Why I Still Play World of Warcraft

In August 2005, I was pressured to play World of Warcraft by a group of online friends from a site called Gaming World. At the time, I was not particularly interested in trying the game out, believing that it probably wasn’t that spectacular of an MMORPG.

I was wrong.

My initial experience as a Human in Elwynn Forest wasn’t too great. I actually ended up deleting that character and then making a Night Elf. Teldrassil felt much more interesting to me, and I stuck with the character.

The fact that I continue to play to this day, even though I stopped playing several times since August 2005, says a lot. It’s been more than five years. No other game has commanded so much time from me, and I’m not even a WoW addict!

So, I’m going to look at WHY I still play this game to this day, and HOW I can still be entertained by vanilla content which, arguably, should have become boring three or four years ago.

Reason #1: The World

Barren wastelands, charred valleys, dense forests, harrowing deserts, lush jungles, and arctic mountains are just some of the zones in this hugely detailed and expansive world. This isn’t even factoring in the zones found in the two currently available expansions, nor the third which should hit store shelves in November or December of this year.

Before I even talk about the zones, I want to share a few pictures of the zones in WoW for those who can’t grasp how diverse the world of Azeroth truly is.

Here are zones from the original vanilla World of Warcraft.

Perhaps a little dated, but for a five year old MMORPG, WoW still looks decent. Here are a few zones from the 2006 The Burning Crusade expansion.

Here are a few zones from the current 2008 expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which is nearing the end of it’s life cycle.

And here are a few zones found in the successor to Wrath of the Lich King, the yet-to-be-released 2010 expansion, Cataclysm!

There is so much diversity in World of Warcraft. As of Cataclysm, the game will feature a total of 74 zones. That is a lot of exploring for new players! On top of so many zones, there are several major cities and dozens of dungeons to check out as well. To check out a zone quilt that I made, just to get an idea of how expansive WoW is, click here.

World of Warcraft succeeds because practically all of it’s zones are diverse, interesting, and original. They all have their own unique feel, from the depressing wastes of Desolace to the lush wilderness of the Arathi Highlands. All low level zones (up to level 20) are faction controlled. Beyond level 20, zones are contested and, in some cases, feature open war between the Alliance and Horde factions.

What I really enjoy about the diverse zones of this game is that everybody will find one zone that they click with and really enjoy. For me, it is the desolate and saddening fields of Westfall. Despite the zone being so gloomy due to the Defias invasion, I absolutely love the scenery and the music. I can literally just sit in Westfall and chat with people forever, and fishing, a task that is usually quite boring, never gets old to me when I am in Westfall.

Overall, the world is fantastic and is, without contest, the most diverse game world I have ever explored in a video game.

The only weakness that WoW possesses is that a few of it’s starter zones are not up to modern standards, since they were first made available in 2004. Elwynn Forest, which is where human characters start, is dreadfully boring and not very immersive. I’ve witnessed several people give up on WoW or not give it a chance, and these people mostly all started in Elwynn Forest as a human. Some decided to give other races a try and stuck with the game, ending up as very loyal players. My suggestion to new players is avoid Elwynn Forest. Start as a Tauren or perhaps a Night Elf. They have more interesting starter zones by far. If a new player has Burning Crusade, then roll a Blood Elf without question!

Of course, when Cataclysm hits near the end of this year, all of the vanilla starter zones will be brought up to modern standards. I have only heard of the revamped quests in Durotar so far, but they sounded very good! Bored players will definitely find some enjoyment there as quests are brought up to the standard we are used to experiencing in Northrend.

Really, in a world as big as Azeroth, it’s crazy to let your WoW experience by ruined by a single unspectacular zone. The world has so much to see and do, and I wish that more people I personally know would experience this rich world. It is by far the best game world ever created by Blizzard.

Reason #2: The Music

Even though I usually play with the music off these days so that I can listen to my own music in iTunes, I cannot deny that the music in WoW is absolutely fantastic. Here are a few themes in the game that still stand out and are exciting to me, even today.

And here is the best of the bunch, as far as I am concerned. This is the Stormwind City theme in all it’s glory!

For an MMORPG, the music in World of Warcraft goes above and beyond to deliver an immersive experience. Some of the themes in this game are, to be honest, among my favourite video game tunes ever. Stormwind’s theme is one of them for sure. Hearing these great tunes as I write this post makes me want to turn my music back on next time I play, and I believe that I will do just that!

Reason #3: The Experience

For Warcraft fans like me, playing WoW for the first time was really magical as I visited so many locations that I only heard of in Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3. Visiting Andorhal, Hearthglen, and Stratholme felt completely amazing, even if each city had been corrupted by the Scarlet Crusade and the Scourge. Visiting the Lordaeron throne room where Arthas killed King Terenas, his own father, was really awesome. Bits and pieces that we saw in the Warcraft 3 cinematic were present in the throne room, which was so cool.

It was really refreshing to be able to experience the world of Azeroth as a race besides the two central forces of Warcraft, Humans and Orcs. The Alliance, led by the Humans, is comprised of Dwarves, Gnomes, and Night Elves. Draenei joined the Alliance in the Burning Crusade expansion, and the werewolf-like Worgen will join in Cataclysm. The Horde is led by the Orcs, who are allied with the Tauren, Trolls, and Undead (Forsaken). Blood Elves joined their ranks in the Burning Crusade expansion, and a Goblin sect will join the Horde in Cataclysm.

Playing the game as these races and experiencing the culture of each is really amazing and I have to commend Blizzard on that. If you play as a Night Elf or Tauren, you will truly feel in tune with nature, and you will respect it tremendously. Play as a Forsaken, and the stagnant zones they inhabit, filled with undeath, will most certainly get to you.

It’s a sheer joy to follow the Alliance storyline. Viewed as Warcraft’s good guys, it’s cool to see them start to stray from their noble purposes in Wrath of the Lich King, as King Varian Wrynn begins to feel the urge to show the Horde the might of the Alliance.

Meanwhile, if you play Horde, you will be torn and unable to decide if you are playing bad guys or good guys. The Tauren and Trolls are certainly respectable races who are not clearly evil, while the Orcs continue their savage and ruthless war-like habits, and the Forsaken seem to have a vendetta against anything that has a beating heart.

The inclusion of the Burning Crusade races, and the two that we will get in Cataclysm, only make the experience better!

Reason #4: The Community

This is the biggest reason of all. Of course with millions of active subscribers there will be a few jerks, but the majority of WoW players are surprisingly nice! In all of the guilds I have joined since 2005, I’ve never been in one that I did not like becaue they were asses. Hasn’t happened.

On PvP realms, where tension between the two factions is incredibly tense, the people are unbelievably kind. Even if I got slaughtered many times by other players while questing, I still had nice people to talk to. That really mattered.

After quitting the game for half a year during 2006, I came back and never played on a PvP realm again, since I’m pretty weak on my own. I found the folks on my new PvE home realm of Hyjal to be amazing! They knew me as Rasche the Night Elf hunter, and they watched me grow from level 10 weakling to level 68 masterful hunter. I really came into my own, learning how to be a truly good hunter. It helped having them support me and offer me tips, and I won’t forget how much they helped me better myself as a hunter, which is now my class of choice.

I gave up Hyjal when I found an even friendlier home on a realm known as Moon Guard. It happens to be an RP realm, which of course stands for roleplay. This means that most people act as their characters, bringing a whole new dimension to the game. I still play on Moon Guard to this day, finding it impossible to play elsewhere.

I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons, and being a huge supporter of roleplay. I would play games outside with my friends that involved roleplay, but back then we never called it that, of course. When we were kids, we were “pretending to be other people” and such. This even spread into offline video games that had local multiplayer support. I seriously roleplayed with friends in RACING GAMES! That tells you how much we enjoyed the aspect of RP, and it is why I’ve become so comfortable on the Moon Guard realm. The roleplayers are, basically, like me. They are really kind people, really helpful. If you are not questing or instancing with them, then you are probably roleplaying with them. For creative story tellers and old D&D players, World of Warcraft offers an amazing foundation for the sort of roleplay they desire. From a social aspect, this game is unmatched in every single way.

World of Warcraft has brought people together. I may not be one of them, but I’ve read success stories of people meeting on the game and even getting married. Of course there are some bad people who play the game, but a lot of good has come out of World of Warcraft too. From uniting lovers to making the slow hours of the night pass by chilling with online folks in Silvermoon or Stormwind, World of Warcraft has had a positive impact on the lives of many.

In Conclusion…

I could go on and on about the reason why I am still an active WoW player. With everything above combined, WoW has become an MMORPG that cannot be replaced easily to me. I have played almost every other major MMO on the market (APB, Champions Online, D&D Online, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, etc.) and none of them can even compare. While some may almost have the same awesome gameplay, they never have a community that is as active or friendly. The opposite can also happen, an MMORPG may have god-awful gameplay that is terrible to play, but could have a good community. World of Warcraft, thankfully, has both good gameplay and a fantastic community. I really do urge everyone to give WoW a try. Honestly, it’s a very cheap and affordable MMORPG. The fact that people from all walks of life, and of all ages, can enjoy WoW says so much.

This is an MMORPG for everyone. Play it, and if something disappoints you in the game.. Well, try something else in WoW! Overall, this is the ultimate MMORPG. Over ten million players cannot be wrong.

Five years on and I am still playing, and do you know what? As long as content continues, I’ll play for another five. Kudos Blizzard, you’ve created the best MMORPG that we may very likely ever see.

Final note, if anyone would like to touch base with me in WoW, here are the characters I’m playing. Currently trying to get an 80 again!

Image is dated September 29, 2010 so levels may differ depending on the date that this article is being read. Click on the image to access the Armory page of my main (the Blood Elf hunter pictured, Sylessia).

Return to September 2010 Articles

Unsurprising Diablo III News

WARNING: You have stumbled upon one of my “rant” pages for a game(s). My rants are intentionally critical and contain foul language. If you are not comfortable with this, then please don’t read the material I have written.

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So Blizzard is showing off a bit of Diablo III at Gamescom. This is pretty cool, since new info on the game is always welcome. However, Blizzard decided that at Gamescom, they would do nothing more than just fuck with us.

Here is the “big info reveal” from Gamescom. This is taken from an IGN article. Click here for the full article.

Jay Wilson, game director on Blizzard’s highly anticipated action-RPG Diablo III gave a presentation at Gamescom 2010 to talk about a new feature for the game, the artisan system. These are NPCs that help you out during the game that craft and manipulate items for you. Wilson focused on the blacksmith for the duration of the presentation, but also touched on the jeweler and mystic. While you won’t start out your questing in Diablo III with these artisans, you are able to collect and maintain all three at the same time.

Initially you’ll need to do some tasks for the artisans when you first meet, earn their loyalty, and they’ll then join up and follow along from town to town throughout Sancturary. One of the goals with Diablo III was to add a crafting system, but the team didn’t want one where the player needs to spend a lot of time in towns and slow down the pace of the game.

The blacksmith, once recruited, will set up shop in town and is surrounded by anvils, a cart and item racks. He’ll act as a vendor where you can buy and sell items, and can also craft items. He tends to produce armor and heavy weapons more geared for melee characters, though there’ll be crafting options for every class. More interestingly, he can add sockets to items and can repair them as well. If an item doesn’t have sockets, then he can socket it so you can add gems to any item regardless of quality.
All three artisan types can be improved as the game progresses to enhance their crafting skill set. Once upgraded, you’ll also see the effects visually around the vendor areas in town. For example, in the blacksmith’s area the anvil and weapon racks and wagons surrounding him will be more ornate and elaborate, with pieces of armor attached to the wagon and fancy fires burning with chains wrapping around. Blizzard doesn’t want the items crafted to be entirely predictable.

When actually ordering the vendor to craft items, there’ll be a mix of predictable and unpredictable elements. A recipe for a dagger can have a set range of damage, but may also come along with two random properties. Some craftable have more predictable combinations than others, but Blizzard’s idea was to have a certain amount of randomness for every item. To gather the materials for crafting, you’ll need to salvage existing items. To get materials you’ll be able to put unwanted items you can drop them in a cube-like device (not the Horadric Cube, but similar) and break down the items, which you can do anywhere, to kick out materials. Higher level gear and quality items without high sell prices are generally the best to break down, and there’s some items that give you special drops.

For the other artisans, the mystic can enchant items, adding additional chance to crit or whatever you like, as well as identify items, craft wands, staves, and smaller armor items like bracers. The jeweler can pull gems off of items without destroying the item or the gem, and can also craft special items like amulets. Jeweler can also combine gems into better ones, replacing the function of the Horadric Cube from Diablo II, and in all there’ll be fourteen levels of quality for gems, though above level five the requirements for upgrading will be especially steep. All three artisans can follow you simultaneously and be fully upgraded, so there’s no need to pick one over the other.

Okay, so… Essentially the artisans are just characters from Diablo II but with new names. None of this is revolutionary. These are features that Blizzard introduced in Diablo II nearly a decade ago. It’s borderline hilarious that they’re chatting up the artisans as if they’re an exciting gameplay feature.

Sorry Blizzard, but everyone expected shit like this to be in the game. You’re not going to wow anybody with features that have become the norm in the PC RPG genre. Want to get people talking? Reveal the fifth fucking class already!

Hopefully this isn’t all Blizzard will mention at Gamescom, but… After giving a presentation about basic gameplay functions, I’m not going to hold my breath for Blizzard to reveal any sort of new and cool features in Diablo III.

Who thought that this would be a good idea? Show off something that will actually make people talk, Blizzard. Fuck!!

Return to August 2010 Articles

Games I Won’t Write About

WARNING: You have stumbled upon one of my “rant” pages for a game(s). My rants are intentionally critical and contain foul language. If you are not comfortable with this, then please don’t read the material I have written.

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As a regular joe and not some flunky working for a professional gaming website, I can say whatever I please about any game on the market. To get myself warmed up for a few reviews I plan on writing soon, I have decided to end my blog break by writing about the games I have played (or haven’t, in the case of one game below) that I will not review. Surely these games must be something special if I won’t review them? Well, in most cases, the games are actually pretty good overall. So, let me tell you why some games are on the “do not review” list.

BRAVO AIR RACE (PS1)
This one is a “classic” now, as it is a PS1 game. So why am I including it? Well, I’ll review older games from time to time. Bravo Air Race, fortunately, will never be one. I love racing games, but this game was just ridiculous. Aside from having barely any courses at all in the game, it was designed terribly. Why in the hell the developers thought it would be cool to include a countdown timer in the game is beyond me. Yes, Bravo Air Race is just like the old arcade racers that have those countdown timers that, when they reach zero, you lose automatically. Get that shit out of racing games, it doesn’t belong at all. You’re not supposed to be racing against the clock, you’re supposed to be racing against other competitors! I also found myself crashing or something almost all the time in the game, because it felt like everything wanted to kill me.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 1 and 3 out of 10.

DEMON’S SOULS (PS3)
Originally, I was pumped for this game. After I watched YouTube videos of the game in action, my hopes quickly vanished and I found myself not really wanting to play the game anymore. Sure the game looked challenging, but it lacked an immersive atmosphere, the graphics were generic, and the absence of music made it all seem very dull. A few months later, a friend brought it over and played through the tutorial stage as well the following two levels. Did I come around? No, not at all. Seeing the game in motion on my television only made me feel even less interested in the game. Overall, it just looked boring and completely stupid. Aside from being ridiculously difficult and strategic, nothing about the game looked interesting. The graphics were boring, the sound effects were terribly uninspired, and the menus were just plain awful. My friend offered me the controller at one point, but I didn’t want to play. A few more weeks later and my step-sister’s boyfriend tried to get me to play it. All I had to say was NO. Sorry bud, but I’m not touching Demon’s Souls. Ever. You can tell when a game isn’t for you, and this is one that is not for me.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 3 and 5 out of 10.

FALLOUT 3 (360, PC, PS3)
I wanted to like this one, I really did. Unfortunately, I feel like Fallout 3 is just a dumbed down Oblivion, just like Oblivion is a dumbed down Morrowind. With each new Bethesda release, I feel like the overall quality of their games declines substantially. They seem to just try to appeal to the casual gamers now, or at least want lots of mainstream attention. It shows in their two latest RPGs, Fallout 3 and Oblivion. Oblivion was fairly boring and lacked immersion, but I was able to play it and at least enjoy it a little. Fallout 3 is a different story, though. I feel that it takes Bethesda’s bad voice acting to it’s lowest point yet, and the NPC animations are just fucking hilarious. The VATs system felt like garbage to me and I couldn’t grow to enjoy it at all. I read that it was to “simulate” the turn based combat of the first two Fallout games. Well why the fuck don’t you guys just make an actual turn based battle system instead of butchering an already shitty first person combat system!? My main gripe with Fallout 3 is that the whole game just felt really boring. There was nothing epic about it. With Morrowind, you had a wonderful orchestrated soundtrack that made stepping out onto Vvardenfell feel absolutely incredible. Oblivion tried to feel a little epic as well with the impressive (though visually sub-par) distant land feature and action-oriented battle system. Fallout throws everything out from Morrowind and Oblivion and forces the player to listen to a soundtrack that hardly evokes any feeling at all from the player as they trudge through a wasteland that, while impressive looking for five minutes or so, quickly becomes the most boring landscape I have ever had the displeasure of adventuring through. The “Wasteland” was even more boring than Oblivion’s huge ass province-sized forest that covered up almost the entire overworld. So, Fallout 3 bored the shit out of me and I hated how clumsy Bethesda’s programming was, too. Sorry.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 3 and 5 out of 10.

DISSIDIA: FINAL FANTASY (PSP)
It’s bullshit fanservice, and I’m sick of Final Fantasy not dying. The fact that Square-Enix works on TWO numbered games in the main series at a time now is beyond ridiculous. Dissidia just felt like a less gimmicky version of Smash Brothers. I think that Smash Brothers has a slight edge over Dissidia though, since I feel that Smash Brothers actually requires a little skill (!!!) while Dissidia requires none. This is just a mindless button masher that stars Final Fantasy’s most popular characters. The fighting engine is so shallow and stupid that it’s hardly even worth it to check out every character. I tried them all, felt underwhelmed, and then just played the game a bit with Squall since he basically felt like a murder machine. I don’t know what Square-Enix was even trying to do with this game. Is it a fighting game? Er, not quite. Action? No. RPG? Nope. So what the fuck is it? Hell, I don’t know.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 3 and 6 out of 10.

MINI NINJAS (360, PC, PS3)
What’s not to like? It looks cute, the premise is great, and the gameplay videos are fun to watch. Unfortunately, I found out that there is one thing about this game that I absolutely cannot tolerate, and that is the control layout. I played the game on my computer, and I could not get the game to detect my gamepad at all which forced me to play on the keyboard. To make matters worse, I could not reassign some keys. I always play with the jump key as NUMPAD0, but in Mini Ninjas it was permanently bound to the space bar. Frustrating to say the least. Anyway, I found the controls impossible to adapt to, and I was quite pissed off that I couldn’t use my gamepad. The game itself seemed very well made and I’m upset that I didn’t get to experience more of it. A poor control scheme is a game breaker though, and Mini Ninjas certainly has a poor one.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 4 and 5 out of 10.

RISEN (PC)
Start game. Complete tutorial. Walk ten feet and get slaughtered by a horde of monsters that are way out of your league. I couldn’t enjoy the combat in this game at all. It felt a lot like The Witcher, only so clumsy that it made me just want to quit repeatedly. I disliked everything about Risen except the graphics. The island you are thrust onto looks really nice and is quite a treat to explore, but overall the game felt like trash to me and I didn’t enjoy it. It’s been a while since I last played, so it is hard to be specific. All I can say is that I didn’t like the game and I felt that the placement of monsters was far beyond questionable.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 2 and 5 out of 10.

SACRED 2 (360, PC, PS3)
I will never review this game simply because I can’t get the damn thing to work on anything I run it on! Nothing ever loads properly and the game can’t even be played. Start up a new game and be treated to a grassy field that is stuck on my screen forever! Cool! Nothing renders at all except the ground. The game was also tested on my step-sister’s machine and, surprise, it didn’t work. It is kind of hard to review a game when the fucking thing doesn’t even work in the first place.
Estimated score if reviewed: 0 out of 10 for not even working. Yes, that makes it worse than Big Rigs.

THE LAST REMNANT (360, PC)
I played about an hour and a half of this game before I just gave up. As a Square-Enix game, I expected a lot more out of it. The Last Remnant was bad on so many levels. The voice acting wasn’t even Sesame Street quality, the battle system was barely functional and seemed absolutely random most of the time, and the dungeons were the blandest locations I have witnessed in a current generation game. Most dungeons were, literally, nothing more than barren square rooms connected together with the odd monster or two inside. I tried to accept all these faults, but when the second boss of the game KO’ed me in two hits that I could not even react against, I decided not to bother with this garbage game. Yes, garbage game. The Last Remnant has a lot of interesting qualities and there is a lot of potential in the game, but Square-Enix wasted every single ounce of it. Not even one aspect of the game was put to good use. Everything felt half-assed, as if Square-Enix didn’t really care about putting any effort or time into anything in the game. A complete and utter failure of a game.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 1 and 2 out of 10.

TORCHLIGHT (PC)
I am getting a sense of deja vu. Did I already write about this game before? I could swear that I did. Hmm…
Estimated score if reviewed: Pretty sure I’ve written about Diab… Er… Torchlight before .

WORLD OF WARCRAFT (PC)
Unlike everything else in this post, I like WoW. I still play it, but mostly as a sort of social networking service of sorts. I still play the actual game itself, but I also like keeping in touch with the cool people I’ve met on WoW. Hyjal, Moon Guard, and Shadowmoon are all some pretty awesome realms. If anyone remembers Rasche the Night Elf hunter from Hyjal and then Moon Guard, then that was me. I made friends on both realms, and I had good times. I still play, and I’m trying to gear a healer at the moment while chatting with some pretty good folks. People talk shit about WoW quite often, and let them. Who cares? It’s a fun game as long as you don’t become dangerously addicted, but that applies to all games. World of Warcraft isn’t the evil poison people make it out to be. There are just so many people playing it, so you’re bound to hear the bad stories about neglectful parents and such more often than you would with other massively played games such as Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2. Overall, when you balance out the populations, WoW’s players really aren’t any worse. Truthfully, some of the friendliest people I have met online have been on WoW. Are they lonely and depressed nerds who are excited to have someone to talk to? Maybe. Even if they are, at least they’re friendly. I can’t say the same for the assholes I’ve met in APB and other MMOs. Anyway, there is one simple reason why I will never review the core World of Warcraft game, and that’s because it is always changing thanks in part to Blizzard’s thorough patches. The game is continually being refined, so it’s difficult to really say much about it.
Estimated score if reviewed: Between 8 and 10 out of 10.

Return to August 2010 Articles

Fans lash out at Activision Blizzard’s new Real ID forum feature

Activision Blizzard recently unveiled plans to force their users to use their real names on official forums that they will launch for Starcraft 2 this month and, later this year, for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm as well.

Here is the post from Blizzard that first mentioned this new forum “feature.”

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature – http://www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting.

The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players — however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

We also plan to add a number of other features designed to make reading the forums more enjoyable and to empower players with tools to improve the quality of forum discussions. Players will have the ability to rate up or rate down posts so that great topics and replies stand out from the not-so-great; low-rated posts will appear dimmer to show that the community feels that they don’t contribute effectively to the conversation, and Blizzard’s community team will be able to quickly and easily locate highly rated posts to participate in or to highlight discussions that players find worthwhile.

In addition, individual topics will be threaded by context, meaning replies to specific posts will be grouped together, making it easier for players to keep track of multiple conversations within a thread. We’re also adding a way for Blizzard posters to “broadcast” important messages forums-wide , to help communicate breaking news to the community in a clear and timely fashion. Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.

With the launch of the new Battle.net, it’s important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment — one that’s highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID — including these forum changes — have been made with this goal in mind.

We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years. As these services have become more and more popular, gamers have become part of an increasingly connected and intimate global community – friendships are much more easily forged across long distances, and at conventions like PAX or our own BlizzCon, we’ve seen first-hand how gamers who may have never actually met in person have formed meaningful real-life relationships across borders and oceans. As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come.

That was posted three days ago. On the World of Warcraft forums alone, there is one stickied topic by Blizzard with nearly 2500 replies from users. There are dozens more individual topics posted by users that have many replies as well. The amount of people against this change, even though I am on their side, is absolutely staggering.

In a matter of months this year, Activision Blizzard went from the respectable company with a solid line up of good games to what they are portrayed as now, and that is simply nothing more than bad guys. Every major change that they have implemented to their games and battle.net lately has been met with anger from the majority of their users.

It’s interesting to see what some people are saying about this change. Here are just a few of the points people are bringing up about this new system.

• Children under the age of 13 play Blizzard games. Regardless of what the ESRB rating is, children will still get their hands on these games and play them. When their names become public on Blizzard’s new forums, there will be very little to prevent the truly sick creeps who play Blizzard games from taking advantage of this? Especially when they’re aware that the user is a child? Activision Blizzard reps have said that this can be handled by parents setting parental controls on the accounts so that children will not be able to post. Right, but how many parents will actually do this? Common sense says that a lot of parents will just let their kids fire up the games they buy and do whatever.
• Current or potential employers will be able to look you up on the internet and see that you play games such as World of Warcraft, which these days carries a very negative aura to it and could certainly harm your chances of landing certain jobs. Yes, employers do look up potential employees very often. It’s common practice in today’s world, and many people have unfortunately had problems at work because of it.
• If you have breasts, you’re pretty much doomed. The amount of anti-social and creepy super stalkers that exist on the internet is staggering, and some of the stories I’ve heard are pretty unnerving. All it takes is for these stalkers is a real name in many cases. That is all. I’m very thankful that I’m not a girl right now, because this new Real ID forum feature would pretty much kill my desire to play Blizzard games.
• Back to children. I saw an example that was very frightening. A poster on the World of Warcraft forums said something like this… Jimmy created his battle.net account in his father’s name since he was underage at the time. One day in a contested zone, Jimmy found a low level member of the opposing faction and killed his character relentlessly and repeatedly. The victim, in a fit of rage, looks up Jimmy’s “name” and sees the name of Jimmy’s father, believing it to be the player. This guy then googles the name of Jimmy’s father and conveniently finds out where he works. Without hesitation, he goes there and shoots Jimmy’s father dead. Things like this have happened already, it’s not far-fetched at all. If anything, this example is flat out terrifying.
• A lot of people play these games to escape from real life, so being anonymous really helps immerse us in that, especially when you’re an adult. Take this away from us and it’s actually quite damaging. It’s forcing real life, and the escape we use to get away from it, into one another and forcing them to become one thing. How can you escape from reality when there is no escape?
• With your real name being plastered all over the place, all it takes for a malicious person is a quick Google search on your name. If they find anything that undoubtedly relates to you and contains an email address… Well, put two and two together. It means hijacking accounts will become much easier for the determined.

A poster named Sprucelee posted the following on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft general forum, and he also raised some very good points.

After still reading so many new threads, people still don’t get it.

It has little to do with stopping forum trolling and everything to do with you and your friends communicating. Thats right, they want you to communicate, as much as possible. Why? Because it can make Blizzard rich. Watch how.

Social networking isn’t just confined to a single network. IE, this game. Or facebook, or twitter, etc. It’s open-ended, and designed that way. Think of it as you going about you day, interacting with everyone and everything.

Ok, not ground-breaking, I know. The example on how. Imagine we’re a year down the road from where we are now. Blizzard has implemented guild halls within game, everything you can do on an external site (like a guild forum or blog) is now in game.

You joined RealID. You also have a facebook account (like I do) and have a few hundred friends. You have friended or ‘liked’ several corporations as well, like Nvidia. A friend has posted that they upgraded their computer, and put in the latest Nvidia X9000 card. They get 900 fps and the 3D effects are amazing. You respond with saying your 9800 Pro only gets 90. The next morning you log into facebook, hey check that out – an ad for the X9000 card. 10% off! You go buy one.

What happened? Marketing in social networking happened. You’ve agreed to share data between your networks. Your friend is on your network, as is Nvidia. Nvidia saw your post and what you referred from, and sent a targeted ad to facebook.

Who wins? You got a nice discount, Nvidia got a sale, and facebook and WoW got a small cut.

Now all of that above is just an example, its far more detailed than that but I think you get the idea. Since you have elected to share data between your networks anything you do or say can be seen by them. If you are in game and mention to a friend over RealID that you should order a pizza for dinner, don’t be surprised to see an ad for Dominos sitting on facebook the next time you load it. I think you get the idea.

And this isn’t really breaking new ground, TV has been trying to do it for years. IE: My TV can ‘know’ that during 12-4pm that I’m home watching TV. Why? I’m watching war shows, ‘guy’ shows. They want to send me commercials for pick up trucks and sears hardware. From 3-5 pm our tv is watching cartoons. Guess what commercials they want to send? Toys. McDonalds. From 8-10pm our tv is watching Law and Order, Hallmark channel, etc. Commercials for tampons, pocket books, etc are what they want to send. Is this a bad thing? Personally I’d rather not see tampon commercials.

Anyway welcome to social networking. And again, this was just an example. The real deal is far more complex on what goes on behind the scenes. I’ve taken classes in modern marketing, and its a gold mine. If you still don’t believe me, do a google search for ‘social networking model’.

Thats why RealID is here. $$$. Oh, its also here to stop trolling… but thats just 1 small piece of the puzzle

Sprucelee is right, too. Heck, everyone railing against this is right. This isn’t about making us have better times playing Blizzard games by increasing the amount of social interaction we can have. That is the last thing it is about, and any argument that Blizzard’s loyal customers bring up will fall upon deaf ears. Sad but true.

Will I purchase and review Starcraft 2 now later this month? A week ago, I would have said YES. Now, I think I might be leaning towards a very stern NO. I even went as far as to cancel my WoW account, which had been active almost steadily since I opened it in August 2005. Sorry Blizzard, but you’ve lost a loyal supporter in me. You used to be the epitome of respected game developers in my eyes. You’re still talented game designers, but respected? I’d rather eat my money than give it to you at this point.

Also, WoW player Dogar from the Area 52 realm has created a site called “Save Blizzard From Itself” which is very informative. Check it out at this link: http://www.saveblizz.com/

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UPDATE: Activision Blizzard caves in!

Given the company’s history of implementing horrible features into their games and not going back on their decisions, this is quite surprising! One hour ago at 12:47 PM EST, Blizzard forum poster “Nethaera” posted the following.

Hello everyone,

I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard’s success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

You can check out the full topic by clicking here.

Way to go Blizzard! Even I dismissed them as no longer truly caring about their customers. Looks like the gigantic outcry against the proposed forum changes worked.

It’s rare for an event such as this to occur, and today the customers of Activision Blizzard won. Proof that if you are loud enough and there are many of you, then anything is possible!!

However, my WoW account is remaining cancelled until Cataclysm at least, and I am still on the fence about purchasing Starcraft 2. The company saw the light today, but this doesn’t mean that they can be trusted, nor does it mean that they’ll never try a stunt like this again. Beware! 😉

Return to July 2010 Articles

Diablo 2 (Retro Review)

“Few games have aged as gracefully as this colossal hit by Blizzard.”

Diablo 3 is probably still about a year away from release as of this writing, and there are few games available to allow gamers to satisfy their thirst for quality hack and slash action. Sacred, Titan Quest, and several others have attempted to copy Blizzard’s successful formula, but just like those who tried to copy the formulas of Starcraft or World of Warcraft, they have failed to even come close to matching what they are blatantly imitating.

Rewind a full decade to the year 2000. Diablo 2 had just been released, and it drove the hack and slash RPG fanatics absolutely wild as the game became critically acclaimed faster than you can say “stay a while and listen.” Ten years later and no game in the genre is yet to make as big a splash as Diablo 2, and it will likely remain this way until Diablo 3 ships sometime in 2011.

So what made Diablo 2 so good? Why has there not been even a single game released in the past ten years capable of topping it? The simple reason is because what Blizzard does well, they in fact do very well. Blizzard strives for excellence in their games, and it shows. Whether you like or hate their games, it’s impossible to deny that they are high quality sources of entertainment.

I consider World of Warcraft to be my favourite Blizzard product of all time, but Diablo 2 is not far off. Since this is a review for that excellent game, it’s time for me to stop talking about other Blizzard products, which includes Diablo 3.

Diablo 2 picked up shortly after the first game. The hero of the first game (Diablo canon dictates that it was the warrior class) has become nothing but a vessel for Diablo as he seeks to unleash his brothers Baal and Mephisto, which would ultimately allow them to rule Sanctuary (the mortal realm in Diablo). Of course, most people didn’t play Diablo 2 for the story, since the game came out just a few years before story telling became the prime focus of almost every genre. Diablo 2 was able to get away with just having great gameplay alone, and it did just that.

If you’re unfamiliar with how Diablo 2 plays, then you have probably been living under a rock. If you have indeed been living under a rock, then I will explain how the game plays in a simple manner. Players assume the role of one of several different classes (which are all 100% unique) and must adventure across Sanctuary from an isometric view, slaughtering demons and monsters almost the entire way. The game is played mostly with the mouse, as left clicking instructs your character where to go while right clicking performs whatever action you may have assigned to a hot key. The left mouse button can also function as a hot key, but you will only perform whatever ability you have tied to the left button when you click on a hostile creature.

Players take on a variety of quests that point them in the direction of Diablo and his brothers. Experience points are awarded by killing creatures and completing quests. Once you level you are able to distribute five stat points to various attributes, and you also get to put one skill point into anything of your choosing in your talent trees. The sorceress can learn new elemental spells from their trees, while the barbarian can learn powerful physical attacks.

Diablo 2 has more pieces of equipment than any game from 2000 should have, as the different gear combinations number in the thousands. This is excluding possibilities that include socketing pieces of gear with gems and runes (the latter are only in the expansion pack) which increase stats, offer resistances, deal bonus elemental damage, and much more.

For new players, Diablo 2 can be a very overwhelming and difficult game until they fully complete at least two runs of the game before understanding how all of the encounters work and what gear should be used and when. Many creatures have resistances or weaknesses that the player will discover, and boss fights are anything but easy on the first play through the game. Diablo 2’s bosses will, almost all of the time, hit like tanks. Stocking up on health potions is imperative in this game due to the extremely high damage output of many creatures and bosses as well, especially Diablo himself.

The game spans several different geographical regions before the player journeys to Hell to battle Diablo (and then to the snowy mountains in the expansion). All regions are very unique with their own unique creatures and quests, as well as a major quest hub each.

Diablo 2 has some of the creepiest music I’ve ever heard, and if it had been used in any other games (such as survival horror titles) then the effect would have been absolutely terrifying. Fortunately for Diablo 2, it is an action packed hack and slash RPG, so you likely won’t feel any fear when you play this game. Certain areas a little unnerving though, such as when you reach Hell itself. The background music, coupled with the groans and wails you will hear, make it very unsettling while being extremely fun at the same time.

Areas that lack the creepy atmosphere come off just as well. Act 2, which is set in the desert, has some fantastic music that is hauntingly immersive. The sound effects are quite good for a ten year old game. While the sounds aren’t particular realistic (in fact many are quite cartoonish by today’s standards), they set the tone very well and compliment the game’s music and graphical style very well. Voice work, which plays a major part in the game, is quite good. Modern games certainly have more emotional voice work that comes across better, but Diablo 2’s is still very decent for it’s time.

The only part of Diablo 2 that hasn’t aged the best are the graphics. While the game looked stunning when it was first released, it is now borderline ugly in some areas. Characters are blurry and lacking a lot of detail despite being 2D. In fact, the entire game world is 2D. Though you would expect the world to be very beautiful to look at, the only areas that have great attention to detail are the towns. Wilderness areas and dungeons look and feel rather generic most of the time, and due to the areas being randomly generated, they suffer severely from what I call “Copy & Paste Syndrome” where you see familiar surrounding all too frequently, resulting in a few cases of deja vu.

Diablo 2’s positives far outweigh the negatives and the game remains a real pleasure to play even to this day. The game was quite ahead of it’s time and, if it was re-released with modern graphics, it would still score very high with practically every reviewer. Diablo 2 is one of Blizzard’s best games, and the love that they put into it still shows strongly even today. If you’ve never played the game, you owe it to yourself to give the game a play before Diablo 3 hit shelves next year.

Final Score

9.1/10

WoW Maintenance Day

As a casual World of Warcraft player, I am aware that today, like all Tuesdays before this, is maintenance day. Thankfully these days do not affect me, since I am at work for the entire duration of the maintenance period!

I am, however, aware that there are some people who probably feel like part of them dies when they can’t play due to maintenance. I won’t get into how unhealthy it may be to feel that way, but I will list some things that fill the void quite well!

1. Watch a movie or two, especially old classics you’ve never seen. I’m 24 and just watched the first Rocky a few days ago! I’m enjoying the series quite a lot. Just because movies are old does not mean they don’t deserve your attention. Go watch the classics. I’ll say it again in case anyone else has not seen them, but the Rocky movies are really, really awesome. Why did I wait this long to watch them?

2. If you can’t think of anything better to do, then bug some friends. Whether it’s online or offline, it doesn’t hurt to talk to them and keep in touch so that they are aware that you’re still alive. Try it out, it’s fun. I like to randomly message my friends with random lines about really irrelevant things, like what I saw a cat do or why I need to buy a tripod. I can sense the confusion and lack of interest on their part, but that’s what makes it fun, oddly enough! Just talk to your friends.

3. Have a pet? Take them for a walk, play with them, feed them, whatever. If you have a cat, take a nap with them. If it’s a dog that tickles your fancy, then take them for a nice walk around town. There is nothing better to tear you away from an MMORPG than the love of an animal, because they depend on you so much….. Kind of like how you depend on the MMORPG. Hmm, this is actually a rather interesting revelation!

4. Learn to do something new. Of course, there’s no need to go crazy. Just do something new that you’re unfamiliar with. Try cooking something new (or cooking at all!), or look for something to do outside. Some kind of yard work perhaps? If there’s some wood laying around, build a little craft. WoW maintenance takes eight hours or so. I used to make bird houses in shop class in perhaps half that time. Go do something.

5. If there’s really nothing at all that you can do that’s productive, then I don’t know, play another game? Check out something I’ve mentioned on here. Why not Warning Forever? Nothing beats a game in which the bosses adapt to your tactics. Let’s see the Lich King do that! (He won’t.)

If you’re really stuck and can’t do any of these things, then get your WoW buddies to add you on MSN or something. If you can’t journey across Azeroth with them, then at least you’ll be able to play Minesweeper together.

Return to June 2010 Articles