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Role Playing (Games)

The Million-Gnome March 158

Posted by Zonk from the so-many-gnomish-butts dept.
This past Friday a sea of Gnomish fury swept over the chilly vale of Dun Morogh. The reason? Their character class isn't balanced. AFK Gamer has details on this outpouring of tiny fury, with liveblogging from the event itself and pictures of the naked gnome march from later in the weekend. Despite GM crackdowns and general apathy towards the Warrior cause, they appear to have gotten some sort of response from a developer (even though the response has nothing to do with the march). Terra Nova has picked up the topic and poses it as a question about the right to assemble in virtual spaces.
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The Million-Gnome March More

The Million-Gnome March

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  • EULA (Score:1, Insightful)

    by ZephyrXero ( 750822 )
    Unfortunately you give up all your rights, such as right to protest, when you click OK on that End User Licence Agreement :(

    • Re:EULA (Score:1, Troll)

      by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
      Wrong. :)

      EULA's have been proven to be invalid after you pay for a product. Now since most people bought the game, pre-payed by Credit card, then got the EULA, there are some real legal questions about this type of EULA.

      Now, the EULA also doesnt cover your legal rights, you dont give them away with the EULA, you never loose your legal rights on an EULA, its not the same as a standard contract, no matter what the slashdot lawyers say.

      And by the way contracts can be challanged and overturned on wording or

      • Re:EULA (Score:5, Informative)

        by Minna Kirai ( 624281 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @07:26PM (#11546456)
        EULA's have been proven to be invalid after you pay for a product.

        Wrong. Triply-wrong (which works out to be right, I suppose).

        1. EULAs haven't been proven invalid in the USA. The most recent court decision was pro-EULA.
        2. However, EULAs are invalid according to a sensible reading of the legal principles, so hopefully a higher court will reverse that bad ruling.
        3. But it doesn't matter, because MMORPGs do not use EULAs. EULAs are for software, the use of their servers is covered by a traditional service agreemet (like a phone or electricity bill) which is valid as normal.

        invalid after you pay for a product.

        Notice that with WoW or another MMORPG, you sign that agreement before paying the monthly bills. EULAs for software you already have are invalid; service agreements for things a company is promising to give you in the future are fine. (Mutual exchange of consideration and all that)

  • So we don't even... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by incom ( 570967 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @05:50PM (#11545679)
    mention the game anymore? What game is this concerning? It's probably World of warcraft as that is what people seem obsessed with at the moment, but still this posting is too vague.

  • Not a MMORPG (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:03PM (#11545783)
    If you can't roleplay a protester, it's not a MMORPG.

    Instances, pvp-limitations, lack of death penalty, etc... I could list dozens of other infractions against using the term that Blizzard has accumilated, but actively breaking up a congregation and calling it a MMORPG takes the cake.

    • Re:Not a MMORPG (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gherald ( 682277 )
      Hint: Throughout human history, protesters and congregations have been broken up many times.

      Maybe that is what they are roleplaying... with Blizzard playing the role of Big Bad Oppressive Government.

      But regardless, there is nothing un-MMORPG about it.

    • Re:Not a MMORPG (Score:5, Insightful)

      by centauri ( 217890 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:47PM (#11546161) Homepage
      If you're protesting the rules of the game (or the programming, in this case), you're not role-playing a protester, you're just protesting.

      • Re:Not a MMORPG (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Blakey Rat ( 99501 )
        I agree. If you get inside your characters mind, you'll realize that they don't know that they're "nerfed" (I hate that term). They don't even know what "level" and "experience" they are... those are all concepts outside of the In Character world of the game.

        And since very few people understand that, that's why all *true* RP games are MUDs. (Where the players can more easily be trained to tell the difference between In Character constructs and Out Of Character constructs.)
      • They are RPing protesters in as much as they are RPing Gnomes that are protesting Deific Fiat... In response, said Deiies dealt with them harshly (albeit reasonably at the meta level).

        I'm all good with both sides of this one, really, quite amused....

    • Re:Not a MMORPG (Score:3, Informative)

      by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
      Thats the point what people are saying, blizzard is playing both sides of the fence, they want you to play but not think outside of their box. But they dont mention what their box is.

      Hunters pulling is their main skill, now when everyone is using it, blizzard tells them not to use it on linked mobs. Problem is, they forgot to link mobs in all instances!

      Warriors are having issues as they have been nerfed and cant fight paladins 10 levels beneath them.

      Then there is issues with the game being stable, people
      • Then there is issues with the game being stable, people dropping, respawn rates,

        No kidding on those respawn rates. They've made some serious changes in the way mobs respawn in the last month. It's common now to walk into an area that appears 'safe', completely empty, only to have the entire area respawn and get gang raped. Often with severe lag as all the new creatures are created. I created a new Elf rogue this week and got caught at the bottom of the Barrow's Den. There was no place to revive that was o

    • Re:Not a MMORPG (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It isn't roleplaying, to protest something the role you are supposed to be playing would have no knowldege of.
  • I think the most interesting statement in the Terra Nova piece is "Look, there's a trend in human political systems that appears to be basically universal as of 2005: social stress eventually puts all policymaking and the monopoly of force in the hands of an elected and more or less representative body of rulers." I have some problems with this statement, but will leave them aside for now and just say that I love the contrast between this statement and the idea of individuals asserting what Terra Nova calls "citizenship" in the next paragraph and other people call "rights". We have to remember that some rights that we exercise in the real world in some countries are not rights of citizenship in synthetic worlds or other countries. Players on WoW were exercising particular rights [cnn.com]... which they don't necessarily have under the laws of that land (see the licensing agreement).

    What is most interesting to me is that, when the few in power do have a monopoly on policymaking and use of force, and when demonstrative protest is against the rules, it still happens when discontent and indignation reach an inflection point.

  • right to assemble? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dtfarmer ( 548183 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:22PM (#11545940) Homepage
    You've got to be kidding me. Paying a fee to play on privately owned servers implies no right to assemble (or any other 'rights' for that matter.) Statehood? Give me a break, it's a freakin' game! If you don't like the rules, you have an option - quit - vote with your pocketbook.
    • If you don't like the rules, you have an option - quit - vote with your pocketbook.

      I'm afraid it's just not that simple. People invest far more than money into these games, they invest hundreds of hours of time as well. If your time is worth as much as mine, you'll understand what that means.

      Calling it a 'game' implies that it's just a pass-time like playing cards for a few hours, but that's not an accurate picture. MMORPGs are more like an alternative life. Whether you choose to judge that or not is

  • I'm wondering if Blizzard sent in the scoops [imdb.com].

  • As Blizzard has said... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cookie3 ( 82257 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:26PM (#11545988) Homepage
    Warriors were being looked at. You can't expect the Blizzard devs to just look at the drivel in the forums and instantly assume, "Oh, because a tiny number of kids are complaining about warriors, they're obviously broken!"

    First, players need to understand that Blizzard is a massive company. Blizzard has hired managers and moderators to filter out the noise to try and find meaningful posts. The devs may read the forums, but the moderators are supposed to organize the meaningful posts into reports, showing the issues and cultivating a positive atmosphere on the forums.

    A post suggesting that Blizzard "nerf pallies" is quickly followed up by an equally uninformative post suggesting that the devs "buff warriors!" -- with inaccurate, undetailed and subjective posts like that, OF COURSE the Devs won't take action. The unintelligible posts, meanwhile, continued to accumulate, and ultimately generated the motivation for the march. Apparently some players are too stupid to be able to figure out that if THEY aren't being understood, that maybe the problem is on THEIR end.

    Meanwhile, a handful of intelligable players wrote out their list of greviences and, in some cases, actually managed to get the moderators attention.. thus they KNEW the devs were actually, actively evaluating the issue.

    Gee. Maybe it pays to realize that the world does not (yet) use AIM-speech as a standard of communication.
    • I like how the whole point of: "Oh, because a tiny number of kids are complaining about warriors, they're obviously broken!"

      When that "tiny number" is enough to cause a strain on the servers.
      • It doesn't take much. You get 100-150 people in one location and you've got a problem. Complicate this by having them gather in one of the areas with the highest population anyway, and it gets ugly.

        The most populated servers have upwards of 10k concurrent users. I don't think 100-150 out of 10k is a majority.

  • Gnome? (Score:3, Informative)

    by KillerDeathRobot ( 818062 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:33PM (#11546045) Homepage
    Sure, there were a lot of gnomes there, but this wasn't a "Million Gnome March" in the sense that it was about gnome rights. The phrasing in the blurb is ludicrous: gnomes are protesting because "their" class isn't balanced? Gnome is a race that can play several classes. This was a warrior protest, not a gnome protest, even if lots of gnomes were involved.

    • Re:Gnome? (Score:3, Funny)

      by servognome ( 738846 )
      I agree, the use of gnomes as a symbol for the downtrodden just shows how much anti-gnome racism there is.
      Gnomes are consistantly ridiculed, mocked, taunted, and punted. To use them to put forward the agenda of nerfed warriors, without addressing the real community issues that lead to gnome bashing is the greatest travesty.
      Gnomes cannot even be clerics, even the Gods of Blizzard hate gnomes and ignore their prayers!
      -Squishi the Gnome Warrior
  • I would want them banned too, just because they don't like the game doesn't mean they have to hurt my playing time because of it, especially after a game master told them to disperse. Doesn't matter if you're a paying customer, you signed the EULA, "you're in their world now". Million gnome marches or whatever may be cute ideas on paper, but they can screw with other people who don't know/want anything to do with your cause, which sucks. Submit your ideas in a more constructive matter then getting others
  • Any person claiming that the SWG or WOW events was "repression" probably already has an axe to grind.

    Computing resources are not infinite. Collecting a large number of people in a small space will cause everyone to lag out or crash the server. This affects people who aren't engaging in the protest, and therefore is a hindrance to other paying customers. Similarly, the government has the right to order or force protesters to disperse if they are inhibiting the operations of the government. You can lead a pr

  • Too bad they don't get that way about RL (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:38PM (#11546097) Journal
    I wish I could survey those participating in the protest and ask of those 18 or older:

    • Are you registered to vote?
    • If so, how often do you vote? Did you participate in the primary or just the general? What about school board races?
    • Have you ever written a letter to a newspaper to express your views?
    • Have you ever contacted your elected representative via phone, mail, or email about an issue that is important to you
    • Have you ever written a check to a political cause that is important to you to help fund the printing of fliers, to pay for advertising, or to support a full-time staff?
    • Have you ever collected petitions or volunteered for a candidate or cause? Have you ever even signed a petition?

    • Guessing the answer to every one of these is no for 90%+ of these guys. But they DO feel it is important enough to go to a march on a microchip in a place that exists in only ones and zeroes.

    • How about:

      Does politics have any real effect on your daily life?

    • What if.... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Polarism ( 736984 )
      their passions don't revolve around politics?

      What if these people simply do not care about that? What if they're so sick of how badly broken it is, they'd rather concentrate on things that make them happy rather than trying to fix a system that will never be fixed while any of us are alive?

      I'm not saying that participating in the system is wrong or pointless for everyone, the people who do will have a good impact on it, and the people who do not wish to, can live ignorantly happily within it. I'd rather
    • "Did you participate in the primary or just the general?"

      Ah yes, because if you're not a registered member of a political party, your opinion doesn't matter.

      Primary elections are a party matter which, like all party matters, I want absolutely nothing to do with. If anything, I reject the party process outright and believe the people should be allowed to choose among all available candidates, not just the ones that the party has deigned to support.
    • What kind of pompous asshole are you? No, really? I mean Jesus Christ, they participate in a friggin make believe demonstration and you are able to somehow draw conclusions about their apathy? What a load of shit.
    • "Guessing the answer to every one of these is no for 90%+ of these guys."

      Your guess means nothing sir. What you wrote was pure speculation and mostly drivel. You imply that reading a forum post and making a lvl 1 character are somehow great efforts, which they are not.

      There is nothing insightfull about your post. It's the same old "kids today" crap that people have spewed since the dawn of time.

      -Jeff
    • And my question to you is: so what? Are some of the things you listed more important than protesting a class being weak in a game? Uh yeah, sure. Instead of playing any games, could we all volunteer our time to disabled people? Could we spend more time with the elderly? You can nit pick every thing anyone does for free time and ask...couldn't you be doing something better? The fact is, these people care about it...so they assembled together to try to get more attention on the subject. Who cares wheth
    • That was my first reaction as well. My second reaction was to realise that none of the things you listed would have much chance of making even a minor change in the life of the person doing it. Participating in something like the situation described in this story has a significantly higher chance of doing so.
      • Totally, 100% false. I can personally take credit for an ordinance banning obscene T-shirts in my home town when I was in High School. I organized the student group to go down to the city hall, I showed up to make sure it was read, I spoke before the council in favor of the law.

        I can also take at least partial credit for defeating Al Gore in 2000 because I was involved in the voter targeting of Tennessee (his home state).

        Anyway, go ahead and think that if yuo want, but teams get stuff done and they need p

    • And who are you to judge what they deem important to vote on?

  • Community run servers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:48PM (#11546165) Homepage Journal
    I wonder what will happen when the GPL MMORPGs take off. Presumably people will eventually figure out that they can get a better game if 100% of their money is being used to maintain the server and develop content (instead of increasing shareholder value and paying fatcat managers). When players start actively participating in these "co-op" game systems we're going to see some real democratic process, and unlike the real world, where refusing to pay your "taxes" will land you in jail, it's the system that will fail if vast amounts of people refuse to pay their subscription until an issue like this one is resolved.
    • Real Democracy in MMORPGs? That would be horrible! I'll give you an example using World of Warcraft:

      Two thirds or so of the population of WoW plays on the Alliance side (as opposed to the Horde). A real 'democracy' towards class/realm balance would cause the alliance side to be (even further) imbalanced (better quests/items/classes/content/etc).

      I am definately in favor of a dictatorship for MMORPGs (though I love GPL software in general).
      • It's in everyone's interest that the game be balanced. It seems strange to think that people would vote against their own interest.
        • Not if the class you play is on the positive side of the balance issues. most people who cry about balance are just upset a different class has the "I win" button. As soon as their class has it, they shut up about balance.
          • In the optimal case, where *no* class has an "I Win" button, *everyone* will complain about balance. If I were a Blizzard dev I'd outright refuse to read the forums, and rely entirely on input from playtesters. Every single person posting something to the effect of "Aargh why don't the devs fix this don't the read the forums" is just one more reason that no, they don't read the damn forums.

            Incidently, I spent about a half hour reading the forums just before I bought WoW, long enough to see that yes, indeed

    • Sorry, what on earth does the GPL have to do with corporate organisation or non-profit/for-profit system organisation? I think you're using your buzzwords incorrectly.

    • Sorry, dude. You missed that boat. [wikipedia.org]

    • They already exist and are called MUDS.

  • Outsiders view (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tprime ( 673835 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @06:56PM (#11546216)
    I don't play MMORPGs, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt as I am only seeing this from an IT background.

    I think that the "threats" that Blizzard was giving were MORE than fair. Yes, people are paying for a service that they might be banned from, but does the fact that you pay for access to a web site allow you to launch a DDoS attack on it? If I worked at Blizzard, I would view it as a malicious attack on our ability to provide a service that would impact the rest of our paying customers.

    Honestly, wouldn't it just be easier to drop the service and try one of the other 15 MMORPGS that are out there right now? That is really the only way a company will truly be influenced.

    Go ahead, flame away.
    • >but does the fact that you pay for access to a web site allow you to launch a DDoS attack on it?

      A DDoS? No, no, this was more like a slashdotting, not a DDoS, you had people logging in with their accounts (one each) and congregating in one of the available areas. You can argue that a /.ing isn't a very nice thing too, which I won't say I disagree with.

      Also, I find it rather sad that the server went down with just that. Bliz is still way too far from their vision of massive PvP faction raids if the s

  • Sheesh. I'm so glad I wasn't in his shoes. Imagine being responsible for the health of a server, while a whole crapload of people decide to squat on it.

    I have to side with the warriors though. Blizzard has been far too unresponsive about balancing issues. The ones in this game, in particular, since the class can affect the end-game significantly. I've spent many hours working on a druid, and I can say that their end-game abilities suck when compared to classes like the rogue or shaman.

    Blizzard needs

    • I don't mean this as a flame, but I have to wonder if people who talk about an 'end-game' really understand MMORPGs. They tend to be the group that rushes to the maximum level in a month or two and then complains about lack of content before they move on.

      MMORPGs tend to develop communities, that's why they have guilds and allegiances. They are just as much about interacting with other players as they are about achieving levels.

      Also, since there are so many different ways to build a character, classes can

  • Nothing wrong here. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Temporal ( 96070 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @07:10PM (#11546336) Journal
    The admins had a point: This silly march was harming the gameplay experience for other players. Dun Morogh is a beginner region, so causing that area to have technical problems from server load will hurt people who are trying to play the game for the first time, perhaps leading to believe that the game sucks in general.

    If you want to compare to the real-life right to assemble, then what the protesters were doing is more analogous to blocking traffic. If you block traffic in real life as part of a protest, you will be arrested. The right to assemble does not imply the right to make things difficult for other people with your assembly.

    In any case, the whining about balance issues misses an important point: "Balance" does not mean that any two players of equal level will be evenly matched in a 1v1 duel. "Balance" means that each class has a niche to fill. For every class there is some situation where that class is better than all the others.

    It seems silly to complain about warriors because warriors serve one of the most important roles in the game. Every group needs warriors to stand in front and take the damage ("tank") while the others do their things. It is, in fact, more important for a warrior to be able take damage than deal damage. The only other class that you could say this of is paladins, but even that is debatable.

    And, anyway, who cares which class is most powerful? It's obviously more important to consider which class is most fun to play, and that completely depends on your own taste. If you don't enjoy playing a warrior, don't play a warrior.

    • Re:Nothing wrong here. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT ( 651184 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @10:42PM (#11547508) Homepage Journal
      It is, in fact, more important for a warrior to be able take damage than deal damage.

      It doesn't matter how many times you, or I, or Blizzard ( it's in the manual ) say this, it seems nobody is listening. From playing other games, they expect their warriors to be the last word in damage dealing. World of Warcraft doesn't work like this - deal with it. If you want to sit at the apex of the food chain, play a Rogue or a Mage.

      Instead of constantly neurotically comparing themselves to every other class / player, these people need to sit down and assess, 1) Am I enjoying my playing experience? 2) Am I enjoying it enough to warrant what it costs?

      If the answer to either of these questions is "No", they should either try playing the game differently, or leaving it altogether.

      • You're right, for the most part. There isn't any reason why a warrior couldn't re-roll their character as a rogue. Most people don't like tanking because it is unglamorous, and they'd rather have the 1337 damage instead.

        Imagine, though. Once they roll a rogue, they start to realize that they die easier as a rogue. Rogues don't have the armor skills and defensive stances that warriors do. Rogues tend to draw aggro, because they deal so much damage.

        The top damage machine, the mage, can only wear cloth

    • In any case, the whining about balance issues misses an important point: "Balance" does not mean that any two players of equal level will be evenly matched in a 1v1 duel. "Balance" means that each class has a niche to fill. For every class there is some situation where that class is better than all the others.

      Well freaking said.

      I've never seen anything more in whining about balance than 'gimme gimme gimme'. I mean give this people a game of Madden Football and they'd probably complain that the Eagles are
    • It is, in fact, more important for a warrior to be able take damage than deal damage.

      I completely agree, with a couple exceptions. A warrior can be built as either offensive or defensive. Dual wield for instance, is an offensive choice. You trade your shield (defensive) for another weapon (offensive). You also make choices when you apply your talent points.

      Also, as far as being able to take damage, I'm not convinced that armor helps as much as it should. Warrior are an equipment dependant class, and it s

  • From the "wtf-bbq-hax" dept. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pseudosapiens ( 851030 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @07:37PM (#11546522) Homepage
    As a Blizzard customer and World of Warcraft subscriber I demand the right to assemble with large numbers of thoroughly incompetent teenagers in low level zones to protest the imbalance of [insert class/race/skill here], regardless of how many times the developers have said "we know, we're working to address the issue." Any negative effects of this protest indicate Blizzard's inability to "learn some programming wtf." Clearly the players know more about running an online game for hundreds of thousands of people and have a better understanding of how [class/race/skill] balance works than the people that spent several years developing the game. Seriously. Let's start an online petition or something.

  • Videos, screen shots, etc. (Score:4, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2005 @08:09PM (#11546733) Homepage Journal
    I posted this a few days ago on my AQFL [aqfl.net] Web site:

    Death_Knight's thread [forumopolis.com] (screen shots [nice ion canon] and comments) mentions a FilePlanet [fileplanet.com] (account required -- free or subscription) video file link (87 MB) with Gnomevasion in World of Warcraft [worldofwarcraft.com]. Here is the video file description: "What happens when you take 300 players, throw in teamwork, voice communication, a server crash, and one of the greatest guilds of all time? You get Gnomevasion! In this video members of Sturmgrenadier form up on an alternate server in WoW when their home of Bleeding Hollow goes down. Hilarity ensues when each and every member wreaks chaos on an unsuspecting server with pink-haired pig-tailed gnomes! Download this video and witness the true power of a Gnomevasion."

    Non-FilePlanet sites: #1 [dyndns.org], #2 [himolde.no], and #3 [warcraftmovies.com] (BitTorrent [bitconjurer.org] files).

    Funny music video! It is two minutes and 20 seconds. Check it out!
  • I find it disgraceful how in America there is such a contradiction. We're guys are so loud and clear about free speech yet we're the first to blast anyone who uses their right if it happens to bother someone in the process. If a group of people can be so frustrated that they want to publicly display their anger it should be allowed. If it slows other people down in a game, or stops traffic at an important intersection so much the better. They aren't killing anyone, just trying to bring attention to a pr

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:I disagree with the admins (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chasuk ( 62477 ) <chasuk@gmail.com> on Wednesday February 02, 2005 @12:32AM (#11548013)
      I join a salad club (one of many) so that I can enjoy salads that are available exclusively to salad club members. I can't enjoy these salads unless I am a salad club member.

      Analogous referent: I sign up for Internet access (from one of many ISP's) so that I can play on-line games. I can't play on-line games without an Internet connection.

      Out of many varieties of salad, I choose Rudy's Special #6. This is a potato salad. There were many different potato salads availabe, but I chose Rudy's Special #6.

      Analogous referent: Out of many on-line games, I choose World of Warcraft. This is a MMORPG. There were many different MMORPG's available, but I chose World of Warcraft.

      I discover that Rudy's Special #6 contains onions. I don't like onions. I suggest to Rudy (the maker of Rudy's Special #6) that he modify the ingredients of his salad so that it is more to my liking. Rudy isn't responsive.

      Analogous referent: I discover that World of Warcraft contains gameplay issues that I dislike. I suggest to Blizzard (the makers of World of Warcraft) that they modify their game so that it is more to my liking. Blizzard isn't responsive.

      What should I do? Should I:

      1. Stop buying Rudy's Special #6, and buy a salad which doesn't contain onions?
      2. Scream and pout that Rudy didn't make changes to Rudy's Special #6, but continue to order it?
      3. Disrupt Rudy's business operations, so that even those who are happy with Rudy's Special #6 suffer?

      Analogous referent(s):

      1. Stop playing World of Warcraft, and play a MMORPG which doesn't contain gameplay issues that I dislike?
      2. Scream and pout that Blizzard didn't modify their game, but continue to play it?
      3. Disrupt Blizzard's business operations, so that even those who are happy with World of Warcraft suffer?

      Assholes choose #3. The stupid, or the hypocrites (often the same person) choose #2.

    • I find it disgraceful how in America there is such a contradiction. We're guys are so loud and clear about free speech yet we're the first to blast anyone who uses their right if it happens to bother someone in the process

      Hmm... I thorougly understand your point. It has caused me to spend a few hours of soul-searching, believe you me. I think, though, that I might (just possibly) be able to help you out a bit by bringing to light a point which you may have overlooked:

      IT'S A FUCKING VIDEO GAME

      W

  • The GM whinings about "affecting other people's gaming experience" remind me of back in the days of Gemstone II (back when it ran on GEnie). Whenver they had a wedding, there would usually be 30-50 players in the same room. You could count on the game crashing sometime during the wedding. (At least the GMs were cool with it.) Hopefully they didn't crash a server with this. :)

    1. Protest in underwear
    2. ???
    3. PROFIT!

  • A more appropriate response ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bigsteve@dstc ( 140392 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2005 @12:21AM (#11547963)
    from the admins might have been to unleash a fearsome monster with an insatiable appetite for naked gnomes. Or may be just some old fashioned thunderbolts.

    If a denizen of an alternative reality complains about the nature of that reality, the gods may get angry.

    • heh. It'd be easier just to move the character into the middle of Dun Modr or Stormgarde instead. I remember being "moved" once in the beta, but that was because my body was unretrievable.

    • from the admins might have been to unleash a fearsome monster with an insatiable appetite for naked gnomes. Or may be just some old fashioned thunderbolts.

      No mod points today, but this is truly insightful. It raises the question; didn't they include mechanisms to protect the server from crashes in the event that too many people congregated in one area? My previous MMORPG, AC, handled that with portal storms. Once a threshold was passed, random toons were randomly portalled.

      But I can see a system where o
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Im sure had GMs done something simular and said something to cool the crowd down the situation wouldnt have gotten as bad as it did in WoW.

      You cleary don't know these WoW players. They're the ones that think Blizzard's main goal is to ruin their gameplay experience. They have NO respect for any Blizzard employees and don't believe anything they say, because they refuse to accept the difficulties inherent in running a game of this size and scope. They expect to be given an insane amount of information, the

  • Never Been in a Riot. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DingerX ( 847589 )
    Okay folks, we've had really big MP games for something like 30 years now, it's time to cull some principles for future development:

    1. When online, people will not always play the "game", whatever the game is. They will do stupid stuff. So give them a place to do it. All you need is a barren landscape jutting up against some mountains, and a Zardoz head for the admins to intervene. Think about it.
    whiner: My warrior class is nerfed
    developer: The penis is evil. The penis shoots the seed upon the earth that
  • ...is that all these people are getting upset with Blizzard about balance issues.

    Blizzard, not caring about balance. Anyone who knows anything about Blizzard games can appreciate the humor in this. This is the company that put out 8 patches trying to balance the Zerg right in Starcraft. The company that put the 1.10 patch out in Diablo 2 two years after the games release, balancing Summoning Necros. The company that was averaging probably 10-20 buff/nerfs a patch during W3's heyday trying to get all the
  • How can SLASHDOT can be on PRO of such an stupid matter? WOW has had considerable online problems due to overpopulation and server stressing that are still being sorted out, problems that affects hundreds of paying enthusiast players, and that cost the company thousands of dollars to solve and headaches the size of calcuta to their users. A gathering of a thousand fucking HOBBITS, KNOMES or FAIRIES, to protest because they are completely incompetent is definetily NOT OK. use some common sense people! (besi

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