Undocumented Alien wrote on May 10, 2012, 20:47:
Would you understand this better if we used pancakes as an example?

ROTFLMAO! You guys are too much...

Honestly though UA... it would have been even funnier if you had left the little (offline) (online) out... just to see who would have understood it... then replace the eggplant with pancakes and work some butter and whoopin-cream into it... LOL!

[yoda]Play in single player mode, I can not...[/yoda]

Oh almost forgot...

Quinn wrote on May 10, 2012, 01:17:

Slippy wrote on May 9, 2012, 22:29:

Slippy wrote on May 7, 2012, 10:16:
You seem to have a bit of a superiority complex by the way you post… that might be what drives Krovven xXBatmanXx nuts and makes him want to attack you… but who am I…

See what I mean...

Indeed

Oh well. I said what I meant.

Quinn wrote on May 10, 2012, 16:05:
Like I said... you're full of shit.

It's OK Quinn, self-improvement is a waste of time for someone of your ominous status and overshadowing online presence... no point in even trying.

Like Krovven or not...
you guys have succeeded in making him one of the most quoted posters on Blues...

congratz Krovven!

If you didn't like eggplant, why would you eat it every chance you had and just keep complaining about how bad it tastes?

Slippy wrote on May 7, 2012, 10:16:
You seem to have a bit of a superiority complex by the way you post… that might be what drives Krovven xXBatmanXx nuts and makes him want to attack you… but who am I…

See what I mean...

Dev wrote on May 7, 2012, 19:54:

Slippy wrote on May 7, 2012, 19:38:
The only thing that would make the always on-line RMAH cooler is if it was also in 3/4 isometric view with a fixed camara... Maybe in a future patch...

Don't worry, if they think they can make more RMAH money that way, they will.

Awesome! I'll send an email to their support team and suggest it... Great idea Dev!

The only thing that would make the always on-line RMAH cooler is if it was also in 3/4 isometric view with a fixed camara... Maybe in a future patch...

RollinThundr wrote on May 7, 2012, 10:32:

Slippy wrote on May 7, 2012, 10:16:
And no, I’m not Krovven, although I agree with a lot of what he posts when he’s not just flaming another poster.

So basically you agree with Kroven about 1% of the time then? Since generally what he does is go off on people who don't like the same games he likes, then gets all butthurt when called on it?

If that's the type of poster you are, welcome to Blue's, you'll fit right in.

You sure like to talk about him a lot though...

Quinn wrote on May 7, 2012, 01:29:
Kudo's for you for throwing things out of context. Especially that last quote of mine. How very cheap. I'll trust the others will notice this as well so I'm not gonna spend my time retorting, this morning.

One fast one though, those facts I claimed still didn't imply that I think my hypothesis is fact. Again, thrown out of context.

Your entire reply is cheap.

PS: Are you Krovven?

Thank for the Kudos… I just wanted to join in on the fun… seems like all most of you do is railroad each other.

Don’t waste your time with a response. I’ve read through all of your posts and to be honest you seem like an OK guy… a little weird, but I can stomach that.

But you also have to be honest, the only quote I took out of context was the last one (which was obvious I thought… don’t have to be Sherlock to figure that one out… I even put little ‘…’ to show that I left the ‘in-between’ out, still it was really funny!). You seem to have a bit of a superiority complex by the way you post… that might be what drives Krovven nuts and makes him want to attack you… but who am I…

Was my reply cheap… hell yeah. But so is what most people post here.

And no, I’m not Krovven, although I agree with a lot of what he posts when he’s not just flaming another poster.

This comment was edited on May 7, 2012, 10:22.

Eldaron Imotholin wrote on Apr 15, 2012, 09:12:

Ventura wrote on Mar 19, 2012, 07:55:
Fuck, who am I kidding?

I'm gonna go out and buy two copies of this bad boy on release day. Been watching some good Youtube gameplay vids, and it's definitely my cup of tea. Just hope the online requirement doesn't make the experience suck with lag and/or getting dissed.

Why two? I've read someone else say the same!

Hey Eldaron, extra copies for extra players... I have two kids at home that are going to MP with me through the game for the first time through (step-son 18 years old and my little one who turns 5 on the 15th... LOL he thinks they are releasing D3 specifically for him). All three of us played the open beta and had a blast. my 5 year old actually played through the whole thing on his own (he's a bit of a computer genius though).

Oh this is fun... since you took so much time to retort, I had to look into it myself...

Quinn wrote on May 6, 2012, 19:04:
Nor have I claimed "this" or "that" IS or WILL BE fact.

Quinn wrote on May 3, 2012, 08:22:
This IS the case with most SINGLE PLAYER fanatics like myself.

Quinn wrote on May 3, 2012, 17:13:
There WILL BE thousands of players who are not at all interested in multiplayer.

K, I see one IS and a WILL listed in there... or am I mistaken? I guess if you don't put some kind statment that says 'FACT' next to it we should just ignore it?

Quinn wrote on Apr 27, 2012, 21:12:
If you want to be different, just say want you mean and mean what you say and let that be it.

Looks like you mussed that up too...

Quinn wrote on Apr 27, 2012, 10:52:
... also well known with all sorts of forums on the internet,...

I love this... It's one of the most self-centered statements I have ever read on here. But if you really believe this, it explains why you 'speak' for so many in the gaming community... LMAO!

OK, that was low... obviously you know what you are talking about... you always make sure and state your sources...

Quinn wrote on May 3, 2012, 08:22:
Without doing the research, logic tells me...

Really Dr. Spock?

Quinn wrote on May 3, 2012, 17:13:
I'm not sure about my following statement, but:...

Well that validates things for me...

But there is an answer to all of this which you gave us yourself...

Quinn wrote on Apr 23, 2012, 09:39:
I like skill trees, which... implies I'm simple minded.

Ahhhhh... now don't you feel better knowing all of this?
Oh, and the way you guys toss around the term ‘fanboy’ makes me ill. That has got to be one of the most useless terms I have ever seen on the internet. I would have to assume this is the term that you guys use to describe someone who likes a game? But if you do it, it's OK right???? It's just if someone likes a game you don't.
Kind of makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

and cheers to BLUE for keeping such a great site over the years... I've been reading your site since before it was actually blue...LOL

This comment was edited on May 6, 2012, 23:37.

RollinThundr wrote on May 6, 2012, 04:17:
Krowen is the sterotypical Blizzard zealot, say one negative thing regarding one of their games even if it's constructive criticism and his panties get all in a bunch.

I was really hoping he would share his Battletag with me too... At least he wouldn't be complaining the whole time we were playing.

Just purchased, downloaded and installed ORION: Dino Beatdown... Still alot of work to do on it. Alot of sounds are missing and there are bugs (which is clearly stated by the developer) but the game play seems close to solid and the dev team seems commited to the project. I'll be interested to play this more as they release patches (especially in coop). For the price ($8.99 right now) it's definately worth the price.

FYI... it is built on the Unreal engine (which I've always liked).

*** Oh and please note, the install will require you to install MS .Net install. Mine installed twice which I assume may be a glitch in the install... but after that no-problems except on crash on video settings change.

Dev wrote on May 4, 2012, 22:04:

Slippy wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:51:
What I mean is you are a very small part of the largest shareholder a company can have... it's customer base. You do own a very small amount of stock in Blizzard when you purchased Diablo 2 (<- meant for example only). You own your stock, you can trade your stock, you can sell your stock and, as a whole, the customer shareholder decides the fate of any company. By your voice, united with the majority of this shareholder base, can change the direction of a company.

This is all that I meant.

No, not really. You can't sell or trade a game like diablo 3. Its locked to your account (like a steam game).

K, Dev... you missed the point... I'm gonna go try out ORION: Dino Beatdown now... It was released today and I just finished downloading it. I love supporting new developers!

RollinThundr wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:48:
I'm in IT if you really must know. So yes I do realize server costs for the hardware itself, though taking into consideration Blizzard has had Battle.net running since about 96 or so, you would think they wouldn't really need much infrastructure additions at this point. WoW still prints money for them, Vivendi isn't some poor 3rd rate publisher either. And I'm hating watching an industry I've loved for 30+ years slowly kill itself from out of control budgets and flat out greed schemes, cutting content to sell as DLC, along with RMAH bullshit for a game that should allow single player to begin with.

Here's the thing with Blizzard games, they never innovate, they never push technology, and they take far longer to ship than any other dev in the industry, more than likely due to lack of proper project management.

I honestly don't give a shit about their ROI, this game should have shipped about 5 years ago, instead they killed off Blizzard North, rebooted the game, and took an additional 6 years of dev time to WoW it up visually while retaining the same ol low res textures and lack of polys that blizzard is famous for (IE it'll run on little Billy's P4.) And they also found a way to monetize it just short of a subscription fee.

They are the only developer in the industry that could literally shit in a box, sell it, and their fanbois would call it the best shit ever taken by man.

This, I understand. I felt very similar when I ran into DLC first in a game... but soon realized, this is the direction the industry is going. I'm not a huge fan of DLC, but it makes sense from a business perspective. Unfortunately, what makes sense for business will florish so long as (I say again) the market will bare it. Unfortunately IMO, DLC and similar business practices in the software industry HAVE been accepted by the gaming community as a whole and are here to stay (although it may take a slightly different form in the near future).

Dades wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:43:
I'm sure that strange statement means something to you but the definition of shareholder doesn't extend to anyone who buys a consumer product. If you want to throw around broad business buzzword speak then I'll leave you to it, enjoy.

My appologies if it came across that way Dades... not my intent.

What I mean is you are a very small part of the largest shareholder a company can have... it's customer base. You do own a very small amount of stock in Blizzard when you purchased Diablo 2 (<- meant for example only). You own your stock, you can trade your stock, you can sell your stock and, as a whole, the customer shareholder decides the fate of any company. By your voice, united with the majority of this shareholder base, can change the direction of a company.

This is all that I meant.

Dades wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:32:
Asking to see things from Blizzards point of view doesn't extend to speculating on their ROI to most people, sorry. That's a dubious list of reasons to be a Blizzard shareholder, nothing more. Activision wants to make large profits which is all fine and dandy but 15-30% is a lot more than even the most ardent fanboys anticipated.

LMAO... Evidently you've never participated in strategic planning...
if you purchase their games (any of their games or use their services)...

You ARE a shareholder...

Bhruic wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:04:
Sure, but all of those things are what the cost of the game is designed to pay for. At least, traditionally speaking. When you are adding a new revenue stream, you really should only be focused on the costs that are associated with developing and supporting that stream - the other costs were always there.

I see your point but it actually goes both ways. In MOST companies you setup profit centers which in turn impact total company bottom line. It's not uncommon to have profit centers that lose money on a monthly basis that are supported by other profit centers within the same company. It would obviously be the role of the CEO or CFO to try and fix those profit centers but sometimes it just is what it is... My point is that regardless, it has to be looked at on a company level (not just project level) because the Diablo 3 'project' was obviously going to lose money over the period of development which in turn must be budgeted correctly so that the other 'profit centers' can support it's development cycle or life.

And traditionally speaking, there weren't as heavy 'ongoing' costs associated with games as there is now-a-days with online play, DLC and continued patching/improvements/tweeks. I remember years back it was unusual to have a game patched more than once or twice as a maximum.

Bhruic wrote on May 3, 2012, 23:04:
Again, probably true, but I'm not sure where you are going with that. As customers, are we supposed to be happy that Blizzard is attempting to maximize their ROI at our expense? If they decided they could increase their ROI even more if they charged people $15/mth like WoW, should we all just sit back and be happy about it, because, hey, Blizzard is maximizing their ROI?

Understood... not saying we need to be happy for Bliz for hitting the ceiling on their ROI... just saying that it makes sense if you think about it from a companies perspective rather than what most people do which is demonize any entitiy that makes money other than yourself (not you specifically but people who think there is some kind of mortal sin behind companies making money). My God, look at Apple lately! Me, I'm all for companies making money which means growth so they can make more money which means they will need more people which means more jobs... It's the freaking American Dream.

The key is obviously that they don't monopolize the market where they can set the price and not have to worry about competition... Torch Light 2 has been mentioned several times here so obviously Bliz doesn't have free reign of the market and that is everyones freedom of choice to do so which keeps Blizzard honest...

remember too... the 15% isn't a mandated cost to play the game... it's an optional feature that players can opt in or out of at anytime they feel like it. Besides 70% real money back on digital content is better than 0%

This comment was edited on May 3, 2012, 23:25.

RollinThundr wrote on May 3, 2012, 20:51:
It's not expensive on their end to host, the items are already designed, developed and in the game and paid for.

At that point it's pure greed on Blizzard's part. but of course the usual blizzard sucktard is all for it. How shocking.

I'm not digging here RollinThundr, just curious... what exactly do you do for a living? I manage a factory that employs over 150 people and I do contract programming as a side job for anywhere between three to five companies at any given time.

I've always been amazed at how much things really do cost to research/design/purchase/assemble or build/ship/market and finally sell... The ROI on a game like Diablo 3 will no doubt be a longer time than you might realize. They will make money (don't get me wrong) but throwing statements around like "It's not that expensive to..." you're probably further off than you think. Also remember, D3 doesen't just have to make money to pay off what they invested in it, they also have an obligation to continue to provide a steady revenue stream to support all the other games/servers/web-sites/research/etc that they do on a daily basis that no one sees.

D3 was also publically announced just under 4 years ago. I'm sure they did a lot of R&D before the announcement... So that is, at the very minimum, four years of wages, software, Hardware and 'brick and morter' that has been paid out before even $1 was collected prior to pre-orders. If you take the size of the development teams (coders, IT support, play testers, artists, sound teams, media teams, sales and public relations, team managers, and on and on and on) coupled with the average wages and benifits for people of their skill level, you have a heafty dollar value that needs to be recouped before a single dollar of profit is seen. Where do you think a lot of the profit from past ventures go??? Not in the pockets of the CEO's. Most companies bank the money so that they can afford to pay these new projects for 4, 6 or even 8 years without return so that they don't have to go out and borrow the money while the project is developing (this usually kills projects, especially software related ones). Even then, from a business perspective, they have to ensure that the ROI on the money they are spending or banking must be higher than if they would have rolled those profits into some type of return investment like a bond... otherwise it wouldn't 'pay' to fund the project in the first place.

Yet you still state, "It's not that expensive to..." which I respond, "OOOOhhhhh Kayyyyyyy..."

The ~15%(applied however many times on monies in and/or out) is what their research and statistical data tells them the market will bear to maximize a ROI in the shortest time possible coupled with box and digital sales of the game. This could go up over time and could go down depending on all the afore mentioned variables... but I'm sure I'm wrong and it's much simpler than that...

Krovven wrote on May 3, 2012, 19:29:
There are economists at Blizz that are far more intelligent than you or I that have put this together.

BINGO!

Quinn wrote on May 3, 2012, 17:13:

Dev wrote on May 3, 2012, 15:09:

Quinn wrote on May 3, 2012, 08:22:
I presume the real money idea won't really get off the ground.

HAHAAHAHAAHAHA. Yeah.

You mean like how there's no one who makes money on selling WoW stuff like gold?

You mean how facebook games never make money? (facebook type games are specifically DESIGNED to make you want to spend money. Anything with limited energy/actions, or that takes time for actions, is that kinda game.) You can be sure that blizzard has tweaked drop rates to "encourage" people to use RMAH. The only question is, how far will blizzard go? I don't think they will do fake accounts with one missing item on the set selling in RMAH, but thats something that they could theoretically do.

You are mistaken.

Your examples don't really support your point. I'm not sure about my following statement, but: you cannot buy gold with RM. This and the fact that your examples are based on MULTIPLAYER prequisite games knock them right off the table.

There will be thousands of players who are not at all interested in multiplayer. It takes "only a few" (relatively speaking) to collapse the (RM)AH economy entirely. This even happened on rare occassions in WoW AH's, where apathetic people dropped stuff you could sell for 30gold on the AH for 2gold.

I haven't seen my assertion refuted at all. Also, I'm not claiming "you are mistaken". I'd love to have your crystal ball, however. Where did you buy it?

Actually, the examples are totally applicable. The point is, people will pay money for what they want (real or not really doesn't matter... it's up to the individual how they spend their money).

The examples show this very clearly. I know people that spend huge amounts of money on digital content (which is exactly what D3 items are). You can argue all you want about the people that do this (their intelligence, ethics, whatever). But they do it.

Regardless of if everyone else agrees with it or does the same, people buy what they want. You guys are all arguing semantics over what value these purchases have to the purchasers when in reality… it has nothing to do with you.

If I choose to purchase a set of 18” sub-woofers for my car, my grandma may tell me that it was a waste of money because my car already had a stereo system in it. Fact of the matter is, if it’s my money, I’m free to spend it however I want… I could care less about everyone else’s opinion of my purchases and their validity. There are a lot of people that would think all of us are idiots for purchasing games period and consider it a waste of time and money… but that’s not really any of their business what we do with our money is it?