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Vigilant Walrus · Jul 7, 2010

WanderingWind said:
Yeah, nice response. Luckily for you, I'm not insane and I don't know your name. I'll just take you for yet another person who hasn't a clue how to act like a human being online and leave it at that.

You want to take the chance that your idiotic response wouldn't come back and bite you in the ass when those factors change? You sure? Because if you are, then you're a poor judge of humanity.

Whatever man. It's cute that you're so blase about this, but it's not insane to want to mitigate the release of certain articles of personal information to 11 million people. It's common sense.

What I think here, is that you have serious trust issues. I also think you jump on the barricades, and that you turn things into a problem before it occur. You make things into a problem because you are afraid.

The women who are most likely to get raped in real life, are the women who are afraid of getting raped. Somehow, in many of the cases their angst project themselves as victims. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Be f**king rational for a second. Why would anyone want to stalk you? If you are on a forum with 100,000 people and everyone have their name revealed, why the flying fucking would anyone go out of their way to hunt your ass down? It's such a stupid scenario, that I can't help but just laugh. You watch to many action films.

It's one thing to want to have privacy. It's another to think you are the center of the universe and that everybody wants to kill you for knowing your name. :lol

It was wrong to call you insane, but you are projecting absolute hysteria. That's not a trademark of a psychopath. Just a unstable individual.

Vinci said:
Let's say you're right. And I even acknowledge that you are, that the odds of someone personally targeting me or someone else is quite low. But here's the deal: If it even occurs once, one single time on account of this change, that's one too many. So you can say that people are being paranoid, but we're free to say that you're naive.

I don't have Facebook. I don't Tweet. I've never shared my real name online ever. Not a single time. Does that mean I'm up to no good? No. It means I don't trust strangers. I don't hate them, I won't sneer at them or reach for pepper spray upon seeing one. But I sure as hell am not going to trust them without some real reason to do so. So I don't think trusting random people with my real name, for the first time ever on the internet, in order for me to discuss my latest pet peeves about fucking WoW is really logical.

Again: My problem with this is that it's so horribly indirect. It doesn't target people who are actually doing anything wrong. It targets anyone with an interest in keeping their real names off the internet. Some of those people may be good, some may be bad - but it's this lack of focus that guarantees that this is a clumsy measure.

Now if folks are right and this is really for social networking: Okay, I don't care then. I'm not a big social networker, so I'll just avoid Blizzard products from now on if this is the direction they're heading in.

Here is the wake-up call. It's going to happen. And it's going to happen regardless if Real ID is there or not. Things will take it's course. People will be found.

My cousin is into Mac adress hacking. According to him, he can find anyone he wants. He says it's no problem, and just as easily as you can get the tools FBI use to recover child pornography, you can get tools that track the location of any user on the net.
It's ignorant to assume anyone is safe.

Using the argument that this should not be done because some people will potentially get in trouble over this, is a poor one, because it would happen anyway.

You don't forbid knives because someone misuse a kitchen knife and kills someone with it.

It's just the way things are.
If you look at Facebook, anyone can search for anyone, and most people have their name shown. I have not heard of many examples of people getting randomly killed by people looking for names through facebook, or the phonebook.

The fear that someone will take it to far over a flame war, and use the name as a catalyst. I don't think so either. It's unrealistic and extreme. Most video game related deaths I have heard about in MMORPGs and on Xbox Live, were between people who knew each other.

Some people don't want to use their real name, well then they shouldn't sign up for the forums. Blizzard forums, are not a democracy. It's a hate central of ignorance, and the sooner that shit is gone, the sooner they can try and repair the damage.

I am not going to use the forum. I don't think so. I am still interested. Other people have tons of better and free options for forums. The customer support argument is lame. I have tried their email service, and it worked fine, and most WoW forums are perfect for tech support. Often they seem to know more than the tech support people themselves.

And again, nobody is being forced to anything. paying 15 bucks a month is not a right to post on a forum. It's to play a game.

People should be happy for the traffic the WoW fansites are about to recieve.

The Lamonster · Jul 7, 2010

So basically, you shouldn't care about your real name being out there, just don't be a ridiculous asshole and make people want to kill you.

Vigilant Walrus · Jul 7, 2010

The Lamonster said:
tl;dr: you shouldn't care about your real name being out there, just don't be a ridiculous asshole and make people want to kill you.

Yes. You win the thread sir. That's at least my census.

Many people have reasons for not to want to be found(real-life stalkers looking for them, kindergarden teachers not to be assosiated with kids online, people in witness protection programs and so on) but they have other options. Main thing is that people give a shit about one of the worst places of the internet.
I didn't saw any good discussions there. It was assaults on blizzard, on the post creators. everybody was a troll. everyone was a 3/10, everyone was a fanboy. completely retarded.

Vinci · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
Here is the wake-up call. It's going to happen. And it's going to happen regardless if Real ID is there or not. Things will take it's course. People will be found.

Then why would this address the forum's troubles at all? If there's no threat, or at least so slight of a threat that you might as well ignore it, then what is the concern in people knowing your real name if your manner of discourse is impolite or hostile? What's the point of having your real name on these things if the ability to track it is not a threat in any way?

You're basically saying that knowing someone's real name through the internet lacks teeth as far as threats go - then why would it impact how people behave on the forum?

It's ignorant to assume anyone is safe.

It's ignorant to assume that, yes, so I guess it's good that I don't. But it's not too different from piracy: The easier the tools to accomplish it become, the more likely more people will do it.

Using the argument that this should not be done because some people will potentially get in trouble over this, is a poor one, because it would happen anyway.

Using the argument that this is a great deterrent for trolls and then stating that the displaying of one's real name holds no inherent threat is not only poor, it's illogical. For something to have an impact, it has to either reinforce positive or negative behavior. From what you've said, this does neither.

Spire · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus must not have been following MMOs for very long if he thinks stalking people and hunting them down in real life never happens.

Also, the whole "don't be a dick = you have nothing to worry about" is only spouted by people who have never actually taken part in a discussion on the WoW forums. You don't have to be a dick for people to rage at you, all you have to do is not agree 100% with them. Look at Walrus here, he's practically typed out a novel and obviously gotten very passionate about this and everything in this thread has been fairly civil so far.

Vamphuntr · Jul 7, 2010

I don't think this is such a good idea. This will only create more personal attacks against players. When they will get caught in an e-argument they will start to google your name to find picture or info on you. Moderation will have some fun. Might they also sell your name to some marketing companies? I mean it won't be hard for them, your full name will be displayed and they will be able to find your country in your profile. I do agree about the fact that discussions won't contain as much dumb comments or flaming remarks since you're displaying your full name.

Deleted member 17706 · Jul 7, 2010

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Alec Meer over at Rock Paper Shotgun posted a good article on the subject: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/07/07/broken-armour-blizzards-forum-folly/#more-33309

Ive spent a fair bit of today thinking about Blizzards decision to enforce the use of real names on its forums thing, as anyone watching me yammer away on Twitter will already know. My ultimate conclusion is that, well, its insane.

Utter, utter madness.

Never mind that its going to discourage discussion, roleplaying and playfulness. Never mind that people want an escape from reality sometimes.

Even discounting the StarCraft and Diablo communities, World of Warcraft has 12 million-odd players, though Id guess only around a quarter of that are English-speaking. Of those, its perhaps just several hundred thousand who actively post on the forums.

Just.

Thats far too big to be a close-knit community that helps, supports and trusts each other implicitly. Thats millions of strangers whose only thing in common is a game about bashing things: thats a pretty broad catchment, all-told. Its also an existing community, not one thats been built from scratch around public identities.

That means that, right off the bat, its not the same as iRacing, a thoroughly respectable but undeniably niche MMO for motorsports fans which also requires the use of real names.

Its far, far too many people who could know your name, and as a result go on to find out anything/everything about you most particularly, how to find you. Simply by law of averages, the more people there are, the higher the chance of there being a nutter wholl post rotten vegetables to you, send you love letters, or turn up at your door with a replica samurai sword.

People can find you via Google. People can find you via the phonebook.

Yes. But they cant look for you if they dont know your name, and they wont even want to look for you if you havent said something about how rubbish their raiding is or made some inexpert pseudo-flirting. Peoples pride doesnt get hurt by reading the phonebook.

There are a slim handful precedents for real-life forum vengeance very few, very rare and certainly a result of troubled individuals rather than because of any inherent link between forum-dwellers, aggressive behaviour and availability of information.

Im really not saying there will be hundreds of murders as a result of this. Im saying that even one instance, just one of someone having their private life invaded (and Im not talking purely in terms of violence, but also in terms of hassle, fear and upset phone calls, letters, lecherous signals) because someone on a forum tracked them down as a result of seeing their name next to something they posted is one instance too much.

The risk for women, particularly, is high. The forum equivalent of wolf-whistling is scarcely a rare-occurrence, so to give people the tools to go further seems abhorrent. Most people wouldnt. Of course most people wouldnt. But one might. And thats too much.

Yes, the truly dedicated/insane could very likely track down someone they were obsessed with without knowing their real name in advance. But this doesnt make that just slightly easier. It makes it as easy as typing someones name into Google. Just the slightest additional chance of upset or violence or even hassle, no matter how minor, is just not worth it, and I simply cannot understand how this system was approved at the highest levels of Blizzard. Is it really just because they want calmer forums? Its such a big and unusual decision that there surely must be more to it.

Im sure theyre having a huge rethink as a result of what happened earlier today. One of their staff ended his phone number, address, photographs and details of his family members blared all over the internet when he tried to prove the new system worked, and that Blizzard devs would also be adhering to it. The fool. The poor, poor fool.

Im afraid I not going to provide the link to that, because I dont want to give the unfortunate chaps phone number to strangers. That said, hes probably changed it already. Hes certainly deleted his Facebook page following the horde of hasslers that resulted from his naive declaration of just his first and last names.

Just the work of a couple of malicious time-wasters, you might say. It was bound to happen.

Exactly, I say. It only takes one malicious time-waster to potentially ruin someones day, week, month, life. You dont have to be a representative of a company thats pissed people off to risk the frighteningly rapid investigatory ire of someone on the internet. You just have to say the wrong thing in the wrong place. And dont say stupid or mean things on forums doesnt swing it. Thats a little too they had it coming. Thats a little too dressing like that, she was asking for it, judge.

Its possible itll simply be a huge deterrent to posting, and maybe thats what Blizzard want anyway a quiet manageable place. I suspect they dont want a homogenous place, though, devoid of the diversity that makes virtual worlds such fascinating places, where people are quiet and polite and nothing ever happens. And Im absolutely sure they dont want to be in the news were something like this to ever happen again.

I hope it wont. The vast majority of humans dont think or behave like that. But is a prettier forum, and a more Facebook-like Battle.net, really worth increasing the opportunity for it to happen?

water_wendi · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
Yes. You win the thread sir. That's at least my census.

Crazy people dont need a reason to act crazy.

Many people have reasons for not to want to be found(real-life stalkers looking for them, kindergarden teachers not to be assosiated with kids online, people in witness protection programs and so on) but they have other options.

Whats are the options? To not use the technical boards when directed there? To not ask questions about their build? To not socialize with the other faction? To post on the forums you have to be a current paying customer.. i dont see how "not posting" is an option. And if you are hacked and they post on the forums?

Main thing is that people give a shit about one of the worst places of the internet.

No the main thing is that Blizzard doesnt care one bit about their customers privacy if this happens. For those that have never had a problem with their privacy and think this is a grand idea, i wish you good luck. Its unfortunate but the majority of people have to get burned to learn.

I didn't saw any good discussions there. It was assaults on blizzard, on the post creators. everybody was a troll. everyone was a 3/10, everyone was a fanboy. completely retarded.

This is so opposite of whats going on over there.

edit: heres another great post that just showed up over there

Skunkwerks on wow forums said:
There is not a single stated goal in this proposal that cannot as effectively be accomplished by simply exchanging a person's REAL NAME with a UNIQUE GLOBAL HANDLE.

-You want personal accountability? You got it.

-You want transparency in people's posting habits within the system? You got it.

-You want people within the community to be easily identifiable to other members of that community? It's covered.

Some things a Unique Global Handle won't come with:

-Confusion when two players who happen to share a real full name (John Smith, for example) invariably get confused for one another by the server at large. Confusion made especially poignant if John Smith A is a jackhole who is ruining John Smith B's reputation by proxy, and through no fault of John Smith B. A Unique global ID can be unique because no one else in the system can have it, at all.

-Potential REAL WORLD consequences for having someone snoop out other sensitive details about you are unearthed by people you don't care to have them- bear in mind these could be any people doing the snooping. We may be able to "opt-out" of posting on these forums, anyone can opt-in to reading them, and they don't have to be other paying customers even. I know this point has seen a lot of heated debate on the matter- whether or not you can really find out that much about a person, whether they are the right person, and so on. My response to that is: ask Micah Whipple. Both of him, including the "wrong" one.

But what Blizzard seems to be trying to suggest to us is that these potential real world consequences is precisely the thing that gives this approach an edge.

-Merely having users accountable for all of their actions within the system isn't enough (they already can be held responsible even without this proposed change anyway, but yeah, not harsh enough).

-Merely having users' actions transparent to other members of the community in the same system isn't enough.

What Blizzard is saying here is that we apparently NEED those real world consequences to make this approach effective. They NEED to have those consequences reach outside the system. Kinda a funny message to send, isn't it?

Hey guys, we can't moderate our own forums effectively. Forum bans and Temp bans aren't enough of a deterrent. Heck, even making sure that everyone on this forum knows who you are regardless of what character you're posting on by putting them all under the same global handle isn't enough of a deterrent.

We can't keep you from trolling in any of those ways. What CAN keep you guys civil though is the threat posed by all the potential Kneecap Kevins, Angus McAxeswingers, and Stephen Stalkmeisters out there- both inside AND outside our community paying you a visit one day in the wee hours of the morning...

We really couldn't think of a better way to make this happen.

Sincerely
~Blizzard

"We care about our customers. No, really."

I'm sorry, but this approach just isn't sense. It smacks instead of laziness and gross negligence, because you really DON'T NEED outside consequences to make this plan effective. All you need is "natural" consequences from within the community at large, all of which can be accomplished by assigning all posters a unique global name that is NOT their real name, and- just like with the original plan- making sure it's tacked to every post a given user makes.

It does all of the things Blizzard says this is for, does them BETTER, and carries NONE of the risks associated with revealing personal information (no matter how big or small they are argued to be).

So, why aren't we doing that instead?

Heck, if Blizzard is so adamant that people want to expose themselves in this way, why not make it an option as some have suggested and watch how many opt-out of it- TRULY opt out of it. I'm betting even the cheerleaders for this debacle would gladly hide their names if given the option to do so.

I think all the users talking about the Facebook Conspiracy are on the right track. This has nothing to do with reducing trolling- that story is a whitewash to sell this as something remotely resembling a good idea. But it's not a good idea. It doesn't benefit us in any way whatsoever, if anything, it makes things for every forum-goer much, MUCH worse.

Dead Man · Jul 7, 2010

Zefah said:
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Alec Meer over at Rock Paper Shotgun posted a good article on the subject: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/07/07/broken-armour-blizzards-forum-folly/#more-33309

Good article, thanks for the link.

fizzelopeguss · Jul 7, 2010

ohh man, can't wait for the inevitable psycho that hunts down and kills some poor SoB because he "stole" his "loot"

Vamphuntr · Jul 7, 2010

Zefah said:
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Alec Meer over at Rock Paper Shotgun posted a good article on the subject: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/07/07/broken-armour-blizzards-forum-folly/#more-33309

That was a good read. Thanks for posting that. It's pretty much what I feel about it. People are pissed off so easily on the internet and that internet is so full of infos on everyone that it could get ugly pretty quickly. He was right about the size of the community. With a 12 millions players userbase of course you have the risk of having different kinds of crazy whackos on board. Depending if you're name is common or not, it may not take long to know everything about you. The example of the Blizzard guy in the text kinda proves that.

People are so racist too, it won't end well. I mean take XBL or PSN for example. I wrote in my profile that my languages were english and french and some people troll me for the french part even if I don't use voice chat at all in games. Some players will start to bash other simply because their names reflect their origins.

J-Rzez · Jul 7, 2010

Darkness said:
I don't see the big deal. When this goes live I will stop posting on any Blizzard forums since I don't want my name out there. It doesn't matter - it's just a videogame forum. I don't need to post there. I will just read stuff. Reading through the forums now it's funny to see the people in an outrage and threatening to cancel an account over not being able to post on the forums.

Considering I have had an account issue once before, and could not get through to their phone in customer service due to their lack of employees or a piss poor call-center overall for hours, nor did I get a response from email, I had one last resort of going to the forums. Which, shockingly, I got a fast response from one of their reps in the customer support section. Which, of course, I would now have to post my real name.

I could not get through to Blizzard's phone service throughout the entire day. I got an email back from them over 24hrs later, which did not resolve any of my issues. So yeah. When the time comes, you are fucked.

Take into account that there are many issues as is with people getting hacked, some with authenticators. Take into account that there are exploits in the RealID system as we speak. This does not bode well at all.

Bioware and SE must be pitching tents over this debacle, that they may get an influx of WoW-users looking for their MMO-fix. Or, perhaps, plotting to screw people as well. Time will tell.

I can't believe Blizzard has yet to reply to this. I went on their forums, and the thread blew up to over 26,000 replies already. That's something they surely would have taken notice to I'd say. And when a Blizzard employee has removed their own, and wives/gf's facebook page due to them being cocky posting their information up there, they've been completely blind-sided by this. It's been rumored now that employees do NOT have to post their personal info on the forums, like the paying customers will have to. So yeah. Quite a mess over there.

And Blizzard was pretty much the only "PC-only" devs left out there for the PC community to fall back on.

whatsinaname · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
The women who are most likely to get raped in real life, are the women who are afraid of getting raped. Somehow, in many of the cases their angst project themselves as victims. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.

... what?

Iadien · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
Yes. You win the thread sir. That's at least my census.

You're assuming said person is rational. That's not always the case.

jim-jam bongs · Jul 7, 2010

Son of Godzilla said:
Holy shit, you are really insufferable. You must be doing this on purpose, I mention you just wanting to argue and you completely ignore the point in order to continue arguing. You aren't even saying anything intelligible. It's a two way road for someone to google your name? Uh huh.

No, anonymity is NOT the cause of gaming being a cesspool. That is a total sweetfuck myth. Were you never involved in high-school athletics? Take one shitfuck teenage male, place in prescence of other shitfuck teenage males, add antagonizing element, and watch as shit explodes. Being anonymous might encourage it a bit, might encourage it a lot, but it is NOT the catalyst.

:lol Calm down, you're going to give yourself skin failure.

If you don't agree that it's the main cause, that's fine. You've just admitted that anonymity, at the very least, does encourage aberrant behaviour online. Which means that Blizzard has a valid reason for doing this, whether you feel that it's an excessively heavy-handed move or not.

My interest in this topic has been both personal and professional, so my position is (and has always been if you read my posts) that this doesn't affect me, and that I don't feel that this is an excessive abandonment of privacy to expect since we give up our privacy in the name of service provision all the time. A few posters have provided compelling arguments as to why this is excessive to them, and I've definitely come around to their way of thinking somewhat, although I'm still not ready to grab my pitchfork and march on Blizzard HQ.

On the other hand, unlike those other posters, you've been rude and insulting, and haven't really presented any real argument beyond snarky retorts and odd self-ownage posts like the one I've quoted where you act like some angry adolescent while decrying the behaviour of angry adolescents. So I apologise if I didn't abandoned this discussion in light of your withering accusations, but I was too busy talking with people who wanted a discussion rather than a simulation of this Lord of the Flies-esque scenario you seem so attached to.

SatelliteOfLove · Jul 7, 2010

Reposting these nuggets of info today, as some apparently are too fixated on tangents or misinformation to concern themselves with all of the facts at hand:

SatelliteOfLove said:
What does this accomplish that using the account name does not (again, unlike most every other MMO on Earth)?

Blizzard's Official Responce to the Outcry said:
Just to respond to those that don't think we read through all of these responses and threads, we do and have been. We will continue monitoring feedback as well.

We put a lot of thought into this change and have a long-term vision for the Real ID service and wanted to make sure that we communicated ahead of time and very clearly as to what will be changing and how. Keep in mind that posting is optional, and we recognize that some players will choose not to utilize the Real ID feature in game or post on the forums and support everyone's individual choice on using or not using it.

This is obviously new ground for us and for you as well, but we want to make sure we're creating a great social-gaming service that people will want to use. We just want to make sure that if people are sharing feedback, that they keep it constructive, and yes, as I said, we are reading.

Zzoram · Jul 7, 2010

EekTheKat said:
Rumor going around that blues (blizzard employees) can now opt out of the RealID system for their forums due to security concerns. Originally they were supposed to be in the same boat as the forum regulars.

I'm not worried about the official forums since I don't post there, but I am more worried about this :

http://www.wow.com/2010/07/06/security-flaw-allows-addons-to-expose-full-real-life-names-witho/5

A certain almost mandatory popular raiding mod was released into the public with some test code that locally echoed back a person's real name. So in between boss warnings someone's real name popped up in their chatbox.

Apparently some mods have to make adjustments to how they handle chat handles for RealID, so that's why it's partially (or fully) exposed to some mods out there.

Currently it's only an echo on the local client, but I haven't seen what could actually be done with the info outside of some fairly interesting hypotheticals. I'm taking a wait a see approach on this - but I'm not going to add any mods outside of the ones I already have though.

Understandably though, it completely freaked some people out -I would be too if in the middle of a fight a boss warning comes up telling you to run followed by something like "RUN AWAY (your RealID Name)"

So Blizzard employees can opt out of RealID because they are scared about privacy, but regular people are forced to use it? Awful. So awful.

Spire · Jul 7, 2010

No, it's okay guys. Your privacy is being sacrificed so we can launch our Facebook clone, it's all for a good cause.

arstal · Jul 7, 2010

If Activision doesn't get boycotted, seriously, then there is no hope for gamers. We'll take any abuse shoved at us.

That said, I do think as gamers, we will take any and all abuse just to play one game.

Sad but true.

Vinci · Jul 7, 2010

arstal said:
If Activision doesn't get boycotted, seriously, then there is no hope for gamers. We'll take any abuse shoved at us.

That said, I do think as gamers, we will take any and all abuse just to play one game.

Sad but true.

Of course we will. Gamers are the easiest to please, most horribly whorish consumers known to man outside of people with hoarding problems or Hello Kitty collections.

The Lamonster · Jul 7, 2010

arstal said:
If Activision doesn't get boycotted, seriously, then there is no hope for gamers. We'll take any abuse shoved at us.

That said, I do think as gamers, we will take any and all abuse just to play one game.

Sad but true.

I don't think it's such a bad thing. StarCraft II is going to be amazing - I've been looking forward to it for 12 years and after playing the beta, I can tell it is going to live up to the hype. I am so pumped that I even pre-ordered the Collector's Edition at $100.

Yes, I am willingly bending over for Blizzard, but it's only because they made a kick-ass game. And that's what's most important.

Aquavelvaman · Jul 7, 2010

The thread in their forums is at over 27,000 posts right now, overwhelmingly against the change.

It's funny because I would love a unified ID for battle.net like in most mmo's. When I talk let it say Aquavelvaman with my character name in parenthesis and let it work across games and realms. That would be great.

arstal · Jul 7, 2010

The Lamonster said:
I don't think it's such a bad thing. StarCraft II is going to be amazing - I've been looking forward to it for 12 years and after playing the beta, I can tell it is going to live up to the hype. I am so pumped that I even pre-ordered the Collector's Edition at $100.

Yes, I am willingly bending over for Blizzard, but it's only because they made a kick-ass game. And that's what's most important.

I disagree.

a) there are other kick-ass games out there.
b) some (well in Acti's case, almost all) of those games are made by more ethical companies, who deserve the support more.

I will forego a great game if I disagree with the business decision of a company.

Vigilant Walrus · Jul 7, 2010

Vinci said:
Then why would this address the forum's troubles at all? If there's no threat, or at least so slight of a threat that you might as well ignore it, then what is the concern in people knowing your real name if your manner of discourse is impolite or hostile? What's the point of having your real name on these things if the ability to track it is not a threat in any way?

You're basically saying that knowing someone's real name through the internet lacks teeth as far as threats go - then why would it impact how people behave on the forum?

No I don't think that. If I insult someone in real life, I don't fear death or getting raped. I fear, that people will dislike me for what I said, and that they will get angry with me. There is a difference.
Just because I don't think people will die in droves over this, it does not mean that I think people won't care. It is more personal. That was the point. It's closer to the body.
Anything has consequences.
You might get hurt if you say stupid shit in real life. If you run into someone bad on the internet, maybe they will find you too.
But that's life. It's not something that is going or not going to happen depending on Real ID. Unstable people will do some stupid stuff one way or the other. Over facebook, or somewhere else.
Any forum administrator could be a psycho. Any internet company you bought from who you gave bad rep on amazon, could be a bad guy.

It's ignorant to assume that, yes, so I guess it's good that I don't. But it's not too different from piracy: The easier the tools to accomplish it become, the more likely more people will do it.

I don't think so, because I don't share that view on piracy either. but that depends on if you are talking about illegal downloading, or piracy in the sense that people download and sell it on. but I guess at either way, I would not think that people would do it. hunt someone down.

My real name is displayed on my imdb account. I have had reviews, were some people got bad about my opinion about a film, but nothing ever happened. not even with movie reviews like passion of the christ when we were discussing religion, and my review was there to see and being discussed on the movies own board.

I've been a member of a gaming forum were you could see my full name if you clicked on my profile for over 6 years. Nothing has ever happened, despite heated arguments and really getting angry with people. that was a smaller forum which consisted of about perhaps 2000 people.

Using the argument that this is a great deterrent for trolls and then stating that the displaying of one's real name holds no inherent threat is not only poor, it's illogical. For something to have an impact, it has to either reinforce positive or negative behavior. From what you've said, this does neither.

No because, what you are saying is the equivelent of this: A doctor shouldnt do surgery, because the patient might die.

well the patient might die anyway. People here are being irrational and projecting things. NOT REFLECTING, but projecting things that are going to happen, have happened and will happen on the internet for a long time. This is a fact. This is not Real IDs fault. People have the ultimate power, of what they want.
If they have reason to hide, then obviously they shouldnt do this. they can agree or disagree, but obviously the barking up at the the wrong tree. why they are afraid or in hiding is not Blizzards fault. there are alternatives, nobody is being forced(even though everybody are acting like it).

Spire said:
Vigilant Walrus must not have been following MMOs for very long if he thinks stalking people and hunting them down in real life never happens.

Also, the whole "don't be a dick = you have nothing to worry about" is only spouted by people who have never actually taken part in a discussion on the WoW forums. You don't have to be a dick for people to rage at you, all you have to do is not agree 100% with them. Look at Walrus here, he's practically typed out a novel and obviously gotten very passionate about this and everything in this thread has been fairly civil so far.

A piss poor argument, all around sir. I could flash my e-peen in your face about having played MUDs before you were born or something. This is all irelevant. I have heard about people getting stalked, but I have not heard about it through MMOs. I have heard it through guild drama, and people willingly in the game giving up their phone numbers and adresses to meet.
I have never seen it in the game, or some asssassins going out of his way to assassinate a chubby paladin chaser who won over him in a duel and called him loser.

I've heard of a chinese player in Mir who killed his friend for taking a sword, and about a korean WoW played who died of exhaustion due to lack of eating and going to the bathroom for playing WoW for 72 hours.
But I have never heard of what you describe, or seem to be afraid of. I would love to read some horror stories, thou.

water_wendi said:
Whats are the options? To not use the technical boards when directed there? To not ask questions about their build? To not socialize with the other faction? To post on the forums you have to be a current paying customer.. i dont see how "not posting" is an option. And if you are hacked and they post on the forums?

If you get hacked, just like if you would get your credit card stolen, would be to close the account by calling it in.
As for the other things, you can get assistence from people on many many WoW sites. It was no problem when I played Guild Wars, and from what I have seen from the WoW sites I have visited like INC gamers, there are some really good people.

water_wendi said:
No the main thing is that Blizzard doesnt care one bit about their customers privacy if this happens. For those that have never had a problem with their privacy and think this is a grand idea, i wish you good luck. Its unfortunate but the majority of people have to get burned to learn.

First of all, I don't know Blizzards motives so I wouldn't throw around such a assumption.

This is like Celestial Steed. This is like people boycotting MW2 and L4D2. This is like people who swore that Steam was the worst pile of crap and that it breached their rights by forcing them to use it. That's what this is.
It's blown out of proportions by drama queen, spewing over stupid shit nobody cared about. Nobody liked these forums. Blizzard probably the least of all people.

The only reason people care now is because of drama. It's more fuel to the hate fire that Acti-Blizzard is dead and Koticks want their soul. Nobody gave a f**k about those forums 2 days ago.

water_wendi said:
This is so opposite of whats going on over there.

edit: heres another great post that just showed up over there

I can not begin to disagree with this enough. "so opposite"? How are those forums not the worst thing in history?

Wauw. I am sorry but I feel many here are getting a case of being mr polar-opposite, because if you approve of the things going on there, I don't know.
It's by far the biggest killer for my enjoyment of WoW, and I think it's a tone setter for the in-game behavior of the community.

A mindset that is fed to them; "I am annonymous, I am invincible. I can say whatever I want, including racistic slurs, spamming, trolling with no consequences".

It's whining, it's people crying for nerfs. There is not a single educational or stimulating informative discussion on those boards. Everything is derailed by rude, ignorant players.

I just want to say; Holy crap. I am looking like the defender of this. I don't know about this. I guess I just look like this because everyone else is so blatantly against it. I always end up like the goddam devils advocate goddamit.
It might turn out bad. Maybe one will die after a month. And that will be horrible and insane if that will happen.
I won't use the forum personally. I only care about the forums either shutting down or changing the attitude of the players in the game.
It's my gut feeling that people are hysterical, are using empty threads and assume unrealistic things, that is related to the bad sides of the internet, but blaming it on Real ID.

For egotistical reasons, I am interested in seeing this happen. I kinda want to see what will happen. It's like a social experiment. Just want to see if they change their attitude at all, or everyone will buy new WoW + expansions under a false name, while using game time. We'll see.

echoshifting · Jul 7, 2010

The rumors that Blizzard employees will be able to opt out of this are false.

Nethaera said:
Just to set the record straight here, our original statement stands and all Blizzard Employees will be using their real names in posts as we announced. This has not changed and as always, should this change, we will be sure to post about it.

Keep in mind, on our end, we have had our names credited within the manual and games for some time. This has not changed and has been available information. Also keep in mind that this does not excuse any forms of bullying or fearmongering that is being perpetrated by select individuals who oppose this change.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25833934170&pageNo=1&sid=1#1

edit: Honestly I think this will be their excuse to back off from this. You know all of their employees are going to go through hell once this starts. They're going to claim they had to ditch the system to protect their employees...they would never admit it was just a dumb idea.

Spire · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
A piss poor argument, all around sir. I could flash my e-peen in your face about having played MUDs before you were born or something. This is all irelevant. I have heard about people getting stalked, but I have not heard about it through MMOs. I have heard it through guild drama, and people willingly in the game giving up their phone numbers and adresses to meet.
I have never seen it in the game, or some asssassins going out of his way to assassinate a chubby paladin chaser who won over him in a duel and called him loser.

This is just one example of the nutty lengths people will go to over MMO's. Not that that's even the main issue, as most ragers are more likely to hack you or steal your CC# or something. I once pissed a guy off in DoD: S and he tracked down one of my email addresses and email bombed my account for a weekend. That's nothing serious but all I did to this guy was be better than him in a videogame. Having your name handed out to the these psychos freely is just ignorant and stupid. Anyone who will cheerfully go along with it is walking into trouble. Shit, even just discussing the issues of psychos on a relatively chill, civil forum has got you so worked up into a frenzy I'd be cautious of even telling you.

Safe Bet · Jul 7, 2010

Mr Nash said:
I think the best thing anyone that is seriously concerned about this can do is contact privacy advocacy groups and let them know about the situation.

Dude...

It a fucking Term of Service not a violation of privacy.

Garryk · Jul 7, 2010

One of the funniest parts about this is that the first reply on the official thread in the WoW forums is from a level 1 alt.

Hugbot · Jul 7, 2010

Safe Bet said:
Dude...

It a fucking Term of Service not a violation of privacy.

Real talk, unless they're retroactively attaching your name to a post it's not a violation of privacy. There'll be plenty of warning when you're signing up for the new forums or posting or whatnot that your real name is going to be attached.

Still an awful idea, but hardly a privacy violation.

Einbroch · Jul 7, 2010

Aquavelvaman said:
It's funny because I would love a unified ID for battle.net like in most mmo's. When I talk let it say Aquavelvaman with my character name in parenthesis and let it work across games and realms. That would be great.

That'd be sweet.

Vinci · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
No because, what you are saying is the equivelent of this: A doctor shouldnt do surgery, because the patient might die.

I recommended proper moderation on their forums to weed out the undesirables, which is far more surgery-like than what this scenario approximates. This would be more like a doctor injecting something that could be medicine (he's unsure) into every single patient who comes to see him regardless of their ailments, just... 'cause. Yes, the patients could very well stay away, but some are simply masochistic and refuse to stop coming.

Aruarian Reflection · Jul 7, 2010

I just spent a month in a medical school rotation working at an in-patient psychiatric hospital. That means all the patients there have shown suicidal/homicidal tendencies or are so depressed, psychotic, and/or schizophrenic that they need to be kept in a hospital. Some of these patients are kept there against their will by court order. These patients know my full name because of my ID badge and they've seen my face many times. I am 100,000X more concerned about these people hunting me down than some WoW nerd who spends half his days masquerading as a Night Elf and takes the game more seriously than real life.

And guess what? I'm hardly concerned about those patients at all.

Oni Link 666 · Jul 7, 2010

Sure, the number of people crazy enough to hunt you down to kill you is pretty small, but the number of people crazy enough to hunt you down and slash your tires, TP or egg your house, key your car, leave a flaming bag of shit at your front door at 4 am, ect is pretty big. I definitely wouldn't put it past someone doing something like that to you because you out-rolled them on some epic loot in WOW or because you showed how stupid they were for gemming for armor penetration too early on their Hunter on the forums.

Patryn · Jul 7, 2010

SnowWolf said:
I just spent a month in a medical school rotation working at an in-patient psychiatric hospital. That means all the patients there have shown suicidal/homicidal tendencies or are so depressed, psychotic, and/or schizophrenic that they need to be kept in a hospital. Some of these patients are kept there against their will by court order. These patients know my full name because of my ID badge and they've seen my face many times. I am 100,000X more concerned about these people hunting me down than some WoW nerd who spends half his days masquerading as a Night Elf and takes the game more seriously than real life.

And guess what? I'm hardly concerned about those patients at all.

But how many patients did you encounter?

Compare with the WoW player base. There are, what?, 11 million players? Let's assume that 3 million of them are English speaking players (trying to lowball the number if possible). If even 1 percent of those players are crazy - and I'm not talking homicidal, but I am talking harassing phone calls, letters, e-stalking - then that means that there are potentially 30,000 unstable players. Even if it's half of it, even if it's 1/3 of that number, we're still talking 10,000 potential dangers to a player.

And all it would take to create misery is one person posting a simple question on 4chan: What can you guys find out about [insert name here]? At that point, it's off to the races.

Oni Link 666 · Jul 7, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1_8wefR7c&feature=youtu.be

water_wendi · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
No I don't think that. If I insult someone in real life, I don't fear death or getting raped. I fear, that people will dislike me for what I said, and that they will get angry with me. There is a difference.

The difference is that if there is a confrontation on the road, for example, they see you and you see them. With whats going on with the Real ID forums, a post you made years ago might anger a crazy person and they decide to screw with your life because its funny.

Just because I don't think people will die in droves over this, it does not mean that I think people won't care. It is more personal. That was the point. It's closer to the body.
Anything has consequences.

People wont die in droves over this that is true. Anything has consequences that is also true. However, even if one persons life is inconvenienced due to Blizzards lack of privacy concern then that is too much.. doesnt matter if its a murder or stalking or just someone placing a Craigslist ad saying everything in your house is free to take.

You might get hurt if you say stupid shit in real life. If you run into someone bad on the internet, maybe they will find you too. But that's life. It's not something that is going or not going to happen depending on Real ID. Unstable people will do some stupid stuff one way or the other. Over facebook, or somewhere else.

Its true that this is life. But in real life when someone calls me a "fucking f$ggot" i have the option of not telling that person my legal name and can walk away from the situation. i also can identify this person to the police if someone throws a brick through my window later that week.

Any forum administrator could be a psycho. Any internet company you bought from who you gave bad rep on amazon, could be a bad guy.

This is also true. i dont know about you but i dont use my full and legal name to sign up for most forums. "But Wow you have to because you pay for it" Granted but information given there is given in confidence as a paying customer. If i would have known that Blizzard would have been so lax concerning privacy i would have registered under John Bigboote and used prepaid credit cards. The problem however is that Blizzard makes changing your name on the account a near impossibility barring legal name changes (which you have to scan in marriage or name change documents and email them to Blizzard). Even using a false name is risky because if my John Bigboote account gets hacked i have to prove i am John Bigboote by emailing my ID to them.

My real name is displayed on my imdb account. I have had reviews, were some people got bad about my opinion about a film, but nothing ever happened. not even with movie reviews like passion of the christ when we were discussing religion, and my review was there to see and being discussed on the movies own board.

I've been a member of a gaming forum were you could see my full name if you clicked on my profile for over 6 years. Nothing has ever happened, despite heated arguments and really getting angry with people. that was a smaller forum which consisted of about perhaps 2000 people.

This is great but you know what? My personal information is my own and i choose what to do with it. If you want to open yourself to crazy people, thats your choice. Having dealt with a crazy ex and cyberstalkers, ill refrain from doing so thanks. Problem is Blizzard isnt really giving a choice to opt-out.

No because, what you are saying is the equivelent of this: A doctor shouldnt do surgery, because the patient might die.

well the patient might die anyway. People here are being irrational and projecting things. NOT REFLECTING, but projecting things that are going to happen, have happened and will happen on the internet for a long time. This is a fact. This is not Real IDs fault. People have the ultimate power, of what they want.
If they have reason to hide, then obviously they shouldnt do this. they can agree or disagree, but obviously the barking up at the the wrong tree. why they are afraid or in hiding is not Blizzards fault. there are alternatives, nobody is being forced(even though everybody are acting like it).

Providing your legal name with every post is less secure than not. That is a fact that cannot be argued. With identity theft being the major crime of the times, how Blizzard as a company can not see that this is a disastrous PR move is beyond me. So not only can someone find out my B.Net login through Facebook integration (and people wonder why accounts are getting hacked at record pace nowadays) but with the Real ID complete strangers (either forum goers or friends-of-friends) will have my full name too? Thats a total security risk that is the worst kind.. one thats completely avoidable.

A piss poor argument, all around sir. I could flash my e-peen in your face about having played MUDs before you were born or something. This is all irelevant. I have heard about people getting stalked, but I have not heard about it through MMOs. I have heard it through guild drama, and people willingly in the game giving up their phone numbers and adresses to meet.
I have never seen it in the game, or some asssassins going out of his way to assassinate a chubby paladin chaser who won over him in a duel and called him loser.

You have never experienced something, therefore it doesnt exist. Gotcha.

I've heard of a chinese player in Mir who killed his friend for taking a sword, and about a korean WoW played who died of exhaustion due to lack of eating and going to the bathroom for playing WoW for 72 hours.
But I have never heard of what you describe, or seem to be afraid of. I would love to read some horror stories, thou.

Just a couple weeks ago, a French Counter-strike player got angry with another player and found out that they lived nearby. The crazy gamer then went to that persons house and stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife.

http://kotaku.com/5550609/man-spends-six-months-plotting-murder-of-counter+strike-rival

To make believe that such things are not possible is short-sighted.

If you get hacked, just like if you would get your credit card stolen, would be to close the account by calling it in.

The thing is if you get hacked and the hacker posts online it is using your full and legal name. So a hacker talks a bunch of racist/homophobic stuff 3 years ago and from then on any prospective employer can find these posts "you" made.

As for the other things, you can get assistence from people on many many WoW sites. It was no problem when I played Guild Wars, and from what I have seen from the WoW sites I have visited like INC gamers, there are some really good people.

Yes but GMs dont send you to wowhead.com or mmo-champion.com they send you to the worldofwarcraft.com community forums.

This is like Celestial Steed. This is like people boycotting MW2 and L4D2. This is like people who swore that Steam was the worst pile of crap and that it breached their rights by forcing them to use it. That's what this is.

This is nothing like those. im pretty sure that a 4 digit thread in less than 24 hours is an uncommon occurrence, even on the heavily populated Wow forums.

It's blown out of proportions by drama queen, spewing over stupid shit nobody cared about. Nobody liked these forums. Blizzard probably the least of all people.

The only reason people care now is because of drama. It's more fuel to the hate fire that Acti-Blizzard is dead and Koticks want their soul. Nobody gave a f**k about those forums 2 days ago.

Everyone on that part of the near 30,000 replies is a paying customer because you have to be to post on the forums. If you think this is some nerd rage, you are seriously blind.

I can not begin to disagree with this enough. "so opposite"? How are those forums not the worst thing in history?

Most of the discussion in the thread is civil.. id say damn near all of it. People are upset over this and rightfully so.

Wauw. I am sorry but I feel many here are getting a case of being mr polar-opposite, because if you approve of the things going on there, I don't know.
It's by far the biggest killer for my enjoyment of WoW, and I think it's a tone setter for the in-game behavior of the community.

The easiest way to control the forums (any forum) is to moderate it. Blizzard has seemingly taken the route that the only way to enforce order is to open people up to the threat of real-world repercussions so they wont troll. Do you not get that? Thats basically what they are saying.. "If you troll, someone can find you and murder you in your sleep because they now know your name." The thing is that this move will not bring civility to the Wow forums. Children that have their parents name linked to the account will still act like babies. There was a quote from that thread you think is a bunch of bullshit but it was something along "Anonymity is a trolls greatest weapon but it is also a reasonable persons only defense."

A mindset that is fed to them; "I am annonymous, I am invincible. I can say whatever I want, including racistic slurs, spamming, trolling with no consequences".

It's whining, it's people crying for nerfs. There is not a single educational or stimulating informative discussion on those boards. Everything is derailed by rude, ignorant players.

You are wrong. There are plenty of good posts over there.. most of them dealing with tech problems or build issues or class/profession guides. Even talking across faction isnt always a flamewar.. like when i invited Alliance for a Halaa token match for the Talbuk mount. We had such a good time we did it again the next week.

I just want to say; Holy crap. I am looking like the defender of this. I don't know about this. I guess I just look like this because everyone else is so blatantly against it. I always end up like the goddam devils advocate goddamit.
It might turn out bad. Maybe one will die after a month. And that will be horrible and insane if that will happen.
I won't use the forum personally. I only care about the forums either shutting down or changing the attitude of the players in the game.
It's my gut feeling that people are hysterical, are using empty threads and assume unrealistic things, that is related to the bad sides of the internet, but blaming it on Real ID.

Even if you have never stepped foot in the forums and never plan to it is shortsighted in the extreme to not be critical of Blizzard over this. This is not a first step thing. This is a trend. First it was B.Net merger with email login. Then it was Real ID (which we find out we dont have much control of because friends of your approved friends can see your name). Then its Real ID is not optional if you are going to post on the forums. Its not an impossibility to think that having your legal name on your Armory is the next step.

For egotistical reasons, I am interested in seeing this happen. I kinda want to see what will happen. It's like a social experiment. Just want to see if they change their attitude at all, or everyone will buy new WoW + expansions under a false name, while using game time. We'll see.

Umm yea... maybe its just me but id rather not open people up to abuse just to see what happens.

Amibguous Cad · Jul 7, 2010

Safe Bet said:
Dude...

It a fucking Term of Service not a violation of privacy.

You say this as if the two are mutually exclusive.

In any case, I wish that the WoW fanbase wasn't so whiny all the time. They've cried wolf on so many nerfs that they claimed that would ruin the game or whatnot that now when there's real outrage over a completely indefensible policy by Blizzard, Blizzard's not going to listen to their fanbase. Unfortunately, this one time, the fanbase is right.

pivot · Jul 7, 2010

(sorry if double post)
http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/A...-Official-Forums-New-REAL-ID-function?gr_i_ni

So Blizzard are now making it so instead of showing your character on those forums, it'll instead show your real name with the option of attaching your char name too it (no option of not showing your real name).

Now I think it's fairly safe to say that this is perhaps the dumbest idea that anyone has ever had ever.

To alleviate people's concerns, Blizzard employee Bashiok decided to say his real name on the forums, his real name is Micah Whipple

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374892&sid=1&pageNo=1 Post #16

So say hi to Micah Whipple

Address: XXX

Phone number: XXX

(edit by pivot: Personal info removed. I'm sure you can find out the rest on your own, if you care enough)

I think we can all see what a great idea this is going to be.

Hugbot · Jul 7, 2010

pivot said:
Guy's personal info

I would definitely not repost all of his info here, but yeah this is pretty telling of how bad an idea this is.

Deleted member 30609 · Jul 7, 2010

Type in a random name into Google and get the same info. Interview a random for a job. Same info. See a name tag in a store? Same info.

Let's be honest here, the only people who really have any issue with this are the paranoid (who I would call the under-informed) and the people who don't want people to know they aren't an internet super-human, but instead a pimply late-teen living with their parents from home.

Accountability on the internet might start making people act like people on the internet. Welcome to the future.

If you're embarrassed about your life, fix it.

Micromegas · Jul 7, 2010

Vigilant Walrus said:
The women who are most likely to get raped in real life, are the women who are afraid of getting raped. Somehow, in many of the cases their angst project themselves as victims. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Stay junior forever, junior.

VAIL · Jul 7, 2010

I should have the last say in whether I want my personal information put online or not, as should everyone else. Blizzard is now going to keep me from using part of a service that I pay for because they are not allowing me to keep my personal information private, and I have to decide if it's still worth it to continue to use the rest of it.

Privacy online is being chipped away at constantly, and the line has to be drawn somewhere.

jim-jam bongs · Jul 7, 2010

Rez said:
Type in a random name into Google and get the same info. Interview a random for a job. Same info. See a name tag in a store? Same info.

Let's be honest here, the only people who really have any issue with this are the paranoid (who I would call the under-informed) and the people who don't want people to know they aren't an internet super-human, but instead a pimply late-teen living with their parents from home.

Accountability on the internet might start making people act like people on the internet. Welcome to the future.

If you're embarrassed about your life, fix it.

I agree with you in principle. I think that making people more accountable and less anonymous online would limit the antisocial behaviour, but it's clearly not a good way of going about it for a number of people who aren't even trolls or jerks.

Loxley · Jul 7, 2010

I'll eat my hat if they actually go through with this. The way I see it, if Blizzard actually decides to do it (which, given the reaction to it thus far, I wouldn't be surprised if they back-pedaled out of it) then it basically means the people who are paranoid won't post, and the ones who do will be forced to not be a tad more constructive.

If they wanted a way to strong-arm their forums into not being such a cesspool (which the World of Warcraft forums have been since about July of 2005) then they certainly found a way.

Because so many seem to be worried that if they somehow piss someone off on the forums, that said person will find out where they live and kill them, go and look at people like Justin Wong or Jonathan "fatal1ty" Wendel, gamers who basically piss people off for a living. Ask how many assassination attempts have been made against them by bitter opponents because they knew their real name. I'm going to save the trip and say "zero".

Again, I understand everyone wants a certain amount of anonymity, but the shear number of "someone will try to find me and kill me" responses to this make me think there are a shocking number of people here who know they have the ability to piss someone off so much that they'll want them dead, in which case you shouldn't posting on message boards anyway if you know for a fact that you have the mystical ability to make people actively want to end your life.

Pancakes · Jul 7, 2010

Safe Bet said:
Dude...

It a fucking Term of Service not a violation of privacy.

Some people were bitching that the fucking armory in WoW was an invasion of privacy :lol.

X26 · Jul 7, 2010

Rez said:
Type in a random name into Google and get the same info. Interview a random for a job. Same info. See a name tag in a store? Same info.

Let's be honest here, the only people who really have any issue with this are the paranoid (who I would call the under-informed) and the people who don't want people to know they aren't an internet super-human, but instead a pimply late-teen living with their parents from home.

Accountability on the internet might start making people act like people on the internet. Welcome to the future.

If you're embarrassed about your life, fix it.

*types in "Rez"*

All I get is some stuff about a game. If only GAF were as smart as blizz

And I love how wanting your privacy protected must mean you have something sinister to hide, good god man.

water_wendi · Jul 7, 2010

Rez said:
Type in a random name into Google and get the same info. Interview a random for a job. Same info. See a name tag in a store? Same info.

First instance is the same as picking a name out of the phone book which doesnt really apply here. If someone is upset at what you say or you out-rolling them they are going to target you and not a random out of the white pages. Second instance is a place where giving your name is acceptable. As are any situations where you use a credit card to make purchases.

Let's be honest here, the only people who really have any issue with this are the paranoid (who I would call the under-informed) and the people who don't want people to know they aren't an internet super-human, but instead a pimply late-teen living with their parents from home.

Or women. Or transgendered people. Or people in the teaching profession. Or people in law enforcement. Or people working for the government. Or people in conservative fields such as finance. Or people with any kind of celebrity or fame. Or people with the same name as someone with any kind of celebrity or fame (Michael Bolton). Or people worried about their ethnicity being a problem with bigots. Or anyone that just does not want to give out their private info. If you have no problems doing so that is perfectly fine.. you could have made your Neogaf id your first and last name.. but most people on the internet dont want to.

Accountability on the internet might start making people act like people on the internet. Welcome to the future.

Hate to tell you this but people act like assholes in real life.

If you're embarrassed about your life, fix it.

:lol

Won · Jul 7, 2010

Rez said:
Type in a random name into Google and get the same info. Interview a random for a job. Same info. See a name tag in a store? Same info.

Let's be honest here, the only people who really have any issue with this are the paranoid (who I would call the under-informed) and the people who don't want people to know they aren't an internet super-human, but instead a pimply late-teen living with their parents from home.

Accountability on the internet might start making people act like people on the internet. Welcome to the future.

If you're embarrassed about your life, fix it.

Eh, I don't know. Someone already posted a story in here about a girl, who gets harassed, because some "friend of a friend" in this RealID thing saw that she....is a girl. That thing is out for 2 weeks and it already causes grief.

water_wendi · Jul 7, 2010

Every Green that has posted has been in opposition of this afaik. If you are unaware Greens are MVP posters.. posters given special status due to their help to the community. You have greens on the tech forums, the customer service forums, the class forums.. they are basically some of the best posters that are given Mod status without the abilities of a Mod. Anyway.. here is another post from a Green

Please do realize that not wanting a real name attached to what I choose to say on these forums has absolutely nothing to do with whether I troll or not. Every post I have made on this account is done on this character and blatantly obvious and easily searched. It wouldn't BE green if Blizzard felt I had a history of trolling and non-constructive posts. When my second account is active and I post on that, my signature lists the names of all my primary toons on my main realm.

I do have maybe three or four lowbie alts I've used to post on before. One of them I've used to playfully mock RP elitists. One I used to point out some fallacious comments during an extremely high-drama even on our realm, making some people realize they were being lied to and manipulated to "hate" one person, when the person stating the lies was no less vile. Neither of those were things I'd want tied to my usual posting history, but they aren't things I'm ashamed of having posted.

This change will send me away. Not because I troll. Not because I care about people at work knowing I play WoW (I've told them, they've seen me on the forums on my breaks). Not even because I have some dread fear of one of the minority of insane off-their-rocker idiots that are a part of any community.

No, because my full name is mine to decide with whom I share it. And if I post even one thing on the post-Real ID forums, my full name (not just my first name or my first and an initial, but my first middle and last as I use them on legal documents) is revealed to every player who reads the forums whether they log in or not, heck every human on the internet who happens to wind up on the forums whether they've ever played the game or not, and it winds up google and other search engine crawlers that see it as text on a screen.

=================

Now, one thing that really irks me here is the touted argument that this will reduce trolling and bring about a more constructive forum ... what exactly stops John Doe from trolling?

To get a forum ban, he has to be reported and the moderation team has to decide it's enough of a violation to action him. They can do that now. In fact, Blizzard ALREADY knows each troll's full real name, not to mention his contact information. (Well, that assumes he provided his real name to begin with, but if he didn't then Real ID revelation of his name to the masses is meaningless.) Fellow posters and fellow readers of the forum have no new power to do more than say "ZOMG, you're John Doe and you're a troll!"

If the fellow forum goers actually take that irrevocable step of trying to use that person's name to make that person "accountable", they'll have crossed the line into criminal behavior. The troll will be the victim, assuming the attack ends up finding the "right" John Doe and doesn't harm multiple others who have done nothing. All that name will do is let them say "oh, it's John Doe the troll" instead of "oh, it's Sassafrass the troll".

On the plus side, one thing that has been asked for multiple times will be part of this - using the little ignore icon will FINALLY ignore all posts from the account rather than just that one level one trolling alt he made for his latest rampage. Something that could (should?) have been possible a long time ago. Except that "privacy concerns" meant that ignoring someone on the forums shouldn't reveal their main, right?

Safe Bet · Jul 8, 2010

Blizzard has removed "anonymity" as a feature of it forums.

Stating anything otherwise is hyperbole...

You have a choice to use the forums and/or play the game.

If you do not like the removal of that feature, go play an MMO that still offers it.

It's simple matter of a private company offering a product to consumers.

To argue otherwise is to pose a legal question (when does a voluntary consumer service become de-facto non-voluntary for consumers) which takes knowledge and intellect 95% of us in this thread do not posses.

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