Blue Posts and Other WoW News: Infinite content and the $100k/year doll factory worker
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 21st 2011 at 11:59PM
Don't forget to check out The Daily Quest and our Weekly Podcast Roundup to find out what else is going on in the WoW community. And if you have a news tip, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.
Blue posts
EU Free Character Migration
Due to queues and population differences between the highest and some of lower populated PvP realms, the following Free Character Migration will be available until 27 December 2011:
Horde and Alliance:
From: Outland
To: Agamaggan
To: Boulderfist
To: Haomarush
To: Kor'gall
To: Spinebreaker
To: Xavius
Discussion on this migration:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3129365107
Please note: FCM is opened based on realm population tracking and analysis, not by request. If you're looking for a specific migration (from realm A to realm B), you are in most cases better off using Paid Character Transfer, or you could end up waiting for a very long time.
Paid Character Transfers (PCT)
All English realms follow the regular PCT rules, found here:
http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_GB&articleId=20416
Horde and Alliance:
From: Outland
To: Agamaggan
To: Boulderfist
To: Haomarush
To: Kor'gall
To: Spinebreaker
To: Xavius
Discussion on this migration:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3129365107
Please note: FCM is opened based on realm population tracking and analysis, not by request. If you're looking for a specific migration (from realm A to realm B), you are in most cases better off using Paid Character Transfer, or you could end up waiting for a very long time.
Paid Character Transfers (PCT)
All English realms follow the regular PCT rules, found here:
http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_GB&articleId=20416
Infinite content
It's easy to design a better system than dailies, pump out infinite amounts of content, it's just not feasible to pull off. Some people want to spend more time in the game than others, maybe even every day, and we want to make sure they have something to do. While we'd love for that to be fresh and unique content every time, it's simply not feasible. Thus, dailies. Give people something to do each time they log in (if they choose to do so every day).
Not to toot the Mists of Pandaria horn too hard, but I think our general zone design, daily, and scenario approach is pretty solid. Part of what makes dailies a bit tedious, aside from being tedious, is the rewards are desired but may not always quite fit the time investment. I see quite a bit of that being solved and making sure if you're logging in to do some dailies or scenarios, you feel like you made a good chunk of progress toward advancing your character.
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It's not going to be a revolution or anything, don't get me wrong, but I think it'll at least feel better. No one likes being the guy on the assembly line putting the left index finger on the doll 250 times a day, 5 days a week. They might not mind it as much though if they're paid $100k a year. Right?
Not to toot the Mists of Pandaria horn too hard, but I think our general zone design, daily, and scenario approach is pretty solid. Part of what makes dailies a bit tedious, aside from being tedious, is the rewards are desired but may not always quite fit the time investment. I see quite a bit of that being solved and making sure if you're logging in to do some dailies or scenarios, you feel like you made a good chunk of progress toward advancing your character.
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Quote:
Given that Blizzard posters have made exceedingly similar statements about every major daily hub from IQD onwards, and that these have all turned out to have the same basic failings, you'll forgive me if I take that note with a pinch of salt.
Given that Blizzard posters have made exceedingly similar statements about every major daily hub from IQD onwards, and that these have all turned out to have the same basic failings, you'll forgive me if I take that note with a pinch of salt.
It's not going to be a revolution or anything, don't get me wrong, but I think it'll at least feel better. No one likes being the guy on the assembly line putting the left index finger on the doll 250 times a day, 5 days a week. They might not mind it as much though if they're paid $100k a year. Right?
WoW news from other sites
- MMO-Champion Patch 4.3 Hotfixes - December 20 - ZA and ZG Nerfed
- Wowhead News Portuguese (Brazilian) Wowhead Now Live
- Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid guide to Dragon Soul, part 1
- What the Raid Finder's success means for the future of accessible content
- Your first Battlegrounds as a PvP healer
- Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priesting the Well of Eternity
- The Daily Quest: Achieving enlightenment
- Aiding the Alliance: Tyrande Whisperwind and Malfurion Stormrage
- 12 Days of Winter Veil Giveaway: SteelSeries World of Warcraft MMO Legendary Edition Mouse
- Know Your Lore: Lady Liadrin
- Encrypted Text: Expanding your collection of rogue resources
- The Best of WoW Insider: February 2011
- WoW Moviewatch: A Warden's Demise
- The Queue: An epic battle, how exciting!
- Around Azeroth: The sunflower treason and plot
- 12 Days of Winter Veil Giveaway: Epic Purple Shirt loot code from WootLoots.com
- Breakfast Topic: Do you enjoy an unexpected agenda?
- Star Wars: The Old Republic launches Android authenticator and upcoming test server
- BioWare defends its decision to not have individual SWTOR server forums
- BioWare: SWTOR could've been a Game of Thrones MMO
Today in WoW brings you the preceding days's WoW and gaming news. Also of community interest: our podcast listing, staff blog and Twitter listings and WoW websites and blogs (all part of our Guide to WoW Resources). Find out what's going on in the WoW player community every week in The Classifieds.
Filed under: Today in WoW
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Bapo Dec 22nd 2011 1:44AM
The thing I don't like is that they are hyping mists so much (saying it'll have everything that cata lacked, etc.) And I'm extremely nervous on how it will actually pan out : /
Its late here, so I apologize now for lack of better wording
Vgk Dec 22nd 2011 2:50AM
I'm actually stoaked for Mists!
Don't get me wrong cata's fun but the fact that the devs are admitting it had major flaws in the design philosophy and other aspects and are openly stating that those (arguably) flawed aspects will be addressed in Mists seems like a good thing to me.
For example a common complaint is that we spend too much time just in our capital city just waiting for a queue so blizzard states they'll try to do X Y and Z to get us into the world more
Here blizzard states they find the daily system a bit tedious and want to try to make it a better experience in conjunction with scenarios ( it really sounds like daily scenario quests are being implied here) and will make rewards from these dailies 'better'
The question is what does "better" mean? More fun rewards to choose from, mounts, pets? And don't forget now transmog skins can also become an incentive
Point is Blizz looking back at cata and seeing how they can make things better for MoP seems like a generally good thing
SamLowry Dec 22nd 2011 3:33AM
What blew my mind about Cata was that the admittedly new devs took one aspect of Wrath that people really, really liked--short, linear dungeons that can be completed in under 20 minutes--and tossed it in the dumpster. "Here's some long, grindingly hard dungeons that you might finish in 90 minutes, if you're lucky. Enjoy!"
And when that blew up in their faces they decided to make everyone happy by releasing much shorter, faster, and easier troll dungeons. No, wait, I do believe they were actually longer, more tedious and much harder. My bad.
It was only after active subs started to drop like a proverbial rock that the devs finally gave the players what they wanted all along in 4.3, and now they're promising that we'll love 5.0 even more, though we'll be stuck riding our ponies around an immense continent, darting from one quest hub to another that might not actually be there when we arrive since exceedingly light defenses that can't forestall constant factional attacks will be purposefully designed in. It'll be up to us to defend the quest-givers and vendors if we want to progress, which many of us simply won't do because we'd rather play Pokemon in the capitals or /quit entirely and play something designed by devs who seem to listen to the vast majority of players.
Kevyne Dec 22nd 2011 3:34AM
@VGK
We heard the same o' same o' from WotLK to Cata.
As they say proof is in the pudding.
Randomize Dec 22nd 2011 6:07AM
I'm worried about MoP too. I mean, in BC and Wrath, Blizzard moved the game forward by miles. There's a reason why their subs went up massively in that time. Then you look at Cataclysm and something just never clicked. They redesigned most zones in the early game and massively improved level flow, but the problem was that they put all their best work in the low level content.
For a game as old as wow, I don't think you can try to do that anymore. Don't get me wrong, the leveling changes were great, but the end game suffered as a result. And in a game like wow, the endgame is really the only content that keeps people going long. I really don't want to regret buying my annual pass, but I don't want to end up wasting money on a game that only has the same old grind.
Maybe I'm being pessimistic, and I'll be having lots of fun in MoP, but I don't really know. I don't mean to be one of those people that is overly nostalgic, but I really do miss the atmosphere of Wrath, and I'm afraid that wow may never get that feeling back for me.
Hal Dec 22nd 2011 7:20AM
@Sam
On the point of "20 minute dungeons," that's actually not quite right. The dungeons weren't always 20 minute runs, as in the early days of Wrath they were pretty dang tough. The problem is that so many players have short memories, so by the time they outgeared the content they were complaining that Wrath heroics were far too easy.
These problems were exacerbated by a few other design issues, such as healers with never-ending mana and tanks with insane health pools. This essentially led to "AoE everything down and just keep the tank alive" as a viable strategy for a lot of the content, and people complained about that as part of the "too easy" issue.
I don't think they went wrong with the intro Cata dungeons. They gave people what they wanted, and they were definitely fun for a while. But once everyone had seen that content for a few months, the reason to head into random heroics was largely about getting those VP. At this point in the expansion, 20-30 minute dungeons make much more sense in terms of what the players are going to get enjoyment from, especially since there are still daily hubs they may want to be revisiting at this point.
Mycroft Dec 22nd 2011 8:06AM
Yeah, I'm getting more suspicious of devs admitting 'mistakes' that I liked, veering off in a random direction to something I greatly dislike, fixing it again, and promising that they'll fix other 'mistakes' next patch/expansion. Then start it up again.
One suggestion that makes me wonder if they really missed the mark: lootship. I heard a lot of people saying they loved that encounter in ICC, and really wanted a repeat in a raid. What fans meant was a fun easy palette-cleansing fight between some difficult ones, but I'm wondering if Blizz took 'ship' literally and that's why we fight Blackhorn.
Snuzzle Dec 22nd 2011 8:45AM
The problem with making dungeons short, quick and painless (and mostly mindless) rides to your weekly VP is that then neuters the content for the five man player. While there are fewer and fewer of us as time goes on and raiding becomes easier and easier, there are still those players who prefer going out and grabbing 3 or 4 friends to play the game with at a time; not 9 or 24. Or even queuing into the Raid Finder and letting the game find 24 for me. That defeats the purpose of playing with friends, and I'm rapidly losing the desire to do so as the devs keep touting five mans as little more than "raider's dailies" and no longer a challenging tier of its own. It would be like ten man content getting nerfed into the ground, so 25 man players could run it after their "real" raid to cap VP. It's not fun if you're a player that mostly gets enjoyment from that niche.
I think they got it mostly right in TBC, they just needed to tweek it a little to make all the raids 10 and 25. But heroic five man were still a tier of their own, and you could still progress 5 > 10 > 25 if you wanted to. But 5-mans were a valid content tier, and it was okay to stay there. Raiders didn't feel (much) need to get in there and complain they took too long. It just seems a shame that they're deviating from that and making heroic five mans heroic in name only.
SamLowry Dec 22nd 2011 1:35PM
Hal, it would've been understandable if Ghostcrawler had stated in his famous message that yes, the heroics are hard now because everyone's still undergeared for them but soon they'll feel much easier. No, he flat-out stated that dungeons are supposed to be hard and the ease we had blowing through Wrath dungeons had been an anomaly, perhaps even a mistake.
We didn't want to hear that. GC's stock with the public dropped dramatically as did active subscriptions when folks realized things wouldn't get better anytime soon, and neither has fully recovered.
Moonzcar Dec 22nd 2011 3:11AM
Free transfer to Kor'gall :O
Come and play with me ;)
DragonFireKai Dec 22nd 2011 4:54AM
You know what paying doll workers 100k a year leads to?
Inflation.
andrews Dec 22nd 2011 6:13AM
And those workers will generally not be happy, no matter how much they make.
Dangling some trinkets, pets and mounts won't make up for even more tedium and the riding (not flying) once again.
Mycroft Dec 22nd 2011 7:53AM
Indeed, there isn't much incentive to work hard to make lots of gold if others are making not much less for a lot less work. Combine that with gold not really buying much that I want, and it becomes useless.
If they want rewards for gold to be accessible, they'll be cheap. If they're really expensive, that just fuels the illicit gold market from people who don't want to spend weeks putting fingers on dolls.
Snuzzle Dec 22nd 2011 8:50AM
Indeed. I would rather spend a few weeks levelling a fresh toon through all the fun new quests and have roughly 8k to show for it (taking into account necessary expenses like purchasing flight, Northrend Flight, Azeroth Flight). Instead of doing the same quests over and over for weeks and weeks.
Hal Dec 22nd 2011 10:04AM
I'm assuming that they're just making an analogy, not that dailies will give 100g each or something. I guess the idea was that grinding for 3 months at dailies so you can get gear that you'll replace quickly or a pet/mount didn't feel quite right. It sounds like they have something else in mind, but I'm not sure what they're playing at.
SamLowry Dec 22nd 2011 10:19AM
Does Asheron's Call still offer monthly content updates? That might be a model to copy, Blizz.
andrews Dec 22nd 2011 6:08AM
Blizzard needs to focus on delivering, not making excuses for not doing things. They have a good cash cow now, but they are quite "fat and lazy" with minimal competition.
Revynn Dec 22nd 2011 9:07AM
Which is why a game like SWTOR is the best thing that could possibly happen to WoW. A "Wow Killer" that lasts more than 6 months will force Blizzard to rethink their whole strategy and, rather than just trying to appease a very vocal minority that can't agree on what it wants, go back to what they do best: making great games.
Bronwyn Dec 22nd 2011 4:22PM
Actually I have to say I disagree that they are "fat and lazy." They can't give us everything- that is just the way things are. I also believe them when they tell us that they're working on things like new character models- but that they want to make sure that they're right before they roll them out.
I'd be happy if they were able to do more, but I really don't feel like they are making excuses most of the time.
andrews Dec 22nd 2011 5:58PM
The blue post was a big excuse. "We can't do infinite content." No one asked for that. "It will be really good later." Push the promises off to the future. This is a classic excuse format.
How about finding ways to do things rather than regularly noting they cannot? Promising future grinds that make it more worthwhile, while shoving world PvP on everyone and pushing things back to riding, for example, is not much to look forward to.
The other comment on the "vocal minority" is also off. Blizzard should respond to its customers like any other company. If they do not, they will ultimately lose them. They may not lose them to another MMO, but we have plenty of ways to entertain ourselves today.
Their loss will likely not come at one time, but a slow "trickle" that becomes unstoppable, even if they try to do something later. True competition from SWTOR or someplace else would be the best thing that could happen to WoW players and probably even the company, though it would face some pain in the short term.