Privacy? Blasphemy!

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Privacy? Blasphemy!

Post by 2-P » Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:38 am

So in case you haven't heard of the next big fail from Blizzard yet...

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature - http://www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

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. The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting.

The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

We also plan to add a number of other features designed to make reading the forums more enjoyable and to empower players with tools to improve the quality of forum discussions. Players will have the ability to rate up or rate down posts so that great topics and replies stand out from the not-so-great; low-rated posts will appear dimmer to show that the community feels that they don’t contribute effectively to the conversation, and Blizzard’s community team will be able to quickly and easily locate highly rated posts to participate in or to highlight discussions that players find worthwhile.

In addition, individual topics will be threaded by context, meaning replies to specific posts will be grouped together, making it easier for players to keep track of multiple conversations within a thread. We’re also adding a way for Blizzard posters to “broadcast” important messages forums-wide , to help communicate breaking news to the community in a clear and timely fashion. Beyond that, we’re improving our forum search function to make locating interesting topics easier and help lower the number of redundant threads, and we have more planned as well.

With the launch of the new Battle.net, it’s important to us to create a new and different kind of online gaming environment -- one that’s highly social, and which provides an ideal place for gamers to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships. All of our design decisions surrounding Real ID -- including these forum changes -- have been made with this goal in mind.

We’ve given a great deal of consideration to the design of Real ID as a company, as gamers, and as enthusiastic users of the various online-gaming, communication, and social-networking services that have become available in recent years. 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 conventions like PAX 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. As the way gamers interact with one another continues to evolve, our goal is to ensure Battle.net is equipped to handle the ever-changing social-gaming experience for years to come.

For more info on Real ID, check out our Real ID page and FAQ located at http://www.battle.net/realid/ . We look forward to answering your questions about these upcoming forum changes in the thread below.

Update - Text updated to include more current and correct information regarding legacy forums and their use of Real ID. "The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting."
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?to ... 1&sid=3000


So basically you're posting with your real name on their forums soon. Awesome, isn't it?


The first "victim" of the whole story is Bashiok, a Blizzard employee. In an attempt to defend the new system he posted his real name. A few minutes afterwards people had his phone number, address, age, the name of his wife, the school his kids attend (WTF?), pictures of his house (google street view), etc...

Bashiok has already deleted his Facebook-Account and blocked his phone number.

Source (German): http://www.gamona.de/games/activision-b ... 69743.html
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Loki » Thu Jul 08, 2010 2:25 pm

I'm going to point towards CAD and the author's point of view on the whole issue.
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/

This in particular:
If they've got the Battle.net account system in place, why not allow us to choose a single nickname associated with the Battle.net account. Any time you want to post on a Blizzard forum, this is the name that is going to show up. This is the name that you are known by in the Blizzard community, no matter which game, until you decide you've twinked up enough that you need to buy a new account to get a clean slate. And if you're really nasty, Blizzard removes forum permissions for that Bnet account.

Take it one step further, even. Have this Battle.net nickname appear attached to all your in-game WoW characters as well. Keep the Real ID for real friends and families, use this other ID name for everyone else.
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by 2-P » Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:42 pm

Yeah, I totally agree with him about the "social experiment" side of the whole thing, it's going to be really interesting.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NgAkWxcPBE the end is so hilarious. xD

The announcement thread on the WoW forum has reached over 40000 posts in 2 days. Insane.
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Separation » Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:42 pm

I have heard of this and looked at some posts in that 1400 page announcement about REAL ID, it is stupid IMO.

I don't play WoW or post on BNet forums, but I know people who do, and some of them have unique names. I know someone who has a name with only a couple other people in the world with it. People underestimate what you can do with a name, and if it gets in the hands of someone unstable (it has happened before sadly) something could happen. They want to eliminate trolling, they should hire mods for that. As PP stated, the thing that happened with the Blizzard employee could happen again.

WoW/Bnet isn't Facebook IMO.

EDIT: Blizzard buckles on REALID

http://www.incgamers.com/News/23914/bli ... on-real-id

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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Oxygen » Sun Jul 11, 2010 9:56 pm

they removed it

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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Loki » Sun Jul 11, 2010 10:25 pm

Hepo already edited his post, oxy.
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Oxygen » Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:03 am

Loki wrote:Hepo already edited his post, oxy.
they still removed it

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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Loki » Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:41 am

My point just flew way over your head.

Anyways, they still have the RealID stuff on SC2 if you add someone by their battle.net email account rather than by their user name. They also did this "add your friends from facebook" thing where they check your facebook and see if anyone on your friends list is in the beta.
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Oxygen » Tue Jul 20, 2010 12:06 am

Loki wrote:My point just flew way over your head.
as did my troll for you ;|

Anyway, I don't know why they're dicking around with that. You'd think that they have more to worry about than linking games together. Here's an idea: If you like someone, shoot them your MSN / AIM / WHATEVER. So far, this social network they're trying to create is really bad. I've experienced first hand (wow / sc2) and half the time bnet is down, for one.

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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by 2-P » Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:59 pm

Game clients that are downloaded online or installed from the physical box set will only connect to the region for which they’re made.
So I just canceled my pre-order. Even the game you buy is region locked, in other words if I buy the German (or any other European) version I can't use it to play on the US servers.

Excuse me, but what the F are they thinking?! That's a freaking joke....

Oh right, I could buy the game digitally over an American account... no wait, I'd actually have to give them real information about me if I want to buy a game over the BN store. And that's not gonna happen. Ever.


Source: http://starcraft.incgamers.com/blog/com ... ation-faq/
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Fledermaus » Wed Jul 21, 2010 2:38 pm

But, as we stated regarding cross region support, it’s something we’re working to implement after the launch of the game and it will allow you to connect to other regions should you choose to do so; as I mentioned, we’ve taken steps and are continuing to work with local ISPs on ensuring Oceanic players have as fast as reliable a connection to our Southeast Asia datacenter as possible.
Source: Post number 101 (sorry, I can't find a way to link directly to a specific post on the bnet forums).

There is hope PP, but I'm sure as hell not going to buy it until it is unlock (lord knows why it can be that they can't have it unlocked at release. I guess they'll probably save it for an expansion so we have to buy 2 games). I'll probably wait until they loosen up on the map submission shit too.

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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by 2-P » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:09 pm

Yeah, "after the launch" can be anything between 1 month and 10 years...

Haha, the map submission... I bet they gonna add a lot of microtransaction crap in that regard. Blizz taking money from the map makers who create content for their game sounds logical. =D
.... dunno, I don't have time until mid-August anyway so I'm just goinng to wait and see if something happens.
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Re: Privacy? Blsphemy!

Post by Rising_Dusk » Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:50 am

This is pretty amusing. Just another reason I don't support Blizzard as a company.
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