Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Official Forums

Update - Added a clarification, your real name will not show up on old forum posts. It will only be displayed on the new forum system.

Oh and since a few people asked, now, I have absolutely no plan to do that on MMO-Champion forums. (And that's not sarcasm, I really don't like the idea of real names on a gaming forum)

Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Forums
Your real name will be displayed on the official forums now. You'd better think twice before you troll a bunch of angry ... trolls.
[blizzquote author=Nethaera source=http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25712374700/battle-net-update-upcoming-changes-to-forums/]Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - 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. [/blizzquote]
[blizzquote author=Bashiok source=http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25712374700/battle-net-update-upcoming-changes-to-forums/]One important point which I don't believe has been relayed yet is that the switch to showing RealID on the forums will only happen with the new forum systems we're launching for StarCraft II shortly before its release, and a new forum system for World of Warcraft launching shortly before the release of Cataclysm.

All posts here on the current World of Warcraft forums, or any of our classic Battle.net forums, will remain as-is. They won't (and can't) automatically switch to showing a real first and last name.

All posts in the future on the new forum systems will be an opt-in choice and ample warning will be given that you're posting with your real first and last name. [/blizzquote]
This article was originally published in forum thread: Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to the Forums started by Boubouille View original post
Published on 2010-07-06 04:39 PM
2074 Comments
Comments 2071 Comments
  1. Daswolfen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lille7 View Post
    You always keep your name hidden?
    It's not like they are showing your credit card number...

    This is a good change imo.
    You do realize, it is just another crack in security, dont you? If they have your real name, and can then can use that to pry other information out about you. This is just too dangerous in this world. I dont want some crazy showing up at my house because I told him he was being an idiot.
  1. Heenk's Avatar
    This is dumb as hell & if you disagree with me you are wrong
  1. killaklown's Avatar
    It amuses me how many people dont think this is a big deal, I am assuming everyone one of them are teenagers or younger who have no idea what could happen if your information gets into the wrong hand. Make someone mad enough, and your life will be forever ruined.
  1. Nymeria's Avatar
    Just no, Mr. Blizzard, sir.
  1. krasgoth's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Heenk View Post
    This is dumb as hell & if you disagree with me you are wrong

    Can't wait to not see you on blizzard's new forums.
  1. Daswolfen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fotm View Post
    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.
    Except you can limit who sees that information on Facebook. You cant with this system from what I can tell. Besides, imagine its just one more place where an employer can see what you do in your spare time. This information will be available on Google. It is not anyone's business what I do in my personal time, and I resent the fact the Blizzard is forcing this on us.
  1. Bugmenot's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by sicness View Post
    How does that manufacture a reason for people to seek you out? Plenty of people post their facebook information for everyone to see yet you don't hear people complaining about being harassed because of this do you? So just because people in this game can now make a connection it means that the connection actually will be made because only people in this game do such things?
    You have not read about the dead kids from online mobbing on facebook?
  1. flinchy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by wolftech View Post
    Except you can limit who sees that information on Facebook. You cant with this system from what I can tell. Besides, imagine its just one more place where an employer can see what you do in your spare time. This information will be available on Google. It is not anyone's business what I do in my personal time, and I resent the fact the Blizzard is forcing this on us.
    no you can't, (on facebook) you can ALWAYS see someone's name, just not the rest of their profile

    if you couldn't see someone's name, then facebook wouldn't work.
  1. ld420's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fotm View Post
    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.
    Stop using fing facebook as a comparison. Facebook is something you have to willingly go through the process to sign up for. The long term, and even newer WoW players are being FORCED into this. I didnt sign up for this crap when I bought WoW, and the subsequent expansions.
  1. krasgoth's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by wolftech View Post
    Except you can limit who sees that information on Facebook. You cant with this system from what I can tell. Besides, imagine its just one more place where an employer can see what you do in your spare time. This information will be available on Google. It is not anyone's business what I do in my personal time, and I resent the fact the Blizzard is forcing this on us.
    And by "forcing it on us", you mean "Making it required to post in the official forums, which has absolutely nothing to do with playing the game in the first place".

    People who keep posting "OMG NOW PEOPLE WILL STALK ME ONLINE WHEN I OPEN WOW I WANT TO PLAY WOW" obviously have no clue what they're going on about. You open WoW, you play WoW the same as always. You log into the forums to post advice or have a conversation, you do so with your name. Simple.
  1. oddf3llow's Avatar
    Wow. Over TEN THOUSAND responses now on the US forum. Pretty much all in agreement that this is a monumentally bad idea.

    Will it make a difference?? I have my doubts...
  1. SonsofDisaster's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by carenard View Post
    or just head over to http://www.intelius.com/

    search for your name across all states(do not include middle initial)

    for me.. 1 result.. me, there might be 1-2 other ppl in the world with my name(english first name, german last name)

    Im prbly gonna go delete all my old official forum posts and never post again

    also alot of people that I know of let the city they live in be public, and unless you have an extremely common name there would only be 1-2 ppl with that name in said city.
    I do not know what you all are doing online that you have that much information about you available, but I am only slightly discerning with my personal information and that site came up with 10 people, one of which whom I suppose MIGHT be me but had the wrong birth year and date, an old city of residence, and used my "full" first name instead of what I traditionally go by. I really don't see how you guys think people are going to have enough information about you to "e-stalk" you...
  1. BondExtreme's Avatar
    Wow. This change may scare people away from WoW. I myself don't care but still. Not a very pleasant move Blizz.
  1. Bugmenot's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rellekk View Post
    your more then likely gonna piss someone off in real life and getting shot then pissing off a 16yr old wow nerd and having any action taken on you..

    be paranoid more please
    Name, Phone Number, Adress, now lets find out.
  1. ld420's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by krasgoth View Post
    And by "forcing it on us", you mean "Making it required to post in the official forums, which has absolutely nothing to do with playing the game in the first place".

    People who keep posting "OMG NOW PEOPLE WILL STALK ME ONLINE WHEN I OPEN WOW I WANT TO PLAY WOW" obviously have no clue what they're going on about. You open WoW, you play WoW the same as always. You log into the forums to post advice or have a conversation, you do so with your name. Simple.
    Are you retarded? I own a business. Anyone who finds out my real name can use sunbiz to find out my place of business (im there 7 days a week) if they wanted to. So in order to keep that from POTENTIALLY happening, I can NEVER post on the official forums which is a part of the service I pay for. What part of that isn't bad to you? That they can get phone numbers and addresses from forum posts? What if I have a technical issue with wow and HAVE to post on the forums? Go ahead, keep your head in the sand if you want. Just makes it easier to get a piece of your ass.
  1. flashur's Avatar
    Some of you think it's fine and that there will be no harm in releasing your real name. Infact, some people in both the Us and EU official threads have joked and said "noone has turned up on my doorstep yet". That's not quite the point. The point is, it can do, and it does happen. Almost two years ago I moved to Nottingham (UK) to study at university. There was a killing about 50 yards from my uni, related to a game forum.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8040178.stm

    http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/ne...l/article.html

    The bottom quote of the first article is of the Det Ch Ins Of Nottinghamshire Police talking about the problems of the internet:


    "David Heiss was very clever on the internet, and he learned a lot of information about Joanna Witton and Matthew Pyke and others.

    "It is very, very interesting that he could do that.

    "One of the things that's important here is that people need to realise that on their computers there is a lot of personal information that other people can gather.

    "We know that Heiss found out a lot of information about where they lived and where they worked and all sorts of things about their social network that perhaps now with hindsight they wouldn't want him to know.

    "So people need to bear that in mind when they are on their own systems using Facebook, people need to be careful."



    Out of the 10-11 million people who play this game, there's every chance people like this are here. Yes I know, it's extreme, but it can happen. This guy found out all the information and flew over from Germany to do this.
  1. Sopiel's Avatar
    Okay, this is just beyond ridiculous now. Does anyone else get the feeling that Blizzard is sneakily attempting to bring down WoW, before their next gen MMO strikes? Because, that's honestly the only thing I can really imagine at this point, other than the higher-ups at Blizzard all sitting around, sniffing glue for the last couple of years and slowly losing their marbles.

    I barley post on the forums as it is and when I do, it's usually a fun suggestion on the suggestion forums for some sort of in-game item or whatnot. It's never to flame someone or be a pain in the rear. Yet, I will never -ever- post on the forum again, after this new system is implemented. So, while I know that the forums are full of horrible flamers and rotten people, they're also filled with folks who just want to make a suggestion now and again. Or, who want to report a bug or ask a honest question about something they're experiencing in the game (about their class, a dungeon, etc).

    That being said, Blizzard can pretend and tell us all that their reasons behind this change are purely for -our- benefit and to help make the forums a less wicked place, with fewer jerks flaming others anonymously. But, I can't help thinking that it's also to limit the communication the players have with Blizzard and those in charge of WoW. Because, they are certainly not morons. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt that almost everyone with half a brain will be against this change. No one who cares about privacy or has the desire to protect themselves on something as unsafe as the internet will gladly plaster their real name over any game forum, or internet forum, for that matter.

    I honestly am having trouble believing this is real. I'll never rage quit, ever. But, I have to admit, I'm becoming more disenchanted with WoW with every new change like this one.
  1. Chryzaor's Avatar
    For some reasons, I tend to worry when people try to tell me how I should behave, that it's done to "raise quality of the community" overall, shortly before they make it happen. Rings some (awful) bells to me.

    I'm also not that fond of seeing a community as a whole pay for mistakes of a handful of idiots, whom Blizzard couldn't manage to deal with. "I couldn't solve the problem, now you pay".

    The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
  1. Grundy's Avatar
    Hmm.. it's not April yet.
  1. mmoc6bc984bfa2's Avatar
    Prepare for a massive influx here. I guess you upgraded the servers just in time Boub =[
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