Real ID comes to WoW

[caladein]

When did "people who post on the official forums" become a sizable amount of WoW's population all of a sudden?

The people going apeshit on the official forums are the ones they probably want to get rid of.  The people who are going apeshit here or at EJ admit the forums are mostly useless as-is.  Everyone else probably doesn't give a fuck aside from vague slippery-slope type concerns.

Edit: Grammar.

[Maledict]

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.

The result will be the exact opposite. The majority of posters on the forums will be kids after this, because most people who work aren't going to risk a prospective employer googling their name and the first result being a page long guild advertisement. I've never posted anything dumb or offensive on the forums, but I'll absolutely be stopping posting once this goes through. It's simply not worth the risk on any level.

[Khaldun]

The odd thing from my perspective is that Blizzard seems to have decided that their future lies in connecting gaming to social networking and social software. Probably they're looking at Zynga's success and seeing what they think is the future. They're not alone--earlier this year I heard a bunch of MMO devs sort of making the same argument.

I think this is a huge error on Blizzard's part, because they're misunderstanding the difference between their games and casual games. I have no hesitation telling people I play Bookworm or being seen playing it on my iPhone. But WoW, no matter how much they streamline it, is a different kind of activity. I do not want to sit in a public place playing it, do not want to have my colleagues directly track me playing whenever they feel like it, and so on. And I'm someone known in my field as studying this kind of digital media: it's not a secret, I'm not reluctant to talk about MMOs or video games professionally. Imagine the considerable number of players they have who REALLY do not want WoW to be a public part of their lives, a googleable artifact of any kind. Plus the security nightmares involved are considerable. Plus any woman who posts to a WoW forum where her real name is required is gonna get a million wannafuck emails or messages or creepy sweaty notes left in her mailbox.

[Ratman_tf]

I think this is a huge error on Blizzard's part, because they're misunderstanding the difference between their games and casual games.

People look at Farmville on Facebook and lose their goddamn minds. It's the new .com bomb waiting to happen.

[Ironwood]

Just saw this at Lums.

This Is Wrong.  On So Many Levels.

 

[LK]

The result will be the exact opposite. The majority of posters on the forums will be kids after this, because most people who work aren't going to risk a prospective employer googling their name and the first result being a page long guild advertisement. I've never posted anything dumb or offensive on the forums, but I'll absolutely be stopping posting once this goes through. It's simply not worth the risk on any level.

I have the same cynical outlook on this. I feel like this is going to do some severe damage, but at the same time, I'm trying, hard, to look at this from the other side and give some good reasons for it.

I EXPECT to read doom-casting and hating from everyone else on the internet. I just don't share that rage, because I'm someone who knows what happens when you lose anonymity and become accountable for your activities. I don't think "oh shit now I need to take further steps to maintain secrecy", I think "My actions have consequences now; they always did, and thinking myself anon was a mistake because all it takes is one person with the right tools to take it away. I can't keep doing what I was doing, and need to think about what it is I do from now on." Granted, there are still some things where I've maintained the barest of separation between online and offline identities, and if that barrier was removed, it'd suck, but I know when that barrier is removed I need to adjust how I do things and just move on.

People will make the same debate within themselves when this change goes through, and they will either continue on or stop posting. You want to see the good posters stick around and not let privacy concerns detract. Blizzard likely sees, and has the metrics to back up, the amount of negative posting and general shit that happens on *their forums that they foot the bill for* and want to see it stop.

This sounds like it has more do with the business of a gaming company than the "You know, we should really give this to our player's because it's a good idea." philosophy that dominated Blizzard (and the industry) a decade ago.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I like the change because of the sheer comedic value.

I don't like this change because I don't want people knowing my RL info.

I'm curious however if this is a sign of us...all of us here, being the old guard. Are the times changing and suddenly we're the old people complaining about how loud the music is?

[Rasix]

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.

The result will be the exact opposite. The majority of posters on the forums will be kids after this, because most people who work aren't going to risk a prospective employer googling their name and the first result being a page long guild advertisement. I've never posted anything dumb or offensive on the forums, but I'll absolutely be stopping posting once this goes through. It's simply not worth the risk on any level.

Heh, when I mentioned to my boss I had written some game reviews and such (year I went to AGC), he wanted to show them to his teenage son, who was into WoW at the time.  I kept politely putting him off until he stopped asking.  I didn't want him or his son coming here (we treat the new and young so well here) and just wanted to keep this as separate from work as possible.  I don't want my post count becoming part of my review.  I also didn't in particular want him reading anything where I used any sort of colorful language.

Of course, in regards to WoW, I just don't post much if at all on the forums.  I just don't care to have the WoW folks in possession of my first and last name.  Enough of you have it already.

Why can't they just create an account name and do away with all of this real life bullshit? Want to see who a troll is? Click the account and you get all of the characters. Now you have accountability, the ability to be friends on an account level, and anonymity. 

[LK]

I get a sense that many comments will be fueled by people knowing how shitty, presumptive and narrow-minded people can be when armed with certain information that doesn't represent a complete picture.

[Ironwood]

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 events like DreamHack, GamesCom 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.

And now we're going to fucking FORCE them to form these relationships.  The Cunts.

[tmp]

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.

Suspect you will see the opposite effect if anything -- the idiots won't stop posting just because it gets their name in the open because they're well, idiots and/or want attention anyway. But you will see reduced number of posts from people with at least two brain cells to put together and realize potential disadvantages of having their name published like that.

edit: incidentally,



the punch line, this was published couple months ago. The ways life imitates satire, sometimes...

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

Suspect you will see the opposite effect if anything -- the idiots won't stop posting just because it gets their name in the open because they're well, idiots and/or want attention anyway. But you will see reduced number of posts from people with at least two brain cells to put together and realize potential disadvantages of having their name published like that.

I'll just say this. I do not think the wow forums can get much worse than the cesspit they are now. If blizzard just went and deleted them entirely, I would not shed a tear.

[Ingmar]

I've always hated the protection that anonymity gives to trolls on internet forums, so this is kind of awesome from this standpoint. It does seem like they didn't need to tie it to a real name to kill the low level alt troll/spam though.

[caladein]

I'm curious however if this is a sign of us...all of us here, being the old guard. Are the times changing and suddenly we're the old people complaining about how loud the music is?

That's the vibe I'm getting from being on the other end of that divide (for once).  I'm getting ripped apart over at Elitist Jerks for my ambivalence.  It's a lot of:

Other Posters: "This is fucking terrible, how can anyone with more than four brain cells not see how fucking terrible this is?"

Me: "I don't see it as that terrible and I believe myself to have more than four brain cells.  Help me understand?"

Other Posters: "Oh my God, it's so completely obvious!"

[Ironwood]

I've always hated the protection that anonymity gives to trolls on internet forums, so this is kind of awesome from this standpoint.

Right.

Wait.

STOP.

Explain yourself here.  Why ?  What exactly were you gonna do ?  Let's say David Scottsperson posted the same shit that you normally 'hate'.

What the fuck are you doing at this point ?  What fucking difference is it between STARPRIUS and David that sticks in your craw and, frankly, WHAT IS NOW YOUR REACTION ?

[Ingmar]

Well yes, that's where my second sentence comes in. As long as the consequences aren't tied to the in-game characters it likely doesn't help that much. But I'm still going to find this very entertaining to watch.

EDIT: I should say that it has never really been a big issue with WoW anyway because the server communities just aren't that tight. It is more my hate-nostalgia for the old VN board community around my DAOC server, and how much stupid shit could have been avoided there by not letting people post anonymously.

[Khaldun]

I dunno, how would you all feel if everyone here had to post under their real names? This is one of the very few forums where I use a pseudonym, and while almost everything I say here is something I'd say under my own name in my public online writing, every once in a while it's nice to be a bit more rhetorically vivid. There are communities which flourish and are interesting and engaging which are also pseudonymous. Anonymity does not always produce fuckwadery: strong communities develop norms over time and enforce them with mods. The point to official forums, in any event, is not to produce lots of informational signal. EJ produces all the informational signal you need as far as information about the game; Blizzard's promotional info on the main page create the rest. Forums are for creating a community. You might argue that the WoW community as a whole is a cesspit. I might not disagree with that. So that's what the forums show you. Chasing people off the forums is not going to make WoW a non-cesspit. But the cesspitness of a community is only possible to grapple with through an official forum: that's where norms of play get named and debated and struggled over, sometimes in meaningful ways that have a meaningful impact over the long haul.

[koro]

I posted a fair bit on the Priest forums (my main played class) in the past and recently since Cataclysm info began coming out.

Won't be doing it any more though.

[Ironwood]

But that's not answering the question;

What is now the 'punishment' for Mr Scottsperson ?  

I'll give you 3 fucking guesses, by the way.

[tmp]

One more cool part to this system -- minors use accounts which are created by an adult, according to the ToS. The name is tied to the adult's billing info.

WoW subscription for your teenage son... x.xx
forum posting... free
having your employer run across posts on the internet with your name on it and hitting on apparent adolescents, priceless.

[Ingmar]

But that's not answering the question;

What is now the 'punishment' for Mr Scottsperson ? 

I'll give you 3 fucking guesses, by the way.

In this context, probably nothing. In a game with tighter server communities there would (or at least could) be plenty of social consequences from knowing that the anonymous douchebag trolling up the forums is actually that guy over there though.

[Goreschach]

But that's not answering the question;

What is now the 'punishment' for Mr Scottsperson ?  

I'll give you 3 fucking guesses, by the way.

Isn't it obvious? He's going to write him a strongly worded reply.

Or rather he isn't, because then Scottsperson can call him a noob by name.

[Lantyssa]

I've always hated the protection that anonymity gives to trolls on internet forums, so this is kind of awesome from this standpoint. It does seem like they didn't need to tie it to a real name to kill the low level alt troll/spam though.

I agree with tmp.  It won't reduce the trolls at all.  It'll reduce the serious posters, thereby making the boards even worse.

[Goreschach]

Maybe that's their plan? If they get rid of all the serious posters, and have nothing but trolls left, then they can still just fire all the mods. It'll be like 4chan.

[Ironwood]

Lol, tmp, lol.

[Ingmar]

I've always hated the protection that anonymity gives to trolls on internet forums, so this is kind of awesome from this standpoint. It does seem like they didn't need to tie it to a real name to kill the low level alt troll/spam though.

I agree with tmp.  It won't reduce the trolls at all.  It'll reduce the serious posters, thereby making the boards even worse.

I think it will probably reduce both. I don't see any logical reason to think that it won't discourage at least some of the trolls.

[Khaldun]

Maybe that's their plan? If they get rid of all the serious posters, and have nothing but trolls left, then they can still just fire all the mods. It'll be like 4chan.

Honestly, I really do think this is the main motivation. It's eliminating most of the labor they put into community management without taking the bad P.R. hit of actually eliminating their forums outright or hiding them from public view a la SWG.

[tmp]

I think it will probably reduce both. I don't see any logical reason to think that it won't discourage at least some of the trolls.

Yes, certainly. But since trolls outweight sensible posters by large margin, losing some of both is probably going to affect sensible discussion more. Say if you have 5 decent people and 2 of them quit but at the same time 30 trolls remain out of original 50... one of these activities is more likely to dry up than the other.

[Ironwood]

Take five minutes to google someone who you know and plays WoW.  The information that you can obtain and then put to bad purposes is staggering.

One of my wee female friends has an unusual name and it comes up with her Facebook instantly.  Complete with picture that I can only imagine could be put to some extremely poor geek use.

This change doesn't just remove anonymity from WoW.  Or Starcraft.  This change makes people known across the internet.

This is Offensively Stupid.

[caladein]

It doesn't remove anonymity from WoW (or Starcraft II, or any other Blizzard/Activision game it gets added to later), it removes it from their forums.

Now, if you're someone who really likes using the official forums with an assumed name, you should be apoplectic.  Everyone else is just worrying about the slippery slope that honestly, you could get off it before it comes (unlike Facebook's changes without warning).

[Ingmar]

Yes, certainly. But since trolls outweight sensible posters by large margin, losing some of both is probably going to affect sensible discussion more. Say if you have 5 decent people and 2 of them quit but at the same time 30 trolls remain out of original 50... one of these activities is more likely to dry up than the other.

I actually don't think the numbers are quite that bad but I suppose it depends on which forums we're talking about. The signal to noise ratio in the role forums is a lot better than in General, for example.

Regardless, I'm mostly happy to see someone actually trying this out - I hope they stick with it long enough so we can actually see what the real effects are. Even if it is an outright horrible failure, it will be interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up backing off on at least some of the proposed limitations before fully implementing it, though.

Take five minutes to google someone who you know and plays WoW.  The information that you can obtain and then put to bad purposes is staggering.

One of my wee female friends has an unusual name and it comes up with her Facebook instantly.  Complete with picture that I can only imagine could be put to some extremely poor geek use.

This change doesn't just remove anonymity from WoW.  Or Starcraft.  This change makes people known across the internet.

This is Offensively Stupid.

It seems to me that Facebook and perhaps your friend herself are at least as much to blame for her information and picture being publically searchable as Blizzard would be if this scenario came to pass.

[Ironwood]

You're not right.

[Trippy]

We need her name to know for sure

In any case people post stupid shit on Facebook and Twitter using their real names (or easily determined real names) all the time. To young people anonymity and privacy are overrated concepts.

[Simond]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=34

One important point which I don't believe has been relayed yet is that the switch to showing RealID on the forums will only happen with the new forum systems we're launching for StarCraft II shortly before its release, and a new forum system for World of Warcraft launching shortly before the release of Cataclysm.

All posts here on the current World of Warcraft forums, or any of our classic Battle.net forums, will remain as-is. They won't (and can't) automatically switch to showing a real first and last name.

All posts in the future on the new forum systems will be an opt-in choice and ample warning will be given that you're posting with your real first and last name.

[kildorn]

I've always hated the protection that anonymity gives to trolls on internet forums, so this is kind of awesome from this standpoint. It does seem like they didn't need to tie it to a real name to kill the low level alt troll/spam though.

See, I'd like a system where I can click a poster and see all their characters on all servers, because it would attack low level alt trolling (barring idiots who like being known as jackasses, and people willing to pay a 15/month troll tax to have a second account for this crap) by making your idiocy come back and bite you later.

Posting real names though has a huge number of issues attached to it. I know I won't post anymore, because even if I'm just posting normal shit, I don't want my wow posts coming up on a google search for my name. Same reason my facebook is locked down. If you google me, you're probably just going to find professional information and my email address, and that's the way I like it.

I just don't see why a_priest_0007 needs to know my real name to know my opinion on healing efficiency. I'm fine with them being able to see the characters I have, their specs and accomplishments.