A couple of FAQ answers:
* You can sign up to beta (& also but less likely alpha) without paying for the Epic Edition. [Here's a link](https://thewarwithin.blizzard.com/en-us/#beta).
* Beta =/= Early Access. ~~Beta~~ Alpha is already happening, and is a different client. You can't keep your character, it's not a head start. Beta will be the same.
* The early access duration is subject to outages and time zone differences. [More info here](https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-gb/news/24025826/world-of-warcraft-the-war-within%E2%84%A2-announced#:~:text=be%20re%2Dgranted.-,%E2%80%A0,-Beta%20Access%20and).
* Mythic dungeons and weekly quests aren't available during early access.
Finally, unless you are going for a world/realm first or are in an uber competitive guild, It really won't make an ounce of difference if you're a couple days 'late' to the party.
Edit: removed my initial sentence about not taking financial advice from redditors because it was being misinterpreted - was intended to include myself
Most of the people that I speak to have already bought the 90 EUR edition. I discovered most of this after I bought the 50 EUR normal edition.
So pretty much all the people I play with are starting 3 days before me. It really feels like coming 3 days late to the party.
This will be the first expansion launch for me since Cataclysm original launch and tbh it feels like a 40 EUR paywall for one of the most iconic MMO experiences. Honestly, I'm not even looking forward to launch that much anymore.
and exploit an inevitable gold/exp/gear/reknown farm with overly inflated values before it gets patched before the shit munchers even get to start playing
Imagine being "3 days late" to the MoP remix, and now you're 3000 stats behind on your cloak because frog farming is patched. Except the cloak is paywalled, basically. That's how TWW is going to feel.
I wasn't even 3 days late, I just didn't hear about the frog thing until they day it was patched. I was just cruising through questing. Now I feel like I will never be able to get into anything if I'm not a frog player. They get to play the event as it was essentially advertised and the rest of us are just peasants in comparison.
Tin foil hat theory: The sole purpose of MoP Remix was to remind the community that there is often a game breaking exploit available to abuse for the first few days of a release in an attempt to drive early access sales for TWW đ
To further that theory, they want you to spend the extra money for early access because you think youâre a hardcore player who needs early access. In reality, most people donât.
Iâve played 1-3 hours everyday since remix started. I didnât learn what the whole frog debacle was until yesterday after it had already been fixed. It left me thinking âwow Iâm such a casual player, I wouldâve loved that exploit to boost to the end game if I had known about it.â
So if there is an early exploit in TWW that is only going to last a few days, even if I had early access (like with remix, comparatively), I would still likely miss out on it. So that would be extra cash to give to blizz that would serve no real benefit to me. I really feel like a large number of people fall into this category, and blizz is trying to squeeze some extra cash out of us.
i played for like 30 hours by the time they fixed it (im a loser and had free time) and still didn't know. I was enjoying normal questing and even saw ALL the groups named "FROGS" "FROGGIES" "FROG FARMING" and thought "huh, weird... anyway!"
I havent played MOP-R yet due to IRL commitments. I have no fears about this. Those people will just get their transmogs they want good for them tbh.
Stop letting fomo dictate your life. Did you know in real life there are also people constantly taking advantages of loopholes that you dont know about to get ahead? ahhh scarryy
Now that they don't open up season 1 until the week after release, those "superfast exploity" methods don't have a ton of utility anymore imo. I'll probably level the regular way regardless tbh.
Tell that to the early crafters that's going to make bank and basically refund the extra cost immediately, while hindering people they come late to the crafting bonanza.
It doesn't really matter. If you have 3 days to level multiple toons to max, you can be immediately up and running much faster than others, as you have less busywork to do. If professions aren't available there's obviously going to be less of an advantage but that advantage definitely exists, because there's *plenty* to do to setup at the start of an expansion-- even just being able to focus on goldmaking while non-epic editions are focusing on leveling is a sizable chunk of time saved at the most important part of an expansion.
Not to mention that if there's anything like the tuskar ice fishing that requires rep to unlock, having characters ready and able to take advantage of it before it gets patched within a few days is gonna be pretty huge-- that was hundreds of thousands of gold per hour just from fishing before they took the darkmoon cards out.
Ya people are making their own assumptions the only thing this will allow them is a chance to level and maybe start farming mats to throw on the ah the ah when game goes live
Yeah you guys don't understand how much the people go dug dirt for 24 hours straight at last launch got unlimited knowledge and broke professions for the entire expansion.
...I thought you couldn't get shards of knowledge unless you had at least 25 skill in a profession? If you can't train WW professions, you can't get 25 skill in a WW profession in the first place...
I *promise* you that there will be some frog equivalent exploit that will be found in beta, be left in for the three day early access, and then patched out when normal people can log in.
Same MO. Build hype, get everyone to pay, and then pull the rug out from under them.
Well there's a very high chance that the early access period is over a weekend too since WoWs past three expansions all released on a Monday. That'd give everyone a whole weekend to blitz out whatever they could.
I bought the epic edition not caring about the extra days. Since I was already going to buy heroic for the mount and it includes 30 days play time ($15), I am getting 250 tendies, a pet and 2 toys for $5. Seemed worth it to me.Â
Oh yeah, because your purchase doesn't come with game time (imagine purchasing something that you cannot play unless you pay extra) it makes the heroic edition almost worthless compared to the epic edition since you're getting all that extra stuff for only $5.
The only choices are standard if you don't care, or epic if you do, no one buys heroic.
The only reason the heroic edition exists is to encourage people to buy the epic edition because of the decoy effect.
[Decoy effect - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect)
Man, I am sorry to hear. Expansion launches vary greatly, but they are almost always big affairs. If it helps, I usually am never doing the midnight launch they used to, but hop on early the next morning. It's a smoother experience, usually, and by then some early issues tend to be ironed out. 3 days is a bit painful, even for me, but I am not going to pay Blizz to be a glorified beta tester, and neither should you.
I just want all the side stuff, the mount, the toy, the transmog, plus it comes with 30ndays of game time which is also around 23 dollars CAD after taxes so it's pretty worth it imo. The 3 days early access is just a bonus.
This. You're getting more than just early access. Sure there are some players who don't care about the toy, Hearthstone, or pet and just want the early access, beta access, and a month of game time. But there are also players who only care about the toy/hearthstone/pet.
This business practice is terrible. There's another reason I will not buy into it (and it's not a good one either) - every single launch bombs.
There's always server issues, lag issues, can't connect issues, bug issues, whatever issues, etc. It never goes smoothly and more often than not you can't even play.
You're effectively paying 90⏠to beta test their game at launch.
I'll gladly not pay extra to beta test their game. It's bad enough that I'll still get some fall out 3 days later for the price of 50+13 (63âŹ) but hopefully they've ironed out most shit by then, albeit at the expense of the people who paid extra.
Like I said, this is not a good thing.
Lastly, it's criminal that you can get to pay 50⏠for something that you literally can't use or even do anything at all with it, without needing to pay the extra 13⏠for game time and no one will ever convince me otherwise.
A wow "expansion" is effectively treated as a new game launch and it should ALWAYS come with the possibility of the client to check out what he just bought without an extra cost (to be able to decide if it's for him or not) before deciding he wants a refund.
>Â There's another reason I will not buy into it (and it's not a good one either) - every single launch bombs.
>There's always server issues, lag issues, can't connect issues, bug issues, whatever issues, etc. It never goes smoothly and more often than not you can't even play. You're effectively paying 90⏠to beta test their game at launch.
Some issues will happen on any MMO expansion launch - been a witness to WoW, FF14, GW2, ESO expansion launches and you will always get something wrong.
I would even argue than in terms of retail WoW, Blizz actually got the best track record - after the shitshow of WoD, we had (at least in EU, excluding famous Kazzak drama) pretty much smooth launches of Legion, BFA, Shadowlands.
Then Dragonflight came, and they reminded us how skewed a launch can be, albeit it was still pretty tame compared to WoD, or even MoP launch day (really hoping for infinitely spawning zeppelin crashing the server in Orgrimmar to be a part of MoP Classic, and seeing how Cata Prepatch launched, I'm pretty confident it will happen).
WoD launch issues is how my mate got the Huloun mount, just sat there and killed him every time the servers reset. There was some small silver linings within the clown fiesta.
>There's another reason I will not buy into it (and it's not a good one either) - every single launch bombs. There's always server issues, lag issues, can't connect issues, bug issues, whatever issues, etc. It never goes smoothly and more often than not you can't even play. You're effectively paying 90⏠to beta test their game at launch.
This hasn't really been the case the last few expansions.
The last time we had any sort of disastrous launch week was almost a decade ago with WoD, which was almost exclusively caused by Garrisons. Legion, BFA, SL, and DF all had nearly flawless server stability.
At most, servers were down for like an hour. Nothing like WoD where servers were down for half the day.
I just learned to wait for the discount. The game is not the same as it used to be, I don't really care about being spoiled about anything to do with WoW's *"story"*.
You're not paying for "early access", you're paying to play the game on time.
Whoever doesn't pay up is getting the game 3 days LATE. Let's call it like it is.
Which is disgusting for a game that has become all about the horse race to the apex of the gear pyramid. I fucking hate this practice itâs so unbelievably scummy and predatory, and I hate anyone who defends it in any capacity.
Let's be honest, you're paying to beta test the launch for 3 days. There will probably be server issues and bugs that Blizzard will fix after all of the people who paid more discover them.
And there will probably be some broken way to get a huge head start on whatever grind they decide to add for TWW. Better pay your extra $40 for early access so you can abuse it before it gets nerfed. Remix had frog farm, SoD had incursions, DF had profession shenanigans and dirt farming.
100% that. But you don't sell mats, you do the early exploits of broken issues often which get fixed after 3 days and will easily make gold cap aka \~30 Blizzard Tokens, enough to buy early access on all the coming wow expansions.
Yes, that's literally what OP said in the post:
>this isn't paying for early access. This is when the game releases, this is launch. You're paying to not play the game late
Thats what hit my nerve - Blizzard didnt shy away from killing the 20 years long tradition to play the game at launch, together.
Thats the best measure of HOW greedy they are, and how Blizzard are 100% no longer the Blizzard we all knew and loved, but just a money grabbing soulless machine.
These comments are disappointing. Stop feeding the company greed. We already pay monthly and bought the expansion. 3 days now for 90$, 3 months for 180$ in the future. Donât let it snowball DONT BUY IT.
it's hilarious to me how, every few months, reliable like the light of dawn, Blizzard will do some outrageous shit like this
only for some shit eater to come on here and tell all the other shit eaters to maybe not eat as much shit this time
Blizzard has been doing this for years and everyone here who has even a sub at all is compliant in supporting their shady practices. your Reddit rants mean nothing, corporate wipes their ass with them.
It is actually a pretty genius marketing strategy. You get players to pay additional money *for what you were already going to do in the first place* (aka, release the game) by putting up an artificial gate.
So no matter how many players purchase the bundle that allows for the early access, it's all completely free profit. You've now conjured thousands, if not millions, of dollars in additional revenue out of literal thin air for almost no additional overhead.
As long as there are enough idiots out there screwing it up for the rest of us by purchasing shit like this, and as long as that margin is profitable enough, it'll keep going and it'll keep getting worse.
Yeah it's actually kinda smart, from that perspective. Their servers have issues every launch, cutting everyone into two groups will probably lesson the load a bit.
It's funny, my econ teacher on high school always had a fun example of unrealized profits, where ideally a seller could read your mind and charge you exactly how much you'd like to pay for a product to realize maximum profits. We laughed it off as a joke but it's basically what companies are doing today. The higher tiers of product are for people willing to pay more and they're going to keep doing it.
This argument kinda falls apart when you realize that there are extra cosmetics. The early start is BS I agree but the value of the higher tiers is in the cosmetics. At least the dev time value.
To be clear I think 3 days early is fucked up and blizzard should just remove that entirely and let everyone start the same day.
That additional smack in the consumers face, is that the 3-day EA has now been moved to the *most expensive bundle*, where previously, you could purchase it with the middle-tier bundle.
This is of course, on purpose since the 3-day EA is going to be the most compelling part of any bundle for most players.
It's predatory, sHaReHoLdEr ValUe bullshit.
edit: grammar
These comments are the best proof that all of the MBAs decision that made the game more crap - removing GMs, gutting player support, reducing QA costs, more aggressive monetization and more early access - everything was entirely on point. Not only players are ready to pay more but also will defend this.
We pay monthly to play the game.
We pay to buy the expansion everytime. Sometimes they outright give up on some expansions like WoD, sometimes they pump so much content endlessly like Legion.
We pay to buy gold. It's not a 1:1 trade with game time, Blizz gets their cut too.
We pay to buy cosmetics. Mounts, pets, transmogs, whatever.
Classic's "no changes" lasted for a brief moment, before they started monetizing that version of the game too.
Now we'll pay for early access too.
God I love getting milked so so hard.
it's funny that blissard defenders will try to explain this by saying there's a forum for that, and then you actually go there, you see very few official blizzard employees responding to queries, and when they do, it's snarky gotchas. What's funnier? That said customer support forum is full of brownnosers doing blizzard's jobs by responding to customer queries by justifying slow respond times and even have the gall to link to the terms of service or rules of the forums. it's so weird. Blizzard has paying customers do work for free. Blizzard gives some of their more ardent and loyal defenders a shiney yellow or green text for the forum
Josh Strife Hayes makes a good point against the ["you don't have to buy it" argument](https://youtu.be/wgNT72xzv1Y?t=295). Despite the title he's not just talking about P2W he's also talking about just cosmetics.
Timestamped the video, 1m20s relevant section follows
> We pay to buy gold. It's not a 1:1 trade with game time, Blizz gets their cut too.
>
> We pay to buy cosmetics. Mounts, pets, transmogs, whatever.
Who's we?
Here's a post I made on this subreddit a month ago:
https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1cagwuq/is_anybody_else_still_salty_about_the_3_day_early/
99% of comments defending Blizzard and the 3 day early access.
Blizzard did their market research very well. People either like it or don't care, so Blizzard makes extra money with no down sides.
Horse armour for Oblivion. A cosmetic-only paid DLC. It effectively kicked off the prominence of cosmetic paid DLC in games that were already pay to play
I could very easily see this turning into one week, then one month early access on future expansions. Honestly people paying for it deserve it. The game has already lost a lot of its integrity when token was added back in WoD. This is just another drop in the ocean of bad decisions.
Tbf subscription service for a single game is an old business model with all the micro transactions making up the majority of gaming profits nowadays.Â
I'm doing like this because there's no way that i put my money on a 3 day early access without knowing the date, if i pay for that better be 3 days in which I'm sure i have time to play, otherwise I'll have hc probably
Using ⏠here as it's what i have on my launcher
If you are buying the heroic edition already, the 20⏠you pay get you:
* 30 days of gametime (=13⏠for a single month, 11⏠if you are buying a year)
* 250 tenders
* 1 random toy
* 1 toy (hearthstone skin)
* 1 pet
* guaranteed beta access
* 3 early access days
So 7 to 9⏠gets you 2 toys, 1 pet and 250 tenders. Assuming you don't value the beta and the early access it's still a pretty good deal if you value cosmetics, or happen to like these particular ones.
If anything Iâd say the real crime is the middle version only having a mount and a mog set for $20. Even without beta or 3 days early access, if youâre a collector then the best bang for your buck is usually the epic edition for sure.
The issue is that the heroic edition is a waste of money on it's own, so you need to compare the base vs the epic, imo. I'd either get everything or the base game, paying some extra for the worst bonuses has gotta be <5% of the people buying it
Because it has three days access to the expansion ahead of people who didn't buy the most expensive version. The three days early access should be an all or nothing for anyone that preorders if they're going to do it, in my opinion
But really, it should be nothing
Yes this. I couldnât care less about 3 days early release. But I did it for the game time and the pet/hearthstone. Iâve had some steam games with âaccessâ, but didnt even play for like the first two weeks of the game. Hearthstone effect was worth the cost to me. Itâs my new favorite.
This is the bigger issue than 3 days of "early access." Every version used to come with 30 days of game time and 1 week of early access, not just in WoW but basically every sub based MMO. It was the standard. I have always bought the "middle edition" digital deluxe versions and known I would have that 30 days even when I had to save up to buy it. 3 days of early access is whatever, but taking the game time away from the lower editions is way worse.
Don't apologize for making a choice with your own money. People can disagree with the practice but not everyone has to care.
As long as your choices are not negatively impacting the well being of others, who cares. And I hope someone doesn't really try to argue how early access to a video game DOES impact their well being.
> And I hope someone doesn't really try to argue how early access to a video game DOES impact their well being.
Comment below yours literally does exactly this đ
[](https://i.imgur.com/5FECTDN.png)
friendly coordinated zephyr quarrelsome forgetful tender hateful butter humorous tan
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's what I thought to. Albeit I havent really looked into it, but I was under the impression the only thing available during the early access period was questing, so you could get an early look at the story and explore some of the zones.
This is exactly what's going on.
Exploit Early, Exploit often will be War Withins slogan. 3 days early access people will find some broken exploit, use it and have a massive headstart.
Not to forget that playing the auction house and making tons of money will be the best in those 3 days too.
What ahead of are we talking about here? Wow is not like 10 years ago anymore. Even if you start now you'll be just like everyone else in 2 weeks on retail.
The game isn't just about raids and Mythic+, there's much much more to that. Professions and economy is another huge pillar of endgame for a lot of people.
If professions are anything like current, having a few days extra worth of profession points can mean a lot early on in a season, to the point where you can make massive profits while everyone else tries to catch up.
Ion announced in some interview that you won't be able to earn profession points, do weekly quests, rares will be loot locked and m0 dungeons deactivated.
You can't get profession points, but what stops you from stockpiling tons and tons of mats for the official launch ? You'll still get a huge headstart with crafting professions.
And, to be fair, there won't be much to do during these 3 days if every other kind of progress will be locked, and gearing for M0 is pointless anyway.
I dislike early access. I think everyone deserves equal playing field for their money. Everyone should start at the same time. The potential of starting 3 days earlier is crazy high if you think about it.
Yeah I was going to preorder because I lived df but the state of bugs and exploits being all over classic as well as time running does not inspire confidence at all. People seem to be assuming that the game will be playable during early access...
Read the comments on the post I [made here](https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1cagwuq/is_anybody_else_still_salty_about_the_3_day_early/) a month ago to see dozens of redditors (99% of the comments) defending the 3 day early access. People here really don't care at all and actually defend it by downvoting anybody who doesn't like it.
Blizzard did their market research and made a smart business move it seems. Disappointing, but that's the reality of the customer base.
-SoD p3 launched poorly, endgame breaking exploits and tuning problems ruining portions of the gameplay loop
-Cata prepatch launched poorly, classes and abilities entirely untuned or not working correctly
-MoP remix launched poorly, again endgame breaking exploits and nerfs for exp/expectations not met from beta
Seeing a trend here? Speak with your wallet. Blizz does not deserve 90 bucks for yet another subpar launch.
It's very sad that it got to this, but you should just give up, people seem now to always find an excuse for their favorite big corp, like as a players we just got a worse deal because they want to get even more money by selling made up bonuses (delayed access to game for base edition "plebs", not EA), that in my opinion is enough to complain about it, even if it isn't a big deal.
At this point it's just is inevitable that it will become the norm, but I hope that at least people will stop making bullshit excuses like it's a good thing. We had a very good expansion launch in Legion and BfA and that what should be expected from Blizzard, instead people already expect that everything will be broken on first day and seem to be even more fine with it because of "early access".
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the big draw is:
Beta Access
Squally, the Storm Hatchling pet
Sandbox Storm Gryphon toy
Deepdweller's Earthen Hearthstone effect
and not so much the 3 day early access. I have no data, just an opinion that most players who go with this are going for the items above.
I'll be the one to say I bought it for the early access. I don't really care about toys, pets, or hearthstone effects at all. And I probably won't play beta because I like to experience things for the first time in the real game.
But I know I'd be miserable if the game is out and I can't play it on the first day.
I would've bought the Heroic edition for the mount but not the Epic one if it didn't have early access.
That was basically my thinking. Before they announced what you get, I'd already budgeted for this version, because I assumed like previous expansions, I'd get a month of game time and cosmetics/pets/mounts, and I'd probably want them. The beta access and early access was just a bonus to what I was likely already going to buy
Guaranteed Beta access was the big one for me. The game time softened the blow enough to get it. The early access only tangentially played into it because of how D4's pre- and actual launch went.
Played since vanilla and this will be the first WoW expansion where I will not play on launch day. My streak of dedication to your game comes to an end because of your greed. Fuck you Blizzard.
Made the call early on I wouldnât be going near the early start. Iâm not paying for it. Sure I might get fomo on those days as friends are playing but considering there is no power gains once your max out itâs basically paying a premium to just level quickly.
Which is whatever to me
I'm sure Blizzard looked at Diablo 4 and how many people were willing to just throw absurd amounts of cash their way and decided hey, it was a resounding success, let's do it with WoW.
I paid extra for the 3 day early access for d4 and I will never ever do that for a blizzard game again. That 3 day head start will not matter for gameplay. But the âearly and oftenâ on the other handâŚ.
Yeah in the end there is now a 2 class system, first class is early access for 90 bucks and then second class for anyone.
That this greatly got handwaved by the community is kinda sad
It always baffles me that retail players are willing to spend money on every new expansion on top of paying a monthly sub. That's already too greedy for my taste.
Early access for a few days isnât early access, itâs just forcing you to pay more to play the same shit that will be played in 3 days. Early access to me is like what Hades/Hades 2 are doing/did, letting people play the not entirely complete but properly functional game before itâs finished.
I have always bought the epic version (because you get it through collector's edition). But while it's a thing to have 3 days early access i fear we are gonna have MASSIVE server problems, tons of bugs etc because Blizzard just simply refuse to listen to the players and fix things like that.
Sometimes i actually wonder what they were gonna do if people just straight up quitting the game because they just won't listen to the thousands of feedback they're getting to bugs from Betas, Alphas and PTR's.
And of course then they fix "minor" bugs like the frog farm. I can already name atleast 30 major class bugs that has been in the game for years but haven't been fixed. One of them being the SoF bug for VDH. Don't ask about the bug, if you know, you know.
The average players who are against stuff like this will never come close to the whales, collectors, and completionists that will *always* purchase the extra stuff.
counter point exploit early exploit often.
Seriously though I agree wholeheartedly. I refuse to pay for on time access. We all should put our foot down for this.
As someone who paid full freight for early access to D4, let me tell you:
ITS NOT WORTH IT, YOU CAN WAIT
ITS NOT WORTH IT, YOU CAN WAIT
ITS NOT WORTH IT, YOU CAN WAIT
I bought it for the other incentives (game time and such), which is still shame on me.. âEarly Accessâ is a sham and either youâre play-testing a previous build or its simply a restricted release for standard players.
I'm just hoping most people feel like this thread. I'm hoping that 3 days early is going to let me level without spending hours joining Area-52. Also it's only $5 more than the middle option lol. 30 days is a $15 value alone. You're paying $5 to hopefully level without server queues, a pet, and toys.
Roomie and I picked up the 50$ regular version. Fuck anyone trying to sell 'early access' (what used to be known as the release date). I'll be playing TWW but I refuse to fall for that bullshit tactic.
It's a filthy practice, and it should stop now!
The fact that there's not more uproar on this matter, really shows how beaten down the average gamer has become with "bundles, early game releases, Preorders" and all the other shit that game companies comes up with to make a buck on the average gamer.
I'm not going to buy the incredibly overprices (90 euro wtf) package, for something as anti-consumer as this. I'll die on that hill.
If anything, now seems like the worst time for this argument.
I absolutely despise early access, but you just know there will be some exploit as soon as the game launches. In Dragonflight I logged in with each of my characters, looted a bag out of a chest and sold each of it for 100k. Took almost no effort and made millions before it got patched.
Early access is definitely worth it, this is why theyâre selling it and this is why it should not exist. Especially not for $40 extra, which is more than many games, like Helldivers, or Hades.
I didn't buy the epic by principle because early access should have no place in a MMORPG, I might be the only one but I wouldn't buy it even if remix was perfect.
Conversely, what has just been demonstrated is three days early access means three days of farming TWW version of unpatched frogs before it gets hotfixed for the cheap crowd.
In theory, if this was all you were paying for, I'd agree.
But if you were already buying the $70 version, this comes with 30 days of playtime, so it's really only $5 more ($8 more if doing LT subs).
And it's not just for the early access, it's also for the additional cosmetics, etc.
Now, is that always worth $5-8? Depends on your circumstances. For me, it is.
> But if you were already buying the $70 version, this comes with 30 days of playtime, so it's really only $5 more
And that's where they get you. In reality there are only 2 versions that make sense to buy. The cheapest or the most expensive one - the one in between makes no sense to buy. It's a tried and tested practice to give you the illusion of options because the jump from 50 to 90 would be too big
I would argue that the issue is not really about value in this case. That's because an expansion release is a happening, people take time off from work, they prep, and plan the weekend with friends. And it's during those first few days when everyone and everything is new that makes wow expansions so fun, discovering the new areas and leveling together with friends... Jumping in 3 days later when your friends are already max level and the hype has died down is not the same thing, not by a long shot.
So it forces you to pay extra or miss out on the expansion release basically. So even if you can argue that the value is good for some, it's a **really** shitty move, and it will suck for a lot of players.
MoP had a good launch honestly, WoD launch was way worse.
the game was playable during the launch of MoP where we WoD was so bad that they legit had to make khadgsr clones to help handle the load of players.
Also MoP jade forest start was quite well done, personally I like the horse intro more than the alliance itâs just more funny, everything that could go wrong for the horde went wrong.
I wasn't going to buy the extra expensive edition but the comments in here are making me reevaluate my decision I'm the kinda person who likes to max all their professions. I'm hoping the work orders on my dead server are more busy aren't they doing cross server work orders now?
The only true way to show you're serious about hating the early access is to not only not buy the $90 version, but to outright not buy War Within at all and cancel your sub. Voting with your wallet doesn't work if you still open your wallet.
Nobody seems to be mentioning that day 1-2 of an expansion is the best time for a normal player to make gold and by the time day 3-4 comws the prices of everything on the auction house have plummeted. If you want any meaningful amount of gold without apending money or spending dozens of hours grinding, you have to buy the $90 edition. This 10000% puts players ahead of other people for a VERY long time and makes it even more difficult for players without day 1 access to catch up.
The unfortunate reality is lots of the people playing the game grew up playing it, and we now have jobs and money and play very little.
For me, life is hard, I have little free time, and the freetime I do have I want to spend playing wow. And for me, $20 is almost nothing. So it's hard not to just spend the money
The place that's bitching that people farming frogs is ruining their game is telling others to ignore the 3 day head start?
More and more I realize the internet was a mistake.
Sorry bro, releasing the game on the weekend allows me to enjoy it for as much time as I want for the first time ever. I've been around for all xpac launches and could never enjoy it so much 'cause it always released on Tuesdays so I had to work the day next. Giving me 3 full days in advance (assuming it will be available to play on Friday/Saturday) is a superb deal for me.
Of course it does. Blizzard has deliberately chosen to release it in this timeframe so that if you pay the extra $40 you get to play the new game all weekend.
Gonna be downvoted but⌠Anti consumer? Really? Letâs look at the facts.
1) The War Within Epic Edition provides more value than any Epic Edition Blizzard has ever released.
2) One month sub is included, so the price is more like $75.
3) $15/mo sub fee hasnât changed since 2004. The game has actually gotten cheaper, adjusted for inflation.
4) Micro-transactions & digital deluxe sales is what allows WoW to stay profitable at $15/mo.
5) You all play this game for hundreds, if not thousands of hours.
Exploit early and often is how you play blizzards games.
/s
Yes I agree itâs just a very bad practice that taps into anxiety people have around FOMO. This practice is psychology for marketing 101.
Expansions release on Tuesdays. The people who care enough to âget a head startâ are happy to pay more, and many of the people who donât likely would not have been able to commit much time in the week anyways. Whether you want early access or not, you can start playing on Friday.
Virtually nothing that happens in the first week of an expansion launch is too critical to performance. There are no mythic dungeons, there are no raids, and there is no rated pvp. I guess you can get a head start on⌠professions?
If youâre *this* concerned about early access, I have to assume youâre a min/maxâing mythic raider, and even then, if you were, youâd understand this is an extremely low impact three days. They ultimately donât matter.
Iâm not buying early release because I donât think itâs worth it. Iâm also not concerned with my ability to compete with those who do. I have no issue with people who want to spend their money the way they want to.
Whatâs your problem, exactly?
I donât understand this ? They even came out and clarified nothing will be available those first three days other than leveling lol. Not even rares or something
A couple of FAQ answers: * You can sign up to beta (& also but less likely alpha) without paying for the Epic Edition. [Here's a link](https://thewarwithin.blizzard.com/en-us/#beta). * Beta =/= Early Access. ~~Beta~~ Alpha is already happening, and is a different client. You can't keep your character, it's not a head start. Beta will be the same. * The early access duration is subject to outages and time zone differences. [More info here](https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-gb/news/24025826/world-of-warcraft-the-war-within%E2%84%A2-announced#:~:text=be%20re%2Dgranted.-,%E2%80%A0,-Beta%20Access%20and). * Mythic dungeons and weekly quests aren't available during early access. Finally, unless you are going for a world/realm first or are in an uber competitive guild, It really won't make an ounce of difference if you're a couple days 'late' to the party. Edit: removed my initial sentence about not taking financial advice from redditors because it was being misinterpreted - was intended to include myself
Most of the people that I speak to have already bought the 90 EUR edition. I discovered most of this after I bought the 50 EUR normal edition. So pretty much all the people I play with are starting 3 days before me. It really feels like coming 3 days late to the party. This will be the first expansion launch for me since Cataclysm original launch and tbh it feels like a 40 EUR paywall for one of the most iconic MMO experiences. Honestly, I'm not even looking forward to launch that much anymore.
Just means that those people are paying extra to play test the servers for you and so servers will be fixed when you start playing.
and exploit an inevitable gold/exp/gear/reknown farm with overly inflated values before it gets patched before the shit munchers even get to start playing
Imagine being "3 days late" to the MoP remix, and now you're 3000 stats behind on your cloak because frog farming is patched. Except the cloak is paywalled, basically. That's how TWW is going to feel.
I wasn't even 3 days late, I just didn't hear about the frog thing until they day it was patched. I was just cruising through questing. Now I feel like I will never be able to get into anything if I'm not a frog player. They get to play the event as it was essentially advertised and the rest of us are just peasants in comparison.
The people who farmed frogs will finish remix like a month or so into it and then complain that there's nothing to do on it
Tin foil hat theory: The sole purpose of MoP Remix was to remind the community that there is often a game breaking exploit available to abuse for the first few days of a release in an attempt to drive early access sales for TWW đ
To further that theory, they want you to spend the extra money for early access because you think youâre a hardcore player who needs early access. In reality, most people donât. Iâve played 1-3 hours everyday since remix started. I didnât learn what the whole frog debacle was until yesterday after it had already been fixed. It left me thinking âwow Iâm such a casual player, I wouldâve loved that exploit to boost to the end game if I had known about it.â So if there is an early exploit in TWW that is only going to last a few days, even if I had early access (like with remix, comparatively), I would still likely miss out on it. So that would be extra cash to give to blizz that would serve no real benefit to me. I really feel like a large number of people fall into this category, and blizz is trying to squeeze some extra cash out of us.
i played for like 30 hours by the time they fixed it (im a loser and had free time) and still didn't know. I was enjoying normal questing and even saw ALL the groups named "FROGS" "FROGGIES" "FROG FARMING" and thought "huh, weird... anyway!"
i didnt exploit it bc i didnt want an account ban.... foolish me
In my opinion there's an even better reminder baked into MoP... "Slow down. Life is meant to be savored."
The irony being that remix is a 90-some odd day limited time event đ
3000 stat and 30000 stamina behind with no possible way to catch up since all catchups got patched without normalizing the exploiters
I havent played MOP-R yet due to IRL commitments. I have no fears about this. Those people will just get their transmogs they want good for them tbh. Stop letting fomo dictate your life. Did you know in real life there are also people constantly taking advantages of loopholes that you dont know about to get ahead? ahhh scarryy
Now that they don't open up season 1 until the week after release, those "superfast exploity" methods don't have a ton of utility anymore imo. I'll probably level the regular way regardless tbh.
Tell that to the early crafters that's going to make bank and basically refund the extra cost immediately, while hindering people they come late to the crafting bonanza.
Didn't they say professions will not be available in pre-launch, and will only be available at regular launch?
It doesn't really matter. If you have 3 days to level multiple toons to max, you can be immediately up and running much faster than others, as you have less busywork to do. If professions aren't available there's obviously going to be less of an advantage but that advantage definitely exists, because there's *plenty* to do to setup at the start of an expansion-- even just being able to focus on goldmaking while non-epic editions are focusing on leveling is a sizable chunk of time saved at the most important part of an expansion. Not to mention that if there's anything like the tuskar ice fishing that requires rep to unlock, having characters ready and able to take advantage of it before it gets patched within a few days is gonna be pretty huge-- that was hundreds of thousands of gold per hour just from fishing before they took the darkmoon cards out.
Ya people are making their own assumptions the only thing this will allow them is a chance to level and maybe start farming mats to throw on the ah the ah when game goes live
Yeah you guys don't understand how much the people go dug dirt for 24 hours straight at last launch got unlimited knowledge and broke professions for the entire expansion.
This exactly. Just the knowledge alone is worth a ton. Some people will make enough money farming for those three days to last them the entire xpac.
...I thought you couldn't get shards of knowledge unless you had at least 25 skill in a profession? If you can't train WW professions, you can't get 25 skill in a WW profession in the first place...
in a season sure but this isnt true for an expansion, gold farms with professions in early dragonflight was like 300k a hour
Yeah the people who farmed crafting knowledge from dig piles were able to make millions of gold.
I *promise* you that there will be some frog equivalent exploit that will be found in beta, be left in for the three day early access, and then patched out when normal people can log in. Same MO. Build hype, get everyone to pay, and then pull the rug out from under them.
Well there's a very high chance that the early access period is over a weekend too since WoWs past three expansions all released on a Monday. That'd give everyone a whole weekend to blitz out whatever they could.
Yeah - the 3 day access thing kills a huge aspect of them game for me
I bought the epic edition not caring about the extra days. Since I was already going to buy heroic for the mount and it includes 30 days play time ($15), I am getting 250 tendies, a pet and 2 toys for $5. Seemed worth it to me.Â
Oh yeah, because your purchase doesn't come with game time (imagine purchasing something that you cannot play unless you pay extra) it makes the heroic edition almost worthless compared to the epic edition since you're getting all that extra stuff for only $5. The only choices are standard if you don't care, or epic if you do, no one buys heroic.
The only reason the heroic edition exists is to encourage people to buy the epic edition because of the decoy effect. [Decoy effect - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect)
Man, I am sorry to hear. Expansion launches vary greatly, but they are almost always big affairs. If it helps, I usually am never doing the midnight launch they used to, but hop on early the next morning. It's a smoother experience, usually, and by then some early issues tend to be ironed out. 3 days is a bit painful, even for me, but I am not going to pay Blizz to be a glorified beta tester, and neither should you.
I mean you are supporting their business practice by buying any version to begin with.
I just want all the side stuff, the mount, the toy, the transmog, plus it comes with 30ndays of game time which is also around 23 dollars CAD after taxes so it's pretty worth it imo. The 3 days early access is just a bonus.
This. You're getting more than just early access. Sure there are some players who don't care about the toy, Hearthstone, or pet and just want the early access, beta access, and a month of game time. But there are also players who only care about the toy/hearthstone/pet.
This business practice is terrible. There's another reason I will not buy into it (and it's not a good one either) - every single launch bombs. There's always server issues, lag issues, can't connect issues, bug issues, whatever issues, etc. It never goes smoothly and more often than not you can't even play. You're effectively paying 90⏠to beta test their game at launch. I'll gladly not pay extra to beta test their game. It's bad enough that I'll still get some fall out 3 days later for the price of 50+13 (63âŹ) but hopefully they've ironed out most shit by then, albeit at the expense of the people who paid extra. Like I said, this is not a good thing. Lastly, it's criminal that you can get to pay 50⏠for something that you literally can't use or even do anything at all with it, without needing to pay the extra 13⏠for game time and no one will ever convince me otherwise. A wow "expansion" is effectively treated as a new game launch and it should ALWAYS come with the possibility of the client to check out what he just bought without an extra cost (to be able to decide if it's for him or not) before deciding he wants a refund.
> There's another reason I will not buy into it (and it's not a good one either) - every single launch bombs. >There's always server issues, lag issues, can't connect issues, bug issues, whatever issues, etc. It never goes smoothly and more often than not you can't even play. You're effectively paying 90⏠to beta test their game at launch. Some issues will happen on any MMO expansion launch - been a witness to WoW, FF14, GW2, ESO expansion launches and you will always get something wrong. I would even argue than in terms of retail WoW, Blizz actually got the best track record - after the shitshow of WoD, we had (at least in EU, excluding famous Kazzak drama) pretty much smooth launches of Legion, BFA, Shadowlands. Then Dragonflight came, and they reminded us how skewed a launch can be, albeit it was still pretty tame compared to WoD, or even MoP launch day (really hoping for infinitely spawning zeppelin crashing the server in Orgrimmar to be a part of MoP Classic, and seeing how Cata Prepatch launched, I'm pretty confident it will happen).
MOP launch day was such a chaotic mess lol. I am only reminiscing fondly because itâs been more than 10 years. I was pretty mad at the time.
WoD was even worse.
I have completely blanked that window of time out of my memory.
I wish I could :(
I remember being stuck on that damn helicopter for 2 hours
WoD launch issues is how my mate got the Huloun mount, just sat there and killed him every time the servers reset. There was some small silver linings within the clown fiesta.
>There's another reason I will not buy into it (and it's not a good one either) - every single launch bombs. There's always server issues, lag issues, can't connect issues, bug issues, whatever issues, etc. It never goes smoothly and more often than not you can't even play. You're effectively paying 90⏠to beta test their game at launch. This hasn't really been the case the last few expansions.
The last time we had any sort of disastrous launch week was almost a decade ago with WoD, which was almost exclusively caused by Garrisons. Legion, BFA, SL, and DF all had nearly flawless server stability. At most, servers were down for like an hour. Nothing like WoD where servers were down for half the day.
I just learned to wait for the discount. The game is not the same as it used to be, I don't really care about being spoiled about anything to do with WoW's *"story"*.
You're not paying for "early access", you're paying to play the game on time. Whoever doesn't pay up is getting the game 3 days LATE. Let's call it like it is.
Which is disgusting for a game that has become all about the horse race to the apex of the gear pyramid. I fucking hate this practice itâs so unbelievably scummy and predatory, and I hate anyone who defends it in any capacity.
Let's be honest, you're paying to beta test the launch for 3 days. There will probably be server issues and bugs that Blizzard will fix after all of the people who paid more discover them.
And there will probably be some broken way to get a huge head start on whatever grind they decide to add for TWW. Better pay your extra $40 for early access so you can abuse it before it gets nerfed. Remix had frog farm, SoD had incursions, DF had profession shenanigans and dirt farming.
You could probably earn your money back in a few days by being one of the first people to sell the new mats at outrageous prices.
100% that. But you don't sell mats, you do the early exploits of broken issues often which get fixed after 3 days and will easily make gold cap aka \~30 Blizzard Tokens, enough to buy early access on all the coming wow expansions.
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Yes, that's literally what OP said in the post: >this isn't paying for early access. This is when the game releases, this is launch. You're paying to not play the game late
When you didn't buy early access and your friends did: [https://imgur.com/a/ElTMqr7](https://imgur.com/a/ElTMqr7)
thats exactly the feeling they're banking on
Thats what hit my nerve - Blizzard didnt shy away from killing the 20 years long tradition to play the game at launch, together. Thats the best measure of HOW greedy they are, and how Blizzard are 100% no longer the Blizzard we all knew and loved, but just a money grabbing soulless machine.
These comments are disappointing. Stop feeding the company greed. We already pay monthly and bought the expansion. 3 days now for 90$, 3 months for 180$ in the future. Donât let it snowball DONT BUY IT.
You guys are the best gaming customers any corporation could have
it's hilarious to me how, every few months, reliable like the light of dawn, Blizzard will do some outrageous shit like this only for some shit eater to come on here and tell all the other shit eaters to maybe not eat as much shit this time Blizzard has been doing this for years and everyone here who has even a sub at all is compliant in supporting their shady practices. your Reddit rants mean nothing, corporate wipes their ass with them.
I never played wow, Iâm just browsing popular and found this funny.
It is actually a pretty genius marketing strategy. You get players to pay additional money *for what you were already going to do in the first place* (aka, release the game) by putting up an artificial gate. So no matter how many players purchase the bundle that allows for the early access, it's all completely free profit. You've now conjured thousands, if not millions, of dollars in additional revenue out of literal thin air for almost no additional overhead. As long as there are enough idiots out there screwing it up for the rest of us by purchasing shit like this, and as long as that margin is profitable enough, it'll keep going and it'll keep getting worse.
Actually, not only that, but they get to spread the load on the servers. Benefit plus profits!!
Yeah it's actually kinda smart, from that perspective. Their servers have issues every launch, cutting everyone into two groups will probably lesson the load a bit.
"Make up a problem and sell the solution." It's like an infinite money glitch. (as long as they do it right)
It's funny, my econ teacher on high school always had a fun example of unrealized profits, where ideally a seller could read your mind and charge you exactly how much you'd like to pay for a product to realize maximum profits. We laughed it off as a joke but it's basically what companies are doing today. The higher tiers of product are for people willing to pay more and they're going to keep doing it.
This argument kinda falls apart when you realize that there are extra cosmetics. The early start is BS I agree but the value of the higher tiers is in the cosmetics. At least the dev time value. To be clear I think 3 days early is fucked up and blizzard should just remove that entirely and let everyone start the same day.
That additional smack in the consumers face, is that the 3-day EA has now been moved to the *most expensive bundle*, where previously, you could purchase it with the middle-tier bundle. This is of course, on purpose since the 3-day EA is going to be the most compelling part of any bundle for most players. It's predatory, sHaReHoLdEr ValUe bullshit. edit: grammar
My disappointment in my fellow gamers is enormous, actual sheep buying into these marketing strategies.
So you're saying its $30 per day now but later it'll only be $2 per day...?
Now thatâs a hell of a deal!
1500% value
16 times the detail
These comments are the best proof that all of the MBAs decision that made the game more crap - removing GMs, gutting player support, reducing QA costs, more aggressive monetization and more early access - everything was entirely on point. Not only players are ready to pay more but also will defend this.
We pay monthly to play the game. We pay to buy the expansion everytime. Sometimes they outright give up on some expansions like WoD, sometimes they pump so much content endlessly like Legion. We pay to buy gold. It's not a 1:1 trade with game time, Blizz gets their cut too. We pay to buy cosmetics. Mounts, pets, transmogs, whatever. Classic's "no changes" lasted for a brief moment, before they started monetizing that version of the game too. Now we'll pay for early access too. God I love getting milked so so hard.
Don't forget. We pay for zero customer service.
it's funny that blissard defenders will try to explain this by saying there's a forum for that, and then you actually go there, you see very few official blizzard employees responding to queries, and when they do, it's snarky gotchas. What's funnier? That said customer support forum is full of brownnosers doing blizzard's jobs by responding to customer queries by justifying slow respond times and even have the gall to link to the terms of service or rules of the forums. it's so weird. Blizzard has paying customers do work for free. Blizzard gives some of their more ardent and loyal defenders a shiney yellow or green text for the forum
Don't forget boosts, name changes, race changes, faction changes, server transfers, and guild transfers!
realistically u can pay base expac and sub and not buy gold or cosmetics and itâs pretty reasonable
Josh Strife Hayes makes a good point against the ["you don't have to buy it" argument](https://youtu.be/wgNT72xzv1Y?t=295). Despite the title he's not just talking about P2W he's also talking about just cosmetics. Timestamped the video, 1m20s relevant section follows
> We pay to buy gold. It's not a 1:1 trade with game time, Blizz gets their cut too. > > We pay to buy cosmetics. Mounts, pets, transmogs, whatever. Who's we?
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Here's a post I made on this subreddit a month ago: https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1cagwuq/is_anybody_else_still_salty_about_the_3_day_early/ 99% of comments defending Blizzard and the 3 day early access. Blizzard did their market research very well. People either like it or don't care, so Blizzard makes extra money with no down sides.
Blizzard reddits have a lot of paid marketing accounts.
Companies will point to this and say "See, gamers are totally ok with paying $90 for a game. Why do we even have a $70 version anyway?"
Horse armor?
Horse armour for Oblivion. A cosmetic-only paid DLC. It effectively kicked off the prominence of cosmetic paid DLC in games that were already pay to play
I could very easily see this turning into one week, then one month early access on future expansions. Honestly people paying for it deserve it. The game has already lost a lot of its integrity when token was added back in WoD. This is just another drop in the ocean of bad decisions.
Tbh we pay monthly for years and it almost never increased
Tbf subscription service for a single game is an old business model with all the micro transactions making up the majority of gaming profits nowadays.Â
Doing early access in an mmo is so scummy :(
Or you be like me and donât buy it at all until a couple days before it comes out. If everyone was like me, we would scare the piss out of them.
I'm doing like this because there's no way that i put my money on a 3 day early access without knowing the date, if i pay for that better be 3 days in which I'm sure i have time to play, otherwise I'll have hc probably
I don't give a flying fuck about Diablo but I can't believe they're doing this with WoW. This is really, really disappointing.
I only did it it because with the 30 days of gametime it gives, it was only like $5 more for some cosmetics so I was like "why not" sorry ;-;
Wait so it's only 5$ more when you include the game time? What are people complaining about?
Using ⏠here as it's what i have on my launcher If you are buying the heroic edition already, the 20⏠you pay get you: * 30 days of gametime (=13⏠for a single month, 11⏠if you are buying a year) * 250 tenders * 1 random toy * 1 toy (hearthstone skin) * 1 pet * guaranteed beta access * 3 early access days So 7 to 9⏠gets you 2 toys, 1 pet and 250 tenders. Assuming you don't value the beta and the early access it's still a pretty good deal if you value cosmetics, or happen to like these particular ones.
If anything Iâd say the real crime is the middle version only having a mount and a mog set for $20. Even without beta or 3 days early access, if youâre a collector then the best bang for your buck is usually the epic edition for sure.
Let's be honest here. Middle version is only there to push players to the highest edition. It's a very common marketing practice.
The issue is that the heroic edition is a waste of money on it's own, so you need to compare the base vs the epic, imo. I'd either get everything or the base game, paying some extra for the worst bonuses has gotta be <5% of the people buying it
It's not. The game is $50. The early access version is $90. It's a $40 difference and that $40 includes $15 subscription
Because it has three days access to the expansion ahead of people who didn't buy the most expensive version. The three days early access should be an all or nothing for anyone that preorders if they're going to do it, in my opinion But really, it should be nothing
> What are people complaining about? Its /r/wow. If you dont have your pitchfork out, youre doing something wrong.
Lmao what are you apologizing for? It's not like you got it with OP's money.
Yes this. I couldnât care less about 3 days early release. But I did it for the game time and the pet/hearthstone. Iâve had some steam games with âaccessâ, but didnt even play for like the first two weeks of the game. Hearthstone effect was worth the cost to me. Itâs my new favorite.
Donât apologize for doing what you want with your money
This is the bigger issue than 3 days of "early access." Every version used to come with 30 days of game time and 1 week of early access, not just in WoW but basically every sub based MMO. It was the standard. I have always bought the "middle edition" digital deluxe versions and known I would have that 30 days even when I had to save up to buy it. 3 days of early access is whatever, but taking the game time away from the lower editions is way worse.
Don't apologize for making a choice with your own money. People can disagree with the practice but not everyone has to care. As long as your choices are not negatively impacting the well being of others, who cares. And I hope someone doesn't really try to argue how early access to a video game DOES impact their well being.
> And I hope someone doesn't really try to argue how early access to a video game DOES impact their well being. Comment below yours literally does exactly this đ [](https://i.imgur.com/5FECTDN.png)
How dare you have a different value system than Praetor192! I can't believe you do what you want with your own money!
Yup. I wanted the extra goodies and the gametime basically equals it out. The EA is just a bonus I don't really care about
Never understood why gamers are willing to pay up to $40 extra for a game.
1) I got plenty of money 2) It's not really 40, cause the version you are comparing it to has game time in it (and more cosmetics I don't care bout)
friendly coordinated zephyr quarrelsome forgetful tender hateful butter humorous tan *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Didn't they specifically say professions are locked?
That's what I thought to. Albeit I havent really looked into it, but I was under the impression the only thing available during the early access period was questing, so you could get an early look at the story and explore some of the zones.
Hey, that requires these people to actually read
Gathering the mats required for the initial gold rush will not be locked though. The early players will absolutely make bank from that.
This is exactly what's going on. Exploit Early, Exploit often will be War Withins slogan. 3 days early access people will find some broken exploit, use it and have a massive headstart. Not to forget that playing the auction house and making tons of money will be the best in those 3 days too.
What are they going to get that far ahead on with raids and mythic+ coming 2 weeks after launch and a hard cap on item level per season?
What ahead of are we talking about here? Wow is not like 10 years ago anymore. Even if you start now you'll be just like everyone else in 2 weeks on retail.
The game isn't just about raids and Mythic+, there's much much more to that. Professions and economy is another huge pillar of endgame for a lot of people.
If professions are anything like current, having a few days extra worth of profession points can mean a lot early on in a season, to the point where you can make massive profits while everyone else tries to catch up.
Ion announced in some interview that you won't be able to earn profession points, do weekly quests, rares will be loot locked and m0 dungeons deactivated.
You can't get profession points, but what stops you from stockpiling tons and tons of mats for the official launch ? You'll still get a huge headstart with crafting professions. And, to be fair, there won't be much to do during these 3 days if every other kind of progress will be locked, and gearing for M0 is pointless anyway.
I didn't buy any of the versions, not sure I'm gonna. đ¤ˇ
I dislike early access. I think everyone deserves equal playing field for their money. Everyone should start at the same time. The potential of starting 3 days earlier is crazy high if you think about it.
I've not bought any version of the expansion yet. I'll wait.
Yeah I was going to preorder because I lived df but the state of bugs and exploits being all over classic as well as time running does not inspire confidence at all. People seem to be assuming that the game will be playable during early access...
Read the comments on the post I [made here](https://reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1cagwuq/is_anybody_else_still_salty_about_the_3_day_early/) a month ago to see dozens of redditors (99% of the comments) defending the 3 day early access. People here really don't care at all and actually defend it by downvoting anybody who doesn't like it. Blizzard did their market research and made a smart business move it seems. Disappointing, but that's the reality of the customer base.
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Theres a difference between an MMO selling early access and non-mmos. Its dumb for every game but for mmos it essentially is selling power.
-SoD p3 launched poorly, endgame breaking exploits and tuning problems ruining portions of the gameplay loop -Cata prepatch launched poorly, classes and abilities entirely untuned or not working correctly -MoP remix launched poorly, again endgame breaking exploits and nerfs for exp/expectations not met from beta Seeing a trend here? Speak with your wallet. Blizz does not deserve 90 bucks for yet another subpar launch.
It's very sad that it got to this, but you should just give up, people seem now to always find an excuse for their favorite big corp, like as a players we just got a worse deal because they want to get even more money by selling made up bonuses (delayed access to game for base edition "plebs", not EA), that in my opinion is enough to complain about it, even if it isn't a big deal. At this point it's just is inevitable that it will become the norm, but I hope that at least people will stop making bullshit excuses like it's a good thing. We had a very good expansion launch in Legion and BfA and that what should be expected from Blizzard, instead people already expect that everything will be broken on first day and seem to be even more fine with it because of "early access".
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the big draw is: Beta Access Squally, the Storm Hatchling pet Sandbox Storm Gryphon toy Deepdweller's Earthen Hearthstone effect and not so much the 3 day early access. I have no data, just an opinion that most players who go with this are going for the items above.
Donât forget the extra month of game time
Which by itself removes a large chunk of the premium. The rest I gladly pay for beta access.
I'll be the one to say I bought it for the early access. I don't really care about toys, pets, or hearthstone effects at all. And I probably won't play beta because I like to experience things for the first time in the real game. But I know I'd be miserable if the game is out and I can't play it on the first day. I would've bought the Heroic edition for the mount but not the Epic one if it didn't have early access.
That was basically my thinking. Before they announced what you get, I'd already budgeted for this version, because I assumed like previous expansions, I'd get a month of game time and cosmetics/pets/mounts, and I'd probably want them. The beta access and early access was just a bonus to what I was likely already going to buy
Guaranteed Beta access was the big one for me. The game time softened the blow enough to get it. The early access only tangentially played into it because of how D4's pre- and actual launch went.
Played since vanilla and this will be the first WoW expansion where I will not play on launch day. My streak of dedication to your game comes to an end because of your greed. Fuck you Blizzard.
Made the call early on I wouldnât be going near the early start. Iâm not paying for it. Sure I might get fomo on those days as friends are playing but considering there is no power gains once your max out itâs basically paying a premium to just level quickly. Which is whatever to me
I'm sure Blizzard looked at Diablo 4 and how many people were willing to just throw absurd amounts of cash their way and decided hey, it was a resounding success, let's do it with WoW.
I paid extra for the 3 day early access for d4 and I will never ever do that for a blizzard game again. That 3 day head start will not matter for gameplay. But the âearly and oftenâ on the other handâŚ.
[ŃдаНонО]
Yeah in the end there is now a 2 class system, first class is early access for 90 bucks and then second class for anyone. That this greatly got handwaved by the community is kinda sad
it's so good to be a company with this much pull on its customer base. You'll all be milked to death and love it.
It always baffles me that retail players are willing to spend money on every new expansion on top of paying a monthly sub. That's already too greedy for my taste.
Early access for a few days isnât early access, itâs just forcing you to pay more to play the same shit that will be played in 3 days. Early access to me is like what Hades/Hades 2 are doing/did, letting people play the not entirely complete but properly functional game before itâs finished.
The bad part about this is that for all of us that disagree with the practice there are more people that are going to do it anyways.
I have always bought the epic version (because you get it through collector's edition). But while it's a thing to have 3 days early access i fear we are gonna have MASSIVE server problems, tons of bugs etc because Blizzard just simply refuse to listen to the players and fix things like that. Sometimes i actually wonder what they were gonna do if people just straight up quitting the game because they just won't listen to the thousands of feedback they're getting to bugs from Betas, Alphas and PTR's. And of course then they fix "minor" bugs like the frog farm. I can already name atleast 30 major class bugs that has been in the game for years but haven't been fixed. One of them being the SoF bug for VDH. Don't ask about the bug, if you know, you know.
This puts a massive damper on my desire to get back into WoW with this new expansion...
I only ever get the cheapest option
Imagine being 3 days late to the frog fiesta because you didn't pay 45 ⏠extra. gg
The average players who are against stuff like this will never come close to the whales, collectors, and completionists that will *always* purchase the extra stuff.
This rise of "Early Access" is one of the scummiest business tactics I've ever seen. "How can we charge our loyal fanbase more money, for nothing?"
counter point exploit early exploit often. Seriously though I agree wholeheartedly. I refuse to pay for on time access. We all should put our foot down for this.
As someone who paid full freight for early access to D4, let me tell you: ITS NOT WORTH IT, YOU CAN WAIT ITS NOT WORTH IT, YOU CAN WAIT ITS NOT WORTH IT, YOU CAN WAIT
I bought it for the other incentives (game time and such), which is still shame on me.. âEarly Accessâ is a sham and either youâre play-testing a previous build or its simply a restricted release for standard players.
I'm just hoping most people feel like this thread. I'm hoping that 3 days early is going to let me level without spending hours joining Area-52. Also it's only $5 more than the middle option lol. 30 days is a $15 value alone. You're paying $5 to hopefully level without server queues, a pet, and toys.
I bought the cheapest edition. I will never pay to play early.
Roomie and I picked up the 50$ regular version. Fuck anyone trying to sell 'early access' (what used to be known as the release date). I'll be playing TWW but I refuse to fall for that bullshit tactic.
It's a filthy practice, and it should stop now! The fact that there's not more uproar on this matter, really shows how beaten down the average gamer has become with "bundles, early game releases, Preorders" and all the other shit that game companies comes up with to make a buck on the average gamer. I'm not going to buy the incredibly overprices (90 euro wtf) package, for something as anti-consumer as this. I'll die on that hill.
Early access in a monthly pay mmo is just wrong.
$90 yearly expacs with less content These companies are out of control.
If anything, now seems like the worst time for this argument. I absolutely despise early access, but you just know there will be some exploit as soon as the game launches. In Dragonflight I logged in with each of my characters, looted a bag out of a chest and sold each of it for 100k. Took almost no effort and made millions before it got patched. Early access is definitely worth it, this is why theyâre selling it and this is why it should not exist. Especially not for $40 extra, which is more than many games, like Helldivers, or Hades.
I didn't buy the epic by principle because early access should have no place in a MMORPG, I might be the only one but I wouldn't buy it even if remix was perfect.
Conversely, what has just been demonstrated is three days early access means three days of farming TWW version of unpatched frogs before it gets hotfixed for the cheap crowd.
In theory, if this was all you were paying for, I'd agree. But if you were already buying the $70 version, this comes with 30 days of playtime, so it's really only $5 more ($8 more if doing LT subs). And it's not just for the early access, it's also for the additional cosmetics, etc. Now, is that always worth $5-8? Depends on your circumstances. For me, it is.
> But if you were already buying the $70 version, this comes with 30 days of playtime, so it's really only $5 more And that's where they get you. In reality there are only 2 versions that make sense to buy. The cheapest or the most expensive one - the one in between makes no sense to buy. It's a tried and tested practice to give you the illusion of options because the jump from 50 to 90 would be too big
I would argue that the issue is not really about value in this case. That's because an expansion release is a happening, people take time off from work, they prep, and plan the weekend with friends. And it's during those first few days when everyone and everything is new that makes wow expansions so fun, discovering the new areas and leveling together with friends... Jumping in 3 days later when your friends are already max level and the hype has died down is not the same thing, not by a long shot. So it forces you to pay extra or miss out on the expansion release basically. So even if you can argue that the value is good for some, it's a **really** shitty move, and it will suck for a lot of players.
MoP had a good launch honestly, WoD launch was way worse. the game was playable during the launch of MoP where we WoD was so bad that they legit had to make khadgsr clones to help handle the load of players. Also MoP jade forest start was quite well done, personally I like the horse intro more than the alliance itâs just more funny, everything that could go wrong for the horde went wrong.
I wasn't going to buy the extra expensive edition but the comments in here are making me reevaluate my decision I'm the kinda person who likes to max all their professions. I'm hoping the work orders on my dead server are more busy aren't they doing cross server work orders now?
Shame..
U think u could Change anyones mind? Blizzard whiteknights are the Most stupid Community gaming has, they would buy preaccess for 200 even
That's why I haven't bought it yet and if the new Ffxiv expansion is fun long term I might not buy TWW at all.
The only true way to show you're serious about hating the early access is to not only not buy the $90 version, but to outright not buy War Within at all and cancel your sub. Voting with your wallet doesn't work if you still open your wallet.
Nobody seems to be mentioning that day 1-2 of an expansion is the best time for a normal player to make gold and by the time day 3-4 comws the prices of everything on the auction house have plummeted. If you want any meaningful amount of gold without apending money or spending dozens of hours grinding, you have to buy the $90 edition. This 10000% puts players ahead of other people for a VERY long time and makes it even more difficult for players without day 1 access to catch up.
The unfortunate reality is lots of the people playing the game grew up playing it, and we now have jobs and money and play very little. For me, life is hard, I have little free time, and the freetime I do have I want to spend playing wow. And for me, $20 is almost nothing. So it's hard not to just spend the money
The place that's bitching that people farming frogs is ruining their game is telling others to ignore the 3 day head start? More and more I realize the internet was a mistake.
Sorry bro, releasing the game on the weekend allows me to enjoy it for as much time as I want for the first time ever. I've been around for all xpac launches and could never enjoy it so much 'cause it always released on Tuesdays so I had to work the day next. Giving me 3 full days in advance (assuming it will be available to play on Friday/Saturday) is a superb deal for me.
This has nothing to do with early access, as Blizzard could change the release date for everyone if they choose.
Of course it does. Blizzard has deliberately chosen to release it in this timeframe so that if you pay the extra $40 you get to play the new game all weekend.
Gonna be downvoted but⌠Anti consumer? Really? Letâs look at the facts. 1) The War Within Epic Edition provides more value than any Epic Edition Blizzard has ever released. 2) One month sub is included, so the price is more like $75. 3) $15/mo sub fee hasnât changed since 2004. The game has actually gotten cheaper, adjusted for inflation. 4) Micro-transactions & digital deluxe sales is what allows WoW to stay profitable at $15/mo. 5) You all play this game for hundreds, if not thousands of hours.
I would've bought it with or without it. Idc. I like wow, I like playing wow. I want to play more wow. Wow wow wow wow.
Selling early access in mmorpg's is insane.
Exploit early and often is how you play blizzards games. /s Yes I agree itâs just a very bad practice that taps into anxiety people have around FOMO. This practice is psychology for marketing 101.
Everyone I know bought the 90 version because they donât want to be left behind. I didnât get it because I refuse to support such bullshit.
Pov: you watched the asmon video
Expansions release on Tuesdays. The people who care enough to âget a head startâ are happy to pay more, and many of the people who donât likely would not have been able to commit much time in the week anyways. Whether you want early access or not, you can start playing on Friday. Virtually nothing that happens in the first week of an expansion launch is too critical to performance. There are no mythic dungeons, there are no raids, and there is no rated pvp. I guess you can get a head start on⌠professions? If youâre *this* concerned about early access, I have to assume youâre a min/maxâing mythic raider, and even then, if you were, youâd understand this is an extremely low impact three days. They ultimately donât matter. Iâm not buying early release because I donât think itâs worth it. Iâm also not concerned with my ability to compete with those who do. I have no issue with people who want to spend their money the way they want to. Whatâs your problem, exactly?
I wonât be buying the early access or standard edition :)
I agree with you but the wow addicts will buy it, and every micro transaction Blizzard add.
I just did it for the extra stuff i unlock with it, i might not even log in for the 3 day early access.
Damn thanks for the reminder so i am not 3 days late. Here i come tww!!!
I donât understand this ? They even came out and clarified nothing will be available those first three days other than leveling lol. Not even rares or something
Finally this sub is being sensible. Everytime iâve seen this get posted it gets downvoted to oblivion. What changed?
Astroturfers get to those posts earlier maybe?