It's funny how just the other day I was posting about how Blizzard can (and will) ban you for any reason or for no reason at all.

Coincidentally, I just learned that Blizzard banned possibly thousands of players for using Single-Player trainers and cheats.

Check out this very interesting post from Cheathappens.com.

Here's my favorite bit:

Still though, some question Blizzard’s motives. “I’m surprised they took such a blind step without doing some research into the games played,” gm0ney added. The user has been through a similar situation before, with another game -- where he suspects the company had monetary motivations for the bans, “A bunch of people’s accounts got hacked and used cheats, so we all got banned. The company already had our money so they didn’t care about our accounts.” Many people, including Cheat Happens’ Business Operations Manager and Content Editor Chris O’Rorke, believe that Blizzard is also thinking monetarily, and points to the company’s blockbuster MMO World of Warcraft as evidence. In WoW, which (unlike Starcraft 2) carries with it a monthly fee, users who are found to be cheating are only handed temporary bans as to not interrupt the monthly flow of cash coming from those users.

It echoes a lot of concerns and supporting evidence that I've been posting about. Many of Blizzard's activities seem to be motivated by monetary purposes (especially when there are so many alternative methods available that are more customer centric rather than profit centric.)

Blizzard's official announcement, however, made it sound like the users were cheating on Battle.net or during live competition with other players:

We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.

I especially like the part about how cheating and hacking affects the stability and performance of their Battle.net service, hence the reason for the ban even though the single-player cheats were used offline. That's some deceptive wording.

Those banned players were also questioning the "legality" of Blizzard's actions. But, Blizzard's EULA and TOU documents are worded very carefully. Players don't actually own any of their games, they are merely "renting" the service from Blizzard who can terminate said service at any time, without notice, and for absolutely no reason at all.

Note: Even though I have a 100% clean account (I know a lot about bots and exploits for example, but I've never actually used them on my WoW), I'm pretty sure my account will get banned one day. It will probably be this Blizzard employee too.. he still regularly checks the blog, but has kept quiet with his comments since I called him out on it. He'll find SOME reason to ban me. =]

The timing of this SC2 ban-wave is definitely "coincidental" for other reasons as well. It happened on the first day (Oct 1) of the new Q4. It could have been done a few days earlier, so that it was reflected in Q3.. but no, Blizzard waited until the same Quarter as when Cataclysm would be released. This specific date was actually quite a strategic move and will pad Blizzard's profits (users need to purchase new licenses) for the same Quarter when Cataclysm is released. After all, they need to show a large profit to their investors during this time.

I had talked about this before, and how Blizzard can make these types of strategic actions to pad their numbers (especially during months when they are showing lower than expected profits.)

Here's the link where I noted an "interesting trend" about how new services, content or game releases, or bans will happen in quarters when sales are hurting.

If Blizzard's profits from WOTLK China Launch are lower than expected (Q3 statements not released yet) or Blizzard is really worried about about Cataclysm sales performance, we might see another WoW (or other BNET games) banwave during the next couple months. So if the banhammer drops before mid-December or you see new services (or paid pets for example) introduced - it means that Blizzard has some very strong doubts about Cataclysm. Blizzcon revenue (whose ticket prices keep increasing mind you) should help significantly improve their profits for Q4 however.

On another related note, the reason you haven't seen any in-game advertisements yet in Starcraft 2 is because Microsoft's Massive Inc. is closing their doors. This announcement was made to their clients (Blizzard being one of them) before the Blizzard SC2 banhammer dropped and before their public announcement was made. I'm thinking that's probably a real coincidence, but the timing (ie, Oct 1) of the banwave was definitely not a coincidence in my opinion. It fits in perfectly with what I've been writing about these past few months.

Just wanted to throw this one into the mix because it's a question that comes up a lot.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has doubled in revenue (old post) and then doubled again just recently apparently. Because of Turbines success, many people are wondering if their Asheron's Call game will also be going F2P. (Well, actually all of these "F2P" games should really be called NRF2P since they're not really free to play now are they?)

Anyways, Turbine has already answered this question. The answer is, "there are no plans for it right now. I will however not say this won't ever happen".

DDO and AC were actually both discussed to go F2P, but AC was much more difficult to build an in-game Item Shop / new billing system. DDO was much easier, so it was selected as their first candidate. It was very experimental at the time too, so they wanted to make sure the project cost the least amount of money as possible, and the AC engine would needed to have been rebuilt from the ground up.

Asheron's Call is one of my favorite MMORPG's next to WoW, so I'm hoping it will go F2P sometime in the future. Rather than taking the same approach to so many other NRF2P games, I wish they could try something new..

That is, don't worry about rebuilding the game so that an In-Game Item Shop and Purchasing System can be implemented. Instead, make it web-based (and mobile) and focus less on the game engine and more on the web app's integration with their back-end databases. Those are where items, weapons, character stats are located after all. Maybe test out some in-game advertising.. or make it free / open-sourced for PR purposes. Would be a nice way to give players a little taste of MMO's and then transition them over to their other NRF2P games.

Many readers here were interested in knowing what happens to players if they don't have the Cataclysm expansion pack and what to expect.

There's no phasing or anything like that (although it would have been cool) that will split up Cataclysm vs Non-Cata players.

The Cataclysm change will affect everyone in the Old World. Meaning cosmetic changes, new quests, new cities, skill/talent changes, etc.

So you will see everything that Cataclysm players see. You just won't have access to the new zones, you'll be level capped to whatever expansion pack you have (or don't have), and you won't be able to create Goblins/Worgens although you can still party with them. Talents, spells, abilities, glyphs, gear will all still be available to you just like everyone else at the same level.

Summary of Changes

- Outlands will NOT be changed.
- Northrend will have MINOR cosmetic changes (ie, stuff they've always wanted to fix).
- Mobs have not been deleted, some have just been relocated and others haven't moved at all.
- There's no point in farming certain mob (rare) drops, since they'll all be back in Cataclysm.
- Some hard-to-get drops have been moved to rare elites, making it easier for players.
- A few cities/towns have been destroyed, and new ones have popped up elsewhere to replace.
- No new graphics changes or engine improvements, except for water textures.
- No new audio changes or improvements.

There's been a lot of hype built around Cataclysm - ie, EXPECT MAJOR CHANGES, COMPLETE DEVASTATION, A NEW WORLD, THE FACE OF AZEROTH SHALL BE CHANGED FOREVER!

But if you actually believe the hype, you'll be setting yourself up for some major disappointment.

For the most part, there hasn't been a lot of changes to the Old World. Blizzard designers literally took all of the assets and models from WOTLK and drag-and-dropped them into the Old World. Some land masses have been shifted up-and-down, quests have been changed (there are some new fun ones here and there), and there are new "familiar looking" mobs/NPCs (ie, same mobs as in Northrend, with different colored textures). That's really about it.

All of the cool new stuff is in the new 80-85 zones and dungeons - but keep in mind that the NEW content is less than half the size of WOTLK.

Since the new areas and content are so small compared to past expansion packs, Blizzard is pretty much counting on most players creating new toons and to experience all that the Old World has to offer. Which is why adding new realms is so important, and why I'm still expecting new realms to be created (while everyone else is saying they won't be.)

Total Number of Quests in WoW vs TBC vs WOTLK vs CATA?

Original WoW Quests Added: 2,600
Burning Crusade Quests Added: 2,700
Wrath of the Lich King Quests Added: 2,350
Cataclysm Quests Added: 3,000

Note: 1,000 of those quests will be in the 80-85 zones, while the remaining 2,000 are in the redesigned old world areas.

Of those 2,000 quests, however, many of them are actually based on or redesigned from old quests. So "3,000 new quests" is a little bit of an overstatement.. it's probably closer to max. 2000 "new" quests.

Another Note: This is a little piece of historical trivia I guess. Back in 2004, Jeff Kaplan stated that they originally planned 600 total quests for World of Warcraft. It grew to 1350 shortly after, and continued to grow some more (as seen above.)

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In my humble opinion, the December 7 release date is still too soon. There are so many changes that still need to be made in the Cataclysm Beta (that still haven't been fixed) and I'm fully expecting these bugs (and overpowered NPCs, boss mechanics, lack of innovation) to be released in retail.

Anyhow.. here are some videos demonstrating the "DRAMATIC CHANGES" made in Cataclysm, I think they'll help put things into perspective for you:

Tirisfal Glades & Silverpine Forest Flythrough



Eastern Plaguelands & Western Plaguelands



Wetlands, Loch Modan & Badlands Flythrough



Elwynn Forest



Swamp of Sorrows & Blasted Lands



As you can see for yourself, there are very little changes.

It might just be me, but I have a different eye for these sort of things. Coming from a programming & game design background, I see 3D objects, textures and level design different from average players. While in the beta, none of the changes have impressed me at all.. there's nothing really new or cool, and all of the content from WOTLK was just copied over using Blizzard's internal (world) design tools.

When Cataclysm was first announced, I was hoping for complete underwater cities and questing zones (massive areas all underwater), a completely reshaped Azeroth, new underwater races (that you could create yourself), floating cities, class-specific quests and chains (like the "Rogue Guilds" they were initially planning for WoW Classic), new mobs, removed mobs, and most importantly an improved graphics engine. But none of that happened.

Maybe it's just me, but I'll get confirmation on my opinion once retail hits and more players can voice their own opinions. =]

I suspect there's going to be a lot of disappointment though..