It's analysed and it's scary.

A couple of days ago I joined the masses against the RealID implementation on the official WoW forums. I stated that

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.

Guess what? Someone who's a bit more savvy on these issues posted a perfect analysis on how this works and why. And another one made a great notion on the customers of Blizzard.

We're all being lead like a bull from the nose ring. Whether we want it or not.
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Game chat is optional

by Copra

I just read through my blog reader and came across Dwism's post with two blue quotes. And I almost crapped myself. Namely

The first and most significant change to the in-game chat (this including, but not limited to, various city and world channels, guild-chat, whispers, group- and raid-chat and 'say') is that in the near future these chats will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect  near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain chats, including special pay-for-channels, will remain unchanged.

Stating clearly that they have thought to turn the whole ingame chat into a real name connection system!

The one that really made my day - and got me very, very angry about this RealID thing - was from Wryxian:

There's a lot of scare-mongering going on about the change, but there seems a need to make something very clear. The in game Chats have always been an optional extra -- something you can choose to participate in if you wish to. With our Real ID changes for the in game Chats ,this is still the case. The only difference will be, if you do choose to participate in the in game Chats, then you will do so by using your real name. But only after you've been warned and accepted this in advance. 

Come again?! "The in game Chats have always been an optional extra..."

Now how the heck can you call a game a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game if your means of communicating with other players is OPTIONAL!

First of all, when I play, I want to play the make-believe character of my choice. The name is a big part of that experience, as are the names of the other players, too.

Secondly, if I want to play a good single player fantasy game, I go and play Oblivion, Dragon Age:Origins or something else with a concise plot and story. In a multiplayer game I want to be able to communicate with other players, people I group with and so on: thus the chat channel is mandatory, a real part of that experience. A must.

Q.E.D.
Blizzard has decided that WoW, especially after Cataclysm, is in fact a Massive Multiplayer Singleplayer game.

Guild experience is just a facade. Go play alone.
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Optional PS.
Dwism just confirmed that the blues were just spoofs. Never the less, it brings up the question about how far Blizzard had planned to go and how far it will go after all this. Sorry for the misinformation, I was mislead.
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Question of honesty

by Copra

The craving of that new shining gear available for Emblems of Frost is too tempting to the players. Where it earlier was the Emblems of Triumph (and all the former reincarnations), the achievable amount of the Frosts make them a real treat.

Last night proved me right once again.

I ran a perfectly excellent Forge of Souls, gaining an excellent staff (Blood Boil Lancet) and neck (Coil of Missing Gems) from the Devourer of Souls, after which I broke 3.2k on a dummy with my spriest. And on the next run in Nexus I was the top one in DPS and second in damage done.

Then came the dark moment, which says everything. Random heroic ToC5. As I got into the arena, there was an unnatural silence. No hi's,  no helloes, nothing. All of a sudden the dungeon guide, a shaman, stated: "Only dps specs in here", followed with lols and hehe's. What was the next question?

"Priest, can you heal?"

Crap! Someone had stated to the LFD that they are willing to take the healer position, and it sure as hell wasn't me! No, sir, I have been levelling as shadow through the Northrend and don't even have a proper dual spec. The only thing the DG could say was that someone must leave.

Come to think of it, he should have been more strict and kicked someone out, one of the three paladins, maybe?

I lost my temper, first time with this toon and jumped out, taking the 15min lfd cooldown. Didn't matter that much, did my AH magics and left the game.

Why I lost my temper was the fact that I couldn't even think of someone being so stupidly selfish as to choose the healer position only to come out as dps. Sure I know there is an addon which can fake your achievements for the normal raid PUG call, but I can't imagine using one myself. Only because I think its more like lying to yourself and ruining the others playtime than anything else.

In the case of LFD tool, there is no way to say which role people have initially set themselves into. Oh, I can't be sure, as I haven't taken the dungeon guide role yet, but thus far I haven't seen any way of telling which role people vouched for, except when someone leaves the group and the group starts to look for a replacement. IMO this is a lack of functionality over here, putting too much emphasis on the honesty of people. Who are selfishly using the rest of the group to gain their own emblems to get further in the content, despite of others.

Instead of forcing the players to use their real names in the game forums, Blizzard ought to take a good look on the social tools of the game and make the game more rewarding on the group play area instead of the solo gains. There should be some kind of system to rate other players in the game and there most definitely should be a way to see to what position people have volunteered when they started to look for action through LFD tool.

There should be a mechanism to reward for team play and honesty within the game. But the recent decision of Blizzard on the RealID usage has shown that these aspects are of no interest to them: instead, they are teaching the players to take as much advantage of the others as possible and concentrate on ones personal gains only.

Good work, Activision/Blizzard! 

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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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Question of trust

by Copra

PUGging in WoW -or in any MMO to be honest- is pretty ugly, really. In most cases people are running the instances only for their own personal agendas and gains, with no interest of their companion's interests at all. As it happens, the current state of PUGging in WoW is even worse: the people running in PUGs don't have the best interest of the PUG in their interest, either.

There is also the problem with performance. Bob Turkey posted a nice post about the current state of play depicting the problems of gearscore addiction in the game from the eyes of raid PUGging. People are so concerned over the raid performance and their own ease of play that they rely on an arbitrary number instead of common sense. If you have the achievement, you surely have the skills to pull it even though your gs might be below the arbitrary boundary you set up. And if you're already performing better than the people with required gs, you sure as hell are carrying your weight, right?

My recent experience with the DK not willing to run Halls of Stone because he didn't know it prove this: being concerned over the performance resorts people running safe and 'easy' instances and doesn't push them to learn their class.

What does this do with the trust I mention in the title?

A lot. The raid leader of a PUG raid uses the arbitrary gs number to evaluate the people s/he takes on the raid because s/he cannot trust the achievement or the word of the player. They want to have a solid run for the gear they seek, not wiping because of the weakest link. The DK couldn't trust he wouldn't be kicked from the group if he messed up because he didn't know the instance. I don't want to tank because I have this feeling that the people I'm running heroics don't trust me. And I enjoy running with my shadowpriest because I can trust the tank doing his/her job properly, as I never question their ability to do so.

I feel that there is a real question of trust involved in WoW, or lack of it, really. People run their own personal agendas in such a way that it would be quite the same if the rest of the 5 man group in an instance were just AI bots. You cannot trust the other players in any way, because they are either ninja, don't know their class or don't know the bosses.

There is no room for failures, nor no room for learning. Which usually requires failures to happen, really.

I trust the tank in the group to be the one who keeps the harm out of my way when I play my priest. When I play my tank my job is to keep the mobs pounding on me, trusting that the healer keeps me alive and the dps keeps their threat throttle at reasonable level. And as shadowpriest I make my darnest to keep the mobs on the tank, never jeopardizing his aggro over them.

Whenever I play in a group, I'm willing to do everything for the group. I trust the players I play with, and I want to believe that they will do their best like I do.

But I seldom feel trusted by them. How about you?
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