Blizzard is "Definitely Listening" to Real ID Feedback

[Xiorell]

i find it really sad Blizzard felt the need for such a thing... what I mean is... People actually complained or expressed some sort of concern about trolls basically, to a point Blizzard might even consider this.

Personally, I couldn't give a tiny, tiny mouse sized shit what anyone I actually KNOW thinks or says about me. Let alone some little prick on a WoW forum.

 

[Eldarion]

Wow....I quit blizz a while ago. Good to see I jumped ship at the right time.

 

[Wrann]

I personaly like this idea it could reduce trolls and if it does I may actually use the forums because as it stands now its very few constructive posts and a lot of I hate this and you need to nerf this just complaining abound.

Also a lot of people think that everyone is out to get them. By that it seems that every nay sayer keeps going back to the good ol' fallback of attempted murder. If you really think that there are a ton of people on the wow forums that will hunt you down and kill you at the drop of a hat I recommend you stop going outside. Lets say you cut someone off in traffic they could write down your license plate number, or follow you home, or just run you off the road and then kill you but you don't stop driving.

I know someone will say well you need to drive and forums are optional but what about lets say you buy the last movie ticket to a new movie and the person behind you wanted the same movie they could kill you or you trip and spill your drink on someone or take a seat another person wanted or insulted them under you breath and they heard it. All of these things happen but people still do it because no one is that crazy that they will hunt you down and murder you for a minimal thing.

 

[beniki]

I honestly don't get it. If they want to stop trolls, why don't they just tie the forum account to the game account (which most other games do, so please correct me if they do already), and ban the game account?

Sure you'll get the odd person shelling out some cash on a new for the privilege of a few days trolling, but wouldn't that be a good thing as far as the balance book is concerned?

It just seems weird that a game that already has massive problems with account hacks is even considering this. I feel silly for asking, but is this even legal? I want to say yes, because Blizzard can't be that stupid, but I really have to wonder if they put real thought into this.

In fact, I wonder if it isn't just some kind of big publicity stunt. The old big MMO hitters are bringing out all new games (FF14, Guild Wars 2), and I don't think they even have concept art for WoW 2. So I wonder if this is just Blizzard trying to look innovative.

The internet grew up knowing it was a bad idea to post personal information. Hell, that's one of the few things we got right in creating this electronic underworld. If you can't see why it's a bad idea, well, look up Dusty the Cat. An abused cat in a video on youtube was found. What chance have you got?

 

[Sartan0]

My concern is if they ever decided to make it mandatory. As we have seen with Facebook and others a company that has your data has a piece of you they can trade.

While I think the concern is remote with Blizzard it is still a possibility. Rules can and often are changed midstream on the internet. It comes down to what people and companies you trust.

The one thing to always remember however, is once you choose to share something it is out there and the internet is often a permanent record.

 

[gl1koz3]

Aha. So if I want to get into the Blizzard forums, I just need to claim my name is something realistic sounding. Like Andy Chalk?

I believe that we'll soon find out that Barack Obama and Justin Bieber just love posting on the WoW forums.

Worst case: they use credit card info to prove identity.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Snips

Don't forget

[a href='http://www.wowwiki.com/Soon']Soon[/a]

 

[Verbal Samurai]

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 the system is stupid

And even for people who do not run businesses, you work for people who run businesses. A lot of people are surprised to hear how often employers do internet searches on job applicants. If someone sends me a resume and a google search brings up information that I dislike or even THINK a client/colleague would frown upon, that person is NOT getting a job...and no, I won't even tell you that's why you didn't get the job.

Although its beginning to go away, there is still a stigma associated with games. Unfortunately, it will probably be decades before it goes away completely. I make an effort to separate games that I play from my real life as a result. I will not be employing anyone who doesn't, except maybe to clean the floors and I'm NOT alone on that point. Anyone who aspires to do more than clean up for minimum wage, should think twice about WoW with the direction its going in.

So what if I applied for a job with your company, and someone else who plays WoW (how many millions play it now?) has the same name as me and acts like an ass on the forums?

I don't even play WoW... and you're going to avoid hiring me because I share a name (not something I can help) with an internet troll.

I did an internet search with my name, and found plenty of stuff out there... but none of it is me. It's other people with the same name. Even has the same spelling.

Unless your name is something VERY unique, finding one person in the US/Canada just based off the first and last name is impossible. Look in the phone books and you'll find several people in the same city sharing the same name.

edit to add: Regardless of the RL consequences or lack thereof, I still think using someones REAL name is dumb. A simple "user 23543423452523" will do. That attaches any of their forum posts to their account or accounts (can link with credit card or GUID maybe?) while leaving their personal info out of the picture.

The sad thing is that I don't have much of a choice about it. Let's say my business is in sales. (It isn't sales, but let's say it is.)

If I hire you as one of my salesmen and a client goes to contact you about purchasing from my company, they may very well do a google search for your phone number.

If one of the first things that comes up on that google search is your WoW armory page or your post on the forums saying "z0mg I srsly ROFLstomped taht nubz0r lololololol!!!!!11" they might think twice about doing business with you, meaning they might think twice about doing business with ME!

As much as I DON'T want to punish someone for having the same harmless hobby as me, the majority of the adult population looks down on videogames and "kids" who play them. I simply will not risk losing business hiring you, when there are 10 other people who want the job and won't bring along that kind of baggage.

If your name is "John Smith" and its highly likely that you are not THAT John Smith, then I might ask you about your hobbies in the interview. If you talk to me about how you like to stay up until 3am "pwning nubs" then that probably IS you, or would at least be mistaken for you by potential clients.

I'm not saying that doesn't suck, but life isn't fair. You are asking ME to give YOU the job that I can give to any number of people whose resumes are in front of me. Why should I take a risk that I don't have to take?

If you're in that situation and want to distinguish yourself, my advice is to fight fire with fire. Create a strong online presence with your name and ONLY put favorable, professional, business-related information there such as how you love people and sales, describe some of your successful sales experiences (WITHOUT mentioning specific clients!!!), talk about your education or things you've done to give back the community, etc.

And all this doesn't just apply to WoW. It goes for stupid, embarrassing, unprofessional things you or your friends might put on on Facebook, Myspace, etc. Any job where you would be expected to wear a suit and tie, you are NOT going to get if your would-be boss sees pictures or videos of you acting like a moron on the internet.

Social networking is a double-edged sword. My complaint here is that WoW should be a GAME, not a social networking site. Since it insists on becoming both, I can't play anymore.

EDIT:

And to the people who say "don't post on the forums" that doesn't work for two reasons.

#1 Customer support/Technical support frequently REQUIRES you to post on the forums. You won't have an option at that point.

#2 Blizzard, or rather Activision, started RealID as an optional service that you were only supposed to use with RL friends and family or other people you trust. Now, its being required for the forums. The fact of the matter is, Blizzard is aggressively expanding the use of RealID and I do not think it will be optional much longer.

This is all part of an advertising deal with Facebook. They are NOT going to stop at the forums. It IS being slowly integrated to the game one step at a time and it WILL become mandatory in the future, thanks to Bobby Kotick.

I cannot invest any more time and money into the game considering the inevitable end-result. And if you wait until its all said and done and all the information is shared and out there, it will be too late to go back. You can't unring a bell.

 

[LassLisa]

The pros and cons all come out of the same thing: linking your real identity allows enforcement of social norms. But let's look at societal norms: One may be "don't be a dick" which encourages general civility; one may be "women shouldn't be outspoken or make men look bad" which discourages equality and encourages stalking/harrassment; one may be "the nice part of town is only for white people" which encourages housing discrimination, ostracism, and in some places cross-burning. Allowing the enforcement of social rules is not, in fact, a universally good thing. Maybe this is more obvious if you've been on the wrong side of society a few times.

The problem isn't for you or me or Joe Shmoe who posts to the forums once or twice. The problem is for people who reach positions of leadership and influence, and as usual piss off other people... especially when they don't have a RL persona that looks equally powerful. Some people get really upset at "uppity" behavior, or decide to get their trolling fix (or get back at someone for making them look like a fool) through the mail or through the phone.

As a note, it's true that name alone won't usually get you an address and phone number. But name and school attended, or name and town and occupation, or name and hobbies, certainly can. And if someone's expressing loud opinions there's usually some personal information that comes out of that.

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

That's primarily why I say using a real name instead of a player ID is bad.

Not even bothering to ask the person about it is a little unfair, and I would think that most people wouldn't automatically assume that the guy they are trying to make a business call to is the same guy spewing "roflcopterz lolololololol" on a video game forum.

I think the whole point is to prevent people from creating junk alts to troll the forums while not revealing who they play as. I think a player ID number or Player name (regardless of what it is) will give the same effect, without having all the negatives attached concerning privacy.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

I wonder if I could get away with John Doe...?

 

[Sansha]

No.

No, no, no.

I've been playing World of Warcraft for three years now and I do not believe that Blizzard cares about or listens to the players whatsoever.

""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, and their gameplay experiences will not change if they choose not to use the Real ID communication features in game." "

This is basically Blizzard saying "If you don't like it, you're welcome to go fuck yourself."

 

[Twilight_guy]

What? A major company monitoring the results of a controversial decision and policy? MADNESS!

I'm sure blizzard is going to make sure the community doesn't abandon the forums en mass or start a string of murders. Yet, I can still see a WoW fanatic becoming a serial killer just stop this new policy... what sad depraved things human really are.

 

[Canid117]

The biggest actual problem I can see this generating is people hunting down the accounts of famous people who play wow and spamming them with in game mail. It might be nice for Mila Kunis and William Shatner who will just get free gold and a "WILL YOU PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR FRIENDS LIST?" type letters but as I recall there is at least one Senator who happens to be a Democrat who will probably get hate mail from any Tea party players who happen to be online at the time.

 

[ArmorArmadillo]

Also, it just astounds me that everyone at Blizzard's legal department is saying this is fine. I would think even a day one law school student would realize that the ToS and EULA won't protect them from litigation if someone gets attacked because of information that was derived from the Battle.net Forums.

Well, speaking as a law student, the ToS and EULA are what's known as an Adhesion Contract, a long legalese form contract that nobody reads and everybody signs. Such contracts are necessary in the modern age since Blizzard couldn't be expected to personally negotiate a contract with every WoW subscriber, but since people aren't expected to actually read them, the law generally recognizes that clicking Agree means "I Agree to Any Terms in Here that Aren't Patently Unconscionable"...which is to say they can't slip in a sentence about signing over your house.
As for whether this kind of change would be unconscionable, well first they'll surely ask you to resign the ToS after the update, and as for the RealID system, I very much doubt it would be unconscionable.

Currently, Contract Law is really tilted in favor of software companies, primarily due to jurisdictions trying to cater to lucrative software businesses, so adhesion contracts are pretty strong.

If Blizzard changed their system and revealed previously anonymous information, however, and that led to a criminal act, I wouldn't say that there is no recourse for the victim. That said, for your RealID to get on, odds are that you at some point gave information or signed something saying it would be alright without thinking.

The preceding is not posted by a Bar certified lawyer and should not be taken as legal advice.

 

[Wicky_42]

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.

Well, and in game chat, if what I discern through the corporate double-speak is accurate. Oh, and presumably if you add anyone as a friend. Or maybe if someone else views your friend list. Maybe you'll still have a profile on the forum, much like I appear to have about a thousand WarCry pages despite never knowingly having used that part of the site, just as part of creating the BattleNet account to play online.

Of course, those features are optional, so what are people complaining about, right? I mean, you don't even HAVE to buy the game, but if you do then be prepared to hand over your privacy!
____________

Off Topic, there was a kid at my chool back in the day called Wan King. That in itself was source for some amusement, but at a speech day it emerged that his full name was, in fact, Wan King Yu. I think he'd be hard-pressed to setup a B.Net account...

 

[Racthoh]

As I said, anyone who refuses to believe that there could be positives to this, or who refuses to believes that there could be negatives to this, is willfully deluding themselves one way or another and has some sort of an agenda to push.

A deterrent for trolling, that's the only positive I get out of it. The thing is there are other ways they could go about that. You need an account just to post on their forums so why not a) lock you to a single character for posting b) have an armory link under their avatars for all of their characters. I mean, it's not like Blizzard can't see those level 1 alts used for trolling don't have a level 80 on the account. Heck if they *really* wanted to deter the trolls they could switch that level 1 character to the level 80 on the post and drown them in embarrassment.

As far as cons are concerned, they've pretty much been mentioned already. Legitimate posters will be turned away; posts from the forum MVPs indicated they were uncomfortable with the change as well. Players who have shown their willingness to help others are being turned away. I'd say it's deceitful as well since they said you'd never have to use RealID, and now you will if you want to post on the forums which, as others have mentioned, is recommended for technical issues.

Honestly, I'd say Blizzard is just being lazy with this. I've moderated a gaming fansite, sure not nearly the traffic their forums get no doubt but we never had a system that required you to have a paid account to post. We had to rely on user's IP addresses to track down users posting on an alt account or circumventing a ban. Thing is, you can get around the IP address thing. Characters tied to a single account? Not a chance.

 

[John Funk]

Well, and in game chat, if what I discern through the corporate double-speak is accurate. Oh, and presumably if you add anyone as a friend. Or maybe if someone else views your friend list. Maybe you'll still have a profile on the forum, much like I appear to have about a thousand WarCry pages despite never knowingly having used that part of the site, just as part of creating the BattleNet account to play online.

No, in-game chat and friending are both still completely intact without RealID. You won't be able to speak to your SC2 playing friend while you're in Icecrown Citadel without it, but you can still play the game.

WELL YOU ARE CERTAINLY NOT BIASED AT ALL, GOOD SIR. WHAT A RESOUNDINGLY OBJECTIVE JOURNALISTIC STATEMENT. YOU SHOULD BE COMMENDED!!

Holy fucking shit. You could get a job at fox news with polarized/ing bullshit like that. Not to mention, if you weren't BEING PAID TO USE YOUR REAL NAME, most people would just dismiss you as a troll for that statement.

This is a stupid fucking issue. Anonymity should be always on unless opted out. The logic of "well you don't HAVE to use the forums" is disturbingly close to the anti-privacy argument of "if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to worry about." Hell, thats not pretty close, thats the two core logics behind this decision. Its 1984, big brother, safe under the watchful eyes, big gun bullshit to deal with an extremely minor issue. Trolling.

The idea the only people who care are the people who are trolling is the absolute biggest piece of non-logic in this argument. Forcing people to use their real names would simply reveal most people really are that "stupid." Quotes, because you can't really know if someone is stupid. You can only know whether or not you agree with what is said. You can freak out over a typographical error or assume anyone with the naming logic "xx-+SeFiRoTh+-xx" is 12 years old, but that should have zero effect on what "xx-+SeFiRoTh+-xx" says. But ASS out of U and ME.

As far as "realistic names," John Smith pretty much makes that entire concept a nightmare. Not to mention, the phonebook still has multiple pages of "Pat McGroin" from when phone companies started charging for unlisted numbers.

Not to mention, like con artistry, trolling is only as effective as people are susceptible to it.

This will have no effect on anything beyond making the official blizzard forums an even shittier place.

Someone needs to take a little time-out. See, a company can do whatever they want on their own forums. Much like we can request that you maintain a polite and respectful attitude when debating no matter the issue, particularly when speaking to staff.

And if not, you aren't welcome here.

Funny how that works.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I don't want to get into all of my arguments right now (for and against) because it's monday's column but really. Let's rein in the raging hyperbole and look at this seriously and rationally. This doesn't just go for you, but for everyone.

John, my primary argument against forcing players into using real names on the forums is that it does NOTHING that using a universal login name (or tying the posting privledges to a single "main character") couldn't do for accountability. Nothing. Blizzard has as much as said that it will be ensuring that your RealID matches your credentials (as in, the name on your credit card), so faking names could be completely out.

"Well, you're fine so long as you don't say or do something offensive." Offensive to who? People take constructive criticism entirely the wrong way on the Internet. I'd be afraid of posting ANYTHING lest someone take it the wrong way and decide that making my real life difficult is perfectly valid retaliation.

"If they did anything, their name would be trackable too." Sure... if they were SUCH a mental reprobate as to literally post that they were going to "do something" to me. You don't have to own a Blizzard game in order to be able to READ their forums, and if some Johnny Anonymous happened to read something I wrote that he didn't like, and that I should be "taught a lesson", he'd have my name- and I wouldn't have a clue. It is ridiculously trivial to track someone on the Internet by a full name (especially if you have a fairly unique one like mine) and even easier to make their life a living hell without being the least bit tracable (I'll just sign his school Email up for some bestiality porn, and get his office a subscription to fetish magazines in his name, and maybe I'll call his wife and drop hints that he's cheating on her).

"You don't have to post on the forums." You sort of do if you want technical support, as many of those who use the phone lines, Email or in-game tickets- especially during high-volume times- are told to "go put a post on the technical forum". And what if I religiously avoid the forums anyway, but my account is hacked, and the hacker decides to use my account to flood the forums with gold-selling spam? (The forums, as of now, do not require an Authenticator code in order to post.) Pow, there's my name, out for everyone to see, possibly attached to my characters' names (easy lookup for anyone who holds a grudge for that trouncing in the Battlegrounds last week). And if Google or some other bot indexes that crap before it's wiped from the forums... I'm immortalized forever with no real way of recovery.

"Just don't be a target." You mean like these people?
- Women (ahoy, stalkers!)
- Children (ahoy, pedophiles!)
- Minorities (ahoy, racists!)
- Those with alternative sexualities (ahoy, bigots!)
Basically this is saying "be bland enough to blend in or don't bother".

"What are the odds it'll happen to you?" For Mikhael, the odds were 1:1. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101031-Counter-Strike-Knife-Fight-Leads-to-Real-Life-Stabbing]

There is no good reason to go through with this and tons of good reasons not to. That Blizzard is choosing to ignore this speaks quite ill of them.