welp if u still had doubts about blizz’s primary design philosophy being sub retention this should erase all doubt
bliz isnt stupid, they obviously know that having only one chance at a legendary each month is completely asinine. but on the other hand it forces players to keep renewing their sub
this pretty much confirms that borrowed power is going to be a permanent mechanic in this and every subsequent expansion since it creates a perpetual carrot on a stick scenario. its sad how much this game has fallen since activision took over
Their design philosophy and metric they use to measure success is (Play Time) not subs. The goal of this metric is that players who play more spend more in the Web Shop. This is a tactic being applied in Activision and all AAA games called Whaling.
They much rather have players spending 100, 200 or even 1,000 a month on microtransactions. Instead of having a happy thriving Sub base. This is why players spent 1,000s on corruptions before vendors then after it was a rotation. This is why the Bronto is going away so you have to buy more TOKENS!!
Blizzard tries to create a scarcity to make people spend to save Time so they must gate things behind Time.
Blizzard doesn’t care if you unsub, if subs go down or the sub metric as long as they have enough whales spending each and every month. This is why this philosophy works. It sucks and shouldn’t happen. It’s corrupt business at it’s core. However all that matters is the financial bottom line and it’s not driven by Subs anymore, it’s driven by microtransactions!!
This is why Blizzard can get away with murder because Subs don’t matter anymore…how much people spend does! So everything is designed so players buy more Tokens and stuff from the Web Shop.
Blizzard slowly snuck in these tactics and funneling people into the Web Shop in on us so we wouldn’t notice and still most people don’t notice their horrific agenda and corrupt business practices. It’s a shame really.
Blizzard will never care about Subs again as long as they have a thriving Web Shop. Which means we never will have a great expansion that makes players happy again either.
If enough people boycot WoW they will be forced to do something, I’m going to do my part and take a brake from WoW, I’ll sure miss playing with some friends who still brave enough to endure all this crap, but I’m done. Blizzard managed to push me - and a bunch of other people I know - away from the game. Good job, freaking idiots.
I know quite a few people who’ve bought tokens so they could pay for M+ and raid carries so they could access better gear that made it easier to… ‘compete’ in PVP. I never really thought that they were “paying to win”, but if they are paying money… to have an edge over other players, strictly speaking, I guess maybe… well…
I guess, I mean at least then the new SL PVP gear system would actually make sense if blizz designed it specifically to push token sales:
-Lowering the gear ilvl ceiling for unrated from heroic ilvl to lfr ilvl will force a whole lot of players into PVE, some of which will just buy tokens and pay for carries.
-And then on the other end of it, if conquest gear ‘upgrades’ scale up into mythic ilvl and get hidden behind a rating barrier, you’ll have at least some PVEr’s paying for arena carries, at least some of which will buy tokens to cover the cost.
I mean, it makes sense (in an evil kind of way), but personally, I dont believe what they would make in tokens through that system would make up for the amount of sub money they’d lose by alienating so many PVP players.
Then again they seem to have been alienating PVP subs for years for free, so what the hell do I know?
Which is why PvP players need to not only not buy Shadowlands but cancel their subscriptions, as well. Hit Blizz in the wallet and give them a good scare, possibly even get their shareholders to start demanding they bring Resilience back.
Oh yea they made up more than enough money to cover sub losses and profit which is why they do it! (Well the corrupt people running the show profit) Subs are nothing even PvE subs are nothing because PvE players are huge Web Shop whales for Mounts, Xmogs and other features.
Like I said this tactic works and it’s why every company has switched to it. They have meetings on how to subtlety implement/scam players to spend without realizing what they are doing. It’s scam corrupt tactics and they do it because it works. (it makes way more money then subs)
There are plenty of videos on this many great ones covered by Jim Sterlings Jimquisition exposing these gaming companies for their evil design philosophies to only fatten a few peoples wallets. Here is just one vid of the man ruining it all.
This isn’t gonna happen, simply put. You’re effectively calling for a strike in a game most of us have been playing for over a decade, while in the midst of a global pandemic; and not just in a boring lull period towards the end of a patch, but rather on the precipice of a new expansion release.
I’d argue that culture is also important to developers. Would you, as a gaming company, rather have forums full of complaining customers, or happy ones? Sure, there will always be something to complain about, but imagine if you have the collective arena forums playerbase all chanting the same thing - “fix pvp gearing”.
Blizzard, in this case, can in fact have their cake and eat it too. Revert gearing back to the way it was in TBC, as I remember it. Higher arena rating boosts the max amount of conquest you can farm the following week. Give pvp vendors items with every stat iteration in each slot.
They have their timegating they love so much, and we have our bis, gotten solely from pvp.
I’m not mad at you for being unwilling to let go of this game, even after Blizz has all but abandoned the PvP community. I’ve played this game on and off since Vanilla and, even though I was only a casual player, i’ve developed a strong attachment to WoW. The only reason I care enough to be active on these forums complaining about the vendor situation in the first place is because I want to play this game and enjoy it like I used to.
I do disagree, though, that just posting threads in the PvP forum about the mistakes Blizzard has been making will bring about any change that the PvP community can be satisfied with. It’s not like people haven’t been complaining since the beginning of BfA or since they removed Resilience. If Blizz was going to listen to the forums, they would have done so. The only chance we get them to change their ways is if we speak with our wallets.
This is why we have Classic and soon TBC. They figured out they can make money off the web shop in retail and scam people with time-gated content. Then build Old expansion servers to win back the player they purposely let go. It’s actually brilliant. They get both the players that like retail and the players that hate it.
Nothing will ever change because they make money doing things the way they currently are. That is all that is important. It isn’t about making the players happy.
I didn’t claim there would be any particular result for getting together and making similar complaints repetitively. I simply said it would affect the culture, and I asked you, as a gaming company, what kind of culture would you want to see in your forums, excluding the number of trolls, of course.
Agree to disagree. We need them and they need us. Gamers are effectively the testers to the content creators, and when we explain to them what we want, why we want, and provided it’s a feasible thing for them to do, it would seem to me it’s something that could be implemented.
Personally, I think it’s much easier to organize a lobbying complaint in the forums than it is to organize a mass unsubscribe. Considering this, why not do it? If it doesn’t work out, at least we can say we tried.
There really isn’t any need to organize complaints on the forums. Most of the PvP community is already on the same page in that regard and it isn’t even mutually exclusive with boycotting the game. We can still tell Blizzard what we want on the forums while refusing to give them our money. If anything, it makes our position stronger and makes a desirable outcome more likely.
Yes it is, and no we can’t. You can’t post in these forums without a valid sub. Think the only place you can speak is in general discussion. Good luck getting a point across in there
Actually? Can’t say i’ve ever even looked at these forums while I was unsubbed so I wouldn’t know… In that case, i’ll be more than happy to support your attempts to affect change from the forums until my sub runs out but there’s just no way i’m going to give Blizz any more money until they fix those awful vendors.
It doesn’t seem like that. If they needed us, you’d think they’d listen a little more to our gripes. It seems they are fairly confident that if the whole PVP community dropped off the face of the earth they’d be fine. They’re really banking on their PVE crowd more than anything else.
Im talking about us as customers more so than I’m talking about us as pvp’ers. Yes, as customers, they need us. If something is a reasonable implementation that the playerbase wants, why not implement it? Doesn’t seem to be a good reason to me.
I take no issue. I just think it’s hilarious.
If your habit stems from writing formal letters, I’m surprised you don’t have headers in your replies as well. I guess the “habit” is arbitrarily selective to sign-offs and not headers
I don’t sing in a gym’s bathroom shower because it’s a “habit” for me to sing in my own.
Good thing we aren’t here writing formal letters, but to each his own.
