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World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins

Next thing you know, people in this thread are going to be talking about their GearScore and their strategies for ICC 25man Heroic. But on to the topic at hand, it seems like Blizzard is trying to make World of Warcraft have a social networking like component to it. As long as they keep that optional, I have not issue with it. I mean this is not retroactive for forum posts, so I'll just stop posting on the WoW forums, and I won't add any RealID friends. Problem solved.

Social networking is the primary attraction to MMOs. Your friends, or the lack there of, make or brake the game for you. The game itself becomes secondary. Even buying gold is nothing more than a tool to stay in the group. You need to be able to fly where the group flys, raid where the group raids, etc.

I've noticed that the primary issue taken with RealID is not so much with being targeted for advertising but in negative/unwanted social interaction.
 
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Pugs these days are born of the random dungeon finder, meaning they would have to search through all profiles of everyone playing WoW, not only the profiles on your realm. I just can't see the average troll looking through millions of RealID profiles to find 1 toon's name.

Raids aren't simply born from the dungeon finder.
When you're in a PUG 5-man it displays your server next to your name
 
Activisions stock fell today. Wondering if that will continue for a bit
 
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16. DISCLOSURES; THIRD PARTY FEATURES.

1. Massive.
Blizzard's Games and the Service may incorporate technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft"), that enables in-game advertising, and the display of other similar in-game objects, which are downloaded temporarily to your personal computer and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Massive may collect some information about the game and the advertisements delivered to you, as well as standard information that is sent when your personal computer or game console connects to the Internet including your Internet protocol (IP) address. Massive will use this information to transmit and measure in-game advertising, as well as to improve the products and services of Massive and its affiliates. None of the information collected by Massive will be used to identify you. For additional details regarding Massive's in-game advertising practices, please see Massive's In-Game Advertising privacy statement at Ikke-navngivet dokument. The trademarks and copyrighted material contained in all in-game advertising are the property of the respective owners. Portions of the Service are © 2008 Massive Incorporated. All rights reserved.

2. Facebook.
If you have a registered "Facebook Account" you may opt-in to the "Facebook Friends" feature which will allow you to see which of your Facebook friends are registered on the Service. The "Facebook Account" is subject to separate terms and conditions provided by Facebook Inc. Note that if you have a Facebook account, your Facebook friends will be able to associate your screen name with your real name on the Service when they use the Facebook Friends feature. Facebook disclaims all liability it may otherwise incur as a result of this Agreement and/or your use of the Service.

More changes coming.
 
Yeah randoms arent too bad. I random in the mornings when the dedicated players are getting their things done before work and I rarely run into incompetents, i just end up doing 40-50% of the dps half the time. Nobody seems to use the random raid finder or raid que. But plenty of raids fall apart and I end up saved to crap because ppl suck and I'm not able to schedule into my guild raids.
 
If you have evidence of this bring it up with the moderators, this is not tolerated around here..... period.

My brother serves the Western alliance, that includes your country and your community. If you think he would abuse his position in the military then screw you. :roll:

Now i know very little about what he can and can't do, but just bear that in mind, and also remember revealing your full name on the internet is never a clever idea anyway. And Gray Fox, your a douche.
 
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Great blog entry by Shade explaining why this has raised the ire of so many: An Open Letter to Blizzard « Shades of Grey

…okay. Sorry. Little carried away. But that’s it, you get it? That’s why I play. That’s why my friends play. Because we like to come home from a long day of being John Smith or Jane Doe and get on the computer and MURDER SOME REALLY AWESOME INTERNET DRAGONS.

We don’t want to be John Smith.

We don’t want to be Jane Doe.

onyxia.jpg
 
The amount of people who cancelled subscriptions must have been alot ....

Blizzard reverses RealID in forums.

Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( Blizzard Entertainment: Mission Statement ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Regarding Real Names in Forums

Victory! :kitty:
 
Dammit. I was soooo looking forward to starting new adventures with a new game and my old friends...

Same but for me this reverse may be good news but all I see is a delay. They will test the waters again at a later date.
I think it's time for me to explore outside of Blizzard, this was merely the trigger.
 
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Same but for me this reverse may be good news but all I see is a delay. They will test the waters again at a later date.
I think it's time for me to explore outside of Blizzard, this was merely the trigger.

Come play DDO with us? Though, I think a new boundary is going to be set with this new game. I am only gonna play when my friends are on, I think. We can quest together but aside from that, not really interested in a new internet crack habit since I am finding out this week how fun life was before WOW.
 
So much for all those around the net that said people complaining on forums wouldn't matter. That threats of canceled subscriptions wouldn't matter and that a negligible amount of people would have actually canceled subscriptions. That all the complaining and the protesting of it was for naught as they wre just a vocal minority that would not sway Blizzard.

And Blizzard likely was intelligent in having their guy make the announcement and not have it being something out of Koticks mouth.

A wonderful example if anything of the power of the customer in the digital age.
 
Come play DDO with us? Though, I think a new boundary is going to be set with this new game. I am only gonna play when my friends are on, I think. We can quest together but aside from that, not really interested in a new internet crack habit since I am finding out this week how fun life was before WOW.

I'll start downloading it now, will be fun without the EU/US barrier.

I haven't logged on since the fiasco started and honestly after years of it, I felt relief when I cancelled my subscription.
After raiding sometimes 5+ times a week 4-6 hours every time, I am not interested in anything heavy

I also got myself a new PS3 =)
 
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So much for all those around the net that said people complaining on forums wouldn't matter. That threats of canceled subscriptions wouldn't matter and that a negligible amount of people would have actually canceled subscriptions. That all the complaining and the protesting of it was for naught as they wre just a vocal minority that would not sway Blizzard.

And Blizzard likely was intelligent in having their guy make the announcement and not have it being something out of Koticks mouth.

A wonderful example if anything of the power of the customer in the digital age.

To be honest I am shocked they listened.

This would never EVER happened if it was EA.
 
I'll start downloading it now, will be fun without the EU/US barrier.

I haven't logged on since the fiasco started and honestly after years of it, I felt relief when I cancelled my subscription.
After raiding sometimes 5+ times a week 4-6 hours every time, I am not interested in anything heavy

I also got myself a new PS3 =)


Why can't I meet a girl like you here in the US?
 
To be honest I am shocked they listened.

This would never EVER happened if it was EA.

My only honest guess in this is that the rumor going around that blizzard employee's were very upset about this as well and that reportedly a number of their forum moderators and even employees were on the verge of stepping down over it probably helped push it. If this was a bunch of Guitar Hero fans doing this directly to activision I truly wonder if it would've worked. Part of me buys a bit into the rumors about the blizz employee's and think that a lot of it was internal pushing as well as external. To me that's the only thing that would fully make sense.
 
Why can't I meet a girl like you here in the US?

<3
Find 'em up at Blizzcon :p
My partner does not understand my gaming habits or addiction or my love of hello kitty, shame he can't learn that from you.
 
My only honest guess in this is that the rumor going around that blizzard employee's were very upset about this as well and that reportedly a number of their forum moderators and even employees were on the verge of stepping down over it probably helped push it. If this was a bunch of Guitar Hero fans doing this directly to activision I truly wonder if it would've worked. Part of me buys a bit into the rumors about the blizz employee's and think that a lot of it was internal pushing as well as external. To me that's the only thing that would fully make sense.

Alot of the US MVP's on the forums were going to leave if this were implemented and some of the EU CM's had reservations about it.

So internally I doubt this was very popular considering the blogs that demonstrated what can be found by just a name.
 
So much for all those around the net that said people complaining on forums wouldn't matter. That threats of canceled subscriptions wouldn't matter and that a negligible amount of people would have actually canceled subscriptions. That all the complaining and the protesting of it was for naught as they wre just a vocal minority that would not sway Blizzard.

And Blizzard likely was intelligent in having their guy make the announcement and not have it being something out of Koticks mouth.

A wonderful example if anything of the power of the customer in the digital age.

I can tell you from working at SOE that those guys very much pay attention to the community. I can't imagine Blizz is much different.
 
<3
Find 'em up at Blizzcon :p
My partner does not understand my gaming habits or addiction or my love of hello kitty, shame he can't learn that from you.

Well here's to that!

:kitty::kitty::kitty:
 
Is this going to affect everyone negatively? No.

Will it probably affect me negatively? Probably not. I don't tend to start raids myself, have no problem passing on loot, and dislike PVP thus play on a PVE server. I'm a 20-30's white middle class male without a kid.

Does this mean there are not legions of people within that 11 million person population where it IS likely to negatively affect them? Absolutely not.

Do white supremists or racists play the game? Are you telling me out of 11 million people there are none of them? What happens when they find out a guild mate is black?

Children can now be identified for those that may have predatory feelings.

Women will be unable to hide behind male alts or with that hanging lingering notion of ambiguity since not all female models are played by women. Even women that are publicly known to be women suddenly are more easily accessible.

Is escapism somehow bad? Is the desire to be anonymous some kind of morally reprehensible thing? Should we be ashamed that we want to go play a game without everyone in the world possibly finding out about it if they so choose to do as much as google our name? Should I have to worry about doing legitimate in game actions because it could have severe RL consequences.

Kori said a game is still real life and thus we should expect real life things to occur. I disagree. Yes, playing the game is real life, actions in the game affect the game. A large portion of the game is aimed at KILLING people on the other side. For those that are too emotionally attached or too emtionally unstable or just having other issues simply interacting in the game could cause negative reactiosn and providing a real name does nothing but allow for further likelihood of legitimate game actions causing illigitimate real life consequences. Even on an RP server, if a CHARACTER's personality is supposed to be that of a sarcastic dick that shouldn't be reason why its acceptable for another player to call that person up in real life and harass them.

Again, IF we're to take Blizzard at face level...and I don't, but if we're believing they're not lying...the benefit in regards to reduction of trolling is FAR outweighted by the potential hazards it poses.

Some of these people are probably in the same clans with blacks as friends and don't even know it. :lol:
 
Some of these people are probably in the same clans with blacks as friends and don't even know it. :lol:

Which was in part my point. What would happen when they suddenly noticed that Skullhunter was actually Ezekial Jackson or Miguel Colón or a "Muslim" sounding name
 
Like "Saddam Abdullah Bin Durka Osama Mohammed Mustafa Jaffarahad". It'd blow their mindz.
 
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