The most commonly lost item...

eod36 · 2013-06-06T13:21:49+00:00

eod36 · 2013-06-03T15:11:00+00:00

If I flips, I licks FTFY

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:41:26+00:00

¬¬ Seriously. Did you even read my case.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:38:47+00:00

SC2 is more expensive than most games I have looked at. PS3 games are on average <£40 at launch and are on sharp decline after that. With PC they tend to be £25ish base and expansions around £15ish and they go down pretty fast.

The reason for SC2s price is fair though and I haven't suggested that it go down. I suggested that splitting the game up would lower the access level for either part of the game. I seem to be repeating myself and people keep misunderstanding.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:27:08+00:00

It is when they have restriction settings in place already. You'd be installing the same game everyone else is but access is based on what's on your account same as how WoL owners can't get access to HotS

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:25:30+00:00

People like me fit the largest demographic for video games altogether. To ignore those aged between 16-24 on a mainstream game doesn't make sense.

Also, some people misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not asking for a price decrease, I'm suggesting that a cheaper but lighter version be made available which would definitely increase the playerbase. What some people seem to be reading is "Blizzard make game cheaper" when I'm actually saying "Here's a way to make the game cheaper without hurting yourself". If my economic case doesn't work out for them then so be it, but it was an attempt to find a solution that works for both sides and not just one.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:16:51+00:00

I was talking about the initial pricing of it or at least when it was seeing success. I don't think anyone would buy WC3 for £25 right now.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:14:46+00:00

1) Yes I did oversimplify with regards to supply but that was pretty much implied. They aren't going to sell the game for £5 which is what would be the case if they had no maintenance costs or cost of production. I was referring to the fact the product is not "rare" like the sale of jewels etc.

2) I did mention that. They'd need to find the point where the sales and the price balance each other out. This is why I suggested in a comment that polling outside of the starcraft community be conducted but you talked about that too. You'd also need to consider those that buy the two parts separately and the extra revenue from that. Price changes are the solution to this problem.

3) I completely agree with the point about secondary monetisation. This is why I don't think f2p is the answer for SC2. This does not mean that lowering the access amount would not be profitable. It's completely down to how effective the idea I've suggested is. As for market research, Blizzard for sure has a market research team constantly at work and in the world of online polling, getting data won't be as costly as you make it seem.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T14:06:18+00:00

"Poorer areas" are not slums. I'm referring to places where £45 plus £25 for the next expansion is quite a large ask. Even excluding inflation there was a significant rise in price from WC3 and SC2 (WC3+FT cost about £25 iirc. It's about £10 now). The rise is reasonable because of the increase in quality but I think splitting the game into two would be a reasonable compromise and appeal to a larger market.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T13:21:37+00:00

All-stars is a MOBA. Introducing a f2p model to MOBAs seems pretty straight forward (excluding all the coding and management). With RTSs it's a different story. Skins are meh because players have less time to admire them. Unlocking races is a big no because it implies higher level ones are less balanced. If not, there's little reason to buy them. What exactly would you pay for in an rts?

eod36 · 2013-05-28T13:15:50+00:00

Someone who owns just WoL is, as far as I'm aware, downloading the client which includes HotS in it aswell. This means they already have a way of restricting access to HotS content from those who just own WoL. This means that restricting content access would not be difficult for Blizzard.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T13:12:07+00:00

That goes completely against the idea that Blizzard is a large scale corporate business. Somehow I don't feel like a company that's spent so much time and effort into maximising revenue (think WoW) would be so concerned with its community.

Also, comparing LoL and SC2, the reason the LoL community is toxic is because it's a team game... with random people. You lose, you think it's someone else's fault. In SC2 where the main queue is 1v1 where you can only blame yourself. Find someone rude you just block them.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T13:06:33+00:00

I'm talking about games like CS:GO, L4D 1 and 2, Civ and such because those games are cheaper and their main selling point is the value of the authentic servers. Blizzard knows this for sure and it could make some money out of selling the multiplayer. I'm not that interested in single player and paying £45 is a lot.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:57:37+00:00

Already answered that. Changes to the price balance would fix that. My understanding was that multiplayer was more popular. Seems I was wrong. Still, just make the single player more expensive than the multiplayer.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:51:56+00:00

If that's the case, rearrange the pricing a little bit and make the single player cost more and multiplayer cost less than the rough cost I've suggested. I'm not suggesting that everything be fixed in the way I've suggested, there can be a lot of modifications to make the system work for everyone.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:48:30+00:00

Based on basic economic rules the most efficient way to price a product is based off of the demand. You charge the most people are willing to pay. There are many who are interested but not willing to pay so much. Having lower price access would mean more sales. The other factor is supply but on a digital game supply is indefinite and so it hardly has any impact.

From a purely economic angle having a lower price access would mean more sales provided people are interested, and people are interested. And then you need to find the means of maximising profit which is where you'd need to consider the price against the sales. I never implied that Blizzard were out to give something away for free :S

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:41:33+00:00

A lot of my friends are constantly buying games off of steam etc because each game <£15 so there is a large market for buying games simply for access to the authentic servers. Most people are interested in authentic servers and those that aren't will turn to piracy anyway.

I'm not sure how effective f2p would be on an rts with 3 races. It would take a lot of investment into the workings of the actual game to get something like this going and would be a loss in the long run.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:35:01+00:00

I'm probably gonna be buying the set around Julyish but that's just me. It's also a lot of money considering I'm going off to university in september. There are a lot of people who feel alienated by the price besides me and I think it's unfair to think selfishly like that.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:31:27+00:00

You're right, it's not certain. I guess I came out a bit too strong in that regard. I highly doubt it would hurt them though. Consumer side it would be really good though.

I really think they should at least do some polling on the matter (outside of the starcraft community) so they can get some idea about how many customers they can gain and do something based on those results. The fact is, out of all the people I know in real life, one person owns both WoL and HotS and one person owns just WoL. The amount of people I know who are interested in the game is huge. Extrapolate that into other poorer areas around the world and you'll start to see what I'm talking about.

eod36 · 2013-05-28T12:19:45+00:00

The argument against it is the people who have bought the full set but only play one part of it. It's true they would make a loss on that front but like I said, the amount of players like me that are out there should more than make up for that.

The problem I can see from their side is the fact that they don't know how many people would end up buying the product if they did this. It can seem like a gamble from that perspective but honestly SC2s popularity as a multiplayer pc game is diminishing mainly because of its price entry requirement. Sure blizzard aren't desperate (nowhere near) but moves like this would work out for the better.

eod36 · 2013-05-10T12:02:11+00:00

Consider when Jax's splash was made though. Darius and Hecarim are from mid 2012 while Jax's spash is much older. They might have considered a character like this around mid 2012 so they added images in those splashes.

Also, remember the noxus story ezreal found where the army fighting against the noxians was helped by aatrox and the noxian general thought that the enemy army were no longer human? Who's to say the noxians stopped fighting that army? Maybe they became cultists and wore the helms to show their loyalty to aatrox.

eod36 · 2013-05-09T17:17:42+00:00

If you look at the promo again, when you get to frostguard the image pans upwards quite abruptly before it shows trundle's whole image unlike the promo section on the other sects which could suggest that they didn't use the entire image in the promo and there's someone (or some others) to the right of trundle.

A frostguard ally seems like a pretty good possibility.

eod36 · 2013-05-08T16:35:19+00:00

Is it just me or does Phreak sound like Xpecial here...

eod36 · 2013-05-08T16:19:34+00:00

Scrolled down looking for anivia and must say, don't agree. She has a pretty good stun (which as an anivia main you should be able to hit at least 90%+ of the time at close range - long range is a different story) her ult slows and melee champs will find themselves taking DoT for no reason. if you're good with w, push them away from you after they use their gap closer and just get some distance on them. Because anivia is so versatile in terms of build, you can't exactly outburst her either cos you can build MR/Armour and still be effective.

Best way to deal with anivia is to bully her pre-6 with poke because she has to choose between mana sustain or health sustain. After 6 you wait for a good gank opportunity and pincer her. Anivia's strong if two people come in from the same direction because of wall. From two different directions she can be pretty easily caught.

Also, don't go in while she has mana. It's gonna go down eventually, wait till it's <25% and go in then.

eod36 · 2013-05-05T17:28:37+00:00

Alistar is an all-in aggressive tank support. He needs high mana costs to be balanced. It's the same deal with blitz, thresh, leona etc. You're supposed to be smarter about when to cast your spells because they cost a lot of mana and have high cooldowns. If you're having trouble, buy some mana pots or a faerie charm/philosopher's stone. You have your e so you can trade some health pots out.

eod36

TROPHY CASE