WoW: My Updated Avatars

Back in 2010, I speculated on what player characters might look like when Blizzard got around to updating the models. More precisely, I expressed concern, based on Jaina Proudmore's WotLK update, that the PCs would be badly remade.

The verdict? Eh . . . They're not horrible, but I prefer the way they looked before. Rowanblaze had a benevolent face, I thought, befitting a priest of the Light. Now, she looks just a little manic; her eyes are just a bit too open. Her face is rounder, which I suppose is true of all female humans. But it makes it look like the collar of her robe is just a little too tight. They shrank the shoulders just a bit, which I do like. Unfortunately, "Mutiny" in Uldum dropped me from their rolls. Her tabard was blank, so I removed it. I had forgotten the big gap in the front and back of the upper robe.

Hazelwingnut was always sensible, in contrast to typical gnomish whimsy. I always liked her inquisitive eyebrows and serious brown hairdo. And her green eyes. Now, her hair is lighter, her eyes are bluer, and her brows are not as arched. She looks more glum than rational.

On a side note wasn't the range of human skin colors wider before? I could have sworn there were dark brown skin tones.

On a different side note—though this won't be news to anyone who's been playing for a while—I was pleasantly surprised that my mount and pet collections are account wide, not just server wide. Too bad my gold is not.

Hmm. I can't think of another MMO (at least that I've played) that has updated its character engine. Oh wait! EQ2 did. But I came along after that update, and as I recall, you could choose the old model if you wanted to. Again, even though the new models for my old WoW characters are not hideous, they just don't look right to me. It was definitely easier to create new toons than to revisit my old favorites. 

~~~~~~~~

This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Blaugust the Sixth: Trumpet of the Elephant

So the big news today is, of course, Blizzard's announcement of the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion: Legion. Even though I have not played WoW with any kind of regularity since 2012, I am going talk about it now because of course I am. Mind you, I am writing this without having actually seen any information besides what trickled out on Twitter during the presentation. I will undoubtedly take a better look when I am not at work. Right after I delve into the details on Fallen Empire.

What is this, the Wrath of Illidan?
Didn't we collectively beat the crap of this guy at the end of The Burning Crusade? (Yes, we did.) I guess they figured if they could go back to the well for Warlords, they may as well dig not so deep again. I don't know, maybe they can make it feel fresh again. Everyone was really excited about the chance to see Draenor in its pristine glory before the planet broke into pieces, and I am not familiar enough with the Lore to know whether the Broken Isles are new territory or a rehash of something else.

And how about those Demon Hunters?
I thought Illidan didn't get his horns until he'd become an actual demon himself. I am curious to know if they're "bad guys" like the Death Knights, converting back to their former factions (Nelfs and Belfs!) once they realize they've been duped or something. One side benefit (if they haven't changed it already) is that now the Warlock's demon form could be female if the Warlock is female. Can they do that still?

Might we get some romance in the story?
The most interesting thing to me is that we will find out happened to Alleria Windrunner and her beloved Turalyon. Alliance players met their son on the Hellfire Peninsula, but they've been missing for years. I'm a sucker for love stories. But that's not enough to bring me back.

Rowan the Realist
Now take all this with a grain of salt. If Legion excites you into playing again or continuing because you never stopped, have at it. I think it's awesome that you can still play the game you love. I have fond memories of WoW, too. But I think what Belghast said on TGENerates Episode 3, is true: Wow is in decline and has been for a long time. Fewer and fewer dungeons, raids, and bosses have been included with each succeeding release, replaced by dailies and other repeatable grinds. Garrisons were an interesting new mechanic (almost got me back). But mechanics are not content, which is what themepark players crave. The things that excite people at the launch of a new expansion become albatrosses, and then reasons that they stop subbing.

And those numbers fall farther, faster, with each new iteration. The earnings call on Tuesday posted official subscriptions at 5.6 million, the same level as December 2005—just a year after launch and more than a year before the first expansion was released. Still better than just about every other MMORPG out there—and many combined—but nowhere near WoW's peak of 12 million subscribers. With Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone going strong, Blizzard isn't going anywhere. But the World of Warcraft is winding down, even if it's nowhere near the waste heap of history.

~~~~~~~~

If you're interested in joining the madness (Vloggers are welcome, too!), Belghast has a set of rules for qualifying for any prizes at the end. Your second stop should be the Blaugust Nook, where Bel is keeping track of everything and community members are sharing encouragement and ideas.
 ~~~~~~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Whence Progress?

The Aggronaut has a post out singing the praises of a World of Warcraft currency exchange proposed by Blizzard that Bel has dubbed BLEX. In it, Bel mentions a mentoring system as part of his wishlist for WoW innovations. Lord Tridus from A Goon's Day Off thinks that such a system is simply a bandaid, for the problem of levels and old content. I threw in my two cents. (Quotes are his.)

"Flatten or wipe out the level curve entirely and content now becomes scaled on gear"
This system has worked fairly well in The Secret World, but the classless Ability Wheel and Skill System are very different from the classful system of WoW. I wonder if there would not be balance issues if they didn't completely redesign Azeroth from the ground up (and not just the landscape). And in TSW, you still cannot walk into the top areas in low level gear and expect to survive.

"as gear stats are all based on easily scaleable formulae already"
But that scalability depends on levels—that is, a single stat unit on gear has greater impact at lower levels than it does at max. Without levels, what would they scale gear-stats to?

For better or for worse, MMORPGs seem to be about all about character progression. Progression through gear can work, but there might be an upper limit to it that would be just as bad as plain ol' levels. And then, like Funcom's AEGIS for TSW, Blizz would be forced to come up with some other new system to represent progress to satisfy those players that are at the leading edge of content/stats.

The nice thing about a mentoring system like Rift's (unlike GW2's, for instance) is that you can choose whether areas you have already surpassed will be trivial or a continued challenge. There are plenty of times where I just want to beeline my way across a low zone rather than deal with the trash mobs milling about. Other times, I want to participate in the content at level; zone events, for example, or dungeons. Mentoring allows me to do so.

Like Tridus, I would like to see a truly level-less game. But I wonder if we're in the minority.

As far as BLEX, it sounds like a good idea. I've never gotten involved in that type of market, but I have considered it in order to get some quick game currency. And if it beats criminal gold farmers at their own game while replenishing the development coffers, so much the better.

~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

The Hornets' Nest

I seriously did not expect the hue and cry over my weekend posts. Many people delivered impassioned arguments about why there is such a thing as pay-to-win—or at least pay-to-make-someone-else-lose—and the ability to change classes is the Devil's doctrine. I'll make a few more comments and then let you guys duke it out in the comments if you so choose. You probably won't like what I have say.

Trivial Pursuits

That's what I think is really behind the cry of P2W. The awareness that the game is trivializing something I like to do.
~Arcadius

Arcadius has a point, and I certainly have railed against games that trivialize my preferred playstyle myself. The truth is that the way I play is trivial, and the way you play is trivial. and the way sports fans watch football all weekend is also trivial—to anyone not involved in it. While I thoroughly believe that recreation and hobbies are important for health and other benefits, the specific way people spend their leisure time is trivial to everyone else. Because the rest of us don't care. The only person in the debate that managed to express anything close to a legitimate argument was Balkoth regarding his top-end raid group. And sorry to say, but he provided his own evidence as to why top end raiders are just as trivial a market segment as any other special interest group in MMOs.

The funny thing is, the insta-90s are coming, is it that hard to imagine the opportunity to skip right to raid-ready status (for a fee)? No one—at least at Blizzard—is talking about selling top-end gear for RL cash.

Is Nothing Sacred?

Meanwhile, what Syl calls the Last Bastion of Character Restriction is showing early signs of crumbling. Allod's has started offering the chance to switch character class (for a fee). Upon hearing that some of us approve, the naysayers said nay.

Now a while back, when they introduced the ability to change race, faction, etc., I remember the folks at Blizzard saying basically that changing class was beyond their technical capability. I don't know if that is really the case any longer, if a bit complicated. Of course, the conversation seems to have shifted over at Syl's blog, from what I understood to be a fairly permanent change in class, to a more fluid, switch at will kind of class swapping, akin to the weapon swapping of TSW, or the multiple professions of FFXIV.

As a “player,” I'm primarily the facilitator and observer of my characters. They tell me what they want to do and I help them to do it. It needs to be consistent with their worldview from a perspective that stands within the culture of the virtual world in which they exist. (This is not role-playing, by the way).
~Bhagpuss, over on Syl's post.

Only for a certain definition of role-playing, Sir Bhagpuss. I have never heard anyone express their relationship to their characters this way before. Syl countered by declaring that she is her character, it is an avatar, and better to be able to multi-class than to hop alts on a whim. I am somewhere between, I personally love my alts, but I wonder if I would have developed into an altoholic if not for certain game mechanics in WoW, namely classes and rested XP.

Don't get me wrong, I would love for there to be a valid in-game reasoning for such a change. I came up with head-canon for why my Shadow Priest switched to Discipline, even though the in-game reasoning was flimsy at best, and instantaneous.

Over on his own blog, Klepsacovic expounds on why he doesn't think class swapping is a good idea, but much like the anti-P2W crowd, he decides that his personal feelings should dictate what is or is not available to the rest of us. I responded thus:

I'm with you, changing classes doesn't make sense for us. I couldn't imagine Rowanblaze as anything other than a Human Priest. I bet changing the race or faction of Kelpsacovic doesn't make any sense to you either. But the option is available for those players who are interested in changing faction or race. This would be the same thing. An option. A reformed warlock who took some time out to study the arcane. A warrior who felt the call of the light—or the shadow—set down the sword and board for vestments and staff. And aren't deathknights, at least from a lore perspective, converted from many other classes? There are plenty of RP justifications for changing class. If other players have the option to change the class of their character, how does that really, honestly, affect you?

In the end, players may rage all they want on the forum and the blogs, but if the game companies see an unfulfilled demand that they can monetize, you can bet they will do so.

~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Social Mobility, or, No Class

The MMO Gypsy has a post up about instant class switching—specifically in WoW, I think. I'm not sure from her tone whether Syl thinks it would be a good idea or not. She refers to an earlier post by Tesh regarding a move by the folks behind Allods to implement such a class switching scheme, though it seems extremely limited. [Late Breaking EDIT: Kleps has a counterpoint to Syl's post (and this one).]

When Blizzard first introduced dual specs, I didn't like the idea. I thought it was catering to PvPers who wanted to have their cake and eat the PvE Raid, too. But once it was implemented, I went ahead and got it for two of my characters, with varying degrees of success. All too often at the time, switching specs also meant different gear stats became important. For instance, spell crit was very important for my Disco Priest because of various crit procs. Switching to Holy meant spell haste was more important. But I didn't have the time or interest to develop another set of gear. I suspect hybrid classes like Druid and Paladins had it even worse.

Once I started playing Star Trek Online, the cry for dual specs came out once again, or at least multiple skill tree options. I advocated for the specialization of characters, though I was not averse to the relative ease of respec'ing. Part of my argument was a reference to Blizzard's approach to specialization.

But just because the Elephant and its predecessors forced specialization on players doesn't mean it was written in stone from on high. This blog is, if anything, a record of how my opinions have changed over the past few years. No need to cling to foolish consistencies. More recently, I railed against class/race restrictions in the upcoming Wildstar. SWTOR's class/race restrictions chafed a bit before that. I welcomed WoW's expansion of class/race combinations, and the fact that Blizzard came up with reasons for it within the lore.

Rift, while maintaining the four RPG archetypes(Callings), allows for instant switching of Souls and roles. With the upcoming expansion—maybe sooner—every Calling will have Souls to fill every role.

And finally we come to my current games. EverQuest II, a relic of the golden age of MMOs still has classes, but having just introduced paid-for 85s, what's to stop SOE from allowing complete class switcheroos, for a price? EverQuest Next promises to do away with designated Tanks, if not Healers. I have no idea what Zenimax has in mind for The Elder Scrolls Online.

The Secret World is a classless game. A character can develop the skills for any weapon in the game, and their abilities and role are tied to the weapon instead of the character. For all intents and purposes a player can "switch classes" at any time. Gear, in the form of talismans, is still specialized, and I carry multiple sets in order to be effective in the various roles. The standard way to unlock the skills and abilities is by applying XP earned through playing, but boosts are available in the cash shop. Is that any different than the proposal to level up a character as one class, then pay to switch?

I wrote a while back about character backstories and how class could play into that. Of course, it may not be essential, since my characters' backstories in TSW involve professions only peripherally related to their preferred weapons. At the same time, the RP community in TSW is as robust as any I've seen in a game; perhaps better than most.

The goal of every MMO developer is to maximize the number of people paying to play their game, regardless of their business model. Separating players from their friends for whatever reason is antithetical to that goal. If the group has too many of one class/role and not enough of another, why not make it reasonably easy to change the character imbalance without changing the player composition?

~~~

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Kung Fu Pandaria (Or, Ninety-nine Problems, But Ailuropoda Ain't One)

Ambermist Tweeted/Tumbld yesterday about a silly argument against the impending World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria. This included a link to WoW Insider article with the full design history of the race. The timeline of the introduction of the Pandaren into official Warcraft lore appears to begin with the character Chen Stormstout for the WC3 expansion The Frozen Throne, dating to 2003. Pandaren lore is also included in Warcraft tabletop RPG source books from about the same time. All this predates the release of Kung Fu Panda (2008) by about five years.

So you have two comedic, cartoonish depictions of anthropomorphic pandas coinciding within a decade. One is slightly more well known than the other, but they were developed fully independent from each other. I haven't seen any news of Dreamworks bringing a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for copyright infringement. I'm guessing that they know they don't have a case, despite similarities, assuming they have looked into the matter.

If I recall correctly, the Pandaren were at the top of many polls for potential playable races predating even WoW 2.0, The Burning Crusade. I'd bet many of the people who enthusiastically hoped for Pandaren to be a new playable race are still eagerly awaiting the opportunity. If for some reason you've changed your mind in the intervening years, I sincerely hope it was not because of Kung Fu Panda. Others never thought it was a good idea. Still others are looking for another excuse to play the hate game because for some reason they think they are awesome because they don't like WoW.

Now, given the original artwork by Samwise at Blizzard, some callouts to the Pandaren from before the earliest days of WoW (I myself am the proud owner of the Pandaren Monk minipet), and the rumor (fact?) that most current WoW players are Chinese; it makes sense that the Pandaren would be a playable race with some direct parallels to Chinese geography, architecture, and culture, up to and including the martial arts-inspired Monk class. It sounds like a reasonable design decision on the part of the creative team at Blizzard.

The Bloggerazzi have many reasons to criticize MoP. Some can be reasonable differences of opinion over, say, the new talent system or the new restrictions on weapons. One might even argue that the cultural setting of the new continent doesn't fit (though, in a world with mages and motorcycles, I'd say pretty much anything goes). But comparing the new race to a single character in a kids' movie is silly.

I am not going to be at the gates chomping at the bit for MoP next Tuesday. I won't say my time in Azeroth is over forever, but it is for now. However, none of the reasons I have for not playing have anything to do with the Pandaren or their alleged resemblance to Jack Black. In fact, I think it's a pretty cool concept.

TL;DR: Whether or not you actually play World of Warcraft (or intend to start up with the new expansion), let's put to rest the whining about Kung Fu Pandaren, etc. It's not helping anyone.

MMO Economics: Quoting Syp's Quote of the Day

Reading Bio Break today, I got into a discussion which I decided to bring here. The original quote follows.

Things you’ll see in MMOs going forward (IMO):  More player created content MMOs (easier to ship and player demand is there), and more big IPs doing games/box games going to MMO (there’s too much money in the MMO model, F2P or subscription compared to box sales).

~ Carbine Studios’ Jeremy Gaffney

Tanek, a commenter on Bio Break, questioned the veracity of that last statement about there being more money in MMOs, regardless of revenue model, than box sales. Failed MMOs notwithstanding (after all, box games fail, too), I can totally understand the developers' motivation to get involved in an ongoing revenue model.

From my own comments on Syp's post: 

With a box game, even a series, you have to invest money in development and then hope for sales to recoup that investment. This includes DLC, which only sees revenue after the fact. With on an online service, whether subscription or cash-shop, you have an ongoing revenue stream that can be reinvested in further development as well as extracted as profit.

This is why, despite all the complaints by players, so many MMOs ship “unfinished” or missing features player have come to expect. The developers are using sub or cash shop revenues to further develop the game.

Smarter people than I have studied the business model known as razors-and-blades and reached no better conclusion than that it seems to work—and work well—despite some logical economic ".intuition" to the contrary. Regardless of whether the initial box (or razor) is profitable, the subscription or cash shop (the blade), creates a potential for further profits even if the project is temporarily in the red from an investment perspective.

I promised some math on Syp's blog, so here it is. Keep in mind I have no idea what the actual income statements look like for any game developer. I can only some assumptions, one being that the month-to-month operating costs of an MMO do not exceed the revenue, if they do, the company really only has a couple options, change the model or close down the MMO. We've seen both scenarios in real life.

Boxes, or One-time Revenue

 ($100,000,000=$50x2,000,000)

Here is the math for a box-only game. If the company invests $100,000,000 to develop the game and wholesales the boxes for $50 (MSRP $60: remember, the store has to make a profit, too), then 2,000,000 people have to buy the game before the company breaks even on their investment. If they don't move that many boxes, they're basically done. They can reduce the price a bit, but that just means they'll have to sell even more boxes. Oh, and from the time they commit the money for development until the two-millionth box is sold, they're basically operating at a loss of $100,000,000. Chances are that they will have to break even in the first week, or the game will be considered a failure.

One last thing: Once the boxes have been purchased any further revenue for that investment ceases. For a franchise like Madden football, this means the sequel has to be developed with profits from the prior box sales. I'm not saying this is not a profitable business model, but it has its drawbacks compared to the MMO model.

MMOs, or Ongoing Revenue

 ($100,000,000=$50x1,250,000 + $10x3x1,250,000)

Now if we factor in ongoing revenue, the potential for seeing a profit goes up. Same $100,000,000, but now, because we have the ongoing stream, our box sales don't have to be as high. Remember this is based on the assumption that the monthly MMO operation is in the black, making a profit. Let's say we anticipate a $10 profit per month per player and a four month window to break even. To break even on that same $100 million investment, we only have to sell 1.25 million boxes and have people pay for three months of subscription (the first month is typically included). If the game starts at free-to-play, then the cash shop revenue has to generate at least $90 profit per player in the first four months to achieve the same goal.

This does require some patience on the part of the developer/publisher of the game, but the long term profit potential makes it worth it. Obviously, more people may buy the box than will play past the first "free" month. That only lowers the number of people who need to stick around for the entire three months.

If the developer is even more patient, and is willing to push the break-even goal out to six months, less than a million people have to buy and play the game for six months. If two million people buy the box, then the game breaks even on the investment, and every cent of the ongoing profit (operating revenue less operating expenses) goes into the company coffers, enabling future development, updated content, expansions, etc. Welcome to Blizzard.

The Wrap-up

This is why the layoffs at BioWare a few weeks ago and the collapse of 38 Studios are very different situations. 38 Studios never got a chance to see a return on the investment. BioWare is working to bring monthly costs lower than revenues. The recent "soft mergers" are another effort to streamline costs while at the same time improving player experiences. (This has met with mixed success, for various reasons.) There is also talk today that BioWare is considering a move to F2P. While there are many who scoff that this is yet another sign of the failure of SWTOR, I point to games like LOTRO and STO that are still around and arguably doing just fine after changing to a F2P model. LOTRO is well on its way to, what, the third expansion, "Riders of Rohan"?

Obviously I used relatively simple numbers here and pulled them out of my butt. But the principles behind the numbers are sound. Any variances in the profit margins only change the timeframes. It's becoming a recurring theme on this blog that I don't think a game has to boast WoW-like populations to be a success, and comparisons to WoW are not helpful.

The key thing to remember here, from both an economic and accounting perspective, is the concept of sunk costs. Every dollar that goes into development prior the the release of the game is sunk cost. For a box-only game, the only way you'll get further investment is to make a profit on the box sales. In an MMO or other ongoing, service-based game, keeping the operating revenue higher then the operating costs is the only thing that matters. An MMO will continue to function as long as the developer/publisher can accomplish that, regardless of the long-term return on investment. As long as there is a profit to be had in the operation, the investment will eventually break even, given enough time. After that, all you have is profit, which can be reinvested in updates, expansions, and new games.

SWTOR is Too-Much/Not-Enough Like WoW

This is a follow up to yesterday's post. Someone I was talking to made a comment that made me think a thought I hadn't thought about before. A lot of people have been complaining that SWTOR is missing features that games that have been out longer already include. I've seen this occur with every new game I've played after World of Warcraft, starting with Star Trek Online almost 2 years ago. They say something like this:

"It doesn't have such-and-such a feature that another game has. C'mon Devs, this is 2011, these are basic features of an MMO."

Are they? One thing that we, as gamers, sometimes forget is that it takes lots of money and man-power to develop and publish an MMO. Every feature that is included before the game actually launches is another uncompensated investment. Blizzard has developed three expansions to WoW since it launched in 2004, each costing the same price as the original game. In between, they have introduced new dungeon content, numerous battlegrounds, and new questing areas for no more than cost of your monthly subscription. How did they pay for that updated content? Through subscription and box revenues, from millions of people, over seven years.

Then we expect a new game, SWTOR, to have a multitude of features that we haven't really paid for. Sure we've paid the initial box price. But that was only a couple of days ago. Prior to that, BioWare and EA had sunk millions into the game based essentially on faith.

The game has a few Warzones, a few Flashpoints. The crafting system is different and seems less tedious than others I've seen. The questing makes sense so far, and fits my characters' stature in the universe from a roleplaying perspective. The space battles are an interesting side game and in-line with both other SW games and the movies.

Sure, make suggestions for development. Constructive criticism is welcome at BioWare, I am sure. But there is a big difference between, "Hey, you know what would be cool? A guild bank system," and "Waaaah! Why no guild bank!?! This game SUCKS!" If I sound sarcastic or condescending, it's because I thought I was done having to listen to whiny children when my daughters got out of elementary school.

More Warzones, more Flashpoints will come. Quality-of-life features like guild banks will come. Let BioWare get this game off the ground, and enjoy it for what it is and what it has. Don't compare it to a game that is years into its redevelopment cycle.

And don't even get me started on the whiners who didn't follow instructions regarding the product keys and subscription plans . . . [EDIT] I'll leave that to AFK.

Developer Appreciation Week

OK, I planned to write this and post it much earlier in the week, but RL and GL got in the way. As it is, I haven't posted this often in a week since I-don't-know-when. So I guess last year Scary Booster founded Developer Appreciation Week to show his appreciation (of course) and encourage other gamers in the blogosphere to do the same. I don't know enough about individual developers to write bios, but I want show my appreciation for the teams that have brought me so much entertainment for the past year and the past half-decade. All too often, game developers are on the receiving end of a lot of criticism (to say the least) from many quarters of the gaming population (including me). In a given game: the PvPers want more battlegrounds or whine about this or that class being over-powered; players of said OP class don't want it nerfed; the crafters want a more robust crafting system; the Raiders want new challenges; the altoholics want more quests; PvErs don't want PvP affecting their play; the list goes on and on. All the while the techies, artists, and storytellers try to keep the hardware and software functioning under tremendous loads, keep player accounts secure, and keep the games fun for everyone.

I want to briefly mention Funcom and Turbine. I tried Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan this year; and while neither ended up being my cuppa tea, I did ring a few hours of enjoyment out of them. And the developer teams do their best to support the fans of both games.

BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT takes a lot of flak from many directions over World of Warcraft, a game held in contempt by a great many "serious" gamers, and one in which even fans often level tremendous criticism. But you've gotta hand it to the developers of the only true blockbuster MMORPG in the Western World. What other company, in the SIXTH year of of a game's existence, would go back and say that in the next expansion pack they were not going to simply add a new land or continent for purchasers of the XPACK, but completely revamp the original world for ALL players as well, streamlining the content so new players feel just as welcome as the veterans? The people at Blizz have a passion for the game that really does shine through the material.

TRION WORLDS. Holy cow! Rift was not even on my radar until mid-December, when many of my blog and Twitter friends got into the closed betas and couldn't stop talking about their excitement for the game. As far as I know, no one--not Sony, not Blizzard, no one--has managed to launch an MMO with the polish and poise of Rift. A visual style all its own, interesting lore, public group content, and a character specialization system (Soul Trees) that blows every other system I've seen out of the water. On top of this, attentive development and customer service teams that are going out of their way to keep players happy and having a blast in the game. Rift is my new shiny, and I think Trion has probably upped the ante for every new MMO that is released from here on out.

CRYPTIC STUDIOS gets my award for most improved game, Star Trek Online. A compelling game (IMHO) from the beginning, with both an excellent space combat system and decent ground combat and an awesome visual style, STO has shown steady improvement in the first year since launch. They are also the main reason you, Dear Reader, are still suffering through my meandering diatribes and stories. Trekkers are a hard crowd to please, and Gaming Trekkers even worse. By listening to one of the most rabid, nitpicky fanbases ever (topped only by Star Wars geeks) in the first year; despite initial hiccups, the STO development team has revamped the crafting system, redone interstellar "warp" space (I liked the original star charts, but great improvement), introduced ship interiors, added great content, and started  the most compelling series of weekly updates I have seen a game: The Featured Episodes.

FEATURED EPISODES deserve a paragraph all their own. Cryptic devs have outdone themselves repeatedly with every mini-series. They offer compelling storylines; mystery, suspense, even creepy/scary atmospheres; cameos of classic Trek characters; puzzles and branch-specific side missions. I love how each one has a teaser then formally opens with a title shot as my ship warps in to the local star system. The latest series introduced voice acting and moved the whole Star Trek story forward, reintroducing the mythical Iconians from The Next Generation as a new threat to galactic civilization. I have come to look forward to each Featured Episode the way I anticipated each new episode of TNG as a teenager.

Thank you, all those who have joined in the efforts to brings such great games to millions of people. It may seem seem trivial to some (as they sit watching Survivor, or the current sporting event), but these games allow us to explore worlds of imagination and wonder, to control or become powerful beings, to be the heroes (or villains) of our own stories.

THANK YOU!!

Endgame?

Why, oh why, do certain gamers (and devs) think that “The game doesn’t even start until the end-game content”?

I had a friend and coworker say this to me back in 2007. He played Vanilla WoW through the Naxx runs. Twenty hours (plus) per week spent raiding he said, and this back in the days before tokens meant steady gear progression. You had to hope the piece you needed dropped AND that you had enough luck or DKP to actually get it instead of that stupid hunter. Much of that time in the raid was spent waiting around for someone to repair, eat, pee, something besides actually playing the game. But the fights were EPIC!! Doing the Heigen Dance with 40 peeps, someone was sure to die. But then he was finally brought down. After 40 (50?) attempts. Then on to the next boss.

Oh, and every week they got to start over again, killing Heigen and all his friends. Whheee! Isn't Endgame fun? This was WAY better than the varying interweaving stories and quests--some monumental, some mundane--where the devs had spent 98 percent of their time--leading up to this Legendary Epicness.  All you people who came afterward can never be as über 733T as those few who were level-capped at 60 for nearly three years. My friend quit the day The Burning Crusade was released, because he couldn't keep up with his own addictive tendencies. We've lost touch; I wonder if he ever came back.

How is doing the same content over and over (only a bit harder these next 100 times) better than seeing new stuff you’ve not experienced before, learning new abilities, and generally becoming more badass? And no, getting that über helmet or sword doesn’t make you or your toon more badass, especially in the not-so-old days when getting THE BEST gear was essentially a slot-machine style game of chance.

What happened to the RPG in MMORPG? You know, Dear Reader, that I am not an avid in-game role-player. But I do play for story. The fall of the Lich King was an epic event--that occurred 1000s of times behind the closed walls of an instanced dungeon that many players never saw in person because they didn't want to or couldn't take the time to do THE SAME FIGHTS OVER AND OVER, to get a little better than last time so they could move on to the next boss and start the process all over again. That is not story, that is tedium. We were (yes, I did raid, got to Professor Putricide) doing the fantasy equivalent of playing Madden 20XX. Repetitive, story-less, soulless.

Gordon, over at We Fly Spitfires, feels almost as strongly as I do about endgame item progression. Actually, I think he is a little more articulate about it. Also, a chunk of this post was a comment on someone else's blog on this topic on 28 December. But I can't remember whose. : / If it was yours let me know and I'll cross link.

It Really Has Been a "Long Strange Trip"

So I Earned the "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" the other day. I am sure many others, upon getting their Violet Proto-Drake, have done some kind of retrospective. Well, here is mine.

I may have covered some of this before, but I don't feel like reviewing all my other posts for this one. As it is, I have waited to write this until I could devote time to it. Real Life is great. (^^)

So in May and June of 2006, a good friend from work and I were taking a class to improve our computer networking skills. I knew he played World of Warcraft and we had discussed the game, which he really enjoyed. But I wasn't interested. "I'm not a gamer," I would always say. Of course, I had played video and computer games, like SimCity, Age of Empires, SoulCaliber; but I didn't consider myself very good and it certainly didn't take up much of my time. There was a young woman in the class who had played a bit, her husband was an avid WoW player, as well. She would "accuse" me of being a WoW-playing nerd. I denied it, of course--too many years spent with that label in the school system. Anyway, my friend was about to prove me a liar.

In late June, he came over to my house and simply said, "Try it." So I installed it and tried it. The opening cinematic was amazing. I roled a Dwarf hunter named Oakheart, fascinated by the customization choices of the character screen. (Of course, I have come to realize how rudimentary it is.) I watched and listened as the narrator explained my people's history and my "background," finally settling on the now-familiar close third-person view of the game, where I would follow all my characters most of the time. The intro NPC beckoned me to my first quest with the Yellow exclamation point above his head. The world of Cold Ridge Valley and the zone of Dun Morogh seemed so huge, Azeroth seemed like it would be gigantic. Sometimes I think it would be so nice to have that feeling again. But even playing subsequent games like LOTRO, STO, and AoC have not held the same sense of wonder of those first few months of WoW.

I was quickly hooked, buying my subscription for $30 through the WoW website a week before I saw it available for $20 at Walmart. (o.O) I didn't stick with Oakheart, as you, Dear Reader, may already know. I quickly became an altoholic, strangely settling on my fourth alliance toon, Rowanblaze, a human shadow priest. She had a twin sister, Hollyhammer, who was actually my second alliance toon. I didn't even really like her name that much. It has since grown on me, I have even taken on "Rowan" as my nom de blog. My second level 80, Hazelwingut, is my fifth alliance toon. I don't have a ton of 80s, because I have veered off into Horde territory for extended periods, but not long enough to hit 80. Pawpawmojo on Terenas, at 63, is my highest level Horde character.

In the fall of 2006, my friend had moved to another time zone and was rarely playing WoW when I was online. I spent some time in Germany, getting to know some local friends and playing WoW with them. It was cool to have friends to play with, I made new characters to play on their server, Deathwing (still pointing to the Stateside realms), and we had some good times and late nights. My traveling companion made fun of us, until we said, "Try it." Within ten minutes, he was addicted to The Glow. He would go on to hook a friend of his back in the States, making the third generation of conversion from my "missionary." I don't have those characters anymore, I didn't like the PvP server and the bullying it engendered, both in me and in others. Plus, I was no longer involved with my German friends. Because of the distance in time and geography, I lost those friends, but kept the memory.

This side-trip into PvP realms meant that I had no top level toons when The Burning Crusade came out in late January, 2007. I still went and got the game. Luckily for me, that was an icy day, and I had been sent home from work, so I could install the expansion and play my first Blood Elf and Draenei characters. I held off after seeing the chaos of hundreds of people playing the starting zones. I didn't get out to Outland with Rowanblaze until months later, but it was awesome when I did. During this time, I invested in a nice desktop computer to play the game on, the first of a few such purchases to improve my gameplay experience. Summer 2007 came with a job change and more frequent travel. With plenty of time on my hands, I played for hours a day--a casual addict. I read the novels, became very familiar with the lore, and enjoyed the in-game story developments all more for it, I believe. Having so many alts, I am sure I have earned the Loremaster title as a player, even though not on any individual toon. Sometimes I wish they had Account-level Achievements for just that reason. I daresay I know the lore better than anyone else in my guild, where one of the raid leaders refers to Malygos as "she" and Onyxia as "he." He knows the fights, but not the reason for them, IMHO.

Anyway, Rowanblaze and I progressed through the levels to Outland with Hazelwingnut following close behind, eventually hitting 70. As a potential healer, I was in demand for raiding, so I respec'd to Discipline; avoiding the Holy cliche, I hoped. Plus, it fit my "repentant shadow" RP character development. So I began raiding Karazhan with my guild. I had a lot of fun, but we never really got past it to the higher level raid instances before I decided I didn't have time to devote to the raid. When Wrath of the Lich King was released, I was ready to jump straight into Northrend. I attacked it from both directions, Rowan in the Borean Tundra and Hazel in the Howling Fjord. BTW, the Borean Lore Achievement is a LIE!

In January 2009, I met a woman in real life with whom I shared many adventures, both in-game and out. Those adventures in Azeroth were on the Horde side, with brand new characters. Rowan and Hazel were on hiatus during this time. Both Rowan and Hazel had achieved some holiday titles, but when my girlfriend and I broke up in the fall of 2009, I had just missed working on the Brewfest achievement with Rowan. I got it for Hazel, because she had some of the stuff done already. I realized that the Violet Proto-Drake was within my grasp with just a few adventures through this year. I raided heavily last winter and this spring, reaching exalted status with all the Northrend factions. But once again, I realized that the gear grind is just not enjoyable to me. If Rowan had achieved "Brewmaster" last year, Children's Week would have been the holiday she got the Proto-Drake. But now I have my mount. Oh, and if you don't think a casual, non-raiding player deserves an avenue to a superfast drake, you can choke on my Drake farts. (^x^)

I don't play WoW so much anymore. Star Trek Online is a lot of fun, and I don't feel like I have "done it all before." LOTRO and AoC were less interesting. I have had a couple trips that precluded any gameplay and that has helped curb my habit. I also have new things in my life that mean I don't devote so much time to online gaming. I look forward to Cataclysm and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I also hope to blog a little more often than I have been recently. More stories, maybe more insights into this long strange trip all of us are on.

Cosmetic Changes in WoW: Cataclysm

OK, WoW CATA beta testers, I have just one question. Have the character avatars changed; and if so, what do they look like? I am worried because of some of the stuff I see in WotLK. Let me illustrate.

On the left, you see what Jaina Proudmore used to look like: a bland but pretty face that was available to any player role-ing a human female. I liked her almost as much as I liked my twins Rowanblaze and Hollyhammer (see below). The new Jaina, on the right, is pouty; her lips aren't quite right somehow. And don't even get me started on her eyes. Perhaps it goes with her new whiny, crybaby persona. As much as people seem to dislike Garrosh Hellscream, I think it is the suddenly weepy, pining-after-Arthas Jaina that has suffered the most annoying character change. I can't remember who brought it up in another blog, but why the heck does she call Varian Wrynn her king after the Deathbringer Saurfang fight? Absolutely ludicrous, as she is the sovereign of her own city-state on another continent, and didn't even come from Stormwind in the first place. It's as if Barack Obama were to address Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands as his queen. But I digress.

I am worried that my lovelies will end up looking like they are from LOTRO.

I hope that if they do make these cosmetic changes, that players are given the opportunity to re-customize their characters. I may not like the new face that Blizz thinks corresponds to my avatar's old face, but I may find another I like better.

Innovation

Inspired by Yeebo's post on MMO innovation and WoW and a wonderfully predictive article from Lost Garden from 2005. This is also a continuation of the discussion from yesterday's post. (Once again commenting on others' posts. When am I going to feel inspired enough to finish my own stories?)

Interesting that Blizzard and even the Warcraft RTS are mentioned in the Lost Garden article. Of course, he was right, Blizzard is about taking an established genre, looking at complaints about gameplay, and making better or more responsive games. I don't know why people complain so much about the game mechanics of WoW. They aren't perfect, but they are polished and encourage a huge number of people to play.

As far as who is the Nintendo of MMOs? Hard to say, because despite variations in story content, MMOs are a single genre themselves, as opposed to a platform/brand like Nintendo. I certainly would not say Farmville, it is an innovation in casual play, but has its roots in the RTS genre, not RPGs.

I am not sure how innovative I personally need a new game to be. I have said it before, story drives my games. Obviously gameplay needs to be enjoyable but that is highly subjective. Maybe I should say "Lore" instead of "Story." I like the feel of a real persistent world with a history.  But even I am finicky, I dismissed LOTRO as being too similar to WoW, in an "uncanny valley" sort of way. Even now, I struggle to like AoC, but I thoroughly enjoy STO. I am looking forward to SWTOR and even GW2 is intriguing.

The funny thing is that "hardcore" in the Lost Garden article seems to be different than how self-described hardcore gamers would identify themselves, since they are the ones complaining loudest about how "dumbed down" WOW has become, and in comparison to EQ, for example. So what do hardcore MMO players play, exactly, in the sense of Halo, Call of Duty, and GTA, what have you? Is it EVE? Or Warhammer? Maybe Guild Wars? Because if they're still playing WotLK, all the while bitching about WoW is dumb and too easy, I may have to smack somebody.

On a side note, apparently Google has decided to mess with Blogger's picture uploader. Very annoying. Hah! I may have just answered my own question about my tolerance for innovation.

Searching For The World of Warcraft-Clone

Originally posted on Petter M.'s Don't Fear the Mutant blog, edited here for some clarity and to fix grammar. I highly recommend reading the original post and comments, but couldn't believe I'd spent that much time and thought on a comment on someone else's blog :P

What would a New MMO need to not be a WoW clone?

FFA PvP?
Already in WoW; Gurubashi is just one example.

Forced grouping?
Not sure what forced grouping is outside the WoW instancing and LFD scenario. Did EQ do this? I turned off auto-grouping in STO, partly because there was always some clown taking all the crafting mats as we ran the mission.

Meaningful Death Penalty?

Hmm, not many solutions have I found, other than not calling it death at all, like LOTRO and STO ground missions. The problem with creating “meaningful death” in any game is that death IRL is so permanent. I suppose you could shorten the level grind so that creating a completely new character after losing your current one to death would be an option. How about specific injuries, rather than a general HP system. You’d end up with an extremely complex and potentially unwieldy wound system. Remember most injuries that involve sword and/or guns will be debilitating for the remainder of the fight, at best. It’s a game remember? No matter what game you are talking about, the only death penalty that could be meaningful would also be permanent.

How about non-quest related leveling?
I agree with Yeebo about the questless grinding for XP. I certainly would not stay with a game for any length of time if I discovered that sort of mechanic involved. For me, quests represent the story of the game; which is the reason I am playing the first place, to follow the story. Killing boars in the forest for no reason other than XP is asinine.

Another commenter said, “Quests are not at all required if devs can think outside of the box and find new and interesting solutions.” Looking for an actual alternative solution here. If we are talking about just about any genre of fiction, quests are at the heart of the plot. Heck, even RL is full of “quests,” though we usually call them tasks or assignments or some such. They are goals to achieve. IIRC, questing and leveling predate all computer games, starting with tabletop RPGs and arguably, regular boardgames. There is always a goal in a game, usually it is to win in some way–or at least to prove that you have made progress. Regardless of how the "quest" or task is presented, without a quest there is no plot to the game.

More "sandbox" or player created content or drama?
I have no experience with sandbox games, except maybe RTS style freeplay. But I know that EVE does not appeal to me, both for the PvP and the extreme penalty for death/failure. If this is held up as an example of sandbox, then count me out as well.

In conclusion, I like the persistence of the Worlds in MMORPGs. It is the reason I play. I am not particularly social when I play, preferring solo quests with only the occasional group interaction. OTOH, I do like that the social interaction is possible. And I have fun playing and chatting people from my guild/fleet/group. People need to remember that WoW--for all its faults--is extremely popular precisely because Blizzard made a conscious effort to rectify complaints people had with previous MMOs, and continues to do so. Their success or failure might be open to debate, but they have the numbers on their side. They have a rich epic plot to rival any major book series, and players get to participate to a greater or lesser degree in this history. I have enjoyed WoW immensely, just as I enjoy STO and to a lesser extent, AoC. It might be “showing its age”; but I, for one, am looking forward to Cataclysm, and I am willing to try, at least, anything else that comes along that promises to deliver a similar but better experience.

My point is that WoW is already a clone: of EQ, of DIKU MUDs, of tabletop D&D. It is simply more popular than any other  MMO already out there, and most hardcore MMO gamers have played it either currently or in the past. So people will inevitably compare everything new to the big boy.

To All the Elite Raiders Out There

Congratulations on being at the top of your game. I mean that sincerely.

I was reading a response to GeeCee's post about how to deal with a guildmate/raider who is consistently not pulling his or her weight in a raid situation. The player had been a member of an elite raiding guild running Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas. He bemoaned the current "ease" of raiding in WoW, looking back on the days of Vanilla WoW when men were Men and women were Healers. (OK too much sarcasm, I couldn't resist.) Back then, being a Raider meant something, Raiding was for dedicated, elite players who "put in their dues."

Now let's look at how Blizzard saw it, pre-BC. Developers spending well over half their time (80%-90%, who knows?) developing content that maybe 5% percent of the *paying* player base was seeing. Trying to balance two wildly different faction-exclusive classes so that neither side would feel that they were being shorted. Constantly nerfing and buffing different abilities for all classes for PvP balancing (again for a smaller fraction of players), causing those abilities to be warped relative to PvE content.

Meanwhile, for the players, raids were taking upwards of 20 hours a week for a pittance of rewards. Most players were paying full monthly subscriptions for content they would never see because they didn't have the time to commit to what amounted to a second job, much of which was spent waiting for others to get organized, anyway.

Even well into BC and WotLK, I have sat around accomplishing little or nothing, because I am stuck in a raid group waiting for people to join/get organized. And I can't finish that extra daily or whatever. And don't say I should already be at the instance location, because that would be just as big a waste of time, waiting around for people. Not my idea of a relaxing evening playing a game after I've been working all day.

I was in a guild where they would sub people in and out depending on the boss fight, because they needed gear or just as often because the raid couldn't make it past a boss without some particular class and spec. Luckily for me I wasn't anywhere near rading at the time. All the same, it irritated me. IMHO, the reason for raiding should be what is happening in relation to the story/lore of Warcraft, not the meta-game rewards of gear or achievements. The raid composition should be interchangeable within designated roles. Even then, I think it would be awesome to have a class system full of true hybrids, rather than having a few classes be "pure" DPS, or Tank or Healer.

So if you have been part of a 1337 Raiding Team that knocked out BWL, AQ-40, and Naxx, great. I know you spent a lot of time and worked hard to achieve those things. But most of the 9-12 million people who have played this game have not had time to do so, and yet they paid the same $12-$15 dollars a month you did. And they seem to think, and Blizzard apparently agrees, that might just be an innappropriate allocation of resources. Honestly, that's why the raiding content has been "dumbed down." So more people can see it. Dont worry, you can still run ICC in heroic 25-man mode. Or maybe, as Amuntoth from Manifest Pixel suggests, you could try running it without all your addons, just like the good ol' days.

WoW . . . Just WoW

I am getting tired of writing these posts. But they seem to occupy a lot of my thoughts and reading time lately. The subject has been brought up by better bloggers than me, that maybe Activision/Blizzard has ulterior motives behind the plan to bring battle.net 2.0/RealID to subscribers as a new kind of Facebook-style social network.

The Pensive Harpy commented extensively on a disturbing trend in the relationship between players and Blizzard, since Activision began the merger effort. Based on a Team Liquid article chronicling the merger and actions taken since by the new company--not to mention stupid comments made by Bobby Kotick, CEO of Actiblizz--it appears that the former clients/customers of Blizzard/WoW have become a commodity that the new company plans to monetize through selling ad space to as yet unknown sponsors. Pai highlights the aforementioned TL post as well as a post by Escape Hatch, illustrating the similarities between the television business model and the apparent business plan of battle.net 2.0.

I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, it disgusts me, because I do not like being used, monetized. My leisure time is too valuable to me to be sold to some advertiser. Of course, the television commercial is a long tradition in the United States, I should be used to it. But really, I rarely watch TV anymore, I spend my ersatz TV time playing computer games and surfing the interchoobs. When I do catch a show, it is usually DVRed, so I can skip the commercials, much like the VCR enabled me to do since the mid-eighties. At home, I use AdBlock Plus, a Firefox addon, to avoid as many ads on the net as I can. A few get through, of course, often embedded in a way that I can't get rid of them (thanks, Yahoo Mail). Don't worry, Facebook. I still have to see your lame singles.net adds at work where I have to use IE for my web browsing, even though I have no interest in them, I simply happen to have a "single" status on your site. The "Try World of Warcraft" adds are amusing, too, considering I already play.

Anyway, I watch TV essentially for free, and I surf the web essentially for free, only paying my cable company for the access to both. Explain to me, Blizzard, why I should pay you money so that you can advertise who-knows-what to me.

There is another theory as to why all this has happened to Blizzard, but it is no less disheartening. Malstrom thinks that maybe the developers at Blizzard have lost touch with the player base, and are doomed to eventual failure before they realize what they have lost.

GJ Blizz

OK, so it's a little after the fact, but RL got a bit in the way. Blizzard Entertainment has called off their plan to make RealID mandatory on Blizzard's forums.  I just wanted to congratulate Blizzard decision makers for having the wisdom to change course on a controversial policy based on subscriber feedback.

All too often companies just institute policies that clients end up having to live with whether they want to or not; or completely walk away from the product. This would have been disappointing to me as a 4-year veteran of WoW with thousands of hours invested in my characters.

Blizzard and Facebook: Belated Controversy

Back in May, USA Today posted an article about the upcoming partnership between Blizzard and Facebook, linking the social networking sit and Blizzard's battle.net. I was pointed to the article from a comment on GeeCee's topical post.

This article is very scary in the current context of the RealID Blizzard forums controversy. Not because it is gloom-and-doom. Actually, quite the opposite. Its sunny tone and rosy outlook on the Facebook/battle.net partnership is downright alarming. Blizzard's Greg Canessa comes off as naive about many gamers’ attitudes about their online personas. Even as Facebook is frequently under fire over their privacy policy, Blizzard jumps on the bandwagon.

Late in the interview, the reporter asks, "Do you expect any push back from diehard Blizzard fans from the Facebook features?

Canessa'a response, "We don't anticipate any."

ROFLMFAO! Uh What do you think now, Greg?

The following post apparently appears on the WOW forum thread, but I gleaned it from Lillfox on the USA Today Article comments:

I, The poster. Am at least one of the following.

- a woman
- a minor
- a member of an ethnic minority
- a person of alternative sexuality
- a transgendered person
- a person with a unique/uncommon name

to this I would add: -a person with a very common name, easily mistaken for others

- a person who has been harassed/stalked
- a person in an information-sensitive profession
- a person who may be Google searched by co-workers/employers/potential employers
- a person who may be Google searched by mates/potential mates
- a person who is concerned about account security
- a person who is uninterested in online social networking
- a person who does not fit any of these categories but who is nonetheless concerned for him/herself or for the welfare of others

and I oppose RealID for one or more of these reasons:

- It is a threat to personal safety.
- It is a threat to personal security.
- It will not eliminate/significantly reduce trolling.
- It should be optional; choosing between risk and silence is not truly “optional”.
- Unified tags/handles provide the same effect with minimal risk.
- World of Warcraft is not Facebook.

If this decision persists, I will do one or more of the following:

- Refrain from posting on these forums.
- Seriously reconsider my subscription.
- Cancel my subscription.
- Cancel my subscription should RealID be made mandatory in-game

I'll bet this covers most of the WoW community.

Blizzard, of course doesn't see or doesn't want to see that not every WoW or StarCraft player wants to advertise their avocation. In fact it looks like few do.  One key difference between my Facebook friends and my WoW friends is I know almost every person I have befriended on Facebook personally. I have met very few of my WoW friends in person. I don't know them, and I really don't know their friends. On Facebook, I can lock down my information almost completely, if I want. Yet, there is still concern about Facebook's privacy policy. By comparison, RealID is a sieve of information.

Hopefully, Blizzard will see the rising backlash from subscribers and back off this plan.