Warlords of Draenor guides.

[Faethor]

I don't think I will be purchasing these guides. This is why....
Blizzard do not sell a different game for each faction. Zygor choose to do this with the guides.
I would have to pay an amount that is roughly 2/3 of the cost of the expansion for a guide covering only 1/10 of the game.
With the streamlined levelling process now I don't think they will be that useful anyway.
I was informed that the MoP guide would get me to 90 in the quickest possible way. This was a lie, I had to quest through every zone and hit 90 somewhere in Kun Lai IIRC, it would of been quicker to start Kun Lai just after of during the Valley of Four Winds and avoid Karasang Wilds altogether. It was a few weeks after that the SIS was implemented.

If the Horde levelling and Loremaster was to be included in the cost of the upgrade I might consider getting them, but not at the current content and cost.

[Zygor Admin]

I don't think I will be purchasing these guides. This is why....
Blizzard do not sell a different game for each faction. Zygor choose to do this with the guides. I would have to pay an amount that is roughly 2/3 of the cost of the expansion for a guide covering only 1/10 of the game.

When comparing the cost of the game to the guide there are some other factors to consider. It's true Blizzard doesn't charge for each faction, instead they charge both a one time fee AND a monthly subscription. Our products only require a single one time fee. The problem is that as Blizzard changes the game over the months our guides fall out of date with the game if we don't continuously update them. So our choices are either charge a subscription fee for ongoing updates OR charge a little more upfront to cover the costs of maintenance for the life of the expansion. A few years ago we actually proposed the idea of giving customers our entire suite of products for a monthly subscription and dropping one time fees and upgrades entirely. The community reaction made it very clear that customers prefer large one time fees over a small monthly fee.

[Faethor]

When comparing the cost of the game to the guide there are some other factors to consider. It's true Blizzard doesn't charge for each faction, instead they charge both a one time fee AND a monthly subscription. Our products only require a single one time fee. The problem is that as Blizzard changes the game over the months our guides fall out of date with the game if we don't continuously update them. So our choices are either charge a subscription fee for ongoing updates OR charge a little more upfront to cover the costs of maintenance for the life of the expansion. A few years ago we actually proposed the idea of giving customers our entire suite of products for a monthly subscription and dropping one time fees and upgrades entirely. The community reaction made it very clear that customers prefer large one time fees over a small monthly fee.

Actually I had that wrong I'm sorry. I would be paying approx 2/3 of the expansion cost for a guide that only covers 1/20th of the game. levelling an Alliance character from 90-100. Less than that if you include all the achievements that are coming with the expansion. Also it was Zygor that offered free updates for life for guides purchased it was one of the buying points I appreciated.
Would Zygor consider selling the Horde Levelling guide upto the beginning of Mists of Pandaria with the purchase of the Warlords Alliance guide and vice versa ?
As the Alliance questing zones are getting tedious to level in after having levelled numerous characters through them.
For others reading this, The Zygor Levelling Guides are definitely worth purchasing if you haven't used them before as with the Smart Injection System they are quick with helping you level characters.

[ZG Support 1]

You do have your free lifetime updates. We have always explained it as updates include patch updates, zone re-writes, and new features. We have never included new guides for content being added to the game world with an expansion as part of the updates and that is why we have an upgrade. That lifetime update means the 1-90 Leveling guides you own will always work no matter how many years or expansions pass by without us ever requiring to you pay again. Blizzard could (in 5 years) decide to re-vamp the entire 1-90 leveling process and all zones and we would re-write the guides and you would have them all for free because of your lifetime updates. And while we are not charging you any more money during that entire time you'll still be paying Blizzard $180 per year ($15/month) just so you can play the game.

Let's take your guide purchases as an example here Faethor. You purchased your Leveling guide back in 2009 when it was still $50 and then you upgraded it to the MoP version 3 years later in 2012. So after purchasing your guide in 2009 you had 3 years you used it without having to pay for anything else while you would have paid Blizzard $540 ($15/month) during that same time frame. You then spent $20 to upgrade to the MoP version of the guides and played for another 2 years without us being required to pay us any more money for your guides to work, but you would have paid Blizzard another $360 during that time to play the game. So at this point you would have 5 years of guides for $70 total while paying Blizzard $900 and while you might pay Blizzard another $900 for another 5 years of playing WoW you still don't have to spend any more money with us and that would mean 10 years of working guides for $70 while you pay Blizzard $1800 to play the game. Of course I don't know if you played all the time these past 5 years or if you'll even play for another 5 years, but this is a potential real world example of the numbers.

And I say all this only to make sure everyone knows what kind of numbers are involved and to help point out what is part of the lifetime updates. I know you support us Faethor and I just want to make sure you don't see this as me trying to hammer you or anything like that.

[skywalkerrcp]

Thank you, Zygor, for the breakdown and the awesome guides. Personally, I have no issue with how the guides are distributed; its a hell of a lot of content to go through!

To the OP, I understand your point of view but I would just say to keep in mind that Blizzard may not charge for each faction but they do charge a monthly fee. As Zygor mentioned, one buy and you have the guides for life. That's a lot of content.

[Cartman]

About the leveling times, a few days ago I finished leveling my 16th character to level 90 and this time I nearly beat the 2 days played time. And this time I finished zones I started but occasionally skipped whole zones.
I skipped Krasarang but I doubt I would have been slower doing that zone as you can race through it when your level is high enough.

My leveling time from 90 to 100 on the beta server was 27 hours. Without messing around with bugs and the garrison I would have been able to do this in less than 24 hours. We'll see how long it will take with the same character when WoD goes live but then with the guide.
The benefit of the guide is that you mostly don't even need to think about what you are doing, just follow the arrow.
While when questing you need to open the map, read quest texts and so on.

[littlewierdo]

Its actually rather absurd what Zygor charges and its a bit misleading to state that you only pay once for Zygor.

The upfront cost of WoW is $70 with a worst case scenario of $15 per month. Totaling everything for the Zygor 'suite', you are looking at $310. Thats the cost of WoW + 16 months of play time, again, using worst case numbers.

Dollar for dollar, basically, your pricing is nearly just as expensive as WoW itself and I can guarantee there is much more to WoW than your guides have.

In addition, you dont just pay once for Zygor, you pay each expansion (if you follow the same pricing structure, its $110 to upgrade the entire suite to the new expansion, this price could be less depending on what modules youve purchased, for purposes of discussion, Im using the upgrade cost of the entire package).

And yes yes, I get it, great, if you already own MoP, the guides will always work up to MoP, but really, you are really expected to pay again to update for the most current content, and if you miss upgrading for 1 expansion and choose to update 2 expansions later, you have to repurchase the guides at full price, thus encouraging people to upgrade even if they arent playing the game, just in case they decide to come back to it, they dont have to buy everything again.

I get the marketing jargon but its misleading, I think intentionally, in order to make people think they are getting a good deal.

It really is unfortunate, you have the best product of this type for WoW and unfortunately, you lock out so much of the potential player base because of your absurd pricing structure (and I didnt even discuss the way your modules are bundled).

I myself have purchased all the guides but that doesnt mean I like it, it just means I had to overpay for the best product of its type, something unfortunately I end up doing all the time with other products completely unrelated to WoW (a recent example, Google Hydro Flask).