The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
[WoW] Have you been posting? I'm sorry but I'll have to see some [RealID]!
Panda4You
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I heard you like posting on forums:
The internet upon hearing the news, being its usual unsavory self, responded in a blunt manner though in this demonstrating a few pressing issues with the whole concept:
"Some fascinating facts about Bashiok."
Some sample PA opinions taken from the chat thread:
Vaneras wrote:Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature http://eu.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.
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.
From battle.net ToS section 12 paragraph E:
WE ALSO RESERVE THE RIGHT, AT ALL TIMES AND IN OUR SOLE DISCRETION, TO DISCLOSE ANY USER CONTENT AND OTHER INFORMATION (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION CHAT TEXT, VOICE COMMUNICATIONS, IP ADDRESSES, AND YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION) FOR ANY REASON
The script in question is this:
/run for i=1,100 do if BNIsSelf(i)then BNSendWhisper(i,"RealID whisper from yourself..");break end end
This demonstrates what I've said: addons have access to your real name locally, and a malicious one could be designed to share that with others in a hidden channel or something, but there is no mysterious exploit or flaw that could allow an innocent addon to be corrupted in this fashion, nor is there any way for another player to view your real name just by running some script.
delroland wrote:
The internet upon hearing the news, being its usual unsavory self, responded in a blunt manner though in this demonstrating a few pressing issues with the whole concept:
"Some fascinating facts about Bashiok."
Some sample PA opinions taken from the chat thread:
I took the liberty of removing all names just to be consistent. If you'd like your quote properly signed, PM me.
I know we aren't supposed to talk about realID but this is important:
Addon RealID security leak allows anyone to see your real life name even if they are not your RealID friend
Only use trusted addons.
Since I've got an abusive ex-husband that knows I play wow (but not what class/race/faction/server) and I know he plays wow (but not which class/race/faction/server) I see the RealID being the forum ID causing nothing at ALL but trouble, and that'll be the end of me posting on WoW forums.
Yeah, I was in the alpha too and I posted a lot about bugs I encountered, newly implemented features and quests. It's extremely encouraged by Blizzard and other testers and the forums were by far the best place to look for information since the NDA was up. Unfortunately, future feedback will likely tank because of this. As much as I tried to help out on the alpha forums and how useful I know they are, I likely won't be posting any feedback of any kind once these changes go live.
I'll bet you a thousand dollars there are enough other people willing to take your spot and use their real name however. I don't see that being a concern of Blizzards.
Well as a woman I feel that this is absolutely terrible, I mean it's okay since I guess I'll just never post on the WoW forums ever again but I'm worried they will keep pushing this crazy thing more and more and I'll have to quit just to protect my real identity. I doubt blizzard/activision has any women on their realID team.
Panda4You on
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that's one way to make sure you never have flame wars again. Since nobody will post anymore.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I recall something that happened to my sister, this must have been going back on nearly 10 years ago now. She was around 14-15, and of course being a stupid teenager she gave some personal info to some boy she met in a chat room. She claims it was only her real name, first and last; it might have been more then just that but it was just enough apparently. Boy, my dad was happy the day that kid showed up at our house (he was concerned because she didn't answer the phone when he called and that she hadn't been online for like a week, because she had been grounded as soon as this mystery person started calling the house asking for her).
Obviously RealID isn't quite the same as giving out your info to a person in the chatroom, but seeing as there's already an exploit somebody can use in a add-on to get your name in WoW, I can see accidental information leaks with this (either at the user level, or on Blizzard's end) a good possibility. Not to mention just good old search engine shenanigans from the curious or deviant seeing somebody having posted on the future b.net forums and having a name to work from.
Though, you can adjust your settings to not come up in search results (or, you could. I'm not sure if that's still possible)
There are no words. Well, except those that I just typed. No more than those, though.
I'm still annoyed that the forums are also changing to threaded-style to make them even more unreadable.
Turns out it didn't really go that well.
Then again it might just be a smaller goosepool populated only by people too silly to realize how bad it'll be for them later on in life when search results for their names turn up nothing but WoW stuff. That and people named "John Smith", "Tram Nguyen", etc
On a serious note, accountability isn't a bad thing. As for privacy, if you're hiding your WoW addiction from someone, well hey, now they know.
unfortunately it's coded to you at all times and a simple addon /script has already been made to view all other players realID information regardless of their settings
Turns out it was fake because the address that was posted as hours away from Irvine, CA. Where Blizzard employees work.
I don't think people commute 7 hours a day to get to work, then 7 hours to get back.
Someone finding out you're a closet nerd is far from the worst thing that will happen to people by having their real name's attached to their accounts.
I for one am wondering how many sexual harassment suits are going to end up aimed at blizzard, since sexual harassment is the default behavior shown women on the internet.
LoL: failboattootoot
False - WoW / Battle.net account names aren't associated with credit cards. They can't be. Because credit cards aren't the sole way to pay for the WoW service. :?
I guess I'm not thinking of the sexual nature of it. There seems to be a whole can of worms that is opening here. And not like that fun game for PCs from 15 years ago. I was just happy to know the names of the people who ninjaed me or insulted me in trade.
You really think that the decreased moderation headache will be smaller than the "This guy from my server who I put on ignore just mailed me a severed human ear" headache?
This is an extreme. I am of the opinion that if someone does something online than it should be out in the open. People for the last 15 years in general have been hiding behind an online ID and the social fabric of our culture has been slightly deteriorating as a result. I guess this is a male perspective and I haven't covered all the angles. There is just a cowardly culture that is going one especially with younger males and their behavior should be deterred. Have you tried selling something in trade in the last 6 months without being discouraged?
Option one was paying for all the mods it would take to deal with that cesspool, option two was doing something that would destroy any desire to voice honest opinions, thus nobody will post anymore.
Actually some of the information there is right. The Facebook page just got removed and was part of the blizzard network.
The only real difference will be the people who really don't want that information shared in the first place. Real ID is becoming a worse idea by the day.
"Hey kids, in our continuing effort to protect our community and have it grow and shape into something entirely unrealistic, we're now providing each of you with your everyone's addresses and a small pistol with one bullet. Don't fuck around in our games or you'll be capped in the dick".
That's the way this kind of shit is done in other games, like CoX.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Are we certain there wasn't some kind of transfusion of stupidity when Activition and Blizzard joined up together? Because this feels like something that Activision would possibly be stupid enough to try for.
EDIT: I give it one week after launch before a bunch of concerned parents raise a shitstorm about how Blizzard is opening their children to sexual predators of various kinds or some other similar hullabaloo.
Also, even if his address and so on did turn out to be bad information, it would be reasonably easy for a motivated person to figure out what the correct information is. We know his name and we know (roughly) the municipality in which he lives. If I were really interested in tracking mr. whipple down, I could pull voting and tax records (among various other things) and wind up with a pretty clear picture of who he is, where he lives, and who he lives with. I wouldn't even need to live near irvine to do this.
Of course, your average internet 13 year old isn't going to go to this much trouble. But a lot of people who play WoW have a lot of free time, and if being an active internet-person for ten+ years has taught me anything it's that people will go a long way to be assholes.
It's easy to place the blame on the person whose information is being sought; people have even done it in this thread. And while there's a certain amount of truth to that, people's information is out there and privacy is a concern. If nothing else Blizzard ought to recognize and obligation not to be a part of the problem.
edit: and I mean, that's only absolutely publicly available information. Lord help them when some unscrupulous fuck happens to have access to the NRDS or some other consumer database.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Telecommuting, perhaps? Being a forum moderator doesn't seem like the type of job that requires you to come into the office.
Even if it is fake though, I would say that's just as bad, if not worse. Now this completely random person, who may not even play WoW, just had his information plastered up for all the world to see. And now he's probably going to have to get his phone number changed because of all the people likely calling to prank him. All because of a service he might not even know about.
The unnecessary stupidity of it vaguely reminds me of the WoW Voice Chat thing. Even though ventrilo was well established and entrenched in the social milieu of the game, they decided to try and outdo it.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
I am going to have to echo the "do not plan on ever resubbing" sentiment. I haven't actually used the WoW forums since vanilla WoW, but I doubt they'd just leave it at that. If they are willing to display personal information there, I doubt they have any scruples elsewhere.
As some dude on SA mentioned though this is going to be hilariously awkward as fuck considering some of the mind-numbingly horrific/taboo things that WoW forumers are supposedly prone to posting. Whoops, Jimbo Jones forgot he'd shared his gay night elf inflation fetish on an alt several months back until someone who remembered that trainwreck decided to tell his girlfriend about it!
They did. It's fucking horrible and everyone just uses Ventrilo still.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I never even considered that.
And while I find that hypothetical situation hilarious, I do not think its ethical to suddenly make that poster no longer anonymous.
Its actually so bad that most people forget that it is a game feature.
That is bad.
All job postings they've had have indicated that being a CM requires working in Irvine. :P