Blizzard backs off real names in forums

# Jul 20 2010 at 10:06 AM Rating: Decent

missjackie

1,055 posts

Or.. do what they do with Everquest forums. Allow you one username. No chance of posting under anonymous level 1 toons.

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Internet safety 101

# Jul 13 2010 at 7:50 PM Rating: Good

__DEL__1592250059997

136 posts

That change would have been extremely backwards and offensive.

Blizz should be sued just for mentioning the idea. As it goes against all protocols of online safety.

Blizzard did another thing last year when they required you to use an email address to log into Battle.net to get access to your accounts. ie they took away the anonymity of your logging information.

Too Late

# Jul 11 2010 at 2:38 PM Rating: Good

KatzMcKatz

Scholar

42 posts

As a result of reading about this on forums of other games with thread titles "Anyone else leave Wow because of realID?" I looked into it. I read that there is an add on that people can use ingame that allows them to see someone's real name when they scroll over it. Even if the account is under parental control and no matter what the ingame realID settings are.

I don't even know if that information is correct or not, but it worries me enough that I have told my son to not play blizzard games anymore.

It doesn't matter that they reversed the decision about the forums. He doesn't post at the forums. He plays on account that is associated with my name. I don't want his or my name on view.

There are plenty of other games to play.

Too Late

# Jul 12 2010 at 7:34 PM Rating: Good

__DEL__1592779035092

Scholar

104 posts

/run for i=1,100 do if BNIsSelf(i)then BNSendWhisper(i,"RealID whisper from yourself..");break end end

Works on self (including, i think, your own friends list) only, fails if RID is disabled. Does not work if someone else calls it on you - but a malicious addon could run it *from you and spam it elsewhere, or a hacker who got your account could use it to get your name to increase the success of ID theft.

No such thing as putting cats back into bags - a little caution is not a bad approach. Turn it off in parental controls and keep playing. :)

Too Late

# Jul 13 2010 at 7:13 AM Rating: Default

153 posts

Yep, one of the criteria is that you had to have Real ID friended yourself.

Too Late

# Jul 12 2010 at 2:40 AM Rating: Decent

153 posts

lawl, wouldn't it be funny if Kotick was behind all the recent bungling. Think about it...if Blizzard was moth-balled Activision could use all of Blizzard's patents, ideas, IPs to make their own MMOs and reap all of the profits. So you pay some of the Blizzard Team to intentionally sabotage the reputation and eventually Vivendi will 'axe' Blizzard.

Activision and Blizzard are still relatively seperate and "share" reasources; Kotick does not like sharing.

For those thinking my tinfoil hat is to tight; this is America...Red Dead Redemption(*)'s trailer had our country about right. You don't get anywhere in the Corporate World being nice.

(*)"This is America, where a lying, cheating degenerate can prosper"

Too Late

# Jul 13 2010 at 9:24 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1640564291188

Scholar

9,473 posts

The downside to the conspiracy theory that Activision is paying Blizz developers to ***** up is that both would get fired if caught. The U.S. corporate system may reward execs for being sneaky and underhanded, but it also punishes the clumsy ones. A conspiracy with as many players as put forth isn't viable, because someone would spill the beans or ***** up and get caught.

If the tinfoil hat fits, wear it.

It's nice to be acknowledged

# Jul 10 2010 at 10:36 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1592340259695

16 posts

Mike Morhaime:

Quote:

We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

I see there was feedback and Internally discussing, and as a result of the discussing, not the feedback, a change was made. It's nice to be acknowledged

I am very surprised that forcing people to post their real names passed the legal department. It seems to me that it was a game ending law suite waiting to happen as soon a one kid finds out that the nerd down the street owned him one to many times.

The forums do need fixing. When ever there is a problem accessing or in game then there are 4000 post all on the same thing but with different subject titles. Blizzard needs to recognize concerns and find a way to gather like posts together.

Myself I never use the forums because they are too time consuming, I'd rather be playing. To find a definitive answer takes hours looking through post like "OMG it hapen agin" to "I crash to desk top while fighting in Un'goro". Which one of the 500 post did Blizzard post the correct answer on?

It's nice to be acknowledged

# Jul 11 2010 at 5:54 AM Rating: Default

153 posts

That's because retards don't use the SEARCH BUTTON

It's nice to be acknowledged

# Jul 10 2010 at 4:25 PM Rating: Excellent

__DEL__1592316339268

Sage

363 posts

I don't think anyone ran this by the legal department until the "discussions."

oops

# Jul 10 2010 at 8:23 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1591956200432

Scholar

408 posts

Another good intention that wasn't thought all the way through. At least they are listening to us. The Real ID system was intended to use with people who already know your real name, and most likely have your email address. If you are giving it away freely, then why would you gripe about using your real name on a forum when you are giving more info to strangers in WoW?

#REDACTED, Posted: Jul 10 2010 at 12:28 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) its a shame the big babies won would have been a good change :(

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 12 2010 at 10:56 AM Rating: Good

__DEL__1591981669579

3 posts

Obviously, you've never been harassed or stalked because some one gave out your personal information in game. Thank you for being deliberating insulting and clueless.

The very first thing Blizzard will tell you to do in order to keep your account secure is to NOT give out personal information (like the name on the account).

Thank for your insightful, fair and objective post showing your maturity. (in case you missed it, that was sarcasm)

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 10 2010 at 4:25 PM Rating: Good

__DEL__1591969430268

Sage

77 posts

it would have been an incredibly bad change...within minutes of it being announced and a blue on the eu forums posting with their first and last name to show that it wasnt a big deal someone had posted a blog with their phone number, address, family details, facebook page, mobile number...pretty much every bit of information that you could possibly want to contact this specific person...and that only took them bare minutes imagine how much more you could find if you spent a decent amount of time searching...would you still say it was a good idea now?

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 10 2010 at 8:43 AM Rating: Excellent

__DEL__1591948040640

71 posts

Quote:

its a shame the big babies won would have been a good change :(

I didn't cry or whine about the idea, but there are very good reasons for why giving personal info away online is a terrible idea. It ranks up there with the reason why some companies won't take your credit card info over the phone. It's just too easy already for people to give away more information about themselves than they ought to, but to force a user to expose their real identity is absurd. You know people have lost or been denied jobs because of things companies find folks saying online? How many FaceBook or MySpace pages that have totally crucified someone's chances of getting somewhere? There's more to worry about than someone finding your name online, stalking you and killing you or your family. Maybe you don't get a raise or promotion because you once said you hated Jews or denied the Holocaust on an online forum? Mel Giboson just lost his representation with his 30+ year Talent agency because of that sentiment, and he didn't even have to post it online.

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 10 2010 at 4:17 AM Rating: Good

153 posts

The poster here obviously knows not the problems that can arise from freely giving out personal information.

That being said a very nice alternative exists, and that is the same implementation of a Real ID that Microsoft uses...XBox Live Gamertag.

Pros:
-Doesn't disclose personal information unless the user wanted to
-Unique and prevents "trolling" (or in Xbox's case "griefing")*
-Costs you money if you want to change it (CHA-CHING!)

Cons:
-Free to setup since Live ID is free*

Honestly, can't figure out why Blizzard didn't go with the above mentioned version...EVERYONE else has.

I had also planned to dig up publically availible phone numbers of everyone who supported this change and posted on the forums. No threats, no harassments, just a friendly one-time-only phone call letting them know that I tracked down their phone number thanks to the name given out by Real ID.

The issue with most of the supporters is they don't fully believe that just a name can be tied to every piece of personal information about you. It's not until the facts show up at their doorstep (or call them) that they realize just how dangerous giving out JUST your first and last name can be.

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 12 2010 at 4:46 AM Rating: Good

__DEL__1624234855532

Scholar

267 posts

The trolls are a problem and while I personally don't have a problem with my details online, I can understand people's concerns. One option I thought of is to perhaps limit which toon a person can post from. Nominate 1 toon to be your forum identity. If someone wants to post from a level 1 toon on a server that they never play on then that's fine, but that will always be the toon they post from. Or at least change it so that if you post from one toon then people can easily see who your other toons are. I just can't see any reason for posting from a toon you never play other than trolling.

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 10 2010 at 1:46 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1640564291188

Scholar

9,473 posts

I agree. However, the really important part is this:

Quote:

We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more.

Perhaps being able to downrate the poor posts and uprate the good ones will clean up the o-boards. It works here, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work there.

too bad the cry babies won

# Jul 10 2010 at 1:40 AM Rating: Good

__DEL__1646612313589

Scholar

17 posts

Hmmmm...

While there may well have been some positive effects, I also think that there were some people who were legitimately concerned about this change... that for one reason or another, posting under their real name was unacceptable to them.

So here's the thing. Regardless of whether this change has gone through or not, we can all make the forums a better place. And we can start by not calling people we don't agree with names. Am I being fair, or no?

Thank goodness that they listened

# Jul 09 2010 at 4:12 PM Rating: Excellent

Davejohnsan

Guru

748 posts

To be fair, I really cannot blame Blizzard for wanting to improve the quality of the forums. However, the people in charge really should have thought about whether this idea would be beneficial to everyone involved before they announced it. Seriously, what were they thinking? Smiley: lol

Somehow, I doubt that this will be the last controversial announcement Blizzard makes. But at least it's a good thing that the company has fans that will be there to overwhelm them with feedback when needed. :P

Edited, Jul 9th 2010 3:16pm by Davejohnsan

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Thank goodness that they listened

# Jul 12 2010 at 7:32 AM Rating: Good

__DEL__1592342076250

Sage

410 posts

I haven't followed this too closely, so I have no idea if this has been suggested before.

I agree that all player toons should be linked together with one username or ID, but using real name is just BAD. I would be in support of using a global username though. Sort of like what we were using before battle.net changed us to use our email addresses.