Amazon Deal of the Day: Cataclysm for $20
by Mathew McCurley 
Jun 28th 2011 at 10:30AM
With the recent sales in the EU for WoW and The Burning Crusade, as well as the free copies of WoW that were distributed to game veterans to give away, Blizzard is making a hard push at getting WoW into more peoples' hands and lowering the admittedly high barrier to entry of an MMO that's now 6+ years old. Hopefully, we will see this barrier come down even more over time as Blizzard figures out the answer to one of the more difficult questions in the MMO genre -- how will Blizzard deal with expansions once there are too many to reasonably expect new players to buy them all to get the full game experience?
Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
fjdattalo Jun 28th 2011 10:37AM
where can i find the live show?
Xotzalqual Jun 28th 2011 10:37AM
""how will Blizzard deal with expansions once there are too many to reasonably expect new players to buy them all to get the full game experience?""
It might not be far-fetched to consider that eventually Blizz is going to have to make vanilla, and maybe even BC as a free download, just so that people who have yet to start the game don't have to shell out ridiculous ammounts of cash just to get caught up.
-X
Naris Jun 28th 2011 12:44PM
I agree that they really ought to make the older expansions free. Maybe only keep the newest two expansions available for purchase, and thus make Wrath free once the next expansion comes out.
To clear stock they could further maybe add a pet or something to entice people to optionally pay for the old disks even though they can download it for free.
Amaxe Jun 28th 2011 12:56PM
One thing Lotro did back before they went Freemium was have it so when you bought into the latest xpac, you bought the whole game. It would be too late for me if Blizz did it now, but I wouldn't have any objections if newcomers got to do this.
patgamer Jun 28th 2011 10:39AM
It already is quite a hurdle, I mean.. new players don't need every expansion straight away and can buy them as they progress but oh boy, I'll never make the mistake of deleting wow and reinstalling/downloading patches, what a nightmare.
Instead of discs.. possibly a usb with every expansion/patch on it? I'm not sure how that would work.. if it even would, just a thought really.
Hillazon Jun 28th 2011 10:47AM
Just redownload the entire client (classic+BC+Wrath+cata) directly from battle.net.
It's pretty much pre-patched and ready to go. Much easier than installing from DVDs and then having to patch up from version 1.2 or so.
Necromann Jun 28th 2011 11:00AM
I am getting a new computer tomorrow or thursday and was worried about installing wow on it. Downloading it pre patched will be better than last time. Vanilla, vanilla patches, BC, BC patches, etc.
Nick Jun 28th 2011 11:48AM
Wow copies well, just drag and drop the folder from 1 hard drive to another and it works. If your new computer isn't replacing the old just copy it across the network, otherwise use an external hard drive or sufficiently large usb flash drive.
archer75 Jun 28th 2011 11:53AM
you can just copy your current install over. I've been using the same install for years. I copy it from PC to PC or even to mac. Works fine on all of them. No need to reinstall.
Necromann Jun 28th 2011 12:10PM
Thank would work wouldn't it? I don't think as well during the summer months. Thank you guys.
Amaxe Jun 28th 2011 12:59PM
Fortunately, if you have the Cata disc, you have the entire game you can install (though you need to have an account which already has vanilla/tbc/wolk to use it).
But the downloads were a royal pain, so I would agree. Even if I quit again, I'll never remove the game/delete the toons. I'll just delete the shortcuts and leave it there.
trefpoid Jun 28th 2011 2:10PM
I downloaded the game client two days ago on my brother's pc so I could play when I went to visit. You can do it from your battle.net account. Do u know how much game I downloaded before I could start playing? 190MB. I changed the options on the launcher so it continued downloading while I was playing. The nice thing about WoW is that u don't need the entire world to be ready to start playing.. u just download whatever map u need and that's it. So I logged on to the Undercity and needed about 3 minutes to get the whole city. After changing zones, the same process repeated itself, but after u did it once, u were set. Dungeons? Bg's? about 30 secs. So I had absolutely no problem at all, I downloaded only what I needed and played just fine. After a few hours, 15% of the game had already downloaded in the background. So if u need to install from scratch, just download the client and get the things u need and only that, soon the game will be fully downloaded and u won't even notice. I love how blizz fixed the patching and downloading issue, no more errors and no more waiting. I luv it.
ech Jun 28th 2011 10:43AM
This may be a way to clear out stock in advance of a new boxed set with the base/game and all the expansions.
Srslyyeswai Jun 28th 2011 10:53AM
Regarding buying all the expansions some time down the line, I imagine that Blizzard will either roll vanilla and BC into one or sell a battle chest of vanilla, BC and WotLK for cheap. Ech makes a good point too, prob something like that.
Fox Van Allen Jun 28th 2011 11:03AM
forget this, I want to hear more about that comfortable, classy and casual sandal
lazymangaka Jun 28th 2011 11:05AM
I'm personally hoping for a new Battle Chest, as the current offering is woefully outdated. If they bundled Vanilla, BC, and WotLK in one box and priced it competitively, that would greatly lower the barrier of entry for alot of people.
Aggrajag Jun 28th 2011 11:27AM
Surely it's a simple matter of them repackaging the entire installation on a couple or three DVDs so that a new user can buy the entire experience without installing 4 individual packages?
Ninerva Jun 29th 2011 10:57AM
You can already do that. Just do a fresh install using the latest expansion's disc, don't touch any older ones. It doesn't matter what expansion your account is set to, everyone uses the exact same version of the client, which is 4.2 right now.
egburr Jun 28th 2011 11:30AM
I would suggest that each expansion have 2 versions of retail box:
1) just the expansion
2) the expansion plus all previous expansions plus original
Version (2) should be priced to cover the cost of the extra material in the box but otherwise should not be significantly more than version (1). Blizzard has already made their money off of the original game and old expansions; don't get greedy, just give the older stuff for free with the purchase of the latest. If you make the price barrier to get into the "current" game too high, a lot of people will just not even bother to start.
I'm curious; if they try to squeeze the entire game (original and all expansions) onto as few disks as possible, how many DVDs would it require now?
egburr Jun 28th 2011 11:34AM
Inside the "complete" box, the original game and all the expansions should be activated by a single comprehensive key instead of having a separate key for each expansion. Can you imagine having to enter a half dozen long random strings of characters before you can play for the very first time? Also, that would prevent someone who already has BC from being able to buy the "complete" box and sell off the vanilla and BC codes (assuming they could find a buyer) and use the rest to upgrade.