Blizzard forces users to reveal your real name

Richard M · 08-07-2010, 21:55

Surprised this wasn't on here already, it's been all over the news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm

http://www.reghardware.com/2010/07/07/wow_forums/

Glad I no longer play TBH.

haydnwalker · 08-07-2010, 22:12

BBC only says they need to use real names if they are using the forums...solution...don't use the forums?

Richard M · 08-07-2010, 22:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by haydnwalker

BBC only says they need to use real names if they are using the forums...solution...don't use the forums?

Yes that's a very good point, however you can cross-reference the character names with the archive of the old forums.
Therefore, you can (probably with the help of Google's cache), do a historical lookup to see who camped your character and boasted about it on the old forums, then find their real name on the new forum and ...

I'm pretty against this because I know how much data is available even if you only know their first/surname.

I guess if you're John Smith, you're a lucky git.

Where I work (and who I work for), I can find someone in a matter of seconds only knowing their name and some pretty basic public information.
Believe me when I say this new change chills me to the bone.

haydnwalker · 08-07-2010, 22:24

Yeah it does me too ... but I don't really game online with a passion...more just casually

and certainly not WoW/StarCraft etc so in principle I'm dead against it in general but don't care personally as I'm not a Blizzard customer

downquark1 · 08-07-2010, 23:02

Quote:

Yes that's a very good point, however you can cross-reference the character names with the archive of the old forums.
Therefore, you can (probably with the help of Google's cache), do a historical lookup to see who camped your character and boasted about it on the old forums, then find their real name on the new forum and ...

Can you explain that again? I'm not sure what you mean.

**Kymmy** · 10-07-2010, 08:58

Blizzard have backed down anyway

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8806623.stm

Richard M · 10-07-2010, 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Blizzard have backed down anyway

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8806623.stm

I saw that coming from a mile away.
Still won't play their games anymore.

Who wants to guess that they only changed their mind once they saw their subscriber numbers dropping like a rock?

Ignitionnet · 11-07-2010, 10:15

I seriously doubt many people cancelled as a result of this. Some people are more likely to quit breathing than WoW.

This was certainly something of an invasion of privacy though, especially for those with rare names, and that it would have prevented some people from legitimately posting on the forums is a shame.

When I read some of the comments some were very valid, others were nerd-rage from people who gave the impression of having not stepped outside their home since vanilla and were scared of people realising they exist as human beings, or were perhaps scared of realising that they existed as human beings as opposed to WoW characters.

So I do understand to an extent the idea, the signal to noise ratio on the WoW forums is very low. Give a moron a keyboard, a forum and anonymity you get a moron with an audience to play to. Give them an audience with as many socially inept pre-and-early pubescents as Warcraft, along with a liberal sprinkling of socially inept adults and it's not good.

Richard M · 11-07-2010, 19:26

Well the WoW forums (and indeed, the game) have been full of crap since Vanilla.
Burning Crusade was pretty good and the raiding was absolutely superb.

But nothing really compares to the many happy Saturdays and Sundays I spent doing 5 man groups to Scholo/Strat/Dire Maul at level 60 with my friends on Ventrilo.
All we'd get from that is blues, and we were perfectly happy with that.

Since Activision and the evil Kotick took over, Blizzard have turned into something not remotely resembling the "made by gamers" company that they used to be.

The game now is a pile of junk, it's become too mainstream - the original players at 60 were hardcore FPS fans (as I was), or hardcore RTS players.
Now, it's just full of idiots who want purple pixels and will happily pay real money for more purple pixels.

Ignitionnet · 12-07-2010, 09:45

Spoken like a true WoW Vanilla / TBC player. Preach on brother!