Boost to lvl 90!

[Horcored 17]

Hey, i heard the feature where you could buy a boost to lvl 90 should come in 5.4.7.

 

Anyone know if its out yet or not? If it is, pls tell me where its located cuz i've not been able to find this yet.

 

Reason i wanna know, and also use this is cuz i am really tired of lvling(after lvling 14 chars to 90) and now i wanna start playing on US and this is a nice way to instantly get to lvl 90.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Horcored

[drumsmani 47]

I thought it was only in 5.4.7 PTR for testing. I don't remember seeing anything to this effect in the official patch notes. The feature itself is expected as part of WoD (maybe the pre-patch would have it).

[Oltier 471]

I have seen the screenshot about it as well on mmo-champion.

While it was implemented in the 5.4.7 patch, I highly doubt that they will enable the feature before the release of WoD.

If it was enabled, then it must have been a mistake.

 

Once it gets enabled, you will be able find it in the in game shop on the character selection screen and it is going to cost 60$s, based on MMO-Champion's information.

 

FYI: The whole ESO will cost 60$... You would get a whole game for the price of one character, which I really don't think it is worth it. If you have that much money to spare, just send it to me. I will appreciate it as a university student in a dormitory.... :'D

[Fouton 266]

And your character will be equipped in 483 gear, if I recall correctly.

[Fouton 266]

FYI: The whole ESO will cost 60$... You would get a whole game for the price of one character, which I really don't think it is worth it. If you have that much money to spare, just send it to me. I will appreciate it as a university student in a dormitory.... :'D

 

Is ESO not going subscription base? Hmm maybe I will buy it after all.

 

Also leveling a 90 takes me like 80 hours, played, the best players take about 30 without RaF or monkly buffs etc. That means they're spending only about $2 an hour. Time is money friend!

 

I'd pay this again and again... if I had a job to balance out the cost.

[Archimage 98]

I wonder if its free for the first character, and then $60 afterwards.

 

At this cost, I'll rather buy a new game and RAF it to level since I am used to leveling at major speed. This way, you get 2 level 90s (not to mention you can then also grant another toon 45 levels) , a Mount and if you buy gametime for the new account, you get free gametime for your current account.

[Fouton 266]

And if you can do as many characters as you have the time for, instead of the one ;)

[drumsmani 47]

It is free for one character and I think you should be able to get it with pre-order of WoD. And if you buy a new game, that should include the one free 90 on it.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person that reads Blueposts.

 

One boost to 90 will be FREE with the pre-order (and later just buying it at all) of Warlords of Dranor. The boost, the pet, and the mount (Pet and mount are if you get the deluxe) will all be given to the account AT THE TIME OF PRE-ORDER, not the pre-patch. 

 

Although unconfirmed - we can assume that the boost for sale will be made available when the free boost goes live also, so when pre-orders for WoD start. 

 

All of this comes down to "When does pre-order start" We don't know, but it will be very soon. Not the normal Blizzard "Soon" but a real soon.

 

The $60 is not confirmed, it is only being suspected because of a small bug on the patch day for 5.4.7 that opened the Boost buying screen for a very short time. Blizz has said they are not sure what the final price will be, so it may or may not be $60 a pop.

 

Also, ESO will have a $15 per month sub, just like WoW does. 

 

Side note, $60 is a very fair price point. What they are trying to do is stop people from buying the new xpack to get a free 90 and then transferring the 90 on to their main account, a process that would cost ~$100. But at the same time they don't want a massive flood of people with new 90s they don't know anything about. This would be very harmful to the over all game and the economies of each server. $60 is enough that you CAN do it, but it will discourage people from doing it often.

 

If you REALLY want more easy leveled toons, then RAF and BoA items are your way to go.  

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Rygarius/status/435633415719632896

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/12426481/warlords-of-draenor%E2%84%A2-scouting-report-1-16-2014

http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/17/warlords-of-draenor-pre-purchase-nets-automatic-level-90-boost/

[Storm 426]

$60 also discourages people from buying a new 90 instead of transferring their character to a new server.

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

the 60 buck thing is not set in stone. yes it was on the ptr for 5.4.7 but they did not say that when they were going to release it with 5.4.7. if i had to guess it will go live when the pre wod patch hits. I honestly dont think it will be 60 buck. i is supose to make blitz more money to catch up with the down turn on the amount of players. i would guess it will run around 20 to 35.

[Oltier 471]

the 60 buck thing is not set in stone. yes it was on the ptr for 5.4.7 but they did not say that when they were going to release it with 5.4.7. if i had to guess it will go live when the pre wod patch hits. I honestly dont think it will be 60 buck. i is supose to make blitz more money to catch up with the down turn on the amount of players. i would guess it will run around 20 to 35.

An interview with a game designer:

 

 

 

Eurogamer

• The Level 90 boost is being sold to allow players that would have purchased multiple copies of WoW to get more Level 90 characters to do so in a more reasonable way.
• The price point was decided upon to avoid devaluing the accomplishment of leveling a character to 90.
• If Blizzard's goal was to sell as many boosts as possible, they would have set the price lower.
• The price point wasn't selected to maximize profit, just to represent the amount of time that it takes to level to 90.

 

I'd disagree with your guess then :)

[Tocino 0]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person that reads Blueposts.

 

One boost to 90 will be FREE with the pre-order (and later just buying it at all) of Warlords of Dranor. The boost, the pet, and the mount (Pet and mount are if you get the deluxe) will all be given to the account AT THE TIME OF PRE-ORDER, not the pre-patch. 

 

Although unconfirmed - we can assume that the boost for sale will be made available when the free boost goes live also, so when pre-orders for WoD start. 

 

All of this comes down to "When does pre-order start" We don't know, but it will be very soon. Not the normal Blizzard "Soon" but a real soon.

 

The $60 is not confirmed, it is only being suspected because of a small bug on the patch day for 5.4.7 that opened the Boost buying screen for a very short time. Blizz has said they are not sure what the final price will be, so it may or may not be $60 a pop.

 

Also, ESO will have a $15 per month sub, just like WoW does. 

 

Side note, $60 is a very fair price point. What they are trying to do is stop people from buying the new xpack to get a free 90 and then transferring the 90 on to their main account, a process that would cost ~$100. But at the same time they don't want a massive flood of people with new 90s they don't know anything about. This would be very harmful to the over all game and the economies of each server. $60 is enough that you CAN do it, but it will discourage people from doing it often.

 

If you REALLY want more easy leveled toons, then RAF and BoA items are your way to go.  

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Rygarius/status/435633415719632896

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/12426481/warlords-of-draenor™-scouting-report-1-16-2014

http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/17/warlords-of-draenor-pre-purchase-nets-automatic-level-90-boost/

Are you implying you only get a 90 boost with a pre order? The way I understand it, and what they say in every post, is that all copies sold of WoD come with a 90 boost. The only benefit to the pre order is you get your 90 boost sooner. I may be misunderstanding your post. Again, all copies whether pre order or not get 1 free 90boost

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

and that fine. but when it come right down to it it is a way for blitz to make up some of the lost revenue they down all most 7 million players at 15 buck a month. that 105 million a month.  x12=1,260,000,000 a month. 1.26 billion lost $ over a year.  so let put out a service that could make up a lot of that money out of reach for most of the remain players to try and make up that. look say they do put it at 60 buck a vast many of the people wont pay that much for a level boost so sales will be bad, blitz dose not intend to make this out of reach for players and they them self have said that it was a glitch on the ptr about the $60
 

[Tocino 0]

I lean toward believing their explanation of not wanting to devalue leveling accomplishments. If they wanted to make I killing on people buying boosts, the price would not be 60$. If it was 10-15 even 20 bucks, people would be buying tons of 90's on different worlds. At 60 bucks it's a safe bet only a select group will be buying more than 1 and I'd bet most. Like myself, will buy none.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Tocino

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

I lean toward believing their explanation of not wanting to devalue leveling accomplishments. If they wanted to make I killing on people buying boosts, the price would not be 60$. If it was 10-15 even 20 bucks, people would be buying tons of 90's on different worlds. At 60 bucks it's a safe bet only a select group will be buying more than 1 and I'd bet most. Like myself, will buy none.

why i do agree with you but when it come right down to it all about cash. blitz is hurting for cash. i can agree with you about not wanting to devalue it but the fact is giving every one a free 90 with wod dose devalue it.  there is a point that you would not want to level up a new toon. the break point is fast coming up. so the fact that getting new people in to wow will become to the point that no one will want to level up a new toon,

to make it 60 buck is not good for long term growth in this game soon if it keep up it will be like every other game out there. sorry but 60 buck for a level 90 is a bit stupid 30 is a bit better . im not saying 15 or 20 but most people would pay 30 for it and be ok with paying for it

[Fouton 266]

There's a lot more to this than simply x players are missing so they need to sell it to cover the lost players (which has been steadily dropping for a while now, not something sudden).

 

You would need to find the equation of profit based on # of level 90s they would sell based on what the price is. This is much more complicated than less is more, because once you find how much money you'd gain overall by lowering the price, you'd have to find out how many players you lose by making it so cheap. Then you have to predict if such a low price would kill the game entirely since it could likely make many people skip leveling, leaving all old zones barren.

 

As Oltier quoted, they need to price it in a way that doesn't make everyone just buy all 90s, they need to price it in a way that is a value close to how long it takes people to reach 90 (which for even the best levelers is like 24 hours). I personally think $60 is a steal.

 

I imagine blizzard knows that selling lower would make them more money, and dropping the price after showing a $60 PTR (and seeing a fairly positive feedback from the price compared to the backlash it could have been) I would guess they won't be changing it to much lower. I'd guess $40 is their minimum.

 

You also have to remember, if they make the price $25/30, no one would ever faction/server transfer. Everyone would just buy a new 90, defeating the purpose of the transfers. They'll definitely have to keep the price much higher than that.

[Lockybalboa 618]

First thing you need to understand is that Blizzard is not a stand alone company. The company is Activision Blizzard. Although they are owned by another company, for our purpose here that doesn't matter to much. Together the company puts out all of the biggest gaming titles in the world, Call of Duty, Diablo, SarCraft, WoW, and more. The company doesn't rely on WoW's income alone to grow or sustain growth, they could shut down WoW tomorrow and the company would be fine. WoW makes up a large part of their income and is by far the most stable part of their revenue but it does NOT make the company.

 

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:ATVI

 

Their stock is almost at an all time high and has shown strong growth since WoW released. Granted, stock price does NOT equal cash on hand but we can surmise that the company does have a lot of liquid assets from the resent actions taken; such as massively expanding their art department for WoW. 

 

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/02/07/activision-blizzard-rallies-on-4q-beat-gaming-strength

 

The article is dry and helps to have a background in business to understand it but basically what it says is that Activision Blizzard surprised the market and reported much higher earnings then they thought they would. Addishonally, the internal analysis and the Wall Street analysis  agree that profits for the company are going to rise in the coming quarters.

 

Additionally we can look at the business news for the company and see they've made some good moves lately:

 

http://investor.activision.com/releases.cfm

 

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?docTag=201402250702PR_NEWS_USPRX____LA70802&feedID=600&press_symbol=54201

 

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?docTag=201402170900PR_NEWS_USPRX____NY65903&feedID=600&press_symbol=54201

 

http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?docTag=201402141559BIZWIRE_USPRX____BW5884&feedID=600&press_symbol=54201

 

The company has joined with Frito-Lay, Hasbro, Crayola, and General Mills to promote their games and to make some toys for a few things. People and companies are judged by the company they keep, in this case we can judge that Activision Blizzard is going just fine - you normally don't see major long term companies like Crayola or General Mills making bad business agreements.

 

The idea that Blizzard is hurting for cash or that they make business decisions based on profit alone is groundless and silly. Profit does impact decisions, but they don't look only at money.

 

The $60 price point was set out of respect for the effort made to level a toon to 90, to provide players with a less costly way of getting a paid 90 other then buying WoW, buying WoD, and then transferring the toon over to their main account, and to give people a way of coming back to the game without having to spend months leveling and gearing to enjoy the content with their friends.

 

Finally it would be bad for the game if there was a massive flood of new 90s, like there would be if the price was set at $15-$30. A flood of toons is never good for LFR, LFD, or the economy of the servers - all of this is taken in to account when looking at a major game design change like this.

 

$60 is fair and tactically the best place the price could be set.

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

and yet if you read on for long term it bad.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/02/07/activision-blizzard-rallies-on-4q-beat-gaming-strength/

first line said "Despite reporting a 51% drop in its quarterly profit"

and yes they added people and the stock is strong.

but long term growth  is slow and not looking at any better. one of blitz flagship product is down and it not getting any better. there are people talking about it going to free to play

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/World-Warcraft-Might-Go-Free-Play-Blizzard-Says-58509.html

im not saying that 60 is not fair im just saying they wont sell that many and there will be major pressure to drop the price

[Lockybalboa 618]

The company is "Blizzard Entertainment" Not "Blitz" that's bugging the hell out of me.

 

The free to play is irrelevant, Mr. Chilton said "At some point it's possible that World of Warcraft could end up being free-to-play, but I do think there’s always room for there to be subscription games." They've always said that, they have also always said that it will only be in the far future and not something they are looking at from either a game design perspective or a business one.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-09-blizzard-rules-out-free-to-play-world-of-warcraft

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/11/10/blizzard-dismisses-idea-of-free-to-play-world-of-warcraft/

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/08/world-of-warcraft-probably-isnt-going-free-to-play

  

They have flatly said that WoW will not go F2P:

 

From CEO Mike Morhaime: “We’ve always taken the business model on a case by case basis. In the case of World of Warcraft, the first 20 levels are free. It wasn’t designed as a free-to-play game. I don’t see that type of transition happening in World of Warcraft".

 

Also, the 51% drop in its quarterly profit is the full company, NOT just Blizzard. Think: What happened in Q4 of 2013 to make Activision Blizzard a load of cash? Answer: Call of Duty: Ghosts.

 

But wait, they showed a 51% drop? Why? BECAUSE COD: GHOSTS FLOPPED ON ITS ASS - HARD. For the past 4-5 years CoD has always released in November and has always sold out within 48 hours, setting sales records year after year. So much so that other game developers avoid releasing in November because they know that CoD owns that month (the only exception to this is BattleField who deliberately released before CoD did for BF3 and BF4 because they wanted to "take back November").

 

So yes, when a major game title falls on its ass hard and does not nearly sell as many copies as the company normally sells during that month every year, the company is going to show a major drop in profit - this does not mean in any way that the company is in danger or that an unrelated game title is going to be effected. 

 

Blizz might drop the $60 price tag down, but I would not count on it or look for that happening any time soon. Blizz rarely drops their price for things, ever. 

 

Your statements about Blizz being hurt for cash are simply not factual.

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

Your statements about Blizz being hurt for cash are simply not factual.

 

well nether are yours

yes i can see where you think that

 

Also, the 51% drop in its quarterly profit is the full company, NOT just Blizzard.

 

but you saying that the reason 51% of profit is because of one game flopped. but you your slef said that blitz is a full company not just 1 part. but for that much drop to happen many thing would have to go bad. including wow losing people, dlablo 3 kind of floping. and other factors. still 51% is billions lost for the company. 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/26/activision-blizzard-splits-vivendi

early last year they split from the parent company for 8 billion

and yet a 51% lost in there first real independent quarterly is bad

so 8 billion and more lost blitz need to make up some cash.

also blitz blitz blitz

[SparkSovereign 61]

also blitz blitz blitz

This has stopped being a discussion, you're just being confrontational at this point.  Please stop.

 

In an attempt to get things back on track, the blues have said that if your free WoD boost is your first high-level character, there will be an intro thing where you are slowly introduced to your abilities (a la Death Knight starting zone).  They've also said they don't think it will be ready in time for WoD preorders, but should be up by the time the expansion itself is ready.  As someone who has repeatedly failed to get my friends interested due to the enormous overhead time of getting up to level, I am quite happy about this.

[Lockybalboa 618]

also blitz blitz blitz

 

 

You're no longer worth my time.

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

You're no longer worth my time.

and nether are you

 

This has stopped being a discussion, you're just being confrontational at this point.  Please stop.

 

In an attempt to get things back on track, the blues have said that if your free WoD boost is your first high-level character, there will be an intro thing where you are slowly introduced to your abilities (a la Death Knight starting zone).  They've also said they don't think it will be ready in time for WoD preorders, but should be up by the time the expansion itself is ready.  As someone who has repeatedly failed to get my friends interested due to the enormous overhead time of getting up to level, I am quite happy about this.

ya i do agree there are many bugs to work out but the fact that it up on the ptr is a good sign.

Edited March 2, 2014 by ClaytonMcKown

[Tocino 0]

I don't even understand why this is an issue. The point of this game is to play, leveling is part of playing. People are always complaining that they are just trying to make money whether it's from this or the in game shop or purchasable mounts. Well yeah they are trying to make money, it's a company. Duh. The fact is, there are only 2 things you are required to pay for, the initial game purchases and monthly subscription. Both are things everyone knows before they begin to play. Don't like it, don't play. That being said, blizzard may be dropping in profits but they are by no means LOSING money. It is still a very profitable game (not to mention their other games). So unless you're an investor, who cares? Just enjoy the game

Now for the topic: I for one couldn't be happier about a free 90. I have 6 90's now and just don't have much leveling left in me seeing I need to get them all to 100. There has always been 1 or 2 classes I'd like to try and this will give me that chance. Can't wait

Edited March 2, 2014 by Tocino