Q: Why do I now need to merge my World of Warcraft account with a Battle.net account in order to continue to log in to the game?

A: Because Blizzard said so.

Q: But blizzard said that - "We’re asking World of Warcraft players to become a part of Battle.net now as part of our preparation to launch these new tools."

A: Asking implies a choice, Blizz are not offering one, Blizzard are demanding you move, in short Blizzard lie.

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Honestly Blizz , if your going to force people to move accounts, at least be honest about it in the FAQ. If people wanted to move to Battle.net to take advantage of the new features, they would have. Everyone knows it's there, but they choose not to switch. Now you demand that they do.

Up until now it's been a pretty classic account transfer strategy. Step 1 - grab early innovators, Step 2 - offer an incentive to move people over (mandatory for beta registration), Step 3 - Close account for new clients, Step 4 - Make a big noise about everyone needing to move. Though you seem to have merged Step 3 & 4 in one, brave...or stupid. And judging by the shock of many people, I'm going with stupid.

I would love to see the figures on how many people had moved before your 12/10 announcement. I'm assuming it's far more than people realise for you to take this step, I guess beta registration is a big carrot.

I also wonder what you will do if people simply refuse to switch? Traditionally there are 2 blockers that can force old account systems to stay open for years on end, a) high value clients refuse to move (well everyone pays the same, so that isn't a factor), b) too many clients refuse to move...which is the one applicable here. Is there a number you are willing to cut?

You have clearly calculated the savings from consolidated hardware and potential reselling from the new Battle.net and tallied this up against potential losses. So how many people are you willing to lose? More importantly how many people does it take to pull the plug on this? 2%? 5%? 10%? And do you think they know that actually they hold the power, and all they need to do is refuse to switch? Just like they changed Blizz policy on so many other things.

This will be an interesting one to watch.

Why, oh why would you refuse to change to battle.net?
It takes 5 mins to do and changes nothing whatsoever.

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Q u o t e:
Why, oh why would you refuse to change to battle.net?
It takes 5 mins to do and changes nothing whatsoever.

-.-'

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Indeed, I switched a couple of months ago and have had no problems at all and for added security I get to use the Authenticator tool on my iPod. I would have bought an Authenticator from the Blizzard store but for some reason the postage is about 13 squids which is over double the price of the Authenticator!

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Q u o t e:
Q: Why do I now need to merge my World of Warcraft account with a Battle.net account in order to continue to log in to the game?

A: Because Blizzard said so.

Q: But blizzard said that - "We’re asking World of Warcraft players to become a part of Battle.net now as part of our preparation to launch these new tools."

A: Asking implies a choice, Blizz are not offering one, Blizzard are demanding you move, in short Blizzard lie.

____________________________

Honestly Blizz , if your going to force people to move accounts, at least be honest about it in the FAQ. If people wanted to move to Battle.net to take advantage of the new features, they would have. Everyone knows it's there, but they choose not to switch. Now you demand that they do.

Up until now it's been a pretty classic account transfer strategy. Step 1 - grab early innovators, Step 2 - offer an incentive to move people over (mandatory for beta registration), Step 3 - Close account for new clients, Step 4 - Make a big noise about everyone needing to move. Though you seem to have merged Step 3 & 4 in one, brave...or stupid. And judging by the shock of many people, I'm going with stupid.

I would love to see the figures on how many people had moved before your 12/10 announcement. I'm assuming it's far more than people realise for you to take this step, I guess beta registration is a big carrot.

I also wonder what you will do if people simply refuse to switch? Traditionally there are 2 blockers that can force old account systems to stay open for years on end, a) high value clients refuse to move (well everyone pays the same, so that isn't a factor), b) too many clients refuse to move...which is the one applicable here. Is there a number you are willing to cut?

You have clearly calculated the savings from consolidated hardware and potential reselling from the new Battle.net and tallied this up against potential losses. So how many people are you willing to lose? More importantly how many people does it take to pull the plug on this? 2%? 5%? 10%? And do you think they know that actually they hold the power, and all they need to do is refuse to switch? Just like they changed Blizz policy on so many other things.

This will be an interesting one to watch.

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It's perfectly simple, really. This company is providing a product to you, a digital product for which you pay. If you want to use the product, you have to abide by their rules as they made, maintain and provide the game.
Deal with it.

So you think they introduced b-net for fun?

As they've explained, the b-net will allow cross-realm communication and friends lists, and even communication between players of different Blizzard games. It will also give you one account in which all your Blizzard games are gathered.

It takes 5 minutes to get a b-net account and it has no disadvantages. Why the cluck do you need to whine about it? For Chuck's sake, grow up. I mean, what the duck? It's just silly.


PS:

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Q u o t e:
* Server is busy, please try again
59 secs remaining before you can post.

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Wut the fork? I had to wait a minute to post my counter-QQ?

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Q u o t e:
Why, oh why would you refuse to change to battle.net?
It takes 5 mins to do and changes nothing whatsoever.

-.-'

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I didn't comment on battle.net functionality. I commented on the account transfer strategy. Blizzard had been reading from the playbook on this uptil now, doing steps 3 & 4 in one is unusual in my experience.

And when it comes to account transfer, often functionality has no relevance whatsoever. Of far more concern are knowledge, comfort, understanding, familiarity, fear of change, convenience. Quite often people simply don't see why they should move. And depending on the numbers who agree, often they end up not having to.

You clicked the "I Agree" button so shut up. If you had a problem with it then you should have clicked decline and QQ about it a year ago when everyone was told that they would need to switch to a B.NET account at some stage in the future.

There is no reason NOT to switch to B.NET, none! If you're willing to give up World of Warcraft for no reason whatsoever, feel free! If the 2% of people that quit all whine for no reason like you then Blizzard have done themselves a service.

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Q u o t e:
It will also give you one account in which all your Blizzard games are gathered.

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No, they only force me to create multiple email accounts for myself and my family to use that dreaded Battlenet (of which I don't give a rats arse whether I can "converse with other players across platforms" - I'm playing WoW and not any other game).

Battlenet doesn't support multiple unique accounts that are being secured by their OWN passwords !

In other words : assume you put all your six or seven unique WoW accounts under one Battlenet account (because you don't want like six or seven new email accounts to log on with), then after logging on, you will magically have access to ALL the six or seven unique WoW accounts.

if you and your familiy, wife, husband, children, are playing WoW, then I don't think you would want your kids to have access to your account, would you ?

Which means I have to go to freaking hotmail/yahoo whatever, to create an email account for every player in my family and hook them up to that dreaded Battlenet...

Until now, I created every unique WoW account with our ONE family email account - gone that convenience.

It's a BAD design and it doesn't provide me any advantages.
Full stop.

Is being able to talk to your family on WoW or your friends on WoW no matter what faction, server or character they're playing not nice? It is to me...

You realise you're complaining because you can't account share and are too lazy to set up a couple of email addresses?

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Q u o t e:
Is being able to talk to your family on WoW or your friends on WoW no matter what faction, server or character they're playing not nice? It is to me...

You realise you're complaining because you can't account share and are too lazy to set up a couple of email addresses?

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"lazy" .. please mind your language a bit, dear sir/madam ..

Anyway, no, nothing to do with "lazyness" but the inconvenience of having yet another silly third party system (yahoo/hotmail whatever) interfering with my gaming.

Yet another email address, password, credentials and whatnot to be registered in some third party system, which is being hacked on a regular basis (yes , read the latest news on useraccounts and passwords being out in the open) ...

So please mind your language and respect someone else's concern about being forced to bring in yet another party, only to be able to play a game.

It would be perfect, if only Battlenet would support multiple (individually secured) WoW accounts on ONE email account - but it doesn't.

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Q u o t e:

Yet another email address, password, credentials and whatnot to be registered in some third party system, which is being hacked on a regular basis (yes , read the latest news on useraccounts and passwords being out in the open) ...

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You do know that Battle.net is Blizzard, right?

He's complaining about needing to make an email address and the email address is the third party. I don't know what anyone would gain out of "hacking" the email address if you make an email, don't tell anyone about it and only use it for logging in to battle.net.

Oh and get an authenticator then.

Either way the entire family is not supposed to sharing ONE account, it's account sharing! (Yes Battle.Net account counts)

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Q u o t e:


You do know that Battle.net is Blizzard, right?

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I do, but that's not the issue.

And Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo aren't Blizzard ...
Why the heck do I need to bring in another third party just to play a Blizzard game ?

I have an email account, which is shared by my family, and that's good enough..
No other Failmail/Hackmail will be forced upon us...

Stop crying just switch,,in the end it will be better, and easier..and it takes 2 minutes..

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Q u o t e:
He's complaining about needing to make an email address and the email address is the third party. I don't know what anyone would gain out of "hacking" the email address if you make an email, don't tell anyone about it and only use it for logging in to battle.net.

Oh and get an authenticator then.

Either way the entire family is not supposed to sharing ONE account, it's account sharing! (Yes Battle.Net account counts)

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That's not what I said .. my familiy is sharing one EMAIL account and that makes perfect sense.
I have quite a lot of LEGAL and unique WoW accounts, and every member of my family is playing on his/her own account. Nothing illegal about it.

That Battlenet fails in design, that's what I'm trying to address.
It would be solved by making it possible to ask for a password for every unique account, AFTER logging in with the email-address.

But it doesn't ..

battle.net is an account, a seperate account and each person is meant to have one. If you share a battle.net account it's as much sharing as sharing a World of Warcraft account.

If youre children are over 13 and you do not allow them to have their own email address then you have bigger issues here than battle.net

If they're under 13 they're below the age rating for WoW and shouldn't be playing anyway.

How hard is it to make a disposable email address that you only use to register for battle.net with? Or to trust your kids not to log onto your account?

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Q u o t e:


"lazy" .. please mind your language a bit, dear sir/madam ..

Anyway, no, nothing to do with "lazyness" but the inconvenience of having yet another silly third party system (yahoo/hotmail whatever) interfering with my gaming.

Yet another email address, password, credentials and whatnot to be registered in some third party system, which is being hacked on a regular basis (yes , read the latest news on useraccounts and passwords being out in the open) ...

So please mind your language and respect someone else's concern about being forced to bring in yet another party, only to be able to play a game.

It would be perfect, if only Battlenet would support multiple (individually secured) WoW accounts on ONE email account - but it doesn't.

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If you were to only use it for battlenet and nothing else, having another email address is no problem. If you're worried about security, pick some tiny company who no one would care enough about to attempt to hack or to have some insider give them access.
Anyone who just reads headlines about big security problems and freaks out is indeed lazy. If you change your password regularly and have a strong password, there is no problem.

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Q u o t e:


I do, but that's not the issue.

And Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo aren't Blizzard ...
Why the heck do I need to bring in another third party just to play a Blizzard game ?

I have an email account, which is shared by my family, and that's good enough..
No other Failmail/Hackmail will be forced upon us...

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You already had to use an e-mail to register your wow acc in the first place..

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Q u o t e:
You clicked the "I Agree" button so shut up. If you had a problem with it then you should have clicked decline and QQ about it a year ago when everyone was told that they would need to switch to a B.NET account at some stage in the future.

There is no reason NOT to switch to B.NET, none! If you're willing to give up World of Warcraft for no reason whatsoever, feel free! If the 2% of people that quit all whine for no reason like you then Blizzard have done themselves a service.

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The outcome of this will be that Blizzard will see just how many people from their statistics actually play the game. Their user base for WOW can only be the people with penguins in the end.

Those that say we already agreed to this fail to see that the BNet account is a new account not a merged account. Your stand alone account with WOW no longer works after 12th Nov. So that agreement is no more. Why Blizzard just don't say it like it is and that to play WOW you gotta enter into a new agreement I do not know.

Anyway.. I've said all this before. Enough. I await to see my new terms of agreement when Blizzard advise me and I will decide then if I agree to them.

Just one minor point... For those that doubt whether many will just decline this new account the truth will be in the pudding as they say, cus everyone that you meet after the 12th will be only those that signed up. A 100% Bnet user base. The risk for Blizzard is that those casuals and resting players may decide when faced with the no entry sign on login in months to come to just cancel, cus they can't be bothered anymore. Like the OP said.. I shall certainly watch what happens with interest.

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Q u o t e:
Stop crying just switch,,in the end it will be better, and easier..and it takes 2 minutes..

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So you always do whatever people tell you to do ?
And mind your language, by the way - I'm not one of your schoolmates.

I resent the fact that Blizzard is forcing me to create yet another handful of useless email accounts.
It's like all the other Facebooks, Linkedins, Yahoos, GMails, etc .. JOIN or you don't belong.

Sure, I will have to abide to all this nonsense, otherwise it's no more WoW.
What a society we live in nowadays ..