Real ID comes to WoW

[Simond]

Let me be a little less circumspect: Chargebacks are a minor hassle to arrange with a bank for the customer. They are fucking annoying as hell for the company that the chargeback is being applied to - not only is it extra work to process them that probably wasn't planned for, but it also fucks with their budgeting. That $15 they were expecting just became $6.

e: There was a picture here. It's gone now.

[Khaldun]

See, the thing is, why does Blizzard care if you get information from Elitist Jerks or WoWWiki? It's not like there is any way for Blizzard to further monetize getting information about game systems within their own forums. Thottbot and all its descendents came into being because extra information was necessary for playing the game, or at least vastly eased the process of playing it. Everyone who ever asked where Mankrik's wife is the simplest example of that, but more to the point, most of the game's systems, even now with huge simplifications and streamlining, are not self-explanatory.

[Pantastic]

Those (men and women) are the people who are still going to post on the forums. And the creepy people aren't going to be posting or trolling. They're just going to be lurking where their personal information is safely hidden, but everyone else's is exposed.

Why will they just be lurking? Lots of people have traded or stolen accounts, and creepy types have spent way more on tracking someone down than the $15/month needed to keep an account in a fake name open. The only accountability is for people who used their real name setting up the account, they're not actually verifying names before attaching them to accounts.

[waffel]

Who would have thought the first serious WoW killer wasn't another game.

[Sjofn]

Really, I'm not as worried about kids or adults. I'm worried more about the 16-22ish pack of women who are in that age range when attention from random guys you don't know seems kinda cool, and are prone to posting entirely too much personal information about themselves online. You know, the invulnerable "oh, bad things won't happen to ME" phase.

OK see that? That's what Ingmar was talking about. 16-22ish packs of women are still kids or adults, just like the 16-22ish packs of men who also post stupid shit without a thought in their heads as to what might happen with that information, who are less likely to get stalked and raped but probably a lot more likely to get stalked and the fuck beaten out of them, to say nothing of the "future employers" issue for both men and women. The young ladies don't need you to ride in on your horse to protect them from the Terrible Internet. They know. Every woman in the history of ever knows that if they don't follow the current How Not to Get Raped and/or Murdered rules exactly and at all times, if they get raped it will be at least partly blamed on them. But since following those rules and still living your goddamn life are incompatible a lot of the time, we all break them from time to time and then hope that it doesn't rape us in the ass later.

Basically, stick to "great, another area where women will be punished more than men for participating," rather than "oh god women are naive and possibly stupid!"

THAT SAID, by and large I think the conversation has been "man, sorry ladies" and "man, sucks to be us" on the subject of women and the RealID, rather than "women are derpy and need protection" here.  

[Fordel]

This is why Sheep is scared of you Sjofn.

[Modern Angel]

Who would have thought the first serious WoW killer wasn't another game.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. For all the outcry three quarters of those people aren't going to unsub. Too addicted.

[Simond]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968746635

There isn't a   big enough.

[Malakili]

derpy

I like this word.

[Sjofn]

This is why Sheep is scared of you Sjofn.

I know, I am terrible to behold. :(

derpy

I like this word.

Thanks!

[Ingmar]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968746635

There isn't a   big enough.

Post now deleted, but for posterity it was someone posting a screenshot allegedly showing that GearScore now shows people's RealIDs. May or may not have been a shop, don't know.

[dusematic]

See, the thing is, why does Blizzard care if you get information from Elitist Jerks or WoWWiki? It's not like there is any way for Blizzard to further monetize getting information about game systems within their own forums. Thottbot and all its descendents came into being because extra information was necessary for playing the game, or at least vastly eased the process of playing it. Everyone who ever asked where Mankrik's wife is the simplest example of that, but more to the point, most of the game's systems, even now with huge simplifications and streamlining, are not self-explanatory.

They're trying to create a community.  Sort of like Steam, where B.Net is the hub for all of your gaming needs.

[DayDream]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968746635

There isn't a   big enough.

Already deleted.  Care to tl:dr?

[Simond]

The beta version of Gearscore apparently also shares RealID names - no friending required.

[kildorn]

Really, I'm not as worried about kids or adults. I'm worried more about the 16-22ish pack of women who are in that age range when attention from random guys you don't know seems kinda cool, and are prone to posting entirely too much personal information about themselves online. You know, the invulnerable "oh, bad things won't happen to ME" phase.

OK see that? That's what Ingmar was talking about. 16-22ish packs of women are still kids or adults, just like the 16-22ish packs of men who also post stupid shit without a thought in their heads as to what might happen with that information, who are less likely to get stalked and raped but probably a lot more likely to get stalked and the fuck beaten out of them, to say nothing of the "future employers" issue for both men and women. The young ladies don't need you to ride in on your horse to protect them from the Terrible Internet. They know. Every woman in the history of ever knows that if they don't follow the current How Not to Get Raped and/or Murdered rules exactly and at all times, if they get raped it will be at least partly blamed on them. But since following those rules and still living your goddamn life are incompatible a lot of the time, we all break them from time to time and then hope that it doesn't rape us in the ass later.

Basically, stick to "great, another area where women will be punished more than men for participating," rather than "oh god women are naive and possibly stupid!"

THAT SAID, by and large I think the conversation has been "man, sorry ladies" and "man, sucks to be us" on the subject of women and the RealID, rather than "women are derpy and need protection" here.  

Actually, I think everyone in the 16-22 bracket is stupid. I just think that gaming is far more hostile to women than men (partially due to social issues, partially due to the unbalanced participation ratio), so while the guys will wind up with the same shit they have now with facebook: possible dates or employers seeing shit they posted online and going Hey Look, A Douchebag! The women will deal with an entirely extra set of bullshit on top of it.

This isn't "women are the stupids! Lol!" It's closer to "seriously, dudes are fucking assholes", and at least for the young ladies I've known (and the dudes), they don't "know" until something has happened they can relate to. That's the textbook age wherein you make stupid obvious mistakes in hindsight because you had no unescorted social exploration to be able to make said mistakes. I just find it far more likely for women to wind up sexually assaulted than men in said situations.

The primary issues with The Internet meets Social Imbalances are fraud and harassing women. Sad reality of The Internets. That's not a "women shouldn't play, get out of our treehouse" statement, it's a "shit, this sucks, and we're working on it, but this here? This action? This is going to end Badly."

But I stand by 16-22 right now is the age where you don't need protection, but you could probably use a little guidance on the "how not to fuck up my life long term" front when you veer that way. Making mistakes is healthy. Making permanent ones can be crippling.

[Lum]

I didn't take the original, so no idea if it's real or a shop.

[Musashi]

See, the thing is, why does Blizzard care if you get information from Elitist Jerks or WoWWiki? It's not like there is any way for Blizzard to further monetize getting information about game systems within their own forums. Thottbot and all its descendents came into being because extra information was necessary for playing the game, or at least vastly eased the process of playing it. Everyone who ever asked where Mankrik's wife is the simplest example of that, but more to the point, most of the game's systems, even now with huge simplifications and streamlining, are not self-explanatory.

They're trying to create a community.  Sort of like Steam, where B.Net is the hub for all of your gaming needs.

Only less like Steam, and more like Soviet Russia.

[Vision]

Maybe I can just give the Arizona police officer my WoW account info instead of a birth certificate next time they pull me over and Blizzard can verify my social security number while automatically updating my FB status to "Incarcerated by State GM."

[Ginaz]

See, the thing is, why does Blizzard care if you get information from Elitist Jerks or WoWWiki? It's not like there is any way for Blizzard to further monetize getting information about game systems within their own forums. Thottbot and all its descendents came into being because extra information was necessary for playing the game, or at least vastly eased the process of playing it. Everyone who ever asked where Mankrik's wife is the simplest example of that, but more to the point, most of the game's systems, even now with huge simplifications and streamlining, are not self-explanatory.

They're trying to create a community.  Sort of like Steam, where B.Net is the hub for all of your gaming needs.

Steam doesn't force me to give my real name to anyone, anywhere at anytime.  Big difference.  Thanks for failing again.

Point is, I don't know you or anyone else I've gamed with over the years well enough that I'd be willing to give you any personal information about myself.  The benefits of a troll/flame free forum experience are far outweighed by the possible security and privacy issues this brings up. 

But hey!  It doesn't effect you so fuck the rest of us, right? 

Mind telling me what your real name is so you and I can become "friends"?  Even if you don't want to.  Oh yes, we will be friends.  Oh yes.

[Sheepherder]

I'm guessing that Gearscore is sharing your info rather than acquiring it via API calls.

Also, the "big brother Pardo is watching me with his pants down" angst is a little much.

[Draegan]

nm
Should of scrolled down more to read.

[waffel]

"Your real name showing up on the forums cannot have any possible ramifications" is stated with one breath followed by "your real name on your post means you'll not troll anymore".

How can both of these concepts exist in the same argument?

I'd too like this explained by Blizzard.

[Merusk]

Protip:  Dusematic's sole purpose here is to troll.  Don't feed him.

Fuck it, I just cancelled my account and told them specifically it was over their RealID decision.

Is there any way to get them to delete the account permanently? At this point, I'm starting to question whether I want Blizzard and Activision access to my personal information at all/

Just did so as well for both my wife and my own accounts.  I do not believe there is a way to get them to permanently delete it, though, Ratman.  What I did instead was to edit my shipping address and phone # to something fake (all 5's works) and manually delete my cc/ Billing info.

[patience]

There's something oddly paternalistic about all this "well we have to protect the women!" business to me. Like "oh they don't know any better and they'll post and put their name out there and get raped, we must protect them by locking them up safely where they can't do damage to themselves by letting men get a look at them!"

No point in determining how paternalistic it is when women in here and other forums are expressing serious discomfort over this announcement for potential stalkers. I've only met one woman who was proud of having men stalk her. Anyway please don't ignore the fact this can negatively effect men too.

I mean I can understand worrying about kids, kids are stupid and not legally entitled to make their own decisions in a lot of contexts, but adults are adults and while they may also be stupid, they are entitled to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to use these particular forums, or facebook, or hop into open vent with people they don't know, no?

I'm not going to repeat my previous sentence.

I mean yes, I see that can be turned around to "well we're entitled to use this service without posting our real names on their forums, and Blizzard shouldn't make that decision for us", but really that isn't actually true in this country at least, or in South Korea. They may run into trouble in the EU from what I can tell, though.

Honestly I'm shocked even in this short time frame I haven't seen news of someone jumping the gun for a lawsuit yet.

[Ratman_tf]

Protip:  Dusematic's sole purpose here is to troll.  Don't feed him.

Fuck it, I just cancelled my account and told them specifically it was over their RealID decision.

Is there any way to get them to delete the account permanently? At this point, I'm starting to question whether I want Blizzard and Activision access to my personal information at all/

Just did so as well for both my wife and my own accounts.  I do not believe there is a way to get them to permanently delete it, though, Ratman.  What I did instead was to edit my shipping address and phone # to something fake (all 5's works) and manually delete my cc/ Billing info.

Yeah, I haven't made up my mind just yet. I'm waiting to see how this all shakes out and gets implemented. I'll probably do what you said when the time comes.

[proudft]

I'm guessing that Gearscore is sharing your info rather than acquiring it via API calls.

This is my guess, too.   I screwed around a little with the Battlenet API functions yesterday out of curiosity and was unable to get anything but nulls back on any player other than me.  I cheerfully admit, though, I may have missed something, since I have very limited experience mucking about with lua (returning multiple arguments from a function! what is this!).  Broadcasting your own info, though, is pretty easy at the moment.

[Lum]

"Gearscore-RealID" confirmed to be fake.

[Speedy Cerviche]

One thing I will say, at wsj.com you post comments under your real name and it is the most polite comment section I have ever seen. It is a subscription based online news site (cuts out a lot of the riff raff you might find at say the WA Post and you can filter out non subscriber comments on free to read articles which is beautiful).

A lot of factors would make applying what works at wsj.com to battle.net a not so valid comparison, but if they go through with this (IMO not likely as this backlash is pretty fierce) it is quite an interesting social experiment.

[Lantyssa]

Since I'm paid until the 26th, I cancelled with RealID as the reason.  I'll re-up on a month-by-month basis until I'm satisfied or decide not to bother anymore.  It's the best way I have of getting the point across though, by adding one more number to their tally.

[kildorn]

One thing I will say, at wsj.com you post comments under your real name and it is the most polite comment section I have ever seen. It is a subscription based online news site (cuts out a lot of the riff raff you might find at say the WA Post and you can filter out non subscriber comments on free to read articles which is beautiful).

A lot of factors would make applying what works at wsj.com to battle.net a not so valid comparison, but if they go through with this (IMO not likely as this backlash is pretty fierce) it is quite an interesting social experiment.

I clicked the first link on wsj.com:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575354863581918490.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories#articleTabs%3Dcomments

It does not strike me as any more polite than any other political column's comments section these days, and it's definitely retained the poor signal to noise ratio. It's pretty much non stop crazy.

[tmp]

A small follow-up to the "spamming Facebook with game updates it's something that's never gonna happen" tangent...

http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/06/blur_social_tour.php

[Musashi]

 

[Speedy Cerviche]

One thing I will say, at wsj.com you post comments under your real name and it is the most polite comment section I have ever seen. It is a subscription based online news site (cuts out a lot of the riff raff you might find at say the WA Post and you can filter out non subscriber comments on free to read articles which is beautiful).

A lot of factors would make applying what works at wsj.com to battle.net a not so valid comparison, but if they go through with this (IMO not likely as this backlash is pretty fierce) it is quite an interesting social experiment.

I clicked the first link on wsj.com:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575354863581918490.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories#articleTabs%3Dcomments

It does not strike me as any more polite than any other political column's comments section these days, and it's definitely retained the poor signal to noise ratio. It's pretty much non stop crazy.

It helps when you are a subscriber and you can filter out non-subscriber comments. Subscribers can't (easily) use fake names since it's attached to their billing info.

[WindupAtheist]

Who would have thought the first serious WoW killer wasn't another game.

I would have, for one. Blizzard has always been more or less unassailable by the hacks that populate the rest of the MMO industry. They're the Roman Empire. No one is strong enough to conquer them outright, and the only way they're going to fall is by becoming fat and decadent and corrupt.

Blizzard's strength has always been it's sterling and generally well-liked reputation. Most people aren't going to quit over this bullshit, but that reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of their fans. They're on the path to becoming just another EA or SOE that everyone hates but just sorta tolerates.

This isn't the fall of the empire, but it's by far their most serious stumble to date. By rights the competitors should be getting their knives out, but they're still too incompetent to matter very much. If anything, they'll ape the stumbles just because they don't know how to do anything else.

I've said it before, but Blizzard gives off a "Muhammad Ali around 1976" vibe. He's the champ, he'll be champ for a couple years yet, you can't say he isn't a great champion without being called a moron. But... he doesn't have the spring in his step he did ten or even five years ago... and his words seem a little slower... but we can just ignore that, right? He's still the champ after all, he must be doing okay.

[DLRiley]

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/world-of-warcraft-fans-rail-against-blizzard-real-names-plan/1404707

will blizz stick by guns or say "intern was fired for this practical joke"