annual pass – Mana Obscura

I promise this article is going to be the last thing I write about the World of Warcraft Annual Pass. Once this is finished, I’m done with the whole sorry saga. To me, the whole process has been a great concept gone disastrously wrong, exposing how far a company will push their terms and conditions at the expense of customer satisfaction.

It’s also – and I’m being honest here – the symptom of a bet gone bad. Of calculating the probability of when key events would happen, and getting it wrong. While these events are still somewhat inside Blizzard’s control, it’s something I’m aware I’ve got to take on the chin.

But it’s not an emotionless decision. One doesn’t just turn their back on a games studio in the blink of an eye. It takes time for opinions to change, for the fan to metamorph into the cynic. It took this latest saga to realise just how far my opinions had changed about the studio and their commercial decisions.

Continue reading “Annual Pass: A Post Mortem”

Warcraft Annual Pass Banner

Back in October last year I made a bold move and signed up to the Warcraft Annual Pass. I figured to myself that it’d be a great deal – I’d still be playing Warcraft, I’d get a free copy of Diablo III and I’d get access to the Mists of Pandaria Beta without having to strike it lucky or jump through hoops. All I had to do was keep paying what I was paying and keep my subscription alive for a year.

After a single quarter-year, I’m really regretting making that decision.

It’s partly a time thing – I don’t have the time to log into Warcraft nearly as often as I’d like. But there’s another aspect to why I feel I’m done with the current expansion pack. My opportunity to pick up the Mage Legendary Staff was cut short with the release of the Dragon Soul raid, with the resultant consequence that my desire to raid was deflated like a misfiring zeppelin. The next tier was little better for me, with Deathwing And Friends lasting all of two weeks until I’d managed to pug my way to LFR victory.

Continue reading “My Annual Pass Regret”