I don't normally bad mouth Blizzard when it comes to World of Warcraft, lord only knows I spent near 800 hours so far (according to Xfire anyway) playing the damn game. But Blizzard just announced their big 2nd anniversary contest and prizes for the contest. One has to question whether or not Blizzard even thought this one through. The prizes for the most part are laughable, really. Here is the poop from Blizzard on the contest:
Do you remember the first time you set foot in Orgrimmar and saw the watch fires burning on the parapets? What about the first time you heard the echoes of death in the halls of the Undercity? Or even the first time you saw the hot molten iron flowing beneath the catwalks of the city of Ironforge or gazed at the towering statues of the heroes of the Alliance in Stormwind? It has been two years since players first entered the world of Azeroth to forge such memories. Friendships have been created, battles waged, and mighty dragons vanquished.
To celebrate the second anniversary of the launch of World of Warcraft and to show our appreciation to our community, we will be awarding prizes over the next five weeks! Your support, enthusiasm and dedication have made us the #1 MMORPG in the world and we couldn't have done it without you!
During the week of October 30th, we'll be awarding 2 lucky winners per day a $100.00 Jinx Gift Certificate.
To celebrate the second anniversary of the launch of World of Warcraft and to show our appreciation to our community, we will be awarding prizes over the next five weeks! Your support, enthusiasm and dedication have made us the #1 MMORPG in the world and we couldn't have done it without you!
During the week of October 30th, we'll be awarding 2 lucky winners per day a $100.00 Jinx Gift Certificate.
What? A $100 Jinx Gift Certificate? What? Now, if you read the rules, they do list other prizes. Yes, Blizzard will award ONE winner per day for 5 days in late November a 1GB Geforce 7950 and then ONE winner per 5 days for an XPS dream machine. So two prizes are actually "worth" it, the other prizes? Seriously, for a company making untold millions every month from the 7+ million subscribers, you would think Blizzard would offer more "interesting" prizes, or at the very least like every other popular MMO when they reach an anniversary offer some nice in-game stuff like bonus XP pots or whatever. A Gift Certificate?
Remember, this is my opinion. That doesn't mean everyone who reads this news post has to agree with me, and you are certainly entitled to disagree with me on this. So, what do you folks think? Should Blizzard offer more prizes, better prizes, some in-game prizes? You tell us.
Link: 
Personally, except for the video cards and XPS machines I think this contest is an insult to all the long time vets of the game. Don't like my opinion? That's why I posted this, something interesting to discuss don't you think?
They don't owe you ANYTHING. When you gave them your credit card number you agreed to receive the ability to play the game, nothing else.
I just think its pretty rude that a company that is super successful, and doesn't even NEED to do anything like this DOES do it and people like you smear them all over the wall.
I made it very clear in the news post that this was MY opinion, this is why I posted it so it would make for a discussion on the contest and what people's views were on the prizes offered and whether or not they were good/bad/whatever. I didn't post this so people could constantly bad mouth me for posting it.
SWG wich has what is probably the best social RPG element of any RPG(I still wish you could hold food and tsuff in your hand AO style though) has tons of Veteran rewards to decorate you house or spaceship, and you even get recurring veteran rewads. every 1 month, every 3 months, every 6 months and so on.
EQII, Veteran rewards after 1 day, 1 month, 2 months(I thiunk), 3 months and so on, but not recurring.
I really didn't know that they didn't offer any kind of Vet eran rewards in WoW. the EQ2 ones are pretty sweet, veteran items and bonus XP. and Titles for the major one.I got a title for at least 1 year and 2 years.
It's called rewarding and apreciating yoru long time and loyal fans and subscribers btw. it's whatmakes them loyal, sure they don't have to. But if they did they wouldn't get rants and such abotu it
Yes yes, every company that is successful and takes your money for it is greedy blah blah blah. Same thing with Microsoft, strangely enough World of Warcraft is the most popular MMO and Windows is the best OS...why? Because of YOU the consumer. I am not a blizzard fanboy, infact there are a lot of things about the game I don't like, but I am logical enough to understand some of the things I don't like, others do like.
I made it very clear in the news post that this was MY opinion, this is why I posted it so it would make for a discussion on the contest and what people's views were on the prizes offered and whether or not they were good/bad/whatever. I didn't post this so people could constantly bad mouth me for posting it.
So let me get this straight, you don't even pay for the game, you aren't even a subscriber, but yet you feel the need to take a major news website and bash them, for something that does not even apply to you? Sorry I just think its misuse of your privelage to post news here.
And again, I didn't bash them. I simply posted news about the "rewards" they are doing for the 2 year anniversary. I said I didn't think the rewards were all that great, and I wanted YOUR opinion on the matter. I didn't go and say ooo ooo Blizzard sucks, die die I'm a anti-fanboy!
Thankfully you aren't the one posting news here if you think this is a bad post or I'm abusing my powers by posting it. Rant/opinion pieces get posted just the same as a normal news piece. I said my opinion, if you don't like it, that's fine. I don't need personal insults as usual about the damn news I post. Seems all anyone ever does lately is complain, complain, complain on every damn news post I make lately. I'm a WoW fanboy in one, a WoW/Blizzard hater in another, I'm biased against Sony in another. Yeah, right.
And again, I didn't bash them. I simply posted news about the "rewards" they are doing for the 2 year anniversary. I said I didn't think the rewards were all that great, and I wanted YOUR opinion on the matter. I didn't go and say ooo ooo Blizzard sucks, die die I'm a anti-fanboy!
Thankfully you aren't the one posting news here if you think this is a bad post or I'm abusing my powers by posting it. Rant/opinion pieces get posted just the same as a normal news piece. I said my opinion, if you don't like it, that's fine. I don't need personal insults as usual about the damn news I post. Seems all anyone ever does lately is complain, complain, complain on every damn news post I make lately. I'm a WoW fanboy in one, a WoW/Blizzard hater in another, I'm biased against Sony in another. Yeah, right.
Well you were the one using the fact that you don't pay for your subscription as a defense, you pointed it out, so does it make you feel better? IMO the forums is where the opinions should be, lets keep the actual news on the frontpages
Maybe they don't want stuff like that in their game, maybe they feel like I do, that you should not create too much of a gap between veterans and noobies, so that the community stays closer knit, and people don't feel totally useless when first playing the game. Like I said before, they didn't have to do ANYTHING at all to celebrate their own anniversary. So be glad.
Maybe they don't want stuff like that in their game, maybe they feel like I do, that you should not create too much of a gap between veterans and noobies, so that the community stays closer knit, and people don't feel totally useless when first playing the game. Like I said before, they didn't have to do ANYTHING at all to celebrate their own anniversary. So be glad.
be glad I give them money and they have problems keeping servers up? I think not, there's alot of reason to be happy about Blizzard and room to complain, don't act like there isn't. And what kind of non-sense is this about there not being a gap between veterans and noobies? There already is a gap. If the veteran is a raiding player then that already creates a huge gap between people. If the veteran player isn't a raiding player then they are missing half of the game anyway so it's no sense arguing. That's the whole nature of MMOs they encourage gaps between veteran players and new players, they encourage and reward those who stay in longer than those who just play infrequently.
They could easily enable in-game rewards by a / command, so that people who would like those things have the option of getting them and showing they have played the game for a long time while people who don't want those rewards don't have to get them, because believe me the majority of people do like to show off in the game and there's nothing wrong with that. If I come off as acting like I want a "cookie" for being a subscriber since day 1, you damn right I do. I stuck with the game through all the growing pains and I feel some kind of thanks should come my way. I don't ask them to give me personally a video card or anything like that but something that for the most part is novel and commemorative is definately a minimum I would expect from a company like Blizzard. If Sony can do it with EQ2 then blizz could definately do it.
Last edited by macrosslover on 02 Nov 2006 - 02:11
Maybe they don't want stuff like that in their game, maybe they feel like I do, that you should not create too much of a gap between veterans and noobies, so that the community stays closer knit, and people don't feel totally useless when first playing the game. Like I said before, they didn't have to do ANYTHING at all to celebrate their own anniversary. So be glad.
be glad I give them money and they have problems keeping servers up? I think not, there's alot of reason to be happy about Blizzard and room to complain, don't act like there isn't. And what kind of non-sense is this about there not being a gap between veterans and noobies? There already is a gap. If the veteran is a raiding player then that already creates a huge gap between people. If the veteran player isn't a raiding player then they are missing half of the game anyway so it's no sense arguing. That's the whole nature of MMOs they encourage gaps between veteran players and new players, they encourage and reward those who stay in longer than those who just play infrequently.
They could easily enable in-game rewards by a / command, so that people who would like those things have the option of getting them and showing they have played the game for a long time while people who don't want those rewards don't have to get them, because believe me the majority of people do like to show off in the game and there's nothing wrong with that. If I come off as acting like I want a "cookie" for being a subscriber since day 1, you damn right I do. I stuck with the game through all the growing pains and I feel some kind of thanks should come my way. I don't ask them to give me personally a video card or anything like that but something that for the most part is novel and commemorative is definately a minimum I would expect from a company like Blizzard. If Sony can do it with EQ2 then blizz could definately do it.
Find one providor of MMORPG's that has a higher server uptime than blizzard, believe it or not they have a good track record for fixing problems with their servers as soon as they pop up, and keeping us informed of what they are doing. Believe it or not it is a HUGE undertaking to make the environment in wow and other games like it possible, I wouldn't use servers being down as an excuse for them owning you something. Whenever servers are down for an extended period of time, they credit your account anyways, so I say again - be glad they give you an opportunity at ANYTHING extra at all, because they don't have to. You are still going to give them your money every month, and unless you are prepared to stop playing the game in protest of it, theres no point in filling the internet with all these stupid complaints - I am just tired of hearing it all
and my excuse for them owing me something is the fact that I have subscribed since day 1 even through all the growing pains problems, except for that 3 months window. I pay my money every money and I and others do deserve to be treated as more than just another customer. alot of companies have customer loyality programs, that's nothing unheard of, it's just something ot make somebody feel all warm inside and have a nice size epeen.
Last edited by macrosslover on 02 Nov 2006 - 04:55
and my excuse for them owing me something is the fact that I have subscribed since day 1 even through all the growing pains problems, except for that 3 months window. I pay my money every money and I and others do deserve to be treated as more than just another customer. alot of companies have customer loyality programs, that's nothing unheard of, it's just something ot make somebody feel all warm inside and have a nice size epeen.
I can definitely see your point of view on that, it would be nice for them to set up a program of some sort for those who have subscribed for x amount of time, however, I don't think it should be ingame items, maybe a cheaper monthly rate.
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