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I saw this post and thought the topic might merit its own thread.
Nachtjäger, Suramar, 59 Night Elf Death Knight post 35821 in epic thread wroteGot 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.
Honestly, everything from the Battle.net side of Starcraft II and Activision-Blizzard recently seems to be a huge tremendous fuck you to its player base as it reaches out for new markets to tap. Do you really want chatrooms?
I think Blizzard knows exactly what's going on. Nobody is actually saying things, but dozens of threads are being locked and hundreds of pages of posts have been deleted. I don't know whether it's petition spam or copy pasted stuff Blizzard doesn't want floating around, but obviously there are people hard at work watching the thread.
It's also probably no accident that Blizzard dropped twin bombshell announcements the very day after the forum change was announced - bringing back the North America SC II Beta for the Starcraft fans and releasing a fresh wave of Cataclysm previews for the WoW players, the classic distraction strategy - break a controversial decision right before a major sporting event, hopefully it'll get drowned out.
I don't know if this is their attempt at drawing attention away from the issue, and who knows how well it works, but the issue has spilled far beyond forum doors - virtually every single community with an internet presence, from blizzard fansites like teamliquid to gaming information venues (penny arcade, /v/, kotaku,) random venues (for those of you know what it is even fandom_wank has gotten in to trash the decision) and recently, hit the mainstream media websites - Wall Street Journal, British Broadcasting Corporation, Associated Press, National Broadcasting Corporation, you name it, it's there. More information in other thread, of course
It goes without saying their stated justification - "too many trolls" is 100%, pure, unadulterated bullshit. That isn't even worth debating. So, why? (The "we just want to test out Facebook integration a bit, handle the server load" reason for killing Battle.net friends is also suspect; it's far more likely they wanted to push thousands of beta testers to try it out in order to get anything done, to get people used to the idea of facebook and smashing together the anonymous and real worlds in a tremendous fusion of light, heat, and cash.)
It's probably not a coincidence that it might just be related to facebook and the "monetization" of battle.net (you fucking think?) There's a speculation that it might be related a Korean law that cracks down harshly on internet anonymity, but my guess is they looked at the number of Farmville players out there (eighty fucking million) and decided they were going to force Battle.net 2.0 hell for leather into the world of social media. There doesn't even have to be an explicit campaign involved. If it costs them a hundred thousand Starcraft II orders and cancelled WoW subscriptions, a half of a percent of Farmville users picking up WoW or Starcraft II would make up for that many times over. This comparison is flawed, but roughly the numbers stand.
As Farmville teaches us, the power of facebook user advertising insane - Blizzard realizes that if notifications about lost cats and treasure chests can pull people into farmville by the millions, then notifications about hitting diamond rank one, slaying Baal on super duper ultra hardcore mode, or finishing some fiendishly difficult raid without a single resurrection, might do the same for Blizzard's games. This is an unbelievable shitload of money. I mean, per say, this isn't bad, or evil, it's just Blizzard wanting to use the power of social media to make hundreds of millions of dollars - every single corporation in the world wants to do this.
And if something as small as forum posting isn't invasive, why the rage over this small movement? People can just not use the forums - we have TL, after all. This is worrying because it looks like Activision Blizzard has a general policy of slowly trying to get its foot into the door, bit by bit, getting people used to things here, lowering people's expectations there, until they get where they want, community rage be damned. Oh, sure, you'll always have the ability to play Starcraft II in peace and quiet the same way you can have a facebook with everything turned off - most people just aren't going to fucking bother with the additional trouble.
Of course, maybe this is all trash, they could just be that (do you really want chatrooms) dumb about a "anti-troll and anti-flaming measure." Who fucking knows?
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Wait, so they won't interfere with Blizzard's game design, just superfluous stuff outside of the game itself?
I'll probably catch some flak, but in that case I don't fucking care.
Edit:Oh, sure, you'll always have the ability to play Starcraft II in peace and quiet the same way you can have a facebook with everything turned off - most people just aren't going to fucking bother with the additional trouble.
I think you overestimate how much of the community as a whole actually cares about stuff like this. The people who post on forums are a tiny minority, and the people who actually go through on the threats of quitting are even smaller. People will put up with a tremendous amount of bullshit. The sales and subs they'll lose from any of this will be negligible, even disregarding sales they stand to gain.
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Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded.
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On July 08 2010 18:31 Psychopomp wrote:Wait, so they won't interfere with Blizzard's game design, just superfluous stuff outside of the game itself? I'll probably catch some flak, but in that case I don't fucking care.Edit: Show nested quote +Oh, sure, you'll always have the ability to play Starcraft II in peace and quiet the same way you can have a facebook with everything turned off - most people just aren't going to fucking bother with the additional trouble. I think you overestimate how much of the community as a whole actually cares about stuff like this. The people who post on forums are a tiny minority, and the people who actually go through on the threats of quitting are even smaller. People will put up with a tremendous amount of bullshit. The sales and subs they'll lose from any of this will be negligible, even disregarding sales they stand to gain.
If we extract from that post the following:
I don't fucking care.
And
I think you overestimate how much of the community as a whole actually cares about stuff like this.
You sum up my viewpoint concerning this matter entirely. I truly and honestly think we live in a generation too quick to anger, point their fingers, and judge.
Just let the matters settle, take some deep breaths, and see what happens. We were already promised chat channels in a patch or two - I for one think that's huge considering it was only the vocal minority speaking out.
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On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded.
Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map.
I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them.
While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points.
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All i want to see is their stocks go down to hell... so sad that blizzard sold themselves to this fuckers.
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On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded.
Considering how much hacking they had to put with after all their stupid stunts and their speedial lawsuits/threats to people already developing an alternate Bnet2, I'd say they're scared shitless of 'certain' consumers and just want to address the masses.
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I feel as if I should point out that we have no clue if that posters isn't full of shit, by the way.
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On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points.
Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier.
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Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard
I'm sure this is a trustworthy, reliable source 
Before people get too upset about this, please think about where it comes from. Or doesn't come from.
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Well put post there my friend. I think while there is alot of rage going on regarding these highly heated subjects, people should realize that on the flip side - there is the possibility that StarCraft 2 will become the next farmville. And you have to wonder - How incredible that would be?
The question is: Will this new direction for gaming towards social media flop or will it succeed?
I think most people here can agree that most people who own blizzard games will continue to purchase and use blizzard products. Regardless of lack of chat rooms, forced RealID, etc.
And with all this facebook/social media integration, there will be a new influx of the SUPER casual users, which would not have cared for these features or lack there-of in the first place.
I can see Activision - Blizzard's grand vision at the end of this tunnel. As a current consumer of Blizzard products I disagree with many of their recent decisions, but from a SuperCasual third person standpoint - say somebody who plays farmville on facebook - I might one day see an SC2 notification and end up buying the game.
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On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier.
Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence.
Can someone explain the appeal to me?
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awesome thread...
The thing is that in facebook only my friends know that I play farmville... nobody else can see that.
But if ACTIVISION do this to battle.net forums they are assuming that I'm friend of every single user in the forum which is absolutely FALSE and beside that, anybody can get in the forums... without ever having a blizzard game.
Kotick will go to hell with a looot of money on his pockets.
![[image loading]](http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/168/kotick.jpg)
sorry for the lack of skills... paint ftw.
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On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:
While I myself and basically untrackable
I guess you're not the same psychopomp posting on the judgehype forums and that the last IP you used on irc is a fake one ?
I'd need a recent one to map your location tho, care to login again ?
And I don't even know your name yet...
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On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me?
I think it was tasteless who made the point that trying to organise anything involving any number of people like ur esports. Is a nightmare without just being able to make a channel set a password and tell people to be there at a certain time.
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There's a huge discrepancy between the quality of Bnet2.0 and the game of SC2 itself. This makes it quite plausible for me that Activision is behind the decisions regarding Battle.net, and Blizzard is free to design the core game. The result is that the game is great and a worthy successor to Broodwar, and the Battle.net environment that wraps around it is a huge slap in the face of every half-serious player.
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On July 08 2010 18:59 Santriell wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:
While I myself and basically untrackable I guess you're not the same psychopomp posting on the judgehype forums and that the last IP you used on irc is a fake one ? I'd need a recent one to map your location tho, care to login again ? And I don't even know your name yet...
I've never even heard of that place.
Also
>Adopt name of Tea Party song as online handle
>No other Psychopomps on the internet
>5 years later
>PSYCHOPOMPS EVERYWHERE
>My face http://myfacewhen.com/416/
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I don't understand the big hoohah about this. As a player of WoW, WC3 and SC1 and 2, I have no qualms about telling the rest of the world that I game. The "privacy" argument is really quite silly; is gaming illegal or a sin? And so what if your real name is revealed to others? Unless you're a celebrity, I don't think its a major issue (although discrimination might be a problem, Blizzard has shown itself to be quick to ban racist players).
As for Facebook integration, last I heard, it isn't compulsory. So what's the big deal if you can simply just NOT integrate your FB account with your BNet account? While some of us veteran gamers might pine for the old Blizzard, I don't think that Activision is that evil a "Big Brother".
A lot of the people who complain about this issue are the same people who make a lot of noise when governments implement new regulations that affect our privacy. And despite all these complaints and death threats and "the end is nigh" doomsday messages, what happened? NOTHING bad did!
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On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded.
I know this will piss some people off... but consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded.
Corporations only get away with as much as the consumer will allow. People still pay dude. This is why it happens.
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I think the "Golden age" of gaming are long gone.
Those of us who wished for another SC1 style community in SC2 were/are obviously sadly mistaken.
Not sure if I will be purchasing SC2 or any other Blizzard titles in future.
I'm just happy I was part of the good times while they lasted. I really feel for people who are 12-16 yo now who will never be able to experience what I did.
What Blizzard are doing, doesn't really make any sense. Doesn't make sense from any standpoint, just a series of bad decisions on their part which ultimately won't work to make any additional revenue. The real test for Blizzard will be how long they can go with this approach before they are forced to go back to the tried and tested business model of giving customers what they want.
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On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me?
my mistake. rofl.
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On July 08 2010 19:01 Scorch wrote:
There's a huge discrepancy between the quality of Bnet2.0 and the game of SC2 itself. This makes it quite plausible for me that Activision is behind the decisions regarding Battle.net, and Blizzard is free to design the core game. The result is that the game is great and a worthy successor to Broodwar, and the Battle.net environment that wraps around it is a huge slap in the face of every half-serious player.
I agree with this completely. The game is amazing, but Bnet 2.0 is sorry as shit, so it's easy to believe the fault to be Activision's. I don't mind the facebook integration, but shit... I hope something happens, because there is so much more lacking from Bnet than just chat channels. Hopefully this post-release patch shines down upon us like a rainbow with skittles and lucky fuckin' charms...
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On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi.
l2read
I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points.
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Not really sure what to believe. We really can't know what *truly* goes on inside Blizzard. But we do care about them despite all the craziness. We want them to be the best, and I hope they will.
And personally, I don't think the trolls have anything to do with the forum change. Perhaps something else is going on; maybe I'm wrong though.
The thing is, the facebook opt-in and that stuff helps to promote the game which equals more sales which equals better chance for sc2 esports money.
But, this forum change just seems odd and unrelated. I like having an avatar :D We all do. Super casuals do too. And our own preferences aside, I think it's a problem for children and the like. They will end up on the forum, and now it will be their real name showing.
Like people have said (including Blizzard), forums are optional; we may like the blizz forums, but we don't have to go there. Oh well.
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And there we go again. Activision-hatred thread number 5000.
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On July 08 2010 19:10 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi. l2read Show nested quote +I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points.
You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are...
Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world.
Stop being such a prick.
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Best read I've had in a while, I got a friend in blizz France, ill ask him one of these days what he thinks about this if he is allowed to talk about it of course.
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On July 08 2010 19:16 Drakan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:10 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi. l2read I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. Stop being such a prick.
Are you just saying words, without reading? I said I was against this. Take your own advice and
Stop being such a prick.
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I read somewhere that sc2 custom maps can be uploaded to battle.net and have a price attached to them. I asume blizzard-activision would get like 50% of that, which i believe is complete bs. Quick guys lets abuse the awsome blizzard map editor to make money from not doing anything at all muahhahaha.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On July 08 2010 19:15 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:
And there we go again. Activision-hatred thread number 5000.
They bring it on themselves.
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On July 08 2010 19:07 Necrosjef wrote:
I think the "Golden age" of gaming are long gone.
Those of us who wished for another SC1 style community in SC2 were/are obviously sadly mistaken.
Not sure if I will be purchasing SC2 or any other Blizzard titles in future.
I'm just happy I was part of the good times while they lasted. I really feel for people who are 12-16 yo now who will never be able to experience what I did.
What Blizzard are doing, doesn't really make any sense. Doesn't make sense from any standpoint, just a series of bad decisions on their part which ultimately won't work to make any additional revenue. The real test for Blizzard will be how long they can go with this approach before they are forced to go back to the tried and tested business model of giving customers what they want.
This. I have the same opinion. Its not about "Gaming" anymore its about Business --> max profit --> please the casual player as much as you can --> ignore the wishes of the Gamer.
This how you get max profit and profit means happy shareholder.
When Valve is gone it means for us old folks gg.
Activision-Blizzard is no more at least imho. I cant wait to see in what way theyre gonna fuck up D3 :/
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On July 08 2010 19:28 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:16 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 19:10 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi. l2read I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. Stop being such a prick. Are you just saying words, without reading? I said I was against this. Take your own advice and
lol, misread badly.
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Good OP, I hope you're right about blizzard not actually being happy about the shitty decisions that are being made.
about facebook I dont get why people dont just make a new email account (many people have multiple ones anyways) and get a new battle.net account with a fake name. Takes less than 5 minutes.
I was surprised that only 9% voted for this option in the realID poll
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For those of you who still think the Real ID thing isn't a big deal:
http://kotaku.com/5550609/man-spends-six-months-plotting-murder-of-counter strike-rival
And trust me there are plenty of other examples that's just the most recent one that I can remember. Beyond that, honestly is it so fucking hard for people to understand that no one should be forced to have their real name displayed to post in a forum for a fucking video game just to prevent "trolls"?
It really sucks because first it was the no LAN support, then there were rumors that BNet 2.0 was going to be pay-to-play (luckily untrue), then came the death of chat rooms and no cross region play, and now there's this Real ID issue. It's sad that a game I was looking so forward to is already a bit disappointing before it even launches. I guess what's even more sad is that I'm still going to buy it as none of these flaws will be fixed when the game sells well despite all of the idiotic things they're implementing. I really don't know if I should be blaming Activision or Blizzard for all of this but my gut is saying that neither one is completely innocent.
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On July 08 2010 19:37 Drakan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:28 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 19:16 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 19:10 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi. l2read I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. Stop being such a prick. Are you just saying words, without reading? I said I was against this. Take your own advice and Stop being such a prick. lol, misread badly.
It's cool.
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On July 08 2010 19:36 smileyyy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:07 Necrosjef wrote:
I think the "Golden age" of gaming are long gone.
Those of us who wished for another SC1 style community in SC2 were/are obviously sadly mistaken.
Not sure if I will be purchasing SC2 or any other Blizzard titles in future.
I'm just happy I was part of the good times while they lasted. I really feel for people who are 12-16 yo now who will never be able to experience what I did.
What Blizzard are doing, doesn't really make any sense. Doesn't make sense from any standpoint, just a series of bad decisions on their part which ultimately won't work to make any additional revenue. The real test for Blizzard will be how long they can go with this approach before they are forced to go back to the tried and tested business model of giving customers what they want. This. I have the same opinion. Its not about "Gaming" anymore its about Business --> max profit --> please the casual player as much as you can --> ignore the wishes of the Gamer. This how you get max profit and profit means happy shareholder. When Valve is gone it means for us old folks gg. Activision-Blizzard is no more at least imho. I cant wait to see in what way theyre gonna fuck up D3 :/
Where they are wrong is that they believe they will make more money by doing this. The whole reason 80mil people play farmville is that it is free. If you started charging $50 to buy farmville I don't think you would have anyone playing it.
This is Blizzard simply not doing their homework on their target market. These are people who simply have no interest in playing competitive games and even less interest in spending money on buying games.
What Blizzard is doing isn't even catering to casual gamers. Its pretty clear that no one wants what Blizzard is peddling casual/hardcore/whatever. Just need to see how long it takes them before they wake up and smell whats cookin'.
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Well Activision killed IW, and MW2 was a massive fail on the PC.
But Blizzard itself is pretty huge with Diablo/Warcraft/Starcraft.
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again?
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On July 08 2010 19:37 7mk wrote:
Good OP, I hope you're right about blizzard not actually being happy about the shitty decisions that are being made.
about facebook I dont get why people dont just make a new email account (many people have multiple ones anyways) and get a new battle.net account with a fake name. Takes less than 5 minutes.
I was surprised that only 9% voted for this option in the realID poll
I think alot of the anti-Facebook stuff is not really that people hate using Facebook and going through the procedure of making a face Facebook account etc.
Its that Battle.net 2.0 is shit for lack of a better term. Instead of making it better with meaningful features which people are asking for (Improved Ladders, Chatrooms etc.) Blizzard instead chose to spend time and effort adding facebook integration, which I'm pretty sure no one asked for.
Thats really where alot of the bitterness is coming from about this stuff is that no one wants it and yet we are getting this stuff instead of things we are actually requesting.
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On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Well Activision killed IW, and MW2 was a massive fail on the PC.
But Blizzard itself is pretty huge with Diablo/Warcraft/Starcraft.
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again?
It wasn't Blizzard's choice, it was Vivendi's.
+ Show Spoiler +Vivendi owns Activision-Blizzard.
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On July 08 2010 19:37 7mk wrote:
Good OP, I hope you're right about blizzard not actually being happy about the shitty decisions that are being made.
about facebook I dont get why people dont just make a new email account (many people have multiple ones anyways) and get a new battle.net account with a fake name. Takes less than 5 minutes.
I was surprised that only 9% voted for this option in the realID poll
If something goes wrong with your account you need proof of identity. Using a fake name is risky.
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I must say, despite the large number of things they've been doing that are completely stupid, the Facebook integration isn't a big deal. It's completely and totally optional so really people shouldn't complain about something you have to opt into as if you don't like it or care for it (like me) then don't opt into it and pretend that it doesn't exist. 
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On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again?
Because of the recession. Easier to weather a storm as 1 big ship than having 2 small ships.
This isn't really the source of the bad decisions though and its naive to blame activision for what Blizzard are doing now.
This is a classic example of Blizzard executives not understanding the marketplace and basically wanting to get a piece of the Facebook pie. (Not gonna go into details here)
Long story short Blizzard simply do not understand how bad this is gonna go wrong and when the dust settles their might not be a Blizzard anymore, Like I said in previous posts, its how long it takes Blizzard to go back to the tried and tested business model which will ultimately decide their fate.
Sooner they go back to giving customers what they want, everyone is happy. If they keep pissing customers off they will pack up and take their friends with them to go onto other games or simply not play games.
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On July 08 2010 20:00 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again? Because of the recession. Easier to weather a storm as 1 big ship than having 2 small ships. This isn't really the source of the bad decisions though and its naive to blame activision for what Blizzard are doing now. This is a classic example of Blizzard executives not understanding the marketplace and basically wanting to get a piece of the Facebook pie. (Not gonna go into details here) Long story short Blizzard simply do not understand how bad this is gonna go wrong and when the dust settles their might not be a Blizzard anymore, Like I said in previous posts, its how long it takes Blizzard to go back to the tried and tested business model which will ultimately decide their fate. Sooner they go back to giving customers what they want, everyone is happy. If they keep pissing customers off they will pack up and take their friends with them to go onto other games or simply not play games.
Does Blizzard have a history of being boneheaded like this? I don't recall a history, but I didn't really pay attention to them until '05, despite having grown up playing their games.
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On July 08 2010 19:54 Psychopomp wrote:
Vivendi owns Activision-Blizzard.
This is a pretty ignorant view as well.
Vivendi allow Blizzard to operate with a lot of autonomy, yes they are a parent company but they don't micro manage everything Blizzard does. That's why they aren't the same company to begin with.
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On July 08 2010 20:02 Necrosjef wrote:This is a pretty ignorant view as well. Vivendi allow Blizzard to operate with a lot of autonomy, yes they are a parent company but they don't micro manage everything Blizzard does. That's why they aren't the same company to begin with.
I know, I just always find it silly when people say Activision can basically do whatever they want with Blizzard.
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On July 08 2010 20:00 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again? Because of the recession. Easier to weather a storm as 1 big ship than having 2 small ships. This isn't really the source of the bad decisions though and its naive to blame activision for what Blizzard are doing now. This is a classic example of Blizzard executives not understanding the marketplace and basically wanting to get a piece of the Facebook pie. (Not gonna go into details here) Long story short Blizzard simply do not understand how bad this is gonna go wrong and when the dust settles their might not be a Blizzard anymore, Like I said in previous posts, its how long it takes Blizzard to go back to the tried and tested business model which will ultimately decide their fate. Sooner they go back to giving customers what they want, everyone is happy. If they keep pissing customers off they will pack up and take their friends with them to go onto other games or simply not play games.
The point of this thread is that it's not really the Blizzard execs who are making these choices though, it's the Activision ones'.
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The Master of Puppet is pulling the strings.
(ahhh...I'm gonna get temp banned for this, but it was sooo worth it)
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On July 08 2010 20:02 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:00 Necrosjef wrote:On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again? Because of the recession. Easier to weather a storm as 1 big ship than having 2 small ships. This isn't really the source of the bad decisions though and its naive to blame activision for what Blizzard are doing now. This is a classic example of Blizzard executives not understanding the marketplace and basically wanting to get a piece of the Facebook pie. (Not gonna go into details here) Long story short Blizzard simply do not understand how bad this is gonna go wrong and when the dust settles their might not be a Blizzard anymore, Like I said in previous posts, its how long it takes Blizzard to go back to the tried and tested business model which will ultimately decide their fate. Sooner they go back to giving customers what they want, everyone is happy. If they keep pissing customers off they will pack up and take their friends with them to go onto other games or simply not play games. Does Blizzard have a history of being boneheaded like this? I don't recall a history, but I didn't really pay attention to them until '05, despite having grown up playing their games.
Like you I didn't really pay much attention to Blizzard as a company until 2004-2005. From what I understand of it though, the decisions they have made in the past (Pre-WoW) seem to have been pretty good.
The turning point really came with the release of WotLK expansion for WoW where Blizzard started actively stating they were making the game easier to allow noobs to experience the whole game.
Since then it seems like Blizzard have basically been listening to the imaginary voice that is the casual gamer and trying to guess what that group want without actually having any consultation with them, mainly because casual gamers don't give a shit enough to post on forums etc, all they do is bitch occasionally to their friends about how they can't do raids in WoW because they only play 1 day a week and no guild wants them.
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On July 08 2010 20:03 RisingTide wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:00 Necrosjef wrote:On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again? Because of the recession. Easier to weather a storm as 1 big ship than having 2 small ships. This isn't really the source of the bad decisions though and its naive to blame activision for what Blizzard are doing now. This is a classic example of Blizzard executives not understanding the marketplace and basically wanting to get a piece of the Facebook pie. (Not gonna go into details here) Long story short Blizzard simply do not understand how bad this is gonna go wrong and when the dust settles their might not be a Blizzard anymore, Like I said in previous posts, its how long it takes Blizzard to go back to the tried and tested business model which will ultimately decide their fate. Sooner they go back to giving customers what they want, everyone is happy. If they keep pissing customers off they will pack up and take their friends with them to go onto other games or simply not play games. The point of this thread is that it's not really the Blizzard execs who are making these choices though, it's the Activision ones'.
It isn't anything to do with Activision of Vivendi or anyone else.
This is Blizzard making bad decisions and they need to be called out on it.
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On July 08 2010 20:03 RisingTide wrote:
The point of this thread is that it's not really the Blizzard execs who are making these choices though, it's the Activision ones'.
But if Vivendi owns blizzard. And Vivendi owns Activision. And if the company is technically called Acitivision-Blizzard which to me infers a partnership, hence being equal (it only makes sense because Vivendi owns them both and Vivendis name is not present) how would Activision have a role in Blizzard other than hey heres an idea that you dont have to listen to, without running it by Vivendi and have Vivendi push it or Blizzard accepting the idea.
To be quite frank, no one knows what the hell is going on. Someone is just making bad decisions, or just getting really far behind on their work, but we just cant point out if its Activision, Blizzard or Vivendi. I think presently, who it is really doesnt matter, if our perfect blizzard is at fault, evil satan Activision is, or currently undecided good or evil Vivendi. I think its a blizzard game. Its a blizzard platform. And we should complain to blizzard regardless if we think someone else is pulling the strings.
The complaints should never be enraged whether or not if its blizzards fault. I mean best we can do is just try to be constructive and in great numbers. I mean if we seriously blamed activision anyway we would be complaining on their forums not on blizzards.
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On July 08 2010 19:56 overt wrote:I must say, despite the large number of things they've been doing that are completely stupid, the Facebook integration isn't a big deal. It's completely and totally optional so really people shouldn't complain about something you have to opt into as if you don't like it or care for it (like me) then don't opt into it and pretend that it doesn't exist. The problem is that even if you never use the facebook integration from within SC2, you will still be found by your facebook friends if you are using the same email address for facebook and SC2.
This means that in order to "opt out" you need to either use different mail addresses for the two accounts, or you need to hide your mail address in facebook using the privacy settings.
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On July 08 2010 20:11 RodrigoX wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:03 RisingTide wrote:
The point of this thread is that it's not really the Blizzard execs who are making these choices though, it's the Activision ones'. But if Vivendi owns blizzard. And Vivendi owns Activision. And if the company is technically called Acitivision-Blizzard which to me infers a partnership, hence being equal (it only makes sense because Vivendi owns them both and Vivendis name is not present) how would Activision have a role in Blizzard other than hey heres an idea that you dont have to listen to, without running it by Vivendi and have Vivendi push it or Blizzard accepting the idea.
It's not a partnership. Activision and Blizzard still exist as separate game manufacturers under Activision Blizzard. However, Activision Blizzard can still dictate whatever they want to Blizzard since they're only a subsidiary.
Vivendi has 52% of the Activision Blizzard stock. The stockholders don't get involved in specific business decisions like this. All the stockholders really care about, is the value of the stock, and they hire the board of directors of Activision Blizzard to see to it that they're making a profit. The CEO(Bobby Kotick) reports to them, so really, is it Activison Blizzard who has the final say on these things.
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On July 08 2010 20:06 Tamerlane wrote:
The Master of Puppet is pulling the strings.
(ahhh...I'm gonna get temp banned for this, but it was sooo worth it)
dont ban him it was too awesome it also fits the thread ^___^ also kotik is the master of puppets
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At first I was a little happy because it's a good explanation why starcraft 2 by itself is very good and bnet 2.0 is lacking so much. But after a while I got little bit scared of what they may do with it in the future.
Their newest facebook integration isn't really a huge deal as you don't have to use it in the first place and you can even logout from it.
They added ability to block players which is very very good.
Also they have said that they are working on the chat rooms and cross region play. Assuming that chat rooms and cross-region play is actually coming I would say it is going to the right direction.
One thing that bothers me is that there is so much assumptions and if's. When I though blizzard was involved in creating bnet 2.0 I was thinking to myself that blizzard is just looking out for us.
But if Activision mostly controls bnet 2.0 and decides in what direction it goes in the future, that makes me a little skeptic because they haven't ever done anything just to please the fans.
It makes you think what is their next step 
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On July 08 2010 20:11 RodrigoX wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:03 RisingTide wrote:
The point of this thread is that it's not really the Blizzard execs who are making these choices though, it's the Activision ones'. But if Vivendi owns blizzard. And Vivendi owns Activision. And if the company is technically called Acitivision-Blizzard which to me infers a partnership, hence being equal (it only makes sense because Vivendi owns them both and Vivendis name is not present) how would Activision have a role in Blizzard other than hey heres an idea that you dont have to listen to, without running it by Vivendi and have Vivendi push it or Blizzard accepting the idea. To be quite frank, no one knows what the hell is going on. Someone is just making bad decisions, or just getting really far behind on their work, but we just cant point out if its Activision, Blizzard or Vivendi. I think presently, who it is really doesnt matter, if our perfect blizzard is at fault, evil satan Activision is, or currently undecided good or evil Vivendi. I think its a blizzard game. Its a blizzard platform. And we should complain to blizzard regardless if we think someone else is pulling the strings. The complaints should never be enraged whether or not if its blizzards fault. I mean best we can do is just try to be constructive and in great numbers. I mean if we seriously blamed activision anyway we would be complaining on their forums not on blizzards.
Yeah, and here's the thing. Vivendi owns a majority share in Actiblizz, and Blizzard makes the majority of the money from that little partnership, not to mention that Blizzard has seniority when it comes to dealing with Vivendi. When push comes to shove, who do you think has the leverage here? I'll give you a hint, they pull in over $180,000,000 a month, and spend a fraction of that on operating costs.
It doesn't make things any better, but Activision is not the one fucking things up. Blizzard is making some bone headed moves on their own.
Correlation does not imply causation, people.
The problem is that even if you never use the facebook integration from within SC2, you will still be found by your facebook friends if you are using the same email address for facebook and SC2.
This means that in order to "opt out" you need to either use different mail addresses for the two accounts, or you need to hide your mail address in facebook using the privacy settings.
Oh no, people you know well enough to have on your Facebook may want to play SC2 with you?
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The problem is that even if you never use the facebook integration from within SC2, you will still be found by your facebook friends if you are using the same email address for facebook and SC2.
This means that in order to "opt out" you need to either use different mail addresses for the two accounts, or you need to hide your mail address in facebook using the privacy settings.
There is an option to logout from facebook in your sc2 option menu. Maybe try that before complaining.
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On July 08 2010 18:56 HDstarcraft wrote: there is the possibility that StarCraft 2 will become the next farmville. And you have to wonder - How incredible that would be?
[...]
but from a SuperCasual third person standpoint - say somebody who plays farmville on facebook - I might one day see an SC2 notification and end up buying the game.
I definitely agree with HDstarcraft.
Doesn't Starcraft deserve a greater success than farmville? Maybe the facebook integration is not as stupid as we thought. ESports need one thing before everything, a wider public.
Husky and HD recently overcame a hundred subscribers, that is a very good achievement (greetings to both casters!) but, I mean, don't you think that a Starcraft match is much more interesting to watch rather than a poker game? Maybe the rules of the game are less intuitive? Yet, poker is far more famous.
Now, to widen the public, at this stage, you simply need more people playing, casual players on facebook are the ideal target: young enough to learn fast the rules of the game, a lot of social connections with other like them but, more and more often, with older people belonging to the working class (their impulse is needed as they got a lot more capabilities, what do you think is better, 10 teenagers or 1 manager interested in promoting esport?).
Ok maybe this was a little off topic, but I think it didn't deserve a thread so I put it here.
Sorry for my english!
Michele
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Honestly, it pisses me off more that we are so left in the dark about this, and nobody from blizzard/activision is addressing our concerns or answering any of our questions. Some random mod saying "We're listening dun worry lawl" doesn't count.
Other companies do it fine. City of heroes had GREAT communication with their fanbase. Whenever they were gonna do something controversial, they TALKED about it. And even if we didn't agree with it, we could try and understand their point of view. But when a forum mod comes and says "We're tired of trollin, so real names it is people." its just not enough. That's where I get upset. Show me the real insight behind this change, because I don't believe forum trolls can win so easily.
If they would just straight up answer that they want to appeal to a different group of gamers, or whatever, I would appreciate both companies so much more.
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On July 08 2010 20:33 Entropia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:56 HDstarcraft wrote: there is the possibility that StarCraft 2 will become the next farmville. And you have to wonder - How incredible that would be?
[...]
but from a SuperCasual third person standpoint - say somebody who plays farmville on facebook - I might one day see an SC2 notification and end up buying the game. I definitely agree with HDstarcraft. Doesn't Starcraft deserve a greater success than farmville? Maybe the facebook integration is not as stupid as we thought. ESports need one thing before everything, a wider public. Husky and HD recently overcame a hundred subscribers, that is a very good achievement (greetings to both casters!) but, I mean, don't you think that a Starcraft match is much more interesting to watch rather than a poker game? Maybe the rules of the game are less intuitive? Yet, poker is far more famous. Now, to widen the public, at this stage, you simply need more people playing, casual players on facebook are the ideal target: young enough to learn fast the rules of the game, a lot of social connections with other like them but, more and more often, with older people belonging to the working class (their impulse is needed as they got a lot more capabilities, what do you think is better, 10 teenagers or 1 manager interested in promoting esport?). Ok maybe this was a little off topic, but I think it didn't deserve a thread so I put it here. Sorry for my english! Michele
One thousand times yes!
Also, your english is fine. As a matter of fact, you're using it better than most native speakers I've seen.
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Activision Blizzard's CEO is Bobby Kotick, he is the guy that makes the decisions, the Blizzard heads are below him in the corporate structure.
Vivendi own 52% of Activision Blizzard, but they pretty much just choose the board of directors. If they made every decision, then they wouldn't need a board of directors, would they?
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Listen, I'm all for Starcraft becoming a bigger esport. That would be great.
However, not at the expense of the game itself.
I am not a tournament player. I'm a regular videogamer. Odds are, I'll end up somewhere in diamond league and play SC2 against friends and play ladder matches.
While I tremendously enjoy watching Starcraft and respect the pro players for their abilities, I currently place higher value on my own enjoyment of the game than on the amount of money sponsors can make off of it. One hundred thousand ex-farmville players in the ladders doesn't make the game one bit more interesting for me. Having to pay for user-created maps, not being able to stay anonymous, not having the most basic features do make the game less interesting.
If it takes destruction/deterioration of the game (for gamers) itself to expand the game (for investors/sponsors), then to hell with that.
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On July 08 2010 20:45 DarQraven wrote:
Listen, I'm all for Starcraft becoming a bigger esport. That would be great.
However, not at the expense of the game itself.
I am not a tournament player. I'm a regular videogamer. Odds are, I'll end up somewhere in diamond league and play SC2 against friends and play ladder matches.
While I tremendously enjoy watching Starcraft and respect the pro players for their abilities, I currently place higher value on my own enjoyment of the game than on the amount of money sponsors can make off of it. One hundred thousand ex-farmville players in the ladders doesn't make the game one bit more interesting for me.
If it takes destruction/deterioration of the game (for gamers) itself to expand the game (for investors/sponsors), then to hell with that.
You will never play against those one hundred thousand Farmville players, unless they get good.
How does more potential good players hurt a game, again?
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On July 08 2010 20:24 Piski wrote:It makes you think what is their next step
The last BIG game published by activision was modern warfare 2... it was good, yeah, but i`ll list some community based concerns:
- Single player was like 6-hour gameplay that is IT. Some community sorces even talked about the game beeing forced out to early (but i think its kinda rubbish)
- Nearly NO community based gameexperience (no servers +co) / with a userunfriendly group play support.
- All community concerns where ignored (tubing imbaness/ onemanarmy +co).. there were NO balancing patches.
- The only huge change to the game is that they added maps (some of those were OLD!!!) being purchused for 13 euros or smth by the players. and of course they made MILLIONS of it. (with maps, imagine...) just because (of course) there is no mapeditor/dedicated servers.
- After the release they increased the price of the game (when they sold millions of copies and saw they could get away with it).
There is no way you can dispute that activision is all about the money. they dont care about the community and what we want... the main thing for them is that we shut up and buy the game.
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On July 08 2010 20:49 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:45 DarQraven wrote:
Listen, I'm all for Starcraft becoming a bigger esport. That would be great.
However, not at the expense of the game itself.
I am not a tournament player. I'm a regular videogamer. Odds are, I'll end up somewhere in diamond league and play SC2 against friends and play ladder matches.
While I tremendously enjoy watching Starcraft and respect the pro players for their abilities, I currently place higher value on my own enjoyment of the game than on the amount of money sponsors can make off of it. One hundred thousand ex-farmville players in the ladders doesn't make the game one bit more interesting for me.
If it takes destruction/deterioration of the game (for gamers) itself to expand the game (for investors/sponsors), then to hell with that. You will never play against those one hundred thousand Farmville players, unless they get good. How does more potential good players hurt a game, again?
Like I said in the post you quoted, if it takes negative changes to the game to attract those extra players, I think the downside is obvious.
Analog: Take Beethoven's fifth. Add DnB beat in background to attract more listeners. After all, how could more listeners be bad for the music?
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On July 08 2010 20:45 DarQraven wrote:
Listen, I'm all for Starcraft becoming a bigger esport. That would be great.
However, not at the expense of the game itself.
I am not a tournament player. I'm a regular videogamer. Odds are, I'll end up somewhere in diamond league and play SC2 against friends and play ladder matches.
While I tremendously enjoy watching Starcraft and respect the pro players for their abilities, I currently place higher value on my own enjoyment of the game than on the amount of money sponsors can make off of it. One hundred thousand ex-farmville players in the ladders doesn't make the game one bit more interesting for me.
If it takes destruction/deterioration of the game (for gamers) itself to expand the game (for investors/sponsors), then to hell with that.
I completely agree.
They just seem to be looking at things through a business standpoint. They think (and are probably right) most of us who are into SC will play this no matter what they do, and are just going to appeal to other groups of people. As any business that needs profit, it makes sense, but as a hardcore fan, it's just disappointing.
But I agree that if the game won't be enjoyable for awhile as they're aiming for investors, then it's just not right.
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On July 08 2010 20:50 DarQraven wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:49 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 20:45 DarQraven wrote:
Listen, I'm all for Starcraft becoming a bigger esport. That would be great.
However, not at the expense of the game itself.
I am not a tournament player. I'm a regular videogamer. Odds are, I'll end up somewhere in diamond league and play SC2 against friends and play ladder matches.
While I tremendously enjoy watching Starcraft and respect the pro players for their abilities, I currently place higher value on my own enjoyment of the game than on the amount of money sponsors can make off of it. One hundred thousand ex-farmville players in the ladders doesn't make the game one bit more interesting for me.
If it takes destruction/deterioration of the game (for gamers) itself to expand the game (for investors/sponsors), then to hell with that. You will never play against those one hundred thousand Farmville players, unless they get good. How does more potential good players hurt a game, again? Like I said in the post you quoted, if it takes negative changes to the game to attract those extra players, I think the downside is obvious.
Facebook integration doesn't hurt the game at all. It's just part of the superfluous coating.
Not to mention that it's optional, and probably took someone all of an hour to code.
Analog: Take Beethoven's fifth. Add DnB beat in background to attract more listeners. After all, how could more listeners be bad for the music?
This is more like someone taking Beethoven's Fifth, and changing the cover to Beethoven wearing some "sweet ass kicks." It doesn't effect the music at all, it's just a little painful to see.
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On July 08 2010 20:33 Entropia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:56 HDstarcraft wrote: there is the possibility that StarCraft 2 will become the next farmville. And you have to wonder - How incredible that would be?
[...]
but from a SuperCasual third person standpoint - say somebody who plays farmville on facebook - I might one day see an SC2 notification and end up buying the game. I definitely agree with HDstarcraft. Doesn't Starcraft deserve a greater success than farmville? Maybe the facebook integration is not as stupid as we thought. ESports need one thing before everything, a wider public. Husky and HD recently overcame a hundred subscribers, that is a very good achievement (greetings to both casters!) but, I mean, don't you think that a Starcraft match is much more interesting to watch rather than a poker game? Maybe the rules of the game are less intuitive? Yet, poker is far more famous. Now, to widen the public, at this stage, you simply need more people playing, casual players on facebook are the ideal target: young enough to learn fast the rules of the game, a lot of social connections with other like them but, more and more often, with older people belonging to the working class (their impulse is needed as they got a lot more capabilities, what do you think is better, 10 teenagers or 1 manager interested in promoting esport?). Ok maybe this was a little off topic, but I think it didn't deserve a thread so I put it here. Sorry for my english! Michele
Your making the same mistake whoever is making decisions about battle.net is. People playing farmville DON'T want a deep competitive game that requires significant investment to play. They want some buttons to press while bored at work. The two games are completely different, and so is their audience.
You can't play starcraft at work.
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On July 08 2010 20:57 f0rk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:33 Entropia wrote:On July 08 2010 18:56 HDstarcraft wrote: there is the possibility that StarCraft 2 will become the next farmville. And you have to wonder - How incredible that would be?
[...]
but from a SuperCasual third person standpoint - say somebody who plays farmville on facebook - I might one day see an SC2 notification and end up buying the game. I definitely agree with HDstarcraft. Doesn't Starcraft deserve a greater success than farmville? Maybe the facebook integration is not as stupid as we thought. ESports need one thing before everything, a wider public. Husky and HD recently overcame a hundred subscribers, that is a very good achievement (greetings to both casters!) but, I mean, don't you think that a Starcraft match is much more interesting to watch rather than a poker game? Maybe the rules of the game are less intuitive? Yet, poker is far more famous. Now, to widen the public, at this stage, you simply need more people playing, casual players on facebook are the ideal target: young enough to learn fast the rules of the game, a lot of social connections with other like them but, more and more often, with older people belonging to the working class (their impulse is needed as they got a lot more capabilities, what do you think is better, 10 teenagers or 1 manager interested in promoting esport?). Ok maybe this was a little off topic, but I think it didn't deserve a thread so I put it here. Sorry for my english! Michele Your making the same mistake whoever is making decisions about battle.net is. People playing farmville DON'T want a deep competitive game that requires significant investment to play. They want some buttons to press while bored at work. The two games are completely different, and so is their audience. You can't play starcraft at work.
That is strangely in line with my Beethoven analogy...
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On July 08 2010 20:45 DarQraven wrote:
While I tremendously enjoy watching Starcraft and respect the pro players for their abilities, I currently place higher value on my own enjoyment of the game than on the amount of money sponsors can make off of it. One hundred thousand ex-farmville players in the ladders doesn't make the game one bit more interesting for me.
If it takes destruction/deterioration of the game (for gamers) itself to expand the game (for investors/sponsors), then to hell with that.
One hundred thousand farmville players in the ladders dont't hurt you neither!
Ok let's make a comparison with football (somehow reversed):
You don't like watching football on TV, and you don't care if Spain beat Germany yesterday. But it is probably thanks to the millions watching football that you can play the local tournament in your school or find a playing field to play in with your friends. Notoriety is always a positive thing, no matter is for sports, games or people.
I just don't see any reason why it would be detrimental, as long as the game is not changed and features like chat channels will be added (organising tournaments is a must IMO, but this is a different story...)
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Indeed, they are a different demographic.
We want a balanced game with a high skill ceiling, they want an easy and forgiving game.
We want anonymity on bnet/forums, they want their 'ownage' screenshots to be posted all over facebook.
We hold Blizzard to a high standard, they are fully willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a mappack (see MW2 stimulus pack).
(generalized, of course)
It's a conflict of interests, and if Blizzard is serious about attracting that demographic, they will have to make changes to what we know and love as Starcraft.
If that trend continues, how long do you think it takes before stuff like new paid DLC units for multiplayer start releasing?
Like I said earlier, it's not that I don't want any new players. Far from it. I'd love it if Starcraft exploded into something bigger.
But it should happen because those masses are drawn into Starcraft, not because Starcraft changes to suit the masses.
Also, to say that it's just a coating and the game remains unchanged is wrong, in my opinion.
If ID has taught me anything, it's that products are integral packages - the advertising, form, function, packaging, user experience, outlet, everything; It's all the same product and adds or detracts from the user's enjoyment of that product.
For an example, look at perfume packaging. More money is spent on that than the actual perfume itself, because something like that can significantly change a consumer's opinion and enjoyment of that product.
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I cant wait to see in what way theyre gonna fuck up D3
Oh man, you just made me cry.
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On July 08 2010 21:04 DarQraven wrote:
Indeed, they are a different demographic.
We want a balanced game with a high skill ceiling, they want an easy and forgiving game.
We want anonymity on bnet/forums, they want their 'ownage' screenshots to be posted all over facebook.
We hold Blizzard to a high standard, they are fully willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a mappack (see MW2 stimulus pack).
(generalized, of course)
It's a conflict of interests, and if Blizzard is serious about attracting that demographic, they will have to make changes to what we know and love as Starcraft.
If that trend continues, how long do you think it takes before stuff like new paid DLC units for multiplayer start releasing?
Like I said earlier, it's not that I don't want any new players. Far from it. I'd love it if Starcraft exploded into something bigger.
But it should happen because those masses are drawn into Starcraft, not because Starcraft changes to suit the masses.
Challenge for blizzard is to satisfy both populations. The lack of a progaming community would be tremendous, so I don't think they will tweak the game to be easy and forgiving.
This doesn't mean that it's not fun at lower levels! Broodwar was very enjoying even at the lowest degrees of noobness (I remember playing through a TELEPHONE direct connection versus my neighbour, total noobs yes but we had a lot of fun!).
The ownage screenshots should be optional, and yes, anonymity is a controversial issue but, again, is that really important for you to post on bnet forums?
Regarding the pay2play (map packs etc), this is more complex and maybe that's the real challenge for blizzard.
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On July 08 2010 18:31 Psychopomp wrote:
Wait, so they won't interfere with Blizzard's game design, just superfluous stuff outside of the game itself?
I'll probably catch some flak, but in that case I don't fucking care.
Makes sense, the agreement in the merger was that blizz would keep creative control of the games. Strictly speaking, bnet2.0 isnt a game or whatever so activision probably saw it as something they could muscle in on.
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I wish Robert Kotick would go away forever... =(
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On July 08 2010 18:46 Drakan wrote:
All i want to see is their stocks go down to hell... so sad that blizzard sold themselves to this fuckers.
I thought they were bought out. After all it is a publicly traded company.
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On July 08 2010 21:26 Champi wrote:
I wish Robert Kotick would go away forever... =(
The fact that he basically founded 4kids is just proof that he's the devil.
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On July 08 2010 21:27 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:46 Drakan wrote:
All i want to see is their stocks go down to hell... so sad that blizzard sold themselves to this fuckers. I thought they were bought out. After all it is a publicly traded company.
Blizzard belonged to Vivendi games, and when they merged with Activision, all of Vivendi Game's assets went to Activision Blizzard(Including Blizzard itself). Blizzard had no control over where they went or who they belonged to. No selling was involved.
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On July 08 2010 18:59 Drakan wrote:awesome thread... The thing is that in facebook only my friends know that I play farmville... nobody else can see that. But if ACTIVISION do this to battle.net forums they are assuming that I'm friend of every single user in the forum which is absolutely FALSE and beside that, anybody can get in the forums... without ever having a blizzard game. Kotick will go to hell with a looot of money on his pockets. sorry for the lack of skills... paint ftw.
I feel as though this sums up this entire situation very nicely. Activision has been driving Blizzard into the ground for years now, since the inception of the new B.Net.
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On July 08 2010 21:02 Entropia wrote:
One hundred thousand farmville players in the ladders dont't hurt you neither!
Ok let's make a comparison with football (somehow reversed):
You don't like watching football on TV, and you don't care if Spain beat Germany yesterday. But it is probably thanks to the millions watching football that you can play the local tournament in your school or find a playing field to play in with your friends. Notoriety is always a positive thing, no matter is for sports, games or people.
I just don't see any reason why it would be detrimental, as long as the game is not changed and features like chat channels will be added (organising tournaments is a must IMO, but this is a different story...)
People are angry about the mentality with which Blizzard is approaching this game as a whole. B.Net 2.0 and this decision are both products of that mentality, which obviously has not changed for the most part since the only way to force concessions on their part, it seems, is to throw a community-wide temper tantrum. The fact is that depending on what you view as "beneficial" for a game, one hundred thousand Famville players entering it can certainly be detrimental. The problem is not so much the players themselves, but the fact that this game from the start is being molded to attract these players and accomodate them. And yes, it has had a very real effect on the game itself, not just the superficial frills.
It's not secret that Starcraft 2 has a much lower skill ceiling and is much more "newb-friendly" than Starcraft 1 ever was. While one can argue whether this is actually an improvement or not, the plain fact is that Starcraft 2 is the easier game and it's largely due to the fact that the high skill ceiling required for Starcraft 1 was perceived to be detrimental to attracting casual players. It's only natural that the non-casual players in the competitive community would be upset by their loyalty to the product being abused rather than appreciated. Instead of Blizzard giving the loyal fanbase what it desires, it is taking their continued loyalty as a given and ignoring them to instead pursue a larger consumer base and one that happens to be in a direct conflict with the existing fanbase. Whether this makes a game "better" or "worse" is completely in the eye of the beholder.
Some people would argue that Checkers is a far better game than Chess because it's more accessible, simpler, and can be played casually without much thought. For others, Chess is the far superior game because it is more challenging, requires much more thought, and because of the variety of moves and strategy one must employ. Both sides are right in their own minds, but if every single company started making Checkers-like games rather than Chess-like games because Connect Four has a larger audience and the Chess players would be forced by limited options to buy it anyway, is that something positive for the gaming community as a whole?
This is a much deeper problem than just having no chatrooms or having your identity exposed on the forums. These are all symptoms of an underlying mentality that fundamentally conflicts with the current fanbase. Until Blizzard decides to start listening to that fanbase rather than simply ignoring it as much as they can without inciting riots (which seems to be their current course of action), then people are naturally going to be upset and issues like this will naturally arise repeatedly. The simple fact is that Blizzard has grown disturbingly out of touch with the people they claim to be making their product for and we need to let them know how out of touch they really are or else they won't wake up from it. Either that or the people who they claim to be their target audience isn't in fact, their target audience, in which case Blizzard needs to stop lying and just be honest that they don't care about the competitive gaming community or putting quality and creativity above all else.
I personally don't agree with the "wait and see" people. When it's implemented and the game is released, it is much more difficult to get a company to rethink things than it is during the development and testing stages. It's foolish to wait out and see how it all works in the months or years following release before you make a complaint about it. This applies to everything from chat channels to in-game balance. Balance is supposed to exist upon the game's release and evolve to suit the evolution of the game. If people aren't playing today the way they will 10 years from now, how can you possibly presume to balance the game looking 10 years down the road? If people buy the game and then quit after a few months because of the lack of chat channels and feeling alone despite playing a multiplayer game, do you think they're going to be inclined to give the game another shot in a few months when chat channels do arrive? I can tell you right now that once people quit once, they generally don't go back no matter what improvements are made. That's why a good release is so important to a successful game.
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I don't mean to sound rude, but isn't this just a "I know a guy who knows a guy who heard from a guy that this is happening inside blizzard"?
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sooner or later Kotick will get threaten or attacked for the things he puts on millions of players all over the planet
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People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release.
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Just like to comment on the Farmville comparisons....
1. Farmville is free
2. People don't spend many hours on Farmville
3. Only your friends know you play Farmville
4. If someone Google's you, they will not see whether or not you play Farmville
5. Farmville only requires a browser
6. Farmville is perceived as much less geeky than Xcraft
Long story short, the type of people who play Farmville won't play Xcraft.
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On July 08 2010 22:31 Fyrewolf wrote:
People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release.
They also didn't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games of all time while merged with Activision.
Just sayin'. 
Also, I think most of the complaints (at the very least mine) aren't about the missing features in Bnet so far, they're about the direction Bnet is headed.
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On July 08 2010 18:31 Psychopomp wrote:Wait, so they won't interfere with Blizzard's game design, just superfluous stuff outside of the game itself? I'll probably catch some flak, but in that case I don't fucking care.Edit: Show nested quote +Oh, sure, you'll always have the ability to play Starcraft II in peace and quiet the same way you can have a facebook with everything turned off - most people just aren't going to fucking bother with the additional trouble. I think you overestimate how much of the community as a whole actually cares about stuff like this. The people who post on forums are a tiny minority, and the people who actually go through on the threats of quitting are even smaller. People will put up with a tremendous amount of bullshit. The sales and subs they'll lose from any of this will be negligible, even disregarding sales they stand to gain.
This.
I honestly don't give a damn how they do their advertising.
As long as they let Blizzard produce the same quality of product (which they seem to be doing) they may as well collect money for it. As far as I'm concerned I am buying the games (the SC2+expansions, Diablo 3, never liked WoW for personal reasons and advertising won't change that) regardless and advertising consequently doesn't concern me.
If they feel like using facebook as publicity and connecting with a very large audience, good for them, let them recruit customers, that's what the marketing division is payed for.
As for the first name issue on forums, my first (and probably only) reaction was to make myself unsearchable on facebook. I have a lot of friends who have ditched it, I hardly use it at all, it is by no means essential to anything I do (whether university which I am just out of or professional life, if I have a few people I want to invite and keep in touch with, I can still do that).
On the other hand I think it could have the good consequence of cleaning up the forums a little. As for the people bitching about invasions of privacy because they put half their lives on facebook and post on the blizzard forums well ... wither stop posting on those forums, make yourself unsearchable on facebook, or if you are really paranoid create a fake RealID (get a gmail of JD.Whyte@gmail.com, create a facebook account if you want, and post on forums as John Whyte, you now have a very nice facade for your online interactions with no connection to your real life).
Damien (Woot you know my first name !!!)
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Oh boy.
First of all, being newbie-friendly and having a low skill ceiling ARE NOT THE SAME. Chess is much more newbie-friendly than SC is, and some would say that it has a higher skill ceiling. People keeping throwing out the two ideas in the same sentence as if it was obvious ("Everybody knows that SC2 is..."), without offering any proof. If you are not a top-tier player, you cannot make judgments of the 'skill ceiling', period. Even if you are, you need some damn good arguments.
Those people saying 'Farmville players will never be competitive gamers' are missing one very important point: people change. You were not born a hardcore gamer. When you were playing in the sandlot with your kindergarten friends you had no idea Richard Garriott was making Ultima or whatever. You probably started out playing Tetris, found you liked it, played Mario, found you liked it, and so on. Saying that casual players will never become hardcore players is incredibly stupid - though an incredible stupidity that most of the hardcore community seems to be sharing. You could find enormous pleasure from playing squash, become the best squash player the world has ever known, but with that narrow-mindedness you'll never know.
RealID is pretty stupid though, can't contest that. I still think it's the Korean law bit that caused that one.
Edit: after reading some other threads I'm raging a bit, so I just want to emphasize again that a game can be both competitive and casual-friendly. Soccer! Soccer is competitive and casual-friendly! Jesus, was that so hard?
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On July 08 2010 18:59 Santriell wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:
While I myself and basically untrackable ....and that the last IP you used on irc is a fake one ? .
Ever heard of bouncers?
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On July 08 2010 22:38 DarQraven wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 22:31 Fyrewolf wrote:
People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release. They also didn't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games of all time while merged with Activision. Just sayin'. Also, I think most of the complaints (at the very least mine) aren't about the missing features in Bnet so far, they're about the direction Bnet is headed.
He's right. I worry less about if there's chat channels than if Battle.net is gonna be a social networking thing. It's called BATTLE.net for a reason. I don't want to see my elementary school friends when i'm opening cans of whoopass on SC2. Read the great OP in this thread and you'll see how evil, but smart businessman Kotick is.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252
With Activision owning 52% of the shares, it has control over a lot of stuff Blizzard does. Since Kotick is in love with subscriptions, I wouldn't be surprised if they went milking us for a monthly fee.
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Blizzard, thou liest amongst the steppes of war, as false as a changeling and deceptive as a buried infestor. Why dost thou toy with mine heart! Mine own sleep I have deprived, simply for the sake of the game. But yet again you have destroyed all hope left inside this heart like an overload sent as a scouting sacrifice. A psionic storm is brewing inside me and I fear it may be too late cancel its wrath. What was once a burning passion for Starcraft 2, stronger than the flames of an infernal pre-igniter have slowly dimmed to meek and lowly candle flame. Thou art nothing but a commercial corporation seeking only thine own monetary satisfaction. Either for sake of obliviousness or carelessness thine owns greatest creations is at the footsteps of destruction, knocking at the doors of death and eternal suffering. Return this game from whence it came, draw back towards the mechanics that made Broodwar timeless. Shun the evil that is Facebook and condemn the REAL ID tag and instead embrace the community that has supported you. Thou focus has been skewed towards numbers, ease of play, and achievements. I implore thee to re-center thine focus on that which is truly important, gameplay and community.
Mine eyes have seen the future and I can say that great wealth and glory lie at hand, but the path you are treading down is straying ever so slowly. I fear that soon the original path and its end goal will no longer be visible. The path thou art following will surely lead to to a death more terrible than banelings raining down from the heavens.
Please, Blizzard, again I implore thee, return to the original path, the path of glory!
Lest I must utter the phrase that has been burning hot inside me like the acid of an infernal roach,
Fare thee well.
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The tools we have to keep a strong in-game competitive community and environment are almost as significant to me as the actual gameplay. Things have so far felt very disconnected in SC2's beta compared to BW, so that degradation is really frustrating to see what with it being 10 years later and all..
It's not secret that Starcraft 2 has a much lower skill ceiling and is much more "newb-friendly" than Starcraft 1 ever was.
Hold on the game's been in beta form for a few months and people are measuring the still-growing skill ceiling and comparing it to a 10 year old E-sport.
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On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me?
Personally, the appeal is to be able to have a back and forth discussion of the game with a group of players. That way I can learn and meet potential teammates and practice partners. How do I do that inside SC2? You simply can't.
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I hope you guys know that Blizzard retains their own staff and that Activision is their Parent Company, meaning, Blizzard is an investment to them, they don't actually micro-manage them.
Consider Blizzard a high-yield gold expansion that is fully automated and capable of defending itself. Activision gets the expansion minerals/gas while paying their own SCVs to mine... meanwhile, Activision, as a parent company, goes around "investing" without much micro-management.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On July 08 2010 22:31 Fyrewolf wrote:
People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release.
Look, it's not bitching about Battle.net 2.0 not having all the new stuff we wanted - it's about Battle.net 2.0 having LESS things than Battle.net 1.0 - released 12 years ago.
It's about every new feature that gets announced being something that is either directly hurtful to competition (no lan, new division system), or at the very least irrelevant (facebook).
Their promised content may yet redeem them, but with the way they've choosen to announce things, I really don't blame anyone for thinking the sky is falling, cause Blizzard sure hasn't done much to convince anyone otherwise.
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On July 08 2010 23:19 Redmark wrote:
Oh boy.
First of all, being newbie-friendly and having a low skill ceiling ARE NOT THE SAME. Chess is much more newbie-friendly than SC is, and some would say that it has a higher skill ceiling. People keeping throwing out the two ideas in the same sentence as if it was obvious ("Everybody knows that SC2 is..."), without offering any proof. If you are not a top-tier player, you cannot make judgments of the 'skill ceiling', period. Even if you are, you need some damn good arguments.
Those people saying 'Farmville players will never be competitive gamers' are missing one very important point: people change. You were not born a hardcore gamer. When you were playing in the sandlot with your kindergarten friends you had no idea Richard Garriott was making Ultima or whatever. You probably started out playing Tetris, found you liked it, played Mario, found you liked it, and so on. Saying that casual players will never become hardcore players is incredibly stupid - though an incredible stupidity that most of the hardcore community seems to be sharing. You could find enormous pleasure from playing squash, become the best squash player the world has ever known, but with that narrow-mindedness you'll never know.
RealID is pretty stupid though, can't contest that. I still think it's the Korean law bit that caused that one.
Edit: after reading some other threads I'm raging a bit, so I just want to emphasize again that a game can be both competitive and casual-friendly. Soccer! Soccer is competitive and casual-friendly! Jesus, was that so hard?
Yes people can change, but I think your underestimating just how low down on the 'effort required' scale facebook games are compared to starcraft. Same point with competitive vs casual-friendly. There are different degrees to the phrase 'casual-friendly' and farmville is so far away from starcraft (or any multiplayer game) it's ridiculous. They should be going after xbox live customers or something, not social-networked-for-free-advertising bull.
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On July 09 2010 00:05 f0rk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 23:19 Redmark wrote:
Oh boy.
First of all, being newbie-friendly and having a low skill ceiling ARE NOT THE SAME. Chess is much more newbie-friendly than SC is, and some would say that it has a higher skill ceiling. People keeping throwing out the two ideas in the same sentence as if it was obvious ("Everybody knows that SC2 is..."), without offering any proof. If you are not a top-tier player, you cannot make judgments of the 'skill ceiling', period. Even if you are, you need some damn good arguments.
Those people saying 'Farmville players will never be competitive gamers' are missing one very important point: people change. You were not born a hardcore gamer. When you were playing in the sandlot with your kindergarten friends you had no idea Richard Garriott was making Ultima or whatever. You probably started out playing Tetris, found you liked it, played Mario, found you liked it, and so on. Saying that casual players will never become hardcore players is incredibly stupid - though an incredible stupidity that most of the hardcore community seems to be sharing. You could find enormous pleasure from playing squash, become the best squash player the world has ever known, but with that narrow-mindedness you'll never know.
RealID is pretty stupid though, can't contest that. I still think it's the Korean law bit that caused that one.
Edit: after reading some other threads I'm raging a bit, so I just want to emphasize again that a game can be both competitive and casual-friendly. Soccer! Soccer is competitive and casual-friendly! Jesus, was that so hard? Yes people can change, but I think your underestimating just how low down on the 'effort required' scale facebook games are compared to starcraft. Same point with competitive vs casual-friendly. There are different degrees to the phrase 'casual-friendly' and farmville is so far away from starcraft (or any multiplayer game) it's ridiculous. They should be going after xbox live customers or something, not social-networked-for-free-advertising bull.
My mother plays farmville, to give an example.
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On July 09 2010 00:03 Liquid`Jinro wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 22:31 Fyrewolf wrote:
People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release. Look, it's not bitching about Battle.net 2.0 not having all the new stuff we wanted - it's about Battle.net 2.0 having LESS things than Battle.net 1.0 - released 12 years ago. It's about every new feature that gets announced being something that is either directly hurtful to competition (no lan, new division system), or at the very least irrelevant (facebook). Their promised content may yet redeem them, but with the way they've choosen to announce things, I really don't blame anyone for thinking the sky is falling, cause Blizzard sure hasn't done much to convince anyone otherwise.
Well said.
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The problem with your comparison
Starcraft is an incredibly competitive game with a very high learning curve. It doesn't appeal to people who play Farmville at all. makes a little more sense with WoW, but trying to get the "Farmville" crowd with Starcraft II facebook integration doesn't make any sense at all.
Also lol at the all the trolls now angry people will know who they are. You aren't required to post on Blizz forums, I avoid them because they are so awful.
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I really think that the battlenet part or the project was a failure from a management point of view. I believe that battlenet delayed the whole sc2 launch because Activision imposed the implementation of new features that were not planned by blizzard...
If senior talents inside blizzard are so unhappy it is likely that the company as we know it will break apart.
Is blizzard going to be the next Infinity Ward?
Thanks Activision...
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On July 09 2010 00:11 PanzerDragoon wrote:
The problem with your comparison
Starcraft is an incredibly competitive game with a very high learning curve. It doesn't appeal to people who play Farmville at all. makes a little more sense with WoW, but trying to get the "Farmville" crowd with Starcraft II facebook integration doesn't make any sense at all.
Also lol at the all the trolls now angry people will know who they are. You aren't required to post on Blizz forums, I avoid them because they are so awful.
To be exact, its about getting facebook users to play starcraft which includes a lot of people who dont use facebook as a gaming platform. Personally, facebook integration does nothing for me directly, but it will advertise the game and that's good for starcraft.
Now whether it was a good way to spend developer resources is an entirely different question that depends on how much you believe what Blizzard says.
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On July 08 2010 19:10 Psychopomp wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi. l2read Show nested quote +I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points.
THE REAL NAME THING IS ONLY ON THE BLIZZ FORUMS, JUST DONT POST ON THE BLIZZ FORUMS
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On July 09 2010 00:20 Smackzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 00:11 PanzerDragoon wrote:
The problem with your comparison
Starcraft is an incredibly competitive game with a very high learning curve. It doesn't appeal to people who play Farmville at all. makes a little more sense with WoW, but trying to get the "Farmville" crowd with Starcraft II facebook integration doesn't make any sense at all.
Also lol at the all the trolls now angry people will know who they are. You aren't required to post on Blizz forums, I avoid them because they are so awful. To be exact, its about getting facebook users to play starcraft which includes a lot of people who dont use facebook as a gaming platform. Personally, facebook integration does nothing for me directly, but it will advertise the game and that's good for starcraft. Now whether it was a good way to spend developer resources is an entirely different question that depends on how much you believe what Blizzard says.
Since I have multiple people IRL I play Starcraft with, Facebook integration is worth it just so I can add them all in one fell swoop. I will probably disable any newsfeed integration.
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I will never, ever, use my real name or link my "real" or professional life with gaming.
I live in a third world country (so i don't know if this is the case everywhere) and gamers are still heavily frouned upon over here. They see it as playing with legos I guess.
I don't want my co-workers knowing what I do, how I do it, how do I do at what I do or how much time I do what I choose to do.
The problem with this integration is the withdrawal of choice. The imposition. Let us choose facebook, and probably we will (I'm not speaking of my case). Make it a added value, not a replacement.
Also, nicknames are awesome. How does a gaming company forget about that?
Ryan sucks, but ThorSmasHer is a world destroyer!
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On July 09 2010 00:29 gREIFOCs wrote:
I will never, ever, use my real name or link my "real" or professional life with gaming.
I live in a third world country (so i don't know if this is the case everywhere) and gamers are still heavily frouned upon.
I don't want my co-workers knowing what I do, how I do it, how do I do at what I do or how much time I do what I choose to do.
The problem with this integration is the withdrawal of choice.
You have a choice. You can just logout from facebook in your sc2 option menu and nobody will ever know that you play sc2.
Or just use this this
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So basically some of you guys want to make starcraft 2 a famous e-sport by trying to leech in all the retards who dwell on facebook ?
Tell me again how elitist and "special" you felt e-sports were ?
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On July 09 2010 00:32 Santriell wrote:
So basically some of you guys want to make starcraft 2 a famous e-sport by trying to leech in all the retards who dwell on facebook ?
Tell me again how elitist and "special" you felt e-sports were ?
Kinda bold and uncalled for to say all facebook users are retarded.
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You have a choice. You can just logout from facebook in your sc2 option menu and nobody will ever know that you play sc2. Or just use this this
I edited my post to be more clear. I would be ok with facebook if it did'nt came in hand with the whole "do you really want chatrooms?", and the many other troubles that have been pointed out.
They are moving my starcraft activity more near my mom, but further away from the fellow gamers we often find in Battle.net.
Or am I the only one that made friends INSIDE a game?
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On July 09 2010 00:32 Santriell wrote:
So basically some of you guys want to make starcraft 2 a famous e-sport by trying to leech in all the retards who dwell on facebook ?
Tell me again how elitist and "special" you felt e-sports were ?
Larger player base -> more sponsorship -> more pro-gamers/cash tournaments.
Elitism is counter-productive to e-sports.
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On July 09 2010 00:37 gREIFOCs wrote:Show nested quote +You have a choice. You can just logout from facebook in your sc2 option menu and nobody will ever know that you play sc2. Or just use this this I edited my post to be more clear. I would be ok with facebook if it did'nt came in hand with the whole "do you really want chatrooms?", and the many other troubles that have been pointed out. They are moving my starcraft activity more near my mom, but further away from the fellow gamers we often find in Battle.net. Or am I the only one that made friends INSIDE a game?
Well they have said there are going to be chat rooms. Just straight not away so we have two options. Cry about it and wait for the chat rooms or just wait for them.
For the record I agree with you that and I don't like this. But they already said they are working on it so constantly posting that "WE WANT THEM FASTER!!" doesn't really help. They screw up by not making them a priority but what's done is done.
So now we are in a situation where we don't have to use facebook integration and the chat rooms should be coming, even though late. Not the ideal situation but at least looking better than in the beginning.
The friends I made ingame are also in my msn and those I only talked to when I wanted a game can wait.
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On July 09 2010 00:22 PanzerDragoon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:10 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 19:07 Drakan wrote:On July 08 2010 18:57 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:50 Megalisk wrote:On July 08 2010 18:43 Psychopomp wrote:On July 08 2010 18:37 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Okay, here's things that you might care about:
They're want to monetize Battle.net with respect to Starcraft II (custom maps, god knows what else.)
They show tremendous disregard for the wishes of the community, whether chat channels or this.
It sets precedent for more invasions of privacy (would you like your real name as your BNet handle?)
They seem to think that the consumers, as a general rule, are completely fucking retarded. Free new maps are nice, not an entitlement. As long as I'm not forced to buy them to play ladder games, and it's not 15$ for TWO NEW MAPS AND THREE OLD ONES, I honestly have no issue with paying for new maps. I pay 15$ for an album, and 10$ for a movie ticket, I think I can scrounge up a buck or two for a good map. I'll never understand the love for public chatrooms. Whoopee, I get to talk to a legion of retards. The practical use for Starcraft 2 is almost non-existant, and by the time Diablo 3 rolls around we should have them. While I myself and basically untrackable, and I think the threat of internet psychos is completely overblown, I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass. Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. Ever made a chatroom to talk with all of your friends in the same place? Its so clunky in bnet 0.2. Chat rooms make everything so much easier. Considering I just run the game through Steam, no I've not. I won't deny the current chat system is clunky, I just don't get the appeal of public chat rooms(At least until Diablo 3 comes out). I hear people say things like "It makes it easier to find games," but why not just use the matchmaking? I'm normally opposed to matchmaking, but it's seriously the best matchmaking in existence. Can someone explain the appeal to me? You might be untrackable and stuff, but some other people are... Sorry to say that you are not the only one in the world. People have died thanks to psychopaths in game... and you only need 1 dead player to argument why REALID is a bad idea inside a GAME enviroment. Facebook is 1 thing, World of warcraft / counter strike / etc, are others. Most of WoW players are males and most of those players when they meet a girl that play the game they just harass her. In other social networking that doesn't happen because its almost 50/50, and you add your real life friends (man and girls) so its absolutely different. And if you don't want to understand the point, then just go and be a fucking Nazi. l2read I concede the last point. People, namely women and minorities, will be much easier to harass.
Edit(AGAIN!): For those okay with the whole real name thing, like I was, RPS raises some good points. THE REAL NAME THING IS ONLY ON THE BLIZZ FORUMS, JUST DONT POST ON THE BLIZZ FORUMS
[shout]Tech support is part of the game we bought[/shout]
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Their trolling argument about trying to regulate their forums is utter bullshit. Do you really think its hard for blizzard to link which level 1 alt was trolling to the owners account? Even if that person deleted that character, there would still a log on their servers. The entire thing is a social experiment at the cost of its subscribers. What better way to test something like this out then on your giant 12+ million population, in WoW alone.
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On July 09 2010 00:39 Smackzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 00:32 Santriell wrote:
So basically some of you guys want to make starcraft 2 a famous e-sport by trying to leech in all the retards who dwell on facebook ?
Tell me again how elitist and "special" you felt e-sports were ? Larger player base -> more sponsorship -> more pro-gamers/cash tournaments. Elitism is counter-productive to e-sports.
Disappointed/smaller hardcore playerbase -> less top-level players -> less/boring tournaments. See, I can do that too. You can't just isolate one aspect, ignore the rest and call that an argument.
I point you to UT3 for an example. Game was dead a year after launch, despite a free expansion pack and most bugs fixed and features added by then. A bad launch = dead game.
The game itself was fine and by most considered an improvement over UT2k4, yet it missed basic features like an easy-to-use and functional server browser, graphics settings, non-bugged friends list, mouse-central interface and dedicated servers. Can you see why people are worried?
I'm not saying SC2 will die in the coming year, I'm saying stuff like a larger playerbase is only good for the proscene if that comes without sacrifices to the game/functionality itself.
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On July 09 2010 00:58 DarQraven wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 00:39 Smackzilla wrote:On July 09 2010 00:32 Santriell wrote:
So basically some of you guys want to make starcraft 2 a famous e-sport by trying to leech in all the retards who dwell on facebook ?
Tell me again how elitist and "special" you felt e-sports were ? Larger player base -> more sponsorship -> more pro-gamers/cash tournaments. Elitism is counter-productive to e-sports. Disappointed/smaller hardcore playerbase -> less top-level players -> less tournaments. I point you to UT3 for an example. Game was dead a year after launch, despite a free expansion pack and most bugs fixed and features added by then. A bad launch = dead game.
Oh I won't argue with that. There are privacy concerns with facebook integration that need to be addressed but I'm hoping that they won't cause hardcore players to quit SC2 altogether. I've made sure to disconnect facebook from sc2 for myself, but it should probably be easier and/or the defaults should be changed.
However, privacy issues aside, it seems that advertising via facebook is good for starcraft. Attracting more players is a good thing.
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So it has been told that Blizzard should not talk to anyone about this problem, but some guy decides to post about it with his friend's gender and position....not very smart.
I don't like to hear this at all, but can you really trust a 59 DK?
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On July 09 2010 01:11 Dance.jhu wrote:
So it has been told that Blizzard should not talk to anyone about this problem, but some guy decides to post about it with his friend's gender and position....not very smart.
There are probably a crazy shit-ton of female GMs at Blizzard.
On July 09 2010 01:11 Dance.jhu wrote:
I don't like to hear this at all, but can you really trust a 59 DK?
The moderators deleted the post, if that lends any credence to the claims.
And both elements make sense, that
1. there is an organized hush campaign that blizzard is involved in - how else can you explain nobody saying anything while a two thousand page thread is being relentlessly moderated (over two thousand posts deleted, blues say nothing, greens say "what")
2. everything that's not game design isn't in the hands of blizzard anymore.
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This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it.
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On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it.
Actually I just want to play a cool game, all the b.net 2.0 stuff doesn't bother me at all. Don't call me naive, stupid, or dismissive.
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On July 09 2010 01:29 Colbear wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it. Actually I just want to play a cool game, all the b.net 2.0 stuff doesn't bother me at all. Don't call me naive, stupid, or dismissive.
Well while that is dismissive, I wasn't really targetting my post at people who don't have an opinion. If you want to refrain from having an opinion that is fine.
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On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it.
Showing real names is a bad idea, no doubt. But a slippery slope to 1984? Let's keep things in perspective please.
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On July 09 2010 01:34 Smackzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it. Showing real names is a bad idea, no doubt. But a slippery slope to 1984? Let's keep things in perspective please.
I am, and this either goes towards it or doesn't. Does it not go towards it?
How many games does activision own, what kind of influence does it have? When it sets a precedent like this, is it not easier for others to follow suit?
http://devilsworkshop.org/anonymous-posting-made-illegal-in-south-korea/
did you read about this?
now with something like this precedent happen, would it really be all that surprising if some time in the future the U.S. decides to pass a similar law? (the answer is it wouldn't, if you think it would you don't know what kind of assholes are running the country)
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On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
Wake up sheeple!
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Wow...
if they think facebook and those who play farmville will switch to starcraft 2 they must be mistaken...Yes it is advertisement for facebook but do they really think those who play farmville or any browser game is going to really switch to starcraft? The sc2 scene is pretty competitive and I just can't see the average farmville player trying to play this rts. It's like sending an average candyland player into chess (didn't mean to offend anyone)...It just doesn't seem right. While in the mean time piss off all the chess players.
If activision is pulling the strings, I just hope they don't burn the game into the ground...
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On July 09 2010 01:38 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 01:34 Smackzilla wrote:On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it. Showing real names is a bad idea, no doubt. But a slippery slope to 1984? Let's keep things in perspective please. I am, and this either goes towards it or doesn't. Does it not go towards it? How many games does activision own, what kind of influence does it have? When it sets a precedent like this, is it not easier for others to follow suit? http://devilsworkshop.org/anonymous-posting-made-illegal-in-south-korea/did you read about this? now with something like this precedent happen, would it really be all that surprising if some time in the future the U.S. decides to pass a similar law? (the answer is it wouldn't, if you think it would you don't know what kind of assholes are running the country)
Seriously? So when you said that Blizzard is "a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state", that was keeping things in perspective?
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On July 09 2010 01:46 SequorNubilum wrote:
Wow...
if they think facebook and those who play farmville will switch to starcraft 2 they must be mistaken...Yes it is advertisement for facebook but do they really think those who play farmville or any browser game is going to really switch to starcraft? The sc2 scene is pretty competitive and I just can't see the average farmville player trying to play this rts. It's like sending an average candyland player into chess (didn't mean to offend anyone)...It just doesn't seem right. While in the mean time piss off all the chess players.
If activision is pulling the strings, I just hope they don't burn the game into the ground...
Activision only really makes money off the initial sale. Why would they care if a farmville player got into the sc2 community? They just care if they drop the 60$ on the game. Activision isn't Blizzard they don't give a shit about gaining a loyal following.
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Who cares about Facebook? If you hate it so much, why are you on it. It's really easy to block anything on Facebook anyway.
My concern is over LAN play. This is a big deal, and a huge insult to Blizzard's dedicated fans that we wouldn't buy the game if we could play LAN. What is going to end up happening is that there's going to be a cracked version that CAN play LAN, and instead of insisting to all my friends that they must buy Starcraft 2, I'll instead just point them to the cracked version so we can play on LAN. Now Blizzard just lost the revenue of all my friends, and any goodwill I would have spread on the internets.
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On July 09 2010 01:46 SequorNubilum wrote:
Wow...
if they think facebook and those who play farmville will switch to starcraft 2 they must be mistaken...Yes it is advertisement for facebook but do they really think those who play farmville or any browser game is going to really switch to starcraft? The sc2 scene is pretty competitive and I just can't see the average farmville player trying to play this rts. It's like sending an average candyland player into chess (didn't mean to offend anyone)...It just doesn't seem right. While in the mean time piss off all the chess players.
If activision is pulling the strings, I just hope they don't burn the game into the ground...
I whole heartedly agree. There are ways to get Farmville-only players switching into StarCraft, but the current way is not one of them. I would not agree with the incompatibility between Farmville and SC2 players though. Everyone starts out as a newer player, and I have no doubt that one day some crazy gamer would point to Farmville as a starting point.
And besides, Farmville is popular for a reason... I've had my stint with Farmville and many other gamer friends of mine have too. Wanna be neighbors?
But Activision can do anything it wants. In the end, it is Activision that gets burned for doing stupid stuff. While it is the concept of corporate greed and capitalism that brought us into this unideal situation, it will probably be corporate greed and capitalism that saves us.
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On July 09 2010 01:50 Smackzilla wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 01:38 travis wrote:On July 09 2010 01:34 Smackzilla wrote:On July 09 2010 01:23 travis wrote:
This is corporate america it's the same as all the other huge corporations who's sole interest is money. When all you care about is money this is the kind of things that happen. A lot of people don't understand how terrible this realID thing is and what kind of precedent it sets. It goes way beyond the game here.
I hope everyone that works for blizzard quits. I would if I worked for Blizzard. As I have told others I will not be buyin the game as I won't support a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state. And that's exactly what realID does - but most of you are too naive, too stupid, or too dismissive to realize it. Showing real names is a bad idea, no doubt. But a slippery slope to 1984? Let's keep things in perspective please. I am, and this either goes towards it or doesn't. Does it not go towards it? How many games does activision own, what kind of influence does it have? When it sets a precedent like this, is it not easier for others to follow suit? http://devilsworkshop.org/anonymous-posting-made-illegal-in-south-korea/did you read about this? now with something like this precedent happen, would it really be all that surprising if some time in the future the U.S. decides to pass a similar law? (the answer is it wouldn't, if you think it would you don't know what kind of assholes are running the country) Seriously? So when you said that Blizzard is "a company who wants to help push the world into an authoritarian state", that was keeping things in perspective?
ok pick out flaws in my semantics, do you not think it's possible that I didn't mean it that literally? what I am saying is that activision's policies are accomplishing just that, and I am sure bobby kotick doesn't give as fuck about any of it as long as he makes more money.
my point isn't about what activision wants or doesn't want, my point is about what they are doing.
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just wait, until the system gets its creator stabbed very hard in the back
its only the question of time
someone gets mad, figures out another ones identity, tracks him down, beats him up or somehow ruins his life
and this dude will go and hunt down the vivendi, activision, blizzard decision makers
we are talking about a comunity over millions of ppl where negative emotion vs opponents ins a daily business we have to deal with.
just wait for it -.-
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I would like to believe blizzard is innocent, i believed in them once. I hope to again.
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Well thanks to Real ID that wont happen again, 6-month planning is sooooo pre-Real ID :D
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On July 08 2010 23:10 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:31 Psychopomp wrote:Wait, so they won't interfere with Blizzard's game design, just superfluous stuff outside of the game itself? I'll probably catch some flak, but in that case I don't fucking care.Edit: Oh, sure, you'll always have the ability to play Starcraft II in peace and quiet the same way you can have a facebook with everything turned off - most people just aren't going to fucking bother with the additional trouble. I think you overestimate how much of the community as a whole actually cares about stuff like this. The people who post on forums are a tiny minority, and the people who actually go through on the threats of quitting are even smaller. People will put up with a tremendous amount of bullshit. The sales and subs they'll lose from any of this will be negligible, even disregarding sales they stand to gain. This. I honestly don't give a damn how they do their advertising. As long as they let Blizzard produce the same quality of product (which they seem to be doing) they may as well collect money for it. As far as I'm concerned I am buying the games (the SC2+expansions, Diablo 3, never liked WoW for personal reasons and advertising won't change that) regardless and advertising consequently doesn't concern me. If they feel like using facebook as publicity and connecting with a very large audience, good for them, let them recruit customers, that's what the marketing division is payed for. As for the first name issue on forums, my first (and probably only) reaction was to make myself unsearchable on facebook. I have a lot of friends who have ditched it, I hardly use it at all, it is by no means essential to anything I do (whether university which I am just out of or professional life, if I have a few people I want to invite and keep in touch with, I can still do that). On the other hand I think it could have the good consequence of cleaning up the forums a little. As for the people bitching about invasions of privacy because they put half their lives on facebook and post on the blizzard forums well ... wither stop posting on those forums, make yourself unsearchable on facebook, or if you are really paranoid create a fake RealID (get a gmail of JD.Whyte@gmail.com, create a facebook account if you want, and post on forums as John Whyte, you now have a very nice facade for your online interactions with no connection to your real life). Damien (Woot you know my first name !!!)
I agree, 100%. Same exact thoughts I have on all this uproar.
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On July 09 2010 02:03 ibgeekn4me wrote:
I would like to believe blizzard is innocent, i believed in them once. I hope to again.
I don't really know a whole lot about how this stuff works, but if blizz is getting so pissed off as well, can they not just break away from activision?
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i saw this this battle.net Forumpost somewhere else i was like wtf. its kinda sad to see my favorite gaming-company losing reputation over and over again
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once your taken over, you cant run away
you would have to quit and create a new company with a complete new infrastructure
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8748 Posts
What does this have to do with SC2 exactly? Sports & Games!
I think there's too much speculation going on. When something bad happens and there's no good reason for it, then sure go have a discussion about why it's bad, whether we should tolerate it and whether anything should be done about it.
When you speculate on things that haven't even happened yet, like B.net 2.0 and the effects that Real ID and Facebook integration will have on gaming, it's such a flimsy and bullshit discussion.
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Nice theory. I'm not sure if their plan will work because they have a long way to go before making WoW appealing to the casual market. But I do agree that they will make much more profit if they are able to.
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On July 08 2010 22:31 Fyrewolf wrote:
People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release.
I really don't agree with you!.... at all....
Blizzard [in my own experience || read memory] has always released damn near perfect games. They always released games when they taught it was worthy of their names. I'm sorry but to say that their game was IMPERFECT is pretty much to say that every other released game was shitty as hell.
From what I saw in the past from Blizzard, the games were at their best when they released them... sure they might have needed a bit of patching to balance X and X... or to ADD cool features/goodies but overall you had a COMPLETE, FINISHED and POLISHED product in your hand. All that was added in the future where just cool things that we didn't need FROM THE START. In my mind, Blizzard's game were just and INSTA buy. I would have bought any games from them (in fact I bought every games from them) eventho it wouldn't have been announced or if it was only a flash application. Blizzard WAS the best!
I would be lying if I'd say that I won't pick SC2 on the release day... since I even plan on traveling 2 hrs to get it from the midnight release. I would be lying if I'd say that I don't even look foward to D3 or any other games from them. I'm just saying that Blizzard isn't the company that we used to know and that I might start to filter their games if they go the activision way. Anyways, we'll have a taste with SC2... and we'll know for future games if it was bitter or sweet! 
P.S. F[-word] Kotick !!!
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8748 Posts
Konsume you must not have played WoW at release :o
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On July 09 2010 02:34 Liquid`NonY wrote:
Konsume you must not have played WoW at release :o
nope, I played it a month after release or something and the game was pretty good. I heard that they needed to balance alot in the 1st few weeks but... I guess that since it was their 1st mmo... it somewhat normal.
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On July 08 2010 19:07 Necrosjef wrote:
I think the "Golden age" of gaming are long gone.
Those of us who wished for another SC1 style community in SC2 were/are obviously sadly mistaken.
Not sure if I will be purchasing SC2 or any other Blizzard titles in future.
I'm just happy I was part of the good times while they lasted. I really feel for people who are 12-16 yo now who will never be able to experience what I did.
What Blizzard are doing, doesn't really make any sense. Doesn't make sense from any standpoint, just a series of bad decisions on their part which ultimately won't work to make any additional revenue. The real test for Blizzard will be how long they can go with this approach before they are forced to go back to the tried and tested business model of giving customers what they want.
Well those 12-16 year olds will grow up with monthly fees and think of them as "normal", because the ads will tell them that they are needed to provide quality. That is actually the most depressing part of it ... people selling themselves into "slavery" and cheering the company at the same time.
After the "Facebook integration" I was annoyed enough to put off buying Starcraft 2 for a few years until it came out as a cheap 10 Euro version for all three campaigns.
After the "post with real name only" decision I wont buy Starcraft 2 at all ... ever ... until they get rid of these invasions into my privacy.
There is definetely something fishy going on in the state of Activision / Blizzard and you all know that a fish starts to stink from its head. Monthly subscriptions or maps (which could be total junk, because you cant test them before you buy them) for a "moderate fee" are all things to make certain individuals richer out of our pockets. Its not about creating a good game anymore, but rather about making tons of money and thats where I say no.
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That seems to make sense, though it would be nice to hear the blizzard people say that themselves in some manner.
What were the advantages again for blizzard to become activision/blizzard?
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On July 08 2010 19:07 Necrosjef wrote:The real test for Blizzard will be how long they can go with this approach before they are forced to go back to the tried and tested business model of giving customers what they want.
That model seems outdated. The old "customer is always right" seems to have become "customer is always wrong". Have you guys seens the IPhone thing, people get bad reception and Apple says 'lol u guys just hold it wrong thats your problem learn to hold it differently' and then they release some patch that makes it show full bars when they are holding it even though the signal still goes down.
Unfortunately all these companies can get away with the stupid crap since they usually have a good product. No one would buy a phone that you can't actually hold like a phone unless it had a bunch of wanted features. Likewise, No one in their right mind would ever buy a game with Battle.net 2.0 unless that game was super legendary and well made, i.e. Starcraft 2.
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Kotick: "there will continue to be opportunities for us to exploit the PC platform in ways that we haven’t yet."
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Did no one see this coming at all? Blizzard blew up way too big and way too fast. More so than they could handle. Any high-ranked official in their type of situation would give the OK to make more money, which is precisely the issue. Blizzard Entertainment is a BUSINESS, a BUSINESS only exists to make MONEY. Now that Blizzard has the fan-base and loyalty of its customers in the millions, it can do these things to make more MONEY. They weren't always going to be the little company blowing out "underground-cult, pc game classics", they were too good. It was inevitable that they would generate so much success because of how legendary their 3 games are. With the Blizzard community in the millions, the dawn of social-networking sites, and our increasingly connected world, it would be, excuse my language, mother fucking retarded not to tap into this pool of money.
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Of cours we can't forget the fact that they've already announced 2 expansions months befor the gams release. Starcraft will become an annual, or even semi annual game. Like cod or halo.
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RealID is a result of the korean law that requires all public forums (blizz forums) that have over 100,000 posters (that most definitely is battle net) to post with their real names. They can't have forums in south Korea unless they have a real ID system. And they definitely are going to launch in SK, thats where the most loyal fan base is.
Do I think that this law is BS? Yes. Will it come to the US eventually? Probably. So Activision (I'm not even going to say blizzard regarding BNet 2.0) says, "Hey, lets go ahead and put everyone on the realID system rather than just SK because eventually all countries will require it."
The problem is that with Women, Children, and people who work in the government and certain professional positions, this can cause a problem. Yes, there are work arounds, but there should at least be an option before we have a law here in the US for it.
That said, the CEO for Activision, Kotick turns SC2 into a micropayment system for units, maps, UMS, etc, I'm going to be pissed. I'll buy an expansion, but I'm not going to buy just units used in multiplayer competitive leagues.
The way they are driving blizzard into the ground is shameful. Its modern corporations that typically purchase a smaller, more well built company, lean on them for heavy profits, then discard them like a box of moldy tangerines and just pick up more smaller well built companies and turn huge profits.
Its what Activision did with RedOctane, Infinity Ward, and many others. If they do it to Blizzard...
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Its not about korean law, its about datamining.
The benefits are:
-Massive datamining, even retroactive datamining
-Logs that once were used to cover their asses in legal situations are now profit generators
-Making people think that its OK to have your name on everything for datamining
-Fewer resources needed to be spent on the forums
-The remaining community will put up with shit and are likely to put up with whatever they do next
-Limit liability by forcing a public record ('they knew they were posting under their name!")
-Limit liability for account securty by forcing a lot of their customers to provide false names
-Blackmails people who do actually provide their real info into buying authenticators because the risk of account compromise and the quantity of personal information is so great.
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I'm really disturbed by how they're running the RealID business. In WoW, you can view the names of "friends of your friends". In addition, WoW addons can see your real name. That's right, the guy who wrote the "turn all orc females nude" mod now has a list of every person using it if he bothers to code that in, and he can easily go onto your realm and spam about it.
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Riddle me this: how come anyone who posts is "a vocal minority?" How the hell do we determine majority/minority by the mere act of vocalizing our opinions?
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On July 09 2010 00:45 Piski wrote:For the record I agree with you that and I don't like this. But they already said they are working on it so constantly posting that "WE WANT THEM FASTER!!" doesn't really help.
When did I said anything barely similar to that?
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On July 08 2010 18:53 NicolBolas wrote:I'm sure this is a trustworthy, reliable source Before people get too upset about this, please think about where it comes from. Or doesn't come from.
It's not important where information comes from, it's whether it's true or not that matters.
Crackheads can still talk truth, and the Governments still lie to your face. wtf is trust worth when the person you trust is wrong?
Just Sayin'.. Just Sayin'..
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Oh hey, and what ever happened to the comprehensive address we were getting? Is it still in the works or did I miss something?
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On July 09 2010 05:22 One.two wrote:
Oh hey, and what ever happened to the comprehensive address we were getting? Is it still in the works or did I miss something?
This WAS the address.. translated it means FU.
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On July 09 2010 05:22 Prophecy3 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 18:53 NicolBolas wrote:Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard I'm sure this is a trustworthy, reliable source Before people get too upset about this, please think about where it comes from. Or doesn't come from. It's not important where information comes from, it's whether it's true or not that matters.Crackheads can still talk truth, and the Governments still lie to your face. wtf is trust worth when the person you trust is wrong? Just Sayin'.. Just Sayin'..
Yes, it very well might be true. But the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. And thus far, there is not even the slightest shred of evidence for this post coming out of Blizzard.
And for the sake of argument, let's assume that this person has an ex-flatmate who's sister works as a GM for Blizzard. Even that alone doesn't mean that the message was delivered correctly. The Blizzard GM heard from people they work with about the situation. That person told their sister. The sister told the ex-flatmate. The ex-flatmate told the original poster. That's 4 people between the people who have actual information and us. What do you suppose the chances are that things have been relayed correctly?
Did you never play the telephone game in school?
Getting indignant about a message of unknown veracity is silly. You should file it in the same place you file Nigerian email scams.
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On July 09 2010 05:34 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 05:22 Prophecy3 wrote:On July 08 2010 18:53 NicolBolas wrote:Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard I'm sure this is a trustworthy, reliable source Before people get too upset about this, please think about where it comes from. Or doesn't come from. It's not important where information comes from, it's whether it's true or not that matters.Crackheads can still talk truth, and the Governments still lie to your face. wtf is trust worth when the person you trust is wrong? Just Sayin'.. Just Sayin'.. Yes, it very well might be true. But the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. And thus far, there is not even the slightest shred of evidence for this post coming out of Blizzard. And for the sake of argument, let's assume that this person has an ex-flatmate who's sister works as a GM for Blizzard. Even that alone doesn't mean that the message was delivered correctly. The Blizzard GM heard from people they work with about the situation. That person told their sister. The sister told the ex-flatmate. The ex-flatmate told the original poster. That's 4 people between the people who have actual information and us. What do you suppose the chances are that things have been relayed correctly? Did you never play the telephone game in school? Getting indignant about a message of unknown veracity is silly. You should file it in the same place you file Nigerian email scams.
yeah, but it actually is possible for intelligent people to view something as possibly true until they have further information.
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+ Show Spoiler +On July 09 2010 05:34 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 05:22 Prophecy3 wrote:On July 08 2010 18:53 NicolBolas wrote:Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard I'm sure this is a trustworthy, reliable source Before people get too upset about this, please think about where it comes from. Or doesn't come from. It's not important where information comes from, it's whether it's true or not that matters.Crackheads can still talk truth, and the Governments still lie to your face. wtf is trust worth when the person you trust is wrong? Just Sayin'.. Just Sayin'.. Yes, it very well might be true. But the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. And thus far, there is not even the slightest shred of evidence for this post coming out of Blizzard. And for the sake of argument, let's assume that this person has an ex-flatmate who's sister works as a GM for Blizzard. Even that alone doesn't mean that the message was delivered correctly. The Blizzard GM heard from people they work with about the situation. That person told their sister. The sister told the ex-flatmate. The ex-flatmate told the original poster. That's 4 people between the people who have actual information and us. What do you suppose the chances are that things have been relayed correctly? Did you never play the telephone game in school? Getting indignant about a message of unknown veracity is silly. You should file it in the same place you file Nigerian email scams.
This is clearly not the important part of the information.
Honestly, everything from the Battle.net side of Starcraft II and Activision-Blizzard recently seems to be a huge tremendous fuck you to its player base as it reaches out for new markets to tap. Do you really want chatrooms?
and
I think Blizzard knows exactly what's going on. Nobody is actually saying things, but dozens of threads are being locked and hundreds of pages of posts have been deleted. I don't know whether it's petition spam or copy pasted stuff Blizzard doesn't want floating around, but obviously there are people hard at work watching the thread.
Are a little more important. See that's not just his opinion. ActiBlizz has shown numerous times in the past couple years that it:
A) Is aimed at making as Much Money As Possible off You, and Me.
B) Doesn't give a flying fuck how much it enrages the community, or damages the product itself as long as money's made.
C) Will continue on its current course of action until something happens to make them decide otherwise (uprising?)
Cleary what his flatmates sister said is not the main issue. Whether what she says IS true, IS. How would we know? Well usually we'd just go, "HEY BLIZZ WTF?" and pre-Actifuck, they would have gladly talked to us. Now? well.. i'm sure you only have to look at THIS LINK you will see their recent track record of stellar performances.
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On July 08 2010 18:27 EmeraldSparks wrote:I saw this post and thought the topic might merit its own thread. Show nested quote +Nachtjäger, Suramar, 59 Night Elf Death Knight post 35821 in epic thread wroteGot 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. Honestly, everything from the Battle.net side of Starcraft II and Activision-Blizzard recently seems to be a huge tremendous fuck you to its player base as it reaches out for new markets to tap. Do you really want chatrooms? I think Blizzard knows exactly what's going on. Nobody is actually saying things, but dozens of threads are being locked and hundreds of pages of posts have been deleted. I don't know whether it's petition spam or copy pasted stuff Blizzard doesn't want floating around, but obviously there are people hard at work watching the thread. It's also probably no accident that Blizzard dropped twin bombshell announcements the very day after the forum change was announced - bringing back the North America SC II Beta for the Starcraft fans and releasing a fresh wave of Cataclysm previews for the WoW players, the classic distraction strategy - break a controversial decision right before a major sporting event, hopefully it'll get drowned out. I don't know if this is their attempt at drawing attention away from the issue, and who knows how well it works, but the issue has spilled far beyond forum doors - virtually every single community with an internet presence, from blizzard fansites like teamliquid to gaming information venues (penny arcade, /v/, kotaku,) random venues (for those of you know what it is even fandom_wank has gotten in to trash the decision) and recently, hit the mainstream media websites - Wall Street Journal, British Broadcasting Corporation, Associated Press, National Broadcasting Corporation, you name it, it's there. More information in other thread, of course It goes without saying their stated justification - "too many trolls" is 100%, pure, unadulterated bullshit. That isn't even worth debating. So, why? (The "we just want to test out Facebook integration a bit, handle the server load" reason for killing Battle.net friends is also suspect; it's far more likely they wanted to push thousands of beta testers to try it out in order to get anything done, to get people used to the idea of facebook and smashing together the anonymous and real worlds in a tremendous fusion of light, heat, and cash.) It's probably not a coincidence that it might just be related to facebook and the "monetization" of battle.net (you fucking think?) There's a speculation that it might be related a Korean law that cracks down harshly on internet anonymity, but my guess is they looked at the number of Farmville players out there (eighty fucking million) and decided they were going to force Battle.net 2.0 hell for leather into the world of social media. There doesn't even have to be an explicit campaign involved. If it costs them a hundred thousand Starcraft II orders and cancelled WoW subscriptions, a half of a percent of Farmville users picking up WoW or Starcraft II would make up for that many times over. This comparison is flawed, but roughly the numbers stand. As Farmville teaches us, the power of facebook user advertising insane - Blizzard realizes that if notifications about lost cats and treasure chests can pull people into farmville by the millions, then notifications about hitting diamond rank one, slaying Baal on super duper ultra hardcore mode, or finishing some fiendishly difficult raid without a single resurrection, might do the same for Blizzard's games. This is an unbelievable shitload of money. I mean, per say, this isn't bad, or evil, it's just Blizzard wanting to use the power of social media to make hundreds of millions of dollars - every single corporation in the world wants to do this. And if something as small as forum posting isn't invasive, why the rage over this small movement? People can just not use the forums - we have TL, after all. This is worrying because it looks like Activision Blizzard has a general policy of slowly trying to get its foot into the door, bit by bit, getting people used to things here, lowering people's expectations there, until they get where they want, community rage be damned. Oh, sure, you'll always have the ability to play Starcraft II in peace and quiet the same way you can have a facebook with everything turned off - most people just aren't going to fucking bother with the additional trouble. Of course, maybe this is all trash, they could just be that (do you really want chatrooms) dumb about a "anti-troll and anti-flaming measure." Who fucking knows?
If it is indeed true, I would think about publicly proposing to donate 25$ a month to a new company formed by Blizzard employees who quit Activision-Blizzard for a period of 3 years.. This isn't much money, and the problem of what we are handling right now, and if it is true, is that if they resign en masse, they find themselves with nothing and no way to pay their rents. If they knew however a lot of people would support them to keep making quality games, then, well, that may be something different, lacking more information on the topic.
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This ended up being pretty long, and I wanted to add the disclaimer that the criticisms within aren't aimed specifically at people in this thread but at the trend I have seen for years when discussing any blizzard game. I think that TL is one of the only places to find well moderated and quality discussion about Starcraft, and we have far fewer and less frantic chicken littles than your average blizzard forum or wow fansite.
Regarding the OP, this is a neat story but we have to be careful how we speculate on this sort of thing. You lose a little credibility when you accuse Blizzard or Activision of attempting to take over the earth. The whole scenario people have been imagining sounds like some kind of movie where blizzard becomes skynet and Woodward and Bernstein figure out the plot just in time! Facebook isn't a big deal to me, and I agree with HD that more players is good for the game.
I've defended blizzard a lot over the years, especially when it came to WoW. They know what they're doing with balance changes, even though i was concerned about the appeal to casuals in wotlk - for me raids became very difficult trying to carry so many people at once. I have been concerned about Activision hindering blizzard, just like I am still concerned about EA and bioware. But I have trusted blizzard because they haven't made a bad game.
However, while we must temper our outrage with perspective and rational thought, we must be outraged by mandatory real-ID. I don't frequent blizzard forums anyway because they are a joke, overrun by children, flame wars, and trolls, devoid of quality discussion and poorly moderated, but this cannot happen. Rather than overreacting with doomsday theories, let's take real-ID for what it is. Pllayers are targeted by keyloggers and they get their accounts stolen A LOT. Security is a serious problem and it will probably affect sc2 as well. Real-ID can only make this worse. Furthermore, some people are batshit crazy and real-ID will endanger people. Parents should not allow their children to participate in any of it and I don't feel comfortable with it myself. This is a terrible idea and we should keep blizzard on track with our constructive feedback.
The problem is that a lot of our feedback is not constructive and frankly sounds childish or radical. The tea-party actually has a pretty reasonable thesis in their platform - smaller government, lower taxes, responsible spending (whether you agree with that model or not) - but do you take them seriously? No, because their public image has been hijacked by the folks that bring guns to rallies, talking about revolution and accusing the president of being a Nazi, a communist, a Kenyan, and the antichrist. Their real message gets drowned out and we can't have a quality discussion. So let's try not to sound like Glenn Beck.
This isn't targeted specifically at people in this thread, but the entire blizzard wow/wc/sc community. In general I usually don't blame the blue posters for not taking a lot of the people on their forums seriouosly, they actually show a lot of patience wading through the bullshit. I sincerely believe that well reasoned, well articulated, and well mannered discussion will yield results. They have to recognize that almost all of their customers hate the idea of real-ID.
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umm I'm going to say vivendi stock holders
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On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Well Activision killed IW, and MW2 was a massive fail on the PC.
But Blizzard itself is pretty huge with Diablo/Warcraft/Starcraft.
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
18 billion of them to be precise... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7123582.stm
This situation seriously makes diehard fans like myself, who have been playing Blizzard games since D1 and WC2, sick to our stomachs.
And to all of those who said:
"Blizzard is still in charge"
"Mike Morhaime still runs Blizzard"
and the most atrocious and ignorant sentiment of all, "Activision is just a publisher. Nothing will change..."
WE TOLD YOU SO.
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On July 09 2010 07:41 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:52 FuryX wrote:
Well Activision killed IW, and MW2 was a massive fail on the PC.
But Blizzard itself is pretty huge with Diablo/Warcraft/Starcraft.
Would have been a lot better if Blizzard didn't merge with Activision :/....y did they again? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 18 billion of them to be precise... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7123582.stm This situation seriously makes diehard fans like myself, who have been playing Blizzard games since D1 and WC2, sick to our stomachs. And to all of those who said: "Blizzard is still in charge" "Mike Morhaime still runs Blizzard" and the most atrocious and ignorant sentiment of all, "Activision is just a publisher. Nothing will change..." WE TOLD YOU SO.
And so the Activision prison-rape of another developer commences........ Sigh.
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they will run EVERYTHING THEY CAN into the ground.
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It is a shame that Activision's business model is so flawed. They fail to understand what they have in Blizzard, at all. Its pointless for me to outline it.
And really, I'm surprised those billboards on metalopolis don't have real ads. Someone at Activision needs to get on Starcraft product placement.
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On July 09 2010 08:08 Peekaboo wrote:
It is a shame that Activision's business model is so flawed. They fail to understand what they have in Blizzard, at all. Its pointless for me to outline it.
It's not.. that's the thing. It's not because most people are idiots..
Activision is extremely successful and most likely will continue to be.
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On July 09 2010 08:10 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 08:08 Peekaboo wrote:
It is a shame that Activision's business model is so flawed. They fail to understand what they have in Blizzard, at all. Its pointless for me to outline it.
It's not.. that's the thing. It's not because most people are idiots.. Activision is extremely successful and most likely will continue to be.
...extremely successful because of the development houses that they acquire. The thing is, they haven't managed run the big ones properly, now have they??
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After release of record sales for SC2, they will fire the lead developers for Blizzard to avoid paying them bonuses
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On July 09 2010 08:16 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2010 08:10 travis wrote:On July 09 2010 08:08 Peekaboo wrote:
It is a shame that Activision's business model is so flawed. They fail to understand what they have in Blizzard, at all. Its pointless for me to outline it.
It's not.. that's the thing. It's not because most people are idiots.. Activision is extremely successful and most likely will continue to be. ...extremely successful because of the development houses that they acquire. The thing is, they haven't managed run the big ones properly, now have they??
what are you talking about right now
im talking about how successful activision is or is not
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Blizzard is really letting us down. Read the rest of my post, those less skeptical.
Sure, who the hell really cares enough to not go ahead and buy the game. Fuck what our fans want, they are going to buy the game anyways.
Wasn't this the same Blizzard that seemed to overvalue the community? They kept saying and saying that we are so important and they kept batches answering our questions, destroyed the soul realper, made new models for tanks, all that shit cause people kept crying about how a stupid tank looked?
And what, now they are literally gonna piss on what the vast majority of their fans want, on something much more serious? I am aware that making a new model and completely revamping a user interface are two different things, but what I am putting in question is the ideals they had and what they told us while they were producing the game.
They are really paying a very dangerous game. Obviously this is a game with hardcore fans and greatly anticipated. Obviously a lot of people will buy this. So what, separate it into 3 different games upping the cost by an insane amount, ignore the community so you can make more money?
Yea go right ahead. Now you will get loads of blood money, but tread lightly, for I am pretty sure a shitstorm of privacy lawsuits will ensue and you will get fucked for whatever mistakes you make in the future.
Obviously exaggerated, but this kinda shit pisses me off.
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Good post, but you should be aware that its "per se". Not per say. Know your Latin if you're going to use it.
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It's really quite unfortunate, it's a genious business model but there are no moral stances on anything coming from Activision. A few pages back I saw someone say they feel bad for kids these days that they didn't get the chance to live through the glory days of Blizzard...couldn't be more true it seems.
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Considering how powerful Blizz is now...i wont be surprised if they break away from Activision.
Hey Blizz go talk to Sony, i hear they let their studios do w/e the fuck they want
BTW: Blizzard never merged with Activision, Blizzard is/was a studio/developer owned by Vivendi who merged with Activision.
If this really is true...there's shit that's gunna be going down
ACTIVISION VS. BLIZZARD
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I can't believe that REALID is really something so terrible that people can make the claims that activision has "killed" the noble soul of blizzard and replaced it with an evil corporation. We have been given almost no real indication that they're doing anything to harm us. The chatrooms are annoying but they did listen in the end. The map marketplace and such ... well we haven't seen anything. We have no clue, no reason really to suspect that it's going to be an onerous microtransaction system. As far as we can tell, it's going to allow private developers/mod teams to use the StarCraft engine to sell a product. All blizzard is asking for is some royalties for the engine.
At the end of the day, I don't own most console games because they aren't worth $60 in utility to me. StarCraft 2 is going to be worth a damn lot to me and the rest of the hardcore group. It will take a lot to lower its value significantly to a bunch of people who visit and participate the largest starcraft community in the world. If it's not worth don't buy it, they will adjust to maximize revenues at we'll all meet at general equilibrium.
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What's with all the fear mongering and complaining people do nowadays?
FACTS:
Vivendi owned Blizzard.
Vivendi's GAMES division merged with Activision.
Blizzard is one of the few if not the only of Vivendi's games divisions that maintains AUTONOMY FROM ACTIVISION.
Get over it.
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On July 08 2010 18:46 Drakan wrote:
All i want to see is their stocks go down to hell... so sad that blizzard sold themselves to this fuckers.
Blizzard had no say it in. Their parent company merged with Activision and slapped Blizzard's name on the new company.
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lol, what are you even saying? who is pulling the strings? wtf are you talking about
do you know what the term "is pulling the strings" means? it refers to some sort of entity, not an idea
and btw, even if that is the basis, there is nothing stopping them from making it optional to use your first and last name
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On July 09 2010 00:03 Liquid`Jinro wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 22:31 Fyrewolf wrote:
People are getting quite passionate in posts based on hearsay(sister of a friend of a friend is a gm at blizzard? wow).
To be honest, I think everyone in this thread needs to step back and realize how good everything is actually going and how spoiled we sound right now. We have the privilege of seeing one of the most well-made games of all time BEFORE it's release, and we bitch about the fact that it's unfinished on the BNET 2.0 side. We're acting spoiled because we didn't have everything we wanted right away, when its obviously a better choice to focus on the game and get it good and polished, and that the BNET system is one of the last things to get it's finishing touches in development.
Blizzard's history for all the self-admitted non-followers, has been to Release an IMPERFECT GAME that they make AWESOME through CONTINUED PATCHING AND SUPPORT. Everything we still want in the game is coming. I won't consider the game fully done until at least 5 post-release patches come out.
I trust Blizzard, regardless of Blizzard having to answer to Activision for pretty much only budget purposes. You don't make 4 of the 5 best selling PC games OF ALL TIME by being stupid, but by maintaining them well after release. Look, it's not bitching about Battle.net 2.0 not having all the new stuff we wanted - it's about Battle.net 2.0 having LESS things than Battle.net 1.0 - released 12 years ago. It's about every new feature that gets announced being something that is either directly hurtful to competition (no lan, new division system), or at the very least irrelevant (facebook). Their promised content may yet redeem them, but with the way they've choosen to announce things, I really don't blame anyone for thinking the sky is falling, cause Blizzard sure hasn't done much to convince anyone otherwise.
Just to be picky, Battle.Net was released with Diablo (The original) in January of 1997 making Battle.net not 12 years old, but 13.
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Well what I have come to see is many people complain, and whine and are just plain annoying, but eventually one will realise that it gets nowhere. They already know everyone here will buy the game, and they need to expand and make more money. Blizzard is no longer the company that delivers an amazing product for a good price, but delivers an amazing product for too much. It can be activision or blizzards want for more profits, regardless.
Complaining gets nowhere, 10k sales compared to the 5 million of people that barely know anything about StarCraft I or II, they aren't aware of what's going on.
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On July 09 2010 08:08 Peekaboo wrote:
It is a shame that Activision's business model is so flawed. They fail to understand what they have in Blizzard, at all. Its pointless for me to outline it.
And really, I'm surprised those billboards on metalopolis don't have real ads. Someone at Activision needs to get on Starcraft product placement.
Why do you think the business model is flawed? They can milk a successful gaming company dry and then discard it, because another creative company will have some good games by then and since Activision has made TONS of ca$h they can easily buy that next one then and rinse repeat the whole thing over again. They arent interested in continuity or long term things, just the fast money.
The same kind of "logic" is used for many successful companies.
Why bother with creating things, when you can make money faster by taking something that exists, rip it apart and sell the pieces for more than the initial price was? It doesnt matter that this ruins countless lives by making people unemployed ...
It is an "acceptable" business tactic and just because Blizzard is a gaming company (and games are for kids) it still applies here, although the "ruined lives" is their customers who are milked for everything they will pay.
The billboards on Metalopolis will be filled with real ads eventually. Especially soft drink companies or fast food giants will probably be a good target for those ... just make a TV commercial as to how emperor Mengsk still uses their products and show it in reduced scale there.
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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
On July 09 2010 13:14 Skillz_Man wrote:
Well what I have come to see is many people complain, and whine and are just plain annoying, but eventually one will realise that it gets nowhere. They already know everyone here will buy the game, and they need to expand and make more money. Blizzard is no longer the company that delivers an amazing product for a good price, but delivers an amazing product for too much. It can be activision or blizzards want for more profits, regardless.
Complaining gets nowhere, 10k sales compared to the 5 million of people that barely know anything about StarCraft I or II, they aren't aware of what's going on.
I wasn't going to buy Sc2 anyway. Too much for a game that doesn't look that fun. And that had nothing to do with any controversy. I don't see what everyone else sees in Sc2, to be honest. Even more so as the list of grievances piles up.
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On July 09 2010 09:57 oxxo wrote:
What's with all the fear mongering and complaining people do nowadays?
FACTS:
Vivendi owned Blizzard.
Vivendi's GAMES division merged with Activision.
Blizzard is one of the few if not the only of Vivendi's games divisions that maintains AUTONOMY FROM ACTIVISION.
Get over it.
You do realize that the whole point of this thread is that Blizzard has NOT maintained (complete) autonomy...
right?
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The real annoying thing about it is
1. the goddamn wall of silence they're putting up and
2. the blatant lies they are telling and
3. the tons of shit they are silently deleting without explanation
We are not fucking retarded, Blizzard. You have enough moderation staff to delete five thousand fucking posts in a three thousand fucking page thread inside forty-eight hours. If this was really about trolls and flaming you could have done something far less controversial and far more effective. Tell us the real reason, to our faces, you're doing this. Fucking say something.
They're not, of course, going to fucking say anything, they're just going to hope it blows over.
post plug: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=134985¤tpage=3#45
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On July 08 2010 22:31 loadme wrote:
sooner or later Kotick will get threaten or attacked for the things he puts on millions of players all over the planet
All of you know Kotick's first and last name and yet Bashiok is the one that gets harassed.
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On July 09 2010 17:32 Ownos wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 22:31 loadme wrote:
sooner or later Kotick will get threaten or attacked for the things he puts on millions of players all over the planet All of you know Kotick's first and last name and yet Bashiok is the one that gets harassed.
For Bashiok, most popular address floating (first source, I think) around seems like people got the wrong fucking address, so there's somebody with the same name who had his day ruined. Kotick's stuff is also floating around, but I don't knowhow much either of them have been bothered.
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On July 09 2010 09:57 oxxo wrote:
What's with all the fear mongering and complaining people do nowadays?
FACTS:
Vivendi owned Blizzard.
Vivendi's GAMES division merged with Activision.
Blizzard is one of the few if not the only of Vivendi's games divisions that maintains AUTONOMY FROM ACTIVISION.
Get over it.
The sooner you give up trying to reason with these kinds of threads, the happier you'll be. People don't want to accept that their PRECIOUS PERFECT BLIZZARD is making boneheaded moves.
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Have to agree that the secrecy kind of sucks.
Still, though, don't do anything retarded to oppose this, whether spamming Bashiok or punching Bobby Kotick or whatever. That's just going to make us all (as gamers) look bad. We don't exactly want politicians picking up on this and making the wrong conclusions.
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I'm very very happy that Real ID now no longer uses your name (at least for forums). I'm not necessarily happy with how everything has been going with Bnet. But I have Faith and Hope. Besides, even if they're new games end up not as good, it doesn't erase their track record and make Brood War any less fun.
Maybe I just remember the days before we heard anything about pre-release games, and we had to judge them after they came out, (before internet reviews I mean, when you had to have a subscription to egm or pcworld or nintendo power to even hear anything). Obviously if we follow things in development, we'll see stupid ideas pop up that end up getting axed before it comes out.
The other thing I remember, is that Blizzard has 2 MORE SC games coming out. They're going to be dealing with starcraft for a long time. And I have no real problems with the game, it's awesome. So if Bnet is not ideal right now, I don't have that much problem with it, because I know (or hope anyways) that working on the system is somewhere there alongside the expansions. We do need chat channels. BEFORE release, I hope. But as Blizzard says, Gameplay First.
As I said, Blizzard isn't stupid. Just sometimes they go a little too hard on the psionic fumes and need 2500 pages of wowforum posts to get them to come down.
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Wait for Q&A at blizzcon boys.
Im sure a lot of people are going to have some pretty serious questions for the starcraft panel.
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On July 08 2010 18:46 Drakan wrote:
All i want to see is their stocks go down to hell... so sad that blizzard sold themselves to this fuckers.
Just want to point out that Blizzard didn't "sell themselves", and actually had little-to-no say in what happened. It was a merger between Vivendi-Games, a division of Vivendi SA, the company that owns blizzard, and Activision. Blizzard may be Vivendi's personal little cashcow, but that doesn't mean they have control over what their parent company does.
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EPT
