Lego Universe

A Small Voice

Final Edit: I'm done with this, nothing is going to change. Good bye Blizzard games, I refuse to sheep. 


Final Edit huh? Here comes another. They stepped back from doing real name in forums. As linked by Penny Arcade, here. But, 3rd paragraph clearly shoes that this is not the last of the shenanigans coming from RealID and Battle.net.  Keep your ear to the ground kiddies. For now, they, listened...

I know, that when it comes to the "blogosphere" I am a small voice in a loud din.  I know, that what I say here and now will not affect many people.  But because of what Blizzard/Activision has decided about Real ID, I am making this my last post about World of Warcraft.  I will not be tagging this post, and I will be deleting previous posts.

This is a small protest, I know, but I hope that others follow suit somehow.

Edit: Thank you Larisa for the comment, I appreciate it.  Thank you Tobold for the Link, I appreciate the support. I'm glad that both your blogs touch on things deeper than just WoW news this/that. Which will keep me coming back for more. Thank you both again.

Looking at what is coming with Real ID, I'm going to have to keep an ear to the ground, but from my rough figures of possible people who will actually quit WoW over this, is probably about a penny to every $10 that Blizzard/Activision makes, if that.

In the end, it means that me and two of my best friends are never playing WoW again.  I know this for sure. If 3 are never going back, that probably means more will follow suit.

I will be updating this post as things come up, I figure it best to keep everything together, so this will see many edits in the future.

Edit: More comments, thanks guys.  I was not aware that I had been linked to by Massively.com (Daily Grind). Funny, getting a major link up like that, as I'm swearing off WoW, I feel real ironic and such.

I'm reading reports that are flip-flopping whether Blizzard themselves are going to be posting their real names or not (if you aren't going to do it, then why should we? comes to mind). Makes you wonder how long they actually thought about this.

Also the discussion over at the Infamous Inn is incredible right now.

Also found this.

Edit: Some of you may be choosing to quit WoW. Reading this, may help you understand it when you suddenly start playing it again later. If you don't feel like reading it, just know this suggestion: If you don't want to start playing again, the best thing to do, is to not play it when you get the itch for it.

Edit: I realize most people won't quit WoW over RealID. Tobold and Gevlon both have excellent guides to disabling RealID. This still won't prevent your name from showing up in forums (more than likely the parent's name will show up for the kids account), and from everything I've read, SC2 and D3 will allow you to play as a screen name instead of having to integrate with Facebook.

Here's the deal though, for those who don't have a problem, or for those already on facebook. You install the game, and click a button. The game "facebook connects" and finds people you are friends with on facebook who also pressed the same button. This is very similar to all the facebook games that spam your wall, so those on facebook will understand what is going on here.

Now if you don't do that, you won't be using RealID, you can make a screen name, and play as that.

For those already on Facebook, who's friend's list is full of acquaintances, this is a perfectly logical concept. For me, I only have 3 acquaintances on my facebook. Everyone else I know personally.

I can see how they thought that people would like these features, but I think they should have worked harder on making RealID its own thing, with tiered privacy settings, so that it would be a REAL social networking tool, and had the facebook integration as an "add-on". Instead, RealID is the most open social platform I have ever seen, and it is riding piggyback on Facebook.

Tobold made an excellent suggestion on his blog. He said, and I paraphrase, Quit WoW, cancel your subscription, state the reason as RealID, and then don't play for a couple of months and enjoy the sun. You can come back later and reactivate your account with no real concern for having lost anything.

Try it, you might find that you don't even want to come back, or you might return and enjoy the game more. Eitherway, if (and this is a dream I know) 6 million people stopped playing WoW for two months, Blizzard/Activision would get a hint that something is wrong with their idea.

Edit: RealID now mandatory for in-game chat. (Dwism.com)


It is not even out yet, and the effect is spreading. If you are a parent, I imagine that your name will appear instead of your child's name. But for the "smart" adults who turned off RealID on their accounts, their own name will show up, since they are the "parents".  There seems to be no chance of playing SC2 or D3 without revealing your real name then....

Edit: First of all, Hatch has a wonderful write-up about this whole thing.

Secondly from Saithir's pointing out: All posts in the future on the new forum systems will be an opt-in choice and ample warning will be given that you're posting with your real first and last name.
and later
You will be able to set up Parental Controls to disallow a minor from posting.

RealID will prevent the minor from posting, which means they will get a different message than what people who have RealID active.

@Mike: I haven't been able to officially find that quote, and Dwism is saying, and now for the real post, so that might be fake. I was really tired when I made that link.  I'll be striking that out until I can find the quote.

Another interesting link from Broken Toys, collects many good quotes.

Also, Wallstreet Journal.

Finally, South Korean Law responsible?

Edit: Thanks to Copra for the link here.

Intellectual Theft

At what point is an idea theft?  At what point is it borrowing?  At what point is it influence?

Lets take a popular show/movie whatever.  Or better yet, lets take something that hasn't been around in awhile.  I mean, everything old becomes new again, and if I'm the one who is making it new, then that means I'll be on the ... top of the wave thingie.

How about, Japanese animation?  They have tons of stories that used to be popular.  So lets see.... Sailor Moon!

If I were to write a story about an ancient moon princess, who is reincarnated on Earth, and gains super powers by transforming into a skimpy outfit, along with her 4 other friends, all with different personalities, to fight the same evil that destroyed her kingdom eons ago, I'd be stealing the story of Sailor Moon.

What could I remove from that equation, that would still be Sailor Moon (teenage girls with powers fighting evil), and not be Sailor Moon?

We could change the basis of the powers, the number of friends, and get rid of the reincarnation stuff.  In this case we would lose the planet motif, and make 3 girls (the main character with her two best friends), we'd pick our favorite 3 personalities, and completely redo who the main villain is.  Also, set it in the present, or even the slight future.

Now a great deal of what made the Sailor Moon setting is gone, and what we have left is the personalities of the main cast, and how they influenced each other.

If the setting was not modern, but lets say fantasy, we might be in Magic Knight RayEarth.  If there were only the two girls it might be Pretty Cure.   As is, it might be Powerpuff Girls Z.

Are we now so far removed from its origins that we are now writing under the influence of having seen Sailor Moon, or are we still stealing?

I leave you with this interesting link.

Father's Day

Growing up, most of my life, without a father, I tend to seek father figures in my life.

Some failed me completely, and others, surprise and enlighten me.

I look at my son, and I wonder if I'm being a good enough father for him.  I think that too many young people out there undervalue experience and age, which leads to young parents who end up messing their kids up.


So this father's day, I want all the dads out there to re-evaluate how much of a fuck up you really are, and to ask yourself, is it too late to be a better father?

Struggle with writing

I've been struggling with my writing lately.  Two weeks into June and I'm realizing the error of my layout.  My scenes aren't exciting enough.  I'm not saying every scene needs to have a fight, but I have some scenes where I can't seem to find a reason for it to be in there other than as an excuse to show people how things are.

So my current plan is to sit down and figure out how to not only show how things are, but also get something in the story-line moving forward.  This means that the story will be "denser" than it currently is.  I don't know if that will result in less words or what...

Anyways, this also means that my blog posts might slow down a bit, and I apologize for those who just got into the once a week groove of things.  I'll try to empty my brain here once a week still, but I'm not sure how much that content will be, especially since I've been aiming at improving my dialog.

I do have a post half finished, but I'm not sure how to finish it up yet, so that might come up in a bit as well.