Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Official Forums

If there were no way to connect the dots between my real name and contact info on the net, it be happy to personally shrugh at this.

However, my contact info is on the net, and i dont mind it there, if someone wanted to get hold of me, there would always be ways anyway, and im no more accesible (probably less) than most. The issue is when im forced to convey this info, and since its so easy to get mine, i count giving away my real name as giving away my adress and phone. Id rather control who gets to know my name online than have to elicit a secret phone number and adress and refrain form using personal info in places where it would be apropriate.

I also relish the anonymity of WoW. I can be the one i want to, and so can everyone else. In WoW im purple or green or hairy and it dont matter, i can have breasts or pointy ears and its all the same to those i meet. Its soley your actions and what you say that defines you, not the clotes you wear or your hairdo, your looks, job or all the other things people react to IRL. To me WoW is a refreshing haven of egality. Even if its far fetched, id still feel like this would change if i used my real name in connection with my chars. Seems id still have the option of not linking chars and name in the forums, but its feels like a big step to remove that anonymity too.

Originally Posted by Rodgar

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Am...AL-ID-function


this

funny shit

Hm, i think i'll change my bnet name to John Doe or something. ^^

This is the biggest shitstorm evar...

I work in internet marketing. Most of the stuff I do is whitehat, but I'm very familiar with people and methods that are most certainly blackhat. I promise you right now that if you make it even easier to get people's information of a particular audience (wow/gaming) it will be abused. People are gonna scrape the shit out of wow forums and you'll not only see emails getting additional spam and phishing mails, but you'll see people's real addresses and phone numbers getting hit too. It would not require much effort to filter too generic names and then target everyone with slightly less typical names. It's potentially thousands upon thousands of new targets for unsavory marketers.

My account has a fake, generic name of Joe Smith. So this doesn't affect me very much. I would suggest that you do not post on the new real id forum unless you have a fake name or a very generic name. Otherwise you WILL get targeted. It does not take much effort because marketers/hackers have programs that automate most of the work. One push of a button will get them thousands of names, emails, phone #s, addresses, and additional information without them having to do much work.

"I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi

that quotes freakin awesome!

There are so many reasons why listing real life names on forums is a bad thing that I don't even know where to start. I'll just give a simple example:

We use the WoW forums to recruit new members for our guild. About 1.5 year ago we recruited a very nice guy that didn't make a secret out of his mental problems. We had some doubt, but he seemed nice so we accepted him. He was a pretty valuable member of our guild for 6-7 months. Then this guys RL went downhill, he had a mental breakdown and went berserk during one of our raids. He was removed from the guild and proceeded to go mental on me (i'm the 2nd Raidleader and officer in our guild) and our GM. I've think i've been threatened with just about anything he could think of.

Now, this a guy who lives in a city less than a 1 hour drive away from me. Do I really want this guy to look up my real name on the forums (where it would be, since we recruit there), google my adress and pay me a RL visit?

No thanks. I guess we'll have to find other means to recruit now.

Originally Posted by Lilija

You are missing one important thing. The internet is already going towards less and less annonymity. And it will go that way whether we like it or not. That is why we should focus what will make an unwanted person from the internet endanger us. The name on it's own means nothing. The name with phone number and adress on the other hand does.

Now about giving my own personal information. I'm quite sure that if someone really wanted to find me on the internet he would already without knowing my real name tho it would make it a bit faster. I won't give you my name just yet due to quite simple reason - before today I never really thought what giving away my real name on the internet would mean. I am not sure if by my own mistake my name isn't already connected somewhere to information I would not give to strangers. So I will make sure it isn't. Many people give away some dangerous combinations of information about themselves already while being totally unaware of that fact - this is what is a problem ... not being able to connect your real name to your posts on Blizzard forum.

Listen, I haven't posted my real life information ANYWHERE on the internet and I wish that it remains this way. Blizzard is NOT ALLOWED to post my name, and if I am forced to do so to use forums then I have right to be pissed off because FORUM ACCESS IS WHAT I PAY FOR. Technically, Blizzard is taking away forum access.

Zastanów się zanim coś napiszesz.

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy forum trollzzzzzzz looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool aweseome move blizz thank you!!!!!

Qq moar bitches!

Originally Posted by mi33

Listen, I haven't posted my real life information ANYWHERE on the internet and I wish that it remains this way. Blizzard is NOT ALLOWED to post my name, and if I am forced to do so to use forums then I have right to be pissed off because FORUM ACCESS IS WHAT I PAY FOR. Technically, Blizzard is taking away forum access.

Zastanów się zanim coś napiszesz.

I don't have my contact information visible for people I don't know on the internet (at least I try not to have) and I think anyone who posts those kind of things already puts themselves in danger which won't become any bigger with connecting those information with your WoW account.

You should not make your home phone and adress visible to strangers on the internet and different authorities already start to warn about this. THIS is the real issue - not knowing that Kowalski plays WoW and said on the forums that paladins are OP.

http://www.cad-comic.com/comics/c0a129271278475206.jpg

Blizzard's attempt to curb trolling has in turn trolled everyone.

Also, if you don't like this, don't post on the WoW forums. It's that simple. There are other places to discuss WoW, namely right here on MMOC. "AMG MAH EMPLOYEE IS GUNNA TRACK WHAT I POST ON THE WOW FORUMS, ITS NOT LIKE THERE ARE OTHER PLACES FOR ME TO DISCUSS THIS GAME AND MAKE USELESS THREADS BEHIND THE VEIL OF INTERNET ANONYMITY. DAMN YOU BLIZZARD, FOR RUINING OUR PRIVACY."

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Just note, most Trolls will now be migrating to other forums, namely here and other fansites. Oh fun.

I was always taught, Internet 101, dont give your personal details out, no matter what. I can see their reasoning behind it from a 'troll' point of view but they have really over looked basic personal security.

Real ID + Facebook

BATTLE.NET® AND FACEBOOK INTEGRATION ANNOUNCED
Blizzard Entertainment's next-generation online gaming platform will integrate with Facebook to enhance social gaming experience

IRVINE, Calif. – May 5, 2010 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that its Battle.net® gaming service will integrate with Facebook®, linking the world's premier online gaming platform with the world's most popular social platform. The first step in the integration will enable StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™ players to quickly add Blizzard gamers who are friends on Facebook to their Battle.net friend lists, facilitating their social gaming experience on the service.

"We're pleased to be working with Facebook to integrate their platform with Battle.net to enhance the social-entertainment experience for our players," said Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. "This new functionality will make it easier than ever to connect with friends on Battle.net and play StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games together."

The new Facebook functionality in Battle.net will be tested in the near future via the ongoing StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test and will be available to all StarCraft II players when the game ships later this year. Information about other Facebook-related features on Battle.net will be announced at a later date.

Hello MMO-Champion. Ex WoW forum immigrant here. Just thought I'd share my 2 cents.

Blizzard are using their position of market share dominance within the MMO community to attempt to compete with social sites such as Facebook using personal information they've been collecting for years, without disclosing their intent when they began collecting it.

Companies such as Apple and Microsoft have faced anti-trust suits for a lot less.

Really stupid idea...
Do not want...
This is not an anti-troll measure ...they are making this to get even more money out of us(maybe not directly from us but still using our private info's aka using us)

Really like this picture, props to whoever made it...i start laughing every time i look at it :d
http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/v...tus/RealID.jpg

Originally Posted by Lilija

I don't have my contact information visible for people I don't know on the internet (at least I try not to have) and I think anyone who posts those kind of things already puts themselves in danger which won't become any bigger with connecting those information with your WoW account.

You should not make your home phone and adress visible to strangers on the internet and different authorities already start to warn about this. THIS is the real issue - not knowing that Kowalski plays WoW and said on the forums that paladins are OP.

keep dodging ;-)
Its not blizzards fault, everywhere else you should note give personal informations away, even when you are required by LAW to do so (websites imprint, company informations, domain registration, etc). Funny argument. And no, I do not think you should be anonym everywhere. I support imprints on websites, I support laws that forbid anonym company websites, etc

Game Forums with real names against forum trolls? *rolleyes*

Originally Posted by fotm

facebook is a place where a lot of people use their real name and surname (at least, what they put in as their rl name and surname - just like what I did on battle.net). not using FB, though, just pointing out that blizzard might not be doing a crime against humanity, after all.

But then most people don't link their facebook profile to 11 million strangers

Originally Posted by saelthos

(CAD link)

First time in several years a CAD comic has made me laugh. That really says something about how hilarious stupid this whole concept is in the first place, if even CAD can get me laughing.