Comments on: Planning for a Cataclysm

By: Taeraresh

Taeraresh — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:52:05 +0000

I think this is an incredibly stupid move on Blizzard’s part.
Their response to all the complaints so far has been ‘If you don’t like it, you don’t have to post on the forums’, which is a completely worthless thing to say. Most of the time, the forums are the only reasonable way to get technical support for the game, especially if you can’t actually log in. Hold times are usually in the three-hour range for phone support, if you manage to even get put on hold.
We’ll see what happens. The megathread-of-doom on the Forums was at 28,000 posts last time I checked, almost all of them against the change.

By: ManaByte

ManaByte — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:05:44 +0000

The ironic thing is that revealing any Blizzard employee’s in-game information (character, server, etc…) on ANY forum (not just Blizzard forums) is grounds for a perma ban from the game.

By: Strife

Strife — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:48:49 +0000

It will not be retroactive for certain, because that would rear some pretty serious privacy law concerns.

So I don’t really see the uproar, if people don’t like their name being shown, just don’t post on the new spec forums.

By: Rauxis

Rauxis — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:40:38 +0000

As an IT EXPERT I have to add data safety and privacy are not considered important enough by many, if not most, Americans. Take a look at Facebook & Co. The only area where I’ve seen this topic handled with a little bit of care are banks.

That being said my reading of this is twofold. For one Blizz wants to cut costs, because WoW is not growing anymore. Even though there is no real competitor in the Fantasy MMORPG market, they have reached their peak. But developing new content, even only keeping the current infrastructure, costs more and more.
On the other side the big hope they see is to transform the Blizz Gaming community into a “Facebook for Gamers”. The games developed on/for Facebook have incredible growth rates. Blizz sees these games certainly as threat, and tries to counter it.

That being said – if this change goes live the Forums will take a heavy hit, probably maybe even obsolete. I’ll certainly stop posting – cause I want to separate my real life from my WoW life.

Rauxis, chosen of CAT

By: Sarabian

Sarabian — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:04:49 +0000

I very rarely post to the official forums. And now I never will again. If they expand this and show real names for more stuff or make it non-optional in game- I’ll stop playing. I don’t want to because I really enjoy playing WoW. I enjoy not having my real info plastered all over even more.

I honestly think they will change this due to the massive amounts of bad opinions being expressed so far.

By: talisien wandering druid

talisien wandering druid — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:43:44 +0000

so will blue posts now show the first and last names of the blizzard employees or does blizz think thats to risky?

By: Casual Raid Leader

Casual Raid Leader — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:23:37 +0000

Of course there’s nothing like having your real name posted on the WoW forums so your boss can go google for you to find out exactly how much you post on the WoW forums.

Now granted I almost never do it, but with our younger generations at work, its typical to have them connected to the Internet 24×7. So they wouldn’t even think twice about accessing Internet sites constantly from work. (Ooops… am I doing this during work hours???)

By: KiwiRed

KiwiRed — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:24:34 +0000

@Thrakin, I suspect you’ve seen through their cunning plan.

I’ve cancelled my sub over this (and made sure to let Blizz know exactly why); I don’t think any other action will get the message through to Blizz that what they’re doing just isn’t acceptable.

By: Veeka The Tree

Veeka The Tree — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:52:32 +0000

GM names will appear as real and there was already drama on US forums about a blue poster reliving his RL name and a group of blockers stalking him down.
I feel sorry for him =S

By: Imalinata

Imalinata — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:35:25 +0000

HR managers already google applicants to see what they get up that they’ve posted to Facebook/myspace, why on earth do I want a google search of my name to pop up that I was chatting with people from my server about random stuff, recruiting new people, theorycrafting, or just shooting the shit?

I feel bad for all the people who do recruitment (my guild died so I’m off the hook for that responsibility thankfully) because it’s not like you can NOT use the WoW forums at this time.