Holy Crow, there was some big news posted yesterday – with a little bit of follow up. (Using WoW.com links as the offical forums don’t load for me properly.)
And it has stirred up a LOT of opinion on the matter, but these are just a few things I’ve read:
- Big Oprah Bear Butt chimed in with his thoughts and also offers up a different spin on the situation.
- Dechion wonders “what is Bliz smoking?” (while bringing us kittehz) and sees four solutions.
- Aislinana is hurt by the decision.
- Gnomer flat-out quit the game.
- Rohan thinks we should maybe wait and see before we react so harshly.
- Lodur tries to look at the good and the bad.
- Fuu offers up some suggestions for Real ID.
- Pacheco thinks Bliz could allocate their resources elsewhere.
Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a “blogs I read” summary. I actually have my own thoughts on this, too…
I’ll start off with how I feel about it: I don’t like the idea of it.
Providing personal information on the internet should be strictly a personal decision. One could say, “Well, you can choose to not post on the forums.” And they would be correct – I can make the decision whether to post or not. And I do choose to not post on the forums and never have done so. (Which is all before this Real ID nonsense was ever conceived). But I don’t like ”not posting” being the means of how I have to choose to not display my personal information. Because of the upcoming Real ID/Forum changes, I have to maintain my privacy and anonyminity through silence.
With that said, I understand what Blizzard is trying to do. They’re trying to clean up the forums. Like Pacheco said, the offical forums have a [deserved] reputation for being complete garbage. Yes, there are a few cases where people are actually nice and/or helpful. But for the most part, it is only a source of pointless, albeit comical, e-peenery and rudeness. Now, while Pach remains doubtful that displaying real names won’t deter the trolls, I tend to disagree. I think there were be a severe reduction in forum trolling. And like several others, I also think there will be a severe reduction in forum posting in general.
That’s where a lot of folk seem to think this Real ID is Real STupid.
Again, I disagree – I don’t think the kids at Blizzard are stupid. I think that this could be a calculated decision and that Blizzard actually want the forums to die. Of course I can’t say for certain, but they surely know the reputation of their forums. (Hell, they have to moderate the trash that’s written on there.) They also surely suspect that many people will not want to post on the forums with their real name listed. So, once this goes live, the maintenance of their forums drops drastically.
To quote [the always lovely] Pacheco, “…has anyone actually found out anything useful on the WoW Forums?“ Again, there may be a few gems in the rough. But as a general rule, there is very little useful information on the WoW forums. Almost everyone I know has found their specs, rotations, tips, hints, gear guides, etc. from somewhere independent of the official website. Ironically, you will learn how to play WoW better by not going to an official WoW site. As such, the official WoW forums, for all intents and purposes, are redundant.
So why do the work when other people are doing it for you - and for free!
This is why I’m left to wonder: Maybe, juuuuust maybe, everything is working as intended.
(Even if their methods are questionable.)
DarthRegis
Brokentree
Chawa
I must fit into the not-almost everyone you know group.
You’re one of the few people that have the patience and persistence to find the proverbial “needle in a haystack”.
A lot of class forums have excellent stickies, at least when they’re updated, that are far more useful for fresh/low geared 80s than the content found at the EJ level. Other than that, they are mostly complete shit.
It is no secret that Blizzard is trying to connect people like other social networks (ie facebook). When it comes to their excuse for RealID being connected to the forums, to clean them up, I find it somewhat amusing that they chose a cheap way out instead of hiring a few more able bodies to trash pick threads. Having used other forums that had strict rules on forum abuse, it amazes me that a giant like Blizzard is having such a hard time with it. Yet, hmm trade chat isn’t much better now is it?
Just where will RealID pop up next?
On a side note .. I am always looking for trustworthy guides. I wish there was a master list that connected the good guides in one location. *smirks* oh the possibilities..
To back up Lustig on this, there are a lot of really nice people who have worked their buns off to write guides and helpful threads on the official forums. That’s where the entire concept of stickies on the WoW forums originated, helpful people making awesome guides that folks liked so much, they requested that the threads get stuck on top so they wouldn’t get pushed down and vanish. Lissanna, I think, is one writer that started out helping TONS on the druid forums, for example. it’s only after the fact that some people create their own blog. So, any time you go on an official WoW forum page and see some awesome guide stickied, it’s because of great people who took the time to try and help others. I personally find the EU forums far more helpful and awesome than the North American ones.
I’m not saying they don’t exist. I’m just saying that a lot of my searches take me places outside of the forums. And the ones that HAVE taken me to the forums have not been entirely helpful.
[...] DarthRegis… [...]