It appears that Blizzard might be sick and tired of waiting, especially since players are getting really frustrated and many are now aware of what's really holding back the release.

According to sources here and here, instead of submitting documents describing the RMAH process, they're just going to cut out the real money "cashing-out" part of the Korean version instead. They want to add it later as a patch, if they can obtain approval.

(At first I thought these were just opinion pieces, but they have quotes from Blizzard and a GRB official confirming these new developments.)

Blizzard was contacted on Dec 16 and asked to provide more information about the RMAH. The original hearing for the Korean GRB was slated for Dec 21, but it was cancelled and postponed to a later date. Blizzard was given 7 days to file their additional information.

As I've noted many times in the past, they have to be really careful about what they submit so this doesn't come as a surprise at all. They've been dancing around the issue, and trying to show that "random loot" is the only gambling related activity in the game. However, the RMAH operates just like a slot machine and there is real monetary risk involved. Given only 7 days to prepare information, it was a wise decision to take more time to prepare their best documentation.. they might even rethink the RMAH process for SK specifically.

It appears that Blizzard submitted their amended request and it was received by the GRB on either Dec 21 or most likely Dec 22 (it was reported in the Korean news on Dec 23). However, they're still leaving in the RMAH but for "Battle Coins" (B.Net Bucks) only, so there won't be a way to cash out with real money. It's kind of sneaky, since it's still worth real money.. but it does demonstrate just how important it is to get Korea on board with the RMAH. They could have just cut it out altogether so that it can finally be released for all other geographies.

This is still a re-submission for approval though, and the GRB needs to review their new approach to the RMAH. The new RMAH process still actually involves random chance and possibility of losing money.. unless the Korean RMAH does not charge for Listing Fees. They're expecting to have a final decision made by the first week of January.

Coincidentally, on the day of or right after that resubmission for approval, Bashiok tweeted:

"#Diablo15 year anniversary is in 9 days! (We have a little something fun planned for the week after.) How are you going to celebrate?"

They still haven't received the GRB confirmation though, but it's expected "the week after" Diablo's anniversary.. which is the first week of January. He says "a little something fun planned", meaning that it's not supposed to be anything important like a release date but it's left open for interpretation. Strange that they're not announcing anything on the anniversary date, but rather sometime during the week AFTER. :)

If you weren't aware, Bashiok also confirmed that the GRB rating was indeed a facet responsible for their planned D3 global launch. He wrote the following, and then immediately deleted it, even though there was no reason to delete it except for the GRB comment:

#226 - 2011/12/21 05:37:00 AM

I don't know what translation you're reading but no where has it been stated the release of the game on a whole is delayed because of a GRB rating. Might it delay the game in Korea? I suppose no one knows, but we still have some time since the game is not finished. We're playing internal builds, the entire game, we'd know if it was. I'd know.

I hate it when they try to hide this stuff. I understand why though; players would be really angry if Blizzard did admit to Korea being the reason for long delays.

On Dec 21, I was sitting around waiting all day for Bioware to brag about their "First 24 Hour" sales figures. It's been 4 days now, and still nothing.

Typically for a major AAA release like this that has been so heavily promoted, hyped, and anticipated, other publishers or developers release sales details within a couple days.

I'm not really surprised in this case though. If we do get a sales figure announcement, it will probably be a "First Week" or "First Month" sales. As you already know, when sales are less than expected, companies will often make their first sales announcement the one with the beefiest numbers. Really good sales though will get the "first 24 hours" announcement.

Sometimes companies can cover figures up (or massage them) with special wording to give the impression of more sales than they really are. Here are some examples:

• The most common is "Shipped" rather than "Sold". Companies will announce "Shipped over 4 million copies", but that only means that they shipped unsold copies to retailers for sale. That doesn't mean any of those copies will sell however.
• Using "Registered Users" or "Registered Players" instead of actual sales numbers. "We have over 3 million registered accounts!" which anyone can, in fact, include free registrations, forum user registrations, demo users, and beta players. Plus, any number of other definitions for "Subscribers", "Users", or "Registered Players".
• New forms of Digital Downloads, where players can purchase, download, and install the game months before release. That technically puts the "First 24 Hours" on the first day it was made available, but they include the first couple months as their "First 24 Hours".
• In addition to #3, they'll use the wording "Sold Through As Of". That's more deceptive wording to pay attention to. Why is it "Sold Through" instead of just "Sold"? :)
• They'll disguise the period of sales and geographies sold in. If, for example, the game is launched in NA and then 4 days later in EU, they'll say "First 24 Hours", but they'll include NA, the full 4 days of sales in NA, and then 24 hours in EU. Sometimes they'll even launch a smaller country (with very little sales) last, so that they can include several days of sales from major countries.
• And, of course, when companies are embarrassed to release first day sales, they'll do first week or first month. Even then, they can use options from above to beef up the number even further. :)

Usually it's not a good sign when companies do this. They need to be deceptive to hide real numbers, possibly because it fell short of minimum expectations.

A while ago, I had made some SWTOR Sales Speculations of my own, and I estimated that first day sales would be around 900k (+/- 100k). Professional analysts predicted 1.5 million pre-orders and 3 million total sales within a little over a week after launch. So, many readers here thought I was crazy to estimate so low and many probably questioned my sanity.

After all, there's already been so much hype from Bioware about their figures, that 2-3 million sales was anticipated for the first day of release. Everything pointed to AT LEAST 1.5 million on the first day. And even pre-order numbers were apparently 950,000 two weeks before the launch. Anything less than 1.5 million was inconceivable.

Now, BioWare has recently announced "player figures" though. They're reporting "one million registered players" 3 days after the launch. If this was a normal game, and they had 1 million sales after 3 days, that would mean that first day sales were probably around 600-800k. (There's also a blog entry about it here.)

Bioware is also calling it the "fastest growing subscription MMO in the history of our industry." Meaning the Star Wars MMO industry history, not MMO history. :)

Something really bothers me about their wording and statistics though. Here's what Bioware wrote in their Press Release:

To date, players have:

• Logged 28 million in-game hours – roughly equivalent to watching all six Star Wars movies, two million times
• Averaged well over five hours a day playing the game
• Created more than 3.8 million characters; 510,000 Jedi Knights and 550,000 Sith Warriors
• Killed more than 2 billion non-player characters in the eight days since Early Game Access began

If the average player spends 5 hours per day playing the game, and they have 1 million players, shouldn't that be 15 million in-game hours since "launch" or 50 million in-game hours since the retail game has been live (Early Game Access + 3 days before announcement.) It looks like they're picking and choosing numbers, and jumping back-and-forth between statistics for Early Game Access, first 8 days, first 10 days, and even using Beta player statistics.

It might also have something to do with the recent lock out. There are 1 million registered users, but only a certain number are allowed to play. You can still buy the game and register, but you just can't play the same.. Bioware could still using those "registered" numbers though as vanity figures.

I'm getting the feeling that they won't be releasing sales figures at all.. for good reason too. Apparently, it was a wise idea after all to estimate low. :)

The 2-3 month period should be an interesting one: will there be actual growth or more deceptive press releases?

Here are the first two parts of the series to bring you up to speed:

Power Creep in Pandaria -- Part 1
Power Creep in Pandaria -- Part 2

It was only supposed to be two parts, but I realized another trend while writing those original posts. This was originally supposed to be an addition to Part 2, but it ended up getting so "textful" (as things often do here), that I just decided just to create a new post. :)

The Death Knight

The topic of content consumption got me thinking that this is probably the main reason why Blizzard abandoned the Hero Class format.

Because the Death Knight class started so high level, it skipped all of the starting zones and content. Blizzard would later realize that this was a mistake, and it's probably the reason why they'll never do it again. Their decision, after all, wouldn't have had anything to do with the DK skills or abilities since they can easily be scaled or balanced.

Players liked the idea of skipping a lot of the beginning content, but it didn't benefit Blizzard in the end so that same mistake can't be made again. (In any of their games FYI.)

And the timing seems to work out well too. When WOTLK first came out, they didn't understand the issue of content consumption (or maybe they didn't think it would become an issue due to the wealth of creative material they had already amassed.) It wasn't until mid-to-late WOTLK did they start making changes and adding new features to re-use older content. Then, Cataclysm came out and the entire expansion pack was ALL ABOUT reusing old content. To make their intentions ever more clear; it introduced the new Archaeology Profession. :)

A Belated Solution

There's actually still a way to correct this "failure" and it might be really fun for users and Blizzard alike.

Basically, create an "Origins" story for the Death Knight class where you start at level 1 and show their progression and character development from a simple peasant to a Death Knight.

Since you don't want to take away the instant 55 Level Up, this could be a completely optional "Starting From The Beginning" feature.

For example,

• You create a new character and select the DK class.
• You are then given an option for your "Starting" pre-DK class (e.g. a Warrior, Mage, etc.)
• After some introductory in-game cinematics, or even a brief Level 1-5 tutorial stage, you're given the option to "Skip To Your Rebirth?". (The Origins story stops here, and you just jump to the main DK story.)
• If you continue the "Origins" story, you're locked in.
• You start out as a "Farmer" Class earning a meager living on a farm. :)
• You level the temporary "Farmer" Class until 10, at which point you join the military or a resistance, and you switch to the early level "Starting" class you had previously selected. (e.g. You train to become a Warrior, Mage, Rogue, whatever.)
• Blizzard could have a lot of fun with a temporary 1-10 "Farmer" class too.
• At this point (Level 10), you can start doing normal quests and such that have already been created by Blizzard. But, now there will be new customized quests only available for your character that develop the back story. Even every 10 levels there could be missions or special quests that work into the main lore. (Like going off to war, war campaigns, secret missions, rising through the ranks in the "Military" or "Resistance", your family, new lore discovered, etc.)
• As you rise through the ranks, it finally culminates at your death (at Level 50 or 55) by the hands of the Undead. At which point the main DK story kicks in.

This gives Blizzard an excuse to use some of their old lore and back-history on the Death Knights that they haven't used yet.

Plus, they're not creating a whole series of new quests just for the "Origins" story, but rather bits and pieces here and there (like every 10 levels). Less development time.

Players will go through all old content again, which is what they want. But, they will still have the option of jumping right to their Level 55 DK if they want to.

To encourage players to follow the "Origins" path instead, though, they can offer special bonuses that are made available during the story line: special gear with really cool aesthetics (they will be farmed for transmogrification), new pets (which players will jump at the chance for upcoming Pet Battles), vanity stuff, new achievements, or trinkets that have special visual effects.

I suppose the "Origins" path could also be made available as DLC.. especially with the new Battle.net Balance. :)

If not, at least Blizzard could use it as a test to determine if other "Origin" features could be successful for other classes (Rogues assassinating their way to the top of their Rogue guild before getting kicked out). In order to experience the "Origins" story, players must create a new class. Players may or may not like this, but it would definitely be very cool for the DK class. And, having special bonuses for following this path, however, might encourage many players to do it. Especially the ones who haven't created alt characters yet, which Blizzard already knows.

What do you think? If you guys really like the idea, drop some hints with Blizzard. :)

I think it would be a lot of fun, plus it addresses a lot of the issues they're trying to fix.

Here's something interesting.

So, you've already seen the BattleTag™ announcement. And you'll notice the TM symbol attached to every little instance of BattleTag™.. so it's a trademark owned by Blizzard right?

Apparently not. UBISOFT ENTERTAINMENT owns that trademark. :)

It's an old filing (2010-06-09), and there hasn't been much activity until just this week. Oddly coincidental.

They filed an "Intent-to-Use" report with the US Patent and Trademark Office, which was just received 2 days ago. So, UBISOFT wants to start using their "BattleTag"/"Battle Tag" trademark too.

There's also another older trademark for BattleTag by another business, but it's just for wireless devices. The UBISOFT one is for entertainment services, computer games, LAN services, etc.. so it matches with what Blizzard wants to use their Trademark for. And, UBISOFT owns the TM in Europe too.

I guess this leaves a few possibilities:

1. UBISOFT is a typo in TM database. (Very very doubtful.)
2. Blizzard bought the TM from Ubisoft, and the changes aren't visible in the TM DB yet.
3. Blizzard is getting a "BattleTag" trademark instead of "Battle Tag". Still, a punch in the face to Ubisoft since they intend on using it too.
3. Ubisoft is going to make a stink about the trademark (TM infringement). It's too similar: "Battle Tag" vs "BattleTag". And, it would be funny if they use it themselves in the same way Blizzard intended.
4. Blizzard might change the Battle Tag name to something else.

Blizzard would have known all about the Ubisoft TM well in advance, though, before using the name.. so I wonder what's going on?

Blizzard is also using both wordings "BattleTag" and "Battle Tag" in their posts (Ex 1 & Ex 2) about the service. And, Blizzard users aren't making the distinction either (so this "confusion" could actually help Ubisoft if there was a legal case.)

Seems awfully coincidental too that Ubisoft wants to suddenly start using the trademark.

There's also a 5th possibility.. but I don't even want to consider it. It's too scary.