Cracks starting to show?

[Paelos]

Just look at google plus, they are actively moving AWAY from facebook in the form of having circles.  They realize that you don't want everyone knowing everything about your life.  Having a simple toggle on your real name would solve everything for realID but no, they want it to be facebook.

That probably would have been fine 4 years ago. Now, they are way behind the adoption curve I think.

[Pantastic]

It just seems to be an odd thing to do. Cross realm without giving out names would have been unbelievably successful.

Like I said a few pages back, I think some higher-up at Blizzard has this real name idea as his pet project and absolutely refuses to back down from it. Since people value income more than corporate health, it's not likely to change until that guy leaves or gives up on it.

[Paelos]

It just seems to be an odd thing to do. Cross realm without giving out names would have been unbelievably successful.

Like I said a few pages back, I think some higher-up at Blizzard has this real name idea as his pet project and absolutely refuses to back down from it. Since people value income more than corporate health, it's not likely to change until that guy leaves or gives up on it.

I blame the problem of corporate inertia rather than one dude's pet project. I think that's too easy of a scapegoat. I think the reality is a much more complicated mish-mash of broadcasted and proformaed development plans that are really hard to derail quickly due to public outcry. Somewhere they have numbers to support this RealID conclusion beyond just one dude in charge rubbing his hands together. Things don't work that way.

[Ingmar]

People use it really heavily actually. I think you guys are the minority in thinking people don't want it. Sjofn gets bombarded with RealID requests over on the RP server, that crowd in particular seems to love it.

[Paelos]

People use it really heavily actually. I think you guys are the minority in thinking people don't want it. Sjofn gets bombarded with RealID requests over on the RP server, that crowd in particular seems to love it.

I counter that we don't really know its usage to the good or bad. We do know that it has inspired a public clusterfuck of epic proportions when tied to forums.

[Ingmar]

Like a year ago, which they backed off on, and nobody seems to be clinging to as an issue.

[Lakov_Sanite]

People use realId, I used realid when I was subbed. It was a nice was to keep in touch with real life friends but I know for a fact it wasn't widespread and the fact I couldn't just log on an alt no one knew kept me from even logging on sometimes.

[Lantyssa]

Like a year ago, which they backed off on, and nobody seems to be clinging to as an issue.

Because those people either quit or don't use it.

How many that do are young verses older?  Knowing that breakdown might make usage patterns make more sense.  I'm guessing the older demographic is much less likely to like RealID, while being fine with a Steam username type of implementation.

[caladein]

There's just no real reason to make friends anymore in wow.

Of course there's still a reason to make (actual) friends in WoW, just like there is with anything else: because you enjoy someone's fucking company.  The correct version of that statement is "There's much fewer mechanics forcing players to make "friends" in WoW now."  Which is a fantastic advancement for the genre.

[Ingmar]

Who knows, really. I'm certainly 'older' and I have about 20ish people on there I think. Anecdotally, the younger players I know are way more willing to put people on there, yeah.

On the "oh noes no friends from the random dungeon finder", since they made the change where it prefers to give you people from your own server, I see same-server people in my groups reasonably frequently.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There's just no real reason to make friends anymore in wow.

Of course there's still a reason to make (actual) friends in WoW, just like there is with anything else: because you enjoy someone's fucking company.  The correct version of that statement is "There's much fewer mechanics forcing players to make "friends" in WoW now."  Which is a fantastic advancement for the genre.

Yeah, no.

See right now with lobby style playing you never really get to know people and even if you do, chances are there's not going to be an easy way of finding them again.  I'm not saying the old mechanics forced you to make friends but it forced you to interact with other people, through those interactions you could get to know people and then, if  you liked them become friends.

Increasingly interaction with other people has been going down.

[Amaron]

People use it really heavily actually. I think you guys are the minority in thinking people don't want it.

People who already know each other use it heavily.  If you're saying strangers who just met use it heavily then that's silly.   There isn't even that much reason to use it with strangers on normal servers right now.  It's useful since it lets you see alts but that's it.   A female on an RP server getting bombarded with Real ID invites isn't exactly what I'd call a valid sample either.

It doesn't really matter though.  It only has to be a problem for a minority for it to be ruined.   If they turned on cross server raids and did it through Real Names at least a million people would leave.   That's a small minority but it's one that Blizzard can't ignore.

[Ingmar]

She plays a dude there, actually. And I think your estimate of a million people leaving over a new feature is kind of nuts.

[Amaron]

She plays a dude there, actually. And I think your estimate of a million people leaving over a new feature is kind of nuts.

They never know she's a female?   It's not an estimate it's a number I pulled out of my ass.    I'm just saying a sizable chunk of people would quit if real names became a requirement to raiding.

[Ingmar]

She plays a dude there, actually. And I think your estimate of a million people leaving over a new feature is kind of nuts.

They never know she's a female?   It's not an estimate it's a number I pulled out of my ass.    I'm just saying a sizable chunk of people would quit if real names became a requirement to raiding.

...

They wouldn't become a requirement to raiding? Nothing changes about how raiding works now. You just get the extra option to invite someone from off server if one person in the group happens to be paying for the extra feature. And that assumes they ever even extend it past 5 mans.

[Amaron]

They wouldn't become a requirement to raiding? Nothing changes about how raiding works now. You just get the extra option to invite someone from off server if one person in the group happens to be paying for the extra feature. And that assumes they ever even extend it past 5 mans.

There's no assuming.   My entire statement was "If they extended this to raids".   You thinking cross server raid guilds wouldn't become the norm is funny though.     The server transfer costs leave a lot of people on bad servers.

[Ingmar]

The norm? There's not a chance. You might see some of the very very high end guilds use it a bit. Hell, or maybe some small guilds that have trouble getting to 10 reliably. Nobody is going to quit the game over that.

[caladein]

Players in those guilds (or much worse players like myself) would still just foot the bill for a transfer like they always have.  You'd be dealing with separate maintenance times, world buffs/boss access, and trade skill items.  It's just not worth it logistically beyond use as a trial, which you could do a lot of in dungeons.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I can see big time guilds who get a lot of cross-server apps using it to check people out, maybe.

[Simond]

It just seems to be an odd thing to do. Cross realm without giving out names would have been unbelievably successful.

Like I said a few pages back, I think some higher-up at Blizzard has this real name idea as his pet project and absolutely refuses to back down from it. Since people value income more than corporate health, it's not likely to change until that guy leaves or gives up on it.

I'd say that it's not someone at Blizzard but rather someone at Activision.

[Amaron]

Maybe saying "guilds" is mislabeling it.   Cross server raiding would allow so many new raiders to join the pool that their activity would probably eclipse current casual guilds.   Sure everyone would transfer their main but a lot of people have alts stuck on shitty servers they'd like to raid with.    It's a feature most people would want to use at some point for some reason and the real name thing would make them balk.

[Fordel]

She plays a dude there, actually. And I think your estimate of a million people leaving over a new feature is kind of nuts.

They never know she's a female?   It's not an estimate it's a number I pulled out of my ass.    I'm just saying a sizable chunk of people would quit if real names became a requirement to raiding.

Fun factoid, like none of the male characters on RP servers are actually dudes IRL.

[Paelos]

The downside you encounter when making social connection features cost more in a game is that you create a very real division in your playerbase. Intentionally or unintentionally you now have the haves and have-nots of your game.

Pyschologically this is easier to overcome in a F2P game because they haves invested something in the game monetarily, while the have-nots didn't. Those playing for free don't really hate on haves because they know they aren't really contributing anything to the game's success. They have no stake it in.

On the flip side, when you're already paying a subscription and on top of that you've divided your playerbase, you are flirting with disaster. Now you have a group that's actively paying something but feels like they are getting shit on.

[Amaron]

The cross server as premium feature thing is a separate issue though.   That one is too stupid for them to even get away with I think.   If they really did it I'd cheer them on because I'd get to watch the train wreck.

[Pantastic]

I blame the problem of corporate inertia rather than one dude's pet project. I think that's too easy of a scapegoat. I think the reality is a much more complicated mish-mash of broadcasted and proformaed development plans that are really hard to derail quickly due to public outcry. Somewhere they have numbers to support this RealID conclusion beyond just one dude in charge rubbing his hands together. Things don't work that way.

 I've seen it happen at large companies before, it's really common for someone upper management to decide on a pet project, and unless it's damaging enough to force other people at that level to fight it, the project will stay around until that guy tires of it. I mean, sure, it's corporate inertia, but I'm talking about what's behind the inertia in this case. Trying to get someone higher up the food chain to change their mind is not easy.

There isn't any huge mish-mash of development plans involved here, because all of the development needed to remove the whole real name issue is to add the ability to use an alias instead of a full name. They don't have to put a halt to everything RealID related, or come up with a new way to associate cross-server, just add a relatively minor capability. I would be a bit surprised if they didn't already have the capability to use an alias mostly coded in, and would just need to uncomment some code and add a screen to the web site to allow it.

[Paelos]

The point wasn't that someone at the top didn't like it. The point was that there's in most cases actual data to back up the idea that RealID will work, and the inertia is based off those projections. Pushback from the community doesn't do shit in the short term, because they have a time period to test the reaction in mind. Until they reach that point, no changes ever get made. It's always about timing and the reactions to that timing.

And we all know that Blizzard is notoriously slow anyway.

[AcidCat]

the fact I couldn't just log on an alt no one knew kept me from even logging on sometimes.

This.

[Sjofn]

They never know she's a female?

They often do not realize I'm a female unless I start talking to them a LOT, mention my husband (although that will cease being a tell as time goes on, whee!), etc. Generally when you play a dude, people will assume you're a dude. They might think you're a gay dude, but a dude nonetheless. This is extra true if you're tanking for them. Which is funny, because as Fordel has mentioned, the majority of male blood elves I've talked to on the RP server? Actually ladies.

From what I have gathered, one of the reasons the RP people have embraced ReadID so wholeheartedly is because it makes crossfaction RP a million times easier, plus people can act as "translators" for different languages. It's a completely stupid reason, but there you go. And yeah, it seems like the younger the person is, the more likely they are to ask to be added. Most of them also seem to accept "meh, I don't really like to give it out" as an answer, though.

[Nevermore]

Which is funny, because as Fordel has mentioned, the majority of male blood elves I've talked to on the RP server? Actually ladies.

See, I just automatically assume that all male blood elves are women in real life. 

[Paelos]

I just assume they are gay. Then women. If I find out it's a heterosexual man, I defriend them. You've obviously made some horrible life decisions.

[caladein]

Cross server raiding would allow so many new raiders to join the pool that their activity would probably eclipse current casual guilds.

How exactly?  Even the smallest US English servers had 30+ guilds with T11 kills when 4.2 came out so I don't see how allowing players to invite RealID friends to raids brings in a large number players who can't find a guild to raid with on their server as-is.

I can only assume you're talking about some future cross-server, computer-matchmaking raids that are multiple steps removed from what they're now introducing.

[Fordel]

That Orc dude shouting FOR THE HORDE after slaying a bunch of alliance, is actually a housewife and mother of two.

[Sjofn]

Which is funny, because as Fordel has mentioned, the majority of male blood elves I've talked to on the RP server? Actually ladies.

See, I just automatically assume that all male blood elves are women in real life. 

They aren't the only ladies playing male characters, of course. One of my favorite people on the server is a lady playing a male troll DK, and my sister loves playing male tauren.

[Fordel]

I really would not be surprised if the majority of that server is actually female.

[Sjofn]

There are a lot of ladies in my guild, that's for sure.