nailbat.us

Where it stands now...
So I've just discussed this with my friend at Blizzard who's close to the source. Real ID is not going away, and the backlash, as yet, has not convinced the powers that be to alter course. As Cliff said, they will not be allowing Blizzard employees anonymity. This coming policy has already forced two employees (that I'm aware, knowing one personally) to delete their FB accounts to avoid harassment. Fanbois. Anyway... unless something changes, they are very intentionally not allowing you to create pseudonyms or use off-line/hidden status options. Having your real name show up in a post is something that will start with the revised forums. It is not retroactive (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.htm ... 3816838128).

You can avoid posting on the soon-to-be-launched forum, and your name won't be there. Fine. If that was where it ended, I'd grumble and never post again. However... the desire to curb WoW forum misbehavior is only a surface motivation - having your real name associated with a Blizzard account, publicly available, and always on, is key to their plan to integrate social networking (Facebook) with Blizzard Games.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2840 ... ration.php

The integration will roll out starting with StarCraft II, and will be tested alongside that game's ongoing beta. As to whether the Battle.net integration will use Facebook in other ways -- as do games that let players post scores and activity updates to their profiles -- Blizzard says that other features will be announced at a later date.

No, they haven't started suddenly sharing all your information with Facebook, and the sky is not falling. I'm not suggesting we will be bombarded with internet trolls for playing WoW just because our real names are known. However... Getting into bed with Facebook, which is well known for repeated privacy shenanigans, is where I must draw my line. My reasoning for opting out is:

1) Facebook is shady as hell and I'm only using them until a better alternative comes forward (I long ago deleted personal information there).
2) Corporations change policy/direction on a dime when personnel change, and I do not trust Blizzard in perpetuity to protect my information.
3) Keeping information in isolated locations is the key to security. If I cannot be anonymous, I'd like to keep my gaming and my social networking separate.
4) While right now it appears you need to actively participate and tell Facebook you are playing Blizzard games, I do not trust that to remain as is.

If this concerns you, you have two ways to turn off Real ID - one iffy, and one solid.

How to disable Real ID
1. Option 1 - Per the Blizzard FAQ: "To stop using Real ID, simply remove all of your Real ID friends from your friends list, and do not accept any more Real ID friend requests." This option still allows Real ID requests to be sent and also still tacitly implies your acceptance of Real ID (rather murky legally imo).

2. Option 2 - Turn on parental controls that disable Real ID permanently. Go to https://us.battle.net/account/parental- ... index.html, and activate parental controls. You will receive an access link at the email address provided which you click to get to the parental controls html page. The very first option is shutting off Real ID.

Sorry for the wall of text, and the alarm. Forewarned is forearmed.

EDIT: You do not necessarily need an alternate email address for the parental controls. It can be your battle.net registered email.

So a side effect of using Real ID in forum names is that you'll start showing up in search engines. I talked with the CTO at my company here. Something that employers do when they do when you are going through the interviewing process is do a google search on you... look through facebook or linked in etc. Any publicly available information. Previously, "Tethealla" would show up... now my real name does.

If you wanted to keep the fact that you play WoW out of the public eye, you no longer can post to the WoW forums.

I'm already screwed. I have a very unique name and always used it as my forum name. You can easily find posts I made years ago in WoW forums.

In any case, my opinions about the WoW forums is rather academic. I don't post there. I've made maybe 5 posts in the last 4+ years that I've played WoW.

A fairly good article about the whole Real ID transition, that was retweeted by Felicia Day of The Guild:

http://hellmode.com/2010/07/06/why-real ... /#more-390

For some reason the whole Real ID controversy makes me chuckle and think of the ending scene from Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Today's Control Alt Delete
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100707

Ugh, right now there's a lovely little exploit/unpatched hole in the api that means an addon can get your realID name and could send it wherever it wants without you being aware of it. I'm reading now that they've alerted them and a blue on the EU forums dismissed this as being an issue. There's no confirmed news of any such addon doing that that I can find yet and you would have to get an addon that had such malicious code, but the fact that it's possible to do that really bothers me.

I love the idea of this in game (not so fond of it for forums but I'll just stop using those, I don't much anyway). What I dislike is this:
A. Not having an option to opt out of appearing on friends of friends, or having an option to not show my friends of friends. To put it into real world terms, just because I agreed to both have sex with and give my number to Thorlakur, doesn't automatically mean that I also want to give my number to his friends Runni, Gunni and Binni. Maybe I do want to give them my number too, but would it seriously have hurt to give me an opt-in/out option for that particular feature?
B. Not fixing the ability of addons to potentially get your realID and do whatever the heck they want with it without you ever consenting to give it away to oh say /2. That needs to be fixed, not dismissed.

Blizzard just backed out of forced Real ID for 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, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) 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

From this post.

I'm not really surprised Blizzard backed out. I'm sure they're getting flack from all sides. They were doing this to out the trolls, but this annoyed troll and non-troll alike. I wonder if it was a group decision, or it took the CEO to say, "NO". He was the one who wrote the letter.

I'm happy that Star Craft is getting the new forum features first. It'll give them a chance to try them out. That blog Eisengar posted yesterday had a few good points about the new features... like a whole rival guild going in and downgrading a post just because they're annoyed at you. Now of course, the blizzard forums are heavily moderated. If a rival guild does this too much, they could get their hands slapped by the moderators. Since the SC2 forums get this soon, we'll see how blizzard handles people mishandling their forums.

Not to rain on any victory parade, but this is not going away. The persons responsible for Real ID have only backed off on the most controversial aspect, in the face of overwhelming opposition at a critical date. This was a huge PR diverson from the upcoming Starcraft II launch. Depending on future customer reaction, they could very well try to re-implement at a later date.

If you want to use the system, you still cannot opt out of friends of friends or hide your real name in-game, and the coming integration with Facebook should at the least make one cautious.

The main thing we can be happy about is their executives are not entirely tone deaf to the community.

Good news. Now all I want is for that little loophole with RealID and mods to get fixed and to get at least the option to opt in/out of showing/being shown as friend of friend.