I know that my hearth will be set to the shrine after the patch since there is a portal to Boralus in the new room. That will be for my Pandaland bosses and things there, but not for CoT. I have the ring to old Dalaran from long ago, but then there is also the portal from the portal room too. Which I might point out that there has NEVER been a direct portal to old Dalaran from anywhere but the shrine.
Access to the Northern Eastern Kingdoms is the other one that really sucks. Also since I am not 120 and would not have access to the new portal to Arathi Highlands.
I did the math (way above) about how much it’d add to time played in a week.
IE small amount of time added multiplied by a bunch of Collectors. I set it at a “low” figure of 5000 collectors, and figuring they ran CoT 5 times a week. Gives a nice reasonable number.
It came up to over a thousand extra hours of time played every week. And when they report figures, they do them in bulk. That’s the logical way to do things after all. And it looks impressive.
Jopsy, yes, I got the You No Take Portal reference.
It’s because Blizzard themselves switched to that metric. And then sold the concept to their shareholders, many of whom likely have no idea what a video game even is.
If Acti-Blizz says “dis number mean we doin good”, then they buy into that idea. And as long as they keep turning a profit, it appears to the holders that Blizz is correct.
Say you have a customer who spends 10 hours a week playing your game. Now say you have extra services available. That’s only “ten hours” they’re tempted to use the extra services. But if you can convince them to play for 15 hours a week, that’s more time that they’re tempted or given reason to pay for the extra services.
Also, more time played implies the game is healthy because people are doing things in the game. They’re active.
And a healthy game will bring in more money in the long run. It’s not risky. It’s not going to suddenly fizzle out.
But surely they would know that since it is a sub based game, time in game does not matter. But I am guessing they play it like “The more time they spend the more they will renew their sub”. Which is what Pathfinder is all about from the looks of it.
AND I see the more in depth post right above detailing some of this. ok I see why now
The mindset behind that is scary. It’s better that they hate each other than to hate the company. Because if they hate the company, they may respond by taking their business elsewhere. If they hate each other, they’ll just be grade A jerks. So long as their money is green, the company doesn’t care how they behave.
Problem is, that creates a reputation on what your fellow players are like. And honestly, if I’m going to get into a hobby or any activity, I want to know the people I’m dealing with aren’t Grade A jerks.
You know, this whole portal thing could also be solved if they had, as someone mentioned somewhere, things pop up across the world to get players out there. Dare I say even WQ scattered across the old zones since this is “A faction war” afterall right. But make them interesting and not mind numbing.
Part of me thinks there are running out of ideas of what to do to make the game continue. But there have been a wealth of suggestions out there for that, but if they did those then it would mean they were indeed listening they can’t have that now can they
To play the devil’s advocate, the past year or so hasn’t been good on the entire industry. Yes, they’re still making bank, but profits across the board in the computer industry ARE down.
Still, bad decisions like this and “don’t you have phones?” from Blizzcon aren’t exactly helping.
Ya, that was the ultimate jaw dropper for me when I heard it said. I could not believe that was even thought and by the silence of the crowd I was not the only one.
Oh, well the entire computer industry hasn’t been doing well. Which of course includes the video game industry. But when you add “poor performance” on top of being seen as out of touch, greedy, arrogant, sloppy, lazy, the list goes on …
When you add all that together, its no surprise profits are down for companies like Blizzard.
I am so glad that people are starting to see right through this corporate facade - I appreciate this post a lot. You’re absolutely right - they don’t want us angry at them, they want their shills to troll us, instead. (Honestly - how many of them really are other players, and not just higher-ranking employees posing as players?)
Everything ActiBlizz does nowadays is driven by pure greed and avarice. Tired of hit and run month subs where they go away and disappear? Let’s take away their means of travel and force them to fork over the cash for another month - obviously, if you squeeze hard enough, some of them will do it just to reach their goals.
It’s sick. Absolutely sick and disgusting - but it’s what Blizzard has turned into, and it’s what Activision has always been.