Blizzard to introduce WoW premium accounts

Seems Blizzard is not content with the money they're already making, and an attemt to outbest even EA in greed has spawned an epic series of threads on the US forum.

The issue at hand is Blizzard's desire to introduce a new premium service which will allow players of different realms to group up for instances using their RealID on Battle.net. This is probably part of a push from Blizzard to create some kind of social networking for all their games. Anyway, not all players seems to take the news too well. Especially when you consider the monthly fee they are already paying.

We've already had several threads on this forum about how the business of gaming often come in conflict with gameplay. I would've thought that Blizzard had more flexibility given their finacial resources, but it seems even they are determined to milk dry their golden calf.

haha thats the thing its most likely to please the share holders rather than the players. But what can you do without either one how else is a game able to stay alive. On the other hand I pretty sure Blizzard has plenty to stay alive. Thanks for the post. One of the few mmo threads I have come across that actually informs its community. I used to be a WOW player myself. Glad I got out of it before this.

Money the root of all evil.

I wonder if there is some panic in the Blizzard camp. They lost some 600k subs recently. The issue seems to be that people consume content to quickly, and Blizzard says they need to speed up content production. Gee, I wonder why?

Given the amount of conveniences added since release it's no wonder people plow through the content. With all the hint systems in place now, even a trained monkey would be insulted. Rift for instance was extreme in this regard. Systems like quest helpers needs to die. Leave that stuff to the web/fansites. The Secret World for instance will require you to actively seek out information on the web for you to be able to solve quests. Don't know if it's be successful but atleast they're trying something different. Another aspects which has gotten ruined is traveling. Rift was just ridiculous with teleporters at every corner (in an already tiny world). WoW also seems to have taken a liking to this and now has so many flightpaths its travelmaps is all cluttered up. Factor in stuff like ultrafast flying mounts and dungeon teleports there's literaly no reason to venture anywere. Before when you traveled to a dungeon, you might end up in a skirmish with the opposing faction. You would call in guild reinforcements. You would say: "Screw this dungeon! These people need to pay!" A lot of these interesting interactions get lost with the added conveniences. It can affect PVP realms particularly badly.

Blizzard seems to push further though. They now also plan to add a dungeon guides (accompanied by some heavy nerfing), which will explain every single raid boss encounter in the game with statistics and hints for fighting them. Seems pretty desperate to me. I wonder how it will turn out. Maybe it's in anticipation for SW:TOR,which I suspect will be very casual.

I'm very happy I got to experience the game at EU launch. Had a lot of fun with my friends playing it. Many of us are still searching for that specialness we experienced, trying out new mmos, always disappointed.

If the extent of the premium account is the ability to link with friends on other servers then I say big deal. Maybe if I had characters across several realms I would feel differently. Apparently only the party leader needs to have the premium account to utilize the cross server grouping.

However, this is part of a foreboding trend from Blizzard in terms of introducing extras for a price. While I appreciate none of them have been vital to gameplay with the possible exception for server transfers, my concern is eventually they will be charging for content a la D&D online's premium modules. I agree, though, in light of their huge customer base and firm place as the #1 MMORPG (I too have tried others and none compare), it's pretty crappy to stick the subscribers with this. I am however, nowhere near a nerdrhaige and ragequit.

A greater concern lies in how this trend will be implemented in Diablo 3. I am anticipating dropping WoW like a hot poker when it comes out assuming there is not a myriad of premium "services". I will be a sad panda if it's not FTP.

EvilManagedCare said:

If the extent of the premium account is the ability to link with friends on other servers then I say big deal. Maybe if I had characters across several realms I would feel differently. Apparently only the party leader needs to have the premium account to utilize the cross server grouping.

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Now, I'll admit I personally hate all these paid extras in a subscription game. This one is a little different though. Paying extras for the priveledge to group with friends in a subscription-based MMO strikes me as pretty bizarre.

hishadow said:

Now, I'll admit I personally hate all these paid extras in a subscription game. This one is a little different though. Paying extras for the priveledge to group with friends in a subscription-based MMO strikes me as pretty bizarre.

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Yep. They should have developed it and kept it free to entice people to continue playing, not used it as something to irritate their sheep.

I think we are starting to see the tail end of the WoW lifecycle. They are trying to gain $$$ by appealing to their hardcore audience because they are losing subscriptions from non-hardcore peeps.

Swiftblade said:

Money the root of all evil.

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No, not the money.

But the greed is - and the focusing on the money.

I think the Bible said it already - the "Golden Calf" ...

theyre making premium accounts mandatory?

serious retardation

glad i quit it 3 years ago

I don't get it with Diablo 3 and Heart of the swarm coming out aren't those alone going to rake in lots of money anyways? They seem to want to milk WOW out as much as possible. Plus there rumors of Titan...code name for Blizz new killer mmorpg. A halo mmorpg apparently.

http://www.mmoculture.com/2011/03/rumor-why-blizzards-titan-will-be.html

it was funny.
but i don't get you.
maybe i need to touch this game by myself so that i can understand better.

great support here.
brief conculsion,clear ideas.
thanks man.