RealID Is A Done Deal

Post soundtrack: “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad” by Moby

Well, it would appear that the negative response is unlikely to derail this particular trainwreck.  “After a rather hostile reaction from the community of players, the studio revealed that it would be continuing to talk to players about the system but that it would nonetheless go ahead with its implementation.” (source)

Considering that the first stage of the forum implementation will go live before the Starcraft 2 launch, July 27th, it isn’t long until we will get to see just how well their utopian ideal will be realised.  Considering the more adversarial nature of SC (once you get through the single player campaign, it’s a PvP game), the SC forums might be a little more wild and woolly than the WoW forums – we’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.

I stand by my belief the only effective response to this is to cancel your account – any other form of protest can and will be ignored by those driving this agenda within either Blizzard or Activision, regardless of our concerns.

Gnomageddon said it better than I ever could, here:

Cancel tomorrow, wasted. Cancel today, worthwhile. As I said to Pie: Why wait? Do it now. Let’s examine this. Don’t cancel now. You can play until 20/8 until resubscribing. The change goes live In an after the fact act of disgust you let your account expire without Blizzard and Activision knowing how you feel. You cancel now. You can play until 20/8 before reactivating your account if you so desire. The change goes live – whatever, you have already made your statement to blizzard and it’s shareholders. The change doesn’t go live – blizzard and the shareholders know you were serious and won’t accept this in the future AND you reinforce their positive behavior by resubbing. Your opinion is heard now in the accounts/finance department, in the management reports, in the shareholder reports, or you accept the change by not acting. If it takes them until cataclysm to change their mind and your account has been inactive, what have you lost? Nothing! You are $15 per month better off – go to the movies, play another game, whatever. Your characters, achievements etc are all there, just waiting for the day that Blizzard wakes up from this nightmare.

I’m not going to post any more links to other bloggers who are covering this.  I’m just getting burnt out but it all, and I’m in a pretty black mood over the thought that I’m probably going to have to say goodbye to the characters I’ve put so much time into into over the last 4 1/2 years.