Here is what I don't get.

If you add someone as a Real ID friend, you can see their email. At least, you could a month or so ago in StarCraft 2. Now, you may be friends with someone IRL, but that doesn't mean you want them to know your login address. But if you put them on your Real ID friends list, it will display it. You can also add Real ID friends using their email address.

I cant think of a single person that I am friends with that I wouldn't trust with my real name or email address. If you cant trust them with such basic information, the kind of info you would hand out freely on your business card, then you've really got to take a moment to question your choice in friends.

Once again arturis, you may trust your friends, but do you trust all of the friends they befriend? And what if your friend, or one of their friends gets hacked? Now they have your battle.net login e-mail and real first and last name on the billing account.

There is no reason to insult the people who refuse to use the service, I don't think they need to "take a moment" to look at their choice in friends.

@Arturis

What's funny is, we're a small guild, most of us *already* know this information about each other. We've all exchanged e-mail addresses, many of us have friended each other on Facebook, and several of the people I've been friends with out of game for almost nine years and we have each other's addresses already. NONE of us are interested in using this system. NONE. Even though it would have obvious benefits for communication among us because we'd be able to contact people on Horde alts about raids and whatnot more easily. The chance of account compromise is too great for me to be willing to have that info out there, and on top of that, being female, I don't think every male gamer in WoW who's friends with any of my realID friends needs to be able to see my full name and such. I trust my friends, but not necessarily the friends of my friends. That factor, along with the inability to opt any characters out of being shown, is a deal killer for a lot of people.

I trust my friends.

I don't trust their knowledge of computer security nor the safety of their PC's.

I think it's a bad idea to give access to hackers everyone's first name, last name, & e-mail address. I don't see why the e-mail address has to be part of the system at all. I don't use my battle.net e-mail for anything except for battle.net for security reasons. I don't like the lack of privacy or security, since friends of your friends can see more than I think they should be able to see. We need an "only my friends can see XYZ" feature.

@Michelle Madison
I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to insult anyone. It was an attempt at humor that obviously has failed.

I still feel that my original statement is valid, though. It doesn't bother me that anyone knows my real name or email address. I have been using the same email address since 1992, so I'm pretty sure anyone that knows me already has it. And if their friends want to friend me, they can send the request and I have the right to accept or deny them. Does this compromise my WoW account in any way? No. Anyone that wants to target my account for an attack will have this information already through countless other sources. If my friends have a keylogger or trojan infecting their system, it is just as likely to target me though links or shared files as it is through datamining my email address. I honestly don't see this as the massive security risk that people are reacting so strongly to.

@danawhitaker

As a confessed and functional Altoholic, the RealID system is a dream come true. I own two active accounts, with 10 characters each on Elune (Alliance side) and Uldum (Horde side), plus several other characters on other servers that I rolled to play along with various friends. Being able to see when friends sign on to different realms/factions is going to allow me to make more informed decisions about where and who I want to play at any given moment.

Now if only they would add in a Mail Notification system so I don't have to sign on to each and every character to check for mail... >_>

Ugh. I use my wow account email solely for wow. I don't want it made public.

the thing people are missing is that as long as you have an authenticator, this info will not make you vulnerable to account hacks. they have to physically have your authenticator to access your account settings or to log in.

Again, the problem with RealID isn't RealID.

It's that they tied features to RealID that there is simply no good reason to. (Cross-Game and Cross-Server friends lists and chat.)

I agree with Arturis.

Whatever email you use for your account (Be it the same one you use to comment here) has no consequences if someone you trust obtains it. Sure someone could theoretically attack your account if you add them, but there are many ways to secure against that (The authenticator some people vocally abuse is one of the best ways to save your investment).

I instant message people constantly on MSN, and by virtue of circumstantial logic I can conclude that this is likely the email they use for WoW. As far as I'm concerned, don't use the system if you don't trust people with it.

*As a side note, for those of us here who used our email as our login to comment; we are in significantly more danger to abuse than the in game tool.

@kittytrainer

An authenticator is not a cure all. An authenticator is not reason give out the rest of your login information. There are several ways to get around a person have an authenticator, true it's not as easy as someone who doesn't but it's not 100% :)

@Kay

I would phrase it a little differently... The problem with Real ID is the fact that your Real ID is the name you registered with battle.net (and no they didn't tell you they would use it for anything other than that) and your battle.net login. If it was a new unique handle I doubt anyone would have a problem with it.

@Kay
From a developer's point of view, the RealID/email makes perfect sense. When associating data, you need to set up a unique identifier that signifies the data record. Lets take a look at what options they had:

Character Name: Well that is right out. Character names are unique per realm, but not unique across the entire system (There are many Arturis's, for example, but only a handful of them are me) or across the other games they are integrating (Diablo/StarCraft/Whatever the new IP is).

Pre-BattleNet Account name: Prior to the BattleNet integration, we were all logging in with unique account names. However, these account names were specific per account, and there are alot of people out there that have multiple accounts. Besides, I dont believe they even retained this data after they switched to BattleNet accounts.

New BattleNet Account Aliases: In theory, they could have introduced a new BattleNet Account Alias field that would allow the players to chose a new, unique identifier name. This would set off a mad scramble, unfortunately, as people race to "claim" account names before anyone else. I, for example, would be in competition to create "Arturis" before anyone else claims the name. This would leave us with what I call the AOL Effect, where we have such convoluted account names as "Arturis5947" or "TheRealArturisXX" and very few people get the alias name they actually wanted.

This leaves us with using our actual, registered email addresses as our identifiers. They are by definition unique, and wouldn't involve creating redundant identifiers in their database system. Of all the Arturis's out there on the various realms/games, there is only one that has my email address, and thus, the only way to truly identify me from the rest of the Arturis's (Arturises? Arturi?) is by referring to me by my email address. I don't really see them as having any other option.

@Arturis:

Moot point, but they have retained our pre-battle.net account names, just check under your "Manage My Games" section, underneath the game box for each WoW account you have linked to your battle.net account will be your pre-battle.net account name.

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I find the features of Real ID really useful and I would like to extend them to more people I have known for years via WoW or other online games, but not IRL, I've played with them but wouldn't give them my email freely - even after such a long period time of knowing them.

I don't think it would be so much to ask for a unique username which is my account's "Real ID", that could lead to abuse of the system by some but email addresses really does seem like a bad idea. It's just an authenticator sales drive.

I have an authenticator. I just don't want an email account I use solely for the official business of WoW to be made public

@Arturis;

I have two google email accounts, and a hotmail account on top of my paid, ISP-supplied email. Why?

1 google account for business, which has a professional sounding 'alias' attached to it so I can hand it out to whomever.
1 google account for misc. junk, signing up for forums, etc. It's my public email.
The hotmail is a throw-away account, anything I don't really care about uses that email address. It's typically full of porn-based spam, Nigerian heirs, etc so I figure let Microsoft deal with that.

My paid-for account goes only to immediate family. My two google accounts 'redirect' all incoming mail there so I don't need to check them, allowing me to read all my email from 1 location. But by compartmentalizing, I control who sees me as what and how much info I give out.

If =you= feel you can leave your WoW Account information easily readable by anyone, that's your choice. But some of us do take personal security and identity theft seriously and do our best to reduce the risk to ourselves.

@Artruis

Might it have been slightly more complex to allow the use of handles?

Possibly.

But the more likely reality is that it would only be more complex to add the use of handles to the infrastructure they've already created.

As far as the rest of it goes...let's not fool ourselves. They're breaking convention in a massive way by allowing the use of real names, and extremely limiting the use of these new features in a way that diminishes the direct return on their dev time on the new Battle.net.

Why would they do this?

The indirect returns on their dev time that they're hoping for, aka the deal they've cut with Facebook. Taking the information direct from our billing info doesn't allow us to retain any level of anonymity if we want to use the new Battle.net features. Combined with the coming Facebook tie-ins, this is all designed to try and get the names of WoW players into the Facebook network, which they're hoping = major marketing dollars.

It's a bad, short-sighted decision when it comes to the players to require the divulging of real names to use basic features like freinds lists and chat cross-game, and it smacks of Bobby Kotick influence.