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.
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.
I tend to do a lot of self promotion through my various enterprises, so getting my name "out there" is fairly important in a business sense, and I do actually have an uncommon name (googling my name gets plenty of hits on me, and no I am not referring to my T-Rex handle). However, a feature like this, which I might choose to use if I knew it had safeguards I could implement to restrict total access to my online gaming habits, is otherwise useless when it limits my options in a medium where I might prefer privacy even if I have enabled the feature. I don't think it's an issue of paranoia--simple usefulness is the case, here. I think the two cases given so far: the case of wanting to play anonymously on an alt, or the case of a guild requiring use of the service so they can keep tabs on you are both an easy demonstration of how this service is flawed. If it's flawed, its not of much use, whether you also think its a breach of privacy or not.
Anyway, I'm already unhappy enough that I have to deal with Steam's player tracking, that I have to turn off voice in Xbox Live so I can enjoy gaming without listening to a torrent of racial slurs and invectives, and I've been regreting signing up on Facebook almost since day one. Count me as an opt-out on this one, too, unless they give me the customization and control I need to make it work in my favor.
Blizzard may have to make changes in the defaults to conform to recent European rulings that impacted Facebook.
The conept is one that many players desire so I can understand why it was implemented.
Like other posters you will find many google hits on my name. While I do not mind that people know I play WoW, there are some enemies that I have made in game by expressing my honest opinion in guild activities so I would not want them to move their in game harrassment out of the game.
I would have preferred an all-or-nothing mechanism like guild wars uses, except cross-game of course. This also means a few other things though:
In Guild Wars you add a character and it adds the account (displayed to you under the character name that you added, also displaying the current character being displayed). There are no real names or account logins being used. It also means that when you ignore someone, you ignore that entire account. This would cut back on folks that create alts to grief or ninja because their main is popular or well-liked in the community.
In Guild Wars if you wish to remain invisible, you can set your status appropriately and it will stay that way.. You will be displayed as offline to others.
That would have been the best way to implement the system, in my opinion. One friends list entry per account. No personal information is given. It is mandatory.. that would have worked better.,
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?
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.
You could also set up cross server/game chat channels which is what our guild did. We had EQ/EQ2/SWG players all talking to each other.
Glad someone was able to shed some light on this system... I was actually concerned as to how much info was being shared with the RealID system. I would prefer them to use a system similar to in-game chat programs like XFire where all you use is an alias or screen name and that is all the info anyone gets other than game data
The issue, as Jaime wrote, is granular control of information shared (or lack-thereof, in this case). Facebook implemented a whole bunch of controls on every field of information on your profile that you could share with anyone, friends of friends, friends, only yourself, etc. Blizzard will find out very quickly that wanton disclosure of potentially dangerous information through their system is a bad idea - it's always best to default to the least permissive settings to force people to read through things to open up. All it will take is a lawsuit stemming from some sort of cyber-bullying originating in WoW or whatnot. Another solution Blizzard could implement is a 2 ID system: an internal ID (for logins/account management) and an external ID (for RealID, Forums, etc) that are FORCED by the system to be different from eachother, and unique in the database. It's not difficult, and along with the ability to turn off sharing real names etc, would go a long way to ease disclosure concerns.
I completely agree... and the idea of a dual ID system would be a good step. Let's hope they get this new communication set-up upgraded before some of the unpleasant possibilities occur. More user control would help to set alot of players and families minds at ease.
I guess if you have something to hide, this would be a problem. I don't have anything to hide and I don't care if anyone knows my name. I'm only going to add family and RL friends to my RealID, so I don't view this as a problem at all. I only see benefits with this system.
As much as I have sympathy for the "they are clueless and incompetent" tenor -- they know very, very well, that the current implementation helps to create facts beneficial for Blizzard. It helps to spread the system, it helps to foster friendship networks at the expense of privacy. It's good for them to have this current practice established as the "default" to get it started. They will almost certainly add better privacy control and will sell this is an improvement and upgrade of their system, to also win over the people who previously refused to partake. It will work out flawlessly for them.
There is the great latin phrase: Cui Bono? ("To whose benefit?"). Ask this sometimes, when you observe "incompetence". Bottom line: It is not poorly implemented. It is calculated the way it is.
When you say that RealID is a poorly implemented idea you're right. One thing that is germane to your point is that Blizzard has historically had a wealth of really great ideas and has, historically, implemented them rather poorly. Unfortunately, unless there is a substantial backlash to RealID Blizzard is unlikely to make the changes that would make it a service instead of an inconvenience. Moreover, when we realise that Battle.Net is being interfaced with Facebook in the near future (it may have already, I haven't played WoW since February) there are legitimate concerns over this company's buisness policies.
When we take a broad view of what Blizzard has done since World of Warcraft started it seems to me that we should step back and wonder if, despite the great things they've done, they have done quite a bit wrong and a few things significantly wrong...hell, some things simply haven't been done at all. People would do well to take a stand and simply opt out of dealing with that company because, in a Democratic-Plutocracy (I'll coin a phrase here) the only vote you have is with your wallet.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain. (2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Doesn't anyone understand basic Internet security anymore? How can anyone be so naive as to put up with such nonsense?
Never give out private information of any sort on the net-hackers are just waiting to get that sort of information, especially in a game like WOW with tens (hundreds?)of millions in revenue.
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.
You don't have a problem with friends of friends being able to see who you are? You may trust the people you friend with RealID, but do you trust everyone they friend?
And I'm sorry but the fact is most parents do not read over patch notes for every game their child plays just in case something like this happens. Fact is you're either wildly naive, or remarkably foolish to the attitude you have.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
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.
NO, I'm sorry you're utterly wrong. You do NOT get to choose who has your information, if you use RealID. Cause once you make someone a RealID friend your info is availble to all their friends of friends. Do you know and trust every single friend your friends have? Do you trust them to always make good choices about who they friend in the future? Sadly this seems lost on you.
Of course if you mean you have the option not to use RealID at all, you're right. Still, it seems pretty dumb to make a useful cross game and realm chat system that no one but people oblivious to privacy concerns can use.
[Mod Edit]
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
All accusations aside, there is never any excuse for the less-private, or least-private, option available to be *on* by default. Period. No exceptions.
Casilda Tametomo, Priestess of Soldeus | AKA Lepida Aegis-Imperium.com
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
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.
NO, I'm sorry you're utterly wrong. You do NOT get to choose who has your information, if you use RealID. Cause once you make someone a RealID friend your info is availble to all their friends of friends. Do you know and trust every single friend your friends have? Do you trust them to always make good choices about who they friend in the future? Sadly this seems lost on you.
Of course if you mean you have the option not to use RealID at all, you're right. Still, it seems pretty dumb to make a useful cross game and realm chat system that no one but people oblivious to privacy concerns can use.
You know, on further reflection I suspect you're just a troll. No one can be as naive as you.
To add some anectotical fact: There was the Small World Experiment where they found out (or claimed) that each human being is only separated by six degrees, sometimes also known under the term Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Which essentially means that "friends of friends" pushes the privacy door wider open than it seems.
Doesn't anyone understand basic Internet security anymore? How can anyone be so naive as to put up with such nonsense?
Never give out private information of any sort on the net-hackers are just waiting to get that sort of information, especially in a game like WOW with tens (hundreds?)of millions in revenue.
This.
Originally posted by Najwalaylah
All accusations aside, there is never any excuse for the less-private, or least-private, option available to be *on* by default. Period. No exceptions.
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."
Be aware when you attempt to turn RealID off through parental controls they do not send the e-mail right away. I'm thinking I'm going to have to call customer support tomorrow, even though I no longer have an active WoW account.
Last thing i want is one of my dumber friends adding some phisher to friends network and stealing all my private info, they already fall for those messenger worms so can only imagine how much phishing spam i would get after their newest brainfart.
Who here doesn't have a facebook accoun that thinks this is a problem?
Me. I have no Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or any other of those "social" ( read: 500 fake friends you've never met in your life but as a social outcast you'll readily point out to peple you have "500 friends on Facebook" ) sites. And I think this "RealID" is an even dumber concept, particularly in the security area ( although mentioning security in regards to Facebook or those other sites is so laughable it hurts ).
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I agree 100% with everything in this article. Good job, great read and really informative. Especially since I was highly anticipating Starcraft 2, I guess I know not to friend anyone I don't know in person. That won't be a huge deal for me though cause I am not currently playing WoW.
Comments
Better make sure your tinfoil hats are snugly in place.
I tend to do a lot of self promotion through my various enterprises, so getting my name "out there" is fairly important in a business sense, and I do actually have an uncommon name (googling my name gets plenty of hits on me, and no I am not referring to my T-Rex handle). However, a feature like this, which I might choose to use if I knew it had safeguards I could implement to restrict total access to my online gaming habits, is otherwise useless when it limits my options in a medium where I might prefer privacy even if I have enabled the feature. I don't think it's an issue of paranoia--simple usefulness is the case, here. I think the two cases given so far: the case of wanting to play anonymously on an alt, or the case of a guild requiring use of the service so they can keep tabs on you are both an easy demonstration of how this service is flawed. If it's flawed, its not of much use, whether you also think its a breach of privacy or not.
Anyway, I'm already unhappy enough that I have to deal with Steam's player tracking, that I have to turn off voice in Xbox Live so I can enjoy gaming without listening to a torrent of racial slurs and invectives, and I've been regreting signing up on Facebook almost since day one. Count me as an opt-out on this one, too, unless they give me the customization and control I need to make it work in my favor.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
Blizzard may have to make changes in the defaults to conform to recent European rulings that impacted Facebook.
The conept is one that many players desire so I can understand why it was implemented.
Like other posters you will find many google hits on my name. While I do not mind that people know I play WoW, there are some enemies that I have made in game by expressing my honest opinion in guild activities so I would not want them to move their in game harrassment out of the game.
I would have preferred an all-or-nothing mechanism like guild wars uses, except cross-game of course. This also means a few other things though:
In Guild Wars you add a character and it adds the account (displayed to you under the character name that you added, also displaying the current character being displayed). There are no real names or account logins being used. It also means that when you ignore someone, you ignore that entire account. This would cut back on folks that create alts to grief or ninja because their main is popular or well-liked in the community.
In Guild Wars if you wish to remain invisible, you can set your status appropriately and it will stay that way.. You will be displayed as offline to others.
That would have been the best way to implement the system, in my opinion. One friends list entry per account. No personal information is given. It is mandatory.. that would have worked better.,
You could also set up cross server/game chat channels which is what our guild did. We had EQ/EQ2/SWG players all talking to each other.
Aurora, 4x Gaming
I am opting-out of this feature for one reason and one reason only.
I don't know how to enable it and use it.
All these security risks to my identity are meaningless to me.
With how I am they won't make a difference.
I would love to use this system.
Glad someone was able to shed some light on this system... I was actually concerned as to how much info was being shared with the RealID system. I would prefer them to use a system similar to in-game chat programs like XFire where all you use is an alias or screen name and that is all the info anyone gets other than game data
The issue, as Jaime wrote, is granular control of information shared (or lack-thereof, in this case). Facebook implemented a whole bunch of controls on every field of information on your profile that you could share with anyone, friends of friends, friends, only yourself, etc. Blizzard will find out very quickly that wanton disclosure of potentially dangerous information through their system is a bad idea - it's always best to default to the least permissive settings to force people to read through things to open up. All it will take is a lawsuit stemming from some sort of cyber-bullying originating in WoW or whatnot. Another solution Blizzard could implement is a 2 ID system: an internal ID (for logins/account management) and an external ID (for RealID, Forums, etc) that are FORCED by the system to be different from eachother, and unique in the database. It's not difficult, and along with the ability to turn off sharing real names etc, would go a long way to ease disclosure concerns.
I completely agree... and the idea of a dual ID system would be a good step. Let's hope they get this new communication set-up upgraded before some of the unpleasant possibilities occur. More user control would help to set alot of players and families minds at ease.
Glad I don't play WoW anymore. Oh by the way Blizzard, consider this a lost sale for Starcraft 2.
I guess if you have something to hide, this would be a problem. I don't have anything to hide and I don't care if anyone knows my name. I'm only going to add family and RL friends to my RealID, so I don't view this as a problem at all. I only see benefits with this system.
Excellent article as usual Jaime.
So it looks like Blizzard is trying to become the Google, Facebook, and Twitter of gaming. Thanks but no thanks "Big Brother".
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
As much as I have sympathy for the "they are clueless and incompetent" tenor -- they know very, very well, that the current implementation helps to create facts beneficial for Blizzard. It helps to spread the system, it helps to foster friendship networks at the expense of privacy. It's good for them to have this current practice established as the "default" to get it started. They will almost certainly add better privacy control and will sell this is an improvement and upgrade of their system, to also win over the people who previously refused to partake. It will work out flawlessly for them.
There is the great latin phrase: Cui Bono? ("To whose benefit?"). Ask this sometimes, when you observe "incompetence". Bottom line: It is not poorly implemented. It is calculated the way it is.
Just add people you trust as friends (family, IRL friends)? Problem solved.
When you say that RealID is a poorly implemented idea you're right. One thing that is germane to your point is that Blizzard has historically had a wealth of really great ideas and has, historically, implemented them rather poorly. Unfortunately, unless there is a substantial backlash to RealID Blizzard is unlikely to make the changes that would make it a service instead of an inconvenience. Moreover, when we realise that Battle.Net is being interfaced with Facebook in the near future (it may have already, I haven't played WoW since February) there are legitimate concerns over this company's buisness policies.
When we take a broad view of what Blizzard has done since World of Warcraft started it seems to me that we should step back and wonder if, despite the great things they've done, they have done quite a bit wrong and a few things significantly wrong...hell, some things simply haven't been done at all. People would do well to take a stand and simply opt out of dealing with that company because, in a Democratic-Plutocracy (I'll coin a phrase here) the only vote you have is with your wallet.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Doesn't anyone understand basic Internet security anymore? How can anyone be so naive as to put up with such nonsense?
Never give out private information of any sort on the net-hackers are just waiting to get that sort of information, especially in a game like WOW with tens (hundreds?)of millions in revenue.
You don't have a problem with friends of friends being able to see who you are? You may trust the people you friend with RealID, but do you trust everyone they friend?
And I'm sorry but the fact is most parents do not read over patch notes for every game their child plays just in case something like this happens. Fact is you're either wildly naive, or remarkably foolish to the attitude you have.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
NO, I'm sorry you're utterly wrong. You do NOT get to choose who has your information, if you use RealID. Cause once you make someone a RealID friend your info is availble to all their friends of friends. Do you know and trust every single friend your friends have? Do you trust them to always make good choices about who they friend in the future? Sadly this seems lost on you.
Of course if you mean you have the option not to use RealID at all, you're right. Still, it seems pretty dumb to make a useful cross game and realm chat system that no one but people oblivious to privacy concerns can use.
[Mod Edit]
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
All accusations aside, there is never any excuse for the less-private, or least-private, option available to be *on* by default. Period. No exceptions.
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
To add some anectotical fact: There was the Small World Experiment where they found out (or claimed) that each human being is only separated by six degrees, sometimes also known under the term Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Which essentially means that "friends of friends" pushes the privacy door wider open than it seems.
This.
And this.
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."
Be aware when you attempt to turn RealID off through parental controls they do not send the e-mail right away. I'm thinking I'm going to have to call customer support tomorrow, even though I no longer have an active WoW account.
Last thing i want is one of my dumber friends adding some phisher to friends network and stealing all my private info, they already fall for those messenger worms so can only imagine how much phishing spam i would get after their newest brainfart.
Me. I have no Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or any other of those "social" ( read: 500 fake friends you've never met in your life but as a social outcast you'll readily point out to peple you have "500 friends on Facebook" ) sites. And I think this "RealID" is an even dumber concept, particularly in the security area ( although mentioning security in regards to Facebook or those other sites is so laughable it hurts ).
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I agree 100% with everything in this article. Good job, great read and really informative. Especially since I was highly anticipating Starcraft 2, I guess I know not to friend anyone I don't know in person. That won't be a huge deal for me though cause I am not currently playing WoW.