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Review: Man of Steel

It's fitting that, like its protagonist, Man of Steel is from two worlds.  In one way, it succeeds with flying colors (HAH! Get it?) as a superhero movie.  In another way, it fails to be decent as a film.

Coming from Christopher Nolan's Batman co-writer, David S. Goyer, and 300 director Zack Snyder, Man of Steel earns a place in the new school of superhero movies by making the hero's backstory more cohesive and elegant while packing the film with tons of stylish CGI fighting.  You can see Nolan's influence both in the effort to bring something this fantastical down-to-earth (by abandoning or reworking all of the goofiest aspects of Superman) and in all the thoughtful staring into space the characters do.

Yep.

As an action fan, my jaw was literally sitting slack for about ten minutes straight during Superman's first big fight sequence.  Seriously, I think a few flies wandered into my mouth.  This is the best Superman movie ever, if only because Snyder so perfectly nailed Superman's fighting on film.  Previous movies were hamstrung by the special effects of their time and perhaps the imaginations of their filmmakers.  Before, Superman would lift something heavy very slowly and we were all supposed to be impressed.  Man of Steel thinks nothing of punching characters through entire city blocks of buildings.  At one point Superman brushes a truck off his shoulder because it's getting in the way of him punching someone through a wall.  It's the real deal, and if you're as much a fan of punching as I am, you'll love it.

Just another ho-hum Tuesday in Metropolis

One of the keys to making the new generation of superhero movies work for the general public has been to modify their worlds and lore so they seem as close to believable as possible.  Man of Steel does the best job of this I could have imagined for this character (with one small exception).  It takes pains to make Krypton a real place, and brings a villain who arises naturally from the events of Kal-El's origin, rather than feeling random or contrived - or cartoonishly villainous like film depictions of Lex Luther have been.  Kryptonite isn't a glowing green rock, and Lois Lane, the Pulitzer-winning reporter, isn't going to be fooled by a pair of glasses.  In classic Nolan fashion, the villain and the core conflict of the film are linked to the core themes of the film and the main character's own challenges, instead of seeming randomly plugged-in just to fill the pre-requisite villain slot.

Holy shit look at this guy.  They don't even need to pad the fucking suit.

Man of Steel also stands out in the casting department.  Henry Cavill is Superman, and I hope he gets to keep playing that character for at least another decade.  He plays a calm, controlled version of the character who just emanates kindness and trustworthiness, but also shows flashes of emotional release and humanity - whether it be joy at discovering he can fly, or righteous fury at threats to his loved ones.  Amy Adams fits into the role of Lois Lane so naturally that I forgot she was an actress, and Michael Shannon's Zod lends the character so many qualities that enrich him, even as the script tries to shove him into the land of hamminess.  All of Superman's many parents act the shit out of their scenes, and give performances that elevate the entire film.  Laurence Fishburne is mostly wasted as Perry White, but when he gets one chance to act, he grabs it by the throat.

Unfortunately, the pitch-perfect reimagining of Superman and the jaw-dropping battle sequences can't save Man of Steel from being more than just stylish spectacle.  The plot is fucking perforated - there are innumerable holes and so many belief-stretching coincidences that they stick out even in a movie about a flying alien who punches spaceships.  The character development is shoddy, and somehow fails to really flesh Superman out as a character even though it spends the entire first half of the movie just following him around while he broods.  The motivations and decisions made by almost all characters throughout the movie are inconsistent.  The villains plan is pretty terrible, which is surprising considering that the movie makes a huge point out of how he was bred and raised to be great at military shit.  Did they just not teach strategy and tactics in Kryptonian West Point?  He's a fucking general, for god's sake!

ZHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!

You can see Goyer and Nolan make gestures towards thematic resonance, but they are nowhere near as successful in Man of Steel as they were in The Dark Knight.  The plot wasn't set up well enough to give Superman the kind of agency he'd need to make his choices matter, and the constant plot problems undermine the message every step of the way.  It definitely feels like whatever was thought-provoking about the original script had to be twisted or cut out to make way for more CGI punching and product-placements (OK, we get it, you want us to notice SEARS and IHOP.  Thanks, Warner Brothers Pictures).  On the other hand, given all the brick-over-the-head obvious christ references, maybe Goyer and Snyder are just hacks.  Further evidence for that case: the amount of property damage and human death Superman directly causes or allows to happen.  It creates a dissonance that disrupts the whole movie.  For the final half hour, all I could think was "Superman would get this fight away from civilians" and "Bruce Wayne is going to be SO MAD at you, Clark!" *

And to top it all off, like all blockbusters, it gives the ladies short shrift.  Lois is actually done pretty well early on, but as the movie progresses she devolves into combination damsel/lovestruck puppy instead of the brave, plucky reporter of the first half.  Martha Kent and Mrs. El are both barely in their scenes, making way for Kal/Clark's two fathers to take center stage, and pretty much all the credit.  Even the villain's second-in command, a badass lady soldier, finds a nemesis in a run-of-the-mill human.  Zod's nemesis is Superman, her nemesis is some random soldier with no superpowers, unless you count a previously starring in Law and Order: SVU as a superpower.  That gives you an idea of what the people who made this movie think of women: a woman with godlike superpowers is roughly equivalent to a normal man with a knife.

Roughly equivalent.

Despite the writer's daddy issues and the plotting failures, I think Man of Steel is worth seeing in the theater.  It's definitely the best summer tent pole blockbuster I've seen since The Avengers, and creates an excellent foundation for the new DC film universe (I'm assuming Nolan's Batman won't be the one we see in the Justice League movies).  It's a treat for the senses and the fight scenes knock it out of the park.  Just don't think too much while you watch it, and definitely don't go in expecting The Dark Knight with laser eyes.



*I think the obvious step for the sequel is for the world to be mad at Superman for all of the damage he and his brethren caused.  It makes a great motivation for a complex version of Lex Luthor: he's not evil, he just wants to get rid of Superman before he and his alien friends destroy the planet.  Make him a humanist who would never do anything to hurt other people and is working toward building a legitimate utopia, but becomes sidetracked trying to get Superman to go away and get Earth out of the line of fire.

Iron Man 3

I saw the third movie in the Iron Man series today, in iMax 3d.  My recommendation (for those who haven’t seen it) before the cut, and a spoiler-laden evaluation after the cut.

If you aren’t sure whether to see this movie:

I cannot unequivocally recommend this movie in general.  I loved the first two in the series, and I think this one drops the ball pretty hard when it comes to the story, which basically makes no sense.  However, the two most important things about the franchise: the CGI superhero action and the humor – are both still intact.
  
Its special effects top those of the first two films, and nearly teeter into the realm of being impossible to follow.  Fortunately, director Shane Black (taking the reins from Jon Favreau, who still reprises his role as Happy Hogan) keeps things in control just enough to allow the viewer to keep up with the action – barely.  In contrast to the unintelligible mess Michael Bay made of the Transformers fight sequences, these are still downright clear.  The choreography of the action sequences is certainly exciting, but they strain believability much more than the previous films.

There’s actually more humor in this film than the previous two, but I get the feeling that is more because certain scenes are written specifically to be funny.  A lot of throwaway lines and improvisational feel throughout the other movies is reduced here, and replaced with separate chunks of humor that were trying too hard to be funny in the script, but are gamely salvaged by the cast’s talent.

"Wait, what's the name of that thing I don't give?  Oh yeah, it's fucks."

It actually reminds me of a lot of standard 80’s movies, especially with the “buddy cop” scenes between Tony and Rhodey, and an extended section in the middle where Tony makes a new friend.  I assume that’s Black’s influence, given that he made the original Lethal Weapon.

The big mistake the film makes is that it consciously decides to throw all links to reality to the wayside.  The creators correctly observed that one of the keys to the success of the previous Marvel movies was keeping the characters emotionally grounded and relatable (and this movie more than any other tries to focus on the hero as a person), but they missed the lesson about grounding the rest of the movie in the real world.  In the first two, you could almost believe that Iron Man could exist in our world if someone just invented an arc reactor and some repulsors.  That aspect saved the other Marvel movies from the typical superhero movie pitfall of seeming cheesy, staged, and “just for geeks”.  It is completely thrown out the window here.  Iron Man 3 constantly tries its best to break the viewers suspension of disbelief, taking liberties with physics, logic, and the resilience of the human body that create a distraction and make it more difficult to enjoy the movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I love over-the-top action and impossible stunts.  I couldn’t get enough of the final sequence of The Avengers and I am one of the few who actually loves FF7: Advent Children.  However, there are ways to do that insane level of action without just shattering the rules of that world (see The Avengers or the Dark Knight movies), and Iron Man 3 fails in that regard, sacrificing all believability for the coolness factor.  It’s up to each viewer whether they thought that was a worthwhile sacrifice.  I’m just glad that in giving up the realism at the root of the franchise, they at least got something in return.

Taken as a whole, I’d say the movie is entertaining and worth seeing, if you are willing to totally turn off your brain (which I often am).  Otherwise, you’ll be distracted by the nonsensical story path, the constant breaking of the most basic laws of physics and the human body, Tony’s impossible athleticism, and the many out-of character decisions the writers had the characters make in order to force the story down a certain path. 

SPOILERFUL DISCUSSION AFTER THE CUT:

The Ending of Bioshock Infinite Explained

In case you are too dumb to take the hint from the title:

SPOILERS!!!!

are after the jump:

Quick Response to Gevlon re: WoW's market

I'm going to leave the rest of Gevlon's post on feminism alone because it would take forever to talk about, but I do want to address one point he made that I think is patently false:

Now the game design being sexist seems a different issue but it's not. The game is exactly what its audience wants it to be. Blizzard is an ethic-less company, responding only to market factors. If the audience is a bunch of morons who jerk off watching cybering blood elf girls, then the blood elves are designed to be sexy. Anything else would be bad business.

The problem with this idea is that the demographic he's talking about is only part of the game's audience. 

There is no comprehensive research about female MMO/WoW players.  The BBC did a survey that estimates that 40% of EQ2 players are female.  Nick Yee used data from WarcraftRealms that showed only 16% females, but that's only people who gave their gender on that fansite, so it's surely an under-representation.

Even if you think the BBC's estimate is high, Blizzard's chosen imagery still turns off millions of potential players (not just females, but also males who don't like this art style).  The current state of the game is bad business.

But if they are an ethic-less company that only responds to market factors, why would they do this?  Because their art choices are driven by their own preconceived notions, not market factors.

Blizzard is a boys' club.  Guess how many female artists, out of at least 16, worked on Starcraft 2, according to the behind the scenes DVD?  One.

Blizzard's elite art team, responsible for most of their concept art?  Zero females.  In fact, it's called Sons of the Storm.

Remember that photo of the entire community relations team that came out a while ago (y'know, where Netheara became a sex object for thousands of frustrated internet teenagers by daring to allow her photo to be taken?).  There were 2 women in that crown of 2 dozen.

So a bunch of  boys make a game.  Of course the art will cater to boys, because that's what they think looks cool.  I'd also argue that a lot of socially insecure guys end up devoting their lives to video games to the point that they work at (arguably) the top developer in the world.  We could go on and on all day about why there are so few women involved, and I'm going to sidestep that issue for now.  What I will say is that it's hard to put out something females would like if you don't have a single female on the team.

They have no proof that their portrayal of gender "sells" or doesn't.  The game might sell just as well or better if they had more variety.  They aren't responding to market forces in this case.  It just doesn't occur to them how unappealing some of the art in this game is to a huge chunk of their potential audience, because to them, half-naked buxom women and burly, inadequacy-soothing men have "concentrated coolness".

If they really wanted to improve business, they would give a wider range of options.  And in a lot of ways, they have (dwarf and troll females, gnomes, goblins), but those options are poorly represented by NPCs and especially by major lore figures.  There's absolutely no need to get rid of the impossibly-burly males and buxom chain mail bikini babes that appeal to the insecure boy market.  Don't take anything away from them.  Instead, add more variety to appeal to a bigger audience and bring in even more money.  How about a dwarf female faction leader in heavy armor, built like a tank?  Or a trim and cut human dude in nothing but a chain loincloth (and a bow tie) as a faction leader (just to make it even given sylvanas's outfit, after all)?  Why are the worgen led by some old guy when they could have a young topless male werewolf with washboard abs (talk about a ready-made audience!)?

As it stands, Blizzard is failing to be an ethic-less company responding to market forces, at least when it comes to their representations of gender.

A few posts you should read

I swore to myself I wouldn't talk about politically divisive issues on my wow blog.  When I read a gaming blog or listen to a gaming podcast, I'm there for gaming discussion, not political discussion.  I have very strong and entrenched political opinions, and I've abandoned more than one entertainment source completely because someone decided to run their mouth with a stupid political opinion.

But you know what?  I'm just going to come out and say that I support feminism, and if you don't like it then please let the door hit you repeatedly in the ass on the way out.


I bring this up because the debate sparked up in the wow blogging community again (as it does every few months) and I wanted to draw attention to some posts on the subject that I think are exceedingly worthwhile reads.  Nevermind that these other people probably have more readers than me.  :P

First, Larisa serves as an entry point into the debate with her pragmatic way of enjoying entertainment despite stereotyping.

This led me to Pewter's post about how WoW is a game made by men for a male audience (even though a ton of the audience is female).

And finally to some ladystats to know and think about from Paperclipchains.


I'm sure there's a ton of other great work out there on the subject, but these are just the things I ran across today that I wanted to draw more attention to.


P.S.  I'm pretty much on blogging hiatus indefinitely (thank you, RL).  Maybe I'll drop a small post like this from time to time.  I hope you'll keep me in your readers.  I also want to thank the wow blogging community, all my commenters, and the bloggers that made this such a welcoming, interesting, and creative place.  Especially Ixo, Larisa, and Spinks.

Starcraft 2 Single-Player Impressions

Short version: Blizzard continues to release games when they are ready. 

Long version: OK, I'm not the most impartial reviewer here.  I was predisposed to absolutely love this game after how much fun I had with both the single- and multi-player parts of the original Starcraft, as well as every installment of the Warcraft RTS games.  And guess what?  I absolutely love it.  I love it so much that I wish I could italicize that last sentence twice.

More after the jump.

Death Knights in Cataclysm: what will change?

Well, we've finally gotten the big talent tree revamp we've all been waiting for.  It's obvious that the Death Knight trees are far from finished, but we are starting to see themes forming, and getting some idea of what will change.  A lot remains to be implemented and seen, so it's hard to judge these too deeply.

Overall:

• New rune cooldown system: this one was announced a while ago.  Simply put, runes of each color refresh one at a time.  You essentially get half as many runes during ongoing fighting, but if you are inactive for a bit you can start out with all 6.  Each of the 3 colors is basically its own energy bar.  The damage and runic power generation of the abilities and talents has been doubled across the board to compensate.  In theory, you should have more free GCDs since waiting a second to use a rune won't lead to a large dps loss down the road as future recharges are delayed.
• Runic Empowerment: Until recently this was a first-tire frost talent, but is now baseline for all DKs.  When you use a runic power ability like Frost Strike or Death Coil, you have a 45% chance of refreshing a random rune. That's a lot of free runes.  This adds an element of randomness to all rotations.  I'm worried that it will undercut the new rune cooldown system because you'll feel pressured to always have at least one full rune of each color on cooldown in case this procs.
• Each spec gets its version of death runes right off the bat, as well as a key ability (heart strike, frost strike, perma-ghoul).
• Anti-magic shell no longer generates runic power off of damage by default.  This does remove a measure of skill from the class (timing AMS to optimize free RP), but hopefully new abilities will make up for it.

Blood:

• Now a pure tanking tree, and the only tanking option.  Our own Prot tree!
• Blood presence is now the tanking presence, having the same effect as the current frost presence
• We just pile on the cooldowns: IBF, AMS, Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield, Rune Tap, and Will of the Necropolis all in one tree!  Also, WoN now procs a free Rune Tap heal and refreshes the ability's cooldown, adding an active element to save yourself when low on health.  We clearly have more cooldowns than other classes, and it will be very interesting to see how hard this is to balance.
• Block equivalent: in Wrath, Death Knights have been at a disadvantage for smaller-scale fights because of a lack of a block-style mechanic (druids can proc a mini-shield on crits).  There was mention of a block equivalent a while back, where we would have a chance to auto-heal for a percentage of the damage we take.  That appears to have been scrapped, as it does not appear in the current talent trees.  I still hope it makes a comeback.
• Innate crit immunity: say goodbye to defense rating, the most annoying stat ever in the game!  It was confusing and served as an unecessarily stark barrier-to-entry, and required too much outside research to even begin to understand.  Good riddance.  Now we get PvE crit immunity from Blood talents, just like other tank specs.  Hurrah!
• Attack Power Debuff: just like with Block, DKs were the only tanking class with no attack power debuff they could apply to enemies (Demoralizing Shout, etc.).  That's finally changing, as talents in the new blood tree give Blood Boil the ability to apply that debuff, making it into a damaging Demo Shout.  Another great call by Blizzard, it's a necessary tanking tool that we went without for too long.
• Dancing Rune Weapon: now you can parry for two!  In a great leap in the realm of MAKING SENSE, having a second weapon flying around in front of you gives you a sizeble bonus to your chance to parry.  But wait . . . is that another tanking cooldown?  OK, guys, this is getting a bit ridiculous.  6 cooldowns?  That's a lot of runes and runic power being devoted to survivability (even though IBF can be talented to be free!).  Hopefully that won't cripple our threat.
• Sub-specs can only go 10 points into another tree at most.  This leaves you with very few attractive talents currently within reach for tanking.  You're basically picking between a reduced DnD cooldown and a fear immunity. 

 Frost:

• With blood presence taking over tanking duties, frost presence now boosts damage and runic power generation (sorry, no more self-healing)
• Pillar of HOLY SHIT (aka Pillar of Frost): I'll just link the tooltip for you:"Calls upon the power of Frost to increase the Death Knight's Strength by 20%.  Icy crystals hang heavy upon the Death Knight's body, providing immunity against external movement such as knockbacks.  Lasts 20 sec."   Notice anything . . . missing?  Like, say a cooldown?!?  It used to be at 1 minute, maybe wowhead isn't displaying it.  33% uptime is still pretty good - but where will we get the spare frost rune?
• You can now choose between a dual-wield talent and a 2-hander talent.  This is quite a relief, as I'd love to have a 2-hander spec without a pet.
• Frost DKs now get the 4% increased damage debuff for raids that was previously limited to combat rogues and arms warriors.
• On a Pale Horse was moved to early Frost.  I find myself constantly wishing I could fit this mount-speed talent into my builds on live.  I hope Blizzard follows through on the promise to leave you  points for optional talents so I can pick this up.
• The top tiers of unholy have little worth subspeccing into, so you'll end up putting the majority of your extra points in blood in the current build.  

Unholy:

• The biggest change to unholy is the loss of Bone Shield.  Most players underestimate this talent's current impact in raids.  Taking 20% less damage at all times is huge.  It prevents some insta-gibs (hello Mauradin cleaving me as I run past him on heroic gunship), reduces healer panic from big aoes, and makes you all-around the most survivable dps in any raid.  Get lucky enough to be the first Mark on heroic Saurfang and laugh all the way to your purples.  This would be even more important in the new Cataclsym healing environment, so it was placed 11 points into the blood tree to prevent non-tanks from getting it.
• The damage buff Hysteria was removed from Blood and replaced with a similar cooldown called Unholy Frenzy in the blood tree.  Sudden Doom also got moved from blood to give unholy free death coil procs.
• Ghoul Frenzy keeps getting buffed in the beta builds.  It's more afforable with the new talent philosophy, but it remains to be seen if 1 unholy rune will ever be worth it, especially now that:
• Scourge Strike costs 1 unholy rune, instead of 1 frost + 1 unholy.  Obliterate and Death Strike, the other FU abilities, remain unchanged.  Blizzard will presumably be introducing some use for the extra frost runes, as they can't possibly expect us to just cast extra Icy Touches, especially given the ludicrously long disease durations we get from epidemic.
• The likely solution to the frost rune problem is the new Festering Strike, which further extends disease durations and is the first 1 Blood + 1 Frost ability.  I don't see the other trees getting use out of this when they could cast Obliterate or Heart Strike.

Problems:
These builds are clearly still early and in flux.  Some of the priority things for Blizz to work on:

• Top-tier talents are lackluster in Frost and Unholy, especially for sub-speccing.  At least Improved Icy Touch, Icy Reach, and Vicious Strikes should be both reworked and shuffled.
• Ghoul Frenzy should either have its rune cost removed, or be reworked to be a desirable cooldown.  Maybe reduce it's duration to 30 seconds, double it's damage effect, and give it a 2 minute cooldown.
• Frost needs its "required" dps talents to be reduced in number.  Dual-wielders can only afford 1 optional utility point, while 2-hander-wielders can technically afford 4, but are forced to put two of those into Icy Reach and the other 2 into tier 2.  The whole tree really needs rearrange-in'.
• Can you tone down the cooldowns in Blood just a little bit?  And are you sure threat won't be an issue with all those resources going to staying alive?
• Festering Strike will have to be implemented very carefully.  Not only will it have to do more damage than an Icy Touch + Scourge Strike (remember, unholy gets Reaping automatically, so blood runes become death runes after being used for blood strikes), but it will also need a way to deal with the fact that you aren't going to be using the blood rune for a blood strike, and thus won't be getting a death rune later.  In the same patch, Festering Strike was added to Reaping, meaning that the Unholy rotation currently looks like SS > SS > FS > FS > SSx6 or something (I'm not really accounting for the new rune recharge mechanics there because I haven't tried them).

Any further evaluation will have to wait until I can actually get into beta and find out the real consequences of the new talents, the new rune cooldown system, and haste's effect on rune refresh speeds.

Starcraft 2 releasing

Yeah, I haven't been around in a while.  Got real life stuff, blah blah blah.  I'm not gone, and I'll be back, just need a blogging break.

Despite that, it's hard to contain my excitement today.  Starcraft 2 is finally releasing, after more than a decade of waiting.  It was far and away my favorite PC game until WoW came out, and my favorite non-Nintendo video game until the HD era as well.  It introduced me to the RTS genre, which is a perfect fit for my tastes but I had never seen before.  I love Sci-fi and I found the campaign mode revelatory because of how it merged storytelling with the gameplay.  SC so perfectly crystallized what makes a game great for me - and specifically to my personality - that it will always hold a place in my personal pantheon of great video games.  I bonded with lifelong friends over it, even.

So I'm quite relieved that Real ID isn't overstepping and I can play, with a clear conscience, this game I've been waiting for.  My amazon preorder has already shipped, and I'm spending today drooling in jealousy at the countries that, due to the vagaries of time zones, exist in the future and can already play.

My life for Aiur!

Facepalm

OK, at this point, you just have to laugh.

Blizzard Does Listen To You

Honestly, I'm pleasantly surprised: Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime just announced that Real ID will no longer be required to post on the SC2 and WoW forums.  They are responding to (an unprecedented level of) player feedback and concerns and rescinding Tuesday's announcement.  We can all breathe a sigh of relief: we get to continue using the forums without having to risk the dangers of exposing our real names.

I am both overjoyed and relieved.  It took them longer than I'd like to figure it out and make a statement, but you have to give them credit for doing the right thing, listening to the players, and even having the Big Man himself sign the statement.


I'm still worried about privacy, and the direction of Real ID.  I'm still worried that my game about killing internet dragons will be transmorphed into an intrusive social network.  Hell, the fact remains that even if they went back on it, Blizzard still claimed Real ID was "only for people you know and trust" while planning to give out your real name to anyone with an internet connection if you used the forums.

But Blizzard deserves credit and some positive press.  And I've re-preordered SC2 and will not be allowing my WoW account to lapse.

I am so glad that I no longer have to choose between my principles and my games.  At least for now.

Thank you, Blizzard.

Who is Activision/Blizzard's Customer Base

Traditionally, the customer for a video game company (publisher or developer) has always been the gamer.  Or, to avoid categorization, anyone who purchases a game to play it.  As a moneymaking venture, gaming companies focused on eliciting as many purchases as possible.  This motivated the developers to provide games and features that the most gaming customers would be interested in paying for.

Ask the average person on the street, and it's likely they think of television the same way: that the customer of the television industry is the viewer.  You would think, then, that this would motivate television companies to make decisions in the interest of the viewer, because their primary goal would be to make the viewer happy.

And yet, Firefly gets canceled, great shows get underpromoted into obscurity, and we're inundated with reality shows that everyone claims to hate yet everyone seems to watch.  [I believe they watch mostly because they want to watch TV and that's what happens to be on, and because it's something they can talk to coworkers and strangers about as a shared point of experience, much like sports; but the reasoning doesn't really matter to the point I'm trying to make here]

So why doesn't television cater to the audience in the way you'd predict if the viewers were the network's customers?

Because the television network's customer is not the viewer.  The network's customer is the advertiser.

NBC is not in the business of providing television programming to viewers.  It is in the business of providing eyes to advertisers.  Every decision is not made based on providing quality programming in a way viewers want to see it.  Decisions are instead made based on the most cost-effective ways to get advertisers to pay top-dollar for ad space.  That just so happens to lead to television striving to attract viewers, which often leads to the network acting in the viewers' interest; but such actions are coincidental.  They are simply a side effect of serving advertisers.

There's no need to demonize the networks over this, but it's important to be aware of it so we have realistic expectations.  Television networks do not consider you to be a customer, so don't be surprised when they routinely act in ways that seem unfathomable to you as a viewer.  If they lose 10% of viewers over intrusive product placements or longer commercial breaks, they'll do it if it increases the other ad revenue by 11%.  They'd never do it if viewers were the customers.

So what does this have to do with video games, and Activision/Blizzard's expansion of Real ID?  I'm glad you asked.

Actiblizz's recent actions seem unfathomable.  They are going against the wishes of the vast majority of their players.  They are startlingly unresponsive to criticism from the customerbase on the Battle.net and Real ID issues.  They are taking actions that are clearly contrary to the best interests of their players, and are going out of their way to avoid explaining them (except through the ocassional half-truth like "cleaning the forums").  People are canceling WoW accounts and SC2 preorders left and right over something that seems so easily avoidable or fixable.  Don't they care about losing so many customers?

You have probably guessed where I'm going with this by now: we, the players, are no longer the World of Warcraft's customerbase.  Advertisers are.

It's pretty clear from this interview and other statements about Real ID about how they "have been planning this change for a very long time" that Real ID is the lynchpin in an effort to leverage an untapped asset that Actiblizz has more of than any other company out there except Facebook: our personal information. 

Facebook makes its revenue from advertisers by using our personal information to help them target us more accurately, and by using our social connections to lubricate the spread of marketing messages.  Activision has done the math, looked at their potential to help advertisers target 12 million people, and decided that, come hell or high water, the potential loss in subscription revenue will be dwarfed by the potential gain in ad revenue along with the other benefits to emulating the Facebook business model with a near-captive mob of players to be tapped.

Blizzard once had a reputation for making games for the players.  They were known for scrapping sub-par products rather than releasing them for a quick buck.  They were known for being more player-friendly than any gaming company outside of Valve.  But to Actiblizz, we are no longer the customer.  We are an asset to be monetized . . . stock in a warehouse . . . entries in a quarterly earnings spreadsheet.  We are now Actiblizzard's product, to be sold to advertisers for more than our subscription is worth.  This is, ironically, our reward for making the game so popular.

Actiblizzard has signed a contract with Facebook.  They are committed to this course of action, no matter what we say.  And no matter how many of us quit, it's most likely going to be a profitable move for them.

From this point forward, Blizzard's reputation is done.  We can stop expecting them to treat us like customers.  Advertisers are their primary customers now.

I wonder if Actiblizzard treats them as well as the old, dead Blizzard used to treat us?

Real names on the WoW forums.

I cannot comment on this right now because I feel too betrayed and angry to be rational.  Just thought you might like to know that anyone who wants to keep their real name private can't use any Blizzard forum anymore, including WoW and SC2 forums.

http://bit.ly/9ZfjeD

Fuck you, Blizzard.

UPDATE: some comments added.  This is what I posted in the thread under one of my alts (gotta savor the anonymity while I have it):

This is a terrible idea, Blizzard. I know that you're going to go through with it no matter what we say, but hey, I gotta try. I love this game and I had a lot of respect and loyalty to your company, and that is all gone now with the advent of Real ID and it's expansion to other parts of the WoW experience. How long until giving out my personal information is no longer optional for simply playing the game?

You say that you're trying to improve the level of discourse on the forums. Do you realize that what you are doing is driving out every intelligent adult?

Any grown-up with a career outside the games industry? No longer posting on the forums, because it will hurt their career for their boss and peers to know they play WoW. Gaming is not understood by the masses, especially the career-minded.

Anyone mature enough to have a healthy sense of how to protect themselves online? No longer posting on your forums.

Any female who has ever been stalked (ie almost every female)? No longer posting on the forums.

Any female who has ever been ignored or disrespected simply for being female, but found herself finally treated as an equal in WoW because her gender was hidden? No longer posting on the forums.


What's left? Teenage boys who don't have enough career aspirations to want to keep their gaming a secret. The dumbest, most immature, most dead-end teenage boys.

That's the forum culture you are building. Good job thinking that one through.  



UPDATE 2:  You can post a complaint to the ESRB here:

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

I'm all for parents supervising the gaming activities of their children.  It is in no way the game company's responsibility to protect children.  BUT the ESRB has taken that goal upon themselves to help inform parents.  And a "TEEN" rating is not high enough when the game is giving out your personal information on the net.  No minor, including 17 year olds, should be allowed to purchase this game without the presence of a responsible adult who is well-informed about the parental controls available to them.  No minor should be able to choose to give out their personal information this way.

Here is the content of my complaint to the ESRB (limited to 500 characters, excuse the grammar):


Filing a formal complaint about Blizzard's announcement today that their forums will display your real first and last name.

It poses a security and privacy risk, especially for minors.  Please raise the rating for all Blizzard games to at least what you would give Grand Theft Auto (preferably Adults Only).

Giving out personal information is more dangerous today than letting a child see the content in GTA.

The move also shows a startling disregard for privacy that you should keep an eye on.

Cataclysm Talent Tree "Bloat"

Blizzard's stated goal in revamping the talent trees for Cataclysm and adding the Mastery aspect has been to remove a lot of the "required" talents from the trees and leave players with some options for utility talents.  They know they can't eliminate "cookie cutter" specs, but what they want is for those specs to include the sentence "spend the last 5-10 points anywhere you want".

So far, they are failing.

APB Review

If you are an MMO gamer, don't be fooled by the persistence of the world in Realtime World's new online GTA-clone All Points Bulletin (APB).  It's not for you.  I'd argue that it's not even an MMO.  It's a shooter with driving and great customization options that just so happens to take place in a single persistent world instead of the usual structure of separate servers for each match.

The core gameplay consists of receiving a mission that gives you an objective and some opponents and sets you loose in the city.  Each mission is more like a miniature Warsong Gulch match than a warcraft-style "quest" - though sometimes you will be Fed Ex-ing an item from one place to another - sometimes in an actual delivery truck, even.  Nonetheless, such quest-like mechanics end up bearing more resemblance to capture-the-flag than deliver-the-parcel.

If you can accept the analogy: APB is like Halo or Call of Duty if you got to hang out in the map between matches instead of going to a "find a match" menu.  Except it plays exactly like Grand Theft Auto, with very basic first-person shooting and challenging and sometimes wonky driving.

Interview Reveals that RealID is a Scam

Can't believe it took me nearly 2 months for me to come across this interview. In USA Today!

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/05/blizzard-and-facebooks-friendly-social-networking-deal-launches-with-starcraft-ii-/1


Holy crap.  Blizzard's plans for Real ID are beyond what I even imagined.

So back at Blizzcon, Blizz announced that they were going to be using Battle.net to add cross game/faction/server communication.  This sounded great.  It would let me ask a friend logged into WoW if they wanted to come play some Starcraft . . . in the form of a whisper to their character!  Yay!

Oh wait.  Now it turns out that they weren't adding cross game/server chat as a benefit to the players.  It's simply bait to create their own social network to get a piece of the Facebook revenue pie.

Scott Jennings is absolutely right about RealID

Read about it here.  And do not use RealID.  This thing needs to look like a gigantic waste of money on the next ActiBlizzard balance sheet.

New Post at VTW: Mass Effect 2 vs. Final Fantasy 13 Deathmatch!

One ring.  One cage.  Final Fantasy 13.  Mass Effect 2.  A metal chair.  


FIGHT!!!

How To Keep Raid Tiers From Being Skipped

If you are a new raider who hit level 80 some point after ToC came out, it's possible you have never seen Naxxramas (beyond weeklies, at least).  Ulduar is the best raid instance WoW has ever had, but despite the Accessibility Doctrine, very few people have seen Yogg-Saron.  This isn't because those instances are too hard, or because those people don't want to see lore.  It's simply because the rewards in those two instances are completely obsolete.  Heroic 5-mans give tokens that will buy you gear that blows the drops from those raids out of the water, and some 5-mans even drop gear on par with ToC 10 itself.  There's no efficient way to advance your character in the old instances, so very few people do them.

Blizzard could fix this right now while giving players an entry-level raid experience to learn from before going into "real" raids. 

Have bosses in "obsolete" raids drop a ton of emblems.

Make it so raiding Naxx is a more efficient way to get emblems (currently, Triumph Emblems) than heroics.  The earlier bosses should drop fewer emblems than the later bosses, so going deep into the instance would feel rewarding.  Maybe have the final boss also drop a Frost Emblem on top of the Triumphs.  This will be even easier to balance in Cata with the move from emblems to points.

And it fits in very neatly with Blizzard's current design philosophy because you can only do it once a week.  Instead of having to log in every day to do a heroic, I can get similar emblems from spending two hours at a stretch on one night doing Naxx.

Combine that with the upcoming weekly cap on emblems that forces you to choose how you want to earn them, and it's even better.

For this system, an "obsolete" instance is one that drops gear a tier behind the current lowest level emblem.  So using Wrath as an example, Naxx would have gone in the Dungeon Finder with inflated emblem rewards in the same patch that released ToC.

The best way to do this would be to put the older instances into the Dungeon Finder.  There are obviously major challenges with putting together, say, an ICC 25 group in the DF.  But with content as easy as Naxxramas, it's easily justifiable, especially with the new raid lockout system that let's you have more flexibility.  Just have it use the same minimum gear requirements as ToC 5 or the ICC 5 instances so you don't end up with an entire group in just greens expecting to be carried.  At the same time, I anticipate most of the people queueing for these will be on the low end of the gear scale, perhaps even being able to use a few "obsolete" drops from the raid in a few slots.

Seeing how Blizzard plans to automatically scale point acquisition as new raids are released (meaning that, for instance, when Tier 13 comes out, Tier 12 raids will go from "frost emblems" to "triumph emblems"), it worries me that we'll see the same abandonment of the early tiers that we saw late in Wrath.  And that would be a shame.  Giving players a reason to visit obsolete raid instances as an efficient way to advance their character would have a myriad of benefits, from breaking up the monotony of running the same raids over and over, to giving new raiders and new alts an appropriate training ground for raiding, to simply preventing good instances from becoming ghost towns.

I hope they think of it too.

The plot thickens....

More from Ghostcrawler on 10s vs 25s:

25-Player Raids not attractive anymore in Cataclysm?
If we wanted to remove 25-player raids, we'd just do that. We know a lot of players like them. Personally, I will probably keep raiding 25s. A lot of players like the 10s too though, and despite what fans of the 25s might think, offering lower item level loot in the 10s doesn't make them attractive enough. We're going to try instead offering more rewards (which includes loot) in the 25s, especially for the heroic modes. Many (though not all) of the players worried about the reward per effort of 25 raiding are concerned more with the heroic modes.

Upping the loot-per-raider in 25 man hard modes makes a lot of sense.  One of the biggest problems with 10s vs 25s right now is how much easier it is to do normal mode 25s vs hard mode 10s for such similar gear.  And that's not even considering that normal mode 10-man Lich King is much harder than the entire first wing of 25-man normal mode ICC.

 It also sounds like 25-man hards will get more perks, which I'm speculating will include things like mounts.  We'll have to wait and see.  I'm just so happy that 10s are being fairly represented now, but I don't want to let that blind me.  I don't want 25s to die.

Cataclysm's systems seem to be in such a constant state of flux lately that it really makes me worry about them making the November/December deadline, though.  I sort of expected them to be approaching the polishing stage now, not in the thick of developing the new stuff.