Blizzard is "Definitely Listening" to Real ID Feedback

[The Philistine]

Players are already making use of parental controls and falsifying their names to protect their identities. So what does Blizzard do? Make teams to ferret fake names out. Why not use those teams to actually moderate their forums?

 

[John Funk]

Eh.

Imagine all the screaming 13-year-olds on Xbox Live yelling racist and sexual slurs into your ears. Do you really think they'd be doing it if they knew that they'd be personally accountable for them? Studies show that accountability raises the level of discourse.

I'm of two minds on this, really, but in the end both the upsides and the downsides come down to: their forums, their rules. If you don't like it, there is absolutely nothing that requires you to post there.

If you have Facebook, everything's already out there.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Let's all take a breath and be realistic for a moment. How many psychos are likely to be looking you up once you start using your real name on the internet? The correct answer is, probably zero. You're not that interesting, you're not that important.

I fully admit that, aside from my Escapist stuffs, I generally try to stay in the shadows of anonymity on the internet. It's kinda fun. If someone wants to take that away, then I have to balance the priorities: Is it worth giving up the cheap giggle of a secret identity to participate in a particular community?

I totally understand the instinctive opposition to the idea. Prior to joining the Escapist, I was pretty rabid about keeping my real name a secret too. But I look at this as kind of like a dress code at a nice restaurant: Don't show up in ripped jeans and sandals if you want to eat there.

 

[Treblaine]

"and our goal is to create a social gaming service that players want to use."

RUN! Run to the hills! Run away!

Want to just play a game and immerse yourself in the world? Fuck that, you have to join a Faux-FaceBook.

(PS: so many social networks like Twitter don't even require real identities... but clearly by social network they mean rip-off Facebook)

 

[John Funk]

Want to just play a game and immerse yourself in the world? Fuck that, you have to join a Faux-FaceBook.

No, you don't.

You just have to use it to post on the forums.

 

[wellhereiam]

Someone NEEDS to have their name legally changed to Phook Yuu Blazzard. Then after they get kicked out for having a fake sounding name they can threaten to sue for discrimination against people with silly sounding names.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

A moderator was already stalked waaaay hard when he revealed his name on the forum. The result?

Blizzard moderators do not have to use their real names on the forums due to 'security concerns'.

The hypocrisy of this move makes my head hurt. So when our name is revealed it's ok, but not when theirs is?

 

[Feriluce]

I had to cancel my account. I run a local business and I don't want people googling my name for business purposes and having WoW information show up.

heres a good example of y people are stupid

There. All fixed up.

 

[The Philistine]

In a way I'm feeling what Andy has to say here, and I for one am intrigued at how people will behave when we can identify them personally. This still feels just unsafe, but even that argument flounders when one considers that if they stop being jerk-asses, maybe people will be less likely to eviscerate you.

If left to our own devices, we've proven we cannot be mature by and large. Facing actual consequences for harassment, racial remarks, and just generally being a douche sounds pretty good to me.

The problem is, the method uses anonymous asshats as the deterrent. All it takes is one anonymous douche that's not risking their own identity to make your life miserable.

And people will do unpleasant things to each other for petty reasons. Not just for being an over the top jerk. Jealousy, a sense of offense, or a feeling that you need to be put in your place. You know those "forum MVPs" that Blizzard has honored to such a degree that they post in a different color than everyone else? They'll be huge targets for pranks, harassment, and general unpleasantness. All for being a noteworthy positive influence on the boards.

The biggest rub in all this is that Blizzard is using people's identities as collateral for good behavior in a medium that is by and large not safe or wise to trust personal information. It feels very much like Blizzard is using the threat of harassment to curtail behavior on a board they already have the power to moderate themselves. This move flies in the face of decency and common sense.

 

[Rakkana]

My name is Justice Steel. I swear.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Imagine all the screaming 13-year-olds on Xbox Live yelling racist and sexual slurs into your ears. Do you really think they'd be doing it if they knew that they'd be personally accountable for them? Studies show that accountability raises the level of discourse.

The 13 year olds who are using their parent's credit cards? Or their brothers/sisters/friends account?
How are Blizzard going to police those? Or the people who have multiple accounts?

I'd imagine most of those 13 year olds are quite happy giving away their personal information on Facebook already, so it won't affect them.

Like DRM, it's penalising the legitimate customer in order to fight the MONSTROUS REGIMES OF TROLLS, that already know how to get around this.

And what happens when the companies get all this information?
Well, 11,000 babies have already lost their right to anonymity. [http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/FEAR-BABY-DNA-DATABASE/article-2392870-detail/article.html]
Along with 114,000 Apple iPad owners, [http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/top-stories/472774/ipad-owners-personal-information-leaked] or hundreds of Social Security numbers [http://www.thebostonchannel.com/asseenon5/13371650/detail.html?taf=bos], especially as at least 20 sites are already leaking this information to interested parties [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178648/Social_networks_leak_your_information_study_says].

Now, if you don't have anything you don't want people to worry about, like your spending habits, location, dependents, illnesses, involvements, personal opinions; then fine.

But DON'T make it mandatory, or you're punishing the people that may want to keep RL and Fantasy separate.

 

[DTWolfwood]

I had to cancel my account. I run a local business and I don't want people googling my name for business purposes and having WoW information show up.

heres a good example of y people are stupid

There. All fixed up. And I'm stupid too

i dont appreciate you changing my words <.< as im sure you dont appreciate what i've added so don't do it anymore please.

 

[Loonerinoes]

Let's all take a breath and be realistic for a moment. How many psychos are likely to be looking you up once you start using your real name on the internet? The correct answer is, probably zero. You're not that interesting, you're not that important.

I fully admit that, aside from my Escapist stuffs, I generally try to stay in the shadows of anonymity on the internet. It's kinda fun. If someone wants to take that away, then I have to balance the priorities: Is it worth giving up the cheap giggle of a secret identity to participate in a particular community?

I totally understand the instinctive opposition to the idea. Prior to joining the Escapist, I was pretty rabid about keeping my real name a secret too. But I look at this as kind of like a dress code at a nice restaurant: Don't show up in ripped jeans and sandals if you want to eat there.

I pretty much agree with this. The trick is this however - the more of such 'dress codes' a place has, the more it excludes a certain type of person. One could say it excludes forum trolls (though even that is debatable to the extreme), or one could say it excludes people who just prefer their privacy on the internet.

If you strip this thing down to its base, this system is exclusionary. Now this isn't necessarily that bad, but isn't that the whole point of an MMO? That it in fact *includes* everyone it can in order to hit the high subscriber numbers that it needs?

The only types of people that I see this will include is the Facebook crowd, who have no qualms about sharing some of their information without realizing the implications of it, while excluding anyone who is more security conscious about their personal info. Now I agree - this from a marketing standpoint is indeed the best thing to do ever. But the trick is this - will people still be willing to just relinquish their anonymity on the official forums later on and post on them?

I think the big question here is - is this a move that goes even further towards the casual crowd...or away from it? Is anonymity truly a mark of the hardcore, or do the casual fans (the ones used to playing WoW at least) enjoy it just as much in the end?

If the answer is the former, then I guess they'll basically just go through some extra cross-pollination that'll boost their subscriber numbers in the end. But if it's the latter...things could get nasty.

 

[The Philistine]

Eh.

Imagine all the screaming 13-year-olds on Xbox Live yelling racist and sexual slurs into your ears. Do you really think they'd be doing it if they knew that they'd be personally accountable for them? Studies show that accountability raises the level of discourse.

I'm of two minds on this, really, but in the end both the upsides and the downsides come down to: their forums, their rules. If you don't like it, there is absolutely nothing that requires you to post there.

If you have Facebook, everything's already out there.

But who are you being held accountable to? Some random stranger that might take exception to what you say. Is saying "watch what you say because John Doe might look you up and do something petty" really okay for forum moderation?

 

[Feriluce]

I had to cancel my account. I run a local business and I don't want people googling my name for business purposes and having WoW information show up.

heres a good example of y people are stupid

There. All fixed up. And I'm stupid too

i dont appreciate you changing my words <.< as im sure you dont appreciate what i've added so don't do it anymore please.

Well, My addition is true. The person you're quoting feels his privacy is threatened just by playing wow. This of course makes no sense as The game WoW =/= The WoW forums. Apparantly you NEED to post on the forums to play wow?

 

[KeyMaster45]

It's important to note that both enabling Real ID in game and posting on the official Blizzard forums are completely optional," the rep continued. "Players can continue to read the forums anonymously regardless of whether they choose to post in them

This right here is the statement that has kept me utterly pissed off since this debacle began. Sure the forums are optional, but dammit all I want to post my opinions of your game in them and go by the name of the character I play in WoW not my real name. This is the worst kind of attitude I think they can adopt towards their players because its basically saying they no longer want our opinion if we don't agree to this ridiculous system.

[We] will be carefully monitoring how people are using the service.

That's not bloody listening that's utterly ignoring what people are saying and deciding to go ahead with the idea anyway. Blizzard never had any intention of taking our feedback into consideration because they already had a launch time-table for this system at the time of announcement. They just thought they'd be nice and give us a heads up and everything would be dandy.

I honestly don't care about any security issues what I have a problem with is being robbed of my virtual name. Oh sure they can display it next to my real name, but I don't want people to know it in the first freaking place because guess what; when I play an online game I want to be know by my freaking online name!

Its not even really that which pisses me off the most, like I said earlier the rage comes from that stonewalled stance Blizzard has taken against those who don't like the system. You know something, if I have an opinion about WoW I'm not going to take it to some fan-site because frankly that's not where Blizzard has its eyes trained. No, I'd much rather post my opinion on THEIR FORUMS where I know for damn sure Blizzard employees are monitoring them for constructive feedback. When I post there I also expect to be able to go by the name people know me as in-game because when I play WoW that becomes my identity. Blizzard wants to take away not only my voice for feedback on their games but my virtual identity as well. I for one won't stand for it.

My virtual name is just as important as my actual name, and I plan to fight for it.

 

[Stilt-Man]

I can understand the "it's only on the forums" argument, but how long will that last? I can totally see RealID being attached to the armory and such at some point.

The thing is, if someone wants to stalk you, or track you down, or whatever BSI people do, they will, regardless of whether you go by a pseudonym or Username. RealID is only going to make it slightly easier for such people to do so. Even so, I don't see a valid reason for RealID at all.

 

[Feriluce]

Eh.

Imagine all the screaming 13-year-olds on Xbox Live yelling racist and sexual slurs into your ears. Do you really think they'd be doing it if they knew that they'd be personally accountable for them? Studies show that accountability raises the level of discourse.

I'm of two minds on this, really, but in the end both the upsides and the downsides come down to: their forums, their rules. If you don't like it, there is absolutely nothing that requires you to post there.

If you have Facebook, everything's already out there.

But who are you being held accountable to? Some random stranger that might take exception to what you say. Is saying "watch what you say because John Doe might look you up and do something petty" really okay for forum moderation?

You're being held accountable to the community as a whole. Why do you think most trolling is made on low-lvl alts and not main characters?

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I'm seeing this quote floating around some of the Battle.net fora, I cannot find if it's true (obviously) but the original post has been deleted, if that's anything to go by.

Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard, to see what the internal buzz on this was. Apparently, at the moment the employees are largely as pissed as the players, and she stated that despite attempts to keep it hushed, it has become known that the big creative players within Blizzard are pretty much as unhappy about this as we are. Everybody has been told they are not free to comment on this situation outside of specially prepared statements.

It's still going ahead, however (and here's where in-house rumours and hearsay really start coming into play): from what they've picked up, the Blizzard leads have been told in no uncertain terms that the non-gameplay-related direction of the game is working to a different blueprint now. GC and company are free to play with shiny new talent trees all they like, for example, but for the first time the decisions regarding Battle.net implementation, Real ID, and plans for the general acquisition of new players for the business are no longer in Blizzard's own hands, and that's not going down too well.

Seemed to have originated from here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=1792 , found the link of it here http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25626109041&sid=3000&pageNo=75

If this is true, that would be very bad. Unfortunatly, I doubt any of the two companies will ever open their mouths on this issue.
Blizzard should never have merged

 

[Treblaine]

Want to just play a game and immerse yourself in the world? Fuck that, you have to join a Faux-FaceBook.

No, you don't.

You just have to use it to post on the forums.

>:C

But that is HALF THE FUN! That is where the discussions are made where the mods and developers can respond and introduce news it is THE place to discuss all the relevant issues, tactics, collaboration.

Saying you don't need real-ID to view the forums is NO SOLACE!!! That means anyone, completely anonymously, can know exactly what I - me, myself - say about stuff about Blizzard's games.

Activision-Blizzard can hide behind bullshit percentages like "most people won't be affected" THIS WILL DECIMATE BLIZZARD'S COMMUNITY!!! Fuck your community, you fuck your feedback, you fuck your product, you fuck your largest group of unpaid proponents and evangelists. This destroys your upmarket who have been holding standards high.

And proof this won't stop trolls: you can lie on Real-ID.

Fan-fucking-tastic, so the idiotic trolls who don't mind taking risks can fuck with the REAL LIVES of innocent forum goers who attract their wrath will be royally shafted.

BTW: do you think The Escapist should do this? Force us to post with real identities?

I can GUARANTEE that will destroy this community and the few foolish enough to stay behind will be rich pickings for trolls who have a real name to work with. They wouldn't even have to log in.