Recently, I saw a funny post on the WoW Forums where a user asked Blizzard why their paid services cost so much.

He made an interesting point: on the PTRs, faction changes, server transfers, and customizations were completely free for all players, the process is very quick, and it doesn't seem to take up that many resources. So why are paid services so expensive if it's such an easy task?

Check out Blizzard's response. There's nothing like getting an answer from Customer Service in a confusing and condescending tone.

If you got a little lost while trying to read that, don't feel bad. Customer Service professionals are "supposed" to be trained in proper communication with customers - but apparently, Nephadne wasn't. So here's a translation from asshole-into-English for you:
_______________________________________________________
Question:
Why do paid services like faction changes and migrations cost so much if you're already doing it for free?

Answer:
As I understand it, you want to know why paid factions like faction changes and migrations cost so much if we're already doing it for free.

Unfortunately, I'm totally the wrong person to answer this. But, I'll answer anyways.

The reason for this is because these services are non-essential and therefore SHOULD carry a hefty charge.

If that sounds fucked up to you, please remember that it cost us a lot of money to put these automated systems in place.

It also costs a lot of money to maintain them.

Once again, because these services are only for cosmetic or for personal preference reasons - that's why they cost so much.
_______________________________________________________

Other people know better though, especially those who have worked as Database Administrators.

Populating information across multiple databases or servers is not a very difficult operation, nor is it very expensive or challenging to setup. After all, that's the entire purpose of databases and how they were designed from the ground up! Blizzard makes it sound like a "QUERY" is a very difficult and expensive process.

All of their automated mechanisms are already in place and they HAVE been in place for several years now. They probably even recuperated all of their "development costs" on the first day that the paid service was made available.

Funny how they also said that the services were non-essential and only for personal preference alone. (Character Re-Customizations cost $15, Transfers cost $25, Faction Changes cost $30, Name Changes cost $10, etc.)

I agree that Character Re-customizations are mostly for preference reasons. But what if you want to change your character to make it more intimidating in PVP (a very useful tool), or changing race/gender combinations so that you're harder to target?

What if you're being stalked by another player? Or constantly grieved or harassed? Transfers and Name Changes then become essential services.

Faction Changes? Those are VERY essential if you actually want to progress in the game or collect Honor Points. Realms are so imbalanced, that this becomes an essential service for those trying to join Dungeons or Battlegrounds (or want to avoid 2-3 hour waits, whereas opposite factions wait 5-10 minutes.)

Blizzard claims that only non-essential services are paid.. does that mean that essential services should be free? =]

So why do the paid services cost so much? Quite frankly, they're good marketing numbers. The prices are _just_ high enough so that people who can afford them will pay for the service. And those who can't afford them will just pay Blizzard over a longer period by their time invested in leveling new characters on new realms.

It's also set pretty high so that it seems like it's a premium service which is very expensive for Blizzard to maintain. If you're paying the same amount that you paid for the Cataclysm expansion pack, that must mean that the service is VERY special indeed.

It actually reminds me a little of this scene from "The Invention of Lying". When Edward Norton (the cop) is asked why his bribes were so high, he responds: "I feel like when I set the price up higher, it takes it out of the realm of petty crime and helps me preserve my sense of personal integrity."

It's not just Blizzard Paid Services that does this though, it's a standard practice everywhere and you can apply this to almost any service or product. (If you work in a certain industry, you'll know how much something _really_ costs to manufacture or service.)

Many services are overpriced and given the illusion that their services are worth the price, or because they are unique or special. It's the primary reason why cartels were created too - if you goto a competitor, they'll have the same prices too. Gasoline, food, automotive mechanics, web design, applications development, technical support, etc. Hell, even DVRs (for security systems) would cost $50,000 from vendors - but if you knew what you were doing, you could buy the equipment for less than $800 and install yourself.

Apparently, Blizzard has been deleting threads and banning players from WoW Forums when the subject of RIFT (in a positive light) comes up.

So whatever you do, even if it's related to WoW in some way, don't talk about RIFT! They'll ban you for that too.

This shouldn't come as a big surprise though, they did the same thing when AION first came out.

Proper Guide to Blizzard Forum Discussion:

- Even though you pay $15 per month for the privilege of posting in their forums, you may only talk about subjects that they tell you to talk about.
- Such topics and general discussions may only be about how amazing and glorious Blizzard is.
- In Off-Topic Forums, you may only post about Blizzard games and Blizzard topics.
- Free.. speech? What's that? This is BLIZZARD'S forum, they can limit and censor you as much as please. And yes, it is indeed pleasurable.

By now you've seen all of the news announcement's regarding Paradox Interactive's new "Salem" (working title) MMORPG.

You know, the "OMG! A permanent death MMORPG! Inconceivable!" stuff.

It sounds very cool and I'm looking forwards to trying it out. But, what these news articles currently lack are what the people really want: SCREENSHOTS AND GAMEPLAY VIDEOS! =]

So, I'll try to help out as best as possible.

Here's a screenshot of the current work in progress:


Here's a gameplay video of Salem Alpha in action:



There was just that one screenshot available for now, but if you wanted more insight into what the game will be about, look no further than the game Haven & Hearth. Salem has been quietly worked on by the The Seatribe development team for the past 4 months, so you can imagine that Salem will be taking a lot of inspiration (concepts, skill names, gameplay, etc) from their existing H&H game.

Here's a gameplay video from their current Haven & Hearth MMORPG:



If you're intrigued by Salem, check out Seatribe's latest post regarding the Paradox announcement on their forums. (That's where I snagged the Salem screenshot.) Screenshots of Haven & Hearth can be found here too.

While I was looking up some old Blizzard news announcements, I came across this old article from IGN. It's always interesting to see these old posts detailing the future of games. =]

It talked about various things that Blizzard had planned before beta testing began.. so, unfortunately, I can't really add these items to that WoW Nostalgia post.

Anyways, check it out:

- Warriors had defense skills that were limited buffs (no stances).
- Warriors had an ability called "Slice and Dice" that granted additional damage when using swords.
- Shamans had an armor spell called Rockskin and could cast grasping roots (which grows roots from the ground to snare enemies).
- Shamans had a spell called "Immolation" for setting enemies on fire and burning slowly.
- Mages had a spell called "Fire Shield" that did damage to attacking players. (Although this never made it, the similar Molten Armor was later introduced in TBC.)
- There were core skills, secondary skills, and trade abilities. Secondary skills allowed Warriors, for example, to have first-aid, sneaking, thief abilities, etc. I wonder what other secondary skills they had considered?
- Core skills was basically weapon training (and possibly spells or certain skills like "Taming") by the way.
- This was interesting: "We do know there will be two continents however, Azeroth and Calendor." They even italicized "do", meaning that Blizzard confirmed to them that the two continents would be called Azeroth and Calendor. They might have misheard Kalimdor as Calendor (or maybe that was the original spelling?). Eastern Kingdoms was once known as Azotha, but in the Warcraft 3 manual Azeroth is a continent, not the planet.

Very interesting indeed. =]

Here are some other interesting details collected during that time (From E3 2002 Previews, the June 2003 issue of GMR, and forum posts).

- There will be over 100 dungeons in World of Warcraft. (Also confirmed by gamesdomain.com who had a private preview by Blizzard.)
- World of Warcraft ended up having 36 total dungeons by the way. BC had 26 dungeons by the end and WOTLK 29. Cataclysm launched with 10 new dungeons (and there are 2 new ones to be released later this year).
- Gnolls were changed to Gnomes as the playable race. (Textures were re-purposed for NPCs.)
- Entertainment on public transportation, like gambling.
- Mounts provide a bonus to armor when travelling, but could "not be used in combat yet". That feature was supposed to be implemented in the future.
- There were supposed to be hundreds of secondary skills (the only ones known at the time were First Aid, Thief (aka Pickpocketing), Lockpicking, and Sneaking which could be obtained by any class.)
- Players accumulate Special Points (SP) to unlock secondary skills.
- Druids could shapeshift into "unobtrusive animals" that are native to the area, such as a small rabbit. Basically, they could become "Critters" to stay hidden in plain sight. =]
- Mages could summon Fire and/or Air elementals.
- Blizzard stated that servers could support 2000-4000 players.
- World of Warcraft budget was about $40-50 million, was being worked on by 60 people over a 3 year period. (Good to know information to separate development costs from all other costs.)

And finally: when asked about possible new races: "There will be playable evil races, very evil races in fact".

I'm not sure what they had planned. Maybe they were just referring to the Undead race, or Horde in general? It's hard to say.. I wouldn't really consider the Horde evil, considering the amount of lore painting them as honorable and misunderstood warriors. If any race was considered evil, it would have to be the Human race considering all of their actions (and how they followed the order's of Azeroth's most evil villain for years). But that's a debate for another day. =]

* UPDATES:

- Confirmation from Warcry that "Calendor" was a typo - they meant to write Kalimdor. Azeroth was still called a continent however.
- Apparently, the Cathedral in Stormwind was to be used for virtual weddings, and Blizzard had plans to rent the space and to buy/send out invitations for players. (Early plans for paid services perhaps?) =]
- Another old mention of monthly content updates "created by an ongoing live development team that continuously designs new lands, quests, and monsters."
- Blizzard planned to have dynamic quests assigned to NPCs on the fly.
- Another funny one: "Every drop can be either used, worn, or used in crafting. Of course some things will be better than others, but there won't be any junk."
- Oh, and of course: Player Housing. =]