Blizzard just made sure ...

[Treesh]

I want to be in control of that zone, not Blizzard.

And that's what most folks seem to be wanting - control over that information. Give the options for it Blizzard, rather than claim the only options are going to be to let it be seen by all or by no one - opt in or opt out. Foolishness.

---

If it makes you feel better, I hate your colleagues now.

Eh, no need to hate them. They're completely close-minded and anything that is new or unfamiliar to them is automatically EVIL! I told them all to butt the hell out of my personal life and I won't go higher up with their harassment. It's just a shame that they are so close-minded that they'll never really get to learn new things.

[Tal]

I think that Blizzard could cut the amount of trolling by 90% if they just linked all the toons on a character's account when they post.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I trust most Lurkers not to put my information on a FaceBook page or to Twitter it.

Oh crap! If only you had posted this 10 minutes earlier!

Damn! Not again! Do you know what it costs to move and buy a new identity?



--Pete

[Zich]

Sheesh. If I want to be socially networked with a bunch of idiots, I can just hop on Twitter.

Sabra is my new sig quote..


Also, if this goes live, I'll be on a hiatus for awhile. Sorry all, but I have to show Blizz my disapproval. I can't see it being anything but the almighty dollar driving this call, so that's what I shall take away from them. Hopefully a few million follow and Blizzard wakes the F up...

[Tal]

Interesting blog post

[swirly]

Interesting blog post

What I would like to see with this is a comparison of what can be found without the real name and what can be found with it. Possibly include various degrees in between. Like maybe have one that is only using a name the person uses on the forum. Then one where you have all the person's character names. Then finally one where you have the person's real name. I actually suspect that the guy in that blog post could find much the same information just with character names. People post about their characters all over the place. Twitter, facebook, forums, etc. For somebody like that who knows what they are doing it likely wouldn't be that hard to link everything and end up at the same endpoint.

My point isn't that RealId is good, bad, or anything really. I'm making no statement about that. My point is that these claims don't mean much when you don't have a comparison point of what a person can find without the RealId data.

edit: Though having the RealId does make it easier for somebody like an employer googling more likely to find you. So this doesn't affect that example. Just this specific one of somebody who knows how to find people doing so.

[Ruvanal]

Interesting blog post

I very much am against what Blizzard is currently trying to do with this RealID and how they have been handling things like the account name on battlenet. The link you gave is an excellent example of how quickly this stuff could be used to spin someones life out of control. Just look at examples of what headaches and heartaches some have had to go through with issues of identity theft.

If Blizzard is wanting to provide a more secure environment for their customers and also provide a way of curbing the trolling on the forums, their are good examples out there of doing these things in ways that provide both. I have recently been playing Champions Online and the method that Crypic(Atari) is using could provide much of that. My personal information is not used either for signing in or on the forums (not that I have posted there). You set up a sign in name and password and then are required to make a separate handle that will be attached to your account for identifying you in forum posting and in the in-game chat. Its up to you to block anyone using that name and wanting to look up your toons, but at no point do you use one of your toon names to do posting by.

[--Pete]

Hi,

What I would like to see with this is a comparison of what can be found without the real name and what can be found with it.

Security, of all types, isn't about making something impossible to find out. That itself is impossible. Security is about making things difficult to find out. The degree of difficulty needs to be commiserate with the degree of security needed.

I don't know how good a hacker the author of that blog is. I do know that what he did any of us could do with just google and web phone books. Someone using the full arsenal of tools could get a lot more starting with as little as the IP address from one post. I know a person whos job was just that, as a security expert for a large corporation.

So, it's not whether that POed psychopath with the eight inch knife can find you -- he can if he knows what he's doing. It's whether said psychopath will get bored before he does and quit because the effort just isn't worth it.

And, yes, there were phone books before computers. But they weren't much fun to use, and I've never heard of someone trolling a phone book for victims. Although some creeps did, I've heard, look for listings in a woman's name to target for obscene calls.

--Pete

[Ruvanal]

Interesting blog post

What I would like to see with this is a comparison of what can be found without the real name and what can be found with it. Possibly include various degrees in between. Like maybe have one that is only using a name the person uses on the forum. Then one where you have all the person's character names. Then finally one where you have the person's real name. I actually suspect that the guy in that blog post could find much the same information just with character names. People post about their characters all over the place. Twitter, facebook, forums, etc. For somebody like that who knows what they are doing it likely wouldn't be that hard to link everything and end up at the same endpoint.

My point isn't that RealId is good, bad, or anything really. I'm making no statement about that. My point is that these claims don't mean much when you don't have a comparison point of what a person can find without the RealId data.

Some of us do not connect much of our real lives to the gaming tags that we regularly use. Try doing that search yourself on 'Ruvanal' and see if you can get very far. If you do; do not post any of it here in this public forum.

For a comparison, try to use the real name a friend at work or somewhere similar and see what the difference is on the amount of information that you get and how lost in the morass of information you might end up with.

[Crushar]

Many who play this game are internet/computer savy and passionate about the game. With my name, which is unique, it would be very easy to harrass me or my family in an anonymous way. Stopping harrassment is extremely difficult especially when that person isn't a local (even locals are hard to police). A risk/benefit analysis for me presents a clear winner. Don't use those forums. It also leads me to question the integrity of the people making these decisions at blizzard.

Another factor that everyone should consider is the effect on your professional and personal reputation. Yes, it is absurd that there is negatives attached to fantasy gaming but it does in fact exist. Future employers will google/facebook search job candidates. Political opponents and professional colleagues will do so as well. Being a fantasy gamer is not a protected class in any jurisdiction of which I am familiar. Unlikely that employer actions based upon this information would be amenable to suit unless you are a union employee. Posting on any forum just isn't worth the potential hazards for almost everyone.

This change is not about forum trolling. It is about integrating several popular social networks and by doing so make more money. I will not opt in for Blizzards benefit. It is particularly amusing that this change directly contradicts Blizzards current forum and RealID policy about release of personal information.

[Chesspiece_face]

And, yes, there were phone books before computers. But they weren't much fun to use, and I've never heard of someone trolling a phone book for victims. Although some creeps did, I've heard, look for listings in a woman's name to target for obscene calls.

--Pete

Things are going to start happening to me now.

[NiteFox]

If I, I get to know your name,
Well, if I could trace your private number, baby.
All I know is that to me,
you look like you're lots of fun.
Open up your lovin' arms,
I want some, want some.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, I forget the rest. I've been mulling over this for the last two days, swinging between righteous indignation and, um, a lesser form of righteous indignation. Something like this. I can absolutely see the slippery slope ahead of us all here, knowing that we're inevitably going to slide down it; but I'll be damned if I'm not looking forward to StarCraft 2 later this month.

I've posted my real name on the Internet before; not in an exactly widespread way. I've never shared it here, but I don't doubt that anyone with a bit of time on their hands couldn't dig it up. That's cool, but the fact is that I chose to share my name at that particular point.

Do I have a choice to post on the Battle.net forums? Well, yes I do. But the whole crux of the problem is that sometimes I would like to. Realm forum stuff, class forum stuff, tech support and the like. Would I like every post I make on said board be attached to my real name? Hell naw, that's not a choice I want to make; but ActiFaceZard will make that a mandatory choice.

I see that the inevitable goal is to make gaming more like a social network. That's fine for people who like social networking, but is absolutely pointless at best (and downright offputting, account-cancelling offputting) for those that don't. I'm not on Facebook. I did once set up an in-character Twitter account for my main WoW toon, but that never went anywhere. I've got my regular sites that I browse, and I get everything I want and need from the Internet without having to go to Facebook. My sister is into Facebook big-time, and time was that her disposition was based on her period; now it's based on things that have happened to friends-of-friends and the like.

I don't want that for me. Besides, being somewhat of a misanthropic sort I could do with less giving a damn about the drama of my coworkers on my time off away from them.

My name is my own. It's entirely up to me how I use it and to whom I wish to give it to. I will not have that choice made for me by someone who doesn't even know me.

It's not mandatory in-game yet, but if things carry on at this rate I have no doubt that it will be. When that day comes, it'll be time to finally let my WoW account time expire and to only ever play SC2 and D3 with those I consider my actual friends.

[Mavfin]

It's not mandatory in-game yet, but if things carry on at this rate I have no doubt that it will be. When that day comes, it'll be time to finally let my WoW account time expire and to only ever play SC2 and D3 with those I consider my actual friends.

To me, this is the same slippery-slope argument i've seen used with the sparkly horse and noncombat pets; the one that says selling them inevitably leads to selling combat items.

I don't believe that one, and I don't think that it *will* be mandatory at all in places you can't opt out of, such as the armory.

They start putting it on the armory, and I'm out. The forums? Pfft, I couldn't care less about that. I haven't posted there in five years, and I'm probably not starting now.

[Thecla]

Some of us do not connect much of our real lives to the gaming tags that we regularly use. Try doing that search yourself on 'Ruvanal' and see if you can get very far.

I agree entirely --- I certainly hope the same thing is true of 'Thecla' and I'm pretty sure that 'Sorceror' of old would've felt the same way (even if Eugene and TheMan aka 'Charlie' might not).

As far as posting on the Blizzard forums go, it's not such a big deal (though if you needed to post in the support forum it might be different) but the claim that the use of real names is to control trolls strikes me as completely bogus.

Without trying to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist, it's pretty hard to avoid the suspicion that this is directly connected with the battle.net/facebook merger and activision/blizzard's determination to parlay their massive success with WoW into social networking gold, one way or the other, whatever players might want.

[Crusader]

[Zich]

One of the more interesting realID-related screencaps I've seen in the epic 45k (and counting) Blizzard Forum thread:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/T...nsored.png

I assume /v/ is some 4chan-esque machination, but the content within is pretty good illustration of how flawed a person can be and still think they are being totally socially normal. I'd also wager, despite becoming more main-stream, WoW has a substantially higher populationg of creeps than other online formats which use real names, like Facebook, and so far RealID is showing far less concern for privacy
(like protection of minors being implemented long after RealID went live on servers as a freaking afterthought due to complaints, and that you can still data-mine RealID's with scripts from any toon you pass in Dal)

[shoju]

I just can't seem to understand how this is possibly a good idea. I can't sum it up any better than what this guy did.

Slaying Internet Dragons

I love this game, I love the community, and the 'wow friends' that I have made from this game. Sure, I could simply not post on the forums, and I would suffer no ill effects. But simply not posting on the forums, at least for me, is accepting and supporting the decision made by a company concerning the data it has collected from its users.

On top of my feelings about the game and community, there are my feelings as a professional. I look at leaving this game if this change goes live in the same professional light I look at the prospect of being employed by less reputable websites. It isn't good business when your company is knowingly leaving the door open to idenity theft.

I have come to the conclusion that if this change goes live, I will be leaving the game. As a person who deals with secure data on the internet as part of my job, I could never in my life fathom the idea of doing something like this to my customers. I know how easy it is to take this information and turn it into a complete profile of someone.

I will give blizzard time to rescind their position on this, but if the forum moves to this new technology, I will be cancelling my account, deleting my characters, and not looking back. I will not be coming back if they change things back to the old way. This decision was obviously made by someone in a position of power who has no idea about how the internet works.

For the record, I have no problem with RealID in game. I look at RealID in game as a very voluntary service that you don't have to be a part of. I have realid friends. Vecindak, Kaine, and Palpy here on the boards are my RealID friends. I have no problem if there friends can see my name. I have a facebook, and there is the same level of transparency there.

If I don't wish to use RealID, I can still login and play the game. I don't have to embrace that technology to use the game.

On the other hand, RealID on the forums, is not voluntary. If you wish to use the forums after the changes go live, there is no way to not use RealID. Since the forums are the best/biggest form of customer support that Blizzard has for the game, Not allowing for an anonymous use of the forums removes the voluntary portion of the RealID system.

An acceptable solution for me, would be that you could import the realid friends list from the game to the forums, or force everyone to post on their 'main', something that they would have to declare as a setting or something, or actually go to the use of a forum nickname like what we have here on the lounge, or on maintankadin, or any of the countless other forums that I have been a part of over the years.

I have no problem with being known as Shoju on the WoW forums. It is a little harder to put Shoju - with me.

[Tal]

One of the more interesting realID-related screencaps I've seen in the epic 45k (and counting) Blizzard Forum thread:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/T...nsored.png

I assume /v/ is some 4chan-esque machination, but the content within is pretty good illustration of how flawed a person can be and still think they are being totally socially normal. I'd also wager, despite becoming more main-stream, WoW has a substantially higher populationg of creeps than other online formats which use real names, like Facebook, and so far RealID is showing far less concern for privacy
(like protection of minors being implemented long after RealID went live on servers as a freaking afterthought due to complaints, and that you can still data-mine RealID's with scripts from any toon you pass in Dal)

A couple of week's ago I was watching the stream of one of the European gladiators (it might have been Moonies) and his sister was speaking on Vent with him while they were playing.

IMMEDIATELY the horns were sounded and guys started hitting on her in the chat, asking to see pics, etc. Typical horny teenager bs right? Well then one of the jackasses managed to figure out which facebook profile was her and posted it into the stream. The reaction from there could only be described as...inflammatory and to me disgusting. Guys that were hitting on her before suddenly became obsessed while still others described this young lady who MAYBE weighed 125 as fat and put her down.

I cannot IMAGINE how much worse it will be under RealID. This is so bad that I'm considering cancelling my WoW account to protest.

[Kevin]

I cannot IMAGINE how much worse it will be under RealID. This is so bad that I'm considering cancelling my WoW account to protest.

I actually kinda wish my Wow account was still active so I could cancel and say it was because of RealID.

I'm also seriously considering not getting SC2, even though I likely would only ever play that with people I already know anyway, and of course play the single player campaigns. But $$ is the only language that can really be used in this debate it seems and while I'm not much of a voice....

It all bothers me and I'm not that restrictive with my information. But I do have a unique real name. I'm the only person on the planet with my name, and that is actually true for most of my family too.

[shoju]

We win.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread...7278&sid=1