RealID to come to the Official Blizzard Forums

[OzPhoenix]

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!

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.

[MiRai]

Interesting...

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/zeroday...y-at-blizzard/

[Khatovar]

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.

[Svpernova09]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizz...m-146720.shtml

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.

[Souca]

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.

Either way, I'm glad to see Blizzard taking in feedback from it's customer base and responding to peoples' concerns.

[OzPhoenix]

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.

[Daeri]

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.

Either way, I'm glad to see Blizzard taking in feedback from it's customer base and responding to peoples' concerns.

- Souca -

[alcattle]

This former blue says Blizzard isn't trying to act evil or do bad stuff behind our back : people are staying more and more connected all the time via all these social sites and this is the future of all online games. But he agrees Blizzard should not have brought the new system this way.

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.
If it was truly "opt-in" fine, but as shown it is broken, and is not worth playing in that case.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

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:

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)

[Siaea]

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".