Forced to Battle.net: My thoughts (long read)

[cybernerv]

battle.net is fine and I agree withe the others that you are a little paranoid.

have to remember that blizz and its parent company are BUSINESSES. their main goal is to make money and that is what they are doing with this. Plus from a business aspect, what would be easier to maintain? accounts that are linked to b.net and not to b.net? or have all players use b.net?

also about the "hackers" and what not, I am sure they will put up some safeguards in.

[heffner]

I didn't like that I was being forced to join either. However, I know if I don't, I won't be able to play. They will always have that power given their disclaimers.

I find it hard to believe so many people don't care about gathering of personal information. Sure, it's not really a big deal and doesn't impact me directly, but it doesn't mean that I should have to do it. Do you give your phone number or zip/postal code to the cashier when they ask?? I never do. Why should I offer free information to someone else so then can make money off of me? It just annoys me. Sure they can claim it's to improve services etc.. Perhaps it will, but I guarantee you they will gain more from it than any of us will.

[Velassra]

I didn't like that I was being forced to join either. However, I know if I don't, I won't be able to play. They will always have that power given their disclaimers.

I find it hard to believe so many people don't care about gathering of personal information. Sure, it's not really a big deal and doesn't impact me directly, but it doesn't mean that I should have to do it. Do you give your phone number or zip/postal code to the cashier when they ask?? I never do. Why should I offer free information to someone else so then can make money off of me? It just annoys me. Sure they can claim it's to improve services etc.. Perhaps it will, but I guarantee you they will gain more from it than any of us will.

If Blizzard wants my p0rnz, I'll share.

[Asterix]

if blizzard wants my p0rnz, i'll share.

*lol* :d:d:d

[Pallarfo]

I think the logic is a bit flawed.
A lot of us already use b.net accounts, with arround 5 wow accounts integrated in it.
So imho you cannot add 10 million b.net accounts with 10 million wow accounts.
You'll be counting the wow accounts twice.
Blizzard already knows howlong you are online playing wow, who your wow-friends are and stuff like that. They don't need B.net for that, a simple wow account is enough.

Regarding the cd-keys, those are not installed on your computer as far as I know, only linked to accounts, not to installs on pcs or macs.
You can login at my wow install with your account.
Only way for a hacker to get your key is you mail it to him, or you have made a note of the key(s) on your pc and they grabbed that file.

[kadaan]

Few things here.
Anyone remember AC (Asheron's Call) and when MS made us all join MS passport? Ya no fun . We had to go though their site to get to "our" game every time we logged in. If our servers (our game) was down we couldn't play. Then on top of that if MS Passport was down we couldn't play.

(I did read your entire post, but I believe on the internet it's cooler to say "I stopped reading here" or "TL;DR")

I think your opening paragraph is the key to why you dislike the forced merger. It's not "OUR" game. It's THEIR game. We pay a monthly fee to play their game. They can do whatever they want to it, and if they end up doing something that we don't like we simply stop paying to play their game.

[shaeman]

I've heard that battle.net is going to require genetic material at every login... no more blizzard authenticators, and it ensures that only those related to you gain access under the sibling rule.

But it's blatantly an evil plan to clone you, replace you and therefore grab all your money instead of just the measly sums we are currently giving them.

Now - if you could just reach round the back and undo the buckles on my jacket I can tell you the rest of their evil alien plans.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Sums up my take on the situation nicely.

[HPAVC]

I like and look forward to the proposed battlenet changes and the current features of the account maint with authenticator are worth it for me right now.

What displeases me about Wow currently is that its near coin-op play with its 1990s era BBS chat and no real sense of who the fuck we are playing the game with. This cause a lot of headaches and some small tweaks could make the wow experiece a lot better. Hopefully a more robust social system will bring the nitche compatible people out of the servers we are on.

[d0z3rr]

Hopefully a more robust social system will bring the nitche compatible people out of the servers we are on.

Entirely useless to me. I could care less about the 15 year old driveling idiot on the other end of that Nightelf Huntard, or his cool "Facebook like" page on bnet. I multibox WoW to avoid any mingling with a bunch of dimwits.