Saturday, July 10, 2010

Don't Applaud Rapists for "Not Raping Last Wednesday"

Triple whammy on posts today, but I'm apparently just coming up to speed on a bunch of crap that I've been too busy at work to notice really.

Hatch has been pretty adamant about his disdain for RealID from the gate, and I tend to agree with a lot of what he says. I went about trying to change my name on my account all last week, and finally got phone time with a rep today who flatly refused. He used the "it's not a big deal, get over it" tactic, which is pretty easy to turn around: if it's not a big deal, then change the name on my account and get over it, jagass.

After my adventure on the phone, I basically decided that I'm pretty much over WoW anyway. I'm paid out through December, and I considered just posting my login and password for my faithful readers to just have a field day with the account until it got stripped clean and/or banned, but then I realized OH YEAH, MY REAL NAME IS ATTACHED TO IT, and had to skip that option. I've gone in and deleted my three RealID friends in-game (who I can all consider my real life friends), because I refuse to partake of it on any level.

I reckon I'll putz around on and off, but WoW is pretty much dead anyway. I log in, xmute a gem on two toons, and check my mail. I haven't had a solid WoW session in about a month or so. I won't get on a high horse, but for me personally, it's lost about 98% of its appeal. I still play with an old roommate and putz around in the 1200-ish bracket in 2v2, but that's about the long and short of it these days.


What alarms me, though, is the amount of Bravo-ing and Fuck-Yeah-Blizz-Way-To-Go-ing I've noticed since the RealID on Forums change didn't go live.

Everyone went from "this is the worst idea ever" to sparkly eyed "there really is a Santa Claus, Virginia" overnight. Blizzard was basically about to bend us over a barrel and violate our tender bits with a sharp stick, and when they didn't we were suddenly high fiving them and proposing toasts. Hence the title of this post.

Lum went so far as to post the following image:


...when I think a better one to capture the mood of the moment might be:



Yeah.

We're Bruce Willis. While Ving Rhames got e-stalked and had his dog killed by someone he corpse camped drunk one night, we got free and stopped it from happening to us. Pretty sure that scene ends with Bruce Willis chopping Blizzard with a sword, not hugging them and singing their praises.

I've posted comments in a few of the threads that have been sweeping the blogs recently, but I need to come right out and say it here on my own blog:



We shouldn't cheer and carry them around on our shoulders for not fucking us.

We should nod once, and stay vigilant... backing slowly towards the exit while keeping wary eyes on Bobby Kotick, and our IDs safely in our wallets.


One of the largest problems I have with it is that I made the mistake of ever giving them my real name in the first place, and now I'm paying the consequences. Little Seth who used Skull and Assassin as his first and last name on his account can romp around unhindered.

If there was a precedent set... like, "starting next week, you need to have a credit card tied to your account, and your RealID needs to be the name on that card", it would at least be equal across the board. Instead, those of us foolish enough to trust Blizzard in the first place are pinned down over the barrel, and Bobby and Co are getting a little turned on at the thought of selling us out.

Shame on them, and --perhaps more importantly-- shame on us for cheering them on for nothing more than putting it off for a month or so.

12 comments:

Stabs said...

Word.

They're still partnered with Facebook a business that has become big by charging people in privacy instead of money.

They still have loads of people at all levels who simply don't get what the big deal is. From the guy who answered your call to Zuckerberg who thinks privacy is immoral there are people at Blizzard with access to our personal details who see nothing wrong with disseminating them.

I'm deeply concerned. I'll certainly never re-activate the WoW account I played for 5 years, the only way I will do business with Blizzard again is with an alias. I've also asked them to scrub my details and will follow up by writing to the government agency that deals with privacy concerns in the UK and asking them to ensure that Blizzard has complied.

Ysharros said...

I doubt Lum is that naive -- but the photo is a classic and I can see the appeal in wanting to post it.

(What, you don't do posts around a single image? Oops. Forget I said anything. :D)

We might not frequent the same blogs -- most of the comments I've seen have been "Yeah, Blizacti backed down!" followed by a healthy dose of cynicism (it's still going to happen sooner or later and RealID isn't going away).

Once bitten, twice shy is my motto. Damned if I'm going to hug anyone without a machine-gun in my pocket. (Cue bad Mae West jokes.)

Maybe all the happy-happy-joy-joy people are just really relieved they didn't have to actually carry out their threat to unsub? ;)

Larísa said...

I got a long-time reader quitting my blog because I still showed distrust to them, which he thought was childish.
I've thought over all this stuff once again and come to the conclusion that I haven't crossed the lines in my writings. I have no regrets.

However there IS a cuddling post on this incoming in a few minutes. I think we can hug Blizzard staff. But very selectively. It's a bit unfair to judge them all at the same time.

And... It's sad to see you leave the game. I think the reception you had from the customer service was horrendous.

I understand if you'll slow down on posting here since it's mostly a wow blog - but you have declared yourself that it's an mmo-blog after all so I haven't given up hope. You're so damned good at writing. i really hope you'll stick to it. But you know that. I've gold you before.

On the other hand - less wow playing and blogging from you IS a good thing if you'll spend that time on keep working on that design/programming task you have. You've got a good job now - yes - but it's as step stone towards something else. Don't give up your vision. Keep working on it and send a grateful thought to Blizzards for not offering any distraction from your set path anymore. :)

Hatch said...

Very good point here Ixo. My own post on this subject still showed my reservations, but I was caught up in the relief of no longer having to give up my WoW account and SC2. :)

So I'm hoping that's what the joy party was mostly about and people will stay vigilant. Actiblizz definitely did just try to bend everyone who ever trusted them over a barrel. Even though I'm willing to give them money again, I certainly don't have the level of trust in them that I used to.

Tesh said...

Y'know, I'm of a like mind, Ixo, I just vocalize it a bit differently. I just can't get away with this kind of phrasing. ;)

Good on ya, Ixo, and here's hoping things go well for you and yours. Life's too short to let a bunch of nitwits wreck the ride.

Song7 said...

I've never seen a person go from this http://www.ixobelle.com/2010/05/re-wolfshead.html To this http://www.ixobelle.com/2010/07/game-over.html
This guy is either on or off his meds. I can't tell.

Sum up...
"Grats to you, dude.

Now fuck off. We're playing our game, and still having fun." Is now replaced with. "So, I quit."

Rich said...

the wolfshead article mostly concerned the "I just found jesus, and suddenly you're all filthy sinners" attitude, but okie dokes.

Blizzard has a chance to redeem themselves over this. To their credit, they'll probably pull it off. But the whole Hoppin-in-on-Farmville has left a sour taste in many gamers' mouths, and call me crazy, but I blog about whatever I feel like. This isn't the New York Times (although I guess just recently they got in some shit for that, too).

Doug said...

I turned off real id on my account with parental controls. And I quit posting in the WoW forums. All my paranoia went away. I still get to play the best game.

But yeah, I can see a quit date if Blizzard crosses the line. The deal is, Blizzard doesn't care. It's the untapped 70 million Farmville players they want. Not you hardcore WoW players.

oshin said...

This dealio is all a bit tinfoil hat for my tastes.

Yes, real names was a stupid idea on the forums, in many cases if you google somebodys name you can find exact information about them. And I dont want a potential employer to see that I have posted 100 facepalms on the blizzard forums, or that I even play wow really. So I get the backlash.

I dont get trying to change your account name and quitting just because they might possibly try some jiggery pokery with your personal details. Its a perfectly valid reason for them not to want allow the name on account be changed. Sure they might try and pull some facebook/farmville type integration nonsense, but they cant do it with out your consent, if they do they will get data protection laws on there ass. I dont know what there like in the US, but in the EU there very rigid.

I think the only real mistake was that they diminished gamer ids in favour of real ids. There should be a single alias that you can use to talk to friends on other servers or in other games without having to expose your real email or name. I would happily have used that with any online friends that I half knew and stuck with realid for people I actually knew. The people who are now making a massive fuss and giving blizzard a headache could just put realid in the corner and ignore it.

MLW said...

Thank god, I thought I was the only one who was disgusted at the celebratory reaction by the players. It reminds of Stockholm Syndrome by WoW addicts (no offense to Larísa)

Larísa said...

@Jormundgard: Hehe, I don't take any offense because I don't feel targeted by this. I'm one of the pretty few bloggers who have talked openly about how much my trust has been hurt. I've tried to be nuanced in the discussion, but I've still got quite a bit of crap for my position. There are many other bloggers out there who seem to be far quicker to forgive than I am.
Stockholm syndrom? Don't think so.

Rich said...

to be fair, RealID isn't the only reason I've cancelled WoW, but the whole "what are you going to do? quit?" attitude by the CSR pretty much drove it home.

I got a few articles lined up, I just gotta find a quiet few quiet hours to type them up, then it might become more clear.