Bizzard's Battle.net no longer going to show real names for forum posts

[Kurp]

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - http://www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting.

The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

We also plan to add a number of other features designed to make reading the forums more enjoyable and to empower players with tools to improve the quality of forum discussions. Players will have the ability to rate up or rate down posts so that great topics and replies stand out from the not-so-great; low-rated posts will appear dimmer to show that the community feels that they don’t contribute effectively to the conversation, and Blizzard’s community team will be able to quickly and easily locate highly rated posts to participate in or to highlight discussions that players find worthwhile.

In addition, individual topics will be threaded by context, meaning replies to specific posts will be grouped together, making it easier for players to keep track of multiple conversations within a thread. We’re also adding a way for Blizzard posters to “broadcast” important messages forums-wide , to help communicate breaking news to the community in a clear and timely fashion. Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.

With the launch of the new Battle.net, it’s important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that’s highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID -- including these forum changes -- have been made with this goal in mind.

We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years. As these services have become more and more popular, gamers have become part of an increasingly connected and intimate global community – friendships are much more easily forged across long distances, and at conventions like PAX or our own BlizzCon, we’ve seen first-hand how gamers who may have never actually met in person have formed meaningful real-life relationships across borders and oceans. As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come.

For more info on Real ID, check out our Real ID page and FAQ located at http://www.battle.net/realid/ . We look forward to answering your questions about these upcoming forum changes in the thread below.

Update - Text updated to include more current and correct information regarding legacy forums and their use of Real ID. "The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting."

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...Id=25626109041

Similar version on the WoW board with over 20,000 posts: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...12374700&sid=1

Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-f...your-real-name
Gameriot: http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Am...AL-ID-function

Personally, I found the Real ID system to be really annoying while participating in the Starcraft II beta. In order to play with someone, you have to either share your email address (Real ID) or come into contact with them in another way such as being in the same lobby, or through random matchmaking where you can add them to your friends list. There was no search option available and it doesn't seem like there will be one for the retail version.

That's annoying enough, but having to post with your real name on a gaming forum? It seems absurd to me. I guess it will be a boon (or a curse) for third party forums that discuss the games.

[BRP]

(Way too long lol)

[vrumpt]

its only on the new forums they are going to be launching, everything old remains unchanged because its not physically possible for them to change those.

I'm against this, because really the ability to take on an avatar and not be yourself is one of the reasons people like playing online games. Having to post only with your real name will make for an interesting experience, but ultimately it defeats the purpose of "real name" ID that only your RL friends can see.

Also it prolly won't make it in, considering the feedback thread for it on the general forums reached 600+ pages in about 12 hours, bliz got the message i think.

[geno]

Personally, I found the Real ID system to be really annoying while participating in the Starcraft II beta. In order to play with someone, you have to either share your email address (Real ID) or come into contact with them in another way such as being in the same lobby, or through random matchmaking where you can add them to your friends list. There was no search option available and it doesn't seem like there will be one for the retail version.

That's annoying enough, but having to post with your real name on a gaming forum? It seems absurd to me. I guess it will be a boon (or a curse) for third party forums that discuss the games.

You are incorrect about the way the friend system will work in SC2. For the majority of the beta you were able to add friends with their handles (name.identifier) and similar functionality will return (though it will now be name.123 or some other unique three number combo) for both the remainder of the beta and the retail release. Only for a brief period of time did they experiment with dropping the identifiers for whatever reason which led to the obvious problems you pointed out.

As for the RealID on forums thing, I'm a bit ambivalent. On the one hand, there are some legitamate privacy concerns with this move, particularly for the women and young children playing their titles. Additionally, the decision really feels like a lazy attempt at solving a manpower problem (forum moderation) without actually getting more manpower. On the other hand, the battle.net forums are in horrible shape right now and clearly something should be done to make sure their new and existing audiences can find more utility out of them in the future. Add to that the fact that I never use the forums anyways and I suddenly lose interest in what they are doing with them.

[Deejay]

As for the RealID on forums thing, I'm a bit ambivalent. On the one hand, there are some legitamate privacy concerns with this move, particularly for the women and young children playing their titles.

How can a person learn your age based solely off of your name?

I'm not sure if the whole name thing is the best idea, but I'm usually for anything that would deter a person from acting like a douchebag online.

[Kurp]

You are incorrect about the way the friend system will work in SC2. For the majority of the beta you were able to add friends with their handles (name.identifier) and similar functionality will return (though it will now be name.123 or some other unique three number combo) for both the remainder of the beta and the retail release. Only for a brief period of time did they experiment with dropping the identifiers for whatever reason which led to the obvious problems you pointed out.

I only played during the last phase of the beta, which had no identifier. If you could link a source for the three digit identifier, I'd appreciate it. I haven't been able to locate anything stating that, the SC2 forums are in two places which makes finding information more annoying. It'd be great if we could search for people and add them without exchanging emails.

[Kurp]

How can a person learn your age based solely off of your name?

I'm not sure if the whole name thing is the best idea, but I'm usually for anything that would deter a person from acting like a douchebag online.

There are quite a few sites to run people searches, such as pipl.com and spokeo.com. You can gain more information by paying a couple of bucks or being a subscriber.

A quick and free pipl.com and spokeo.com search on my name shows four of my residences, my age, my mobile phone number, the names of my immediate family, my facebook, and other information. Spokeo.com has a fucking google street view plot of my place.

[Not Kuno]

How in the hell can blizzard justify this as a useful feature?

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Between Blizz Real ID pissing off customers to threaten quit and Aion's screwing up a mass amount of mandatory name changes causing customer's threatening quit, it is almost like they are aiming for the same time period of other mmo's launching.

And aren't both Aion and Wow soon to be releasing new expansions too?
I guess they both assume the expansions will keep people regardless.


Also: A Blizz euro Blue, posted another version of the planning of the forum remod too. Wow forums linked it/posted it in the thread link below. More info on how long they have been planning it and more in depth of the same subject.

Re: REAL ID BLUE post on the EUROPE Forums!

[Hyan]

Lots of fuss over a minor thing. Well that's what it looks like to me.

Can't believe there's even a 600+ page thread about it.

I'll be amazed if they don't take it back at this point though lol

[Mjd]

No more trolling as a girl for some people.




Damn.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Lots of fuss over a minor thing. Well that's what it looks like to me.
Can't believe there's even a 600+ page thread about it.
I'll be amazed if they don't take it back at this point though lol

Its at 1056 pages now not counting all the other straggler threads about the topic.

So many people were cancelling their accounts yesterday that the website couldn't keep up with it all. The cancel account page was lagging for over 5 hours, and last I heard it was still taking people many tries to get it to work. I think we may finally be seeing the death of WOW.

^
This quote is from the euro thread blue post topic.

[Man0warr]

I don't post on their forums so I don't care but no one is really anonymous anymore if you're on Facebook.

[Kurp]

I don't post on their forums so I don't care but no one is really anonymous anymore if you're on Facebook.

That isn't close to the same thing.

[Ksandra]

It's mentioned in the WoW thread but considering it's over 1000 pages....

Anyway I think it's a good suggestion to help bring this from forum complaining to actual action.

Send complaints to here:
https://www.esrb.org/privacy/contact.jsp

And try to get anyone pissed off about it to file a complaint too.

[Hyan]

^
This quote is from the euro thread blue post topic.

Makes it sound like WoW's NGE lol.

Although their subs might take a small dive I don't see this affecting them that much either way. People are just taking things way out of proportion... what's new?

[tonyg]

I love this, maybe now e-thugs would actually watch what the fuck they're saying, or get their face smashed in. Queue the say dat 2 me in real life see wat happens pic.

[Pikarya]

lol@ the micah shit.

[Shenrien]

Lol, this is funny, laughing even harder after listening to that video

'OMG I DIDNT GET A JOB BECAUSE I NERD RAGED ON THE INTERNET'

It's not like if you post on the internet it lists your IP address, your home phone, address, city, state, zip, ect,ect.

[Salodin]

Post your full name right now and I bet I could either find you irl, or find some unfortunate SOB with your same name who is about to get harassed out the ass on facebook, myspace, his home, his job, etc.

I do not understand how people don't find this as an issue to any one who uses those forums regularly.