• Catching up with World of Warcraft

    by
    JD
    Published on 07-19-2013 08:52 AM
    12 Comments Comments
    No, we're not dead. The news team would like to apologize for the recent lack of articles and news concerning the gaming scene. We would also like to announce that from now on, we'll be a bit more active and will provide you with the newest gaming related changes, developments, and rumors as often as it's possible.

    So, let's start with a casual catch up of the hottest World of Warcraft changes.
    The most discussed and controversial topic past week has been the introducement of Transmogrify pieces i nto the Battle.net online store. As of two days ago, you are able to purchase three pieces of epic Transmogrify pieces fitting in the head slot. The item type of all three pieces is "Cosmetic", meaning that you can transmogrify any head piece, whether cloth, leather, mail or plate into these cool new looks. The new three items are:

    Crown of the Eternal Winter - The coolest of all three items if you ask me, glowing with icy colors and best of all, transforms your head into a frozen skull. WOTLK fans should love this one.
    Jewel of the Firelord - A pretty cool, both fire bursting and glowing, piece of transmogrify.
    Hood of Hungering Darkness - Reddish plate helm leaving a smoking trail behind yourself.

    Preview of the helms:

    Each helm can be acquired through the Battle.net online store for the price of 15$ / 12€. All three items are Battle.net account-bound and will be sent to all present and future characters.
    So, what is the whole fuss about? Well, some complain about the expensiveness of the items. To obtain all three items you would have to spend 45$ which isn't that much, but it isn't cheap either. Others complain about the items being too cheap, which means the items are lacking the sense of uniqueness. There are also the classic complains about Blizzard trying to milk as much as possible from its players by introducing the helms. I won't go into these discussions and will leave it up to you to decide.
    What do you think about this? Is this just another desperate money reaching technique from Blizzard, or simply, a new thing they're experimenting with? Do you think the future patches hold more of these transmogrify items, or something even worse? Is Blizzard slowly, but safely, moving from the classic pay-to-play system to a system of micro-transactions, or not? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below!
    Comments 12 Comments
    1. CryptoCombat's Avatar
      CryptoCombat - 07-19-2013
      It's just like the appearance only items in EQ2. It's shameless money-milking, but for people like me (who bought one), we clearly are ok with it, as we are pleased with what we got. They are truly unique items, and the horns look great on my destro lock =)

      In addition, I am sure we will see more microtransactions, but it'll most likely never be as bad as the SoE EQ2 store. There's room for some stuff like this, but they should not overdo it, or make it give actual advantage ingame.
    1. Dante's Avatar
      Dante - 07-19-2013
      Their excuse is that they want to attract new players to wow right? bullshit
    1. piehead's Avatar
      piehead - 07-19-2013
      I'm fine with it as long as it's not Pay-to-Win. Cosmetic seems perfectly fine, but it is a price I would never pay.
    1. Maccer's Avatar
      Maccer - 07-19-2013
      Quote Originally Posted by piehead View Post
      I'm fine with it as long as it's not Pay-to-Win.
      That's the thing I am mostly worried about and what I was hinting above in the article
    1. DarkLinux's Avatar
      DarkLinux - 07-19-2013
      I hope they are testing the free to play model. If they make a lot of money they could just sell t-mog sets / mounts / pet and drop the monthly sub. Who knows, I think its a good idea.
    1. Dante's Avatar
      Dante - 07-19-2013
      They're to damn greedy to drop the monthly sub, it will never happen.
    1. Thidan's Avatar
      Thidan - 07-19-2013
      Quote Originally Posted by Dante View Post
      They're to damn greedy to drop the monthly sub, it will never happen.
      AMEN BROTHER!

      Honestly I would actually play WoW again if they dropped the sub. But right now, meh. Play it now and then (Dungeonbuddy on alts).
    1. Maccer's Avatar
      Maccer - 07-19-2013
      Quote Originally Posted by DarkLinux View Post
      I hope they are testing the free to play model. If they make a lot of money they could just sell t-mog sets / mounts / pet and drop the monthly sub. Who knows, I think its a good idea.
      Maybe in a far away future, they have 8 million subscribers now, meaning they get 119920000 dollars every month. It would be insane to just drop that.
    1. piehead's Avatar
      piehead - 07-20-2013
      Quote Originally Posted by DanzaKuduro View Post
      Maybe in a far away future, they have 8 million subscribers now, meaning they get 119920000 dollars every month. It would be insane to just drop that.
      Yeah I thought they had 8 million as well but I just recently saw an advertisement saying over 10 million, I'm not sure if they just haven't updated it but they better jump on that or it's false advertising.
    1. Razor33's Avatar
      Razor33 - 07-20-2013
      The only items i considered Pay to win were the BoE pets witch people sell in AH for gold and the passengers mounts witch clearly provide an in game advantage for money.

      These are just apparel and i'm fine with it
      And yeh i think is just Blizz who try to get some more money from renaming players since more and more players keep stopping their "Azeroth Adventures" day by day ^^
    1. DARKFOXX's Avatar
      DARKFOXX - 07-24-2013
      Quote Originally Posted by DarkLinux View Post
      I hope they are testing the free to play model. If they make a lot of money they could just sell t-mog sets / mounts / pet and drop the monthly sub. Who knows, I think its a good idea.
      I dont, are you kidding me? free to play games always feel like you are only playing half a game its cheaper to pay monthly, I have seen how companies do free to play, look at swtor, you get no gm support 3 bg's a week and about 25 other things they cut you out of, not to mention the gold sellers spamming in wow would increase, with all the free account going out.
    1. Augury13's Avatar
      Augury13 - 07-24-2013
      Quote Originally Posted by DARKFOXX View Post
      I dont, are you kidding me? free to play games always feel like you are only playing half a game its cheaper to pay monthly, I have seen how companies do free to play, look at swtor, you get no gm support 3 bg's a week and about 25 other things they cut you out of, not to mention the gold sellers spamming in wow would increase, with all the free account going out.
      Yes it would increase if they let them, blizzard would not be dumb enough to let free accounts post in trade or even trade, because that would mean more botters and gold selling and buying increase and they do not want that.
      @Dark Linux, idk exactly what they could do to make this game more f2p without giving as much permissions. Maybe allowing guilds amongst themselves or something of that nature. or allow them to be in a seperate World. Of Warcraft or something. But i do think that would be a good idea for us, but not blizzard.