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Blizzard Beefs up World of Warcraft's Recruit-a-Friend
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:31 AM
from the you-can-quit-anytime-honest dept.
from the you-can-quit-anytime-honest dept.
It appears that Blizzard has beefed up their World of Warcraft recruit-a-friend program rather substantially. There have been rumors that this was coming for a while now, but the details are still a little surprising. Benefits include triple experience, being able to summon your friend from anywhere in the world, free levels, free gametime, and even a free mount if your friend signs up for a two-month subscription. All of these are subject to several quid pro quos, but it looks like Blizzard is really trying to ramp up their player base for the expansion.
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Multi-boxing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Multi-boxing (Score:5, Informative)
What makes multi-boxing fun?
Characters were designed to solo reasonably well, even healing classes. But in a group, you can often gain xp slightly more than twice as fast. With the group bonus, that means it'll be break-even at a minimum, so that encourages grouping.
However, when all the characters in the group are your own, you get ALL the xp. And with triple xp, plus the ability to actually PROMOTE your buddy an entire level, it's just a race to 70... it might be faster to multi-box outside of a party just to promote that last level or two.
The record to 60 was around 22 hours, and 26(?) hours from 60 to 70 (using an exploit where people would leave an instance to grant the remaing people full xp for mobs that were almost dead). I easily see people hitting 70 (with two characters at a time) in under 24 hours.
Parent
I still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me, but I still don't get the "race to level 70" mentality.
1. Essentially the levels 1 to 69 are the actual game content. (Well, ok, plus a couple of things you do at level 70.) That's the actual quests, story, exploration, etc, to be done.
After that, the game is over and you're essentially stuck into an endless tarpit of an endgame grind. There's nothing more to do that repeat the same few things over and over and over again, just to keep you busy until the next expansion pack is released. Not even particularly smart or diverse things. Some classes can get through months of it without pressing more than one button, or maybe two.
And whatever you get from it, is fully useless in the rest of the game, since everything else was designed to be done (and any non-instance stuff: soloed) by someone with green gear. So any "OMG, EPIC STUFF!" you get in a grind instance, isn't needed for anything except more grinding.
But at any rate, that's what happens after you played and finished the actual game. And it's not even much fun. And it makes a whole lot of people depressed and unhappy, who were perfectly content before getting stuck in it. (Just listen the drama in any raiding guild, and then you tell me if that sounds happy.)
Yet some people are apparently in a hurry to skip the actual game levels, only to get stuck in that endgame grind? And some are even willing to pay for it or risk banishment? (By buing Glider, multiple accounts, buying power-levelling from some Chinese guy, etc.) WTH? It's on par with paying someone to watch a movie for you, just so you can come back and watch the last battle in a loop, for a year. As I was saying: WTH?
So, yay, now they can compress the actual game to 24 hours. Heh.
2. The game is already fast to level, even when soloing and not being particularly good at it. You can (and God knows enough people do) get to level 70 without having every had to function in a group, or do your job in an instance. You see "healers" who never fully understood that they aren't mages. You see warriors who still think that their e-penis size depends on attacking a different mob from the rest of the group, to show how tough they are. You see hunters who still think that when the going gets tough, they're supposed to set the fucking pet on aggressive, I quote, "so it can protect the other members of the group too." Etc.
More importantly, you see people who haven't yet figured out how the game really works, and are still operating on wild mis-understandings or basing decisions on strategies on their own "what kind of things would make sense" fantasies, instead of how the game actually works. You see people who haven't yet figured out what all those icons do, and how to combine them.
I swear to god, one hunter still thought that he can walk backwards to keep a mob at a range and use his ranged attack, like with the ultra-slow mobs at levels 1 to 9. _There_ it works to take a step backwards and shoot the mob again before he reaches you. At level 70, it doesn't work. So the retard would run backwards through two extra groups, and actually be proud of his "footwork". The idea of disengaging, feigning death and letting the tank do his job (or not ending up needing that in the first place) never occured to him.
I used to even think that such people must have been power-levelled, but in the meantime I know a couple who got to level 70 fair and square, without learning anything.
Do we really need more of those, and worse at that? Someone getting to level 70 in 24 hours, probably hasn't even had the time to assimilate what all those icons do, or wth is happening around them. Assimilate it all for 2-3 character? Heh.
So ok, let's even believe that they're eager to get into the group action at the end. (Yeah, right. Most people who were swearing that grinding MC is the meat of the game, went back to soloing instantly after BC got launched.) Ok, let's believe that. What do they hope to bring to a group at that level? How do they expect t
Parent
Re:I still don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats the norm for all MMOs it seems. View the actual game content that you are *supposed to be enjoying* as "grind", then get to the "end game" and whine there is nothing to do. I have seen this in many people in pretty much every MMO.
Its a power thing for people I think. They don't want to compete at anything less than a level field (or preferably one that favours them) and they don't want a challenge. Its perhaps a reflection of the instant-gratification nature of our society on one hand, and the competitive nature of our society on the other. I read an article recently that was saying that pretty much every aspect of North American society is viewed as a competition these days. We have somehow concluded that we are losers if we don't compete at everything and don't win at it as well.
At the same time few players are willing to admit they have anything to learn when it comes to playing MMOs as well - so they fail to learn from their experiences and fail to learn from others. As a result the often suck very badly when playing in groups. I am sure it seems even more apparent in WOW given the number of players present.
I enjoy playing the game to play the game - leveling up a character to max means simply that I am likely to stop playing that character. The "End game" content of most games seems to be grinding to engage in PvP - and quite frankly I have no desire to associate with the typical PvP oriented player. The vast majority are complete fuckwit assholes, and they occlude the decent and competitive PvPers I wouldn't mind playing with. People also take PvP competition far far too seriously I think. PvP was fun in its earliest incarnation in DAOC for instance, until they introduced Realm Points and Realm Point Skills and suddenly we weren't fighting the enemy because they were the enemy, we were fighting them so we could personally gain more power and abilities. That ruined RvR in DAOC in the long run.
Parent
Re:I still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Experiencing the content from 1-70 once is nice.
On the second run through, you can visit some areas and do some quests you haven't done before.
On the third time, you might still find a few areas you haven't played, but you'll be doing a lot of repeat content.
By the 4th time, you've done it all, you're just trying to hit 70 to do end-game content and gearing (pvp, arenas, dungeons).
The distribution of content and leveling speed is also that of a triangle or pyramid. At low levels, there's a lot of content.
Eg. on horde there are 4 unique starting areas, and another 4 unique starting areas for alliance.
For levels 10-20 there are 3 unique areas per faction (so 6 total, down from 8 for 0-10).
For 20-30 there are maybe 3 areas, but by now many aren't unique to a single faction, so maybe 4-5 total.
From 30-40 and onwards there are only 2-3 areas you can choose from, and before the recent leveling buff, you had to do all content in several of the areas to get to the next level bracket.
So on my 2nd character I leveled, all content from lvl 40+ had already been done by my first character. The only real benefit on subsequent characters is that you know the areas better and can complete quests a little faster.
The grind to 70 is so painfully slow that a lot of people prefer to only level up to 19, 29, 39, etc. and then 'twink' that character with the best gear and enchants. Characters in any X0-X9 bracket (eg. 10-19) can play PVP with only players in that same level bracket.
Parent
I guess you don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
You have it a little backwards. Good gear (epic loot) is a requirement to run the end game content. Getting the gear is a way to see the content. End game raids are another part of the road.
There is a gear progression required in order to be able to do the end game raids. I know some people like to wave their epeen about and look down on non-raiders but I believe those are in the minority. You may notice them because they are vocal.
I don't run end game raids for loot - if I get a nice item it's gear that wi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The talent builds are certainly as viable at level 10 as they are at level 70, because the game is tuned at every step for how many talent points can you have. Plus, they were viable enough pre-BC. I don't think anyone who was grinding MC or AQ at level 60 before went, "man, this character is so non-viable without another 10 talents!"
Ditto for gear. Most of the game is doable even with whites and _greys_. Challenging, but viable nevertheless.
To quote from Cranius's Big Blue Dress:
It still doesn't enlighten me much (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I suppose I'm not going to tell you what you like in a game. If that's how you play it, fair enough.
It still doesn't really answer my main question: why would anyone want to skip those training stages, then?
Using your analogy (not that I see it that way, but ok, I can work with that) it's like wanting to be directly in the championship, without first doing those fundamentals training. If the goal is helping the team achieve that "cup", it makes no sense. Add one complete newbie to a basketball team, and they'll lose the cup. Guaranteed.
It makes some sense if it's about personal glory, as I was saying. You know, for that "I was in the basketball finals" or "I have a level 70 in epic gear!" bragging rights. But for team work and helping the team? I'm just as unconvinced as before. See my examples in the original message, about how well some of those people actually perform in a team.
Training the player isn't even remotely the same thing as training his/her character. A guy that skipped through the game at triple speed, or in some cases was outright power-leveled, is still essentially a newbie in a veteran costume. You can take a guy off the street and put him into a <insert famous basketball team< outfit, and that doesn't really make him fit to play with them.
Ah, but maybe he has experience with another class, which he had played to level 70? Fair enough, but that's like skipping to the football/soccer cup, just because you were once in the winning basketball team. It's barely a notch above the newbie in the previous paragraph.
Plus, even a real pro sports team doesn't play only in the finals. If someone doesn't like playing the pre-season plays too, and training in between plays too, why are they in that sport in the first place?
So on the whole, I'm still quite as unenlightened as before when it comes to the race to skip levels.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your analogy is a bit flawed, but largely because you're not assigning the right set of costs.
The slow part is "learning World of Warcraft". Some people never do that. Some people do it relatively quickly. I got a good handle on the game itself on my second character (the first one was just after release, and a huge amount has changed since then.) I know how a Prot Warrior works very thoroughly - while I don't know what the abilities of (for example) a Rogue are, exactly, I know the basic mechanics involved
Re:Multi-boxing (Score:5, Informative)
Also, 5 shaman with all their totems out can kill anyone if they work together. It won't win high-end tournaments (because you're not "quite" as good as 5 highly skilled people) but having 5 characters that work perfectly in sync, and are built to complement eachother, are hard to beat.
Parent
Re:Multi-boxing (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Multi-boxing (Score:4, Interesting)
These teams are NOT hard to beat. We beat one on my under-geared, 1400 rated screw-around 5v5 team.
Line of sight is absolutely essential in arenas. Anyone who is decent understands how exploit it, and it's extremely easy to do with macroed teams.
All it takes is a well-timed psychic scream and all of the macros go out the window. Macros stop working when you get out of follow range.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just FYI, they ARE boosting leveling speed from 60-70 when the expansion comes out.
Having grown up on Wizardry (Score:2)
and a multitude of other CRPGs I simply was trying create that feeling again. Let alone the challenge required. It requires an very in depth knowledge of how the macro language works, addons, and how each class plays.
However I did find out quickly that balanced groups are far less efficient than optimized groups. One of the best sites dedicated to dual boxing is http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Portal [dual-boxing.com] You can also choose read articles about it on WOWWIKI starting with http://www.wowwik [wowwiki.com]
Redundant Array of Shaman (Score:5, Interesting)
I play in the Shadowburn battle group. Occasionally there's this redundant array of shaman that show up in the AV games (from a different server - I forget which). They always appear in the same 5-man group and have the same initial letters in their names. I've seen them wreck havok. Immediate heals on each other, concentrated firepower, occasional res on a fallen component. Totems times five adds to the effect. All component shaman are decked out in near identical PvP gear.
I've been able to tell which component shaman has the player behind it by two ways. First, when addressed, the player will occasionally give simple responces in BG chat. Secondly, when moving, the player-controlled character will be out front followed by a group of 4 that move on top of each other.
I would imagine setting up a 5-box group like this would be kind of interesting from a technical angle. However, after watching this redundant array of shaman in action, I'm convinced the reward is being a considerable force on the battlefield.
Parent
Re:Redundant Array of Shaman (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
First hit is free... (Score:5, Funny)
Second one is gonna cost ya.
Come on, all the cool kids are doing it...
Re:First hit is free... (Score:5, Funny)
No! Friends don't let friends do WoW.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:First hit is free... (Score:4, Interesting)
Tried EvE. It just got old after awhile because I had to use it more and more just to get high. Also, since their product was more complicated to use, EvE-fiends were pretty elitist and thought they were special and more intelligent than WoW-whores. I just had to quit.
So yeah, maybe it's good to hook a friend up with EvE. They are more likely to get out of the MMO scene before their addiction destroys their lives.
Parent
Wishing... (Score:5, Funny)
Least the mounts aren't so bad.
Re: (Score:2)
The one "mount" WoW is obviously missing, the opposite sex! (or same sex, whichever way you go) Though once you've gotten your elite mount for your level 70 character, vagina (or asshole) will never be enough to satisfy your need for leveling with people you'll never actually meet in real life.
*nawcom has only taken his character to level 58, then quit. Why? there were some events that "orally" distracted me for the moment; and it was more of a wake-up call than anything, that the real world is much much b
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that some one would have had to re-invite him first, waited two months, and then got him to re sign up? Sounds like a lot of hoo-ha for a mount... wait. I remember that grind for cash and what not. That sucked! Not that I'd rejoin the Alliance or the Horde again, it's been almost a year and I don't really miss it.
I may pick it up again next summer when I move away from my family. The only reason I joined was to hang out with my brother over Ventrillo, who lived 800 miles away.
Um... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but is this really that big of a piece of news?
A few of the features mentioned in the article, like the free game time, have been there for quite some time already.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Um... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's interesting is that this was announced around the same time EA Mythic announces their Warhammer Online launch [warhammeronline.com]. Also, reports of their open beta progrem is set to begin August 15.
I think what's going on here is that Acti-lizzard is trying to cork up any potential bleeding that they see in the coming months by grabbing as many remaining players that haven't started an MMO as they can before there is an exodus to Warhammer Online. With the November-December holiday shopping time-frame approaching, they want to make sure they not only retain the top spot, but also have the other MMOs buried to obscurity.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pretty big news depending on how you look at it. Some feel that this is Blizzard giving a big middle finger to their loyal players who have been recruiting friends for 4 years, by now giving only newbies a 3X leveling bonus.
Others have pointed out that the result of this is Blizzard making players PAY to level faster. For instance I've got friends who already play WOW, but we can't play together because they're on another server, and on the opposite faction (so can't server transfer).
If they want to
What WoW really needs... (Score:3, Funny)
...is a butt-load more players. They're hurting. Please help WoW out. Recruit the one friend you know who hasn't played this game yet.
Oh come on! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Won't you help the poor orphans of Stormwind?
Hmmmm (Score:2)
This means that the zebra, which is one of the prizes for doing this, will become an anti-status symbol, because it will signal that its rider has levelled using triple-experience.
This also means that WoW is behaving more like real life. In real life, time is money, and so we permit moneyed people to spend their money in order to save time. WoW has so far resisted such an arrangement, because non-moneyed people screech so loud when it happens... but now that is changing.
It's not direct yet; you can't ye
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, because paying 5000g for that faster flying mount that essentially cuts down on the wasted travel time in the game doesn't equal "permitting moneyed people to spend their money in order to save time".
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Quid pro quo? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Like in, Blizzard has the rights to your firstborn male, with a side dish of Fava beans?
They would ask for that, except that 90% of all WoW players are never going to get laid, so why bother?
Active Accounts (Score:4, Interesting)
I would love to see what the active number of players looks like these days. I stopped playing just after the first expansion. Partly because it didn't add enough for me. I won't be buying the new expansion and reactivating my account and I think there are probably a few people in my situation.
The programme sounds exciting but it seems to be just a bit to little too late.
Re:Active Accounts (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Am I still counted in Blizzards official subscriber count, despite not having played in over a year?
If you're still paying your subscription, yes.
If not, no.
Re:Active Accounts (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like the number of people online at any given time has shot way up lately... And lots of people have re-activated their accounts to get ready for the expansion.
This program seems like a money grab to divert some of the cash that goes to power-leveling services back to blizzard.
Parent
Its a great game (Score:2, Insightful)
But I still won't buy the expansion. Playing though the last one burned me out. Perhaps if there was more new innovation, and not just the same thing in a new package I might.
I'd want a more in-depth crafting system, and a means to create my own content. And a more persuasive reason to participate in world PvP. The entire culture is based around grinding for the best gear. Why? Because its there, and for no other reason. Hardly a motivating reason after doing it for 3 years.
Re:Its a great game (Score:4, Funny)
I'd want a more in-depth crafting system, and a means to create my own content.
Penis shaped swords, maces, helmets, ... towns.
Yeah, that would be fantastic.
Parent
Huh? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
WoW has completely broken down the barriers of stereotyping and social class systems. Nerd play it. Preppies play it. Girls play it. Grown-up professionals play it. High-school football players play it. Military service members play it.
I have a number of friends who, though addicted to WoW, somehow manage to keep up with otherwise completely no-stereotypical lives.
The stigma video games as a "nerd" activity is all but dead to my generation.
Parent
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
The stigma video games as a "nerd" activity is all but dead to my generation.
No, you just think that yours is the first generation to overcome these stereotypes. Don't worry, ever generation thinks the same thing.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering that videogames have been around for about one generation, then yes, this is the first generation to overcome that stereotype. Or are you so young that for you, videogames have always existed? In which case, don't worry, every generation thinks the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
I do, but then I'd feel like a crack dealer or something. Honestly - unless you are really into this, you can't get much out of it.
Shameless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
[...] or (and more likely to happen) you decide to multibox.
Give us a break, man. Multiboxing is not even a blip on the radar. I played WoW since open beta, and I've seen ONE 5-boxer so far. I see 2-boxers every now and then, at the average rate of once a month (just guessing though). To say that most people will use this promotion to x-box is to completely disregard the fact that x-boxing is difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and generally requires the kind of dedication to the cause a weekend gamer
Tag it 'free mount'. (Score:2)
Tag it 'free mount'.
That way we can have a 'free fsck' next year.
Who needs free XP (Score:4, Interesting)
What ends up happening is you chain your accounts together through the refer a "friend" program, so when you pay up your bot accounts each one in turn gets free time.
I had stopped playing WoW for quite awhile...Glider actually made the game fun and got me started playing it again. I never got banned.
Looks like with this new system Blizzard is trying to reinforce their "real" player base.