Just over one week after Blizzard opened the gates to World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth’s mythic Uldir raid, the raid has been cleared and the final boss, G’huun, has been defeated by a team from prominent progression-raiding guild Method. According to real-time updates made to Method’s site during their G’huun attempts, it was a close race between Method and rival guild Limit, both of whom had managed multiple sub-2% and even sub-1% attempts before Method finally cinched the world first. This marks the guild’s 10th final-boss world first. Congratulations to the Method team!
Meanwhile, in the WoW store, Blizzard has unveiled a new bundle: For $77.94 US, players can purchase 180 days of game time along with the exclusive Dreadwake mount. It would appear that this is the only way to acquire the unique flying-pirate-ship mount, at least for now, but it’s worth noting that it costs exactly the same amount as 180 days of game time without the mount, so if you’re in the market for a six-month subscription anyway, you basically get the mount for free. Still, though, it seems like a pretty steep buy-in for a single mount with no alternative in-game acquisition methods.
Method have done it! G'huun World First, 8/8 and claiming their 10th endboss WF! Great job and congratulations to the team! #RaidProgress #BFA https://t.co/MImNq6jSAc@discordapp @msitweets @msiUSA @Wowhead @Twitch @redbullesports pic.twitter.com/6T81IRr4Jc
— Method (@Methodgg) September 19, 2018
I guess I don’t see this as “$78” or “expensive.” If you are not going to play WoW, it is a complete waste and if you are it is essentially free. Nor, technically, is it the only way to get it – even if you don’t buy this package, if you were on a 6-month plan you got it and may have redeemed and been riding it before getting the mail that you had gotten it.
P.S. as an aside, 46″ RL swords are more impressive than virtual mounts.
Gz to those guys/gals! Nice to see progression guilds and world firsts are still a thing.
While all this is light-years away from my playstyle, I always enjoyed the thought that in these virtual worlds we all share, such diverse things are going on like Method’s high-profile progression raiding as well as grandpa Justin’s inching through zones on his crawl to cap :P
They know this expansion is a dud so they’re trying to lock people in for half a year.
Perhaps it influences it, but what is indubitably true is that ALL games/companies-selling subscriptions ALWAYS want to lock you in. Last month and last year and probably last decade Blizzard has a discount on 6-months subs. The reason Bliz charges $78 not $90 for six months is not because they prefer $78; it is because they want to lock you in. But that is not new.
(OTOH, I am not saying that BfA is as well received as Legion; just that there are reasons to want to lock people in that having nothing to do with what the expansion is.)
Just release Classic server if you need our money Blizzard, an exclusive mount will not save BfA.
If they released an exclusive mount for Classic server… would purists complain?
Lol!
Ofc, it is a trick question since there is zero a game company can do without someone complaining. My goto example was when SWTOR gave a free month to anyone with a 50.
Not sure why everyone is crying foul, rewards for multi-month packages are nothing new in the industry. Age of Conan was offering massive incentives for full year subscriptions. This is just the company trying to lock in some people who might be playing month by month.
I will probably get it as I don’t see myself going anywhere else anytime soon. No new exciting MMOs on the near horizon. The content frequency since Legion has been spot on. Looking forward to the new raids and War Campaign content.
Gratz to Method, I guess… Personally I never liked the whole “rush to max level, grind the best gear then grind the hardest raid content, over and over and over until you manage to complete it preferably faster than other guilds” type of gameplay, always felt like trying to do a monotonous job (and yes, I’ve tried to do that myself… once, before quickly realizing that it’s not fun)… I’d much rather just play a random PvP battle in any “unranked” PvP game (or just socialize with people outside of dungeons/raids), but yea, whatever floats other people’s boats.
As for mount price – it’s a cosmetic item, so ANY price is fair. I personally never had an issue with paying for cosmetic items in games where these actually looked attractive, regardless of their prices.
??? I would assume a very large majority of the players have their game time expiring in the next 30 days. just like last month or next month or ten months ago. Or other subscription MMOs.
It was one of the fallacies when people were arguing the losing battle of sub over f2p – that sub games have more predictable revenue. You are still left with forecasting/guessing the % of new players that will [re]join and the % that will leave each month.
Your use of “more” there is tad dubious. As there was never any claim subs where predictable outright…just more. Even if it’s slightly more.
Instead, the weakness of subs has always been that when a game is successful, it works really well. When it doesn’t…
*Ques in the Price is Right /fail music*
…so it needs a higher critical mass in order for it to bring home the bacon in a sustainable and profitable way. F2P models don’t really need the threshold to be that high. This is why F2P is likely the model of choice for MMO’s whose bars are not that high to begin with and/or gives failed or faltering MMO’s a second wind. Being more unpredictable doesn’t really seem to factor here in their bottom line.
YMMV, but I am not sure I get the “critical mass.” I can see a game like Project Gorgon or A Tale in the Desert doing just fine on a thousand or two subs. And I can see a GW2 or SWTOR getting a hundred thousand cash shoppers and not being profitable. After all, most of the largest games – e.g. HoK, LoL, Fortnite – are F2P, so I see no arguments that sub is more profitable than F2P and lots of arguments that it is less.
I see it as the development budget: games with large development budgets absolutely need to bring home the bacon. That can be F2P bacon or sub bacon or SC Kickstarter bacon, but if you are spending big bucks you need big bucks coming in.
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YMMV, but I am not sure I get the slightly. It may be, but I can not see any reason why predicting in January what WoW’s(or any sub) April revenue will be is easier or harder than predicting SWTOR or GW’2 (or any F2P) April revenue.
It looks like a blatant rip-off of the Alliance Blizzcon mount from last year.
I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna I wanna one of those giant colourful parrots as my next flying mount. Those things are brilliant!
It does seem blizzard/ACTIVISION are exploring new ways of ringing that extra few pounds out of you, the mount is pretty bad to go with BFA the worst expansion ever, never thought I would play one as bad as cata again.
This seems a tactic to finish Q4 on a high with boosted earnings, or tying people in before the content drought or pay to win cash shop announcement lol
Virtual ticket has gone up by £10, but you do get £10 off the goodies bag – thank you blizzard/ACTIVISION for a discount that makes it worth it- NOT!
I unsubbed 2 days ago, hit 117 but I could not go on….. It was boring as hell and the thought of the flying grind really killed it for me, and being a alt-a-holic I could not face another 10 times of playing through this expansion.
In the end I could not even reach level cap with one.