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News Blizzard "listening to feedback" on Real ID

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 8 Jul 2010.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. south side sammy

    south side sammy What's a Dremel?

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    Coming from a community that maps and mods games...... I'd like to pick on EA here..... they always keep on saying " we listen to the community" blah, blah, blah and then they go right ahead and screw things up anyways..... kinda like Obama and the morons he has surrounding him.
     
  3. mi1ez

    mi1ez Modder

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    Micah Wipple, what were you expecting?
     
  4. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    The more I read about RealID, the more I think the entire idea is slightly broken. Admittedly I only played WoW for a short time, but here is what I think the problem is:

    With RealID you are able to do what a lot of players have wanted to do for a long time: Cross-server chat, cross-faction chat and cross-game chat. All these things have been long requested by the player base.

    However, Blizzard requiring the use to RealID just to take advantage of those features is asking too much from their customers. If a player wishes keep his real identity hidden, he can't take advantage of any of those features.

    To make matters worse, not only are you giving away your full identity just so you can chat to a guildy currently playing a character on a different server - but you're also giving away your identity to all the people on his/her RealID list too.

    Surely Blizzard should know by now that their playerbase doesn't consist of the most hinged people in the world (and I'm putting that kindly!), and giving away your identity on Facebook is nothing like doing the same on their servers.
     
  5. yakyb

    yakyb i hate the person above me

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    the Internet is a dangerous place no need to be posting details, especially when situations have arisen such as murders over MMo's

    if one case comes out that someone managed to track someone down using their realid what would blizzard be liable for
     
  6. [USRF]Obiwan

    [USRF]Obiwan What's a Dremel?

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    Not to mention Identity theft..
     
  7. LeMaltor

    LeMaltor >^_^

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    It would defiantly be a facilitator of crime.
     
  8. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    I doubt it.

    A lot of people seem to think they have a law degree and are jumping all over Blizzard spouting 'facts' regarding EU privacy laws, Data Protection Act, criminal statutes etc etc etc.

    Two things you have to remember - 1) ActivisionBlizzard have an army of lawyers who are a lot smarter than you or I and whatever decisions they make will be thoroughly vetted before they are made public 2) Forums are completely optional and you don't have to use them. It's not part of the service you pay for, it's not compulsory and all posts prior to the change will remain anonymous.

    I'm sure before you're allowed to post on any of their new forums, there will be about half a dozen warnings and liability waivers stating what you're about to do will make your full name public.

    Of course, that is if these changes go live in their current state (which I don't think they will do - I suspect Blizzard will allow a one-time unchangeable alias).
     
  9. bowman

    bowman Minimodder

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    As if.

    They've already lost their chance to get me to pay for (their first little bit) of SC2 - now they can try to win back my money for Diablo 3.
     
  10. ImInTheZoneBaby

    ImInTheZoneBaby Bring it on sucka!

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    Oooooh. I got a mention. Awesome. :D

    But hmm, sounds to me like they're still going to go ahead with the whole idea of the Real ID forums, and It'll have to take something real bad or drastic to happen, to get them motivated to change their minds, it seems.
     
    CardJoe likes this.
  11. greigaitken

    greigaitken Minimodder

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    In real life there are consequences for your actions. Should you have similar consequences for similar actions online?
    If i tell a guy in street to go f**k his mother he'll want to hit me if he thinks he's tougher. online, the same comment is just trash talk but the little guys get to backchat the big boys.
    Should you have to stick by what you say online?
    I'm not concerned at all about any "i'm gonna find out where you live and kick your ass" issues - thats no different from two guys fighting in front of some girl in the chippy at 4am.
    I'm interested if there will be a bunch of lawsuits against people using perceived racial insults.
     
  12. Altron

    Altron Minimodder

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    I'm not a WoW player, but I played plenty of its indirect predecessor Diablo II, and continue to play its other indirect predecessor Warcraft III.

    People there are incredibly immature and stupid. It can often become a very hostile gaming environment. There are plenty of players who hold grudges. I often see blatant abuse of GHost bot admin powers (muting enemy players for no reason, kicking and banning a player who is beating them, turning off the bot to force everyone to disconnect if they are losing, etc.)

    I just don't have faith that the young and immature players will hold grudges and go find ways to harass each other through other websites.

    Right now, if you have a rough game with lots of trash talking, you can log off battle.net and it ends. Immediately. Or, even if you keep playing, you have tools available to prevent other players from following and harassing you after a game.

    The original system implemented in SC2 Beta, IIRC, was decent. You had a gamertag and an e-mail address, like Steam. People could see your anonymous gamertag, and communicate with you, but if a trusted friend had your e-mail address, they could communicate at a closer level.

    I have no qualms with that. I know the full names and have the phone numbers of several of my TF2 clanmates. But any random stranger? No way.
     
  13. karx11erx

    karx11erx What's a Dremel?

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    You have not linked the article out of respect for the man's privacy? If all that stuff can be found on the inet, you are apparently having more respect for his privacy than he does himself.
     
  14. Infection

    Infection Gaming Fanatic

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    1) Forums are completely optional
    2) For some people they do pay for the service of being able to post. The ability to post on them and be a member rather then a lurker is only given to a member when they have paid for a World of Warcraft subscription, let's face it the WoW players are the ones that are actually causing this nonsense. 1378 pages in a few hours with about 95% of responses being negative?. (I believe you need to have a Valid CDKey on the other games Blizzard operates to post on those particular forums as well. The exception is Starcraft 2, I haven't posted there so I assume either it's unlocked to everyone or it requires a CDKey from another game to be activated on your Battle.net account).

    If you read up a lot of countries (Canada for an example) seem to have laws stating that online your personal information cannot be given out without your permission. This is where Blizzard has a flaw, they're forums, in order to use the forums you need to use your Real full name. But you have the option to not use your name by not posting on the forums so the way I see it this is completely legal. But I'm not a lawyer so don't take my word for it.

    The issue I have is this, imagine you're applying for a somewhat decent job, finally moving up from that Call Center cubicle. Now lets also imagine that you happen to play World of Warcraft, now for most intelligent people this isn't an issue. But let's now assume that the person reading your application has two kids, both of his kids are extremely addicted to World of Warcraft and he's mad at the game.

    Guess who's getting the job when he looks up your name and he see's World of Warcraft. That's right it'll be Ted down the street, you know the person who as a child stuck crayons up his nose and ate sand because it "Tasted Good".

    PS: I actually really don't care about the Blizzard forums, being a World of Warcraft subscriber for the last two months (I know, I'm a newbie) I have never felt the urge to post on Blizzards Forums mostly because they're just a Troll Infested Un-Moderated Sh**Hole or so I've heard.
     
    Last edited: 8 Jul 2010
  15. [DE]FreD_S

    [DE]FreD_S Certified Specialist of Awesomeness

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    The Problem at hand is not your real name showing up in forums. THAT you can bypass by not using the forums. The problem is within the game. It is ALREADY possible for interface addons to read out the realid data. It is also possible for addons to save data to your hd and pass data on to other computers -> snychronizing. Think about the possibilities people with maliciuos intent now have.

    Apart from that, here in Germany it is common for HR to google an aplicants name. WoW is often considred a game with addiction potential. Count 1+1 together...
     
  16. [DE]FreD_S

    [DE]FreD_S Certified Specialist of Awesomeness

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    /run for i=1,100 do print(i,BNIsSelf(i)) end

    OR

    /run for i=1,100 do print(i) if BNIsSelf(i) then print("true") else print("false") end end

    typ ingame and try it. Turing all Bnet functions off in the parental control tab in your account control prevents this.
     
  17. NuTech

    NuTech Minimodder

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    I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me.

    As Blizzard have said many times, your WoW subscription does not have anything to do with the forums, and they're provided as an additional service at their own discretion. They could delete the forums tomorrow if they wanted to. Many people may cancel their subscription, which would be their decision to make.

    That's a very valid concern with a very simple solution - don't post.

    If I played WoW, I wouldn't post in the ReadID forums for the exact same reason. It's not because I'm scared some angry nerd will decide to stalk me, but it's that I don't want WoW posts appearing when a friend, family member or potential employer Google's my name.
     
  18. wafflesomd

    wafflesomd What's a Dremel?

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    A lot of the Pro Audio sites I visit have required you to use your real name for a long time. This is nothing new to me.
     
  19. DriftCarl

    DriftCarl Minimodder

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    Blizzard also have the right to cancel your subscription at any time they wish for whatever reason they wish, so even your subscription doesn't entitle you to play the game. Their little "forums are not part of the service" disclaimer is simply a legal thing.
    Blizzard also owns the game installed on your hard drive, if they wanted to they could create an update that removes it from your hard drive, players have no legal right to anything, that is one of the problems with the games industry right now. Gamers have no rights. And now we have less privacy.
     
  20. Astrocanis

    Astrocanis What's a Dremel?

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    The in-game API calls are already available. The forum controversy is simply a blanket thrown over the fire for smoke-screen purposes. Your privacy, IN THE GAME, has already been violated.
     
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