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Microsoft has ‘let Blizzard be Blizzard’ following its acquisition, studio says
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Out of the loop here, but my recollection was WOW printed money because they were a subscription service before it was cool. I can't say I'm surprised, but are they really doubling down with MTX?
I feel like the justification for subscriptions is "this way we can afford to keep adding new content." To turn around and go "oh, BTW, you have to pay separately for that new content you're subscribing for" just feels like an extra slap in the face. But I guess you do you WOW players. They'll keep pulling this kind of BS as long as folks keep paying for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Remember, that's the third time you have to pay! The first rug pull is when you buy the game and then find out that the entire world is utterly devoid of players because everyone only plays the latest expansion. But you can't access it because you don't have a subscription. On top of a full price game.
Besides the switcheroo, I also think it's sad for WoW. Its world is massive and beautiful and utterly dead. Everyone is only in the latest zone. The game would be better named "Zone of Warcraft". I love how e.g. Elder Scrolls Online solved it. They made all zones viable. You will see players everywhere. It's a real contrast.
I don't understand why people whine about subscriptions so much. Servers ain't fucking cheap to run for millions of players, the options are microtransactions or subscriptions and I prefer subscription almost every time.
Oh you don't wanna host? Then allow users to host. Fuck games as a service.
People would be OK paying a subscription if Blizzard didn't fire all of their game masters and let the game be infested with bots and extremely racist and homophobic players. Ticket wait time are 2 months... you'll pay $30 before your report is even seen and then completely ignored.
I prefer subscriptions too. I balk at asking full price for a game, and then finding out you need a subscription on top as well.
They don't hide it tho? It's not like a secret they're keeping
They are not hiding that you need a subscription to access the latest expansion. But they don't tell you the rest of the game is dead so you need the latest expansion to do basically anything.
There's plenty to do outside the latest expansion, I really don't know how you'd propose they do any better either. They don't just release a new expansion and do nothing until the next (usually. It has happened, this current cycle has been great though) they make content for 2 years between expansions. I think that WoWs method is honestly the best one. People love to talk about how wonderful FF14 is and it's the same thing. Most the most well liked MMOs use this method for a reason.
There are exceptions like Warframe which uses their platinum market to find the game through people willing to pay to win and supporting people who farm the materials people can buy with their Platinum. Guild Wars avoided this issue by making the patches between expansions their own smaller expansions with their own price tag. Both these games, while being great games, have far more extensive mtx shops than WoW or FF14 do as a result, though.
If you treat it as a single player game maybe. There are very few players outside the latest expansion. Maybe a few power-levelling alts. Some quests are almost impossible because you're supposed to do them with multiple people and there's nobody around.
I prefer the Elder Scrolls Online way. It has far less power creep and more sideways progression, so people run all content all the time.
The sub is great for their bottom line. The current state of the game is selling carries for everything from pvp, ranked, raids, dungeons, even leveling. To fund these legal in game purchases blizz will sell you gold for money. They also introduced a cosmetic store with in game currency which you earn by keeping the sub active. Then finally they have their normal store of mounts and pets for cash.
Subscriptions are to keep the lights off, servers on and server maintenance and improvement. Then purchases of expansions covers the cost of development.
MTX in such a game is a bit weird, but it does give something for extra asset creation and animation. I suppose if they make something that doesn't end up being used they can repurpide it as a pet or mount.
It's the trading money for gold and the effects of the economy in wow that put me off.