That was fast. I really would have been interested to see what would have happened if they had gone through with it. I mean in terms of trolling and jerkishness, not the murdering and face eating everyone was expecting.

I'm glad to see this.

I'm really disappointed by this. Pseudonyms are an aberration in social communication and they need to go away.

In a little over 3 days, 44899 replies and 560,031 reads:

0. Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to Forums 07/06/2010 09:10:17 AM PDT
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1

0. Regarding real names in forums 07/09/2010 09:47:41 AM PDT
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1

"As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums."

Read carefully though, it says "we've decided at this time". It leaves the possibility in the future that real names can still be used.

Aw man... this is like watching a Professor abandon an awesome science experiment because class ended and no one wanted to stay around. Oh fiddlesticks.

Anthony, they didn't need to include that line to be able to do it in the future anyways.

thats too bad, people should be accountable for thier actions, online and in real life. Having your real name on the web may not totally stop people from being a total jack ass, but I'm sure it would help.

As for the privacy issue, well, I would like to see how many of those users have a facebook, myspace, twitter, etc.
privacy my ass...

How disappointing. The users were (predictably) overreacting to a change, and there is a fairly well established body of research showing how anonymity leads contributes to ant-social behavior. Posting on forums is certainly not a requirement to play a Blizzard game, and there are plenty of non-official forums that would welcome the trolls and haters.

/target Blizzard
/chicken

@Jason Pineo
I'm sure, the line was required because Blizzard's lawyer(s) had a say in it. Blizzard needs to cover themselves legally in this matter especailly with the words signed by the Blizzard CEO.

Anthony,
Even if it wasn't included 'at this time' is implied, as they can't possibly mean in another time. Unless you are specifically talking about a past or future event, 'at this time' can be added to just about any statement about a present decision and not change it's meaning.

The only reason I believe the "real name required" is bad: children. In my opinion, go with the original idea. However, there's already more than enough controversy over children and internet related topics. Blizzard instead should stick with the usual, "Options".

Trolling and jerks in their forums WILL NEVER DIE! It has nothing to do with their identities (in general). While many 'trolls' and 'jerks' hide behind even false character identities (i.e. "alts" or alternative characters to the one which is their primary)... the entire reason WoW's community is due to the simple fact that it's a game for EVERYONE. 100% related: The new national average grade received by students in America is a "D".... you do the math.

Blizzard's just attempting to remedy the widely known fact that their community really ... well, it just sucks. A simple average high-school graduate can almost feel their I.Q. being sucked straight out of their head when viewing forums and/or chat channels within/related to World of Warcraft. Seriously, they didn't even compare to CCP's Eve Online community (who won the 2009 Best Community award from TenTonHammer). Many people may not think this matters and many believe it does. You can see it for yourself by just reading a few of their forums. Several Eve forums have posters that get honest replies with very few that are just trolling babble. World of Warcraft forums are the exact opposite.

TLDR: WoW's community sucks and there's no way to really fix or alleviate main problems (trolls and jerks) unless they want to put more money into 'babysitting'.

The whole argument that if you have Facebook or Twitter or whatever that you've given up any claim to privacy is ridiculous. Without knowing who I am to begin with, no one would ever bother looking me up on Facebook. And even if, for some reason, someone I don't know decided to look me up, my Facebook information is hidden so that it can only be seen by friends, and I only add as Facebook friends people I know and trust offline.

I also find it interesting that in all the posts I've seen on this topic on various web sites and communities, every single person I've seen claiming that the criticism was an "over-reaction" are all (as far as I can tell), males. If you really don't understand why this is potentially very dangerous - especially for women, I highly recommend reading the message at this link, which does a good job of explaining the biggest potential problems:
http://www.metafilter.com/93492/But-my-name-really-is-Deathblood-Blackaxe#317141
6

I'm glad Blizzard realized how stupid the Real ID system was...I don't think anyone wants to be forced to give out their real information over the internet.

Even if you might be able to hold some jackasses accountable for sabotaging your team or being a jerk online or something, these kind of confrontations could get violent pretty easily, especially if someone knows your real first and last name. Would you want to be tortured and killed IRL because you called someone a 'noob' on WoW forums? I didn't think so.

Not to mention the danger to women from internet predators that this policy would represent; especially since other players would be able to tell if you are REALLY a girl, and they would know your first and last names, possibly your city, state, and country too!

You were never forced.
There are numerous other sources for Tech Help, Websites and Toll Free Numbers as well as In Game Tickets.
You could also unlink your In Game Player from your in game Avatar, so that even if you did post you didn't have to reveal who you were in game.

There are also dozens and dozens of populated forums discussing WoW mechanics and communities. So the only reason you would need to post and have no other alternative would be if you wanted to discuss and provide feedback in a public way about game mechanics in an area the Blizzard Devs read. And it makes sense that they want to make that more civilized and make you take responsibility for your comments and make them represent you in a situation like that.

But even then you can provide feedback using tickets whenever there is a public testing realm.

Not to mention you don't have to buy the game in the first place.

I mean unlink your RealID from your in game avatar.

And really, about harassment, is someone gonna go start stalking people because they know they have a female name and are interested in Mage mechanics? You don't have to be linked from forum to character if you are worried about privacy, and don't have to post on that specific forum if you worry that your name will be shown(use one of the dozens and dozens of other forums to discuss mechanics and ideas between yourselves if you value anonymity so heavily).

If a player wants to remain anonymous, they should be able to do that. It's a game! Games are a means of escape and relaxation from the real life stresses of the day. I think Blizzard made a good decision here.

There are around 12 million WoW players. Certainly, less of them will contribute on the forums, but that is still a Huge Damn Number.

Even if it's "unlikely", even if it's the vast minority, a percent, a tenth of a percent of the total playerbase, that could be in the range of thousands.

If even one person gets stalked or harassed because their real name reveals information to other people -- whether it's a lot of personal information, their biological sex, or who knows what else -- and it's preventable by allowing privacy, then it should have been prevented. Insulting anonymous words are not targetted towards individuals and reveal nothing about the people they're aimed at. Real information, if it is misused at all, can be dangerous. It's that simple.

I came to WoW after EQ (a game where reputation and accountability meant something for a long time), expecting to find a similar community. Nope! The ease in features such as server transfers, name changes, even faction changes now; aside from how easy it is to level and build a character, made reputation nearly obsolete. You could be a complete ass and suffer very little consequences from your player peers, it was easy to shed whatever reputation you built up and start anew.

This ended up pushing me into an almost elitist environment where I found a guild of players of similar caliber and mindset, and did almost nothing outside of that clique. I didn't exactly enjoy limiting my in-game experiences, but as a whole, it was a much better situation than having to deal with the WoW community on a daily basis. It wasn't uncommon to turn off Local and Trade to ignore everyone who wasn't in my guild and friends through tells.

If not a real name, then what about an account name tied to the account email address, that would display in the post like the character name, server and level? It would make it much easier for trolls to be traced back to a main and might actually make accountability and reputation mean something. This would deter a constant state of shit-up and flame-wars on the boards, without making it easier for personal information to be obtained.

I say "easier" because in this day and age, getting personal information is already easy. Ever see 4chan hunt someone down? In an hour the name, address, telephone number, facebook, blogs, email addresses, schools, family members and their addresses, numbers, facebooks, etc, can be found with nothing but a picture with a face. The tools to do this are already out there and public, it just takes effort to go through all of them to gather the information.

Like piracy, you can't really stop the flow of this information, but you can make it inconvenient enough to deter people from doing it on a larger scale. I agree that perhaps the real life name of the account holder is a bit much, but I still think something needs to be done to address the problem of a rotten community. That's a stain on Blizzard's name, whether they care or not.

Good decision and nice to see it "only" took them a few days to realize that there are justified concerns related to the use of real ID. I would definitely refuse to subscribe to any game with that feature in place. Especially as a female gamer I very much prefer to have full control over whom I disclose my identity to, and losing that control because I want technical support for a game I pay for is not a justified trade off.
Making people accountable for what they post on the forums can be achieved by other means, there are enough examples on the web present.

RealID was a bad solution to a real problem -- trolling and spamming (it was also probably an Activision ploy to better market to users through Facebook or whatever, but still).

It seems to me that Blizzard should allow users to maintain their avatars at every level. However, this could mean consequences at every level. Why not give users who post productively in forums in-game rewards? They could also punish those who abuse forums by taking away gold or whatever.

i could see how it would be a problem for female gamers.

If a developer/publisher was really interested in stemming trolling and bad behaviour in-game it would be easy - perma-ban anyone who refuses to follow the rules. Not just from the forums, but from the game. You would want to give one, maybe two warnings just to make sure you weren't catching someone on one really bad day or something, but if they refused to stop their behaviour you ban them permanently. Very, very few people would be willing to risk their WoW character or their Modern Warfare profile in that way, and it wouldn't be hard to moderate the few people who weren't sufficiently deterred. It's not hard to deter jerks from abusing your service, it just takes the desire to put the good players ahead of the jerks, which is something that sadly no company seems to be interested in doing.

GOOD. The public has spoken. Hire more Ban Hammers Blizzard. End of Story.

Hrm, so no requirements for it, but they're planning on more carrots?

I find it hard that no-one sees that real ID has nothing to do with flamming or trolling but the fact that Blizzards Battle.net is trying to become the new facebook for gaming, controlled by dear old Activision. Its not a bad idea, imo, but this has little to do with trolling and more about testing the waters. They failed. But believe me it will come.

man.. come on! get with the program. just make people pick a unique alias that they can't change! bind it to their account (or even make it their account name) and that's it for life, you get one forum identity per account, that in turn I assume would have to be linked to a purchased game.

I'm all about having to have a consistent username throughout your actions in any particular community. If you don't want to be seen saying something, the reasonable solution is to -not say it-.

I've always thought people should be held more accountable for their actions online. It wouldn't stop folks who are unabashed trolls, but that's fine; eventually, folks would figure out that Rydiaa is just out to get after someone. Heck, he's a completely shameless troll and everyone knows it and he never changes his name.

People who want to be dickbags on the Internet but not be recognized as dickbags ought to stay on /b/. If they have a desire to contribute to some other community, they ought to give up that anonymity.

I liked the idea overall, although using actual names is what's getting everyone's panties in a wad. Everyone with merit, anyway; the other folks just don't want to be recognized for the assholes they like to be.

What on earth is so difficult about linking all of a user's accounts together? Someone wants to act like an idiot with their level 1 alt? You should at least be able to see what their main characters are. That would then force people to have multiple paid accounts to troll, which would cut down on that sort of thing quite a bit. You get the benefit of reputation-based ID without the privacy issues of someone's real name...

Real ID's only result would be harassment and violence.

Think about it. Let's say someone offends you on a forum and they do so under their real name. So what? You can't call the cops and have them arrested, because they're not doing anything illegal. They're not harassing you. They're just flaming on an Internet forum.

So, that being the case, what have you gained by knowing their name? The only thing you have gained is the ability to find out who they are in reality. But even that is not a consequence. So the only real thing you have gained is the ability to harass the person or do violence to the person. That's it. That is the only thing you have gained by knowing their name. Does that sound like a good thing to you?

This entire Real ID system is based on the fear that if you're a dick, you'll reap real life consequences. That's a terrible foundation for a social networking system.

And, to be honest, I'm not sure if the real reason behind Real ID is social networking. I think that the real reason Real ID was purposed is that Blizzard has a huge community problem. They cannot enforce their policies on their forums or in their games. The reasonable response to this would be to hire more people to moderate their games and forums, but those people would of course have to be paid.

So, to save money, Real ID was introduced. Rather than paying employees to moderate the community, you can make the community moderate itself! Brilliant! Except for the people who get harassed or injured in real life because someone decided to track them down over an Internet dispute.

It is all about the money. Blizzard is owned by Activision now. They are not the same company they used to be. The sooner people realize this, the better.

"This entire Real ID system is based on the fear that if you're a dick, you'll reap real life consequences. That's a terrible foundation for a social networking system."

Crazy, but that's how it works in the real world too.

The whole thing is really sad. Is the "gaming community" so terrible that you cannot give your real name without fearing violence and harassment from other members. People in real life know my name and sometimes even where I live, and sometimes I even get into heated arguments with those people over important subject such as religion or politic. Yet none of them ever came to my house to punch me in the face or try to ruin my life. Ain't it crazy that people would do that over a damn video game.

If anything, this whole discussion lifted the veil on a deeper problem with the gaming culture as an whole. It's just sad that no woman can openly post around on forums with people knowing she is a girl without receiving hundreds of messages asking her to "show her tits". Are gamers that unstable that posting your name becomes a risk?

@Bruno Dion
Maybe we shouldn't single out gaming culture. It's our culture in general. From political punditry to message boards of every topic or community, people have increasingly forsaken etiquette, civility, honor, mutual respect and decency. Real ID and similar systems seem a band-aid to the problem of growing immaturity. Maybe somehow we need to find a way to rectify our increasing arrested development.

I've seen some good points made regarding potential problems with a Real ID system. One I haven't seen made is the potential for employers who do background checks on their prospective new hires to determine that someone spends "too much" time on various gaming related forums making them less than an ideal candidate by their measure.

I use my real name here but there's some boards where politics or other potentially controversial subject matter is discussed where I use an online handle. I should be able to have good faith discussions without worry that some future boss is going to disagree with some of my beliefs or positions and have me fired.

There are a lot of good arguments against Read ID that were posted in the WOW forum.

One of the more interesting posts was that by law South Korea requires a persons real name when posting on forums. So, I suppose if Blizz/Acti was thinking Real ID is working in South Korea, then it can work here in the USA and in Europe.

This point was already mentioned in the forum btw:
"I've seen some good points made regarding potential problems with a Real ID system. One I haven't seen made is the potential for employers who do background checks on their prospective new hires to determine that someone spends "too much" time on various gaming related forums making them less than an ideal candidate by their measure. "

A sad day for common sense. Blizzard could have been trailblazers and others would have followed. Oh well, may as well prepare myself for the inevitable anonymous internet tough guy and the flames and lies that infect the forums.

"Crazy, but that's how it works in the real world too."

Boy, you just stated an obvious fact. It'd be nice if you actually formed a counter argument, though.

No surprise. I am pretty sure there was another agenda here (to resemble a platform like facebook more and more), but for hardcore games like Blizzard makes, this would've reduced engagement by reducing forum participation. Would've been a terrible idea for their games.

While John Gabriel's internet theory holds true most of the time, it's good that Blizzard's lapse of judgment was only temporary. If "flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness" are really that much of a problem, it would only be worse if troublemakers had access to players' real names. The WoW forums can be read by the public, so even those without posting privileges could harass players outside of the game. The fact that many players are underage makes it even more problematic. There are other ways to clean up the forums without revealing personal information.

Security vs privacy is always a trade off. Blizzard would have us trade all our privacy for the added security that flamers might think twice before posting. Not worth it.

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with real names on the Internet. If I am a game developer, and I am really good, then I would want my name to be out there publicly everywhere. :)

Josh McCoy