Something that has always puzzled and frustrated me about being a long term customer is that there is never any kind of reward except for access to the game.
What triggered my response here is my constant disappointment at never getting access to any of Blizzard's expansion or game beta testing.
I started playing wow at the beginning of pre-bc, before the Gates of AQ were opened if I remember correctly.
In total I have purchased 4 world of warcraft accounts all connected to me personally and all on my one battle.net.
I played throughout pre-bc, immediately bought TBC when it came out and leveled to 70.
- 1X WOTLK US account which still has my original vanilla characters.
1X TBC US account. I bought the second account at the beginning of WOTLK and kept it active alongside my main until mid WOTLK.
Mid WOTLK, about late Ulduar stage I decided to change from US to EU for a better timezone. (I live in South Africa and ordered my WoW online from Amazon originally since it wasn't being sold here in the first place, and they gave me the US version)
So I froze my US accounts and now have:
- 1X Cataclysm EU account which I've kept active the whole time since purchasing it.
1X TBC EU account which I purchased very shortly after my main EU account and have kept it active the whole time since purchasing it.
I've always paid my subscriptions with credit card so Blizz always has my money far in advance. As far as I remember I've only received one 3hr suspension pre-bc for saying something like "Oh we are screwed now" when wiping in a dungeon. And then 1 ban due to an accidental payment problem which got fixed and undone.
I'm active in the wow community, moderating for a legitimate gold making forum http://consortium.stormspire.net/forum.php where we show people how to make gold properly and that there is no need to support gold sellers.
Each time Blizzard releases a new game or expansion I always hope that this time is going to be the time when I just might get rewarded with beta access or something like that. It's not much to ask and I'm also one of the people that puts it to good use by actually reporting bugs immediately, analyzing content and providing feedback, etc.
Don't know if my attempt at a suggestion has turned into a rant or not. If it has sorry, but hopefully it's something that Blizzard may benefit from in the future.
I just think Blizzard should consider providing people like me with simple rewards for being long-term customers such as first access or any form of access to beta events. Us who have always supported the company, and always fought in your favor among all those silly "wow is dying" kind of threads.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: and yes I always have my beta status up-to-date in account management.