a reductification to simplify everything down to money. If short-term money was the final goal we're all screwed. You can't fight against that. Well, a bunch of gamers on a forum can't.
The issue here is design, priorities, communication, feedback...and money. Blizzard isn't "just" about money. I can't think of too many game development studios who are, just because its extra-ordinarily hard to work on a project for upwards to 70 hours a week and not care about what you made beyond the profit margin.
Nobody goes into the game industry just because they like money. Mike Morhaime didn't come out of UCLA thinking "You know what would be this awesome way to make a quick cash and get rich fast? Start up a game company".
Also profitability is an indication of good design. I've made games before and if it doesn't distribute well, I don't pat myself on the back and say "good job I catered to a niche audience". I say "fuck where did I go wrong in design".
Video games aren't a purely expressionistic medium, and creators seek mass acceptance of there stuff for more then just profit.
On June 17 2010 23:30 StarStruck wrote: I doubt you can say the same for people like FA or myself even. There's a reason why you don't see my posts quoted. Generally that means people agree with what has been said, or they understand the viewpoint and feel no need to respond.
Usually it just means it wasn't as extreme as the posts around it. That's partly the failure of having an incredibly large "town-hall" style conversation on forums like this. The most extreme person ends up getting quoted and becoming the easier target for the opposition. Failure of the medium, I think. At least as it pertains to really controversial subjects.
On June 17 2010 23:30 StarStruck wrote: I doubt you can say the same for people like FA or myself even. There's a reason why you don't see my posts quoted. Generally that means people agree with what has been said, or they understand the viewpoint and feel no need to respond.
Usually it just means it wasn't as extreme as the posts around it. That's partly the failure of having an incredibly large "town-hall" style conversation on forums like this. The most extreme person ends up getting quoted and becoming the easier target for the opposition. Failure of the medium, I think. At least as it pertains to really controversial subjects.
I'm hardly the most extreme person here. Just the most argumentative.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
Let me say I have read every single post in this thread, especially you two fine players trilling like overexcited schoolgirls the last 4 pages. Nyshak has a point, but really only one. Charging for extra features is good from a pure revenue stream point of view. A firm must take into consideration the "worst-case scenario" for their sales/revenue. Blizzard expects, due to marketing research, past experience, a loyal consumer base, etc etc., that their "worst-case" scenario (i.e., how much money they can still make if x# players do not buy the game based on such and such decision). is still a viable revenue stream for the goals they have internally set. From this view, Blizzard has it right from a purely economical perspective.
On the other hand, Half has everything else right. So does JinRo. Why should we, the consumers, aggregate the collective "I don't care", or "if Blizzard charges, I'll pay" opinion? Going back to the above paragraph, it would be correct to say that this is as much a time period for Beta Testing gameplay/balance, as it is a time period for market research and consumer feedback probing. No product should go to market without a limited release, a prototype, a beta test. Blizzard is not stupid. They know about TL.Net. They know people do not want to pay for features we have had 10 years ago. They know.
They don't want to know whether or not we want to pay, they want to know whether or not we are willing to pay, when the shit hits the fan, so to speak. So, allow me translate from a forum post, to Corporatese. Typical forum post: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". What a corporation reads: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". Their train of thought: "We already knew they didn't like it. Disregard. Oh, this guy would pay $3.99 a month, more likely $5 a month. Tally that up with the rest."
Blizzard is a company, a corporation. You, me, we, all of US, we are the consumers. It is not, and has never been, "Blizzard vs. The People". Consumerism has not changed...a business must, (and not exclusively because) by obligation to its shareholders (by law) make successful business decisions to maximize revenue, and must thus make the most money from consumers * as the consumers are willing to shell out for the product.
This Beta? Us Beta Testers? We're testing a game, but Blizzard is also testing the market as the same time; Blizzard is testing us. The more we give in a game of attrition, the more we give in the game of $$$Money$$$. The less we accept and say "oh, that sucks but I'd pay for it, the less of a viable idea it becomes to start charging for basic features. An EXTREMELY important facet of a successful marketing strategy for any product is knowing what the consumer expects their product to do. By giving the ground that you "saw this coming", "it's viable", "I'd pay xxx dollars" to Blizzard, you give them them favorable market research to at least try out the pay-for-service model. When they do implement that test, and they don't lose the number of subscribers to the service to outweigh the cost of implementing it, then the theory works. It becomes a profitable service for them.
Also, once you buy the game, they already made that money. You can throw the game away, they still get the green. So, by trying out pay-for-service ideas, they don't lose money. They can only gain, UNLESS THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH USERS TO JUSTIFY THE MAINTENANCE COSTS. I think you see where I'm going with this.
So, to paraphrase those immortal words of [the not so immortal Frank Pearce]... Do you REALLY want to tell Blizzard to charge you more?
I don't. And, all that being said:
On June 17 2010 20:54 FrozenArbiter wrote:
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
Similarly so for myself, good sir. The consumer holds the power. StarCraft is not a survival need, regardless of how BAWWW you might be without it. It's a luxury item. You don't buy it, you don't die. You don't buy it, Blizzard loses money. I will likely not quit SC2 right away, but if the pay-for-xxx model is sustained and implemented on a permanent basis (say, by the time the xpac rolls around?) I won't give them any more money. I'll enjoy the purchase I made and agreed to make, buying SC2:WoL but I will not pay for an expansion with the same system, and I will not ever pay, or even be able to justify CONSIDERING paying to have something that I have not only come to expect, but do indeed receive from not only every single other Blizzard game, but every video game with a social aspect to have ever existed.
/[longwinded thought-out post.]
I have this nasty tendency to disagree with people who are supporting my point if they're being kind of irrational. If I got rid of it I think I'd be a great politician. Too bad.
Its too much of a reductification to simplify everything down to money. If short-term money was the final goal we're all screwed. You can't fight against that. Well, a bunch of gamers on a forum can't.
The issue here is design, priorities, communication, feedback...and money. Blizzard isn't "just" about money. I can't think of too many game development studios who are, just because its extra-ordinarily hard to work on a project for upwards to 70 hours a week and not care about what you made beyond the profit margin.
Nobody goes into the game industry just because they like money. Mike Morhaime didn't come out of UCLA thinking "You know what would be this awesome way to make a quick cash and get rich fast? Start up a game company".
[I have only a short response to this because I'm not sure there's much of substance to respond to.]
I do wonder where it was I was being irrational?
I do think it is impossible for you to say what Blizzard is or is not "just" about. I don't work for them. Do you? Note, the people who put 70 hours of love into the game a week...they are not the same people making financial decisions.
As for that last part, Blizzard isn't starting up a game company. They did that 15 years ago. This, as we might say, is no longer the early metagame. This is the mid-game. Plan for the midgame.
The most profitable part of almost any firm's product lifecycle is the mid-phase. One can also apply that to a company, over a long period of time. This is where Blizzard is...they don't have to break into the industry, UCLA was long long ago... With that being said, however, I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say. : /
A lot of the things you talked about are the reasons I'm not keen on buying SC2. I really don't like the way that Acti-Blizzard is treating me as a customer w/ regards to Bnet 2.0 - I'm angered by the lack of LAN, having to buy multiple copies for cross play and what I perceive as Activision being greedy. Realistically it's just business but that doesn't make their actions any more palatable.
I love SC2 but you're right. It's not a need, it's a want. If things stay the way they are I won't be buying it. It doesn't feel reasonable to give money to people who do things I don't like.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
Let me say I have read every single post in this thread, especially you two fine players trilling like overexcited schoolgirls the last 4 pages. Nyshak has a point, but really only one. Charging for extra features is good from a pure revenue stream point of view. A firm must take into consideration the "worst-case scenario" for their sales/revenue. Blizzard expects, due to marketing research, past experience, a loyal consumer base, etc etc., that their "worst-case" scenario (i.e., how much money they can still make if x# players do not buy the game based on such and such decision). is still a viable revenue stream for the goals they have internally set. From this view, Blizzard has it right from a purely economical perspective.
On the other hand, Half has everything else right. So does JinRo. Why should we, the consumers, aggregate the collective "I don't care", or "if Blizzard charges, I'll pay" opinion? Going back to the above paragraph, it would be correct to say that this is as much a time period for Beta Testing gameplay/balance, as it is a time period for market research and consumer feedback probing. No product should go to market without a limited release, a prototype, a beta test. Blizzard is not stupid. They know about TL.Net. They know people do not want to pay for features we have had 10 years ago. They know.
They don't want to know whether or not we want to pay, they want to know whether or not we are willing to pay, when the shit hits the fan, so to speak. So, allow me translate from a forum post, to Corporatese. Typical forum post: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". What a corporation reads: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". Their train of thought: "We already knew they didn't like it. Disregard. Oh, this guy would pay $3.99 a month, more likely $5 a month. Tally that up with the rest."
Blizzard is a company, a corporation. You, me, we, all of US, we are the consumers. It is not, and has never been, "Blizzard vs. The People". Consumerism has not changed...a business must, (and not exclusively because) by obligation to its shareholders (by law) make successful business decisions to maximize revenue, and must thus make the most money from consumers * as the consumers are willing to shell out for the product.
This Beta? Us Beta Testers? We're testing a game, but Blizzard is also testing the market as the same time; Blizzard is testing us. The more we give in a game of attrition, the more we give in the game of $$$Money$$$. The less we accept and say "oh, that sucks but I'd pay for it, the less of a viable idea it becomes to start charging for basic features. An EXTREMELY important facet of a successful marketing strategy for any product is knowing what the consumer expects their product to do. By giving the ground that you "saw this coming", "it's viable", "I'd pay xxx dollars" to Blizzard, you give them them favorable market research to at least try out the pay-for-service model. When they do implement that test, and they don't lose the number of subscribers to the service to outweigh the cost of implementing it, then the theory works. It becomes a profitable service for them.
Also, once you buy the game, they already made that money. You can throw the game away, they still get the green. So, by trying out pay-for-service ideas, they don't lose money. They can only gain, UNLESS THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH USERS TO JUSTIFY THE MAINTENANCE COSTS. I think you see where I'm going with this.
So, to paraphrase those immortal words of [the not so immortal Frank Pearce]... Do you REALLY want to tell Blizzard to charge you more?
I don't. And, all that being said:
On June 17 2010 20:54 FrozenArbiter wrote:
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
Similarly so for myself, good sir. The consumer holds the power. StarCraft is not a survival need, regardless of how BAWWW you might be without it. It's a luxury item. You don't buy it, you don't die. You don't buy it, Blizzard loses money. I will likely not quit SC2 right away, but if the pay-for-xxx model is sustained and implemented on a permanent basis (say, by the time the xpac rolls around?) I won't give them any more money. I'll enjoy the purchase I made and agreed to make, buying SC2:WoL but I will not pay for an expansion with the same system, and I will not ever pay, or even be able to justify CONSIDERING paying to have something that I have not only come to expect, but do indeed receive from not only every single other Blizzard game, but every video game with a social aspect to have ever existed.
/[longwinded thought-out post.]
I have this nasty tendency to disagree with people who are supporting my point if they're being kind of irrational. If I got rid of it I think I'd be a great politician. Too bad.
Its too much of a reductification to simplify everything down to money. If short-term money was the final goal we're all screwed. You can't fight against that. Well, a bunch of gamers on a forum can't.
The issue here is design, priorities, communication, feedback...and money. Blizzard isn't "just" about money. I can't think of too many game development studios who are, just because its extra-ordinarily hard to work on a project for upwards to 70 hours a week and not care about what you made beyond the profit margin.
Nobody goes into the game industry just because they like money. Mike Morhaime didn't come out of UCLA thinking "You know what would be this awesome way to make a quick cash and get rich fast? Start up a game company".
[I have only a short response to this because I'm not sure there's much of substance to respond to.]
I do wonder where it was I was being irrational?
I do think it is impossible for you to say what Blizzard is or is not "just" about. I don't work for them. Do you? Note, the people who put 70 hours of love into the game a week...they are not the same people making financial decisions.
As for that last part, Blizzard isn't starting up a game company. They did that 15 years ago. This, as we might say, is no longer the early metagame. This is the mid-game. Plan for the midgame.
The most profitable part of almost any firm's product lifecycle is the mid-phase. One can also apply that to a company, over a long period of time. This is where Blizzard is...they don't have to break into the industry, UCLA was long long ago... With that being said, however, I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say. : /
I'm just criticizing your overt emphasis on profit. You seem to be saying "they're trying to maximize profit, and they shouldn't". I'm saying "they're trying to maximize profit, and they're doing it wrong in an unsustainable and stupid way".
On June 17 2010 23:42 Kashmir wrote: Thanks for the explanation InfiniteIce.
A lot of the things you talked about are the reasons I'm not keen on buying SC2. I really don't like the way that Acti-Blizzard is treating me as a customer w/ regards to Bnet 2.0 - I'm angered by the lack of LAN, having to buy multiple copies for cross play and what I perceive as Activision being greedy. Realistically it's just business but that doesn't make their actions any more palatable.
I love SC2 but you're right. It's not a need, it's a want. If things stay the way they are I won't be buying it. It doesn't feel reasonable to give money to people who do things I don't like.
Important part that everybody and their momma should be getting. It's bolded.
On June 17 2010 23:30 StarStruck wrote: First of all. Not all of us are nerds. Second of all, flaming, or constructive criticism? Where else do you propose we discuss this? Get a plane ticket and fly down their main office to complain? Send them a complaint via Email that most likely would get lost in the process? Not discussing issues in public is counterproductive to making any sort of change. You can talk to someone at customer service one on one, but not much will materialize. That is why we have forums. They make a great tool for feedback.
You can nitpick all you want with people like Half. I doubt you can say the same for people like FA or myself even. There's a reason why you don't see my posts quoted. Generally that means people agree with what has been said, or they understand the viewpoint and feel no need to respond.
I can't remember saying you should not come here at all to discuss things. Also, the picture of the raging nerd was, well, a picture. I did not mean to say all here are nerds. As a matter of fact, I like nerds. I dislike raging forum posters in general who don't have a clue and turn good threads into a flame fest.
Discussing issues here is a MUST ofc. The topic of my posts has been the "how". Discussion means that there are multiple arguments. Like it or not, there are good ones for Blizzard to charge for some features they might considering to provide. We need to come up with better arguments for Blizzard not to charge for feature X. Half has provided one actually - the possibility that eSports will make more people buy the game (and eSports needs cross-realm play). However, many posters are only about telling Blizz how much they suck because they don't do exactly as they demand, ASAP
Heck, call me an idealist but I still believe that SC2 + BNet will end up phenomenal in the end.
This "core" feature of yours actually caters to a small number of players (in comparison) who are, for instance, into eSports and thus have a reason to play world-wide.
Would you not lend your voice to these players ?
I would if said players would stop crying about how evil Blizz is and how the sky is falling and kept things in perspective. It won't help us to bitch about Blizz. I believe in constructive criticism. Arguing with Blizz about how cross-realm play would support eSports and utimately will earn them more money than charging for it is great. Telling them to f*** off if they are going to charge money AT ALL won't get us nowhere.
I am severly starting to hate on people who argue against these issues or try to invent reasons for why these things are not core bnet features.
So hate me. I can live with that
Let me say I have read every single post in this thread, especially you two fine players trilling like overexcited schoolgirls the last 4 pages. Nyshak has a point, but really only one. Charging for extra features is good from a pure revenue stream point of view. A firm must take into consideration the "worst-case scenario" for their sales/revenue. Blizzard expects, due to marketing research, past experience, a loyal consumer base, etc etc., that their "worst-case" scenario (i.e., how much money they can still make if x# players do not buy the game based on such and such decision). is still a viable revenue stream for the goals they have internally set. From this view, Blizzard has it right from a purely economical perspective.
On the other hand, Half has everything else right. So does JinRo. Why should we, the consumers, aggregate the collective "I don't care", or "if Blizzard charges, I'll pay" opinion? Going back to the above paragraph, it would be correct to say that this is as much a time period for Beta Testing gameplay/balance, as it is a time period for market research and consumer feedback probing. No product should go to market without a limited release, a prototype, a beta test. Blizzard is not stupid. They know about TL.Net. They know people do not want to pay for features we have had 10 years ago. They know.
They don't want to know whether or not we want to pay, they want to know whether or not we are willing to pay, when the shit hits the fan, so to speak. So, allow me translate from a forum post, to Corporatese. Typical forum post: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". What a corporation reads: "FUCK THIS SUCKS THAT'S SO IMBA, I GUESS I'LL PAY LIKE $3.99 A MONTH, BUT BLIZZARD YOU REALLY MAKE ME MAD". Their train of thought: "We already knew they didn't like it. Disregard. Oh, this guy would pay $3.99 a month, more likely $5 a month. Tally that up with the rest."
Blizzard is a company, a corporation. You, me, we, all of US, we are the consumers. It is not, and has never been, "Blizzard vs. The People". Consumerism has not changed...a business must, (and not exclusively because) by obligation to its shareholders (by law) make successful business decisions to maximize revenue, and must thus make the most money from consumers * as the consumers are willing to shell out for the product.
This Beta? Us Beta Testers? We're testing a game, but Blizzard is also testing the market as the same time; Blizzard is testing us. The more we give in a game of attrition, the more we give in the game of $$$Money$$$. The less we accept and say "oh, that sucks but I'd pay for it, the less of a viable idea it becomes to start charging for basic features. An EXTREMELY important facet of a successful marketing strategy for any product is knowing what the consumer expects their product to do. By giving the ground that you "saw this coming", "it's viable", "I'd pay xxx dollars" to Blizzard, you give them them favorable market research to at least try out the pay-for-service model. When they do implement that test, and they don't lose the number of subscribers to the service to outweigh the cost of implementing it, then the theory works. It becomes a profitable service for them.
Also, once you buy the game, they already made that money. You can throw the game away, they still get the green. So, by trying out pay-for-service ideas, they don't lose money. They can only gain, UNLESS THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH USERS TO JUSTIFY THE MAINTENANCE COSTS. I think you see where I'm going with this.
So, to paraphrase those immortal words of [the not so immortal Frank Pearce]... Do you REALLY want to tell Blizzard to charge you more?
I don't. And, all that being said:
On June 17 2010 20:54 FrozenArbiter wrote:
On June 17 2010 17:38 spinesheath wrote: My bet: It'll cost you a monthly fee and thus in the long run you'll pay more than what you would have spent on another copy of the game.
The other possibility is that it'll only cost you once and less than a full copy of the game. But from that quote it doesn't sound like there is a chance that it will be free.
If that turns out to be the case, I actually genuinely would quit SC2 and not buy any of the expansions.
Similarly so for myself, good sir. The consumer holds the power. StarCraft is not a survival need, regardless of how BAWWW you might be without it. It's a luxury item. You don't buy it, you don't die. You don't buy it, Blizzard loses money. I will likely not quit SC2 right away, but if the pay-for-xxx model is sustained and implemented on a permanent basis (say, by the time the xpac rolls around?) I won't give them any more money. I'll enjoy the purchase I made and agreed to make, buying SC2:WoL but I will not pay for an expansion with the same system, and I will not ever pay, or even be able to justify CONSIDERING paying to have something that I have not only come to expect, but do indeed receive from not only every single other Blizzard game, but every video game with a social aspect to have ever existed.
/[longwinded thought-out post.]
I have this nasty tendency to disagree with people who are supporting my point if they're being kind of irrational. If I got rid of it I think I'd be a great politician. Too bad.
Its too much of a reductification to simplify everything down to money. If short-term money was the final goal we're all screwed. You can't fight against that. Well, a bunch of gamers on a forum can't.
The issue here is design, priorities, communication, feedback...and money. Blizzard isn't "just" about money. I can't think of too many game development studios who are, just because its extra-ordinarily hard to work on a project for upwards to 70 hours a week and not care about what you made beyond the profit margin.
Nobody goes into the game industry just because they like money. Mike Morhaime didn't come out of UCLA thinking "You know what would be this awesome way to make a quick cash and get rich fast? Start up a game company".
[I have only a short response to this because I'm not sure there's much of substance to respond to.]
I do wonder where it was I was being irrational?
I do think it is impossible for you to say what Blizzard is or is not "just" about. I don't work for them. Do you? Note, the people who put 70 hours of love into the game a week...they are not the same people making financial decisions.
As for that last part, Blizzard isn't starting up a game company. They did that 15 years ago. This, as we might say, is no longer the early metagame. This is the mid-game. Plan for the midgame.
The most profitable part of almost any firm's product lifecycle is the mid-phase. One can also apply that to a company, over a long period of time. This is where Blizzard is...they don't have to break into the industry, UCLA was long long ago... With that being said, however, I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say. : /
I'm just criticizing your overt emphasis on profit. You seem to be saying "they're trying to maximize profit, and they shouldn't". I'm saying "they're trying to maximize profit, and they're doing it wrong in an unsustainable and stupid way".
Maybe I was unclear or a misinterpretation was in play. I wasn't trying to imply that they SHOULDN'T be trying to maximize profit. They are, as I stated, legally OBLIGATED to do so. I agree, it is stupid, they already have an extremeeeeeeeely profitable business model. However, I don't think it's unsustainable, as you say it is. And it seems that theoretically, and in reality (World of WarCrap?) their new Nick&Dime system is even more profitable.
My point is that, when people post things such as Nyshak's posts' contents, those same people are giving Blizzard more and more incentive to stray from the Blizzard we all love (the free, awesomely featured BNet) to the more profitable model consisting of "Here's your anal lube sir, please bend over" *Note there may be a small fee added to your monthly bill for excess lube usage*.
We should not be posting that this (pay-to-use system) is good, or acceptable. I only intended to outline why Nyshak's way of thinking is off-target, if he wants to exercise his full consumer rights of not paying for things that he doesn't want. I wanted to show that, overly simplified, Blizzard should as a company try to make money. We, as consumers, should pay for things that we want to pay for. I do not want to pay for basic features.
Does anybody? [Not directed to anybody, but everybody]: Stop giving Blizzard non-negative feedback on paying for standard features. + Show Spoiler +
Neutral/"IDC DOOD" means you will not care about paying for it. Which, economically, means they should take your money.
That was certainly one of your best posts in this thread. I agree there are a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon without reading all the facts. In many circumstances I think they just read the title of the thread or first paragraph and post away venting their frustrations, which doesn't help much. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of that happening in this thread. In the end, we can have a good discussion about the direction of the said features unlike other threads about cross-realm play.
On June 17 2010 23:30 Go0g3n wrote: 1. They are seriously concerned about excessive ping and negative response from all the new players, simply put, - Blizzard will add a "Play with your friends from all over the world" sticker to the game, ppl will buy it, and will realize that Japan vs Latvia doesn't feel playable ping-wise.
On June 17 2010 23:52 kadaver_BB wrote: Did they even hint at monthly fees? I did not see any kind of post that would imply this.
No, there was no direct "we will charge". To me, it is the way it was worded. I bolded the words below, that, to me, seem to indicate that they will at least do a trial-pay sort of thing, and are interested in charging for it. This is speculative. Admittedly so. Think, however, of the way this COULD HAVE BEEN WORDED if it was going to be free. Here we go.
On June 17 2010 Bashiok wrote:
Getting people online, playing and interacting is obviously the overall goal for the Battle.net platform, and that includes allowing people to play across regional boundaries as they have in the past.
Unfortunately, there are a multitude of challenges we have to overcome due to the unique regional account and billing options that didn't exist in the past. But those hurdles aren't insurmountable, and we are looking into solutions that will allow interested players to obtain access to other regional versions without having to buy another full copy of the game. Those solutions are something we're currently planning to have available through Battle.net Account Management within the first few months of StarCraft II's release.
Before that solution is implemented though, you're correct in that you'd need to purchase a US copy of the game on launch day to play in the US region.
My interpretations, bolded words only. Keeping it simple. -Allow: It's an option. It's not something we will just "give players". I allow you to buy this from my store. -Billing options that didn't exist in the past: Why would billing options be relevant to cross-realm play? There is no indirect link here. This is a very direct link. -allow interested players to obtain access: This one isn't even obscured wording. Again, "allow". 'interested players', i.e. a select group of players. Interest, demonstrated by cash. 'Obtain', as in, not for everybody by default. 'Access', as in, you will require it. You don't just get this feature. -without having to buy another full copy of the game: That's the part you're supposed to focus on as a typical consumer. That's where Blizzard throws in what I like to call "marketing sprinkles". That's the clever part. You won't have to pay another $60. Just another $10 per month. (Oh, and what are marketing sprinkles, you ask? Well, cookies with sprinkles always cost more, even though they don't add any utility to the item. Hey, watch this. This part of the sentence, ***LIKE SPRINKLES!!!, was there to distract you. See what I did there?) -Available through Battle.net Account Management: Similar to billing options above. Why would this feature have ANY relation to cross-realm features? There is no indirect link. Only the one with your Visa card tied to it.
Edited for clarity, and because I missed one of my bolds the first time through. Oh, and to add some delicious, delicious sprinkles.
On June 17 2010 23:52 kadaver_BB wrote: Did they even hint at monthly fees? I did not see any kind of post that would imply this.
No, there was no direct "we will charge". To me, it is the way it was worded. I bolded the words below, that, to me, seem to indicate that they will at least do a trial-pay sort of thing, and are interested in charging for it. This is speculative. Admittedly so. Think, however, of the way this COULD HAVE BEEN WORDED if it was going to be free. Here we go.
Getting people online, playing and interacting is obviously the overall goal for the Battle.net platform, and that includes allowing people to play across regional boundaries as they have in the past.
Unfortunately, there are a multitude of challenges we have to overcome due to the unique regional account and billing options that didn't exist in the past. But those hurdles aren't insurmountable, and we are looking into solutions that will allow interested players to obtain access to other regional versions without having to buy another full copy of the game. Those solutions are something we're currently planning to have available through Battle.net Account Management within the first few months of StarCraft II's release.
Before that solution is implemented though, you're correct in that you'd need to purchase a US copy of the game on launch day to play in the US region.
My interpretations, bolded words only. Keeping it simple. -Allow: It's an option. It's not something we will just "give players". I allow you to buy this from my store. -Billing options that didn't exist in the past: Why would billing options be relevant to cross-realm play? There is no indirect link here. This is a very direct link. -allow interested players to obtain access: This one isn't even obscured wording. Again, "allow". 'interested players', i.e. a select group of players. Interest, demonstrated by cash. 'Obtain', as in, not for everybody by default. 'Access', as in, you will require it. You don't just get this feature. -Available through Battle.net Account ManagementSimilar to billing options above. Why would this feature have ANY relation to cross-realm features? There is no indirect link. Only the one with your Visa card tied to it.
God thank you for pointing the obvious! (not being sarcastic here) Its not far fetched to think that blizz is going to try and capitalize on this feature we all want....
On June 17 2010 07:56 RodrigoX wrote: Day9 wins again. Look at the day9 interview by the frenchies and his clairvoyance is amazing.
Bashiok announced this long ago on the D3 forums (which is why nobody saw it). He said Crossrealm would come in the future but not at launch, which is fleshed out the above statement.
Not to knock Day[9] but he isn't clairvoyant, just observant.
And if they decide to charge for this and public chatrooms and whatever else we've been desiring, all I have to say is that SC2 will probably become the most pirated game of all time.
And if they decide to charge for this and public chatrooms and whatever else we've been desiring, all I have to say is that SC2 will probably become the most pirated game of all time.
or at least the pressure for groups to pirate it will be grand.
On June 17 2010 22:05 Half wrote: I seriously don't get the logic of pre-emptively defending a corperations right to charge you more money. I mean, I have some serious respect for almost everyone who works at Blizzard, I'm a huge blizzard fan, and doing what you're doing is just absurd and counterproductive.
Even on the off chance that Blizzard is actually having an extremely tough time making ends meet (which is extremely unlikely), bitching about a price hike is almost always a valid consumer complaint unless you're like fighting nazis or something. It falls on the shoulders of the company to defend this kind of action, not the shoulder of fans.
I'm not sure anyone is defending it. I certainly am not. I'm just saying I can totally see them doing it because of all the extra crap they're charging for in WoW now. Expecting it and defending the decision are two different things.
On June 17 2010 23:53 InfiniteIce wrote: My point is that, when people post things such as Nyshak's posts' contents, those same people are giving Blizzard more and more incentive to stray from the Blizzard we all love (the free, awesomely featured BNet) to the more profitable model consisting of "Here's your anal lube sir, please bend over" *Note there may be a small fee added to your monthly bill for excess lube usage*.
That was not my intention. Plus, I don't think a company needs anyone on an internet forum to give them more incentive to increase their profits. They have shareholders for that. I tried to explain why Blizzard is being reasonable out of their point of view and because of that, how futile it is to just shout at them how much they suck etc. Instead we have to show them that they are wrong or that there are better, more consumer oriented ways to increase the financial success of SC2.
We should not be posting that this (pay-to-use system) is good, or acceptable. I only intended to outline why Nyshak's way of thinking is off-target, if he wants to exercise his full consumer rights of not paying for things that he doesn't want.
I did not say it was good, I said (or tried to say) that it was reasonable - like in rational thinking. You know, that thing economists in suits tend to favor hehe. And before you mention it: yes economists believe rational thinking is good. Its their mantra really, homo oeconomicus. I however, don't like to think thats all there is to us.
I wanted to show that, overly simplified, Blizzard should as a company try to make money. We, as consumers, should pay for things that we want to pay for. I do not want to pay for basic features.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
Everything that was in WC3 for free, should be free in SC2. Infact, if you go back to last years Blizzcon I think you can even find a quote saying EXACTLY that.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
Everything that was in WC3 for free, should be free in SC2. Infact, if you go back to last years Blizzcon I think you can even find a quote saying EXACTLY that.
I'm rewatching the presentation now. They talked about having Guest mode, which should be the basis of LAN, but that hasn't been seen quite yet.
Unsure if there are other videos/images of the presentation from last year's blizzcon. If people have links, link em, I'm honestly really curious. I was there, but I don't remember precisely at this point.
-Billing options that didn't exist in the past: Why would billing options be relevant to cross-realm play? There is no indirect link here. This is a very direct link.
This is explained very directly throughout the thread. Different regions have different price points. So if they allowed open cross realm play, I could get a 30$ version from China, download a US language pack, then play on US servers having payed 30$ less then everyone else.
Maybe I was unclear or a misinterpretation was in play. I wasn't trying to imply that they SHOULDN'T be trying to maximize profit. They are, as I stated, legally OBLIGATED to do so.
I can't believe how many people say this without understanding wtf they're talking about. Companies are legally obligated to listen to stockholders. Stock prices can go up without prices going up, and viceversa. Blizzard does not have to worry about stockholders. It has none, only Activision-Blizzard does. (Established as a separate entity)
In fact, this relationship is why they have stated they continue to partner up with distributors like Activision and Sierra. So they do not have to deal directly with a board of stockholders, but can do so indirectly through an executive. In fact, I can't think of a single studio that deals directly with stock holders. It is almost always done through a parent company, with varying contractual relationships.
By doing this, the singular goal of "maximizing profits" will be translated into more game design friendly incarnations. The parent company will indirectly ensure that the their subsidiaries act congruent with the goal of maximizing profit. In some cases, this is just letting them do there thing. In others, it could include Production deadlines, budgeting, and even sending over there own producers to create the game.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
Everything that was in WC3 for free, should be free in SC2. Infact, if you go back to last years Blizzcon I think you can even find a quote saying EXACTLY that.
I'm rewatching the presentation now. They talked about having Guest mode, which should be the basis of LAN, but that hasn't been seen quite yet.
Unsure if there are other videos/images of the presentation from last year's blizzcon. If people have links, link em, I'm honestly really curious. I was there, but I don't remember precisely at this point.
I'm not sure if it was at the proper presentation or during the Q&A, but they were asked what kind of features they could expect to be micro transactions and they said something along the lines of "things that were free in previous games will continue to be free". Something like that.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
Everything that was in WC3 for free, should be free in SC2. Infact, if you go back to last years Blizzcon I think you can even find a quote saying EXACTLY that.
I'm rewatching the presentation now. They talked about having Guest mode, which should be the basis of LAN, but that hasn't been seen quite yet.
Unsure if there are other videos/images of the presentation from last year's blizzcon. If people have links, link em, I'm honestly really curious. I was there, but I don't remember precisely at this point.
I'm not sure if it was at the proper presentation or during the Q&A, but they were asked what kind of features they could expect to be micro transactions and they said something along the lines of "things that were free in previous games will continue to be free". Something like that.
That sounds familiar to me, too, so I'm trying to find it.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
Everything that was in WC3 for free, should be free in SC2. Infact, if you go back to last years Blizzcon I think you can even find a quote saying EXACTLY that.
I'm rewatching the presentation now. They talked about having Guest mode, which should be the basis of LAN, but that hasn't been seen quite yet.
Unsure if there are other videos/images of the presentation from last year's blizzcon. If people have links, link em, I'm honestly really curious. I was there, but I don't remember precisely at this point.
I'm not sure if it was at the proper presentation or during the Q&A, but they were asked what kind of features they could expect to be micro transactions and they said something along the lines of "things that were free in previous games will continue to be free". Something like that.
-Billing options that didn't exist in the past: Why would billing options be relevant to cross-realm play? There is no indirect link here. This is a very direct link.
This is explained very directly throughout the thread. Different regions have different price points. So if they allowed open cross realm play, I could get a 30$ version from China, download a US language pack, then play on US servers having payed 30$ less then everyone else.
Maybe I was unclear or a misinterpretation was in play. I wasn't trying to imply that they SHOULDN'T be trying to maximize profit. They are, as I stated, legally OBLIGATED to do so.
/SNIP ...
I get this impression from all the blueposts talking about locking the product based on its region rather than locking the account tied to the game based on IP.
We're pretty much on the same page here. Except that its up for discussion what a "basic" feature is.
Everything that was in WC3 for free, should be free in SC2. Infact, if you go back to last years Blizzcon I think you can even find a quote saying EXACTLY that.
I'm rewatching the presentation now. They talked about having Guest mode, which should be the basis of LAN, but that hasn't been seen quite yet.
Unsure if there are other videos/images of the presentation from last year's blizzcon. If people have links, link em, I'm honestly really curious. I was there, but I don't remember precisely at this point.
I'm not sure if it was at the proper presentation or during the Q&A, but they were asked what kind of features they could expect to be micro transactions and they said something along the lines of "things that were free in previous games will continue to be free". Something like that.
This is explained very directly throughout the thread. Different regions have different price points. So if they allowed open cross realm play, I could get a 30$ version from China, download a US language pack, then play on US servers having payed 30$ less then everyone else.
I thought region was decided entirely based on what your Battle.net account was set to. I.E if I buy the game here in Sweden, but register it to my US account (I have one I used for to play the US beta servers), wouldn't the game be locked to the US servers :S?
And if not - meh, if someone wants to import the game from China and pay a bunch of shipping... I just can't see this having more than a negligible effect on anything? As long as the online store is locked based on region (i.e steam - I'm european so I'm stuck paying 10€ for games you North Americans pay 10$ for, which is stupid but a fact of life).
Doesn't this price difference exist for any modern game? Yet I can't think of any region importing foreign games aside from Australia, cause Australia is apparently a fucked up 3rd world country who get video games years after everyone else and have to pay twice as much
If they charge for it, no can do. Getting angry over something like $20 "steal" just isn't enough reason to get worked up for. I hate how this sort of obvious stuff costs so much in WoW, but still it feels like the only way to continue. When I still played wow, it seemed only sensible choice once was to change guild, to other realm and other faction. This ended up costing 20e+25e, equaled >60$ then. Almost a full priced game, but what the hell I'm not quitting playing or starting over for a price like that.
It has to be greediness more than something too hard to implement, but ball is on their hands and they really don't have to care since only top tier players REALLY care about this change, aka. top tournament players. Principle issue mostly, on good grounds, but in the end I'd be losing more than winning if I chose to not buy SC2 and boycot the whole greedy BNet2 stuff.
On June 17 2010 09:57 Half wrote: The issue is that we need to draw the line at "Monetizing stuff we've had for free for fifteen years with the game".
This assumes that providing said service today comes with the cost of yesterday. Not always the case given increased player base etc.
So no.
This assumes that development costs need to directly reflect sales points. In which case we'd all be paying 200$ for Starcraft 2 right now.
(hint: They don't because the market has grown, l2economics kid)
The only relevancy is profit margin and development costs. Starcraft 2 is estimated to make 6 million in a year, development costs estimated at 60 million. That means it recoups investment three folds over from 60$ per copy sold.
I can actually come up with legitimate, not completely retarded moronic arguments for why they could charge for this. I'm not going to though. Why would I? (hint: Nothing you guys said is even remotely true)
Accounts are through Bnet. I play on the Asia server because I have a Bnet account that says I'm from Taiwan or Korea or wherever. Where you buy the game makes no difference. It's all about where you say you're from on Bnet.
On June 18 2010 04:44 Alou wrote: Accounts are through Bnet. I play on the Asia server because I have a Bnet account that says I'm from Taiwan or Korea or wherever. Where you buy the game makes no difference. It's all about where you say you're from on Bnet.
Good logic there when you haven't even bought the game /sarcasm
On June 18 2010 04:44 Alou wrote: Accounts are through Bnet. I play on the Asia server because I have a Bnet account that says I'm from Taiwan or Korea or wherever. Where you buy the game makes no difference. It's all about where you say you're from on Bnet.
I wouldn't put that in the book of law yet, weren't people saying some copies were simply region locked?
Blizzard Betas tend to function MUCH differently than a final version of the product when it comes to default gateways... this will be no different, considering this is a brand new framework too. I wouldn't say anything is for certain, regardless of what copy you buy, or where your bnet is attached to, it can definitely go either way.
And if not - meh, if someone wants to import the game from China and pay a bunch of shipping... I just can't see this having more than a negligible effect on anything? As long as the online store is locked based on region (i.e steam - I'm european so I'm stuck paying 10€ for games you North Americans pay 10$ for, which is stupid but a fact of life).
Doesn't this price difference exist for any modern game? Yet I can't think of any region importing foreign games aside from Australia, cause Australia is apparently a fucked up 3rd world country who get video games years after everyone else and have to pay twice as much
There was actually issue with this on Steam recently. Sure, on an individual level its fine, but the issue is what happens when a reseller does this. Recently a reseller got cheap editions of orange box from Malaysia and sold them on the US for a rediculous profit. The people who bought the game were banned (lolsteam)...they didn't purchase online, this was a box edition that required steam registration.
To my knowledge, there aren't laws preventing this kind of importation.
On June 18 2010 04:29 USn wrote:
It's like that in other games - for example, MTGO's community managers had a say.
Look I'm not quite sure how you got "a say" and "decision making process" confused.
Blizzard takes feedback from their employees seriously. That doesn't mean that the -CMs had any level of decision making power, nor did they in MTGO is my guess.
And if not - meh, if someone wants to import the game from China and pay a bunch of shipping... I just can't see this having more than a negligible effect on anything? As long as the online store is locked based on region (i.e steam - I'm european so I'm stuck paying 10€ for games you North Americans pay 10$ for, which is stupid but a fact of life).
Doesn't this price difference exist for any modern game? Yet I can't think of any region importing foreign games aside from Australia, cause Australia is apparently a fucked up 3rd world country who get video games years after everyone else and have to pay twice as much
There was actually issue with this on Steam recently. Sure, on an individual level its fine, but the issue is what happens when a reseller does this. Recently a reseller got cheap editions of orange box from Malaysia and sold them on the US for a rediculous profit. The people who bought the game were banned (lolsteam)...they didn't purchase online, this was a box edition that required steam registration.
To my knowledge, there aren't laws preventing this kind of importation.
It's like that in other games - for example, MTGO's community managers had a say.
Look I'm not quite sure how you got "a say" and "decision making process" confused.
Blizzard takes feedback from their employees seriously. That doesn't mean that the -CMs had any level of decision making power, nor did they in MTGO is my guess.
Wow really? That's... disgusting behavior. You can't ban the people who bought it, come on :/
Its among the many reasons I hate Steam. Also, they don't have a ban appeals process, so if someone hacks your account then cheats, all your games get banned.
The fact that someone can take away the single player local component of a game I physically bought is completely disgusting, agreed.
Waits until someone connects Activisions involvement. Actually, that one isn't so far fetched.
On June 18 2010 04:44 Alou wrote: Accounts are through Bnet. I play on the Asia server because I have a Bnet account that says I'm from Taiwan or Korea or wherever. Where you buy the game makes no difference. It's all about where you say you're from on Bnet.
Not true, or maybe true for beta only. Game licenses are going to be region specific. You won't be able to buy cheap Russian version and play in US.
It's kinda obvious, but if you need blue quote for that: + Show Spoiler +
Detecting and locking people based on IP is generally a bad idea. Aside from situations where someone may be on vacation, military leave, etc. and get locked to a region they aren't actually from, it's extremely easy to proxy an IP in a region that you want to pretend to be from. It just isn't a workable solution.
Having the game licenses themselves be region specific is really the only way to go. It doesn't inherently cause any issues, the main cause of the issue is offering different business models that appeal to each region.
On June 18 2010 05:12 Half wrote: Look I'm not quite sure how you got "a say" and "decision making process" confused.
Blizzard takes feedback from their employees seriously. That doesn't mean that the -CMs had any level of decision making power, nor did they in MTGO is my guess.
If there is any confusion, it's on your end. I'm perfectly clear in what I'm saying.
Those phrases are synonymous the way I used them.
I don't know why you feel the need to dispute the fact that some community managers have a higher level of involvement than the blizzard ones apparently do.
Shhhh!! People don't let them hear you ADMIT you would pay money for this cross region play. ALL content should be available with original game purchase. This crap where people with extra money to waste get more nick nacks for their game or whatever should never be tolerated. EVER. Not for Starcraft at least.
On June 18 2010 09:56 ckw wrote: Shhhh!! People don't let them hear you ADMIT you would pay money for this cross region play. ALL content should be available with original game purchase. This crap where people with extra money to waste get more nick nacks for their game or whatever should never be tolerated. EVER. Not for Starcraft at least.
EPT
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