This will be the first expansion launch i wont get to experience together with my guild cause i dont have the epic edition. The coolest moment every 2 years or so behind a paywall. I hate it
Don't hate the devs... hate yourself for being poor! No, seriously... i got the big version.. and i didn't even spend a penny... i bought it with in-game gold....
pays 15 a month for a game, can make gold in game to convert to RL currency. Complains because they can't spend a little more to upgrade their expansion version. Typical doomer that thinks everything is a paywall As he explained, at most you pay $5 more since you get game time already. stop gaming If you cant afford it. entertainment ain't free and the people working on it needs to make money to feed themselves too.
A valuable lesson in planning. The details of this release have been public since blizzcon. Just a little bit of added planning and financial padding you could have set up would have been enough. Take it in stride.
I learned NOT to level with friends: they chat all the time, they zerg, I cannot listen to the music and they never read the quest or watch the cinematic. It's the worst way to experience a new expansion! All they want is "end game". So I solo unless an elderly friend needs help, and once I have done all the campaign and quests once, I am there to help out. In this case, early access means A LOT to new profession, even if there is no cooldown. There are one-time craft quests, farm spot to detect, farm mats, learn new instances, rep grinding, lvl alts even if they need to redo the campaign even fish. And if you can farm or craft, it's worth a lot of gold/ assistance to guild so you can provide what will be necessary.
I agree. If I want to experience content and fully immerse myself in it, I wouldn't do it with a friend. I'd literally have to find some lore fella like pyromancer or nobbel to play with. Anything short of that would get annoying. Most people don't care to read most of the stuff and take their time. I don't blame them, I'm just not that type of player. I chill and take my time and get my +20s done at my own pace over the season (err, +20s before the changes. Haven't played recently)
The heroic edition exists as an upsell tactic. They do not want people to buy the heroic version. It merely exists so the jump from 50 to 80$ does not seem that bad. They actually do not want people to buy the heroic edition at all, but the fence sitters who are willing to pay the extra for heroic will look at heroic and say exactly what you said "why would you ever buy the heroic version and miss out on all the extras". That same person without the heroic version would say "I don't really need all the extras, and I can just pay my subscription in gold so I don't find 30$ extra to be worth it".
The community hype is what makes MMO releases so special. I dont really "need" the early access at all, but I also dont want to miss the initial rush with everyone counting down at the same spot.
I got the upgraded version for the 70 boost. Figured I was going to get the expansion anyways and I wanted another toon for farming Invincible 8-10x a week for the past 6 years 😅 so 🤷 didn't even think about or realized there was a pre release until just recently 😅
it pisses me off that so many people seem to believe that you actually get "early access" and it isn't just the launch date and you're forced to pay an extra 50% to play the game at launch or you have to wait and Blizzard being willing to do this when they very much are aware how fun the launch of an expansion can be is just disgusting.
early acess for me means i can max level a tank, melee, ranged and heals once ive done that its a huge focus on materials for professions, with the rumored time taken to level being between 6-8hrs this is possible and rather be side tracked with professions i can just focus on getting 4 toons max level with in 3 1/2 days
I'm mostly sad for it splitting of friend groups. It's a social game. Creating tension points between people who play together is risky move, as over time it can create resentment and have people stop playing. It's not just the expac price, it's the monthly sub over the next 3 expansions. So many people talk about the fun and chaos of the first few days of an expac, whether that's running around with guildies, friends or just doing your own and exploring. Now those moments will be gone. I also wonder if it will backfire, if the servers are down or laggy or things are weird or w/e, people will not be happy because they paid more for it. And it's the first EU/NA release at the same time... so I mean... should be seamless, no? :) Appreciate hearing your thoughts! Hadn't noticed the free month included that kinda lowers the price. Good catch, there.
Their reasoning in interview is they needed more value for the top end cause they moved cosmetics to a lower tier. Could have just added more cosmetics, like a special warband screen instead of the controversial route of splitting the player base by financial class
You paid for 3 days early access to bugs, glitches and quest givers that bug out. Dragon flight had this a week after launch. The boat that sends you to the Dragon isles was bugged for weeks.
plus you're not advantaged in terms of throughput. You're not gaining a huge advantage. Maybe with professions you get to level them a bit quicker than others. That's pretty lame. But the economy gets ruined immediately regardless of what happens. I think it's not a huge deal. It is lame though.
@@hobosnake1 In early access you can't gain points in profesions. Only thing you could do is go double gatherer and stockpile mats so you are ready after EA.
31:00 Obviously free to play MMO's gunna hit u with the micros at every opportunity. it feels worst from Blizzard and World of Warcraft in particular though. Its a buy to play game with a sub fee and micros...
I'd also argue that the pure focus on "making money' is what has caused the deteriation of a lot of Blizzard products. The clinical approach to extracting cash out of manipilating FOMO over cohesive community feel and fun is evidence of this. Just look at all the other mucked about Blizzard products largely due to focus on the financials such as the debacle that is Overwatch/Overwatch 2 and the bad PR damage that's been done to Diablo (Immortal and 4) largely from ridiculous microtransations. It's still insane and shows the strong pulling power WOW has over its playerbase that it's one of the only games that still requires a monthly sub on top of some pretty aggregious in game microtransactions AND paid full price game expansions. Whether Blizzard overly exploits this pull is on them, but I dont think the focus on finances and profits plays out well for the quality of the product over time and with an MMO the community is inherently part of the product.
23:46 I would say it is a problem to get more money, if the feature they add is detrimental to their customers and they require money to fix it. It's an anti-pattern. You sell products by adding value to the customer, not creating a problem yourself and getting paid to 'fix' it, this is obvious. It messes with incentives. Any company that does this deserves criticism.
I wish they didn't do the early access even though it doesn't really effect me all that much. The optics are just awful and it feels like Blizz spent most of DF repairing a lot of the negativity around WoW and its a shame this is how they are starting the worldsoul saga,
Delvs are unlocked with Early access (and official release obviously), but you can only complete Delves up to a difficulty ranking of 3, Delves at difficulty 4-11 will become available with the start of Season 1.
I don't mind Early access if its the same style as FFXIV early access where you only have to buy the game before release (even the small/cheap version) and you get early access. What Blizzard is doing is awful and predatory cause its only accessible to people who bought the big version and in a game such as wow 4 days of early access you can literally level 3 to 4 characters to max level in such a short time and that helps with gathering/crafting and early gold making and also give you more breathing room with a large selection of characters at max level if you play the meta so you can have the class ready whenever blizzard start tuning stuffs
@@NotTrileonactually, the way WOW does it is worse, forcing people to purchase with extra bucks for the early access before reviews come out is more scum.
It's just another way to monetize a game that is way over monetized already, but it will work and the game will suffer for it. We really shouldn't be surprised at this point. It's bad and ugly.
Paywalling early access to a game people have paid thousands of dollars towards over the last 20 years to support is a shit tier move. The old guard never would've allowed it.
6:10 they say 22nd because globally the game releases on the 26th at the exact same time, usually Aus wins with this first. So they release the early access at 3pm PT, so US time, on the 22nd, meaning in AUS they get it in the early morning of the 23rd. So in total, it'll kind of be the same time of 3 days for all, US probably getting it a little better on this
Every single promo material they've released for the last month or two has had big giant letters asking us to buy early access. Early on they tried to claim it was an extra to make the Epic edition have more value but to me it now looks like it's all about that early access. It's gross. And you know damn well it's enticing for moms and pops out there to be able to start their journey during a weekend. Dolla bill ya'll
What i dont like is the "extra days" will just be server shut downs and 0 play time lmfao it will just be q final beta test or soft launch test that we all paid for lol
I'm viewing early access as a chance for me to level up without stress. For me, it's 3-4 days of taking my time to level up and start doing dungeons, maybe professions or even an alt or two. And hopefully, it will make for a smoother start for both early access people and those coming 4 days later.
just wanted to thank you for the debate with real arguments, they do make sense, and you are able to go beyond the passion of the game. I mean, unlike too many other videos it's not "i love the game so it's good" or the other way around so yeah, thanks. All in all, i think it's up to us, gamers, to see if the content is worthy or not and i am a big fan of WoW but paying for a few days ahead of others disturbs me way more than not getting the other things in the epic edition... i think i'll get it when it will be on sale, one year or two later.
This early access has been the deciding factor for me and my entire guild to not want to even play at launch. None of us have bought the expansion. We’ve all chosen to play other multiplayer rpgs until 3 weeks into the expansion. Then once the public has seen the end game and like jt, we will buy and play it.
3 related questions: 1. It's been 1 year since BG3, what's your opinion on the future of CRPGs or other story-driven open world RPGs? 2. Likewise, thoughts on D&D as an IP? 3. Microsoft apparently wants to make smaller scale games using existing Blizzard IPs. What should we expect? Starcraft Rumble?
I know you didn't ask for some random's opinion, but I want a company like Blizzard to make a Dark and Darker clone using the Warcraft IP. Dark and Darker is a great game, but the lack of polish and fickle balancing has pushed some people away. I still love it, but I've been wanting an AAA version of this concept. Warcraft would be a hype IP to use for this. Just my two cents.
@@hobosnake1 That would be cool, but besides the lack of polish, I think Dark and Darker is too rogue-like for wide popularity. That said, looter-shooters and dungeon crawls are both on the up right now, so it certainly seems possible.
The 3-4 days thing I assumed was due to time zones since it’s global. I haven’t tried to check, but 3 days isn’t quite the same as 3*24 hrs. One other downside, although these days it’s already very hard to avoid, is spoilers, especially on the content that are still encrypted in Beta. Before, everyone would get access at the same time. Now every streamer and news site, and half of your guild, will be seeing and discussing the storyline several days before you get a look-in, without the premium version.
Ts&Cs is "Minimum Early Access duration is 3 days", so they are covering themselves and if there is up to 24h outage they could argue we still got 3 days. Worst part is that launch was a big social event, with everyone in together on the same terms. Now it's split and that will reduce the impact.
'It makes launch smoother' We've had smooth launches for years (EU/SEA) 'More time to discover issues and patch before 'normal' launch' Very doubtful they do anything in the gap between pre-release and normal launch. Other: Professions head start. Skill ups and less competition for nodes (gathering profs). Levelling easier for early access ⏰ Less competition and more time to level. Game breaking bugs they can exploit for longer 🐛 Reference to 40man raids for Legion's Dalaran farming for Ratstallion. War Mode PVP unfairness ⚔ Get ready for max levels to camp noobs on late launch day. No discovery 🗝 All the streamers/news articles/reviews will cover all the content available before the game is out for poorer players.
its sad, but it comes out exactly at the moment I have three days of work... so yeah, fuck me i gave blizz my money, felt bad. epic edition that is. Early access doesnt hurt the gameplay as m+ isnt even out before a week after release. but it shouldnt cost 50 euro extra lol
In my opinion, doing this to a mmo launch shows a certain disregard for the playerbase. It will invariably be fractured by this action, at the most community-bonding moment in an MMO. I wish we would all band together and call it for what it is, late access three days later. It is only called early access because that is more positive-sounding, similiarly as with there being a "heroic" version just to make the epic version look like "more value". For me, I don't mind if games make a profit, but there is a line where I just can't support the lengths gone to do it, and this one is mine. Further, I think it is especially egregous in games where there is a focus on community, because they collectively group pressure others into getting the pricy edition. You want to be there with the others. You want to be there with your friends. You just know, it will be a moment you won't be able to share with them. It will just sour the launch with a certain percent of players. Maybe it sounds overly dramatic, but I actually think this is one of those building blocks to player resentment overall, that hidden meter slowly ticking. In the end, it's hard to see this change without the players wanting to. Will I play TWW? I will, a few days later. But imagine if this wasn't a thing, and nobody would feel any kind of resentment for the game, before they actually got to try it. A happier community. If only that was the focus.
not to be that guy but the last time I watched a lore video I think it was 13 or 14 and now i'm watching one at 30! Not sure when you came back to youtube but this is a great start to my day lol
The price difference between the Heroic and Epic editions is "weird" by design. Blizzard (and any other company who uses this technique) wants customers to feel smart for figuring out the way to most efficiently buy their product. It's one thing to advertise "hey this $100 gem bundle is the BEST VALUE," but when the product SKUs are lined up next to each other in a way that takes just a little bit of analysis to figure out, customers feel like buying the most expensive bundle was their idea instead of the company's, and are therefore much more likely to do it. Now, everyone should decide for themselves how to feel about that tactic. It is definitely a little bit of manipulation (like any intentional pricing scheme), but idk I'm somebody who was gonna buy the big version of WoW every time anyway. fwiw I'm definitely not as ambivalent about the paid early access. That can fuck right off.
Question here: Do you think we'll see any of the experimentation done in SoD cross over to Retail and/or other versions of wow? Would we ever see Warlock tanks in retail for example or do you think that's too funky for retail design? Also as a side question: What are the challenges that you see with designing features, classes and content in general for a game like WoW (mainly retail)? Keep up the good work btw and love the videos!
You do realise they've made those prices themselves? They just make them close to eachother so everyone will feel like their saving money by buying the epic and thus they make even more money. Good job doing what they intended.
@@NiekVLYou can do a financial breakdown because it matches up with prices if you buy each item individually, including when they go on sale. If finances are a problem just wait for it to go on sale in December.
@@NiekVL I mean, that is true, but I also got what I wanted, access to the beta, and everything else in that bundle. this is a mutually beneficial win-win exchange of money for product, working as intended
just a feeling. anything past normal dungeon item lvl will be locked tell official launch. so base low tear delves will probably be open but nothing getting into heroic dungeon ilvl.
Does early access help the game in general? No, of course not. Blizzard knows that if your friends are getting in a little sooner than you'll want join them and spend the extra $20. You could argue that it will help the server load thus making launch more smooth, but honestly that's not the players problem and we shouldn't have to pay extra for that. I remember on the Dragonflight launch almost everyone was either lagged out completely or the servers were crashing.
To me it isn't about the early access but having it tied to the high priced edition has stopped me from playing retail at all now. I have every CE until this one. Blizz has done something with early access that most companies don't do by saying "Hey get our highest price edition and you can get access to it at least 3 days early." Rather most are pre-order and you'll get early access. That right there makes a huge difference. For those who get the highest price recolor a mount like they love to do and throw it in also so they get two mounts.
@@eodyn7 And you're why no one should play WoW at all and why I wouldn't let kids touch the game. Go and play your candy crush and get out of the game community if you're going to act like that.
@@stevenp25100Kneel to them and beg for more. This is the problem with wow and the industry a a whole. Yes I'm not playing retail and yes early access does matter.
Pretty all my Guildmate''s are playing the new Addon. I' am still waiting in Valdrakken with others. A bad feeling...i'm poor, can't work anymore because of injury. If a friend hadn't bought me the normal Version with ingame gold, i couldn't play at all. Now the feeling wanting to play it is shrinking. It's hard to read everywhere you had to save the money, when you go each evening hungry to bed. i pray you'll never get in a situation of life like mine, it's painful. And those little things break something in me...
I felt I needed the D4 early access, but with WOW don't feel the need. No rush for a MMO I have played for years compared to a new game. I would love to hear your take on this REMIX integration to the game. Why didn't it happen with the Pre-patch and how it will work when they do it. I don't think WOW has ever done something like this very interested to see how it plays out.
Gaming and monetization just go hand in hand. Look at D4. Multiple expensive editions, battle pass, paid cosmetics and expansions every 18 months lol. So nobody should be surprised about companies monetizing anything and everything. Having said that I’ve always bought the top edition so I guess I just get the early access. Let me be clear I would still buy it without the 4 days early. So I don’t really support it or hate it. It’s just part of package.
Per my understanding (and some infographics floating around community Discords), Delve levels 1 & 2 will be available during early access, but they are intended for level 71-79 characters. Delve level 3 will unlock at global release and has gear similar to heroic dungeons. Delve levels 4-11 shouldnt unlock until S1 begins.
I have the epic edition, but let's be honest... for those who don't have it, it's like coming back from a vacation 3 days later and have to start the game later when your guild mates are already experiencing end-game and are discovering stuff together, it sucks, but of course everything will be back to normal in 2 weeks once mythic 0 unlocks and everything else. The launch is probably the most enjoyable part of any MMO and it seems this is a way to ruin it.
I get that launch is very enjoyable, but I'd never come back to a game that I truly only think has a launch then becomes boring. That's just... I don't know what that mindset is. It is a way to sour the launch though. We agree there.
You're right, but the value proposition is insane, unfortunately. Spend an extra few euros and I don't have to take a day off work to play, because it releases close to the weekend. That's certainly worth it.
There's a difference between "they do have to make money" and "they have to make ridiculous amounts of profits that well over cover the costs of producing the game and paying developers actually decent salaries" (which they didnt even do) . This seems like "that's just the way it is" argument and that we shouldnt deserver better of the products and companies we buy from? The same could of been said for the developers who just formed the Blizzard union but im glad they got it done. We really need way to unionise the playerbase better so we can be better served as customers. The arguement of if "we dont like it don't buy it" kinda holds true, but seemingly this is the same thing people say about governments or workplaces, when its obvious we want to be part of these things even if we arnt happy with them. Surprising not understanding this as you were actually part of the Blizzard community team, but i guess thats like maybe thinking HR at a company is for you, when it's really working for the CEO/Shareholders.
Bring back Gary and Mike B for a 1 time podcast. You guys were the OG Podcast before they were called podcasts. We also need a Blizz Blues with Darnell
in 2024 it's crazy that a company can demand full price for the expansion AND charge game time. I mean, people are willing to pay it. That's why it's like this. I am guilty of it. But it's just such a standout in the industry. I think that the early access thing is entirely fine, it just has really bad optics for blizzard. It looks really bad.
My 2c: I've been asking for a dad-queue for games for a while. I quit LoL because I just don't wanna play with teens anymore. Get my money and put me in people who can own credit card queue. Same with WoW. Remember all the Pre-patch quests where hundreds of players camping one mob so they can rush finish a quest that does not give anything at all but story? If this is the way for me to have my own shard, where I don't have to panic because a hunter is tagging and kill every mob he sees, I'm down for this. I hope that the early access will be a much more chill experience than any other exp release cause every single one was garbage. This is the only time that we all will experience this new quests and I don't want to be bothered with randos tag pulling everything so they can sit on waiting for 2 weeks for the season. TLDR: One good thing about EA is the chance to play it in more peace as Blizz won't let you have your own shard for questing!
i bought the collectors edition which came with early access but idk if i will play it bc i feel bad about it. my friends dont have early access and also im afraid it will be very buggy and (possibly?) laggy.
I don't look at the beta access or early access at all. I am not going to pay to beta test and not have the game company, not listen to my feedback. I'm not paying for early access because I will be playing the game anyways wither, I'm in that new content now or several days later. To me, the Epic addition is about the other extras, if you take away the base game cost, then the epic is $35-40 more. The game time is $15, so now I'm down to $20-25 cost. Buy anything from the store, like cosmetic, mount or pet then covers the rest of the game that the base doesn't offer and who knows if those don't get thrown on the Trader Tender Store that I don't have to spend tender on down the line. A few things I would see is the people getting to world first's, gathering materials for crafters by selling them to people with professions at a higher mark up. I enjoy crafting, I will help anyone free of charge. I chose to gold sink into my professions and that's me spending my game currency for something I want to do to help others out. I never expect to make money, just at least break even or slightly lose. I make my gold from vendor my grey items and from quests. I have roughly 9 million across my 36 70's and don't buy things I can't earn myself.
Just devils advocate, but on the "is early access even positive for the game", there is the argument that anything that doesn't actively hurts the game but generates more revenue is helping the game by giving it money to invest back/mantain the game. As I said, I just devils advocate I dont actually believe blizzard will do it but Riot for example has recently launched 2 extremely succesful and beloved gamemodes for League (Arena and Swarm) and released their most expensive skins as of yet (dark star jhin and faker ahri)
As a consumer not a fan of the early access. I got it cause fomo and to get ahead on alts, professions,and heroic gear. In my opinion MMO launch days should be the same for everyone what makes it fun. From a business standpoint point I get because blizzard knows most of their consumers are gonna buy it and they will profit
35:54 lol, spend a good deal criticizing blizzards early access and then immediately promote your own early access. P.s. I don’t actually mind it, paying for early access (in general) falls into to those less offensive monetization strategies across many industries.
I was not going to buy the epic edition because it looked greedy but the 30day game time on top makes me really question if i should as i was going to get the heroic edition.
yeah not only that but the fact that this xpac i was going to go hard on gathering since im a casual these days. at first i refused but now im more on 50/50 blah lol
I've only not played legion and every release has been loaded with lag for the first 6 to 12 hours. So I'd it fixes that I'm OK with it personally. Also for me the game basically doesn't release for a month. Everything before m+ can be done in a night or maybe a day at most.
something tells me a whole lot of people are going to be getting the most expensive edition. Whenever Blizz stoops a bit lower, the players somehow empty their pockets even more.
@@eodyn7 Do you know that for certain? What about professions? Won't people who pay for early access have professions leveled up much faster? This then nets them massive amounts of gold, which then can be spent on carries and such. I don't know. I think there are plenty of ways this can shake out to be pay-to-win. Obviously that is not the intent of Blizzard, but I think it is certainly possible. They have not announced any of the details besides dates and just typical lockout stuff. We know nothing else.
@@hobosnake1 mate, Eodyn7 is like a blizz employee or something. he's commenting on every negative comment about paying and extra $60 to play on time. He either works for Blizz or is just that clueless about the endless creep of shady things AAA studios are doing lately which is killing the industry
All you are getting with early access is leveling, there is no meaningful way to gear, or get ahead in any way other then spam rep stuff I guess? I don’t like early access but this is very chill compared to how bad it could be
First, usually new expansions have a 24 hour downtime period. I suspect such downtime will be from Aug 22 through 23... making the 3 day early access Aug 23-26... Then, although I will be unable to play much during Aug 22-26 due to RL, I plan to purchase the early access on the basis that DF has been an absolutely fantastic. The WoW community has a bias to hate the current WoW xpac, but when the dust settles, this xpac will do down as a top 3 expansion of the 20 year history. I'm paying the extra money as a last thank you to the developers.
The patch with downtime is actually going to be the 20th. I expect that downtime to be a clusterfuck especially the days after as people convert remix characters. I paid for it and took the time off to level alts. Really the only ones who benefit are the people who do crafting. The advantage you will have for leveling alts to craft/gather for the big rush of casual players the week after.
I'm in a weird boat considering the early access topic. I only bought the base edition because i don't want to support the early access bullshit. I would have gladly gotten the epic edition if it did not have the early access tied into it. I hope other people can vote with their wallets and help stop this stupid trend. I could easily afford it, but instead of adding more cool collectibles, they add game time and early access. It's just lazy.
The money argument makes even less sense when you consider that while the early access might be attached to the most expensive version, the price of the version did not increase because of it. Yes, they want to incentize you to spend the most, but it's by sweetening the deal rather than raising costs.
Early access means almost nothing to most players. Odds are there will be massive downtime anyway, and with Mythic content being weeks out from launch, all you're getting is an extra 3 days of reputation grind.
I'm in this situation where I would rather not buy the epic edition because I want nothing from it but friends did so if I want to play with them then I'd have to spend more.
(Sharing my own thoughts before watching.) TL;DR: WAAAAHHH WAAAAHHH (more seriously, if you're reading this wall of text, I appreciate your time.) To me the ONLY positive in Early Access (this BS 3 days early kind at least) is that it staggers the release and might lead to a smoother experience with server-queues, lag, etc. AND will serve as a stress-test for those of us who play the Poor People[TM] release a few days later. As an EU player, I've often seen the US get a patch a day ahead of us and experience all kinds of issues that are (mostly) resolved by the time I get to it, I expect a similar thing will happen with TWW launch. WITH THAT SAID, I'd argue that the wacky bugs and memorable brokenness of an Expac launch is a unique/rare thing that is worth experiencing to a degree. Even these days, the absolutely fucked up state of WoD at launch brings back memories that people can laugh and bond over even if they didn't know each other back in the day. It's minor but worth pointing out. As for negatives... well. Where to begin? - It splits up communities/friend groups in a really awkward way. - It creates a Haves/Have Nots dynamic that is shitty and unhealthy even before you add any sense of tribal toxicity to it. - It creates a really lame (and completely intentional) FOMO feeling for those who don't buy it. Making them feel like they're just shut out of the never-happens-twice kind of experience that each Expac launch provides. - I find it hilarious (and infuriating) that devs/publishers try to have it both ways, putting out all the arguments they can to sell it as a cool feature you don't want to miss out on! While trying so hard to convince the non-buyers that they're not missing anything, that it won't give others an unfair advantage, that it doesn't make a difference, that they don't need to start early at all. Well which is it? Because the way they sell it makes it sound like the most worthless feature and a waste of money if you buy it, and also a real shame if you don't because 'are you really gonna miss the launch and play DF while your friends enjoy TWW?' - The bots and farmers will get to absolutely flood the market with reagents and the likes before your Average Joe even sets foot in the new zones, making the usual early-expac grind that much less effective. - On a purely subjective and more minor point, it feels icky as fuck. Like... I'm used to big publishers turning every knob to nickle and dime me, but this is such a no-winner, transparent practice. No one benefits from it besides the rich fucks at the top, despite how much they try to pretend otherwise in marketing. So I've decided to 'vote with my wallet' as they say. I've bought the Epic editions of some WoW expacs in the past, but I'm going out of my way to only buy the Basic edition this time, and I'll do it only on the day of the delayed launch, after the """Early Access[TM]""" is over. I could've bought the Epic edition when they announced the Expac, because I don't ever pre-order other games, but I know I'll continue playing WoW anyway. But out of sheer spite for this BS practice, I'm avoiding it altogether. EDIT (post watch): To your point abt this being 'expected' from a company selling video games, I see where you're coming from, but I personally draw a line between [This Company Sells Video Games For Profit] and [This Company Employs Manipulative And Exploitative Tactics To Increase Profits]. There's a reason why people praise humble Indies providing good player-friendly products and services, or companies like Digital Extremes, From Software and other devs for how they monetize Warframe, Deep Rock Galactic, Elden Ring, Vampire Survivors, Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain, Outer Wilds, etc. A company/dev creating product, features and other 'consumption opportunities' for profit isn't the issue, IMO. It's the way and tone in which it's done. I'll happily throw 40e at Elden Ring's DLC, or a hundred euros at Warframe's cash-shop without feeling bad abt it because it never feels like their devs tried coercing me into it. They just provided a valuable service that I'm happy to pay for. To me companies like Blizzard, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc. cross that line and try so hard to squeeze as much money out of me at every corner that they make legitimate transactions (aka buying the latest WoW expac, which I'd happily do because I get value out of it) feel like crap, because I know the people who it goes to (the execs, not the devs) have no respect for me and will do everything they can to get MORE money out of me for LESS service while firing the people doing the actual work so they don't have to take a small paycut to keep the line going up. That's where the distinction lies. And practices like TWW's Early Access isn't just a for-profit company trying to make money, it's a slimy, coercive attempt at juicing more cash out of people who're already willing to give them plenty enough money through sub and box prices. And I'd also have a lot less of a problem with it if I knew that money went to properly rewarding the hard work that went into it, but knowing that WoW devs are so underpaid and have no job security (pre-Union at least) really adds to the pile of reasons why this is more/worse than just "selling video games."
The War Within Early access is a scummy, predatory microtransaction. This type of behaviour MUST NOT be supported in any way shape or form! That said - the expansion itself is heavily overpriced already even in the basic version. We're paying a monthly subscription. There is absolutely no excuse for the high price of the expansion, let alone the ridiculous pricing of the upper tiers. 8:25 Professions still get a huge unfair advantage because they can already collect ressources which allows people to make a load of gold by selling it immediately (and we all know that the prices for crafting materials is always at its peak at the release of a new expansion) and gives them a head start in crafting gear as well once it is unlocked because of the greater amount of ressources they can collect early. In short: People who spend the early access collecting ressources will have a huge advantage in making gold. I'm not sure about delves, but it would be weird if they are locked because delves are actually part of the levelling process just like normal dungeons. That said: I think it is plausible if the higher difficulties of delves are locked. 23:23 I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you on this one. Your argument might have substance for a free to play or even a buy to play game. But we're talking about a subscription based game here. They are already making money because of the subscription, and not peanuts either - we're talking about tens of millions per month. There is no excuse for this type of money squeeze, it's just greedy ever-increasing profit above else behaviour. And don't even try to defen this with the "oh but they have to make money to pay the bills" - that is already covered by the subscription fees. A very, very simple math example: Let's say the subscriber number is low, just 3 million. That's 45 million dollars in revenue every month. Now let's say the number is 5 million: that's 75 million dollars every single month. Don't even try to excuse these microtransactions as anything else but pure greed because that's exactly what it is. And if you want further proof of that you don't have to look very far - just look at Larian Studios and what Swen Vincke has said on multiple occasions. Edit: The Heroic Edition is not something they want to actually sell. What they are doing here is a trick out of the whale fishing trick box: They want people to look at the prices and think "ah it's just 5 bucks more, let's go for the biggest edition". And they of course want people to buy the big edition so that everyone in their guild and their friends gets FOMO and also buys the big edition. That's right out of the whale hunter's playbook. Edit 2: There are NO positives. This is just as scummy and evil as the predatory makrotransactions in Diablo Immortal or FIFA Ultimate Team or every Gatcha game under the sun.
the heroic edition is definitely serving as a decoy to funnel people into epic edition. it's much worse than the epic yet not that much better than standard.
The only way I've managed to kind of accept this change is by realizing they just increased the price of the game, and managed to keep a cheaper version for people who cannot afford the main version. Still messy and ugly. Ruined the main thing the community did together, no matter who or where you were.
@@devolore22:54, you specifically justify the practice and say you don’t think it’s an issue. AFAIK, you never went back to take back that claim. You saying it’s bad for different reasons doesn’t do that.
I dont see any problems with some people getting early access. Blizzard lay everything out on the table and prices along with what you get with each prices for the expansion. Which is fair because then the option was giving to you to decide what you was willing to pay regardless how most of yall felt about blizzard approach. Everyone deserve the right to play the game whatever way they want because they pay just like eveyone else. Some of yall cant get mad or stop people or myself to not play until the global launch just because you decide you didnt want to pay the price that came with the early access.
Can confirm the early launch has impacted my guild. We used to all log in on launch and level, but now it wont be the big event that it used to be. I hate entering brand new dungeons and having someone constantly saying "oh and now he's gonna do this".
This is the first time since the beta of the original game launch in 2003 that I have not had access to the beta. I have been in every beta until War Within. I also did not buy the early access version. It is also the first time I have not taken vacation days to play on expansion launch day. I am not feeling it. I don't have any excitement for it.
So just charge 300$ for the expansion then if they need money so bad?? I'm not seeing the logic here. You're basically just saying, "yeah, slowly creep up the cost of the game year after year, it's okay". Everyone needs infinite amounts of money these days, I'm not quite seeing the logic. Just charge 500$ for the early access xpac, I'm sure people will still buy it, that's the logic we're going with?
This should have never been allowed. It's a money grabbing disgrace. It's the fault of blizzard but also the customers that encourage this. I've quit this game many times but seem to come back every year or two. Longest break was for about 4 years. I like the game but I despise blizzard's greed. To make it clear, there is a difference between good profit and being greedy.
first gona speak about my own positive about this early acces. I can only play in the weekend because I have to work in the week. So a launch in the week, sucks for me. With this early access I can play a week earlier then with normal launch where I still have to wait a few days after launch yo start playing. So this is a very big personal win. The disadvantage for social play I call BS. Why? because it is a problem you create yourself and is not created by Blizzard. If you want to play together with your friends, then also plan that. Why would you buy then the epic edition if your friends are not (or not able). That's not very social off you then. Has nothing with Blizzard to do. If there would be a problem for 1 of your friend to start to play on launch date would you wait on that friend so you can play together or blame Blizzard for choosing a launch date you and all your friends are not able to play? It is not a problem created by Blizzard, it is a problem created by yourself. I would agree if blizzard would say, it cost more to start playing later (what they never would do because who would choose that). But then yes you are forced to pay more to be able to play together.
LOL bro they're selling you a full price live-service game with a monthly sub, in game shop, RMT gold and now early access? Early access wow? There is not a single greedy sales tactic that they won't take full advantage of. As if it's so profound, you saying company wants to make money. They could roll everything out for free and still make profit are you kidding me
heroic edition is really there just as a glorified boost which doesn't mean anything if you buy it right now since you can level a character from 1 to 70 in less than 5h right now.
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
This will be the first expansion launch i wont get to experience together with my guild cause i dont have the epic edition. The coolest moment every 2 years or so behind a paywall. I hate it
Don't hate the devs... hate yourself for being poor!
No, seriously... i got the big version.. and i didn't even spend a penny... i bought it with in-game gold....
the expansion has been available for purchase for almost a year now, surely you could have saved a little something for it over that time period.
pays 15 a month for a game, can make gold in game to convert to RL currency.
Complains because they can't spend a little more to upgrade their expansion version. Typical doomer that thinks everything is a paywall
As he explained, at most you pay $5 more since you get game time already. stop gaming If you cant afford it. entertainment ain't free and the people working on it needs to make money to feed themselves too.
@@EasternOrthodoxG9 I don't care if you could save 1 mil over a year, it ain't worth the purchase.
A valuable lesson in planning. The details of this release have been public since blizzcon. Just a little bit of added planning and financial padding you could have set up would have been enough. Take it in stride.
I learned NOT to level with friends: they chat all the time, they zerg, I cannot listen to the music and they never read the quest or watch the cinematic. It's the worst way to experience a new expansion! All they want is "end game". So I solo unless an elderly friend needs help, and once I have done all the campaign and quests once, I am there to help out. In this case, early access means A LOT to new profession, even if there is no cooldown. There are one-time craft quests, farm spot to detect, farm mats, learn new instances, rep grinding, lvl alts even if they need to redo the campaign even fish. And if you can farm or craft, it's worth a lot of gold/ assistance to guild so you can provide what will be necessary.
I agree. If I want to experience content and fully immerse myself in it, I wouldn't do it with a friend. I'd literally have to find some lore fella like pyromancer or nobbel to play with. Anything short of that would get annoying. Most people don't care to read most of the stuff and take their time. I don't blame them, I'm just not that type of player. I chill and take my time and get my +20s done at my own pace over the season (err, +20s before the changes. Haven't played recently)
And I don’t level with friends for the opposite reason, they’re too slow and I’m tryna min max my early expansion gold making 😭
Same, I level fast but my friends would hold me back and level past me when they’d log on early. It was a slap on the face so I said - enough.
The heroic edition exists as an upsell tactic. They do not want people to buy the heroic version. It merely exists so the jump from 50 to 80$ does not seem that bad. They actually do not want people to buy the heroic edition at all, but the fence sitters who are willing to pay the extra for heroic will look at heroic and say exactly what you said "why would you ever buy the heroic version and miss out on all the extras". That same person without the heroic version would say "I don't really need all the extras, and I can just pay my subscription in gold so I don't find 30$ extra to be worth it".
The community hype is what makes MMO releases so special. I dont really "need" the early access at all, but I also dont want to miss the initial rush with everyone counting down at the same spot.
I bought the physical CE for the statue, the fact that it also gave me early access was irrelevant as a selling point.
I got the upgraded version for the 70 boost. Figured I was going to get the expansion anyways and I wanted another toon for farming Invincible 8-10x a week for the past 6 years 😅 so 🤷 didn't even think about or realized there was a pre release until just recently 😅
Same here, it pretty much came as a bonus (someone also scratched a pupil on one of the eyes of my gryphon statue lol).
it pisses me off that so many people seem to believe that you actually get "early access" and it isn't just the launch date and you're forced to pay an extra 50% to play the game at launch or you have to wait and Blizzard being willing to do this when they very much are aware how fun the launch of an expansion can be is just disgusting.
early acess for me means i can max level a tank, melee, ranged and heals once ive done that its a huge focus on materials for professions, with the rumored time taken to level being between 6-8hrs this is possible and rather be side tracked with professions i can just focus on getting 4 toons max level with in 3 1/2 days
I'm mostly sad for it splitting of friend groups. It's a social game. Creating tension points between people who play together is risky move, as over time it can create resentment and have people stop playing. It's not just the expac price, it's the monthly sub over the next 3 expansions. So many people talk about the fun and chaos of the first few days of an expac, whether that's running around with guildies, friends or just doing your own and exploring. Now those moments will be gone.
I also wonder if it will backfire, if the servers are down or laggy or things are weird or w/e, people will not be happy because they paid more for it. And it's the first EU/NA release at the same time... so I mean... should be seamless, no? :) Appreciate hearing your thoughts! Hadn't noticed the free month included that kinda lowers the price. Good catch, there.
Their reasoning in interview is they needed more value for the top end cause they moved cosmetics to a lower tier.
Could have just added more cosmetics, like a special warband screen instead of the controversial route of splitting the player base by financial class
I think early access is a net negative BUT it benefits me personally because my job's summer break ends the same day the expansion releases.
You paid for 3 days early access to bugs, glitches and quest givers that bug out. Dragon flight had this a week after launch. The boat that sends you to the Dragon isles was bugged for weeks.
plus you're not advantaged in terms of throughput. You're not gaining a huge advantage. Maybe with professions you get to level them a bit quicker than others. That's pretty lame. But the economy gets ruined immediately regardless of what happens. I think it's not a huge deal. It is lame though.
@@hobosnake1 In early access you can't gain points in profesions. Only thing you could do is go double gatherer and stockpile mats so you are ready after EA.
31:00 Obviously free to play MMO's gunna hit u with the micros at every opportunity. it feels worst from Blizzard and World of Warcraft in particular though. Its a buy to play game with a sub fee and micros...
I'd also argue that the pure focus on "making money' is what has caused the deteriation of a lot of Blizzard products. The clinical approach to extracting cash out of manipilating FOMO over cohesive community feel and fun is evidence of this. Just look at all the other mucked about Blizzard products largely due to focus on the financials such as the debacle that is Overwatch/Overwatch 2 and the bad PR damage that's been done to Diablo (Immortal and 4) largely from ridiculous microtransations. It's still insane and shows the strong pulling power WOW has over its playerbase that it's one of the only games that still requires a monthly sub on top of some pretty aggregious in game microtransactions AND paid full price game expansions. Whether Blizzard overly exploits this pull is on them, but I dont think the focus on finances and profits plays out well for the quality of the product over time and with an MMO the community is inherently part of the product.
23:46
I would say it is a problem to get more money, if the feature they add is detrimental to their customers and they require money to fix it.
It's an anti-pattern. You sell products by adding value to the customer, not creating a problem yourself and getting paid to 'fix' it, this is obvious. It messes with incentives. Any company that does this deserves criticism.
I wish they didn't do the early access even though it doesn't really effect me all that much.
The optics are just awful and it feels like Blizz spent most of DF repairing a lot of the negativity around WoW and its a shame this is how they are starting the worldsoul saga,
Delvs are unlocked with Early access (and official release obviously), but you can only complete Delves up to a difficulty ranking of 3, Delves at difficulty 4-11 will become available with the start of Season 1.
Thanks!
I don't mind Early access if its the same style as FFXIV early access where you only have to buy the game before release (even the small/cheap version) and you get early access. What Blizzard is doing is awful and predatory cause its only accessible to people who bought the big version and in a game such as wow 4 days of early access you can literally level 3 to 4 characters to max level in such a short time and that helps with gathering/crafting and early gold making and also give you more breathing room with a large selection of characters at max level if you play the meta so you can have the class ready whenever blizzard start tuning stuffs
actually, the way FFXIV does it is worse, forcing people to purchase before reviews come out is scum.
@@NotTrileonEarly Access is just the release date. Why not wait? I know I did.
@@NotTrileonactually, the way WOW does it is worse, forcing people to purchase with extra bucks for the early access before reviews come out is more scum.
They should just disable profession trainers so people cant do professions in the early access
Why would they do that?
no
@@stevenp25100 because it will drastically affect the economy and gives a monetary incentive to people paying for early access.
It's just another way to monetize a game that is way over monetized already, but it will work and the game will suffer for it. We really shouldn't be surprised at this point. It's bad and ugly.
Paywalling early access to a game people have paid thousands of dollars towards over the last 20 years to support is a shit tier move.
The old guard never would've allowed it.
This was one of the best Sounds Good Makes Sense episode. Clear statements and thoughts! Really loved to experience this. Thank you!
6:10 they say 22nd because globally the game releases on the 26th at the exact same time, usually Aus wins with this first. So they release the early access at 3pm PT, so US time, on the 22nd, meaning in AUS they get it in the early morning of the 23rd.
So in total, it'll kind of be the same time of 3 days for all, US probably getting it a little better on this
Every single promo material they've released for the last month or two has had big giant letters asking us to buy early access. Early on they tried to claim it was an extra to make the Epic edition have more value but to me it now looks like it's all about that early access. It's gross.
And you know damn well it's enticing for moms and pops out there to be able to start their journey during a weekend. Dolla bill ya'll
What i dont like is the "extra days" will just be server shut downs and 0 play time lmfao it will just be q final beta test or soft launch test that we all paid for lol
I'm viewing early access as a chance for me to level up without stress. For me, it's 3-4 days of taking my time to level up and start doing dungeons, maybe professions or even an alt or two. And hopefully, it will make for a smoother start for both early access people and those coming 4 days later.
just wanted to thank you for the debate with real arguments, they do make sense, and you are able to go beyond the passion of the game. I mean, unlike too many other videos it's not "i love the game so it's good" or the other way around so yeah, thanks.
All in all, i think it's up to us, gamers, to see if the content is worthy or not and i am a big fan of WoW but paying for a few days ahead of others disturbs me way more than not getting the other things in the epic edition... i think i'll get it when it will be on sale, one year or two later.
This early access has been the deciding factor for me and my entire guild to not want to even play at launch. None of us have bought the expansion. We’ve all chosen to play other multiplayer rpgs until 3 weeks into the expansion. Then once the public has seen the end game and like jt, we will buy and play it.
The Patreon is the epic edition with early access to you
And it's also behind a paywall that limits the players from access due to monetization, which can be a lot more if you live overseas.
3 related questions:
1. It's been 1 year since BG3, what's your opinion on the future of CRPGs or other story-driven open world RPGs?
2. Likewise, thoughts on D&D as an IP?
3. Microsoft apparently wants to make smaller scale games using existing Blizzard IPs. What should we expect? Starcraft Rumble?
I know you didn't ask for some random's opinion, but I want a company like Blizzard to make a Dark and Darker clone using the Warcraft IP. Dark and Darker is a great game, but the lack of polish and fickle balancing has pushed some people away. I still love it, but I've been wanting an AAA version of this concept. Warcraft would be a hype IP to use for this. Just my two cents.
@@hobosnake1 That would be cool, but besides the lack of polish, I think Dark and Darker is too rogue-like for wide popularity. That said, looter-shooters and dungeon crawls are both on the up right now, so it certainly seems possible.
The 3-4 days thing I assumed was due to time zones since it’s global. I haven’t tried to check, but 3 days isn’t quite the same as 3*24 hrs.
One other downside, although these days it’s already very hard to avoid, is spoilers, especially on the content that are still encrypted in Beta. Before, everyone would get access at the same time. Now every streamer and news site, and half of your guild, will be seeing and discussing the storyline several days before you get a look-in, without the premium version.
Ts&Cs is "Minimum Early Access duration is 3 days", so they are covering themselves and if there is up to 24h outage they could argue we still got 3 days.
Worst part is that launch was a big social event, with everyone in together on the same terms. Now it's split and that will reduce the impact.
'It makes launch smoother'
We've had smooth launches for years (EU/SEA)
'More time to discover issues and patch before 'normal' launch'
Very doubtful they do anything in the gap between pre-release and normal launch.
Other:
Professions head start.
Skill ups and less competition for nodes (gathering profs).
Levelling easier for early access ⏰
Less competition and more time to level.
Game breaking bugs they can exploit for longer 🐛
Reference to 40man raids for Legion's Dalaran farming for Ratstallion.
War Mode PVP unfairness ⚔
Get ready for max levels to camp noobs on late launch day.
No discovery 🗝
All the streamers/news articles/reviews will cover all the content available before the game is out for poorer players.
its sad, but it comes out exactly at the moment I have three days of work... so yeah, fuck me i gave blizz my money, felt bad. epic edition that is. Early access doesnt hurt the gameplay as m+ isnt even out before a week after release. but it shouldnt cost 50 euro extra lol
In my opinion, doing this to a mmo launch shows a certain disregard for the playerbase. It will invariably be fractured by this action, at the most community-bonding moment in an MMO. I wish we would all band together and call it for what it is, late access three days later. It is only called early access because that is more positive-sounding, similiarly as with there being a "heroic" version just to make the epic version look like "more value". For me, I don't mind if games make a profit, but there is a line where I just can't support the lengths gone to do it, and this one is mine.
Further, I think it is especially egregous in games where there is a focus on community, because they collectively group pressure others into getting the pricy edition. You want to be there with the others. You want to be there with your friends. You just know, it will be a moment you won't be able to share with them. It will just sour the launch with a certain percent of players. Maybe it sounds overly dramatic, but I actually think this is one of those building blocks to player resentment overall, that hidden meter slowly ticking.
In the end, it's hard to see this change without the players wanting to. Will I play TWW? I will, a few days later. But imagine if this wasn't a thing, and nobody would feel any kind of resentment for the game, before they actually got to try it. A happier community. If only that was the focus.
Devolore!! This brings me back to The Weekly Marmot.
not to be that guy but the last time I watched a lore video I think it was 13 or 14 and now i'm watching one at 30! Not sure when you came back to youtube but this is a great start to my day lol
The price difference between the Heroic and Epic editions is "weird" by design. Blizzard (and any other company who uses this technique) wants customers to feel smart for figuring out the way to most efficiently buy their product. It's one thing to advertise "hey this $100 gem bundle is the BEST VALUE," but when the product SKUs are lined up next to each other in a way that takes just a little bit of analysis to figure out, customers feel like buying the most expensive bundle was their idea instead of the company's, and are therefore much more likely to do it.
Now, everyone should decide for themselves how to feel about that tactic. It is definitely a little bit of manipulation (like any intentional pricing scheme), but idk I'm somebody who was gonna buy the big version of WoW every time anyway. fwiw I'm definitely not as ambivalent about the paid early access. That can fuck right off.
Question here: Do you think we'll see any of the experimentation done in SoD cross over to Retail and/or other versions of wow? Would we ever see Warlock tanks in retail for example or do you think that's too funky for retail design? Also as a side question: What are the challenges that you see with designing features, classes and content in general for a game like WoW (mainly retail)?
Keep up the good work btw and love the videos!
the epic edition with the $15 sub price included is down to $75 cost, only $5 more than heroic, no brainer really
You do realise they've made those prices themselves? They just make them close to eachother so everyone will feel like their saving money by buying the epic and thus they make even more money. Good job doing what they intended.
@@NiekVLYou can do a financial breakdown because it matches up with prices if you buy each item individually, including when they go on sale. If finances are a problem just wait for it to go on sale in December.
@@NiekVL I mean, that is true, but I also got what I wanted, access to the beta, and everything else in that bundle. this is a mutually beneficial win-win exchange of money for product, working as intended
@@NiekVL team of psychologists making six figures came up with the pricing
just a feeling. anything past normal dungeon item lvl will be locked tell official launch. so base low tear delves will probably be open but nothing getting into heroic dungeon ilvl.
Does early access help the game in general? No, of course not. Blizzard knows that if your friends are getting in a little sooner than you'll want join them and spend the extra $20. You could argue that it will help the server load thus making launch more smooth, but honestly that's not the players problem and we shouldn't have to pay extra for that. I remember on the Dragonflight launch almost everyone was either lagged out completely or the servers were crashing.
To me it isn't about the early access but having it tied to the high priced edition has stopped me from playing retail at all now. I have every CE until this one. Blizz has done something with early access that most companies don't do by saying "Hey get our highest price edition and you can get access to it at least 3 days early." Rather most are pre-order and you'll get early access. That right there makes a huge difference. For those who get the highest price recolor a mount like they love to do and throw it in also so they get two mounts.
BYE FELICIA
@@eodyn7 And you're why no one should play WoW at all and why I wouldn't let kids touch the game. Go and play your candy crush and get out of the game community if you're going to act like that.
Youre the one that isnt even playing the game. Early access doesn't matter at all. @classa21
@@stevenp25100Kneel to them and beg for more. This is the problem with wow and the industry a a whole. Yes I'm not playing retail and yes early access does matter.
Pretty all my Guildmate''s are playing the new Addon. I' am still waiting in Valdrakken with others. A bad feeling...i'm poor, can't work anymore because of injury. If a friend hadn't bought me the normal Version with ingame gold, i couldn't play at all. Now the feeling wanting to play it is shrinking. It's hard to read everywhere you had to save the money, when you go each evening hungry to bed. i pray you'll never get in a situation of life like mine, it's painful. And those little things break something in me...
As a father of 2 and a job it’s great. It gives me some breathing room
also keeping in mind alot of people have early acess because they got the 20yr collectors edition
I felt I needed the D4 early access, but with WOW don't feel the need. No rush for a MMO I have played for years compared to a new game. I would love to hear your take on this REMIX integration to the game. Why didn't it happen with the Pre-patch and how it will work when they do it. I don't think WOW has ever done something like this very interested to see how it plays out.
Gaming and monetization just go hand in hand. Look at D4. Multiple expensive editions, battle pass, paid cosmetics and expansions every 18 months lol. So nobody should be surprised about companies monetizing anything and everything.
Having said that I’ve always bought the top edition so I guess I just get the early access. Let me be clear I would still buy it without the 4 days early. So I don’t really support it or hate it. It’s just part of package.
Per my understanding (and some infographics floating around community Discords), Delve levels 1 & 2 will be available during early access, but they are intended for level 71-79 characters. Delve level 3 will unlock at global release and has gear similar to heroic dungeons. Delve levels 4-11 shouldnt unlock until S1 begins.
I have the epic edition, but let's be honest... for those who don't have it, it's like coming back from a vacation 3 days later and have to start the game later when your guild mates are already experiencing end-game and are discovering stuff together, it sucks, but of course everything will be back to normal in 2 weeks once mythic 0 unlocks and everything else. The launch is probably the most enjoyable part of any MMO and it seems this is a way to ruin it.
I get that launch is very enjoyable, but I'd never come back to a game that I truly only think has a launch then becomes boring. That's just... I don't know what that mindset is. It is a way to sour the launch though. We agree there.
anyone who buys the epic edition, is setting themself up to fail, next expansion the price will rise to get early access again. - DONT BUY IT.
You're right, but the value proposition is insane, unfortunately. Spend an extra few euros and I don't have to take a day off work to play, because it releases close to the weekend. That's certainly worth it.
There's a difference between "they do have to make money" and "they have to make ridiculous amounts of profits that well over cover the costs of producing the game and paying developers actually decent salaries" (which they didnt even do) . This seems like "that's just the way it is" argument and that we shouldnt deserver better of the products and companies we buy from? The same could of been said for the developers who just formed the Blizzard union but im glad they got it done. We really need way to unionise the playerbase better so we can be better served as customers. The arguement of if "we dont like it don't buy it" kinda holds true, but seemingly this is the same thing people say about governments or workplaces, when its obvious we want to be part of these things even if we arnt happy with them. Surprising not understanding this as you were actually part of the Blizzard community team, but i guess thats like maybe thinking HR at a company is for you, when it's really working for the CEO/Shareholders.
Bring back Gary and Mike B for a 1 time podcast. You guys were the OG Podcast before they were called podcasts. We also need a Blizz Blues with Darnell
they were called podcast way before that since it's because of the ipod and date back as early as 2005.
in 2024 it's crazy that a company can demand full price for the expansion AND charge game time. I mean, people are willing to pay it. That's why it's like this. I am guilty of it. But it's just such a standout in the industry. I think that the early access thing is entirely fine, it just has really bad optics for blizzard. It looks really bad.
Exploit early, exploit often.
My 2c: I've been asking for a dad-queue for games for a while. I quit LoL because I just don't wanna play with teens anymore. Get my money and put me in people who can own credit card queue.
Same with WoW. Remember all the Pre-patch quests where hundreds of players camping one mob so they can rush finish a quest that does not give anything at all but story? If this is the way for me to have my own shard, where I don't have to panic because a hunter is tagging and kill every mob he sees, I'm down for this. I hope that the early access will be a much more chill experience than any other exp release cause every single one was garbage. This is the only time that we all will experience this new quests and I don't want to be bothered with randos tag pulling everything so they can sit on waiting for 2 weeks for the season.
TLDR: One good thing about EA is the chance to play it in more peace as Blizz won't let you have your own shard for questing!
the dads have wow classic
i bought the collectors edition which came with early access but idk if i will play it bc i feel bad about it. my friends dont have early access and also im afraid it will be very buggy and (possibly?) laggy.
I don't look at the beta access or early access at all. I am not going to pay to beta test and not have the game company, not listen to my feedback. I'm not paying for early access because I will be playing the game anyways wither, I'm in that new content now or several days later. To me, the Epic addition is about the other extras, if you take away the base game cost, then the epic is $35-40 more.
The game time is $15, so now I'm down to $20-25 cost. Buy anything from the store, like cosmetic, mount or pet then covers the rest of the game that the base doesn't offer and who knows if those don't get thrown on the Trader Tender Store that I don't have to spend tender on down the line. A few things I would see is the people getting to world first's, gathering materials for crafters by selling them to people with professions at a higher mark up.
I enjoy crafting, I will help anyone free of charge. I chose to gold sink into my professions and that's me spending my game currency for something I want to do to help others out. I never expect to make money, just at least break even or slightly lose. I make my gold from vendor my grey items and from quests. I have roughly 9 million across my 36 70's and don't buy things I can't earn myself.
Just devils advocate, but on the "is early access even positive for the game", there is the argument that anything that doesn't actively hurts the game but generates more revenue is helping the game by giving it money to invest back/mantain the game.
As I said, I just devils advocate I dont actually believe blizzard will do it but Riot for example has recently launched 2 extremely succesful and beloved gamemodes for League (Arena and Swarm) and released their most expensive skins as of yet (dark star jhin and faker ahri)
As a consumer not a fan of the early access. I got it cause fomo and to get ahead on alts, professions,and heroic gear. In my opinion MMO launch days should be the same for everyone what makes it fun. From a business standpoint point I get because blizzard knows most of their consumers are gonna buy it and they will profit
Is any of the old content from 10+ years ago still on youtube? The dungeon strat guides? Just curious.
Yes
They fixed bottle necks quest
One advantage is exploiting something lol like mop remix with the frog cloak
35:54 lol, spend a good deal criticizing blizzards early access and then immediately promote your own early access.
P.s. I don’t actually mind it, paying for early access (in general) falls into to those less offensive monetization strategies across many industries.
I was not going to buy the epic edition because it looked greedy but the 30day game time on top makes me really question if i should as i was going to get the heroic edition.
yeah not only that but the fact that this xpac i was going to go hard on gathering since im a casual these days. at first i refused but now im more on 50/50 blah lol
I've only not played legion and every release has been loaded with lag for the first 6 to 12 hours. So I'd it fixes that I'm OK with it personally. Also for me the game basically doesn't release for a month. Everything before m+ can be done in a night or maybe a day at most.
I bought it about 2 minutes of going on sale so...
It's Bad, paid early access in a game where progression carries over is always bad
something tells me a whole lot of people are going to be getting the most expensive edition. Whenever Blizz stoops a bit lower, the players somehow empty their pockets even more.
There's literally no player power benefit to having early access.
@@eodyn7 Do you know that for certain? What about professions? Won't people who pay for early access have professions leveled up much faster? This then nets them massive amounts of gold, which then can be spent on carries and such. I don't know. I think there are plenty of ways this can shake out to be pay-to-win. Obviously that is not the intent of Blizzard, but I think it is certainly possible. They have not announced any of the details besides dates and just typical lockout stuff. We know nothing else.
@@hobosnake1 mate, Eodyn7 is like a blizz employee or something. he's commenting on every negative comment about paying and extra $60 to play on time. He either works for Blizz or is just that clueless about the endless creep of shady things AAA studios are doing lately which is killing the industry
I would say player profit as professions that get am early start will kill it in the market.
All you are getting with early access is leveling, there is no meaningful way to gear, or get ahead in any way other then spam rep stuff I guess? I don’t like early access but this is very chill compared to how bad it could be
The wow community is so toxic, they're always going to bitch😂
The older I’ve gotten the less Mac and Cheese my body can handle. Sympathies.
First, usually new expansions have a 24 hour downtime period. I suspect such downtime will be from Aug 22 through 23... making the 3 day early access Aug 23-26... Then, although I will be unable to play much during Aug 22-26 due to RL, I plan to purchase the early access on the basis that DF has been an absolutely fantastic. The WoW community has a bias to hate the current WoW xpac, but when the dust settles, this xpac will do down as a top 3 expansion of the 20 year history. I'm paying the extra money as a last thank you to the developers.
The patch with downtime is actually going to be the 20th. I expect that downtime to be a clusterfuck especially the days after as people convert remix characters.
I paid for it and took the time off to level alts.
Really the only ones who benefit are the people who do crafting. The advantage you will have for leveling alts to craft/gather for the big rush of casual players the week after.
Early access is not ok to be behind a paywall just to get people to pay more money to play a few days early.
I'm in a weird boat considering the early access topic. I only bought the base edition because i don't want to support the early access bullshit. I would have gladly gotten the epic edition if it did not have the early access tied into it. I hope other people can vote with their wallets and help stop this stupid trend. I could easily afford it, but instead of adding more cool collectibles, they add game time and early access. It's just lazy.
I refuse to pay for "early" access so I will play on delayed launch.
The money argument makes even less sense when you consider that while the early access might be attached to the most expensive version, the price of the version did not increase because of it. Yes, they want to incentize you to spend the most, but it's by sweetening the deal rather than raising costs.
It's by worsening the old deal that they try to get you to buy at the new price point. You don't buy the epic edition = you start late.
Early access means almost nothing to most players. Odds are there will be massive downtime anyway, and with Mythic content being weeks out from launch, all you're getting is an extra 3 days of reputation grind.
I'm in this situation where I would rather not buy the epic edition because I want nothing from it but friends did so if I want to play with them then I'd have to spend more.
I don’t think 3/4 days wait will kill ya
@@JAKEADAM-o5x Yes because when I play a game I ask myself if it's gonna kill me rather than is it fun and worth the price? xd
@@Zewinter the first three days is not the game. It’s just Fomo
(Sharing my own thoughts before watching.)
TL;DR: WAAAAHHH WAAAAHHH (more seriously, if you're reading this wall of text, I appreciate your time.)
To me the ONLY positive in Early Access (this BS 3 days early kind at least) is that it staggers the release and might lead to a smoother experience with server-queues, lag, etc. AND will serve as a stress-test for those of us who play the Poor People[TM] release a few days later. As an EU player, I've often seen the US get a patch a day ahead of us and experience all kinds of issues that are (mostly) resolved by the time I get to it, I expect a similar thing will happen with TWW launch.
WITH THAT SAID, I'd argue that the wacky bugs and memorable brokenness of an Expac launch is a unique/rare thing that is worth experiencing to a degree. Even these days, the absolutely fucked up state of WoD at launch brings back memories that people can laugh and bond over even if they didn't know each other back in the day. It's minor but worth pointing out.
As for negatives... well. Where to begin?
- It splits up communities/friend groups in a really awkward way.
- It creates a Haves/Have Nots dynamic that is shitty and unhealthy even before you add any sense of tribal toxicity to it.
- It creates a really lame (and completely intentional) FOMO feeling for those who don't buy it. Making them feel like they're just shut out of the never-happens-twice kind of experience that each Expac launch provides.
- I find it hilarious (and infuriating) that devs/publishers try to have it both ways, putting out all the arguments they can to sell it as a cool feature you don't want to miss out on! While trying so hard to convince the non-buyers that they're not missing anything, that it won't give others an unfair advantage, that it doesn't make a difference, that they don't need to start early at all.
Well which is it? Because the way they sell it makes it sound like the most worthless feature and a waste of money if you buy it, and also a real shame if you don't because 'are you really gonna miss the launch and play DF while your friends enjoy TWW?'
- The bots and farmers will get to absolutely flood the market with reagents and the likes before your Average Joe even sets foot in the new zones, making the usual early-expac grind that much less effective.
- On a purely subjective and more minor point, it feels icky as fuck. Like... I'm used to big publishers turning every knob to nickle and dime me, but this is such a no-winner, transparent practice. No one benefits from it besides the rich fucks at the top, despite how much they try to pretend otherwise in marketing.
So I've decided to 'vote with my wallet' as they say. I've bought the Epic editions of some WoW expacs in the past, but I'm going out of my way to only buy the Basic edition this time, and I'll do it only on the day of the delayed launch, after the """Early Access[TM]""" is over.
I could've bought the Epic edition when they announced the Expac, because I don't ever pre-order other games, but I know I'll continue playing WoW anyway. But out of sheer spite for this BS practice, I'm avoiding it altogether.
EDIT (post watch): To your point abt this being 'expected' from a company selling video games, I see where you're coming from, but I personally draw a line between [This Company Sells Video Games For Profit] and [This Company Employs Manipulative And Exploitative Tactics To Increase Profits].
There's a reason why people praise humble Indies providing good player-friendly products and services, or companies like Digital Extremes, From Software and other devs for how they monetize Warframe, Deep Rock Galactic, Elden Ring, Vampire Survivors, Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain, Outer Wilds, etc.
A company/dev creating product, features and other 'consumption opportunities' for profit isn't the issue, IMO. It's the way and tone in which it's done. I'll happily throw 40e at Elden Ring's DLC, or a hundred euros at Warframe's cash-shop without feeling bad abt it because it never feels like their devs tried coercing me into it. They just provided a valuable service that I'm happy to pay for.
To me companies like Blizzard, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc. cross that line and try so hard to squeeze as much money out of me at every corner that they make legitimate transactions (aka buying the latest WoW expac, which I'd happily do because I get value out of it) feel like crap, because I know the people who it goes to (the execs, not the devs) have no respect for me and will do everything they can to get MORE money out of me for LESS service while firing the people doing the actual work so they don't have to take a small paycut to keep the line going up.
That's where the distinction lies. And practices like TWW's Early Access isn't just a for-profit company trying to make money, it's a slimy, coercive attempt at juicing more cash out of people who're already willing to give them plenty enough money through sub and box prices. And I'd also have a lot less of a problem with it if I knew that money went to properly rewarding the hard work that went into it, but knowing that WoW devs are so underpaid and have no job security (pre-Union at least) really adds to the pile of reasons why this is more/worse than just "selling video games."
The War Within Early access is a scummy, predatory microtransaction. This type of behaviour MUST NOT be supported in any way shape or form!
That said - the expansion itself is heavily overpriced already even in the basic version. We're paying a monthly subscription. There is absolutely no excuse for the high price of the expansion, let alone the ridiculous pricing of the upper tiers.
8:25 Professions still get a huge unfair advantage because they can already collect ressources which allows people to make a load of gold by selling it immediately (and we all know that the prices for crafting materials is always at its peak at the release of a new expansion) and gives them a head start in crafting gear as well once it is unlocked because of the greater amount of ressources they can collect early.
In short: People who spend the early access collecting ressources will have a huge advantage in making gold.
I'm not sure about delves, but it would be weird if they are locked because delves are actually part of the levelling process just like normal dungeons. That said: I think it is plausible if the higher difficulties of delves are locked.
23:23 I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you on this one. Your argument might have substance for a free to play or even a buy to play game.
But we're talking about a subscription based game here. They are already making money because of the subscription, and not peanuts either - we're talking about tens of millions per month. There is no excuse for this type of money squeeze, it's just greedy ever-increasing profit above else behaviour. And don't even try to defen this with the "oh but they have to make money to pay the bills" - that is already covered by the subscription fees. A very, very simple math example: Let's say the subscriber number is low, just 3 million. That's 45 million dollars in revenue every month. Now let's say the number is 5 million: that's 75 million dollars every single month. Don't even try to excuse these microtransactions as anything else but pure greed because that's exactly what it is. And if you want further proof of that you don't have to look very far - just look at Larian Studios and what Swen Vincke has said on multiple occasions.
Edit: The Heroic Edition is not something they want to actually sell. What they are doing here is a trick out of the whale fishing trick box: They want people to look at the prices and think "ah it's just 5 bucks more, let's go for the biggest edition". And they of course want people to buy the big edition so that everyone in their guild and their friends gets FOMO and also buys the big edition. That's right out of the whale hunter's playbook.
Edit 2: There are NO positives. This is just as scummy and evil as the predatory makrotransactions in Diablo Immortal or FIFA Ultimate Team or every Gatcha game under the sun.
cry
wait dawg, weren't you community manager or next to ian back then?
the heroic edition is definitely serving as a decoy to funnel people into epic edition. it's much worse than the epic yet not that much better than standard.
Can I give my early access to someone, I'll be at work anyway
Feels odd paying for early access while paying a monthly sub. Idk
The only way I've managed to kind of accept this change is by realizing they just increased the price of the game, and managed to keep a cheaper version for people who cannot afford the main version.
Still messy and ugly. Ruined the main thing the community did together, no matter who or where you were.
Ya'll will pay it regardless
“It isn’t bad because their whole purpose is to make money”
It’s a predatory practice. They have y’all drink kool aid at blizzard?
Just don't buy it then 😂
@@stevenp25100 👍
You might try actually watching the video; I said several times I think it's bad.
@@devolore22:54, you specifically justify the practice and say you don’t think it’s an issue. AFAIK, you never went back to take back that claim. You saying it’s bad for different reasons doesn’t do that.
as long as they dont give early access for raid or m+ who cares, the two weeks into the expansion before anything opens are very boring after day1/2
I will invite you to my first mythic dungeon and you can spoil the whole thing like its game of thrones
lol
I dont see any problems with some people getting early access. Blizzard lay everything out on the table and prices along with what you get with each prices for the expansion. Which is fair because then the option was giving to you to decide what you was willing to pay regardless how most of yall felt about blizzard approach. Everyone deserve the right to play the game whatever way they want because they pay just like eveyone else. Some of yall cant get mad or stop people or myself to not play until the global launch just because you decide you didnt want to pay the price that came with the early access.
Great, I don't want to play with brokies anyway!
I need to setup 3 toons for splits so i have to buy the bullshit version ...
The advantage of early access for me is I can have more time to level my alt army to 80 before the season starts
Yeah only really advantage is for leveling multiple toons.
lol fixing bugs in real time? you think thats gonna happen? okay then
Can confirm the early launch has impacted my guild. We used to all log in on launch and level, but now it wont be the big event that it used to be. I hate entering brand new dungeons and having someone constantly saying "oh and now he's gonna do this".
This is the first time since the beta of the original game launch in 2003 that I have not had access to the beta. I have been in every beta until War Within. I also did not buy the early access version. It is also the first time I have not taken vacation days to play on expansion launch day. I am not feeling it. I don't have any excitement for it.
Just another money grab from Blizz.
So just charge 300$ for the expansion then if they need money so bad?? I'm not seeing the logic here. You're basically just saying, "yeah, slowly creep up the cost of the game year after year, it's okay". Everyone needs infinite amounts of money these days, I'm not quite seeing the logic. Just charge 500$ for the early access xpac, I'm sure people will still buy it, that's the logic we're going with?
This should have never been allowed. It's a money grabbing disgrace. It's the fault of blizzard but also the customers that encourage this.
I've quit this game many times but seem to come back every year or two. Longest break was for about 4 years. I like the game but I despise blizzard's greed. To make it clear, there is a difference between good profit and being greedy.
first gona speak about my own positive about this early acces. I can only play in the weekend because I have to work in the week. So a launch in the week, sucks for me. With this early access I can play a week earlier then with normal launch where I still have to wait a few days after launch yo start playing. So this is a very big personal win.
The disadvantage for social play I call BS. Why? because it is a problem you create yourself and is not created by Blizzard. If you want to play together with your friends, then also plan that. Why would you buy then the epic edition if your friends are not (or not able). That's not very social off you then. Has nothing with Blizzard to do. If there would be a problem for 1 of your friend to start to play on launch date would you wait on that friend so you can play together or blame Blizzard for choosing a launch date you and all your friends are not able to play? It is not a problem created by Blizzard, it is a problem created by yourself.
I would agree if blizzard would say, it cost more to start playing later (what they never would do because who would choose that). But then yes you are forced to pay more to be able to play together.
LOL bro they're selling you a full price live-service game with a monthly sub, in game shop, RMT gold and now early access? Early access wow? There is not a single greedy sales tactic that they won't take full advantage of. As if it's so profound, you saying company wants to make money. They could roll everything out for free and still make profit are you kidding me
I have been watching people play the beta and it looks sooooo low effort by blizzard and super boring. I think I am going to miss the expansion.
04:30 they want you to buy the epic edition for max profit "ah its just 5€ more than heroic edition - fuckt it"
heroic edition is really there just as a glorified boost which doesn't mean anything if you buy it right now since you can level a character from 1 to 70 in less than 5h right now.
Making money is one thing - Customers don't give a shit if the product isn't shit