When companies get too big or, How I learned to love social networking

[TheMachineIsSentient]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=1

What a disaster. Please never ever do this.

[Sizzle]

Indeed.  I'm watching this unfold with great interest.

[rubikscube]

actually watching it have more than 20,000 replies in 3 hours was the cool part

[TheMachineIsSentient]

That it was; a seminal moment in gaming privacy, only to be urinated on by mike fahey over at kotaku. It was unbelievable all by itself, but then to have what passes for journalism in the industry take the anti-privacy side was really a downer.  Everybody has the right to choose, and in this case, there doesn't seem to be much of a choice. If you want to communicate with other players, you need to come up with a fake name I guess.

[eRe4s3r]

Kotaku is not Journalism, its a blog

Neverthe-less - i of course am also against this, but then again Blizzard is Blizzard no more, its Activision, rumours have it that Activision has taken complete control of all online activities outside the game creation from Blizzard and this is how changes like this come.

Also they cooperate with Facebook, so the real goal is to force-feed WoW subscribers into Facebook, and vice versa.

Topic has now 40000+ Posts and 400k Views, the largest shitstorm i have ever seen on Blizz Forums.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Kotaku uses a press pass to get into tradeshows. They get free copies of products to review. Lastly, it is owned by Gawker. I would say that's journalism. It may have initially been a blog, but now it is serviced by paid reporters who write a quota number of articles per week. It just looks like a blog; it isn't really one.

It is truly the biggest outpouring I've ever seen on forums. And the opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of privacy. In spite of this, I'm sure they will ignore their customers and do it anyways.

[getter77]

With news like this, even I have pretty much no reason to mess with DiabloIII and beyond if this is the direction the winds are blowing.  I'll experience all I need to via a video LP on youtube or some such and avoid paying out towards such....bizarre....schemes and views on the customer/business roles.

[Sizzle]

Well in the next few days we'll be able to see just how deeply Activision has it's claws sunk into Blizz. the 'feedback' they're getting is overwhelmingly in favor of privacy.

[eRe4s3r]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1&pageNo=1

...we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

Shitstorm mission won Blizzard lost

[rubikscube]

wow, 2 day battle , got over the gaming news, some local news, tens of thousands of replies, and blizzard gave in

well, it wasn't like it was going to be implemented for sure, only a suggestion

btw it was funny( cause i laugh at peoples faults or i don't comprehend the seriousness of their post) when they said they were put in danger by blizzard, sure there is someone who is in witness protection who can only play wow so they are against them, perhaps is real for some ( <100)

Also this is a forum for a more organized game, which has more players, most have friends in gaming, similar to xbox live, not some barely decent multiplayer community like i don't know pc's mw2?, this is blizzard/activision and they are so influential they are gods

[TheMachineIsSentient]

I am shocked. I thought for sure blizzard would shove this down our throats...I am impressed that the community collectively put a stop to this.

[eRe4s3r]

Blizzard hasn't influenced anything besides the MMORPG genre and the korean rts market for 11 years now. And Blizzard does not even exist anymore, its called Activision-pwns-Blizzard and its clear that this is true for every single decision blizzard has done - 1 game for the price of 3 - game costing now $60 (so $180 to play SC2.1 SC2.2 SC2.3) no lan etc.

Hack'n slash has been done better, graphically more impressive and more diverse. RTS has evolved way beyond anything Blizzard has put out and i doubt starcraft 2 with its recycled sc1 gameplay is going to revolutionize anything.

SC2 has no lan support so thats a clear no buy for me. 90% of the reason i would ever buy a RTS is to play it with some long time friends and more casual players and clearly Blizzard does not want that kind of player type anymore ;/

Thankfully others do.

[rubikscube]

well, combine them together then you got gods,

some people will agree that they together influence
rpg fps rts

[eRe4s3r]

No doubt MW2 and Activision is a big FPS influence, however sad that may be.. But Blizzard on its own merely owns the mmorpg genre where its the monopoly.. but in terms of rts influence its just a trickle in the bucket.

Before Starcraft better rts were made and after starcraft as well.. the only difference is now that Blizzard has 11 million WoW fanboys and some hardcore koreans who would probably buy anything Blizzard releases regardless of quality or innovation.

Now don't get me wrong.. starcraft 2.1 i will still buy when its got a 50% sale Merely to see what the fuss about SP/Skirmish AI is really about 

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Starcraft 2- yes I have played it many times- is a great rts. I'm sorry, you apparently don't like blizzard rts,  but it is great for one specific reason- it is balanced. Is very balanced. And I think that they will continue to maintain balance for years to come. As a competitive rts player, most games of this genre that come out receive one patch and then they are gone from the market. Blizzard games are supported for years, the balance issues are supported for years due to the competitive scene, and you have to respect that. arcen is the same way about their ai war game, even releasing updates more often than blizzard.

We all know Activision sucks hard-core. I don't want to write blizzard off because they married a monster. The idea is to be vigilant and watchful, to point out when the world goes wrong, to make it known when decisions are harmful, and hope that the community supports that. Otherwise, we have corporate gone wrong. I will never join Facebook, and I certainly won't partake in realid, but there are a lot of casual people who play World of Warcraft that will probably take advantage of this. I think that is who this is for; people who need to be able to be accessible to their raid leaders at all times but still want to play other games. If you have played World of Warcraft, that's pretty much the gist of it. You are at the beck and call of your raid leader or you potentially lose your spot.

I, however, do not like World of Warcraft, and this wont be affecting me now that they have changed the forum rules back to sanity.