RealID to be implemented on Forums
From a blue post Here, bolded portions the rage part...
Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - http://www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.
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.
The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.
We also plan to add a number of other features designed to make reading the forums more enjoyable and to empower players with tools to improve the quality of forum discussions. Players will have the ability to rate up or rate down posts so that great topics and replies stand out from the not-so-great; low-rated posts will appear dimmer to show that the community feels that they don’t contribute effectively to the conversation, and Blizzard’s community team will be able to quickly and easily locate highly rated posts to participate in or to highlight discussions that players find worthwhile.
In addition, individual topics will be threaded by context, meaning replies to specific posts will be grouped together, making it easier for players to keep track of multiple conversations within a thread. We’re also adding a way for Blizzard posters to “broadcast” important messages forums-wide , to help communicate breaking news to the community in a clear and timely fashion. Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.
With the launch of the new Battle.net, it’s important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that’s highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID -- including these forum changes -- have been made with this goal in mind.
We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years. As these services have become more and more popular, gamers have become part of an increasingly connected and intimate global community – friendships are much more easily forged across long distances, and at conventions like PAX or our own BlizzCon, we’ve seen first-hand how gamers who may have never actually met in person have formed meaningful real-life relationships across borders and oceans. As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come.
For more info on Real ID, check out our Real ID page and FAQ located at http://www.battle.net/realid/ . We look forward to answering your questions about these upcoming forum changes in the thread below.
[ Post edited by Nethaera ]
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Please tell me this is Blizz trolling hard.
Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.
Stigg, that should have told you they're trolling hard. We all know that nobody uses a search function on the forums :)
However, I guess not. Because Real ID is starting to sound like a REALLY good idea now. They did however indicate it will be opt in, so there is some comfort there. But damn man. It's like Blizzard is saying: "Please, we want your accounts to be hacked."
Or maybe it is Blizzard saying: "We want more money so buy Authenticators".
There are even more reasons to loathe it as well.
Blizzard is opening a new data center in Singapore for the Star Craft 2 portion of Battle Net that deals with Asia / Pacific. Now guess what is going to happen to Real ID communication across Battle Net and how that will impact on Oceanic players that are ALREADY working with the latency of a link between Australia and US. It is going to have yet another impact on our ability to play the bloody game competitively.
And ... well. Yeah. It's like somebody at Blizzard had a wet dream about beating Facebook with Atiesh's long staff and suddenly threw all the security holes into the game.
They either want us hacked or stalked...
I know I refused to tell anyone my last name ingame unless I knew them well because it was a less common name. It seems like people are willing to give out all kinds of information about themselves online anymore, and I think names are a big deal. People can Google and find out where you live, your phone number, etc. with just a name and perhaps a few other pieces of information.
I might be a bit paranoid about the name thing, but what's next? Our phone number and billing address appears next to our RealID name?
BigBearButt, perhaps the best Feral tanking Druid blogger for both his knowledge, his rants and his lovely flowing style of writing had this to say:
Going much further back, and using nothing but my name and some clues about what city I live in, and probably a story about where I’d lived in the past, I had somebody post a link to my real street address, and threaten to come over to my house and kill my son because I love bacon.
From here
Now that scares me. Yes, he is a blogger and in the public domain but now Blizzard wants to put all of our names in the public domain. That is already one part of the shared secret between them and you and their own Loading Screen says "Do not share your account details with anybody except Stigg"
I don't want to be hacked or stalked either. And my plan was, when Ely is old enough (About 2 years now) to gently introduce her to Azeroth. Can I let my kids play now with the real threats around this?
So I guess no more Blizzard forums and careful, restricted in-game conversations.
I'm not happy about this either to say the least.
Then again, I don't post on the official forums anyway, so that's at least a small consolation.
And your Blogger fellow isn't just whistling Dixie. I've managed to track down a person as well. Said person was stalking a friend of mine, but the police didn't want to believe that said person was doing so, because they believed said person was in another state and too far away to be doing that.
Spent about 2 hours, going through name combo's and cities in the state etc etc. In the end I was left with 6 possible hits. Gave them to my friend, she took them to the cops and Nr. 2 on the list was the jackpot.
And this was back around, I think it was, 2002. Well prior to Facebook and such sites.
It's one reason why I always use a handle as opposed to my real name, and I once did a google search for my name. Lots of hits. None about me. Most were convicts for some reason. :D
Back in 1999 on new years eve I had some people over at my house. We were in an AOL chatroom and decided to troll a user (trollin' like its 1999). Anyways, AOL had user profiles where you could list just about anything, very similar to a Facebook profile. (Note: All information hereforth is made-up, I don't recall anything specific).
So we were talking to a user that went by "Soccer86"... we looked at her user profile and all it said was her name was Mary and she lived in Walkersville, Utah.
So we did some googling (it wasn't google they weren't around yet) and found out there were only two schools in Walkersville, Utah. We googled the schools and discovered the student population of one far exceeded the other, so we told her we went to that larger school and had a crush on her.
We then pulled up a school roster and discovered that only four girls had the name Mary... we deducted she was born in 1984 from her username which would have put her in 10th grade at the time, and there was two Mary's from that year. So we googled "Mary" and the school name and discovered that one of the girls was a prominent field hockey player... so we asked the user if she was going out for field hockey next year. She replied "of course" or something like that and we knew we had the right girl. We even had a picture of her "dribbling" or whatever the hell the field hockey thing was doing.
Anyways, we also looked up some other school stuff and discovered the name of a senior on the football team. We told her we were him, we thought she was beautiful (lol@blurry newspaper photo) and that we were going out to a movie that night to celebrate new years. We looked up movie times in that town, found an accurate time and cinema complex and asked her to meet us there. She was soooo freaking excited.
And then we logged off.
Moral of the story: Even in 1999 I could have completely kidnapped a girl using the intrawebz. Also, New Years Eve for the year 2000 completely sucked ass for me... I spent it trolling on a dial-up connection.
so now, i'm sure some mook will come across this story, log onto classmates and look to see what came of this shady "love connection" you started for those two poor shmucks.
Katie Vampire rawr.
Hah. I do not sparkle.
Oh, and do you feel like having a wet shit?
No, you can click on that link. Nothing about girls and cups, I promise.
Did any former security professionals whinge long and hard about Blizzard introducing an additional attack footprint to their software by adding RealID?
So now Add Ons can expose your details without you friending somebody and without your consent. Whoop. Dee. Fucking. Doo.
I don't know what Blizzard has been smoking, but they're completely, totally, off the wall, alice-ain't-got-nuthin'-on-'em, utterly, stupendously retarded when it comes to these changes.
I honestly trying hard to think of a way to properly express my disgust at this new "Let's be the facebook of the MMO's"-attitude, but having a hard time doing so without reaching for expletives.
Just swear in Dutch. Most folks here wouldn't understand it anyway.
Tan might get the gist of it, but that's about it.
The rest would be clueless, and I just don't care, not after tonight anyway. :P
Tbh, I'm actually more well-versed at swearing in English.
But calling Blizzard a "maergat hoender poes" sounds so much better, doesn't it?
It has a certain, catchy ring to it ;)
I prefer:
En welke achterlijke tijfus mongool heeft dit nauw weer bedacht?
Zit hij soms te veel lijntjes te snuiven? Je hoofd moet wel zo diep in je reet zitten, dat je je eigen amandelen kan tongen, als je denkt dat dit een goed idee is.
Vergeleken hiermee is Geert Wilders het toonbeeld van rationeel denken. :D
I'm not sure I want to know what an "amandalen" is and why you'd want to put your tongue to it. But yes, I can hear this our Dutch neighbour rant that out :)
The English term would be Tonsils.
Should illustrate the profanity a wee bit better. Least for you and Aerath anyway. :P
Well. Now I know which end the head was going in :)
Unlike some other forums we also couldn't give a flying fuck, so long as you aren't being a complete dickwad towards any of us.
This is true as well. <3 Stiggly
Problem is, you wouldn't know what is being said.
So I could call you een ouwe rukker, and you wouldn't know what I'd said, without having to ask Tan or Aerath. :P
But I'm "nice" and I'll tell you anyway: You're an old master debater. :P
It's cool. I do debate well, though I really get going when my hands start moving.
Google translate is your friend =)
Is this the result of the Activision merger? All this shit... it's not the Blizzard I knew. And there I was thinking BioWare's new social forums were bad!
I'm very disappointed. This is so ridiculous it's April fools worthy.
I'm with Darth on this.
Just watch. Coming soon, a new forums plan for a mere $30 a month where you can post without your real name being revealed!
Wow. Just wow. People grabbed the details of an (at least one) blue poster and put them in the thread. Siblings, phone number, home address, facebook (which now is deleted...), photobucket files...
I would hope it's the actual Blizzard poster rather than some poor sap, but either way it's one unlucky sod. Go go number change.
Whilst I disagree with this, it does show exactly what might (nay, will) happen. I hope this can wake some folk at Blizzard up.
[WoW forums thread], which is growing beyond belief.
And apparently you'll need realID as well to even play SCII, if I'm reading that thread that Aerath linked correctly.
Update. It wasn't the real Blizzard employee. Someone had a really miserable day, for no reason other than sharing names with a blue.
And the thread is nearing 25k replies. Amazing.
Terrible.
It will be interesting to see how Blizzard deals with this. Stick to the plan or listen to the community? I've never seen such a large thread, and the scope of the issue goes way beyond mere gameplay mechanics. Surely they can't completely ignore this mess.
Sure they can. Activision already proved they don't give a fuck regarding any form of petitions from players. CoD:MW2 proved the hell out of that.
Problem for them is, some Canucks have written to the respective Governmental Organization responsible for privacy in Canuckia, and they got enough responses to start up an investigation.
This could result in WoW being banned in Canada, and all Blizzard games utilizing RealID.
And the EU is no slouch on privacy matters eithers, and I this might just fall under the perview of Neelie Smith Kroes, who did a real number on M$. Could also fall under John Dalli or Viviane Reding. No idea how competent those two are, but if Kroes gets involved, then Bobby has bitten off more than he can chew.
Because she's not above levying fines so high that it'll simply be unprofitable to do business in Europe.
Plus the mainstream media is also getting interested.
link
What would happen if Blizzard were to simply make it optional, but then make future features dependant on using RealID?
I think it is optional in that you can disable RealID via the child protection whatsits or not visiting forums. But as someone pointed out, what about technical issues and such where your main route of troubleshooting IS the forums?
Blizzard keeps arguing that they're doing this so that trollers and flamers will hopefully hesitate when they post on forums, but how many people have fake names associated with RealID and will just go on and troll and flame anyway?
Speaking of, has anyone tried changing their name on RealID/Battle.net? I'm assuming you can't, right?
Their own MVPs are apparently saying that they'll stop posting once this goes live. And those are the guys doing free tech support, amongst other things.
Haven't tried it, haven't logged in for a while. Too busy with the APB Beta at the time, so my account has lapsed. But if it's anything like your regular account system, then changing name won't be possible.
Seeing how you have to call Blizzard to have them change the name, in case of marriage/divorce etc.
You can not change your name. You can change your email address and contact information (address, etc, not name). In order to post on the forums, you will be logging in with your battle net account which has your real name which will be used.
I read a blue reply to a question regarding technical support. (side note: if any of you have bluetracker RSS feeds, they have blown the hell up) The reply said "If you require technical assistance and do not wish to show us your real name, you are more than welcome to give us a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX. CHances are we have already answered the question anyway and a simple search of the forums can find you the answer."
I have also read blue replies saying, quite literally, "If you don't like these changes, feel free to go to a non-official forum to post your guild recruitments, guides, etc."
No idea.
Privacy laws are funny sometimes.
At times they've been written in such a way, that even if you consented to something, that you still do not have the right to waive your rights.
And I forgot, in another thread some Argentinian guy replied. Said he was a lawyer over there with his own firm, specializing in International law and that Blizzard's plans kinda contravened a number of international treaties in addition to Argentinian privacy laws.
Course he could be BS'ing, but if he's telling the truth. Just another wrinkle, that Bobby and his greed didn't count on.
I haven't heard anything about what valas said regarding SC2 requiring the use of RealID, but for the time being, everything is optional. You don't HAVE to post on the official forums. They offer a phone service if you require technical assistance (though the two times I have used that it took over 3 hours to get in contact with a person).
So they are not forcing you to show your real name ever. YOU choose to show it. Of course that also means if you have some awesome information to share about your class or a raid strategy or guild recruitment or anything else, you either find another source (like one Mangara mentioned) -or- you use the official forums and are REQUIRED to show your real name.
Did add the addendum, if I'm reading things correctly. :P
It's in that thread anyway..
Somewhere. Skipped a lot of pages. lol
Phoning them would be a viable option if we all lived in the same time zone and on the same continent. But paying for an international phone call when we live 12 hours apart is painful.
As a Canadian, I've been a bit concerned about this too. Facebook has made the headlines a lot recently and the media enjoy encouraging paranoia with identity theft stories and the like. This might not end well at all.
Yup. Not a day goes by I don't read some headline about facebook security flaws.
And the BBC is wading in as well.
The hell, thats Raws' image!
Just the new geezer from SC2 iirc.
Amazing stuff in that BBC article:
One World of Warcraft player, *** ****, contacted BBC News to say how disappointed he was over the change. "I have been using the forums for over five years, reporting bugs and trying to be helpful. Now, to have the privilege to help people on the forums I have to reveal my real name; I'm dead against it," he said. "I work in a charity and deal with governments officials. If they do a search and see I am a gamer, it could affect my employment prospects," he added.
So, this guy calls the BBC about how he is against Blizzard's new policy of posting your real name because it could damage his professional career and they instantly publish an article with his real name that says he's a WoW player? GG.
Yeah, found that facepalmy as well from Aunty.
Wow. GG indeed.
Lawl.
But really, I have heard stories about employers discriminating against gamers, especially MMO players, because they feel gamers will be too distracted with their games to complete work that meets expectations.
Bullshit if you ask me, but I am sure it happens.
When I can't sleep I play video games. So, I might be up at 3am or 4am playing for a couple of hours then heading in to work at 5:30am or 6:00am.
Why can't I edit this post? I just realized that I'm mirroring his name, doing exactly the same as the BBC, so I'd like to star it out.
Dunno. We had that issue before. I half suspect that only admins can edit once it's been replied to :(
Either way, I've starred them out for you.
Yeah, I think that's the reason idd. I can edit some years old stuff just fine, but only the ones without a reply. Thanks.
In the time it took me to click from page 1 to the last page and for it to load two new pages were added. That is a scarily massive thread.
Time it takes to reply to that thread will generate two new pages as well.
Oh and at 1253 pages at the moment of me jotting this down.
That's me trying to post a reply.
Yeah at 1271 now and apparently the page to cancel your subscription is down and the phonelines to do the same are at the 90 min. waiting time.
Know one of the funny things? Blizzard EU is based in France. It has one of the more fiercer legislations when it comes to privacy concerns.
Even if they might pull it off in America (which isn't unlikely, I have my doubts they're stupid enough to implement something that's against the law in their own country), there's a good chance that France/EU will yank their chain and put them back in the doghouse. Due to Blizzard EU being based there, they -will- have to comply. Can you imagine them having to run with two different systems due to the various laws?
Kinda defeats the whole purpose of why they're implementing this, innit?
All I can say is....
Bobby hungers........
Don't think he cares that much about such silly things as laws and such.
I'm not sure if this would be a deal-braker for them. Although I'm not 100% sure, I think all the RealID stuff is already separated by region.
My question. The argument blizz is using is that this way, trolls will have to deal with the consequences, right? If that's the case, then why on earth doesn't blizzard, whom already have access to our real names just do it themselves? Aren't they really asking for us, as a community, to delve out punishment as we see fit? And all that that requires is just a link to 4chan...
It's the argument that the beancounters think will lead to greater acceptance.
Problem is, their clientele is smarter than the beanies give them credit for. So it's pretty clear that this is a strawman argument.
Blizzard can already see who your chars are and take action.
They could implement a singular forum name per account and then ban the account etc. They could actually hire Moderators or appoint folks a la the MVPs.
Heck, just look at how long me and Aerath modded over at an unofficial site. How long do you think folks would be willing to do that on the official ones, with the greater audience etc? Not as if us folks who like our forums to be civilized are a minority.
Take the other extreme: Elitist Jerks. Want to know how many trolls are around there?
And why not have your forum escapades impact your game time? Now there's a good way to cut down on trolling rapidly.
Never understood why they didn't implement this anyway.
Reach the end of your pyramid? It's not just the end of your posting privileges, it's the end of your account.
Then again, I rather like bakka hammering idiots anyway.
Side note, they made another miscalculation.
Blizzcon.
They'd better have hired Xi (aka Blackwater) to guard their asses, because they're going to get lynched at their own event.
Do you want to see how scary this is?
Look at this from the fifth from the bottom paragraph.
Yeah, he posted on that thread as well.
Message 25448 to be exact.
BBC News - World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm
USA Today - 'WoW' studio Blizzard to require real names on forums
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/07/wow-stu...
ABC News - Bye-Bye Trolls? Blizzard Forums to Use Real Names
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11108240
CVG - Fans rage over Blizzard forum plans
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=254846
PCGamer (UK) - Why Blizzard’s new forum plan is an epic fail
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/07/07/why-blizzard%E2%80%99s-new-forum-plan-...
The Register - Blizzard exposes real names on WoW forums
http://www.reghardware.com/2010/07/07/wow_forums/
About.com - WoW Real ID: A Really Bad Idea
http://antivirus.about.com/b/2010/06/22/wow-real-id-a-really-bad-idea.ht...
Ars Technica - Blizzard: post about StarCraft 2? Use your real name
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/07/blizzard-post-about-starcraft...
Gamespy - Blizzard to Require Real Names on Official Forums
http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/articles/110/1104456p1.html
Kotaku - Blizzard Forums Will Soon Display Your Real Name
http://kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-forums-will-soon-display-your-real-na...
Kotaku - Blizzard's Real Name Forum Policy Has Fans In An Uproar
http://kotaku.com/5581209/blizzards-real-name-forum-policy-has-fans-in-a...
Joystiq - Your real name to appear on Blizzard's official forums
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/06/your-real-name-to-appear-on-blizzards-...
Inc Gamers - Blizzard Going Too Far With Real ID?
http://www.incgamers.com/Columns/94/blizzard-going-too-far-with-real-id
MTV Multiplayer - Blizzard Cracks Down On Anonymity In Official Forums
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/07/07/blizzard-cracks-down-on-anonym...
TechEYE.net - Blizzard forces users to show real names: Internet security they have heard of it
http://www.techeye.net/security/blizzard-forces-users-to-show-real-names
Product Reviews News - WoW Real ID System: Security Flaw Found
http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/07/07/wow-real-id-system-security-fl...
ITWorld - Blizzard to share your name with angry video game nerds
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/113202/blizzard-share-your-name-ang...
Voodoo Extreme - Is Blizzard's Real ID Safe, Or A Playground For Sexual Deviants?
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/55728/Is-Blizzards-Real-ID-Safe-Or-A-P...
Voodoo Extreme - Blizzard Forums To Require Use Of Real Name, Rage Ensues
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/55910/Blizzard-Forums-To-Require-Use-O...
Examiner National - World of Warcraft Players WoWed by Blizzard's REALID announcement
http://www.examiner.com/x-48234-Santa-Ana-Internet-Examiner~y2010m7d7-Wo...
EuroGamer - Blizzard forums to require real names
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/blizzard-forums-to-require-real-names
GameFocus - Blizzard To Kill Anonymity On Forums
http://www.gamefocus.ca/?nav=new&nid=10091
Strategy Informer - Battle.net removes "veil of anonymity" on forums, real names used
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/8551/battlenet-removes-veil-of-anon...
HuskyStarcraft - Blizzard Forums: First and Last Names [VIDEO]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBwTpHNZDpQ
AusGamers - Blizzard Switching Forums to Real ID System
http://www.ausgamers.com/news/read/2926798
Australian Gamer - Blizzard decide to give out subscribers' real names
http://www.australiangamer.com/news/3239_blizzard_decide_to_give_out_sub...
Zeroday - Is Korean Law Driving Policy at Blizzard?
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/zeroday/2010/07/07/is-korean-law-driving-po...
And you beat me to making this post. :P
Oh and Stigg, you are going to have the most commented thread soon :)
....good farkin' geebus, I'd not looked at this thread since last night (when I finally managed to locate sleep and tackle it before it took off runnin' again) - that was, what, maybe 12 hours or so ago?
in the time since i last looked in, you lot popped off 46 add'l comments regarding this RealID kerfuffle. that's a pretty scary rate for here, iffin you ask me. so scary, infact, that i'm not going anywhere near the official WoW forums for fear of bein' swept up in the tsunami of "omg this is a fail idea wtf blizz" and never again seeing the light of day.
1352 pages at present. With two new pages appearing in the same time it takes to make a reply,
Some interesting information on the Activision-Blizzard and B.net 2 situation. It's a bit sad and frightening.
(also, 5 posts short of reaching the epic astral pony thread).
Five posts you say? Make it so, Number ... erm. How does that go again?
It has just topped 2040 pages with 40785 replies.
And this topic just hit #1 Most Commented.
Over 5000 posts deleted from that thread already. But I do not believe they will change it. Hopefully they'll make me eat my words, but I don't think so.
Apparently they can't do anything if this is to be believed:
Now a new rumour has appeared that Blizzard employees really are quite pissed off by this decision, and it might even be completely outside of Blizzard's hands. Details are fussy, but this forum post has been sweeping fansites and community blogs like wildfire:
Nachtjäger, Suramar, 59 Night Elf Death Knight post 35821 in epic thread wrote:
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.
It's a case of "my sisters, flatmate's boyfriend's cousin's workmate's friend," and thus not a reliable source whatsoever, however, it has created some interest: The debate has started to focus on this one post and the underlying idea that hundreds of Blizzard employees (possibly including senior developers) are against the RealID decision, but powerless to do anything about. This is a fascinating concept, and kind of makes sense.
Another VERY interesting fact is that this re-post of the thread in the Battle.net forums (ironically the first forum that will be subjected to Real ID) has been moderated. Indeed, some Blizzard Community Manager has come to the thread, left the original post and deleted reply number 1 and 4 (original post is no 0). A disgruntled CM that does not care if the world knows, or possibly just happens to be two posters who regretted their post and deleted them?
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Only shot they got, imnsho, is to go to Morrhaine and have him go over Bobby's head to the board of directors. Sure it's packed with Activision cronies, but the one Vivendi guy that sits there is the key. Vivendi is the majority stock holder (52%), thus his voice holds more weight.
Point to the IW debacle and how it would be a shame if the same happened to Blizzard. They already lost one goose that lays golden eggs, losing the other one.....
Don't think that Vivendi will be that stupid.
I do feel pretty bad for the CMs (blues) over there right now. I am sure many of them are infuriated over this change as well, especially considering they will also have to use their real names. And with them being the ones that ban/delete posts, it can get real personal real quick. But they can't say much against it without fear of losing their job.
Apparently there's some confusion about that. CMs say that this will still apply, phone staff says that Blues won't have their real name revealed due to safety issues.
So blizz is saying it is unsafe for people to post using their real name?
Interesting...
Which caused folks in that thread*, to point out the hypocrisy.
It's too dangerous for their staff, but it's ok for their paying customers?
*: Just a link to the current last page, not perse a link to a message where folks call them hypocrites.
*hovers over link and sees it is on page 2457*
Yikes.
Seems to be stuck at 2495 at present (or message 49895), and Tan did mention something about 5k in responses having been deleted.
Interesting open letter, Pip ought to love it due to the screenshots.
Great article. Well put and humorous at the same time.
After days of protest and objection from the Blizzard community Blizzard has this evening backed down from showing forum posters REAL ID in their forums. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime issued a lengthy statement:
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
-------
Normally I like the Morhaime speeches, but this time I noticed something I find a wee bit unsettling...
I bolded it.
Yep. Glad they listened to reason, but they are basically saying "once we get everybody so involved with SC2, Cata, and our next unnamed MMO we might go ahead and force this back upon you."
Though I still don't understand what they are going to attempt to accomplish with Battlenet. Steam works across all games (including WoW) and I can have any name I want for that.
Steam belongs to a competitor.
Bobby doesn't like competitors, they get in his way when he's trying to make lots and lots of money.
Then Bobby needs to make an externally driven client to compete with the likeness of steam.
Don't give him ideas, he might think it would be the perfect solution to combat piracy as well.
Thus ignoring those folks who just want to play their Single Player games on a stand alone machine not connected to the Net.
One of my coworkers prefers doing this.
Oh no, I meant purely as a form of communication/IM
I noted that. I decided, possibly against better judgement, that he simply means that they decided this at this time. I have my doubts that they'll go back on their steps *again*.
Let's hope so for their sake.
And that reversal better not take place before Blizzcon, because quite frankly I'd fully expect them to get lynched at their own event.
And if it were to happen after Blizzcon, well, it wouldn't surprise me if folks decided to escalate matters into the personal lives of those execs..
People are steamed enough at all the bigwigs anyway, think Wall Street, BP etc. You can't keep on piling on the pressure and not expect someone to snap.
I found this funny. "If your trolling, stop. But if you are being serious, then really, here is some great information regarding what you asked."
Eh standard modding technique really.
The old stick and carrot approach.
"If you're trying to pull a fast one, rethink your options, because that leads to me getting grouchy and you won't like what happens when I get grouchy. And we've had folks try this before in the past, just so you know it's nothing personal.
If on the other hand you're serious, try a), b) and c) and if that doesn't work d)."
Both me and Aerath have also used it over at Incgamers.