Emotes in the cash shop..

[Ilitsa]

Why shouldn't they? This is exactly what WoW players asked when Blizzard put Sparkle Ponies in the cash shop. Fast forward to Warlords of Draenor where WoW lost half its subscribers - OVER FIVE MILLION PLAYERS GONE

That's some crazy ass conjecture. The loss of subs had NOTHING to do with a few mounts being in the cash shop. Don't project your negative feelings of a cash shop so hard. Makes you lose any and all credibility as a person.

[Adire]

That's some crazy ass conjecture. The loss of subs had NOTHING to do with a few mounts being in the cash shop. Don't project your negative feelings of a cash shop so hard. Makes you lose any and all credibility as a person.

I think you missed the point Bodicca was trying to make.

It wasn't about the cash shop making people leave, it was about people leaving because WoD sucked, and Blizzard deciding to just make the cash shop more profitable to make up for lost subs rather than fixing the game.

If it succeeds in regaining the lost profits with an enhanced cash shop, it'll be yet another nice example of how people who spend their money very loosely can indeed lower the quality of a product if the company running things strongly values profit over passion. Because Blizzard will be fine financially and won't be pressured to improve the game and fix their mistakes.

In short, the cash shop seemed harmless to their players at first, then eventually spiraled out of control to the point where Blizzard now feels comfortable softening the blow of their lost subs (people leaving the game out of disappointment) by exploiting the loose spending habits of those remaining players who spend loosely, and doesn't feel pressure to improve things about the game, because they don't have to to remain profitable.

[Bodicca]

That's some crazy ass conjecture. The loss of subs had NOTHING to do with a few mounts being in the cash shop. Don't project your negative feelings of a cash shop so hard. Makes you lose any and all credibility as a person.

No one said the loss of subs had to do with mounts in the cash shop.

The loss of subs had everything to do with the expansion being crap. Pure and simple. And it was specifically designed to be crap. Cut content, cut development, cut features, bare bones expansion is exactly what WoD is. They also offer unique mounts in the cash shop, not in game. Why put something cool in the game when you can charge extra for it? Blizzard developers have pretty much said they expected subs to drop, and they don't care. They don't care because they can develop their game on the cheap, hype the next xpac, and make their profits by adding more "premium services." Their own words.

The cash shop in any game is a cash grab. That's it. And while no one should begrudge a company for wanting to make a profit, don't try to pass this off as money that's going to improve the game by adding additional cool features or mounts or items or events. It's just . . . profit. Otherwise that cool emote or mount or whatever would be integrated into the game and available via gameplay. And there's nothing wrong with repeating events and offering new and old rewards.

Except it's profitable to just throw this stuff up on the cash shop.

Anytime you have anything in the cash shop that can't be obtained in game it's cutting content in some way. Cash shops in sub MMO's were never a good thing for the players. And never will be. Never, ever, ever.

[Teryaani]

The loss of subs had everything to do with the expansion being crap. Pure and simple. And it was specifically designed to be crap. Cut content, cut development, cut features, bare bones expansion is exactly what WoD is. They also offer unique mounts in the cash shop, not in game. Why put something cool in the game when you can charge extra for it? Blizzard developers have pretty much said they expected subs to drop, and they don't care. They don't care because they can develop their game on the cheap, hype the next xpac, and make their profits by adding more "premium services." Their own words.

They don't care because they know the game is 10 years old and has had it's run. To be honest, the legion expansion announcement surprised me. That may mean that Blizzard doesn't have another title close enough to keep fans happy. Certainly they lost "Titan" to Bungie and it sounded like they were banking on that.

Square isn't doing what blizzard does with their cash shop and the game is a new title, not one on the way out. .

[Bodicca]

They don't care because they know the game is 10 years old and has had it's run. To be honest, the legion expansion announcement surprised me. That may mean that Blizzard doesn't have another title close enough to keep fans happy. Certainly they lost "Titan" to Bungie and it sounded like they were banking on that.

Square isn't doing what blizzard does with their cash shop and the game is a new title, not one on the way out. .

The title being "ten years old" means nothing. If WoW was still set in vanilla, then the game would be ten years old.

Eight months ago over 10 million players were subbed to WoW and I'm pretty sure most new titles would love to have those numbers. Millions of people wanted to play an MMO that was hyped to be created with all the passion and innovation that Blizzard was known for pre-Cata. Unfortunately, this was not the case. At all. Half the player base didn't leave because the franchise is ten years old. They left because the expansion is shallow and cheap.

Being an old title means nothing to how well a game is developed. And new titles fail all the time.

The announcement of Legion wasn't a huge surprise to me since Blizzard has been talking yearly expansions for some time now. I expect it to be nothing more than a WoD II.

As far as SE not doing what Blizzard is doing with their cash shop, I'm not so sure what selling an event reward without having the event in game is. It doesn't sit well with me at all.

[Teryaani]

The title being "ten years old" means nothing. If WoW was still set in vanilla, then the game would be ten years old.

Except it does mean something when your company does nothing to keep pace with newer hardware. The game feels and looks old.

Eight months ago over 10 million players were subbed to WoW and I'm pretty sure most new titles would love to have those numbers. Millions of people wanted to play an MMO that was hyped to be created with all the passion and innovation that Blizzard was known for pre-Cata. Unfortunately, this was not the case. At all. Half the player base didn't leave because the franchise is ten years old. They left because the expansion is shallow and cheap.

They left because it had the same problems they had seen before the last time they unsubbed and yes, it was crap. You seem to want to ignore the fact that I agree with you and have said so that the expac was crap.

Being an old title means nothing to how well a game is developed. And new titles fail all the time.

Which is nothing like what I said. The title is showing it's age. Do you disagree with that?

The announcement of Legion wasn't a huge surprise to me since Blizzard has been talking yearly expansions for some time now. I expect it to be nothing more than a WoD II.

It surprised me as they should be putting their efforts at their next generation offering. Of course, all legion is likely to be is the bits that should have been in WoD at launch.

As far as SE not doing what Blizzard is doing with their cash shop, I'm not so sure what selling an event reward without having the event in game is. It doesn't sit well with me at all.

They've been putting previous holiday items in now for a while. How is this any different than the past events? Would you prefer them just remain one-time items that nobody has access to?

[Ilitsa]

No one said the loss of subs had to do with mounts in the cash shop.

Except the post I had quoted implied, intended or not, that you were equating the cash shop to their loss of subs, I never said WoD was good, i've been adamantly criticizing it since the launch event came up. WoD was horrendous for the exact reasons you stated and more. What would you prefer though? a simple $2 for the emote, or no one EVER be able to get it again AT ALL? if those were the only two options, so don't answer with the "I'd rather it just in game" you have to choose between 2 bucks or never again. Personally, I'd choose the 2 bucks.

Also, I agree that the cash shop isn't "a good thing for players", I have no delusion there, it is entirely "for profit" only, but I don't think it's as huge of a problem as people make it out to be, personally.