Updated Miscellany

I am currently reading The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian in my spare time. I have say that so far it's really good. I'll have a full review when I finish.

I also copied my STO toons over the Tribble, the test shard. They are not as high as my fellow bloggers, but I should have a couple of notes on Season 2. Of course, the major reason I am trying it out is the new tribble pet that will come available. A lot of people try to get into massive beta tests--like WOW:Cataclysm, and the upcoming SWTOR beta--because they're excited to see what the game is like, I guess. Beta testing is of course valuable for the developers, especially on a massive scale. But I usually don't like to participate, as it represents wasted time from a gaming/leveling perspective.

I also have a couple stories percolating that I want to get out very soon, but RL has kept me from polishing them the way I'd like.

Happy questing, fellow gamers.

I Write Like . . .

I was led to this site by MMO Gamer Chick. It may actually be pretty limited in the author selection, but it was consistent in analyzing my writing style in two modes:

When writing expository posts, this is my result.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

When writing fiction, this was my result.

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I am interested to find out what process they used and what the full list of writers is.

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.