I hate it when misinformed or not-informed-at-all people write about certain topics.
Blizzard has recently introduced a new in-game function, to "undelete" character. It means that characters of certain levels will be stored for a while after deleting and you can restore them in a given amount of time (read the criterias here).
The articles I've read so far all praise this new function like it was new. Others say it has been available on private servers so far, so it's not new. Also, no commenter have ever deleted anything, so it's completely unnecessary and they quit because Pandaria sucks. (We've all seen them.)
But there's an article that says Blizzard is an evil drugdealer, supporting MMO-addiction and making it harder to quit games - just because they now enable character restoration.
First things first - character restoration is not new. Game masters happily (or not that happily, but you will never know that) restored any of your characters, at any level, any time. All you had to do is to write a ticket in which you asked them to do so, wait for a few hours for them to contact you and be nice. I know, because it happened to me, and believe me I didn't let those poor GMs get bored!
So, actually, this function is a relief only to the GMs - which is completely reasonable. The only difference is that it's now instant, in-game and repeatable every 30 days, like item restoration.
And then there's THIS article which claims that this feature now discourages serious MMO-addicts from quitting since "the possibility of coming back will now be perpetually dangled in front of their face."
This was the point where I decided to grab keyboard. Addicts are probably aware of the services of the game, including character and item restoration. It is not new to them, and this new service won't support their addiction. In fact, it actually discourages them if they had too low level characters that can't be restored anymore (which I seriously doubt) or several characters that would take months to restore due to the 30 day "cooldown" on restoration.
Besides the in-game aspects, serious addicts need HELP and it's none of Blizzard's business. It's that of their families, friends or themselves. An addict will always find something to be addicted to: alcohol, drugs, games, food. It's none of producer's business. It's the addict that needs recognition and help. Even if Blizzard does whatever to make the game more and more addictive it's the players' responsibilities to know when to quit and recognise if they need help to their problems. You can't always blame someone else.
Blizzard has recently introduced a new in-game function, to "undelete" character. It means that characters of certain levels will be stored for a while after deleting and you can restore them in a given amount of time (read the criterias here).
The articles I've read so far all praise this new function like it was new. Others say it has been available on private servers so far, so it's not new. Also, no commenter have ever deleted anything, so it's completely unnecessary and they quit because Pandaria sucks. (We've all seen them.)
But there's an article that says Blizzard is an evil drugdealer, supporting MMO-addiction and making it harder to quit games - just because they now enable character restoration.
First things first - character restoration is not new. Game masters happily (or not that happily, but you will never know that) restored any of your characters, at any level, any time. All you had to do is to write a ticket in which you asked them to do so, wait for a few hours for them to contact you and be nice. I know, because it happened to me, and believe me I didn't let those poor GMs get bored!
So, actually, this function is a relief only to the GMs - which is completely reasonable. The only difference is that it's now instant, in-game and repeatable every 30 days, like item restoration.
And then there's THIS article which claims that this feature now discourages serious MMO-addicts from quitting since "the possibility of coming back will now be perpetually dangled in front of their face."
This was the point where I decided to grab keyboard. Addicts are probably aware of the services of the game, including character and item restoration. It is not new to them, and this new service won't support their addiction. In fact, it actually discourages them if they had too low level characters that can't be restored anymore (which I seriously doubt) or several characters that would take months to restore due to the 30 day "cooldown" on restoration.
Besides the in-game aspects, serious addicts need HELP and it's none of Blizzard's business. It's that of their families, friends or themselves. An addict will always find something to be addicted to: alcohol, drugs, games, food. It's none of producer's business. It's the addict that needs recognition and help. Even if Blizzard does whatever to make the game more and more addictive it's the players' responsibilities to know when to quit and recognise if they need help to their problems. You can't always blame someone else.
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