Wow + More Devs, faster Update Cycle, change in practice?

I am going to do my best not to break and rules of the HB forums and I've long been a proponent of them taking their time to make the bot 100% stable AND safe. This post is not about the current down time at all, just happened to be a good time to ask a few questions.


1: MMOChampion has confirmed with blue posts that Wow has more Devs at work on the game than ever before. Also with the "pause" on Titan some Devs have been redistributed to current projects. One of those listed was WoW. Implying even more devs at work on this great game. This is awesome and I'm very happy because with MoP we've seen some big changes and more to come.

2: With this said, at what point can we ask the question what will HB do about this increased release cycle? Will it affect things from a technical standpoint? I'm not a programmer, but I am a customer whose willing to pay a subscription fee for the things I like and enjoy.

3: Why is HB a one time payment? I can not imagine you wouldn't make more with a subscription. Honestly a smaller player base (smaller footprint in wow) and more revenue would only be betetr for the bot wouldn't it? Only those committed to HB would stick around for very long as customers.

I probably broke some rules of the forums, but I'm not bitter and this is not a hate thread. Honestly the hate will be at me most likely by all the cheap bastards who just bitch and moan and want a perfect product that they already paid and got use out of. I like the idea of an on going subscription giving people the right to complain, but also you as devs (revenue) to hire more people to get the work done faster possibly?

 

GLIDER WAS PERFECT. ANd that was like 8 years ago. R.I.P. GLIDER!!

 

I actually never used a bot until 4.2. I did however buy gold I have always played the AH and I could always see what botting did to the economy.

HB has done as much for the raiding community as "LFR" has.

 

Honestly, It seem's to me that Honorbuddy isn't going to be as high of a priority as it was in the past. I give it a year before update takes 2-4 maybe 5 days. Not complaining about the down time by the way. Just what I think. Even the forums are left at a free for all these days.

 

Honorbuddy is our favorite product, and we love working on it. There are five developers dedicated just to the HBcore. That does not include other developers working on the ancillary support.

The forums are a balancing act.

We believe people have the right to express their opinions, even if we feel they are wrong. What we do not tolerate are trolling, offensive language, vulgarity, or hostility in expressing those opinions. An inappropriate choice of words can sometimes turn a reasoned post into one that must be acted on.

We understand that people need to 'blow off steam'--especially right after a patch. As long as people are being civil in this free-for-all, we don't close threads unnecessarily. But, the bored people that come out of the woodwork on patch days to post on the forums is probably why you feel the forums are neglected.

We always try to do whats right and best for our customers and the Community. However, not all of our customers are going to agree with us. This is just the nature of a business. BosslandGmbH is a company doing business internationally. The expectations across the world vary widely.

cheers,
chinajade

 

Chinajade as always a well put together post. I assume your not in a position to talk directly on my points are you? Would have to be Bossland or Tony, eh? if that is the case I don't that happening.. but one can hope for a surprise.

caveat: i did atleast notice you threw in there how many devs currently work on HB. I know its not a secret, but I wasn't exactly sure the number was 5. thanks.

 

It makes sense. But can't freedom of expression be regulated just a tad? You don't have to delete all the complaining threads. Just about 3/5 will do. But I understand what your saying my assumption on the forums is based of what I see during patch times because I limit my interactions with the colorful subscribers of HB.

The priority comment was like I said a a opinion. Just seem's with the other's bots released, apps, games,etc. Hb hasn't been....as well maintained. Unless you all are losing your touch

 

Hi, HBfanboy1980,

It is not my place to talk to your points, otherwise chatty me would've already written an essay. Most other developers don't have time to spend in the forums on a daily basis. I'll see if I can bring the thread to the attention of someone appropriate.

cheers,
chinajade

 

That would indeed be awesome. I hesitated to even write it because in fact most of my points have been addressed before by Tony or Bossland or someone at HB..... but with the context of more Devs and increased update cycles at Wow actually seeming to be a reality (I was hesitant to believe so) maybe its time to reconsider old ideas?

 

Personally I've used HB since about a month after Glider shut down. I wonder if that makes me a devoted HB user. Mind you however, I do not use HB for capital gain on a daily basis though. I use HB periodically when one of my 27 toons has a need for something. I may use it once or twice a week and sometimes not for a month. So in that! I'm of course perfectly happy there was the one time subscription fee. Would I mind if it weren't? Naw I'd still pay the fee. But over all, since I'm not depending on HB to garner my living (as do many) I'm certainly happy it was a one time deal.

 

A monthly subscription to a game that is not up 100% is wasteful enough. They would see more revenue by offering how they do now and not a subscription base because then you would have the downtime from the WoW patch and Honorbuddy combined, thus I would drop WoW like a hot potato along with the bot. I rather have them take their time to update the bot then get a rushed product which is exactly what you would have if it were subscription based.

 

I agree with this, though I don't have a subscription to WoW. I buy time cards, through the Blizzard store, for the month I feel I might play. But, back in the day when I had a job (when I wasn't disabled and on a crappy fixed income due to kidney failure, blindness, and dialysis) I paid for a recurring monthly WoW sub. I really was glad for the single payment option to get my lifetime subscription. If I had to pay a monthly sub for WoW and HB I think I would have quit using them both long ago. HB's been the only thing keeping me attached to WoW, though nowadays the repetitiveness of WoW is outweighing the fun it provides, so I stopped playing and botting.

I just think, in my own humble opinion, that paying a subscription for the bot is a bad idea. Not everyone can afford such a thing. The single payment is far easier to come by, and honestly makes far more sense. I believe that the HB staff is trying to reach out to all walks of life, not just those that can afford two monthly subscriptions. Keep in mind that I'm thinking that the monthly subscription, if there were to be one implemented, would be on the higher end just because of what the bot is capable of doing.

 

look, not everything is about money. there was a time, if you were here at the beginning, we did have monthly subscriptions, but they didnt work, people didnt like it. so they changed. unless something major happens, there's no need to change to subs or anything else. again, im not hawker or bossland, but we've tried subs and there's a reason why we don't have them anymore.

 

thanks I did not know this.

 

I'd love to see a subscription based model used if that meant the HB team could grab a few more devs and some of the community projects would be built-in to HB. However, if growth isn't needed / wanted... I don't really see a point in a subscription model. HB has a community that is currently strong enough that growth isn't a requirement.

 

With the large influx of devs to the WoW team, I think we will likely see some kind of major overhaul with the game. Graphics, engine updates, etc. They're not going to put 70 new devs on a 10 year old game to just push out content updates and patches.

As for HB; in lieu of a subscription model I know the HB team also (at one point in time) was looking into offering paid addons. So there would be a base price for the normal Pvp/Questing bot but things like Dungeonbuddy or Archeology would be extra. They scrapped that idea as well but I'm not sure why. Unfortunately, most of the 'paid' addons are now coming from third-party devs and they are technically unsanctioned. So support can be hit or miss, and there is no guarantee that any of the third party devs will stick around. In fact, a lot of the good free plugins often die because the devs move on to something else, lose interest, or just become overwhelmed.

Apoc, while it may be true that there are 5 devs who work on the main HBCore, it sometimes seems as if some of the other HB team projects get much less attention with often only 1 dev dedicating only part-time (ie. Dungeonbuddy. Highvoltz does a great job maintaining that botbase, but it sometimes seems like it needs more attention with many of the same dungeon script / mesh issues that have been present for a long time). Downtime is honestly the least of my concerns. There are a lot of things with HB that I would like to see implemented / fixed and I would be willing to put more money into the development if it meant we would get to see some of these come to fruition, whether it's in the form of a 'premium' subscription model or paid addons;

RAF questing
Better stuck handling
Improved pathing/navigation
Improved dungeon scripts
etc.

I know everyone has their own list of wants and needs in terms of botting, and some may feel like the bot suits their current needs as-is. I guess I'm just trying to say that some of us would be willing to pay more for a better experience.

 

I agree - i would LOVE to see a subscription build with HB to allow for a better working bot -- ACTUAL content in the form of Combat routines, farming profiles, battle ground love.... If this would allow for the team to focus more on the needs of the botter - i'd be all about it

 

There is and there is no logic in HB monthly subscription. So we are paying Blizz monthly subscription and we are guaranteed that we have a product we can use. And we can use it untill we pay the monthly fee. So we pay and we get, unless we break the rules of usage of the product.
Lets assume HB also has monthly fee. Is it going to be the same logic? We pay the fee and we are guaranteed that the product will do what it is supposed to do following some rules. It is also a product and it is supposed to provide what Blizz calls "hacks"to their product. Those "hacks" are breaking Blizz rules. If we are paying monthly fees for a product and we are paying fees for "hacks" for that product, I guess they both need to continue to exist together. Otherways, I am not seeing the logic.
In other words, for the monthly fee Blizz is guaranteeing me that I can play the game. If there is monthly fee for HB, will HB guarantee me that I can use HB and also not loose the game?
For those that still don't get it: monthly fee is way more expensive than 1 time payment. More expensive should mean better. What is better? Can any developer tell me "you can do that and that and that for that much time..and you will not get to loose your WOW account". Answer is NO. It will always be NO.

 

@Stoyo I am sorry to tell u this but more devs dont ensures that we have an product that works at all times. I dont know for how many times the the wowservers been down after both minor and major updates and crashes when ur in or entering instanses. when they came with cataclysm they made a major change in how the data was handle and that really made it harder for the bot develuper to keep up with the wow updates but u see that is all in bliz strategy to try to keep botters of as long as possible after each patch and if possible making the botters tired of waiting in the process so all whiners plz try just to calm down and do something else while waiting for the bot to come back up. I dont write much or at all but I also belive that it is not fair to flame the devs, if ur not happy then try to make ur own bot and see how easy it is to maintain with all patching bliz does. I think the devs does a tremendus job keeping up and actually manage to relese an uppdated bot in such short time as they do allready. to the devs just keep up the good work and dont haste it out

/BigBoy