They using Chris Metzen to scam us?

Community General Discussion
101

There are a few things I’ve wondered about Worldsoul Saga. Who exactly wrote the core story. For a cohesive comparison of “story” think of the original Lord of the Rings movies, a saga in essence, that got written and then delivered by the same few people (look at the mess of Episodes 7, 8 and 9 of Star Wars by comparison). When you want a truly cohesive story you want ONE PERSON to create it, deliver it and execute it etc.

In 2016, Chris Metzen left Blizzard. At the time when Legion came out. Fast forward and Microsoft is buying Blizzard. I doubt we’d get the real answer but I’m guessing that somewhere between 2016 and when Chris got the “advisor” role that he might, as almost a “fan fiction” when he watched on and saw how Blizzard did what Disney did to Star Wars… and made a mess of “his baby.” This is just a personal theory but who is to say that when the sale to Microsoft became reality he didn’t approach Ybarra and Spencer and said something like “want to have a story to reset the game and get audiences back who didn’t like the mess that Kotick caused?” That’s why Ybarra and Spencer likely wanted Kotick gone post-sale…

From Gamespot: “Metzen is one of the key minds behind the Warcraft universe, having originally worked at Blizzard for over 20 years. He worked on the original Warcraft back in 1994”

So he had 10 years to create the original story we were introduced to in 2004. If he began work on “his version” of a story for the game in 2016, and in 2021 or whatever “sold it” to Ybarra and Spencer, he had five years worth of game story written by comparison. Adding here that he definitely never did anything alone. He can literally check Warcraft Wiki (formally wowpedia) to get information. It has been mentioned at any number of previous BlizzCons that it typically took Blizzard three years before announcing to develop a next expansion, and based on this idea, development for Worldsoul Saga (or at least The War Within) began at least in 2020. IF Metzen turned up with a “saga” to sell to Blizzard (aka " Jackson got an audience with New Line CEO Robert Shaye, who accepted the project, but requested that it be expanded into a trilogy.") then maybe 3 years ago they began working on the saga now just expansion 11, and something Metzen had said eluded to this (right at the start of his announcement before saying there were three expansions).

Also, there’s a possibility that when Metzen did his Auroboros game he got asked by Ybarra to work on “his version of an expansion” (this was in 2022). The above and this are both assumptions that are likely not true, but if work on Worldsoul Saga began “only” in 2020 that would create a rushed end result. If however the broad world building had been completed by 2020, and then the work began on ALL THREE expansions (for a cohesive, back to back story, similar to what was done with Lord of the Rings) then we’re already looking at seven years of development on these three expansions. The other two expansions build on work done previously by Metzen, and who knows… maybe the saga was his version of the “road ahead” before he quit, and he quit when somehow they forced in the “kotick version” (aka how Kathleen Kennedy did her version of Star Wars and that more and more they seem to go with “what George Lucas wrote” over there). Now Kotick is gone the game CAN go back to its roots… and to being “Metzen’s baby.”

If Metzen had a story planned before he left and just built on that to get a story to “sell to Ybarra and Spencer” then add an extra 2-3 minimum to it… so up to ten years, so easily the broad strokes for three expansions (plus all the world revamp too if wanted as a side project).

I state all this with some knowledge of how story development happens in general and also awareness of news in the movie and game industry that I read about often. Conclusions of how “other people” do something can logically be applied. Unless they’re reinventing the wheel at Blizzard and literally have gone back to their roots of knowing nothing like in 1994 the people there know what they’re doing. Also, Auroboros was created from scratch (I watched the project’s evolution after its announcement). It was done with other people but the core skill of creating a whole new world came from Metzen’s mind). So I’d believe it when they say he has had a hand in developing Worldsoul Saga…

102

Y’all need to chill a bit.
Everyone is so cynical , and just right of the bat goes for search of the bad or expecting bad things to start happening.

Like, can’t you just be happy for a moment, that WoW is actually doing something?
The systems from our current expansion are being carried over to the next ones and what was said by Metzen , Ion and those other guys, that they gonna stop throwing systems out after each expac.

SMH, chill guys :l

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103

They will be 3 dragonflight sized expansion in order to bring them out a bit faster. A BIT, not yearly expansion. A couple of months. So think about 20-22 months rather than 24-25.

Yes, it means paying for xpacs a bit more often, but getting new content more often too.

104

They they’re still 2-3 major patches they just announced all 3 early on to show where they’re going

105

Is not about being able to afford the fee, is about asking more for the same thing.

106

I dont think many people who are playing constantly WoW, have financial issues. We are a grown up population with jobs (most of us I like to believe). I for one, have all the mounts in the store bought and whatever offers they have, I buy it, not because omg im rich, but because I do have a job that allows me to follow my passion and support the game I love.
However, I do have an issue as well with being asked more for the same thing. It would be very sad for the major patches of a normal expansion to turn into expansions themselves(adding a few bells and whistles to razzle dazzle the audience) and being asked to pay a fee every year or so.
I hope it doesnt get to that but then again…Blizzard

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107

If that is what they need to do to keep up giving us content every 3 months like they are doing in DF… then… as I said: Worth it. Given the alternatives.

So instaed of calling them out for increasing prices, hold them accountable to WHERE is that money going. To pay devs, or to give it to shareholders (so they can buy their 7th yatch). Option A) == TAKE MY MONEY . Option B) == Gquit.

Simple as that.

108

Meanwhile, a gamepass is completely useless in this house, especially since we got two accounts for two different people.

The prices as they are, are already a bit over the top cost wise. It’s actually so bad now that I have started feeling somewhat bad for spending money on WoW. What keeps me doing it tho is that I have cut off everyhing else that is not necessary costs. WoW I can play from my house, and it’s a hobby. There is however limits to how much more we can throw at it with the current economy.

I can’t whine enough at how they ruined OW for me(I can’t justify, or afford battlepasses), meaning I am left with gameplay, but zero rewards of use. Getting skins was kinda my carrot while playing - now I am mostly left with the odd spray, icon or voice line for free. I usually can’t play enough to get the free, and often less interesting skins for free. They also took away leveling, so no carrot in gaining XP either. I kinda enjoyed upgrading my portrait as I leveled up too. I reached level 600 or 700 something and managed my silver portrait and 1 star before OW2 was released. Small things, but they were carrots that made me feel like I was progressing my account. There is a few other issues tied to the changes too, but not gonna elaborate more right now.

I just really worry that WoW goes down a similar route.

109

There is a whole lot of factors not taken into account here tho. While I don’t wanna twist my brain around every economical detail around this, there is probably a reason why they have been able to keep the sub cost low(1 being the amount of people paying over the years - the more paying, the more room you have to keep the cost down).

Another thing is, how much the customers are able to pay monthly. The higher price, the less people can afford it, so this needs to be balancee. My household is now about to reach the limits of what we are able to pay. I live in Norway.

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That is an issue with Norwegian politics. Simply because ANY household should have ~100E (1200 NOK) of expendable income to just spend in bars/restaurants/cinema/hiking gear/vacations, ect…

If your personal economy is such that you cannot afford WoW anymore, then I suggest you quit wow. Cause if all your money goes to food/rent/medical expenses then you have it very rough. Fix that first before WoW.

And it should be possible in Norwegian economy. I just checked the stats and OMG. Much better off than say… Belgium where I live.

111

But its blizzards profit margin paying for it all? Not to mention paying employees. The rate which players demand content is huge lol, absolutely massive.

And the blizzard department aint gonna get a “yeah u can triple ur budget for a random patch 3/4s of the inital players wont see as already unsubbed”

Blizzard will only triple their budget for a expansion launch because they know thats the peak of popularity for the game lol.

112

they pitched 3 patches as new expansion with 5 zones each and the npcs bought into it…kek

preordering it for the mount and free month btw

113

aahahaha believing ‘‘government statistics’’.

if there are 100 people in Azerothistan (an imaginary country)
and one of those is a billionaire and 5 of them millionaires, that means everyone can afford a mansion a private jet and ferrari. right mr/s zugzug? since average wealth is …ALOT???

just because norway has a dirty oil industry and some billionaires doesnt mean the average person can live at large

114

Indeed, we won’t know how all the factors add up as we’re not invited to those meetings. But it’s unusual for a digital service to keep the price the same over a number of years, and it’s pretty obvious that WoW is not fulfilling its potential for making money. But if WoW’s main competitor is F2P games, I suspect that’s the main reason the sub doesn’t increase very often. It has increased before, though. The easier option is to increase money brought in through purchasing the game, which is what has been done this expack with price going up significantly. But is it enough to keep MS shareholders happy? They will want to know if WoW is making as much money as it’s capable of making, and the costs of producing and supporting the game are only a part of that conversation.

To be able to offer more product for more money at a lower average cost to the business is one way of increasing income. Putting up the price for the same product is another and Blizz has done this with the cost of the expack. If MS shareholders are happy with the current approach I’ll be proved wrong. But it really is very obvious that there’s a gap in the release schedule. Season 4 of WoW expack is largely dead time for lots of players, so either do a x.3 patch (as with BfA and that didn’t seem to work out well) or increase the release rate of the expacks so that there is no Season 4. With the pressure on the WoW part of the business to generate more money, and it being very obvious that sub prices have not kept up with inflation, something needs to change - an increased game release cadence seems an obvious one to me. You give the players more game, you keep the sub cost the same.

115

Thank you for proving my point. I was selling servers during COVID-19 for manufacturers. They are energy saviours, meaning they save you a significant amount of money on your energy bill. The increase in energy prices means they are far more valuable than holding onto previous equipment, which would be far more expensive over their total life span. There is a reason why this feature was implemented: it was to make them more sustainable and attractive to everyone from a school to someone needing to run a data centre, which is energy intensive or someone who doesn’t have much of a budget.

Even during the Silicon shortage, most vendors, such as Dell, were not battered, as they could see the shortage coming. It hit companies like HP and Lenovo hard. Still, they were not the market leader then, which led to Dell servers swallowing up large portions of the market share due to government tenders, retail business, new developments in server technology, etc. Dell did very well in this space during the past three years in the public sector

The cost of servers also did not dramatically increase during this time either. B2B, the account manager can set whatever cost they like, but most are still competing against other vendors whose costs may have risen, so it’s easier to keep it the same or get them even better pricing to secure the business and remove competition from potential customers. What also helped stop the increase in storage cost was the prevalence of storage, which is very margin-rich and needs to be coupled with servers. So you can take the hit on one and not the other.

What the cost did increase heavily was networking and switching. These became gold dust a few months in due to higher demand. This leads to a more significant increase in the mentality of the circular economy, with companies trying to use less equipment so they can recycle rare earth materials and also achieve their climate goals.

Shareholders do not get a say in pricing. They aren’t even privy to the information, and most of them are just average people. Companies have departments that calculate cost and profit margins and create a pricing strategy. Depending on the client, that pricing could be vastly different. A public entity isn’t charged the same amount as a private entity. There are two businesses within the business as a whole. You, as a retail customer, will get charged differently from them. There are considerable differences in pricing for hundreds of thousands of customers that a shareholder will have no idea what they are even talking about.

The business model of a subscription service is not the business model of a global hardware manufacturer which produces mission-critical hardware or even what World of Warcraft offers. These are two completely different types of business and game pass and PSN Plus as streaming services are subject to much worse factors than MMORPGs when it comes to their offering.

116

i’m glad that we won’t have 2-year long expansions. like if you think about it dragonflight doesn’t need a 4th season

117

They will not have patches in expansions?

118

4chan “leak” told us they will add mini expansions. and here we are. only thing left is f2p :rofl:

they make the most money with box sales and learned from activision and call of duty. 1 year cycle

119

How is it a scam if they tell you years in advance what they plan to do, giving you a very good idea what you will (or won’t, up to you) be paying for and plenty of time to think about if you like it or not?

Reading the forums, I very slowly get the impression that a lot of (forum?) players somehow believe that Blizz is developing WoW as a courtesy to them personally and not as a product to generate revenue…

120

Chris Metzen wouldnt allow it if it happens! :joy: