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So now we know, the WoW killer is...
Neverdyne
Member Posts: 167
WoW itself. If this Real ID passes, WoW will loose many, many subscribers. What Aion, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, etc., couldn't do will be done by Activision's attempt to kill the goose that lays golden eggs.
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Comments
No It won't. As with every other thing they do, everyone whines or complains then about 10% of those people actually quit and everyone moves on. I don't like teh real Id feature either but i also will continue to play.
Even if the equivilant of the sum of the populations of all the games you mentioned left WoW, they'd still have 10 million subs.
Assuming your opinoins are representative of the statistical majority, well.. OK..
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
The whinning for this has reached a proportion far bigger than any other thing in the game's history. The main thread is over 44,620 posts long, and 95% of those are complaints. The forums have been bombarded day and night with Real ID threads. Real ID has reached several newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal where there are over 1,000 comments complaining about it.Yes, people have complained before, but never in this proportions. It's even on CNN, Yahoo, etc. If this goes through, it will be a considerable hit to Blizzard.
NGE meet WOW!
It's funny, because I hear noone complaining about this in game. Not even discussing it. People in my guild are fine with RealID. But when you come here everyone is up in arms about it. Do those people even play WoW now or even like it?
haha
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So you failed math all through school I take it??
You are citing <50,000 examples of people who are mad about this, and posting about it...
That is .4% of their subsriber base.
Most of their players don't use forums, and don't give a crap about RealID because they will never use the forums, and thus, it simply won't be an issue for them. In fact, they are probably very excited about being able to keep track of their real friends across Blizzard games and integrate with Facebook.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
The game will take a small hit in population if this goes through. However, the biggest loser will be the wow forum community. Stuff like class guides and discussions will bascially be empty on the official forums. Almost every single top theorycrafter and guide creater from all of the class forums say they won't post there anymore. They'll still play the game but you'll have to search the fansites for the information they contribute and provide. When this goes through I imagine the busiest forum would be the customer complaints and tech support forum.
But will the game die? Not a chance. Now if they actually made it that your Real ID was mandatory in game (such as showing on your character and in game chat) then that would probably kill the game. I seriously doubt they would implement that though.
A conversation that's been going on since the release of wow...
Considering I don't post on the WoW forum and most players don't - and you can turn it off in SC2 It doesn't change a thing for me.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
If you do a census in your guild on the Data Retention Directive, you may or may not get the same result. A lot of people don't have any particular opinion on it. And this is fine, because noone can have an informed opinion on everything. But this does not imply that there are no legitimate concerns regarding the directive, or that those protesting (or defending) the directive are somehow hysterical. They just chose to take an active interest in some particular democratic process.
you can't just "kill WoW". it will phenox down. you need to posion it so that it becomes self destructive. which, seems to be happening. Although, Old republic is the only title so far that I think that could put a dent into the mass that is WoW.
So why is Real ID bad?
If you post, you effectively announce the entire world that you play WoW. Some people don't care, but many, many do. They don't want employers doing Google serches and finding their names on WoW forums. There is a certain stigma to playing MMORPGs, and many people would like to keep real life and virtual life separate. They don't want World of Facebook, but World of Warcraft.
It poses a security threat. A blue poster on the WoW forums posted his real name to show how harmless it is. Within minutes there were threads posted with his complete information, relative's names, facebook account, address, phone number, etc. In a community like WoW, it's a danger to be exposed like this. Girls, above all, have expressed their concern. The internet is not a safe place.
Identity Theft. Once your account gets hacked, which happens pretty often, there's going to be someone posting with your real name. There's many dangers with this, he could piss other people off on purpose, etc.
Gold sellers. Now they know your phone number, address, etc.
Why do Activison-Blizzard want to implement this change? It is not to stop trolls. That's a lie. You could very well do that with an unchangeable global gamertag linked to your account. But they want your real name because they want to integrate Facebook to their games. Why? Money.
Integrating WoW with Facebook means you are turned into a publicity machine. Facebook has already talked about this so called "friend ads". Your friends will get ads saying "Your friend Timmy plays WoW, you should try it too!". It's all for the money.
So the vocal minority on the forums don't count, right? Wrong. There's many reasons why they do:
They are usually the most active players; the ones who write guides, help new players, theorycraft, beta test, etc. They keep the community outside the game alive.
Many players don't post on the forums, but they check them out. Some people don't need to make a post saying they'll quit to quit.
The bad publicity being generated does affect Blizzard, since this is reaching the more mainstream media now.
People are forgeting, this is not only about the current implementation of Real ID on the forums. This is about Activision's plans to merge WoW and Facebook. They've already signed the contract.
Well the Real ID doesn't replace your characters name, but ( I haven't played in a while so not from personal experience) I have seen screen shots of add-ons already in game that will tell you the real name next to the characters name.. So this is being forced upon you in game as well not only on the forums. This will effect anyone and everyone that plays WoW no matter if you use the forums or not
It sure would be some sweet irony, but I doubt it will cause any really harm in the end, plenty of people are already completly open about who they are, especially when it comes to guilds, some WoW players are just so damn proud to be a WoW player that they want everyone to know who they are lol.
Although..
Crazy Theory #1:
Instead of admitting to defeat by a more popular game, killing themselves off would allow them to still claim that "#1 mmo" title, and that alone would help them promote whatever their next game might be in same positive light.
So maybe Blizz is attempting to self-sobatoge themselves, just so they don't have to admit being flatout beat by someone else?
Crazy Theory #2:
They may just want to pull out and shutdown, but that wouldn't work out so well. Would just end up completly pissing everyone off to the point of never playing a Blizz mmo again. They apparently have another mmo in the works, and with WoW being so popular they really would be their own worst competition, it really could cause their new game to fail as a result.
This Real ID thing could just be a way to turn people off and lower WoW's population some, leaving room for their new mmo to grow.
Well it seems the vocal minority did matter in this case. Blizzard has backtracked and said they won't implement Real ID on forums anymore: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1
Vocal Minority: 1
Activision: 0
This wont hurt Blizzard at all. That's the reality. Whether they do it or not.
Apparently it would have hurt blizzard or they would not have bothered to change their plans as neverdyne's link points out.
Just because they decided not to use it doesn't mean that it would have hurt them.
Eleanor Rigby.
Whether or not it would have hurt them will be left to speculation. Only Blizzard know for sure.
Personally I think they deserve a pat on the back for changing their decision.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Yes i guess 45k people posting which is less than 0.5% of the playerbase would have hurt them really really hard, but you know what there are another 45k to take their places. So no matter what its a win win situation, infact i think all this publicity even raised the profile of wow and blizzard even more. Newspapers, chat shows, time for worldwide domination:0.
That is possible, but I think it unlikely. Their main goal is to make money. If they were unsure of this idea, they wouldn't have announced it, then say, no, we changed our mind. If there was no outcry, this probably would have gone through.
If it didn't hurt them at all why would they bother to change? They just decided it wasn't a good idea? Then you have to ask why they thought it wasn't good, because people were upset about it, which can lead to people quitting and not buying the expansion or their other games, thus hurting them.
If none of that came into play, then they were just idiots for prematurely tossing out an idea, then retracting it, when they should have discussed it in house. It was obviously a money decision, before and after.
One question remains though: Was Activision behind it. Now, people say ''yes, that's just common sense'' but I have yet to see any solid proof. If Mr. Kotick had something to do with it though, I hope that will change because what he did to MW2 is just unforgivable.
Eleanor Rigby.
/Conspiracy theory
By backing down Acti-Blizz will win plaudits the world over for "listening to their community over an unpopular decision". Perhaps this was their plan all along.
Its a victory (all be it a small one) for common sense and internet freedom
It is possible it was always a ploy to garner more publicity and the sense they listen to their playerbase, lol. Not really that farfetched, but I still think they saw it was a poor decision and were smart enough to change it.