Blizzard Forums Make Real Names Mandatory

[alleghory415]

Alright, this may sound a bit hysterical, but...

In order to add someone to your RealID, you have to give your Battlenet account e-mail address. Now, they do warn to only do it for people you know personally, but it raises my Paranoia Metre up a bit giving out my account information in any capacity. And from the number of gold scams, phishers and general dickery that goes on, some people just aren't that bright about this sort of thing.

It's a minor concern, but one that has me raising an eyebrow. I'm an officer in my guild and the GM wanted us to give him our RealIDs to find us on other servers for a raid or something. Fine, in theory, but guild longevity can be notoriously dodgy and what would stop officer X from nerdraging and taking out his aggression on people's accounts.

Again, extreme case, minor concern, but this whole situation really has me laying out a lot of hypotheticals

 

[Rhino of Steel]

I really hope they reconsider this move. The trolls will not be driven from the forums, only the regular people. Say goodbye to any helpful posts and hello to a digital wasteland.

 

[mysterj]

So funny story, one of the moderator posted his real name on Bnet to show that no harm can be done in revealing your name.

Well it completely backfired and his address/life story was found out in mere minutes and are now all over the web. So yeah, it's kinda bad.

 

[Dyp100]

What happens when you have two John Smiths? Or some such?

Will the system break?

 

[alleghory415]

So funny story, one of the moderator posted his real name on Bnet to show that no harm can be done in revealing your name.

Well it completely backfired and his address/life story was found out in mere minutes and are now all over the web. So yeah, it's kinda bad.

Teehee ^.^

 

[Xanthious]

Someone should ask Micha Whipple how he feels about this currently . . .

 

[commasplice]

Inb4 Ubisoft tries to implement similar measures as a means to combat piracy. "See, the pirates won't want to steal the game, because you need to enter in your real name, address, and social security number before you can play. And it'll all be visible on your forum profile, so the trolls won't make a fuss for fear of looking like silly billies in front of all their real life friends. There is no way this could fail."

 

[JIst00]

It's safe to say I wont be using the forums again.

Its an absolutely awful idea, I dont mind my REAL FRIENDS knowing my name, like trusted guildies etc, but thats because THEY ARE MY REAL FRIENDS!

Do you start a forum converstion with "My names Joe Bloggs and I think...". No

 

[alleghory415]

Inb4 Ubisoft tries to implement similar measures as a means to combat piracy. "See, the pirates won't want to steal the game, because you need to enter in your real name, address, and social security number before you can play. And it'll all be visible on your forum profile, so the trolls won't make a fuss for fear of looking like silly billies in front of all their real life friends. There is no way this could fail."

They said "Silly Billies"....?

 

[Madkipz]

Cyber bullying is not that widespread but blizzard just added a couple of millions to that statistics with just one move as for the trolls, we will keep on trolling. Someone butthurt tracking me down, fine with me. With this move blizzard will cause nothing but pain and hurt across the board while giving more trolls the means to further plague their victims.

14 year olds want to have fun? visit wow board and pluck out random names, especially Gurlz1111 and find them. takes you at most 10 minutes or costs you some meager amount of dollars on most occasions.

There are real names everywhere on the internet. People use their real names on blog posts and comments, Amazon reviews, personal webpages, etc. Why aren't these people being harassed/bullied/stalked ?

People are overreacting with all this, and I'm not even saying it as someone who approves the idea in the first place. It would be better to have other options (not for me though, I never posted in the forums). But suddenly it's as if every forum poster will be cyberstalked because their real names are shown.

Ghostcrawler's name is known for some time, and I never heard about anyone going to nerdrage to him in person.

People are not overreacting, as for Ghostcrawler he has not invoked anons wrath but just because it has not been mentioned does not mean it has never ocurred or that if ghostcrawler was female that no stalker would have decided on a mmo GM as prey. Im all for the change, i wont have to track down idiots using a nickname to find their real name. Now blizzard is HANDING TROLLS an easy win, want to troll someone for their stupidity. FInd their facebook, myspace blog page.

Some of the info found wasn't actually his. Some one completely unrelated to this got harassed for nothing.. Which really only shines a brighter light on the dangers of this new system.
D:

naw, they found him alright.

 

[ANeM]

So funny story, one of the moderator posted his real name on Bnet to show that no harm can be done in revealing your name.

Well it completely backfired and his address/life story was found out in mere minutes and are now all over the web. So yeah, it's kinda bad.

Some of the info found wasn't actually his. Some one completely unrelated to this got harassed for nothing.. Which really only shines a brighter light on the dangers of this new system.

Yeah, I suspect there will be at least a few WoW related stabbings or other violent incidents, then again it's not really statistically significant if a few people from 11 million get killed. Every day there's a much higher chance of being killed by random things.

This is going to amount to nothing more than me putting words in your mouth but this is pretty much how that read to me "Its okay for someone to get killed because of this change because lots of people die to lots of stuff every day"

what would stop officer X from nerdraging and taking out his aggression on people's accounts.

a little off topic, as this is about the wholesale forum implementation of real names into the WoW Forums and not the in-game messenger function of RealID
However, that won't stop me from being helpful. RealID friends will not be able to see your account email in the game UI and at any time you want, you can change the email address associated with your battle.net account, and as such the email needed to login, without losing your friends. So, my suggestion if you want security against that is temporarily swap to a different email address when adding new realid friends. Furthermore, an authenticator never hurts, especially if you're in the states.. only $6 and shipping is free. A friend in New Zealand spent 60 on shipping alone D:

 

[commasplice]

They said "Silly Billies"....?

No. Not yet, anyway. I like to imagine them as rather senile, out-of-touch grandmothers, though, because...that's the only way I can reconcile the whole AC2/SH5 DRM fiasco with the fact that actual adults are running their company.

 

[Plurralbles]

What's funny is that a forum mod posted his real name on the forum, to show that the system was all right.

Within minutes his address, phone number, relatives and their ages, that he voted for Obama, etc etc, were found. His Facebook page was also discovered as well - he's since closed it.

Go to pipl.com. Go to Spokeo.com. Go to Google.com and search for you name. Even if you aren't willing to pay money it can be easy to find information. Now imagine what someone with time, money and a malevolent motive could do.

Edit: LOOK

[link]http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-games/Real-Names-on-the-Official-Forums-New-REAL-ID-function?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wowriot+%28Latest+Wowriot+Blog+Posts+-+Wowriot.Gameriot.com%29&gr_i_ni[/link]

THIS was found about him, easily, in under ten minutes. All because he posted his name!

This is an official act of, "FUCK YOU!" from the Blizzard company... Now if search engines didin't exist, perhaps this would be a good idea, but I don't want someone who CAN be anonymous to see me when I can't be.

 

[alleghory415]

So funny story, one of the moderator posted his real name on Bnet to show that no harm can be done in revealing your name.

Well it completely backfired and his address/life story was found out in mere minutes and are now all over the web. So yeah, it's kinda bad.

Some of the info found wasn't actually his. Some one completely unrelated to this got harassed for nothing.. Which really only shines a brighter light on the dangers of this new system.

what would stop officer X from nerdraging and taking out his aggression on people's accounts.

a little off topic, as this is about the wholesale forum implementation of real names into the WoW Forums and not the in-game messenger function of RealID
However, that won't stop me from being helpful. RealID friends will not be able to see your account email in the game UI and at any time you want, you can change the email address associated with your battle.net account, and as such the email needed to login, without losing your friends. So, my suggestion if you want security against that is temporarily swap to a different email address when adding new realid friends. Furthermore, an authenticator never hurts, especially if you're in the states.. only $6 and shipping is free. A friend in New Zealand spent 60 on shipping alone D:

Mm, well said...although I suppose my little rant came from giving out the account e-mail in order to add people to your RealID list or to theirs. Good point though about the authenticator

 

[marurder]

Bad idea for these reasons;
It wont stop the trolling,
It may affect employment potential (small chance),
It would lead to flaming and harassment on other sites (facebook etc.),
The above reason cannot be controlled or limited by Blizz employees- in other words, they wont stop it
It can be used as a tool for intimidation and threats. And a person can say "I was joking" after.
It will make cross-referencing information A-LOT easier.
It will damage the trust between Blizzard and players (Blizzard doesn't care about a persons right to privacy)

 

[zacaron]

Here's what I wonder about this policy. How do they ensure that you use your real name, and not a made up one? I don't think they can.

When you pay the monthly subscription, you have to use real ID, don't you?
Maybe that's how they'll check to see if someone's not telling the truth.

OT: I don't get it! Where's the "PROFIT" for this action? Blizzard is always(at least most of the times) thinking about "PROFIT". There has to be secret agenda, I just know it!

yes the secret agenda is they've added a new division to there payroll who gather enough personal information to find out were you live, come to your house and steal your wallet while your distracted playing there games.

there conspiricy solved

 

[JIst00]

Yeah also just thought, if some nutcase takes a disliking to you, for lets say thrashing him on SC2 or repeatedly undercutting them on the AH in WoW, its not going to be that hard for them to hunt you down and do some damage is it. Lk that guy who hunted don someone who beat them CS and STABBED him. That was without knowing the guys real named from the outset.

 

[tsb247]

I've said it before, and I will say it again:

WORST IDEA EVER!

Anonymity is necessary in the cesspool that is the interwebz.

First and last names are a powerful things, and if you know what someone's full name is, what city they live in, and what state/county/country/province... Well, bad people can do bad things with that kind of info.

 

[Funkysandwich]

Has anyone even considered the fact that is very easy to use a false name on the internet?

Just sayin'