An interesting read on the "confessions" from a former EA Viral Marketer. I caught this yesterday on Reddit too, and just decided at the last minute to write about it.

This is a known job (mostly outsourced and Work At Home) by many in the gaming industry, but most people don't talk about it. There are a lot of job titles and duties that the industry really doesn't like to discuss. :)

It really doesn't matter if this person is a phony or not as what they say about the job is true. I'd really like someone to come along, though, that can provide real evidence of their job and duties and even provide several real world examples of things they've done.

All Andromeda posted, unfortunately, were public Quarterly Shareholders documents that everyone has access to. And they spent very little talking about their job, and more time attacking the company and it's games. It would have been far more convincing if they had provided real documentation from their job (since there would have been a lot of it, and none of which could have been traced back to them.)

That's why I appreciate some of the recent comments made by Brian Fargo, for example, about the real inner-problems that happen between Developers and Publishers that no one knows about. Now, we finally have a recognizable and trusted name providing proof that what many suspected really does happen.

Andromeda's job is basically conducting creative viral marketing on sites and forums (including /v/), praising their employer, and derailing threads or putting down competitors to deflect and control perception about a game.

You never really know who these people are. They spend years creating online identities, and they have multiple identities on several major and minors forums or blogs. A forum poster on MMO-Champion, for example, might have a dozen identities each with hundreds of posts (or one primary account with thousands and a "good reputation"). They're paid to do this 8+ hours per day, so you can only imagine how much time they spend on sites, forums and blogs building up trust and familiarity over several months or years.

It's a pretty easy job too. And there are different kinds of "marketing" responsibilities.

Some of these professional sockpuppets or shills will primarily engage in praising or controlling the perception of a company or it's game. Others, though, might have the task of attacking competitors, talk trash about their games or generate bad press, try to organize mass "uprisings" against certain companies, constantly attack the reputation of someone who is critical of their employer (any attempt to discredit them, including lies), create bad reviews of competing games (mostly targeting crowds to do it for them), or they engage in unethical practices to deplete the marketing and customer support budgets of competitors.

The key though is manipulating crowd psychology. They want as many people on their side as possible to do the most damage, so they're usually highly social (online) individuals within forums and they use sites like Twitter. They also have multiple accounts, so they're hard to distinguish since each account might have different followers. And, the more followers the better. What's also nice is that they can buy the obedience of many followers by handing out free stuff given to them by their employer. :)

It's really hard to spot these shills though. They engage is casual chatter, talk about their day or their family, movies they watch, etc. And, they're hard to distinguish from simple fanboys. Maybe they even act as fanboys as part of their cover. There probably is a detectable pattern, and a way to find these people, but one would need some real and proven examples of posts from their various identities. I'm sure that some of the more talented viral marketing trolls could probably spot each other though.

This isn't exactly a late post, I just wasn't planning on writing about it. :)

It's an issue that has already been talked about to death on many forums, and I prefer the kind of stuff that no one else is talking about. However, a lot of you have asked for my opinion on the matter so I'll oblige.

Basically, many WOW Annual Pass subscribers are upset to learn that they no longer have immediate access to the MoP Beta, and entry into the Beta is actually based on a previously unannounced Blizzard-internal surprise invitation ruleset.

Over the course of the test, we’ll be inviting Annual Pass holders, press, fansites, friends and family, and opt-in beta testers to participate.

In their official announcement, Blizzard makes note that "To find out more about getting into the beta test, including info on how we’re inviting Annual Pass holders, please read the Mists of Pandaria Beta Opt-in announcement and FAQ." Well, at least they created a FAQ on HOW they're inviting the Annual Pass members giving everyone an idea of when they'll be invited!

Unfortunately, here's all they wrote on the subject within the FAQ:

We’re inviting Annual Pass holders in waves over the course of the beta test, and will be ramping up the number of invites we send as quickly as possible. We’ll be inviting Annual Pass holders based on several factors, including how long your World of Warcraft account has been active and when you signed up for the Annual Pass.

The detailed information on "how we're inviting Annual Pass holders" was even worse than the official announcement, and it provides no clues as to what's going on.

This was a vast departure from that Blizzard customers were previously led to believe, but more on that later.

Hey, I Didn't Say That!

You might have noticed that I get misquoted a lot, or people just spread general misinformation about the blog. Anyone can be Daeity, it's just a virtual identity floating around the cloud.

Anyone can also make a post on "Forum X" saying "Daeity said Y" and then when "Y" didn't or doesn't happen, that's actually used as proof that Daeity was wrong. Sadly, unknowing (aka ignorant) users even continue to link to "Forum X" as irrefutable proof. :)

This just happened.. again.. on MMO-Champion. It's a really good read, I recommend you check it out from beginning to end especially the speculation on TOD's identity. And they say *I'M* paranoid. :)

Here's the original post that kicked off the funny feeding frenzy:

More than "90% people with Annual Pass" won't get beta till a month before release

I read this on Digital Castration.

How reliable is this guy?

This sucks if true

But here's what actually happened; it was just a comment made by an anonymous user.

Anonymous said...

On Mists of Pandaria beta and Annual Pass:

More than 90% of Annual Pass holders will not be receiving their invites until 3-4 weeks before the expansion is released.

And here was my response:

Daeity said...

@Anonymous

That's brutal. It was a major selling point of MoP. I guess from Blue's perspective; "hey, at least we're fulfilling our end of the contract. You get to play the beta." :)

Do you have a link for that?

The worst part is that no one from MMO-Champion needed to check the source. In fact, they DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR THE SOURCE but instead asked for MY source.

Can you believe that?

Just read the first 3 pages alone. 3 posts demanded my source, 13 said I was lying but they refuse to check the blog (or have never read the blog), and 11 just refused to read the blog.

Even after they were told it never happened, and that everyone there was being trolled hard, it still continued. They're currently over 300 posts on the same subject. :)

Someone easily trolled them, and everything they're saying just makes the situation look even more foolish for them. The best responses are when they said that I never provided any sources. Oh my. And in a twisted way, this link will be used as "official proof" in the future that Daeity is wrong and never provides sources. :)

"Don't listen to Daeity. Remember that time he said that 90% of the users won't blah blah blah derpity derp. Here's the link. See, he's full of bullshit."

I've talked about this predictable MMO-Champion mentality before, and here it is again. It's very bad and just embarrassing.

If you're looking for something fun to do, here's something; out of the 300+ posts, see if you can count how many people actually asked for a direct link. Be careful though, some of them are misleading. For example, many users didn't ask for the OP's source, they just asked for MY source because they didn't believe ME. :)

If you want to have even more fun, keep posting stuff that "Daeity said", and just make up a bunch of stuff. Watch the feeding frenzy. Put me down for some ridiculous MoP Release Date (make it a Sunday), but make sure not to provide any links.

So, What I Do Really Have To Say?

From what I can tell, most of the written content about the WOW Annual Pass just guarantees "a spot in the beta test". But they've never said that WOW Annual Pass subscribers will get access as soon as it goes live.

Access to the Next WoW Expansion Beta Test – Get a guaranteed spot in the beta test for the next World of Warcraft expansion (at a time to be announced in the future).

I'll keep digging around, but if any of you know of older (October/November 2011) posts detailing the WOW Annual Pass / Beta Access portion that shows "as soon as it goes live", let me know.

Although it might never have been written by Blizzard, it was certainly said. By Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment when the WOW Annual Pass was first announced.



You can watch the exact statement above from his prepared speech (I've linked to the 6m36s mark):

"You will also get guaranteed access into the next World of Warcraft expansion beta when it goes live."

So here's how I see it;

• This was an official announcement from the head of Blizzard guaranteeing Beta Access for all WOW Annual Pass subscribers "when it goes live." Not "while it's live", or "during the beta".. but "guaranteed access.. when it goes live."

• Media news sites took this information, and it became a major selling point for World of Warcraft enthusiasts. Blizzard did not correct them or mention any fine print.

• When the written Annual Pass announcement was made, Blizzard provided no real details.. only that they would have guaranteed beta access. No mention that "terms are subject to change" or any kind of fine print to ensure that players weren't mislead by Mike's statement. This just left players with the Blizzcon 2011 announcement which contained the most details.

• The sudden back-peddle of the Blizzard's Promise™ was very disappointing as you've seen. If it was obvious from the start that Blizzard was going to invite players in waves and that only certain people would get in when it went live, you would not have seen the negative reaction that had just happened.

• Leaving everyone in the dark is not good business. It leads to frustration and wild speculation. You need to give customers specific information and stay true to your word.

• For several months, users were led to believe that they would have guaranteed access when it went live. Even though Blizzard claims to monitor all communications, forum comments, and fan feedback to improve the customer experience, they still didn't say anything to correct this gross misunderstanding. They have paid staff with the responsibilities to set user expectations, and they failed greatly in this specific situation.

What's left now are the "types of players" who are invited first, something I'll be very interested in seeing. Right now, initial invitations are to a very limited beta experience (the Pandaren 1-10 leveling zone) with the new content locked down.

According to Blizzard, they have a "secret internal formula" for invitations (which will drive hopeful Beta testers even more crazy) based on how long the WOW Account has been active, when you signed up for the Pass, if you're from the press or a fansite, a Friend or Family member, an opt-in beta tester, and other criteria.

Blizzard hasn't revealed which of these have more seniority over the Annual Pass members. If you're a WOW Annual Pass member, though, don't be surprised if (on average) the Press & Fansites get invited before you. I think the Annual Pass invites will probably be "sprinkled in" with the various other criteria that are higher on the totem (like Press/F&F).

* UPDATE:

Cool. Proof that even MMO-Champion impartial "Moderators" don't confirm anything, don't read, and their actions are personally motivated after all. It was purely a reaction to a name, even though it was completely fake. :)

Callei, Moderator

Closing. The person the OP refers to is not a credible source, ergo, closing to prevent spreading misinformation.

How many times has MMO-Champion kept threads open even though they knew for a fact it was from an actual noncredible source?

A wise moderator would have closed it with, "This thread has derailed."

You've probably already heard about this tweet by now. Blizzard_ANZ is apparently a completely legitimate official Blizzard tweet (from the Australia/NZ team.)

Now that I've had a chance to go over it some more in detail, here's what I think.

Starting from the first tweet:

Should have a nice update for everyone by the end of the week if all goes to plan...

They're referring to the Spike VGA.

So most people are on the right track as it is regarding Diablo3. More details to follow... :)

When he posted his first tweet, he was tweeted back: "Release date?", "Please be the release date", "Finally the D3 release date!", "Better be the release date", etc. And this second Tweet was a RESPONSE to those tweets. "D3 Release Date" was the vast majority (and I mean it's real definition, not the Zarhym definition of 'vast majority') of responses, plus that's what everyone has been speculating since the VGA announcement. (If by some small chance he was not responding to follow up tweets.)

Blizzard is basically CONFIRMING that the Diablo 3 release date will be announced this Saturday (in the US) at the VGA.

...On a semi related note ow.ly/7PIs0 is coming out on the 13th December. I now know what I want for Christmas :)

"On a related note, here's something ELSE being released and here is it's release date.."

None of the other trolling attempts I took very seriously. But this time, it's coming from an official Blizzard only-news-related source, rather than the "semi-official" Twitter pages of employees. It's just a little weird that it's coming from the AU/NZ team though. (Like it's something specific to their region.. better not be RMAH related.)

There's no other way of analyzing this; Blizzard has confirmed that the release date WILL be announced this Saturday (in the US). So, I'll actually be really pissed this time if it's not announced and it was one huge troll.

Some other readers also noted that information is more hastily being released now, in relation to this article. Maybe something happened that has allowed them to firm up a release date now? They were waiting on Korea, but Blizzard Korea just announced major delays in the RMAH approvals and government certification, which I predicted that if it would take too long (they can only push back so far), that they would eventually just say "screw it" and move forwards with implementation everywhere else. This timing seems impeccable. (They were waiting on feedback from the Korean government.)

Assuming the release date is announced this Saturday, what would be really awesome is if the release date is 02/23/2012 like what I originally mentioned. It's really the only prediction I have at the moment, since it times up well with an announcement this month, and also gives enough time in January for Digital Downloads to be made available. :)

Since there's been so much going on today, I'll be saving that other (larger) post for tomorrow. I'm still waiting for some more information about it anyways, but I wanted to get it out there because it's at a point where it can be published. But, if I receive any more details, I can continue developing the posts into others in the series.

tl;dr; It appears that Blizzard will be announcing the D3 release date this Saturday due to major setbacks within the Korean RMAH approval and implementation. February release date expected.

* UPDATE:

I was just thinking, that second tweet said "So most people are on the right track as it is regarding Diablo3."

This could mean, "people are on the right track about this Diablo announcement" (i.e. the release date.) Or he's being a complete smart-ass and just saying "people are right that this has something to do with Diablo 3".

What an asshole.. okay, I'm downgrading from "hopeful optimism" to "expecting disappointment" now. (Maybe they're going to wait a little longer to see if Korean approvals still come through. They still have until January, if they intend on releasing by March.)

* UPDATE:

Based on that "as it is regarding Diablo3" comment, and the "nice update for everyone by the end of the week", it's just not timed with the VGA and he's using trollspeak. So, I'm downgrading this completely to "just another troll attempt by Blizzard."

So..

That Blizzard Tweet is a Confirmation.. of more assholes trolling.

Do other companies, like Valve, do this to their customers.. or is it only Blizzard?

* UPDATE (12/8/11):

Yep, trolling assholes confirmed.

They're giving away 100 beta keys to Aus/NZ players (must follow them on Twitter to be eligible).

What bothers me the most about this is that they said "end of week" which isn't today, and when 99% of users tweeted back saying "Release Date?" he confirmed "So most people are on the right track" but then had to add "as it is regarding Diablo3." Teasing and trolling their customers for cheap laughs I guess.

I'm positive now the release date won't be announced on Saturday, plus everything going on with the Korean RMAH pretty much confirms it. We probably won't get a release date until January, or whenever they get a confirmation from the Korean GRB.

Blog trolls, that is, and why they're good for blogs.

Recently, I've come to the decision on changing my policy on trolls. It was due to one troll in particular.

He's been visiting the site for a really long time now, and was around when it was shutdown. In fact, he was the only person to leave a negative comment when the site went down. :)

Well I guess it serves you well. You underestimated me :))).

You have no clue who I really am :))) And that makes me smile.

Here are some other examples of his antics:

1. "lots of conspiricy"
2. "the industrial espionage of EA"."
3. "Did Blizzard rape the wife perhaps ?"
4. "You live in 1980 or in 2010 ??? dude. Do you sleep at night?"
5. "I don't care that some copies were bought on line. We live in 2011."
6. "players all screamed Blizzard murdered their mothers"
7. "The future lays with the mind of Rob Pardo"
8. "mmorpg.com site is collaborating with EA to kill any leaks by banning accounts for life."

He's from the Mechelen region of Belgium, he refuses to give himself an alias (I've asked him many times), and yes.. all of his posts are non-coherent ramblings. Insanity and early onset dementia will do that to you.

I get a kick out of every post he makes. In fact, whenever he writes something, all I can picture is someone sitting at their computer screen and doing this:

So, if you've ever seen me call someone "@prisoncharlie", you now know who I'm talking about; the insane Belgium guy. I'll point him out whenever he posts.

The reason he's so great for this blog (and why trolls are useful in any blog) is due to many reasons:

1. It's great entertainment.

@PrisonCharlie

Mmmm hmm mmm hmmm.. Yes, that's very interesting.

You seem to know a lot on the subject, and you are clearly highly intelligent and handsome. Please tell me more.

2. You don't even need to read what he says. Just agree with what he's saying and compliment him. He keeps coming back.

3. Normal readers like the entertainment, and keep coming back just to hear prisoncharlie's thoughts.

4. He visits A LOT, which drives up traffic.

5. If he complains on other sites about this blog, it just drives up more viewership! There's no such thing as bad publicity.

6. If you read his comments, within one of his insane posts you might see a certain word that triggers a thought, memory, or brainstorm. He can help further ideas for new posts. Just like this one! He gave me the great idea about how useful trolls really are to blogs. :)

7. All of his comments and mispellings actually increase the number of keywords on the site, giving the blog much better search enginge optimization and increased traffic. Nice.

So, if you're a blogger - take note.

* UPDATE:

Oh another idea!

8. It also increases search engine optimization by having common mispellings on your blog. It gives you a better advantage over other blogs especially since the average person mistypes or mispells all the time and large sites are reviewed and edited for content. It pays to have bad grammar on your site! :)

* UPDATE:

A fair warning; there is a ridiculously long wall of text incoming.

Although.. you really shouldn't be surprised by now. You know how much I love investigating things, ripping apart things, and trying to find small trends or patterns wherever I can. :)

So - don't bother reading this if you're looking for new information or leaks.

It's a fun piece, I'm bored, and I happened across a wonderful discovery that I thought I would share with the blog veterans here. It's sort of a "sticky" post as a reminder of the site's history, while also being a short story that reveals something very fascinating.. maybe even shocking.

Okay, so back to the original post.

****************************

As you know, for a while now, I've been searching for older posts or mentions of this blog before it was originally shutdown in March. Like you, I really want to know what was in those deleted posts.

(For example, when I found that old blog comment regarding Second Life and Facebook and how it connected to that 4chan leak.. that was a very interesting find.)

I've been looking for anything or anyone who might have remembered (or cached) the old pages, the Titan information, images, or any other details.

I have just recently reached the end of one of my investigations, and I have discovered something quite interesting. :)

I found an old redditor who had been following the site for a really long time, and it appears that he knew some of the stuff that was posted in March before it went down. Apparently, he felt that the "sudden shutdown" was suspect though, and he thought that the last posts were faked as a result. It's actually old news now, but with the help of some readers here who alerted me to some old posts, I discovered something that I hadn't even considered possible.

The investigation actually led back to the old August email from TOD that was posted on imgur. If you weren't aware, Fabien (Boub) was really angry about the whole thing and jumped onto it really quick. It always struck me as really strange.. I knew it was true, other regulars here did too, and the only reason more people found out was because it was leaked. He was so obsessed with trying to disprove it though. It just didn't sit well with me, and I didn't know the reasoning for his personal and insistent involvement.. until now.

I found evidence of July 2011 Reddit posts (referencing the original March blog posts), that were partially used in the August email that TOD had sent me. It also appears that a certain someone was already aware of this July information, and was well aware of the August puzzle for possibly months leading up to Blizzcon. It might have also been the reason why he tried to convince people "Nothing to see here. It's all fake, move along." Of course, what you're about to see could all be pure coincidence.. but the sheer odds of this happening are highly unlikely.

I'll start at the beginning:

On August 3, 2011, the site was transferred ownership and changed from Private to Public, revealing all of the old posts TOD had put up.

The March post ("Huge News") contained old information by then, but it also contained some NEW details and information that had not been mentioned anywhere else. Remember, this was all 3 months before Blizzcon.

Here's what was written in March (and August when it went live again):

• The expansion pack was in fact called "Mists of Pandaria" without a doubt. Many gamers did not believe it, and they said that Blizzard would "never" bring in the Pandaren so they cried "fake", "red herring", "it's a comic book or novel", etc. Even Tom Chilton denied the rumor that the next expansion pack was called "Mists of Pandaria" which further convinced more players.
• There would be a non-hero class. (Everyone else was expecting a Hero class or no class at all.)
• The only playable class would be a "Pandaren Monk" with 100% certainty.
• The same Pandaren race would be playable by BOTH factions. This was something unheard of in WoW, and was not expected by anyone.
• Blizzcon would focus on all 3 franchises this year, with major announcements from each.
• There would be playable demos of MoP, HOTS, and D3 at Blizzcon. (Once again, not expected.)
• TOD made it clear that there would be NO Titan announcements. "Expert analysts" and everyone else said there would be though.
• TOD also said that the planned D3 release date would be announced at Blizzcon, that they expect to have it out before Christmas (a special surprise announcement due to it's close proximity of Christmas), and that they have a mid-Jan backup date. No one knew or believed this because during the Q4 2010 quarterly conference, Blizzard stated that there would be no games released in 2011. But, in late September, Blizzard admitted that they WERE planning on releasing it before Christmas, confirming what TOD had written. They also made a public news release about it, which was unheard of.

In August 2011, the Pandaren information was picked up by a few other sites (3 months before Blizzcon):



So, all of this was revealed months before Blizzcon, but it was still viewed as complete bullshit and fake.

One thing to keep in mind too is that there are a lot of fake "leaks" out there, and occasionally someone will get it right just by guessing. But, it's always a small piece of information and when you have 100 different people all giving different possibilities, of course 1 of them will eventually get it right.

This isn't just some random site with one random leak though. This was a site dedicated to Blizzard/WoW info and has released many accurate and confirmed leaks and discoveries in the past. And this wasn't just 1 piece of information, this was a whole collection of completely unbelievable (and unheard of) facts. They were all correct, this was all 3 months before Blizzcon, and no one else predicted this or even came close to this level of accuracy.

And now for the best part..

The only argument out there about the legitimacy of the leak came from Fabien: "That's bullshit, like most of daeity's posts." (He also contradicted himself; first it "was all bullshit" and then suddenly he changed it to "he might have decent info.")

Going by the track record of the site, and all of the older posts made by TOD, it's obviously bullshit to call it bullshit.

So, he comes up with some bullshit reasoning that it's "suspicious" because I type out posts that are very long and I provide frequent updates. Ummmm.. have you read everything any of the posts here? That's normal.

Then he keeps insisting that the picture was modified (not just on his own website, mind you.. he wants to make sure everyone knows this). After all, his legion will believe anything he says.

What he failed to mention (on purpose), however:

• is that the suspicious "2 blue rectangles" were Gmail attachments. You can reproduce it yourself to see that it's not faked. (In Gmail, you can just drag-and-drop image files onto an email page.)
• that a special imgur "Registered Account" is needed to edit images.
• that "image editing" is a brand new feature, and no one even knew about until he revealed this new implementation after his "investigation".
• that even with a registered account, there's still no privacy in imgur.com. When you upload an image, it's automatically made public for everyone on the internet to see. (That's why I used imgur, so that it's public.)
• he didn't tell anyone that the site was taken over by another person and that there are 2 "Daeitys". (This was for good reason. If he said 2 people were involved, then it becomes a conspiracy. But he wanted people to trust him, so he avoided that verbiage.)
• was that it was public here for 3 days, and existed as a hidden puzzle for 3 months. Others only found out late because it was leaked to Reddit.
• how simple this new editing tool truly is. I registered an account, tried it out like he said, and I discovered that he purposely left out very important facts about the tool.. like how it's really simple.. and I mean REALLY simple. You can cut or rotate an image, but that's about it's only good use. He didn't tell anyone that the "text tool" is incredibly basic. You can't change fonts, font sizes, change colors, create Powerpoint bullet points, or import images. He also failed to tell everyone that you can't customize indents or level/line-up anything. I spent hours trying to resize the font and it keeps rotating making it impossible to straighten.
• what he described would take hundreds of hours of work within a very short timespan (less than 30 minutes). It would take an inhuman hand and godlike graphical skill.. which you can all tell I'm an expert at by all of my MSPAINT work. Sheesh.

He also didn't tell anyone (or his legion) about the other posts, pages, blog entries, and forum posts about the leak. He didn't even share the MMO-Champion post that confirmed the leak. He didn't mention the puzzle (even though it was made obvious at this point), didn't mention the YouTube, TinyPaste, Pastehtml, or Pastebin links that also confirmed the leak.

But all of this gets even better..

Why was Fabs so upset about the whole thing in the first place? Why did he get so personally involved and so quickly?

To answer this, I need to give a quick background first:

• Boub made a joke about Pandas on April Fools Day. The same joke told by many others over the years.
• He has confirmed that he has been monitoring this blog for a long time.
• Pandas were already mentioned by March 23 on this blog. Now, it could have been a complete coincidence that he also happened to mention Panadas only 1 WEEK LATER.. or maybe he really WAS joking.
• Boub has been credited many times for the "Cataclysm leak", but many people don't know that MMO-Champion was the SECOND site to leak the information. :)
• He has stated that he would never leak information unless someone else did it first. He also said that he would never leak anything 48H before Blizzcon and poop all over them. (So, he doesn't like to ruin things by leaking them a few days before Blizzcon.)

He very rarely visits or posts on Reddit. Often, there are several months of breaks, a 1 month break, a 2 month quiet period, and then suddenly about 3-4 months before Blizzcon he posted this:

WHOA. What are the incredible odds of this happening?

For months and months, he makes no mention of Pandas or the next expansion pack. But, then SUDDENLY after this August post he starts telling people that "he knows" what the next expansion pack is, but that he's not going to reveal anything, and he's being deliberately sketchy about the details.

"Yeah, I might have a small knowledge of how Blizzard works internally at this point. Also, the fact that I know what the next expansion is helps."

"Titan has been confirmed a couple of times to be a new IP, Pandaria and Pandarens are far from new."

"Btw, heard about the next expansion they're probably going to announce at Blizzcon in 2 days? It sounds pretty nice, new stuff everywhere, I'm sure you'll even get a free trial... You know, just a few days, no strings attached."

"That's a pretty poopy "leak" based on wild guesses from the "Mists of Pandaria" name. A lot of that is bs, but obviously if the expansion is "Mists of Pandaria" and I'm not confirming or denying anything, some of that will be right.
I mean, Mists of Pandaria would probably have pandas."

What are the chances that out of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of posts in /r/wow, and the fact that he only checks in on and posts on Reddit once every couple months, that he just HAPPENS to be posting in the exact article that connects to very detailed information on this blog? And this happened like 3-4 months before Blizzcon!

We're talking about some incredible impossible odds here. Just coincidence?

If he had seen this post in August, a quick Google search for "Digital Castration Pandaren Monk" would have brought him directly to THIS page, alerting him to the puzzle, and then directing him right to the imgur puzzle leak. He was already well aware of the site accuracy, after all.

(Even if he had searched any time between Aug and Oct, he would have seen it. And we all know how much he loves investigating through Google. It's actually his RL job, and he gets paid for it.)

So now he "suddenly knows" what the expansion is all about, but doesn't want to share with anyone.. and we also know he waits until someone else leaks the information first. :) So, he only shared his angry thoughts and feelings with everyone after more people found out about it on Oct 21st. (Probably because he wasn't paying attention to the blog when it was leaked 3 days prior to Blizzcon and he missed reposting it.)

No wonder he was so obsessed and suspiciously informed about the leaked link. He must have already known that the site leaked the info back in August. >:(

Although there's a LOT written here, it really just came down to one simple thing. Fabs being in the exact same place at the exact same time of the leak several months before Blizzcon 2011. The odds of this happening are astronomical. This small connection explains so much now.

Joystiq has described Fabs as "one of the friendliest, most genuine voices in the WoWosphere." I'm just not feeling it. After everything I've been investigating, I've come to realize that he probably knew the actual truth for himself.. that makes it even more none-too-friendly and none-too-genuine. None of this matters though, people will believe anything he says.. he never lies after all. It actually reminds me of the "blue koolaid" effect.

I'm just glad I finally know the reason WHY. I obsess over little things so that they make sense and can be logically reasoned. :)

You gotta love some of the people from MMO-Champion.com. For the most part, it's an awesome community with great users who have a lot of questions or they're just looking for interesting news and information. But unfortunately, there are a few immature trolls and some close-minded individuals.. and it's especially unfortunate when they are moderators.

After all, moderators are the folks with higher authority (and therefore held to a higher standard) and can control all of the information on the forums.

Check out this recent discussion about WoW statistics and figures and where they discuss information from this blog.

Herecius? More like Hilarious.

I absolutely loved this part:

When Blizzard states 'we have 11.5 million active subscriptions,' they are doing so under penalty of law. The statement is made not to us, the players, but to shareholders. If they lie on such statements, it's considered a federal crime.

Oh man.. I died laughing.

There are just so many things wrong here, I don't know where to start.

For one, he's saying that whatever Blizzard says is the absolute truth. When Blizzard says 12 million active subscriber, they indeed have exactly 12 million subscribers. Not 11,999,999 subscribers and not 12,000,001 subscribers.. they have EXACTLY 12 million subscribers.. UNDER PENALTY OF LAW!

Blizzard would never lie about active subscriptions. It's a FEDERAL CRIME after all.

And yes.. as you're aware, like 50% of the blog post (that he supposedly read since it was impossible to miss) was all about Blizzard's Active Subscription definition and how Blizzard has made it clear that "Active Subscriptions" does not mean real players. And yes, Blizzard has created "special definitions" for what a Subscriber is according to Blizzard. And yes, Blizzard has special caveats in their SEC filings and their press releases. According to Hilarious, though, you have to ignore all of those special citations(6), references, and definitions.. because whatever Blizzard writes in black-and-white is, in fact, absolute truth.

They don't use approximations in their numbers either. When Activision Blizzard says "GAAP net revenues increased to $4.45 billion". That's apparently $4.45 billion EXACTLY.. under penalty of law.

When they say "Activision Blizzard was the #1 publisher in North America on the Xbox® 360, PlayStation® 3 and PC collectively for the calendar year.(4)". That means they were the #1 publisher.. whatever that means. And because they said it to their shareholders, that means it's the truth.. under penalty of law. It's not like the statement came from a different group or study or anything.. say for example "(4) According to The NPD Group".

There are no special definitions, rules, caveats, "if's", "and's" or "but's".. when Blizzard states *something*, they are doing so under penalty of law dammit!

This is a perfect example of a market research team's wet dream. Gullibility and naivety under the guise of high idealism.

He's the kind of guy who buys impulse items and always reaches for items on the right and at eye-level in retail chains.

.. the kind of guy who buys 5 copies of Batman Forever on DVD because you can save money by buying in bulk.

.. the kind of guy who buys an expensive toy because there's a giant shiny sign stating that it's been marked down by 50%.

.. the kind of guy who only buys the same brand of beer because TV told him that hundreds of attractive women will have sex with him if he does.

And while he's being manipulated by ad-targeting all day, marketing psychology (and social science and sociology and neuroscience) and other perfectly legal methods of persuasion, at least he can sleep soundly at night wrapped tightly in a self-righteous American flag with a lawbook underneath his pillow and 5 copies of Batman Forever on his bedside table.

Does he truly not know that corporate propaganda, "spin", and marketing speak are common and actually take place in the real world?

EDIT: Especially a blogger that's using extrapolated data from addons

Weird.. I never used any addons at all. I mentioned an addon, but said that the information was unreliable and it was why I never used that information in any of my calculations.

A pretty big warning sign here if you ask me. He has made it very clear that he never actually read the article, however he's making other believe that he did thoroughly read it.. very deceptive and very disappointing for someone in his position on the forums.

This also gives you a really good idea of typical fanboy mind-set in general. He thinks the blog post is trying to attack World of Warcraft or something, so he immediately goes on the defensive, skips reading the article, picks out certain keywords, and then lies to everyone on his forum.

anecdotal evidence

Anecdotal evidence like you know.. Activision Blizzard's SEC filings, Quarterly Results, Fiscal Reports, published articles and interviews with Blizzard, revenue figures, raw server data, official announcements and press releases. You know, hearsay and untrustworthy stuff like that.

and figures that are 'peak number of players' as final numbers.

Once again, pure fiction.

The entire article was all about establishing the most (e.g. a ceiling limit) it could ever be based on official data provided. They were never called final and total numbers, that's just silly. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I said "maximum figure". For example, "That's the absolute most it could ever be". However, that number goes down as you include game sales, paid services, pet sales, etc.

He states that the peak number of players on Chinese servers was around.. 3.2 million? That's not subscriptions, that's people playing at once, and yet, he goes on to treat that as if it accounted for every single Chinese WoW player.

I have no idea what he's trying to say here.. it sounds like he's just repeating back something obvious to create confusion and pretend that it supports his "arguments". There's a difference between "Subscriptions" and real players - some "Subscriptions" don't even have a real player playing the game (for example, active but unused game cards). The entire article is all about trying to figure out player counts which I had thought I made clear.

Anyways..

What's most disappointing about this is that Hilarious is a MMO-Champion MODERATOR with thousands of posts and comments, and yet he used the same old arguments that I've seen hundreds of times on other forums whenever anyone mentions Subscribers vs Players. There was no insight or strong arguments.. the best he had in disproving the information was that the data was from some "addon" and that all of the evidence (from Blizzard and Activision's SEC filings) was untrustworthy.

So far, I'm not impressed. It's quite obvious that he didn't read a thing (just picked out keywords), and then lied to everyone so that they wouldn't talk about it anymore ("Nothing to see here folks, move along"). Does he do this often?

It looks like he's going through the 5 stages of grief too (he's at stage 3 right now):

1. Denial: "It's a federal crime to lie! I'm more apt to believe Blizzard than a blogger who has little to no credibility."
2. Anger: "ESPECIALLY A BLOGGER THAT'S USING EXTRAPOLATED DATA FROM AN ADDON AND ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE! AND YET.."
3. Bargaining: "Well.. maybe it's not _exactly_ 12 million. And yeah.. Blizzard can make estimates... Just a sec, let me add a post and make some edits.."
4. Depression: "I feel disillusioned. I need time to think about this.. I won't be making as many posts for a few days."
5. Acceptance: "Oh my God. Truth is all about wording. I see the whole world differently now.. every business with marketing teams do this."

Other than the usual crazy fanboy comment, most MMO-Champion users found the article interesting. It's too bad their moderators can't remain impartial though, but I guess some prefer to abuse their privileges when they hear something they don't like.

Speaking of which, here's some other guy who also had a comment after not reading the post:

It would be nice to know these numbers but arbitrarily saying twenty percent of the accounts are secondary accounts as a fact is ridiculous. since there has been no studies on this and Blizzard has never given out user information. It might be close to that be we can't say its fact.

You won't find that anywhere, because I never actually wrote it.

So, I have to wonder..

Why do all fanboys say the _exact same thing_ every time?

It's like there's a disease, a cosmic joke, or some support group where all of these people (fanboys) get together and plan on what to do or say:

"Hey everybody! Let's NOT read this book, but then claim we actually read the book okay?

Then we'll tell everyone that the book was full of misinformation!

Just make stuff up, and say that the author and their sources were not credible.. even though we don't know who they are! Tee hee. Wouldn't that be hilarious??

If you want to get more people to believe you, just grab some random statements from the book and then just say you know for a fact that they're wrong. "That's not true!" works really well. "I work in this field and this is wrong!" is even better, since more people will believe you.

WHATEVER YOU DO THOUGH, DON'T PROVIDE ANY EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY! You know we can't! Tee hee!

P.S. If someone asks for evidence, just stop replying. Alternatively, you can say that there WAS a link but it's gone now or you forgot it."

* UPDATE (03/21/2011):

Herecius promised me a 800 word retort, and he was going to post it just as soon as he was done. This was 48 hours ago now, though.. but I'm still waiting for it. I mean, Herecius wouldn't LIE to me now would he?

What a jerk.

"I have a big announcement for everyone!"

*cheers*

"Now, you've all heard about our new Next-Gen MMO that we've been working on?"

*crazy cheers and tears of happiness*

"Well I have a little sneak preview for all of you!"

*insane cheers*

"I give to you: World of Jerseycraft Shore!"

*booooo*

"No, just kidding.. here's the real MMO exclusive preview!"

*more insane cheers*

"I'm pleased to announce.. Gleeablo!"

*booooo*

"No no.. seriously. Here's the real announcement. Are you prepared!?"

*slow clap*

"Booty Bay Watch!"

*booooo*

At this point you could distinctly hear some F-U's from the crowd. So yeah.. a lot of excitement built up only to break everyone down brutally.. way to go there Paul.

I guess he thought that he could recover that massive failure (of his terrible jokes too) by announcing "free" Diablo 3 beta keys for 1,000 lucky attendees (out of over 27,000 total mind you.) It didn't work and just further pissed most people off. In the end, the Blizzcon 2010 closing ceremony was definitely not cool.

NA/EU Realm Populations

In North America and Europe, realm population information is extremely difficult to come by.

You pretty much have to rely on WarcraftRealm's CensusPlus UI Mod (Link). Right now, for example it's shows a total of 5.5M characters (however, these are characters from Level 10-80 and each account can have a maximum of 50 players across all realms.)

So, you can understand that the numbers aren't that accurate.

Blizzard also doesn't share Realm Population information because of obvious reasons (those details can only hurt them, not help them.) Even the definition of Low, Medium, and High Population realms can change - there's no fixed number as I have stated previously.

Blizzard has even confirmed this to be true. The populations are relative, meaning that they can shift back and forth at any time, depending on the population of other realms and their relation to the servers (Source). Population caps can even be increased/decreased depending on the number of servers being utilized or out of commission.

That troll from Blizzard even had something to say on this specific matter (before I attached Blizzard's confirmation, of course): Is it made up like most of the other "facts" on this site?

(Blizzard just confirmed it to be a fact Mr. Blizzard Troll. I guess that's further confirmation that he's just a support agent, and doesn't actually know anything about Blizzard's internal operations.)

China Realm Populations

So to summarize, in NA/EU it's almost impossible to determine census information because Blizzard will not share the information.

But in China, it's operated by NetEase so it's a totally different story! They're completely open to sharing player information on each realm. =]

Census information is pulled straight from the WoW servers by Beijing Network Technology Ltd. (there's no Census UIMod needed on each user's PC), and is publicly available here. Below are the numbers during peak gaming hours on WoW. In this case, there were approx. 790,000 users logged in concurrently.

Alliance: 338300 - Horde: 451655
So basically, a 3:4 ratio which is not bad.

The number of realms in China has also been growing steadily (many new realms launched this year and last), and some Chinese players have noted that many people are now returning in CWOW in anticipation of WOTLK's imminent release.

However, the first thing you'll notice is the incredible imbalances on the realms. I've attached screenshots below.

Some servers have 1200 horde and only 40 Alliance on the server. That's a 1:60 ratio! These drastic differences have also been confirmed by CWOW players.. they'll have thousands of players on one faction, but less than 50 on the other. It's not uncommon at all.

There also doesn't appear to be a lot of realm balancing activities. As you can see, realm A:H ratios are all over the place and most realms operate with one side significantly bigger than another. Because of this, it turns most realms into a PVE (everyone working together on one side) type realm.

To confirm my assumption, I checked with several CWOW players. They said that PVP is not very common in China, and it's mostly PVE. A more recent comment even stated, "even on PVP servers, PVE is much more popular."

As opposed to NA/EU Realms, the CWOW gaming culture seems to favor "Playing Together" rather than "Playing Against Each Other" (on average). There are many realms with a 1:0.01 ratio for example. And that's very accurate information (as hard as it is to believe for US players) and can be confirmed by any Chinese players playing on those realms. Server populations have actually improved quite a bit bit over the past few weeks, which is a good sign for WOTLK. =]

It's all pretty neat actually, and also explains why Guilds and gold PUGs are so huge and why gold farming is more popular and strategies used are almost identical. (For example, rare gold farming strategies that are applicable to NA/EU might not work in China or players probably aren't even aware of them.)

Based on those figures, I have to wonder if the same is true for NA/EU realms? When talking to US players, they often claim that their servers have 1:2, 1:4, or even 1:10 ratios (either they out-number the opposite faction, or vice versa.) They never had any evidence to back up their claims though, since realm population is not shared by Blizzard.

So in an earlier post, I received a troll comment using the standard "Heil Grammatik" technique. He sounded like a typical Blizzard fanboy, so I figured I would check it out.

(Note: it was a single transposition error that didn't actually impact the calculations.. but he didn't test out the math to confirm as he was too busy salivating over his next troll snack.)

But guess what? He was from IRVINE, CA. Blizzard fanboy central. =]

"Anonymous Troll" not so anonymous anymore: ip68-111-72-78.oc.oc.cox.net (68.111.72.78) (As of Aug 27/10 anyways, I'm assuming his IP is dynamic.)

It doesn't stop there. He's a Blizzard employee too!

He uses Firefox at work and at home (on a Windows OS.. ewww) and was reading a limited number of articles from work (which I'm assuming is against their policy - e.g. personal surfing) and the remaining he read from home. Here's a small excerpt from the logs:

That IP (198.74.38.59) is one of Blizzard's external facing IP addresses by the way. =]

His most recent access from work to read the blog was Aug 26 at 7:57:57PM PST.

You know Mr. Troll, just because you're a late night worker (call center/support staff judging by the hours), it doesn't mean you should be goofing off on the internet. There are tons of paying customers that need actual help, but you're too busy surfing the internet and wasting company resources and time.

After he left work for home, that's when he returned to the same webpages and then starting posting random comments. He spent an average of 10-20 seconds (entry and exit) going through every single post on the blog. =]

For some of the more recent posts, however, he spent 45 seconds to 1.5 minutes reading them (he wanted to make sure his more recent troll posts were read for example). I guess he didn't feel safe writing the troll posts from work, as their NOC team would have records. I should note Mr. Troll, that this blog receives other visits from different Blizzard employees too by the way and they will be reading this. Now that they have one of your visit timestamps, you had best watch over your shoulder. =]

Way to represent your business too by the way: steal company time, don't support your customers, then troll webpages. Judging by your access logs and constant refreshes, I can see that you're totally dedicated to your job.. trolling that is, not supporting Blizzard customers.

If you would like to see one his posts and my retort, check out this article and scroll down at the bottom.

His other post was just to tell me to stop pulling numbers out of my *expletive* and to look at Blizzard's Quarterly Reports which are public. The thing is.. those were the numbers I was using. I copy-and-pasted the Quarterly Reports to the various blog posts, and provided links to the public information. Ouch. I guess that's what you get for only skimming over the posts (10-20 seconds per post.)

* UPDATE:

While I was writing up this latest entry, he apparently bombarded the blog (mostly swearing) with even more troll posts. WOW! He sure is pissed too and did NOT appreciate my response at all.

He's going through every single article he can find. Many of his comments have even been cancelled as well (ie, he started typing a new comment, realized a mistake, cancelled it, and then moved onto another blog post.)

I can't wait until he reads this. Tee hee. =]

My friends and I are laughing our asses off over his posts and I have some friends at Blizzard that I'll be sending these to as well. This has been a wonderful day.

* UPDATE:

The Blogspot automated spam filter apparently captured about 1/3 of his comments too. That's really hard to do! His troll posts must have a lot of common phrases and keywords used by spammers. I'm having too much fun.