source
Slorkuz wrote:

While i won't deny it isn't a complex system to pull off, the notion that for in the future if a system is complex and offers extra functionality that improves a current system. thus falls out of the obvious small budget the game is on, despite high profits for a MMO.


The responses are mixed some people are eating the excuse served, saying it's normal to pay for "extra" features. Question then is what is defined as extra and what is considered to be included in your already monthly fee.

The other side well, disbelieve and anger that this is some sort of bad joke and a something they would see in a F2P game.

Take note this is blizzards third or maybe even fourth "extra" feature under a year, while the development cycle between patches is still well over 4 to 6 months.

edit: Going over all the posts in the european thread the response on the Oforums is mostly negative. Even MVP (community important picked players by blizzard) are responding negative towards the notion of it being premium.

The general consensus is forming that if you want to play with friends crossrealm and be social you'll have to pay more for a game supposedly holding social gameplay high in their list.
The question Now is will they come back on it and if they do how will they do it, saying it was just an error in communication or admitting it was a bad idea?

But that opens up discussion points of the whole premium service in total are they going to risk that?

Greedy, greedy bastards. A billion a year is not enough for them.

It doesn't surprise me at all. It was pretty obvious that RealID would be able to facilitate cross-server grouping. It was noticeably absent from the LFD functionality. The only thing they hadn't figured out was how to monetize it.

Just release another damned $25 mount, Blizzard! Pay for it that way.

Greedy sons of bitches. Rot in hell.

People have options now, Blizzard. Heard of Rift?

Being able to group with friends to do something in game is a premium feature?

Guys and gals, I predicted that eventually Bobby Kotick would ruin Blizzard and WoW. I rest my case.

And "Real ID" rears it's ugly head again. Remember it was not so long ago that Blizzard was going to make that mandatory to be able to use their services at all? Seems to be like a backdoor way to make it mandatory, tie it to a feature that everyone wants, then someone like Kotick stepped into the room and upped the ante by making them pay MORE for it too.

You would think that with WoW now acknowledged to be in a subscriber decline that they'd know better than to do something like this. Clearly not. Kotick is going to try to milk as much cash out of them as he can, until they leave. He and Smed were cast from the same mold.

It's remarkable, really. This attitude of short-sighted greed is so not the way Blizzard got big and famous in the first place.

They used to be about quality and extra value. Kotick & co. never would have created battlenet as it was for the Diablo, SC, WC years. 'Online play...for FREE! Are you CRAZY!"

It's about adding value to your product, you fucking retard.

Just as adding a 'friends' list to LFD would have added great value. Instead it will drive insulted players away. Rift beckons, and so will GW2, Tera, SWTOR, and TSW.

Few will shed tears for Blizzard now.

It's called walking over dollars to pick up dimes. Something John Smedley has made famous.

Greedy assholes like Kotick and Smed aren't capable of thinking long term, they want to grab as much cash as they can short term which has the effect of destroying their companies long term.

If WoW's subscriber slump starts becoming a dive how much you want to bet Kotick reacts with even more "premium" pay crap? Haven't they already said they were going to release expansions faster? Which you can translate to meant they will be smaller, but not cheaper, and more often. Which means paying more for less.

While a small storm is happening on the forums both American and European region including fansites, the first indication is that they will not budge on this issue unlike they did with RealID what ended up to mandatory aswel eventually.
Netherian wrote:

To come to the first bolded paragraph, first is mentioned they are considering their fan and subscriber base feedback, then after that it is mentioned their view on resolving this is to lay out and be transparent why the additional cost is justified.

For the rest we can conclude that, they dislike people theorycrafting and thinking further about the reasons "why does it really cost us extra money?" by denouncing alternatives other then their to come justifiable reasons to be crazy talk, then finishing it up with "don't flame each other" while what the official actually did was giving fuel to the die hard fanboys and girls to defend this.

As expected this line of thought continued aswel under others who accused them of being disconnected with their playerbased and disliked feedback being written off that easly. This was met with.

Which was a nice answer what danced around the actual subject, saying that it's just some feedback. Basically still generating enough ammo for some people to go out their way and defend this.

source(MMOchamp dev tracker)

F*ckin crap arguments of Activision/Blizzard Kotick acolytes...

Anyone read 1984? Big Brother, doublethink, that sort of stuff?

I'm saying that it's happening all around us, everywhere and most people aren't even aware of it, gobbling it all up. 1984 is now, only not in totalitarian powerblocks, but in capitalist, corporate democracies.

Who would've guessed 60 years back, eh?
This is what they fought the Big War for, the times we're living in now. Poor saps.

I thought I was a premium sub with my $15 a month....for most of going on 7 yrs...

The Fur wrote:
You were. Now you'll just be a second class citizen, congratulations with your promotion to this exciting new level (in line with the 'if you say it like it's a fun, positive thing to happen, people will think it is')

Nononsense wrote: Didn't Marx predict this capitalist bullshit we are living in now?