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Hey. Couldn't find any topics on the article here. If there is already a thread on it, my apologies and please bin this one asap.
Earlier today Blizzard announced on the SEA site that they are working on adding name changes to SC2, in case you chose a name you don't like, or other such reasons
Post: http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/45237
They also say that after your free name change, you will have to pay for any future ones.
How does everyone feel about this?
I honestly don't mind, as i won't be changing my name anyways. My only concern is that they will implement region changes/"Cross realm" like that. With all the weird decision they've made with battle.net 2.0, its something i think they may consider.
Anyhow. This should address some of the complaints people were making on the forums about the issue of being stuck with a name they don't like.
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Thats really good  if they add channels and cross region play, it will be awesome!
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And, the era of micro-transactions begins...
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This part also caught my attention ..
In addition, beyond this initial free name change, we’ll be launching a service similar to the one we offer for World of Warcraft which will allow additional character name changes for a fee.
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On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins...
It already began with WoW.
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On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins...
ahaha, i bet someone would point that out, you didnt even read it nor read a source, fucking moron, it will be fucking FREE (for the first time) shit ass, read before commenting
+ Show Spoiler +fuck i am sick of those ppl -,.-
User was temp banned for this post.
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you'll also be able to pay for character transfers but be warned that you can only bring a limited amount of gold.
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Once free is a nice thing, but im sure they should just allow to make more names just as with the original Battle.net
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On August 16 2010 20:48 Dia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... ahaha, i bet someone would point that out, you didnt even read it nor read a source, fucking moron, it will be fucking FREE shit ass, read before commenting + Show Spoiler +fuck i am sick of those ppl -,.-
I think you are the one who should lose some hostility and read the source .... after the initial change
In addition, beyond this initial free name change, we’ll be launching a service similar to the one we offer for World of Warcraft which will allow additional character name changes for a fee. We'll announce more details on how the free name change and additional paid character name changes will be implemented in the near future.
which is exactly what was being commented on
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On August 16 2010 20:48 Dia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... ahaha, i bet someone would point that out, you didnt even read it nor read a source, fucking moron, it will be fucking FREE (for the first time) shit ass, read before commenting + Show Spoiler +fuck i am sick of those ppl -,.-
If ever there was a time for an epic fail image macro
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So, people can gain bad reps out the yin-yang and then change their name.
Good idea in some aspects, but don't really like this.
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On August 16 2010 20:52 StaR_Robo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:48 Dia wrote:On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... ahaha, i bet someone would point that out, you didnt even read it nor read a source, fucking moron, it will be fucking FREE shit ass, read before commenting + Show Spoiler +fuck i am sick of those ppl -,.- I think you are the one who should read .... after the initial change Show nested quote +In addition, beyond this initial free name change, we’ll be launching a service similar to the one we offer for World of Warcraft which will allow additional character name changes for a fee. We'll announce more details on how the free name change and additional paid character name changes will be implemented in the near future.
yea i am sry, i do apologize...
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lolz
I made a joke about chatrooms & crossrealm going to be a DLC on another thread just 10 minutes ago. And now I have to read THIS. T_T pathetic
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I'm sure they will follow the same process they did in WoW, in the end you'll be able to buy avatars and decals...
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name changes, character customisation, realm transfer ... all been pay per transaction in WoW for ages so why would they do anything different in SC2 
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On August 16 2010 20:48 Dia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... ahaha, i bet someone would point that out, you didnt even read it nor read a source, fucking moron, it will be fucking FREE (for the first time) shit ass, read before commenting
In addition, beyond this initial free name change, we’ll be launching a service similar to the one we offer for World of Warcraft which will allow additional character name changes for a fee.
You should calm down and read before posting.
Another fanboy who will thank blizzard when channels will be released.
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On August 16 2010 20:48 moopie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... It already began with WoW.
I meant for SC
And @ Dia: lol who is the moron now?
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So, I can change from Husky to Huskies now? 
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Looks like Activision wants some more money for it.
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T: "Hey! Where the hell did you get that bloody lurkers from BW? O_O"
Z: "DLC on Blizzard page for 15$"
T: "DLC is so OP" QQ
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Name change is ok as long as they do not allow multiply characters.
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Don't worry, guys, Blizzard will fix everything, just give them enough time. + Show Spoiler +Being a fanboy is ohsoawesome!
On a serious note, this means that they have absolutely no intention to let us create a second character for free and are thus ruining a lot of people's experience with playing more than one race.
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great news for players like SmellyVag (i played him once and i was lolling by myself the whole time)
or maybe not.
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Free first time? That's fine.
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I could honestly give a crap. It'll just open up the door for smurfing and the first time is free.
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On August 16 2010 21:05 Baarn wrote:
I could honestly give a crap. It'll just open up the door for smurfing and the first time is free.
Who cares about smurfing, now that you are automatched only? >_>
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As long as there is at least one free time, thats fine by me. I don't plan on changing mine at all, but even if I chose a name I didn't like, this would be one of the types of situations I don't have a problem with them charging for the service.
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You could be cynical about this, but I consider it a good thing. First of all, there are administrative costs for Blizzard for setting this up, second, being able to change your name freely would somewhat sabotage the real-ID aspect.
Something highly dangerous about a business model without subscriptions or micro-transactions or so is that all the revenue by Blizzard comes from selling games, so they're strictly speaking discouraged from providing support and content for games already done developing, especially since running the servers already costs a lot. A business model where you have various ways to give more money to Blizzard means hardcore players will in general become more important for Blizzard.
In this case you even get a free name change, so just be wise and pick a proper one then.
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On August 16 2010 21:08 futoM4ki wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:05 Baarn wrote:
I could honestly give a crap. It'll just open up the door for smurfing and the first time is free. Who cares about smurfing, now that you are automatched only? >_>
You never got any matches against someone you know on the ladder before?
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On August 16 2010 21:15 Baarn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:08 futoM4ki wrote:On August 16 2010 21:05 Baarn wrote:
I could honestly give a crap. It'll just open up the door for smurfing and the first time is free. Who cares about smurfing, now that you are automatched only? >_> You never got any matches against someone you know on the ladder before?
No, not really. Or at least it didn´t catch my eye. They could either say "you can change it once a year" or "you can´t change it at all, think about it when cr8ing your Acc"
would be fine with me...... I just dislike the hole micropayment stuff.....
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They will make so much money with people wanting to start a fresh account.
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On August 16 2010 21:14 Mothxal wrote:First of all, there are administrative costs for Blizzard for setting this up
First of all, we have all paid for the game already. Case closed.
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On August 16 2010 21:25 HubertFelix wrote:
They will make so much money with people wanting to start a fresh account.
It is not a fresh account. It is a name change.
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And again people complain -.-
You know it's a service they offer that you shouldn't use more then once anyways. It's there to change a shitty name you chose, not to create smurf "accounts" which doesn't make any sense anyways as it still just changes your name.
But haters gonna hate, so have fun with that ;p
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On August 16 2010 21:34 xtfftc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:14 Mothxal wrote:First of all, there are administrative costs for Blizzard for setting this up First of all, we have all paid for the game already. Case closed.
No, not case closed. You are being unreasonable as to the real costs of developing a game and running a large support service like battle.net and continued development for many years. Games are getting more costly as they become larger and more integrated - we're not playing tetris anymore.
I for one welcome micro transactions, as it gives incentive to companies to continue to support their games well after release. Without some sort of continual income directly related to how well a game does long term, there is little incentive to look towards long term support for your games. The type of pay on purchase only model is what induces companies to produce crappy title after crappy title.
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Also, if you want to play a different race so badly, just DO IT. Who cares about your rating? You'll work back up to it anyways and your game will be stronger. You can also play a different race in team games or FFA to practice if you are so desperate.
But what do I know, I play random anyways so I don't really have to race switch
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Sounds very WoW esque.
I'm not against it but why can't I have numbers in my username damn it! I want a 3 replacing my Es.
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Now you have to pay for smurfing...
So basicly we will still have the smurfes raping the low ranks and Blizzard will make even more money ? -.-
I hope there won't be stat resets.
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On August 16 2010 21:45 sikyon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:34 xtfftc wrote:On August 16 2010 21:14 Mothxal wrote:First of all, there are administrative costs for Blizzard for setting this up First of all, we have all paid for the game already. Case closed. No, not case closed. You are being unreasonable as to the real costs of developing a game and running a large support service like battle.net and continued development for many years. Games are getting more costly as they become larger and more integrated - we're not playing tetris anymore. I for one welcome micro transactions, as it gives incentive to companies to continue to support their games well after release. Without some sort of continual income directly related to how well a game does long term, there is little incentive to look towards long term support for your games. The type of pay on purchase only model is what induces companies to produce crappy title after crappy title.
I bought WC3 - I could make how many accounts I wanted,DID NOT NEED TO PAY. And supporting games is freaking company's duty - You want to keep the game alive? TAKE CARE OF IT. Not request paying for everything,because of people like You in future we'll be forced to pay for damn balance patches.
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Why are people talking about stats reset? Learn to read.
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I don't want to change my name, I want a new patch.
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I really hate this version of BNet.
If they want to cut costs then give me LAN play FFS.
Why can't I create whatever the hell name I want to play with friends or create a new account so that I can play as a different race without hurting my record as my main race?
Honestly, I paid $150 for the collectors edition so why the hell can't I be whatever name I bloody like? It's just a string in memory.
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I fear this is only the beginning of more micro transactions
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On August 16 2010 21:45 sikyon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:34 xtfftc wrote:On August 16 2010 21:14 Mothxal wrote:First of all, there are administrative costs for Blizzard for setting this up First of all, we have all paid for the game already. Case closed. No, not case closed. You are being unreasonable as to the real costs of developing a game and running a large support service like battle.net and continued development for many years. Games are getting more costly as they become larger and more integrated - we're not playing tetris anymore. I for one welcome micro transactions, as it gives incentive to companies to continue to support their games well after release. Without some sort of continual income directly related to how well a game does long term, there is little incentive to look towards long term support for your games. The type of pay on purchase only model is what induces companies to produce crappy title after crappy title.
Oh, come on. ....SC2 sold 1.8 Million times on the first day. SC:BW was sold over 10 Million times in the last 12 years.
Guess you can run some Servers from that profit for a while :D
+ I´ll have to buy 2 "addons" in the next 2-3 years. Full price of course.
For that ~150€ I can expect some online support?!
And what "administrative costs" are there for a name change??? none, it needs two lines of code any beginner could do -_-
Micropayment is ment to turn you into a milk cow N-joy
EDIT:
On August 16 2010 21:58 aPsychonaut wrote:
I don't want to change my name, I want a new patch.
this :D
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What the Hell? We got a free name change any time we wanted in SC1 and WC3. Blizzard and microtransactions are really starting to get to me. If they ever reach the amount of microtransactions they have in WoW, I'll quit playing Blizzard games I swear. Not that I really play SC2 much anyway (I do enjoy watching it though).
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Why the hell are people complaining? OMG MICRO TRANSACTIONS
they weren't going to have it at all, you were to be stuck with your first name. I for one welcome a free change because I kind of do want to change it, I won't pay to change, if you don't want to pay then don't, pretty simple. At least you get a do over if you really hate what you chose.
I'm just super jealous of great names like DuckloadRa
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On August 16 2010 22:03 futoM4ki wrote:
SC:BW was sold over 100 Million times in the last 12 years.
I think you got your Zeroes wrong there.
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How about a balance patch to fix the ridiculousness that is Zerg early game?
Or CHAT ROOMS (but do you really want them?) to fix how lonely and sad Bnet0.2 is when you're not just massing games...
Or even an update to the map publishing/sorting system so it doesn't SUCK?
Oh, I guess we'll go with a paid name change feature. Yippie.
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On August 16 2010 21:45 sikyon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:34 xtfftc wrote:On August 16 2010 21:14 Mothxal wrote:First of all, there are administrative costs for Blizzard for setting this up First of all, we have all paid for the game already. Case closed. No, not case closed. You are being unreasonable as to the real costs of developing a game and running a large support service like battle.net and continued development for many years. Games are getting more costly as they become larger and more integrated - we're not playing tetris anymore. I for one welcome micro transactions, as it gives incentive to companies to continue to support their games well after release. Without some sort of continual income directly related to how well a game does long term, there is little incentive to look towards long term support for your games. The type of pay on purchase only model is what induces companies to produce crappy title after crappy title.
On August 16 2010 21:48 sikyon wrote:Also, if you want to play a different race so badly, just DO IT. Who cares about your rating? You'll work back up to it anyways and your game will be stronger. You can also play a different race in team games or FFA to practice if you are so desperate. But what do I know, I play random anyways so I don't really have to race switch
You fail to mention that they have raised the price of the game significantly and even plan to release two expansions instead of the usual one - and in the same time the quality of their service has decreased rapidly. Not to mention that with SC2 they have complete control over the pro scene and the custom games scene, which will provide sustained income. So no, charging me even for a second account is way too much.
Playing as a different race is not about rating and people have explained it again and again and again. If I switch to Zerg, I will play opponents who are far above my level because of my Protoss rating. This is fine. However, when I go back to Protoss, I will have to waste my time with weaker ones because of my Zerg rating.
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On August 16 2010 22:07 Zaru wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:03 futoM4ki wrote:
SC:BW was sold over 100 Million times in the last 12 years. I think you got your Zeroes wrong there.
yeah, sry ....I ment 10.000.000 of course ._.
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as long as none of these micro payments are required for actual content I don't mind one bit tbh I don't understand why people are going 'omg micropayment' for shit nobody even needs, nobody is forcing you to change your name every tuesday...
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My first thought: cocksuckers. They deprive you of basic functionality, then start charging you for it, but the first time is free so apparently people think it's mighty generous of old Blizzard! If you're anything other than outraged, you're a sheep. Also, smurfing (big deal to all the idiots) is perfectly acceptable, as long as you're willing to pay for the privilege. This is downright pathetic.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
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i guess somethings better than nothing, ill take one free name change i guess
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As long as they don't start selling maps I don't see what the issue is.
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On August 16 2010 22:13 HalfAmazing wrote:
My first thought: cocksuckers. They deprive you of basic functionality, then start charging you for it, but the first time is free so apparently people think it's mighty generous of old Blizzard! If you're anything other than outraged, you're a sheep. Also, smurfing (big deal to all the idiots) is perfectly acceptable, as long as you're willing to pay for the privilege. This is downright pathetic.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
maybe the whole point of not being able to randomly create an account is to prevent smurfing? (which is lame regardless of how you look at it "OH NO I HAVE <60 WIN % I MUST REMAKE!!")
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On August 16 2010 22:14 Abnell wrote:
As long as they don't start selling maps I don't see what the issue is.
Yeah right. They´ll stay with the namechange, of course >_>
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On August 16 2010 22:17 futoM4ki wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:14 Abnell wrote:
As long as they don't start selling maps I don't see what the issue is. Yeah right. They´ll stay with the namechange, of course >_>
I don't care if they start selling UMS maps, and I doubt they will start charging for tournament maps/melee maps
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and there goes "there will be no micropayments" i hope that "there will be chat channels" wont and in same manner ....
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At the end of the day, would any of this, if you'd heard about it before launch (or any of the things we did know pre-launch, like no LAN support, region locked, etc.), would any of this have kept you from buying the game? Absolutely not.
And here's where Actiblizzard has us cold. They've made a really good product, with a deep single-player story line (and 2 more to come) and many improvements to the most popular PC multiplayer game of all time. They know that. They know people will come, people will buy the game. So the guys in the board room, after all the hard work of the artists and programmers and designers, attempt to screw us over however they can.
::shrugs shoulders:: I don't mind paying for the game. That puts food on the table for the folks who slave away at 60 hour work-weeks to make a really great game. And as much as I would love to have multi-region support, LAN, unlimited name changes/accounts... I'm not going to give the guys in the board room any more money on top of the funds I spent for the game.
At the end of the day, they made a great game. We bought it. Everything from here forward is, just like the decision to buy the game, a personal choice.
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On August 16 2010 22:18 Jameser wrote:
I don't care if they start selling UMS maps, and I doubt they will start charging for tournament maps/melee maps
I bet you don't even sleep with your tinfoil hat on, either.
When they get you, I will pray for your soul.
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name changing is not hard code. they should just put a timer on it so you can only change name once every 3 months or so. charging is rediculous
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Oh god the amount of conspiracy idiots is astonishing.
I cannot believe people see this as something BAD.
I still remember well my Wc3 days.
"XYZ wispers: hey what's up"
"me: who are you?"
"I'm ABC, but new account! I mean it's Monday already after all ! And I got 7-0 1v1 on my other acc so why would I risk getting a loss? xP"
Yeah smurfing in Wc3 was utterly stupid. The only positive aspect about it was anonymity for pro gamers I guess.
But in this case you aren't even creating a new Acc, you can just change your name. You're doing something wrong if you're changing your nickname as often as your pants.
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QQ More. Getting a feature you never had before and we're never hinted at getting. AND getting you first name change free. Sounds pretty decent of them if you ask me.
And if you can't decide on a decent name within your initial or free change, then bl.
If name changes were free imagine how many blizzard would have to do in a week. Staffing costs would quickly add up. Even if they made it free and limited you to 1 rename per month the costs could be huge. Even with an automated system there would be setup and maintenance costs. A small fee covers costs, and discourages name change spam.
No big deal. TY blizz for continuing to try to increase the feature set of SC2.
We already know that blizzard hopes to add clan support in the future. Hopefully the clan portion of your name will be changeable without a fee.
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Jameser: are you a Blizzard plant? What's the going rate to spew propaganda on forums these days? I'm looking for a career change.
User was warned for this post
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On August 16 2010 21:20 futoM4ki wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:15 Baarn wrote:On August 16 2010 21:08 futoM4ki wrote:On August 16 2010 21:05 Baarn wrote:
I could honestly give a crap. It'll just open up the door for smurfing and the first time is free. Who cares about smurfing, now that you are automatched only? >_> You never got any matches against someone you know on the ladder before? No, not really. Or at least it didn´t catch my eye. They could either say "you can change it once a year" or "you can´t change it at all, think about it when cr8ing your Acc" would be fine with me...... I just dislike the hole micropayment stuff.....
Well you bought into the Blizzard hype machine and they have a history of charging for services that are extra that don't directly have to do with game balance. It's a vanity change. Might as well get used to it cause all online games have micro transactions or the ones that like to make money to pay for executives yacht slips, hangers for their airplanes etc.
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On August 16 2010 22:21 dissonantharmony wrote:
At the end of the day, would any of this, if you'd heard about it before launch (or any of the things we did know pre-launch, like no LAN support, region locked, etc.), would any of this have kept you from buying the game? Absolutely not.
And here's where Actiblizzard has us cold. They've made a really good product, with a deep single-player story line (and 2 more to come)
"deep single-player story line" is where you lost me.
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Urgh... Not changing my name until I know what they are going to do with clan support :p I don't want 2 clan tags in a row
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I don't know why people are complaining, making it costing a fee would prevent people from changing names all the time, and it'll actually help for people who are moving from a team to another one so they can carry their new team's name
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On August 16 2010 22:24 Redmark wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:18 Jameser wrote:
I don't care if they start selling UMS maps, and I doubt they will start charging for tournament maps/melee maps I bet you don't even sleep with your tinfoil hat on, either. When they get you, I will pray for your soul.
actually I use a tungsten-cobolt alloy, I find it also helps block out those zeta-waves coming from PQX-45 in the M-19 nebula.
On August 16 2010 22:30 HalfAmazing wrote:
Jameser: are you a Blizzard plant? What's the going rate to spew propaganda on forums these days? I'm looking for a career change.
yes I am, I get 35€ an hour for lurking TL and start posting pro-blizz propaganda at every opportunity.
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On August 16 2010 22:41 cArn- wrote:
I don't know why people are complaining, making it costing a fee would prevent people from changing names all the time, and it'll actually help for people who are moving from a team to another one so they can carry their new team's name
People are complaining because they can. Ever since the real ID debacle, people have been itching for a fight.
That and their tinfoil hats get itchy.
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Message your friends on bnet2 for only .49c a msg! or for only loyal customers who were stupid enough to preorder the game: 5$ for 250 msgs.
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On August 16 2010 22:36 Baarn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 21:20 futoM4ki wrote:On August 16 2010 21:15 Baarn wrote:On August 16 2010 21:08 futoM4ki wrote:On August 16 2010 21:05 Baarn wrote:
I could honestly give a crap. It'll just open up the door for smurfing and the first time is free. Who cares about smurfing, now that you are automatched only? >_> You never got any matches against someone you know on the ladder before? No, not really. Or at least it didn´t catch my eye. They could either say "you can change it once a year" or "you can´t change it at all, think about it when cr8ing your Acc" would be fine with me...... I just dislike the hole micropayment stuff..... Well you bought into the Blizzard hype machine and they have a history of charging for services that are extra that don't directly have to do with game balance. It's a vanity change. Might as well get used to it cause all online games have micro transactions or the ones that like to make money to pay for executives yacht slips, hangers for their airplanes etc.
Oh rly? I never had to spend something (beyond the game) on SC:BW, D2 or WC3. And I didn´t hear Bill Roper was left poor and hungry because of that:D
What so ever.
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The name change costs them how much?
Exactly.
0.00$.
Its just a string in a database somewhere.
I hate what Blizzard has become.
If they wanted to prevent mass name changes (and seriously how would those harm them?) they'd just put a time limit on it. I'm certain they weren't sitting in their headquartes trying to come up with a solution besides charging money.
![[image loading]](http://blog.beliefnet.com/onecity/greed_detox.jpg)
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@futoM4ki
At the end of the day you KNEW these microtransactions were coming, they stated it multiple times up to release and you still bought the game. Vote with your wallet, don't buy something and complain that it is exactly what you expected it to be. The fact is they worked for at the very lesat 4 years on this game, and they have the perogative to charge whatever they see fit for whatever they want.
@ChickenLips
I too hate when people charge for things they create. It's their engine, their game, their concept, you didn't think that you would be able to change your name when you bought the game, now they are letting you do it for free for the first change and you are complaining? You don't NEED to change your name, so why is this an issue? It's O-P-T-I-O-N-A-L
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wow... FREE name change. Blizzard sure know how to spoil us.
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So they took out a feature that we've always had for free.
And they added it back to the game but charge us money to use it
And we are supposed to be grateful?
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sounds good..at least you wont have to pay and its free
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On August 16 2010 22:20 MadLag wrote:
and there goes "there will be no micropayments"
I can promise you that nobody from Blizzard ever said that. They may have said "no real-money transactions for a benefit that provides an in-game advantage," as they have for WoW, and so far they've stuck to that.
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Looks like Activision wants some more money for it.
won't stop there either.
I'm sure they will follow the same process they did in WoW, in the end you'll be able to buy avatars and decals...
i also believe this will happen.
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I hope to one day be able to pay to have my zealots riding sparkling horses
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On August 16 2010 22:21 dissonantharmony wrote:
So the guys in the board room, after all the hard work of the artists and programmers and designers, attempt to screw us over however they can.
That's overstating it. The truth is that there are two possible reasons for them to charge for a given thing. One is to make it a profit center, and the other is to provide a capability people want while at the same time encouraging people not to do it very often.
Name changes in WoW and now SC2 are almost certainly in the latter category. At $10 a pop, with North American numbers of concurrent players in the tens of thousands, it's highly unlikely that they'll earn more than $10k a month on name changes, and that won't come close to paying their power bill. This is particularly true with the first name change free, because the vast majority of people who do change their names will do so exactly once.
Edit: The basic idea in having names be unchangeable or having a cost to change them is to ensure that they're an identity, that the people behind the names can accrue a reputation. This ultimately makes players think twice before behaving badly and makes the community stronger. They allowed multiple names and accounts back in WC3 because at that time they didn't yet have the experience to see why that would lead to certain bad outcomes among players.
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On August 16 2010 22:38 NuKedUFirst wrote:
Urgh... Not changing my name until I know what they are going to do with clan support :p I don't want 2 clan tags in a row
Yea when are they making clan support?
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If you guys don't like it that much don't buy the damn game or don't pay for the microtransactions.
I'm fed up with the goddamn culture of entitlement that the internet seems to have. It's as if people still think it's 1998 and everything is low cost for an emerging industry.
If you don't think SCII is a solid game for the money you spent on it, without the microtransactions, then you shouldn't have bought it. You knew what was in it (or at least you should have known, being a responsible consumer).
If you don't think the microtransactions are worth it, don't pay for them.
We live in a place where people make money. Corporations are not just greedy entities, they anwser to their owners and their employees. Corporations are not some magical wild beasts with 10 heads that spew fire, or walking stone giants without feeling or emotion. They are simply a bunch of people banding together to try and make money.
So stop complaining and vote with your feet. Don't buy the game, don't pay for microtransactions. If enough people feel the way you do, the company will feel it and you'll get your way! If enough people do not feel the way you do, well I guess you are an outsider and your beliefs (while respected) are abnormal.
Starcraft is a luxury, and what luxuries you purchase are up to you. Starcraft is not food and water, it is not housing and heat, it is not even education or infrastructure. It is a game. It is your discretion how much money you spend on it.
I, for one, don't mind padding Blizzard's pockets a little bit. It helps support the idea that producing few high quality games that take many years to develop and will be supported for many years is more financially rewarding than producing a ton of low quality games. That's just my opinion, but I'm happy, I'm satisfied and I feel that I got my 60 dollars worth in this game already. I'm not going to try and gouge them for more, since I don't feel ripped off in the slightest. Even if I am abit dissapointed that not all of my wishes came true, I would always be wishing for more radical and ridiculous features otherwise.
Edit: That doesn't mean I think that the system can't be improved. Suggestions are, I think, good for the community and good for the developer and the game is not perfect (no game is). What I can't stand is this whiney and entitled tone I hear all the time on the internet.
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On August 16 2010 22:53 Pheard wrote:
@futoM4ki
At the end of the day you KNEW these microtransactions were coming, they stated it multiple times up to release and you still bought the game. Vote with your wallet, don't buy something and complain that it is exactly what you expected it to be. The fact is they worked for at the very lesat 4 years on this game, and they have the perogative to charge whatever they see fit for whatever they want.
>_> Yeah sure "just vote with your wallet". As if it´s that easy. Problem is, there is no other product or will be in the next years that can even be compared to SC2 itself.
I chose the lesser of two evils if you want so.
"Don´t buy it, or don´t complain about it". I dislike all the political partys. So vote and don´t complain, or just don´t vote? ^_^
The choice was, buy SC2 from a company, that was turned to shit the last years, or don´t play any RTS at all.....
Just because I buy there product, I don´t have to agree with everything that product is, or they turn it into
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I can understand these 'micro-transactions' in cases where it actually takes a little bit of effort on their part. But name changes are probably all automated through a system which has already been paid for. Maybe if it cost less than $1 I wouldn't give a shit, but it almost certainly will.
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OMG all the fanboys coming out of the woodworks to worship their god blizzard. Please make it stop... I don't know what's worse, some shitty company making it seem they're doing us a favor by giving back limited functionality of something that was already there and working well; or the fanboys who come to their defence.
I guess the old adage about boiling a frog is true...
PS. I just thought of something. Instead of calling these guys "fanboys", let's call them "BLIZZARD'S LITTLE ENABLERS"
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On August 16 2010 23:06 Lysenko wrote:
The basic idea in having names be unchangeable or having a cost to change them is to ensure that they're an identity, that the people behind the names can accrue a reputation. This ultimately makes players think twice before behaving badly and makes the community stronger. They allowed multiple names and accounts back in WC3 because at that time they didn't yet have the experience to see why that would lead to certain bad outcomes among players.
I was under the impression that you could choose any name you want regardless of whether it has been "taken"? Doesn't every name have a generic numerical identifier following it anyway?
I really think the only truth behind this is money. Sadly, Blizzard is becoming more like every other corporation.
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You want to prevent people from changing their name to attempt to curb griefing and abuse.
People want to not be locked into a name forever.
How do you bridge these two positions:
1) Allow people to change their name whenever they want and give up your goals.
2) Allow people to change their name never and make them deal with it.
3) Allow people to change their name but put a major time cooldown on it so it's hard to abuse.
4) Allow people to change their name but put a cost on it which acts as a deterrent and source of income.
I think the answer is either 3 or 4 in terms of a compromise. It's not surprise a business took route 4. It's sad, but not unexpected. I'm pretty sure everyone knew this was coming. The real thorn will be if they address cross-region the same way. That would be pretty bad. Name changing is still a fluff feature (like decals and portraits) that they can microtransact the shit out of it and I don't care because it doesn't affect my game play. Cross-region? Oh boy, that'd suck.
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On August 16 2010 22:36 xtfftc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:21 dissonantharmony wrote:
At the end of the day, would any of this, if you'd heard about it before launch (or any of the things we did know pre-launch, like no LAN support, region locked, etc.), would any of this have kept you from buying the game? Absolutely not.
And here's where Actiblizzard has us cold. They've made a really good product, with a deep single-player story line (and 2 more to come) "deep single-player story line" is where you lost me.
They even made an achievement for completing the game in under 8 hours. With several missions being locked at 20 minutes due to game events, I think your argument is valid. ^^ Neverwinter Nights had a (much too) deep storyline. The SC2 one is pretty... welll.... mwah. Hey, haven't played NWN for a while...
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they can charge all they want for name change and charge all they want for buying maps, i still will never EVER pay a single penny
there is a reason why i love PC gamming, you pay for the product and then you can do what you want.
It still boggles me how Console gamers are willingly to pay for exstra stuff that should be free(seriously 10$ for some maps? fuck off).
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it would be too sick if the community and i maen not just TL, but every single fucking community went and stopped playing on sc2 until we got what we really wanted, and striked for free name changes. Obv we would win... but who's really gonna start that type of movement...
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ActivisionBlizzard: Making you pay for stuff that used to be free...
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The fact that they are giving everyone a free name change is a good thing. A lot of people did make the mistake of calling themselves something retarded, which they can now correct for free.
If you really feel the need to change your name AGAIN, then you should be charged for it. This is deter people from changing their name all the time, which theoretically should make people think twice before getting a bad rep.
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On August 16 2010 23:17 generic88 wrote:
I was under the impression that you could choose any name you want regardless of whether it has been "taken"? Doesn't every name have a generic numerical identifier following it anyway?
The thing about identity being important is that it's a psychological thing. Yeah, several people can choose the same name. That's analogous to RL names: there are well over 150 people in California, where I live, who share the same first and last name as I do.
However, people in social situations do limit their bad behavior when it might impact their reputation, regardless of the fact that people sometimes do get confused for each other by name. (Note also that TL discourages name changes for precisely the same reason!)
Anyway, the truth is that if they were focused on making money with this service, they would not give people one free name change. Of course, that would backfire on them pretty badly, because apparently there was a lot of confusion about the fact that people would see their in-game name in multiplayer matches, and this is an effort to address that.
It's sad, but not unexpected.
Actually, I completely fail to see why it's sad. It's not like anyone's compelled to change their name, and someday when I'm sponsored by Duckload.com I'll definitely be happy to bear a one time $10 cost to cash my paycheck from them. :D
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On August 16 2010 23:09 sikyon wrote:
If you guys don't like it that much don't buy the damn game or don't pay for the microtransactions.
I'm fed up with the goddamn culture of entitlement that the internet seems to have. It's as if people still think it's 1998 and everything is low cost for an emerging industry.
If you don't think SCII is a solid game for the money you spent on it, without the microtransactions, then you shouldn't have bought it. You knew what was in it (or at least you should have known, being a responsible consumer).
If you don't think the microtransactions are worth it, don't pay for them.
We live in a place where people make money. Corporations are not just greedy entities, they anwser to their owners and their employees. Corporations are not some magical wild beasts with 10 heads that spew fire, or walking stone giants without feeling or emotion. They are simply a bunch of people banding together to try and make money.
So stop complaining and vote with your feet. Don't buy the game, don't pay for microtransactions. If enough people feel the way you do, the company will feel it and you'll get your way! If enough people do not feel the way you do, well I guess you are an outsider and your beliefs (while respected) are abnormal.
Starcraft is a luxury, and what luxuries you purchase are up to you. Starcraft is not food and water, it is not housing and heat, it is not even education or infrastructure. It is a game. It is your discretion how much money you spend on it.
I, for one, don't mind padding Blizzard's pockets a little bit. It helps support the idea that producing few high quality games that take many years to develop and will be supported for many years is more financially rewarding than producing a ton of low quality games. That's just my opinion, but I'm happy, I'm satisfied and I feel that I got my 60 dollars worth in this game already. I'm not going to try and gouge them for more, since I don't feel ripped off in the slightest. Even if I am abit dissapointed that not all of my wishes came true, I would always be wishing for more radical and ridiculous features otherwise.
Edit: That doesn't mean I think that the system can't be improved. Suggestions are, I think, good for the community and good for the developer and the game is not perfect (no game is). What I can't stand is this whiney and entitled tone I hear all the time on the internet.
Lolol. Yeah me too I'm sick of this horrible culture of entitlement. And they can charge for cross-region too. I mean who really expects to play internationally on the internet? While we're at it let's have everyone start charging extra for random standard-issue things, so we can all feel like we earned the right to have a sound feature on our TV or something like that.
Also, why does it seem like all of these "please abuse me I love it" posts come from Canada?
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you know i'm still waiting for the US server to be accessible by the SEA ppl.. the name change, at least it's better than ppl buying a new set to change it.. they actually do notify the ppl that the character name setting is permanent, at the login page on the left
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What the hell is there to complain about? Micro transactions? Boohoo, you get a free name change first. I dont' see why you would need to change your name every second week, just pick a name you won't regret.
Hell, you even got a second chance after being told that you wouldn't. If someone's dumb enough to pay for a name change, let them.
Start worrying when they charge for actual content, then we'll have a problem. This hardly implies we'll be buying units and maps, people look into it far too much.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
im sure white-ra is relieved. duckload-ra is funny but not a name you want to be stuck with.
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*sigh* pay to change a name... my confidence is failing for blizzard and the future of gaming
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On August 16 2010 23:25 shlomo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 23:09 sikyon wrote:
If you guys don't like it that much don't buy the damn game or don't pay for the microtransactions.
I'm fed up with the goddamn culture of entitlement that the internet seems to have. It's as if people still think it's 1998 and everything is low cost for an emerging industry.
If you don't think SCII is a solid game for the money you spent on it, without the microtransactions, then you shouldn't have bought it. You knew what was in it (or at least you should have known, being a responsible consumer).
If you don't think the microtransactions are worth it, don't pay for them.
We live in a place where people make money. Corporations are not just greedy entities, they anwser to their owners and their employees. Corporations are not some magical wild beasts with 10 heads that spew fire, or walking stone giants without feeling or emotion. They are simply a bunch of people banding together to try and make money.
So stop complaining and vote with your feet. Don't buy the game, don't pay for microtransactions. If enough people feel the way you do, the company will feel it and you'll get your way! If enough people do not feel the way you do, well I guess you are an outsider and your beliefs (while respected) are abnormal.
Starcraft is a luxury, and what luxuries you purchase are up to you. Starcraft is not food and water, it is not housing and heat, it is not even education or infrastructure. It is a game. It is your discretion how much money you spend on it.
I, for one, don't mind padding Blizzard's pockets a little bit. It helps support the idea that producing few high quality games that take many years to develop and will be supported for many years is more financially rewarding than producing a ton of low quality games. That's just my opinion, but I'm happy, I'm satisfied and I feel that I got my 60 dollars worth in this game already. I'm not going to try and gouge them for more, since I don't feel ripped off in the slightest. Even if I am abit dissapointed that not all of my wishes came true, I would always be wishing for more radical and ridiculous features otherwise.
Edit: That doesn't mean I think that the system can't be improved. Suggestions are, I think, good for the community and good for the developer and the game is not perfect (no game is). What I can't stand is this whiney and entitled tone I hear all the time on the internet. Lolol. Yeah me too I'm sick of this horrible culture of entitlement. And they can charge for cross-region too. I mean who really expects to play internationally on the internet? While we're at it let's have everyone start charging extra for random standard-issue things, so we can all feel like we earned the right to have a sound feature on our TV or something like that. Also, why does it seem like all of these "please abuse me I love it" posts come from Canada?
As I said, if you don't like it don't buy it. What is so damn hard about that.
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On August 16 2010 23:21 wishbones wrote:
it would be too sick if the community and i maen not just TL, but every single fucking community went and stopped playing on sc2 until we got what we really wanted, and striked for free name changes. Obv we would win... but who's really gonna start that type of movement...
How would you win when you already gave them $60 for SC2? They got your money. They don't give a crap if you decide to stop playing it.
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@sikyon
Don't bring costs into this please, thats just a really poor argument they already made a fuckton of money and most of the spending is already done, they're reusing the engine for another 2 games (which might just cost 60USD as well), which I don't mind that much paying.
Now paying 5-15USD~(my guess on price) PER USE for a feature that should be ingame for free is 100% a rip off and the consumer should be pissed, corporations are groups of people who try and find the best way to maximize their profits not considering anything else, meaning they'll suck you dry if you let them.
By the way, 5 years of WoW servers could be paid in 1 month of revenue  .
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On August 16 2010 23:29 Baarn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 23:21 wishbones wrote:
it would be too sick if the community and i maen not just TL, but every single fucking community went and stopped playing on sc2 until we got what we really wanted, and striked for free name changes. Obv we would win... but who's really gonna start that type of movement... How would you win when you already gave them $60 for SC2? They got your money. They don't give a crap if you decide to stop playing it.
Yeah, you guys should all just not buy HotS and LotV to make your points for free name changes. I'm sure that the majority of people care enough about this to not pay for them.
Not.
Face it. Most poeple don't really, deeply care about this so they'll continue to buy the product. Making you a minority.
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I.... I foresee... BLIZZARD... NEW MARINE DANCE... ONLY $15!!!!......
and something else....
ZERG LOOKS PRETTY FOR $15, TOO!!!!
Wait a min... does this mean I need to pay every time I get a new clan or something?
LOL and I see this is not my concern alone.
On August 16 2010 23:06 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:21 dissonantharmony wrote:
So the guys in the board room, after all the hard work of the artists and programmers and designers, attempt to screw us over however they can. That's overstating it. The truth is that there are two possible reasons for them to charge for a given thing. One is to make it a profit center, and the other is to provide a capability people want while at the same time encouraging people not to do it very often. Name changes in WoW and now SC2 are almost certainly in the latter category. At $10 a pop, with North American numbers of concurrent players in the tens of thousands, it's highly unlikely that they'll earn more than $10k a month on name changes, and that won't come close to paying their power bill. This is particularly true with the first name change free, because the vast majority of people who do change their names will do so exactly once. Edit: The basic idea in having names be unchangeable or having a cost to change them is to ensure that they're an identity, that the people behind the names can accrue a reputation. This ultimately makes players think twice before behaving badly and makes the community stronger. They allowed multiple names and accounts back in WC3 because at that time they didn't yet have the experience to see why that would lead to certain bad outcomes among players.
I agree with you on that Blizzard is trying to give people an identity. This is especially in MMORPG because it will lessen the chance of immoral activities. My WoW guild notified each other when we saw a familiar name for good and bad deeds. This wouldn't work if people are changing names constantly.
But Starcraft 2 does not require interactions like WoW. Maybe this will discourage hackers in the future, When we have Chat Rooms where someone may spam the name of a hacker. Even this is unlikely as children in this game often call well a scouting player a hacker, thus spams are not reliable.
I doubt the naming changing price is for control. This is for profit. This is just blizzard wanting to make SC2 like WoW putting a price tag on anything they can. Man, if they are gonna do it, give us a tag for Clan names. RTS w/o clan is not gonna go anywhere.
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On August 16 2010 23:30 gustavo wrote:@sikyon Don't bring costs into this please, thats just a really poor argument they already made a fuckton of money and most of the spending is already done, they're reusing the engine for another 2 games (which might just cost 60USD as well), which I don't mind that much paying. Now paying 5-15USD~(my guess on price) PER USE for a feature that should be ingame for free is 100% a rip off and the consumer should be pissed, corporations are groups of people who try and find the best way to maximize their profits not considering anything else, meaning they'll suck you dry if you let them. By the way, 5 years of WoW servers could be paid in 1 month of revenue .
I don't let them suck me dry because I simply don't buy products I don't feel are worth it. I might be inclined to pay what I feel is a reasonable price for a product. If they kept reducing features at some point I would feel that the cost would not be equal to the product, but that time hasn't come for me yet.
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I'm pretty sure your clan tag will show in your name somehow when the clan system is implemented, so no I don't think you will have to pay this fee every time you change clan
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On August 16 2010 23:06 Lysenko wrote:
That's overstating it. The truth is that there are two possible reasons for them to charge for a given thing. One is to make it a profit center, and the other is to provide a capability people want while at the same time encouraging people not to do it very often.
Name changes in WoW and now SC2 are almost certainly in the latter category. At $10 a pop, with North American numbers of concurrent players in the tens of thousands, it's highly unlikely that they'll earn more than $10k a month on name changes, and that won't come close to paying their power bill. This is particularly true with the first name change free, because the vast majority of people who do change their names will do so exactly once.
Edit: The basic idea in having names be unchangeable or having a cost to change them is to ensure that they're an identity, that the people behind the names can accrue a reputation. This ultimately makes players think twice before behaving badly and makes the community stronger. They allowed multiple names and accounts back in WC3 because at that time they didn't yet have the experience to see why that would lead to certain bad outcomes among players.
They're paying the power bill with 1.8mil x 60USD. Like I said, I don't mind paying for the game itself; but, honestly, how much of the money from these little microtransactions are going to go to the people who give up their social/family lives to make excellent games?
And, while you make a very good point about wanting to keep an identity, this same objective could be accomplished by restricting name changes to 1 every 6 months, or something along those lines, instead of making it a microtransaction. I agree; get a name and stick with it. But charging for it when there is a clear/free solution seems like greed to me, plain and simple.
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at first glance i thought this was blizzard changing the unit names with an incoming patch. after reading i think that this is an alright idea but paying 10 bucks for changing my name on xbox is fucking bullshit and i hope it doesnt cost that much for sc2.
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The problem sikyon is that tbh the game itself is fine and worth buying.
However, it comes packaged with a multiplayer service (which you cannot opt out of since Blizzard has locked you into it as the only way to play multiplayer) which is a clear downgrade from the previous one put together over 10 years ago. The fact that you seem content with that "because you got a sequel to SC anyway" is in itself pretty lol.
So yes, I will buy the game because it's great, however, I'm not going to stop complaining about the garbage that is Bnet 2.0, because it is garbage, just about the entire community acknowledges it, and that POS deserves all the flames and bad publicity it's going to get.
If you don't like it don't read threads like these?
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On August 16 2010 23:34 dissonantharmony wrote:
They're paying the power bill with 1.8mil x 60USD. Like I said, I don't mind paying for the game itself; but, honestly, how much of the money from these little microtransactions are going to go to the people who give up their social/family lives to make excellent games?
I haven't looked at their balance sheet lately, but their pay to their employees probably uses up the vast bulk of their revenues. In any case, my point was that the scale of the money involved here is so trivial that it's just not on the radar for them as a profit center.
And, while you make a very good point about wanting to keep an identity, this same objective could be accomplished by restricting name changes to 1 every 6 months, or something along those lines
Pretty sure they'll have restrictions like that on it as well.
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On August 16 2010 22:36 xtfftc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 22:21 dissonantharmony wrote:
At the end of the day, would any of this, if you'd heard about it before launch (or any of the things we did know pre-launch, like no LAN support, region locked, etc.), would any of this have kept you from buying the game? Absolutely not.
And here's where Actiblizzard has us cold. They've made a really good product, with a deep single-player story line (and 2 more to come) "deep single-player story line" is where you lost me.
Okay, you've got me there; I should have been more clear.
I didn't mean deep = great dialogue, brilliant plot line, etc. But adding research/upgrades/clickable environments between the mission/cutscene/mission/cutscene formula (on top of a variety of different kinds of missions, I mean, come on, lava?) made the single player a little bit more diverse, something I think was an improvement over SC and BW.
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im ok with it as long as they add clan support
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What I want to know is if people on this forum have played any game since the original SC1 came out. Why are micro transactions any surprise to people? They have been around in games for years now.
Blizzards job is NOT to provide a great game, great service, etc whatever to us, no matter what you may think. That just happens to be one way of doing what their real job is, satisfying shareholders with profit margins. Especially in today's economy.
The only obligation for making their community happy is that it can bring them more profits. Now are there some in blizzard who just want to make SC2 a great game? Sure. But that is what they want, not what the company needs.
As a company if they can charge for something and people will pay for it they will. On a personal level I am annoyed that I would have to pay money to do something as change my name, but it is a perfectly normal corporate decision nowadays and I certainly don't blame blizzard for doing it.
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It starts with names. Blizzard Activision wants to see how far they can push the micro-transactions onto the community. They test the waters and as they do, we will be charged a fee for everything else.
Fees for:
- New maps
- Chat rooms
- Cross Realm Play
- Vanilla Starcraft 2 after HotS is released
- Starcraft 2 with HotS expansion only after LotV is released
- Exclusive map editing features and tools
- 5v5 and 6v6 games
- ladder resets
- Bnet tournament setup features
- Unit Portraits
- Bonus Pool points for laddering
- A new "classic" SC:BW ladder feature on SC2
- Playing as a unique race color or design (pre-beta unit designs and color schemes)
- Choosing your own matchups (no PvP or ZvT if you thumb it down)
- The ability to set up and choose your own games, maps, and opponents for ladder (think US East or ICCUP)
- monthly fees to play the later expansions online (while keeping vanilla SC2 free)
- fees for custom team matches while keeping random team games free on ladder
- additional map "thumb-down" options
- having separate ladders for each race you play
I'm not saying Blizzard will do the above, but you can bet they're thinking of new ways to slowly push micro-transactions on us. Also, the fee for cross realm play is essentially already here for $60 but it's not a micro-transaction.
It's actually okay, I think, to charge some of the stuff above, like a classic BW ladder on SC2. What's not okay is to charge for things we already had for free in BW, like changing our account names, for example.
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On August 16 2010 23:35 shlomo wrote:
So yes, I will buy the game because it's great, however, I'm not going to stop complaining about the garbage that is Bnet 2.0, because it is garbage, just about the entire community acknowledges it, and that POS deserves all the flames and bad publicity it's going to get.
I think it's pretty evident that Battle.net 2.0 has been a troubled project for Blizzard, with schedule delays affecting game releases, a feature set that even the devs acknowledged was incomplete, and enough confusing and contradictory public statements about what features would or would not eventually be included that there probably has been some internal disagreement about that as well.
Furthermore, I am pretty sure the Battle.net 2.0 developers are very aware of the negative reactions of the community. The real question is where they're going to take it from here in light of that.
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sc1 = unlimited name , you can create them anytime you want , chat channel , cross realm
sc2 = one free name change , pay after , no chat channel , region lock .
something wrong no ? they keep getting more greedy each day .
what next ? pay for watch pro gamer replay ? you can unlock them only if you pay money ! .
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This is great. Coming from beta, I knew the name would be permanent... but I could see how anyone who hadn't followed the b.net 2.0 drama closely could have though otherwise. At least they're offering a free name change at first, and charging only for subsequent changes. I've got faith that the money raised from those name changes will go towards improving the game.
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On August 16 2010 23:48 The_Pacifist wrote:
It starts with names. Blizzard Activision wants to see how far they can push the micro-transactions onto the community. They test the waters and as they do, we will be charged a fee for everything else.
...
I'm not saying Blizzard will do the above...
So you say it, and then you take it back? I'm a little confused.
I'm quite sure you're right that they're looking for ways to charge for features for which people would be willing to pay. I'm also pretty sure that they're committed to providing an entertaining core game, and not charging for things that would give someone a competitive advantage.
I guess the question is whether you're willing to put a stake in the ground and say that ANY fees for ANY services beyond the original sale of the game would be unacceptable to you? I, personally, won't say that, because if they can charge a small fee for certain things, it will help them justify offering more services.
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On August 16 2010 23:46 Lunares wrote:
What I want to know is if people on this forum have played any game since the original SC1 came out. Why are micro transactions any surprise to people? They have been around in games for years now.
Blizzards job is NOT to provide a great game, great service, etc whatever to us, no matter what you may think. That just happens to be one way of doing what their real job is, satisfying shareholders with profit margins. Especially in today's economy.
The only obligation for making their community happy is that it can bring them more profits. Now are there some in blizzard who just want to make SC2 a great game? Sure. But that is what they want, not what the company needs.
As a company if they can charge for something and people will pay for it they will. On a personal level I am annoyed that I would have to pay money to do something as change my name, but it is a perfectly normal corporate decision nowadays and I certainly don't blame blizzard for doing it.
im so tired of that. evryone knows that. still there is a huge difference between normal cost and ripoff.
imagine heart of the swarm suddenly costs 150$. would you still say "hey thats totally fine they just want to maximise profits!" or would you agree that its stupid and overprized?
ontopic:
was obvious that they will milk sc2 like crazy.just hope that they dont go overboard with it.if that namechange costs 3$ after first use... whatever. couldnt care less.
what actually bothers me is that (and what i said since months) is that cross region play , a CORE FEATURE will easily cost 15$+. when a company lies to their customers (we cant do that! technology isnt there yet!) just so they can force em to pay quite big money for this "new" feature later i get angry. because its nothing but a pure ripoff.
im not a fan of the whole DLC business we have today but atleast i can understand it. often they are like mini addons and somewhat worth the money. but blizzard is stripping standart features of the game just to introduce them later for money. which is pathetic and a kick in the face for the customer.
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Honestly, I agree with all the hate. I for one think it's disgusting that a company can charge people for something. WE are the consumers, WE are entitled to things for free as we see fit. I can't believe they made my pay $60 for starcraft 2! That is OUTRAGEOUS!! And then they have the balls to not compromise on their vision of a cohesive, streamlined community by not allowing people to change their names everytime their ADD kicks in?? What's next? Charging for EXPANSIONS? Capitalism - the bane of our existence as we know it.
Also, @ BeMannerDuPenner
If they charge $150 for HotS, you can bet your ass I just won't buy it. It's called self control, if you can't restrain yourself from shelling out money you should probably just avoid making money in the first place.
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Good ol' Blizzard.
Coming up on a month soon, and somehow this is prioritized over addressing hackers, fixing bnet 2.0 and other things. Gotta love it.
It's really turning into the evil empire that EA has...
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On August 16 2010 23:48 The_Pacifist wrote:
It starts with names. Blizzard Activision wants to see how far they can push the micro-transactions onto the community. They test the waters and as they do, we will be charged a fee for everything else.
Fees for:
- New maps
- Chat rooms
- Cross Realm Play
- Vanilla Starcraft 2 after HotS is released
- Starcraft 2 with HotS expansion only after LotV is released
- Exclusive map editing features and tools
- 5v5 and 6v6 games
- ladder resets
- Bnet tournament setup features
- Unit Portraits
- Bonus Pool points for laddering
- A new "classic" SC:BW ladder feature on SC2
- Playing as a unique race color or design (pre-beta unit designs and color schemes)
- Choosing your own matchups (no PvP or ZvT if you thumb it down)
- The ability to set up and choose your own games, maps, and opponents for ladder (think US East or ICCUP)
- monthly fees to play the later expansions online (while keeping vanilla SC2 free)
- fees for custom team matches while keeping random team games free on ladder
- additional map "thumb-down" options
- having separate ladders for each race you play
I'm not saying Blizzard will do the above, but you can bet they're thinking of new ways to slowly push micro-transactions on us. Also, the fee for cross realm play is essentially already here for $60 but it's not a micro-transaction.
It's actually okay, I think, to charge some of the stuff above, like a classic BW ladder on SC2. What's not okay is to charge for things we already had for free in BW, like changing our account names, for example.
Keep following the camel's nose.
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I know there is one free one but,
I will never pay for a name change. Are you kidding me? I pay 60$ for a game and then I have to pay 5$ to change a NAME???? It really, really blows my mind how people spend money doing this.
If everyone had self control and didn't PAY to switch their name, or server, etc.. on WoW(even though they are paying 15$ a month to play the game anyways) this feature would be obsolete.
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On August 16 2010 20:38 opticalza wrote:
I honestly don't mind, as i won't be changing my name anyways. My only concern is that they will implement region changes/"Cross realm" like that. With all the weird decision they've made with battle.net 2.0, its something i think they may consider. If they do make "cross-realm" like that - N times free, the rest paid - it's not really cross-realm, but rather changing the realm into (eventually) a fixed one. That's NOT what players want, it's absolutely useless. If they'd try to pretend they've dealt with the issue by doing such a joke, well, they haven't.
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great news for me since i screwed my name up i actually made a typo in my nick, its so imbarassing
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Im already seeing what comes next.
Clan support: Every time you change clan you have to pay
Cross realm: Each time you go to other server you have to pay.
Want cool portrait?? Pay.
Private chat channel for your clan? Pay
Blizzard you can go......
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guys please... get with the program... it's the age of capitalism.. and has been so for ages now..
It's supply and demand... if they got it, and you want it.. they can charge whatever they want..nobody is forcing you do buy it..
And you cannot change this era... it's just the way things are... it sucks.. but.. shit costs money.. everything costs money nowadays..
Take it from somebody who studies e-business and business analytics...
Profit, profit, profit... and the occational sucess story in public.. it's all about money in the end.you get what you pay for
How retarded can you be if you screw up your name of your own choosing? WITH the knowledge beforehand of knowing this name will be lasting forever tied to your account.. so make it last...
People... are ... dumb.. :D
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I can't believe how people are getting all fired up about this. Do you guys know what a slippery slope is?
The people to blame aren't the people who are defending one free name switch. It's the people who are retarded enough to pay for a name change to keep a system like this in place. The people who want infinite name changes for free are people who just want to stomp Bronze league noobs nonstop all day. Blizzard has the current system in place to make the multiplayer experience better for those less skilled. Believe it or not, they're trying to give a wider range of consumers more utility out of the product they bought.
and ffs, this doesn't mean I'm siding with the terrifying evil corporation that is Activision Blizzard. Because yes, Blizzard should just implement keeping all your current stats/rankings/leagues/etc. with any name change, and maybe limit the amount of name changes you can do per x amount of time to save confusion (say, arbitrarily, a month). I think this solves both problems but omg guess what? As long as retards are willing to pay for a name change, this system will thrive. Yes Blizzard is a growing corporation that loves to make money. Guess what, its also in their best interest to make the best game possible with features the community likes to continue making this money. I'm just amazed at the amount of bitching.
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On August 17 2010 00:24 SoL[9] wrote:
Im already seeing what comes next.
Clan support: Every time you change clan you have to pay
Cross realm: Each time you go to other server you have to pay.
Want cool portrait?? Pay.
Private chat channel for your clan? Pay
Blizzard you can go......
want a cool portrait? if you're stupid enough to pay then you deserve to be ripped off.
all others are features that affect gameplay/experience and I'm willing to stake my left leg those features will not require a fee
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Yes, it sucks, but there's nothing you can do about it. No amount of bitching and comparing Blizzard to EA/Kotick/Hitler/Devil will change the fact that microtransactions are profitable.
Remember that this is a capitalist society. Companies will do X as long as X gets money. When people stop paying for microtransactions, then they will stop.
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On August 17 2010 00:30 251 wrote:
I can't believe how people are getting all fired up about this. Do you guys know what a slippery slope is?
You apparently don't
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Microtransactions are only profitable if people pay for them.
And if people are willing to pay for them, it serves a purpose.
Don't like it? Don't utilize it.
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I hope Blizzard charges the living shit out of everything they possibly can in SC2. Want go go ladder? Pay 15 USD for 30 games. UMS with friends? Set price + a little bit goes to the map maker for his hard work. New tournament maps come out? Pay for them too. Looking at your profile? Why not pay for it, Want to replay the campaign or even just one mission for that one achievement? You guessed it. Hell, why not even charge a monthly fee for just having your account? Seriously, we're in the world of big profits now. Charge for everything, since nothing is truly free.
Honestly, these sorts of things are optional. Say it with me: op-tion-al. You don't have to change your name if you don't want to. If you do, great, that's your money, I could care less. I don't understand the constant bitching that comes out of people regarding these things.
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Sigh, Blizzard with yet another predictable moneygrab. Raise your hands if you didn't see this coming! Oh, nobody. All right then.
At least they're giving 1 free one for those who typo'd their character name, I played against a "renigade" and made fun of him the hwole time while smashing his base with tanks. Hilarious.
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Not surprising. I don't really intend on changing my name though, so I suppose it doesn't really effect me.
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All because of the WoW players. Blizzard saw that they would pay to have shiny objects in-game and so they realized that there will be fools in SC2 that will do the same. It's a shame really.
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YAY!
Now I can change my name to Yuri and find a 2v2 partner and have him change his name to Yaoi!
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On August 17 2010 00:44 HeIios wrote:
Microtransactions are only profitable if people pay for them.
And if people are willing to pay for them, it serves a purpose.
Don't like it? Don't utilize it.
It's a bit different when the micro transactions start becoming necessary to play the game at an acceptable level. This is a luxury. It's still pretty fucking stupid in my mind to charge for this, but I won't lose sleep over it.
When they start charging to have new mappacks that are required for ladder, change clan tag, to have a clan channel and what not, it's fucking with the very essence of the game.
Blizzard knows that if people are dumb enough to pay for name changes, they will certainly pay for cross realm play, clans, chats and other shit. That's the reason why this is a major issue.
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@hawk
I agree, I can't see myself ever paying money for a map pack.
Excuse me while I go play some halo 3
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On August 17 2010 00:25 MasterFischer wrote:
it's the age of capitalism.. and has been so for ages now..
*facepalm*
That aside,... even though SC2 is a great game, I dislike a lot about it:
1) Balance (stfu "Terran is balanced" crybabies)
2) AI - talking about the targeting AI here, such as worker AI and ling ai which try to surround the one army unit in the mineral line when there are 8 workers attacking them, instead of just attacking the workers. Lings also much rather huddle around instead of attacking the nearest structure.
3) Control issues - sometimes my selected group is suddenly unselected for no reason, other times the screen jumps to the top right for no reason... and pressing a button x times just to make x units (e.g. lings) gets pretty retarded after a while.
4) Most of what's already been mentioned like the cross-realm/chatroom/etc. features but also I'd like to be able to block players from coming up in my quickmatch again, I don't know if blocking communication does the trick. There's just some people who cheese every game, I don't need that, thank you. And with non-unique nicknames, this just gets that more confusing.
5) Battlenet itself is rather buggy it seems. Disconnects, crashes, etc.
Also... some guy here said that most of the WoW revenue went to the devs.. yea I don't see how a team of, say, 100 people (rough guess, who's got the actual numbers?) eats up $180'000'000 per month.
Now actually on topic: I think Blizzard is making a couple of very bad moves here. It doesn't matter how much they charge for things, it's indeed the fact that they charge. Boiling frog syndrome is what it's called if you don't mind. This doesn't have anything to do with an overreaction, it has to do with respect for Blizzard that has been lost.
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On August 16 2010 21:34 xtfftc wrote:
Show nested quote +
First of all, we have all paid for the game already. Case closed.
No, not case closed. You are being unreasonable as to the real costs of developing a game and running a large support service like battle.net and continued development for many years. Games are getting more costly as they become larger and more integrated - we're not playing tetris anymore.
I for one welcome micro transactions, as it gives incentive to companies to continue to support their games well after release. Without some sort of continual income directly related to how well a game does long term, there is little incentive to look towards long term support for your games. The type of pay on purchase only model is what induces companies to produce crappy title after crappy title.
THIS! A Smart man.
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On August 17 2010 00:44 HeIios wrote:
Microtransactions are only profitable if people pay for them.
And if people are willing to pay for them, it serves a purpose.
Don't like it? Don't utilize it.
absolutely fine. as long as the things are core features of the game (-> gateway selection).
i couldnt care less if they start selling portraits or some stupid visual crap. i dont like it and its bad for the customer/industry but hey whatever.
but when they strip stuff that is a core feature of the game just so they can sell it to you later for an extra price which makes the game as a whole more expensive something is wrong.
whats next? cow level/lvl80+ in d3 only when you pay another 20$? flying vehicles in gta5 only if you pay another 15$? only 1 map in battlefield 3 and you pay 5$ for each map outside of that?
selling gimmicks or semi addons is one thing. stripping stuff that should be in a fullprice game just so you can sell it later is a totally different one.
once you HAVE TO buy the stuff to get a FULL game its getting out of hand. and exactly that is happening. maybe all the xboxlive kids dont know it better but i remember the time when a game was released in a full and ready state . and i could be sure that when i pay 60$ i get the full expirience. and dont have to pay 60 + 10+ 15+5+9+25 to do get the full game because they strip mass features. this is nothing but a ripoff.
example:
you buy a new car at full price.
additional cost a):
spray decals for looks, full leather interior, new sport tires and some chip tuning. all absolutely fine to pay extra for. ( -> gimmick stuff like portraits,looks etc). it doesnt affect the normal functionality of the car
additional cost b):
your car even tho pretty potent is capped at 50 km/h. you cant open the windows, your radio is limited to one station and if you cant drive around with more then 2 people cause a electronic check keeps the car from starting once more are in. but you can ofcourse pay 1500$ to uncap the care, pay 300$ to be able to open the windows, 200$ so your radio is unlocked and 2000$ so 3+ people can drive in the car. (-> core features like cross region play etc). the car is in a limited state and you HAVE TO pay loads of money after you payed full price for it just to get full functionality out of it.
type a) is totally fine. type b) is a total rip off and no one can disagree with that.
call me crazy but the customer should be king. and i absolutely dont know why people are happy to get milked in ridiculous ways just because we are talking about a computer game. wanna see the outrage cries once you have to pay a 50% price increase so you blender works like it should, when you pay 50% increase just so you get onions&sauce on your whopper ("it diodnt cost extra before!") etc. yes this are stupid examples. but people would never accept such behavior outside of the gaming world. yet when it comes to games you see mass guys that happily swallow the shit companys feed them
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kind of off topic but,
repeat the word "soon" to yourself ten or twenty times. It doesn't really sound like a word... some sort of bird noise or something.
I don't really see what the point of character renaming is going to be at all, they can keep that feature as long as they give us Cross realm play.
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I don't really mind them allowing people to change their account names. From what it sounds like it is only the account name that will change and their stats will remain, which prevents people from turning it into a pay-per-smurf service. However, like everyone else is pointing out, once the a microtransaction system is put in place the chances of receiving any free content in the future diminishes significantly. I just hope they wont stoop to the point of allowing player to pay for something that creates an in-game advantage like EA does with its games.
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They've had this system in place in WoW for years now and it works very well. Stop being idiots and arguing that next they'll charge you for switching clans, that's so ludicrous and not at all supported by Blizzard's record. Of course, they could charge for the most basic things, just like they also could ask 150$ for their next expansion, but there's no evidence they will and even if they did, you're perfectly free to not buy it.
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I see this as a reasonable way to hinder people from smurfing but still allowing those who made an error in picking their nick the chance to revert that error.
You wanna put on your tinfoil hat and complain about how they are gonna charge for chatrooms, cross server etc fine do that. But this thread aint the place and if you think it is then you missed the point.
Cheers!
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The point of making this cost money is to inconvenience the user so they don't want to do it, because stuff like this is abusable and irritating to deal with.
I do tech support at a university, and the last resort for a password support is that they have scan 2 forms of ID and have it notarized. This is a huge pain in the ass, but that's the point; we don't want our tech support flooded having to open up attachment after attachment, so we make it very inconvenient, so they will use their damn security questions or come to our office or talk to their department chair or whatever.
Realm changes, name changes, etc are just a pain in the ass for companies to deal with, so they charge to discourage people from abusing it, and so they can get some sort of income from manhours spent
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ActivisionBlizzard: For 4$ you can now improve your zergiling/zealots/marines start damage by an additional amount!
Community: But wouldnt that fuck up the e-sport scene?
ActivisionBlizzard: What is e-sport?
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I think charging a small fee for a name change is the best possible way to handle name changes. This makes people think twice for changing names every few days, but also doesn't lock people out who sincerely want/have to change in a relatively short period of time. Definitly if the clan tag function isn't enough (changing clans in a short amount of time).
I'm personally happy that they're doing this, it works great in WoW, nothing as annoying when you have a bunch of only ingame friends (no real id) and you're away for awhile and then realize half of your friendlist has changed name and you have no fucking clue who who is anymore.
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Perfectly reasonable for blizzard to charge people after the 1st time to change their names. This is a way for blizzard to generate revenue from their online battle.net platform, it's also 100% OPTIONAL, provides no advantage over others and is a way to control how many name changes can occur.
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On August 17 2010 02:06 PanzerDragoon wrote:
The point of making this cost money is to inconvenience the user so they don't want to do it, because stuff like this is abusable and irritating to deal with.
I do tech support at a university, and the last resort for a password support is that they have scan 2 forms of ID and have it notarized. This is a huge pain in the ass, but that's the point; we don't want our tech support flooded having to open up attachment after attachment, so we make it very inconvenient, so they will use their damn security questions or come to our office or talk to their department chair or whatever.
Realm changes, name changes, etc are just a pain in the ass for companies to deal with, so they charge to discourage people from abusing it, and so they can get some sort of income from manhours spent
This is so wrong I just don't even know where to start... Steam allows unlimited name changes with no human interaction on Valves side.
Blizzard designed their system like this so they could make money - pure and simple.
I wouldn't care but this was announced before other necessary improvements to battle.net. Really shows where the priorities lie with Blizzard 2.0.
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Requiring that we pay to have our names changed is nothing more than Blizzard taking advantage of their loyal fans. Its shameful and embarrassing.
On August 17 2010 02:06 PanzerDragoon wrote:
The point of making this cost money is to inconvenience the user so they don't want to do it, because stuff like this is abusable and irritating to deal with.
I do tech support at a university, and the last resort for a password support is that they have scan 2 forms of ID and have it notarized. This is a huge pain in the ass, but that's the point; we don't want our tech support flooded having to open up attachment after attachment, so we make it very inconvenient, so they will use their damn security questions or come to our office or talk to their department chair or whatever.
Realm changes, name changes, etc are just a pain in the ass for companies to deal with, so they charge to discourage people from abusing it, and so they can get some sort of income from manhours spent
A pain in the ass? It wouldnt take a competent programmer more than a day to program a name changer that requires zero human interaction.
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ActivisionBlizzard: For 4$ you can now improve your zergiling/zealots/marines start damage by an additional amount!
Community: But wouldnt that fuck up the e-sport scene?
ActivisionBlizzard: What is e-sport?
These are the posts that bother me so much ... Where the hell are people coming off that blizzard is ANYTHING but promoting e-sports?
Why are people so caught up with 100% optional services that were put in specifically because people were whining. I mean, the players didn't bother to spend any effort in creating their name and cry to blizzard about how it's bullcrap that they don't have namechange. Now they put in namechanges AT THE PLAYERS REQUEST and even give them a free 1-time change and everyone jumps on this "lol activision trying to steals our monies and ruins the game!"
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On August 17 2010 00:25 MasterFischer wrote:
It's supply and demand... if they got it, and you want it.. they can charge whatever they want..nobody is forcing you do buy it..
Okay, economics 101 rant ahead...
Supply and demand doesn't mean that you get to charge whatever you'd like. The principle of supply and demand in traditional product markets states that the smaller the supply/the larger the demand, the more money it will cost, and the smaller the demand/larger the supply, the less money it will cost. If people really want oranges, and there aren't many oranges, the price will be higher. If very few people want oranges, and there are a lot of oranges, the price will be lower. Any company that violates this (in a traditional marketplace with plenty of competition) will, ostensibly, lose money.
With digital goods, this whole model changes. As with text messages, so with changing your name. The supply is unlimited. There is virtually NO COST to cell phone carriers for sending a text message (beyond the initial infrastructure), yet we are charged 20cents a message (at least here in the states). Why? Because the demand is high, and the company is greedy.
Let's say you change your name on Bnet. What does that cost Blizzard, beyond the initial infrastructure of the game and the platform (which you paid $60 dollars to support)? Virtually nothing. So, now, they are charging you a price for something that costs them absolutely nothing to implement.
I love the game, I've had a great time playing it... that doesn't mean I think that Blizzard is doing this out of necessity. They're doing it to make a profit.
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I love all the people who complain about Blizzard charging for services that they don't have to provide. When you create your character name the first time you sign in to SC2 there's even a message saying this is your only chance. If they want to charge people to utilize a service that is completely optional then you should have no reason to be pissed off.
Of course Blizzard is trying to make a profit, they are a god damn corporation. Their goal is to provide us with a product that we desire, we then give them money in exchange for it and they hopefully rake in millions more than it cost to produce. Even with all of the complaints about SC2 people fail to realize that for $60 you get much more value from SC2 than you do from just about any console game and many other PC games that require some sort of monthly subscription service (See: XBox Live, WoW, etc.).
Coming to the conclusion that Blizzard will start charging us for even the most basic features of the game is borderline retarded. They want to make money and they want to keep the customers happy. If they need to implement name changes they have every right to charge for it, whether it actually costs them a significant amount of money or not. The servers that Battle.net uses cost money to operate and maintain; they are not obligated to allow us to play multi-player for free, but they do. Charging for these optional services that people are demanding is a way for their business to profit. If you don't like the services that you have to pay for then don't use them.
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Gotta love them greedy corporations.
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On August 17 2010 03:25 RafikiSC wrote:
I love all the people who complain about Blizzard charging for services that they don't have to provide. When you create your character name the first time you sign in to SC2 there's even a message saying this is your only chance. If they want to charge people to utilize a service that is completely optional then you should have no reason to be pissed off.
Of course Blizzard is trying to make a profit, they are a god damn corporation. Their goal is to provide us with a product that we desire, we then give them money in exchange for it and they hopefully rake in millions more than it cost to produce. Even with all of the complaints about SC2 people fail to realize that for $60 you get much more value from SC2 than you do from just about any console game and many other PC games that require some sort of monthly subscription service (See: XBox Live, WoW, etc.).
Coming to the conclusion that Blizzard will start charging us for even the most basic features of the game is borderline retarded. They want to make money and they want to keep the customers happy. If they need to implement name changes they have every right to charge for it, whether it actually costs them a significant amount of money or not. The servers that Battle.net uses cost money to operate and maintain; they are not obligated to allow us to play multi-player for free, but they do. Charging for these optional services that people are demanding is a way for their business to profit. If you don't like the services that you have to pay for then don't use them.
You sound like a guy who didn't buy the game in the first couple days. That message wasn't there until a shit load of people realized they couldn't make smurf accounts or just were too excited and made their account about the first thing they thought of and then there are the handful of people who let others make their account lol, but only people who bought the game the first day would of known that
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On August 17 2010 03:31 Merikh wrote:You sound like a guy who didn't buy the game on the first couple days. That message wasn't there until a shit load of people realized they couldn't make smurf accounts or just were too excited and made their account about the first thing they thought of and then there are the handful of people who let others make their account lol, but only people who bought the game the first day would of known that
The message of only one name was there since day 2 here in europe, at least as far as I can recall
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If they're so greedy, why aren't they charging for the first name change?
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On August 17 2010 03:36 Seiniyta wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:31 Merikh wrote:You sound like a guy who didn't buy the game on the first couple days. That message wasn't there until a shit load of people realized they couldn't make smurf accounts or just were too excited and made their account about the first thing they thought of and then there are the handful of people who let others make their account lol, but only people who bought the game the first day would of known that The message of only one name was there since day 2 here in europe, at least as far as I can recall
Yeah first couple days sounds about right, but yeah lol that guy talked like that message was there since they opened the servers.
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On August 17 2010 03:38 DivineJustice wrote:
If they're so greedy, why aren't they charging for the first name change?
To fool people like you.
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On August 17 2010 03:40 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:38 DivineJustice wrote:
If they're so greedy, why aren't they charging for the first name change? To fool people like you.
To fool me into believing they're not greedy? lol I don't understand how you could possibly need a 2nd name change so.. could've fooled me.. I don't even need the 1st one lol
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I dont get why people are upset over this. Allot of new player took temp name just so they could play faster thinking they could change it later. With this they can pick up a better name, for free.
Of course Blizzard will charge for this, because they can and people will give them free money. If some random person sent you 10$ in the mail would you refuse it? why should they?
Not saying they would be right to charge for everything they will add on in the future but paid name change is fine. Why would you need to change it so many time anyway.
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I am SOOOO gratefull i can get my first name change for free. Honestly it's such a wonderfull service that i'd be willing to pay twice what the game had costed me just for one name change.
Just imagine all the fun you will have with a new name.
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Frickin activision...micropayments have no place in an RTS.
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They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable.
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On August 17 2010 03:42 vesicular wrote:
They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable.
Yes, it's unbelievable that people are complaining about the blatant monetization of a feature that used to be completely free in every previous RTS.
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On August 17 2010 03:43 McCain wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:42 vesicular wrote:
They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable. Yes, it's unbelievable that people are complaining about the blatant monetization of a feature that used to be completely free in every previous RTS.
But it is free.. the first time..
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On August 17 2010 00:59 Dagobert wrote:
Also... some guy here said that most of the WoW revenue went to the devs.. yea I don't see how a team of, say, 100 people (rough guess, who's got the actual numbers?) eats up $180'000'000 per month.
Don't have numbers per product, but WoW revenue is NOT $180 million per month. Also, I didn't say that the money went mostly to the developers, but to pay all the employees. The vast bulk of Activision-Blizzard's costs are associated with paying salaries and benefits for employees.
If you're interested in actual numbers, these are from the Activision-Blizzard quarterly results for 2Q10 across ALL their products, not just Blizzard products, for the 3-month period ending 6/30/2010:
Revenues from product sales: $643 million
Revenues from subscriptions, licensing, other: $324 million
[note: this is $108 million per month across all products. WoW is part of this but not all.]
Total revenues: $967 million
Cost of Sales: $367 million **
Product development: $104 million
Sales and marketing: $126 million
Total costs and expenses: $667 million
Profit was $301 million for the quarter, of which $82 million was paid in income taxes. Almost all of the net profit after taxes was paid out as a dividend to shareholders.
** Cost of Sales pretty much amounts to the cost of unsold inventory plus additional costs such as royalties and support.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 03:43 McCain wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:42 vesicular wrote:
They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable. Yes, it's unbelievable that people are complaining about the blatant monetization of a feature that used to be completely free in every previous RTS.
Allowing only one name diminished smurfing. That's already a huge improvement by itself. Paid name changes discourage smurfing while allowing sponsored players to preserve their records/match history when changing sponsors. Sounds win/win to me.
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On August 17 2010 03:43 McCain wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:42 vesicular wrote:
They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable. Yes, it's unbelievable that people are complaining about the blatant monetization of a feature that used to be completely free in every previous RTS.
This.
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On August 17 2010 03:43 McCain wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:42 vesicular wrote:
They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable. Yes, it's unbelievable that people are complaining about the blatant monetization of a feature that used to be completely free in every previous RTS.
Funny, I don't remember any outrage when they never even offered the option to change your name *at all*. I like how nobody cared until they gave you the option.
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Yay!... I might become Loser777 once again
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On August 17 2010 03:42 vesicular wrote:
They go from "You can't change your name ever, sorry" to "We'll give you one name change for free" and people complain. Unbelievable.
I love blizzknights so absurdly loyal
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I remember in battle.net 1.0 I could make as many names as I wanted. That's all that needs to be said.
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There are more then 4000 people working on WoW, from Game Master to the janitor to the inhouse Q&A who try to make the game as bugfree as possible to people checking up the servers, maintenacne, customer service. They still earn alot, but tons and tons of that money goes to the people working as well.
Oh ya, even the janitor at Blizzard is paid quite well
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On August 17 2010 03:46 Loser777 wrote:
Yay!... I might become Loser777 once again
Actually you can't because they don't let you put numbers in name in b.net 2.0.. unless you get a 1/999 chance of getting Loser.777 in character code...
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I hope they at least thought of keeping a nickname history.
and when are they going to start placing ads on maps?
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On August 17 2010 03:49 DivineJustice wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:46 Loser777 wrote:
Yay!... I might become Loser777 once again Actually you can't because they don't let you put numbers in name in b.net 2.0.. unless you get a 1/999 chance of getting Loser.777 in character code...
Haha I forgot about character codes...
Dammit I don't want to just be a plain Loser XD
It's the name I've used on so many forums and communities... hmm
EDIT: 666th post maybe I'll be Loser666
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On August 17 2010 03:50 Loser777 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 03:49 DivineJustice wrote:On August 17 2010 03:46 Loser777 wrote:
Yay!... I might become Loser777 once again Actually you can't because they don't let you put numbers in name in b.net 2.0.. unless you get a 1/999 chance of getting Loser.777 in character code... Haha I forgot about character codes... Dammit I don't want to just be a plain Loser XD It's the name I've used on so many forums and communities... hmm EDIT: 666th post maybe I'll be Loser666
lol yeah in one hand, I don't mind the lack of numbers in names 'cause it looks a lot better without them in a lot of the cases but there's always people like you who always stuck with numbers in names... I'm of two minds about this issue also.. but I like my "justice" b.net handle.. so this topic is not even that relevant to me..
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I've found it really cool when I play people on the ladder whose names I recognize, which has been happening a ton. Having pros and top level players playing under their real name makes laddering at a high level more interesting, but it ALSO makes looking at ladder ranks on sc2ranks much more interesting. If like 80% of the top 200 were smurfs on SC2ranks, tracking the competition for top ladder spots would be pretty boring.
On iCCup the only times I ever played anyone whose name I recognized were during TSL and ASL.
That being said it's obviously beneficial for the pro players to smurf, since then people can't pin down their playstyle in ladder and come into a tournament match with extra information. Hopefully this doesn't create an environment where top level players feel pressured to change their name while laddering or practicing for a big tournament. Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
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Damn I'm happy. I thought game name was gonna be unique and made Computer. I see 200+ 'Computer's on the global rankings =/.
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May use it once, only because I'm tired of "RageOverdose" all the time.
And I don't see how the cost of name changing, which I'm sure they have all the refactoring tools built in already (or are building them), warrants alone the cost we have to pay to get any more than one. I don't really care though, this is obviously just a way for them to make extra money and make sure they break even at least, or may help with funding the support of Bnet as a whole or their new MMO IP they still won't talk about (whoa, being REALLY optimistic there).
But I have no problem with it personally. I love the system of micro-transactions. It gives users options and makes people some money, and as long as the game or game balance is not hindered by it, then I probably won't care.
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I saw this coming.
Glad the feature will come out, so disappointed in the money part of it.
It makes me kind of want to really rage hard, but nothing would come of it.
Although the pay feature will still prevent smurfing, adding a feature like "free name change once a week" would do just the same. It is always for the money now. Any other motive they make claim is a total lie.
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Hmmm, time to change my name to Boeing.
My identifier is 747...
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On August 17 2010 00:53 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 00:44 HeIios wrote:
Microtransactions are only profitable if people pay for them.
And if people are willing to pay for them, it serves a purpose.
Don't like it? Don't utilize it.
It's a bit different when the micro transactions start becoming necessary to play the game at an acceptable level. This is a luxury. It's still pretty fucking stupid in my mind to charge for this, but I won't lose sleep over it. When they start charging to have new mappacks that are required for ladder, change clan tag, to have a clan channel and what not, it's fucking with the very essence of the game. Blizzard knows that if people are dumb enough to pay for name changes, they will certainly pay for cross realm play, clans, chats and other shit. That's the reason why this is a major issue.
I'm going to go back to my question "do you know what a slippery slope is," then look at your post, and laugh. Plus you debunked your whole argument when you said "this is a luxury" - yeah it is, you don't have to pay for anything you don't want to. They're not charging for map packs required for ladder. And I don't see it happening. Forgive me for not living in fear of the horrible, evil corporation that put out a video game with a service that's ruining the very fabric of my life. Christ.
As far as "Blizzard knows that if people are dumb enough to pay for name changes etc" its your responsibility not to be one of those people.
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Charging for non-essential features is nothing new. And I'm pretty sure there is a lot of QQ from people who do not care because they don't need it but are afraid it'll lead to something else. Which, unless you count standard features like name/race changes, transfers and sparkle ponies, Blizzard really hasn't done anything too hardcore when it comes to micro-transactions.
Now, while I'm pretty sure 90%+ people here do not care for the feature and will never use it, some people will use it because they need it but there's also some people who will do it because they can. I know someone who race changes every 2 weeks or so, and another person who used to name change on cooldown and that's with a $15(?) price tag. What if it was free, how many people would request name changes every 3 day for the hell of it?
Also, it's pretty easy to track people since their id will not change, only their name will.
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Even IPS message boards have a name change feature that doesn't translate into creating new accounts. some people need to understand that a nick change doesn't mean a new account with new stats it can be only a display name for your account.
also some people also need to understand that your needs are not the same as other people's and maybe you don't give a duckload about being able to change your display name but for some other people this feature may be important. for these people charging for a basic feature will always feel like abuse.
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to all of the people who are complaining about having to pay. you are just ridiculous. at least they give u the option. if u dont want to pay dont change ur name. jees so much QQ over nothing.
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"at least they give you the option"
can you tell me anyone who doesn't?
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Cute how everyone overreacts and blows everything they hear out of proportion.
Yes every name change after the first isn't free, and this IS NOT SOMETHING YOU HAD BEFORE. Because before you couldn't change your name, but you could create another account (and for some reason you guys think it is the same thing, no it is not). And so what if it isn't free, IT'S A SERVICE, they have every right to charge you for it.
Also, as someone has said before, if your changing your name more often then you change your pants, you have an issue to work out. Also, having your clan tag as part of your name is about as stupid than getting your lovers name tattoo'd on you.
Sure this may be the start of micro-transactions for StarCraft 2, but your forgetting one thing: They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. It has always been about vanity, and nothing more.
Also, I kind of do hope they charge for cross-region. I only plan on playing in the NA servers, and its bad enough I have to deal with players who have crap internet HERE, but soon I'll have to deal with players with bad internet across the ocean? I want them to pay for it, maybe Blizzard will actually put that money toward making the latency better or something.
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United States20661 Posts
On August 17 2010 04:07 nibbles wrote:
Hmmm, time to change my name to Boeing.
My identifier is 747...
hi five! same here
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On August 17 2010 04:43 AxeX1606 wrote:
They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay.
This line was about as informed and well thought out as the rest of your post.
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I work in a restaurant, and sometimes people ask for extra dressings or sauces or little things to go. We decided on charging $.50 for these extras. Not because we thought it would be a great profit. Actually it's still in some cases a loss...it's just there so that people have to think twice before asking for 10 extra dressings...
Blizzard doesn't need the money from name changes, but having them be free and unlimited would create problems they would rather avoid.
I fully understand why they would charge money for doing so.
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bunch of greedy bastards, who forces you to pay to change your name? It's not like it requires any effort whatsoever from their part.
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On August 17 2010 04:47 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 04:43 AxeX1606 wrote:
They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. This line was about as informed and well thought out as the rest of your post.
the mount is a moot point, because it doesn't help you raid any better, or do better in PvP. All it does is reduce travel time which isn't that big of a deal.
Edit: if you would like to know what I mean, go try some F2P MMO's, where in some, the ONLY way to be any good is to pay thousands for the micro-transaction items in their shops.
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On August 17 2010 04:47 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 04:43 AxeX1606 wrote:
They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. This line was about as informed and well thought out as the rest of your post.
Care to explain how it's different gameplay-wise to ride that mount compared to a normal mount?
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On August 17 2010 04:53 AxeX1606 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 04:47 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 04:43 AxeX1606 wrote:
They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. This line was about as informed and well thought out as the rest of your post. the mount is a moot point, because it doesn't help you raid any better, or do better in PvP. All it does is reduce travel time which isn't that big of a deal. Edit: if you would like to know what I mean, go try some F2P MMO's, where in some, the ONLY way to be any good is to pay thousands for the micro-transaction items in their shops.
First, you said theyve never done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. You were wrong.
Second, judging by your "it could be worse" responce your not really getting the whole slippery slope thing. It can always be worse, and quite often is. Thats what people are concerned about. But Blizzard is smart. They know people like you will keep saying well basically all the dialog your getting ready to spew back at me. And that will allow them inch by inch to advance micro transactions without resistance. And you know what, on that day that they announce cross realm is a paid service and you feel all betrayed and what not than you come and find me and tell me how your sorry and you were wrong and you never thought Blizzard would yada yada what they did.
But until that day im not going to play this dance any longer.
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He's wrong about the reducing travel time part though.
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On August 17 2010 04:58 Archerofaiur wrote:
And you know what, on that day that they announce cross realm is a paid service and you feel all betrayed and what not than you come and find me and tell me how your sorry and you were wrong and you never thought Blizzard would yada yada what they did.
If you read my original post, I said I am for cross realm as a paid service. So ya...
On August 17 2010 05:03 Teddyman wrote:
He's wrong about the reducing travel time part though.
Well no, if you still use regular flyers, then yes it does reduce travel time.
Also:
On August 17 2010 04:58 Archerofaiur wrote:
First, you said theyve never done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. You were wrong.
On August 17 2010 04:53 Teddyman wrote:
Care to explain how it's different gameplay-wise to ride that mount compared to a normal mount?
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On August 17 2010 05:09 AxeX1606 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 04:58 Archerofaiur wrote:
And you know what, on that day that they announce cross realm is a paid service and you feel all betrayed and what not than you come and find me and tell me how your sorry and you were wrong and you never thought Blizzard would yada yada what they did. If you read my original post, I said I am for cross realm as a paid service. So ya...
lol oh yah thats the second part of your uninformed post. You thought it would lag up your ladder games...
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I don't get it, does it cost them money to change your name?
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On August 17 2010 05:14 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 05:09 AxeX1606 wrote:
If you read my original post, I said I am for cross realm as a paid service. So ya... lol oh yah thats the second part of your uninformed post. You thought it would lag up your ladder games...
quoting a sc2 forum post:
I don't know if you have noticed, but when playing multiplayer, have you seen the "determining host" message? Oh, yeah, that "host" is a blizzard server, right? No, this is the machine in the game with the lowest ping and/or highest specs in the group. All Blizzard is doing is performing the handshake, and asigning the host roll as needed.
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quoting a sc2 forum post:
custom games
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sure, there are custom games. But do they contribute in ladder? No.
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On August 17 2010 05:36 AxeX1606 wrote:
sure, there are custom games. But do they contribute in ladder? No.
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Uhm.. so let me get this straight.. they don't want you to change names because they want responsible players.. unless you pay?
Interesting.
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Related blue post from Bashiok:
Having a single identifiable name that represents you, and that you're held accountable to is one of our core desires for the game, forums, and website.
Essentially in 'classic' Battle.net games you had the ability to make unlimited names/accounts tied to a single CD-Key. This allowed a level of anonymity and griefing that wasn't constructive for the online game and that we don't want to see repeated. There should be accountability, but more than that we want people to have names they feel represents them and that they're working to improve and progress. Not just creating throw away accounts.
If you'll remember we attempted to address this to a degree for our websites by proposing real first and last names on the forums, that obviously wasn't very popular, but StarCraft II was already working with a unique character name system through the character name and character code combo so that was an easy decision to fall back on.
A single identifiable character name and character code has been the plan, and as far as we're aware will continue to be. We realize some people unknowingly chose names they're not happy with, so we're providing them an option to correct it for free, and beyond that there's a barrier of entry to ensure that the option is there should someone need it but that you're still encouraged to stick with a single identifier that represents you throughout your StarCraft II career.
Yeah, it is quite handy for them that their "barrier of entry" results in profits.
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On August 17 2010 04:47 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 04:43 AxeX1606 wrote:
They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. This line was about as informed and well thought out as the rest of your post.
No sir,he's right,your argument IS INVALID.
It's just a normal mount,280 % speed increase that's it,310% only if you got a 310% (that's rare one) already.
It doesn't give you any advantage,if you haven't it already.
That's just a stupid vanity item for girls and retarded people.
No serious gamer would ever buy that crap. No,let me rephrase that,NO serious gamer would ever get that mount,even for free,it's terribad.
Besides,to ride it,you need to buy a "driving license" ( riding skill ) first,which is quite expensive and can only be bought with ingame currency.
Oh well,the 90% of wow players are retarded so...it was a huge hit.(I know for sure,Personal experience,that's why I stopped with that mmokindagame).
Edit : kinda forgot,every single max level char in wotlk owns a 280 mount. Every single one.
It's just a stupid reskin goddammit,how would that affect gameplay?
Well maybe it's so shiny that it would blind other players,or make their systems stutter...
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This will provide a means to smurf accounts without having to buy multiple copies of the game. While a little annoying that we now have a pay for a name-changing service that was free and easy for BW, this service could greatly help professional players concerned about opponents looking at their match history and build orders before a competition.
A reasonable way for players to practice without giving away their BO preferences and deny information to competitors.
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On August 17 2010 06:57 PlosionCornu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 04:47 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 04:43 AxeX1606 wrote:
They have NEVER done micro-transactions that affected gameplay. This line was about as informed and well thought out as the rest of your post. Lol? It's just a normal mount,280 % that's it,310% only if you got a 310% (that's rare) already. It doesn't give you any advantage,if you haven't it already. That's just a stupid vanity item for girls and retarded people. No serious gamer would ever buy that crap. No,let me rephrase that,NO serious gamer would ever get that mount,even for free,it's terribad. Oh well,the 90% of wow players are retarded so...(I know for sure,Personal experience). Edit : kinda forgot,every single max level char in wotlk owns a 280 mount. Every single one. It's just a stupid reskin goddammit,how would that affect gameplay? Well maybe it's so shiny that it would blind other players,or make their systems stutter...
I like it.
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On August 17 2010 07:09 GhoSt[shield] wrote:
This will provide a means to smurf accounts without having to buy multiple copies of the game. While a little annoying that we now have a pay for a name-changing service that was free and easy for BW, this service could greatly help professional players concerned about opponents looking at their match history and build orders before a competition.
A reasonable way for players to practice without giving away their BO preferences and deny information to competitors.
/facepalm
Name changes were NEVER IN BROOD WAR. Even when this gets implemented YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SMURF.
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I like it.
Your business. It will not give you any ingame advantage whatsoever,well beside making you look like a total loser.(even more than the average wow player).
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Having a single identifiable name that represents you, and that you're held accountable to is one of our core desires for the game, forums, and website.
Which is why you can pick the same name as anyone else....
Im sorry but I really used to like Bashiok. Now hes become kind of the front man for selling Activision BS to the fans. Remember the whole forum RealID fiasco? And Im sorry Bashiok, at no point did you provide a clear and convincing reason why the fans need to be charged for this service. Hows about one name change per X period of time? No? Hows about per X period of time with X increasing the more you use it. No? Hows about any of a number of other ways to provide "incentive" without it being a blatant microtransaction designed to pave the way for further micro transactions.
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Besides,as far as my wow experience goes,out there there's a whole bunch of sheeps ripe for the moneygrab.
They deserve to be ripped off by companies like blizzard,or anyone else,for the matter,just natural selection you know.
My 2 cents on this whole ordeal.
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Blizzard said a VERY long time ago that SC2 is one character per account, even when you bought it (probably), and it's been on the login screen since release.
Whenever this namechange hits live, that will still be true, but you'll have the option of changing it if you really want to.
...why is this bad? or who cares?
Everyone who says "microtransactions are evil blabla doomsaying" should just shut up and wait, Blizzard have been doing microtransactions for a long time and they've never sold anything that mattered or made you better ingame.
Sure, they might change that and start selling stuff that matters, but it's just dumb and premature to cry now.
It's like sitting home all day crying FUCK I'M GOING TO DIE WITHIN 100 YEARS FUCK, except that's actually something you know is true.
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Just to tie up that arguement and to everyone still wondering 310% faster speed affects gameplay. Its a gameplay effect.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 07:28 Archerofaiur wrote:
Just to tie up that arguement and to everyone still wondering 310% faster speed affects gameplay. Its a gameplay effect.
You don't get 310% if you don't already have a 310% mount learned on that character. Just buying the star horse mount doesn't bestow any benefits.
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On August 17 2010 07:31 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 07:28 Archerofaiur wrote:
Just to tie up that arguement and to everyone still wondering 310% faster speed affects gameplay. Its a gameplay effect. You don't get 310% if you don't already have a 310% mount learned on that character. Just buying the star horse mount doesn't bestow any benefits.
So, now that I know I'm right in my original post, care to explain how it affects gameplay Arch?
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On August 17 2010 07:33 AxeX1606 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 07:31 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 07:28 Archerofaiur wrote:
Just to tie up that arguement and to everyone still wondering 310% faster speed affects gameplay. Its a gameplay effect. You don't get 310% if you don't already have a 310% mount learned on that character. Just buying the star horse mount doesn't bestow any benefits. So, now that I know I'm right in my original post, care to explain how it affects gameplay Arch?
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
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Ok let me be clear about this
Wow 101.
Mounts : normal flying mount 160ish% increase speed (dunno exact number)
Fast flying mount 280%,the most used one (quite expensive "driving license",cheap price for the mount itself,in ingame currency terms,that's it)
superfast Flying mount 310% (no further driving license required,but very hard to obtain,sometimes linked with ultra rare drops from raid bosses,very hard achievements (ie skill ones,not farming ones) and so forth)
Let's say,only good players(top raiding/pvp season) get a 310% mount,not the typical casual/nerdy/farming-geek like.
The 20bucks mount works like this: If you only have a 280% mount(90% of wow players),it will be 280% no matter what.
But if you were good enough to get yourself a 310%,it will be 310% too.
See how that works? It doesn't give any gameplay advantage.
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On August 16 2010 20:38 opticalza wrote:
They also say that after your free name change, you will have to pay for any future ones.
and so it begins...
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well...doesn't hurt me because I already have a name that I like/keep.
For the people who messed up the first time and THEN like to change their name constantly....well that's your fault.
For pros who swap sponsors and such...they'll figure out a way to get that done for free/no cost to themselves...
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On August 17 2010 07:36 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 07:33 AxeX1606 wrote:On August 17 2010 07:31 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 07:28 Archerofaiur wrote:
Just to tie up that arguement and to everyone still wondering 310% faster speed affects gameplay. Its a gameplay effect. You don't get 310% if you don't already have a 310% mount learned on that character. Just buying the star horse mount doesn't bestow any benefits. So, now that I know I'm right in my original post, care to explain how it affects gameplay Arch? If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go? K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
Make sense, then I'll consider answering your questions.
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Very lame. I can't understand why a name change and ladder reset should cost more money. This is the ugly side of Blizzard Entertainment.
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On August 17 2010 07:36 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 07:33 AxeX1606 wrote:On August 17 2010 07:31 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 07:28 Archerofaiur wrote:
Just to tie up that arguement and to everyone still wondering 310% faster speed affects gameplay. Its a gameplay effect. You don't get 310% if you don't already have a 310% mount learned on that character. Just buying the star horse mount doesn't bestow any benefits. So, now that I know I'm right in my original post, care to explain how it affects gameplay Arch? If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go? K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
You obviously don't know a thing about WoW, you're digging your hole deeper every time you post.
Not that this has anything to do with the OP anyway..
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If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license".
It stops with the 280% one.
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well... only WoW fanatics and console gamers are stupid enough to pay these "microtransactions" so it doesnt really bother me... but it doesnt mean i have to agree with it and be grateful for a single free name change
what will really piss me off is if they start charging for maps... that will suck
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On August 16 2010 22:53 Pheard wrote:
@futoM4ki
At the end of the day you KNEW these microtransactions were coming, they stated it multiple times up to release and you still bought the game. Vote with your wallet, don't buy something and complain that it is exactly what you expected it to be. The fact is they worked for at the very lesat 4 years on this game, and they have the perogative to charge whatever they see fit for whatever they want.
@ChickenLips
I too hate when people charge for things they create. It's their engine, their game, their concept, you didn't think that you would be able to change your name when you bought the game, now they are letting you do it for free for the first change and you are complaining? You don't NEED to change your name, so why is this an issue? It's O-P-T-I-O-N-A-L
lol.
this is not wholly about the "name change" service
so you find it fine and dandy that Blizzard has taken all the free services they offered in BNet 1 and removed them only to slowly introduce them simply to make a profit in BNet 2?
what about services that are not yet optional - chatrooms, lan etc etc.
even if YOU personally do not want to use the service, you think it is fine that Blizzard is abusing its customer base this way?
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One "free" name change could be one which everyone has to do at a point, and if you decide to just use the name which you had before it leaves you with only having to pay for a name change in the future.
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who cares, people are already working on pvpgnv2.
Then we'll say just goodbye to blizzard servers.
But yes making people to pay for changing value of a single variable is kinda ridiculous idea.
Still i think that such moves just give more motivation to creators of new pvpgn.
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Sounds good to me. One free is the way to go.
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Are they supposed to be resetting the ladder along with this name change option?
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On August 17 2010 08:26 SyN_FiR3 wrote:
Are they supposed to be resetting the ladder along with this name change option?
What gave you that impression?
By the sounds of it, no. It goes against their policy of no smurfing to add that.
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Maybe they'll provide an option to pay for ranking resets. If they charge for other maps, leagues will start using custom maps made from people like MorroW. It'll just turn players off. Plus, once one player buys, he'll upload it on a site and everyone can use it. I don't think they'll charge as badly as some people think. But hey, they have to keep the servers up somehow.
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Thankfully I got the name I wanted! Bring chat channels!
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On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:Show nested quote +
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one.
Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it.
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Like many others have said in this thread as long as micro transactions don't come for gameplay variations and its only superficial stuff I'm all for it. Frankly I have no need to change my name, or have a different thor model (though the CE edition does look nice) it's not something I NEED to have. Now if they start adding units that you NEED to compete then yea that's where it becomes a problem. But with them wanting SC2 to become a pro-sport then I sincerely doubt that will happen.
So who cares.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it.
Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions.
Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear.
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so they're allowing one free name change? I think thats a good idea, considering you only get one account (thus one name). Also, a lot of my friends that bought the game didnt realize the initally selected name was permanent, so it'd be nice to give them a second chance at coming up with a name
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On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear.
lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no?
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no?
No, which was the whole point =(
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On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =(
How fast would the horse go?
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go?
I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five:
First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running.
Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running.
Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running.
Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running.
Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running.
You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast.
God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point.
I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character.
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On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character.
Exactly. Thank you.
And also that even at level 1 you still need the training + a horse to actually get the gameplay benefit. The star horse by virtue of being a mount constitutes a part of that gameplay benefit and has a effect on gameplay. You can either get a mount OR buy one with real money.
Personally I played wow when you had to grind away for days to get enough gold to buy a horse. If you could pay $25 dollars to avoid all that well thats a problem.
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On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:
the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character.
From the Blizzard Support Pet Store FAQ:
Will these pets help me in combat?
No, these pets are strictly cosmetic. They have some fun animations and sound effects, but they will not help you in PvP or PvE.
(http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=29845)
And because of this, the mount does not affect gameplay.
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An unlimited amount of free name changes would be troll heaven. I support this decision.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character.
Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument.
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On August 17 2010 09:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character. Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument.
Oh i get it. Its only alittle slippery at this part of the slope. It only affects gameplay alittle so its ok...
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United States12235 Posts
On August 17 2010 09:52 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character. Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument. Oh i get it. Its only alittle slippery at this part of the slope. It only affects gameplay alittle so its ok...
You're neglecting the fact that WoW has also been out for 5 years and 99.99999% of people who play the game already have mounts which means they've already paid for everything. I could see maybe some semblance of an argument if you were talking about someone who has never played WoW before and is starting a new account AND decides to spend real money on this mount. That's such an infinitesimally small number of players affected it's not even worth considering.
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On August 17 2010 09:52 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character. Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument. Oh i get it. Its only alittle slippery at this part of the slope. It only affects gameplay alittle so its ok...
There's no advantage gained though.... So where you've been going with this has thrown me for a loop.
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On August 17 2010 10:03 Illison wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:52 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 09:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character. Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument. Oh i get it. Its only alittle slippery at this part of the slope. It only affects gameplay alittle so its ok... There's no advantage gained though.... So where you've been going with this has thrown me for a loop.
Not that it gives you a advantage. I never said that. That it has an effect on gameplay.
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On August 17 2010 10:05 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 10:03 Illison wrote:On August 17 2010 09:52 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 09:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character. Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument. Oh i get it. Its only alittle slippery at this part of the slope. It only affects gameplay alittle so its ok... There's no advantage gained though.... So where you've been going with this has thrown me for a loop. Not that it gives you a advantage. I never said that. That it has an effect on gameplay.
It. Has. No. Effect. On. Gameplay.
If you actually played the game you would understand that but you don't so you're arguing a non-existent fucking point. You're not going to find anyone to agree with you because you're flatout wrong. Seriously, stop.
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On August 17 2010 10:05 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 10:03 Illison wrote:On August 17 2010 09:52 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 09:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:37 TheYango wrote:On August 17 2010 09:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 09:26 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 09:09 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 09:01 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 08:56 Excalibur_Z wrote:On August 17 2010 08:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On August 17 2010 07:49 PlosionCornu wrote:
If you dont have a mount how but you have learned 310% speed how fast do you go?
K now how fast do you go if youve learned 310% speed and payed for the horse?
There's no such thing like 310% Riding skill,or "driving license". It stops with the 280% one. Doesnt mattter. Still applies to the 280. The paid for mount, by virtue of being a mount, affects gameplay. You go faster with it than you would if you didnt have it. Except you have to pay the 5000g to be able to even get 280% riding speed. The star horse mount scales to your maximum allowable riding speed. If you don't have the capability to ride at a certain speed, the mount won't allow you to circumvent those restrictions. Just like you have to earn a 310% mount (via meta-achievements or something similar) before you can ride at 310%. Just having the mount doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever because you can't go any faster or do anything more than you'd ordinarily be able to do if you didn't have it. I thought the other posters were making this pretty clear. lol this really is side tracking the whole convo. If I had payed for 280% speed but had no horse I couldnt go 280 but if i than bought the star horse I could, no? No, which was the whole point =( How fast would the horse go? I don't know if you even play WoW, I'm assuming you don't, so here's a rundown on the different levels of riding. There are five: First level (lv 20): You can ride a mount, and it travels on the ground at 60% faster speed than running. Second level (lv 40): Your mount travels at 100% faster speed than running. Third level (lv 60): Your mount can fly and it travels at 150% faster speed than running. Fourth level (lv 70): Your mount can fly and it travels at 280% faster speed than running. Fifth level: Your mount can fly and it travels at 310% faster speed than running. You have to pay for the first four levels and they become available at the levels listed. The horse only goes 60% up until you reach level 40 and you pay for the second level of riding. It stays a ground mount until you pay for the third level of riding at level 60. It stays at 150% speed until you pay for the fourth level of riding at level 70. It stays at 280% speed until you unlock a 310% mount, then it goes that fast. God I hope this makes sense because it's becoming quite difficult and tedious to explain beyond this point. I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character. Oh my god seriously =( You still have to pay for the training which is by far the most expensive part (5000g, 600g, however much epic and normal ground mounts cost now). To say that saving around 110g on mounts themselves affects gameplay is dubious at best and incendiary at worst. You can make 110g in like an hour now. I have like 40k gold across my characters and I'm not even close to the rich end of players. If that's Archer's best excuse for "affecting gameplay" then he needs to find a more solid argument. Oh i get it. Its only alittle slippery at this part of the slope. It only affects gameplay alittle so its ok... There's no advantage gained though.... So where you've been going with this has thrown me for a loop. Not that it gives you a advantage. I never said that. That it has an effect on gameplay.
What's the problem then? If it doesn't give one an advantage over another player, and only gives a "slight", "technical" effect on game play then I don't see a problem. It's not like people can go out get either of the mounts that you can buy, and expect to ride them without purchasing the more expensive skill.
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Sigh if I dont have a mount and I buy it I have a mount and I can ride. Riding is a gameplay effect. What is hard about this?
Anyway yah this is way off topic so lets stop.
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I agree that smurfs and assholes should pay for Blizzard R&D. Can we also set up a lottery to let the dumb people pitch in?
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On August 16 2010 20:48 moopie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... It already began with WoW.
Technically, but this is the first time we're seeing it for a RTS. It stinks no matter how you slice it.
The day of the smurfs is somewhat over. I really hope they implement something, so pro gamers don't get harassed to bits.
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they're already making tons of extra money having a lot of pros, casters and admins spending an extra $60-180 to be able to play on different servers.
one $60 expansion a year is plenty of money for blizzard to continue to support the game. if they start charging for server changes then i will really know their true motive.
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On August 17 2010 10:09 Archerofaiur wrote:
Sigh if I dont have a mount and I buy it I have a mount and I can ride. Riding is a gameplay effect. What is hard about this?
Anyway yah this is way off topic so lets stop.
I don't know? What is so hard about it you fail to grasp a concept?
Mounts are dirt cheap there are no people with no mounts. No one in the fucking game out of 12 million people went "omg thanks blizzard I can ride a mount now if I buy this star horse for $25" because everyone already has like 50 of the fucking things.
Your point doesn't exist because the situation doesn't exist.
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On August 17 2010 02:32 Seiniyta wrote:
I think charging a small fee for a name change is the best possible way to handle name changes. This makes people think twice for changing names every few days, but also doesn't lock people out who sincerely want/have to change in a relatively short period of time. Definitly if the clan tag function isn't enough (changing clans in a short amount of time).
I'm personally happy that they're doing this, it works great in WoW, nothing as annoying when you have a bunch of only ingame friends (no real id) and you're away for awhile and then realize half of your friendlist has changed name and you have no fucking clue who who is anymore.
Why are all you wow Kids playing sc. This is sc not wow and blizz should keep them seperate. I'm sick of all this wow related bullcrap being used in sc. It sickens me and you wow nerds need to get off my game
User was warned for this post
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Can we get back on topic, this isn't about whether a mount affects gameplay or not, and you've pretty much beaten that topic to death, i don't see either side being won over by any points now.
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page 1 compared to page 14 make me feel like im on a different thread.
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Were done. Discussions such as that one about what is or isnt crossing the line for microtransactions show just how "slippery" the whole micro transactions movement is. Combine that with the various posts in this thread about what micro transactions should be allowed and I think it becomes clear that the community has no consensus on the issue. And I can only assume companys like Blizzard take advantage of that by trying to define (and redefine) what consumers should have to pay for.
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I don't see why they're confining people to one account. WC3 was great for not being tied down to a permanent account name for everything you did.
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Remember people, at the end of this slippery slope is "pay per play", maybe $1/match. I'm sure Blizzard will come up with a funky reason for this like: "We've noticed alot of griefing using disconnect hacks. In order to provide a valuable service to our customers and prevent this kind of behaviour, we will implement a pay per play system". Then all the "Blizzard enablers" will jump on the bandwagon to exalt this as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
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On August 17 2010 14:00 junkacc wrote:
Remember people, at the end of this slippery slope is "pay to play", maybe $1/match. I'm sure Blizzard will come up with a funky reason for this like: "We've noticed alot of griefing using disconnect hacks. In order to provide a valuable service to our customers and prevent this kind of behaviour, we will implement a pay per play system". Then all the "Blizzard enablers" will jump on the bandwagon to exalt this as the greatest invention since sliced bread.
No, they won't, and this is the retarded kind of logical fallacy the doomsday posters use to defend whining and crying about not being able to ladder reset and smurf at will. I love how people use a slippery slope example to defend their points, completely oblivious to the fact they just lost the argument at hand. I mean reread what you just wrote. $1 per match? Are you serious?
edit: nvm I don't know why I even responded to a guy on here with the name "junkacc"
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On August 17 2010 14:06 251 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 14:00 junkacc wrote:
Remember people, at the end of this slippery slope is "pay to play", maybe $1/match. I'm sure Blizzard will come up with a funky reason for this like: "We've noticed alot of griefing using disconnect hacks. In order to provide a valuable service to our customers and prevent this kind of behaviour, we will implement a pay per play system". Then all the "Blizzard enablers" will jump on the bandwagon to exalt this as the greatest invention since sliced bread. No, they won't, and this is the retarded kind of logical fallacy the doomsday posters use to defend whining and crying about not being able to ladder reset and smurf at will. I love how people use a slippery slope example to defend their points, completely oblivious to the fact they just lost the argument at hand. I mean reread what you just wrote. $1 per match? Are you serious? edit: nvm I don't know why I even responded to a guy on here with the name "junkacc"
Oh? Is WoW not pay to play? Read my sig. Hasn't Robert Kotick said he wanted every game to be subscription based? Isn't he intoducing elements of the WoW model into the RTS genre and soon FPS genre with MW2:Black Ops? But I guess you are one of those people who refuse to see what's coming until it's staring you right in the face. Let's all stick our head in the sand and sing kumbaya
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On August 16 2010 20:48 Dia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 20:47 Ghazwan wrote:
And, the era of micro-transactions begins... ahaha, i bet someone would point that out, you didnt even read it nor read a source, fucking moron, it will be fucking FREE (for the first time) shit ass, read before commenting + Show Spoiler +fuck i am sick of those ppl -,.-
ouch,
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I would rather like Clan tags to be implemented, but I guess you gotta start somewhere?
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On August 17 2010 15:21 Broodie wrote:
I would rather like Clan tags to be implemented, but I guess you gotta start somewhere?
You can start by paying up!
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I believe I had this discussion with Archer in another thread. His point is that while it doesn't really influence what your character is capable of, the fact that the horse saves you 1/10/50/100g per character at each mount level *technically* is still a gameplay benefit. Even though those costs are basically negligible amounts at the levels you need them, even for a fresh character.
Yeah,is a gameplay advantage for a sorry ass fella who cannot affort ,like, two hundred gold (nothing for a maxed level char in wotlk) ingame,and needs to spend 20 bucks IRL instead.
It doesn't make sense really,come on,who is the masochist that would do that? You have the opportunity to get the 280% speed increase for "free" (ingame currency),but you choose to spend REAL MONEY on it?
At this point I'm assuming that very few of you have actually played Wow till tbc,and I mean,it's a good thing for your health nonetheless,but it's clear that you are clueless about that game's mechanics,no offense intended.
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It gets better guys. This WoW viral infection of other game genres is soon coming to MW2:BlackOps (another Activision/Blizzard game). In MW2:BO, there's a "premium service" you can pay for that gives you extra weapons and other "extra content" you can use *against* non-premium service members.
The funny thing is even the 10 year olds that play MW is calling this bullshit but the "Blizzard Enablers" on this forum are eagerly lapping it up.
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Oh? Is WoW not pay to play? Read my sig. Hasn't Robert Kotick said he wanted every game to be subscription based? Isn't he intoducing elements of the WoW model into the RTS genre and soon FPS genre with MW2:Black Ops? But I guess you are one of those people who refuse to see what's coming until it's staring you right in the face. Let's all stick our head in the sand and sing kumbaya
Yeah that's true,Kotick said that in some rather shady way. I really don't care at this point,let the sheeps buy the MANDATORY 15bucks mappacks.
I still belive that blizzard is not going to charge for gameplay affecting services anytime soon,otherwise they will lose every last remnant of popularity and fame,belive me,and they stated that they actually CARE about popularity and respect among gamers a lot of times. And,I,for the very hours of deep fun they gave me in the past,I'm going to trust them.
If that sad day comes,hell,I've still my life to live,who cares about gaming?
As I said before,current paid services are meant for retarded people with poor cash management,who spend their earnings on useless stuff.
I mean,think about girls going shopping ,buying useless crap and the like.
What you don't seem to get is that the very existence of people willing to throw away their dollars/euros is the reason for the existence of such services,THEY deserve to be capitalized on,to be ripped off.
If everyone of us(in a utopian world I mean) was clearly and sincerely aware of what's the money true worth,no manager would ever imagine to throw in some paid service,it would cost him his face and his job.
Just look at the real world,consumism and the like. People would buy any crap,any day,if you give em the urge to do so(commercials,subliminal messages). Think about it.
By the way, AAA mmos are usually P2P because there's a whole lot of support tied to them,like paid game masters,content patches (1gb each),tech support,tons of servers to attend to and so on. Don't compare them to normal games,they are THAT different.
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Ugh people need to figure out how capitalism works. They charge what they do for goods (like SC2, the expansions and the microtransactions), for a very good reason. This has very little to do with greed, but mathematics, and profit maximizing. It is all based on CUSTOMER DEMAND.
They can't charge ridiculous amounts for things, because there is a sweet spot for EVERY product and service.
1000 People. How do you sell a game to them and get the most money out of it?
If you charge 20$ for it, all 1000 will buy it
You earn $20,000.
If you charge 40$ for it, 920 will buy it
You earn $36,800.
If you charge 60$ for it, 800 will buy it
You earn $48,000.
If you charge 70$ for it, 680 will buy it.
You earn $47,600.
If you charge 100$ for it, 350 will buy it
You earn $35,000.
If you charge 150$ for it, 100 of them will buy it.
You earn $15,000.
So who is greedier?
The way you people seem to figure it, the guy who charges $150 is the greediest, but even a child can see that the guy who charges $150 for the game is actually earning the least amount of money... The guy who charges 20$ for the game earns more, and everyone considers that person a saint. The person who charges 60$ earns the most money, because they found the sweet spot. That is not greed, it is mathematics, science and marketing all based on customer demand. So if you stop paying for these, then the sweet spot changes, and the prices go down.
Vote with your wallet.
Trust me, Blizzard knows how to do these calculations, and this is why they charge what they do for their products and services.
Of course, there are other factors involved in these... They are most likely charging for name changes on the HIGH END of the scale (read: the one that earns the least money and sells to the least people). Why? Because they DO NOT WANT PEOPLE CHANGING THEIR NAMES. Note, this is not because they want to maximize profits (or they would charge less money for it), but because they want to offer a convenience to people, while minimizing the people who use it. This doesn't look like greed to me... (notice above, the one who charges such a high amount earns very little money compared to the one who charges at the sweet spot)
Two other things that would affect the scale above are if Blizzard was a monopoly (it isn't) and if the product was an essential necessity of life, like food, water or electricity (it isn't).
Come on people... I have never taken an economics or marketing course in my life. This just takes a little logic and common sense.
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 17 2010 16:43 Zanez.smarty wrote:
Ugh people need to figure out how capitalism works. They charge what they do for goods (like SC2, the expansions and the microtransactions), for a very good reason. This has very little to do with greed, but mathematics, and profit maximizing. It is all based on CUSTOMER DEMAND.
They can't charge ridiculous amounts for things, because there is a sweet spot for EVERY product and service.
1000 People. How do you sell a game to them and get the most money out of it?
If you charge 20$ for it, all 1000 will buy it
You earn $20,000.
If you charge 40$ for it, 920 will buy it
You earn $36,800.
If you charge 60$ for it, 800 will buy it
You earn $48,000.
If you charge 70$ for it, 680 will buy it.
You earn $47,600.
If you charge 100$ for it, 350 will buy it
You earn $35,000.
If you charge 150$ for it, 100 of them will buy it.
You earn $15,000.
So who is greedier?
The way you people seem to figure it, the guy who charges $150 is the greediest, but even a child can see that the guy who charges $150 for the game is actually earning the least amount of money... The guy who charges 20$ for the game earns more, and everyone considers that person a saint. The person who charges 60$ earns the most money, because they found the sweet spot. That is not greed, it is mathematics, science and marketing all based on customer demand. So if you stop paying for these, then the sweet spot changes, and the prices go down.
Vote with your wallet.
Trust me, Blizzard knows how to do these calculations, and this is why they charge what they do for their products and services.
Of course, there are other factors involved in these... They are most likely charging for name changes on the HIGH END of the scale (read: the one that earns the least money and sells to the least people). Why? Because they DO NOT WANT PEOPLE CHANGING THEIR NAMES. Note, this is not because they want to maximize profits (or they would charge less money for it), but because they want to offer a convenience to people, while minimizing the people who use it. This doesn't look like greed to me... (notice above, the one who charges such a high amount earns very little money compared to the one who charges at the sweet spot)
Two other things that would affect the scale above are if Blizzard was a monopoly (it isn't) and if the product was an essential necessity of life, like food, water or electricity (it isn't).
Come on people... I have never taken an economics or marketing course in my life. This just takes a little logic and common sense.
This guy knows what he's talking about,honestly he got the point.
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On August 17 2010 16:43 Zanez.smarty wrote:
Come on people... I have never taken an economics or marketing course in my life. This just takes a little logic and common sense.
lol and it shows.
The goal of a supplier is to maximize profits by charging as much as the market will bear, while spending as little as possible to produce. Case in point, they've over-inflated the true value of SC2 with hype and judging by the quality of the final product, most of that $100M dev cost was probably marketing + litigation + anything they could think of, just so they could say: "Look! we've spent $100M, that's how good it is!"
Now they're floating a trial balloon to gauge the market value of name-changing. They may not have a monopoly but there's this thing called "Vendor Lock-in". Look it up, you may learn something.
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I'd honestly buy a "new character slot" if it meant I could smurf as an offrace without wrecking my ladder for less than $60...
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On August 17 2010 17:11 junkacc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 16:43 Zanez.smarty wrote:
Come on people... I have never taken an economics or marketing course in my life. This just takes a little logic and common sense. lol and it shows. The goal of a supplier is to maximize profits by charging as much as the market will bear, while spending as little as possible to produce. Case in point, they've over-inflated the true value of SC2 with hype and judging by the quality of the final product, most of that $100M dev cost was probably marketing + litigation + anything they could think of, just so they could say: "Look! we've spent $100M, that's how good it is!" Now they're floating a trial balloon to gauge the market value of name-changing. They may not have a monopoly but there's this thing called "Vendor Lock-in". Look it up, you may learn something.
This is pretty much what I said. As much as the market will bear. Look at my post again.
All your post here is saying is that Blizzard has found a way to raise that sweet spot by adding hype into the mix, increasing the amount of people who will buy the game at a higher price. The same general rules apply... charge too much, and less people buy, charge too little and you don't earn enough money...
There are definitely ways to affect the sweet spot, I never said there weren't.
And yes, this name change could very well be a trial balloon for future services... they need to figure out what that sweet spot is somehow! They don't just randomly throw out numbers and hope they land on the most profitable one.
And how does Vendor Lock-in apply to this situation? Yes I had to look it up, because as I said, I haven't taken any classes in this. But I fail to see what kind of charges or expenses occur from switching from Blizzard. You are not locked in to Starcraft or any Blizzard game for that matter...
Your argument is virtually irrelevant to the name changing thing anyway. My post was written to show that this name change feature is not an act of greed by Blizzard, because it will likely earn a comparatively small amount of money and is put in place to be used by a very minimal amount of people.
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Vendor lock-in means by changing services you lose all your in-game relationships + win/loss record + reputation etc. It's like changing mobile phone carrier and you can't take your number with you. So if you don't like your name? Tough luck now pay.
But it's nice that you agree that alot of the perceived value of SC2 now is hype.
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Oh yeah definately. But I find it fun and more than worth the money I payed for it. I am very content. And microtransactions currently do not affect me, so more power to them. When they get forced on us, then I'll be upset as will everyone else. That will lower the sweet spot for future expansions. Bad move until LotV is out.
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On August 17 2010 17:11 junkacc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 16:43 Zanez.smarty wrote:
Come on people... I have never taken an economics or marketing course in my life. This just takes a little logic and common sense. lol and it shows. The goal of a supplier is to maximize profits by charging as much as the market will bear, while spending as little as possible to produce. Case in point, they've over-inflated the true value of SC2 with hype and judging by the quality of the final product, most of that $100M dev cost was probably marketing + litigation + anything they could think of, just so they could say: "Look! we've spent $100M, that's how good it is!" Now they're floating a trial balloon to gauge the market value of name-changing. They may not have a monopoly but there's this thing called "Vendor Lock-in". Look it up, you may learn something.
This man knows what he is talking about. Also i don't think anybody is complaining about 150 dollars games being greedy, its the fact that what has been free in the past and cost them NOTHING are being labeled as convenient options that hardly cost anymoney. activision blizzard is mastering the art of milking their customers (as a company should) but only fools would not call them greedy for it, because being greedy is their job. They are just lucky there isnt a good competitor that can get in on their market, and that means its us being taken advantage of BIG TIME.
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Normally, I would not care as these underhanded business tactics are common practise. The thing about this spreading to games though is that a large portion of the audience are teens and young adults who are more susceptable to hype and manipulation. Look at all the kids that run out and buy COD as soon as it hits the shelves even though it's the same game in different packages year after year.
When I was a young man, I wasted alot of time playing games, I know how addictive it can be, but I didn't have to pay through the nose for it. To apply market forces to the supply-demand curve of this is not really taking into account the full picture.
Although I'm the first to hate "think of the children" arguments, in this case I feel it's valid, not for their safety, but exploitation.
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On August 17 2010 18:12 junkacc wrote:
Normally, I would not care as these underhanded business tactics are common practise. The thing about this spreading to games though is that a large portion of the audience are teens and young adults who are more susceptable to hype and manipulation. Look at all the kids that run out and buy COD as soon as it hits the shelves even though it's the same game in different packages year after year.
When I was a young man, I wasted alot of time playing games, I know how addictive it can be, but I didn't have to pay through the nose for it. To apply market forces to the supply-demand curve of this is not really taking into account the full picture.
Although I'm the first to hate "think of the children" arguments, in this case I feel it's valid, not for their safety, but exploitation.
All kids should be told to play diablo 2. That game has really helped me to mature and not be so gullible. I was like 8 when i played it and i've been scammed, ripped off, hacked, and taken advantage of in everyway possible. But that helped me learn not to trust someone for no reason and question things - all without losing anything valuable ))
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We cannot change names... okay we have to pay for a name change now, but seriously i'm okay with that - hopefully this will bring us a more socialized experience with the battle.net. All those bm smurfs *god #?$% it...
What i cannot smurf any more? No second account, no name change, how can i train special bo's or even other races ?
Yeah you will say play custom games ... But i'm at #2 in my diamond with zerg, now i want to play Protoss, but hey i never played Protoss in 1v1 so how can i get some dudes on my level? Custom games? Not really, since you cannot change the game name "1v1 Manner only" "1vs1 No noobs" you will get 75% noobs in custom games ...
Here we need an Improvement:
Just an simple option to join the ladder with his own account but with a different race, so you can play as Zerg in y ladder and as Protoss in x ladder ...
What do you think ?
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On August 17 2010 18:12 junkacc wrote:
Normally, I would not care as these underhanded business tactics are common practise. The thing about this spreading to games though is that a large portion of the audience are teens and young adults who are more susceptable to hype and manipulation. Look at all the kids that run out and buy COD as soon as it hits the shelves even though it's the same game in different packages year after year.
When I was a young man, I wasted alot of time playing games, I know how addictive it can be, but I didn't have to pay through the nose for it. To apply market forces to the supply-demand curve of this is not really taking into account the full picture.
Although I'm the first to hate "think of the children" arguments, in this case I feel it's valid, not for their safety, but exploitation.
I mean I'm going to agree with you here, based off what type of games we play now, I too think the majority of people who shell out $60 each year for a new game with relatively lacking additional features (Madden, COD anyone?) are ridiculous. But that's the model they have set up, you have to have the most current game to be 'competitive' or follow the amount of people playing online, and yes, I think it's overall silly.
The reason I'm not upset at all about this stupid name change thing is because like the other guy said above, its a small fee for a relatively niche market of people who bought SC2. Most people in this thread have the common sense not to pay $10 to change their names, no matter how much they might want to. That's exactly the system Blizzard wants set up for the laddering/smurfing reasons. I sympathize with the low level entry players because I want Starcraft to grow. Anyone who plays Starcraft now, good or bad, remembers innocently getting on battle.net or iccup and getting stomped on by some dude who's smurfing with a 0-0-0 or 0-0 1000 elo record. It sucks, and the no account reset in place now keeps things fair and fun for the largest possible demographic, and doesn't keep the skilled players from being competitive in any way.
And about Blizzard being greedy. Yes, Activision's games are mostly shit (at least in my opinion), Kotick's a douche and their business models are awful. Now, do I care whether Blizzard is greedy as hell? No - and why should anyone else on Teamliquid (the supposed 'growth of esports' notwithstanding)? Blizzard makes the products we want, the more capital going toward them, the more potential for a better product delivered to us. Some say Blizzard has offered us a lower quality product than what they gave us 10-12 years ago. That's up to personal opinion, and obviously bias and nostalgia is going to factor in. (on a side note, I do believe there should be LAN at least. that is bullshit.)
I haven't seen any MMO type pay-to-play business model enter the RTS genre that affects gameplay or player eligibility. So they want you to stay with the same name for reasons the blue post listed, take it for what you will. If you think this is a scheme for vender lock-in, welp, until another company is putting out a game with the quality of Starcraft 2, pretty much everyone here (the hardcore starcraft community) is married to Blizzard regardless. If someone does, then you can happily go play that game, yes? I paid $60 for a game that I personally feel was totally worth it, and I have not (and will not) pay for additional cosmetic things like wings on my thors or the way my name appears to an opponent (yes, I consider it a cosmetic, how is it not). Some people feel the collector's edition price tag was justified, I didn't. That's just the kind of consumer I am. Yeah, what a Blizzard enabler or sheep I am.
About our children - what about the generation before us? What about arcades with .25 and .50 cents a play schemes? Oh yeah, they all died out (at least in America) because pcs and computers caught up to the technology and offered better goods for lower costs. I don't really see this model coming back anytime soon, particularly for competitive rts. You know how isolating that would be to the fan base to pay to ladder? Remember when they announced Real ID for the battle.net forums? That's the kind of noise from the community that tells Blizzard, you can't do this, and that's the worst idea ever. Yes, the Starcraft community has the power to overthrow things like that. If someone's willing to pay to ladder on battle.net, THEY'RE the problem. If the time when paying for ladder ever comes, I'll be picketing alongside you.
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On August 16 2010 23:04 floor exercise wrote:
I hope to one day be able to pay to have my zealots riding sparkling horses
This hahaha
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EPT
