A Few Quick Thoughts on Blizzard's Real ID Imbroglio

Yesterday Blizzard did not announce their decision to murder all puppies, but given the spirited response you might think they had.  They actually announced their plan to display the real name of forum posters in the official forums as part of their unnecessarily capitalized Real ID program.  Ostensibly to reduce trolling (it will do no such thing) it will, if implemented, eliminate a great deal of healthy forum conversation.  A few quick thoughts:

1. If this gets killed off you have Activision-Blizzard to thank

The bad side of profit-loving corporations is often played up but the good side is often ignored.  If corporations do all sorts of bad things in the name of profits, they should do all sorts of good things in the name of profits.

Players rarely quit WoW for one reason and it's more often a bunch of little things added up.  Sabotaging the official forums is quite a significant "little thing" -- in nearly six years of WoW I have never seen such an eruption of dismay and disgust as what I've seen in the past two days.

Blizzard has a well-publicized "independence" from their corporate overlords, and that independence will remain as long as they are earning hefty profits.  But shedding customers for little obvious reason is not the sort of behavior that keeps Blizzard profitable.  In fact, in the original announcement there was already a little business-style defensiveness on display:

As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come. 

Save it for the earnings call.

2.  I'm not clear how Trolls Will Be Deterred

Witness my newly created Battle.Net Account:

This may not be my real name.  At least nobody will ever know I live at 10000 Boaterson Way.  But, seriously, as long as minors are allowed to have WoW accounts, and players are allowed to subscribe solely with prepaid cards, Blizzard will not have the real names of any trolls -- just the real names of legitimate players who are afraid to post.

3. What's to be afraid of, anyway?

There's a little of this going around, and usually I'm the first to think the privacy guys are nuts.  But this time they have a point, and it is this :

At some point I will be looking for a new job.  My resume will go to some company where it will sit in a stack of 100 other resumes, whereupon some 24 year-old HR newbie will be given the task of thinning the herd.  She will google the name on each resume, and carefully filter out people based on arbitrary criteria which, thanks to a hated ex-boyfriend that played WoW, will include posting on the WoW forums.  Not a bad company I'd like to avoid working for, per se, but a company with bad HR, which is, well, almost every company.

Please also note that I, Boat, Responsible Forum Poster, have a Real Job and a Real Family I need to support, which is why I'm paranoid about shooting my name all over the internet.  Joe Forumtroll likely does not have a Real Job or a Real Family to support and and therefore has no reason to be paranoid.

4. Why not Just Moderate?

As far as I'm concerned, Blizzard has been far too lax about forum moderation.  Players who are trolls, or sling mud at Blizzard or other players, etc., serve no useful purpose and should be expelled from the forums.  So expel them.  Don't take it out on us.  This is just more of Blizzard refusing to be the bad guy.

The MMO Grouping Paradox

On one hand, MMO's have a lot of "weakest link" grouping. In other words, one inadequate player can doom your entire group. This is different than most non-MMO grouping, aka co-op. In co-op games you generally only need enough skill and firepower to make it through the game, and whether individual players are bad or good doesn't matter, as long as there's enough collective skill to beat the challenge.

On the other hand, MMO's don't spend much time teaching players how to play. I mean, sure, players are taught how to complete quests and buy talent points. But players are not taught anything like spell rotations, or talent allocations, or a million other little things you must know to successfully play the game.

I'd suggest that no game have neither of these. Either don't punish groups for their weak links, or teach the weak links to be better players without scouring the internet for specs and rotations.

Crash Guide for the New TOR Fan

This week I've decided to upgrade my fandom of The Old Republic from "mildly disinterested" to "hesitantly enthused".  I'm not sure why.  Probably proximity (it's due out in less than a year) and hearing a lot about it at E3, as well as some of the neater game mechanics, like companions.  Might also be the prodigious Cinematics : the two longish TOR cinematics have probably equaled the four existing WoW cinematics in cumulative length.

I wasn't sure where to look for resources, but here's what I've found in the past week :

Darth Hater, a TOR news site.

The Official Forums

TORwiki

The First Cinematic:



The Second Cinematic:



Spoiler for the second cin : features a hilarious scene where a group of soldiers on a cliff ambush a number of enemies below, then seconds later jump down from their protected position, abandoning any tactical advantage they may have had as well as probably breaking many bones.  I know, I know -- it's an RPG and height and cover don't give much of a tactical advantage.  But you don't have to rub my face in it.

My Fiery Prison

It's the Midsummer Fire Festival in World of Warcraft, which means I have to do another set of boring holiday achievements.  I don't Have To, of course, but if I don't complete the achievements I'm missing out on the super-fast mount I've earned over the past year by doing seven of the eight other Boring Holiday Meta-Achievements.

Syp's recent quote of the day comes to mind.  Any game of any substantial length is, at some point, going to be about work instead of fun.  In MMO's those points seem to come a lot -- in WoW they come at least eight times a year.

Why do gamers hate when developers make money?

There've been three player mini-riots in the past three months over money and MMORPGs.

1. Blizzard announces a $25 mount
2. EQ announces a $25 mount
3. LOTRO goes free to play

What was surprising was how much hostility there was to game developers "cashing in".  It was true that developers were taking advantage of the popularity of their games to make even more money.  But none of these actions were real game breakers, and the first two will barely affect their respective games at all.

I guess the feeling is that developers should be happy with whatever business model they have and whatever money they are (or are not) making with that business model.  And that's an awesome plan for whatever Faerie Land these gamers come from, where every game they want is made and maintained regardless of the financial outlook of said game.

Because in the world I live in all sorts of great games fail because they are not financially successful.  Entire genres that I love are neglected because the developers don't make money, and I wonder if some of my favorite games will ever see sequels and expansions because they were not super-hits.  Games I miss from years ago have to be remade in a new genre because the old genre is not commercially viable.  Games that I consider legitimate contenders to WoW stumble and fall because they just are not making enough money.

Why should I not want to play these games?  Why would I not want to play these games?  And if I want to play those games, those games have to make money.  Developers can't make games unless they are paid by publishers.  Publishers can't make games unless they can sell them to retailers.  And stockholders won't fund publishers if retailers are not buying games.  So if I want to play the games I want to play, I should want those games to make money.  As I put it a little while ago:

And the stockholders not working for Blizzard are essentially funding Blizzard, and I have no problem with them making money either. In fact, I want the executives at Activision-Blizzard, and the developers, and the stockholders practically choking on money, because I Want More Blizzard Games.

If you are really truly pro-games, you must be in favor of developers being profitable.  Selling vanity items is probably the least gameplay-disruptive way to do that imaginable, and players should enthusiastically support that instead of complaining.  I, for one, would gladly tolerate dozens of gaudy $25 spaceships if it meant a real strategy XCOM sequel instead of a one-off FPS.

Why do First Person Shooters have cooler leveling systems than MMORPGs?

Been playing a new online game.  After 30 hours played I'm level 13, so kind of a rough leveling curve.  As you may have divined from the title, it is not an MMORPG, or an RPG at all.  It's Battlefield : Bad Company 2, a first-person shooter.  And the leveling system is pretty cool -- cooler, in fact, than the leveling system in any MMORPG I've played.

Not without reason, of course : MMORPG's generally offer advancement outside of leveling, where there's very little advancement outside leveling in BFBC2.  But you would expect that WoW's leveling system would wipe the floor with a mere FPS, and it does not.

BFBC2 has two big advantages.  Well, three if you count that shooting electronic guys in the face is way more fun than pressing a "1" button to cast a spell against a placid monster that presents zero threat to you and is only there to be killed.

You get "base" XP for killing enemy players.  But you also get all sorts of bonus XP for exhibiting "skill" or group-friendly behavior.  You get extra points for headshots, extra points for assists, and all sorts of extra points for assisting your teammates (and especially your squadmates) instead of being off on your own.  Unlike the way WoW often works, there are a lot of very immediate rewards for constructive social behavior.

Next are pins.  Pins are a lot like achievements in WoW, except that you can be awarded pins multiple times, and they award bonus XP.  If I get four shotgun kills in a match, I get a pin and 100 bonus XP.  If I do seven repairs in a match, I get a pin and 100 bonus XP.  In fact, if I were to do either of those twice in a match (eight shotgun kills or fourteen repairs) I would get 2 pins and 200 bonus XP.

Finally there are awards.  Awards are cumulative and give large XP bonuses for milestones like 500 headshots or 100 knife kills or for earning a "medal" (bronze/silver/gold/platinum) on a particular weapon.

A similar system in WoW could provide bonus XP, badges, or gold to reward excellence in play and constructive group play.  For example, you could receive a ten badge "bonus" for beating 100 (non-consecutive) bosses without dying during the fight, or a bonus for getting through 100 bosses without a death in your group.

Of course, it isn't merely the bonuses that make advancing fun, there's also the way it is presented.  At the end of every match you are shown a bar with your experience before the match, then watch as it is filled up with all the XP from the match, as well as all the pins, awards, and achievements from the match.  It provides a nice sense of accomplishment and is much better than the feedback in WoW, which tells you where you are at in your progression, but rarely tells you what you've accomplished during that particular play session.

Meta-Cataclysm Sunders Cataclysm Feature List

Soon, Deathwing the Destroyer will return to Azeroth, and his eruption from Deepholm will sunder the world, leaving a festering wound across the continents.

- Blizzard, describing Cataclysm

Soon, Blizzard will emerge from Blizzard HQ, and their eruption from Irvine will sunder the Cataclysm feature list, leaving a festering wound across the entire expansion.

- Boat, describing last weekend

The news, in case you hadn't read it:

- Paths of the Titans (alternate advancement) is gone
- Archaeology survives, just less important as it won't be the leveling mechanism
- Guild Talents are gone, replaced with a basic guild leveling system.
- Heroic Deadmines and Heroic Shadowfang Keep will be delayed until 4.1
- Many other minor announcements.

At least my predictions for this year are in good shape.

9. 4.0 will go live in 2010, Cataclysm won't with the features that have been promised.

It's just too big -- either they hold it up or (more likely) something big is left for the first patch.

As Syp mentions, it's really the Paths news that hits the hardest.  The Paths seemed like a fun way to customize your character without having to consult forums and spreadsheets about which was the "best" Path.  Part of Blizzard's justification for removing them was that the game is just so complicated already.  The game is complicated -- complicated with crap like "what is the stat weight for crit in 3.3.3 for destruction warlocks."  I learn that stuff because I have to, not because I want to.  It would be great to have some fun, Paths-style stuff to learn about.

Yeah, it would have been great.

The removal of guild talents, on the other hand, is a good idea.  Likely they would have been chosen (poorly) by guild leaders and none of us poor slobs would have ever been able to fiddle with them.  Replacing them with straight skills (every guild at level 5 will have the same "skills") is a wise, drama-reducing design decision.  Blizzard even announced that you'll have a "reputation" with your guild, so that you can't just join a level 25 guild and have access to all their neat perks -- you have to earn rep by doing things that earn xp for your guild (even if they don't need any more xp).

The Archaeology news is kind of a let down, as it won't be nearly as neat as if it would have been tied to something really useful in game.  Though I guess that's why Blizzard's kept mum until now.