WoW Cross-Server Real ID Play Goes Live for Testing

[BabyRaptor]

Won't touch it if they make me pay for it. I've already paid for all the games twice and I pay two monthly fees. Plus I have the Authenticator that they made useless about a month back. They want more money out of me for something that should have been in-game at RealID launch? Fuck off.

 

[Shadesong]

But the real question is, where are the new dances?

Q: Will aspects of the Real ID Party system be premium-based?
A: We'll have information on this toward the end of the testing period

Honestly though, this just speaks volumes on Blizzard's greed, nothing more than a shameless money grab; funnily enough this describes a lot of Blizzard's actions lately.

 

[John Funk]

of course paying for an extra service that doesn't give an increase in power, just utility would create a shitstorm with the playerbase. wow-players are some of the most self-entitled players i've seen, to the point where i just avoided other players as much as possible (never visiting forums, never accepting friend invites, never stay on chat-channels).

The term "self-entitled" is all the rage as of late, isn't it?

First, there's a reason the people are so "self-entitled". It's that they pay 15 bucks a month on top of the initial purchase, and it doesn't cost shit for Blizzard to implement. It is (or was supposed to be) just a money grab scheme that is not excusable any way you look at it.

This feature looks awesome, here's hoping its free! As far as gear/individuality goes, I agree that it should be added and it won't take a lot of skill on the developer end. That said, if this news shows anything its that they are willing to cater to the players so... keep your fingers crossed?

What about this [http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/battle-net-2-0-the-antithesis-of-consumer-confidence] news, then? Stop fooling yourself, if Blizzard was in it to make a great game, you would've had that gear/individuality a looooong time ago, simply because they can afford to throw enough money at the game every two weeks that any normal developer can in way more than a year. But they don't, they'd rather get by developing it as cheap as possible.

Do you honestly think that just "throwing money" at a game makes *any* sense for development? Let alone if you want to have a cohesive development team and game style.

Do you actually know how software development works, let alone for a game as massive and complex as WoW?

 

[Keava]

well, they could just charge everyone the extra dollars it costs for the service of crossrealm parties. would you prefer an increase in monthly subscription cost?

And why you think they should?
It's not like they aren't having a huge profit compared to upkeep costs, all the services are automated these days , moving a character from server A to server B doesn't really cost all that much when it's all scripted.

Things like AH access through mobile apps - sure, that can be paid service, don't mind, but anything in game? Especially things like group play ? Bad practice.

 

[John Funk]

Do you honestly think that just "throwing money" at a game makes *any* sense for development? Let alone if you want to have a cohesive development team and game style.

Do you actually know how software development works, let alone for a game as massive and complex as WoW?

Whether it's expanding the development team or making them work harder makes no difference to me. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard's development time versus the amount of content they put out is pathetic, which is, or at least would be in a perfect world, unacceptable for an MMO.

Expanding the development team isn't really that feasible, because how can you assume they'll all be good fits / the content they produce will still need DIRECTION and oversight, so you need to expand management, etc. And you really think just demanding that your employees work harder is a good business practice?

Blizzard's slow development process comes from notorious perfectionism. That is not a bad thing.

 

[John Funk]

Do you honestly think that just "throwing money" at a game makes *any* sense for development? Let alone if you want to have a cohesive development team and game style.

Do you actually know how software development works, let alone for a game as massive and complex as WoW?

Whether it's expanding the development team or making them work harder makes no difference to me. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard's development time versus the amount of content they put out is pathetic, which is, or at least would be in a perfect world, unacceptable for an MMO.

Expanding the development team isn't really that feasible, because how can you assume they'll all be good fits / the content they produce will still need DIRECTION and oversight, so you need to expand management, etc. And you really think just demanding that your employees work harder is a good business practice?

Blizzard's slow development process comes from notorious perfectionism. That is not a bad thing.

I can assume it because the pacing of their development is sluggish. Either they can speed it up, or they're way too rigid to be considered a good game development studio. Don't be saying they don't work faster because they can't, this can not possibly reflect on them positively. I'm not saying crunch-time-all-the-time is a good business practice, I'm saying I don't care what's the best way to achieve a faster pace of development.

Yeah, it would be fine, when it's not a pay to play MMO we're talking about. As it is now, people pay into one full priced game each 4 months, all the while receiving less content than any of the better indie titles provide.

All right, we'll just leave it at "You have no idea how game development actually works" and call it a day.