Blizzard threatens players who plan "Gnome March" for Warriors
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 5th 2006 at 11:47AM
I always thought Blizzard was pretty easygoing about ingame player-driven events. I've myself participated in quite a few naked races around Azeroth, players continually line up and run raids on the major cities, and Blizzard even sorta condones twinking in the lower level BGs. That's why I was so surprised to see their attitude on this one.Myxilydian on Burning Blade-H is a Warrior who, like many, is concerned about changes to his class in the Burning Crusade. So, in a more creative form of whining about nerfs, he's posted in the Forums organizing a "Gnome March"-- he's asking Warriors unhappy with their class changes to create a level 1 Gnome warrior on Thunderlord, and at 4pm tomorrow (12/6), march from Ironforge to the gates of Stormwind in solidarity (he's inviting Shammies, too-- he says they should make a Dwarf Paladin for the march). I think it's a great idea, and a funny, creative way to voice his concerns.
Blizzard disagrees, however. Drokthul has closed the thread and posted that "anyone caught participating in this event or any event with the sole purpose of disrupting the game play for others will be punished." Wow. If you ask me, that's extremely harsh for a group of players planning to create 1st level Gnomes and run around together for a while. Guilds do that all the time-- is Blue planning on banning all of them too? Already, Myx (I believe it's Myx-- might be another Warrior supporting the cause) has been banned from the forums.
Now, comments in the Forum thread indicate that Myx may have posted this a few (100?) times before, and maybe in the wrong forums. I'm not going to defend that kind of behavior-- the Forums are crazy enough without spamming, even of stuff like this. But I don't think a level 1 Gnome ingame raid is the kind of play that "disrupts" anything-- it's a creative form of expression within the community (especially when the stated goal is not play disruption). And Blizzard is way wrong, in my (usually) humble opinion, to squelch it so draconically. As I said, usually they've landed on the side of player-driven events. Why they've changed their tune on this one, I'm not sure, but it's definitely not a change I agree with.
Update: A commenter rightfully points out that I jumped the gun on saying "ban"-- Blue says "punish" not ban, and there are other punishments besides banning. Still, I think it's wrong to "punish" your community for doing creative things with your virtual world.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Fan stuff, Blizzard, News items, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
WandringSoul Dec 5th 2006 12:24PM
Actually, I would agree with this...
Protesting about class changes is something to do on the forums - not in the world of Azeroth. It would open the floodgates to all sorts of things, including pickets and obstruction, and could also cause uproar in the chat channels.
It would get ugly - almost certainly... mob mentality is bad enough on the forums, keep it out of my world.
aaron Dec 5th 2006 6:44PM
The idea isnt wrong, but im sure your not going to be happy when their march crashes IF and brings the server down.
Grant Dec 5th 2006 12:02PM
As someone who has been on Argent Dawn since before the first "Gnome March," I can easily understand why Blizzard is coming down hard on this. Events such as this are effectively a denial of service attack, and will probably just cause a server crash (at least it did the first time).
While I can understand frustration with the changes to the warrior class (My main's a mage, and we have our own handful of issues), this is not the way to address it. Don't make an entire server suffer because you want to get a point across...that's just selfish.
twh Dec 5th 2006 12:06PM
What I find unusual is that they did nothing about the 'Pally Rally' back in May and it didn't crash the server, and what have you, but in the long run, I think it did get the point across and now that we've gotten the buffs the class has so dearly needed, I think it was a success.
Strange indeed.
Alexander Dec 5th 2006 7:38PM
I think its more the fact that the guy planned it a day after a major patch. There will undoubtedly be issues with the patch itself. The last thing they need is for Thunderlord to crash for something like this.
I don't think they would of came down so hard had he planned a week from now.
Unkle Dec 5th 2006 12:20PM
Guess they just want to make pallys the new warrior.
Drew Dec 5th 2006 12:26PM
Totally disagree. So if I follow the logic of Blizzard and the couple of posts here, last night's raids on Orgrimmar and the Undercity by the Alliance (on Archimonde) that caused the crash of the server for folks on Kalimdor is a bannable offense? I think no. It's the same logic.
It's an open world and an open community for a reason. If people want to protest, so be it.
Freehugz Dec 5th 2006 12:45PM
Good times for horde mages.
Seriously though, if the point isn't disruption, then what is it? I mean blizzard is more likely to look at forum posts than an in-game march. How much would it suck for your server to go down cuz of idiot warriors. Even worse, what if you're LF1M Warrior and then after not being able to find one your server crashes.
Gurei Dec 5th 2006 12:41PM
Someone needs to tell blizz about that law,you know wich one?
Freedom ?
Its not hacking,its not using cheats or ingame bugs,its just walking whats the problem?
James Dec 5th 2006 12:44PM
Hmm, Thunderlord is PvP. I say, go for it--and take the long way (IF--Loch Modan--Badlands--Westfall--Elwynn), don't take the tram. Make a statement and take the long route so everyone can really see it and really know you're serious. Including my level 20 shaman, who adores killing gnomes, and the idea of mass killing defenseless level 1 gnomes is even better. Too bad Blizz is putting an axe to this, but I can't blame them either.
Rob Dec 5th 2006 1:16PM
don't you see, you have no rights inside blizzards world that parallel the rights here in the US or any country. WoW is blizzard's "world" and they can punish anything they deem wrong. Do constitutional rights exist inside the virtual world?
Thoralf Dec 5th 2006 1:17PM
easy solution: just create a fresh character on a test account and Blizzard can delete all they want - who cares?
In my eyes the way they threaten players (see the German translation board) is quite questionable anyway.
Sylythn Dec 5th 2006 1:56PM
@7,8,OP - Keep this in mind, the title is misleading...the blue post mentions nothing about banning - it simply says punished. Banning is not the only option Blizz has when dealing with infractions.
emyln Dec 5th 2006 1:23PM
Drew, you're wrong. Remember the forums are read by several ten of thousands and perhaps even hundreds of thousand people, every day.
If even 1% of the readers agree and start creating lvl 1 gnomes on a specific server at a specific time and march into IF, the server will crash. this has happened before which is why Blizzard is very much against it.
Raids in game only consist of players who already heave accounts on that server. The server load is designed for that, but not for an additional 1000+ accounts in addition to its current load. And in IF no less (traffic jam city).
Marco Dec 5th 2006 3:46PM
I think it is perfectly acceptable for them to do this. Blizz just doesn't want to deal with thier issues.
Kahja Dec 5th 2006 2:12PM
@11
Short answer: No.
Jake Dec 5th 2006 1:38PM
There's one thing I don't get: how do you walk from IF to SW?
rodrigo Dec 5th 2006 1:55PM
IF -> LockModan -> Badlands -> Searing Gorge -> Blackrock Moutain -> That one that i cant remember -> Redridge -> IF
few...
Anonymous Rogue Dec 5th 2006 4:35PM
Let's forget for a moment that Drokthul is an ass. This is some pretty heavy-handed action from Blizzard, pure and simple. This strikes me as tantamount to punishing players who want to protest in an effort to silence complaints. They can't post in the forums, and they can't protest in the game. So where is the venue for a valid complaint?
It's all good, though. I don't play my warrior alt enough to care. And Blue has such a large player base, THEY DON'T CARE if they alienate a small percentage of players, even if it is thousands of paying customers. But does anyone else besides me wish they could hire more tactful and customer service oriented representatives?
Jp Dec 5th 2006 3:09PM
@2 - Totally agree. I was there.
It was ridiculous. The queues were up so high, and the lag was so bad the game was unplayable that night. For those of us who didn't have another fall back server, it was quite a pain.
I completely agree with Blizz's stance on this. This "Gnome March" has only one goal in mind - to make Thunderlord unplayable for the night, in hopes of making Blizzard realize the warriors are mad. All this will really do is result in GMs having to ban a few hundred players, and pissing off everyone who's main is on Thunderlord.
This is not funny, it's annoying. This is not creative, it's been done before. This is not a great idea, it's the worst idea(or in this case, copying an idea) that anyone's ever come up with.
There's a difference between crashing a server when your goal is large-scale PvP, and when your goal is crashing a server. Take it to the forums, where at least a CM will read it.