Something in the Air

When I first began playing World of Warcraft, I had to do it on dial-up. It was not so bad at the time. The original Naxxramas had just been released so most players were busy trying to gear up for it in level-60 raids.

There were plenty of alts running around the old world still, they really had no place else to be unless they were raiding on their mains, so I was not lonely while leveling up my first toon. I was even able to run Dead Mines a couple of times before moving on from Westfall.

As I played more often and in ever growing stretches of time, I eventually found myself playing long into the evenings. At the same time, there was a lot of excitement over the Burning Crusade that was about to drop, and realm populations were on the rise from an influx of new players as well as old players coming back.

I was still on dial-up and had not seen any problems yet. From time to time I experienced a slow-down and some nasty lag, but it was something I was able to work around. But now, all of a sudden, my loading screen was taking a long time letting me into the game.

Then I experienced my first disconnect. I had waited a minute or so for my loading screen to let me through then I caught a glimpse of Stormwind but I could not move. My character just stood there for a while then I was dumped back into the character screen.

The problem escalated until I realised that the population in Stormwind was now a problem. I was eventually able to log in long enough to get out and park myself in Goldshire but I could not enter the city without a disconnect. If I did get into the city, I had to put up with disconnects throughout the zone. Eventually I made a new home with the elves. Far fewer people there. No disconnects.

We finally agreed to pick up cable internet and will never go back by choice. Life was bliss in World of Warcraft again! Except that it was not. Now that things were sort of working properly I could see that I had other issues. I could not raid properly. I had to have all of my video settings down to minimals just to move around. It was mostly OK in close quarters like in most of the Karazhan encounters and in Gruul's, but in the open spaces of Serpent Shrine Cavern, things did not go well at all.

I replaced my video card but I had few options since it turns out my motherboard was obsolete. Which meant my CPU was also a handicap.

I had to drop from raiding until I could overhaul my computer. Oh the sadness. Yes, I was essentially replaced and still being somewhat new to raiding, I was not prepared to see new people in my slot when I was finally able to raid again. From then on I was just kind of miserable. I had the latest and (not quite best on the market) CPU, Ram, Video, and motherboard and now had little joy in raiding. Every time I got in I felt like I was just in the way. I began to complain a lot.

Eventually the guild leaders left, then the guild was disbanded. I joined another guild and got some raid time and they seemed to like me well enough, but they soon merged with another guild and no longer needed me. I went solo for months. I took my first hiatus a couple of weeks before Lich King dropped and found myself simply unable to get back into the game.

My character sits at about 77 1/2 levels. Cataclysm is on the horizon. Back to the old world! If I map out Northrend I'll get my first "big" achievement, my second title, and one more of many tabards. Just a half a level and I can be flying again. Then it is just two more levels to "the end".

Then I can just play around until the expansion comes in. Maybe do some arena stuff and get some new pets.

I don't know. Something seems to be in the air. I really would like to finish this expansion out before the next one drops. I'll be going into Cataclysm with no epics. Maybe not even any blues. But it will be Azeroth and it will be fun again.

The Coming Storm

In my previous post, I brought the marketing and merchandising juggernaut that is Activision-Blizzard.

We know that among the new marketing/sales agendas that the recently merged company has implemented includes quarterly tracking of profits. I don't mean the obvious "are things still selling strong?". I mean the new "What can we do to further increase our profits even though we have no reason on God's green Earth to ever want for another red cent?"

The answer, of course, is to increase the quantity of product releases. Which, of course, does not necessarily mean an increase in quality. There is a line of balance between quantity and quality and it is very easy to cross that line one way or the other. Activision-Blizzard has obviously chosen to go with quantity. Over the next twelve months (or so) we will see the release of three Starcraft II games, Diablo III, World of Warcraft's third expansion, and Blizzard's second MMO.

Then what?

Normally, Blizzard would slowly work on the next high-quality item which might take one or two years more to release. But with the more profit-oriented Activision-Blizzard at the helm of all the Blizzard products, we are seeing the trend of more quantity released more quickly to fulfill quarterly profit goals. That means we will see a deluge of merchandising online and offline, and also either a storm of sequels to the top sellers or a whirlwind of new products and franchises.

Some of these upcoming releases will not be the hits that Blizzard is known for.

Does Blizzard have the back bone and resources to pull out of their deal with Activision if it seems their reputation is being diminished? Would they even want to? There is a lot of money being made since the two merged.

Wait and see, wait and see.

Plushy Pets

It seems the plushies are in after all, and they do indeed come with in game codes for pets. In my previous entry that went over all the ways to obtain vanity items and the costs to get them, I knew there would eventually be a Blizzard-sponsored vanity store of some sort, but I did not know how close they were to revealing it.

The Blizzard store has two pets with two plushy/pets on the way. It is interesting how quickly they came up with a way to make players spend more money for their vanity pets.

Also, take note that the store is called the Blizzard Store, not the World of Warcraft store. That means they intend to sell similar items for Starcraft and Diablo as well. That may seem like a "duh!" detail, but it is important if you want to see where things are headed.

Activision-Blizzard is a juggernaut of marketing and merchandising. The first major clue was the announcement of Starcraft II being released in three volumes rather than one huge, epic game.

I fear some of the features that we will have to pay for to fully enjoy their upcoming MMO.

Of Stats and Gear

Early screenshots of World of Warcraft included pics of a window with lots of stats. It was obviously a hold-over from pen-and-paper games, namely Dungeons and Dragons, where the game was centered around dozens of stats to follow through the course of character development. For many years, these lists of stats was essential to the core gameplay of all pen-and-paper and even computer fantasy role-playing games.

The developers for World of Warcraft decided that the stats would be too cumbersome for the type of player that they wanted to attract. The solution to character growth was found in the gear. Where older games added very limited bonuses to gear, WoW relied heavily on it.

In older games, a single weapon with a single bonus stat (ex, +1 to damage) might last a character for several levels, even through the course of the majority of the game.

But in WoW, a starting weapon would be inadequate within five quick levels, even sooner for less-experience players. You begin receiving upgrades from quests immediately out of the gate. In fact, the very first upgrades can arrive for a level one character from just the first few kills of level one beasts. This sets the stage for the remainder of the character's life. Without the quick upgrades, characters would find themselves outmatched very soon.

By now, most players are familiar with characters who have gear with thousands of points in stats and hundreds of bonus points on top of that.

This is also why there is so much gear in the game, and why Blizzard must spend so much time on gear creation and testing. So much time is spent on gear now that Blizzard has been forced to limit the unique physical features. Characters of different classes have to wear the same gear, but in different colors.

In the end, it appears that by removing the standard stat window with stat-laden gear has caused many headaches for the developers.

What if they were to remove most of those stats and put in that old stat window? Would that give the developers more time to design more unique gear? Or would it just move the headache to a new place rather than removing it all together? Would the artists even be able to design more gear or are they pretty much stuck with their current level of output?

There is so much gear in the game and so much to be added still. I would love to see more interesting designs rather than the oft-hastily slapped together items that we normally get. If moving those stats to a separate window would allow the team to create fewer identical pieces with all of those class-specific stats, and also allow them to focus on more unique designs, would it be worth the effort?

Sort of, Kind of Playing

I reached level 77 a couple of weeks ago and promptly stopped playing again to pursue other online endeavors. My goal is to simply reach level 80 before Cataclysm drops. If I can do that then at least I'll be able to return to Azeroth and lounge around there. At this point, I am not getting what I am paying for. Being off the game for such long periods of time renders your subscription deal worthless. This month the only thing I will have accomplished is to receive the anniversary whelp (I log in every couple of days but log out after checking the mail box). Essentially, I am paying $15 dollars for an in-game pet since I am doing no actual progression through the content.

It could be argued that I've already paid for the content. If that's the case then I should be able to cancel my account and continue playing through what I've paid for, correct? Unfortunately, we all know that this is not true. So, I'm paying for a pet. Gevlon would call me a moron and he would be correct. I might as well buy the Pet Store pets as well, really, when you consider one pet for a $15 subscription payment versus two pets for $20, at this point the better deal for me (in a virtual context) is to buy the Pet Store pets then cancel my account. I'm not sure when my month ends, I might even be able to log in for the anniversary whelp...three pets for $20! Now maybe Gevlon might take back the moron remark and downgrade it to idiot instead.

Well, back to Farmville!

Running Some Numbers

Let's pretend that the Cataclysm expansion dropped today. Also, you monthly is due today. Oh, and you've decided to buy the pets from the Pet Store.

Expac...$40 (your mileage may very)
Sub...$15
Pets...$20

This month you've just spent $75 on World of Warcraft.

It's not really that bad of a deal though. Blizzard's WoW expansions are basically full games unto themselves so the expac essentially pays for itself upon purchase. Adding the sub and the Pet Store pets sort of gives you the impression that you've just bought a collector's edition. If you chose to get the Cataclysm collector's edition and also the Pet Store pets, then perhaps you've paid more than it's all worth, but given a few months of subs then it all sort of balances out. It's not a perfect balance, of course. Your sub doesn't pay for new content every single month, but it does pay for the HUGE content patches every 3-4 months.

So, to recap. $75-$100 for expac, one month sub, and two pets.

Now, let's look at the TCG loot.

There are two forms of TCG loot, codes from the physical cards purchased with cash and codes from the Upperdeck website paid with codes found in each card pack. Price per pack is no longer as straight forward as it used to be. The packs started out at about $5 a pop but now I'm seeing 3-packs for only $10. But let's pretend that the average person is still getting the singles at $5 each. The average loot collector (not necessarily an actual card gamer) is going to buy about $100 worth of packs before scoring even the most lowly of jackpots. Some can score on the first purchase while others will spend $1000 or more and get nothing.

This practice allows collectors to acquire a lot of website codes, worth 100 pts each. The average website reward costs 2000 pts (tabards). So, you pay $5 per 100 pts (one per pack) and multiply that by 20 (2000pts/100pts) and you've just paid $100 for your tabard. As with anything concerning economics, your mileage may very depending on where you buy the cards from. The website has game code items for up to 25,000 pts, you do the math.

Also, we should keep in mind that TCG loot goes up on Ebay and can sell for over $1000.

In a recent interview, Blizzard says they are considering adding an in-game item to a possible upcoming plushy toy. Be prepared to pay top dollar for that code (or toy with code) on ebay soon after it is released and sells out in record time.

Then, of course, there are the event (Blizzcon) in-game codes that are given out for $100+ tickets and are soon found on Ebay for over $1000. Or, as in this past summer, you could have ordered the Blizzcon event on a live stream for $40 and received the in-game pet.

Another recap.

Collector's edition expac (with exclusive pet)...$80 (or more)
Pet Store pet...$10
TCG card loot...$5-$1000 (be lucky or Ebay)
Event entrance tickets...$100+
Event stream...$40
Upperdeck codes...$100
Plushy...?

With the Pet Store recently going live and even selling out of one of the pets once already and a possible plushy bundled with an in-game pet on the horizon, I would say there is a storm brewing. A storm of Blizzard in-game collectibles that will be found in a variety of formats and outlets and will bring in an astronomical profit.

If you thought getting the rare in-game whelps was tough, wait until you see yourself trying to keep track of all the outlets and actually purchasing them with your hard-earned money.

Have fun!

Zarhym speaks about Lake Wintergrasp on the Warcraft Forums:

Clearly that hasn't been the case, but we've learned how the design and appeal of the zone can lead to performance issues if too many players are crowded into a relatively small space.

Are you kidding me?

There's a reason why past world events have had issues. Especially concerning the invasion when the Dark Portal was opened. One reason why the second invasion (just before the launch of the Lich King expansion) was "spread out" was to lessen the lag caused by too many players in one place.

I've been playing for about three years now and I can't recall a time when players were not aware of what happens when too much activity occurs in one place.

Are we seriously expected to believe that only now does Blizzard realize what happens when too many players are in one zone?

Color me boggled.