Official forums: Real names only

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by seebs It's really not that big a decision. This is a hobby. I play WoW to relax. It just stopped being relaxing. Posting in the forums is the only way to actually get technical support -- email and phone both direct you to post in the forums. The forums are not optional. Basically, though... I have too many friends for whom this is a much bigger deal breaker. If I stuck around and kept handing Blizzard money because it didn't directly affect me (it's not as though I keep my WoW hobby a secret), how do you think my friends would feel, the ones who loved the game but who have serious reasons not to be associated with their legal name? I think they'd feel like I didn't really care about things that matter to them. Blizzard screwed a lot of people over here. Even though I'm not really one of them, enough of my friends are that I feel like I have to stand with them on this matter.

I honestly can't find a valid argument against that.... And people here know I can find an argument against anything. So I'll just remind you that even if you don't play WoW anymore, (and I think I can safely say I speak for most of the people who regularly post in THESE forums) that you will always be welcome to join in to any discussions taking place here. Don't forget us...

[Cairenn]

Originally Posted by voodoodad So I'll just remind you that even if you don't play WoW anymore, (and I think I can safely say I speak for most of the people who regularly post in THESE forums) that you will always be welcome to join in to any discussions taking place here. Don't forget us...

Indeed.

[seebs]

Well, lemme just say: I'm not deleting my bookmarks or anything.

I dunno, though. This is pretty awful. I have a close friend who plays this game, who's transgendered. And who, obviously, just cancelled. This was his/her favorite game for the last four or five years, and (thanks to lack of medical coverage) was quite literally the only part of his/her life where it was possible to have social interactions not overshadowed by "hey, your voice sounds sorta like you're a..."

It's bad enough that I can't imagine how anyone could think this would be okay, meaning that even if they revert it, I still won't feel like I can trust Blizzard anymore.

Before the Real ID thing, I basically trusted Blizzard to be honest with me. I mean, they changed their minds sometimes on patches or features, but they were basically honest. Now, they just spent two weeks telling us all that Real ID was only for use with people you know and trust in real life... and it turns out they really meant "it's for absolutely everyone to see".

[svar]

I kinda dont see why people stop playing because of this.
Bliz dont force realID on anyone in game, yust on the offical forum, and its not there yet.

As far as I know, people can now, and then/if they make the changes to the foums, still stay as anonymus in game as before.

Myself, I dont use the bliz forums mutch, or at all.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by svar I kinda dont see why people stop playing because of this.

Voting with your wallet is the only thing that works.

Bliz dont force realID on anyone in game, yust on the offical forum, and its not there yet.

But why should we believe that it won't be? And that it won't end up in-game, too?

Yesterday, Blizzard employees said that Real ID showing your real name was not a security risk because you only show that name to people you know and trust in real life. Today, they no longer say that, because they can't -- because they've declared that you show it to everyone.

[Ferous]

I don't mean to troll or be mean, but to the OP, why would you quit wow? Just stop posting on the forums if you're against it.

It's being implemented, I think, because of trolls. Do you really care it's showing your name? :P I bet hundreds, maybe thousands of people have the exact same name as you.

wow, this is really ridiculous. i guess the time is now for all of us who value our online presence to start using fake names and game time cards.

This wouldn't be wise either, considering if you ever got hacked and Blizzard asked you to prove your identity, you would be out of an account and couldn't play.

If anyone is entirely concerned; Don't use the Real ID system, and don't post on the official forums. The forums, as a GM once told me, is a privilege, not a right. Sad to say, I miss the forums myself, but if I had a choice as to post there and show my full name, so be it! I don't mind It also sort of proves I'm one of those elusive women who play. :P

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by svar I kinda dont see why people stop playing because of this. Bliz dont force realID on anyone in game, yust on the offical forum, and its not there yet. As far as I know, people can now, and then/if they make the changes to the foums, still stay as anonymus in game as before. Myself, I dont use the bliz forums mutch, or at all.

The difference is that in-game realID is an option for people who would like to use it. In the O-forums it apparently will NOT be optional.

Frankly, I believe I have posted in the O-forums only two or three times, so it really won't be that big of a deal for me personally, but (and there's always a but) there are a LOT of WoW players who rely on the O-forums for everything from tech support, to information about building different specs, to finding out where a particular piece of gear can be found, to... The list goes on and on.

The info that can be found in the O-forums spreads in a ripple effect through the entire WoW community, so in effect, if Blizzard goes through with this they will not only be damaging themselves, but every WoW-related site existing today.

Blizzard has flung themselves onto a very slippery slope with this decision. Privacy is the number one concern for most intelligent people on the internet, and now Blizzard is subverting even their own rules by displaying their customer's real life names. I know in the O-forums posting rules it says something about posting a player's private information is expressly forbidden.

They're doing this in an attempt to cut down on the enormous amount of trolling that goes on there. I hate to say it, but even trolls have a right to free speech.

Did I just say that??? Oh my god! I don't even know who I AM anymore!!!

[Sythalin]

Originally Posted by Ferous I don't mean to troll or be mean, but to the OP, why would you quit wow? Just stop posting on the forums if you're against it. It's being implemented, I think, because of trolls. Do you really care it's showing your name? :P I bet hundreds, maybe thousands of people have the exact same name as you. This wouldn't be wise either, considering if you ever got hacked and Blizzard asked you to prove your identity, you would be out of an account and couldn't play. If anyone is entirely concerned; Don't use the Real ID system, and don't post on the official forums. The forums, as a GM once told me, is a privilege, not a right. Sad to say, I miss the forums myself, but if I had a choice as to post there and show my full name, so be it! I don't mind It also sort of proves I'm one of those elusive women who play. :P

Except when you need tech support. Then it's no longer a privilege but a requirement. Everyone seems to miss this detail....

As far as not minding, keep that in mind later on when your email is spammed from gold sellers who googled your name or plugged it into a background site.

[Ferous]

Maybe it's blizzards plan to not have people post period, to not like it so they don't post unless they have to?

[voodoodad]

Chaos, you just got another signature on the petition. Thanks for the link. Maybe if enough people sign it, Blizz will listen... Even if they haven't responded to the thousands of posts crying out for them to reconsider this incredibly stupid policy decision.

[voodoodad]

Ah, I found it.

Ladies and gentlemen, direct from Blizzard's very own Code of Conduct for the O-forums I give you;

Posts containing personal information about other players. Physical/email addresses, phone numbers, and inappropriate photos and/or videos.

Let's give them a big round of applause! They're great, aren't they? They'll be here all week! Two shows on Saturday and Sunday!

[Enceladus]

Originally Posted by Ferous If anyone is entirely concerned; Don't use the Real ID system, and don't post on the official forums.

As seebs posted earlier, one day the RealID is something optional to use as a friends list and the next it's mandatory for the forums. I haven't used Blizzard tech support but others have stated the forums are mandatory to receive support.

Given what they just pulled in the last couple of days, who is to say that at some point in the future RealID is implemented into other aspects of the game? Maybe your RealID will be used in chat channel system. What the /who system or perhaps transactions in the auction house? Can you opt out of those by just not using them?

The whole point of canceling is to send Blizzard and Activision a message they can understand since 800+ pages of, "NO!", don't seem to be getting through to them.

I don't plan to cancel my account just yet. I'm going to give it a little bit of time to see if they reverse this decision or not. If it does come down to it though, I will cancel and I will not purchase anything that has the name Blizzard associated with it ever again.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by voodoodad The difference is that in-game realID is an option for people who would like to use it. In the O-forums it apparently will NOT be optional.

Exactly. Which is a good enough reason for me to not post there anymore.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by voodoodad Ah, I found it. Ladies and gentlemen, direct from Blizzard's very own Code of Conduct for the O-forums I give you; Posts containing personal information about other players. Let's give them a big round of applause! They're great, aren't they? They'll be here all week! Two shows on Saturday and Sunday!

Not to play devils advocate here or anything, but in all fairness... all that means is that you can't post personal information about other players. It doesn't mean you can't post personal information about yourself. Because it's now in the terms of use and you have agreed to those terms, you have now agreed that if you post on the forums, you are freely giving out your first and last name, which is personal information.

Originally Posted by Enceladus the forums are mandatory to receive support.

Not true.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by Ferous I don't mean to troll or be mean, but to the OP, why would you quit wow? Just stop posting on the forums if you're against it.

I'd quit WoW because it's a betrayal of my trust, and I no longer trust Blizzard. I no longer want to have a business relationship with Blizzard. People will be raped or killed because of this. People are already getting harassed and attacked occasionally over video games; all Blizzard's doing is cutting out the months of effort trying to get someone's name. When people are seriously harmed because Blizzard is unable to comprehend the idea of privacy and security, they will not be doing it on my dime.

It's being implemented, I think, because of trolls.

That excuse is pure bull.

1. It won't have any effect on trolls.
2. If it could have an effect on trolls, it will have that effect also on legitimate posters.
3. Blizzard's got a deal with facebook. Follow the money.

Do you really care it's showing your name? :P I bet hundreds, maybe thousands of people have the exact same name as you.

You'd lose that bet. Learn some basic statistics. Most names are uncommon. In fact, most people have uncommon names. In my case, if you google search on my name (go ahead, try it, it's super easy to find my name given that I post as "seebs" everywhere), the first result that's not me is on page 10, where it's a geneology database listing someone who died in 1898, and the first result that's not me and could be within the last forty years is on page 14.

If anyone is entirely concerned; Don't use the Real ID system, and don't post on the official forums. The forums, as a GM once told me, is a privilege, not a right. Sad to say, I miss the forums myself, but if I had a choice as to post there and show my full name, so be it! I don't mind It also sort of proves I'm one of those elusive women who play. :P

I don't believe this.

First off, posting in the forums is the only way to get technical support. If you call in, they tell you to use the forums.

Secondly, I know a few women who play WoW, and they are all, without exception, vehemently opposed to getting even more sexual harassment than they already do. And they all know that, if they post, and it shows up with a female-looking name, it will result in harassment.

[seebs]

Not true.

Try it. Go ahead. Contact support and see how long it is before you get told to post your issue on the forums.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by seebs Try it. Go ahead. Contact support and see how long it is before you get told to post your issue on the forums.

I have, numerous times. Once for a repeated error 134 caused by bad ram, and several times after that for persistant black screens in game, which was caused by a bad video card. After those two instances, I decided I needed to learn more, so I became a volunteer in tech support for over a year. Ive seen it said more times than I can count by the forum techs that the forums are there only as a courtesy, and if you want guaranteed support, you have to call or email them. Bluespacecow now volunteers over there, and I can say with certainty that he too has seen those words written over there.

[voodoodad]

Everyone should watch this video, and then come back and say whether or not they think the girl in the last segment would use any personal information she could get to come back and cause physical harm to a former guild-mate.

Go ahead... watch it... I'll be right here...

[Ailae]

Guess it's time to stop posting on the official forums then.

Seems a bit extreme calling it an effort to thwart trolling.. surely there has to be other ways? On top of my head they could have just made you select an alias that you post from. Or they could make it so you could only post from your highest level character (yes, multiple 80s = issues, I know).

I guess luckily for me I share my name with a semi-famous person so if I google it I'm not first in line. But there's a real possibility that your name is somewhat unique, especially if you live in one of Europe's smaller countries.

[VincentSDSH]

Blizzard's proposal is idiocy in spades. If they were honestly addressing the problems of spammers or jerks or whatever, they'd just have you assign a nickname to your battle.net ID and display that to post with. But they aren't doing that, are they: ergo, that 'explanation' is straw-man.

Solve problems with the most efficient, least negatively impactful solution. This 'cure' is so much worse than the extremely minor problem it's supposed to 'solve' that it requires scientific notation to express.

Using your real name...no company with the remotest grasp of gaming or the internet would take that step without a ulterior motive someplace.

Since I'll be forced to use the forum for support and such, for which they provide no alternative, and as the official forums are a primary vehicle to communicate with Blizzard, my options are: forgo the support and communication that I'm paying for or open myself up even wider.

See, the address I use for gaming is unique to each game -- my personal email is used with the company only -- so it's fun to see how compromised my email address is (e.g., the one I use for this site) as I get 5-8 emails a day ostensibly from Blizzard and, hey, since they're on that account I never worry about them being bogus or not.

Taking my real name and google -- not even any investigative sites, all FREE material on the net -- and I would have found me in 3 phone calls; found my wife in 1; found people in my guild who live within 100 miles of me in, respectively, 3, 1, 1, 2, 4 phone calls. Sad part of that is I found the SSN of one of my friends embedded in a URL -- go-go-online-privacy.

I had to work a little harder with the ones in Canada and Australia but not enough to deter me if I wanted to play the scam-game.

It is, of course, disgusting how much of our personal information is made available by companies without our honest consent (honest-consent being: I have a real choice that doesn't negatively impact me) but it is unconscionable to force us to expose ourselves to even more of it, to open ourselves up to a wider audience of scammers for the EXTREMELY MINOR benefit of zipping the mouth on trolls just to access the services we pay for.

To the folks saying "you won't really quit over this, will you?" to people...well, let's hear it: delineate our options here: how do we access what we paid for in terms of support without exposing what can only be considered "Private, Personal Data" (Private, Personal Data is data that can be used to find you in the real world)

I play games to relax and as an inexpensive hobby I can enjoy with friends, not to paint a target on my ass.

This is a breech of faith and likely a terminal one. This may be end of not just WoW but every Blizzard product from now on.

(P.S. Everyone's been looking for the WoW-Killer...good job, Blizzard, ya found it!)