The Daily Quest: A little too real for me
by Anne Stickney 
Jun 23rd 2010 at 9:00PM
Patch 3.3.5 is here, and with it comes the introduction of the RealID system, and many, many opinions about the use of it. While I thought the feature was interesting and well worth playing with on the test realms, I do enjoy my privacy -- and until Blizzard introduces an "invisible" setting for the RealID system, I won't be using it. Here's a collection of thoughts by others around the Warcraft blogging community regarding RealID:
- World of Matticus discusses why RealID isn't for him.
- The Stoppable Force has some information about RealID, and suggests that people stop with the righteous indignation.
- Too Many Annas shares some thoughts on privacy, RealIDs and roleplay.
- Miss Medicina talks about the Patch 3.3.5 patch notes, as well as the RealID system.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
~Mischief~ Jun 23rd 2010 9:33PM
Invisible would be awesome, but I'd even settle for Do Not Disturb.
Anne Stickney Jun 23rd 2010 9:55PM
That's generally what "Busy" seems to be replacing, is DND - what I'm looking for is an invisible setting in the way of most major IM programs. You set it to invisible, and nobody sees you're online - making it much easier to hide in blissful seclusion. I like blissful seclusion.
~Mischief~ Jun 24th 2010 11:37AM
Oh I'm with you on that Anne. If there was an invisible, I'd be adding more then the one and only person who I know will leave me alone and not be offended if I say so. And I hesitated and ran scenarios thru my head before I accepted his request.
Right now my Mom doesn't even make the list (I'm 41). =P
We live in the world of Caller ID and voice mail. Sometimes we wanna be left the heck alone. WoW is an escape. Real ID takes any escaping away. And frankly most the times who/what I want to escape are the people I know in RL and 'trust' most. (Good friends and Family).
Anyway that got wordy... but I'm feeling you Anne
Snowy Jun 23rd 2010 9:37PM
Well there is the Busy, but yes, I agree... I would really love an "Invisible" option. So far I have pretty much only added my real time friends, people who know me in real life, if someone else wants to message me, well then they can message me in game.
Bionic Radd Jun 23rd 2010 10:48PM
that is the only people you are supposed to add. while I am not overly pleased at the limitation, I have no qualms with working within it. all of my guildies are people I routinely hang out with in real life. we all added each other, as soon we logged in, tonight. for us, this new system is amazing.
Lilkitten Jun 23rd 2010 10:51PM
@Bionic and Snowy
The problem is it isn't just the people you add that see your name. It is the people on your friends friends list that see it as well. Read my post below about something that has happened already in the first day of release of this.
Gamer am I Jun 23rd 2010 9:38PM
Restokin also had a post on this topic: http://www.restokin.com/2010/06/real-id-do-you-trust-the-friends-of-your-friends/
Lissanna Jun 23rd 2010 10:54PM
I want my /tinfoil hat. :(
Adoisin Jun 24th 2010 9:16AM
My boyfriend wanted me to add him to friends on Real ID. I refused. Mainly because he is that guy who adds all his guild mates, friends, the person he buys flasks from, and that one guy who made him some leg armor that one time. My boyfriend is a friend slut, in other words. I, however, guard my real life details including my name like they were made of gold. I do not want everyone knowing my real name, or what toons I may have. So no, my real boyfriend is not making my friends list because I do not trust all his friends.
Besides, if he needs to find out if I am online, he can just pick up the phone, or text me.
wutsconflag Jun 23rd 2010 9:38PM
I don't need Invisible (though it would be nice). What I'd like to see are two "simple" options added:
1) Stop the whole "friend of a friend" thing. If I select this option, then I will not show up on any "friend of a friend" list. This is the one overwhelming reason I won't use the service, as nifty as I think it would be.
2) Ability to choose certain toons that I don't want other people to see I'm playing on. (Sometimes I like to log into an alt on a random server and just enjoy the game without having to deal with guild drama or whatever.) Hmmm... Maybe Invisible mode would work for this.
Sleutel Jun 23rd 2010 9:49PM
Why I Won't Be Using RealID
RealID is a new feature with some great functionality that almost no one is going to use, including me. This boils down to a fundamental aspect of WoW and other Blizzard games that the developers seem to have forgotten: they are not a social networking site. On Facebook, I have a reason to let people see my real name and let their friends see my real name. But even in my EMAIL, I can choose what name to display and whether or not I appear online (in GChat). Some of us play with at least one real-life friend. But those of us who've been playing the game for longer than five minutes have a vast array of ONLINE friends--people whose playstyles and in-game company we enjoy. However, that doesn't mean we trust them like real-life friends (or that we trust our real-life friends to only friend people we also want to have access to us), or that we want them to know where we are every second of every day. The current implementation means that people have to choose between a complete--and potentially dangerous or at least frustrating--lack of privacy, and no cross-server or cross-game communication capabilities.
Furthermore, the biggest communication gap in WoW exists with people we don't know outside the game. To keep in touch with my friends who I also know outside the game, I can use a FB message, a text, a phone call, Vent, etc. There's no logical reason to add extra communication and coordination functionality into the game... and then restrict its reasonable and safe use only to those people whom you presumably already have other methods for contacting outside the game.
How to Fix It
1.) Allow me to create an alias. This could be my real name; it could be a nickname; it could be the name of my main character; it could be the name of a small Eastern European country.
2.) Preferably, this alias should be unique to me, so that friends can add each other without having to give away one-half of what should be the privileged information required to access their accounts. Every time I tell someone which email I use for my battle.net account, it makes my account just that much less secure. A password should not be all that stands between me and getting hacked.
2.) Allow me to designate an auto-availability for each character. For instance, if I have a Druid on an RP server that no one else knows about that I like to play by myself to unwind, I should be able to toggle a "hidden" setting that makes it never even show up on my list of characters--let alone display as online if I'm playing it.
3.) Allow me to set an availability every time I log in to my account or a toon--not just "online, away, or busy," but also "hide"--so that I can appear to be offline if I want.
4.) Allow me to create subsets of my friends list, so that if I want to appear online for some people but not others, I can do so.
In summary: Treat RealID more like an IM program and less like a social networking site. Until the current gaping privacy holes are fixed, I will be declining to use this new "feature."
Gamer am I Jun 23rd 2010 10:15PM
Though I emphatically agree with most of what you said, I just have to say...
"A password should not be all that stands between me and getting hacked. "
That's what authenticators are for.
Sleutel Jun 23rd 2010 10:19PM
@Gamer am I:
1.) Authenticators are currently not required to play the game. Blizzard should not count on them being used.
2.) I will never use Authenticators, barring their requirement, until I'm allowed to associate at least two with my account. I want to be able to attach one to my desk and the other to my keys. I don't trust that shit not to get lost or broken at the worst possible time.
Koskun Jun 23rd 2010 11:04PM
@ Sleutal - As to your refusal to use an Authenticator because you loose stuff, that is not a valid reason by any stretch of the imagination. Get one, keep it safe, know where you keep it. You loose it, that is in no way the fault of Blizzard, which you are trying to imply.
Second, if you are not using an authenticator at this point in time you are on borrowed time. There are just too many 0-day exploits that can pop up that no virus/malware/trojan scanner in the world is going to be able to find on the day they come out.
As to the paranoia about being able to see the Friends of Friends, it is ONLY those that are your RealID friends and NOT your regular friends list.
It also boils down to, you are NOT FORCED TO USE REALID. It is an option. It is meant to be used with people you know and trust, not to that person you pugged at the last minute just to get a full raid.
I do agree that using your battlenet ID for RealID does seem like a security risk, but a) You don't have to use it and b) it is not giving out your password with RealID, and honestly c) you should have an authenticator by this point, there really is no reason not to.
Lilkitten Jun 23rd 2010 11:13PM
@ Koskun
Sorry, but you are missing the point of what people are saying. You say it's paranoia about Friends of Friends, and yes, everyone knows it's just the Real ID aspect of it. But if a friend has someone on their friends list that isn't on mine, why would I want them to see my name? Read my post below of an incident that has already happened because a girl already had a friend of a friend look up her personal information and post it in trade chat and has been getting harrassing calls.
There is no good reason for the Friends of Friends feature. Blizz's own statement for Real ID is it's for people we trust, yet they make it that people we have no control over sees our names.
Yes, the system is optional. But as it stands very few are going to use it as is. Also, the simple changes we are asking for would in no way end your enjoyment of it unless for some reason you have some need to see the names of people on your friends friends list that you don't know personally, and that would just go to the point I'm making if you did enjoy that. So why won't Blizz just do the 2 little tweaks and make it so a lot more people will enjoy the feature as well?
Sleutel Jun 23rd 2010 11:19PM
@Koskun:
I look forward to the day when your Authenticator breaks and you're locked out of the game. I look forward to that day with glee.
You clearly haven't been reading anything people are saying. We KNOW that it only shows our names to RealID friends of RealID friends. That doesn't help. I have NO CONTROL over who my friends add. I can't guarantee that out of all my friends' friends, one of them won't be a jackass. Also, that doesn't address the biggest problem: the people that you'd currently be "safe" to add to your RealID friends... are the ones you LEAST NEED this new functionality for.
The problem also remains of handing out your Blizzard account email to people in order to add them--or the other way around. That is terrible, TERRIBLE account security. It doesn't matter if that information is saved anywhere after it's used; the information has been distributed.
Koskun Jun 23rd 2010 11:28PM
@ Sleutel - So, when you go out in the world and introduce yourself to someone you believe they will never mention you to anyone else ever? When you go for a job interview you believe the person that interviewed you will never talk about you with someone else?
Why is it that someone knowing your real name in a virtual world is so much worse than someone in the real world?
Sleutel Jun 23rd 2010 11:33PM
@Koskun:
I'm a woman who plays WoW, the fact that I'm female is obvious from my first name, and I have a fairly unusual combination of given name and surname. I would be VERY easy to find me with only that information.
If you don't care about people knowing your personal information, I'm sure you'll happily post YOUR full name, address, and phone number here. If you don't have the balls to do that, I hope you'll have the good grace to admit that having personal information released to complete strangers is not an ideal situation.
If you think that meeting people in person in the real world is remotely comparable to handing out your personal identity to unfiltered friends-of-friends online, you are incredibly naive.
Lilkitten Jun 23rd 2010 11:37PM
@ Koskun
"So, when you go out in the world and introduce yourself to someone you believe they will never mention you to anyone else ever? When you go for a job interview you believe the person that interviewed you will never talk about you with someone else?
Why is it that someone knowing your real name in a virtual world is so much worse than someone in the real world?"
Because if someone who interviews you were to do this, that would be an automatic lawsuit if it was discovered. There are legal and ethical ramifications to it.
If you don't know the difference between what goes on on the internet, the "virtual world" and the real world, well, you must be new to the internet. You also must of ignored my post further down about a girl who already has had her address and phone number posted in trade chat on her server because someone who was on her friends friends list, not on hers, saw her real name and did a search on it and got the information. That one incident at the very least should prompt Blizzard to scrap friends of friends. There is nothing that is useful for. Why are people opposed to something that would allow more people to enjoy this service and not ruin the enjoyment that those who don't care about privacy currently have.
SINisterWyvern Jun 24th 2010 1:13AM
"A password should not be all that stands between me and getting hacked"
Except you know.. for your e-mail account. Since that's all that is between EVERYONE and the access to your e-mail account. Which is access to a whole mess of things. Think before speaking in the future please