# R.I.P My WoW Character



## Cloud (Jun 27, 2009)

Finally had to let go, cancelled account and deleted char.

Is it wack to feel bad?

I actually visited my favourite spot and threw myself off a cliff before the delete.

I've collected so many mails over the 4 years I played on a RP server from people I knew so well in game but never knew a thing about in real life. they all left and are gone to god knows where.

I had a bit of a relationship in game thing with this mother of 2, it was all wow based and conversation never left the game enviroment but I did kinda fall in love with a toon from a game. Sad I know but at least it was a real woman, others have suffered worse lmao.

Very strange experience in cyber reality, I don't regret exploring it.


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## _pH_ (Jun 27, 2009)




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## Cloud (Jun 27, 2009)

lol no i cancelled because the game had become a machine, when it started out it was like a social network in a fanstasy world. 

I basicaly left because everyone I originally played with also cancelled. Some touching mails thanking me for help and even some gold. I dunno who these people were but we shared some good times. Bit of a feeling of loss really but regardless of what people say about WoW in terms of role play, everyone on there is living an alternate existance. It's a bit scarey how wow demonstrates traits of humanity in such a way. Probabably the Illuminati.


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## Wolveryeti (Jun 27, 2009)

Mucho Respect. I know from experience that video games can be extremely addictive.


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## joangracoffande (Jun 27, 2009)

Good for you, those games are disgusting wastes of time


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## ricbake (Jun 27, 2009)

They have their significance in their own way - and they are nothing like the disgusting waste of time that the likes of EastEnders constitute - Move on Cloud, it is good to know you can do that stuff then leave it behind.


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## Kanda (Jun 28, 2009)

I spent 3 yrs at the high end of Everquest. I know how you feel.


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## Epona (Jun 28, 2009)

I've never played online games like that, because I know what I am like just playing single-player RPGs on the computer at home by myself, signing up for something online would probably be disastrous for me.

But NO it's not wrong to feel sad for having left it behind, you got involved and became friends with people in the game environment.  It's not wrong or abnormal to feel a little bit of grief having left that behind you, if it was a big part of your life.


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## bhamgeezer (Jun 29, 2009)

Cloud said:


> I basicaly left because everyone I originally played with also cancelled. Some touching mails thanking me for help and even some gold. I dunno who these people were but we shared some good times. Bit of a feeling of loss really but regardless of what people say about WoW in terms of role play, everyone on there is living an alternate existance. It's a bit scarey how wow demonstrates traits of humanity in such a way. Probabably the Illuminati.



My time as officer in a raiding guild taught me that facism is humanities only hope  (or at least it would be if people could exist entirely anonymously behind an avatar there whole life)


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## Gromit (Jun 29, 2009)

Welcome back to the real world.

I remember my WoW obessed period. I loved it but it didn't do me any favours.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 29, 2009)

I've put a lot of energy into never getting pulled into any of these games, I'm seriously tempted but I like having a job, girlfriend, friends, family and you know a life...


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## Cloud (Jun 29, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I've put a lot of energy into never getting pulled into any of these games, I'm seriously tempted but I like having a job, girlfriend, friends, family and you know a life...



But you can't run around with dual wielding epic swords IRL  Or spend twenty days grinding some stupid object and stand around posing with it. Well you can but it's not so simple. Stangely enough the brain reacts the same to obtaining virtual objects by means of hard work as it does in life, which is probably why the game is so dangerous.

Anyhow, I have a family... and they all play, part from the wife cos she is awkward and living in an alternate reality already


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## ricbake (Jun 29, 2009)

May be you should go and play in the Mrs's world


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## fractionMan (Jun 29, 2009)

Next stop, online poker!


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## strung out (Jun 29, 2009)

i've been quit for about a month now. feels good.


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## stupid dogbot (Jun 29, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I'm seriously tempted but I like having a job, girlfriend, friends, family and you know a life...



I have all those things*, and still play WOW occasionally. 

*Ok, as of today, except one.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 29, 2009)

I don't think I could do it, when I get into things I get really into things!


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## stupid dogbot (Jun 30, 2009)

I've actually not been on in about 10 days now. 

Good weather means bikes take priority.


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## Kanda (Jun 30, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I'm seriously tempted but I like having a job, girlfriend, friends, family and you know a life...


 
I had all those things and still raided 40+ hours a week


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## Gromit (Jun 30, 2009)

Kanda said:


> I had all those things and still raided 40+ hours a week


 
I had all those things, raided 50 hours a week, had all the best epics and was in a top guild.


Neglected my family - would run home early from Sunday lunch pleading tireness but would end up on wow as soon as i got home.
Lost my girlfriend.
Didn't lose my job but I probably missed out on career opportunities I would have gone for if I hadn't have been so obessed.
Some people can handle WoW and some people can't.


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## Kanda (Jun 30, 2009)

Mine was Everquest.  Neglected my girlfriend a bit in hindsight but it just seemed normal at the time and we got on fine


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## Gromit (Jun 30, 2009)

My ex said she was cool with it. Rathered me being at the computer where she could see me and talk to me that out and about doing god knows what and leaving her on her own.

Even so it slowly crept up on us until we were more housemates than lovers.


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## obanite (Jun 30, 2009)

Kanda said:


> Mine was Everquest.  Neglected my girlfriend a bit in hindsight but it just seemed normal at the time and we got on fine



Yeah, I reckon I was somewhere on that level too. Do regret it now.

Given up WoW three times now, never, ever going back... it's the only thing I've ever been addicted to.

Stupidest thing was I never even got many epics, would just quit then come back 6 months later, reroll a new char and start again...


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## bhamgeezer (Jun 30, 2009)

Gromit said:


> I had all those things, raided 50 hours a week, had all the best epics and was in a top guild.
> 
> 
> Neglected my family - would run home early from Sunday lunch pleading tireness but would end up on wow as soon as i got home.
> ...



Took me over 200 days played til I was able to


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

I wonder about this. I've been playing Eve Online for a couple of years now and it doesn't seem to have the same life-destroying properties people talk about in relation to WoW. I just show up for an hour or so a couple of nights each week, head out with a few (often drunken) friends and find some random strangers (or ideally people who *already* hate our guts) to blow up. Then I do an hour or so of industrial/trading stuff on Saturday mornings to replace lost ships. I know there are groups, typically in the big 0.0 power blocs, who demand much higher levels of participation and stage 'alarm clock ops', but you can have a perfectly good time without any of that bullshit. 

It makes me wonder if WoW and other similar games are set up to *be* addictive, in terms of being built around various incentives to grind for hours and hours each week?


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## laptop (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> It makes me wonder if WoW and other similar games are set up to *be* addictive



Do they offer large "rewards" at random intervals? And small ones frequently?

I've forgotten the other criteria... the National Lottery is, of course, designed to be addictive


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

laptop said:


> Do they offer large "rewards" at random intervals? And small ones frequently?
> 
> I've forgotten the other criteria... the National Lottery is, of course, designed to be addictive



As far as I understand them, yes and that's kind of what I was talking about.


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## hegley (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> It makes me wonder if WoW and other similar games are set up to *be* addictive, in terms of being built around various incentives to grind?



I don't think there can be much doubt of that, tbh.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

Interesting. That's actually a worse business model for them because a) you get a load of PR hassle about fucking people's lives up, b) people un-subscribe due to wanting their lives back, c) all those people grinding for 40-60 hrs a week are using server resources, don't pay you more money than subscribers who play 4-6 hrs a week, but cost 10x as much to service, so actually you'd rather have the latter.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

They are set up to be as attractive as possible, certainly, and this may turn into addiction.

In some cases they may be actively designed to be like that, with advice from psychologists and so on, but there is always a natural selection factor - the most addictive/attractive environments make the most money and are more likely to survive.

I work in the online virtual world industry and it's horribly clear that "game" worlds that offer a certain reward structure based on actions _win_. They do well out of having some other factors such as inworld communication but those are quite minor. A half-arsed game world run by idiots will make money when a clever, detailed, "creative/social" world will crash and burn - and new games pop up every day. The English-language market is not that competitive for some reason, but, say, Germany or Korea, well. Also, the micropayment-for-success model (which WoW doesn't follow _officially_) is increasingly proving to work too.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Interesting. That's actually a worse business model for them because a) you get a load of PR hassle about fucking people's lives up, b) people un-subscribe due to wanting their lives back, c) all those people grinding for 40-60 hrs a week are using server resources, don't pay you more money than subscribers who play 4-6 hrs a week, but cost 10x as much to service, so actually you'd rather have the latter.



Subscription models are dying out. Micropayments are it. They offer everything subs do and more, and they're easier to manage. Subscriptions are very Western.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> <snip> Also, the micropayment-for-success model (which WoW doesn't follow _officially_) is increasingly proving to work too.


 How does that work then? Not come across it.


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## girasol (Jun 30, 2009)

I thought you were talking about William of Walworth at first... 

It all went a bit surreal for a few minutes, until I figured out it was game talk


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> How does that work then? Not come across it.



Instead of paying a monthly fee you play for 'free' and they nickle and dime you for everything in the game...


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> How does that work then? Not come across it.



Most of the new breed are supposedly free-to-play, but you can buy extra credits for, oh, levels, weapons, mounts etc, without having to grind for them. The concept is quite abhorrent to lots of Western players (or so they'd claim in public - of course, loads of them buy gold and so on in private) but I was talking to a guy who ran some games in SE Asia, and he was saying that the kids there didn't give a shit - they were quite happy to buy virtual items and there was no stigma attached to it, any more than there would be buying a new RL gadget.

The micropayment economy is also far more developed in Asia than it is here generally. The Chinese govt cracking down recently is a good example - the QQ coin is economically significant.


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## laptop (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Interesting. That's actually a worse business model for them because a) you get a load of PR hassle about fucking people's lives up, b) people un-subscribe due to wanting their lives back, c) all those people grinding for 40-60 hrs a week are using server resources, don't pay you more money than subscribers who play 4-6 hrs a week, but cost 10x as much to service, so actually you'd rather have the latter.



So maybe they run on a fairly crude model, which implicitly accepts that in order to get say 60% of your punters playing for the optimum time you have the 10% with the most addictive personalities ruining their lives?

That'd be fairly easy to refine - stop rewarding people after 10 hrs/week.

But maybe the experience of the game for the profitable punters depends on the presence of the 60-hour players?

(Looks at postount. Hmm.)


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

Hmm, could you be more specific? 

I've only ever really played Eve, so how would micropayments work with a one-big-server spaceship game?


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Hmm, could you be more specific?
> 
> I've only ever really played Eve, so how would micropayments work with a one-big-server spaceship game?



Okay. Bearing in mind that I'm not _vastly_ familiar with Eve, but you'd have a basic setup where you could have free unlimited access.

Then there could be assorted ways to save time by paying for extra resources. Eve, you can level up in skills just by waiting IIRC - say, you could bypass the time required with a small payment. A common method of raising cash is to allow purchase of inworld currency with RL money, too. Or, you would have certain services which required payment - Eve has those hardcore defensive satellite things to protect territory, say, so they'd cost money to maintain, but on the other hand you could add more if you shelled out.

Something like Eve is actually unlikely to go along those lines because it starts to screw existing game balance, and it's a game where that sort of behaviour is considered "unethical" and "cheating". But if it was set up from scratch it could well. And let's face it - it _is_ already possible to get rewards from supposedly "skill-based" games based on your money if you want to.

Take a look at the browser-based Zork game - http://legendsofzork.com/ - and you can see a small example. You can play it for nothing, but you can also spend money to get extras to level faster and get more ancillary benefits. Or, for an appalling example, there are a whole slew of awful "MMOs" on the iPhone which basically require you to (a) spend money on upgrade packs in the App Store and (b) span people with your invite codes, to advance past a certain level.


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## hegley (Jun 30, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> there are a whole slew of awful "MMOs" on the iPhone which basically require you to (a) spend money on upgrade packs in the App Store and (b) span people with your invite codes, to advance past a certain level.



Blimey, and the WoW community constantly qq about our game getting dumbed down ...


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## stupid dogbot (Jun 30, 2009)

Free Realms is a micropayment environment, iirc.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Most of the new breed are supposedly free-to-play, but you can buy extra credits for, oh, levels, weapons, mounts etc, without having to grind for them. The concept is quite abhorrent to lots of Western players (or so they'd claim in public - of course, loads of them buy gold and so on in private) but I was talking to a guy who ran some games in SE Asia, and he was saying that the kids there didn't give a shit - they were quite happy to buy virtual items and there was no stigma attached to it, any more than there would be buying a new RL gadget.
> 
> The micropayment economy is also far more developed in Asia than it is here generally. The Chinese govt cracking down recently is a good example - the QQ coin is economically significant.



Ah OK. I was responding to Kid's post. 

Still though, you can buy Eve money for real money through official channels and I did a bit of that when I first started. (Subsequently I figured out how to make enough Eve money for my needs using the economics simulation.) 

I typically fly a ship called a Vagabond, which used to cost about a fiver in real money and now costs about three quid (assuming optimal fittings, they changed some of the attributes so the pimp fitting is no longer attractive) 

I lose maybe one a week on average (or one loss for 8-9 kills roughly). I really don't need any more than that to have fun with and anyone with half a brain can figure out how to make that much in game without grinding for hours once their skills are decent. 

I can't help thinking though that it's something to do with Eve being a PvP game where fancy kit quickly runs into diminishing returns and player cunning and skill (and having 10 mates hiding nearby) is much more important. I know a guy who pretty much exclusively flies a ship called a Rifter, accessible to a new player with say 10 days in game and he kills all kinds of crazy stuff with it 'cos he's fiendishly cunning and skilful.

Now I guess this means Eve is probably a weird backwater run by idealistic Icelanders who are looking for a way to live their Viking heritage, but I think it shows that it is possible to create a MMORG that doesn't eat people's lives.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

stupid dogbot said:


> Free Realms is a micropayment environment, iirc.



They pretty much all are, apart from the big established ones with studios behind them. You can't start an MMO these days and expect to get subs off the bat, which means you can't pay anyone, and even a year or two ago, VC supplies were drying up and certainly not equally distributed across the world. Micropayments, though, let you fund yourself continually.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They pretty much all are, apart from the big established ones with studios behind them. You can't start an MMO these days and expect to get subs off the bat, which means you can't pay anyone, and even a year or two ago, VC supplies were drying up and certainly not equally distributed across the world. Micropayments, though, let you fund yourself continually.



Ahhh, OK. That makes a good deal of sense.


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## stupid dogbot (Jun 30, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They pretty much all are, apart from the big established ones with studios behind them. You can't start an MMO these days and expect to get subs off the bat, which means you can't pay anyone, and even a year or two ago, VC supplies were drying up and certainly not equally distributed across the world. Micropayments, though, let you fund yourself continually.



Yeah, very true. Sorry, my post's a bit undercooked.

I should have said that it's a heavily backed, big budget MMO, aimed at a big swathe of western - and non western, too, I believe -  games players. It'll be interesting to see how it does, although on first look, it seemed too cutesy for my liking.

Mind you, my (ex) girlfriend and I discussed playing it together.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Ah OK. I was responding to Kid's post.
> 
> Still though, you can buy Eve money for real money through official channels and I did a bit of that when I first started. (Subsequently I figured out how to make enough Eve money for my needs using the economics simulation.)
> 
> ...



Eve is unusual as a "game"; it doesn't have a lot of non-player-generated content. It doesn't _work_ in the same way as WoW and WoW-a-likes, which provide a huge series of immediate goals, one after the other, with instant rewards for them - and then once you've done those, you end up with basically PvP goals and hope that there's going to be an expansion pack for when the inworld PC content gets dull. (That IMO is where WoW might die - it looks pretty immortal, but it is still to an extent dependent on new dev content, because it restricts user-generated content, partly by having very little persistence - players really can't affect the world much.)

Eve is user-generated for the most part, even if that is within quite strict rules. It is one of the reasons I'm interested in it even if I don't have the time to actually play it - UGC is something that fascinates me.

I couldn't say though that that meant it ruined fewer lives. Just in a different way.


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## strung out (Jun 30, 2009)

interestingly enough, blizzard have announced today that they will be introducing faction changes from horde to alliance and vice versa in WoW. for a 'small' fee of course. this is after introducing character namechanges for a fee a couple of years ago, and paid sex changes (plus other re-customisations) about a year ago.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 30, 2009)

stupid dogbot said:


> Yeah, very true. Sorry, my post's a bit undercooked.
> 
> I should have said that it's a heavily backed, big budget MMO, aimed at a big swathe of western - and non western, too, I believe -  games players. It'll be interesting to see how it does, although on first look, it seemed too cutesy for my liking.
> 
> Mind you, my (ex) girlfriend and I discussed playing it together.



Micropayments are now generally trendy anyway. I wouldn't expect to see any new game based on subs.

As I said - micropayments can do everything subs can, because you can just pay your subs with micropayments if the setup allows it. Second Life is a good example of this. It started out with people really only being able to own land with subs, but quite soon, the fact that it also had a micropayment economy meant that people rented out land for micropayments (I say "micro" but I paid about $80 last month). Now, subs to the company are much less of an issue.


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## stupid dogbot (Jun 30, 2009)

So... how? Races will be able to shift sides? That'll make things... interesting on PvP servers... 

Fridge, $80


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

Heh, the urge to scream around in an imaginary universe blowing up random strangers (or even better people who already hate my guts) is upon me. 

See you later chaps


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## strung out (Jun 30, 2009)

stupid dogbot said:


> So... how? Races will be able to shift sides? That'll make things... interesting on PvP servers...



no specific details yet... here's the blue post

"We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at World of Warcraft Community Site as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward."


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## laptop (Jun 30, 2009)

strung_out said:


> The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out.



Is it just me, or does this imply *either* that they have a seriously shonky database model *or* this is bullshit to wind up the price that those who wouldn't know an ontology if it hit them upside the head are prepared to pay?


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## strung out (Jun 30, 2009)

neither really, there are lots and lots of things which are faction specific (quests, achievements, mounts, flight paths) as well as things like racial talents to retune in order to prevent flavour of the month race swaps. I'd be very surprised if it made it in before the next big expansion patch (probably sometime in 2010).

It is basically just another way for blizzard to make a lot of cash though. I'm more and more relieved about my decision to quit by the day.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 30, 2009)

<Irrelevant stuff snipped.>

So, does the use of micro-payments tend to cut out addictive grind and hence reduce adverse impact on people's lives?


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jun 30, 2009)

Cloud said:


> I actually visited my favourite spot and threw myself off a cliff before the delete..



I don't know why, but this made me chuckle a little, which is probably inappropriate. We probably shouldn't laugh even at cyber-suicide.


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## DotCommunist (Jun 30, 2009)

Johnny Canuck2 said:


> I don't know why, but this made me chuckle a little, which is probably inappropriate. We probably shouldn't laugh even at cyber-suicide.



And yet the question 'why hasn't someone walled off Beachy Head' remains unanswered as people fling themselves and thier kids off of it yearly


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jun 30, 2009)

DotCommunist said:


> And yet the question 'why hasn't someone walled off Beachy Head' remains unanswered as people fling themselves and thier kids off of it yearly



People jump off the Lion's Gate Bridge, but I haven't heard of throwing any kids.







They can't close it, or how could people get the the British Properties?

There was a jumper on the bridge a few weeks back. A govt minister was  caught in the traffic jam, which lasted hours. He made vague noises about how long such traffic tieups should be allowed to continue for.

I wonder if he'd feel that way if it was his mother for instance, up there in the girders? Freakin' asshole.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jun 30, 2009)

There are something like six major bridges in this area.

A couple years back, four of them were tied up at once, with jumpers. The traffic got so bad, that govt workers took porta potties out to the freeways.

I always wondered if those jumpers had gotten together beforehand, and made a plan to go out in a really spectacular style.


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## bingiman (Jul 1, 2009)

Iemanja said:


> I thought you were talking about William of Walworth at first...
> 
> It all went a bit surreal for a few minutes, until I figured out it was game talk



so it wasn't just me


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## Cloud (Jul 1, 2009)

Micropayments will be the death of my gaming life.

It's like second life, people expecting tips and always on the take. This is supposed to be something fun, I've been involved in several mod developing circles for games like Unreal Tournament and everyone involved did it, and enjoyed it for free. Ok if you want to buy land and run some show then do it but expecting people to log in and pay you... There's a million and one not so great Dj's out there who would step in for nothing (I'm one of them). This is just a gripe with second life - DJ's asking for tips.

With gaming, MS already have the points system where they basically charge you for everything. It is inevitably coming to gaming but will probably be trialled in a series of games, battlefield heroes from EA being the first if it ever gets off beta.

I think it's a step back for the euro market, it's like going from a decent contract phone to rip off pay as you go.


Can I also add that people who have obviously bought items, especially expensive things, are laughed at in WoW. I can't see the attraction of a game that is bascially asking you to splash around cash and show it off virtually? Cash and time dont tend to go together either, it's been shown in other failed mmorpg's that easy obtainable items or whatnot is a recipe for a rapidly declining player base.


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## Rainingstairs (Jul 1, 2009)

Cloud said:


> Finally had to let go, cancelled account and deleted char.
> 
> Is it wack to feel bad?
> 
> ...



GOOD FOR YOU! My sisters been playing that stupid game for 5 years. Totally wasting her life if you ask me.


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## stupid dogbot (Jul 1, 2009)

What about if you ask her?


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## FridgeMagnet (Jul 1, 2009)

Bernie Gunther said:


> <Irrelevant stuff snipped.>
> 
> So, does the use of micro-payments tend to cut out addictive grind and hence reduce adverse impact on people's lives?



I don't think micropayments vs subs really makes a lot of difference to grind - you can run a grind-based design on either. Even if you can skip some of the grind with cash, there's still a lot left in a trad MMO (because that's the majority of its content). And some designs just let you put in micropayments for extras which are in a separate category to what you get as gameplay rewards, e.g. better haircut, larger inboxes, custom names etc.


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