Battle.net Accounts Becoming Mandatory For WoW 234
An anonymous reader tips news that Blizzard will be requiring all World of Warcraft players to use Battle.net accounts to log into the game starting on November 11th. After that time, players who don't switch will be unable to play the game. Some time after the transition is complete, players will be able to "participate in cross-realm chat in World of Warcraft, create real-life friends lists, and communicate across different games." More details on the new Battle.net and what it will do are available in our Blizzcon wrap-up and interviews from August. Naturally, the idea that the new Battle.net is getting closer to deployment has sparked speculation that the StarCraft II beta might come along soon.
Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:2)
But what will it change? I mean, other than having to open an account at Battle.net, what is the news exactly?
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
It means your WoW guild leader can see that you are online playing Starcraft II instead of being in WoW during raid time. And that is 50 dkp minus.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
And if one account is banned, you lose online on all your games. So smart people will make separate accounts.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
or just abide by the rules like really smart people
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because there will be no false positives whatsoever. And because all the rules are fair and deserve to be followed. And because with LAN play you can always choose to use an alternate way of networking for SC2.
Nope, I'll just be making a new SC2 only account.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because there will be no false positives whatsoever. And because all the rules are fair and deserve to be followed. And because with LAN play you can always choose to use an alternate way of networking for SC2.
Nope, I'll just be making a new SC2 only account.
Their game, their servers, so yes, by definition the rules are fair since they define fair. Also, false positives are very very rare-- false negatives are far more common. Remember, each false positive costs blizzard $180 a year.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember, each false positive costs blizzard $180 a year.
Well, not really. Usually a false positive can be cleared up easily enough, and that's the point. Even on the (quite) rare chance of a false positive, a phone call and an explanation is usually all it takes to resolve the issue. Compared with the alternative (ie, Blizzard just letting bots, hackers, etc run rampant in their games without any care), I don't particularly mind the policies they have in place.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they don't define fair. They define allowed. Fair is an ethical concern and can't be decided by a single party. They do get to define "allowed" and punish you if caught, but that doesn't make it fair.
As for false positives being fairly rare- they still happen. I know people they happen to. In fact they happen frequently when people complain to GMs, since GMs tend to throw in their own personal opinion on things like world PvP- you can talk to 3 GMs and get 3 different answers on what's legit and
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Blizzard (Activision) announced that there would be no LAN plan included with Starcraft 2. They be sayin' it be because of them scurvy pirates, yarr! They be thinkin' of the children, yo ho ho!
Re: (Score:2)
I suggest you reread my entire comment one or two more times.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes you seem very hopeful! :)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually not really.
Considering the network infrastructure and internet penetration of South Korea VS North America, it shouldn't matter in the least.
Sure applied over here, and our at best 5MB connections it may be problematic, but when 100MB is the norm it might be a bit more feasible.
Re: (Score:2)
The AC presents an interesting philosophical issue here. "Do the "really" smart people "really" do better by "abiding by the rules""?
I think some recent science in the areas of biology and sociology would suggest "maybe not".
Have all of you always done better by "abiding by the rules"?
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends what you mean by "the rules". If you want to be a really successful criminal, it almost always means joining or founding some form of organized crime (and before people start, I'm including being elected to political office). Organized crime is simply a replacement trust network for society at large, and while they break society's rules, they don't break their own very often, since the penalty for doing so is usually far worse than anything society metes out.
In order to live almost any kind of life that could be called a "success" you have to form and sustain trust networks with others. It's just unavoidable.
Sometimes you can get away with breaking the rules, but this is quite uncommon. The only reason we don't think this is so is that we are so used to following the rules that we don't tend to notice when we're doing it.
There's also an unexamined assumption here (yet another example of Christianity's baleful influence on our culture) that people can actually choose to be good or bad. I'm not sure that this is the case for most people. Good people tend to be pained, shamed and distressed if they do bad things, so for such people there really isn't much of a sense in which they'd be "better off" breaking moral rules. Bad folks don't seem to care, so that's not a problem for them. Given that by the time most of us are old enough to ponder it, our moral characters are already formed, the idea of a "choice" is somewhat senseless. Ask yourself how many people you know who have radically altered their moral character. All such cases I know have involved some traumatic event, like going to jail, being the victim of a terrible crime, or some sort of head injury.
Re: (Score:2)
That's deep.
Re: (Score:2)
The AC presents an interesting philosophical issue here. "Do the "really" smart people "really" do better by "abiding by the rules""?
I think some recent science in the areas of biology and sociology would suggest "maybe not".
Have all of you always done better by "abiding by the rules"?
Not to sound like I am making a Clinton joke, but define "better".
For certain goals, cheating might be the best way to reach them.
For other goals however, avoiding cheating might be advantageous, and in some cases the only method for reaching your goals.
It depends what you are trying to do.
Want a high score or lots of gold? Next to impossible to track such a thing in game as cheating? Don't care about game balance? In that case, I would say cheating would be the best option for those goals.
Doing somethi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Heh... Considering that Linux users using WINE were tagged as breaking the rules, even though they weren't, I'd say that creating an account for each style of game accordingly might not be a bad idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Arguably, they did break the rules.
At least at the time of purchase, the box clearly said the game *required* Windows XYZ to play the game. I don't remember what version of Windows they printed on the box.
You certainly could make the claim that, while WINE didn't give the players an 'edge'; they were breaking the rules. It's a bit of a stretch though....
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Really smart people just don't cheat because they are smart enough to understand that it ruins the experience for all involved, including themselves. Noob.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you enjoy ruining the experience for everyone else.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. Really smart people just don't want to get locked in because they are smart enough to understand cross-game data-mining and the fact that they can no longer gift/sell a used game if they are all tied to one account.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
With MMO's though you're not really buying the game. Want World of Warcraft the actual game? It's free on a ton of demo DVD's. The whole friggen game. Alternatively, you can download the game online legally. What your initial payment (essentially a signup fee) and continued monthly payments are buying you is an account on an online game, not the game itself which is more or less distributed for free.
Trying to resell that is no more logical than trying to claim fire sale doctrine on your Sam's Club memb
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but the really, REALLY smart people...
Oh, nevermind.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oversimplification is overly simple....
Cheating is awfully subjective and the consequences felt by other players from cheating varies from 'not at all' to 'a lot', depending on what is being done.
Some cheating violates the mechanics of the game. Cheats that let you fly or make you impossible to kill. Yes, you being invulnerable is one of those things that could negatively impact other players....but only if you PVP. If you spend the entire game, from 1-80, playing alone, in instances; who have you hurt?
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent point. When it comes to powerleving and automation that means the cheater now has 5 level 60 avatars when he really should have one. The game designers didnt expect that many high levels so now there's less rare gear to go around.
The typical reaction is just to up the number of rare items or whatever rare resource automation is targeting. A 'real world' scarcity becomes impossible. Your not in a shared universe anymore, but just seeing the same landscapes as you all mine some materials that keep
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Interesting)
That's an awfully big assumption you are making...
"When it comes to powerleving and automation that means the cheater now has 5 level 60 avatars when he really should have one"
Years ago, I used WoWGlider to automate my game play. I didn't use it build an army of maxed out level 60 characters....I used it so that I could keep pace with my friends who had more free time to play the game.
"We're going to play on Saturday - going to do the deadmines, want to come?"
'The deadmines? What level are you? I'm only 12'
"12? Dude - we're all 19. Why didn't you play last week?
'I had to go to work man'
"Bummer. Well, if you get up to 19 or even like 16 you could totally come with"
'Okay, I'll see what I can do'
So, I could run my bot while I did house work or something and keep up. The net result was no different than my actually playing the game.
And even with a bot, you'd level significantly slower than you would with refer a friend.
For all of my cheating - gold buying, bot using (the fish bot I wrote myself, I've also used WoWGlider and WoWBot (I think that's what it was. It went open source and was written in C#), two boxing (which isn't considered cheating by Blizzard, officially) I've never even hit the level cap. My highest character is 60-something (the cap is 80 last I checked).
I'm just not willing to invest large quantities of time into the game; but the game is still more enjoyable to me if I cheat than if I don't.
Claiming that all cheaters are destroying the game seems awfully overzealous to me.
You might as well say 'Quitting your job and playing 80 hours a week is cheating!'. People like that advance through content faster than expected then have nothing to do. They are more likely to grief lowbies. They have more gold and better items. They can out level everyone who doesn't have 80 hours a week to play. It gives them an unfair advantage and they get top pick of all the raid groups, the best gear, the best guilds, the best pvp ranks, etc, etc...
Basically, what it comes down to is being successful and having an enjoyable experience in WOW is about how much time you can devote to it. More time = more stuff = better character.
If you use all of your time to play WoW - that's considered fine; even though it introduces all of the same problems you've talked about in association with cheating.
If someone has more spendable income than time and is willing to use money to avoid hours of grinding in the game...he's a dirty cheater.
I'm fine with the title of 'dirty cheater'; but I disagree with the idea that my cheating negatively affects anyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd really love to seem some numbers/statistics (if they even exist) on the frequency of what you describe.
Gold sellers aren't inherently immoral. And, certainly, people who hack accounts are going to do so, regardless of any monetary reward. So, I see this as two completely separate problems.
Insecure accounts are always going to be a target for hackers. If they aren't going to sell the gold and items for real money; there are still plenty of people who would still be willing to do it for virtual items a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The parent post is so naive and self-centered that I can't believe that it was modded up as insightful.
The poster's logic is that buying gold and using bots doesn't hurt anyone and helps me out so it isn't really cheating....
Let me help out out. Blizzard says those two activities are cheating and, like it or not, Blizzard is the Dungeon Master. There's your definition right there. Not to mention that they can ban you if they catch you doing either one.
You say that your cheating doesn't hurt anyone... wh
Re: (Score:2)
I'll bet there are cases where cheaters improved the game by forcing the developers to fix exploits and do some other maintenance.
Me, I'm not smart enough to cheat.
I find it interesting though that people who would never, ever cheat in an MMORPG would have no problem downloading the latest Arcade Fire album from sooperbigtorrentzzz.org
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What the... Trolling moderators again?
Guys: Being in denial, closing your eyes, stamping your foot and yelling "NO! NO! NO!" does not mean that it's not existing! Put off the "treehugger happyworld of love peace and global harmony" reality distortion glasses once in a while, would you?
I AM a game designer, I HAVE integrated cheating and trolling players, and interestingly, nearly all the problem that others have, are gone! Trolls and cheaters are humans too! If you try to understand them, instead of being i
Re: (Score:2)
The WoW Linux issue was sorted out and ceased to be relevant YEARS ago.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
The way Battle.net accounts are currently set up, if you receive a suspension on a World of Warcraft account attached to that Battle.net account, it has no affect on any other World of Warcraft accounts that may also be attached.
Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20464488049&pageNo=2&sid=1#39 [worldofwarcraft.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Blizzard never uses the word "banned", they say things like "Permanent Suspension" or "Account Closure".
And yeah, I know people who have had 1 of their 2 WoW accounts banned on a battle.net account, but the other account is completely unaffected.
Re: (Score:2)
Lucky me...I just canceled my WoW account last night, so I don't have to care about this. I'm playing Aion now. I have yet to see whether the end-game content (flying with angelic wings to engage in PvPvE in the space between two half-worlds) is truly as amazing as they are promising, but so far I find the game to be mostly a refreshing change from WoW, which had just gotten to be a ridiculous habit. Well, it could be more refreshing—I was just killing bandits at some farm...which could have been righ
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Read the termination without prior notification part again. It says they can lock anyone out at any time for no reason other than that they feel like doing it.
Exactly. It means they can ban you without proof as long as they "feel" you may have broken a rule.
When I quit WoW I decided to sell all of my gold. A day after selling the gold I was told I was banned for doing things against the essence of Warcraft. It didn't specifically mention selling gold or any cheat, just Warcraft's essence.
It was the best ban I've received in any game to tell the truth.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
The ability to track a person across different characters/games is a serious problem Blizz is going to have to look at. A lot of people have non-guild alts so they can play the game in a non-social way when they want (to escape guild infighting, to unwind after a stressful day at work, to avoid stalker-ish people). Take that out, and the game loses value.
Remember, as penny arcade put it:
Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad
Without anonymity, responsibility exists, and a game where you have to act responsibly all the time is far less fun (it's real life by a different set of rules). Sometimes we just want to be fuckwads.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, Blizzard is creating their own Steam-like competitor. You need a AAAAA level game that people are willing to register a new account for (like Valve did with Half-Life 2). Some people might bitch about it, but if you drink the Steam-Kool-Aid (like I do) it creates a better community atmosphere for those who play particular video games 10, 20 or even 80 hours a week. But enough about the community aspect, this is really a push to create Blizzard's own digital distribution network, similar to Valve's Steam. Valve pioneered the idea of building a D.Distribution network on a AAAAA title, and Blizzard is following their buisness plan step for step, by requiring people to register a battle.net account for Starcraft 2 (and WoW). Between the two, they'll have how many tens of millions of registered customers ready and waiting to buy games through their digital distribution channel? On day 1 no less. Pretty cool, and damn smart. Whoever the executive was that pioneered this (at the cost of delaying SC2) is getting a phat performance bonus next year
One can only hope (dream?) that battle.net and steam will have some sort of interoperability down the road. Fenced gardens are great, but people aren't going to want to juggle Battle.Net, Steam and Games for Windows Live buddy lists.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
this is really a push to create Blizzard's own digital distribution network, similar to Valve's Steam.
It'll be nice to see some competition. Having one company control the distribution channel will cause issues over the long term when they get too comfortable. Blizzard's one of the few publishers that has the weight to compete.
I doubt they'd be quick with the friends list integration though. Third party tools will probably pop up long before.
Re: (Score:2)
Except when Blizzard and Steam inevitably merge it'll suck.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:4, Funny)
That's what the swirly thing between continents is!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure Valve is immune to the heat generated from some of the other DD services. Direct2Drive's recent per-week sales are now over. The buzz generated on slickdeals and the gamer forums I frequent was pretty high. I log in to steam last night and lo, they've got an extremely similar per-week deal going. It's even THQ games, which were what most people, again in my circles, were excited about on D2D. Titan Quest/SupCom/CoH/foo.
I can't believe that's coincidence. If hope blizz does get into it, I
Re: (Score:2)
For the most part, deals in Steam are through the publisher, not Valve. So it's likely that THQ is just having a marketing blitz.
Re: (Score:2)
While that explains the mid-week and week-long sales, it doesn't really explain why Steam usually has one product/set of products on sale every weekend.
Re: (Score:2)
Because their marketing department works hard to sell the idea to the people selling games on their platform and for the past year they've been lucky enough to be able to pull in a bunch of 'big name' publishers in a manner spaced widely enough that they can coordinate them.
Plus, it's rarely one. If you have Steam installed and go to the store page, you should see in the mid section of the page a 'list of games' box with four tabs: New Releases, Top Sellers, Coming Soon, and Specials.
I've yet to log into St
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Whoever the executive was that pioneered this (at the cost of delaying SC2) is getting a phat performance bonus next year
Dear Mr. Hadlock
In the future, please refrain from requesting performance bonuses on public forums.
M.Morhaime.
P.S.: Your bonus will be based on your Arena ranking, as every other director's.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
P.S.: Your bonus will be based on your Arena ranking, as every other director's.
Finally the mystery PvP nerfs have a motive...
Re: (Score:2)
please. community is not an excuse for DRM. DRM doesn't create community, either.
This is all about their lockdown attempts. *LOTS* of people can and are bitching about it, and rightly so.
Re: (Score:2)
And if Blizzard goes to digital distribution only, I will stop being a customer. I have every Blizzard game, but I'm considering not buying Starcraft 2 because you have to activate it online (meaning that Blizzard can take away your right to install the game at any time they choose).
DRM, online activation, and digital distribution will eventually be prevalent enough that I stop gaming. Explain how that's supposed to make companies money?
Re: (Score:2)
And if Blizzard goes to digital distribution only, I will stop being a customer. I have every Blizzard game, but I'm considering not buying Starcraft 2 because you have to activate it online (meaning that Blizzard can take away your right to install the game at any time they choose).
I'd be way more leery of them selling three separate single player campaigns instead of one like SC was. That right there made me lose any interest I had in SC2 at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The difference is Blizzard currently has no delusions of destroying the game publishing companies like Valve did. Battle.net 2.0 is more like their own version of Facebook for their own games only.
I wouldn't expect to ever be able to buy a non-Blizzard game on Battle.net, and I wouldn't expect any more interoperability than Facebook and Myspace currently have (i.e. none). I could always be wrong, though!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Battle.net as a digital distribution service did not exist since 1997, it was primarily a matchmaking service.
Re: (Score:2)
Err, you're aware that Bethesda == iD now, right? And most (all?) of Bethesda's titles are on Steam... I only buy about 3 games a year myself. I have yet to spend > $35 on any one game. TF2 was $20, L4D in a 4 pack is only $33 and change and then most of my other games were gifted for some reason or another.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, I didn't RTFA
RTFASummary.
Re: (Score:2)
it means your right to resell the game is completely trumped since you can't sell WOW without selling your other blizzard games if they are linked.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
no, it's very much about the reselling: it's against their EULA, and they basically aren't allowing it. This is grossly unconstitutional as per first sale and other things.
The game is "licensed" to you, per blizzard, and this is why the wowglider lawsuit is a big deal as well.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they work fine after the conversion.
Re:Of course, I didn't RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Q: Do Battle.net accounts work with the Blizzard Authenticator?
A: Yes. If you use a Blizzard Authenticator, you will need it when merging the associated World of Warcraft account into the new Battle.net Account. The Authenticator will automatically transfer to the Battle.net Account during the merge process, and you will still need it when managing Battle.net Account information and logging in to the game. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment offers the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, an application for mobile devices that players can use to protect a Battle.net account and any World of Warcraft accounts associated with it. In addition, Blizzard Entertainment offers the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, an application for mobile devices that players can use to protect a Battle.net account and any World of Warcraft accounts associated with it. For more information on the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, visit http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_GB&articleId=35970.
Re: (Score:2)
My god, Blizzard needs to find someone sentient to write their FAQs.
And still... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but it's still annoying. It's just another way for Blizzard to mine customer data and spamvertise more. In the end, it's really just five minutes of my time wasted filling out a form so they can try and sell me more crap. Anybody who plays WoW only gets exactly zero benefit from this.
That said, you'd think WoW players would be a bit more concerned about, oh, I don't know, the constant server crashes, rolling restarts, major patch bugs (how the HELL do you break an entire MMO by putting a typo in the cr
Re:And still... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
When a guy is selling you crack, you don't complain that his apartment is dirty. He can pretty much slap you in the face and you'll still come back for more.
You might complain, but you probably won't say it to his face. And you'll still go and buy the crack.
Re: (Score:2)
You might complain, but you probably won't say it to his face. And you'll still go and buy the crack.
Ah, but if the dealer set up an online forum that he didn't really read...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is great news (Score:2, Informative)
Fuck yes, finally my beta key will be active
Re: (Score:2)
BattleNET + WoW = Cross-Server Instances? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The mentioned cross-server LFG tool looks interesting, but I'm just wondering if it will make people act even worse in instances than before because there would be no worry about bad reputation with people not on the same realm.
Agreed. Add to that, that instability for the instance servers is often bad enough as it is.
It's one of the bad ideas that Chilton/Ghostcrawler have been able to implement, now that WoW is essentially their own feifdom which is more or less entirely seperate from Blizzard's upper management.
Legal? (Score:2)
Re:Legal? - Depends where you are (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Informative)
The change was announced about half a year ago and the deadline was announced 31 days ahead so I have no idea what you're on about.
Re: (Score:2)
Well (Score:2)
It is in the TOS you "agreed" to when you installed Lich King (that one day a battlenet account would be required to play) - so there is presumably not much which can be done about it legally.
Misconceptions.... (Score:5, Informative)
1) Battle.net accounts are actually more convenient, a single login for all your Blizzard titles will make things easier.
2) As far as I know, unless your guild leader is on your battle.net friends, they won't be able to see you play Starcraft 2.
3) If you get banned from World of Warcraft, it will NOT ban your from other games, including other WoW accounts on your battle.net account.
4) Don't bot, cheat, scam people, stay stupid shit in
5) You can add multiple World of Warcraft accounts to a single Battle.net account. You'll get to choose which account you want to use when you login. If you goto another computer (multiboxing, letting your GF play, w/e) and use your battle.net login, you can choose the other account and be online at the same time (you've still gotta pay 15 bucks a month for the subscription, per account).
6) Alarmists ARE indeed funny to read.
Re: (Score:2)
7) The free iPhone public/private key dongle app is cool too.
I run my D2, WoW and SC games off Battle.net. Works well... the authentication server has also less downtime than the vanilla WoW one...touch wood.
Re: (Score:2)
"Battle.net accounts are actually more convenient, a single login for all your Blizzard titles will make things easier."
For people hacking your accounts.
"As far as I know, unless your guild leader is on your battle.net friends, they won't be able to see you play Starcraft 2."
And if you don't put him on he'll kick you from the guild.
"If you get banned from World of Warcraft, it will NOT ban your from other games, including other WoW accounts on your battle.net account."
Which is a lie, they already do that on
Re: (Score:2)
5) You can add multiple World of Warcraft accounts to a single Battle.net account. You'll get to choose which account you want to use when you login. If you goto another computer (multiboxing, letting your GF play, w/e) and use your battle.net login, you can choose the other account and be online at the same time (you've still gotta pay 15 bucks a month for the subscription, per account).
Confirmed, this is what I do.
Re: (Score:2)
4) Don't bot, cheat, scam people, stay stupid shit in /2 and you won't get banned.
On the one hand, this oversimplifies the situation. On the other, it hasn't really changed. So the point is moot, even if you're technically incorrect. More below...
5) You can add multiple World of Warcraft accounts to a single Battle.net account.
But since the cost of a new battlenet account is an email address, why the hell would you dream of doing that?
In fact, none of my household's battlenet accounts (we have three) have actual email accounts behind them. They all point to false addresses at my google domain which all trickle down to my actual email address. This is going to be
Smells like a setup. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So, am I still supposed to believe that Blizzard won't charge a monthly fee to play Starcraft II online? On the same exact network, with basically the same set of services as millions of monthly-fee WoW-ers?
Starcraft II isn't a persistent world that requires the active involvement of GMs, so they don't have that overhead. It's much more like the matchmaking service that Battle.net was originally, with the hard work being done on your client PC, not a huge server farm.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you kidding? The server requirements for running a persistent online world are far greater than the server requirements for running a match making system - which is essentially what SC2 online play is.
Kinda like MUDs 15 years ago then? (Score:2)
I remember the addition of the inter-mud libs that players could to inter-mud tells and inter-mud mail to one another. Never really got used much tho as far as I recall.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's not a troll, happened to me and at least to 16 other people I know (guild mates and RL friends). I'm not sure how, but if your account is not linked to a battle.net account, and they know your email, they can link that account to their battle.net account and activate it as legitimate users.
Hell, even Blizzard has warnings on their official forums with steps to follow if you get that email, is just they don't acknowledge is a bug on their system. Oh, of course, if you tell them is a bug they deny it, Bl
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean THEIR software that you are renting?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google "Has been enforced frequently", "Copyright Law says they don't even have to let you have it at all if they don't want to", and "In exchange for being allowed a license to install the game and access their servers".
No Court is ever going to turn down a game writer's ability to police their game. Yes, if there was a EULA term that says "You agree to give us your first born child and all your base", a Court might turn that away, however, a EULA t
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Create real-life friends lists? (Score:5, Funny)
Since when did WoW players have real-life friends?
Says the guy posting on Slashd-
Oh, nevermind.