Might as well

by Copra

I might as well join the choir protesting the changes Blizzard has proposed to WoW forums and the stuff they are planning on RealID.

In short, Blizzard has generously 'given' us the option to give our Battle.net contact information to other players of WoW, so we can keep contact with them even though we play on another server or faction. However, now they have stated that they want to make the official WoW forums use RealID only, so you would post there on your own, real life name.

This has caused an outrage: on the US official forums there is a thread of over 800 pages (over 16.000 in US and 3000 in EU) as I write this condemning the whole thing and -for the first time in a loooong time- making well thought debate over the idiocy of the proposed change.

It's kind of strange to notice that the community that has been non-existing so far is suddenly very much united and active. It's kind of like the Japanese before the Mongol invasion in the ancient times: warring and shattered society only to unify against a common enemy. Like Finns before the start of the Second World War: class struggle flowing through the society, creating more devastation than progress, only to beat the invading, vastly superior might of Soviet Union back in a desperate struggle.

Talk about David and Goliath. This time David has about 12 million pebbles to shoot, though.

I disapprove the whole idea of RealID being mandatory and/or the only identity a player can have in official WoW forums and communication. My gaming persona is to be separated from my real life persona, and I don't want to mix them in any way. However, I can see that Blizzard will try spread the use of RealID even further, making it more a brand to do business with rather than a convenience to us players.

And that's what I resent the most.

I wouldn't approve this even if RealID would already work perfectly, which it doesn't. The announcement of your RealID friend coming online is faulty, it states only your friends name, not the toon or server he's in. I doubt if it would tell which game your friend has logged in later on without this riot pointing out how outrageously Activision/Blizzard is underestimating it's customers.

Come the day RealID is mandatory, and I'll quit WoW alltogether. No matter what Cataclysmic changes there be in the game in the future.

Promises will never carry over my personal integrity.

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