I'm still weighing this up. Is it really bad..? Facebook use real-life names or myspace- whats so different?
The difference is that with Facebook you choose to throw that info online + you can set Facebook to Private.
People did not choose to put their name online on the WoW forums, when you want technical assistance on the WoW forums, you do not want your name out there.
The internet is full of kids and crazy freaks, on every forum, (this one too), there's enough kiddo's who are stupid enough to harass others. It happens every single day on forums. Trust me, you do not want your name out there on an MMO forum, any forum.
There's a lot of crazy people out there, and a lot of them are online on the internet.
Just reveiling you're a girl or a child sets you open to harrassment.
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.
That leads me to believe they will try this again another time. Maybe in another form.
Perhaps when the press and the attention dies down general they will try and sneak the policy back in hoping it will not get noticed.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Just to quell the conspiracy theories, this is not about corporations trying to strip away our privacy. It is about every IT communications format trying to become Facebook and Steam. They all want a slice of that pie and that means real names in a social network with games. That means a rating system to keep the forums nice for care bears and a widening of what the WoW forums do. That’s what Real ID was introduced for, to enable a raft of other functions to be enabled and linked to the WoW forums.
Quite simply, everyone is trying to become a Facebook with a forum for everything, an Amazon style shop and a Steam like gaming network. It is the supermarket business ethos applied to IT communications networks.
I told all of you. And you think Real ID would be silly. Yeah... if you ask me , that bloger just proved my point. To the finest extent and took the words right out of my mouth. Real ID would be the least of your problems. which is another reason why I was for it, it's a scare tactic. To stop the trolls, and flamers. get it??
Obviously not, this guy pulled up all of this dudes information with a few sites listed. Any of the same can be done to you, even me.
I mean, I'm just so used to the SOE train of thought (often involving things like subscribers, barrels, vasoline and unpleaseant dreams) that I'm shocked!
I've since cancelled my WoW account, but good on Blizzard for actually listening. Hear that game companies!!!
Comments
The difference is that with Facebook you choose to throw that info online + you can set Facebook to Private.
People did not choose to put their name online on the WoW forums, when you want technical assistance on the WoW forums, you do not want your name out there.
The internet is full of kids and crazy freaks, on every forum, (this one too), there's enough kiddo's who are stupid enough to harass others. It happens every single day on forums. Trust me, you do not want your name out there on an MMO forum, any forum.
There's a lot of crazy people out there, and a lot of them are online on the internet.
Just reveiling you're a girl or a child sets you open to harrassment.
Ok we can finally stop arguing about it and acting like a bunch of internet e-thugs to each other, they scrapped the idea.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1
Hello everyone,
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://u
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
That leads me to believe they will try this again another time. Maybe in another form.
Perhaps when the press and the attention dies down general they will try and sneak the policy back in hoping it will not get noticed.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Just to quell the conspiracy theories, this is not about corporations trying to strip away our privacy. It is about every IT communications format trying to become Facebook and Steam. They all want a slice of that pie and that means real names in a social network with games. That means a rating system to keep the forums nice for care bears and a widening of what the WoW forums do. That’s what Real ID was introduced for, to enable a raft of other functions to be enabled and linked to the WoW forums.
Quite simply, everyone is trying to become a Facebook with a forum for everything, an Amazon style shop and a Steam like gaming network. It is the supermarket business ethos applied to IT communications networks.
I told all of you. And you think Real ID would be silly. Yeah... if you ask me , that bloger just proved my point. To the finest extent and took the words right out of my mouth. Real ID would be the least of your problems. which is another reason why I was for it, it's a scare tactic. To stop the trolls, and flamers. get it??
Obviously not, this guy pulled up all of this dudes information with a few sites listed. Any of the same can be done to you, even me.
www.roxstudiodesigns.com
Holy Crap! Blizzard....listened?!?!?!
I mean, I'm just so used to the SOE train of thought (often involving things like subscribers, barrels, vasoline and unpleaseant dreams) that I'm shocked!
I've since cancelled my WoW account, but good on Blizzard for actually listening. Hear that game companies!!!