Sensible Erection | RealID: Blizzard proves another point about anonymity on the web

Wednesday, 7 July 2010

RealID: Blizzard proves another point about anonymity on the web

quote [ 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 ]

So a Blizz employee leads the way, proclaiming "See, nothing to fear!". The masses promptly demonstrate things to fear.

[politics] [by EPT@11:41amGMT] [+10 Funny]

Comments

Fenny said @ 11:59am GMT on 7th Jul
Amazing how fast threads about Micah Whipple are vanishing on http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com !

DrowJones said @ 3:54pm GMT on 7th Jul
His real name is Bob Paulson.

masier said @ 9:58pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:1 Underrated]
Try "his name is Robert Paulson"

MmmFiber said @ 12:01pm GMT on 7th Jul
Blizzard make really good games, but have seemingly dropped the ball with realID. Being able to communicate across servers and games is good. Having to use your real name and email address is just retarded. Not to mention the total fail that was patch day for this monstrosity.

Mikhail_16 said @ 2:37pm GMT on 7th Jul
Just like any other large patch with new features. Audience seems to forget days and days of patch downtime back in vanilla.

devolutionary said @ 9:33pm GMT on 7th Jul
Ain't that the truth. Rather than comparing the improvements to functionality deployment and comparing the downtime for content and the like in other games, people just bitch about "this patch took longer than me logging in two days ago! FUCK YOU BLIZZ! RAGERAGEEMORAGE!".

skoob666 said @ 12:28pm GMT on 7th Jul
Blizzard started losing their way when they became partners with Activision. Now Activision DOESN'T own Blizzard like a lot of people try to say, but I do believe the two share the same business model now. Regardless of all their bullshit though, I'm probably still going to pick up Starcraft 2.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 6:52pm GMT on 7th Jul
I think I'm going to wait until all of the expansion packs have come out and been bundled together into a discount BattleChest.

DeadlyNinja said @ 8:14pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:1 Funny]
Since at least 2 expansions are planned and blizzard is slower than crap you will be waiting until you are dead.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:32pm GMT on 7th Jul
That's fine; I have Spaceward Ho!, Osmos, and Dwarf Fortress to keep me entertained while I wait.

theolypse said @ 4:02am GMT on 9th Jul
DUNGEON CRAWL
STONE SOUP.

No more of your heresy.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 10:12am GMT on 9th Jul
Tried it. Didn't really grab me. Back to NetHack. Maybe someday I'll be able to ascend a second time.

v21 said @ 7:35pm GMT on 7th Jul
70% of Activision's revenue comes from the PC. Which means WOW.

wow, huh?

Naruki said @ 1:29pm GMT on 7th Jul
I tried to find out how they create a RealID by going to the suggested Parental Controls link, but it keeps redirecting me to a login screen.

This stuff is retarded.

ralfmaximus said @ 1:55pm GMT on 7th Jul
They seriously thought this was a good idea?

And RealID made it all the way past every sanity check and was implemented and they saw the backlash and STILL think it's a good idea?

I ask with complete sincerity: what were they thinking?

smoug said @ 2:10pm GMT on 7th Jul
I think the big question on most people's minds is how long it'll be until someone gets harassed or attacked in-person for something they've done in-game.

balzac said @ 4:58pm GMT on 7th Jul
Nobody would ever ever attack or harm someone over something they did in WOW.

Asians don't count.

Krutz said @ 7:30pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:3]

Krutz said @ 10:05pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:2]
By the way, that's a girl. Happy nightmares!

RuneLancer said @ 1:10pm GMT on 8th Jul
Yeah... When I heard "she", I just froze up for a moment in total confusion...

anger_die said @ 10:57pm GMT on 7th Jul
Holy fuck that was uncomfortable. It's Bizarro Starwars Kid.

Bizarro_Truman said @ 11:45pm GMT on 7th Jul
ME AM LIKE THIS YOUTUBE.

DarkShadowRavenDragonGrrl69 said @ 11:43pm GMT on 7th Jul
The most baffling thing to me is the "you fatass motherfucker" insults.

Krutz said @ 12:29am GMT on 8th Jul
Followed by her clicking "upload video."

swiggy said @ 9:22am GMT on 8th Jul
her metal tube is clearly not "SOLID FUKKIN STEEL," it's hollow.

it's a juggalo anyway, so no one cares what she thinks.

mischa said @ 1:20pm GMT on 8th Jul
well there goes this kids legal defense of self defense

snowfox said @ 1:34pm GMT on 8th Jul
I couldn't get past minute 2. This chick isn't likely to hurt anyone unless she just snaps. There's no real anger behind these words; she just sounds hurt. It's like a small dog barking in fear.

Pretty sure I could take her. She clearly has no idea how to handle that jack.

snowfox said @ 1:39pm GMT on 8th Jul
Alright, I finished it. I've studied some ninjutsu. She really has no idea what she's doing and can't move nearly fast enough to be effective. All she has going for her is that she has lots of insulation against blunt trauma and stabbing.

Her block is shit and is not at all how I was trained to deal with an incoming blow. To be completely honest, I don't think she can compact herself properly to do a ground roll when someone uses her mass against her in a fight.

*sigh* Women like this make it hard to get respect, but at least attackers will be genuinely surprised when they find not every women who tells them to back down is a barking chihuahua.

devilsad said @ 9:43pm GMT on 8th Jul
*fap* Women that know how to kick ass are incredibly ho-OOOFF

theolypse said @ 4:07am GMT on 9th Jul
I look at her and my aikido gets tangled up with the moment of inertia experiments I did as a kid. The end result is that I desperately want to flip her and see how far she rolls on level pavement.

Naruki said @ 5:14am GMT on 9th Jul
You study any particular school?

anger_die said @ 5:20pm GMT on 7th Jul
Already been done.

snowfox said @ 5:54pm GMT on 8th Jul
And people say the French are pussies...

sacrelicious said @ 5:43pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:2]
I was mercilessly beaten for three solid hours by a gang of 20 WoW players once.

my injuries required six bandaids.

LoC said @ 2:19pm GMT on 7th Jul
In game this isn't such a bad idea. If you don't want people to know your real name, don't give them your email address, its really that simple. If you even slightly mistrust the idea of guildie #6 having your Name, then they don't have to have it.

Using your real name on the forums, however is just a terrible, terrible idea.

ralfmaximus said @ 3:04pm GMT on 7th Jul
Respectfully, when is requiring a RL name ever a good idea in a game?

It's a game.

And why draw the distinction between game/forum?

LoC said @ 4:59pm GMT on 7th Jul
The distinction is that in game its a choice. An unlimited number of people can have you on their friend's list and only see your in-game handle. Only those people whom you have sought out, trusted with your email address, and accepted on realID can see your name.

A lot of people play WoW with their real-life friends, and thats the people who have on your realID list. Who cares if your friend Jim can see your real name? He knows it already.

However, on the forums its not a choice. If you make a post for any reason, anyone who reads it can see your name. Thats where problems can arise.

ralfmaximus said @ 5:27pm GMT on 7th Jul
Ah. That makes sense.

So Blizzard requires your real credentials just to play. I'd assumed all you needed was an alias.

What is Blizzard's reasoning behind that requirement? Again, why should a game/diversion require your real-life info?

azazel said @ 9:16pm GMT on 7th Jul
Losing login/password for instance. Credit cards. Signing the ToS. Stuff.

ralfmaximus said @ 9:35pm GMT on 7th Jul
Nono, I understand the USEFULNESS of such things. But it's an elective activity. I should be able to opt out.

And credit card processing can be handled via any number of compartmentalized systems. PayPal is one example.

The only "good" reason I can think of for a game company requiring this stuff is to sell to marketeers...

LoC said @ 10:35pm GMT on 7th Jul
Account security. keylogging/hacking wow accounts is big business. If your account is compromised, account investigations (yes, blizzard has an entire department dedicated to this) needs to confirm your identify. If your account is registered to Joe Green, you'd better be able to fax them a copy of your drivers license with Joe Green on it or your account, which you payed 150 dollars + 15 dollars per months, for however many months is gone for good.

ralfmaximus said @ 5:58pm GMT on 8th Jul
Yeah, that makes sense.

I forget how serious online gaming is to some folks.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:21pm GMT on 8th Jul
As soon as people have to pay for something, they start taking it seriously.

Naruki said @ 5:16am GMT on 9th Jul
Um... Hmm. I don't exactly dispute the logic there, but I think money doesn't really have to be involved. I mean, look at me on SE. :-)

Barnabas_Truman said @ 10:14am GMT on 9th Jul
Logically, my statement should be parsed as:

IF money is involved in X, THEN people take X seriously.

Note that this does not imply the converse; it is possible for X to be taken seriously when X does not involve money.

azazel said @ 11:45pm GMT on 7th Jul
Paypal charges for its services.

foobar said @ 9:22pm GMT on 7th Jul
I don't think Visa will issue a card to xxxGangstaNightElfxxx.

ralfmaximus said @ 9:42pm GMT on 7th Jul
True enough, but I meant games, not eCommerce.

For instance, the PlayStation Network has my Visa number and credentials, but that's segregated from actual gameplay.

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:07am GMT on 8th Jul
You'd be surprised.

Spyike said @ 10:46am GMT on 8th Jul
That sounds like a challenge.

snowfox said @ 1:42pm GMT on 8th Jul
It isn't. You get a card under your real name, then get a second copy with whatever other name you want on it.

AnonymousNate said @ 3:49pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:1 Informative]
Some things are better left unsaid.

devilsad said @ 5:31pm GMT on 7th Jul
I guess the forum moderators were being paid too much or something. I mean there must be a reason that they're trying to reduce forum activity by 90%, right?

I predict the official forums will become a relative wasteland within 3 months, and all the trolling and flaming will move in-game or to fan sites.

VictorTyne said @ 6:31pm GMT on 7th Jul
As someone who's had his real name attached to countless posts made on Blizzard forums, I say "Meh."

In principle, I think a little less anonymity on the internet would be a good thing. Removing the concept of separation between people and their online personas would make people more accountable for what they say and do, thus making the internet less of a gallery of humankind's shame.

In practice, I think about how the idea would be implemented by things like Blizzard and Facebook and it just makes me cringe.

ralfmaximus said @ 6:48pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:2 Insightful]
In practice, I think about how the idea would be implemented by things like Blizzard and Facebook and it just makes me cringe.

That's it exactly. In theory, requiring real names would make people think twice before engaging in assholery. But what really happens is:

(a) childhood experiments turn dangerous and/or ruin future lives;

(b) people are stalked at home/school/work;

(c) greedy corporations mine the details of your life to make more money.

I've been involved in social online networks since the late 1980s and I've seen it over and over again. Every couple of years the "using our real names == better internet" movement heaves back around with predictable results.

Jaxon said @ 8:02pm GMT on 7th Jul
There isn't a shortage of places that crazy people can get your real name to do crazy things to you.

Crazy people are crazy regardless of where your name is.

ralfmaximus said @ 8:09pm GMT on 7th Jul
That kinda goes without saying.

But why go out of your way to make it easier? Prolly why putting your real name, phone number, and home address on bumper-stickers never caught on.

anti-crush said @ 8:55pm GMT on 7th Jul
I suppose you don't have locks on your front door. You also must leave your keys in your car too, huh...

eIfish said @ 7:01pm GMT on 7th Jul
OOI, what do you make of 4chan's In Response to "Anonymity"…, or Shiichan's unofficial mission statement?

EPT said @ 10:02pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:1 Interesting]
I'm guessing you don't have an arabic-sounding name and you're not a woman. And you're name's not Mervyn.

taeyn said @ 9:33pm GMT on 7th Jul
So I'm curious - is this being rolled out backwards, as well? Example being if I once made a post on the WoW forums years ago, Blizz still has my real name associated with my old account name (though i no longer play). Will that post i made years ago soon bear my real life credentails?

mwoody said @ 10:14pm GMT on 7th Jul
I'm wondering that myself, but I have to assume no. If the answer to that was yes, they'd get sued by the entire planet - myself included. I have on real answer, mind you - and I suppose if you asked me a week ago I'd have said the whole RealID thing was too silly to ever come true, so... who knows.

marabean said @ 10:50pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:1 Informative]
According to this post by GM Bashiok:

"All posts here on the current World of Warcraft forums, or any of our classic Battle.net forums, will remain as-is. They won't (and can't) automatically switch to showing a real first and last name."

Assuming you put stock in what Blizz reps say, it sounds like your info's fine.

Mozart said @ 1:58am GMT on 8th Jul
Until somebody decides to go retro...

marabean said @ 2:54am GMT on 8th Jul
Personally, I don't see the business sense in migrating all the old posts over to the new system. But then again, I don't see the business sense in RealID/"social gaming" at all, so it's not like it's outside the realm of possibility that Blizzard would suddenly go retro.

If that were the case, the only solution would be to formally request account deletion, in which case, all your account information (characters, forum posts and all) would be purged. Fun times.

mwoody said @ 10:19pm GMT on 7th Jul
This whole mess made no sense to me until I saw this quote (linked via an RPS reader):

“Our goal and vision in this partnership is to really to cross-populate the social networks and to easily find and add your friends from Facebook onto the new Battle.net service as the first step and extending it to other features in the future. … Later on, of course, we have lots of things we are talking about with Facebook. We haven’t announced anything specific, but we have lots of ideas about ways to cross-populate and share data between the two services.”

(Can't find the original source for the quote, so I'm unsure who specifically said it, sorry.)

There you have it. They're initiating the RealID thing as the first step towards linking Facebook accounts with their forums and games. Seen in that light, it's all so simple I want to vomit.

kichijoii said @ 12:34am GMT on 8th Jul
awesome, 'cause I totally want my family and coworkers to see my record updated in real-time

Barnabas_Truman said @ 10:21pm GMT on 7th Jul
Does this have any effect on battlenet accounts for the older games?

donnie said @ 10:55pm GMT on 7th Jul
Old posts will not be converted, as far as I understand. If you'd posted on the forums previously they will remain as-is. Future posts will take the new form.

donnie said @ 10:54pm GMT on 7th Jul
For anyone interested in 100 pages of all the details (and nerdrage) about the issue, here is probably the best place for it :

Team Liquid - Battle.net forums to be Real Name Only

donnie said @ 11:00pm GMT on 7th Jul
To be honest, though, this was my first thought as well :

Is Korean Law Driving Policy at Blizzard?

lilmookieesquire said @ 12:21am GMT on 8th Jul
That's a retarded business move.
Have a specifically Korean forum with real names and then have an anon one.

If they let Korean politics dictate their global policies, that's just lazy.

There is no way any politician wants to be the guy who is stopping SC2 from coming out. They would totally fold, or come up with a compromise.

donnie said @ 3:57am GMT on 8th Jul [Score:1 Interesting]
Well, it is just a hypothesis, to be fair. Blizzard seems to be defending it on several fronts.

Ebichuman said @ 11:27pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:5 Funny]

(from Donnie's Team Liquid link)

snowfox said @ 8:55pm GMT on 9th Jul