Games World of Warcraft - RealID

[BloodOmen]

As a WoW player I can't say i'm happy about our real life names being shown on public forums, anyone play WoW and share the same thoughts? for those of you that don't play World of Warcraft i'll explain what i'm on about.

post made by a blizzard employee, post taken from forums

"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."


So basicly with the right info that can be gained by knowing your real life name people can do some of the following to you be it legal or not.

Take out loans in your name
Order other items of interest in your name
Order things to your home
Stalk you

The list is almost endless.

 

[Talyn]

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/role-playing-games-15/243784-blizzard-real-id.html

 

[Punishment]

There subscriber base is gonna be atleast halved by this , not a well thought out move at all , as alot of people are closet geeks and other people will want their identity hidden for personal reasons , stupid move imo

 

[BloodOmen]

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/role-playing-games-15/243784-blizzard-real-id.html

I knew I should use the RP forums more often ah well poll in this one curious what people think.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Not really bothered by it, anyone can get my name with some effort anyway, it's not like it doesn't read on my FRONT DOOR.

First and last name isn't a security risk alone, they need a bit more then a name to;

Take out loans in your name
Order other items of interest in your name
Order things to your home
Stalk you

etc.

that being said though...

It should be optional, which i do believe real-id is.

 

[Afran]

I don't play it anymore but it's totally retarded

 

[Bahumat]

Not really bothered by it, anyone can get my name with some effort anyway, it's not like it doesn't read on my FRONT DOOR.

First and last name isn't a security risk alone, they need a bit more then a name to;

Take out loans in your name
Order other items of interest in your name
Order things to your home
Stalk you

etc.

that being said though...

It should be optional, which i do believe real-id is.

Thing is though, they got the GM's name as they were not excluded from the change and every ordered pizza's etc to his house. Now Blizzard employees are no longer showing their details so it's unfair they get out of it.

Also if you hate some other player due to some silly reason, you could get his real life details and sign him up to credit cards etc etc

 

[old.Tohtori]

Thing is though, they got the GM's name as they were not excluded from the change and every ordered pizza's etc to his house. Now Blizzard employees are no longer showing their details so it's unfair they get out of it.

Also if you hate some other player due to some silly reason, you could get his real life details and sign him up to credit cards etc etc

The employees will be posting by real names too. Right there in first post.

And if i gave you my first/last name, how much do you think you could do with it?

Not much i tell you, because your name has no data of you in it.

ID theft paranoia, that all.

 

[Raven]

I think its hilarious, the WoW forum community is worse than VN boards, its just a mess of retards talking absolute gibberish to each other, I think there will be a lot of embarrassed nerds about. It will mean people will think twice about posting "lolol nice arena rating newb!" or "your gear sucks omgroflirl!!111"

It can only improve the overall experience. Now they just need to make the actual game worth playing.

Oh an on further reading of the original post, do you use a pseudonym on facebook too? Otherwise how do you protect yourself from fraud???

A name on its own is nothing, if people are stupid enough not to protect their online personal information on social websites then they deserve to be taken for every penny, its E-darwinism.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Also true raven, it will purify the forum posting in my opinion.

I like this hardline, if they have the cahones to keep at it.

Hell, they can afford a couple of million angry subscription fallouts, they all will run back anyway once the jitters start

 

[Billargh]

Completely stupid idea imo, but hey I'll only add friends who I generally know irl anyway, and I never use the WoW forums so I think I'm safe.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yeah, to those who think it's unsafe or whatever, don't have to use it.

Beauty of it really and i'm betting they'll do some retouch on it later, with more control over un-ID people.

 

[Billargh]

World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> Open Letter: Real Names on Blizzard Forums

Ah well, seems they've changed their mind.

 

[Helme]

It honestly doesn't matter, for example: there's 36 people in Sweden with the same first and lastname as me, what could they possible do with that name?

Absofuckinglutely nothing at all. The reason the Blizzard guy got stalked is because SHOCKHORROR he was a Blizzard employee! and he only got stalked because of this announcement.

Ghostcrawler(probably the most hated person in the MMO-world) has had his name public for a few years now and nothing has come from it.

Using the facebook stalking as proof that this is a dumb idea really doesn't accomplish anything at all, since it only was a petty response from the people who constantly yell "MY PRIVACY!" while ignoring that the forums are completly optional.

 

[BloodOmen]

World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> Open Letter: Real Names on Blizzard Forums

Ah well, seems they've changed their mind.

Because of the negative feedback most likely, its more the principle of having your real life name there and not having the choice if blizzard said "well we're giving you the option to display your real life name" no one would care really.

 

[Aballith]

Shame, would have been a good idea i reckon for exactly the reasons they state.

The only problem being for the people who had really mean parents. Would cause a lot of internet bullying i'm sure

 

[Imgormiel]

Whole story is epic fail from start to finish as far as I am concerned. WoW - just fucking looool!!

 

[Huntingtons]

it concerns all of their games tho. not only WoW

 

[pikeh]

d3 as well. I won't play if I have to run around being called Dave, otherwise its just like RL. (minus the monsters, dungeons, fantasy, killing, muscles and the lord of the underworld.) Well, maybe the muscles bit anyway.

 

[Ormorof]

seems it will only affect people posting on the boards? and the vast majority of players dont post on the forums anyway, personally the only time i look at the forums is if i have problems connecting to the game or if i hear something has been announced on them.

edit: just read rest of thread and realised theyve changed it heh nevermind i guess

 

[Helme]

And yeah even if this went through the only change would have been for people posting on the forums, which are completly optional and probably best ignored.

The RealID ingame is also completly optional, you share your email adress with friends and if they play a Blizzard game you can contact them. That's it.

 

[Andrilyn]

Not like there's ever anything informational or interresting being posted on the WoW forums, it's a cesspit of trolls so kind of a shame they reverted that change as it would stimulate people to actually think before they posted something and would (probably) stop 90% of the troll posts.

 

[Lakih]

I thought it was a terrible idea. If you have a less common name you'll be quite easy to find. I have experience from work where collegues have been "stalked". One got a gift certificate for a pocket book so thats not bad but the other got some nasty calls in the middle of the night and threathening letters sent. The latter ended in a police report. This is just from first and last name info.

Besides where do they get the name from? Credit card - what if you use your parents credit card (it's WoW afterall)? Info on account - nothing stops you from having the name Vagina Penis.

The only way to clean up that cesspool of forums they have is heavy moderation, zero tollerance on trolling and consequently short period of bans, also lock forums so that you have to have an active account to read/post on all but selected forums (like help forums and stuff). Trolling? 3 days ban from forums without trial.

 

[BloodOmen]

I thought it was a terrible idea. If you have a less common name you'll be quite easy to find. I have experience from work where collegues have been "stalked". One got a gift certificate for a pocket book so thats not bad but the other got some nasty calls in the middle of the night and threathening letters sent. The latter ended in a police report. This is just from first and last name info.

Besides where do they get the name from? Credit card - what if you use your parents credit card (it's WoW afterall)? Info on account - nothing stops you from having the name Vagina Penis.

The only way to clean up that cesspool of forums they have is heavy moderation, zero tollerance on trolling and consequently short period of bans, also lock forums so that you have to have an active account to read/post on all but selected forums (like help forums and stuff). Trolling? 3 days ban from forums without trial.

People with older accounts have already used names creating those accounts you can't change them once they've been made so thats whats stopping us from having names like "Vagina Penis" as for forum moderation the people modding it are retards in all honesty they allow trolls to chain post and insult people but when my friend brought up a perfectly valid point (it was about a raid or something ingame can't remember now it was awhile ago) they literally banned him from the forums and from ingame for 4 weeks because he made an innocent post with no sort of flame/whine in at all it was constructive... yet in other threads you see things like "Your a fucking noob" etc etc and nowt gets done about it.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Not like there's ever anything informational or interresting being posted on the WoW forums, it's a cesspit of trolls so kind of a shame they reverted that change as it would stimulate people to actually think before they posted something and would (probably) stop 90% of the troll posts.

When I played WoW I would from time to time organise server events and used the forums. I've had issues in games in the past with stalkers, not just WoW, because I've often been fairly prominent in server communities. I personally would be against anything that opens up an avenue of potential vulnerability.

Actually, thinking on it, some of the stalkers have been quite disturbing and really gone out of their way to cause damage, I'd almost forgotten about this until the Real ID thing came up.

As said, its heading to be a non-issue. So long as its only optional, thats fine.

 

[Thorwyn]

They tried a similar thing in the CPL a couple of years ago. All Quake players had to play with their real names instead of their handles. So instead of cK-fatal1ty vs. AAA-Polosatiy it was cK-Wendel vs. AAA-Rosenblumenthalovic (or whatever his name was).
:lol:

It just doesn´t make any sense. On almost any serious, non-game-related site, ebay, facebook, myspace etc. you´re allowed to log on under a chosen nickname. So why do they need the real names? And how are they going to make sure it IS the real name when you register?
I guess it doesn´t make a difference when you´re name is John Smith, but when you got a unique or rare name, it´s way too easy for other people to track you down on the internet. These days, when you´re applying for a job, people are googling for you. Would you want them to find out that you´re playing WoW when you apply for a job in a bank? Some people might say "yes, why not, I don´t care", but in fact, it´s NONE of their business what you´re doing in your free time (as long as it doesn´t affect the work). So even if you´re just an innocent forum user and not a flaming troll, people will have it a lot easier to gather informations about you and your privacy.

 

[Gray]

While this shitstorm was brewing last week with the Real ID/Name system on the WoW forums, some posters recommended that they email the ESRB to complain about this.

While i don't know entirely about the ESRB, i believe they do some sort of rating for content and the like. While its all calmed down now, its been found out that ESRB did a major leak of everyones email address who sent them an email to complain about their privacy being jeopardised.

ESRB Responds to Privacy Concern with Leak - World of Warcraft | TM

 

[FuzzyLogic]

Mike Morhaime: Real names will not be required on official Blizzard forums

Still wouldn't mind the option to use a username or pseudonym though, wasn't going to use this but weirdly someone added me that I haven't spoken to in years, which was nice.