Blizzard Releases Race Changer for WoW

[Guest]

I dont understand everyone complaining:
1) If u dont play the game, this news shouldnt be any of ur concern
2) If u dont play the game, dont think everyone will use it
3) If u play this game, then u probably wont use it anyway
4) If u use it this service, well it's not my money, so please do if u feel the need...
5) Can't blame wizard for asking money, first it takes time to do this, second it stops those that would change every 5 minutes...
6) Yes i play wow, yes i pay for it every month, I do got a life and i still like the game, and i think it giefs me value for my money...

Nerd out!

 

[jalek]

The surprising part of this news is that Sony Online Entertainment rolled this out for their games before Blizzard.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Possibly, but Activision Blizzard doesn't need rootkits to accomplish it!

 

[quickwind]

The problem isn't really the race change itself, but the principle behind microtransactions and a monthly fee. Many people only want to pay for the monthly fee or can't really afford a bunch of bs pay stuff. Yet pay stuff is getting more and more useful and giving people who can willingly give cash to MMO provider a greater edge, even if they aren't good players or don't spend a lot of time on the game.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]quickwind[/nom]The problem isn't really the race change itself, but the principle behind microtransactions and a monthly fee. Many people only want to pay for the monthly fee or can't really afford a bunch of bs pay stuff. Yet pay stuff is getting more and more useful and giving people who can willingly give cash to MMO provider a greater edge, even if they aren't good players or don't spend a lot of time on the game.[/citation]
I see your point, but I kinda like this approach to some extend. I used to play a game called Gunbound from some korean provider (softnyx). I enjoyed the fact that I could afford good 'gear' to give me an edge compared to the kids that were playing for free (and generally were better players than us grownups)

 

[zak_mckraken]

I once paid to use the then-new character recustomization system, or whatever it's called. I wanted to switch my warrior from Tauren to Orc. Got a but pissed to see that I couldn't do that yet. So, it turns out I paid $20 to get new horns. Yay.

Now, I can pay $25 to really do it? Well, no thanks. Leveling will be the new cool thing when the next expansion comes out anyway.

@neiroatopelcc: Is Gunbound still around? I used to play a lot 4-5 years ago. I got frustrated and quit because I had the feeling everyone was cheating. Maybe I was just bad! Also the game a serious lag issues. It was a lot of fun though.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]zak_mckraken[/nom]@neiroatopelcc: Is Gunbound still around? I used to play a lot 4-5 years ago. I got frustrated and quit because I had the feeling everyone was cheating. Maybe I was just bad! Also the game a serious lag issues. It was a lot of fun though.[/citation]

When I changed to vista I couldn't play because the anti cheat system detected vista as a game hack. When I switched to win 7 rc I tried playing again, but found out that EVERYBODY was cheating. Their turns never ending, them always hitting no matter what, unlimited turn time etc. 3-5 years ago only few people were able to cheat, but after they created more, smaller, servers they somehow failed top stop cheating. So definetly now everybody is cheating. 3 years ago it was rare - but there were more players. I had 4 accounts in the end - every time I was unable to play on the 'noob servers' I started a new one until I was good enough to keep up with the pros eventually reaching dragon in my country.

 

[madbiker]

Funny, EQ2 put tis in about 3 weeks ago, didnt see it in the news!

 

[neiroatopelcc]

cause noone cares

 

[zak_mckraken]

@neiroatopelcc: That's what I thought. It's easy to cheat in the first place. It's an aim and shoot game. If you have the correct angle at correct speed, you hit. I guess an overlay could help you do that undetected. Now, for unlimited turn-time and unlimited actions per turn, that's a whole new story!

It's too bad cause I really liked the concept. Those games are fun and fast to play so it's perfect when you have a little time to kill.

 

[invlem]

When does the sex change system get implemented, or is it already?

Honestly, I don't have an issue with Blizzard charging for these services, you're not forced to use any of them. You can always re-roll your character for no charge.

If they made all these services free you'd just end up with a massive theft ring of people looting guild banks then changing their character's name/race, etc. At least now if someone wants to do that they have to be willing to put some money down.

 

[eccentric909]

[citation][nom]sinclaj1[/nom]This fee isn't just to make money from the service, it probably also functions as a limiter to keep it to those serious enough to do it. Usually it would also serve to keep the frequency of changes down as well but I'm guessing that it has the same 3-day time limit as faction changes.[/citation]

Yes, you're on the right track here. One of the major reasons for the cost is so people don't constantly change their race to receive the "flavor of the month" racial bonuses for PvP or PvE. For instance, if you leveled as a space goat (draneai) and decide you want to use the Arena for your end-game focus, you're probably finding out that the lackluster heal over time and 1% chance to hit, or leveled as a dwarf to find out "find treasure & stoneskin" aren't nearly as much of an advantage as the human's racial of "Every Man for Himself" which basically frees up a trinket slot. Or on the PvE side of things, where an Undead's "will of the forsaken" is not as much of an advantage as the Blood Elf's mana regen ability.

Now, they don't change racial bonuses as much as they change class skills, but they do still indeed change them, in turn making one race's racial abilities more powerful than the rest (depending on your focus). They don't want people to change races "willy nilly" to whichever one has the most over-powered racials at the time.

I mean, the reputation grind as a human is much more palatible than any other race's, since they get a 10% reputation bonus.

Sure, they are using it to make a little extra cash too, I'd bet.. but that isn't the only reason for the price tag.

 

[terr281]

2 things when I heard about this last night:

1. For casual Wow players, starting all of their characters as Humans (on the Alliance side), leveling to 80, doing all of the "reputationing", then getting a race change to the race you truly wanted to be in the beginning sounds like a good investment for $25. Why? (The aforementioned +10% reputation bonus for the race.)

2. What my mate and I would like them to do is implement a combination "server/faction" change. (Example: Human paladin on server X to Blood Elf paladin on server Y.) Why? You have friends that are on a different server of the other faction.

Most Wow players today are wanting "a change" in the game, and Blizzard is trying to accomadate.

As for the "they charge for it, baaah" crowd, the above comment is correct. (Nilly will changes...) They are company, they charge for services, they make money. That is the way of service companies.

 

[michaelahess]

So.....Very.....Pathetic.....

 

[Nossy]

No worse than a roster update and minor additions that they "could've, shouldve" added the previous year in every edition of Madden for $60. Uhmm, if there's a market, then why not? I mean...seriously $1000+ for SLI/Xfire? $80-100 for an after market CPU cooler. Just to be able to squeeze in a few more frame rates? And for a couple of games? Seriously? And this make you guys "outraged" and calling out other people?

 

[itadakimasu]

paying $15 a month to play wow, which has basically infinite hours of replay value is alot cheaper than dropping $50-60 on a new game every month that you will play through in 8-10 hours and probably not want to play again.

I played WoW last year for about 3 months before quitting, mostly because that 3 months of play made me waste time w\ 2 classes i had to drop because i was failing and then I had to retake one of them in the spring.

Currently I'm playing starcraft !

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

[citation][nom]invlem[/nom]When does the sex change system get implemented, or is it already? Honestly, I don't have an issue with Blizzard charging for these services, you're not forced to use any of them. You can always re-roll your character for no charge.If they made all these services free you'd just end up with a massive theft ring of people looting guild banks then changing their character's name/race, etc. At least now if someone wants to do that they have to be willing to put some money down.[/citation]
Its already out its called character recustomization. 20$

 

[Supertrek32]

[citation][nom]grant_77[/nom]It makes sense to charge, if it was free everyone would do it, the servers would crash, and every pvp would have the same race/faction. By charging they ensure some variety of characters by an individuals socioeconomic evaluation of their opportunity cost to do so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost[/citation]

Uh... No.

A race change is one of the least server-intensive things I can think of. All that happens is a flag on the character is changed from a 3 to a 5 or whatever and the numbers correlating to appearance are altered. Then the racial bonus coding is changed (very simply) so it runs a check for race when you log on. It sees your a different race, removes old bonuses, and adds the correct ones. This is no more intensive than picking up a few items where it needs to save item stats and such.

The only argument you could possibly make that race-changes are bad for "stability" is that if everyone was changing, you'd lose character "identity." All that's needed for this is a 3-month cool-down or so.

If you're already being charged $15 a month, this should be a completely free service. No extraordinary server load is incurred, and identity stability can be insured in mush less ridiculous ways.

 

[terr281]

supertrek32,

"a flag on the character is changed"

That is exactly why it costs money to do it.

Very Rough numbers: A software administrator makes 100k a year gross. Divide by 52 weeks and 40 hours a week, the admin makes $48.08 an hour ($.80 a minute) before taxes. (And, yes, I know the position is probably salaried, the person works 50-60 hours a week instead, the cost of insurance and other benefits aren't calculated in, etc. These are rough numbers.)

Customer spends $25 for said admin to login into the database, switch to the sub-database, and change the value of "race" for a specific character AFTER they receive a work order to do so. Probable time taken to do the actual work: 5 minutes tops. But, the work order had to be created (people who answer the phones get paid), the credit card processing fee (Visa/MC/Discover, etc.) must be paid by Blizzard (or their sub-contracted company for transactions)....

In the end, admin change ($4), credit card fee ($1), other employees ($2), work order tracking software maintenance based on load for the specific ticket ($.05), ...

In the end, I'll estimate it costs Blizzard $10 per "race change request." That means they make ~$15 dollars, the same amount they make in several other instances.

With their other services, it takes less or more work to complete.

1. Recustomization (Change the sex, hair style, face, etc. sub-tables under the racial table)
2. Faction transfer (Change faction, complete Race and Recustomization changes)
3. Server transfer (Copy information from one server's database into another server's database. Confirm, via the Name table, that no conflicts will exist.)
<4.> Racial change (Change character's race, complete Recustomization)

MMO characters are nothing more than entries in databases. The organization of the database determines how much time it takes for that character to be changed. Time + expenses = cost. Total price of service > cost to determine profit.

Console games, including "non-managed" PC games (no multiplayer), do not have this issue. They are "write and forget" programs (once working correctly.)

 

[asjflask]

I wish people weren't so stupid to sit here and pay for services that should be free or at least a hell of a lot cheaper. You could probably hire a guy on minimum wage to spend 5 minutes to change a person's character and charge that guy $1.00 for it. Blizzard is a greedy ass corporation and I can't wait for some real competition to come along and knock these screw-the-consumer-prices down to where they belong.

 

[JonnyDough]

This is like being nickle and dimed to death...except that in today's economy it takes $25 to equal a nickel from three years ago, and $30 to equal a dime.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]asjflask[/nom]I wish people weren't so stupid to sit here and pay for services that should be free or at least a hell of a lot cheaper. You could probably hire a guy on minimum wage to spend 5 minutes to change a person's character and charge that guy $1.00 for it. Blizzard is a greedy ass corporation and I can't wait for some real competition to come along and knock these screw-the-consumer-prices down to where they belong.[/citation]

It's called "free trade". Ever hear of supply and demand? If people weren't stupid enough to pay for it, then there wouldn't be a market for it. Who are you to tell other people how to spend their money?

 

[nottheking]

If Blizzard wanted to limit it, they could've simply imposed a "cooldown" limit on it. Word sound familiar, MMO-players? Yep, just simply say you could only change it once per month. Or heck, even cut the price to just $5US. Even then, you're looking at 10 days' worth of game time, so it still isn't exactly going to be constantly used.

No, I'm willing to bet that it costs $25US because that's what Blizzard estimated will get them the most money; high enough to grab lots from each person that uses it, but doesn't turn away too many people that would've paid for it at a lower price.

I'm pretty sure this'd cement WoW's place as the one of the most money-grubbing MMOs out there. It seems that an increasing number are shying away from monthly fees already, yet WoW remains at a slightly-higher-than-typical cost curve. (it remains at $15/month even as much as 90 days, IIRC) On top of that is the high price is the higher-than-typical price of their expansions, ($40US for WotLK even with Cataclysm right around the corner?) and then the cost of services like this...

Personally, I'd stick with Ultima Online. They have a habit of charging less for subscription, expansions, etc. And they've had a habit of outright giving the expansions away for free a while after their release, (IIRC, everything but the expansion that's been out only a month for it is "automatic") all included in the (free-to-download) client. Also, race change in there is accomplished simply through a QUEST. No fee required.