An End to the Dark Ages, A Renaissance Begins

An important note before I write this article. I am a hypocrite who does not keep his word and actively supports Blizz-Activision despite feeling very horrified by doing so.

So about a month ago I came back to WoW after my 15 month hiatus. I levelled my rogue to 80 (my 3rd 80) and started to level up a shaman. WoW has been in a dark age for the past 2 years, Blizzard has made some bad decisions that has hurt the growth of the playerbase. In fact the amount of subscribers only increased by 500 000 during Wrath of the Lich King, compared to the millions of new players that joined during the Burning Crusade, WoW's first expansion that's nothing. Mnay people unsubscribed their accounts during this time in fact I know many people in real life who quit because of WotLK. Today howerver the renaissance can begin. Cataclysm has came out and if it stays liek the beta then we shouldn't have to worry about the appeasment of the vocal minority.

During WotLK Blizzard made some poor decisions, Naxxramas 2.0 for example, the only raid dungeon for over 6 months with trivial content and was cleared immediately. The badge system because nothing says that you earned your shiny epics better then doing the short, easy, boring heroic dungeons. Let us also forget Blizz's lovely policy of bring the player, not the class. THanks to this adage Blizz was able top design encounters by only focusing on ranged DPS, mellee DPS, tanking and healing, instead of the 30 individual specializations of players.

But let us not forget the good things, yes there were good things that came to WoW from WotLK. The quests were phenominal, I had never quite enjoyed leveling until I played WotLK. Phasing is a brilliant new idea that came into WoW and has caused the world to feel a bit more dynamic due to player interaction via quests. FInally there was Ulduar. Considered to be the best raid of all time Ulduar managed to create a challenging but doable raid for the general public along with non-binary hardmodes that challenged the most elite players.

WotLK was a mixed bag, full of win and fail but Blizzard has admitted to the mistakes they made in Wrath and have been willing to change the game for the better. Now Blizzard has one final challenge with Cataclysm, whether or not they will bow down to the cries of the vocal entitled casual minority or stand true to their word.

A Wonderful Day for Consumers

What a glorious fall day it is for consumers, especially if you enjoy being sued or not allowed to play your game in sngle player. Today I found two interesting and controversial stories about game companies taking your rights away to do what you please with your games and consoles.

The first story comes to us from the lovely folks at Sony, you know the guys who also tried to put a rootkit on your computer back in '05, yea those guys. Well lately they have been very pissed off at the people who are trying to hack the PS3. Well recently a hack for the PS3 has been discovered and devices have been sold that allow the PS3 to be hacked.

Sony has recently threatened that it will send cease and desist orders to anyone who buys the PS3 hacking USB sticks and force them to pay fines of at least 5100 Euros. But what if I don't sign the papers and ignore Sony? you may say. Well enjoy getting sued for 50 000 Euros, yes you read that right a 50 000 euro lawsuit in litigations just because you wanted to put your own custom firmware on your PS3 so you could play some homebrew games. The good news for those of you not living in Germany is that Sony won't be threatening you, for now at least. The joys of companies thinking they control what you can do with your console, that you bought and own, not lease as many companies probably wish happens instead.

Now that I have scared you with legal threats let’s talk about the fine folks over at Blizzard. Blizzard is one of those companies with a relatively good track record. They have made such wonderful games like Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warcraft III and of course the most successful MMORPG of all time, World of Warcraft (if you ignore WotLK). Unfortunately Blizzard, despite all your great accomplishments in the past you still can act like a total dick (read: no LAN support in SC2 and requiring a constant internet connection to play).

So what did Blizzard, a company which is normally seen as one of the greatest developers of all time due now. Well first they decided to sue the people who made some cheats for Starcraft 2. Now I understand that this is somewhat reasonable, though I disagree but what they did next was absolutely asinine. They are now banning people from playing all of SC2, even singleplayer because they used cheats, not in multiplayer where that actually has an affect on other players, but singleplayer. You read that right banned from singleplayer, of legally purchased games due to using cheats in singleplayer.

Want to hear Bliz's reasoning for this? 'When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II.' So Blizz is claiming that hacks cause people to commit copyright infringement now.

Congratulations Blizz but you just lost one customer for good, let's see how bad you can screw up on Diablo 3 ok?

Cataclysm Averted: Blizzard Backs Off

Blizzard has decided that forcing people who want to post in their fora to post under their real name is bad. In a letter released this morning Blizzard CEO, Mike Morhaime says that they still remain committed to improving their forums. One of the new features they plan to add is a Slashdot like feature where you can mod up or down forum posts.

Blizzard most likely got scared of the backlash from the forum community in the RealID announcement thread which reached 2495 pages in three days. I briefly read a few pages from the thread and it appears it consists mainly of hate towards the new system with very few supporters in the crowd.

It appears that in the end Blizzard acted like a good company and listened to their customers. Should it have taken 49 896 posts to get this point across, I think not. However in the end Blizzard will let you keep your semi-anonymous privacy, however I would still be weary of future Blizzard decisions, seeing that they are obviously willing to violate your privacy.

Blizzard's Privacy Cataclysm

If you are like me then sometime in your life you have played, or are still playing, a game made by Blizzard, and when you aren't playing this game you're posting on the fora under your character's name or a handle. If you have enjoyed this nice semi-anonymity well it sucks to be you. Blizzard has announced that you must now use your real name to post on the forums, though you have the option to post with a character's name alongside your real name. This will go into effect for theStarcraft 2 fora in mid July and later for the WoW fora shortly before Cataclysm is released.

"Beginning in mid-July, players who post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, the real-life first and last name associated with their Battle.net account. In addition, players also will have the option to display the name of their primary in-game character (plus related in-game information such as guild and realm) alongside their real name. You’ll also begin seeing blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged."

Battle.net link

So what does having your real name be used for all your forum posts means. Imagine you are sitting down for an interview for a good paying position at an excellent company. As you are being interviewed you think everything is going fine then suddenly you are asked the question "So why were you trolling the paladin forum?" or "Why do you play that stupid kids game?". Because your real name is released to the public on the internet a quick google of your name will be able to find all your forum posts, even the ones where you were acting like an asshat or voicing a controversial opinion. This is just like posting pictures of yourself acting like a drunk idiot at a party on Facebook and having your future employer finding out about it.

Blizzard's new system can lead to real life attacks on character for things said online, cost future employment and relationships all with a simple little googling of your name. From a young age children are taught not to share their real name with strange people on the internet (read: 4chan). Because of this many parents will just turn a blind eye, because they already taught him not to say his real name, as little Johnny goes onto the WoW fora, make an ass of himself and ruins his potential future chances of employment.

The only plus side I can see of this change is that some people will be less inclined to post on the fora and the sheer amount of idiocy and trolls will decrease, a man can dream can he not? I can foresee a possible large scale exodus from Blizzard's fora to the fora of many other community sites where you will not have to use your real name to post. Hopefully these fora aren't ruined forever by a large scale immigration of posters.

In the end the only way I can see Blizzard changing their decision is if their fora becomes a desolate wasteland, void of posters, and even then I highly doubt they would change this system. I have already lost a lot of faith in Blizzard and this is just driving me to the point of considering canceling my Starcraft 2 pre-order. In the end the only way to show a company that you want change is to vote with your wallet and not buy their products.

Starcraft II: WIngs of Liberty Release Date

Well, the first sign of the apocalypse has come, we have finally a Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty release date.

Yes folks, the fine men and women at Blizzard entertainment have finally released the date that Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty will be for sale.

It will be on sale in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau starting on July 27, 2010 with a digital release a few days later.

The current price for the game will be $59.99 for the standard edition or $99.99 for the collectors edition.

Hopefully in a few months time we will have some Starcraft II videos for you seeing that I am the only Flying Cougar in the Beta currently and want to play with the clan.

Link to blizzard.com press release