There is a lot of talk about Mandatory authentication for WoW.
I think this is a great idea. Most people that don’t like it, don’t like it for the most feeble reasons.
It’s like seat belts…
Don’t make seat belts mandatory, I’m a safe driver!
Yet seat belts have saved more lives on the road than any other safety feature – the lives of the stupid and innocent alike.
Ship it with Cataclysm
This is the bit I don’t like.
It’s a great idea, make sure everyone gets an authenticator, then make authentication mandatory.
I still don’t like it.
I’ve got one! How many you got? How many do you need?
You see I’ve got one. I’ve got my Core Hound pet too. I read and hear a lot about people that have more than one. iPhone app, standard one, Blizzcon one… They’re collecting the set!
I only need one!
So do you, just one, don’t make me buy a piece of plastic I am going to throw on a drawer and forget about.
Carrot and the Stick
We have already had a couple of carrots.
- Account safety.
- Core Hound pet
At this point in time if you care enough about having one, you would have it.
If you don’t, well let me give you something for free…
It’s a big stick!
No WoW for You!
Catauthentication
When they ship Cataclysm, instead of having an authenticator it should have a little slip of paper, the words on the paper will say:
No Authenticator? lol noob! STFU L2Authenticate!
Got Authenticator? Enter this code on your account page to get your choice of 310 speed mounts.
Redeem to play, or redeem to profit.
If you don’t have the authenticator linked to your Battlenet account before installation:
- You can’t play!
- You can only use the redeem code for an authenticator and you must redeem it before you are allowed in the game.
- You then get 30 days reprieve before your account is locked down again. Enough time to receive the authenticator and attach it to your account.
If you do have an authenticator linked to your account:
Welcome to the room full of loot!
I want some acknowledgment for being their since day one of authentication (iPhone at least, I would have needed to mortgage the house to get one to Oz initially).
No authenticator for me, give me something groovy…
- A Fireball Mount
- A GhostCrawler non-combat pet
- A Tauren non-combat pet (come on, they get to have Gnomes at Xmas!)
- A new bank slot, equipped with a 30 slot bag.
- A “Gnomeaggedon Rocks” T-Shirt
- A “I don’t heal stupid” T-Shirt
I think you get the picture. I dare say the biggest issue will be getting your hands on the Gnomeaggedon Rocks T-Shirt
It’s not worth doing the right thing
I don’t know about you, but these days it seems to me, like the way to do well in this world is screw the authorities and screw the society.. hell, we’ll call it capitalism, because then its justified.
Why is it that people are allowed to break laws and ignore warnings & then profit from it?
I’m bet Cataclysm comes out with a free authenticator and some other incentive to use it – because we all know the ones that deserve the bonus are the ones that least deserve it.
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/01/25/mandatory-authentication-cataclysm-box-authenticator-i-hope-not/
As long as they make them available separately in brick-and-mortar stores, then I’m okay. I’d rather have it ship with cataclysm than have it only available online.
Yeah, it’s strange you can’t buy it at your local…
I have 2 authenticators. My first one almost broke, and I was kind of worried that if it collapsed, my guild-leader toon would get hacked and we would all be screwed. I got my second one as a back up. I love that $7 secures my account to a nearly airtight degree.
My fellow guild officers MUST have one, but for everybody else – I don’t care if they practice safe gaming or not!
: )
I has never considered a back up authenticator, although I have worried about the loss of the one I have.
To ship them with Cat in the box seems to be silly as most of the player base who wants one already have them. If they had to make them a must have, put a slip in the box that allows you to redeem them for either an Authenticator or another mini-pet.
Folks who have one already get a choice of pet, and if they combined this with the release of a new online store pet, then even folks who already have both an auth and the current pets will have some benefit.
Folks who opt for the pet instead of the auth even when they don’t have one will get what the deserve if/when their accounts get hacked.
It also allows me to use my offer slip to give a friend an authenticator, if they don’t have one on their nob-cata account.
My view as well
They’d charge me (and you) $5 extra for an authenticator that I don’t need to ensure that everyone has one. I don’t mind this. I could get all self-righteous about how I shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s stupidity, or I could be practical and remember that more authenticators mean fewer hacked accounts meaning shorter GM times, more secure guilds, and a major hit to the gold sellers.
I have an authenticator, but I don’t act superior for having it. All I did was download the app. That’s much more convenient than having to get the actual device.
@typhoonandrew: Such an unjust world we live in! So many people without authenticators don’t get hacked as they deserve. It’s an outrage.
I don’t feel superior for having one, but it annoys the crap out of me when there ar so many warning signs, forum posts etc about it, yet people don’t give a rats.
Love the idea of the authenticator with cat. Hate that I can’t currently go to my superstore if choice to buy one at the moment.
It’s surprising that they don’t offer it for (let’s just say for the sake of a retailers margin) twice the price of online at your local retailer
I am all for putting one in the box with Cataclysm, and I say that as someone who’s had one since they were offered.
The reason I say that it should be in the box is because there are a lot of players who aren’t in the US, and the shipping to get one from the store is horrendous. I bought my girlfriend one for xmas (She’d been sharing an authenticator with her husband), and I paid more than $20 just to have it shipped here to Australia.
If they are in the box, that means everyone out there gets it for a reasonable cost. It’s great to say ‘People can just buy one online’ or give a token for a free one, but you know they won’t include shipping in that, leaving people outside the US (The US already gets free shipping on them) paying 3x what an authenticator costs to get one.
It’s a big part of why there is less buyin for them outside the US.
A friend of mine’s authenticator broke recently. He can’t buy a new one as if can’t log in, can’t play wow and Bliz want a copy of his passport before they’ll do anything. So two authenticators on one account doesn’t sound so mad… I’d be getting the iphone ap as well as the physical one I have if I had one…
I just don’t care if I get hacked. It would give me an excuse to quit early. If Blizzard determines authentication is important enough to force it, they should foot the bill. After all, they’ll realize savings by eliminating most account restoration activities.
I didn’t get one at first because the postage to the UK was exorbitant. Then I was hacked, I don’t know how. Not only was my character stripped, but so was the guildbank.
Luckly I logged in only hours after I’d logged out, catching my character being used for mining – I immediately contacted the GM and, luckily, they were able to restore everything (although they sent both my stuff and the entire guildbank to my mailbox, which was hell to sort out).
By that time Bliz had sorted out the postage costs, so I bought one.
(And the guild put some limits on bank withdrawals per day!)
All I’m saying is if you don’t care what happens to you, think of what your character can do in someone else’s hands – either against your guild, or used to farm gold to sell.
To be honest, I don’t understand all of the fuss. There’s a pretty simple solution that won’t force players to spend money and will allow Blizzard to spend LESS money.
Discontinue Blizzard support for hacked accounts that don’t have an Authenticator attached. Dead simple. Blizz could save countless man hours currently devoted to taking support calls and restoring accounts and belongings. When a call or email comes in about a hacked account without an Authenticator, a scripted message could tell them, “Sorry. Lesson learned, dumbass.”
How much of a motivator would it be to buy an Authenticator if you knew you risked NEVER getting your account back if you were hacked? Keep in mind that accounts are hacked due to user stupidity 90% of the time. People go to phishing sites to get a “free vanity pet” despite Blizzard warning against this at startup. Others use one of their toons’ names as a password or, worse yet, “password.”
Blizzard is under no obligation to restore an account that has been hacked due to no fault of their own. Obviously they’d need to continue to restore accounts if an Authenticator was attached and the account still got hacked. But why not offer account restoration as a paid service for those who fail to spend $7 ONE TIME to secure their account? Blizz loves paid services, as evident by the faction change, character customization, and pet store functionality. Why not charge users $20-$30 as a service fee for stupidity?
Bottom line: dumbasses will always be dumbasses. I, for one, would like to see service queue times decreased and not be forced to foot the bill for an added piece of hardware that I already own when Cataclysm drops. Let Blizz make a little cheddar off of the ignorance of others and pass the savings on to the rest of us.
Devv – Awesome idea! If you are too stupid to get an authenticator, and you get hacked, then Blizzard doesn’t care. If you would like Blizzard to care, that will cost $20.
This is Renters Insurance all over again. Most renters insurance only costs ~$9 a month, and yet renters don’t purchase it. Then your friend Bob, invites Mike, whom you have never met before, over to your appartment. Mike turns out to be an idiot and accidently burns the place down. Guess whose liable? You, not Mike! Now YOU have to pay the $1.5 Million+ to repair the appartment building because you were too cheap to pay the $9 a month in insurance.
A one time fee for the Authenticator is a small price to pay for loss mitigation.
Sorry folks, been a bit busy, but I wanted to throw in a quick reply.
The $20 shipping does sound extreme, nearly as extreme at the $15 subscription we pay every month.
Things may have changed on the shipping costs, but going back a little..
I think it cost about $80 to ship to Oz (and the UK too from memory) originally.. because they were packing the tiny authenticators in boxes that would fit a TV.. they came to their sense and it came down to $20.
The thing about that $20 is that it isn’t $20 per authenticator.
From memory you can get 3 authenticators using that same $20 shipping cost.
Got two mates that play WoW?
First off I was hacked, I blame myself. I had an easy password.
Second off…They’re pixels and can be restored. Sure it’s a pain in the ass, but you do get restored.
Third off – if they WANT me to do it, it should be free.
I hate…no I need something better. I loathe having authority tell me I HAVE to do something. I wear a seat belt because I went through a windshield once, I don’t like it when the government TELLS me I have to. I feel it’s my life whether or not I want to toss it away is my business.
They have checkpoints to see if you are wearing your seatbelt here in america. You know who else had checkpoints…Nazis.
Ohh on other thing… the bit that annoys me about the last people signed up get the bonuses thing… perfect example.
I have been with my telecom’s company for about… 20 years.
I just moved, got the net & phone on etc.
yesterday I saw in the paper, they are offering 50% more internet for 2/3 of the price…
Why is this shit only ever offered to the new people, the late people… why don’t they ring me up and say…
“He you have been with us for 20 years, why not take the latest greatest & cheapest option we have”
Ohh yeah.. contracts…
I’m on the fence about *how* to impliment some sort of authenticator for all thing.
I recently ordered mine, but I held off for a number of reasons:
1) Let me buy one locally. I hate being forced to order stuff online. Mail/FedEx/UPS are NOT infallible. Walking out of the store pretty much is.
2) Do NOT require a Battlenet account to order the damned thing. (not an issue now for WoW players, but pre- Nov 11, it was) They ARE nice gifts for new players, and the account requirement is a hassle for potential buyers.
3) Offer a “generic” looking one. Like Gnome, I like to tinker around when I’m not at home. I do not like to advertise what I am doing when I’m out & about (at work, internet cafe, etc) and having a dongle with WARCRAFT and bright graphics is not exactly subtle.
4) Make it back lit. (maybe with second buton and a replaceable “battery for the light only”) In less than ideal lighting, they are a royal pain in the ass to read.
As for requiring one? I’m kind of in Threevis’ camp, although I would try not to Godwin this topic
*I DESPISE alcohol/seatbelt checkpoints. I remember “back in the 80′s” when we mocked the Soviets for “papers please, Comrade”. Now I often have to present licence & insurance info to simply drive to breakfast on Sunday mornings…
Having already purchased one at the cost of practically of an expansion ( damn security shipping to Oz… ) I would be somewhat miffed if its given for free – or that my next expansion costs more because it’s ‘free’
In addition a single pet ( even my corehound) would not translate into a real world value of the cost I have already forked out
Finally though…. I have been secure in the knowedge that possessing it has made me feel a lot more secure about any potential hacks on my account, I mean they could take over my whole pc and the webcam but they can’t take my wow accouuuunnnnnnttttttt ( channeling Mel Gibson here.. )
So yeah I think I have got my moneys worth..
I see that there are a lot of people complaining about otheres not having the authenticaor and that if they really wanted it they should get one. What about those people that live outside the usa and are unable to get them because there is no retail office or even a consistant suply in stock that we have to pay $30.00 extra just to get this item to our door?? I think that placing it with the cataclism expansion would be the best way to get the authenticators to the customer that really need them. So instead of playing the tosser game try to be constructive towards account security for those of us outside America just because we dont have the privalige of being able to go Wow $6.50 i can do that and now miss it ($6.50+$30.00 P&h) can be outside some peoples abilities compunded by those with multiple accounts it would seem silly not to make this manditory and readilly available to all customers not just those lucky enough to live in the US.
Ha yeah, well I’m definitely a tosser, but I’m also a Tosser from a colony.
My mates lukwise are from a colony and all face the postage charges.
I went the expensive route and got the iPhone app. Sure the app is free, but the phone isn’t and I use the app more than I use the phone most days.
My friends got the authenticator, but got smart. They didn’t buy 1, they bought 3. Same postage for 1 as it is for 3.
I still don’t beleive that everyone that has one should be paying for a second one. Much better that Blizzard ships a container load to the colonies to sell through game shops.
But that’s a moot point. Cataclysm will cone with an authenticator, or not, and I will have no say in that.
If it does I will have a redundant piece of plastic floating around the house, shoves at the back of the cupboard with the WoW boxes.
If it doesn’t, then people will continue to bitch about spending $30 dollars on a waste of money that is account security while proudly prancing about on their celestial pony.