Posts tagged ‘wow’
Blizzard: “Lore? What’s that?” More ret-cons and confusion in Cata
Oh, dear WoW, how I’ve ignored you of late. Well here we go with a little Warcraft love. :D
One of my absolute favorite Warcraft lore sites is Loregy. This guy really knows his stuff, and always has great insights to the underappreciated history of Azeroth. Between him and my fellow players Xero and Kaae, I was inspired to learn more about the characters and background, read books and comics, and actually give a crap about the story behind the game.
I will definitely attest to the fact that the more you know about the story, the better the game experience becomes. You start to recognize places and people like you never had before. I would honestly recommend it to anyone who plays an MMO.
So one source of frustration for anybody who’s been a long-term fan of the Warcraft universe and cares about lore is how much of it gets retconned or ignored completely in the games. “Retcon” is basically when something that was previously established as truth in the world is changed in a way that contradicts it’s former existence. A basic example: Character A was female in a novel but male in the game. That’s the idea of a retcon.
What lore-fans do when Blizz retcons itself.
Blizzard is well known for retconning their own lore. It’s one thing if certain aspects of the story would really interfere with the game but the fact of the matter is most times it doesn’t. Some of their changes are bizarre and unwarranted, or just plain lazy. And when it happens often and recklessly, it becomes a source of aggravation for people who take the lore seriously.
Their favorite over-used change is bad guys gone good. No, seriously. For whatever reason, characters that were just plain evil once upon a time are turned around to be fallen heroes. Apparently we’re supposed to feel a little bad about that boss we’re killing every week, twice a week.
He was just mis-understood once. He just went crazy. Etc. Etc.
Take the Draenei, for instance. The old story was that they were originally Eredar that ate worlds and corrupted Sargeras who in turn went apeshit and started ruining everything. Now, in order to make them appeal to Alliance players, the Dreanei were a small faction of uncorrupted Eredar that are all about Jesus. As so lovingly put by good friend Lizzie:
“… not that WoW had the most awesome story to begin with, but ever since the Draheyhey got retconned to be holy rolling space goats lead by evangelical wind chimes, it has gone steeply downhill. Someone needs to stop letting Chris Metzen write lore.”
Well said (though I might not agree in the Metzen issue.) Other famous ret-cons? How the hell did Uther end up in Frostmourne? Varian Wrynn’s entire existence. Marudin Bronzebeard’s “death” (lol amnesia!). Onyxia’s death the first time. And second time. And apparently, 3rd time??
The list goes on.
The big lore failure in Cataclysm, as adeptly written by Cocles over at Loregy, is that Malfurion, great Archdruid of legend basically appears in Hyjal without any sort of proper entrance. The same with Jarod Shadowsong, the one responsible for uniting the races in the War of the Ancients. Even though Stormrage, the novel, effectively concludes the issues with the Emerald Dream, apparently none of that has happened yet. But Mal is still there….what?
As doubtlessly aggravating this is, the only good thing is that we might end up having the Emerald Dream as in-game content after-all. It still bothers me about the book, but at this point, I think everybody just gives up.
Another small bit on Cataclysm lore that saddens me is the fact that Med’an isn’t going to be a part of it as I originally predicted in my Future Heroes of Azeroth post, which is absolutely stupid and disappointing. According to this official thread in which lore questions get answered:
Q: What role, if any, will Med’an play in Cataclysm?
A: Med’an will not be visible in Cataclysm; something else is keeping him occupied.
WTF is so important that it’s keeping him from doing his divine appointed job? He’s the Guardian of Tirisfal for frak’s sake! His existence is prophesied. He’s the damned chosen one. Deathwing is about to destroy the world he’s meant to protect, and it’s not like he’s a kid who doesn’t know better. He’s got to be close to 30 by now and has the ability to use arcane, shamanistic, and Light-infused magic. If Cocles’ predictions on future expansions is correct, we can expect that this is the last time we fight on Azeroth for a long time. Sargeras needs to be beat down, and there’s a good chance we need to go to his house to do so. Med’an has direct ties with Sargie, so one way or another, this kid has -got- to make some sort of appearance in-game.
Sometime between now and the end of WoW, Blizz is releasing another novel: The Shattering. As a prelude to the Cataclysm, it follows Thrall’s story as he struggles between his roles as Warchief and as the world’s most uber shaman. With elementals going haywire, he feels the need to do something about it, but political issues are tugging at him, too.
Likewise, Varian’s psycho orc-obsession and the tensions within the Alliance are causing more rifts at the dawn of the most violent and significant era in Azeroth. Of all the wild accusations I’ve made in my posts about lore, I finally got something right. Anduin is going to start playing a major role that could very well result in him opposing his own father.
Well, Cataclysm. In one way or another, this expansion is shaking everyone up, so I guess we can say it’s doing it right.
WoW Mod Spotlight: Altoholic
Hi. My name is Izzie…and I’m an Altoholic.
This add-on was tipped off by good friend and fellow alt-leveling fiend Xero. We both have four 80’s and countless other alts ranging from 4 to 64, each one with professions and likely doubly used as a mule of some sort. On top of that, I have 2 guild banks used as extra storage.
Once you get to the 3+ range of alts and guild bank storage, things start getting messy as far as organization. I was pretty convinced I would -never- be able to keep track of everything, although with much effort I managed to get things sorted somewhat. Still, though, it was usually a mess and trying to figure out who has how many of what item is just a daunting situation that left my bags ignored for months.
If only I had known about Altoholic ages ago!
What the mod does is keep solid track of everything you can possibly think of. Gold, gear, professions, experience, rep, achievements, and yes, entire inventories are available for you via their Auction-House-like interface no matter what character you’re on (assuming the mod is enabled!). It gives you warning and announcments on events and cooldowns: for instance, while farming strat on my pally the mod told me my alchemy cooldown for my shaman was up in five minutes.
Set up is easy: install from curse and take a few minutes to log on to each character you want to keep track of. Disable the mod for toons you want to ignore. Make sure to open up the UI for everything you want registered: your bags, bank, guild bank (if it’s storage or you want to keep track of the items in there), and professions. Rinse and repeat, and it will store all the data for you.
Once you’ve done that, you’re pretty much good to go. The add-on has an icon on the compass and tons of sorting and searching options.
Here’s a quick look at major features:
The opening UI offers an account overview, showing how much gold is on which characters, how far into their level they are, and how much rest XP they have gathered. The top options allow you to choose how broadly you want your info: it can be one server, one faction or cover every toon you own across all servers and factions, so long as you have them archived with the mod. The tabs on the bottom delve into more specific areas and shows just how much you can do. The character tab lets you view information on a specific toon that’s not the one you’re already using. Search is an AH-style UI that lets you look up any item and find it if one of your guys has it. Guild Bank, pretty self-explainitory, and the Achievement tab lets you compare progress. On the side, the skills tab shows you professions, levels, and recipes on whoever you choose. Guild Skills allows you to see guildie’s professions if they have also used the mod (They sync!). Calendar lets you see events from whichever toon you’re using, so you can double check your main’s raid times. It’ll also send an announcment for calendar events on other characters.
The search box lets you look up any item and see if you have it and on whom. Here I looked up armor > all and chose rarity > artifact, and it gives me an overview of all my heirloom items and where they are (very handy as I switch them around – a lot- depending on who I’m leveling.
With the mod installed, information is added to my tooltips. Here I look up a cooking recipe on the AH and it shows me who has cooking, their levels, and who can learn it. If one of my characters already has it, or if their skill level is too low, it’ll let me know. This works for all professions, too. Hovering over any item, such as cloth, will give me an overview on how much I have accross my account, on which characters or in which guild banks, where they have it (bags or bank) and the total available accross the entire account.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg, too. I highly recommend this to anybody who uses a lot of characters, whether they are alts or storage. Give it a go!
WoW Site Spotlight: Warcraft Over Achiever!
So we all love to be achievement whores, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. Lets face it: if there’s a number, and it can go higher, we stop at nothing to raise it.
That’s why this site, Warcraft Over Achiever, is freaking awesome.
What it does is tally your current progress and based on some miraculous algorithm, decides how close you are to finishing some achievements.
Plug in your toon / server on the left. Let it load, and then click the “Suggested” tab on top. The site will list them in order of the stuff you’re closest to getting, helping you finish up what you’re almost done with first.
It’s pretty savvy and worth a look for everyone, achievement whores or not. There’s a good chance you’d be surprised at how close you are to getting some finished!
It also includes guides and a forum, and a general achievement overview.
There is one thing about it that sucks, though: Explorer usually dominates the suggestion page. If you already have explorer, or manage to finish it up, this site works like a charm!
Since we’re on the discussion of obsessiveness, three other sites achievement whores might also enjoy: Warcraft Mounts, Warcraft Pets, and WoW-Tabbards.
The point of these simple single-serving sites is to keep tabs on your mount/pet/tabbard collections. What use they have in the scheme of things other than “showing off”, I’ve no clue, but it’s fun and I guess you can get an idea of what you’re missing.
Achievement Goals
Micaila
• 4 pets for 50
• 213 ilevel Ranged for epic
• 7 azerothian foods
• 10 quests for 2000!!
• 19 Vehicle Destructions via Turret!
Day 3 of the Hurricane RealID, Damage is Begining to Surface
Brief recaps:
Day one, the official announcement is made during regular sever maintainence. The initial shock and repulsion by fans is unprecedented. Blues are overwhelmed by the response and attempt to keep the massive response under control. Blizz Employee reveals his true name and the backlash is intense, he is forced to take down his facebook.
https://izziebytes.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/blizzards-realid-forum-shitstorm-is-cat/
Day two, the scope of the reaction reaches new heights. Blizzard officially announces that RealID -will- happen, and that they were aware it would turn away many current posters and were ok with this consequence. Activision’s announcement that RealID will be integrated with Facebook and their partnership begins to raise eyebrows. Enraged gamers start to make a connection between Activision’s increased involvement in Blizzard’s marketing to their decreasing integrity.
https://izziebytes.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/the-irl-maelstrom-continues/
So it goes on
Here we are at day three of what is easily one of the most impacting events in the history of gaming and the gaming industry. The world-wide attention of this is much more far-reaching than we expected. I said this was history in the making in my first post, but even I didn’t realize just how big this was going to be.
Fellow blogger Zaldinar has been keeping rigorous track of as much information as he can. His lists are much more organized and comprehensive than mine, and I feel his posts are beyond a must-read:
http://zaldinar.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/the-case-against-realid/
http://zaldinar.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/the-problem-with-real-id/
What is stunning is the list of mainstream news sites that have covered this since it’s fruition on Tuesday, including the BBC. With all this publicity going around, it’s amazing at how inappropriate the developer’s reaction has been, which leads me to this interesting new factoid:
Rumor Mill
A moderator from the Guild Wars 2 Guru forums, Neo Nugget, pointed us in the direction of this posted rumor on the Starcraft Inc-Gamers forum:
http://starcraft.incgamers.com/blog/comments/rumour-blizzard-realid-unpopular-internally/
Although the validity of the comments is here-say at best right now, it may suggest that Blizzard creative team are just as miffed at this system as we are, have little control over it, and even possibly left a little in the dark. Whether this is directed at the RealID forum change or the Facebook partnership I’m still unsure of. The post was quoted from the 40,000+ thread on the forums, so it’s hard to say. While it’s definitely a case of he-said, she-said there are a few things that anybody who’s seen this sort of corporate push and pull will recognize:
• The creative team (artists, programmer, designers) having little to no say in the business aspect of any company is nothing new. It’s unfortunate, but a reality.
• Corporate hush-hush is a huge problem when it comes to big business and PR. Just look at BP and their Gulf fiasco. Press are being forcefully turned away and anybody working with them in the clean-up efforts are forced to sign non-disclosure contracts.
Needless to say, I have little doubt that Blizzard employees are under similar pressure from the higher-ups. They are remaining rather cold and neutral on the subject: the only blue that has been saying anything of note has been Wryxian of the EU forums.
Both this scenario’s are common in big corporate decisions like this, and thus lend themselves to some validity. The poster on Inc-Gamers is trying to dig up more info / confirmation on the subject, so I will keep an eye out for any updates.
US vs EU
That brings me to another interesting and final thought for now: why is it that Europe has been much more open about it than the US? Albeit, it’s just one poster, but I do find it interesting that all we’ve gotten State-side has been a whole lotta copy-pasta “please post in the main thread” spam. A lot of posters are assuming we’re being ignored, but Wryxian insists that all feedback is being looked at and considered and is urging gamers to continue providing suggestions and comments on the matter:
I can only reiterate what we’ve already said, that is that we are listening and compiling your feedback for review and consideration. We cannot foresee what will be the outcome of that and thus we cannot make predictive statements about future events and decisions. However, when there is further information to share, as is always the case we will endeavour to share it here.
At the same time he says that RealID is going live in it’s current form … basically regretting the loss of constructive posters like Flanks:
Privacy is very important and if you’re not even slightly comfortable with revealing your real name in the forums, then I think it is perfectly understandable that you err on the side of caution and just don’t post. It’s a shame that some perfectly constructive and decent folk predict they will no longer be posting in our forums when we make this change.
Lots of mixed information in that regard. It’s hard to believe they are seriously considering what we’ve all said when it seems pretty clear that this is happening in it’s current iteration. Maybe there’s something to be said that Blizz has little to no say in the future marketing of their products. And I can’t help but wonder if the silence from the US suggests they are under stricter non-disclosure rules than the EU reps.
More to come!
Special Links / Updates Section
Factoids: • 22% of all cyberstalking involve online acquaintances. • Over 4,000 posts have been deleted from the RealID Megathread
• A pro-RealID poster challenges the masses to find him. A fellow WoWer takes up the challenge and within 20 minutes is talking to him on his work phone. Read the tale here, it’s extremely interesting, and kudos to both parties for going about the entire thing in a mature, classy manner. Despite the fun-ness of the story, though, it still sends a huge warning about how easy it can be to find someone / be found with just a name.
• http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626461439&sid=1
As plans to move forward with the facebook partnership continue, little is said about consumer reaction.
• http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626051708&sid=1
Somewhat of a self plug: posted a thread to try and extend my thanks to Wryxian, and some discussion on the state of US Employees has started. I’m not the only one who feels they are in a pickle dealing with parent company policies.
• Treesdiel continues to provide us with more content: coverage from reputable news sources
Wall Street Journal –
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/07/real-names-rile-online-warlocks-and-wizards/
Washington Post –
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/07/world_of_warcraft_real_names.html
• In a twist of savage but warranted irony, someone posts a slew of information about Robert Kotick, the soul-drained CEO over at Activision, including but not limited to political donations. This gets more and more interesting:
The IRL Maelstrom Continues, Blizz apparently is OK with it.
Note: In keeping this up to date, the end of the post will include quotes and a lot of links to threads, posts, blogs, and outside sources of interest to this topic. So be sure to check back down there for any updates and additions. And a huge “Thank You!” to Treesdiel, Jake, commentors and friends who have been pointing me to new content and helping me keep this updated.
More Izziebytes Coverage:
Day 1 : Initial Impact
Day 3 : Continued Damages
Alright, well, good morning America.
As an update to my post yesterday, since I went to bed last night and checked the forums in the AM briefly at breakfast, it would appear the madness of the General Discussion Forum hadn’t slowed down one bit. I replied and true to form, ended up three pages behind. By the time I got to work (now) posts have eclipsed 20,000 on the American forums, reaching 5,000 on the European forums, over 1,000 on the Starcraft 2 forums and thousands more comments across other WoW-related platforms.
One thing of note is that the OP in the American forums has been edited down to a brief summary and is now pointing to the Battle.Net / Starcraft 2 thread that has the full and updated explanation. I suppose they’re trying to push the flood over to Battle.Net, where Warcraft Players can’t actually post, but it hasn’t seemed to stop anything.
To be expected, right now most activity is coming from Europe as the work day hasn’t started in California yet, and they have actually been addressing some of people’s fears. Most importantly, they’ve made it pretty clear RealID is happening regardless of what players say, but that they are reading as much as possible and considering the reaction of the players. America -should- be seeing some replies coming in an hour or three. Some quotes of note:
We have been planning this change for a very long time. During this time, we have thought ahead about the scope and impact of this change and predicted that many people would no longer wish to post in the forums after this change goes live. We are fine with that, because we want to change these forums dramatically in a positive and more constructive direction.
…
There’s a lot of scare-mongering going on about the change, but there seems a need to make something very clear. The forums have always been an optional extra — something you can choose to participate in if you wish to. With our Real ID changes for the forums, this is still the case. The only difference will be, if you do choose to participate in the forums, then you will do so by using your real name. But only after you’ve been warned and accepted this in advance. [Source]
So there you have it, folks. RealID Forums are happening whether we like it or not. They go on further to explain that they feel the over-reaction of a few has lead to scare-mongering and wide-spread panic and confusion.
The saddest part about all this is that the fact that we don’t trust -each other- and that’s the problem. We’re not afraid of Blizzard, or the FBI, or anything like that. We fear each other. We’re afraid of having our personal lives targeted by fellow gamers.
The other sad part is that Blizzard would have -never- even dreamed of something like this before merging with Activism. Pig-Headed or not, stepping the bounds between gaming and something a little less desirable.
I’ll keep this post updated as more information comes along.
Special Super Links Section
Here I am keeping a close eye on as much relevant information as possible. Some of the links are of extreme interest to anyone that is deeply concerned with this development, while others are simply further reading. Feel free to add suggestions via comments.
• A disturbing rumor floating around finds itself all but confirmed on WoW.com. Apparently the plan to “show the danger” of RealID by revealing the brave Blue’s personal information has backfired: Blizz has apparently taken back their original statement that their employees names would be also be displayed, meaning theirs will be hidden while players would still be forced to use theirs. Thanks again to Trees for the update.
• A wonderful thread post consolidates the most popular concerns as well as links of note from among the masses. It includes links to articles and quotes regarding Acitivsion Blizzard’s plan with intergrating RealID with Facebook, another issue that is likely to start more issues, especially given Facebook’s recent trackrecord of privacy breaches with its own users.
A great effort on part of this poster and others who have contributed.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25552355289&sid=1
Do you expect any push back from diehard Blizzard fans from the Facebook features?
We don’t anticipate any. We are going to be very clear and upfront with the user. Once they log in and create a Battle.net account for the first time, if they choose to participate in Real ID, it is of course, an optional set of features that you don’t have to participate in. Beyond that we are going to notify them upfront their names could be used to populate via Facebook and how their names could be used via this Facebook feature.
• A little too Conspiracy Theorist for me, but an interesting post here recounts the US Military’s interest in MMO’s and how they use these games to predict mob behavior.
• Those concerned and wanting to stay updated can join a Facebook group here, dedicated to those of us who are against all the changes. Big thanks to Naktab for the heads up.
• A quick recount on Blizzard’s plan to merge Battle.Net and Real ID With Facebook. Thanks to Jake.
• Annndd Activision’s official investor page announcement on said merge.
• Ctrl+Alt+Delete mocks RealID’s fail troll-spray in today’s comic, as well as shares their thoughts on what this whole system means. Thanks, again, to Jake for the tips.
• 4chan not surprisingly has a rather active thread on the subject. Caution: it’s 4chan. Read with care.
• For an epic reply from someone who’s name I cant even find:
When they offered race changes, some rose up and said, “This is a harbinger of things to come!”
I laughed. Silly, I thought.
When they offered faction changes, some rose up and said, “This is a harbinger of things to come!”
I laughed. Ridiculous, I thought.
When they offered pets and ponies in the store, some rose up and said, “This is a harbinger of things to come!”
I laughed. Optional, I spouted.
When they offered ReadID, many rose up and said, “This is a harbinger of things to come!”
I laughed. Uneasily, I laughed.
When they forced forum names on us, we all rose up and said, “Enough!”
I hung my head. I, and many like me, enabled this day to happen. I am so very, very ashamed.
Blizzard’s RealID Forum Shitstorm Reaches Category 5
Note: In keeping this up to date, the end of the post will include quotes and a lot of links to threads, posts, blogs, and outside sources of interest to this topic. So be sure to check back down there for any updates and additions. And a huge “Thank You!” to Treesdiel, Jake, commentors and friends who have been pointing me to new content and helping me keep this updated.
More Izziebytes Coverage:
Day 2: IRL Storm Continues, RealID unchanged
Day 3 : Continued Damages
Anybody paying even minor attention to the gaming industry today will probably have heard about Blizzard’s uncanny announcement that RealID would be used in future Battle.net2.0 forums for all their games. What this means is instead of posting on your realm forums under your main, a Blood Elf Pally named Shnookums, it’d post as you, your real life self, John Doe.
Needless to say, this raised more than a handful of eyebrows. And by handful, I mean over * 10,000 replies in the official posts on the WoW forums and almost 1500 on MMO-Champion at the time of this writing (and counting, I assure you).
Replies and concerns vary greatly: those who’d rather not have some shmuck they ganked google their pictures or sign them up for porn on their e-mails, females worried about being harassed, etc. Then there are those legitimately fearful of abusive exes or overly-judgmental employers who are sometimes warned not to hire Warcraft players or gamers. The most extreme, and unlikey but very real threat, is that of unstable / borderline pscyhotic players who can now more easily get a hold of personal information about someone they may want to target, such as the case of a counter-strike player stalked and stabbed by a rival.
The biggest argument for it is that it will thwart trolls. That’s the idea, anyway, that no one can really anonymously post their Gentleman T-Rex ASCII art or call you a fucking newb without you knowing now.
But wait. You can still technically hide because it’s optional to have your character name displayed with your real name. So basically someone named John Smith can go flame some random pug tank he disliked on said tanks home forums, but nobody will know who they are in-game, only who they are IRL. And if he’s named John Smith…well, you get the idea.
Others say that forum posting is optional: and they’re right. This is blizzard’s site, they can technically do with it what they want. It’s also somewhere in the fine-text of the TOS, but nobody knows when that happened. But if it goes through, it’s digital suicide for the official community. People will stop posting, migrate to other outlets like MMO-Champion, and Blizzard will have lost a very vital tool: official control over their community. They can no longer delete posts bashing their products, mentioning other games, or threatening their mods, GMs, and other staff. They can’t monitor what’s being said or gain official feedback.
Sure, the trolls will be gone because there will be nobody left to troll.
My thoughts? It’s counter-productive, stupid, and a mistake from all angles, both business-wise and social wise. I have a huge doubt it’ll go live. The fact that there’s yet to be any official reaction from the Blues in my mind indicates that this is was a very unexpectedly massive and negative reaction and they have no fucking clue what to say.
It’s tough for them I suppose. The entire system is likely almost ready to be implemented meaning resources have already been spent. But it’s hard to ignore the outcry. This is the biggest reaction to anything ever in the history of Warcraft and Blizzard games. This, my friends, is history already made.
Things with Blizzard have changed since they’ve become the monopoly they are, between becoming greedy with overpriced services, bullying other companies with immature and unethical marketing tactics, and milking their devoted playerbase for what it’s worth. Blizzard is falling prey to the same poison apple other formerly cool-for-the-everyman company (IE google, apple, facebook, etc) has savagely devoured once the big bucks roll in.
Thanks to a good friend and fellow wow-player, Jake, there’s a great read on how Blizzard’s business model has changed here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252
Whether it’s soley pressure from Activision, their own inflated egos, or a combination of both, one thing can definitely be said: this is not the same Gamer-Next-Door group they once were. The only thing that will stop it is if we, the players, make a stand for what gaming should be about; if the above links are any indication, this is something that we are ready to do.
Edit 1: * Grand total of posts reached 11600 as of 9:40 pm
Edit 2: As of 10:00 the total has reached 12,000. Additionally, I found out what all this Micah Whipple crap is about. Blizz poster Bashiok posted his real name on the forums, a move i’m sure he deeply regrets as now his phone number, facebook, picture, and personal information about himself and his family is now very public.
Edit 3: 10:34 PM. The plot continues to thicken. In another creepy twist, apparently cancelling your subscription to WoW is no longer instant. Instead, you have to fill out a form and wait for a confirmation e-mail, and an odd glitch seems to be keeping players trying to cancel in an endless loop. WoW.com reported earlier in the day that a loophole allows some in-game addons to actually have the ability to access RealID names without that person having been added. Activison Blizzard stock falls almost immediately after the announcement is made.
Blizzard responds with a handful of shallow responses that completely dodge the main concerns of players.
Wow PvP Pt2: The Future of PvP in Cataclysm
Cataclysm and World PVP
I would definitely be on board to say, as things are right now in WoW, ganking is not as bad a problem as people may think due to shear laziness. But it doesn’t change the fact that World PvP is fairly dead, and for a lot of reasons.
First and foremost, people’s insistence on ignoring each other while leveling is rather prevalent. Most players at this point have already been through the deal and have one or two 80’s. I’d feel confident saying that the vast majority of characters leveling right now are alts. Players just can’t be bothered and it’s saddening because fighting other leveling characters was, in my option, was what the nature of PvP servers was supposed to be about. Now you kill someone, and they immediately hop on their alt and threaten your life / naughty bits for it. Observe:
Killed once, rage ensues. SS Courtesy of Expurgate of Andorhal
Wow PvP Pt1: The Death of World PvP
The current state of PvP in World of Warcraft. World PvP is gone, resilience has destroyed everything, battleground queues are torture, and twinking was murdered…but will Cataclysm save it?
Real-ID could be a security risk
Even though the lifted NDA for Cataclysm has pretty much outshined anything else WoW-related, I took the time to read up on the much anticipated Real-ID networking system and found myself to be less than thrilled.
The official page says this is meant mostly for IRL friends, but they contradict themselves by also stating they’re hoping the entire thing will be central to their efforts to streamline communications within all their games.
If they are serious about cross-game chat, they should realize that being able to be friends with more than just people you trust 100% is going to be important. As the feature is planned now, it’d be pretty dangerous to add anyone you don’t know.
First of all, your e-mail doubling as your Battle.net ID is a huge, huge danger to accounts. The login is the first step to account compromise, and even identity theft if the culprit so wishes. With REAL-ID, the people I’m adding will know what e-mail I use to log into my games.
This basically limits my friend options to people I know IRL or really, really trust in-game.
That means no random guildies having your ID to harass you to come online for heroic runs or raids.
That means no adding that pretty cool tank you met in LFG the other night to try and organize more runs together.
That means no befriending the badass warlock who pwned face in BG’s by your side.
These are all things that could make Real-ID very central to the blizzard gaming experience but are currently far too risky to be implemented to their full potential.
Then there’s always the possibility that if I get hacked, said hacker now has access to all the e-mails and names of my friends, which is like striking gold, pun completely intended.
I am not the only one who feels this way, either. The discussion is getting heated on the forums: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24702231147&sid=1
I suppose we’ll see what Blizzard says about all this. Hopefully they will give more privacy controls and allow us to make better use of this system without compromising our accounts.
If that happens, this Real ID could truly change the future of gaming!
WoW Quiz says Horde Shaman. Go figure?
Online quizzes are the bane of all office workers. It’s always uncanny when they are spot-on, too.
IzzieBytes 