I wanted to share my thoughts and hear what others think about the decision to charge players for early access to the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion.
As a long-time fan and dedicated subscriber, I’ve always appreciated how Blizzard has handled content releases and valued the commitment of its player base. However, asking players to pay extra for early access feels like a step in the wrong direction.
Here’s why this approach concerns me:
Loyalty Should Be Rewarded, Not Monetized
Many of us have been supporting the game for years through monthly subscriptions and purchasing expansions upon release.
Introducing additional costs for early access seems to overlook the loyalty and support we’ve consistently shown.
Creates a Divide Within the Community
Early access behind a paywall can create unnecessary disparities between players. Those who can’t afford or choose not to pay extra may feel left behind, impacting group dynamics and the overall sense of community that’s integral to the WoW experience.
Sets a Worrying Precedent
Monetizing early access could pave the way for more content being locked behind additional payments in the future. This shift towards more microtransactions is concerning and doesn’t align with what many of us value about the game.
Quality Over Early Access
I’d much rather wait a bit longer for a well-polished and accessible expansion than feel pressured to pay more just to experience content sooner. Ensuring that all players can enjoy new content simultaneously has always been part of what makes expansion launches exciting and unifying events.
I understand that developing and maintaining such a massive game comes with costs, and I’m more than willing to support that through traditional means. However, I believe there are better ways to engage and reward the community without imposing additional financial burdens.
I’m curious to hear what others think about this. Do you feel the early access charge is justified, or do you share similar concerns? Let’s discuss and hopefully provide constructive feedback that Blizzard can consider moving forward.
30 days of game time - $15
4 pets - $40
1 toy - $10
1 hs toy - $5
tender - $10 (roughly based on past bundles)
All of that is based off of what they are in the cash shop right now.
Base expansion price is $50.
Then we add in the things from the Heroic Edition that the Epic Edition has, as well.
1 character boost - $60
1 mount - $25
4 transmogs - $80 (and that’s not including the 4 with the lightning effects on them)
Would you like to do the math on that and then tell me how much you paid for early access?
Edit to add: guess how much DF Epic Edition cost that did not have eaerly access? You guessed right… $89.99. The same price as War Within Epic Edition. Now do that math again and tell me again how much you paid for early access.
I don’t care about any of that. It’s all nonsense to me. Pointless pixels. What matters is getting those 3 extra days from the early access. They could add $500 worth of pixels and still only charge $40 and I would still consider it unethical and predatory on the playerbase.
Loyalty is being rewarded. If you own a business your most loyal players are the ones that spend the most which includes purchasing the most expensive expansion package.
Wow’s community has been divided since the game released. The mechanics of the game ensure that.
This has been said since the shop was introduced. Then again with the trading post. At a certain point the doomsayers just need to accept they were wrong. Early access also helps with the strain on the servers because the whole server won’t be trying to quest in the same areas 10 seconds after go live.
Thousands of players competing for the same quest mobs has never been fun.
I guess you don’t remember Legion launch when they solved this already, without using early access, by having all 4 zones a possibility to start off in for players.
I get what you’re saying. But, there are natural mitigations in place. So let’s cover each topic like you did.
Loyalty should be rewarded, Not Monetized.
It is a business. They are always going to try to get that extra penny. The trading post is a good example. They gave us incentive to simply play the game and earn rewards. Did they monetize it? Yeah, but they also gave us something we wanted.
The anniversary events are essentially player rewards. Plunderstorm and Remix are also player rewards that offer new micro-ingame changes that allow players to be rewarded at greater levels.
Creates a Divide within the Community.
The disparity only exists in gold making/professions. Otherwise, everything else in game is set by content release schedule. Only normal dungeons open in prerelease until the 26th. The vast majority of players are not super gold makers. So, the head start will not be a huge deal.
Sets a Worrying Precedent
This worries me the most. I hate Diablo’s season system. If wow places content behind a paywall, that will be the last day I play wow. We already have a monthly paywall.
Quality Over Early Access
Is this the case, though? We don’t know. The expansion may be ready now. Having an early release like this is actually an advantage. If there are errors, you can fix them before the official launch date with less people pissed at you, and they get to have less crowded and busy servers while staggering the load on the servers over a week rather than at one time.
i don’t care about random things people get in game for buying DF epic edition. I care about people being abled to play the game on release. I really don’t care if they changed the cost of the sub. I could run 5 GDKPs on cata and pay for my sub for 10 years
Not sure what I did to ‘earn’ my 5 Beta invites (including this one, even if it was in the very last invite wave), other than play the game, pay my sub and don’t do anything radically awful while doing all that. It’s not like its really useful since its just testing the first part of the first season.
I guess all those things are nice but, except for the month of game time, I wouldn’t be buying any of them. And I’d be paying the month under my sub anyhow, unless I decided to get a token and use that for a month.
I feel its naive to suggest otherwise than that the big hook for many would be the early access. We know how many players feel about the mad dash to cap and giving them the option to do that ahead of the main bunch would be very tempting. Me, I think it takes away something from the launch experience, where we would all start like runners in a huge footrace, all standing behind the line and leaping forward as the starter gun fired.
Ultimately it won’t matter, will be forgotten in a few weeks of play, but as a precedent I think its a bit of a concern.
