Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Return (again, again...)

As you may notice if you scroll down our collective posting history, we have been quite inactive over the last year. You may also notice that we have had numerous proclamations of returning to the blog with the intention of unloading our opinions on the unsuspecting masses. Instead, we always get distracted away from the blog for one reason or another. Sticking with it just hasn't worked for us lately.

As 2016 ends, I want to make an early resolution for 2017 to add something to this blog on a regular basis. What "regular" means is yet to be determined. It'll be more frequent than monthly and certainly less frequent than daily. I want to get back into the groove of being able to write on something when it's relevant, so my engagement with this blog will be reflective with how often the world gifts me with something I feel excited to discuss.

Which brings me to another point of emphasis--excitement. In the past, I've noticed I've often either became too esoteric or too willing to engage in topics that weren't necessarily things I was personally invested in covering. Those kinds of topics make for better podcasts where active discussion is available. Instead, expect me to be covering only the topics that I personally really enjoy.

With that in mind, here are a few subjects which I will hope to cover with some frequency:

  • Video games
  • Netflix movies and TV shows
  • Current Events
  • Sports
The first on the list is a subject which both of us have covered in some form or another in the past. I spent the early part of this blog beaming over games such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and I eventually moved on to focusing mainly on World of Warcraft. Recently, I've found myself diversifying my gaming experience more with other titles which exist primarily in the RPG genre. 

Being someone who doesn't really enjoy the movie theater experience, I don't usually see many movies until they are available on services such as Netflix. I also enjoy going back to see full TV series offered by the service.

Current events will focus primarily on anything that is significant in the news which I feel comfortable talking about on an open forum. These posts will mainly serve as an opportunity for a personal time capsule.

Sports need no real explanation. I like sports. I will not talk about soccer.

There you have it. Either another broken promise or another true beginning for the blog. Time will tell.

To anyone who reads this blog, thank you.



Tuesday, September 8, 2015

The Battle.net Shop, WoW Token, and You: How to Fix The Micro-Transaction Problem

The Battle.net Shop


Over the past few years, Blizzard has offered in-game items through their Battle.net Shop. In World of Warcraft, you can purchase several services for your account using this shop, including pets, mounts, cosmetic armor, and appearance changes. There are many more, but for the sake of this discussion, these are the only aspects which we will give focus.

Generally speaking, the in-game items on the Battle.net Shop are viewed somewhat negatively by the WoW community. WoW is a game that is built using a monthly subscription model, so adding in-game content via a micro-transaction feels as a sort of betrayal to the game's player base. If we are to pay a subscription, why should we then be gouged with these additional fees for content? In particular, mounts being added to the shop have become a major source of disdain from the community since many mounts in the game are acquired via in-game accomplishments. To illustrate this point further, you need only check the comments and dislikes of their most recently released shop mount. Personally, I think features being exclusive to the in-game shop is an unsavory model which makes players feel more like customers instead of players.

However, there may be a way for Blizzard to keep the shop without it diminishing the Warcraft experience.

Enter the WoW Token.

The WoW Token


In early 2015, Blizzard introduced their WoW token. The WoW token is something that a player can buy from the shop for $20, which is $5 more than a month of WoW game time. Next, the buyer of the token can then post it on the auction house for an amount of gold determined by Blizzard (At the time of this writing, the amount has fluctuated between 20-30k gold). After the token is posted, any player in the game can buy the token from the in-game auction house for the posted amount of gold; that player can then use that token for one month of WoW game time. In short, this gives a players a way to buy gold with real money, and other players a way to buy game time with game currency.

The Fix


So, how do the WoW token and Battle.net shop relate? The WoW token gives Blizzard the opportunity to make more money with their Battle.net shop without pressuring their player base into micro-transactions.

The WoW token is primarily used to allow Blizzard to make an extra $5 in game time services by allowing players to purchase gold. From that, it would make sense that Blizzard should make in-game items that would cost large sums of gold. Additionally, players who do not possess or desire to spend the funds for game time are given the ability to play "for free" by spending their gold buying WoW tokens. 

The major drawback to this type of system is that Blizzard must continue to produce content that is worthy of demanding large gold costs. Obviously, an apparent solution is for Blizzard to allow the services mentioned at the beginning to be purchased in-game for large sums of gold. This would give even more players access to this content while still encouraging the real money purchasing of the WoW token for players who want quick purchases.

But what about the player who doesn't want to buy gold? These players should still have the opportunity to acquire these items by playing the game (novel idea, I know). These items could be rewards for a lengthy quest/reputation line or challenging achievement which requires players to devote time to this cause. At the end of these achievements, the item could then be purchased at a significantly reduced amount of gold. Another possibility is the items could be loyalty rewards for people who maintain an active account over long period of time. For example, if you stay active for 1 year, you can pick an item off the shop for free. These are just a few examples, but I imagine there are limitless ideas that could work.

Additionally, players who are working towards achieving this goal will face the decision of buying the WoW token over saving their gold, which could result in more sub buys. Over time, these players could experience the same amount of content as a player who wishes to pay for a shortcut.

The basic plan can be summarized as follows:

  1. Place Battle.net Shop items in the game for large gold prices.
  2. Allow players who want to buy on the shop for cash to continue to do so.
  3. People who want to buy gold to buy these items will be able to do so.
  4. Players who do not wish to buy WoW Tokens must commit large sums of gold and/or complete lengthy/challenging content to mitigate the cost.
  5. Blizzard continues to make money off the shop and tokens.

For Blizzard, I think this would just add value to the WoW token. Additionally, more people would experience the content from the shop, and the community may embrace the concept more in the future. For the player, this gives us all an opportunity to make the choice in how we spend our money and enjoy content.

Friday, August 21, 2015

And We're Back! (Sorta, maybe, in a sense)

Here's the outline for one of the recent episodes of Just BS.  The podcast will be posted between now and sometime in the future.

Just BS Podcast
Title: Winter 2015 Preview


Sponsor: This space still open!  You can sponsor Just BS for the low low price of $100 an episode.  Since we haven’t gotten any carrier pigeons yet, we are going to open the submission process to include smoke signals between the hours of 11AM to 11:10 AM eastern time.  We hope with this new flexibility, we will hear from you soon.


Topic: Winter preview, what we are looking forward to

Movies
  • American Ultra
  • The Martian
  • Bond film: Spectre
  • Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  • 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
  • Deadpool
  • Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice


Games
  • Super Mario Maker
  • Star Fox
  • Zelda (beyond fall, but soon)
  • Destiny: The Taken King
  • Fallout 4
  • Battleborn
  • Backward Compatibility of Xbox 360 Games on Xbox One (return of Borderlands!)


TV
  • Game of Thrones


Picks of the Week

Brad: destinylfg.net, a great site for finding randoms in Destiny to do just about every activity in the game

Scott: George Carlin's All My Stuff, a collection of all his HBO specials found on Amazon.com and other fine retailer.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Gimme a Boost!

With the announcement of Warlords of Draenor (WoD) at Blizzcon this month, there were quite a few new features revealed to be coming in the next expansion of World of Warcraft.  Many of the announcements were met with overjoyed enthusiasm by those in attendance, but of course, some of them were not as universally popular. Whether it be the new raid formats, gear changes, player models, or the "boost to 90" feature, there have been several who have taken to the open forum that is the Internet to voice their thoughts (rage). As such, I feel it is my obligation as an American to jump into the fray since my opinion is the only one that really matters, and I hope to dedicate a blog post to each subject I have mentioned.

You've been warned.

However, for the purposes of this post I will focus solely on the controversy surrounding the "boost to 90" feature. This feature allows anyone who buys WoD to immediately boost one of their characters to level 90 which is the starting level needed for the new content. This will effectively allow someone to bypass all previous content, and jump through the red Dark Portal to join everyone else. Anyone who uses this feature will have their action bar wiped clean, and will be slowly given abilities as they level in an effort to not overwhelm new or returning players. Basically, level 90 is the new level 1.

The temptation is to break this down into a question of whether or not this is good or bad, but I refuse to fall down that CNN sinkhole. Instead, I think it is important to simply offer my perspective, and let you decide for yourself. I've played the game for over four years, and I've spent a lot of time leveling. I've also had friends who I would have liked to have played with in the game, but never could quite make it to current content levels. There are obvious pros and cons that I think are worthy of discussion.

Being the optimist, let's start out with the pros...

Pros

The biggest upside of this feature is that it should bring in more people to play the game. Being able to start the new content with everyone else has to be attractive to both new and returning players. By effectively being able to bypass the old content with everyone else, the player base at the start of the expansion should be heavily concentrated on new content. This should mean faster queue times for matchmaking instances, a large pool to recruit players into guilds for both PvE and PvP, more people getting to bring friends into the game to play max level content together, and more people interacting with the outdoor environment from the beginning. In the end, it's simple; more people playing should mean more opportunities to enjoy group content.

Also, one thing kinda glossed over in the announcement is that anyone who uses this feature will have their abilities completely taken away to a minimal amount to begin the adventure. Much like how death knights received skills and talents in Wrath, new players will have an opportunity to get a basic grip on their class without being so overwhelmed with the full capabilities of a level 90 character. To me, this is the most under-appreciated  aspect since I think most current players have forgotten just how foreign this game feels to a new player, and this should help alleviate some of the pressure of trying to learn 30 keybinds at once.

In addition, players will be learning the game in context with the new content. Spells never really seem to make much sense at lower levels. Whether it's tanks hitting way too hard and having limited tanking abilities; healers having absurd mana regeneration; or damage dealers simply spamming one button to victory, the older content never seems to adequately train players for what to expect when meeting up with the end game levels. Since Blizzard seemingly has no interest in evenly tuning low level content to reflect what goes on at max level, skipping the previous expansions' content isn't only reasonable; it's logical.

Cons

First off, World of Warcraft is awesome. The world created by these guys at Blizzard is truly a work of art, so skipping it feels a bit blasphemous. I started in Wrath when all the content outside of Northrend was outdated (ah, memories), and of course, I had to level through all the old content just to battle the Lich King. Along the way, I enjoyed quests, dungeons, random folks, and newbies like myself which I think helped enrich my own personal experience. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the old content was great, and shouldn't simply be swept under a rug.

Now that that's out of the way, let's move onto the more objective thoughts...

Noobs! While there may be more people playing the game together, this may actually dilute the quality of player to a point that it may actually become harder in some cases to find a fun group. Sure, the matchmaking will be faster and people will be out there in the world, but that doesn't necessarily mean the quality of the group content will improve. In fact, it's highly likely that a player of 6+ years will be matched up with a player of 6 minutes. This could cause a dip in community quality as some of the more veteran players tend to be... well... dicks, and new players tend to be more timid about even joining in group content. In this case, I could see group content becoming more of a hassle than one might expect.

Finally, there is also the risk of bringing on the wrong kind of attitude from newer players.  If new players are given this instant gratification by zooming up 90 levels, I wonder if these players might begin to expect the entire game to work in this fashion. WoW is a game that takes time even after you've leveled, so setting the precedent for immediate rewards may actually diminish one's expectations for what the game truly offers. If this is the case, I genuinely wonder if Blizzard is reaching for the wrong audience to bring along for the release of this expansion; and if so, it could adversely affect the community as a whole. One thing to consider, the level grind also served as a buffer between more committed players and those who simply wanted rewards.

Final Thoughts! (Yes. It's over, and no, I'm not apologizing.)

Whether it's good or not depends completely on the release content. If the new content caters exclusively to the boost crowd, we could see an exodus of current players who find the content unsatisfactory. New players must be acclimated to the game that we current players enjoy, not the other way around.  Also, if the tutorials and starting area are able to do a sufficient job, the integration could be seamless; if not, it could be quite the detriment to the existing community, or at very least a rough beginning to the expansion. This must be done with care to avoid a negative response on release from each player base.

There's still probably a good deal I left out, but my personal opinion on this feature is that I like it.  I look forward to meeting new folks in the game, and possibly bringing back a friend of my own (again, you've been warned). In the end, I trust Blizzard enough to make this work, so I am indeed hopeful.

Next time, we'll look at the new raid formats.


(stay tuned...)



New Stuff! (maybe)

Hello, blog! Long time, no see.

It's been a while since I've actually sat down to write anything for this exceptional use of internet space, but I'm back to entertain the masses!

I hope to be writing a lot more often than ever before, and will try to stick to as many fun topics as I can. Expect to see a lot of posts regarding Blizzcon, the NFL, television, and more!

End Post
(nailed it)