See? He loves change.
The more nerds stay the same.
We’ll admit it quite handily. We don’t like things that are different. We’re set in our ways, and we like it. When someone suggested to us, many eons ago, that we get ourselves an add-on program for our then-noobish WoW character, we flatly refused.
That would change the nature of our experience, we cried, and must therefore be horribly, horribly wrong. Sure and secure in our own closed-mindedness, we resisted the call of the add-on until we simply had to know if there was actually any difference. The first few days with it were aggravating, but we eventually came to see the usefulness of the add-on, respect it, and dare we say…love it?
It takes nerds time to change. We can’t simply go into a phone booth and tear off our ill-fitting t-shirts to reveal another and yet more ill-fitting t-shirt – we need time to say goodbye to our old, undeniably clever graphic tee. You can’t simply take it away from us. We’ll pout.
And pouting is exactly what’s been happening around the Starcraft universe lately, as evidenced by several interviews with Blizzard execs on German and Polish fansites, along with the gaming site Joystiq. The meat of the interviews is reproduced with a new freshness date at SC2Blog, and boiled down, it amounts to fans everywhere whining about how the new Battle.net isn’t as awesome as the old one because you have to read “news”, you won’t be able to make your own version of Starcraft: Ghost and the original chat channels from Starcraft are gone.
The lack of chat channels was apparently deeply disturbing, as it has supposedly made finding games and tournament match-ups harder, which has in turn caused a spike in nerd-raging around the world.
Blizzard’s response is quite measured, saying that the original channels were never really used as intended, and ended up instead as havens for spammers and idiots. One only has to log into World of Warcraft and turn on the /trade channel to see that this is not an uncommon occurrence.
The fact is, fans are simply complaining because everything isn’t exactly like it was. In this case, too bad, so sad. The new Battle.net isn’t perfect, but it’s a great deal sleeker, shinier, and more user-friendly. Nothing will ever stay exactly it was, and that’s a good thing. You probably don’t miss your 486 VGA IBM all that much, and 5 ¼” floppies were only good for throwing at and injuring people you didn’t like.
The world, and games, are going to change. In a similar vein, your mom may stop cutting up hotdogs into your macaroni, you may need to do that laundry pile in the corner on your own, and you may actually have to get a job. You’re 36, man! Get it together.
Regardless…
The Beta still has some polishing to go, but it’s already a better game than the original, at least in terms of usability and functionality. Is it Starcraft? Yes. Is it the original? No. Will it be as good? Time, and sales, will tell.
Change is coming, and even a closed basement door, a bucket of KFC and a Snuggie won’t stop it.
PS – They nerfed the Thor again. Not only does he do even less damage, but he’s a smaller model. We hate that guy.
