Archive for July, 2010
Minigames Versus Processes
0I enjoy trade skilling in my MMOs. I like to create things for my own use, for use by others, or for sale. I think it’s as close to “user created content” as most MMOs are willing to get these days, but when most titles focus so heavily on killing, maiming and destroying, it’s sometimes nice to build something instead.
I do have a problem with most trade skill implementations, however, in that they’re far too oversimplified for my taste. In World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online and others, harvesting materials is merely a matter of clicking on the resource and receiving the bounty, and the use of the materials is nothing more complex then ensuring that you have the proper quantity on hand. Thankfully, some titles like Vanguard and EverQuest II have more complex construction mechanisms that involve decision making and character skill values that can make or break a crafted item – literally. Part of my problem with overly simplistic systems is that I want to feel that I have accomplished something, and am not simply transmuting from one state to another.
But are these systems “processes” – systems which require steps, decisions and maybe some skill – or are they “mini-games”? Gaming seems to be in the throes of mini-game fever. Free Realms is rife with them. Facebook thrives on them. Even Star Trek Online has received what I would consider to be a mini-game now when you scan for resources (a system which I loathe, by the way).
Is there a difference between a “mini-game” and a “process” for trade skilling? Or would the Vanguard and EQ2 systems still qualify as mini-games? Where is the line drawn?
The Ongoing Saga: Someone To Watch Over Me
1As soon as I hit level 10, I send Amarin down to the coast and started on the quest chain that would eventually allow me to get my hunter’s taming ability. I’m not usually a pet person; I have enough to keep track of re: my own safety, but I’m pretty pleased with the way World of Warcraft handles it’s pets. I like that the pet has it’s own mini-hotbar.
My first task was to tame a barbed crawler and return to the trainer to show her that I had done the deed, whereupon my second task was to cook my newfound pet in copious amounts of butter as the trainer and I traded stories over the campfire. I don’t know if I was learning how to tame pets or if I just did her food shopping.
Next, I had to train a greater longstrider that lived north of our little outpost. These dino-birds are the missing link between veloceraptors and chickens and yes, they do taste like chicken. We ate a lot that night.
Finally, I had to tame a nightstalker. I wasn’t too keen on eating this guy, so I let him loose before returning to the quest giver. She seemed to take my word for it and granted me the skills needed to tame and to take care of a pet of my very own. 
I decided to go with a nightstalker for the time being, seeing as how I had eaten to other potential choices and didn’t want to have to regard any pet as either protection or sustenance in the future. Plus the cat looks pretty badass. I would have taken Crusty Bob, but he wouldn’t give me the time of day.
I was sent to talk to the pet trainer deep within the Exodar. I like this place, as it is pretty evocative of the general WoW aesthetic: bright colors, sharp edges and that oh-so-maligned cartoony look. Once one stops bitching about it, it’s actually quite pleasing. It could be worse, though; it could be brown.
Rawr (my patent-pending name for my nightstalker companion) and I hit the bricks to help the stillpine tribe show some rabid owlbears who was boss (answer: me). We also took down some murlocs up north. Who’s GGWWWLALALALALAing now, bitches!?
I only crested level 11.5 tonight, but I achieved my first major milestone as a hunter, and I’m still enjoying the experience. In other news Mindstrike rolled a new Draenei pally on Rexxar, but had to leave due to wife aggro. Booo. RL aggro
Operating Multiple MMOs: Good or Bad?
10This morning, Massively article let the community know that NCSoft’s mech-fighting game Exteel was shutting down.You can be forgiven if you aren’t familiar with this title; Personally, I can’t recall Exteel being heavily marketed in the US or possibly even in Europe. I only knew of it’s existence through visiting the NCSoft website for account management over the years.
A subsequent Tweet from Arkenor reminded me of a point I had considered in the past: Would companies who develop and run multiple MMOs be better served – and serve better – by limiting their output to just one or maybe two online titles?
In one corner, we have Blizzard, who currently operates just one online title: World of Warcraft. In the other corner, we have several companies who operate multiple online titles, or who have several in the pipeline: SOE, Cryptic, and NCSoft. SOE operates several MMOs, like Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Free Realms, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Vanguard and probably others that I’m forgetting. NCSoft has Aion, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars, not to mention the upcoming Guild Wars 2. Cryptic at this time has Star Trek Online and Champions Online.
SOE is probably the best example of a company possibly having too many irons in the fire. Although nothing is certain, Vanguard is down to 2 servers, and there’s been no big news for PotBS as of late. In many people’s opinion, these two are ripe for shutdown in the near future. Cryptic is working through some controversy over their cash shop policies, but as far as I know, they have released no word on how well their titles are doing overall. That right there is often taken by the community that things aren’t going so well. NCSoft seems to be doing pretty well, as Exteel was only a very niche title, and their other games seem to be getting regular love in the form of expansions and ongoing development.
One side-effect is that companies who churn out and operate several MMOs always put the focus on the Next Big Thing(tm), which means that other titles in their stable only receive a fraction of attention that they may deserve. This leads to the impression that the game is no longer supported, or that x-pacs don’t arrive as frequently as they used to – or not at all. Whether true or not, gamers see this lack of love as a lack of commitment, and the downward spiral begins: no one is going to register for a game that looks as if it’s being left for dead, which it will be because no one is registering to play.
It’s bad enough that we have so many choices (oh the humanity!), but it’s made even worse when many of those viable choices falter because the operator has moved on to producing their next blockbuster. Maybe if they focused on one or two games designed for the long haul – a la World of Warcraft – we wouldn’t see as many industry layoffs or receive so many announcements of game worlds that are closing down.
Should developers and publishers focus on one or two core games for the long haul, or does the diversity that we are being offered – despite the uncertainty that being just another cog in a greater machine brings – make the genre better overall?
Zero Money Down! Or EQ2 Extended Alpha
0EverQuest II Extended alpha edition is already available. However, according to Smokejumper’s introductory post, you’ll need to be a current subscriber to access the streaming Extended client. I don’t believe that this puts it under any kind of NDA, so here’s a rundown!
It’s not that different from EQ2 Live, game-play and content wise. Yes, you are limited to four races and only a handful of the usual plethora of classes, but they display your options in a gold tinge, telling you in effect (and on a mouse click) to upgrade to Gold status! The character creation is the same, if I remember correctly, so it doesn’t seem that they’ve gimped the personalization options, including the alternate appearance models.
The most obvious thing that will leap out at elder EQ2 players is…the new UI! There were mentions of a UI change in the upcoming game update, and I think it’s safe to assume that this is it. Honestly, I kinda like it. It’s streamlined where it needs to be, and keeps the clutter to a minimum. Of course, I’m sure lots of people will mod it up back to it’s previous state, but I digress. 
The game is rife with pop-ups. For the new character, there are tutorial windows. They cover all aspects of the game, from mastering the UI, to movement to dealing with merchants and how to read your character sheet. After you see them once (or turn them off in the settings, I’m sure) they’re gone for good (until you roll a new character). Being less 
then a Silver member will net you the occasional “Upgrade Now!” popup, which can happen at any time, any place…including in the middle of combat.
The character sheet now integrates the inventory bag collection, having been removed from the default UI in the new style, although you can still press “B” to open the bags. Oddly enough, opening all bags opens ALL BAGS…even bags you do not have and cannot use as a Free player. If you try and drag something to these phantom sacks, you’re given a message extolling the virtues of upgrading your membership in order to get more bag space. Onward and Upsell!
What I really appreciated was the Free Realms client streaming technology finding it’s way 
to Norath. This little guy shows up next to your mini-map to keep you apprised of how your download is going. Initially, you get the starting area, and as you rough up the denizens of that zone, additional data is being downloaded for future exploration. The whole “install” to get up and running only took maybe about 10 minutes from the time I pressed the LAUNCH button on the web page to the point where I was able to start actually playing (mind you, character creation was wedged in there as well). I’d like to see EQ2 Live switch to this method!
Is there anything here that current subscribers would be missing out on by sticking with their current sub? Absolutely not. It’s been stated what you do end up missing by jumping to the F2P side (classes, races, bags for crying out loud, which will be an issue), but beyond the UI changes, the nag screens and the streaming client, it’s same EQ2 that people know and love. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything here that would make a paying player want to move to the F2P servers, unless they had some cheapskate friends who aren’t willing to pony up the monthly fee to take the training wheels off, but considering that it’s an never-ending trial, I suppose that it will be a decent option for those looking for a no-commitment AAA title.
Supriseless Surprise: EverQuest 2 F2P Plans
4Just yesterday I read an article that said in no uncertain terms that EverQuest II NOT be going free to play.
Today, that article is a liar.
EQ2 is bringing the F2P to SOE’s venerable AAA MMO lineup (sorry about the alphabet soup), but in it’s own way:
- There are going to be F2P and subscription servers. The two communities won’t mix. According to Sera Brennan of Massively, who interviewed Dave Georgeson of SOE, the reason is so as not to anger existing subscribers with an influx of “weekend warriors”.
- There’s going to be four tiers of subscription options: Free, Silver, Gold and Platinum.
- Free players have access to all content up to but not including Sentinal’s Fate, the latest expansion. They also have restrictions on alts, race choices, class choices, chat functionality and cannot access the broker, among other things.
- Silver members expand on Free by offering a few more alts, the ability to achieve an additional tier on spells, but still no access to the broker.
- Gold level is what you get now for your $15/month, and will retain that monthly fee.
- Platinum status is a new one. For $200 per year, you get all Gold has to offer, plus an additional 10 levels (up to 90), more alt slots, more bank slots and a monthly stipend of 500 Station Cash
- Each tier is limited to 4 races, but more can be purchased through the Station Marketplace.
There’s a lot of moving parts that fall into the Marketplace bucket (for example, you can expand the Gold level cap from 80 to 90 through the Marketplace), so we’re talking an extremely modular experience here.
At first, I was excited about this, but the more I see people talking about it, the more I’m starting to become cautious. I have a live sub now, but was going to put it on ice for a while since due to my short attention span, my interests have moved elsewhere for the time being. But during that time, I cannot take my existing characters with me, without paying a transfer fee (which I assume results in a one way trip). Plus, all of those on live aren’t going to migrate en masse to the free servers for the privilege of crippling themselves, so if you are going it alone, you’re truly going it alone.
I am confused why SOE opted to take this multi-level approach rather then just using a straight hybrid like Turbine has done for Dungeons & Dragons Online or the upcoming conversion of Lord of the Rings Online. I suppose they want to make themselves stand out, think they’re safeguarding the existing community and also think they’re providing both value to new and hesitant players and offering them a “smooth” path to Upgradesville. I suppose for those who have never played EQ2 will find this an undeniable opportunity to get involved in this underappreciated game, but those currently on Live or past subscribers get absolutely nothing new. I suspect that Live or past players are actually losing something in the process.
I’ve already had one friend who has never played exclaim that he’ll be giving it a try, so I suppose that this plan has already convinced one non-player to at least see what it’s about. I actually like SOE, so I hope this convoluted plan works out for them, but it remains to be seen if they haven’t made it so convoluted a process to appeal to new or even lapsed players.
The Ongoing Saga: Amarin and the Exodar
0
I was kind of thrown for a loop after creating Amarin: she was a survivor of the crash of the Exodar, some kind of ship that was carrying a sizable compliment of Draenei on their way to…somewhere. Actually, I think they were running from the Burning Legion, or were meeting up with other allies when they crashed. Thankfully, they crashed in a nice, verdant area filled with fuzzy moths and snow-white stags, which is always a bonus.
I suppose this was the opening salvo of the current “technology” bent that has crept into World of Warcraft. Originally it was the mechanostriders, but now we’re talking space elf-goats with holographic projector technology. We won’t even get into the chopper mounts or the upcoming technopocolyptic starting area for the goblins in Cataclysm.
One of Amarin’s first tasks was to help with the relief efforts. This amounted to healing a single wounded Draenei survivor. Just one. But to spite the developers, I made sure to heal as many survivors as I could when I came across them. I was hoping for some kind of achievement for being a good citizen, but meh.
It seems that the crash of the Exodar did more then cause work for me, because many of my first tasks involved decontaminating the surrounding area that was experiencing some serious side-effects from the Draenei power crystals that had been flung far from the crash site. I guess the Draenei are the BP of Azeroth now.
As WoW is wont to do, I was pushed ever onward across the map. I was sent to meet up with another splinter of survivors on Azuremist Isle, close to the actual site of the Exodar crash. It was here that I uncovered a plot by the Blood Elves to exterminate the Draenei. I guess they didn’t take too kindly to our messing up of their coastline. A secondary objective was to make contact with an Alliance expeditionary force to the south to let them know we had recovered a wounded Night Elf. Naturally, these trusting souls put me to work killing naga and sirens, and recovering their stolen goods. Along the way, we uncovered another plot by the sea-spawn to overtake the island. The Draenei certainly aren’t making any friends with the presence of their crashed technological wonder-ship.
That’s where I left off last night, having reached level 9. As always, Blizzard’s quests are tight, if less then exciting. I had forgotten how slow PvE combat was, having only a handful of actions available, most of which were ranged and were applied within seconds of one another while the target was still at range. I suppose that being a hunter means never wanting to see the whites of their eyes.
The Ongoing Saga: Back In The WoW Saddle
3After watching a 30 minute video of some of the changes forthcoming in Cataclysm, I decided that I’d re-up for World of Warcraft. Again. It’s not WoW per se that brought me back; I do have a known history of revisiting my history, but in this case I feel that Cataclysm seems to be doing a lot of things that bear witnessing if I want to keep my “MMO Gamer” card in good standing.
Unfortunately, the {air quote} Universe {air quote} didn’t want me to re-join it seemed. I had received an email from Blizzard several months ago telling me that my (inactive, unsubscribed) Battle.net/WoW account was locked for “illegal behavior”. Sue enough, there was an authenticator attached, which I didn’t do. After some rather pleasant interactions with customer service, I managed to get my Battle.net account back, but only recently did I get my WoW account back. I logged in and found several level 1 characters on various servers all over the world, which I promptly deleted.
I also scored a decent deal on the expansions, which I had not picked up when they were current. After adding them to my account, I hit the ground running and headed back to Azaroth to enjoy the world one last time before it gets all fucked up.
I’ve never been one to chronicle my play sessions like others do. I find that I generally play by the seat of my pants, knocking out quests and generally moving forward, head down…not the most exciting stories to read. But since I’m returning to the game after a prolonged period of inactivity, and returning to a game where I’m technically two expansions behind, I decided that this might be a good time to start “live blogging” my perspective. WoW blogs are a dime a dozen, so don’t expect anything new, exciting or in-depth. I’m not a min-maxer, lore-monger or gearscore whore. I play to see the sights and do the deeds.
I decided to roll on the Raxxar server, since a few Twitterites had mentioned it in the past week. Since I had never had access to the Burning Crusade expansion, I opted to roll a Draenei, which from what I gather is either some kind of alien night-elf/goat cross-breed, or unknown neighbors from the other side of the planet (I told you I’m not a lore-monger!). I’d never started in this area, which was important to my enjoyment this time around. I went with the hunter (yes, hunTER, as I refuse to give in to WoW slang) because I’m a ranged DPS kinda guy, by the name of Amarin.
So be warned: I’ll be interspersing my usual pointed-stick posts with run-downs of how things are going leading up to the release of Cataclysm, or as I like to call it, “Deathwing’s Raging Kegger”.
Self Rebuttal: Why Cataclysm Matters
8A few days ago, I wrote a post entitled “Is WoW To Big To Matter?” which was based on a feeling I had been having after seeing almost every chat channel in every new MMO degrade into a discussion on World of Warcraft. I still stand behind that question, but in the (near?) future, I think that the MMO-sphere will have no choice but to consider WoW as something more then just the 800 pound gorilla in the room, because with the upcoming Cataclysm expansion Blizzard is breaking the number one rule of MMO gaming: Thou shall not alter the experience for a segment of the community. Ever.
Obviously, those most affected by the zone changes are those longtime WoWies who have a stable of level capped alts and who have plowed through every zone at least once. By re-designing some of the zones and shuffling their level-appropriate focus, Blizzard is essentially giving these players a whole new game world to explore. SOE split their own world-changes over two games: EverQuest and EverQuest II. Blizzard is selling an expansion which allows players to keep their current characters, but also gives them a reason to go back to the beginning all over again. For those who haven’t played in a while, this expansion may entice them to jump back in. I for one have a hard time repeating content, but the idea that I can start a new character, even of the same race and class, and see new territories from the start is pretty interesting to me.
What really strikes me, though, is that in the zones which have been changed, the historic zones that people have grown up with are gone forever. People can still sign up for EQ and see the original sights, and then jump over to EQ2 to see them re-vamped. What SOE did with EQ/EQ2, Blizzard is doing in one game through map redesign and shuffling of level-appropriate content, and is throwing in 2 new races, new starting zones, bug fixes and wholesale revamps. It will look and feel like WoW, but it will also feel like a new game in some respects.
It seems that every MMO must offer the same experience for all players, regardless of timeframe. The experience that you have in any starter zone the day the game launches is the same experience you’ll have in that starter zone four years down the road. It’s about egalitarianism, leveling the playing field, and balance. Your choice of race, class, talents, skills, gear, and so on matters only in which buttons you want to press and what role you want to assume. The environments themselves, the quests and the patterns of completion can be mapped and traded like baseball cards until the whole game turns into one big on-rails simulation. This bleeds into the whole “I Win Button” argument, but Cataclysm is looking to negate that. Ideally, we’d have more expansions like this: changing things up, keeping players on their toes, and making them all remember the days when people actually had to work and think in order to get ahead in the game.
Edit: It’s been brought to my attention by ModemMisuser that the original EverQuest had some zone re-vamps. The result of this was a fundamental change in how people could relate to the game, and how players related zones to one another. The removal of significant landmarks, for example, meant that any guides or references to those landmarks were no longer valid, and the re-shaping of a zone probably caused no end of grief for players who could navigate maps in their sleep.
While there is precedent for major zone redesign in an MMO, the sheer influence of WoW on the genre makes this a much more high-profile modification to the game world. These aren’t arbitrary, balance or technical changes, either. They are tied into the lore of the game, and when looked at from that perspective, are organic. These changes happened because of world events, allowing the timeline to progress while also offering a whole new perspective on the game.
Our Lady of The Perpetual Fee
4A lot of discussion on the Twitterphone this week has centered around micropayments. @Petterm started a thread (ending up on Buzz) about Allods Online and their cash shop debacle, and as we speak, Star Trek Online forums are being hammered by disgruntled players update over recent c-shop decisions there. To make matters worse, the latest Industry Gamers newsletter quotes industry analyst Michael Pachter predicting that Activision will need to start charging for Call of Duty online play.
I’m going to open with a comment from Soss on the Industry Gamer article, because it couldn’t be said any better:
This is ridiculous to think that Game companies must now be making money at all times on a single product. What happened to making a game, making your profit, and moving on to the next game? Nooooo, everyone wants to adopt the paid subscription model to squeeze as much money out of people as you can.
We’ve got Xbox Live which charges a yearly fee of $50 for online play now, and Sony just released their optional PSN Plus service for $50 per annum (although multiplayer is still free). We’ve also got ISP fees to pay, on top of whatever other bills we have to pay to actually, you know, live life.
Situations like this remind me of a philosophy I recognized in high school. Every teacher used to give out homework. Every teacher would tell students that the homework shouldn’t be a big deal; it’s just about 30 minutes of work. Every teacher failed to recognize that every teacher said the same thing, which for a seven period school day meant three and a half hours of homework that night.
Some would say that a monthly micropayment isn’t a lot to ask to support the games you love. The problem is that we’re paying $60 up front for the game itself, plus the console (or PC), plus access fees for the Internet…plus fees for every other game that publishers want us to buy (each which has it’s own up front cost).
This need for consistent revenue is an admirable goal. I like the fact that I get paid on schedule, and I would love it if my payments were made from ever-increasing sources, but that’s asking a lot from my employer. For a company like Activision to come to the consumer, hat in hand, with the excuse that they need to now charge for what has been a relatively free ride for the past half a decade is asinine.
What the industry would be doing is shooting itself in the foot. People would end up buying fewer games in the long run because they just couldn’t afford the multi-player aspect of every single one of them. Some people do buy these games strictly for the multiplayer, which means that they would gate their purchases by group consensus: what are all of my friends playing? Everyone throw in, and ignore other games because we don’t have the money/want to pay for other multiplayer access.
I’ve come to terms with c-shops, when done correctly (which are few and far between), and personally, I don’t play a lot of multiplayer console titles, but we’re in the midst of a very slippery slope here. We’ve got monthly sub games with c-shops on top. We’re seeing uber-premium items for sale in-game ($25 mounts, $55 guild renaming tokens). Now we’re talking about ongoing fees – taking away what people have come to know for free – for what is for many people the most popular aspect of the $60 game they just purchased (and in the case of the CoD series, repurchased)?
This feels like either a blatant attempt at gouging (since this was spurred on by Activision, there’s no surprise there), or a way to shore up bottom lines. But these methods are just band-aids if the latter is true. If it’s so difficult for these publishers to make money on their products, they need to reevaluate their business model from top to bottom, not keep adding fees for their convenience.
Outsider’s Perspective on RealID
0The Internet is well known as a breeding ground for unimaginable shit-storms, but I say in all truthfulness that I do not think I have ever, in all my years on the Internet (and they are considerable), seen a storm of the magnitude that this RealID decision has raised. Ever.
I am not an active World of Warcraft player. When I was, I never posted to the forums. I do not plan on playing Diablo 3 or StarCraft II. I made these decisions long before RealID, so it’s safe to say that I have no horse in this race. At least, not directly.
From an academic point of view, this is a multi-layered situation. The most obvious layer is the one that concerns privacy, and seems to be the focal point of a good portion of those opposed to Blizzard’s application of RealID. The second layer is the “Facebookification” of WoW and probably all other Blizzard products going forward. The third layer is Blizzard’s stance on the controversy. The fourth layer as I see it deals with the future of WoW. The last layer is the implications that RealID has for other MMOs.
As stated, I have nothing to lose or gain by taking a position on this subject, and thus far I haven’t weighed in on either side, but as a blogger who writes on topics within this sphere, the situation has grown to the point where it’s no longer a choice, but an obligation to write about it.
At first, I didn’t see the harm. Most people I follow on Twitter have used their real names in their profiles, and humanity has lived with the White Pages for decades before the Internet. Intercepting mail, or even just social engineering is more then enough to get information from people if one wanted to get it. But then people started to express their concerns by offering real-life testimony about how they had been dealing with stalkers, harassment and racism in real life, or even through the game without their real names being posted to public forums. A few people might be an edge case (although no less serious), but the sheer volume of people posting experiences and concerns makes it the rule, and not the exception, as far as I’m concerned. It’s gotten to the point where these concerns are impossible to ignore or overlook.
Yet ignore them Blizzard has. Blizzard (no doubt with Activision’s gentle prodding) have seen fit to build their own “social network” around their millions of players. They’ve gone and set themselves – and the community – on that path…without consulting the very community they’re trying to connect. It’s understandable that in today’s tech climate that a wholly owned social graph stands to impart tremendous benefits upon it’s controller, but didn’t we just go through several months of battling Facebook over it’s opening of it’s own graph? It’s baffling that Blizzard would even consider making the bold move that RealID represents in the wake of such high-profile concerns about the practices of the very system they’re attempting to replicate. This is the company that pioneered the shrewd tactic of “…when it’s done” to allow them to release quality products that put other’s to shame, yet they are now stumbling around in one of the worst PR moves in the history of gaming. It’s far, far more damaging, IMO, then all of the bad MMO launches of the past decade combined.
What’s even more confusing is Blizzard’s insistence to go forward with RealID despite the villagers at their gates. Such hubris! Maybe they’re emboldened by their subscriber numbers into thinking that the current opposition is merely a punctuation mark on their balance sheets, or that the impending release of Cataclysm will mesmerize the restless to file back into the game as they have in the so willingly for past expansions. It is curious that RealID is emerging during the much sought-after Cataclysm beta. At any rate, the only other example of a company being so out of touch with the implications that I can think of is, of course, Facebook.
It remains to be seen what lasting effect this has on WoW players. Certainly, there are those who will simply not visit the official forums, and who could care less about having their real names out there (despite the promise that there are/will be add-ons which can dredge up this info in-game). They’ll soldier on, paying Blizzard to continue business as usual. I am curious to know if this will be enough to actually drive players away from WoW, and Blizzard’s upcoming products as well? Is this the fabled “WoW Killer”? Will RealID do what legions of other MMOs could not?
The good news is that this is turning out to be such a massive clusterfuck that I think we can guarantee that we won’t be seeking this kind of move from other devs/pubs. If RealID doesn’t sink WoW (and really, who honestly thinks that it will?), it will be strictly due to those who remain loyal to the brand, and also on sheer subscribership alone. No other MMO has the cache or the numbers to even attempt to pull a stunt like this. If Lord of the Rings Online or Fallen Earth wanted to throw a user’s personal information to the public without giving those users a say in the matter, they would vanish overnight. It seems that being the 800 pound gorilla also makes you incredibly prone to making rock-stupid decisions when you can afford to play a percentage game. Other titles don’t have that luxury (remember Turbine’s “offer wall” and rapid retraction?).
Even though I don’t have a stake in this discussion, I side with those who are opposed to RealID. Some people are going to be opposed for opposition’s sake, but it’s been virtually impossible to avoid the mountainous volume of posts by people with legitimate concerns born out of real life experiences. That Blizzard seems to be ignoring the fact that they’re potentially putting their player’s lives at risk is utterly mystifying. I really do hope that people actually quit WoW over this; complaining is one thing, but doing something about it – hitting them in the wallet – is another. I do take comfort in knowing that Blizzard is actually doing the industry a service here, by taking the PR bullet and showing other dev/pubs the folly in thinking you’re too big to take on – i.e. be careful what you wish for. It’s just rather bittersweet that after years and years of other games trying to get a slice of WoW’s pie, that it’s Blizzard itself doing the most damage to it’s flagship product – and their own image.
