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General: A Pain in the RealID
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Player Perspectives columnist Jaime Skelton shares her concern over Blizzard's adoption of RealID.
Blizzard released its Battle.net RealID system this week, a communication tool which allows players to connect with each other across all Battle.Net games (World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo). On the surface, it's a great idea; it provides cross-game communication, and improves intra-game communication. Players can also chat cross-faction and cross-server with friends added through RealID. It's a concept many MMO publishers can follow to connect players of their games; from larger publishers like Mythic and Turbine to free-to-play companies like Nexon, Outspark, and Aeria Games. It's a fun feature, enabling friends and family to connect wherever they game, eliminating the need to roll an alt just to hang out.
Unfortunately, that's where the praise ends. The RealID system was hastily implemented, and while not necessarily broken (although many players found it disabled on their account by some strange stroke of luck), the RealID system introduces a slew of privacy concerns that one can only choose to be rid of by completely opting out of the RealID system. As it stands, the RealID system is enabled by default on all accounts except those with parental controls (more on that later), and players who want to use the RealID system are unable to make any changes or select options as to how their information is shared.
Read A Pain in the RealID.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Great Article, thanks. Really interesting one.
It is a great article. It was great when I went over this same thing point by point in my podcast 2 weeks ago. And a month before that, when we first discussed the upcoming system.
Also, have you even used the RealID system? If you have, you know that you CAN disable it. Simply by not accepting Real ID friend invites. People can't automatically see your information without YOU giving them consent. Don't want to participate? Fine. Don't accept friend requests, don't give them out. It's not that hard.
You can choose to remove people from your friends list - when you remove them from your list, you are automatically removed from theirs.
There are some problems with the system, but really it's not as bad as you make it seem.
And it all comes down to something blizzard said MONTHS ago, and still holds true today:
RealID is only to be used with REAL friends. Not guildies, or the guy you want to run heroics with later. It's for friends you know in Real Life. If your using the system responsibly, the majority of these issues dissolve.
(and before that "But don't give us this if we need to be responsible!!!!!" - just grow up. If your a parent worried about your kids playing games like this and what might happen, try being a part of their lives. At least read the patch notes and news, see what's going on. If your a gamer whose life gets destroyed because you used this tool to share your information with half your server - tough. If you won't give out your information without this, why the heck would you with it?)
/rant off.
Host of Casual Warcrafting
available at http://www.noworriesgaming.com
Interesting article, informative. Not in a fun way though, more in a disturbing way. But good summing up.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Did you read her article? She specifically talks about how you can choose who you add and how you can turn the whole system off. So I think this rant would not have come up if you actually read the article.
Also she talks about how there are guilds who require their members to be a part of this with the guild or be removed from their guild.
Also as she pointed out you have to fully trust everyone who you add to not add someone not trustworthy as you can see friends of friends. So it isn't as simple as only putting people you know well on your list.
I agree with the article, anything that uses my e-mail and real name and puts it out there for others to see is not something I would ever want to touch. Too much risk involved in that. I'm sure this will really help with the constant stolen WoW accounts issue that popped up as soon as they made everyone use their e-mail as their login.
This whole system is idiotically designed.
Great article Jaime, really well thought out.
I hated the idea of Real ID from the moment they started talking about it, but I never even considered the dangers of minors having their information made available.
If I still played WoW, or any other Blizzard game, I'd opt out altogether. My RL friends know my in-game names, and appreciate the fact that there are some alts they don't know about, just as they have some I don't know about, we all like our "quiet time" play sessions and should be allowed to enjoy them in peace.
When I played WoW, I knew some guildie's real names through the "I play WoW" app on Facebook, which I thought was kind of weird, but since I got no unsolicited friend requests from it I figured it was ok. We were a RP guild, no-one really wanted reality to intrude ; )
This is a bit different. As you stated, it really hasn't been thought through.
The question is how long will it take them to realise the extent of the privacy mess they've started and change all BattileNet accounts to not Real ID enabled by default. They need to do that quickly.
SoE had something like this, was funny to see the misstells from SWG to EQ2, however it did not pass on any personal details or whatnot, and it was actually quite useful and fun to use, no idea if it's still in use though.
Anyone able to shed any light?
The issue with only using REAL friends that you know and trust is that they might have REAL friends you DONT know and DONT trust. And thats where the problem lies. The friend of a friend system provides too much Personally Identifiable Information. I wouldn't be suprised to see a large number of fraud cases arising from WoW in the near months.
I personally dont use it. Nor do I care is people have my name. Its a rough world out there but its all manageable.
I just find the guild requirements to be a little funny. I'm so glad I dont have the time to commit to that kind of guild.
anyone know if you can turn friend of a friend feature off? without disabling everything
My Thoughts on Content Locust
Snarlingwolf Wrote:
Did you read her article? She specifically talks about how you can choose who you add and how you can turn the whole system off. So I think this rant would not have come up if you actually read the article.
Apparently you are suffering the same affliction the author is. Look, what I said up there, and what I will state again: This is not an "all or nothing" system.
YOU get to choose who has your information. Not Blizzard, Not your friends. YOU. You have to be careful with who you give the information to. It's as simple as going "huh, i don't know who this person is" and clicking "no" when a friend request comes in. It's that simple.
What the author and apparently you (plus a lot of others, myself included) is looking for is something different then that. I was hoping, months ago before the original press release on thsi went out, for something similar to the City of Heroes system, where everyone has a main name that they can contact you at, and that is seperate from the individual character friending.
But that isn't Real ID, and never was.
Host of Casual Warcrafting
available at http://www.noworriesgaming.com
Great article! I'm glad I didn't like WoW.
Another update:
You CAN turn off the messages.
In Warcraft, it's in the Interface - Battle.net options.
If you uncheck "Real ID Friend Requests" you will no longer see the popups, and can live happily without Real ID.
Host of Casual Warcrafting
available at http://www.noworriesgaming.com
If you thought until now you were getting lots of phishing attempts...
And you're still ignoring the poins that Jamie made, and that Snarlingwolf pointed out...
You can see "Friends of Friends" and they can see you. Even if you're perfectly fine with your buddy Joe having you on their list, you aren't necessarily keen about people he has on his - whom you *don't* know, at all - seeing your information as well.
That's one of the key concerns she brings up that you have now twice ignored, first in her article, and second in Snarlingwolf's response.
I'll sum it up with a Yes or No question:
Can you customize the RealID system so that your friend Joe can see you on RealID, but no one he has on his friends list can, via the "friends of friends" feature? Can you have RealID active, but disable the "friends of friends" option?
If 'Yes', then there's not a concern.
If 'No', then the point Jamie and Snarlingwolf makes is valid.
Based on what we know... the answer to that question is 'No', and thus it *is* a valid concern for people who want more control over exactly who can see their information.
Blizzard needs to add more options to the system, allowing people to decide for themselves exactly who can see their information, without leaving them with the false option of "not accepting requests" or "disabling it".
Personally, I think the friends of friends thing should work in reverse... If you're friends with Joe and Tom, and they're friends with each other as well, then it makes sense for them to show up on "friends of friends", because all 3 of you are on each others' list. The way it's set up now, makes no sense and very reasonably is cause for concern.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Who here doesn't have a facebook accoun that thinks this is a problem? Because if you have a facebook account and you say this is a problem you are a hypocrit regardless. Its the same system and if you go oh well facebook I can mark as private and its fine. Actually no, facebook has enough loopholes for a person to get all your information even when its marked as private for the most part. Its what business do when you apply, they look at your facebook page and manage to get all your info when its private.
Its the same idea, friend of friend exists on there in the exact same way, I've had facebook for the past few years and ohnoes its terrible I've had absolutely nothing happen to me. I guess its more of a concern to parents maybe? But in a friend of friend system all you see is the name, it doesn't tell you the characters you may know them by. So John doe could be anyone, you don't know what character it is to stalk them, its not like it says John doe [Main character = this.] no its just the full name. What would be the point of stalking someone if you only knew their name, but had no clue who they are in game?
If its a guild issue, leave the guild? I'm on a pretty decent server, and I haven't seen anyone hardcore enough to require realid friends.
As an aside, there is one problem I have with this article besides the above. If you have a common name like John Doe and you go to pipil, you will not find your specific John doe with a name, the probability that its them is as good as winning the lottery you aren't going to do it. Now email is a different story, but friend of friend isn't by email, you can add without knowing their email. So again more problematic if you have an uncommon name, very very safe if you have a common name.
TLDR not really a problem
Edit: Also if you're writing an article, as a person who has to write and cite many sources in my field of psychology. Its very very helpful to your point of view, if you actually name said guild that requires realid, as opposed to just some guilds do. Did you do a study? How do I know I can trust you? The article talks about trust, but how can I trust you're not embellishing the truth? So when you say a guild, cite the name that way I know how good of a guild they are, they could be for all I know the shittiest guild whose ranked last in wow progress.
Funny....everyone is saying its idiocally desinged and its a major breech in your security and to be honest...it sounds like Facebook. In fact just about every issue mentioned, from friends of friends seeing more information, using your real name, the whole nine yards are all complaints about Facebook. And yet people take the time to use it properly, don't have thier identities stolen, and life goes on. I'm willing to bet many people here are on Facebook, but won't say the same things about it they say about this. Just because you don't bother to take the time to learn about something before you dive headlong into it doesn't mean the entirety of the system is flawed. Of course, no one ever wants to adimt they don't know enough about something, they just do it, get hurt by it, then blame the object. Much like a child grabbing at a hot metal car in the summer heat. The car did it. Of course as an adult you're expected to actually think and be cautious (a child is still learning) and a parent...while I admit you can't be everywhere 100% of the time, you also can't pass 100% of the blame. Sure you thought it was ok for your kid to play without controls, and this change blindsides you, but did you take the time to teach the kid about strangers, the internet and what is and isn't ok to give out?
In short, if you hate the new system fine. If you hate the idea of having to give that information out, don't. If your guild demands it, they're jerks, leave em. But please people, we need to stop crying when we do something without thinking, or taking the time to LEARN before we do something, not just blame the object after we screw up. But hey, no one ever wants to admit they screwed up because they didn't do something, right?
I agree its exactly like facebook and we talk about facebook games all the time on here. No one everr mentions along with the facebook game that their information was stolen because they played with so and son on farmville or castle age.
It seems like most of the social disadvantages to Real ID can be avoided with some simple user responsibility; i.e. don't put up with guilds requiring your ID to raid with them, be frank and unapologetic when you feel like playing an alt, be careful to only give your ID to people you know and trust, etc.
I do agree that a few additional functions could be added though, such as an invisible mode, extended parental controls, and allowing the user to choose a handle that isn't their real name if they want. I'm confident those changes will be patched in soon.
For SOE you could jsut send whispers cross game/server by appending the server and even game on the front.
I don't know the exact working but it was something like...
/whisper starsider.playername Hi!
for cross server and...
/whisper swg.starsider.playername Hi!
from a different game.
When I played though, you couldn't friends list cross games/servers so you had to know they were on.
MMORPG.com is really going down hill. I don't know how articles like this get put on the front page to be honest.
If you don't want to share the information, don't, why in the WORLD are you complaining? It's so stupid. It's just an OPTION, your complaining, about an OPTION, that some people like and will USE.
Why do idiots like this get to post on websites?
For those saying it's like facebook, well there has been a lot of discussion (even in mainstream media) about the issues with facebook's privacy and how much information they share. So clearly, just like facebook, people are concerned about that fact.
I don't have anything to hide as a person, I live a fairly standard uneventful, non-criminal, life. But at the same time I don't like services that share my personal information with other users, especially ones I don't know. No, I am not a fan of facebook. Both for its privacy issues, as well as the way it makes people feel that what they are eating for supper is worth sharing with the world. I don't like the concept of RealID either.
I am fine with using an alias online and for gaming. And having plenty of people have access to the ALIAS but not the real life information behind it. I would enjoy a game connection system (hmm, XFire anyone?) which was based off of aliases and that's it. But not one that uses my real name, and my e-mail address that my account uses as a login. The security risk of that alone is enough to not like the system, and that is before you start thinking about random strangers having your information.
I am baffled as to why they didn't use an alias system akin to XFire, which is quite possibly the most widely used gamer tool out there for keeping in touch with gaming friends and knowing what they are playing.
RealID is a real privacy concern, pardon the pun.
The simple fact of the matter is that it was poorly implimented, despite numerous concerns being raised and voiced to Blizzard.
This is not unlike the whole forced battle.net merge that forced everyone's account username to be their e-mail, which has widened a security gap and increased the frequency of hacked accounts.
Relying on all users to 'use their best judgement', rather than to simply design something properly in the first place, is poor design philosophy. Any worthwhile developer knows this.
Again this issue is only for people with uncommon names, common names the likelyhood of pipil being able to find you is about the same odds of winning the loterry. The friend of friend doesn't give your in game user name, only your real name. So as a friend of a friend you could be anyone on any server, it doesn't say at all. Nor does friend of a friend give your email address. So the only thing it does give is your real name with no connection to your in game id until your added
Just the same if someone sends you a realid friend request, they do not see if it was actually sent to the right person, nor do they see if you decline. They only see if you accept. So in all actuality it is much safer then facebook, because they don't see anything about you besides your name and thats it, only when you accept them do they see your character name. So again learn to read up on what it is, rather then stating its a privacy issue and will lead to more intense scamming.
If I wanted to join facebook, air my dirty laundry, and throw up pictures of myself throwing up, I would. WoW is not facebook, and I don't need facebook features in WoW. My friends already know who I am. My guildies do not, and I'll be keeping it that way by ignoring any friend requests.
We have vent. If I want to chat with people in other games, I'll connect to vent.
Paranoid much?
Gah I bit. Check quickly on the reason you were allowed to post and you have your answer. By the way, this was an excellent article, one of the better ones MMORPG has had in some time. Go stink up some other forum, please.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)