Blizzard, I love you. Except when I loathe you.

[foxfire74]

Sigh. I got into Cataclysm beta, and they have hit it out of the park. So much concentrated awesome in one game package, and enough details to make my Hordecore little heart skip a beat approximately once a level.

Then they do this (link to Husband Unit's blog for brevity and to spare everybody the link to a 2000-page (not post, PAGE) thread

Comments

[pirate_nami]

Yeah, I'm with you. My accounts are both paid up for a bit, but I am still planning to hit that cancel button now to send them a message, even though I plan to continue playing until they get to a point where this RealID nonsense goes further than just the forums.

[foxfire74]

https://www.esrb.org/privacy/contact.jsp

Hit 'em. I don't know if it'll do any good or not, but I've expressed my opinion forcefully anywhere that I thought it might do some good.

(And Cata is SO DAMN COOL and I'm not gonna be able to play it if this keeps up... )

[veracity]

Fandom Wank has a great write up on it. Like informative from a variety of sources.

Oh, and looking up my name on howmanyofme.com, there are a whopping 17 people in the US with my name. This is why I was very leery about playing WoW. I have an empty HP I was gonna use for it exclusively, since it's just wasting space, but heeeeell no. I bought a PS2 to play on first. It's cheaper and I don't feel like I'm forced into things I don't want to do.

[veracity]

My PS2 was only 99 bucks and the games are bought/paid for when I get them. For me, it's a cheaper investment because I'm not a hardcore gamer. I even said no Wii when I wanted one for Epic Mickey.

[foxfire74]

Well, to my surprise, they seem to have backed down for the moment. I am still deeply suspicious, but they're now saying they won't require your actual ID to post on the forums.

Which I rarely do anyway, but it's beyond the pale to demand my real name for it. Way to marginalize your female customers, Blizz.

I will say, though, that I've been testing Cataclysm for two months and it is awesome. All the lessons and bells-and-whistles from the last two expansions, applied to the entire leveling thing. Plus starter areas that actually try to give you a feel for each race, some seeds for future content patches, and if the new Barrens don't get your Hordecore going hard, you have no SOUL. So depending on how principled you're feeling, you might want to give it a try. Me, I'm happy that I have a chance of seeing 85 before they do something else and I ragequit.

[foxfire74]

...I suppose I can forgive you for that whole Alliance thing. (For some reason I had it in my head that you played a deader.) I've played several Alliance characters 1-30ish in Cataclysm, and while it's much better polished than it was, it doesn't viscerally grab me like the Horde side of Kalimdor does. (Though nelfs get quests from Malfurion at level 12 or so, which is reasonably cool. And you can charge air elementals in Westfall and get flung up in the air, which is far more fun than it should be.)

I like raiding, but 1) I have one of the more awesome and laid-back raid groups out there and 2) I'm a perfectionist in some very odd areas, one of which is seeing JUST HOW FAR I can push my feral DPS. Probably a hangover from vanilla, when I was lucky if they let me quit healing Ahn'Qiraj.