Wildfire Riders

Beltar wrote:

Tiforis wrote:And now I feel great about not freaking out.

Eh, I dunno. I think it was the people who "freaked out" that got this done. I know that a few thousand cancellations out of 11.5 million is a drop in the bucket, but think about it--people post stuff like "ZOMG BLIZZ IMMA CANCELLIN MAH ACCOUNT" all the time. This time, they did it. A couple thousand in the Megathread alone. Over 13,000 unique posters in that thread, running 95% against the change.

Think about the folks just here that were planning to do it. Shad, Mac, Buu, Gryph, Anna, more but let's just go with those five. Hordeside, we had one leave last night and three of our core Anvil raiders (including Skulley) had, or were going to, pull the trigger. Pill and Gharr cancelled second accounts. Pill and Bricu cancelled SC2 pre-orders. That's 11 accounts and 2 $50+ SC2 preorders, just from two extended raid groups/friend circles, on one of a few hundred servers. It adds up.

The combination of a massive outcry on the forums, bad press in the tech media, and actual tangible cancellations that would've dented their bottom line, IMO, is what pulled this off. Individually, each might not've been enough. Together, they've at least caused Blizzavision to back off a little. We've still got to watch them like a hawk, and nothing they said today will prevent them from pushing RealID on us in the future.

There's power in freaking out. In large groups and with a purpose, anyway.

Lansiron wrote:Thus, it's a damn good thing that the angry forum mobs (aka the "vocal minority") pretty much banded together unanimously for this one.

Tiforis wrote:
I didn't speak out because It was so crazy of Blizzard to come out and do this to me. I could almost feel the guns pressed to the backs of blues as they were posting, so out of character it seemed for the company. I was just skeptical of the whole thing following the Activision-Infinity Ward fallout.

I'm not doubting the power of the outrage machine, but I'm the kind to bind my time and wait before I cast judgement, I'm not here to say HAHA YOU ALL FREAKED OUT FOR NOTHING.

Beltar wrote:

Tiforis wrote:
I didn't speak out because It was so crazy of Blizzard to come out and do this to me. I could almost feel the guns pressed to the backs of blues as they were posting, so out of character it seemed for the company. I was just skeptical of the whole thing following the Activision-Infinity Ward fallout.

I'm not doubting the power of the outrage machine, but I'm the kind to bind my time and wait before I cast judgement, I'm not here to say HAHA YOU ALL FREAKED OUT FOR NOTHING.

Oh, I hear you. I know you're not. Problem was, as far as I could tell, we kinda had to go off half-cocked on this because (a) it was such an incredibly stupid idea, (b) it had serious RL implications for a fair bit of the playerbase, and (c) the consensus seems to be that Bobby Kotick is hellbent on dragging Blizzard properties toward the Facebook model at high speed. Mostly (b), I guess. Hence, NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED.

Lansiron wrote:
I definitely expect more weirdness, I guess, though hopefully nothing so unpleasant as this was, thanks to Activision being Blizzard's partner.

Lansiron wrote:I dunno; their other developers aren't precisely incompetent, they're just unremarkable. The games Activision publishes certainly aren't bad ones, either (speaking at least of the recent ones Blur and Transformers: War for Cybertron), though it's all up in the air how the Call of Duty franchise will fare after the big fiasco. That's really the problem; they have nothing to call attention to that diverts it away from the "corporate scumbag" image. Except maybe, "Hey, we're with Blizzard (and Bungie) now!" Only that just makes everyone go "STOP CORRUPTING THEM YOU ASSHOLES" rather than anything positive.