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Blizzard To Require Real First and Last Names For Official Forums
An anonymous reader writes "Recently, Blizzard Entertainment implemented a Real ID feature for some of its current games and all of its future Battle.net-based games. Today, Blizzard announced that it intends to require usage of the real names of Battle.net posters for its StarCraft II forums before release, and for its World of Warcraft forums shortly before the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. From the announcement: 'The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.'"
I'm assuming it's under the parents name for the account which should be a pleasant conversation at work when your boss asks you why you are trolling the warlock forum?
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
Real first and last name? Full, no initial? Not sure what I think about that one, Blizzard...
Living With a Nerd
Wonder how long it'll be until someone finally tracks down a troll (in real life) and loots their corpse
Images of the ending of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back come to mind ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjWFZPJZTxU ).
:)
And those images are happy, indeed.
... with more and more people being forced to use their real names on the Internet, you'll see a lot less flaming, trolling, and defacing. People I believe will be less quick to turn a discussion into an argument and more interested in understanding one another.
However, I do not personally like the idea of my first and last name being made public everywhere, which is why I have generally shunned Facebook and would not use this feature even if I wanted to.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Now you bastards will know how it feels
- Johnathan Doe
Fortunately, my real name actually is KÖRGULL THE EXTERMINATOR, so I won't be needing to change my battlenet ID.
In the old EQ days (I know it's still around but who cares these days), all the forums for the game were run by the fans because there were no official ones. I have a feeling this change will cause similar forums to rise in popularity and Blizzard will accomplish little other than losing control of the conversation and pissing off their users.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
While a lot of people have gone on and on about how using real names will promote more civility and better discourse, something I seriously doubt is necessarily true, that is no where near the real reason Blizzard is forcing RealID.
It's a means to open up their TOS to allow dataminers access to a vast swath of information. Cha ching! Add to that anyone in game using RealID that then links up friends list? Cha ching! Even more information to datamine. And of course anyone who has played WoW knows that they log damn near everything. You can bet that gchat, party chat, officer chat, raid chat, general chat, trade chat, and every other channel that you type a letter in will be up for datamining. Cha ching!
It's all about the money people. Cloaked in a flag of good intentions.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
1) Did Blizzard ever stop to think that many (most?) people play their games as an ESCAPE from real life?
2) Anything on Blizzard forums goes on Google, and comes up in search results. That means anybody who uses their forums is going to be labeling themselves, forever after, as a nerdy computer game player to future employers, dates, etc...which is not something that is looked upon positively by many people. I would certainly discriminate against potential employees if I saw that they were a WoW geek.
3) People sometimes have bad days, say things they regret later...on a forum this is all saved forever. Luckily only the people who know their forum name can find it. So you protect your hidden identities more securely than you protect your email passwords. Blizzard aims to make all those mistakes unforgivable.
There is nothing that is possibly worth saying on the Blizzard forums that is worth sacrificing one's anonymity for.
I mean I completely agree, that if you remove the anonymity you'll remove a lot of the asshole factor online. People are much bigger pricks when they don't think it can come back to bite them. So it would remove a lot of that.
However it would also discourage people form sharing thoughts as freely. If I had to use my real name on Slashdot, I wouldn't post nearly as much. I'd make sure to restrict it only to things I was comfortable with all current and future employers seeing. I wouldn't want to screw myself out of a job because I posted something that someone disagreed with.
As it stands though, a pseudonym allows me to do that. It isn't true anonymity, with a bit of sniffing around you could easily come up with who I really am. However it means that a simple search for my real name will not come up with any of this. That is enough to keep it form being a problem. Just removing the direct connection is all I need.
Over all, I think it is good to have things that way. I like to be able to freely share my thoughts online, and I'd like to think some people find it valuable (on Slashdot people seem to at least sometimes as I do get modded up). I wouldn't want to have to restrict some of those because of the worry of retribution. I can only do that so long as I can have a small barrier between my real and online identity.
No trolls here.
Hey, if you're browsing at -1, that's your problem, not Slashdot's.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I like how slashdot commenters love to use "won't somebody think of the children?!" as a device for sarcastic mockery of various Internet policies. Then this happens, and we get a thread full of ...
"But ... won't somebody think of the children?!"
If there are no girls on the internet now, there won't be any ever once this goes into effect.
There's no quicker way to be harassed, stalked, and otherwise massively annoyed by EVERYONE than to reveal that you are in possession of TWO X chromosomes, instead of the internet norm XY configuration.
And the absolute last thing I want is random assholes that I've pissed off on my server to Google my name, of which the first result is the staff listing on my current employer's website, and then start sending nasty emails to my boss.
While I think that overall this is a good thing for the Blizzard forums (as well as other changes they are making according to TFA, including rating up and down on posts), it completely removes my desire to post on their forums. I don't troll as a rule (but I can't say it’s never happened), but my last name is so unique that finding me on the Google is already ridiculously easy (my first and last name - all of the first page is me). I don't need prospective employers knowing about my gaming habits, and even less so prospective dates. Not that I go out of my way to hide these things from people, but I don't want it popping up as a matter of course just because someone googles my last name.
what has me worried is that I rarely disclose that I'm female in WoW except to my guild... when other people find out they tend to be less than mature. I would rather not face a barrage of /tells and real_id friend requests from the "plz cyber?" crowd.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
OK, then be sure to let us, the users know the REAL NAMES of the moderators, business managers, sales staff, marketing gurus of your business and I am sure that openness will be embraced by all!
I think posting a person's real name is a great idea. I'd never get embarassed by having my real name associated with some lame username that I picked over 10 years ago.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Go die in a fire.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
Why shouldn't I seperate my online persona(s) from my real life identity? What problem is Blizzard trying to solve here?
The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. People are less likely to act like an asshole if they don't have anonymity to hide behind. The only people who will be idiots any more are those who are idiots already.
Another example of a game using real names is iRacing, though real names are used throughout the game, instead of just on the forums. Again, the idea is to discourage anti-social behavior (intentional wrecking, profanity, etc), and this is part of their aggressive policing against griefers. In this case, such a prevention is especially necessary for a racing game of this type. I don't frequent the Blizzard forums, so I'm not sure if there are enough douchebags there to justify such measures.
I make it a point to avoid any forum identity that could be easliy traced back to my real name, because stuff comes back to haunt you. Do you really want somehting you said 20 years ago in some gaming forum to come up in a job interview?
In that case, either:
1) Don't be a jack-ass on the Blizzard forums.
2) Don't use the Blizzard forums.
That said, I've given my screen name which I've used for the last decade as part of a background check for an interview, so I'm well aware of the issue. However, nothing I said in the past (I've said a lot of stupid stuff) was an issue. If it is a concern to you, don't use the forums (it's an optional part of an optional game you play, you can deal with it), or simply police your behavior before it is recorded for all posterity on the Intertubes.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Yes! This is the point. Anonymity is pretty much the foundation stone of identity security. I know it sounds kind-of obvious, but there it is.
The problem is that the degree to which anyone is deterred will be determined by how concerned they are about their online image. People with careers and families will be even more cautious, and probably less like to contribute to a discussion. 13-y.o. dickheads will go right on being dickheads, because they have nothing to lose and it will be several years before they are in any position to worry about an online reputation. So, people who are most likely to say something worthwhile are the most likely to be silenced by lack of anonymity.