RealID to come to the Official Blizzard Forums

[Ughmahedhurtz]

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."

[Tonuss]

Minors can't have WOW accounts, can they? Aren't those under the name of a parent or guardian?

[Owltoid]

Blizzard is on a role with popular decisions this week. Maybe this is what needed to happen to break the habit for good.

[zenga]

Minors can't have WOW accounts, can they? Aren't those under the name of a parent or guardian?

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.

There is no decent ID/age check whatsoever to create a bnet account. So ignoring reality should be a crime itself tmho.

[Svpernova09]

Blizzard is on a role with popular decisions this week. Maybe this is what needed to happen to break the habit for good.

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.

[Owltoid]

oops... role <> roll

Nerdrage has my grammar and spelling scewed up

[kadaan]

Get as angry as you want about the RealID crap, but leave the employee's alone, they didn't make the decision, and are doing their best to stay neutral in this fiasco.

I hope all of you that find this funny get to have your families details and photo's put on the internet so nerds can prank call and harass them for months when they had nothing to do with it.

Not sure why this is making me rage, I just don't think it's fair that non-decision makers, just simple employees get picked on.

Unless you won the lottery, I assume most of you have jobs (otherwise you couldn't afford to multibox) so just imagine for a second that your employer made a bad PR decision and some disgruntled customer descides to find out where one of their employee's lives, smashes up your car, and runs.

Yep, you get to deal with the crap and there is little chance you can do anything about it.

Anyways, I know the people that find this funny won't listen to what I said or understand anyways, but I think it's sad.

This is the kind of internet justice that should stay reserved for the people it started with, pedo's, thieves and animal bashers.

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.html

[Owltoid]

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.

[Souca]

If they manually removed all of the stupid shit, there would probably be five posts left anyway.

I'm ambivalent about this. It's not as if people can't find my name and info pretty easily anyway, so I'm not scared of it. That said, I doubt that I'll post in the forums, at least at first. What really irks me is the amount of misinformation being thrown around. It doesn't surprise me (this is the General WOW forum, after all, and stupidity is the rule of the day) but it's aggravating because it doesn't allow for a reasonable discussion.

On the other hand, a few of the people who are posting "my name is John Smith, do your worst" have wound up regretting it, which is funny. But all this crap about legal issues and privacy rights is being posted by people who either do not understand what Blizzard is doing or do not understand privacy rights. It's painful to read. And that's not even counting the people warning that this will lead to mass blood-letting from deranged e-stalkers.

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.

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 -

[kate]

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.