f13.net

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg
Subject: Insanity on the World of Warcraft forums...

I don't know how many people here may happen to read the
official WoW forums:

http://www.battle.net/forums/wow/board.aspx?ForumName=wow-general

There is something going on there that is so insane...so
RIDICULOUS, I don't know where to even start.  Basically,
we have a ton of spoiled kids who are practically RIOTING
over the fact the Blizzard gave a beta spot to a guy who was
a longstanding forum member who was very helpful to the
community.

Yes, I'm serious. But there is actually a TON more to it
than that. This is a LONG message, but there is alot to
tell you about..  And I wouldn't even be posting about it
if it was just some little thing.  I bring it up because it's
out of control there, and I thought some people may find
it interesting, or humorous, or maybe a sign of how rabid
die hard Blizzard fans can be.

Even up until the time the beta started, the forum was a hotbed
of imaturity. That's not suprising, the battle.net forums always
have been.  But it went to insanity starting when the beta
launched.  The odds of getting in were EXTREMELY poor
to begin with.  A Blizzard rep did once say that over 400,000
people signed up.  And at best they were going to take 10,000
people initially, although it appears that they took far less than
that to start with, with plans of ramping up slowly.

Still, once it really set in for 99% of the people there that they
did not get in, it started to get really crazy.  People posting endless
questions of "are you done sending the emails yet?".  People
posting messages talking about how they were crying, and utterly
devestated. People threating to KILL THEMSELVES because
they did not get in.  It was painful to watch, but I was watching
closely because I got selected for a phase 2 beta spot, and had
nothing better to do these last few days.  So I've been observing
the whole thing.

Then things got even worse.  Then next big craze was discussions
about how Blizzard "screwed" everyone over by changing the signup
process, midway along.  Initially you couldn't use a hotmail or yahoo
account, but they relented and allowed it during the signups because
alot of people couldn't read and signed up that way.  Well this made
everyone furious, because this allowed people to sign up multiple times
more  easily.  Ok, I can "sorta" see how this is lame, but really, if you
could have seen (and still see) how much people scream about this.
It's unbelievable.

The other big argument for the 2-3 days after the beta started with
people posting messages like "Anyone on Road Runner get in?". You
can just picture the denial going on here.  Suddenly, there was a vast
conspiracy, and a shitload of ISP's were apparently "screwed" out
of the beta.  These were about a hundered different people who were
posting logs where they contacted their ISP about it.  Most of these
logs didn't give any evidence of anything, and more often than not
made it seem like nothing was wrong.  But they kept on about it, and
there were a ton of individual threads about many different ISPs.

People would post that they were ON that ISP, and did get an email,
and that wasn't good enough. No, that person got his email BEFORE
the anti-spam measures kicked in.  Everyone was convinced that they
had actually gotten an email, it just got bounced as spam.  Out of
control denial.

It got to the point that the forum mods took it seriously and
did some investigating, and posted a message stating that their
emails were not sent out as mass mailings, they were unique and
sent individually,  and should not have been caught by any spam
filters that an ISP would use, but may be caught by personal filters.
They also gave actual numbers, that X number of applications went
out to some ISP or another (Cox I think), and that only Y of those
people had signed in yet, so they were trying to verify with those
people. But they actually went so far as to re-send ALL emails that
had been returned or bounced, to EVERYONE.

And yet, when people STILL did not get an email, they were convinced
that it was because of this spam filter.   It simply would not relent, to
the point that there was a post that got started that had over 1300 posts
in a couple hours, of people DEMANDING a webpage where they
could type in their email address to see if they got in.  That post
eventually got locked, and finally about this time the forum started
to slowly return to normal. It clearly finally set in for many people
that they did not get in, and they moved on.

But still there is MORE.  It really got to the point of complete lunacy
in the last 24 hours.  There is a regular poster on those forums, who
had been there for a very long time and been very helpful. He was
not fortunate enough to have been selected.  One of the Blizzard
mods apparently contacted him personally, and put him in the beta.
And the word got out on the forum....

In the past 24 hours that forum has been bombarded by hundereds
of angry kids who are furious that Blizz would do this.

"It's favoritism!" they cry.
"It's unprofessional!" they scream.
"He wasn't really a helpful poster!" they whine.
"<name> was a FAR more helpful poster" they whimper.

And now we also have about a hundered people all competing
to be the "next" helpful poster to get in.

The threads that came about from this yesterday were legendary,
and can still be seen in later pages of the forum.  Hundereds and
hundereds of posts.  You wouldn't believe how many people
were on the whining side.  And of course, there were tons of
people who fought with them, and it was a HUGE flamewar,
filling tons of pages, blowing all other discussion right out of
the water completely.

It got so bad they had to put up this sticky about it:

If you read it, it's clear that they are just blown away by the
imaturity being shown.  And still that has not phased anyone.
That thread filled to 7 pages in no time before being locked.
And now, there is currently a thread where people are demanding
a public apology from Blizzard about how terribly they have
handled this whole thing.

I really am completely blown away by this. I know that people
can be imature, and way too wrapped up in things, but I'm telling
you, I have never seen anything like this. Hundereds of out of
control people. Spamming like crazy, making actual threats against
Blizz employees, whining, crying, threatening suicide, demanding
explanations.  It's just insane.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd share this info and see if anyone
had any interest, or maybe was reading any of it.  I sincerely hope
some of those idiots come here and try to make their case, I suspect
that they will be roundly laughed at for being some of the biggest
crybabies in history.  I can't believe that any sane person would
actually think they had any reason to bitch about anything. It's
a beta test.  It's not the end of the freaking world. It may not even
be that great a game! It'll be in the store in a few months-ish.  It's
none of their business how Blizzard conducts itself.  Blizzard doesn't
owe them any explanations or apologies.

Jim

This is why I just can't get excited about the game. I've found a really pleasant and mature community that I'm hanging out with in AO. I just can't imagine going to something that's quite that full of stupid.

Hell hath no fury like a fanbois scorned.

And I LAUGH. Because it's truly funny to see how goddamn stupid some people can be. Much like Shadowbane and SWG, it's going to be funny to see just how bad the game will become for no other reason than the complete and utter retardation of its fanbase. These are the people that ruin what could be decent games.

I will watch the trainwreck with a beer and a smug smile.

If anything, I think the devs listen to the fans in that game TOO much. Or at least the fans who are actually on the forums. Are forum posters representative of the majority that play?

Ever dev who's ever posted on the subject has said that the majority of players do not post on message boards, or even visit fansites.

People
posting messages talking about how they were crying, and utterly
devestated. People threating to KILL THEMSELVES because
they did not get in.

Ever dev who's ever posted on the subject has said that the majority of players do not post on message boards, or even visit fansites.

Ok, this is ripped from a current thread on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg. It's not on Google Groups yet (hot off the presses!). I'll add a link when it is. I am not the OP.

Enjoy!

Apparently the mods have deleted most of the offending threads, so there's not much to see now.
Move along.

or they work at jobs where the best thing they have to do is bitch endlessly about trivial crap on a forum website...

I could be wrong on this and I can't verify while at work, but I think Guild Wars is going to have an ingame bulletin board system.
...

Interesting how this will affect WoW once it releases – these people are future subscribers

Just remember, every time a Blizzard fanboi commits suicide, someone receives a vital organ transplant.

Please, think of the transplants.

I simply don't believe that. I just don't believe it's possible to play Everquest without accessing some kind of out of game reference for items, maps, etc.