Real ID by stealth

Blizzard has just released Real ID 'upgrades', defaulting players to have Real ID active.

For the record, while Blizzard insists on linking real life names and email accounts to Real ID, I will not be using it. By default, your account is protected by two items : your email account and your password. Blizzard implementing by defailt Friends of friends means there will be many more accounts hacked.

I have just disabled Real ID. You do this by logging into your battlenet account. For US based players, the link is https://us.battle.net/account/management/settings/change-communication.html

I find that (WoW Interface) Friends with Benefits is a great way to track friends on multiple alts.

Mail from blizzard on World of Warcraft - Real ID and Forum Changes

My response to Blizzard Thank you for reversing your stance on real names on the WOW forums.  I have since renewed both my son's and my personal accounts. Also, thank you for allowing me to opt out of Friends of Friends.  However, it is still not enough for me to use real id in games.  In Wow, on blogs, and in vent I am known as Foo.  (Almost) no one in game knows me as Unknown.  Untill I am able to choose an alias (I would accept toon name + guild + server), I do not intend to use real id in game. This is unfortunate as we have many alts, and using friends lists to keep track of alts is becoming painful.   I will however continue to use addons like Tekkub's 'Friends with Benefits' (Link to www.wowinterface.com) as it allows me the privacy I require. The email from Blizzard Greetings UNKNOWN! We noticed that you recently cancelled your World of Warcraft® subscription for account UNKNOWN. The comments you left with your cancellation mentioned the new policies we had announced for our official forums, so we wanted to make sure you were aware that we have changed some of our plans with regard to the forums and our in-game Real ID system as well. One of Blizzard Entertainment’s core values is that Every Voice Matters, and feedback from players like you is what helps drive our direction and decisions. After considering your feedback and that of other members of our community, and weighing it against our goals for improving the forums, we ultimately decided not to move forward with the plan to require real names to be displayed when posting on the forums. Blizzard Entertainment CEO and Cofounder Mike Morhaime made the official announcement of this decision here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html? topicId=25968987278. In addition to changing those plans, we have also listened to player feedback regarding the Real ID Friends-of-Friends feature. We understand that not everyone is comfortable being displayed on friends-of-friends lists in this fashion, so we are developing an option to allow players to opt out of this feature. The full announcement and FAQ can be found here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html? topicId=26137024221. We hope that this will allay some of the concerns that led to your departure from World of Warcraft. Your characters are waiting for you, and you can renew your subscription at any time through Account Management at this link: http://us.battle.net/account. If you have further questions or concerns, we’d love to hear from you. Simply e-mail realidfollowup@blizzard.com, and we’ll have a representative respond within 10 days. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to talk—and best wishes to you! Regards, Customer Care & Loyalty Team Blizzard Entertainment http://www.blizzard.com

Real names will not be required for posting

... we've [Blizzard] decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums ...

Thank you Blizzard.  This means that, as I said earlier, at this time I will renew my subscriptions.

I am pleased with this decision.  I welcome that 'character name' + 'character code' will be posted on the forums.  This will allow for the accountabilty that you wish to bring.  If this was the implementation for in-game real id information (as opposed to providing a real life name), I may even start to use Real Id in-game.

Please be aware that I am still upset with your earlier decision.  I would like a re-affirmation that privacy is again important to Blizzard.  Real ID is tainted.  Your association with Facebook is unwelcome.  It saddens me that there is an 'at this time' disclaimer around the announcment that real names will not be posted on the forums.

Blizzard no longer believes in privacy

Edit: Blizzard have recently announced that at this time real names will not be used in forums

• Before Battlenet: Privacy is important. You may activly particpate in all parts of the game without releasing personally identifying details. You are required to respect other people's privacy. This is what Warcraft players are used to.

• Current: Privacy is important, but for your real life friends that already know your name, you may link your real life details to your gaming details. With this exception, you may activly particpate in all parts of the game witout releaseing personally identifying details. You are still required to repect other people's privacy.

• Tomorrow: Privacy is inconvenient. You may link your real life details to your gaming details. If you wish to actively participate in all parts of the game, you are required to release personally identifying information.  (The forums are a part of our game)

Blizzard used to understand that privacy was important, it no longer does. They have thought long and hard about the tie-up with Facebook. There are lots of users of Facebook that have no issues regarding privacy. If all Blizzard wanted accountablity, they would allow us to create an online persona and work from there. This is what players want.

At schools we teach about safety online through privacy. When I go to an employer I provide them my real name, not my toon's name. I maintain seperate work and private email addresses and phone numbers. I do not put on passport applications that I spend my free time decimating populations, hunting down other players and trying to kill them. I keep that information tied to my gaming persona.

In the weeks leading up to the Starcraft release, the news is about Blizzard and it's lack of privacy. Anyone who reads blogs is aware of this. Anyone who reads 'real world' news can only see the real id debate, where before this announcement all the talk was Starcraft (or occasionally Cataclysm). Blizzard could stop this in its tracks by allowing users to change their published 'real name'. If they are determined to go ahead with this bad idea, they could still calm the tone of the debate by deferring the implementation for the warcraft forums, and only go ahead on the Starcraft forums.

It is my prediction that the first users to users of 'real name' on the forums will be cyber-stalked. Even if it only from players wishing to make a point.

Last week the blog sphere and forums were excited about the games

Edit: Blizzard have recently announced that at this time real names will not be used in forums

Last week, there was a rush of comments regarding Cataclysm.  Everything I saw about Starcraft was regarding hopes and fears for the game itself.

Now, news media is talking about Real Id, and not in a good way.  Blizzard has chosen to spend the last 3 weeks before release of Starcraft defending compulsory real life names.

I just did a google 'news' search on Blizzard.

• 'WOW' players angry over plan to use real names
• Blizzard to Require Real Names to Be Used in Forums ‎(Essentially a Blizzard Press Release)
• World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins.  A row has erupted after Blizzard ...
• Associated Press: The upcoming change has upset many gamers who prize anonymity ....
• Blizzard Cracks Down On Anonymity In Official Forums
• ...

I have to read through 25 news stories before I find a single news item talking about Blizzard that does not mention Real ID.  Even there, all the comments starting at 7/7/2010 : 2:40 PM are about Real ID.

Looking at my unread bloglist, I find 18 posts out of 22 about the Real ID, with only 4 being about the game.

Blizzard is a big enough company to survive this.  Talking online I have responses from "I quit too", to "Can I have your gold?".

Is this really the publicity that Blizzard wanted leading up to the launch of Starcraft?

Blizzard to display real names in online forums.

Edit: Blizzard have recently announced that at this time real names will not be used in forums

...Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums...

This is a very bad move Blizzard. As the very large and growing thread suggests, this is not popular with a vocal segment of the forum readers. I also disagree with it. There are other ways to control trolls.

I have no problems with a common in-game identification. All of my toons are foo (foolich, foosecond, foobarfoo, notfoo etc). My vent id is foo. I do not use real-id, and will not until I am able to use an alias.

I have added my disagreement to the current forums (as only the new forums will display real id). I will be lodging a ticket in-game as well.

To complain to ESRB as in my opinion this breaches privacy, go to https://www.esrb.org/about/contact.jsp