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Fun While It Lasted
Jul. 9th, 2010 03:08 am
Thanks to Blizzard's brilliant new RealID scheme, I have officially quit WoW. In fact, I will no longer buy or support Blizzard products or any of its games that run on Battle.net.
I know it doesn't matter to them one bit. Eventually, a company gets a few million subscribers and they no longer have to care about taking care of their customers.
In spite of the huge outcry against RealID, Blizzard/Activision has decided to push forward with this. Those who support or don't care about RealID's integration into Battle.net are saying, "But it only affects the forums".
Well, about a year ago or so, Blizzard decided to link all of their games - classic Diablo, Warcraft I/II/III, Starcraft & World of Warcraft - together with battle.net IDs. I was ok with that. I use my same id to log into WoW or to log into Battle.net. In fact, it made everything a little more accessible & easier to remember my password, since I no longer needed a different one for Diablo: LOD. At first, Battle.net was optional - if you opted in, you got a penguin pet. Fine by me, I'm usually down for free stuff. Then, it became mandatory to have to use battle.net. I saw that one coming & didn't mind being an 'early adopter'.
Now, though, they're doing the same thing with RealID. Right now, it's optional. It's also only for the forums. With the release of Cataclysm, it will be mandatory for the forums. I'm sure down the line, it will be mandatory to use RealID to play the game.
What is RealID? It's an online identity. It links your real name with your e-mail, and from that, it links your real name & e-mail to your forum account and characters. RealID will display your actual name to a questionable 'community' of 11.5 million players - and that's just in WoW. It allows people to track all of your alternate characters and to see when you are online.
I don't always want people to see when I'm online. I don't want people to bug me. I also have a rather unique name - googling me would be easy to determine which of the few people who share my name is the gamer. It's not that I don't have an online footprint - I do, and that's not a big deal. What is a big deal is being stalked by vindictive players. Being griefed in real life.
I quit. Rob quit. We deleted all of our characters, gave the guilds away to random lowbies. It's over.
I know it doesn't matter to them one bit. Eventually, a company gets a few million subscribers and they no longer have to care about taking care of their customers.
In spite of the huge outcry against RealID, Blizzard/Activision has decided to push forward with this. Those who support or don't care about RealID's integration into Battle.net are saying, "But it only affects the forums".
Well, about a year ago or so, Blizzard decided to link all of their games - classic Diablo, Warcraft I/II/III, Starcraft & World of Warcraft - together with battle.net IDs. I was ok with that. I use my same id to log into WoW or to log into Battle.net. In fact, it made everything a little more accessible & easier to remember my password, since I no longer needed a different one for Diablo: LOD. At first, Battle.net was optional - if you opted in, you got a penguin pet. Fine by me, I'm usually down for free stuff. Then, it became mandatory to have to use battle.net. I saw that one coming & didn't mind being an 'early adopter'.
Now, though, they're doing the same thing with RealID. Right now, it's optional. It's also only for the forums. With the release of Cataclysm, it will be mandatory for the forums. I'm sure down the line, it will be mandatory to use RealID to play the game.
What is RealID? It's an online identity. It links your real name with your e-mail, and from that, it links your real name & e-mail to your forum account and characters. RealID will display your actual name to a questionable 'community' of 11.5 million players - and that's just in WoW. It allows people to track all of your alternate characters and to see when you are online.
I don't always want people to see when I'm online. I don't want people to bug me. I also have a rather unique name - googling me would be easy to determine which of the few people who share my name is the gamer. It's not that I don't have an online footprint - I do, and that's not a big deal. What is a big deal is being stalked by vindictive players. Being griefed in real life.
I quit. Rob quit. We deleted all of our characters, gave the guilds away to random lowbies. It's over.
