World of Warcraft Grasps Third Rail; Nerfs Online Anonymity
UPDATE: Blizzard has cancelled their plans to require real names to post on their forums.
Unable to handle the avalanche of trolls overloading their community support forums (with 11.5 million players and over $20 billion in revenue after 5 1/2 years, you’d think they could afford to hire a few Kiara’s), Blizzard has decided to not just touch, but grasp firmly the third rail of MMORPGs — online anonymity.
The Blizzard Announcement:
The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name…
Community Reaction
Since the announcement yesterday, there have been 13,000 responses, many of them announcing their depature from the forums for good.
Massively is calling this the WoW Killer.
SOE Reaction?
The irony of their current company spokesman “Mr. T” being a chosen moniker, is not lost on us. Will he be forced to start calling himself Laurence Tureaud in all future marketing? “I’m Laurence Tureaud and I pity the fool” neither intimidates nor rolls off the tongue.
If I were Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley, I would put my marketing department to work getting a slogan like this printed on every flat surface within reach:
Get lost in our worlds, without having to show ID.
Expectations are high that we might see DC Universe Online this winter:
Your secret identity is safe with us.
SOE has released The Agency: Covert Ops Facebook game:
We won’t break your cover.
Identity Theft
WoWRiot is covering this story, and have documented some instant karma reaped by one of the WoW developers.
Now I think it’s fairly safe to say that this is perhaps the dumbest idea that anyone has ever had ever.
To alleviate people’s concerns, Blizzard employee Bashiok decided to say his real name on the forums, his real name is Micah Whipple.
Within a few hours, a full report of Mr Whipple’s personal life was posted online, including full address, phone number, age, parents names and ages, and his Facebook page with extensive personal details.
In the end, it may be the threat of hundreds of employee resignations that nixes this idea.
The Funny Papers
I leave you with this hilarious (and scary) comic strip:
Tags: anonymity, world of warcraft
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Comments (20)
Karith
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This is what happens to a game when it’s so simple and lacks any complexity that the community base is full of immature children, teenagers and adults that never learned manners.
I recently tried to get a few people to switch from WoW to EQ2. They are scared of the complexity when I got started explaining things. Maybe I just hit them with too much information at once, but when I started playing WoW on their account…it seemed extremely easy to pick up on 50% of the mechanics base in 10 mins I played. I am just so turned off by their style of graphics that I can’t find other aspects of the game I enjoy.
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Zianlo
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This is the EQ2WIRE…..F*ck wow.
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Tarbasch
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I find this hilarious, I quit wow over a year ago after I got tired of everyone getting handed end game raid gear and continuing to make it even easier on a daily basis. It just amazes me how much better a game eq2 is than that pile of trash, I started with eq1 so I like to earn what I get. I would love to see this kill wow but unfortunately there are way to many people that want things handed to them fir no effort.
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foozlesprite
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I’m not a fan of WoW personally but I support this article being posted on this site anyways. Was a very scary and interesting article, and I hope SOE doesn’t go this route in any way. I guess if they do the rest of the people that haven’t moved to Flames will, lol.
Female gamers can get harassed in game already, we really don’t need people harassing us on Facebook and looking up our phone number and address/personal info too.
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Bubbahotep
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Since this is an industry-affecting development, this was a good post for EQ2wire. Interesting food for thought. Smeds should definitely capitalize on it.
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Brian
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Even though this is about a different game, it absolutely is of revelance to EQ2. SOE should, as Feldon states, jump on this and blast Blizzard to hell. I suspect a lot of people are going to quit WoW and they will be looking for a new home. Hopefully we see a good jump in population increase, and with the revamps to the lower levels, they’ll have a much better path of progression.
SOE, are you listening? Sell the hell out of this. Now. Advertise that people’s anonymity is safe with you. Sell people on the idea of a more nuanced and deeper game. This is your shot, SOE. Make it count.
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zerigo
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Soe is never listening… 2000 post threads go ignored. Still funny to see blizzard screw up. I don’t think people will quit playing wow cause of this. If anything, it might empty the forums some.
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Grugg
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I’ve been practicing marketing strategy for over a decade.
These slogans are excellent!
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Blockhead
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I don’t play wow so i’ll assume they will use the name on the subscribers Credit Card to get the real name? If not then people will just make up names and nothing changes.
If they do use the Name from the CC imagine how many parents (who pay for their kids accounts) out there will posting on forums and not even know it. lol
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Starseeker
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There is already a post on the official eq2 forums about this and people migrating to eq2.
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=482424
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Zianlo
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Those parents would have to be retarded to not even notice the news this is generating, both on google news and yahoo!, which usually are the homepages for most people.
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Brian
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Already has begun, as has been noted, the migration of folks from WoW to EQ2. And obviously SOE has been listening otherwise they wouldn’t be making the changes they have been making and continue to make.
Keep it up, Blizzard. Keep screwing up to drive your customers to us!
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Tarbasch
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That didn’t take long, they already changed it back, but from what I’m reading blizzard still sells your info for advertising on facebook and other places, hopefully people are now aware and won’t go back.
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Brian
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I’m sure Blizzard will be making this change official soon, even if they pulled back now, they will be instituting it. Otherwise, why invest the money in the tech if you’re not going to use it. They’ll change some wording, change some things, but the real ID system is coming.
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zerigo
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I don’t see them pushing real id threw. It was just another brilliant marketing campaign. This bs made headlines, and millions seen it. Still most have no idea what everquest is.
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Blockhead
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Zerigo great minds think alike, i came here to post what you did. This is probably one of the smartest marketing campaigns of all time. I briefly thought it was when i first heard about it making headlines, then actually fell for it myself.
They waited just long enough to hit major news headlines outside the realm of gamers, then rescinded. BRILLIANT!!!
Hmmm, expansion coming, non gamers will hear about WoW expansion and will think hey I’ve heard of that before, even though it was negative news they will not remember that, only that they have heard about it before, and give it look. All the while any mention of Everquest to them gets a resounding Everwhat? reply.
They are pushing through Real-ID but it’s completely OPTIONAL. I don’t know why anyone would want WoW players to convert to Everquest anyway, it should be the last thing any EQ player wants, it would be a “there goes the neighborhood” situation.
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Brian
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Yeah, the last thing EQ players would want would be new subscribers /eyeroll
Regardless of their past, new blood is what games like EQ need to have to survive. Give me a break if you don’t think that SOE would love to have WoW subscribers switch.
Blizzard will be bringing out Real ID. If you think this is nothing more than a marketing ploy, I don’t know how much more wrong you could be. If all they wanted to do was advertise the expansion, that’s what they would have advertised, and NOT some big-brother type technology. Don’t fool yourselves – they will be bringing this out at some point in the future, just not today.
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Blockhead
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Brain are you suffering lemming syndrome? Is it driving you mad that you’re playing a game that’s not a cultural phenomena? I’m trying to understand why you are so desperate that EQ has a huge sub base and that it becomes the most popular mmo of all time. Everything you write is all about how awesome the game is, and everything they do ameliorates the game, so honestly i do not understand what your problem is, you should just go enjoy the perfect game and not be so concerned.
EQ isn’t going anywhere, it’ll still be here 10 years from now. They (according to you) are throwing tons of dev’in love and resources at it so why do they need a bigger sub base? they seem to be doing just fine, right? I mean that’s what you keep telling everyone. So what’s the desperation for new players?
If they are throwing all this money at the game then one would have to safely assume they aren’t hurting at all; or am i missing something here? More like you don’t feel entirely comfortable playing a game that 90% of the mmo community doesn’t even know exists or SOE is actually losing tons of subs, hence the desperation for new players. It can’t be the latter, EQ is just so perfect and wonderful why would anyone ever leave??? Right? So, no actual need for a huge influx of new players then is there.
I have to agree with you on one thing though, SOE would certainly love to have WoW subscribers, i’m sure of that, why else would they keep butchering EQ2, why else would the EQ2 community be in constant uproar, they obviously want wow subs at the rate they keep dumbing the game down, that is very clear.
If you read what i wrote “it should be the last thing any EQ player wants” i didn’t say SOE, obviously you don’t understand why EQ players would not want this, but you would so you can feel better about the game you chose to play.
Which really leaves one to wonder, if you want wow players to play your game so bad, why don’t you just go play wow? There is an age old idiom and it rings very true here for you “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, trust me Brain you’d fit in perfectly over there. You can thank me later.
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Brian
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Blockhead, please tell me where I stated EQ2 needed to be a ‘cultural phenomenon’ or ‘the most popular MMO of all time’? I never said any of those things, nor did anything I say be remotely construed to suggest as such. Unless your reading comprehension is null, I’d have to think that you’re looking for a fight.
All I said was the influx of new players is CRITICAL to any MMO’s success. Without new players, old players quit, and you have a dwindling subscriber base that ultimately will end up killing the game. Without new subs, you will not have EQ2. To suggest anything else proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how truly ignorant you are in the business side of things.
As far as doing ‘just fine’, that may be the case today, but to ignore the need for new players is foolish. To ignore the need for fresh blood, wherever they come from, is just bad business.
One thing that concerns me, blockhead, is why do you care so much about EQ2, if, as you repeatedly will tell anyone who is listening, that you’re canceling all your accounts? Why do you post so much on an EQ2 site if you’re so uninterested in the game you’re quitting?
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Blockhead
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After reading your reply; i’m even more convinced WoW would be a perfect fit for you.
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