Real ID comes to WoW

[kildorn]

Man, that's depressing. :(

Also, goes to show how long it's been since I've logged in.

[Paelos]

Yeah, I've decided. This is just getting intrusive for no reason. I don't want my real name out there, I don't want people to know if I'm on another toon or server, and I don't want to be friends with 5 people only to get 50 requests because they are social butterflys.

[Simond]

Sp...turn off the functionality?

[March]

Sp...turn off the functionality?

I guess I'm confused why you couldn't check a box to display a meta-alias?

I'd actually be fine with a few folks seeing "March" is playing  SG2 or on an alt or even on his PvP realm character; but exposing my full name really kinda weirds me out... which means I will not use it, but then why must I employ a binary solution to something that doesn't require a binary approach?

[sickrubik]

I don't believe there is a way to turn off the RealID functionality.

[Ingmar]

I don't believe there is a way to turn off the RealID functionality.

You can actually turn it off through the parental controls if you wanted to not even see the friend requests that you're going to decline.

[Koyasha]

Real name and email address would be my only two concerns with this system.  I don't want to display those.  Everything else I don't care about.  I can tell people 'no' and I've never liked the ability to hide in games anyway.

[sinij]

Between the giving out of email addresses and real names, plus the inability to go into anonymous mode, this whole thing seems designed to be as obnoxious as possible. Count me out.

You are crushing my dreams of permanently parking raper van outside your house.

[Wolf]

I've come up with a real easy solution for this - if you can call me on the phone, we can be RealID friends. Outside of that, no thanks :)

[Ironwood]

Sure.  Gies yer number.

[WindupAtheist]

This *should* have been a way to talk to and group with people from other servers whom you've met through the random dungeon system. Instead it's "You won't need to keep your IM program running as long as you don't have anyone on it you might want to hear from who doesn't play Blizzard games all the time!"

[Paelos]

One of my gamer buddies brought up a good point about the system that it may be more useful when Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and WoW are all out at the same time. At that point, we could still organize raids while hacking through demons or shooting up zerg, avoiding the annoying "Stare at your character's ass while everyone waits on the last guy to show up," business.

Currently, I still think the system is horribly invasive and provides no upside. However, I would expect that when people don't fully accept it, they will change some of their options.

[sinij]

You are nuts if you are going to trust your real name to a bunch of intraweb strangers. If you do - we won't even need autopsy to see what went wrong.

[Ozzu]

I'm already using it for already existing friends who play Blizzard games. I can't say I'm really planning on adding anyone else though.

[Paelos]

I'm already using it for already existing friends who play Blizzard games. I can't say I'm really planning on adding anyone else though.

But what about when they add friends who add friends who want to BE YOUR FRIENDS!?!?!

[caladein]

Tell them to get bent?  (Yes, I know it discloses my real name to friends of friends, but that doesn't freak me out.)

[Simond]

Actually it doesn't. Not on the request, anyway.

[Ingmar]

You can see the names of all your friends' friends, but you can't see what characters belong to them, and you can't go beyond one step, so I couldn't browse my friends' friends' friends.

[WindupAtheist]

I don't want my real identity out there, some people know some moves!

http://www.break.com/index/wow-gangsta-threatens-ex-guildies.html

[Stabs]

Ow!

I seem to remember my eyes hurting like this the last time I clicked one of your links, WUP.

[Roentgen]

I don't want my real identity out there, some people know some moves!

http://www.break.com/index/wow-gangsta-threatens-ex-guildies.html

Dude this is making me rethink my decision to resub to WoW to play with you.  But my card's already billed so fuck it.

EDIT:  I just watched that video to find out that the person brandishing the jack handle is a fuckin' woman.   

[Malakili]

EDIT:  I just watched that video to find out that the person brandishing the jack handle is a fuckin' woman.   

This was my response as well.  It really wasn't obvious.

[WindupAtheist]

As soon as I heard "moves" I knew it was going to be gold. When I heard "ninjitsu" it went right to platinum. They reeeally don't make ninjas like they used to.

[Roentgen]

I have a hard time believing that the hose-beast in that video was serious.  I think it was all tongue in cheek.

[Goreschach]

This is obviously the work of an incredibly high level troll.

[Der Helm]

I smiled.

[fuser]

Holy crap....

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

[Lakov_Sanite]

Holy crap....

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

Could this be the death of trolling?

[caladein]

I love it.

It won't make the official forums any good of course, but the freak-out just in that thread is enough to brighten my day.

[Khaldun]

It's kind of the death of the official forum, really. Clever from a labor-saving standpoint, and I suspect that is very much the intention: they can cut the community management staff down to a nub that way. This lets them kill their forums without having to actually kill them and take the bad press for that.

Most of my online writing is under my real name, but there is no way in heaven that I want to say anything about WoW on WoW's forums under my real name. Any more than I want anyone but a selected group of people to have any meaningful knowledge of when I'm playing, what I'm doing when I'm playing or anything else.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's kind of the death of the official forum, really. Clever from a labor-saving standpoint, and I suspect that is very much the intention: they can cut the community management staff down to a nub that way. This lets them kill their forums without having to actually kill them and take the bad press for that.

Most of my online writing is under my real name, but there is no way in heaven that I want to say anything about WoW on WoW's forums under my real name. Any more than I want anyone but a selected group of people to have any meaningful knowledge of when I'm playing, what I'm doing when I'm playing or anything else.

Anyone who thinks this is the death of the forums is crazy.  It's going to cut down the signal to noise ratio a lot but think on how much MORE valuable peoples voices will become to devs and blue posts once they realize there are less people inclined to troll.  Oh it'll have a big backlash at first but then people are going to start eating it up, feeling like special snowflakes and soon as numbers on the forums rise again, people will forget what the big deal was anymore.

[LK]

It doesn't matter what the change is, people will go apeshit over a "change" until the change is the norm and things go back to normal.

Yeah, I look forward to being able to browse the forums and see far less shit-posting.

[Lantyssa]

[Khaldun]

The volume of posting will be very small. Which, yes, might be just fine and will certainly improve the signal-to-noise ratio. But I also think very few people will read or use them, and any sense of community (bad and good) will disappear from Blizzard's own forums. Which, again, might be fine. I don't think the main motivation is to increase the quality of the forums.  The main motivation is to remove the forums as a managerial headache and to cut down on the need for community relations staff. In general, my sense is that there is a behind the scenes move to streamline everything about WoW's operations both to save money now and to prototype a management strategy for future projects that will further improve the revenue-to-costs ratio.

[sinij]

The norm? I wouldn't call this insanity the norm. Internet forums aren't exactly new technology, if RealID model worked we would be all using it by now.

I am not sure if Blizzard can afford to piss off entire player base, gaming grew quite a bit over years and there are studios that can compete and eat Blizzard's lunch. It might take millions and big name like Bioware, but it will happen.