Blizzard and Real ID

[Gray]

For a long time, Blizzard said they were going to be releasing a new feature to their new Battle.net2, which allowed you to stay in contact with friends who where on different Blizzard games, basically if you were playing World of Warcraft, you could see/chat with your friend/s who were playing Starcraft 2.

It was not a compulsory feature though, and as thus, people could opt to just not use it. Like me. Simples. A lot of people decided to not use it because instead of the Real ID using an in-game alias/nickname, it instead chose to display your full name instead.

So, people where unhappy about it, and stated they wasn't going to use Real ID, mainly for the reason that it was going to be using your real name. Everyone pretty much expected the Real ID system to be localised to just the games, but yesterday, a huge wave of mass-QQ erupted from the impending Cataclysm.

Blizzard annouced that they're going to be updating/upgrading their official forums of specific games in a few months time. These forums will then become Real ID accessible, meaning any post that you make on the new Blizzard forums will show your full name.

I wasn't massively bothered over it, but it is absolutely clear that it seems Blizzard did not think this through completely. One of Blizzards main intentions of integrating the Real ID system over to the official forums was to limit the amount of trolling that takes place on the forums - Just like any other forum really.

However the negative impact that this will have on certain individuals could be huge - Girls play this game (apparently), so if they happen to post up on the official forums now, their full name will be present, as well as their main character name and their realm their character is based on.

This could leave dodgy people to go onto their realm and start to harrass the girl/s in question, which then leads to them reporting the issue of harrassment to Game Masters, which then increases the wait time (Which is already hours long) of getting important tickets serviced in-game.

Anyone who argues with someone else (Non-trolling) is also open to abuse if the other person doesn't agree to it. The Blizzard moderator/"Blues" also said that they would have their real names shown on the official forums too. One of them thought it wasn't much of a big deal, and ended up getting his facebook/twitter etc spammed.

This has been hugely controversial. Within the first hour of Blizzard releasing this information on the official Warcraft forums, their US-General thread was 200 pages long, abouit 12 hours later its upto 1000 pages now, and its still going.

So is anyone liking the new Real ID system which is going to be implemented across the board of Blizzard games?

 

[Gray]

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - Battle.net Real ID , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.

The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

We also plan to add a number of other features designed to make reading the forums more enjoyable and to empower players with tools to improve the quality of forum discussions. Players will have the ability to rate up or rate down posts so that great topics and replies stand out from the not-so-great; low-rated posts will appear dimmer to show that the community feels that they don’t contribute effectively to the conversation, and Blizzard’s community team will be able to quickly and easily locate highly rated posts to participate in or to highlight discussions that players find worthwhile.

In addition, individual topics will be threaded by context, meaning replies to specific posts will be grouped together, making it easier for players to keep track of multiple conversations within a thread. We’re also adding a way for Blizzard posters to “broadcast” important messages forums-wide , to help communicate breaking news to the community in a clear and timely fashion. Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.

With the launch of the new Battle.net, it’s important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that’s highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID -- including these forum changes -- have been made with this goal in mind.

We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years. As these services have become more and more popular, gamers have become part of an increasingly connected and intimate global community – friendships are much more easily forged across long distances, and at conventions like PAX or our own BlizzCon, we’ve seen first-hand how gamers who may have never actually met in person have formed meaningful real-life relationships across borders and oceans. As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come.

For more info on Real ID, check out our Real ID page and FAQ located at Battle.net Real ID . We look forward to answering your questions about these upcoming forum changes in the thread below.

One important point which I don't believe has been relayed yet is that the switch to showing RealID on the forums will only happen with the new forum systems we're launching for StarCraft II shortly before its release, and a new forum system for World of Warcraft launching shortly before the release of Cataclysm.

All posts here on the current World of Warcraft forums, or any of our classic Battle.net forums, will remain as-is. They won't (and can't) automatically switch to showing a real first and last name.

All posts in the future on the new forum systems will be an opt-in choice and ample warning will be given that you're posting with your real first and last name.

...

 

[`mongoose]

It's a massive safeguarding issue. I can see blizzard taking some serious heat for this as many of their gamers are minors and this is placing their identity at risk.

I personally think it's a terrible idea.


M

 

[Talyn]

There's an easy answer. Don't post on the official forums. Stick to guild and FH.

Having played WoW since release (I gave up a while ago) I think I've only ever made 2 or 3 posts on the forums over there.

There's only a small percentage of users who use the forums, and of course, they will need to think carefully if they want to continue.

Yes, it's a big issue, yes, I think it's a bad idea, yes, I understand why Blizzard are doing this, and yes, the most simple thing is to not use the forums. Just browse them for info, rather than post there.

I think the bigger issue is that add-ons are able to pull your real name from RealID and do what they want with it, so be very careful of what add-ons you use. Security flaw allows addons to expose full real life names without user permission

 

[Talyn]

And this!!

 

[Z^^]

Hello My name is Patrick Jedefeldt whats the issue again?

 

[Ctuchik]

And this!!

aye, fuck all will change with this.

you're still anonymous, real name or not.

 

[BloodOmen]

aye, fuck all will change with this.

you're still anonymous, real name or not.

aye but the difference is when people know your birth name alot of other information can be gained/found its not so much a problem of wanting to hide in the shadows because you're too scared to go outside its the fact more serious things might become of it in the long run *ponders back to the story of the japanese man that killed a guy with a samurai sword because he was insulting him while playing legend of mir*

 

[mooSe_]

They are doing this for the StarCraft2 forums as well but luckily the blizzard SC2 forums are a hilarious noob-fest anyway so I already had no interest in posting there.

 

[Gray]

Blizzard have decided to do a huge U-turn on this, and have stated that real names won't feature on their forums now.

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters (Blizzard Entertainment: Mission Statement), and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

 

[ECA]

It's amazing how the idea even got past "hey guys I have an idea" without the first reply being "shut the fuck up".

 

[Talyn]

It's amazing how the idea even got past "hey guys I have an idea" without the first reply being "shut the fuck up".

I blame Activision more than Blizzard, now that the big boy are signing the paychecks...

But yeah, stoopid idea in the first place!

 

[PillSoiling]

IMHO, Real ID is one gate way for stalking and harassed by others. Its fine with me if there’s a option where they can strict the privacy control on user’s information whether users choose to post name or make a scree name. Besides screen name like BloodFlynn or wow gold are used to put a barrier to maintaining a separation between private life, public life, and work life.

 

[Ctuchik]

I blame Activision more than Blizzard, now that the big boy are signing the paychecks...

But yeah, stoopid idea in the first place!

i don't think activision has all THAT much say in anything that deals with WoW.

blizzard has from day 1 been very "facebooky" when it comes to privacy....