Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsBlizzard responds to common Real ID concerns
by Gregg Reece 
Jul 16th 2010 at 5:30PM
Nethaera (Blizzard community manager) posted answers to some of the common Real ID questions and concerns on the forums today. With the PR disaster that was Blizzard's original Real ID on the forums concept, a follow-up aimed at easing tensions in the community -- even after the retraction -- was to be expected. While Blizzard offered some good news on things people have been requesting, they also dodged other points for the moment in true Blizzard style.
Some highlights from the announcement:
Some highlights from the announcement:
- no current plans for an online handle to be used in game with Real ID instead of your name
- feature to disable your name's appearance in Friends of Friends list coming around the time of StarCraft II
- plans for some sort of unique ID on the WoW forums
NethaeraAnswers to Common Community Questions About Real ID™
Since the launch of the Real ID™ system in World of Warcraft®, we've received a number of questions from the community about our plans for the service, features like StarCraft® II's Facebook® integration, and how we see Real ID evolving in the future. We've been keeping tabs on the conversations on our forums, social media sites, and fansites, and have compiled some of the most common questions to answer for you here. We hope you find this information helpful, and we look forward to hearing your feedback and continuing the conversation in the thread below.
Q: Do you have any plans to allow players to not show their real name to friends of friends while using the Real ID system?
A: As with any new feature we add to our games, we've been evaluating how Real ID has been used since its release to identify new functionality that would help improve our players' experience. The in-game Real ID "friends of friends" list is designed to give players a convenient way to populate their Real ID friends list with other players they know and trust in real life, allowing them to quickly and easily send Real ID friend requests to these people without having to enter their Battle.net® account names. However, we recognize that some players would prefer not to be displayed on friends lists in this fashion, so we plan to include an option that will allow players to opt out of appearing on their Real ID friends' "friends of friends" lists. We're anticipating this feature to be available for StarCraft II shortly after release of the game, and World of Warcraft at around the same time -- we'll have more information for you in the coming weeks.
Q: What are your plans for Facebook integration?
A: With regard to Facebook, our goal is to help Blizzard gamers on Battle.net more easily connect to their real-life friends and family. For the launch of StarCraft II, we are introducing an optional Facebook friend finder feature to help achieve this goal. The friend finder enables players who decide to use it to easily populate their Battle.net friends list by sending Real ID friend requests to the people on their Facebook friends list who have Battle.net accounts. We hope players will find this feature convenient, but it's completely optional. In the long term, we hope to give players who use Facebook some fun, and also optional, ways to share what they're doing in Blizzard games with their friends, similar to the optional World of Warcraft Armory integration now available, but we don't have any specific plans to share at present.
Q: How does the friend finder in StarCraft II work? What's sent to Facebook?
A: When you use the Add a Friend feature in StarCraft II, one of the options you'll see is to search your Facebook friends list for people who also have Battle.net accounts in order to quickly send them Real ID friend requests. When you click this button, you'll be asked to enter your Facebook login information, and you'll then see a list of your Facebook friends who also have Battle.net accounts. You'll then have the option to send any of these Facebook friends a Real ID friend request in-game. (Keep in mind that for someone to appear on the list, their Battle.net account email address must match their Facebook email address. In addition, you'll see the names of any Facebook friends who have registered Battle.net accounts, regardless of whether they have Blizzard games attached to their account or just, for example, created the Battle.net account to make a purchase on the online Blizzard Store.)
It's important to note that Blizzard Entertainment does not share any personal information with Facebook as part of this process. Keep in mind that as with other Real ID features such as the "friends of friends" list, our goal with the friend finder feature is to create convenient options to help players easily find people they know in real life on Battle.net without having to remember email addresses or account names. We hope players will find the feature easy to use and convenient.
Q: How can I prevent World of Warcraft add-ons from accessing Real ID first and last names without my knowledge?
A: As always, we recommend that you get your UI add-ons through reliable sources. It's important to note that without installing a UI add-on specifically designed to retrieve that information, there's no risk of it being accessed. On our end, we're looking into the issue and are at work on some changes that we can make to help protect against these types of add-ons. We'll provide further details as soon as we have more information to share.
Q: Are you secretly trying to build a social gaming platform with the new Battle.net?
A: It's no secret -- as we've discussed openly since we first started sharing our plans about the new Battle.net, one of our goals is for it to serve as a social gaming service for Blizzard gamers. This was a deliberate and open design decision, driven 100% by the desire to create an even better online experience for our players by giving them powerful tools to compete with and stay connected to their real-life friends and family.
Q: If my account was compromised, what information about my Real ID friends would a hacker have access to?
A: We take account security very seriously, and we offer a number of ways to help players keep their account secure, including the Battle.net Authenticator and the free Battle.net Mobile Authenticator app, available for a wide range of mobile devices. Aside from your friends' first and last names, no other personal information is shared through the in-game Real ID system.
Q: What's a StarCraft II "character code"?
A: When you first log in to StarCraft II, you're prompted to choose a single character name. This is the only name you'll use on Battle.net, and it's tied to your StarCraft II license. In order to allow players to select any name they wish regardless of whether another player is already using the same name, we then generate and assign a three-digit character code that uniquely identifies the player. When posting on the forums of the new StarCraft II community site, players will be posting using their StarCraft II character name and character code.
Q: Will the new StarCraft II forum posting name format (character name + character code) carry over into the forum communities of other Blizzard games?
A: Following our recent decision to no longer use real first and last names on Blizzard forums, we're still evaluating how we'll move forward with our other forums. Our ultimate goal is still to promote constructive conversations and improve the overall forum experience for our players, and we think increasing accountability is an important part of achieving that. StarCraft II already uses a character name and character code combo in-game, which serves as a unique player identifier and fits well with our goal for the forums. World of Warcraft handles player identification differently, so we still need to determine whether adding a character code system like in StarCraft II is the best solution. Ultimately, we want to come up with a system that makes sense for each community and fits our long-term vision for the forums.
Q: Are there any plans to change the in-game Real ID system so that players will have the option to display an assigned user name instead of their real names?
A: The Real ID system is designed to help real-life friends and family who decide to use it keep in touch with each other across Blizzard games, and our goal in using real names is to ensure that players will be able to maintain long-term, meaningful relationships on the service for years to come. One way it helps make that happen is by eliminating the need to remember who, for example, "Thrall123" really is when you see him or her pop up on your friends list again after months -- or years -- of being offline. Ultimately, we think this is the best way to ensure players who use Real ID are able stay connected with the people they enjoy playing with most in the long-term, and we don't currently have any plans to change the system so it can be used with character names or alternate handles instead. That said, Battle.net is a living, breathing service that we will continue to evolve over time as we evaluate how players are using it and identify new ways to improve the experience.
Q: What plans are there to improve moderation since the use of real names on the forums has been changed?
A: Our new community sites' forums, beginning with the StarCraft II site, will have an improved moderation system as well as a post-rating system which will help our players promote the conversations they find the most constructive, as well as help forum moderators identify quality discussions. This, coupled with the unique StarCraft II character name and code, will help us to create a more positive atmosphere based on community interaction and accountability.
Since the launch of the Real ID™ system in World of Warcraft®, we've received a number of questions from the community about our plans for the service, features like StarCraft® II's Facebook® integration, and how we see Real ID evolving in the future. We've been keeping tabs on the conversations on our forums, social media sites, and fansites, and have compiled some of the most common questions to answer for you here. We hope you find this information helpful, and we look forward to hearing your feedback and continuing the conversation in the thread below.
Q: Do you have any plans to allow players to not show their real name to friends of friends while using the Real ID system?
A: As with any new feature we add to our games, we've been evaluating how Real ID has been used since its release to identify new functionality that would help improve our players' experience. The in-game Real ID "friends of friends" list is designed to give players a convenient way to populate their Real ID friends list with other players they know and trust in real life, allowing them to quickly and easily send Real ID friend requests to these people without having to enter their Battle.net® account names. However, we recognize that some players would prefer not to be displayed on friends lists in this fashion, so we plan to include an option that will allow players to opt out of appearing on their Real ID friends' "friends of friends" lists. We're anticipating this feature to be available for StarCraft II shortly after release of the game, and World of Warcraft at around the same time -- we'll have more information for you in the coming weeks.
Q: What are your plans for Facebook integration?
A: With regard to Facebook, our goal is to help Blizzard gamers on Battle.net more easily connect to their real-life friends and family. For the launch of StarCraft II, we are introducing an optional Facebook friend finder feature to help achieve this goal. The friend finder enables players who decide to use it to easily populate their Battle.net friends list by sending Real ID friend requests to the people on their Facebook friends list who have Battle.net accounts. We hope players will find this feature convenient, but it's completely optional. In the long term, we hope to give players who use Facebook some fun, and also optional, ways to share what they're doing in Blizzard games with their friends, similar to the optional World of Warcraft Armory integration now available, but we don't have any specific plans to share at present.
Q: How does the friend finder in StarCraft II work? What's sent to Facebook?
A: When you use the Add a Friend feature in StarCraft II, one of the options you'll see is to search your Facebook friends list for people who also have Battle.net accounts in order to quickly send them Real ID friend requests. When you click this button, you'll be asked to enter your Facebook login information, and you'll then see a list of your Facebook friends who also have Battle.net accounts. You'll then have the option to send any of these Facebook friends a Real ID friend request in-game. (Keep in mind that for someone to appear on the list, their Battle.net account email address must match their Facebook email address. In addition, you'll see the names of any Facebook friends who have registered Battle.net accounts, regardless of whether they have Blizzard games attached to their account or just, for example, created the Battle.net account to make a purchase on the online Blizzard Store.)
It's important to note that Blizzard Entertainment does not share any personal information with Facebook as part of this process. Keep in mind that as with other Real ID features such as the "friends of friends" list, our goal with the friend finder feature is to create convenient options to help players easily find people they know in real life on Battle.net without having to remember email addresses or account names. We hope players will find the feature easy to use and convenient.
Q: How can I prevent World of Warcraft add-ons from accessing Real ID first and last names without my knowledge?
A: As always, we recommend that you get your UI add-ons through reliable sources. It's important to note that without installing a UI add-on specifically designed to retrieve that information, there's no risk of it being accessed. On our end, we're looking into the issue and are at work on some changes that we can make to help protect against these types of add-ons. We'll provide further details as soon as we have more information to share.
Q: Are you secretly trying to build a social gaming platform with the new Battle.net?
A: It's no secret -- as we've discussed openly since we first started sharing our plans about the new Battle.net, one of our goals is for it to serve as a social gaming service for Blizzard gamers. This was a deliberate and open design decision, driven 100% by the desire to create an even better online experience for our players by giving them powerful tools to compete with and stay connected to their real-life friends and family.
Q: If my account was compromised, what information about my Real ID friends would a hacker have access to?
A: We take account security very seriously, and we offer a number of ways to help players keep their account secure, including the Battle.net Authenticator and the free Battle.net Mobile Authenticator app, available for a wide range of mobile devices. Aside from your friends' first and last names, no other personal information is shared through the in-game Real ID system.
Q: What's a StarCraft II "character code"?
A: When you first log in to StarCraft II, you're prompted to choose a single character name. This is the only name you'll use on Battle.net, and it's tied to your StarCraft II license. In order to allow players to select any name they wish regardless of whether another player is already using the same name, we then generate and assign a three-digit character code that uniquely identifies the player. When posting on the forums of the new StarCraft II community site, players will be posting using their StarCraft II character name and character code.
Q: Will the new StarCraft II forum posting name format (character name + character code) carry over into the forum communities of other Blizzard games?
A: Following our recent decision to no longer use real first and last names on Blizzard forums, we're still evaluating how we'll move forward with our other forums. Our ultimate goal is still to promote constructive conversations and improve the overall forum experience for our players, and we think increasing accountability is an important part of achieving that. StarCraft II already uses a character name and character code combo in-game, which serves as a unique player identifier and fits well with our goal for the forums. World of Warcraft handles player identification differently, so we still need to determine whether adding a character code system like in StarCraft II is the best solution. Ultimately, we want to come up with a system that makes sense for each community and fits our long-term vision for the forums.
Q: Are there any plans to change the in-game Real ID system so that players will have the option to display an assigned user name instead of their real names?
A: The Real ID system is designed to help real-life friends and family who decide to use it keep in touch with each other across Blizzard games, and our goal in using real names is to ensure that players will be able to maintain long-term, meaningful relationships on the service for years to come. One way it helps make that happen is by eliminating the need to remember who, for example, "Thrall123" really is when you see him or her pop up on your friends list again after months -- or years -- of being offline. Ultimately, we think this is the best way to ensure players who use Real ID are able stay connected with the people they enjoy playing with most in the long-term, and we don't currently have any plans to change the system so it can be used with character names or alternate handles instead. That said, Battle.net is a living, breathing service that we will continue to evolve over time as we evaluate how players are using it and identify new ways to improve the experience.
Q: What plans are there to improve moderation since the use of real names on the forums has been changed?
A: Our new community sites' forums, beginning with the StarCraft II site, will have an improved moderation system as well as a post-rating system which will help our players promote the conversations they find the most constructive, as well as help forum moderators identify quality discussions. This, coupled with the unique StarCraft II character name and code, will help us to create a more positive atmosphere based on community interaction and accountability.
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Account Security
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 6)
matt Jul 16th 2010 6:24PM
i don't know, I just really don't need the real ID stuff, my WoW life and personal life are pretty much separated. Its pretty hard for me to get all angry about it because I will not probably ever use it. mandatory things like the proposed forum change irk me a little but I would just stop using the forums. I certainly would not let me guildmates become realID friends, which I think is Blizz's point it is for REAL LIFE friends and family. Perhaps the feature would be more useful if I had a universal non-ID handle in wow that I could share with internet dragon friends but that isn't on the table. Hard to get angry that they did not add the optional feature that I would have wanted.
t0xic Jul 16th 2010 6:32PM
"Hard to get angry that they did not add the optional feature that I would have wanted."
Except you paid for the feature in its current state as did all of us.
matt Jul 16th 2010 8:02PM
that's an interesting way to look at it, I suppose I must be a sucker because I pay for a lot of features that I have little use for: Arenas, dueling, sunken temple, death knights, warriors, bladesedge mountains, "of the shard" gear, belfs... I'm sure i could go on all night. I mostly think that I am getting my moneys worth out of the features that I do use that I don't get bent up when they add one that is useless to me.
Al in SoCal Jul 16th 2010 6:27PM
How about just an 'invisible mode' - sometimes I skip checking mail, auctions because my guild might be down a healer and I don't have time to help.
Vidharr Jul 16th 2010 6:33PM
"This was a deliberate and open design decision, driven 100% by the desire to create an even better online experience for our players by giving them powerful tools to compete with and stay connected to their real-life friends and family."
But who among the player community asked for it? And in what numbers?
Why on earth does Facebook have to be dragged into the game at all?
Monion Jul 16th 2010 6:46PM
Somehow I think that Blizzard's higher ups are filled with yes-men who don't question something like the Forum/RealID issue, because I think it was pretty clear that it was a goofy decision at best. But RealID by itself isn't an inherently bad idea, at least not how it exists in WoW today.
As a software developer, often times you can get features based on what customers are asking for, but to truly be a world-class innovative product you need to be thinking of things and ideas that people aren't asking for. Features that people didn't realize that they wanted, but based on their behaviour and habits would be inherently useful/awesome.
Blizzard saw Facebook, they saw a large part of their base reaching out via Ventrillo, MSN, forums, blogs, etc., and came up with the idea that hey, this is what folks are doing outside the game, perhaps they would love it in the game too! I can understand where they got their line of thinking in implementing Facebook integration features, even if I don't agree with some of the decisions along the way.
Vidharr Jul 16th 2010 8:17PM
They were rhetorical questions because while I agree that it's generally advised to test the waters in offering the unexpected as well as the requested (as you thoughtfully advanced), this move still feels like a revenue-generating scheme; not a "gee, our users would probably dig this" experiment.
All the corporate spin both preceding and following the PR backlash feels like exactly that: spin. And spin is usually accompanied by an attendant sense of guilt by those both scheming and being drug along for the ride.
In short, it stinks of Activision.
logicalfundy Jul 16th 2010 6:33PM
I hate to say this . . .
. . . but they really should knock out of their heads that this is *ONLY* for friends and family.
Because, frankly, nobody is going to treat it that way.
gesikah Jul 16th 2010 6:34PM
So wait...they tell you as part of their "concern" regarding battle.net "account security" to have a unique email address that you use for your log in and NOTHING ELSE...and then they create a "optional feature" designed around finding friends using the email address we weren't supposed to use anywhere else? *blink*
And this BS:
"real-life friends and family who decide to use it keep in touch with each other across Blizzard games, and our goal in using real names is to ensure that players will be able to maintain long-term, meaningful relationships on the service for years to come"
Umm...if they are my RL friends and family I think they should be able to remember my gaming handle and they if can't then they can, you know, ask me. What I have no desire for is my cousin's girlfriend's brother looking me up and asking me to run him through RFK. Nevermind, that literally 90% of the people who I give a crap about playing with I know primarily by character name and not by RL full name. There are people from previous MMOs that I wouldn't mind looking up, but since I remember them by their character names and not first and last, fat lot of good this does me.
TR Jul 16th 2010 6:50PM
And they shouldn't need it beyond inter-game use. Historically, services like this give all the info you've already shared to 3rd party systems (read: the rest you consciously chose not to) that come in later. People choose AIM instead of Yahoo! or Live Messenger because they want "this" instead of "that" and vice versa. One then has the option of using something like Trillian if you want to combine the two. You then have whittle down what you want being shown where.
The thing is that eventually you encounter someone you want to communicate who is on another service; you have to register your info with that other system to do so. You have to again deal with the trust and privacy questions again. The sad part is that people don't think it's a big deal and aren't careful about it until it is a big deal. Such as we encountered with Blizzard's (now retracted) announcement last week.
Bananacup Jul 16th 2010 6:35PM
I am lucky enough to live in a small town where WoW is quite popular, and I STILL don't want everyone i've ever known to know where my character is.
Not everyone gets along with everyone else y'know.
Ray Jul 16th 2010 6:36PM
I still don't get it. If we're incapable of "staying connected" to our friends and family who game, what makes Activision think they can do any better?
TR Jul 16th 2010 7:02PM
Revenue from advertising and partnerships with 3rd parties. The expectation was (and still is) that a non-WoW player on Facebook will see all this infor about WoW/SCII/D3 on their friend's wall/profile. They'll want to check it out, get a trial account. Remember last year when Blizzard mentioned the number of trial to permanent subscriber players was dropping? The RaF campaign and new mounts started ramping up a couple of months later. Current subscribers now have incentive to make Facebook friends go for a full subscription instead of a free trial.
Nothing inherently wrong with this at all it's actually a BRILLIANT marketing strategy! Unfortunately, the fact that Blizzard seriously miscalculated last week how their subscribers would react to "in-game only names will be publicly viewable" shows where their priorities were.
Ray Jul 16th 2010 8:02PM
Ah. Well that makes sense then. It's still annoying, but I can see it from a fiscal standpoint.
Kale Jul 16th 2010 6:39PM
So can I hide my Facebook from RealID search or do I have to change my battlenet password so nobody can find me thru friendfinder?
Orkchop Jul 16th 2010 7:05PM
If your facebook login e-mail address and your battle.net login e-mail address are both the same, then yes.
You would have to change one of them if you did not want people who both play WoW and are one of your facebook friends to send you a Real ID invite.
David Jul 16th 2010 6:46PM
My RL friends can talk to me in better ways than the WOW messenger. I don't exactly want everyone knowing when I am on my bank character
Pocky Jul 16th 2010 6:53PM
"...so we plan to include an option that will allow players to opt out of appearing on their Real ID friends' "friends of friends" lists."
Well wait a second here. Why is the default action one that could possibly be the very thing that people DON'T want? Why isn't it an opt-IN? This is the same crap FaceBook did... arrogantly assume that they knew what was best for everyone and automatically shoved their idea down our throats, giving us some vague message buried in our message board that they had implemented stuff that was a huge security issue to a lot of people.
Why not make it ALL an opt-in thing? That way no one goes in after 6 months and finds their info has been wide open all that time and has a freak out?
Come on. Seriously. Quit shoving your idea of what WE want down our throats. We expect that kind of crap from FaceBook, not Blizzard. Lay it all out with total transparency and let us tell YOU what we want from this service.
Yeah... this crap ticks me off... :(
Greyhame Jul 16th 2010 7:00PM
Most things online (like newsletters that comes with accounts you make at places) are opt-out. Unless they're in a country that makes them need to be opt-in.
Pocky Jul 16th 2010 7:10PM
I can't accept that that makes it right. People have expressed enough concern about it that what's legal and what's right should be recognized and treated as seperate.
As an example... I know so few people who are friends of friends on FaceBook that I certainly wouldn't want them to see me online in the game. What I'm doing is none of their business. However, what this would do is open a window that would allow them to 'see' me until I had a chance to figure out how to turn it off. Now, I'm not saying that I have anything to hide in this regard, that's not the point. If I choose to let my friends see me online, then that's fine. But if I want someone on the next level see me, then that should be an option I turn ON, per individual friend, NOT as a whole. Friends are one level of social networking; I've taken the time to get to know each of them personally and build trust. It's a completely different thing to allow hordes (sorry, had to use that word, heh ) of people I don't know personally, and therefore have no reason to trust them further than I can throw them, see what I'm doing.