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.