Despite his tragi-comic later life and unquestionably weird passing, Michael Jackson and his brothers four were apparently right all those years ago, at least if Blizzard has anything to say about it.
In a Blue Post response to many of the questions which have been kicking around on the Battle.net forums – among them chat channels, name identifiers, and the infamous “LANgate”, several interesting morsels of information got tossed out for fans to greedily chomp down on. The old adage about not biting the hand that feeds you has never applied to gamers, partly because we typically have trouble differentiating it from our own hand and partly because it’s usually the closest thing we have to a friend.
Or a lover.
Moving on…
In response to a number of very specific questions, one of the famous Blizzard Blues, Bashiok, actually gave a number of very specific answers. He started by mentioning chat channels, and not only confirmed that they would be coming within “months of release” but that they would also include created chat groups about almost any topic. He went on to say that private chat channels for hanging out with your friend will also be coming in a later patch. That’s right. Friend. You know who you are.
This is odd – good, for those who want these – but still odd. After such resistance to the whole chat channel idea and essentially telling fans of the series that they didn’t really need them to have a good time, Blizzard has done a 180 and gone ahead with confirming their implementation. Sure, it’s great to listen to the fans. We heartily approve of it. But then why fight them tooth and nail to get here? Maybe victory is sweeter when it’s earned? Maybe the guys at Blizz are just big jerks? Maybe it’s a plot by a covert alien organization to take over the world via the Starcraft II interface? That last one could be totally hot.
After repeatedly answering the question “do we look like we could chat in this?”, Blizzard has finally given in to the self-conscious ravings of its fans, and bought them a nice chat salad with a balsamic vinaigrette and a side of father issues. We’re not sure what they expect after dinner, though.
But that wasn’t all from GM Bashiok. In addition, he also said that the next portion of the Beta as well as the retail version of the game will see the return of identifiers. These showed up in the original Beta, and essentially consisted of players picking a first and last name, separated by a “.”. This let everyone have whatever name they wanted, and if a conflict about who the hell was doing what arose, the last names would sort things out. Halfway through the Beta, Blizz scrapped the identifiers and made it so that everyone needed a unique name. Now, they’re coming back.
But.
Instead of being able to pick the last name you want, it will be a simple 3-digit number assigned to you when you create your character. Sure, you can have whatever name you want again, but it’s going to be followed by 3 random numbers. Blizzard says the numbers won’t show everywhere, or even all that often, but it just doesn’t seem like a great marketing strategy to take away a gamers ability to customize any aspect of their character creation. Gamers have a certain way they like doing things – mostly notably this includes making avatars that look very little like themselves but that are customized down to the smallest details. There’s a reason they called themselves Maddog.Fishstick. It has deep meaning to them, a significance beyond its obvious idiocy.
Taking this away and giving them a random number preserves their ability to keep the single first name they want, but lessens their immersion in the game. That, and it sets up situations in which gamers are going to try and sell character names. JimR and SarahK will no doubt be popular, and those who get the “.001″ tag behind their names are probably going to speak loud and long about it. Then, when they get bored, they’ll try and sell it off to the highest bidder.
Overall, the Blue post raised more questions than it answered, but that just seems to be something that Blizz has a talent for. Sure, there will be chat channels, but why only give in now and why will it take “a few patches?”. As to the names, why change the system again? The old, first way worked. Not sure why it had to broken, removed and then replaced with something weird.
Also a good question for Michael Jackson.
