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World of Warcraft and UDE Point System Fiasco
Richard Manley writes "A report on the card game trinket fiasco. When the UDE (Upper Deck Entertainment) point system finally went live, I would imagine most of the people that logged in felt the same fury I did. Blizzard knows the lengths that its fans will go to get trinkets (look at the price of Murloc cards on eBay), but their arrangement with Upper Deck simply takes advantage of the good will many fans have shown." From the article: "This means that in order to get these trinkets, one would have to purchase 9 BOXES of cards for the fireworks and 21 BOXES of cards for the ogre. What does this mean? Want a fireworks trinket? Sure, it is only going to cost you $900.00. Want an Ogre trinket? No problem, it is only going to cost you $2,100.00. Bear in mind that these items are purely for show off purposes and give no in-game advantage to players." Having been through the Magic: The Gathering addiction twice, I've decided staying away from this Collectible Card Game is a good idea.
So, you're staying away from the Civil Code of Quebec?
Sucker!
Players of WoW will be pissed for about two weeks, then blizzard will implement [Axe of ZOMGWTF Pwnage], and soon they'll all be off to EPL to grind the 400 zombie asses they need to turn in to get it. This is just the epic obsession of the month. Next patch there will be something better.
what do you expect them to do? they want to milk you cash cows for all you're worth before the next game comes out or you lose your job and your wife leaves you, whichever happens first.
Aah yes, the UDE system... I'd much prefer CCQ myself as well. Although I never had an MtG problem, I still fear MiG's that were sold to some unfriendly countries.
....
What the heck does all THAT mean? I must be getting old
It seems to me that the more time passes, the less I understand around here. Funny how that happens.
That's a 50 DKP MINUS!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
English....? Anyone? Please?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
A qucik search on eBay for "murloc" only nets you two results, and neither is a card.
Complaining about this makes as much sense as being a devout Catholic and then getting all upset with the arbitrary rituals and limitations that come with the package.
The article makes a huge assumption: That the cards are the ONLY way to get UDE points. Maybe this is just the first way. Maybe you can also earn them by grinding, in-game. Or winning contests. Or special quests. Or other WoW merchandise.
Or maybe they just placed an extra 0 on all the stuff online by accident.
Or maybe they really are just greedy bastards and know how to exploit the playerbase of the most popular game in the world.
Or maybe, just maybe... They meant it to be REALLY FSCKING TOUGH to get those. They aren't special if everyone has one.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I do like how 2 of the 3 pictures in the article are about the board game and not the card game. Also complaining because you bought cards, NOT to play the card game but to get the in-game items seems a bit absurd to me.
So let me get this straight. I group of people bought large amounts of some card game they didn't actually want to play, because they would get some points, with no idea as to how many points they will need. Then it turns out the things they can buy with the points are really expensive.
Why not either a) Buy the cards for the cards, or b) Wait until you know how much things will cost before buying the cards?
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
You clearly all need a good smack in the face and a date.
I don't know... buy cards from people who buy the card game? here's the deal: People who play the card game don't need 100 points. tey will get rid of them for much cheaper than you would pay for a pack. PLUS if nobody plays the game it will fail. A failed CCG means you can buy a box of boosters at the low low price of 10-20 bucks. tops.
Greed is a good thing, except when it runs over any other sense, like it did this time. Looks like they bracketed costs of trinkets to other sort of similar costs of online items. Except these have *NO* in game value, as per sysem of points, experience.
I don't play WoW, but what a way to get burnt... maybe they can have trinkets rented with micropayments, like 0.01$ for each use? [I shouldn't give them ideas eh ?]
All buyers of these cards got pwned...
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Complaining about the cost of "trinkets" is a little silly. They're nothing
other than "vanity items".
So the writer of this article is upset that vanity items cost too much? Hello?
Any disappointment on the part of players is a result of over-expectation
in the 'freebie collectible' component of the offline game. I'm not sure that
having one's un-researched expectations shattered by reality is something that warrants
casting blame on the manufacturer.
IMHO as long as we're talking about something that has no other purpose but to
flaunt in front of other players and say "Na-ha, look what I have!", there's no
'appropriate' price. As in the real world, vanity has no upper price limit.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
You bought the card game - don't complain that the free extras don't match up to your expectations. You're furious that you have to buy 20 meals to get a free pudding? I'd base my purchase on the quality and value of the meals, personally...
This is Blizzard pwning their fans man...nothing else. This is so they can go down to E3 or whatever and bloat : "haha...look here EA. Look what we did to those idiots. First they were angry of course, but look at them now! Haha! This one guy has ALL the trinkets! It must have cost him $10 000! Oh and I just bought myself my own spaceship too. Going to the moon next friday...u wanna come?"
That original article writer really needs to take reality check. Why the hell buy cards for a game you don't want to play, ONLY because he wants some graphics to show up in Wow, and NOT check how much cards he needs before paying...haha...funny shit.
apparently he's upset about something to do with online gaming
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That sounds a lot like Air Miles to me.
You are not paying for the points when you buy the cards... you are paying for the cards and the points are a BONUS... So saying that the in game items cost that much doesn't make sense. The cards and the points together cost that much...
1. The cards you buy are intended to be used to play a game with. The UDE points thing is just a bonus.
2. I believe certain rare cards are also worth a certain amount of UDE points or can give the player a code to automatically get a free item. I'm not quite clear on this, but neither is the article.
3. As the article said, the items you get from UDE points are complete novelty items in WoW. No epic weapons, no uber trinkets that will allow you to pwn in PvP. Think the stupid novelty pets you got in the Collector's Edition.
"Having been through the MtG additiction twice, I've decided staying away from this CCQ is a good idea."
If the editors can't it right, who can? It's *addiction*/SpellingNazi
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
How can we kill that which... has no life?
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
I think it's more like having to buy 20 tv's to get a free dvd
Do people complain about those little coke codes that you can redeem?
Hell no, why? Because only an idiot goes out and buys the coke bottle just for the code. They code is a little reward for drinking the coke. Its not a consolation prize, it is a little reward for a bit of brand loyalty. Hell the rewards for the soda are less useful.
God, what an ass. I'm gonna buy a ccq so i can win a freaking e-penis enhancement. Oh boy, I pay 15 bucks a month already, why don't I just bend over some more then bitch about it. You have not been kidnapped, you don't have a knife at your throat, DON'T BUY THE FUCKING CARD GAME YOU MORON, GOD DAMMIT ITS THAT SIMPLE. ITS ONLY A FIASCO IF YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON.
cough. ahem. sorry.
You mad
9 boxes of freakin' cards? Geez. Screw that.
I was going to get a couple of packs and check the artwork at best.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
The prizes from the card game are a form of collectible themselves. It's akin to minting a new coin and throwing it into random boxes of cereal. Along with throwing coins in cereal you throw in a piece of paper that says: "Collect X amount of these and get a coin". Are you telling me that coin collector's everywhere are going to be buying that cereal to eat it?
The CCG was released 5 days ago from today. I'm not certain when the UDE exchange prices were listed but it hardly qualifies as a "long time" between in my opinion.
And also, the FAQ about UDE points, released October 2nd (weeks before the card game), uses 50,000 points as an example twice...that should have been some indication of the scope they were looking at.
I have been fearful of Blizzard for a while now, and now it seems my concerns are slowing being realized. I played SWG for 1.5 years since release. The urge to use the fans for money just became too tempting to resist. Things changed from "we want to provide you with fun," to "things will change and it is our game."
With the change to the UI's to be locked down to the +healing nerf, Blizzard has now clearly stated that they know how the game is "supposed" to be played. The mods they disliked were written and heavily used for a reason. People do not like being used for a particular purpose (i.e. be the wack-a-mole'er). My greatest fear was the statement that Blizzard plans to release an expansion pack a year when there are plenty of mechanics in the game that would be far more interesting if the would routinely add to them. We already have a lot of factions that are unused. There are plenty of lower-level recipes, enchants, etc that could be added. In short, a lot of things that would add more richness to the world, but would not be an immediate selling point.
And, that's the rub. It is far easier to add breadth than depth to a game. But, breadth is far more marketable. What made WoW popular was the depth. After all, once you max in any system, it's the replayability that keeps the people--the social environment. I think Blizzard no longer understand that.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
I must be getting old; I didn't understand anything in the post. The linked article was much more informative, though.
"Waaaaah waaaaah waaaaaaah."
Honestly, bunch of clowns get upset that some 'exclusive' in game items of zero real world value are going to take them more time and / or money to aquire than they would have liked.
Cry me a river.
Six million people may play Warcraft but leading a story with this gibberish isn't going to help the 5billion, 994million who don't understand what the hell you're on about man! In the word of Mr. T, "Fool!"
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
*DrugCheese rants*
I traded my real, hard-earned currency for an alternate currency before knowing just how much the alternate currency was worth! Poor me!"
Hey, WOW players, shoelaces are the next gold. Twice as valuable per ounce! If you want to be rich, collect shoelaces. I have a million of them and I'll sell them to you for only $3 per shoelace. This is a hot deal, so act quickly before the London stock exchange begins tracking the daily shoelace price.
"I threw up my hands in disgust and wondered if it had been such a good idea to have eaten my hands in the first place."
I bought precisely two decks of cards, so that if nobody I knew bought a deck, I'd still be able to play. That's it -- I don't anticipate buying any more.
If you don't want to play the card game, don't buy any cards. If you buy them in order to get the in-game rewards, you are going to be disappointed. Period. Don't do that. Buy them to play the card game, not for any other reason.
Call Jack Thompson! Think of the children!
"What a depressingly stupid machine." - Marvin the Paranoid Android.
If you expect to open a pack and get a fun trinket in game, what would stop every wow player to open just one pack and get it? Then it would not be special.
- You get 100 points per pack.
- You can get a nice amount of points in special tournaments (probably more than 100 points and less than 5000).
- You can get omg lucky! and open an special Legendary Loot card. It gives you a code for a special reward in game. Turtle mounts are reaching some high prices...
So this is more a problem of children crying GIEF NAO!
Or so I've been told by people who demo the card game.
Leveling up builds character.
It took me several months (and lots of persuasion from RL friends) to even spend the money on the game and the monthly fee, but I'll be damned if they'll get me to buy some useless card game just so I can get some useless pet that 1) does nothing, 2) takes up inventory space, and 3) ensures I can't enable any OTHER pet I've got wasting inventory space if I activate it.
It's bad enough they make us do cartwheels for months to get adequate bag space (wtf buying a bank slot for 100g, when its just as much extra space as the 10s one, with NO free bag?)
But now they're offering a card game (as if they don't already offer enough addictive stuff) that you can use to "get the edge" in WoW by having some useless thing follow you around, or a turtle mount that doesn't increase your speed or do anything more than just "look cool". A computer game, a card game, and now a table-top board game. Its obvious that Blizzard is milking the franchise for every penny they can get out of it, and good for them. It's paying off big time. I don't blame them at all, but I do think the enticement of useless in-game stuff for a serious amount of real money is ridiculous. I would just never buy it myself.
And they said zombies weren't real!
> Or maybe they really are just greedy bastards and know how to exploit the playerbase of the most popular game in the world.
WoW isn't the most popular by a long shot. Take a look at the numbers for Lineage, and you'll see what I mean.
Virg
I tried to click on the [Axe of ZOMGWTF Pwnage] but doesn't work. can anyone link it so I can see the stats please?
Ironclad Security only exists when you have Chuck Norris on the shift. Do we really have to discuss this? (Plutonite)
Can I get a Pikachu too?
You're right, sort of. A huge number of people are going to buy the card game *because* they announced you'd get special items inside World of Warcraft, not because they just want a card game. The people behind it know this, and count on it. It's a tie-in, a way to try to get people to try the card game that might not have otherwise. However it would also be naive, I think, to ignore the fact that there are some people who will buy cards with no intention of ever playing the card game just to get an item inside World of Warcraft. Make all the judgments you want about the person who would do that but it's going to happen.
Somewhere out there someone read this article as a guideline and placed an order for the number of boxes of cards they need.
Wow.. they actually brought the MMO grind to real life. Thats just disturbing.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Seems pretty stupid to pay cash for the cards without having any idea how many points are needed for the rewards.
/syle
A couple counter points to the article -
First, I've known many many people who have spend over 1000 dollars on CCGs, most notably MTG. The extra tabard, the turtle mount, and whatever else is a bonus. It's not meant to be a grind, it's not meant to be the sole reason you spend 1000 dollars. The fact that people are willing to spend such an obscene amount of money for one, rather than leave it up to chance, is no more Blizzard's fault than it would be Sony's fault that people will buy playstations on Ebay for 3x the price just to get one 2 weeks early.
Second, everything I've seen as a bonus from this is inconsequential in the game. The turtle mount isn't even epic, meaning you would still need a regular in game mount or everyone (your guildies, your battleground comrades, or that night elf you were chasing down) will outpace you. Vanity in game pets don't fight in combat, and most shape altering trinkets (this UPC item I'm sure included) don't fool guards or most players.
Conclusion : The article's author confused a collectible card game with a lottery, and got teary when he didn't win. To quoth the WoW forums, "Cry more nub".
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
I'm sorry, you spent five bucks on a pack of cards, and expected there to be something -other- -than- the cards in that pack that was worth five bucks?
Sorry, but IMHO, the original poster is an idiot. That's like complaining that you spent sixty bucks on a new 360 game, not to play it, but to use the CD as a mirror for shaving... but it's not shiny enough to shave with.
I honestly wish I came up with this idea! Captalism at it's finest! Can I get a "ca ching" anyone? Bwahahah!
This makes about as much sense as buying a sufficient quantity of cigarettes to get enough Marlboro Miles for a Harrier jet. Of course it's going to be hard. Of course it's going to be expensive. And of course you would be an idiot for trying to do this if you weren't going to smoke the cigarettes.
What a bunch of loser dorks! HAHA. Wow, really something to get bent out of shape about. Why don't you write some angry emails to the company, and get on some chat rooms and flame them? HAHA.
I am sure this is only an issue for the dork-wannabes anyway. I am sure the true uber-dorks who play this game wouldn't bother with this. I don't know much about it, but from what I hear it reminds me of the other similar fads - D&D, Magic, Pokemon.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That's actually a pretty good idea, guy (not that I play WoW)... it'd be another revenue stream for Blizzard, and it'd give the players another way of getting points. IANAL, but I hope there is some way you could copyright (or whatever the proper legal phrase would be) that idea so you could get something if Blizzard ever does it.
Anyone who gets pissed off about this stuff needs to reevaluate their priorities. The items are a nice little "thank you" from Blizzard to the people who play the CCG, not a deck of cards that you buy and get items. If you play the CCG, go for it, just don't expect an item card. I wouldn't buy the cards just in hopes of getting an item though.
I guess it comes to honestly questioning the motives of the design choices of Blizzard? Having 7+ million people playing, and wanting to expand this even further (10+ million next christmas, or even more?) how it is going to affect design and content choices.
Yes I'm aware it alread is, 40 man raids is the thing of the past in TBC expansion, and green/blue items level 64+ are close to what some of the lower end raid gear is (according to posts and screenshots from beta).
But where will it end? How much influence does the finacial success and expectations have on the design choices? Are the designers and managers asking themselves: how can we design this so it will please our stockholders, make people addicted to our game, or do we base it on other things like loyalty to our customers etc?
Ok ok, I know, a lot of questions, no answers.
And a side note, I would never call WoW an MMO"RPG"... it is more of an MMO"RTS", or go as far as calling it a linear series of adventures with a few "pewpew" battlegrounds.
You have $5 in your hand. Do you buy:
a) A deck of WoW UDE cards - throwing away the cards and hording points for a system not yet in place to spend the points online?
b) A video game rental?
c) 5 Crispy Chicken Sandwiches from Wendy's (pre-tax)?
d) A share in Ford (they're hovering right around that)?
e) Some cheap headphones?
f) A 1 gig flash drive from TigerDirect (after rebate)?
g) 5 lotto tickets?
h) 5 songs on iTunes?
i) 40 songs on AllOfMp3?
j) any other thing on this planet you can get for $5?
Utility theory says that all of these are not equal to everyone. The major downside to spending the $5 is, of course, that you no longer have the $5, and the thing you have acquired may not be worth $5 to anyone else, so you can't always just "turn it back in" and magically get $5 again. It is that moment of choice which defines self utility. And frankly, people scarfing up these decks of cards placed an irrational (and needlessly high) value on these decks.
It's like playing the lotto. Irrationality is predictable, too, because self-utility is not a rational thing, but it can be measured all the same. Good marketing people know this.
I'm extremely happy to announce that I can't understand a single word from the article OR comments!
FYI - you also get points for playing in supported tournaments and such. You don't HAVE to buy packs to get the points for in game gear. However, they are trying to make $$$. Hats off to them for such an evil plan.
Clearly just another slap in the casual players face. The only way to get these items is if you're in a large raiding guild and help each other out.
(in all seriousness it is rather steep... 250 boosters packs for fireworks or 500 boosters for an ogre costume? at least make some of the codes worth more than 100 points at random...)
Honestly, what hardcore WoW gamer is going to be bothered to play an offline card game based on WoW? Picture this: You are sitting in your local cybercafe or public library, deck in hand, and some guy walks in wearing a "For the Horde!" t-shirt. You say "Dude! Let's play the WoW card game!!" He smiles condescendingly, shakes his head and says "Dude..." while he pulls out his laptop and fires up WoW, logs in and proceeds to raid Naxx with his guild.
With the way that accounts are handled in China/far east in general it's a bit inappropriate to say they have 7 million active user accounts. Those accounts are paid in a manner that keeps them always active whether the person plays it for 5 minutes and never plays again or plays continuously for years on end (as some of them apparently do).
i ask myself "What fiasco?". I've never even heard about those trinkets. No player (i know of) has those Murlocs pe(s)t trinket. Nobody plays the trading card game. None of my WoW websites (i read about 5 per day) mentions neither the game nor the alleged fiasco. I think the topic is overblown.
Regards, Martin
Too bad these developers/publishers do something good and offer points for a true good act, say like donating cycles to folding@home.
But please do NOT treat Blizzard (or Apple, Google, Microsoft, [INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE]) as a "benevolent charity" that primarily gives a damn about what you do or do not think is right or fair. All they care about is selling one or more products that as many people as possible will spend as much money on as possible so that pension funds, shareholders and a few fat cats get lots of money.
If you're happy paying money for those products, then good luck to you. But once you've paid that money, please accept that those same companies will try to leverage a bit more money from you - this is no different to going into a store and getting the second item you pick up at half-price. It is JUST capitalism, nothing more.
I have absolutely no idea what these cards do except that they sound like they give a small "boost" within WoW to those people who cannot be bothered to spend the time and energy to do it the "hard way" - so why has nobody complained about games companies running premium rate telephone lines for games cheats and hints for years? Surely it's the same thing and surely you can make a decision about whether or not to pay for those things.
Some of you people SERIOUSLY need to stop getting so damned fanatical and blinkered about what is essentially just a past-time or a hobby - enjoy things for what they are and enjoy spending your hard-earned money. But sometimes just stop for a moment and remind yourself that in some parts of the world, people have enough of a problem finding money for food or for a roof over their heads.
And just allow that fact to put a little perspective on what it is that you're moaning about.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Once you lose your job to this game, seeing another goal that can only be reached by spending money seems a bit unfair.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
"Complaining about this makes as much sense as being a devout Catholic and then getting all upset with the arbitrary rituals and limitations that come with the package."
I'm not so sure...
If you found out later the points didnt exist... that's Catholic.
Finding out what you're looking for cost a shit load is Scientology.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Sooo... don't buy them, idiot.
Having been through the MMORPG addiction twice, I've decided staying away from this Online Game is a good idea.
Perhaps he meant Ripoff instead? He gives evidence of this, if this is indeed the way the point system works then yes it does seem that you need to spend a high amount on the CCQ to qualify for the online game reward.
But to be a ripoff it it is necesarry for their to have been an element of deceit. Did either Blizzard or Upper Deck ever make it clear just how costly the UBE system was going to be?
The simple fact is that most of these freebie systems are highly expensive. Get a free coke when you collected ten meal stamps. Oh woopie, first off you will often loose the ticket, you will forget to get a stamp and anyway the costs of a drink a neglicable especially considering that when you get your free drink you will probably still pay for other items.
So what made people think this UBE system was going to be any different? Surely anyone with a brain would know that any free points system means you are going to pay through to nose for a freebie that isn't worth a penny?
So again, did either Blizzard or Upper Deck ever represent this as anything different then all those other point systems?
If they did, then it is a ripoff, if they did not then it is just another frequent flyer system. If because people don't fall for it, the game bombs, then and only then is it a Fiasco.
An angry gamer who spend hard currency on worthless pieces of paper is not a Fiasco. That is smart business.
Upper Deck is actually making a smart play here. Since only idiots would ever buy collectible trading cards for a video game in the first place, they know only idiots would actually try to collect enough points to trade them in for a worthless trinket worth 2 cents. So it wouldn't matter if it were 8 million points, there would still be idiots trying to acquire them.
Good for them!
Oh yes, evil Blizzard is exploiting their poor addicted playerbase. How dare they, compelling these tortured souls to spend their hard-earned money on useless in-game items.
/., but I'm not going to be blowing $900+ for an item, no matter how good it is. Nobody should be.
Here's an idea! Don't buy them!
Jesus Christ... I'm probably as much of a WoW addict as most anybody who reads
If you do, and you're not so rich that it's just a joke for you to spend that kind of cash, then it's not that you have an addiction that your mean pushers are exploiting. It's that you're a moron, or you have some kind of major chemical imbalance that's probably fucking you in all sorts of other ways too. That's it. Plain and simple.
Poopsock your time away all you want. Get HWL/GM 2-3 times. Raid Naxx until your eyes fall out. But don't blow your fucking mortgage payment on a video game. Show a little bit of intelligence, or at least the basic will to survive so you can keep playing your goddamn game.
Game... blouses.
If that is all you are after, consider checking EBay, where people that play the card game are selling point cards since they don't care about them. You may also try finding people that do play the card game, and offer them the cards that you are not interested in for their point cards which they don't care about.
The pictures (second and third, not the first one) used in the article are not from World of Warcraft Colectible Carg Game, they're from the World of Warcraft Board Game, by Fantasy Flight Games. The board game is great, by the way.
Visit the RPG Search Engine
This would be like if someone camped out and buy boxes of McDonald fries to try to get a Broadwalk, only to find that the prize for Broadwalk is not announced until a week later and turned out to be only $1000. The wisdom of the buyer is questionable regardless of what the prize was but people should at least know what they're shooting for. In this case, they've nothing to base it on because the conversion system isn't announced. While the most logical thing to do would be to wait and see, I do think it's not asking too much to know what you should be expecting. If it is announced ahead of time it takes $2000 of cards to get trinket X then there's no one to blame but the buyer, but in this case it was not.
Yeah, as usual people whine about it being to hard to get a useless item that they don't need. If you don't want to spend the money, don't get it! It isn't like some powerful item that only uber-raiders can get, it's a piece of crap that will make you look cool for two seconds.
Besides, they're easy to get. I've almost got mine already.
Sure, if you just buy enough cards off the Auction House, you'll have to spend 900-2000g to get the trinket, and of course that isn't worth it. Instead, just grind it out!
The day after they patched the game to include the cards, I went to the Franklin Elementary Playground zone during lunch. The weak mobs there were dropping packs of cards pretty often, and other loot besides. Plus they have a really hilarious crying emote they do when you hit them. The "Save me mommy!" one was the best; keep at it until you hear it, trust me! After an hour the mobs stopped spawning, but I came back later and there were big crowds of them all lined up in front of where the big yellow tram comes. I must have taken out a hundred of them in like fifteen minutes. A few tougher mobs aggroed from the trams, though, so be warned.
All told in about an hour and a half of grinding, plus travel time, I got a total of 10k points towards my ogre trinket, a few g worth of cash, a Nintendo DS Lite and a Nintendo DS (strangely the Lite sold for more on the AH even though it is white and the DS is blue... go figure). Compared to most of the semi-worthless things you grind for in WoW this is easy, so those complaining about the price should just STFU.
One more note... I know this is probably just the Random Number Generator screwing with me, but I went back to Franklin the next day and it seemed like nobody was dropping WoW cards any more. So I left and went to Washington Middle School nearby. The mobs were a little harder, but still pretty easy and they droppped more cash and the WoW cards to boot.
Uh oh, gotta go, the My Boss elite is patrolling this way.
The enemies of Democracy are
If somebody wants to spend that much cash to get an in-game trinket, one which has NO EFFECT on gameplay, I say let them. If you really want fireworks, you can go buy some for about 20 copper each in tinker town, and if you buy gold (shame on you) and stay logged in 24 hours a day, just buying and launching fireworks, I doubt you'll ever get to the point where it's worth your money to get the fireworks trinket.
As for the other two items (the one which disguises you as an ogre and the turtle mount), they also have no effect on gameplay (riding the turtle is actually no faster than running on foot). They might possibly work into your roleplay stories, but there are a plethora of items already in-game that are probably more interesting for that purpose, like all the hollow's end costumes that you can get for free right now by talking to any innkeeper and saying "trick or treat".
This would be a very different matter if the cards conferred special armor or weapons, especially if they were of epic quality. That would be breaking the game such that the greatest rewards no longer result from effort, skill, and teamwork, but from real-world cash. And THAT would suck. As it stands, if I see someone riding a turtle through Ironforge, I'll just say "hey, neat" and hop on the gryphon to head to another raid.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Any CoH player who might have complained about having to pay $10 for an on-line code or $15 ($30 less one $15 month of game time) to get a couple of spiffy powers which are in-game useful, plus a few new costume pieces for their outfits, should take note of this.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Glad I found this out before wasting money on the card game. If I want a good CCG based on an MMORPG, I've got more then a few bad ass City of Heroes decks, with Statesman and Pyrxiah and so forth. That stuff was actually a good deal.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Like the subject says...I personally don't find WoW to be fun in the least. In fact, I actually enjoy more hearing my friends who play tell me about what they did in the game than actually playing it.
/. story liked here: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/13/ 1320246
Instead, if you like Card Collecting Games (CCGs) and like to use your brain (even if it's just occasionally) go ahead and try PoxNora: http://www.poxnora.com/. This game is tons of fun, you can play for free to start, and many people have become ranked players just on the starter decks. If you like it from there, you can buy cards and get serious about it.
The game was also covered in a previous
I am not employed by Octopi, I'm just a happy gamer that's finally found an online game worth playing. Come find me on there, and we'll play a round or two.
[C]
I have no problem buying more than one box of cards to try to make a complete set. I don't play the card games, but I like to collect the cards. In the past for other games/sets, I've purchased as many as 6 boxes just to get missing ultra-rare cards (or cards that I could trade for the missing cards). But the point requirement that Upper Deck has put on these point award items is beyond rediculous. I do think it would be nice to be able to get some of these rewards, but even as a relatively hard-core collector like myself, I'm not going to buy more than a half-dozen boxes. Casual collectors and people without large disposable incomes aren't going to be able to afford nearly that many. With such an unreasonable goal for the fun items, there's no motivation for people to try to collect the points. If it had been up to me, I would have made the tabard 2500 points (without any other requirement), the fireworks trinket 5000, and the Ogre trinket 10,000. Then you could get the base item after a single box of boosters and the starter, the medium-level trinket after two boxes of boosters and a couple of packs, and the really nice trinket after 4+ boxes (about $400+, not a totally unreasonable amount to spend on cards if you're a collector, and yet still makes it a much more expensive goal). No one except dealers and resellers are going to spend $2000+ on a single TCG. I think as a marketing tool, it's a very poor incentive for the averaage player/collector.
Am I the only one wondering why the original article was posted with pictures from the board game instead of the CCG? Actually, I was more upset that the current list of redeemable items doesn't have anything usable for the CCG - currently t's just on-line game trinkets and wallpaper. Link to available items: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/points/store/c- 11-new.aspx
The UDE reward points in the World of Warcraft TCG were intended to be a reward for players - not a reason to drive sales. They're simply a "bonus" that can be redeemed for not only items in the WoW online game, but also for physical items like deck boxes, playmats, token cards, etc. However, we understand that we didn't do the best job communicating our intent, so as of Monday morning we've announced that we're cutting the points required to obtain the trinkets in half, and eliminating the threshold for the tabard.
A pack of cards, containing 100 points, sells for $5.00, while an entire box, containing 24 packs or 2400 points, costs around $100.00. UDE lists the in-game fireworks trinket at 20,000 points and the ogre trinket at a whopping 50,000 points. The talbard, which sells for a "reasonable" 2,500 points, actually requires an account of points worth 25,000, placing it in the same price bracket as the other trinkets.
The article's math is a little off. The MSRP for a booster pack is $3.89, so a box of 24 packs retails for $93.36. Most game stores sell boxes at a discount, and if you poke around online or on eBay you can find them as low as $60. With the new costs announced today, you can accumulate enough points for the fireworks trinket by spending $389 at retail, or about $250 if you order online. The Ogre trinket will cost about $625 if you bought boxes just for the reward points.
The article glosses over the fact that alongside the UDE points, you're also getting cards to, you know, actually play the game. You end up with at least 250 Rare/Epic and 750 Uncommon cards which all have a value on the secondary market, and looking at prices one week out from release things are looking pretty good. If you just want the UDE points, then take your cards to a game store or put them on eBay, and you can recoup a large amount of the money you spent on cards originally.
Honestly though, you should just give the game a chance. It's the best TCG to be released in the last 10 years, and does a good job being honest to the online game. If anyone at a recognized website or print publication wants some product to review the actual gameplay, please send me a message and I'll get some out to you this week.
Cheers,
Ben
--
Ben Drago
Organized Play
Upper Deck Entertainment
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I bought a pack and got a god damn crappy Golden Ticket!
It said:
1. If you are a fat kid, WoW probably are, I saw that South Park.
2. You have way too much time on your hands, probably since you're bitching about freebies.
3. You have no life, thats a given for WoW.
Then you can claim your special prize.
Damn you Willy Wonka chocolate isn't worth crap in WoW...oh wait it might be.
Selex
How odd, a for-profit company is interested in getting money?!
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
Why isn't there a Warcraft category on /. yet? I would love to not see any WoW related posts. Ever.
A local store near me offers to buy the UDE cards from people who buy packs in the store for 25 if they open them in store. They turn around and sell them for $5 for 10 cards. So yeah this will cost you $125 with this method but Blizzard knew full well it would happen.
For people who want to play the card game, the cards are pointless bits of paper. Some feel it simply takes too many, etc. Whatever the reason the actual costs of these items is FAR FAR lower than the retail. Check ebay, the average cost per card is around 50 and I've even seen auctions for 25,000 points go for $115. A far cry from $2100.00
This is all part of a quest to get the sword of a thousand truths... You must prove to Blizzard that you have absolutely no life.
Wow, just reading that third paragraph made me feel immense relief that somehow, human society just might not be as doomed as I thought.
Yup...
The article is ridiculous enough, but to add humor value, They used card images from the board game, not the actual CCG.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Ok, I'd like 50,000 free points, then.
Boy does Blizzard ever have you by the balls.
I think they should have given better odds of getting prizes, just enough so that, say, spending $100 or $200 on cards would likely get you something. Why? Because people like you would pay for it. The more money Blizzard gets, the more they have available to reinvest in R&D. And if you can't resist the "gotta catch 'em all urge", you probably deserve to be milked like this.
There were already many examples of items in WoW that could no longer be obtained. And there are many more examples of items that 99% of players will never obtain eventhough they could if they spent a year or more raiding.
I mean, don't you think it's a little pathetic that you as a grown man are whining about this?
It's like a tax on idiocy.
If he were smart, he'd trade the better cards to other players, who're less intersted in the trinkets, for the points they've accumulated.
I don't play any MMOs, so please excuse this question if it makes no sense. I am confused as to why people who spend exhorbant amounts of real money to get cards to get stuff in games are OK, while people who just outright buy those things (or ingame currency to buy things) on eBay are considered the scum of the earth.
It seems like if you are taking the 'high' road and earning all of your stuff, then getting an object through a WoWCard is not that different from just paying realworld $$ outright.
Please help me to understand. To me it appears that the people who just go out and eBay buy their loot are more efficient than the people who buy 20 or so boxes of the cards to get something similar.
http://www.tomandemily.com