Posts Tagged ‘World of Warcraft’

He was afraid to go near the hurt locker
He was as nervous as he could be
He was afraid to go near the hurt locker
The armor was skimpy as skimpy could be

Two three four tell the people what the ogre wore

It was an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Galvanized Metal Bikini
That the ogre wore the first time today
An Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Galvanized Metal Bikini
So in his big hut, he wanted to stay

“It is extremely hard to get somebody to pay for the privilege of constantly losing in a PvP game. And especially new players that start a game and always lose will often give up very quickly. This is why successful PvP games have safe spaces in which new players are completely or at least mostly safe from being ganked.” – Tobold

I couldn’t agree more with Tobold’s state above – It’s why Eve Online has high security space.  It’s why Warhammer has RvR lakes. Ganking may make the members of the gank gang feel good, but it will kill their victims’ participation faster than cheetah on speed. Even if you take ganking out of the equation, balancing the pvp abilities of character classes is a task that would even befuddle the Wisdom of Solomon.  You can take the Warhammer approach and make one class strong against some and week against others.  You can try the World of Warcraft (WoW) approach and attempt a precarious balancing act that requires myriad and constant micro-adjustments. The end result is always the same. It’s human nature. No one likes to lose all the time.

Still, no matter how much you try and balance the pvp and pve it doesn’t always work.  As Tina Turner says in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome “one day the cock of the walk, the next day a feather duster.” There was a time when many a beastmaster hunter could claim, and rightly so, to own the top of the dps charts (and woe to the day that anyone created the ability to make a dps chart in WoW in the first place).  The Blizzard decided they wanted to balance out survivalist hunters with beastmaster hunters and we were nerfed not only into the ground but the devs dug a hole, threw beastmaster hunters in, and covered them with dirt. But top of the dps charts or no I have no I have no intention of giving up my spirit beast pet.

Ah but then the word “huntard” started to slip back into conversations.  In my particular case it wasn’t the insult that was upsetting it was the last syllable of the slang term that I will not tolerate…applied to anyone.

 

So it was some months before Fran (my sister and co-host) could convince me to come back to Wow from my regular stable of staple mmos…Eve Online (oh thou of the love/hate relationship), Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online and now thanks to the kindness of friends, Fallen Earth (Yay!).  Whatever the reason for the season of return to Wow, perhaps some virtual siren call, perhaps sisterly love, maybe even the fact that even in religious circles my co-host and I have been called “The Dynamic Duo), return I did.   We picked up where two characters had been left off in classic Azeroth and soon worked our way around to my favorite Outland area (and the new last area before the big transition to Northrend at level 68)…

Nagrand

 

In Nagrand we soon found ourselves putting the hammer down on the warmaul ogres.  This time around, however, I found I didn’t have quite the patience enough to put in that last valiant effort that it takes to bring the revered reputation (where it stops after all the questing is done) to exalted with the Mag’har orcs (the point at which you can buy a Talbuck mount). Having taken off a bit of time for good behavior in real life, Fran is playing catch up so we can both take that goblin zeppelin to Howling Fjord where I have saved up half of the Northrend quests for just such an occasion.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

“Street [Greg ‘Ghostcrawler’ Street, lead systems designer for WoW] identifies three main reasons for bringing the apocalypse to Azeroth. First, shock value was a crucial component. Deathwing’s awakening is an explosive event for Azeroth. “We were trying to stage an apocalypse here,” he says, “and we wanted some crazy things to happen and we knew there were sacred cows that might shock or upset players a bit.” Many players will certainly be upset to see Stormwind ruined and Thousand Needles flooded, not because they were poorly designed but because Blizzard simply wanted to show the extent of the cataclysm’s impact. As Street says, “Life will never be the same there.” – from This is the way the world ends, by Steve Butts in The Escapist

There is a point in the movie Dogma in which the character Rufus (Chris Rock) is given a note by Christ, shortly before his crucifixion and resurrection, that says see you in two years. “It sort of took the mystery out of the whole thing” complains the character. If you had the ability to see your whole life laid out before you, would you do it?  Or would you rather experience it?  If you knew exactly what was going to happen it would be like opening a mystery novel and reading the last chapter.

Yet that is what usually happens before the impending release of any highly anticipated new mmo or expansion.

The second the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) is lifted the mmo community is flooded with all the details – so much so, in fact, that it often reaches the point where you know exactly what is going to happen before the game hits the shelves (or the release page on Steam).  In the case of Cataclysm, the announcement that the closed beta NDA had been lifted was almost always followed by “we hadn’t expected it so soon.”

It’s always nice to see a few screenshots of course. Maybe even get a few details later on such as what are the new races? What are some of the new classes?  But that is rarely where it stops.  The community becomes like a little kid, determined to find out exactly what is in a present ahead of time, not realizing the truth related by the immortal bard…

“You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not logical, but it is often true”

The “bard” in this case is not Shakespeare, but whoever it is that wrote the lines for Spock in “Amok Time”.  Yet, each time a new World of Warcraft expansion is released there is a rush that rivals the last lap of the Indy 500 to see who will be the first to hit the new level cap – the first player to reach level 70 took 28 hours , the first player to reach level 80 took 27 hours .  Of course the reason for the rush is to try and grab a bit of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame.  Still, the race seems representative of race through content each time a new mmo or expansion comes out, followed closely by a clamoring for something new like Oliver Twist on crack pleading for more.

In my case the Wrath of the Lich King was released way back in November of 2008 and I still haven’t burned through all the content. Yes, I will admit to being driven away by the asshatery in pugs (pick up groups)  but  Fran and I have found good ways to deal with it (see technique demonstrated by Pharthing above). To me there is nothing like that new mmo smell, that old beta magic .  There is nothing like the excitement and the mystery of those first steps into a virtual world, wondering what is just beyond the next horizon.

Ghostcrawler tells us all about that life will never be the same in Azeroth. Just like the old song, everything old is new again. In the mean time I will try my best to avoid the deluge of Cataclysm news so I can enjoy that new MMO smell.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

“Seriously, where do we go from here? WoW 5.0: The Really Really Dark Portal that Leads to the Hecka Burning Crusade (this time it’s personal, and this time you REALLY aren’t prepared)?” – Ixobelle, The Pink Pigtail Inn

 

Those of you who listened to NPNM show 67  heard Fran and I discuss a funny, but thought provoking piece about World of Warcraft (WoW) over at The Pink Pigtail Inn. Doubtless there will never be a time when there is a complete server wipe. But still, as the quote from her post suggests, for me at least, this time my journey though Outland is personal – and Fran has agreed to go along for the ride.

For Fran WoW is indeed about the journey and not the destination – she has 3 level 80 characters to chose from, but instead she is accompanying my gnome warrior, Pharthing through the classic world, to Outland and beyond. Fran has her choice or roles when it comes to endgame, whether it be DPS, healing or tanking.  Not so with me; I can choose hunter or I can choose hunter. Now the time was when beast master hunters where all the rage and we owned the top of the charts. Now, however we have been nerfed but good. Where it not for a great guild on the Proudmore server I would continue to feel like Blizzard dug a hole, told my hunter to hop in, kicked the dirt in on top of me. Back in the day when Alterac Valley was the king of the PvP Battlegrounds, and endgame consisted mostly of Molten Core, pvp with my hunter character was fun. I loved standing on top of ledges and behind hills, plunking away at unsuspecting alliance characters.

Ah but times have changed.

 

As much as Fran tried to convince me that “paladins are all the rage” I had been subject to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or far too long while playing my holy warrior to believe it. And so there languishes my Blood Elf (formerly Dwarven) paladin, forever at level 72. As for my hunter, whether it was being called a “huntard” one too many times, or tiring of running instances, there reached a time when I swore off WoW forever, and my cursor hovered over “delete”.

Yet now I am back.

 

I am not sure what it is that brought me back. Perhaps the promise of the Cataclysm expansion in the not too distant future…It could be the doldrums that setting in between the release of those bright shiny new mmos and even single player games like Fallout: New Vegas.

This time it is personal.

 

When I first played WoW I was fresh from Ultima Online (U.O). As anyone who has played UO knows, there was no endgame in this enormous sandbox  of a game.  If it were for the fact that the player community to which I belonged flew apart like a shattered fly wheel I would still be there.  So it was when I started WoW and Everquest I had no idea what endgame was for either.  In fashion that can best be described as “hell I don’t know” I chose a dwarven paladin. I wish I could say I never regretted my decision, but that is not the case. The second I hit level 60 (the level cap at the time) I was relegated to the back row as a “buff bot/alternate healer”. When I protested the guild leader magnanimously agreed to let me fight “the trash mobs” but not on the bosses that “really counted”. It was shortly after that I decided to go horde, and discovered what I thought was the truth…”once you role horde you never get bored.”

But the truth is the grass is always greener on the other side so this time I came back to the game forewarned and forearmed.  Fran can fit any role in an instance. Instead of looking for healer, looking for tank, all you need is to look for one of Fran’s characters. Me? I know what I don’t like. I don’t like healing; I tried it on my priest named Vashj. I have tried characters like druids, mages, warlocks and even, in what I can only believe was a moment of insanity, a rogue.

So this time I decided to create a character I knew would excel at the type of endgame that I enjoyed the most – PvP. Not the “OMG I LOST IT ALL” Eve online type of Pvp. I am talking about the pvp where I can do it just for the enjoyment of the game play…without being a rogue.

So it was that my co-host and I decided to travel the highways and byways of the alliance ways together, beginning with two of my alts that had been years cast by the wayside, stuck forever in the level 30 to 40 range. Recently we both reached level 60 and so earned our wings.  Fran learned to shape shift into a bird, and I built my gyrocopter, and shortly thereafter my tankatronic goggles . In the case of the epic goggles that are also plate armor for the head, it was not without the use of what I call suicide mining. This consists of mining in an area where the mobs far exceed your ability to do anything but stun them just long enough to mine the ore.

And the best thing about the arrangement is, no matter how mean the pugs can get, we never have to worry about the healer or the tank quitting…because that’s us.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

We review about 90 plus sources every day here at NPNM (Thank God for the invention of the executive summary).  As result of reviewing that many feeds, when I come upon something with the syllable “porn” in it, I simply roll my eyes and move on.  As a result of when I saw this come up on our RSS feed, I simply dismissed it and move on.  It was not until I came upon this (someone I tend to take a bit more seriously) that I decided to go back and at least glance at the executive summary for Tobold’s site. The title of the article, “Blood Elf Porn” lead me to believe that either it was a really, really slow news day or Tobold has lost his mind. So I read Tobold’s post.

 “If your boy can play World of Warcraft, he can also find explicit pornographic material on the internet. In fact, parents should be more worried if their teenage sons *can’t* find porn on the internet, because then they are either completely retarded, or sexually not normal” – Tobold

After reading the sentence above I was sure that Tobold had lost his mind. Now mind you I don’t know him personally so I have no idea if he was in his right mind to begin with. Still, sanity is a matter of perspective so “to each his or her own” as the old adage claims. But credit where credit is due, because that led me here (simply because “Ancient Gaming Noob” comes before “Too Many Annas” in our RSS Feed) – which in turn led me to the Blizzard Blue post on a related subject by Arrestide (which I will post below for those of you who don’t have access do it).  Most notable in the response by Blizzard was the last paragraph:

“Members of our CS team will ‘patrol’ Goldshire on Moon Guard on a regular basis, and take appropriate action for individuals violating the Harassment Policy. Note that this pertains primarily to public messages (/say, /yell, General) and unsolicited whispers. We won’t be showing up with that mythical crack of lightning– we’ll just be watching silently for any rule-breaking language and following up privately with the player[s] in question.” – Arrestide, Blizzard

It is important at this point to let you all see the post from the concerned father that led to Blizzard’s reaction:

Not that it will matter, as I’m sure I’ll get trolled, but I wanted to drop a line, as I did in the cancellation box, that I cancelled my son’s account. He’s 15, and I’ve found him to be very trustworthy. We allow him access to play usually 1-2 hours a night, max, if he chooses.

Tonight, he had some friends over for the night. When It came time to wrap it up, I went into the comp room to find my son and his friends huddled over the monitor, laughing like school boys will.

Apparantly, they had heard about and discovered Goldshire Inn on Moon Guard. I myself had heard of it’s reputation, but after scrolling up and reading the chat, I never thought it was as bad as I was reading.

I cannot begin to tell you how displeased I am with the absolute lack of server/ToS follow up regarding this abominable server. Line after line, having absolutely NOTHING to do with RP: sexual emotes, gay bashing, racial comments….I sat there speechless.

And please don’t tell me about the ignore button, I am well aware of that feature. The fact that this behavior goes on CONSTANTLY on this server is disgusting, and I will not allow my son to “discover” any more servers such as this.

I understand that this is a T for Teen game. However, as I said, we trust our son, and playing WoW is a reward for his good grades in school. We have all parental features enabled. I took screenshots, but there’s no point in sending them because I’m sure they weill be disregarded.

As a paying customer for 6 years now, I just wanted to voice my extreme displeasure regarding this disgusting server. IMO, it should be shut down.

T for Teen is one thing. What goes on in Goldshire on Moon Guard is appalling and beyond offensive.

Both my wife and I are very sorry to punish our son by cancelling his account, as this really wasn’t his fault. However, we cannot allow our son access to a game that is not monitored for the very rules you so vehemently say you enforce.

Thank you for your time.

Now I am sure that it is at this point that some of our readers and listeners will simply roll their eyes and say “ya sure what sort of a reaction would you expect from a nun.”  Truth be told however, nothing could be further from truth – especially considering why I am a nun. Simply put, short of being a convicted criminal, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done with your life, I have “been around more blocks” than 99.9% of you out there. Re-read this line from the original poster’s letter to Blizzard:

Line after line, having absolutely NOTHING to do with RP: sexual emotes, gay bashing, racial comments….I sat there speechless.

When I recently returned to WoW after a long interval I made the mistake of turning on the trade channel.  What I read was much the same as what the concerned father saw over his son’s shoulder. The place where the father’s complaint begins is with language that, as anyone who knows even a smattering about administrative law can tell you, will get you fired on the spot in any office in the United States. Yet it is the words “gay bashing” and “racial comments” which take the all too common incident to a whole new level. 

The apparent anonymity of the internet leads those originating such bigotry to believe they are safe behind some sort of electronic wall – away from the street where someone would through them a beating at best, and get them charged with a hate crime in some jurisdictions.

The unfortunate truth is that with millions of players, and thousands upon thousands of them online at any given moment, it is impossible to police it all, short of mastering the art of being omnipresent. Yet it is the fact that Blizzard has so many customers that enables them to “throw the book” at violators and ban them by the tens of thousands.

Nobody is asking Blizzard to raise anyone’s children from them. That’s not at all what this is about. I am also perfectly capable of defending myself should anyone be unwise enough to even consider playing the dozens with me. But sticking an ESRB rating on the side of the box carries with it certain legal guarantees. And as we have seen lately, especially with the ground breaking case of Schwartzenegger vs. The Entertainment Merchants Association et al, it is a legal guarantee that even the Supreme Court of the United States takes seriously.

So before you say to yourself that I am making “much ado about nothing” consider this dear readers: If you think that spam of any sort can’t bring an mmo to its knees you have to look no further than Aion Online.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

 [p0sted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

Blizzard’s Reaction in Full:

 

This topic is not a new one, and we know it’s a concern for our players and our player-parents. We hear perennial complaints about spots in our game where this activity is said to take place, and Moon Guard Goldshire appears in that list with some regularity.

Often the public assumption is that unless a GM appears with a crack of lightning and a mighty hammer, Blizzard is turning a blind eye…. this is very much not the case, so I’m hoping to shed a little more light on this topic from Blizzard’s perspective.

For reference, the In-Game Harassment Policy:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20226

Our Intent
It’s our goal (and in our interests, obviously), to present a safe and accessible environment for play. While defining “offensive” behavior can be subjective, the policy linked above reflects our working definition, and our intent to keep certain types of offensive behavior from affecting the play experience.

Enforcement
With millions of players in hundreds of servers and thousands of channels, it is impossible to manually monitor everywhere. To this end, World of Warcraft provides features to help players protect themselves and help us moderate accordingly:

- Profanity/obscenity filter to automatically intercept the most obvious offensive language
- The ability to report any player violating the rules
- Ignore functionality to remove individuals from appearing in chat

No single one of these, by itself, is always sufficient. It’s critical to understand the rules we’re enforcing, and where they apply. Relevant to this case, whisper chat between two consenting individuals, guildmates, etc is not an area we are out to pro-actively police. Any offensive in-game behavior needs to be reported in order to receive the right followup.

“Punish in Private”
Some posters on this thread have suggested that Blizzard ignores those reports. From several years as a manager for our call centers, I can promise you that we take action routinely…. because they call us. Or they email us. Sometimes there’s blame placed on a roommate or sibling, sometimes an account thief committed the offense, etc. The point is that players appeal because players receive actions. You won’t see it happen…. well, unless it happens to you. Otherwise you can only decide whether you will take our word on it.

Okay, what now?
Members of our CS team will ‘patrol’ Goldshire on Moon Guard on a regular basis, and take appropriate action for individuals violating the Harassment Policy. Note that this pertains primarily to public messages (/say, /yell, General) and unsolicited whispers. We won’t be showing up with that mythical crack of lightning– we’ll just be watching silently for any rule-breaking language and following up privately with the player[s] in question.

As I read through the news feed today I could almost hear the words of my grandmother (note I said almost – I am not hearing things)…the bigger they are the harder they fall. This was somehow miraculously followed by the oft quoted words related to me by one of my professors back in my undergraduate days…

Be nice to the people you meet on the way up; you will meet the same people on the way back down.

Truer words were never spoken. In fact I could go on like this for some time, including the following:

A quote from a play called The Kings Ring that ends “even this shall pass away”.

From the movie Blade Runner, “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

And a senior drill sergeant of my onetime acquaintance, “What goes around comes around.”

What caught my eye was the headline from Edge over at Next-Gen by Tom Ivan: “Lawsuit: Activision Created Police State at Infinity Ward “.  By now just about everyone and their brother will have heard about the infamous lawsuit by not only Messers West and Zampella (formerly of Infinity Ward) but also a group of former Infinity Ward employees – even the snail mail magazine that arrives in our mail box will have picked it up by now (that makes it REALLY old news).  So on the face of it, it’s not really that profound hearing that same said group rattling their sabers talking about the “police state” created by Activision as well as withholding bonus payments in attempt to force the development of Modern Warfare 3.

O.K. so what else is new?

Blizzard recently backed down on their Real ID issue.

 Also not news to write home about; after all it’s not that big an issue (providing the proper exceptions were put in place).   Still I can’t help but consider that this is the same company that always said it’s done when it’s done –  the famed Blizzard attitude that prevails while developers in other parts of the industry are busy dancing to the music played by their respective publishers.  For some years what seemed like exponential growth in subscriber numbers where published like Burger King used to announce how many hamburgers they have served.  Blizzard has long seemed the unassailable zombie gorilla that no developer could topple (and any who tried paid for it dearly).   On the face of it, listening to your community is usually (but not always) a good policy. But I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a case of a widening chink in the Blizzard armor.

Gordon over at We Fly Spitfires has an interesting post on a related issue entitled Will BioWare Be To Blizzard What Blizzard Was To SOE? . Here is an excerpt of the article that is a very interesting read:

Over the next few years SOE made a handful of bad decisions (most notably the NGE for SWG) and suddenly all faith in them was lost. Justly or not, SOE had turned from the Kings of the MMO genre to the butt of every harsh remark about screwing over the fan base and selling out their morals. $OE was their new name and woe was them. – Gordon, We Fly Spitfires

 

Obviously even Blizzard doesn’t think that their light will never dim or Lead Designer Tom Chilton would not have recently pointed out that there may come a time when World of Warcraft goes free to play. Likely as not this won’t be any time soon – especially not with the Cataclysm expansion on the near horizon. Then again few people expected the recent announcement that Lord of the Rings Online was going free to play either. Between the Activision lawsuits, 25 dollar sparkling ponies (few of which I see in game anymore), and Real ID perhaps the Blizzard Gorilla isn’t as tough as he used to be.

All things considered maybe it’s a good thing that Activision/Blizzard is back to being known as Blizzard.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Say it isn’t so…

This just came across our news feed: Edward Norton will NOT be back as Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the upcoming Avengers movie.  As our regular readers and listeners know, we here at NPNM love our action movies.  When we heard that they were making The Hulk we never thought that anyone could ever fill the shoes of the late Bill Bixby – the man touched our soles with his heart felt, bittersweet performance.  But after we saw Mr. Norton as Bruce banner we were sucked in to everthing he brought to the role. Now we can’t imagine anyone else in the role.

But it seems we will have to.

News has just come to us that Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige made the following announcement:

“We have made the decision to not bring Ed Norton back to portray the title role of Bruce Banner in the Avengers. Our decision is definitely not one based on monetary factors, but instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members. The Avengers demands players who thrive working as part of an ensemble, as evidenced by Robert, Chris H, Chris E, Sam, Scarlett, and all of our talented casts. We are looking to announce a name actor who fulfills these requirements, and is passionate about the iconic role in the coming weeks.” – Kevin Feige

Well friends all I can say, as a long time Marvel and especially Avengers fan color me hopping mad.  It’s one thing to decide you are not going to use Mr. Norton in the role but is it necessary to slam the man on the wayout? Now truth be told you never know what the Edward Norton is like to work with.  Some of the things Mel Gibson has done in the last few years has us both dropping our jaws to the floor and throwing his movies out in the garbage (with the sole exception of the Passion of the Christ of course).

Sad news indeed. Hopefully Mr. Feige will come to his senses.

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

“Will our mystery challenger enter and sign in please?”

 

Back when I was so young that my biggest decision was whether I should read my comic book or eat my Fudgicle there was a game show on called What’s My Line?  Each week those words would be heard as a panel of celebrities were blindfolded and tried to identify someone’s identity.

Now it’s not news that people on the internet love pseudonyms.  In fact, with the exception of our developer interviews, our guests use fake names so often we have begun to think we are interviewing fugitives from the law.  We had, of course, received multiple emails about something called “Realid” from Blizzard – but we receive so many fake missives pretending to be from Blizzard (Phishing expeditions) that we assume that they are all fake.  Not to mention that there wasn’t much reason for me to concern myself with it. I did, of course, scan the messages from Blizzard to determine if they are real or not, and found one tell me I could “friend” other players using my “Real ID” (real name).  I dismissed it nearly immediately. After all, the person I travel the virtual highways and byways of Azeroth with the most sits across the table for me at breakfast every day – and if there is a question about my co-host’s identify at this point I am in BIG trouble.

So it is that I hadn’t paid much attention to the matter when I scanned through all the spams our filter catches each day and found one on the same subject by an irate Blizzard Customer.   Then I scanned the morning headlines from local news and saw comments on the subject by Keen from Keen and  Graevs , The Ancient Gaming Noob , and Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys .  But the best quote by far was simply a one liner….

Blizzard are about to ban themselves from their own forums.” – Melmoth. Killed in a Smiling Accident

As we all know by now…

 

And when I say ALL I MEAN all – when even the Washington Post  carries the same news it is either a slow news day or a big issue (I will assume it’s a slow news day).  The thing about the Washington Post carrying news from our favorite industry is twofold. First, it tells of how fast news travels around the global village that constitutes the internet.  If you miss a day it’s old news. Second is reminiscent of something a co-worker told me once. She said that by the time the suburbanites start using a phrase or catch on to a particular trend she knows its passé – the same goes for the main stream media covering mmo news for the most part.  For those of you who, like me, either didn’t care or had the audacity (as the No Prisoners, No Mercy Team did) to take the long holiday weekend off here is the official blurb from the official source:

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. – Via Ars Technica, Source Post  

The Washington Post article was quick to point out that the angry replies are now over 2,000 pages long (and probably growing exponentially).

Two problems leap immediately two mind, the first and most important being the real identity of children (and like it or not those nasty teenagers that hurl epithets at you over general chat ARE LEGALLY children).  If there has not been some provision made by Blizzard to exempt children, especially young children, the whole concept of using a real identity is a class action law suit waiting to leap out at Activision (the deepest pocket in this case) and yell GOTCHA!!!

The second problem, I have already experienced to some degree.  It was recently mentioned by Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys:

Especially if you’re female. Because in the New Facebook Order, levelling while female is the new driving while black*. Of course, if you don’t want people to treat you differently for being a woman, you could just not post in the forums – Scott Jennings, Broken Toys

On occasion I have experienced this myself. One instance pops into mind immediately – I was fishing Azeroth when this gnome walks up to me and drops a line in the water.  It doesn’t take long for the trash talk to start (this was back in the days when I was delusional enough to play a Night Elf).  The youth of the player behind the pixels, whether physical or mental or both, became immediately apparent. When I pointed out to the young man in question that I am, in fact, an overweight middle aged nun and no doubt old enough to be his mother there ensued a long, long pause…followed by short gnome feet running speedily away.

As to the rest, there is an old adage that says “boys will be boys” – followed quickly by what should be an addendum to the adage:

Asshats will be asshats.

Real name or no, Blizzard is right about one thing – the official forums of any game have so many flames that the Great Chicago Fire pales into insignificance.   Real name or no that will not stop until the asshats find out just how perceived is the perceived anonymity of the internet.  Real name in hand it is a relatively easy thing to find just about anyone. And when someone says on the forum “if you don’t like it come and get me” eventually some will. 

In the end analysis real id doesn’t affect anyone here on the NPNM team personally.  No one here even reads the forums let alone posts in them.  Still, it makes for some interesting reading.

See you online,

Millard Filmore

[Posted for Millard Filmore by The Webmaster who will never give out a real identiy]

*Side Note:  For those of you living under a rock and haven’t heard of the expression “driving while black” a local example is a man who was stopped by a police officer from the Chicago Suburbs when he saw a gentleman of African heritage driving a Cadillac through his town.  The officer from reasons which I can only presume was prompted by insanity, assumed the driver had stolen the car.  The officer soon discovered that yes, the physician driving the car not only owned it but probably even paid cash and probably paid more in taxes than the kind officer made in a year.

 

No doubt you have all heard of the Man with No Name – the movie featuring tough as nails actor Clint Eastwood. Now meet the nun with no ass. No, not me…I still have plenty of ass to go around…and around, and around, and around.  The nun with no ass is my co-host Fran who worked it off over the Fourth of July Weekend.

Yes, she still did the usual holiday routine: cooking enough food to feed the Eighth Army and scouring the house (and ensuring the occupants did the same) until they all met what we call “Fran specs” (a standard of clean that would make even an Army Drill Sergeant shudder).  But once the fireworks died down, including the neighbor who apparently raided same said Eighth Army armory for what must surely have been a Howitzer Cannon based on the strength of the explosions….

Once the uproar was settled down there was still work to be done.

Yes I refer to the fact that no sister has greater love than she, a dedicated hordie, work her buns to the bone leveling up a night elf druid 10 levels so she can team up with me -  Now THAT my friends is sisterly love.  This is a woman who tanks with a tough Tauren and loves every bit of it.  This is a woman whose level 80 healer lives the expression “once you roll troll you never re-roll.”   Yes, same woman who death knight kicks butt and takes names agreed to level up a front flipping, rail thin, valley girl night elf who is so saccharine sweet those who group with the character risk instant diabetic coma.  And the toughest part of it all is that it was one of my characters, left languishing on our family account after I saw the light and wisely decided to roll troll.

And what made all this possible?

A wonderful new game mechanic introduced by Blizzard I call the “O.K. play nice kiddies system.” That works like this….

The functionality of the Vote Kick feature in the Dungeon Finder will now behave differently according to a player’s history with the system. Players using the Dungeon Finder who rarely vote to kick players from a group, or rarely abandon groups before a dungeon is complete, will find that the Vote Kick option will have no cooldown. For players who frequently abandon groups or vote to kick other players, the Vote Kick option will be kept on a cooldown. This functionality will adjust itself as a player’s behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes. – WoW Patch Notes, Patch 3.35

 

The ever so wonderful result is much like the opening moments of the commercial for Life Cereal with that urban legend Mikey.

Gnome Mage: You kick the tank.

Healer: No YOU kick the tank.

Gnome: I’m not going to kick the tank, get Mickey to do it, he doesn’t care if he gets kicked or not, he’s a hunter.

And so friends, let us pause for a moment and stand in a well deserved ovation to the developer that thought up this wonderful addition to World of Warcraft. Yes, let’s cheer as we utter those words that are so well deserved…

What took you so long?

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Side Notes

 

Do you play Star Craft?  I am not aware of anyone on the No Prisoners, No Mercy team who does play Star Craft. However we received an email (see below) today from someone who wants to give YOU (or at least one of you) a copy of Star Craft II.  So what say you? Is there an interest amongst you to win a free copy of Star Craft II from Henley Chiu at Sunbr.com? 

Let us know.

Hi there,

I’m the founder of Snubbr, a recommendation site. We’re interested in giving away a free copy of Starcraft 2 to 1 of your readers as part of a giveaway/contest when it comes out. Would you be interested?

We’ve done many giveaways in the past (just Google us up). We could setup the giveaway such that your readers have to leave a comment, and maybe answer a question such as “What are you looking forward to the most about Starcraft 2?”. We then will pick our favorite comment, and mail him/her the copy when it comes out. Let us know if you’d be interested. =)

Henley

Snubbr

 Mind you no one here knows anything about Henley Chiu, nor Snubbr.com.  Here is what we found out:

Linkedin profile

Chiu, Henley  henley@snubbr.com

34-62 60th street

Woodside, New York 11377

United States

(917) 385-9365

It’s like running with a pack of lemmings that never quite reaches the proverbial cliff…like the ever read/energizer bunny they just keep going, and going, and going…

So here we are again.  On the cusp of the great outpouring of hype, or hope, that is the release of every new game.  Yes of course eventually there will be Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.  But now we are all anxiously awaiting the news of the big one…

World of Warcraft – Cataclysm

The release of the changes that Blizzard once said would never come.  Remember back when the powers that power the mighty Blizzard 800 ton unbeatable zombie gorilla said they would never redo classical “old world” Azeroth? Yet here we are – and I am as excited as the rest of you (well the rest of you who don’t loathe WoW with the burning passion of a thousand suns). 

Even back when I had just about had it with WoW, between the neck deep asshatery that has become the pick up groups who rate your armor like a credit agency scores your credit…

Even through the days of “getting keyed” for instances in Outland – back when Jeff Kaplan said sure you could skip Karahzan “but enjoy storming the castle”.  Yes those were the days, back when static groups had membership so closed it would have been easier to sneak into the gold vault at Fort Knox.  Those where the days back when even Jeff Kaplan admitted the keying process was tearing apart guilds wholesale (I was in a few guilds that it ripped to shreds).

Yes even then…

Even then there was still that siren call in the back of my mind.  Something that said, “yes other games are fun but what happens in this one really matters.”

Of course nothing could be further from the truth, and if you think those guild mates of yours (with rare exception and I know more than a few) are true blue friends ask them to help you move…as in back up the truck to your driveway and start hauling them cardboard boxes.

Yet just like everyone else I am back again, chomping at the bit like Secretariat about to run the third race of the Triple Crown.  I think the big difference this time is that Rob Pardo has been listening to our show and decided to take our suggestion. 

Yep. You read that right.

Back before anyone said, “hey wouldn’t it be great if…” Fran was listening to me clamor for a chance to play a goblin hunter named Inktomi. (Don’t even think about taking the name I already have a character with the same name).  Now is the chance, and soon is the time.

Exciting times ahead.

See you online.

Julie Whitefeather

I have been gearing up this week – more on that later.

But I am not the only one, gearing up. Washington has been gearing up, while Internet providers are attempting to tighten their fist around the lines that hold together the global village.

Tightening the fist

 

This morning’s news feed included an item from Politico.com that Congress is busy tightening their fist around the internet . Regular readers will know about what is now called the “Lieberman-Collins-Carper cyber security bill”.  The Senate Homeland Security committee is, apparently concerned over the mistaken impression it feels that the public has that the bill gives the President of the United States a kill switch.  Politico.com is reporting that “the three lawmakers will offer a manager’s substitute that would require the president to obtain Congress’s permission in order to declare a cyber security emergency and take control of crucial IT systems for more than 120 days.”  I am sure that we don’t need to belabor the point (but I guess we will) that this of course means that the bill would give the President of the United States permission to simply shut down the internet…

Oh pardon us, “take control of crucial IT systems” for FOUR MONTHS without anyone’s permission at all.

And who, I wonder, gets to decide exactly what constitutes a “crucial IT system” – and we are still wondering about what is no doubt the myriad “hold harmless” clauses in the bill.   It sounds like the bill gives Carte Blanche   to a handful of power hungry politicians..  

Opening Closed Doors

 

Remember those “public” hearings held early this month by the FCC to decide on what action should be taken to regulate internet providers intent on bring scaling rates to their customers (read charge what they please, and shut down who they will).  It seems that it only took an advertisement in the Washington Post by a group called Free Press to bring the meeting out in the open. Here is an excerpt from an article you can read here:

“FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s top deputies are meeting behind closed doors with industry lobbyists to cut a deal that would effectively hand over control of the Internet to Verizon, Comcast and AT&T,” the Free Press statement said. “President Obama, you promised to take a ‘back seat to no one’ in protecting Net Neutrality and free speech online. Don’t let our Internet go the way of Wall Street and the Gulf of Mexico.” – Game Politics.com

 What do you call a football stadium full of lawyers?

Sounds like the start of a joke doesn’t it?  The answer in this case would be attorneys for the defense.  An article that recently crossed our news desk () has us wondering if court would be held in a football stadium as the judge uttered what would be history making words:

“Will the defendants in rows A through F please rise?”

 

It seems that a group of Virginia lawyers calling themselves The US Copyright Group, has told a Federal Judge that “they ‘see no problem’ with suing 5,000 Bittorrent users as John Does.” Here is an excerpt from the article:

“The firm also said that it is doing all these John Does a ‘favor’ by giving them the ability to defend the case in one jurisdiction, combine or join other Doe Defendants’ filings and the ability to receive ‘uniform decisions by the Court.’ Lawyers doing people “favors” seems as alien as clowns doing roadwork.” – Game Poltics.com

Gearing up subscriber rates

 

Move over Blizzard…Gamasutra reports  that Wizard 101 has reached 10 million registered users in 20 months. The catch, is that this does not equate to 10 million paying customers.  There is no denying, however, that Wizard 101 is a tremendously popular game (one member on staff here played it for one day…but we will never tell who) – and as long as the bottom line stays in the black, the game is gold.

Getting My Ass in Gear

 

Welcome to the family…welcome words as long as it is not being said by someone with connections to a certain criminal organization which I am certain does not really exist.   But when those words are accompanied by a big hug, and spoken by someone who is not referring to a recent marriage, they are especially comforting – especially if you have ever reached the point in your life when you had no family (I have).  One of the best qualities, about what is sadly the most least appreciated aspect of life, is that family is what, and who, you make it.

So what you might ask, has any of this got to do with mules with gear shifts?

Quite simply this…recently the words above gave me pause to consider other definitions of “family” no matter how nebulous or even, perhaps, dubious.   A guild (at least those few rare shining examples) can be like a family – even if only in some tenuous way (and if you don’t think those particular ties that bind are tenuous, tell a guildie you live near him and ask him to help you move).  You might also extend this thinly stretched definition down to a roster of characters (especially in those of us who have very prominent cases of “alt-it is”).  

Think of it this way: the first character in your roster to the level cap is like the patriarch or matriarch of your virtual family, doling out the virtual dough as the character supports the alts coming up through the ranks.  But what happens when someone who normally abhorred the horde suddenly discovers the friendly faction  that has all the action?  When Blizzard creates faction transfers, those matriarchs that supported the alts suddenly “bleed away” leaving the lower ranking characters in the lurch.  Now this may not be a problem for many a month, if ever. But there is always the possibility (as I discovered) that one day you will be waxing poetic about the reminiscences of places like Ironforge and Stormwind – places which would now hand you your ass, but not until wearing it around as a hat for awhile.

Such are the circumstances in which I found myself upon my recent return to World of Warcraft (WoW).  Our regular listeners to the No Prisoners, No Mercy Podcast know that my cursor has hovered perilously over both the delete character and close account keys on many occasions.  However it was not badgering, beleaguering, or bemoaning  by my co-host that brought me back. Rather it was show 64, recently recorded with Saylah from Mystic Worlds about why people continue to hear the siren song of WoW and return again and again. And so I found my level 45 “super, mega, ultra lightening gnome” warrior suddenly cast into the cold harsh world of the Alliance side, forced to fend for herself.

Ah but it is the challenge of getting my gnomish butt in gear (and good gear at that) which serves as the impetus for many an enjoyable hour of gaming – that, and the fact that my co-host, who is my own dear sister, sister, mother superior, spends many an hour gaming with me.

In the end, family is who you make  it, especially if it is a level 38 night elf druid played by your own sister.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

(posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster)

UPDATE:

Here is the latest from Politico.com regarding the fiasco going on with what is now called the “Cybersecurity” Bill (I call it the “Big Brother” Bill):

MCCAIN’S MOVE ON CYBERSECURITY – The Lieberman-Collins-Carper cybersecurity bill may have cleared the HSGAC unanimously on Thursday, but that didn’t stop one of the committee’s members from signaling his concerns with the bill. John McCain said he ‘had to be convinced’ that cybersecurity reform requires an expansion of government.

The senator took aim at two items in particular: the bill’s creation of a White House-level cybersecurity position and its hiring and training provisions. McCain then filed amendments that would scrap the first position while requiring DHS to deliver a report on its hiring needs. Curiously, the senator did not officially pitch either amendment for a vote; an aide to McCain said Thursday he planned to ‘wait until the floor to try to amend the bill.’

Gnomercy:  Hi there.

Guild: (no response)

Gnomercy: So what? Is this a voluntary vow of silence from everyone?

Guild: (no response)

Gnomercy: I’m riding my mechanostrider and I’m naked.

Guild: o.0

Gnomercy: You know I have been dating King Bronzebeard.

Guild: (no response)

Gnomercy: But I think I may have to break it off. I think he’s been cheating on me with Thrall.

Guild: (no response)

Gnomercy: O.K. I will be back later, but try and keep it down in hear will you? The noise is deafening.

 

 

     

This last Saturday, Saylah from Mystic Worlds, my co-host Fran and I whiled away an hour or so discussing World of Warcraft  (WoW) and why people hearken to its siren call, returning time and again.  In the early days of Warhammer Online, then Mythic Entertainment chief Marc Jacobs got into a tiff online with Blizzard execs over virtual tourists from WoW playing Warhammer Online – in retrospective it looks like Blizzard was right. Still, even Rob Pardo once attributed the large player base of World of Warcraft to an ever revolving player base, rather than a static one.  Whether WoW has a static player base, or one that rotates so fast it could break the sound barrier, there is no denying that it has more staying power than Barry White .

So while Ravious from Kill Ten Rats has his day in front of the microphone (show 63 being edited now), E3 gets into swing (I wonder if EA will have any phony demonstrations this year) and the Lotro free 2 play model becomes old news (which means this is about the time the magazines pick it up) – I decided to “take a walk on the wild side.”

Mind you most of my life has been on the wild side to begin with. However, the particular side I am talking about is the Alliance side.  Yes, as most of our listeners and readers know, my mainstay of play in WoW has been horde for some time now.  This is, of course, why I have been want to quote the following phrases …

Once you roll horde you never get bored.

Once you roll troll you never re-roll.

 

Ah my friends, there was a time when the horde was merely a mystery.  There was a time when I was firmly entrenched in place with names like Stormwind, Ironforge, and the flames of Molten Core ensconced many a player as it was the highest instance in the land. Then came the fateful day when I rolled up a hunter and entered a battleground. And the rest, as they say, is history. I do, of course, have alts (including one named Vashj who is forever stuck on the Whisperwind server). There are even a scant few Alliance side alts that languish forgotten, never having seen the process of changing factions (and believe me I would rather pay the 25 dollars than go through the Everquest 2 betrayal process again for the umpteenth time).

So it is with some trepidation that I stepped outside the boundaries of the horde and stepped into the shoes of my gnome warrior Pharthing (below)

 

My first shock was that after over a year I was still in the same guild. The first play session (see above dialogue (or lack thereof) showed a possible reason why.  Since I found myself in Booty Bay anyway I decided to start my short time in short shoes wandering the woods of Feralis.  The saddest sight was a barren Barrens – totally devoid of any life that was a collection of artificially intelligent pixels.  No, the land that was once the home of the now infamous “Barrens Chat” is now so empty you could shoot a cannon down the middle and not hit anyone.

O.K. that I half expected – but as I wandered the wide world of the pre-Burning Crusade WoW that some call “Classic” or “Vanilla” WoW I found the only life where I expected to find it…outside of the banks in Ironforge and Stormwind. After all, “bank sitting” is a long time tradition that heralds all the way back to the days of Ultima Online when it was a market place because no one had yet thought to include an auction house in an online game.

And so my great Alliance side experiment ended with a whimper and not a bang.

Still, it gave me pause for thought of the fate of what was once a vibrant (albeit virtual) land full of pixilated players. This, of course, is fuelled by the fact that the NDA for a recent press event concerning the next WoW expansion (Cataclysm) was recently lifted and is covered here. The news has brought about a bit of ballyhooing by some of my favorite bloggers. (Well, perhaps more of a “downroar” than an uproar). The big news here are the words “Path of the Titans has been scrapped.” Instead the good folks at Blizzard (and here I exclude Messer Bobby Kotic – Yes I know he’s Activision but I had to fit that in somewhere) have chosen to “overhaul” the glyph system instead.  The welcome news (at least from my point of view) where those that followed on the heels of this news…

“Medium glyphs will be fun/cosmetic glyphs.” – Blizzard

If nothing changes with Cataclysm but what we see in the video above, and being able to play a goblin, I will be one happy camper.

You see, from my perspective, not everything has to be an uber sword of uberness in order to be desirable. It doesn’t always have to enable me to sink the Aircraft Carrier Nimitz in a single blow.  Sometimes it’s good to remember why we play games in the first place. Now I do understand that there are many players into the minutiae of pvp that play to dominate people that might otherwise hand them there ass if they were to meet the player in person.  But for me the goal has always been to have fun. Sometimes fun is just charging into someplace like Molten Core with forty drunken dwarves seeing how long they can all survive. Sometimes fun is just zipping around Northrend and Outlands on the back of a broomstick cackling gleefully while you threaten to “get” players and “there little dog Toto too”.

More importantly it goes to show that Paul Barnett was right (gasp!) when he was on our show and talked about revealing plans for future development too soon.  He told us that as a developer, if you tell players you are “working” on something they will tell themselves (and everyone else) “O.K. it will be released next Thursday.”  Grandmother put it another way…Never count your chickens before they’re hatched.

So if all  Blizzard does (and here I use the term “all” facetiously) is re-cast the old world in a new light, with new art, a new landscape and 2,000 more quests I will be overjoyed.  But that isn’t all…oh no.  As I have always maintained (and said so on previous shows before Cataclysm was even announced) if Blizzard brings goblins to the game I will come back to WoW. Now, of course, our claim is that Blizzard is creating goblins as a playable race because Rob Pardo listens to our show.

That’s our story and we are sticking to it.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

(posted by the Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)