SearchReal ID heads to Battle.net Forums
Posted by Jimmy "DJTyrant" Blocksom 1 year ago
Blizzard has just announced that with the inclusion of the ReadID system in the upcoming StarCraft 2, this will also apply to the battle.net forums as well.
Blizzard is adding everyone's RealID name (ie. your real name) to posts in certain forums (StarCraft 2 community forums after July 27th, WoW Forums after Cataclysm launch), in an effort to curb certain unpleasant aspects of the forums (trolling, flaming, etc.).
Official post explaining it is below, but what do you think about this potentially highly controversial change to the forums? Will you post more on Battle.net forums or will you steer clear of them now?
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. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.
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.
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. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.
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.
| Links |
| MMO-Champion - Source |
| Battle.net - Official Blue Post |
| Comments \ Paging |
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1
| Sounds pretty neat :) |
| cool stuff ;) |
| well.. i guess it's not that bad, isn't it? |
| less stuff like this, and more beta now! |
| #3 well, to put this way...how would you feel if instead of an alias on this site your real name was posted next to your posts? I'm not so hot on the idea since the Battle.net forums are all searchable on Google and when a potential employer google's my name and all they see if battle.net postings....yeah not so good lol. If it curbs trolling and flaming though, I overall see it as a good thing. |
| yea, b.net forums have always been some of the worst plagued forums because of trollers/flamers. hopefully this removes a good portion of that |
| Well Im ok with that, I do not post so often anyway and this should only affect really bad flamers. Looking forward to see a more organized forum cause one thing that is hard to do is to keep track of various threads, so I will say its a good move. |
| #5 People have hobbies... If you are not posting during your work hours and you are as focused on your work as possible while being at work, then I don't see why would any employer be bothered by this ( or any other hobby by that fact ). Also, if you know you don't flame and talk nasty, then again, there's nothing to be worried about. I definitely like this change and I hope it will work as expected. |
| trolling is fun :S |
| #8 if there wasn't the stigma of gaming being a childish activity and the (wrong) assumption that gamers are fat and lazy, you'd have a point. At least in America gaming really is still looked down upon by the general public. |
| So much focus on the social parts, most players don't get online for SC2 isn't there to socialize even if they want an option to discuss with already existing friends. |
| #10 Well, I think that such things also have to do with the field you are working in... In IT at least, I still have to meet the person who looks down another person just because he likes to play games... obviously, not everyone in the IT business is a gamer, but they do know that there are many other people out there who like to play games and if they have any brain inside their skull, then they'll be smarter than to judge you because of your hobby ( may it be gaming or anything else ). But, yeah, maybe in other fields, people are not as "open minded" and they might rush to conclusions without ever giving things a second thought... EDIT: Still, just because they see your name in a gaming forum, that doesn't necessarily mean that the guy they saw is actually you. I'm quite sure that there are many other people with the same name around the World somewhere ( I for sure know that there are at least 100 people who share the same name as I do... both first name and last name are the same... some might have a middle name, but some don't ). So, just because someone sees your name on a P0RN site for example, or a Super Mario forum, that shouldn't be enough proof to rush to conclusions... |
| Sounds like an interesting idea though I don't think the thumbs up and down system will work at all on those forums. For one, 99 percent of bnet forums are literally trolls trying to out troll other trolls because they think its funny. For two, balance discussion will always be a hot topic and what will likely happen is people will just thumbs down threads that disagree with their own opinion. It will not be used to weed out quality threads, just threads with opposing views. Remember, everyone plays the weakest race and all the other races need to be nerfed, so balance discussion will probably not work on those forums. I can see half of the idiots on those forums just thumbing down every single thread just to do it. Those forums are a total wasteland filled mostly with complete retards. |
| they should just release the beta already. |
| solution: dont post on the bnet forums i ve never posted there anyway ;p |
| #11 We're living in the era where everyone likes to spam with their personal junk and share that same personal junk with total strangers. In a way, it was inevitable that SC2 also implemented such mechanisms... the good thing is that they are not forcing you to participate in such activities. If you are online only for the game, then you don't really have any reason to be irritated by such features... but in case you are there for the game and to also waste time with strangers and their personal problems ( or you are the "lonely type" who doesn't get out too much and who doesn't really talk to "real people" ), then such features are like honey for a bee... |
| I laughed at this: "Cross-Game Chat With Real ID, friends can now chat cross-game, cross-realm, and cross-faction across all supported Blizzard games. In World of Warcraft and need more players for your Icecrown Citadel raid? You check your Real ID friends list to see if anyone's available, and sure enough, a couple of guildmates are playing a 2v2 ranked match in StarCraft II. Real ID makes it easy to ask them to come along." But we can't play cross realm ROFLMAO! |
| This is just stupid. With people real names you can do anything. And with real ID + facebook it's just a big mess. Let's say a girl gamer post on those cataclysm or sc2 or what ever real ID forums, just imagine the spam she will get, everyone will google her, or try to get her facebook profile, and there will be insane amount of harassment. Let's say you are a gamer posting in those forum. Well everyone can know about your gamer habits, on you'r job applications or job environement, you'r close but also you'r less close friends, you'r family, the girls you are interested in. There is just no way to keep you'r gaming/internet life appart with you'r real life. Let's say i'm some Top tier guild leader in wow, so everyone get my real name, don't you think all those fanboys and idiotic nerds will keep spaming me for a slot in the guild, or wow you'r gear is awsome, man you'r sword is great, and get annoyed in facebook, or any social channel i use, and even get my real adress from all those school reunion sites or if i work in IT, just get my name adresse from my company roster, or what ever. This is just a huge way to violate the privacy of people, facebook + real ID = no more privacy at all, anyone can find who are you, where you live, what you look like, what sex you are, how old you are, just because you post on a game forum, and i think that it's total bullshit Just an advise, protect you'r real life identity or you can get screwed in thousands of different ways, from the angry kids jokes to some real serious shit. |
| One thing you are kinda forgetting... The "real identity" of top players was kinda always public, so there's not much difference in that. If they could manage until now, they can surely manage from this point on as well... I'm not a Facebook user, but I'm guessing that you do have some settings somewhere that can make your account "private" and not let every stranger add you without proper approval ( or something similar ). In case it lacks such security, then don't blame Blizzard or anyone else for your poor decisions regarding the social networking web sites / tools you use... Inevitably, games and software will implement such features... Don't think that everyone will care about such whining ( as I have said, it's not their fault that you didn't consider this possibility when signing up to Facebook or to any other social network that did not provide some basic/advanced privacy/security features ). "Just an advise, protect you'r real life identity or you can get screwed in thousands of different ways, from the angry kids jokes to some real serious shit." This is just exaggerated... Wake up! You are not Steve Jobs nor are you some sort of a rock star! Most likely, no one will give a rats ass about me, you or anyone else... People can randomly add and spam you now as well, so your affirmations are just exaggerated. Also, as I have previously mentioned, "top players" have kinda always had their real name revealed to the public... guess what? They have seemingly managed to hold up with the theoretical thousands or tens of thousands ( if not more ) spammers/trolls/flamers from all around the World... They'll surely manage from this point on as well... I kinda feel that people are making too much of a fuss about nothing... too many people seem to think that their meaningless and unimportant lives actually interest others that much ( OH GOD, they now know my REAL NAME?! What on EARTH WILL I DO NOW?! Should I end my days now or should I wait to see if anyone actually gives a rats ass about me?! )... Stop watching so many horror and action movies! |
| a waste of time,focus on things that really need changes |
| I think this is 100% shit. First of all, blizzard should focus on actually making the games better, in the end nobody really gives a shit if you have facebook added to sc2 or not, blizzard just keeps making these systems/updates which force you to link your real life with gaming. Sure, some people like those features, but I really dont think anyone would have been qqing 1 year ago about sc2 not having a facebook attached to it. 2nd point, 200% agree with #18. Not very fun when all those haters/fans start spamming on facebook/other places... I probably will never post on those forums again. 3rd, imho anonymity(if wanted) is a big part of gaming, and should be kept that way. |
| psychobabas, isnt that your real ID (Psycho Babas) ?? :D |
| #16 I get the feeling that all this stuff takes focus from the parts that I do want, so yeah, I do care. |
| Hmm, I don't really know what to think about this, but it will be interesting to follow. |
| I know where you live. Your sister is hot. Your ugly. You don't have any friends. I have more friends than you. I'm telling your mom. Might be a bad thing... |
| #23 Sorry, but I have to disagree. Again, no one is forcing you to link your Facebook account to Starcraft and nor is anyone forcing you to post on forums. All these decisions are up to you... EDIT: Just because you feel in a certain way, it doesn't mean that things are actually going that way. There are many things that many people want, but you can't expect Blizzard ( or any other company for that matter ) to actually implement everything people want or work the way certain people would expect them to work... |
Real ID is a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that keeps players connected across all of Battle.net. When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you'll have access to a number of additional features that will enrich your social gaming experience in new and exciting ways. Quoted from http://eu.battle.net/realid/?rhtml=y ; We will need to wait and see if it's really "voluntary and optional"... If it is, then all these whining threads are senseless... In case it's not, then Blizzard should be sued for misinformation and who knows what else. Case solved! |
| Horrible idea. |
| they must put Clan's , wc3 style because if you wanna join in some team you need to buy again the game? XDDD btw I dont like this REAL ID! |
because if you wanna join in some team you need to buy again the game? If that team really wants you that badly, then they'll spend a measly license on you ( a few bucks shouldn't get them go bankrupt ). In case you were talking about "buddy teams", then that's kinda it... Having tons of useless clans that were created in minutes by 8 year old children or total strangers who have just hooked up on the "Whatever channel" was quite dumb anyway... Use the Friends List if you want to keep in touch with your buddies and play games together... that's why it's there you know... EDIT: Or, maybe Blizzard will come up with an elegant way of displaying the Clan initials next to the user name somehow ( or in the profile window ). They were saying at a moment that they'll be adding support for clans, and since you were not let to use characters such as ". - _ ) ( ] [" at account creation in the new Battle.net, then you won't really be able to create a new ID that somehow suggests the Clan you are in ( like: SWAT.Cucu or Kuku.Killer, etc. )... that being said, there's no real reason at the moment that would make you want to create a new ID when joining a clan. They will surely find a way and a place where the Clan initials will be displayed... |
| I don't care about my name being shown. I am okay with my name/nick what ever ^^ |
| stupid and useless feature. |
| you people seriously underestimate risks - most of you don't care NOW that you can be googled, found on facebook or whatever. But understand this - whatever is posted on the internet under your name will be available and easily linked to you forever, long after you grow up, stop thinking it's perfectly ok and you got nothing to hide. You may not get a job because interviewer may not like your gaming hobby, after all gamers are asocial lazy bastards - it's not that such things don't happen already. Gamers in general are not very mature and what blizzard does opens floodgates of harrassment and exploitation. Bashiok got his age, address, phone number, name and age of his parents soon after he gave only his name. http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-games/Real-Names-on-the -Official-Forums-New-REAL-ID-function?gr_i_ni |
| if it all works this is going to be a new era in e-sports |
| who cares ? I just ignore those flamer/troller kids. gives us the beta already! |
| #21 are you actually being serious right now? you are complaining about being anonymous, and that you shouldn't have to post your name, yet all I have to do is click your GG.net profile and it tells me your name right there Ville Oksanen. Like SERIOUSLY.....lol? #18 Exact same shit. You are complaining about having your name shown on the b.net forums, yet magically here it is in your PUBLIC profile. Mehdy Meslouhi Stop being such hypocrites lol |
| @ #33 and my thats my "Name: Kr Kr" ? |
| To #36 I display my name because of my work in an Esport related company and i'v been managing Esport pro teams for a long time. It's not the case of everyone, am not complaining, am stating that it is a dangerous violation of personal informations, not mine because since i'm working really close into the esport scene, my irl and internet life are pretty close, and am getting payed to be on the internet so it's part of my job but it is not the case for everyone. And let's say i have my name on facebook already or on some forum profile or what ever, maybe i don't want my name to be linked to a bnet account where i'v been playing 1000 hours of wow, or that i played 2000 thousand sc2 games or what ever. Anyway brats that didn't advance in life wouldn't know much about how important privacy is, specially in todays society where everything you do or say is tracked. When you have a family, kids, and any kind of job responsibility, let's talk about you'r name being linked to some flamewar about a wow sword or stuff like that, it will be very fun to watch. |
| Ok Ok, First of all this post says that your real ID will be shown in POSTS in SOME forums. So people can only look you up only if you post there. So I think that this feature is really good it will prevent trolls and immature people from posting. |
| I wonder if you guys even tried the Facebook integration at all before starting to hate it. As stated before the Facebook is just for adding your friends to your friend list (if you want). Nothing will be shown on your Facebook page what so ever. What is it that you hate by simplicity? I was skeptic as well until i tried it out, but it helps you a lot and you will see that many of your friends that you didn't know play StarCraft2 actually play! For those people that say "Why cant Blizzard focus on making the game better instead of making things like this". I can assure you that the RealID team is NOT the same team that work with the actual game. That means that there are working as hard they can with the game and not losing people to the RealID or Facebook application work. |
| #18 + #33 are 100% right. |
| In Germany there is the principle of information freedom - meaning that I and only I can decide which information is passed along and which not. Of course there are some exceptions needed for governing a people but apart from those it's something valuable in my eyes. The problem with this discussion is that most disadvantages of this open-hearted way to handle other peoples data are rather subtle so you are likely to miss them on first sight. Most ppl think "what harm could it do if everybody sees my profile, sees my real name, knows my game stats etc. pp.?" but I think that's the wrong way to tackle the problem. You should ask yourself "Is the way I behave or think altered by the publicity of all this information about myself?" And I do think that this is the case with virtually everyone - starting with innocent thoughts like "I don't want to mess up my stats". Apart from your own interest there is another strong reason to not support this - the duty of the majority to defend the interest of the minority. Meaning that even if you are the best pro ever and you wouldn't have any problem with everybody knowing everything there is to know about you, you still shouldn't support this because you'd know that there are ppl for whom this is different, ppl that have a lot to loose if everything they do in this game is linked to their real identities. PS: I'll second #18 and #33 and this here |
| #33: Very, very great article! |
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBwTpHNZDpQ&playnext_from=TL&videos=fiSz5hS55W0&feature Most of his points is valid and I'd like to promote this video. (It's Husky btw) :) |
| And how will this not promote racist remarks based on players' names? |
| #41 is right. Most likely the community managers and the interface teams work together on stuff like the facebook integration. One thing's for sure, it's not affecting the progress of the game itself, and I'd say; more features to the game is a good thing. |
| #47 Not necessarily, or well, Real-ID might not affect the actual game that much. But seriously, I cannot see this change leading to any good. Patientzero's quote of Quira at the bottom of the page sums up most of my fears, http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=2562 6109041&sid=3000 |
| I really hate that Blizzard forces you to give out your Real ID, first you must login to your real email and after they give out your real name, next will be your creditcardnumber you pay your monthly? #Reflexive you sound like you got no idea about esports It should not be on Gamingcompanies to do what they want, they must ask you before handing out your privacy, and yes i expect Blizzard to listen to community since we pay a lot for this shit... |
| to all "fans" of this shitty idea: http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-games/Real-Names-on- the-Official-Forums-New-REAL-ID-function?gr_i_ni have fun |
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