Since it's patch day (which also equates to Apartment Cleaning Day, but not at 6:00am, not so sure the roommate would appreciate me clanging around with the dishes or vacuuming right now.) I can not log in at the moment, which finally gives me time to blog. I've been a busy little small stinging flying insect with a couple projects that I've piled onto myself. First there is the Pocket Posse, and Zyrinxie is now sitting at level 22. However, since I still have quite a while remaining to complete that particular character before the time limit expires (I'm giving myself until Oct. 15, though the official deadline is Oct. 22) it has actually been put to the side for a much shorter time-limit project.
It started with me trying, on a level 42 warrior, to capture the flames of the enemy capitals. I didn't mind dying to the guards as I made my way there, I expected nothing else. What
infuriated me was the players, specifically hunters, warlocks, and unholy death knights, that were camping the fire with their pets on aggressive. After dying a few more times I gave up, and then vowed in my guild's OOC chat channel that I would be 80 before the end of the Midsummer Fire Festival and I would hunt down every Alliance hunter, warlock, and death knight...and cleave them to death. I then proceeded to get 6 levels in a day, and being in the late 40s that's no small feat. I'm running out of places to level. Though a few people commented that Northrend will slow me down, I did not agree. I can go from 68-80 in the course of 2-3 days, if I focus hard on it. The hardest part, what I've found to ALWAYS be the largest slowdown is where I'm sitting right now, 48-58... so close to no longer being in the Old World but at the same time still stuck there with nothing but the most irritating zones left to quest in. This quest, of course, overrides my previous project on that particular character, which was to get the "of the Horde" title prior to hitting 80. Titles can wait, the time for vengeance is NOW.
This project has cause me to put my druid on that server on hold, and as I explained to my guild master of that particular guild (my warrior and druid are in similar but different guilds), I promised I would pick up my druid once my warrior was 80 and I had completed my Vengeance Objective. He wasn't entirely pleased with this turn of events, but since I said I'd hop on my druid for guild meetings and events, he seemed okay with it. Although I did give him the option of shelling out the $55 to transfer my alliance druid from Argent Dawn and faction transfer her, he declined. Bahaha.
So, now on to the topic of the...topic of this blog post. With patch 3.3.5 going live today, the RealID thing is also going live. I've read numerous opinions on it, ranging from rage to pleasure, and taking the time to think about it... I like it. I can see why those people who don't like it are against it (privacy and security issues, etc. Some people on Moon Guard even expressed concerns about their friends / guildmates / significant others finding out about their Goldshire ERP alts...to which I chuckled. ) but for me personally, I think it's a good idea. For example, I have one friend left on Warsong that I still try to catch online to talk to, but I don't get the chance to near as much as I would like. He also doesn't get the chance to roll an alt on Argent Dawn to talk to me and, on top of that, I'm pretty much damn near impossible to track down. Not that I intend to be, mind you, but my alts make me a pain in the ass to track. He already knows my real name (which is not something I keep hidden under wraps for any reason, I really don't care if people know what my name is. ) and he told me his real name but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. He's just...Tohs.
In addition to him there are numerous friends on Argent Dawn that I don't like having to log onto my paladin or tab out and use AIM to talk to - case in point would be That Priest. And I have no issue giving out the email address I use for my battle.net account - I rarely check that particular email account so if I get spam on it, oh well. Not to mention, to the crowd that cries out in righteous indignation that giving someone your b.net account name is half the information they need to hack your account and steal all your epix, I have an authenticator. So if one of my RealID friends turned out to be a douchenozzle, well, they still can't get into my account.
In addition to that point, many people have brought up that, people on your RealID friendslist can see you on ANY character, including your super-secret "I'm mad at all my friends and guildmates" alt that they log on to play in peace. Although at that point my suggestion would be if you're so upset with people ingame that you have to hide on an alt....there's a little button that says "Logout". Go watch a movie or something and chill out. It'll do you some good.
Maybe I'm a bit too lax about my information being secure, but I don't see this being the sign of the coming apocalypse or anything. Am I going to RealID everyone I meet in-game? No. I will, however, RealID friends I've known for a long time, or people that I reasonably trust. And for those friends of mine that decline to use the RealID service, I will respect that decision.
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