Blizzard To Sell Level 90 WoW Characters For $60

An anonymous reader writes "After their online store accidentally spilled the beans last week, Blizzard has now confirmed plans to let players pay $60 to boost one of their World of Warcraft characters to level 90, the current cap. At Blizzcon a few months ago, the company unveiled the game's next expansion, Warlords of Draenor, currently in development. When it comes out, they're giving every player a free boost to 90 in order to get to the new content immediately. They say this was the impetus for making it a purchasable option. 'It's tremendously awkward to tell someone that you should buy two copies of the expansion just to get a second 90. That's odd. So we knew at that point we were going to have to offer it as a separate service.' Why $60? They don't want to 'devalue the accomplishment of leveling.' Lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas said, '[L]eveling is something that takes dozens if not over 100 hours in many cases and people have put serious time and effort into that, and we don't want to diminish that.'" On one hand, I can appreciate that people who just want to get to endgame content may find it more efficient to spend a few bucks than to put a hundred hours into leveling a new character. On the other hand, I can't help but laugh at the idea that Blizzard will probably get a ton of people paying them to not play their game.

Re:Value

[omglolbah]

Guild Wars 2 solved this issue beautifully I felt.

When you enter a zone your hp, damage etc gets scaled to the level of the area. Only down-scaled however so you cannot just jump to high level areas immediately.

This DOES mean that your friends at higher levels can play with you though,which a bunch of my friends did. Worked great.

Sadly the game didnt really 'last' for us for a variety of other reasons.

Re:Wut?

[timftbf]

Better yet, add bots and make a solo, single-player version of WoW available. I'd definitely buy it if it worked in Wine.

This. I love the first few levels of WoW where I don't have to interact with anyone. I think the art style is great, I enjoy the lore, the feeling of just wandering about exploring things is a whole bunch of fun.

Then I get to a point where it's time to go in an instance with other people, and I hate it, and quit.

Been round this loop three times now since vanilla. I know how it's going to go, but every few years I get the urge to go and do it again...

Ohhhh boy, it's gonna be Death Knights all over!

[Opportunist]

Dear WoW players. Do you remember when the DKs came to be? And how everyone was moaning how, by definition, everyone who had no idea what to do seemed to play a DK?

The reason was simply that DKs started out at level 55. These people did not, like everyone else, start out small with a handful of skills, then get a few new ones every couple levels, with plenty of time to get to know them and get comfortable with them. No, they got everything dumped on their head at once with almost no time to find out what to do and how to play because, well, how would they?

Remember those raids in BRD (for the non-players, that's the first place where those DKs would get to play with the other kids in earnest) were a bit like, as a well known person put it, "a toddler driving a Leopard II tank with a faulty differential lock into a bicycle race of bi-polars"? They had no, zero, zilch, idea how to play their character.

And now, kids, it's like that all over again. Only much, much WORSE. Remember those moans you breathed whenever someone acted like he had no idea what to do, the comment "fuck, did you buy your char on EBay?" in chat? What used to be mostly unlikely will now be very likely: Someone dropped some coin to get a char they have no idea how to play with.

The group finder just got much, much more fun. To watch. Certainly not to play.

Lifecycle of a MMORPG

[Thyamine]

I think we are just seeing the prolonged lifecycle of a MMORPG. Most either fizzle and die, or last long enough that they have to start going through these hoops. I think WoW is just one of the biggest/longest so we are seeing some of these ideas for a first time or at least publicized in a grand fashion. Every iteration has made the game easier and easier for players, pushed the upper levels, and introduced things that make players who played the first iteration sound like grandpa (we used to have to grind for days for a single level, up hill, both ways). This is just another step where content is being added, so how can you get the most out of it (business need)? You let players just jump right to it! It bugs me, but as someone working full time with a family, I can see how players may appreciate it.

Re:Levelling not the point?

[X0563511]

The real problem then is all the interesting content is end-game.

Guild Wars 2 has an interesting take on it - your level is scaled down to the area you're in, and because of this players who've progressed past an area somehow can still go back and enjoy the content. You even get experience/drops that are useful to you.

You can't really do that in WoW, you'll insta-kill everything and get nothing for it.