Big changes to Battle.net forums!

1. What are the odds of you having a completely unique name and thus them being able to find you physically?
2. I'm sure you can block PM's and all other messages to contacts/friends, and then mute harassers in-game.

Do you walk with a paper bag on your head or cover your number plate?

 

Ummm...
Yes 4chan would do that... I'd rather keep everything about me, anonymous online..
and your all silly to think that will stop flames or trolls... Lmao..
I'd rather not be hunted down by some hardcore gamer because i kicked his *** with 6 pool and he thinks i hacked. Then comes out to stab me like the counterstrike kid...
NTY.
Privacy back please


internet is a very very dirty filthy place... I rather not have my name out there...

 

Why exactly are we silly? I think it's a logical consequence. The whole reason the internet became a global madhouse is because of anonimity. You don't see insults and behaviour in real life that you do experience on the internet, so it's feasible to assume that approximating the internet to real life would improve it. Case in point, would 4chan ever have grown and become what it is today if it had accounts? If you believe the answer is yes then you don't know human nature.

 

Because Real life=/= Internet.
4chan grew because people WANTED anonymity, the demand was there. If there is ever a demand the supply will come.
Either way, mark my words this real Id thing will either lead to a LOT of fake names. OR there will be headlines of something radical...
Mark my words

 

I'm pretty confident my name is at least unique in Europe. I have some aunt who studies the history of my family, and our last name is nearly unique. That, and the fact that my first name is odd makes me possibly uniquely named.

 

online? Yes.

There are people I've played other games with for years and chatted with them on vent and I never told them my real name.

As I've stated, this will not solve the problem because people will just create fake names on new accounts to use on b.net. So, people will still flame/spam without the risk of consequence.

And I know my name is not unique, couldn't find anything on google about me, but I'd rather not take the chance of lettings millions of random people knowing my name online.

 

If a person doesn't care about tarnishing the reputation of their usernames then they're not going to care about tarnishing their fake real name which is basically a username. My "real name" on my account as of a few hours ago is Deckard Lee.

/end of your argument

 

I usually share my real name with people online I kinda start to trust. But I won't go handin' it out on a site filled with trolls.

 

I've only shared my name with about 6 people online and had contact info with them ever in my history on the internet. Mostly because we were a competitive l4d team and we became really great friends. My last name is unique btw.

 

The whole reason? That's a bold thing to say about something that can't be proven one way or another. Personally, I believe it's more to do with very different people with very different values/ideas/cultures/ect coming into mass contact with each other for the first time.

There's also thing like how most of the communication is in text thus leaving out body language and facial expressions. A "" is not the same as a heart felt smile in RL and will never get the same reaction.

These communications are saved and can last for days. You don't just run into an asshole, find him/her to be rude, and move on. No, the sour moment is saved in time and may be allowed to escalate.

There's more; but, my point is that your and Blizz's argument of anonymity being the sole cause for flaming and harassment is short sighted.

Where the **** do you live?
Have you never worked with the general public or sat in traffic?
-I had a manager from Pakistan get called a terrorist to his face many times.
-I've had a white friend there accused of being a racist because he had to walk a guy up to the register with a expensive product as per company policy.
-I've seen a women come into the store, literally spewing **** out of her diaper all over the place. She chortled as she left saying "We may wanna clean it up".
-I've seen two chicks get into a ****ing fist fight on a highway on-ramp.

No. People do and say horrendous **** in real life as I just said. Only thing is, you don't walk around all day with your first and last name tattooed on your forehead. You're actually better capable of keeping your privacy walking down a busy street than on a forum with Real ID.

I don't see a reason why not. There are plenty of unhealthy individuals without morals or any concern of being labeled an asshole. Some people thrive on it.
It's really not very different or less common from unhealthy individuals who will say what ever they want because their name isn't tied to their statements.

I like you dude, but, you're talking out your ***.


The fact of the matter is that this is the direction Blizz is going despite many concerned customers. If you don't like it, stay off their forums. It's sad, but they own the servers and can do as they please with them.

 

...along with the rest of Blizzard I'm assuming? They have their reasons for doing this, I have my reasons for supporting, you have your reasons for opposing it, and arrogance will get you nowhere apart from being taken less seriously. I think some people need help fighting paranoia. I can't even believe we are discussing revenge taken after some videogame... it's not the world you know. And should you live in an insane area where it might happen... well, I'm sorry for, I don't, and I like it like this.

Also, if the real name thing is not enforced/checked then why exactly are you people whining?

 

I guess it is a bit paranoid.
But then again, among the younger ones on the forum, the first lesson we learned is to never give any data, not even your name, to strangers online.

 

Personally I think this is a knee-Jerk reaction to all the people addicted to WoW. Yes we all know the flame wars there on every thread practically on the B.Net forums. But now people like your boss can find out how active you are on the Blizz forums. And then they can take action if they think a worker is on there too much. Seriously you don't want a worker who is addicted to WoW. They'd never get any work done.

And also I think I'm glad this change is occurring. Because I think I like the idea of not having a 2nd persona online. Sure people love their persona on the internet. But with the internet as open as it is today it's like like walking down the street like everyone does. And you would not abuse a huge guy with tattoos on the street. You'd either get sued or mouth full of broken teeth. And I think the net should be the same. There needs to be some law and order on it. And without law and order you have chaos. And chaos is pretty much what the Blizz forums is right now.

So in that respect I like the changes.

And there is a 2nd added bonus to this change.
Say someone says something criminally insane on the forums like give evidence of a real life crime they did or threaten to harass/do a crime to someone in the real world. Then Blizz would have an easier time to catch these people and get them convicted of their crimes by the police.

Well you're thinking what about people with fake real name IDs? Well that's breaking Blizzard's TOS on the forums so another charge to you by police if you get caught saying a real life crime on there. And for people who want the fake ID simply for anonymity, well if they caught they just banned from the Blizz forums forever.

Sure everyone QQs and says I like my anonymity I currently enjoy on the forums. But currently it's just a heap of people with fake personas flaming each other in utter chaos. And Blizz by this wants to restore law and order on the forums. And good on Blizzard I say.

Cause if I see another topic on the Blizz forums QQing about the fact there is to much QQ on the Blizzard forums in general I'ma gonna scream. When I want real SC2 or WoW info I never go to the Blizz forums cause of all the QQ. And that's sad. That place should be the first port of call for everyone. And I think this change is trying it make this happen

[edit] And yeah there's enough instance of people trying to copy in real life what they saw/did in WoW and SC/SC2. Adults to mind you as well as kids. And I think this will help fix this issue too.

 

Your argument is completely and utterly artificial. Since when is real life crime a big deal on WoW forums? Perhpas I just wasn't there for too long but from what I recall that never happened and while I am sure things like this are bound to pop up they are bound to be isolated cases. Not anything worth justifying just a dramatic and controversial change.
As for QQing I don't see how will this help. People will always QQ about other classes and things of any description. If Blizzard really wanted to deal with whiners they can just as easily do it without this change as they do have acess to your real identity.
If anything this will make the discussions more dishonest. Especially in the realm/serious discussion parts of the forums. It's politics 101. Now that you can be easily identified and everything you say will be stuck with you, forever, avalible at a click of a button to anyone using google, you must cut your corners and you must be very diplomatic about what you say rather than being honest. And sometimes as you yourself said they can't post at all because of this disgusting practice that the8park advocates of your boss spying on you.

That said I don't have a huge problem with it myself. I think that it won't affect me individually all that much but unless you have your head stuck up your own asshole you will observe that many people will have problem with that for completely genuine reasons.

 

One contradiction I noticed is that they say they are also using b.net and this realID stuff so it will become a social network. If that is true, why did they take away the public chatrooms that previous b.net had, which is by far the best way b.net 2 could entice social interaction?

Personally, I think their reasoning is a veiled excuse for saying "Activision made us do it"

http://howmanyofme.com/

Will let you see how many people in the US share your same name, unfortunately there doesnt seem to be a version for other regions/countries. There are only 10 people with my same name in the US, so there is a good chance someone could pick me out from that small number.

 

LAMO, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You took my last line as being absolutely serious, felt offended, then called me arrogant and paranoid. I could infer you are insulting the area where I live as well. If you could of heard the inflection in my voice or seen the smirk on my face, I'm willing to bet you would have replied differently.

If you still would of been offended, I would of immediately noticed your facial response and I would have apologized and explained before this tiny little flame war could have started.

I stand on my point. Claiming that anonymity is the chief reason for arguments and name calling on the internet is ridiculous. Bull****. Taking out of one's ***. What you expect the guy who often uses a pic of himself dressed as The Joker to always speak formally? Ugh, no, fun. This isn't a sales call.

I felt the "I like you" part would of kept you from getting too pissed about it. I was clearly wrong as you misinterpreted me poking fun as being full of myself.

If this is Blizzard's only and true reason for the RealID change, then yes, I call bull**** on them too. They make great games; doesn't make them infallible. Frankly, I feel like they have more realistic business reasons for the switch and what we got is the PR spin.

You're claiming that people never flip out excessively over trivial things such as video games? Do I really have to post links showing otherwise. Some people have anger management problems. Some people shoot the president of the United States because a character in the movie "Taxi Driver" wanted them to....

We're talking about people on the internet, not your home town. There's no reason to believe you won't run into a total wack job. They are out there, they have computers, and they are willing to travel.

Are the odds of such a scenario high? No, not at all. Will there be a few violent incidents caused by this? I'd almost guarantee it considering how large the userbase is. I don't know about you, but, I'd hate to see anyone get hurt because Blizz "wants to stop flaming".

It is if you have a wow account. It links back to the name on your credit card. Also, I'm not whining, just offering a counter point to your opinion. My solution is not whining, it's staying off the bnet boards.


OH, and in all seriousness. Don't be such a hypocrite by calling me arrogant when this is what I was replying to.

Maybe I misinterpreted it as I previously mentioned is always possible when you cut out all the other basic forms humans communicate....but yeah, sounds like you are saying anyone who thinks differently from you has little grasp on the world around them. Much like saying, "you're talking out your ***". You just worded it in a more pleasant manner, but the sentiment is still there.

For the record, I disagree with you and am calling you out on some BS. Doesn't mean I have any sort of problem with you.

 

Many employers will not hire people who play WoW. If they search my name on google and come up with wow posts I can lose my chances in getting a job. Employers have the belief that WoW players have "unstable" sleeping habits and cannot be trusted.

Another major issue is using hackers. They feed off social networking sites because its so easy to obtain information from them. With this new policy hackers will soon be coming to WoW to get peoples account info and sell it to gold sellers. If a hacker gets your name he can find out your address, phone number, emails, parents name, place of birth, the school you graduated from, and the first car you bought. Do any of these sound familiar? Because they are the answers to the secret questions for ur battle.net and email accounts. With the secret answer a hacker doesn't need your password. If you think this isn't an issue then you underestimate how much of an opportunity this is for cyber criminals. They can make a lot of money just sitting all day on the forums hacking your account, and then turning around to sell it to gold sellers. Thats if its their intent.

Some could even do it for the fun of it. Believe it or not people do enjoy causing misery to others through hacking. By simply going through ur personal info they can take ur account with ur secret answer. Just to annoy you, just so they have an account to spam with, and just because he thinks its entertaining. Don't think people put that kind of effort into hacking for fun? Ever wonder what it takes to load/flood a channel on the old battle.net? Scanning for proxies and testing for keys takes a lot of time. Just as much time as it would take to get your personal info from the wow forums.

 

The arrogance bit was for the whole post, not just the last line - too many asterisks not to assume it was a rage post.

About the internet thing, it was probably too much from me to say anonimity was the whole reason for the way it turned out, but what you're saying is equally, if not more questionable.

So... person A meets person B from the other side of the globe and they're so different and so intrigued by this marked difference that one or both of them goes criminally insane? Or stalks women on the internet? Posts nude pictures of underage children? Really now, I have no authority in this, but I can't say your guess is as good as mine. I am positive that the internet would become much safer if real names were used. It would probably incur privacy issues and would need a special kind of policing, so in general a more elaborate approach needs to be developed, but I do think Blizzard's is a first step. I'm thinking my opinion is due to my living in a small and unimportant country where violence primarily happens because of ethnic reasons, not some stupid hobby. Regardless, I have nothing else to work with, obviously, so I remain in support.

 

There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named ****** *********** (my name).

Soooo, that's gonna work real well for me. Hell, there's less than 200 people with my last name in the US. I don't like the fact that anything I say will show up and would be easily attributed to me, easily linked with my Facebook profile, easily linked with Google searches by respective employers.

No, I don't plan on flaming anyone or picking fights, but I'm rather vehement in my political beliefs and am fairly vocal about certain recreational activities.

I personally don't plan on using Blizz forums (why would I? I got this one), but I sincerely doubt my personal situation is wholly unique.

 

Oh and additional spit in the face: http://www.wow.com/2010/07/07/rumor-blizzard-employees-real-life-names-will-not-appear-on-th/