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News Blizzard forums will require real names

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 7 Jul 2010.

  1. DriftCarl

    DriftCarl Minimodder

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    I hope Dr Who posts on the forums, will answer a curious question.
     
  2. Faulk_Wulf

    Faulk_Wulf Internet Addict

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    WoW.com later reported that whether this was the right guy or not, he still deleted his Facebook.
    If it *WAS* him, then I honestly feel bad for him. He extended his name as a good-will gesture and got e-raped for it. (It proves our/WoW-communities point.)

    You know what's worse? What if this WASN'T the right guy? Like people have said, some common names aren't YOU for 5+ pages. Somewhere out there, someone recieves harassment because you dissed a tank and that person decided to "get even".

    This is horrifying. For many reasons, but the above two are the worst.

    One thing I liked about the Star Trek MMO is that when you posted to a forum you were tied to your character AND a handle. For example:

    Kirk@Faulken
    Alexandria@Faulken

    etc.
     
  3. mastorofpuppetz

    mastorofpuppetz What's a Dremel?

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    Sure, trolls have ruined what forums were supposed to be for, but come on blizzard, this is a real bad idea.

    Also, at least make the next WOW expansion need a little better hardware so people can move ahead in the PC world.
     
  4. DriftCarl

    DriftCarl Minimodder

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    It is defiantly going to stop a lot of good people posting useful stuff and helpful guides.

    A few years ago, blizzard seemed untouchable, but in the last year, oddly since activision merged with them, they have been coming up with crappy ideas, first was the pet store, then the extra subscription wow armory mobile, and now this utterly stupid realID system.
    I guess this is what happens to companies that reach the peak, when they come down again, they become stubborn and make huge widespread blunders.
    It took several very high profile starcraft gamers to make very long videos to get blizzard to commit to putting certain features into battlenet 2, like chat rooms and cross region play.
     
  5. tristanperry

    tristanperry Minimodder

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    Awful idea.

    If people are being n00bs or trolls on the forums, ban them.

    I love the WoW Riot protest at this which involved 'hunting' that employee's information down! I'm not a fan of e-rape and things like that, but it's pretty funny nonetheless!

    As for using real names - I have no problem with it, especially since I frequent a few business-oriented forums whereby putting your real name is a good/advisable thing.

    Although forcing real names on a forums full of (at times) immature n00bs? BAD idea.

    (Re: the immature n00bs point: I used to play WoW and enjoyed it for a while, but there are a minority of immature n00bs unfortunately)
     
  6. ZERO <ibis>

    ZERO <ibis> Minimodder

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    real names with games ruins the fun. Hell one of my really good friends in rl who I game a lot with just started calling me zero instead of by my real name lol.
     
  7. Madness_3d

    Madness_3d Bit-Tech/Asus OC Winner

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    as a non wow-er, sounds good to me :)
     
  8. Lemure

    Lemure What's a Dremel?

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    This changes nothing, you can register SC2 or any Blizzard game under a new account with a false name. In fact there are people talking about using the name Dustin Browder.
     
  9. hyperion

    hyperion Minimodder

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    Personally, I think this move may put minors at risk.
     
  10. knuck

    knuck Hate your face

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    About 2 months ago a friend and I ordered food at a drive through. My friend was driving my car and it's him who got to talk to the girl serving the food. He thought she was cute and saw her name on her shirt. When we got at my place it took him about a minute to find her on Facebook with only her first name and the fact that she worked at St-Hubert (the restaurant)


    I like the idea of a forum where everyone respects one another, but I definitely don't trust kids from gaming communities. From what I saw in DOTA and W3 in general, I think it would be a catastrophe
     
  11. Joosh

    Joosh What's a Dremel?

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    The community moderator Bashiok was actually the first victim of this new 'feature', he announced his name on the forums and within minutes the masses had posted his personal details, his wife and children's names, his home address and telephone number, where his children go to school and had a google maps image of his house. He was forced to disable/deactivate his facebook and twitter accounts temporarily.

    Whilst I think that is extreme and just goes to show how immature some people are, it does prove the point that 'removing the veil of public anonymity' is not something the public are ready for yet.

    To be honest though, it just seems like people wont use the battle.net forums anymore, doesn't seem like that big a deal in the end.
    He has
     
  12. D B

    D B What's a Dremel?

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    Dumb , major dumb idea .. too many drawbacks and it's not needed for the people running it to know who you are
    ... you do not need to know a persons name to have a forum that is civil and to have a means to deal with uncivil people or actions ... it's called MODeration.
    ...while having rules that say "flame free" or "no personal attacks or threats" are needed, they only work when people are willing to stand up to those that want to take the forum away from them, and report it to the MOD's and the MOD's actually do something about it .

    I am a member of an online comunity of over 150,000 members and It's one of the most civel places around, because the members and the MOD's keep it that way
     
  13. Zurechial

    Zurechial Elitist

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    Not if you've had an account with Blizzard for years, one to which your credit card is connected for subscription payments. Even if there are (awkward, lengthy) workarounds the fact of the matter is that we should not have to go to such lengths to begin with.

    Being forced to use real names for battle.net and the WoW forums is NOT the same as being 'forced' to use whatever real name you give to some random, easy-signup forum like bit-tech.
    This latest announcement is a continuation of an ongoing drive by Blizzard to try and make WoW seem more appealing to the facebook generation of non-nerds, to in turn try and appeal to a broader audience.

    Yes, the official forums have been a hive of trolling and flaming for years, but disallowing posting from lv1 alts would cure a lot of that crap. If people were forced to post under a persistent username (or their 'main') that would have almost the same effect as forcing people to use real names, without the cluster**** of privacy invasion.

    With RealID they're telling people that it's an opt-in service, but the fact of the matter is that it's hardly fair to impose such a high price on acces to the official forums which the majority of players pay to have any access to in the first place.
    Similarly, they announce great new features such as talking to friends cross-realm and having persistent friends lists between various battle.net games, then mere weeks before the release of said features they announce the caveats of the use of RealID and everything it entails. Real names only, no option to appear offline or hide alts from your friends - They see all of your characters at all times, advertising of your friends' real names to their friends and vice versa with no option to control it.. and all of this backed up by the glorious announcement of facebook integration so that you can advertise your nerdy hobbies to your wider circle of friends on Blizzard's behalf and make WoW seem more mainstream and acceptable than before. Joy.

    Along with the overall dumbing-down of an already simplistic game and continued efforts towards streamlining it for the ADD-afflicted Halo generation, they're now trying to hamfistedly force Web 2.0 and all its associated ******** onto their millions of subscribers, many of whom are proud nerds who want nothing to do with wider social circles.
    It's looking less and less likely that they'll be getting any money from me for Cataclysm or SC2 unless some very serious changes are made and soon.
     
    Last edited: 8 Jul 2010
  14. Scirocco

    Scirocco Boobs, I have them, you lose.

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    I guess Blizzard wants fewer women playing their games.
     
  15. b5k

    b5k What's a Dremel?

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    When I played WoW on an RP realm, I found that to do any meaningful group roleplaying you had to organize something.............ON THE FORUMS! Wow, what a way to kill an entire server type. Well, roleplayers are dedicated and they'll find other ways I'm sure, but it's a pretty huge blow.

    Also, Women trying to avoid being recognised as such (my fiance played wow with me) would now not be able to participate in anything forum related through fear of being recognised. Sucks.
     
  16. ssj12

    ssj12 Minimodder

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    Is Blizzard asking to be sued for privacy protect of its users?
     
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