Tap into those fanboy sources and give us the inside Blizzard info as to what they were really trying to accomplish.
It's really funny how crazy people get with this question. Things like "Obviously this whole thing was planned out to boost blizzards reputation in the hands of Activision. 1. Everyone suspects activision of forcing such a stupid move and crys out in agony. 2. Blizzard listens to the feedback and does not implement it and are seen as heros."
Really quite some funny stuff.
In all honesty though we do have to remember that they were seriously considering something like this, and they will likely do something just as stupid again in the future... and if it succeeds it could be a very bad thing for the industry as gamers.
I did ask one of my friends about it, hes usually pretty hush hush on all internal stuff though so all that I really got out of him was that he doesn't like it. And that seems to be the vibe in general there,
most employees there also can see why it's a bad idea, and they would prefer it not happen as well.
He will not be utilizing RealID in game either, which is optional unless you are wanting to talk cross game (SC2 - WoW - D3), He says that he will just continue using steam for that.
My other friend hasn't been online since the the day after the whole hubub started, I didn't ask the day of. I'd prefer not to ask some of the other guys that I just happen to have.
I think Blizzard employees are gagged so tightly on this that they're going to have chafe burns for a month.
The impression I've picked up is "We hate this as much as you do, but we like having gainful employment so we're not saying nada."
Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard, to see what the internal buzz on this was. Apparently, at the moment the employees are largely as pissed as the players, and she stated that despite attempts to keep it hushed, it has become known that the big creative players within Blizzard are pretty much as unhappy about this as we are. Everybody has been told they are not free to comment on this situation outside of specially prepared statements.
It’s still going ahead, however (and here’s where in-house rumours and hearsay really start coming into play): from what they’ve picked up, the Blizzard leads have been told in no uncertain terms that the non-gameplay-related direction of the game is working to a different blueprint now. GC and company are free to play with shiny new talent trees all they like, for example, but for the first time the decisions regarding Battle.net implementation, Real ID, and plans for the general acquisition of new players for the business are no longer in Blizzard’s own hands, and that’s not going down too well.
Y'know, with each new announcement coming from Blizzard I become less and less interested in them.
I fully agree, I think that they are losing touch with their fanbase. The fact that they would even announce something like this in the first place, it doesn't take much research and silently probing around to realize that this was a terrible idea.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252
The heads of Infinity Ward were fired for breaches of contract as we know... Apparently they actually wanted to do things that they enjoyed doing as a developer, like supporting their games. Creating patches etc. Activision wanted them to go make another billion dollars though.
Also this.