Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Official Forums

Originally Posted by izziebot

I feel bad for gay / transgendered players who post. I imagine they'll stop.

Uhm, why?

I'm concerned about what this means for me as a woman playing WoW. The ability to opt out of Real idea has been nice, as I don't have to unlist my phone number to avoid creepy pugs. Thoughts on that?

Originally Posted by Sungamnori

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

You might have heard it as "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither", "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." or some other variant, but the sentiment most definitely applies.

If you are willing to give up your liberty of posting in character for the security of no more trolls, then you will end up without liberty OR security.

Enjoy.

You agree to multiple legal agreements giving up numerous rights when you play WoW. Nice try but you missed the boat.

What I want to know is, will this be retroactive to our existing posts?

The ones who don't like this idea like to flame others and start heated discussions and just generally insult people.

I never troll, and I almost always post on my "main" or other relevant character, and I still think this idea is overboard.

Anonymity has its rightful place, too. There are circumstances other than trolling when one may wish for their statements to be unattributed.

How many of you think prominent theorycrafters in the community are going to continue to contribute on the official boards knowing that now people aren’t just going to bother them in-game but also potentially turn up on their personal social sites, or private email? What about many of our quality MPVs? If I was well known in the WoW community, there’s no way in hell you’d catch me posting again after this change. Or people who have jobs that put their real name in the public eye? Whether one is a school teacher or a senator or an actor, there are many legitimate reasons one might not want their name associated with their character. To ask them to give up an entire aspect of the game they might enjoy – participating in the forum community – just to retain their right to privacy is a bit absurd.

We live in a world where employers google our name, and content on the internet is forever. You might see someone’s concerns for privacy as dramatic the-sky-is-falling exaggeration but the reality is that we shouldn’t be surrendering it as much as we are, much less encouraged to do so. But really, it shouldn’t matter why someone doesn’t want their name out there: it should be their right to protect it, and keeping it private should be the standard, not something you need to surrender lots of opportunities to do.

An excellent change to raise the quality of posts on the forums.

This statement is laughable. Forum posts are bad because people are frequently illogical, make unintelligent statements, and have a limited understanding of what is an insightful contribution. Having a name tied to a post doesn’t magically give millions of morons critical thinking skills. It may cut down on some of the pure trolling drek, but all the wasteful, useless posts will still be out there… and those are the ones that make up the bulk of the “low quality” you see out there.

Originally Posted by Ssateneth

The people whining about this are typically trolls hiding behind some anonymous name. I for one am for this.

This is completely retarded. It won't change much at all. Now be prepared to get trolled by a lot of John Does... I'm definitely signing up for a new b.net account with SC2 and with a fake name.

Yeah this change is foolproof and not pointless at all. I wonder who the genius at Blizzard was that came up with this. It's like they're trying real hard to become Facebook. They already integrated that in SC2. Yay something I will never use! I'm so excited!

Originally Posted by dotSeed

Stop posting shit that's associated with your real name then. When there are actual repercussions for posting things five year olds would find childish, maybe the tone of conversations will rise above that of a goddamn cesspit.

Worst comes to worst, you stop using the official forums. There are plenty of other places to discuss WoW.

Some employers don't care what you post, merely that you play WoW at all. It's an easy way to trim the stack of resumes.

Be sure to thank Blizzard for lowering your chances of employment after college.

Originally Posted by manniefaces

I laugh at those of you who think your personal info is not already online. This is being done for one reason "Trolls". If you don't like the changes don't use the forums when they go live. There was always another option and that was for you the community to police yourself and behave like mature members of society. The WoW community brought this upon itself now take it.

Oh, so the 10% of people who post on the forums who are immature get to ruin it for everybody else? How is that fair?

Originally Posted by Asheli

The ones who don't like this idea like to flame others and start heated discussions and just generally insult people. There are good and bad things about this, clearly. But i believe it will tone down all the negativity that's floating around the wow-europe.com-forums

Way to generalize people. There are a lot of reasons why people would want to protect their privacy other than hiding behind the net to be a troll.

I also like the shell game Blizzard is playing. When Real ID was 1st announced with its features in game laid out, there was an uproar about real life name then. The blues responded that it was not an issue as it was designed to "be shared with only people you know and trust in real life".

So here we are like 3 weeks later and they post this crap. I guess I am supposed to know and trust a few million forum users in real life.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist here, but the big corporate engine (which Blizz is now part of) only cares about money. They will only do things that drive revenue. This is obviously an attempt to build a social networking site that they think they can churn cash off of or charge other entities to interact with. That's why all this has keyed around real names since day 1.

If this was just some cool MMO chat / friends list feature to track your friends on multiple accounts and servers it obviously would not be necessary to have your Real Name plastered for the world to see. I promise you you will never see them give the option for an alias or handle. There is some underling motive here that keys on the real name and they are not about to make it public.

Being afraid to give some one your first and last name is retarted.. social security #, credit card #, bank account info.. yes.. but your name isn't going to hurt anything. If your affraid of people.. then you should just never tlak to anyone anywhere anytime.

Having said all of that.. they should allow the people who are freaked out needlesly the option to hide thier name on real ID. For crying out loud I know most of my wow friends by their character anyway.

Originally Posted by manniefaces

I laugh at those of you who think your personal info is not already online. This is being done for one reason "Trolls". If you don't like the changes don't use the forums when they go live. There was always another option and that was for you the community to police yourself and behave like mature members of society. The WoW community brought this upon itself now take it.

but the simple fact is most trolls still wont care and can still troll. and this gives trolling a whole new thing to do DEMOTE REAL POSTS. if there is no limit to how much you can demote posts i can see trolls demoting real post to nothing which gives the trolls more power as they can promote other troll posts and demote the real discussion.

I for one do not appreciate all my personal info on the net

Originally Posted by Tyrianth

Ugh there is not much you can do with a name people. My name is Aaron Poulin, try and stalk me. But that doesn't mean I believe Blizzard has the right to do this, people are entitled to whatever amount of privacy as they feel is necessary and Blizzard shouldn't take that away from them. D:

You people are MAJORLY unimaginative.

Do you KNOW what Social Engineering is? All I have to do is engage you in a conversation and get your reveal ANYTHING about yourself that helps me zero in on which Aaron Poulin you are. Are you the one from New York that lives at 239 Broad St.? Are you the one in school in Arizona? How's the weather in Memphis? And I didn't even really try. Seriously, the only way to put less effort into what I did, would have been to not do it at all.

And there is MUCH more than Google for tracking people down.

I hope I will be able to decline new forum's rules and have all my previus posts deleted to protect my privacy? If not then what should I do? Cancel account? Blizzards going crazy...

Originally Posted by AvA-LaND

Because having easy to access personal information is a great idea!

Anyone who wants it already has access to it. How naive are you people.

Originally Posted by Swizzle

and? if i actually cared or was worried, i wouldn't have it listed. could it be that i really doubt someone is going to take the time and effor to find a random dude from a forum about a MMO? possibly. could it be that i know that i could probably handle anyone who WOULD try and come after me? highly likely.

What about us 5'3 125 pound females? Think we can protect our selves from random weirdos?
Its easy to feel its ok from your point of view. I do use the forums, and i use my main, and i don't troll, go look at any elemental shaman thread. Sadly this just might stop me from doing so in the future.

The only people who could possibly be against this change are as follows:

- douchebag forum trolls.
- Internet privacy nutjobs.
- people with a bad Internet rep.

If you are any of the following, I don't want you posting on the official forums anyways. You're the people that post meaningless, paranoid, snarky or wishy washy replies to things in important tech support, game related or other conversational threads that I want to press delete on myself.

To those people whining about this affecting your JOB INTERVIEWS, Jesus Christ. If the only thing that comes up when you google your name is wow forum posts, that's just sad. When I look my name up on google I'll see my facebook friends, restaurant reviews, tournaments I've played in, my university, some events I've gone to, some articles I've commented on, etc etc.

If the only thing that comes up on google is your wow forum posts going LOL NOOB BITCH then I wouldn't hire you either. Suck it up.

Originally Posted by Imaginary

Why do you consider your name to be private information?

You sir, are a moron..

Originally Posted by Lordsarmy

Being afraid to give some one your first and last name is retarted.. social security #, credit card #, bank account info.. yes.. but your name isn't going to hurt anything. If your affraid of people.. then you should just never tlak to anyone anywhere anytime.

Having said all of that.. they should allow the people who are freaked out needlesly the option to hide thier name on real ID. For crying out loud I know most of my wow friends by their character anyway.

It seems to me like people think they're freaking James Bond or members of the CIA or MI6 or something.

The naivity of people who think they're anonymous on the internet today is staggering.

crud...my friends don't know that i play a bloodelf male...what if they tell my parents?

Its already questionable to use an email adress as login for the bnet. This and the authenticator dont mix.
Does Blizzard just want to make a quick buck with it and dont really care about the security of their customers?