The Daily Quest: What's in a name
by Anne Stickney 
Jul 6th 2010 at 8:00PM
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
The internet today has been awfully, awfully chatty -- which is interesting given the topic. Since Blizzard's announcement earlier today that the official forums would be displaying the real names of players come Cataclysm, people haven't been able to keep quiet about how they are going to be ... keeping quiet once these new forum changes come into play. Let's take a look at a few blogs around the web regarding the new Real ID changes.
- World of Matticus talks about the good and bad of forum-wide Real ID.
- Big Bear Butt plans for a Cataclysm -- not the expansion itself, but the changes it brings.
- Empowered Fire discusses their disappointment in the forum changes.
- Broken Toys tells Blizzard "You got your Facebook in your message board about my orc game."
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
hp1 Jul 6th 2010 8:10PM
The fact that wow.com is refusing to cover the privacy risks inherent in sharing real names via an anonymous game space or on public forums is incredibly disappointing to me. Honestly your lack of involvement (is that journalistic distance?) with this issue is beginning to make me feel more like you're just shilling for Blizzard.
Veloxe Jul 6th 2010 8:14PM
Get out your tinfoil hats ladies and gentlemen!
wutsconflag Jul 6th 2010 8:32PM
My guess is that the wow.com writers are probably taking a "wait and see" approach. I'm sure they've been in communication with each other about this. I doubt we'll see a "wow, this is a bad idea" post, but I'm hoping (like you) that we'll see something discussing it, at least.
kazeko.fuuga Jul 6th 2010 8:52PM
Bet they're compiling opinions on this or discussing what stance they'll take, before they post an article. They could be waiting to see how things go, but I think they normally like jumping on each new tidbit. This one is a bit more complicated...
chris Jul 6th 2010 8:54PM
why are you coming to wow.com for journalistic writing?
here is how i think their template goes.
"TITLE" - New thing for (insert class name here)
"INTRO" - look at all these new things for (insert class name here), more after the break!
"The rest" - this looks like a cool idea.
"closing" - what do you guys think?
....readers post comments.
chris Jul 6th 2010 8:55PM
sorry, also meant to say. im not trying to bash these guys.
i come to this site all the time, its a great place to find all new wow news in one easy place, but i wouldnt say they offer ground breaking journalism.
Qot Jul 6th 2010 10:04PM
They're probably researching it at the moment. There's 10k+ replies to the original thread and, when I was reading it, I was losing ground. I'd read one page, two more get posted.
They also have to consider how to address it without (a) pissing off Blizzard or (b) mis-informing the player base.
Skyhoof Jul 6th 2010 10:19PM
Thank you! I sent in a suggestion that they should do an article on it but got no reply :/ 12,000 posts and official complaints to the ESRB! Definitely newsworthy in my book.
Liam O'Connor Jul 6th 2010 8:11PM
I wonder how many people are just worried they are going to be exposed as G.I.R.L.s. :P
Noyou Jul 6th 2010 8:15PM
Clever! I see what you did there G.I.R.L (guys in real life).
NeoCloud61 Jul 6th 2010 8:23PM
That is a legitimate issue. Girls get harassed all the time if they reveal their gender. Creepy stalker nerds do not know how to control themselves and this is just going to make it worse.
NeoCloud61 Jul 6th 2010 8:24PM
Didn't read that well enough. Yeah, guys in real life will just look silly. But real women have a right to keep their gender anonymous.
Utakata Jul 6th 2010 8:37PM
Everyone has that right NeoCloud61, a long with their name and identification. Whether they are a male or female, GIRL's, cool intelligent gamers, moronic flaming trolls or fanboi apologist nitwits alike. This is a decison of Blizz that will hurt us all.
wutsconflag Jul 6th 2010 8:30PM
I've posted it elsewhere, but Blizzard says they're doing this to increase accountability of the users posting on their forums.
Why does Joe User need to know my real name? For what purpose would he ever need that?
The only people I have to be held accountable to are Blizzard and the proper authorities. This smacks of Blizzard effectively washing their hands of trying to police the boards, themselves. They're effectively saying "we can't do it, so here, we'll give you the person's name, and you can go harrass them..."
If Blizzard really wanted to cut down on trolling (and I seriously doubt this is going to affect that much, at all), they could have simply created a "nickname", tied it to the battle.net account, and then to all of the toons you have. Or, they could simply make you choose one single toon to post from.
Real names aren't the way to solve this problem.
theRaptor Jul 6th 2010 9:02PM
Real names especially don't work BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY FOR BLIZZARD TO KNOW IF MY BATTLE.NET NAME IS REAL OR NOT.
Unless they start requiring you to show up at Blizz HQ with photo ID to make an account they can't verify jack.
I pay my account with game cards so they can't even use a CC name (which wouldn't help as I use friends CC's for online purchases).
kyusswren Jul 6th 2010 9:03PM
As somebody that has been permabanned from the forums for posting "I chuckled" in a 2 year old thread about warrior pvp gear...
let me just tell you that they aren't giving up on policing the forums. While I'd rather the forum accounts be tied to one singular persona, I too feel that giving out my real name online is a bit... much.
World of Warcraft has some of the most dedicated trolls, and some of the most dedicated black hatters on the internet trying to get your account info, your credit card info, your home address, and any information they can about you...
So I see it as a bad idea. That is the bad part.
On the plus side though, it will escalate account thefts to full out identity thefts, which does in fact make it the FBI's problem. That is an interesting tidbit that I don't believe you guys have brought up yet. That is the good part.
The ugly part is the people. I don't WANT to know everybody's name. this isn't Cheers, this is the World of Warcraft.
Qing Guang Jul 6th 2010 8:31PM
As one of two women in America (possibly the world) with my full name, I'm very uncomfortable with this. A Google search of my name reveals (if one ignores the info about the old Methodist lady in Iowa) the names of my parents, my high school, my church, my former archery club, and the my university. Great.
Looks like I won't be using the forums anymore; I hope Emerald Dream has an independent forum for events.
Oh, and if this ever becomes mandatory in-game... well, I'm a college student with limited funds, and Guild Wars 2 should be coming out soon.
RoseClown Jul 6th 2010 8:46PM
THIS.
I am just... ticked off at blizzard. I have had family memebers stalked. I have run into some creepy as all heck people who have become obsessed with me that I know look back and think thank goodness they had no way of getting any of my real info.
I just want to know one thing, who the heck thought this was a good idea? At least with facebook you can block anyone who you don't approve of! (Which I do. Always.)
theRaptor Jul 6th 2010 9:05PM
It is like Blizzard have never heard the words "Internet detective" or "4chan" before.
When this goes live 4chan is going to spend half its time trying to internet detective down and harass wow players that some b-tards hate.
Karl Jul 6th 2010 8:38PM
Not like I really used the forums much anyway, just read blue trackers to see what people are complaining about this week.
Does seem a tad silly though, since even on facebook I don't use my real name, people I like have my email address and will know it is me regardless of what silly name I put there