Warlocks of the Sunspire • View topic - Me and Brit will likely not be returning to WoW.

**Joined:** Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:57 pm **Posts:** 72

Or playing SC2... I'm beyond upset... http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?to ... 0&pageNo=1

Quote:

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - http://www.battle.net/realid/ , 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 http://www.battle.net/realid/ . We look forward to answering your questions about these upcoming forum changes in the thread below.

[ Post edited by Nethaera ]

We have a fairly uncommon last name (only 3 people in the city we live have it) and if I can't post on the main forums and be a part of the communities... there is little point in playing. All it would take is 1 craze guy to be upset that I killed him in PvP or in a game of starcraft and it could lead to psycho crazies. Even if the odds are millions to one... It's not worth the risk to me, Brit, or Kasumi. I should never have to choose such options over a video game... It truly makes me very sad.

If you are against this policy, I press you all to go to the forums and complain. If enough people complain we can hopefully get this HORRID idea removed and/or replaced.

**Posted:** Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:21 pm

So I've just read the quoted post a bunch of times and visited the forum it came from to gauge the reactions...

I'm going to have to side with Blizzard on this one, and here's why:

You only remain as anonymous as you want on the internet based on the little amount of information you provide, and to whom you provide it to. Not that this matters, but I just did a google search for you and you came up on the very first link, and on the next couple of pages. Why? Because of things you've posted online, and because there are websites like Family Tree and Classmates that crawl the web for personal information every second of every day. You can google search for me, too, and you'll find me on the first 3 or 4 pages all because of information I've willingly put online. Facebook, MySpace, and other Social Networking sites are notorious for showing up in search results.

Now, in terms of Real ID and Battle.Net, it's going to be a clean slate. The goal of combining the two is the remove forum spammer accounts, as well as in-game spammer accounts by requiring all active and new players to enter their unique Game Key. Currently, there are still accounts that have been abandoned or frozen, and these accounts can still be used to post on the forums, as the account itself never actually goes away. This will prevent that from happening, and allow only current and active players to participate on the forums, and alleviate the heavy flow of spam that goes on. Don't take the "Social Networking" aspect they talk about too seriously. What this sounds like, to me, is a little spring cleaning.

I completely understand your worries, and the risk involved with having even that small amount of information available on a forum and in a game. But just to play Devil's Advocate for a moment... You could just as easily rub someone the wrong way in real life, and have someone look you up in an instant just on how you look if they were able to snap a photo or they have a good memory. There are so many ways to find people these days, you'd be surprised. The moment you put your name on any internet website (including secure email clients like Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail), you're at risk, whether its small or large.

In the end, whatever decision you make is the right one, though, since its your decision. I just thought I'd explain it a little better than Blizzard's own employee, which I think he/she clearly failed to do.

**Joined:** Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:57 pm **Posts:** 72

Sin.... http://www.veromi.com/

Your name is fairly common... This is a good thing if you type your name into veromi it comes up with like a million people and you can't easily be found.

However, if you type my full name (don't need my age, don't need my city, don't even need my state) I'm the only person that comes up. My full name comes up, as well as my age, where I live, the full names of my parents and brother. And that's just the information they GIVE away. If someone wants to spend $10 they'll get my FULL address and phone number.

Don't believe me? Give it a go. You have my full name via facebook... Type in just my first and last name. See why it bothers me?

**Posted:** Tue Jul 06, 2010 10:16 pm

I forgot to mention.... If you destroyed someone in WoW PvP or a SC2 match, how is that player going to know its you anyway? They won't be seeing your Real ID in-game unless you know them anyway. This is just a forum change, not an in-game change. Unless you named your characters something extremely similar to your real name, there's no way anyone could figure that out without having your account email address to then add you as a Real ID friend in-game.

But I totally understand your worries. I never said you were wrong to worry. What I was doing was explaining Blizzard's logic behind the merging of Forum names and Real ID. In the long-run, I think that's the way to go. I'm sure they're going to lose a very small percentage of their player base, but they'll make up for it when SC2 and Cataclysm hit, and very quickly.

In the end, it prevents forum trolling, and makes it easier for Blizzard to ban accounts that do so, rather than allow expired or unused account holders the ability to spam and troll as they wish. I guess the decision is going to come down to wanting to post in the forums or not. But like I said: Nobody is going to see your real name in-game. Real ID is only a friends list feature that allows you to chat cross-game, cross-server, cross-faction, you name it, to real friends that need your email address to add them. So nobody will be adding you to their Real ID list unless you actually give them your account email address. Nobody in-game will ever see your real name when in a group, walking around, or in a match of some sort.

**Posted:** Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:17 pm

I can understand the worry of identity theft with this new addition, in a way.

But I dont post on the forums, so, guess I dont have much to say/worry about when it comes to all this.

**Joined:** Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:57 pm **Posts:** 72

Sin it doesn't prevent forum trolling and it won't. All that will happen is that the spammers will use aliases when posting...

The solution to the forum trolling was a single account per CD-key. Something that could be easily banned and thus no more having to worry about the troll. All the real names thing does is penalize the people who believe that they can trust blizzard with their private information.

By the same token... If you have a common name... it also won't stop you. Having your real name displayed will not make trolls shy away as they already don't care what people think of them.

The match was just one example. Another example is if I called someone a noob.

Or a completely different example that is also very real and possible is that it could effect my ability to get a job in the future. Many employers now google and look up new applicants via facebook or other social medium. Google "Loenar" for example and on the first page you will see a link to all of my posts on the forums.

Let's say one of my forum posts I say "Wow, that strategy with zerg is retardly over powered." I didn't particularly insult anyone... I didn't troll... I merely stated I thought something was stupid. But because of my choice of words, I could instantly be denied a chance at a job. Yes, something that simple and totally unrelated to a job and it could cost me it.

Mark my words Sin... this won't stop anything and all it will do is penalize people and it's only a first step. Blizzard over the last 2 years has slowly been more and more invasive on our privacy... and as long as people will just blindly follow into it it will only be a matter of time before Real.ID becomes your character ID as well as your forum ID... and they'll tie the real.ID to a credit card so you can't continue to fake it like will be rampant when SC1 comes out. Whether there is an actual threat to me and my family or a chance to lose future job oppurtunities or not at some point I have to stand up for myself... and believe me it hurts. I've been playing SC since it came out in 1998... I grew up on the game. For years I've been looking forward to SC2 and then to be told 2 weeks before it's released that something this invasive to my privacy is being added? No thanks... Then to be told all their future games will also require it... Well... It's been a long and beautiful run with WoW and it's been fun hanging out with everyone... but enough is enough.

(edit)

Video from Husky (major player in the Starcraft 2 community) he makes the arguement better in every way over me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBwTpHNZDpQ

**Posted:** Wed Jul 07, 2010 7:10 am

What Husky is saying is completely valid.

But again, this is a forum-only change. The decision for the small player base that actually uses the forums will be whether they will continue to use the forums or not. Nobody will ever see your first/last name unless you post on the forums, and if that's a 'make or break' thing, then that's each individual's decision.

In terms of WoW, I see the same 20 players posting on the Drenden forums, an army of alts posting on the Technical Support and Customer Service forums, and an army of alts in the Cataclysm forums. Based on what I've seen over the last 2 years of playing WoW, the forum community is not as massive as it looks.

If the forums are a huge part of the game for someone, then I completely understand not wanting to participate anymore. But in-game, you're still safe from anyone ever seeing your full name unless you've actually added someone as a Real ID friend.

**Joined:** Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:57 pm **Posts:** 72

For the time being that is true... but there was a time when that was true of the forums as well. With the forums being made "troll free" what's to stop blizz from taking this a step further? Next it could be "No talking in trade without using your Real.ID. This is to prevent people from trolling and making for a hostile playing environment." It's a lot closer to reality with this decision by blizz.

The "army of alts" could easily be handled in WoW by making people decide on a single username or character to be displayed no matter what the alts. This or other ideas are much better ways to deal with this than "Real name or nothing".

And for me, it is a deal breaker unfortunately... I was very active in the forums (especially the DK and general forums) for WoW and am currently very active in the SC2 forums (user name Koji2009). The official forums are part of the game and to me at least a big part. I've been playing WoW since open beta and I wouldn't have traded any of the time I spent playing the game for anything... But Padme said at the end of Revenge of the Sith... The path you're going down I can't follow (err referring to blizz, not you

)

God I just used a Star Wars quote to end my point -_- I'm such a nerd.

**Posted:** Wed Jul 07, 2010 1:18 pm

I am not a huge fan of the real ID either and working for the state prison I have my aprehensions about my name being out there also and I try and limit who I actaully befriend to try and limit my exposure, but with that said I understand and wish you the best of luck if you choose to walk away. When/if you decide to come back your family is here waiting for you God bless