*P(ay) 2 W(in), generally meaning you have to buy things within the game for real money or be at a massive disadvantage.
You've probably heard that Blizzard is planning on adding an in-game shop for real money. Let's go ahead and assume it'll also be introduced in the US and EU just for the sake of argument. You may have also noticed some people pretty much being hysterical about it, calling WoW a sell-out, saying it might make them quit, etc. Based on what we know, they're being absolutely ridiculous (unless I've missed additional announcements) - allow me to explain why.
First of all, I believe there have only been two confirmed items on the real money shop.
1. 100% experience bonus
2. Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
Now, it seems likely that the various mounts and pets will be included but we simply don't know yet - and I doubt anyone will complain about being able to directly buy those in-game.
So let's look at those two things throwing players into fits.
100% Experience Bonus
People complain about how fast they level already (simply doing quests in a zone and a dungeon or two at the appropriate level will make you outlevel the zone in the 1-60 range). Then they complain even more about how getting 50% or more bonus experience from heirlooms makes it even faster. Then they complain about the Recruit-A-Friend program that gives a 200% bonus (I guess, it would logically follow, right?).
In other words, the "leveling game" is already compromised. Very few people experienced in WoW care about leveling (if anyone) - saying you have a level 90 evicts a "Well, duh?" response instead of "Whoa, you actually hit maximum level!" You might find leveling interesting (I actually generally enjoy it on multiple characters) but you don't think it's some kind of achievement.
Furthermore, I'm surprised people have just now complained about being able to skip hours of leveling using real money. After all, that feature has been in the game for quite some time. I am speaking, of course, about server transfers. Without server transfers, you'd have to level a new character from scratch on a server and regear them - which is a lot of time. With server transfers, you can simply instantly transport your character and skip that whole deal - by spending real life money. Anyone remember the days before server transfers? I do.
So allowing people to save hundreds of hours releveling and regearing a character by spending money is fine but allowing them to double their leveling speed is not?
In short, if people want to spend real life money to speed up leveling - who cares? They're still going through the motions, just at a faster pace. I guess it'll help with the achievements for multiple max levels or the "Stay Classy" guild achievements - but again, who cares? At this point, if you don't like leveling, it's nothing more than a time sink.
Unless you're arguing that a top raiding guild will get an alt to 90 a few days later than their competition because they didn't use the boost and thus they had less time to gear the alt and thus they killed the boss later and lost ranking, this will not affect anyone. Leveling used to have a speed limit of 10 MPH. Now it's 50 MPH. Does letting people speed at 100 MPH really matter?
Final note: it might affect Realm First leveling achievements, but it might just be disabled for that (or at the start of an expansion, period). Or for people who really care, they might have to shell out a few dollars to compete in that one time event per expansion. Not exactly the end of the world.
Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
Here is something absolutely critical to keep in mind: Lesser Charms have a spending cap. You cannot use more than 50 per week. Period (unless it bugs out like it did a few weeks ago, but that's not the norm). So even if you could afford to buy 50000 Lesser Charms per week, it wouldn't matter because you can only spend 50. What does this mean in practice?
Speaking for myself, it takes me 30-60 minutes to get the 50 Charms per week. Probably longer for people with worse gear, but ultimately we're talking about an hour or two of dailies per week, tops. Apparently Pet Battles are also really good at generating Charms - a person in my guild has over 2000 Charms or something. But they do him no good because he can't spend them - so it saves him an hour a week, tops, of doing dailies.
So if you buy Lesser Charms, you save one hour a week of dailies (ignoring the rep and valor for the moment). Content that is designed to be easy and repeated hundreds of times. If someone said to you "Yeah, I spent $5 to skip an hour of dailies this week" do you really think "OMG SO UNFAIR THE WORLD IS ENDING?" Many players (who are time-rich) may think he was silly/stupid/moronic but it doesn't impact them in any meaningful way.
In short: Lesser Charms available for real money? Who cares? Anyone who's ever thought "I'd pay money to skip these stupid dailies" is getting their wish. And if you can't stomach the thought of paying to avoid an hour of grind - you're right where you are right now, doing your 25 dailies a week in an hourish.
Conclusion
Now I suppose it's possible Blizzard will announce they're going to sell heroic raid gear or elite conquest gear in the store, but until they do let's not panic, all right? Someone being able to level twice as fast is not the end of the world - they already level insanely fast compared to the "old days." No one cares about you having a level 90, it's expected. Likewise, someone being able to skip an hour of dailies per week is not going to destroy WoW as we know it. It's a minor convenience for people tired of dailies or for those who are short on time, either in general playtime or in a specific situation (ever been short on Charms and frantically trying to finish dailies before raid time?).
So again: who really cares? You're not missing about on something you would otherwise have by not buying them - the game stays exactly the same for you as it is now. And neither of those options has an impact on something competitive which means you can't gain an advantage by spending the money.
The sky is not falling.
The sky may not be falling, but it certainly feels strange to be discussing the purchase of a chance of gear as a "nothing to worry about".
ReplyDeleteIt is a short walk from there to outright cash for character systems. Till recently that has not been what WoW did. So the sky is not falling but the world is changing significantly.
And if I'm going to be paying microtransactions then I'll consider other options more heavily.
The key thing is that you get the purchase of the chance for gear no matter what each week - the only question is whether you spend 30-60 minutes doing the dailies (assuming you don't have a stockpile of coins) or if you buy them for real money. It's going to happen for high end raiders either way.
ReplyDeleteIf this was a way to buy EXTRA Elder Charms or something I'd be a bit more worried, because that's something you don't already get anyway and cannot get outside of spending money. As it is it makes no competitive difference.
And, of course, you can skip the micro-transactions entirely. If these two options go in, nothing changes for you. Blizzard is not doubling the experience needed or tripling the charms needed per week. You can play exactly how you used to, and if other people have less time they can pay a little to skip some monotony that has no practical effect on you.
Hello, voice of reason, pleased to meet you! I'm totally with you out in this little corner of the world where perspective and sanity have at least a minor foothold.
ReplyDelete@TA and anyone else coming at it from that viewpoint from here on.
Even if those particular perks come to this region (which hasn't even been HINTED at, it's not like separate lockouts became a global thing), worst case, it's a trivial quality of life improvement for someone else if you choose not to take advantage and has zero negative impact in your gaming life and could even be a benefit (could be a buddy who you were leveling with who fell behind and wants to catch up). Best case, it's a trivial quality of life improvement for you if you choose to take advantage that's of no negative impact to anyone else and, again, could be a positive impact if you're power-leveling a toon to help out your raid group.
From what I recall about RAF the one time I used it years ago (to run with a buddy new to the game), you could basically insta-level a toon by 60 levels in ADDITION to a 300% XP boost for a month. I haven't heard anyone complain about that to a significant degree, nowhere near to the level that we're seeing with this current storegate fiasco. But an XP boost consumable, that you can also get while killing mobs out in the world to send to alts, THAT'S where we're going to draw the line and lose our freakin' minds? C'mon.
Remember the Guardian Cub? Buy a pet with real dollars, sell it in-game for gold. You could then turn that gold into, gasp, WEAPONS and ARMOR and other "pay-to-win" items. Basically, Blizzard was indirectly selling gear from their store. Was there an uproar about this? Not that I can recall. Has it been repeated since? Nope, which tells me more than anything that, uh, not enough people bought it to be worth the effort to do again. If THAT didn't tip the scales into P2W, what could? Oh yeah, XP boost potions. Right, forgot there for a second.
So, yeah, let's all get crazy excited about something that likely won't ever happen here in the first place and won't have any actual impact even if it does. If you wanted to jump on the slippery slope bandwagon, either RAF or the Guardian Cub or one of probably many other situations would have been the time to do it. But now? About THIS? It's just silly. We've had much bigger oppportunities for imbalance and, guess what, the world didn't end and I can't point to one single negative short- or long-term impact for either of those situations. We'll get through this crisis intact. Really.
Those are all excellent points. And yeah, I forgot about the level granting part of RAF - that made it even more ridiculous. I remember doing a dungeon with 2 people using RAF pre-60 and they gained at least 3 levels in a single 20ish minute run. Was crazy.
ReplyDeleteAlso a good point about the Guardian Cub and being able to try to sell those for some gold if people want.
I do understand the concern that we don't want to encourage Blizzard to design insane grinds so that we pay to skip them - but so far we haven't seen any evidence of that. To repost something I posted here on the Kor'kron 501st blog:
“Now consider the Lesser Charms. If you purchase Lesser Charms, you’re paying money to skip a part of the game. Instead of creating something enjoyable that people want and charging them for it, they’ve created something that people don’t want and then are charging to skip it. Despicable.”
That’s not analyzing the situation correctly – the introduction of Lesser Charms have nothing to do with them charging for it.
See, back in Cataclysm, some people complained there wasn’t anything to do outside of LFR. Most Heroic Raiders disagreed, they were happy simply raiding and then doing PvP or whatever they wanted if they had extra time. These other people, however, weren’t interested in Heroic Raids (or even normal raids) so there really wasn’t anything else for them to do.
Thus, in MoP, Blizzard gutted Valor from raids – you used to get 80%+ of the valor cap from clearing a raid of 7-8 bosses in Firelands and Dragon Soul. This was meant to give people stuff to do outside of raids or something. As an additional thing for people to do, Blizzard added in Lesser Charms to make people do dailies.
Both of these changes were unpopular with heroic raiders in general (and probably all raiders in general) – these people were already dedicating time each week and didn’t want extra chores to do. But for the people only doing LFR and clearing the entire “raid” the first week a section was open, it gave them busywork to keep them in-game.
You’ll note that Blizzard already lowered the Charm requirement from 90 to 50. And Heroic Scenarios were added to be an excellent source of valor. But the Charm requirement still means a player with 13/13H on farm needs to do 25 dailies each week – which really sucks because it’s trivial, boring, menial content (don’t get me wrong – I actually generally enjoy dailies and grinding rep. I do *not* enjoy doing the same dailies nearly a year later because I need Charms).
Now Blizzard is (potentially) offering an option to simply pay some money to skip some boring chores – chores that only exist because of people who only do dungeons and LFR.
I hate having to valor cap with over 50% of it coming from outside raids. I hate having to do 25 dailies a week. But I understand Blizzard put it in to try to retain players at a much lower level – to give them a weekly grind since otherwise they’d just do LFR each week in a handful of hours and be done (with zero progression involved and no chance of failure).
Now, if Blizzard introduces a feature that seems aimed at being skipped with something bought from the store, I will be the first to decry it and yell at Blizzard. But that’s not why Charms were introduced. They existed long before the in-game store existed as a concept.
Hey, I realise I'm a bit late to this discussion but seeing your post got me thinking and I wanted to give my take on the whole thing. I saw that you had a debate on someone elses blog comments about this and I didn't get a chance to fully read it all so apologies if someone else has raised these points already.
ReplyDeleteI think if you look at this in the short term then it's not a great big deal. Like you say it just gives someone who doesn't like doing boring dailies the option to pay not to do them.
Looking a bit longer term though and there's something about it that really sticks in my craw. As recently as in Cata the sources of ugrades to your gear looked something like this (simplified and with numbers pulled from the air for the sake of illustration):
80% of gear from raids (including gear from the valor you got as a result of doing raids)
20% of gear from valor outside of raids (obtained from dungeons)
In MoP this changed slightly with the introduction of charms and new sources of valor to where it looked something like this:
70% of gear from raids (including gear from the valor you got as a result of doing raids)
20% of gear from valor outside of raids (obtained from dungeons, scenarios, dailies etc.)
10% of gear from charms (obtained through dailies, pet battles etc.)
As you’ve mentioned the stated intention from Blizzard was to encourage you to get out in the world and for it to feel less like a lobby game. Whether they’ve succeeded in that or not is besides the point. Now, instead of turning up for raids and capping valor you had to show up for raids, cap valor and do your dailies for charms (leaving reputation out as you mention). And the extra time spent to get the charms isn't taken out of the time spent getting gear from other sources, this is time on top of what you used to do in Cata anyway. Blizzard may have had noble intentions for this change but it quickly became apparent that it was a chore, even if for only 1 hour a week (not counting alts). So much of a chore in fact that a lot of people, presumably including yourself, would be quite happy to pay an extra X cash amount to cut that chore out every week.
But if you look at the two examples above you are now paying your sub + X amount to have the same 100% chance of gear upgrade options that you had for just your sub in Cata. In effect, your sub has now increased for no extra reward.
And you could say that you have the option to not pay the money and to grind them as you did before, but this is a grind, a chore, and the chore now has a real world cost attached to it so either way it has a monetary value. Opportunity cost and all that.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that it may not be pay to win but it is a subtle way of making you pay for something that you effectively got for free as recently as in Cata.
Better late than never!
ReplyDelete"But if you look at the two examples above you are now paying your sub + X amount to have the same 100% chance of gear upgrade options that you had for just your sub in Cata. In effect, your sub has now increased for no extra reward.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that it may not be pay to win but it is a subtle way of making you pay for something that you effectively got for free as recently as in Cata."
That's certainly true, but you're missing two vital points.
First, and probably more importantly, we're talking about two different audiences here. For a raider like myself, Cataclysm was great - guild cauldrons, guild feasts, no outside chores except maybe a dungeon or three for valor (but valor didn't matter the entire tier). However, non-raiders were simply bored out of their minds. Look at Dragon Soul - they facerolled LFR once a week and then they were done. They felt like they had nothing else to do in-game. They had no progression, social ties, theorycrafting, or anything else to keep them involved in WoW.
And so they complained about having nothing to do. Enter Blizzard reducing valor from raids and introducing coins. Now these LFR heroes could go do dailies to get more chances at loot in LFR. It gave them a reason to be in-game and play beyond just LFR - even if it was a chore, it kept them in-game and busy.
Now, this royally sucks for raiders to get these extra chores, but Blizzard needed a way to give LFR heroes something to do outside of LFR. We were collateral damage - though I'd be interested to see what would happen if the Charms only worked in LFR.
So, yes, we're looking at paying for something we got for free in Cataclysm, but in Cataclysm non-raiders had nothing to keep them busy and thus quit. Blizzard needed to give these people a time-sink (and if these people pay for Charms, hey, they're less likely to quit a game they feel more invested into).
Second, WoW's subscription is still $15. If adjusted for inflation, the subscription should be $18.54. And personally I'd be willing to pay more than that - we're still talking less than a dollar per day here. So if I wind up buying 50 Charms every week for $2 each week, I spend $23 a month. Big deal - the subscription should be higher anyway and it's still incredibly cheap entertainment.
I'm not rich by any means, mind you, but $8 more a month is insignificant. That's like one or two beers at a bar or something.
However, if other people are more time-rich than I am, they can "subscribe" for $15 a month at the cost of having to spend extra time per week for Charms.
They get their stuff to keep them subscribed, I spend a little more to enjoy the game I like.
I'd absolutely prefer just removing Charms (or have them drop from raids) and getting enough valor from raids to not have to do other stuff, but I get why Blizzard wants to give LFR heroes a time-sink each week to keep them in-game more.
@Anon2 (from Anon1)
ReplyDeleteYou're missing one other point... assuming base drop rates haven't changed since Cataclysm (which for normal raiding at least they haven't, bosses still drop 2 pieces in 10-man and NEVER whatever piece I'm most wanting at the time) you aren't losing a SINGLE THING compared to Cataclysm. The Elder Tokens (and Lesser Tokens and Mogu Doodads) are, literally and figuratively, BONUS ROLLS. Optional. New to MoP to allow you to gear up very, very incrementally faster, sometimes (maybe), than in Cataclysm.
Yes, if you're of the personality/gameplay type that requires every possible advantage ASAP, if you must get fully kitted out in 16 weeks instead of 17 weeks, go ahead and farm charms (or buy them if that option becomes available if an hour of work a week outside of raids is too much to bear). But don't lose sight of the fact that they don't MATTER to core gameplay. If you're raiding, you're raiding, another piece or gear or two per tier (and probably dupes anyway) won't change that. You're participating in the content you choose to participate in. If you CHOOSE to participate in an aspect that you don't enjoy, that's fully within your "freedom of choice" domain as well and I salute your willingness to succumb to the OCD within.
And anyone who makes this complaint who's an LFR raider who feels they need tokens? I don't even know where to start in response to that...
If this does come to pass (tokens for dollars), it won't be subtle. There'll be nothing subtle about it. It'll be Blizzard shrugging and saying "Okay, despite the fact that we have half a dozen or more different ways to get VPs and tokens (I'll mention some below), there are people who refuse to log in outside of raid times who believe they also still need tokens for optimal gameplay... for those people, and anyone else who chooses to partake, we offer these tokens for sale on the in-game store." And, overheated opinions notwithstanding, nothing will really change. Those folks will either not buy tokens and nothing will change, or they will and they'll have spent $2 or $5 for, probably, nothing useful, just like what tokens lead to now. If not like someone else in my raid having tokens has any influence at all on whether I get loot. In fact, I'm MORE likely to get loot since they may actually get something on a token that I'll be rolling on later. Bring on cash for tokens!
Would I like more VP from raids? Sure, but it isn't difficult to cap. These days, I get about 300 VP from raids, 200 from the Barrens weekly (I farm while sitting in LFR queues or waiting for friends to queue for a HS or two) and the rest comes from a combination of 5-mans, HS &/or LFR (depending on the week and my mood) or by farming rares out on the Island. If I don't cap by Wed it's because I chose not to, not because it was difficult. I do zero dailies unless I feel like doing them. Blizzard is having very little influence over how I play... I play how I want, even if it's somewhat sub-optimal and takes a bit longer. I'm playing to play, not to play LESS.
"Yes, if you're of the personality/gameplay type that requires every possible advantage ASAP, if you must get fully kitted out in 16 weeks instead of 17 weeks, go ahead and farm charms (or buy them if that option becomes available if an hour of work a week outside of raids is too much to bear). But don't lose sight of the fact that they don't MATTER to core gameplay"
ReplyDeleteActually, they absolutely do matter to heroic raiders. It's over a 20% increase in loot per week (0.45 items - and yes, you won't use all of them, but you won't use all of the 2.0-2.4 items that drop on a full ToT clear) and will result in quite a substantial amount of items - especially when we're talking tier pieces, weapons, or trinkets. Those matter when you're competing for rankings and recruits. You need every advantage you can feasibly get or your guild will likely die (the best recruits go elsewhere and your guild deteriorates over time).
"If you CHOOSE to participate in an aspect that you don't enjoy, that's fully within your "freedom of choice" domain as well and I salute your willingness to succumb to the OCD within."
"Choosing" not to get charms is like "choosing" not to wear pants while raiding. You can still beat bosses but it's an artificial handicap (likewise you can "choose" not to use flasks/potions/gems/enchants/food/etc).
http://balkothsword.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-ring-vendor-on-optional.html
"If not like someone else in my raid having tokens has any influence at all on whether I get loot. In fact, I'm MORE likely to get loot since they may actually get something on a token that I'll be rolling on later."
Those two sentences do contradict each other, you know. Someone else using charms absolutely increases your own chances as you say - which is why raid teams expect every member to use them each week.
"Blizzard is having very little influence over how I play... I play how I want, even if it's somewhat sub-optimal and takes a bit longer. I'm playing to play, not to play LESS."
This logic doesn't work when it comes to heroic raiding, though. If you want to play sub-optimal, then you're going to be in a sub-optimal guild. Likewise, people already wiping dozens or hundreds of times a week probably don't feel like they need to do dailies or heroic scenarios to keep them engaged in the game (which, again, is why I don't care if they're sold for money, it's nothing but a time sink). My guild has currently wiped on Heroic Lei Shen at 2% once and 1% twice. Another item or two might have made the difference. We'll clean up our execution and get it, but items do matter for the hardest heroic fights.
I do find it amusing that we apparently reached the same conclusion for opposite reasons.
You: "They're purely a bonus that doesn't really matter, who cares if they're sold on the store?"
Me: "They're an idiotic required time sink, who cares if they're sold on the store since we have to get them either way?"
The main people objecting seem to be the people who perceive them are important but who aren't dedicated enough to get them every week without fail regardless.