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NEW YORK – Blizzard Entertainment is backtracking on plans to require players to use their real names when posting on its online forums.

Following an outcry in the gaming community, Blizzard lifted the planned requirements.

Big Blizzard. :mrgreen:

Was to busy raging away on the forums.

Come on. Blizzard ain't this stupid. They knew this is exactly what would happen.

Tap into those fanboy sources and give us the inside Blizzard info as to what they were really trying to accomplish.

Tap into those fanboy sources and give us the inside Blizzard info as to what they were really trying to accomplish.

I guarantee the endgame was more money...somehow.

Y'know, with each new announcement coming from Blizzard I become less and less interested in them.

Tap into those fanboy sources and give us the inside Blizzard info as to what they were really trying to accomplish.

It's really funny how crazy people get with this question. Things like "Obviously this whole thing was planned out to boost blizzards reputation in the hands of Activision. 1. Everyone suspects activision of forcing such a stupid move and crys out in agony. 2. Blizzard listens to the feedback and does not implement it and are seen as heros."

Really quite some funny stuff.

In all honesty though we do have to remember that they were seriously considering something like this, and they will likely do something just as stupid again in the future... and if it succeeds it could be a very bad thing for the industry as gamers.

I did ask one of my friends about it, hes usually pretty hush hush on all internal stuff though so all that I really got out of him was that he doesn't like it. And that seems to be the vibe in general there, most employees there also can see why it's a bad idea, and they would prefer it not happen as well.
He will not be utilizing RealID in game either, which is optional unless you are wanting to talk cross game (SC2 - WoW - D3), He says that he will just continue using steam for that.

My other friend hasn't been online since the the day after the whole hubub started, I didn't ask the day of. I'd prefer not to ask some of the other guys that I just happen to have.

I think Blizzard employees are gagged so tightly on this that they're going to have chafe burns for a month.

The impression I've picked up is "We hate this as much as you do, but we like having gainful employment so we're not saying nada."

Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard, to see what the internal buzz on this was. Apparently, at the moment the employees are largely as pissed as the players, and she stated that despite attempts to keep it hushed, it has become known that the big creative players within Blizzard are pretty much as unhappy about this as we are. Everybody has been told they are not free to comment on this situation outside of specially prepared statements.

It’s still going ahead, however (and here’s where in-house rumours and hearsay really start coming into play): from what they’ve picked up, the Blizzard leads have been told in no uncertain terms that the non-gameplay-related direction of the game is working to a different blueprint now. GC and company are free to play with shiny new talent trees all they like, for example, but for the first time the decisions regarding Battle.net implementation, Real ID, and plans for the general acquisition of new players for the business are no longer in Blizzard’s own hands, and that’s not going down too well.

Y'know, with each new announcement coming from Blizzard I become less and less interested in them.

I fully agree, I think that they are losing touch with their fanbase. The fact that they would even announce something like this in the first place, it doesn't take much research and silently probing around to realize that this was a terrible idea.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252

The heads of Infinity Ward were fired for breaches of contract as we know... Apparently they actually wanted to do things that they enjoyed doing as a developer, like supporting their games. Creating patches etc. Activision wanted them to go make another billion dollars though.

Also this.

Thanks DaFox.

LOL love the pic :cheers
ho and +1 to what GA said

using real names ... yeah I want everyone to know my real name so they can look me up on the internet & find all interesting things like for example my real address & maybe even discover that I own a domain & stuff ... :roll:

privacy is underrated these days ... but of course if you want privacy in the first place it's because you're a PIRATE

which in my opinion is the real reason behind the move

The heads of Infinity Ward were fired for breaches of contract as we know... Apparently they actually wanted to do things that they enjoyed doing as a developer, like supporting their games. Creating patches etc. Activision wanted them to go make another billion dollars though.

Despite this, West and Zampella were the ones who had nasty, arrogant things to say to their fans when the furor over no dedis/modding/etc for MW2 hit the fan, and I've never seen a retraction. Not exactly developers on my admiration list. Lump the talking heads from Epic, Activision, and others in that group and it's rather amazing how much hostility these guys aim at their customers.

Despite this, West and Zampella were the ones who had nasty, arrogant things to say to their fans when the furor over no dedis/modding/etc for MW2 hit the fan, and I've never seen a retraction. Not exactly developers on my admiration list. Lump the talking heads from Epic, Activision, and others in that group and it's rather amazing how much hostility these guys aim at their customers.

Fair enough, I completely forgot about the dedi/modding stuff etc. Treyarch is actually putting most of that stuff back in hey?

Definitely, there is a ton of hostility, and it ends up going both ways because of it. I mean look at what we are talking about right now.

You know what is amazing? Comparing Gabe and company to the talking heads of Epic, Acitivision and others like you said. They both run company's that produce a similar outcome but in such vastly different ways.

I think the worst thing that he did regarding hostility would be shitting on the PS3 so much, but he has since come around and really just taken it back.

Yea, my friend was telling me about his E3 thing where he apologized about the PS3

Since y'all mentioned the IW dedi-server incident, I might also mention that DICE/EA also cashed in and took advantage of that very fact. Sure Treyarch said they'll have dedicated servers. But one has to wonder just how things are going to be designed in their latest iteration of the CoD franchise.

Look at how CoD4MW was set up. Dedicated server, mod support, map editor, etc. One of the few gripes? All that information about your player profile is stored locally and if you lose that or it becomes corrupted, it's gone. Forward 1 year later when Treyarch took the same engine and designed it around WWII era, complete with official built-in Zombie co-op mode. But is there any other difference between WaW and MW? Nope. No difference at all. People even dubbed WaW as a reskin of MW, since a lot of the things inherent in MW is also present in WaW, including the engine's limitations and how it stores a player's profile. Yet in WaW, the player profile is a bit more valuable to keep around and safely backed up, due to the Prestige levels.

From what I gathered from the fury storm (aka: the bitching and whining), it's mostly about public dedicated server files as well as map creation tools. Bad Company 2 recently received their "Map Pack 4," which forum posters have now referred to as "Mode Pack" due to what's given. Thus far, all of the maps we were given as "packs" were nothing more than the same maps seen and found in the retail install, except they are alternate/different game modes for players to play on. Example using CoD4 map called Shipment -- Say Shipment can only be played in TDM. They then release Shipment again, except now you can play Capture the Flag. Then some weeks later, Shipment is released yet again except this time you can now play Headquarters on it. Follow my drift?

The fury storm over at the EA UK forums is pretty much the same that y'all have voiced about on IW and Blizzard as well -- "They're not listening to us", "They already got our money. They could care less." And it's no surprise that people are constantly outraged in how things are turning out. People vote with their wallets. And I do believe that's to be the case for those who stick to their words (unlike some of the so-called MW2 boycotters). But such a thing is a double-edged sword. Reduced sales = less motivation and inclination to produce a PC version of the product. Money do talk and right now, the one that is doing the most talking is, unfortunately, the console. Xbox 360 and PS3 players are all getting their stuff and they are paying up the wazoo because they don't want to deal with the intricacies and insanity of troubleshooting PCs. And that's understandable. Yet while the devs and publishers are looking at the console platforms with $$ in their eyes, PC players are left out in the cold with nobody to talk to from any developer.



Only saving grace in all of this is if the developers actually listen to what the PC gamers want, and to let the PC platform become the platform of choice for gamers. Console players are free to play their games on their closed platform. But I don't. It's hard enough trying to play CoDWaW demo on console. And it took me several frustrating tries to finish off the first Bad Company in single player. PC is still the platform of choice if I want to play a FPS. But it's worrisome when several of the FPS games that has potential to do well receives lackluster attention and the PC gamers gets the shaft (see OpFlash:Dragon Rising).

Well i still haven't purchased, pirated or played MW2 so yes I'm a MW2 boycotter and proud of it. :rockout

Very well said sixshot.



This picture is depressing.

Well i still haven't purchased, pirated or played MW2 so yes I'm a MW2 boycotter and proud of it. :rockout

Yup, same here.

There's no MW2 here. Here, there's no MW2. Alright? MW2, no!

Also, I aint no pirate, and sure as shit aint usin no real name on the internet. That is just stupid. How on heck are they gonna police that anyway? Seriously? Johnny Wakko is far more interesting anyway.

http://esc-hatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/who-is-activisionblizzards-customer.html

we, the players, are no longer the World of Warcraft's customerbase. Advertisers are.

I'll quote the comment too since most will probably miss it.

So, the next question: Does the subscription stay?

Well one of their execs was talking about free-to-play recently . . . it would give them access to more personal information, but I don't see them abandoning the monthly revenue stream until their math says that the new sign-ups would outweigh it. So I'm thinking free-to-play with the next expansion, with certain provisions where they can reveal more about you and pipe ads to you in some way.

To be frank, I think most of us know that product placement and advertising are going to get much bigger in games. The medium is well suited to it.

interesting ...
while it's probably a great loss for the gamers & the quality of games we expected from blizzard, I would look forward to playing WoW for Free myself

I already spent hundreds of € on DaoC back in the time, in the end the game itself probably wasn't worth THAT much ...
what I mean is that unless I totally fall in love with a game or something, I'm not gonna spend that much again in a game, more so when the game is totally inaccessible unless you pay (can't talk to friends, can't see your character, can't play at least a little bit ...)
hence why FreetoPlay seems appealing to me, even if in the end, I end up paying for things in the shop or something

The problem i see with ads in games is that "they" can do soooooo much more than i would want them to be allowed to do with them. i.e. know how many games on steam you own, what country you're in, approximate your income and whether you're in a 1st/2nd/3rd world country. Then they could pull a GFWL and because you're in say.. (err... trying not to be prejudice) but let's just say... Kazahkstan (yeah i know it's actually quite a wealthy country) and therefore i'm not allowed to play your game cause i don't meet the needs of the advertising that pay you to put their ads in your game therefore i'm disallowed the same service as someone from Australia... well that would suck.

Also i have never seen a game cost cheaper (day 1) due to advertising than other full priced games or similar games for the same sort of package. Examples where it's a long time post release and doesn't affect initial sales includes a good example of FarCry 100% free. With ads on loading screens or something like that (never actually tried it). Another game where it was hit or miss of recent was Alan Wake... energizer batteries were fine, completely believable. The TV ad in a certain section of the game along with blatant billboards that were designed to be viewable by a gamer rather than reflect a similar Billboard style in real life so that you could convince yourself it's part of the game world were complete failures. The ford cars and so fourth were fine by me. So sometimes it's OK. (Especially when the game is based in 2010 or so in reality somewhere vs. say Mass Effect or something where advertising real products would destroy the game's believability... e.g. calling some evil alien device after a politician or something as a smear campaign... bahahaah that'd be hilarious compared to all the rubbish that gets on TV).

Anyway i don't think i've got an actual point just that i don't think anyone's thought it all out enough and it's very hit or miss at this stage and there's no added value to the end user for being blasted with these ads anyway (except web based games which is an entirely different topic and ball game and should not be part of the same discussion).

a dual modal can work to an extent... didn't some MMO had a dual modal where one is pay2play and the other free? Forgot the name of the game but I could've sworn something like that existed.

I have played some free to play MMOs. And some of them were okay but oddly enough, all of them were pretty terrible in design. They all looked the same UI-wise and they all seem to play the same or similar. What really irritated me was how the game's trading system was designed. Walk into a populated town or area and suddenly you see a billion "trade houses" crowded around in some area.

If WoW becomes free to play, then at least the trading system doesn't appear to go down that road/path.