Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to Forums

[Melfeth]

So, what's your take on it? From what I could gather on an interview from Dreamhack at least one of your members like to keep their gaming life, and their real life as they are and not let them mesh together. Are there more like that? Anyone quitting because of possible upcoming changes RealID might bring in-game? (Seeing how Blizzard keep saying that they have big plans concerning RealID)

[xenophics]

First of all I'm pretty sure no one of us would quit the game because of realID changes. After all that doesn't affect our gameplay - we are more worried about what kind of encounters Blizzard releases. In a situation where our members would find themselves uncomfortable about posting under their real name, they probably would just quit using the forums. On the other hand we do feel like game developers pay more attention to US forums which we can't use anyway, so our channels to reach them have been, and will still be limited.

Now for the change itself - I think something has to be done to trolling on forums but if this is the right thing I can't be sure. I haven't made a single post to Blizzard forums for over a year so in a way this doesn't affect me that much. Still, when I think about it I feel uncomfortable about using my real name. In Blizzard forums who cares what is my real name, it doesn't provide any wow related information and no one knows me by that. In the internet I'm all xenophics, and have been for years before I started playing World of Warcraft. I know one can attach the name of ones main character to ones real name, but I still can't see what extra my real name would bring to the forums. On the other hand I can see what the downsides are with the possibility of harassment and such.

It would be awesome if realID system provided something new, cool and/or useful to forum system but as it is it's there only to make people troll less. My opinion is this: you are in the internets and you _will_ get trolled anyway. Learn to ignore the idiots and behave yourself. Blizzard shouldn't be teaching you those basic things.

[meth]

Their names are Finnish. 99% of the people on this earth won't be able to spell them correctly anyway. Paragon is safe!

On a serious note: I like the system for connecting to real life friends and hate it at the same time for everyone else that I got nothing to do with. But with Blizzard and Facebook looking for the ultimate integration, this will be it. Everything connected. Every information potentially available. We will enter a new world where social network website and the social infrastructure of a game can become one. I am interested in seeing how this experiment developes.

[meth]

Real names won't be required on the boards - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 7278&sid=1

[xenophics]

Gotta say I really respect Blizzard for having the balls to make changes to the game (even when most of the people oppose them), but also knowing when to listen to the community and back up on their plans.

[Janis12]

Blizzard is stupid! U may ask me - why?
Well Look at this picture!
http://bildites.lv/images/1cp4ekd3ydkfehe0ucw2.jpg
And then think again...

[zYN]

I'm rather glad they pulled back the change.

Personally, I don't like giving my name out. It's not that I'd lead an overly interesting life, nor am I some sort of international man of mystery. I don't really think that people are out to get me either. I'm just rather private person and I don't see any real benefits to it when compared to the potential downsides.

After discussing the subject a couple of times on IRC, a lot of us agreed on that there's better ways to discourage trolling. You can quite easily tie a person to one nick per forum.

There's no going around it - there's weirdos playing this game. It has got nothing to do with the game or anything else, though, it's just life. Someone would've eventually at the very least gotten harassed or stalked IRL. Girl gamers especially come to mind. If lucky, it'd be just stalking or harassing.

Would the change have been worth it if even one single instance of something unwanted would have happened? Given the alternatives, hell no.


Not a bad idea from a corporate point of view though. Increased quality on forums, less moderating, good deals for advertising etc when partnered up with social networking products. Even better idea to pull the plug after the community backlash - we're just not there quite yet.

I'm sort of hoping we never will be either.

[meth]

Blizzard is stupid! U may ask me - why?
Well Look at this picture!
http://bildites.lv/images/1cp4ekd3ydkfehe0ucw2.jpg
And then think again...

What did the picture show? I get an error when I try to open it. If it should be the infamous new GearScore picture that also includes the real name, then note that it is fake.

[Ashgoz]

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100707
Here the picture from the original website

[Kruf]

From what I could gather on an interview from Dreamhack at least one of your members like to keep their gaming life, and their real life as they are and not let them mesh together.

It's not that I try to keep my "real life" separate from gaming in fact, it's more the fact that no one really uses my real name anywhere. Most people call me by my nickname even in this fabled "real life", so as I stated in the interview, my real name is of no importance.