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I suspect that real names in-game or on the forums won't be much of a problem with adults (obvious caveats about adults with state-sponsored ulterior motives...) but where this will get ugly is with the kids.
As Fred Thompson said so well in the Hunt for Red October: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."
Minors can't have WOW accounts, can they? Aren't those under the name of a parent or guardian?
Blizzard is on a role with popular decisions this week. Maybe this is what needed to happen to break the habit for good.
That's the theory but not the reality. You are not allowed to watch porn either under 18. From the people I know with kids (who are decent ppl, giving their kids a decent & loving education) I don't think anyone actually checks the computer of heir13-14y old kid on a consistent basis. All it takes is 75 euros, go to the gamestore, buy what you need and install it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonuss
There is no decent ID/age check whatsoever to create a bnet account. So ignoring reality should be a crime itself tmho.
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Originally Posted by Owltoid
You know. I've always laughed at the chicken little people that kneejerk react to blizzard's decisions and claim the sky is falling / world ending...
But with all the news this week, even my inner chick little is a bit worried.
oops... role <> roll
Nerdrage has my grammar and spelling scewed up
I agree. If people want to rage at someone at Blizzard, all the real names of the higher ups have been public in the credits for years: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...its-wrath.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by Hivetyrant
I feel bad for the sacrificial lamb, but it sounded like he brought it on himself by posting his info to a hostile crowd (I have not read the thread and basing this on heresay). Though I feel bad for the individual, I'm glad the community found a good example of what can happen. His loss may cause Blizzard to wake up and rethink this decision. Stop selling privacy to the highest bidder.
But part of the problem is that any discussion has been very one sided. People that have said they don't like RealID for any reason have basically been told they are paranoid, Luddites, have something to hide, or wrong for a variety of other reasons. Very few people have accepted that people may just want to keep their names private because they just don't want to use their name in a game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonuss
Now don't get me wrong, I am worried about the privacy implications of this, but I simply don't want to be forced into using my real name for features that have no technical need of my real name. Everything that RealID does in game right now could have been done with nothing more than a character name and a realm. Agree to a RealID friend request and now they can see all your characters. No need for email address, no need for real names.
Do the same on the forum. That level 1 troll now has to accept that you can see all their characters. How does knowing their real name help? If they want to troll, they will get a new account with a fake name and only one character. Nothing changes. Why should I have to share my real name to post on a forum about a fantasy world that is supposed to be separate from the real one? Hell, it's even in the TOS that doing something in the real world can not impact the game world; buying gold is the simplest of examples, but mowing someones yard for in game compensation is just as much a violation.
There is no added benefit to the end users with using their real names. Their is added benefit and revenue to both Activision-Blizzard and Facebook. You have always had the option of telling people your real name. Why would you want or need Blizzard to do that for you on a global scale?
TL;DR: I just don't want to use my real name, that should be enough.
- Souca -
The problem with RealID is that it winds up creating an entirely asymmetrical situation between someone who posts and someone who victimizes the poster.
If someone chooses to harass me for some reason, I have absolutely no way of knowing who they are, so there are no checks at all on people going to real-life harassment without fear of being caught.
In no way, shape, or form is releasing people's real names a good idea. There are no possible ways that they can make it so that it can't be abused easily. And it *will* be abused because WoW is huge, and sites like 4chan and other such cesspools have sociopaths who thrive on being assholes simply for the hell of it, and they know they can't be caught.
I don't post on the WoW site because, in general, the level of discussion there is nothing more than a mix of angry children and semi-retarded adults, with a few people trying to occasionally be reasonable. I have no doubt that this step would make the discussion boards relatively troll-free, but I think the cost of doing this will be absolutely ridiculously high for anyone who posts.
It won't affect me - I haven't signed up for RealID, and never, ever would have even before this idiocy - but it's just a dumb move all around and I honestly can't imagine what the benefit is that Blizzard believes they'll get from it.
I'm just waiting on them to announce a $9.99 / month "opt out of real ID" offer.
The whole thing is getting pretty silly.
I'm just waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. I predict when people find out what Blizzard/Activision are really doing with all this, it will actually be worse than it is now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Svpernova09
Agreed, just like in-game advertising, dlc (the bad kind), etc, once one company does it, the rest will eventually follow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz
The worst thing about this is the lack of control.
What if one of my accounts gets hacked and the hackers post with it?
The only way I can see myself being ok with this is:
1. I never post on the WoW Forums ever again.
2. Blizzard enables some feature that permanently and irreversably disables posting from any of my accounts.
3. Blizzard provides a system for obtaining technical support that works better than reply-bot email service, or an international phone call.
Thinking on it, my real name is already on many of the forums, via links to my wow-ratings website or other sig tools..
It's probably too late but i'll be removing all of them shortly.
If this REALID forum stuff does come live, i know i won't be posting on the wow forums at all.
Having a relatively unique name is a biatch.
This is all because of the Activision-Blizzard Facebook deal.
I do not want my non-gamer friends seeing. SLATTERS HAS GAINED A NEW LEVEL in WORLD OF WARCARFT. 40000 people like this!
Fuck that.
Like seriously.
Who said this only happens to people who sign in to RealID ? Like the past change, that you must have a Battle.net account or you can't play Bullshit. It was fine before that even though I like the way the login/authenicator works now. I will never use RealID, and if they want it to be that way, I will only use pre-paid game cards. The damage might be done but I will not take any more chances. No one has the right to enable my credit card to be seen on the internet in any manner. I know the CC bureaus are too risky now but they can't be controlled as they "do a service"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1_8wefR7c
this is whats gonna happen. Srsly.
The problem is none of what you're suggesting will help you. Even if you now switch to game cards, if ever any of your accounts get hacked and the hacker then posts on the forums (once this system goes live) there goes your real name out onto the Web - even without you ever once having used RealID.Quote:
Originally Posted by alcattle
I, like most others here, use authenticators on my accounts, but even those aren't 100% fool-proof, besdies which, last time I logged into the forums I wasn't even asked for an authenicator code.
If it goes that far, I will still be gone. If I start again, I will never use my real data, and Blizztard can suckz my Epeen. They will not 1984 me for a game!Quote:
Originally Posted by OzPhoenix
What I am hoping is that they'll make an option to permanently and irreversably disable forum posting. If they do that, I could live with it probably.Quote:
Originally Posted by alcattle
Interesting...
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/zeroday...y-at-blizzard/
I doubt they'd want to alienate everyone else in the world for South Korean rules. That would be better solved with instituting such rules on a S. Korean only official forum.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizz...m-146720.shtml
Quote:
Blizzard has recently announced that it is making use of real world names and other data mandatory on the official forums for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, the long awaited strategy game sequel set to arrive on July 27, and for the World of Warcraft MMO, which should get the Cataclysm expansion. After a rather hostile reaction from the community of players, the studio revealed that it would be continuing to talk to players about the system but that it would nonetheless go ahead with its implementation.
A representative from Blizzard talked to Gamasutra about the Real ID concept and about how it would be implementing, saying that his company “will be carefully monitoring how people are using the service. Real ID is a new and different concept for Blizzard gamers - and for us as well - and our goal is to create a social gaming service that players want to use.”
He added, “It's important to note that both enabling Real ID in game and posting on the official Blizzard forums are completely optional. Players can continue to read the forums anonymously regardless of whether they choose to post in them, and their gameplay experiences will not change if they choose not to use the Real ID communication features in game.”
It seems the company is comfortable with the fact that a lot of players might migrate from the official forums, asking questions and participating in other Internet-based communities. It might have some problems as bug reports from the player base are crucial to the ongoing task of World of Warcraft, the best MMO.
Blizzard is also assuring gamers that the moderating team will be more vigilant than ever when Real ID is being implemented, trying to limit all the incidents that can arise from the use of real world names on a gaming forum with a player base as big as that of World of Warcraft. Still, the potential for abuse is high and the official forums might feel much more empty in a short while.
Wait, didn't every green poster say they hated this idea and wouldn't be posting anymore? Sure, the paid blues will still be around, or fired, but when the volunteer CMs leave, you know you've pissed off some people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Svpernova09
Sarcasm: Tag ENRAGED
The more I think this over, the more insulted by it I am.
To be forced into total non-participation on the forums, technical support, feedback, class, realm etc, by a company determined to flog off my real name to Facebook is just simply disgusting.
I've finally found a server where I can multibox, with other multiboxers, even now stepping into raids I would not previously have had an opportunity to see, and this happens. I would say now my chances of continuing with WoW are less than 50/50, and my chances of picking up Diablo III, as a long-time Diablo2 player are now virtually nil.
Absolutely. Disgusted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Souca
- Souca -
Yes BlizzTard did it wrong, and I am not on facebook and I want nothing to do with social networking other than being pleasent to others in a game. I love talking to guildies, but I tend not to talk that much. I am the same way IRL. I don't talk to people unless I know them and like them, no talking to open my mouth kind of thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daeri
If it was truly "opt-in" fine, but as shown it is broken, and is not worth playing in that case.
Check this out. For the stat-curious among us...
http://static.bwerp.net/~adam/2010/07/08/
Monitors stats on the RealID thread in the general official forums.
As of a few minutes ago:
Quote:
Posts in Thread
* Highest post number scanned: 40,179
* Total posts: 37,173
* Deleted posts: 3,006 (7.48%)*†
* The script is currently rescanning old pages for newly-deleted posts: 1710 pages remaining. True value is >10%.
† Includes moderated posts (trolling, CAPSLOCK, spam, etc.) and self-deleted posts.
Characters in Thread
* Unique characters: 12,073
* Mean posts/character: 3.08
* Median posts/character: 3
* Top 5 characters:
1. Merisioux of Kirin Tor (251 posts)
2. Tumbles of Wyrmrest Accord (246 posts)
3. Adnan of Garona (167 posts)
4. Dalri of Cenarion Circle (101 posts)
5. Soulez of Area 52 (97 posts)
Well, the outcry is up to 2019 pages, and by my count moving up at about 5 pages a minute, and I've been watching it at work for 3 days now. Not a single Blue post since about post 600. People are pissed about it, and I can't say I like it either. It's that Kotex asshole from Craptivision that's messing up WoW with his money grabbing schemes.
Edit: it went up 2 pages in the time it took me to write those 3 sentences and hit "post".
Yeah, to me this is the main point. A lot of people will not want to use their real names for forum access, and the concern is understandable in a day and age where identity theft and misuse of personal information is rampant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Souca
I would love to have seen that 2000+ page thread full of people saying "I won't use the forums, I value my privacy too much." Instead it's filled with silly arguments (both for and against) by clueless people who are just trying to stir things up. I think the irony is that it probably confirms to Blizzard that if this leads to a mass forum exodus, all the better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tehmuffinman
I found this the funniest fucking thing I've seen in a long time.
As I work to get my posting privalages permanently stripped from my WoW accounts...to prevent their futere use and spread of my info.....I'll post this w/ some hardcore porn from some of my favorites sites.
Penny-Arcade has a much bettter take on it than CAD.
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/9...30_dfXDB-L.jpgQuote:
Blizzard's RealID thing didn't make any sense to me, but that's because I was relying on the official message to get a sense of it's purpose. It's a much more straightforward when you read the article at USAToday's Game Hunters entitled "Blizzard and Facebook's friendly social networking deal launches with 'StarCraft II'."
If I thought I could top this comment over at MetaFilter, I would do so. I can't. The RealID thing is a bad idea that won't work. If it were merely a bad idea, or merely wouldn't work, maybe there'd be something in it. Accountability is crucial - you might recall our theory on the subject - and a fixed persona makes the laws of a microculture enforceable. But the idea that this persona must bear your actual name to lend it value (for you, or for others) is ludicrous.
The worst part about the official messaging is how it conflates expanded Battle.Net functionality with RealID, so that it seems as though these things are inseparable, as though your mystically-infused "truename" is a bundle of syllables congealed with a cosmic power. They chose to commingle these things in order to realize Battle.Net as a Social Network, and to develop true cultural currency (also: regular currency) thereby.
My response to REALID
http://worldofwarcraft.mmocluster.co...b600b35851.jpg
Oh God, my eyes. Buckley still can't draw.
Press: Blizz dev team, do you think World of Warcraft 2 will be able to succeed so soon after World of Warcrafts reign was cut down by its own RealID feature?
Blizz Rep: RealID was merely a setback....
Apparently someone else put out the "Find me" dare.
http://seewhatyoudidthere.com/2010/0...-internet-age/
Nice read. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Khatovar
NOTE: /run for i=1,100 do if CharacterIsSelf(i)then ApplyTinFoilHat(i);break end endQuote:
Originally Posted by genocyde
Kotick: Well, we've learned from the mistakes from RealID 1.0 and we're just about ready to roll out RealID 2.0, with improved user security for everyone involved.
Press: So, what does 2.0 do for you?
Kotick: It lets you chat with friends across the game but it doesn't show you any real names or tie into facebook or anything like that.
Press: So you mean it's more or less like the game was before RealID?
Kotick: Yeah pretty much. But it provides a whole layer of security and added value that is transparent to the user.
Press: What, you're collecting demographics and selling them at auction?
Kotick: No, we're monetizing the leveraged synergy between online habits and WoW/SC2 players. It's a completely different concept.
Press: You mean you're using people as a marketing experiment.
Kotick: No no, we're not sending them any ads or media directly at all. Activision doesn't participate in schemes of that nature.
Press: So, what about the companies you're selling the demographic data to? Will they be contacting players?
Kotick: I'm not at liberty to discuss specifics of business partners' contractual obligations. That would violate their confidentiality and privacy agreements.
Press: ....
They are repealing the real names part of RealID
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...37164&sid=3000
Hello everyone,
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment