In the past couple of days, I kept trying to write a post, but couldn't bring myself to do it.

I had a case of the Blizzard Blues. I think Larisa was feeling similarly.

It came from a feeling of complete and utter betrayal and disenchantment. I felt stupid and ashamed for feeling so let down by a corporation. I've never been a fan of big businesses; how could I have been such a fool? How could I have let a corporate entity emotionally affect me to such a degree? How pathetic. Don't worry, I recognized it; And I felt the bigger fool due to it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I recognize that Blizzard is a business and that they not only need to keep making money, but that they have to continually try and find ways to make MORE money. That's capitalism baby.

But Real ID on the forums was one step too far. Over the past week the community came out in droves to protect themselves and maintain the fantasy in their fantasy game. And there were, I should note, a lot of people who thought Real ID on the forums was either a good idea, or at least okay and nothing to worry about. I don't begrudge you your opinion on the matter. I think the majority of the WoW community recognizes that something needs to be done about the forums.

However, the vast and most vocal of the community stepped up to the plate and told Blizz how they felt. From the forums themselves, to the blogger community, the the gaming community at large, all the way up to the Washington Post and major news channels, we made our opinion loud and clear.

And Blizzard listened.

Every time there's a nerf; Everytime people demand some change in the game, it is unlikely that Blizz will make the changes demanded just because the customers insist they should. But there's a big difference between the developers trying to make a game that will function well, and the corporate structure trying to push big changes that the customer does not want. Don't confuse the two.

Blizz is always listening, due mostly to the efforts of their Community Managers, who go out and stand, like a fly on the wall, and take note of what we are saying - of what we want, of what we hate. They do a hell of a lot more than click that lock button in the forums, and I think they should get credit for that. They don't just monitor the forums; they read the blogs, they are the lifeline to the community. If you bloggers check your stats often enough, you will catch them from time to time, stopping by to see what you have to say.

And they communicated our message loud and clear to the powers that be at Blizzard. And despite how much the original decision to implement Real ID on the forums sickened me, despite how much faith I lost in this company, and despite the fact that they may still try to do something similar in the future, I will always know that when it really counted, they were willing to listen to the community and reverse a massive business model decision. I'm sure there are lots of financial and PR reasons why the choice was made; But I don't care. By the time the announcement got to us, they had undoubtedly already invested a lot of time and resources into implementing it.

I'm proud of Blizzard. It's not always easy to admit when you're wrong. But I actually have a hell of a lot more respect for a company that is willing to reverse a mistake than a company that never even makes one.

(Also, to Nethaera... I hope you were pretty excited you got to be the one to post this letter!)

Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

As a big advocate of the WoW community, and a (hopefully) somewhat active member in it, you can bet your sissy robes I'm pretty much a dorfish cheerleader for WoW Community.

I'm not just talking about the blogging or podcasting community. I'm not just talking about the world-first raiders. I'm talking about the wow-playing community - which includes all those random people you meet in pugs.

Now, I ask again: How do YOU feel about the WoW community?

The following thread made me start thinking about this question a lot - and when I spotted it on the WoW forums, and read Nethaera's response, I just had to share it. Every now and then Nethaera chimes in on a thread, and just adds a lot of life and warmth to it - she has this amazing ability to give someone a very gentle smackdown. You know, the kind where you're laying on the floor wondering what the hell just happened, but your face doesn't hurt one bit. This girl's got skills, man.

In the forum thread, the OP tells the story of a random heroic run in which the tank was pretty much an outright jerk. The details aren't really that important, since it's pretty much the same story you hear all over about random PuGs and a specific category of self-righteous tanks. The OP feels pretty desolate about the state of the WoW community due to the asinine antics of the tank and the sexism and vitriol spewed forth from one of the DPS.

These kind of ppl disgust me, depresses me since it shows that not even in a game where the goal is to relax and have fun, people are just as cruel and heartless as in the real world.... I know this behavior has been around in vanilla and in BC but honestly it seems to be more virulent and frequent. I will forever never understand how people can and will act like this to other humans. Perhaps i should consider quitting despite enjoying the game and maybe the expansion coming up.

I sympathize with the OP, I really do. I don't think he is a whiny player, or pathetic for being sad about the state of people with whom he is playing this game. Running into a PuG with one jerk and three average, quiet people will generally be scalded into your brain as "that shitty pug with the jerk". But the truth is, out of five people, that's one bad apple. Maybe the other three aren't particularly stellar examples of warmth and comraderie, but often times in LFD pugs, people just decide not to talk in order to avoid potential conflict with random jerks.

It reminds me of my dating days. Back in my youth (ha), when I lived in the dorms, I didn't really care much for college guys. So I fell back on what I felt most comfortable with: teh internetz. I dated people I met through online personals, and I was never really ashamed or embarassed by it. Truth is, the folks I met online are still some of the best people I've ever met - because I was able to relate to them through conversation instead of just both being in the right place at the right time. Hell, I met the guy to whom I'm engaged through an online personals site.

My mother, however, was not very fond of this concept (once she met my fiance though, she decided internet matching was a fantastic idea and promotes it to any singleton that will hear her). She was always worried about me meeting "creepy internet people". I think it never occurred to her that by her definition, I was a creepy internet person. One day I explained to her that the percentage of creepy people in the general internet population is the same as in the "real world" of folks hanging out at a bar - but if you talk to them over the internet, you have a safer way to weed out the creepies before actually meeting them face to face and putting yourself at risk.

The sad truth is, it's not that the WoW community sucks. In general, people are just more likely to be jerks to strangers - internet or no internet. The internet just allows you to meet a hell of a lot more strangers. You get jerks on every forum, and the WoW forums are certainly no exception.

In fact, the WoW community is actually pretty stellar. It's huge, and all encompassing. I think in order to get a feel for how great the community is, you actually have to step outside of the game. You even need to step away from the forums. Check out some blogs, some podcasts, twitter, conventions... truthfully, you could probably just ask around your workplace or school and you'd find someone else who plays WoW.

The thread in question got very big, very quickly. It's probably because Nethaera stepped down and got a little stern with the community-downers (as a side note, I really don't understand jumping on a community forum to ... bash the very community hosting that forum).

My input? The community is amazing. I love it. That said, bad impressions often last longer than good ones. There are always people looking to stir up things or cause some trouble, but I would strongly advise you not to let these types of experiences swallow up all the other good ones you've had or could have in the future.

And later in the thread...

I'd say it's an understatement myself. I've seen a lot of things and met a lot of people over the years. Yes, it is an amazing community of people. Take a look at the 5 and 15 year anniversary photos. Take a look at all the fan art. Look at the fansites or listen to the podcasts. Check out some of the WoW Stories, the comics, the craft projects people make, the cakes and cookies they've baked, the machinima that has been made. Check out all of the guilds that exist and the challenges they've taken on. And then there are all the things you don't see, because people don't generally go around saying, "I did x, y, z nice things for people today."

I've gotten hugs at BlizzCon from these people and watched the joy that has been shown as they met up with friends they've never met before, or reunited with ones they hadn't seen in awhile and much much more.

I get tired of seeing the community as a whole get a bad rap because of a few inconsiderate people who haven't learned how to play nice with others. It happens, but those people are not the entirety of the community and even those people can be amazing at times when they choose to be.

She chimes in multiple times later in the thread, and I encourage you to go through and at least read what she has to say. Her eternal positive attitude is personally inspiring, and it's not just because of the game.

Three cheers to the WoW community - and if you're reading this, you're an integral part of it. You, reader, are the WoW community, and I think you're great. It's people like you that make this game much bigger and better than the pixels from which it is constructed.

I know that a lot of people try to forget the long gruelling leveling process, but I am not one of those (obviously). Though I, like most folks these days, do power level most of my alts now, back when I was new to the WoW game, I had no idea what that meant. Nor did I understand the terms QQ, guild, ninja, raid, welfare epic... well you get the idea.

Poor Elimeny the Paladin. Doomed forever to noobish status. I was level 40 before I understood (and began to use) Judgement. And that was back in the days where you had to renew your seals after every judgement and blah blah blah. Oh and you only had one type of judgement, none of this "Judgement of Light" crap.

Anyway, I digress.

Elimeny leveled in Elwynn Forest, like most humans, and I didn't have someone running me around. My friend who referred me to Lothar stuck around for about the first 2 levels and then he was gone, and I was on my own. So... I spent a LOT of time in that forest. For a week and a half, the Elwynn Forest music was the soundtrack to my life.

And my life, at the time, was lost. I had just dropped out of a PhD program, moved back halfway across the country to live with my boyfriend (now fiance), and not only was I jobless, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had wanted to play WoW for awhile, but would never allow myself to do so while I was in school. WoW was sort of my "I'm a grad school drop out!" celebration.

I cannot venture back into Elwynn Forest without remembering those days. I haven't been able to bring myself to level another human for such a long time, due in no small part to the fact that no other leveling experience can compare with the first time. And being around that music makes me feel completely nostalgic.

It's similar to being in Dun Murogh, Jessabelle's homeland. Everytime I'm there and I hear the music, I'm reminded of all the things I did while leveling her, of discovering new things about being a priest.

The soundtrack for WoW is amazing. My favorite music is over in Grizzly Hills. What about you? Where do you hang out, just for the sound effects?

There's a bit of a burnout theme cycling through the Magic Internet Waves these days, as suggested by Ful and S&S, as well as a few days ago by the tiny pink haired one. Indeed, even at home, my fiance and I have been talking about how we *might* be spending too much time playing WoW, leading to me having one or two (or possibly thousands) of panic attacks about school. In fact, when your Giant Uber Presentation for your graduate seminar includes a picture of the Big Bad Wolf, perhaps it's time to consider whether you have a slightly unhealthy obsession.

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for awhile, because I'm a little on the Type A side, if you didn't already know. I like lists. I like spreadsheets *swoon*. I even love flow charts. So I invite others to consider the same question: What would you do if you weren't playing WoW? I have no doubt there are plenty of other great things I could do with WoW. As far as productivity goes, I could, in theory, be doing much more productive things *ahemthesiscough*. But I do get a lot of benefit from WoW as well.

What might I do if I didn't play wow?

• Sleep more.
• Take those banjo lessons I've been wanting forever.
• Start one of the novels I've been meaning to write.
• Write more fanfic (shh)
• Clean the house? (hahahahahahaah yeah right.)
• Paint/Refinish/Make curtains/rip up carpet/put up moulding, shutters, windowbo... no, probably not.
• Plan a freaking wedding *shudder*
• Walk the poor dog.
• Call my sist... no. Again, probably not.
• Get more work done on my thesis.
• Take horseback riding lessons.

Well now. Those all (or most) seem to be pretty good things I could better do with my wow time. But now, shall I list some of the benefits I get from my time playing WoW:

• My wow friends. I do not really socialize much outside of wow - i live very far away from all my friends, and I hate the phone. Anytime I'm in desperate need of conversation, I can jump on WoW and join guild chat.
• Help with my thesis. There are quite a few people in my guild and alliance that have helped me with my thesis. Some in small ways, just by giving me a sounding board, and others in bigger ways.
• Quality time having fun and doing something I enjoy with my fiance.
• The feeling of satisfaction I get when I progress through a new raid, or get exalted with a new faction, learn a new recipe, max out a skill... these all may seem silly to others, but it's on par with learning to play a new song on my guitar. It's the satisfaction that comes from proving you have excelled at something new in your favorite hobby.

Even though there may be more items on the first list, the items in the second are much longer. I get a lot of personal satisfaction and psychological boosts from playing WoW. While at times it may be conducive to the rest of my life if I restrict my playing time, there are a lot of benefits for me in playing WoW. Therefore, I have no intention of stopping anytime soon!