Official forums: Real names only

[VincentSDSH]

Originally Posted by Ailae They had to put a "at this time" in there? :P Oh well, this is good news indeed. They took a major trust hit though, at least for me.

For me as well. I'll never trust Blizzard again the way I did, and I'm both mentally and emotionally ready to burn the bridges now. The discussion of "where to next?" has already begun b/c of this episode and while it will no doubt be dormant and quiet for a time, I don't think anyone will stop looking and wondering.

Cata is the first expansion in an online game I've ever really looked forward to and was excited about. Now...well, it's hard to relax and think about a year from now, or really six months from now. "...At this time," indeed.

[Shadowed]

Originally Posted by VincentSDSH For me as well. I'll never trust Blizzard again the way I did, and I'm both mentally and emotionally ready to burn the bridges now. The discussion of "where to next?" has already begun b/c of this episode and while it will no doubt be dormant and quiet for a time, I don't think anyone will stop looking and wondering. Cata is the first expansion in an online game I've ever really looked forward to and was excited about. Now...well, it's hard to relax and think about a year from now, or really six months from now. "...At this time," indeed.

Something to keep in mind, but companies are run by people and people do make mistakes. I wasn't thrilled with this change either, but at least they listened.

[voodoodad]

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that they've changed their minds.. And even more grateful that in some small way each of us contributed to that... But somehow I don't think this is the end. The cynical part of me is still looking at the "at this time" part and wondering what is in store for the near future.

[Cralor]

Well, you do have to remember it is a game and you can stop playing at anytime. If you are no longer having fun playing the game, then you'll ultimately have to stop playing.

This was a bad decision on their part, and they have luckily revoked that decision, but I still believe Blizzard is a very great company and I continue to believe in their great gaming franchises.

StarCraft and World of Warcraft didn't just become the top 2 video games in the world magically.

With what Shadowed has said, which I totally agree, I am not taking this "fiasco" personally/very seriously because they obviously didn't do enough thinking about this decision and there are mistakes that can be made. Be glad they listened.

[altairwolf]

OK read up to page 7...so if it was posted after I didn't see it yet.

REAL NAMES NO LONGER REQUIRED for Real ID.

This has been changed to an OPTION.

Apparently one of the blues posted his real name and with in hours, pictures of his house, his mom's house, him, his facebook, his twitter, sisters name, brothers name, parents names were all posted to the thread.

Blizzard changed their stance after that.

[Slakah]

What a shame I was looking forward to the "Rate my life" threads.

[Vampyrate]

Originally Posted by altairwolf OK read up to page 7...so if it was posted after I didn't see it yet. REAL NAMES NO LONGER REQUIRED for Real ID. This has been changed to an OPTION. Apparently one of the blues posted his real name and with in hours, pictures of his house, his mom's house, him, his facebook, his twitter, sisters name, brothers name, parents names were all posted to the thread. Blizzard changed their stance after that.

Well we don't exactly know that Blizz changing their mind was a direct result of Micah Whipple but I'm sure it was one of the things to consider along with the 50K some odd responses lol.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by altairwolf REAL NAMES NO LONGER REQUIRED for Real ID. This has been changed to an OPTION.

Source please.

This is how rumor gets started. Someone reports something half correct and someone repeats it then somone else repeats it and ad infinitum.

The change is not that "REAL NAMES NO LONGER REQUIRED for Real IDs" but that we will no longer be required to use real names to post on the forums.

Real Names are still used for Real ID friends.

EDIT : You might of been talking of the last post on page 9 of the comments on the wowriot URL made by godriot

"Victory for Freedom of Speech - Real ID cancelled.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=13816839821&sid=1"

If you follow the link you come to a page discussing the cancellation of requiring you use a Real ID real name for posting on the forums.

This is not quite the same as you have posted.

Originally Posted by altairwolf Apparently one of the blues posted his real name and with in hours, pictures of his house, his mom's house, him, his facebook, his twitter, sisters name, brothers name, parents names were all posted to the thread. Blizzard changed their stance after that.

It was more then 1 blue. It was at least four - one US male GM and one male EU GM and 2 Females - two from the US side.

This all happened within hours of the news breaking.

Meanwhile for a few days they had a thread of titanic proportions growing in the General forums that they never put a thread cap on. Threads that are too large usually get a thread cap on them. Some of the time they even delete multiple threads on a subject to get people to keep in the one thread. They didn't do that either - the forums were littered with random threads on it.

Given their employees privacy was compromised within hours of the news breaking yet they let us post as much feedback as we like for several days I like to think they listened to us.


IMHO The blues got the edict from Activision about this. They probably knew full well what it meant for their privacy but they were forced to do it anyway.

[Cairenn]

I have no doubt that that (the bit about real names on forums) is what altairwolf was talking about. People are excited. Leniency is a good thing.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by Cairenn I have no doubt that that (the bit about real names on forums) is what altairwolf was talking about. People are excited. Leniency is a good thing.

>_> <_<

If that is the case then I apologise. Had a hot flush remembering the whole wowmatrix fiasco

[Sythalin]

Source

Ask and you shall receive. At least one bit of player feedback has finally been listened to....

[Cairenn]

You misread, Chaos.

*Hugs Blu* No worries.

[Sythalin]

Meh, it happens. Then again I do admit to not reading the last couple pages since my last post.

[Vampyrate]

Not to sound like a conspiracy whack job but I'm inclined to believe two things on this matter.

Since it seems Kotick firmly believes in the bottom line and has double $ $ for irises, he may have become blinded by the partnership with Facebook. He might have honestly believed that in going forward with the Real ID forum broadcasting that he'd be making Blizz forums very similar to the current "in" thing in social networking.

The other thought is along the lines of the only bad press is NO press. Management may have fully known the MASSIVE stink, and at the same time, publicity that a decision like this would cause. They went public with the apparent "decision" just like somebody chucking a grenade behind them. They knew full well what the grenade would do but had already planned to come in and sweep up after it went off. Look how many media outlets picked up the story. From MTV to Yahoo, it was everywhere. The thread grew to HUGE proportions. It honestly feels like it was all planned and on a timer. Notice how every time you read the story in included the mention of WHEN STARCRAFT 2 COMES OUT AND WHEN CATACLYSM COMES OUT. Does it remind anybody of the scene in Wayne's World where they talk against product placement but he slowly eats from a Dorito's bag and then carefully drinks some Pepsi?

I think the very LEAST and LAST thing they intended to do was crack down on trolling via the Real ID. If I and dozens of other people could come up with the idea of a nickname attached to everything, I'm sure internal employees with a brain and who get paid to use that brain on behalf of their company would have thought of the idea too. I feel we were snow jobbed and Blizzard fully intended to walk out into the street with the dark hat and handle bar mustache, tie the girl to the tracks, then run behind a building and come back out as Superdude and rescue her.

Here's the nick everybody in my guild knows me as-NapalmDawn. That's all that needed to be assigned to every Blizzard related forum post I make.

[voodoodad]

The whole trolling prevention thing was definitely a red herring. As I stated in a previous post, the only way that posting a player's rl name would prevent trolling is if other people (non-Blizzard employees) were policing the threads and harassing the trolls in real life.

[Ferous]

Well, it seems all the posts hit a nerve. they aren't going to do it no more.

Proofs! http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...68987278&sid=1

I realized it was already posted.

[Taryble]

Just an amusing bit, according to several of my friends who work for Blizzard, even those people not directly affected by the change (GM's, account services, etc) were monitoring the size of the thread on the OF over the course of the days that this was going. Entire teams of GM's were posting the current postcount into their team-chat.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by Taryble Just an amusing bit, according to several of my friends who work for Blizzard, even those people not directly affected by the change (GM's, account services, etc) were monitoring the size of the thread on the OF over the course of the days that this was going. Entire teams of GM's were posting the current postcount into their team-chat.

Not surprised.

Although I'm not sure how account services would be not directly affected, given rumors about the size of the cancelstorm.

[Melody Kitn]

Me and the hubby were throwing around the idea that maybe it was all a diabolical scheme to get people to complain less on the forums.

Since a nice chunk of people were thinking of boycotting posting on the forums if it were to have their real name, imagine the impact it might have had in regards to posting disgruntled issues about ingame things, or rants about bugs and wait times. Less irate posts for Blizz to have to deal with with supposedly less trolls.

Almost sounds like a win/win situation in their minds... almost.

I for one am glad it's being nixed, but it may have come at an awful time considering FFXIV is gearing up to release and I am mighty curious about it...

[Aarokh]

Originally Posted by Melody Kitn FFXIV is gearing up to release and I am mighty curious about it...

Yep, preordered already. Hopefully a game in which you actually have to group and socialize again to level and not solo your way up from lvl 1 to max. Just like good old Everquest 1 back in the glory days.

Oh and an edit to not derail the thread:

I have mixed feelings aboutt the realID. On the one hand it really would reduce trolling alot, on the other hand I think trolling could be controlled by a better moderation on their official forums. Often enough I read stuff thats (imho) over the edge. (And we know, Blizzard theoretically has more than enough money to be able to afford such moderation.)