Commitment email

[littlewierdo]

Having received this email and read through it, all I kept thinking was 'promises promises promises'.

Im going to start by saying, this is all going to seem rather harsh, thats because Im rather disappointed.

I dont hold you and your staff accountable for the numerous issues the guides had at launch, although, I have to wonder how the other guide has had (on both the MoP AND WoD launches), significantly fewer issues...

Blizzard loves to change things and Ive seen it time and time again with launches and addon creators scrambling to fix their addons.

My bigger problem is your pricing structure. I have continued to say that your product is simply too expensive, your pricing structure and purchase options make no sense in todays current market, the way the guides are bundled makes no sense, and you continue to charge far too much for upgrades for expansion content (your already existing customers).

If we work backwards, in Mists, you charged $110 to upgrade everything, then in Draenor, mysteriously, you figured out a way to charge 30% more than that by charging twice, once for the questing / loremaster update ($30 as I recall), then ANOTHER large bundle of money for everything else ($115?), totaling $145.

You already know how I feel about how the guides are bundled, I believe they need to be restructured (Dailies and Reputation should be together in the same product, Titles and Achievements should be together as Titles are obtained by doing Achievements, etc.).

If you were to buy everything offered, your product far exceeds the price of World of Warcraft, which is absurd. Its like buying an accessory for your computer that costs more than the computer itself, buying an accessory for your car and said accessory costing more than the price of the car, etc. Im not saying that such things are impossible in the two examples I give, but they would have to be damn good accessories to make this sort of proposition make sense and Im sorry, your product is priced far too high.

A shopping cart is the least of my worries, although, its about damn time really.

You offer no ability to pay a small monthly recurring fee for upgrades (which should be cheaper than what I pay to Blizzard).

Your competition asks for a monthly $7 and for that, you dont have to think about another huge payment again and after having paid a total of $275, you get upgrades / updates for life. Ive even continued to pay monthly to him for at least a year beyond what I needed to for reasons that should be obvious (looking now, he's gotten $340 total from me and I couldve stopped paying long ago and still rec'd updates / upgrades).

And talk about sticker shock, Ive sent your demo to people for them to use and when they discover they like it but find out the pricing structure, how the guides are bundled, and what they will have to ultimately spend to get what they want, you dont even want to know what the responses have been.

Lastly, my biggest disappointment as of late, how you handle your updates.

Given the current state of your guides, it is absolutely inexcusable to have had no updates between December 18 and January 5th and absolutely no activity on the weekends since WoD launched.

It is obvious to me that your staff was busy updating over the Christmas holiday (there is no way all those changes listed for Jan 5th happened on Jan 5th) but whoever handles publishing the updates couldnt be bothered to check in a few times during the 2 week period and push out at least one or two updates, something your competition did at least 3 times during said 2 week period.

Im not expecting miracles, but actions speak louder than words.

You act like you have a premium product both in attitude and in your high pricing but cant be bothered to do anything over the weekend or holidays, even tho you have a product that as it sits 2 months after release, still has far too many problems to count.

Case and point, from the Jan 5th changelog:

"* Added two new Alliance taxi connections."
"* Complete system overhaul. Item weights tweaked."

The flight points are easily pulled from WoWhead and should have been in place within 2 days of WoD's launch.

http://www.wowhead.com/zones=13

Click the show on map, start with a faction, & pull each npc up one at a time (unfortunately, the coordinates given when hovering the mouse arent correct, but it took me 30 minutes to make a list of alliance flight points several weeks ago).

Item Weights should have also been tweaked a long time ago, its very easy to pull the correct figures, www.askmrrobot.com, load a generic character and edit stat weights will give you the values you need. Unfortunately, because you guys re-invented the wheel, you have to convert the numbers to a base 20 system rather than just using the figures provided by AMR but a simple excel spreadsheet would make this super easy to do.

I understand all this stuff takes time but there are ways to resolve this, crowd sourcing is one such method.

And I sill dont understand why allowing users to create their own guides by putting out the internal tools you guys use to create your guides (I know for a fact you dont do them all by hand, Im sure you have some sort of guide recorder and then go in by hand to tweak and make changes for the things it cant detect automatically) and then allowing users to upload said guides as 'unofficial' guides where each uploader would be responsible for supporting their guide(s) would be a bad thing... Addons in WoW have, in my opinion, extended the life of WoW far beyond what it should have been and user created guides could increase the popularity of your addon, especially since there is currently nothing out there that is decent (I know, your thinking WoW-Pro...there are so many issues with it starting with where to find the most recent version as the links for the recorder portion show a 2 year old version, it requires poking around on Git-Hub to find it).

There are so many ventures that you could take that would make this a far better product than it already is if you could just think outside the box.

You have the infrastructure already setup, its time to start thinking like its 2015 and not 2007.

Stop making promises and start making changes. I dont need yet another email about what you plan on doing, just start doing it.

[AussieEevee]

You offer no ability to pay a small monthly recurring fee for upgrades (which should be cheaper than what I pay to Blizzard).

They looked into this once-upon-a-time, and the majority of customers said no, we don't want monthly fees.

And I sill dont understand why allowing users to create their own guides by putting out the internal tools you guys use to create your guides (I know for a fact you dont do them all by hand, Im sure you have some sort of guide recorder and then go in by hand to tweak and make changes for the things it cant detect automatically) and then allowing users to upload said guides as 'unofficial' guides where each uploader would be responsible for supporting their guide(s) would be a bad thing... Addons in WoW have, in my opinion, extended the life of WoW far beyond what it should have been and user created guides could increase the popularity of your addon, especially since there is currently nothing out there that is decent (I know, your thinking WoW-Pro...there are so many issues with it starting with where to find the most recent version as the links for the recorder portion show a 2 year old version, it requires poking around on Git-Hub to find it).

You can easily design your own guide recorder, if you wish, if you have knowledge of Lua. You can also manually make your own guides. All you have to do is examine the existing guides to see how the commands are, then write your own.

I agree that there should be a user-made guide system, both here and in the updater, though. I know a couple of ZG users on these forums maintain their own guides to be used in the guide viewer.

[littlewierdo]

Yes, given the popularity of custom made guides (ie. there are none), thats gone over well.

As to micro payments, even if a small number want to use is, options are a good thing. The problem is, the pricing is so high on Zygor that you'd have to pay $15 a month and that is far too high.

[AussieEevee]

Yes, given the popularity of custom made guides (ie. there are none), thats gone over well.

There is at least one set of custom guides in existance: http://www.zygorguides.com/forum/sho...-Custom-Guides

As to micro payments, even if a small number want to use is, options are a good thing. The problem is, the pricing is so high on Zygor that you'd have to pay $15 a month and that is far too high.

Your maths is a little off. If we turn that $145 you calculated in the first post into a monthly fee... considering one expansion every two years... it's $6.04 a month (145 divide 24 is 6.041666667).

I'm not arguing for or against the monthly fee. I'm just saying that last time they asked, most of their customers said it wasn't something they wanted.

[littlewierdo]

Your forgetting about the $310 it costs to buy everything initially, the prices I mentioned above only deal with upgrading what you already purchased.

I understand paying to upgrade for expansions, my issue is the prices both to initially purchase everything and how the upgrade pricing is inconsistent and expensive.

Users shouldnt be sitting around waiting until 3 days before an expansion launches to find out that the upgrade pricing will be different than the previous expansion, starting with a small fee to upgrade the leveling guide, then a week into the expansion, surprise, what you already paid isnt going to cover the $110 that it had previously cost to upgrade, no instead, on top of the small fee you just paid, you now have to pay another $110 to upgrade everything else.

[ZG Support 1]

Just wanted to point out that the total upgrade cost with the WoD expansion (upgrade all guides for both sides) is only $20 more than the total upgrade cost was for MoP. When MoP came out 2 years ago the total upgrade cost was $130, not $110.

[AussieEevee]

Users shouldnt be sitting around waiting until 3 days before an expansion launches to find out that the upgrade pricing will be different than the previous expansion,

I do agree with that. It did annoy me that I couldn't preorder and pay for the WoD guides months in advance. Although, to be honest, the price tag itself didn't bother me.

[barrow]

They looked into this once-upon-a-time, and the majority of customers said no, we don't want monthly fees.

Yep. I'm one of those customers who has no interest in a monthly pricing model.

[AussieEevee]

Yep. I'm one of those customers who has no interest in a monthly pricing model.

I voted no back then, and truth be told I'd probably vote no again if Zygor asked us again... I think it's better to pay a product in full straight away, rather than pay it off bit by bit, which is how a ZG monthly sub would feel.

... I just wish I had bought my car outright instead of though financing....

[Zygor Admin]

Good post littlewierdo!

You certainly bring up a lot of things we want to address this year. Pricing being a huge one. We think the Zygor experience is at best when you have the full suite of products so we will be striving to make those products more accessible to all.

Little known fact: we were actually the first ones to propose a subscription model and even contacted the other guide about burying the hatchet and joining forces on it. However, our customers weren't too excited about the idea, so if we were to revisit the idea we would have to take special care to keep everyone happy.

The lack of updates during the holidays was regrettable. As you pointed out, updates were still being made, there was just an issue getting them out. Improving things internally is another really big priority for us this year.

We're confident that once we start rolling out our new plans this year you will very pleased by the results. Your satisfaction is of the utmost importance to us, truly.

[drdad94]

We received the email about major changes coming at Zygor. Any timelines yet for when the changes will rollout? I had the impression from the email that it would be any day now. I really appreciated the part about how y'all realized you over-extended and are now going to pull back and focus on Warcraft. At least, I believe that's what you said...

[ZG Support 1]

You did get the main idea there and we are re-focusing on WoW. All of those things we had in the email are things we wish to accomplish this year. Like a New Year's resolution list of things we want to do this year to improve our guides and the way we operate as a whole. Some of the things on that list have already been being discussed and some things still need us to sit down and plan it out.

[littlewierdo]

While I think there are many who do not want a monthly payment option, there are those that do.

OPTIONS are what I am talking about here.

Even if you dont personally use it doesnt mean the option shouldnt exist and truth be told, it would be flat out STUPID for Zygor NOT to have a monthly payment option.

Done smartly, a monthly payment plan that leads to a full purchase feels like an investment.

Reduce the prices on the guides to purchase outright, provide some bundles, and provide a reasonable monthly 'rent-to-own' subscription model and you have OPTIONS. See, not everyone will use the bundles, not everyone will purchase them outright, and not everyone will use the monthly payment option but youve covered many different scenarios to cover everyones different financial situation.

Would I use a monthly plan? Probably not. But I know alot of low income people on disability who just cant afford flat out $50-60 for a single module and to just snub your nose at those people is both arrogant and a huge loss as far as income are concerned.

[AussieEevee]

The thing is, littleweirdo, that is has to be commercially viable. What's the point in spending time and money redesigning the website to allow for this monthly option if only one or two people use it?

Furthermore, how do you enforce it? I mean, what's to stop someone paying 6 dollars then canceling and not running the updater until next expansion? WoW addons can not check the ZG servers, so the only way to enforce a sub is via the updater. The updater can not force itself to stay running against the user's wishes.

[littlewierdo]

Time is not an issue, it can be set up in a matter of an hour or two, its a simple package that has to be dropped in to the website that both clickbank and paypal make available to vendors that use their service. Now, what will take a little more time is setting up bundles or, the preferred method, the more packages you buy, the cheaper discount you receive and for that, I would tack on another 3 hours.

Then we have the issue of money / cost.

Clickbank takes a one time charge of $50 at the initial purchase, something Zygor doesnt have to worry about since theyve already sold a copy of Zygor.

Paypal takes 2.9% of each credit card transaction, which, would make no difference to Zygor's bottom line if it was all taken out on a $310 purchase or were taken out of a monthly subscription were the total price was spread across 18 months (and if it were me, the monthly price should be a tad more expensive over an 18 month period than all up front, maybe by 10-15%, which, as a side bonus provides steady income every month and in the end actually brings more income in).

And I dont think customer service issues are going to play a much bigger role than customer payment issues already do (I think people understand the notion of monthly payments by now, especially if they are playing WoW) so I think thats a moot point.

Second, you DONT enforce anything. Customers will remain loyal if you show you are loyal to your customers, ie. they will continue to pay for your product.

But more importantly, you are paying for UPDATES, not the ability to use the software. That is and always will have to be the model that Zygor and whatever other paid for WoW addons Im not aware of use (if there are others, please let me know, I like to look at all of the paid ingame addons).

It requires that the Zygor team needs to up their game, provide compelling updates including feature updates, not just bug fixes DURING the expansion, not just unloading a dozen new half broken features that have to be fixed at the start of an expansion. Provide a compelling new feature once a month and people need to subscribe to receive said features, along with the usual bug fixes.

Lastly (on this topic), Blizzard is constantly adding new content to the game. You act as if the expansion dropped and their will be no more content until the next expansion and as such, the Zygor team will no longer need to add any more content.

The upfront costs need to be reduced across the board by AT LEAST 30% ($200 for everything). Upgrades should be a flat MAXIMUM of $100 every expansion (assuming you have the full package). And I wouldnt complain if they were even cheaper. Right now, they are priced WAY outside the market for this kind of product, every other competing product sits at LESS than ONE THIRD the cost of Zygor. ONE THIRD! I dont care how good Zygor is, thats simply outrageous.

And, just breaking out my little calculator here, if you took the $310 current price tag and broke it up across the usual 18 month life span of a typical expansion, do you realize that Zygor is exactly the same price as the basic WoW expansion box ($40) + the most expensive monthly subscription option to Blizzard (monthly - $15) at $17.22?

Its too expensive and its priced way outside of other similar products.

Which begs a small correction on my part, in my original post, I stated that Zygor was far more expensive than WoW. What can I say, next time, Ill break out the calculator BEFORE I make a claim like that.