Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Official Forums

This is step one. They seem to be on the path of making RealID the default method of identifying you.

1. RealID? Don't worry about that! It's meant to be "a system designed to be used with people you know and trust in real life -- friends, co-workers and family -- though it's ultimately up to you to determine who you wish to interact with in this fashion" - you wouldn't ever need to worry about weirdos after your personal information, you only give it to friends you know in real life!

2. Oh and your friend's friends can see your RealID - your buddies with someone who gives out their RealID to everyone? NP you can manually go in and disable or 'ignore' all those other strange folks messaging you!

3. Did we say optional? We meant mandatory for forum posting.

4. ....

5. Did we say optional? We meant mandatory for <insert any game related activity here>

Originally Posted by Vasz

Already been posted. Thats his mums adress. Strangly, he doesn't seem botherd much.

Mom's address or not, it's connected to him, and now her phone is just a dial away.

Some people will utilize this, trust me, I've had it happen to me.

this is f'in retarded. i can't believe they're serious about this, and this isn't some april fools day joke. wtf is blizzard smoking? i guess they're trying to be facebook in a way, but theres a difference between people creating profiles specifically for connecting with others, and gamers that just want to game and post, having to put their name on the web for anyone to investigate. i swear Blizzard has some idiot people running things that are way too socially desperate.

Just one thing to Blizzard. They say they want us to post feedback on the forums but today there are very few who does that. I'm just wondering, what was the idea with putting in a feature which splits the community in half and will probably drive away alot of people from the forums ? Just a rethroical question but I feel it should be out there :/

I love all these morons who are saying Blizzard is forcing them to give their name out. Blizzard isn't the one clicking the 'send' button, you are.
Thread Over.

Originally Posted by daburton

Are you kidding me? Easy to find with your first and last name? I've done a fricking yellow pages search under my name alone in my city, which is relatively small and there must be 50 people with the same name as mine. I also work for an insurance company taking calls and when I do a simple name search (ie... John jones) sometimes i pull up 250 or more hits with that exact same name. Without other supplemental information, names dont mean crap.

Im sure they would just send emails to all of them...

Originally Posted by Kekbur

You may want to check that again.

Then facebook are in a whole world of hurt because they tell everyone your real name, friends, friends of friends, people who search, people who belong to the same groups as you, people who post to the same items as you.. the list goes on.

Originally Posted by Pnad

: /

just got banned, guess I have nothing to worry wbout.

Apparently posting on a lvl 3 tuaren named John Connor telling people not to worry about skynet (Bnet) obliterating humanity is considered trolling.

don't worry half the player base is banned from the official forums.

Originally Posted by daburton

Are you kidding me? Easy to find with your first and last name? I've done a fricking yellow pages search under my name alone in my city, which is relatively small and there must be 50 people with the same name as mine. I also work for an insurance company taking calls and when I do a simple name search (ie... John jones) sometimes i pull up 250 or more hits with that exact same name. Without other supplemental information, names dont mean crap.

Can't decide if this post is naive or glib. Do you have any responsibilities, aside from yourself? Ask yourself whether you want to have even a 1 in 50 chance of exposing your children to potential predation.

It's not whether "you" can do it, because you obviously don't care about it. It's whether someone else, who has much more nefarious aims in mind, can do it. Becoming a victim is an unpleasant experience. The mistake lies in the difference between "I don't care, so I don't care if you do" and "I don't care about myself". Your level of expertise is not absolute, and believing it is makes you P.T. Barnum's favorite target.

In any case, the point is moot. Blizzard will do whatever they decide to do. And we will live with it. I do hope, though, that this bites them in the pocketbook.

Originally Posted by Darger

Your foolish to think that trolls will stop. Infact with all this happing now, 250+ pages on the wow forums, trolls are going to be 100x worse. It wont be the simple ones either it will be the real assholes who dont care ig or irl if ppl hate them.

Speculation on both our parts indeed. I'm sure it will be a deterrent for some, but not all for sure. I just don't like the fact that everyone will know who you are.

This reminds me of ancient times when they would say a town is corrupt so they would burn the town down. Sure your stopping the problem you wanted to, but your solution is too extreme. Would it not be easier to just make the forums require lvl 10 higher to post similiar to like how they must be lvl 10 to show up on the armory?

Ehmm,

No thank you.

I'll just stay away from the forums from now on, using the battle.net excuse isn't going to cut it. Sorry...

Originally Posted by pVVn3c|

Had you already read what others have found you would already know that is incorrect. If you want to check the phone number then give it a ring. I'll answer. Even if it WAS correct. I'm not worried about it, hence I will use the service on the forums. If you ARE, then don't. It's pretty simple.

The bigger question is, why are you so adamantly speaking out against legitimate concerns?

Just because you're not bothered by something, [name], doesn't mean other people aren't, and it's pretty evident from the many people speaking out against this that you are generally in the minority.

Like I said, if you think it's a good idea, that's great, use the service; just don't get upset when people voice their concerns on a forum thread specifically made to discuss this issue.

Originally Posted by Endus

I'm a little bit irked, but not surprised, to see the massive frenzy of fearmongering going on here.

This is not a privacy issue.

This is not a risk of identity theft.

Your name is an identifier. It's the most public identifier you have. You give it to people you meet as a matter of course. You'll need to put that down on pretty much any application for anything you sign up for, in the real world. It's even printed, along with your address AND phone number, in the phone book.

Sure, you can spend a little extra and the phone company won't print it, giving you an unlisted number. But that's a special service, and nobody has EVER claimed that it's extortion, or that phone books are massive identity theft risks. Because they are not.

What Blizzard is doing is far less of an infringement than a phone book. Sure, people might be able to Google your name and find out either that you play WoW, or that you've expressed yourself unprofessionally in a public forum. The first shouldn't be a factor when it comes to hiring, and if it is, you're probably better off not getting hired rather than it coming out further down the line. As for the second; it's a public forum. Acting like an asshat in a forum is not significantly different from going to a public market or some such and acting the same way. In many professions, acting poorly in public, even when you're not on the job, can and will get your fired, and possibly barred from your profession to boot.

What this does is remove the anonymity so that people can be held responsible to themselves. There's no risk of identity theft, and the rest boils down to people wanting to act like jerkholes in public and not have anyone know it was them.

Right now, you're running around wearing a mask and slapping people in the face with a dead fish. And you're complaining because your mom's just spotted you, despite the mask, and took it off you. You've even been given a reprieve; they're doing it so that your past actions won't be revealed, just how you carry on from here on out.

This is only a bad thing if you're acting badly, or you're so free with personal info that stalkers can find you with just a name. Which is a bad thing, yes, but it's YOUR fault, since all Blizzard is giving out is a name, and that's the easiest piece of info to find.

Also, let's be clear; there's a huge difference between an annoying guy you don't like who likes you and wants to get closer, and a stalker. Locating you and approaching you is not "stalking". Breaking into your house, or following you everywhere you go, is stalking. Plus, if you've got an actual stalker, rather than some guy you don't have the guts to say "piss off and leave me alone" to, call the goddamned cops and stop whining about it.

Endus, you're both missing the point and making the point I was trying to make. You're right, a name is an identifier. But many of us already HAVE an identifier. It's our online nicknames. THAT is what we use to identify ourselves to each other in fannish, geeky or gaming space. That is, for all intents and purposes, our name when it comes to this area of the Internet.

I use my real name on the Internet for Facebook (real life friends), LinkedIn (professional networking) and my website (for selling my freelance services). When I am Real McNamerson, I am a professional writer with a calm and mature demeanor that takes things seriously.

When I am Usagi Vindaloo, I am enjoying my hobbies. I write smutty Final Fantasy fanfiction. I squee over anime. I engage in ribald debates over just what is under Tali'Zorah vas Normandy's helmet. And I discuss World of Warcraft. This is part of my identity... specifically, THIS identity. I do not troll... in fact, I do the opposite and continually encourage people to set aside their anger and engage as friends and fellow players. This has nothing to do with "behaving badly". This is to do with what you do in your offtime, when you don't have to be professional or "normal" or "mature" (mature here meaning being restrained and calm vs. excitable and squeeful)

I do not worry about putting my real name on the Internet. What I DO worry about, continually, is that that real name will get connected to what I do as Usagi Vindaloo, because that is MY escape, MY private time, MY hobby.

I am not ashamed of "bad" behaviour. I just want my private time to be just that, private. I don't want my friends, family, and potential employers knowing that I post on WoW forums. Nor do I want WoW forum posters knowing what I do or where I live, unless I *choose* to reveal it.

Originally Posted by pVVn3c|

If that number were my parents number then I would care. Also, lol information is lol. I don't work at the bowling alley. But seriously if you want to call Jill Smith, she is the manager, and she does know me. Go ahead.

[name], we already know who you are. We posted your myspace page and soon after it MYSTERIOUSLY disappears? So by you taking down your myspace page you have confirmed your identity. Now you're trying to lie about it.

And lets say we have the wrong [name].. you piss off the wrong person and the wrong [name] gets his knee bashed in with a baseball bat as he's leaving the bowling alley.

Originally Posted by Astrocanis

Can't decide if this post is naive or glib. Do you have any responsibilities, aside from yourself? Ask yourself whether you want to have even a 1 in 50 chance of exposing your children to potential predation.

Maybe I'm missing something here but why would someone in WoW know you had children?

I think they should remove the last name component. Limiting poster names to your main should be enough to undo the anonymity. Having a first name helps, but I don't want last names. There would be too much Facebook harassment. It would be bad for jobs. I don't want future employers to know that I spend my weeknights raiding till 2 AM.

This is a security risk, and Blizz had better revise some of it. I don't want 2 million forum trolls and nerd ragers finding out stuff about me.

Originally Posted by Torethyr

I think they should remove the last name component. Limiting poster names to your main should be enough to undo the anonymity. Having a first name helps, but I don't want last names. There would be too much Facebook harassment. It would be bad for jobs. I don't want future employers to know that I spend my weeknights raiding till 2 AM.

Wow, paranoid much? Why would employers care? Are you seriously suggesting an employer is going to turn someone down for a job because they post to a game forum.. without proof it's you, other than the same name? I presume you must have no public photos on your face book then.. I mean god forbid a future employer find you on a facebook and see a photo of you actually having a good time.

Originally Posted by Collected

Maybe I'm missing something here but why would someone in WoW know you had children?

They might not. But in getting my name, discovering my SSN, going through property records, finding my kids' school records, etc., don't you admit the possibility that they might find out?

You are missing something. That something is regard for others' concerns that you dismiss out of hand. Would that you were a God, and that you could actually do so.

No. Scratch that.

Originally Posted by pVVn3c|

Maybe you should call that number and see how wrong it is, not that this supposed to be anything to do with contacting my mother, I thought it was about MY information.

Tim, you've already said that was the correct address for your parents.

Originally Posted by pVVn3c|

Parents address. Incorrect phone number. Still waiting on that phone call.

Were talking about people being able to do stuff with your real name, and people on this thread proved it possible. it doesnt matter if the numbers wrong, the address is all they would need to get the right number, and if people are after your number they can just ask your mom for it, etc. or worse, they could go after your mom! and that doesn't worry you? If it were me I would be worried for my mom.