As long as Blizzard doesn't add old expansions Private Servers will stay alive.
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Member
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Member
The dream is real.
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Forum Veteran
Retail moving to F2P
Yesterdays retail patch rolled out the framework of what is going to essentially become free to play wow.
all you will need to play retail for free is have gold.
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Member
Well thats how it worked before aswell , trust me. So now its legal to buy gametime with gold , I've been playing retail over a year and all my friends were buying gametime with gold ,they never payed anything just for the battle chest.So old news.
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Forum Veteran
ya but this way you don't need a relationship with the dread pirate roberts
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Member
15€/month isn't that much to pay anyways.
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More like 15-30k, sure it could be 200k on start, but once the economy gets better it will go down, trust me I've seen this happen before, ex: Runescape released bonds, which give you membership/other random stuff in-game, they were REALLY expensive on start, now they are really cheap.
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For those who have money to throw over the window, it sure isn't...
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Warmane and all private servers will lose some players but they will be fine if they are smart enough to adapt by distinguishing themselves from retail. Whereas currently privates seem to measure themselves as how much blizzlike they are, which has always been stupid.
People will choose privates over retail if the privates appeal to these people:
1.) People who do not like the slow 1x of blizzard. Privates will need to keep 5x,7x,10x and close all 1x servers.
2.) People who dislike the overcrowded wow servers. Privates will need to stay at about 3k to 4k and no more. Consolodate servers to accomodate losses to retail.
3.) Custom content. What a better way to distinguish yourself from blizzard than having cool concepts that retail does not. (this does not mean selling custom gear, real content).
4.) All existing "cool" things about retail will need to be working. I mean the big things, it doesn't mean that every quest in the game works. Big things people love about retail: Scenarios, All current raids/dungeons, ALL old raids/dungeons (a must).
5.) Continued great customer service. Not catering to the whiners, just good customer service.
I think Warmane has the foundation to do these things when it is needed and adapt appropriately. Keep in mind it'll be awhile before retail is actually free, so it gives them time to catch up on these things.
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None of your points is valid.
1. leveling on x1 retail is very very fast. It was slow during vanila/tbc/lk. Now with Any kind of heirlooms you are able to get. max level isnt a problem. (plus you have raf thing which is super fast if you level like that)
2. retail isnt crowded outside capitals. Its same like on privates (numbers). Now everyone sits inside garrisons. World is empty like it used to be.
3. some people do some not. Most prefer as close as possible to blizz
4. not possible on privates
5. ? it depend on people whenever I made ticket on retail it was about few min to hours and max day to be answered.
RETAIL WILL NEVER BE FREE TO PLAY. God people. There wont be 1231 tokens on ah. It's going to be just a few. Prices will be high enough. Not like some of you says 30k. Its going to be around 70-100k.
Still people will have to buy game time or tokens. Tho we will see soon with the release on NA.
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Can you even see how wrong your reply is? You are basically saying, bah, everyone should just go to retail once its free to play. Private servers should try to simply be the same as retail only crappier with more things broken. You'll be the first one to say bye-bye when it happens, good riddance.
The point of the post you replied to was "how" will private survive when retail is free to play. Defending how retail is in response is just stupid. All mmo's eventually have to go free to play. Yes even the gold standard WOW will get there. When player bases drop too much free to play is a sound business decision because free-to-play with purchases can keep the game making money for them for years. As I stated in my post, it will be awhile before they get there, but its a certainty that they will. They will not go out like EA games where one day the servers just shut down and kick out thousands of players.
I've played retail, so your points refuting my post are incorrect. Those points are the reasons why I'm here, not because of the $15/mo of retail as I spend more here anyhow. Its what is different about Warmane that will make it survive when other private servers die and you fly the coup.
On retail (yes recently): I hated the overpopulation, and gold farmers camping all the good areas waiting for things to repop. I hated the 1x, no matter how fast it is, its the most boring thing in the world. After you've leveled over 100 chars from level 1 to max, forced to do one more will make you hang yourself from the boredom.
Custom content is possible, you really think the devs here are inept huh? We shall see in a couple years, they'll choose my route and succeed, instead of your suggestion of just dying.
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Member
Sounds free to play to me, ever heard of EVE Online? You can buy 30 day subscriptions. 700M ISK ( 20$)
It's really easy to get when your character has a lot of progression on it, that being said, 50k isn't a lot, at least not to me.
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Member
Just to add a bit to this I would say leveling is fairly fast in the updated sections with the revamped dungeons, until roughly level 32 or 34. However, once you reach the level with the dungeons and zones which are obviously rather dated, e.g. Maraudon, leveling becomes a huge pain. The dungeons for instance are like damned raid instances, and overcrowded with small mobs. Doesn't help either that the gear from those dungeon drops are significantly inferior to the revamped dungeons, I was stuck using the Scarlet monastery gear for a long time, and suffer from old WoW itemization.
I agree while heirlooms and RAF do significantly speed up the process it doesn't make certain points of leveling less painful due to the obvious need to update them.
From there it becomes just one long haul until level 60 and picks up pace again until the MoP zones, wherein it is purposely slowed down to experience lore and phase around, and continues this way all the way to 100.
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The only point I don't agree with. Kevins will always prefer getting golds by the easiest means, and as retail is by nowdays full of them, those tokens will probably be the most sold crap on AH's.
In fact, the principle starts from this very fact, and that's why I think Blizzard really got a nice idea there : it's nothing more but making one person pay for many, legally, and thus gaining (grabbing) more money (people)... vicious, but smart.
Yeah thought same. At least, if one just paid the first months in order to farm proffs and golds, they would be able to buy those thingies without spending a dollar afterwards.
This is why you'll NEVER see it for 50k.
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Banned
Actually I found his points perfectly valid.. and I've played on retail and at least 10 different private servers over the years.
Leveling at 1x is not as slow as it used to be.. but by no means is it fast. For those of us who have time commitments (like a job), grinding at this rate is unacceptably slow. This is the MAIN reason I play on private servers.
Cool features not possible on privates? Of course they are, I've seen it.
As for customer service, this server could use a fair bit of work in that area.
Unfortunately private servers differ from retail in SO many ways that aiming to be blizzlike is almost counter-productive. They need to recognise a 7x rate server for what it is.
