The Glade 4.0

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Actually, I'm doing more research, but Activision-Blizzard might find itself in a world of legal troubles over this situation.

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This is honestly just the infamous short-sightedness of public corporations, next quarter's earnings report always wins over long-term viability.

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Holy shitsnacks!

For those who had to look this **** up...
Export.gov - Safe Harbor

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Personally I think that the first act of real-life violence will not be stemmed from the forums, but from a corpse-camper on a pvp server.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Q u o t e:
Bobby Kotick spins in his chair "Welcome Young gamer, I have been expecting you. you no longer need those"

Kotick gestures and the bindings over your keyboard fall off.

Kotick says "game developers.. leave us."

The developers leave the room.

Kotick says "I am looking forward to completing the game testing, in time you will call me... game MASTER"

You say "you're gravely mistaken, I won't be converted to facebook the way you turned my guild."

Kotick says "Oh no my young gamer you will find it is YOU who are mistaken... about a great many things.."

Ghostcrawler deeply says "His cata beta key"

Ghostcrawler hands the beta key to Kotick.

Kotick says "ahh yes, a gamer's weapon. Much like your guildies, by now you must know your guildies can never leave wow, so will it be with you"

You say "You're wrong, soon my charecter will be gone and your game with me"

Kotick laughs "Perhaps you're referrin to the emminent attack on our servers from our outraged fans? Yesss... I assure you, our servers are quite safe from their pitiful attempts"

You speak "Your overconfidence is your weakness"

Kotick turns "Your faith in blizzard is yours"

Ghostcrawler deeply says "You should join facebook, it is pointless to resist.. my friend"

Kotick says "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. You're friends over there posting on the forums are walking into a trap. As is anyone else who uses it. It was I who allowed the community to find out about the facebook integration early. It is quite safe from your... pitiful attempts to hack into it. An entire legion of the world's best hackerz would be needed to get in. Oh, i'm afraid the servers will be quite operational when the game goes live..." Kotick leans back and smiles.

Everyone in the room looks over at the beta tester's playing the game.

Kotick states "come boy, see for yourself. from here you will witness the final destruction of WoW, and the end of your insignificant guild"

You look down at the beta key beside him.

Kotick states "Oh you want this don't you?"

Kotick carresses the beta key.

He says "The envy is swelling in you now, take your beta key. Use it. That computer is unused. warn your guildies in game, give in to your anger. With each passing moment you become more my servant."

You say "no..."

Kotick leans forward "It is unavoidable. You, like your guildies... are now mine."

He says "as you can see my young gamer, your guildies names are now mine. now witness the full hacking ability of this fully developed and operational battle.net system. Troll at will gamers!"

One gamer stands up at a booth "This forums using my real name... the credit scam is operational!"

Another gamer stands up at an adjacent booth "All gamer's prepare to cancel wow accounts!"

Gamer 1 says "You may not get another chance to tell them what you think, this may be your only shot. We gotta give it more time"

Gamer 2 yells "We have no choice! Blizzard cannot repel trolling of this magnitude!"


Kotick looks back and chuckles before saying "Your game is lost. and your guildies info is now open. There is no escaping from facebook my young gamer. The WoW will die, and your guildies will leave."

Kotick closes his eyes and uses the force. "Goood I can feel your anger. That pc is still unused, take the beta key. Plug it in and you're journey to battle-net will be complete."

You look away, look back and snag the key only to find Ghostcrawler is now occupying the pc.

Kotick laughs as you throw Ghostcrawler off the keyboard.

He says "gooooooood let the desire to play flow through you."

Ghostcrawler stands and calmly states "Nin-tendo Wii has taught you well."

You say "Your thoughts betray you ghostcralwer, i feel the desire to save WoW, the conflict.

Ghostcrawler says "there is no conflict"

You respond "You couldn't bring yourself to ban me from the forums before and I don't think you will now"

He says "You underestimate the power of the facebook deal, If you will not join then you will be banned!"

He bans your pc but you manage to hide in another booth watching another tester play.

He looks around the room to no avail before saying "You cannot hide forever gamer. Give yourself over to the battlenet, it is the only way to join your friends. Yes... your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong, especially for... sister... yesss you have a sisster that has facebook. Soooo you have a twin sister that uses facebook? Your feelings have now betrayed her too. Nin-tendo Wii was right to hide her from me. Now it's failure to entertain is complete. If you will not turn to the battlenet, then perhaps she will."

You scream "NOOO!" before jumping up to fight Ghostcrawler for the last Pc beta spot. During the fight you manage to break his pc.

Ghostcrawler moans "arrrggbh"

Kotick chuckles "Gooood. Your desire to play has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny. Take his place as head developer at my side."

You throw away the beta key and state "Never! I'll never turn from WoW! You failed your kotickness. I am a wow player, like my guildies before me."

Kotick coldly looks at you and states... "So be it... gamer, if you will not be turned.. you will be destroyed!" Muzyka attacks and leaves you crippled from the tracing of IP on the the permaban.

He says "young fool... only now at the end do you understand the power of the battlenet" He attacks again. "Your feeble WoW expansions are no match for the power of Activision. You will pay the price for your lack of vision. and now my young gamer... you will die"

You writhe in pain "Ghostcrawlerrr pleeeease don't let him ruin wow!" You writhe in agony.

Kotick says "and now young gamer, you will die!" Attacks with the finishin touches on the IP ban.

You writhe and scream "GHOSTCRAWLER PLEEAASSE YOUR A GAMER YOU KNOW THIS IS WRONG STOP THIS AHHHHH"

Ghostcrawler looks back and forth before picking up Kotick and throwing him into the WoW cata forums. Faintly, you both can hear Kotick screaming as he is harrassed to death.

Ghostcrawler weakly falls over and feebily says "Gamer, tell your fellow gamers.. blizzard was saved"

You respond "But Ghostcrawler, you'll be fired and banned?"

He responds "Nothing can stop that now.. Just for once, let me be one of the gamers.. on my own terms..."

You nod and stand up.

He says "Now go... my gamer... leave me."

You say "No Ghostcrawler you're coming with me I'll not leave you to be fired I've got to save you.

He smiles "You already have, you were right about me. You already have. Tell your sister not to use battlenet.."

A party is held in the gaming world for hours as music and celebration is infinite as blizzard is saved from the might of the evil empire.

/que star wars end music.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Bobby kotick: funnier than Monty Python, scarier than Clive Barker, more looney than L Ron Hubbard and dumber than Dan Quayle. All at the same time

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

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Holy shitsnacks!

On the plus side, it should now be easy to determine everyone's Bacon number.

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This is brilliant.

http://greyshades.wordpress.com/2010/07 ... -blizzard/

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Holy shitsnacks!

It'd be funny if the "WoW killer" wasn't another MMO, but Blizzard.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Holy shitsnacks!

"...at this time.."

Sorry, trust is broken. You have stated your goal is to SELL my private information to third parties.

I am still gone. Permanently. Will NEVER buy anything you are involved with.

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

The 'at this time' being at the beginning of the sentence makes it different than being at the end of the sentence.

I'm still wary, but its better.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yay my prediction is right.

Bad news is that that's the extent of my predictions!

Still not sure why Blizzard thinks people don't want to keep certain degrees of privacy online, but with RealID being optional* they have a lot of leeway to do with it what they please.

*Optional in a "oh and here's this new thing we have added" way. Forum posting, while technically optional, was a change to an established way of things already. There is a fine line of difference that has meaningful consequences.

Software is still running in game. Software is still linked to the billing database. That part seems to escape everyone ...

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/. says they've backed off using real names on the forum - here's the link:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.htm ... 9821&sid=1

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In time, this too shall pass.

::cough:: Posted about 6 posts up.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Please elaborate! I have disabled RealID and am going to assume it's an exploit that RealID information can be pulled, which Blizzard will fix.

And in unrelated random musings not aimed at anyone in particular...

I am beginning to wonder if Blizzard is right in all this and most of us are relics of an age that's about to go by. I don't necessarily think it's true, but just opening my mind to the idea. It's already happened to things like the Internet in general. Back in the late 90s when the Internet was first starting to get really, really big it was still "my" place. Some people from my high school would hang out in an IRC channel, and though it included the cool kids even then, it still felt like my thing.

Now we're seeing much more casual games that appeal to a broader audience. Free-to-play is growing. I shy away from Facebook, probably because it is just real life invading online space. Now we see quotes from Blizzard like this:



...and I think 'that sounds reasonable'. Then I realize how much that clashes with today's status quo.

Let's say Blizzard and other gaming companies find a lot of success with this going forward. What does that mean for us who like things the way they were just plenty in the last millennium, and would prefer to keep them that way?

Disabling RealID is not really actually disabling anything. The services and hooks are all still running. You just have a setting enabled that indicates your preference to share (or not share) your realID information.

The fact that the software (services, whatever you want to call it) are still running, means that they are ripe for being exploited by the inevitable tidal wave of malware that will soon be attacking every WoW installation on the planet.

In otherwords, you changing the setting only affects the way the actual game software presents your information to others. It doesn't actually remove the code that allows the information to be queried in the first place. As long as that exists, there is risk (and a significant one) that the personal information you have stored in the battle.net data stores is vulnerable.

Probably a Müs post... I put him on ignore long ago 'cause I can't stand teh Alces 'horning' in on the noble Camelidae.

Like to see HIM go through the eye of a needle with that rack!

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In time, this too shall pass.

[youtube]iEe_eraFWWs[/youtube]

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Holy shitsnacks!

Also, be sure to always use authenticator protection.

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Holy shitsnacks!

You make me glad I never played WoW.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Glad I could be of service.