RealID

[Juan]

Hmm.

http://brokentoys.org/2010/06/23/you-go ... -orc-game/

Privacy what?

[ash]

orc game?

fuck off

:p

tbh I agree with the principle the article suggests, and feel indeed it is a bit of a breach to show everyone's IRL name. I prefer to know people as green, vince, and orube! For me it just works.

Plus its hella fun when people don't know who you are, when you're on an alt

http://kvn.cutefuzzymeow.com/archives/451

[Commando]

Yeah, I think it is a bit of an overreaction. Fact remains, regardless of how irrelevant the guy on Broken Toys thinks it is, that if you don't want to use RealID you just don't use RealID. Same with MSN, Skype, and Facebook.

I'm not convinced I'm going to use it RealID much myself, but that's mostly because it's just yet another social network rather than through any particular privacy concerns. Virtually everyone on WoW that I have much of an interest in talking to is in CTSamurai anyway, so if someone only plays WoW then they can probably already see when I'm online. If I play other games with someone then they're probably on my Steam list, so they can find me there since I run WoW through Steam.

If I bother picking up Starcraft 2, or if Diablo 3 turns out to be good, I might have more of an interest in RealID. But it's not because of privacy concerns that I'm unlikely to use it, just because I don't want to have to maintain yet another friends list.

[Dave]

I personally won't be bothering with RealID. I didn't read the article, so I dunno what it says about it, but for me, I just don't feel the need to let everyone know what I'm doing, and what alts I'm on all the time. I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, but if for instance I'm playing my mage on Haomarush, I don't necessarily want to be chatting with friends on Neptulon. I'm quite happy to talk to them when I'm ON Neptulon, and playing characters they either have listed as a normal friend, or in-guild. Same goes with family. I love my family a lot, but when my sister and brother-in-law played WoW, I didn't tell them all of my character names 'cause sometimes I just wanna play without chatting. I always have the chat function on Facebook switched off, and I wouldn't want a way for people who know me on MSN to talk to me when I'm on Skype. I like to have control over who I talk to, which is why I won't be RealID-ing. The only acception I can think of would be Dani, but she's always sat half a metre to my left anyway, so no real point.

I did however use RealID in one phase of the Starcraft II Beta. While I didn't mind the people I added as RealID friends knowing my real name, (they know it anyway thanks to Facebook) I didn't really feel comfortable with the fact that I couldn't just have it display only 'Dave'.

Hmm, I feel like I'm sounding terribly anti-social now, like you all annoy me and I need to escape to alts on other servers.

[Brechnar]

Hmm, I feel like I'm sounding terribly anti-social now, like you all annoy me and I need to escape to alts on other servers.

To me you don't I pretty much share your opinion, I like to have a bit of control over who will be able to chat to me and who won't. I'm not sure whether I like the RealID or not, might give it a try and see what's it all about first..

[Dave]

I quite like the changes they've made to the whole chat system. Nothing too fancy, but I think the fact that you can add people to a chat window to chat together is a nice feature. Very useful if you're spamming heroics or busy with a raid, you can still have a dedicated window or tab available for a bunch of people you want to talk to at the same time.

As for RealID... I has a single friend! Just wanted to see what it was like. I won't really make much use out of it though considering this friend sits next to me all the time. I may reverse my opinion on it in the future, but for the time being I'm happy to just ignore it. It's just there are some people out there that will talk to you as soon as you get online, every time you get online. And then there are the people who just talk to you sometimes. I like the latter bunch mostly, so if I ever do use RealID, I'd most likely have those types of people added as I know they're not gonna pester me the second I start playing.

[Septih]

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 -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.

Bad. Bad bad bad.

[ash]

Well if you think about it, it has some benefits. We all know how much the b.net troll community transferred from WC3 to WoW.

This could potentially "improve" the general failboat that the official forums quite often are.

If someone wanted to troll x y z, but it came across as their real name, who would start to have second thoughts?

admittedly it breaks the general ideology of the internets, but for WoW, I believe it could be the best thing for the community.

[Commando]

[ash]

easiest solution for any of us is:

Don't post on the official forums!

[Septih]

Well if you think about it, it has some benefits. We all know how much the b.net troll community transferred from WC3 to WoW.

This could potentially "improve" the general failboat that the official forums quite often are.

If someone wanted to troll x y z, but it came across as their real name, who would start to have second thoughts?

admittedly it breaks the general ideology of the internets, but for WoW, I believe it could be the best thing for the community.

Bad. Bad bad bad.

[ash]

Most game companies have always held the belief that if people want to play a game, then they will. If it happens to go global and a stupidillion number of players sign up, then fantastic. However, it is still their game, that they like to think is under their control. Same can be said for the forums which they provide.

One blog is not going to change the outcome of this. The line of thinking that has taken us to this point is a problem at a governmental level (at least in the UK and America). This overlord strategy is practically built into our culture now. (Intellectual property, copyright, RIAA, MPAA, suing, counter-suing, defamatory press, "the public interest", etc)

I am a sheep. I will moan and complain, but essentially, all I will do is either move country or give up.

The only way this can change is if millions of people make a stand.
or fewer people with pieloads of money (more than the industries).

I fear there is no hope.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100627/1124369974.shtml
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100702/17551510065.shtml
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100706/03220710079.shtml
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100702/02153310053.shtml
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/07/06/ ... lashdot%29

Some of it is for copyright, some of it is against, but some of the ones for copyright, are downright absurd. It by some fluke of corruption or madness occurred (digital economy bill) a law is passed... well. nuff said.

[Septih]

Most game companies have always held the belief that if people want to play a game, then they will. If it happens to go global and a stupidillion number of players sign up, then fantastic. However, it is still their game, that they like to think is under their control. Same can be said for the forums which they provide.

One blog is not going to change the outcome of this.

Of course not. I'm not going up in arms over this, nor am I cancelling my account or never posting on the forums again. I'm just outlining why it's a bad idea. And yes the game and the forums is under their control and there will always be an outcry if they do something not everyone approves of (see class nerfs). I just think this change will upset far more than it helps, and so do the thousands of replies on the forum threads about the change.

As for the other stuff, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by big government and big business and all their suspect doings, at some point you have to take stock of what's relevant to you.

[ash]

Call me a scaremonger, paranoid or give me a tinfoil hat if you wish, but essentially, this RealID is just one sign of things to come.

And the amusing thing is, most people aren't even that bothered

I think that this should be called 'herding'.

[ash]

lol @ the blue tracker

every thread for like 6 pages is about realID