Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

General Information. Open to the Public.
Post Reply
Zodan
Posts: 209
Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:37 am

Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

Post by Zodan »

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?to ... 1&sid=3000


Basically, the SC2 forums and the new WoW forums (released just before Cata) will show your Real ID. Yes, your first and last name will be attached to every post on these forums. So in addition to the idiocy, flaming, trolling, and keylogger posts, you can add not pasting your real name all over public forums as a reason to avoid official WoW forums (at least nearer to Cata release).





And see this below posted after the above:



One important point which I don't believe has been relayed yet is that the switch to showing RealID on the forums will only happen with the new forum systems we're launching for StarCraft II shortly before its release, and a new forum system for World of Warcraft launching shortly before the release of Cataclysm.

All posts here on the current World of Warcraft forums, or any of our classic Battle.net forums, will remain as-is. They won't (and can't) automatically switch to showing a real first and last name.

All posts in the future on the new forum systems will be an opt-in choice and ample warning will be given that you're posting with your real first and last name.
Benediction
Posts: 264
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:10 pm

Re: Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

Post by Benediction »

Well on the plus side the sheer amount of trollingon the forums should go down to little to none.

And on the plus side the existence of posting at all on the forums will go down to little to none.

I'm a strong advocate of not having anything but a customer support/tech support forum for a MMO be "official". Let people filter to fan communities for their posting and keep their vitriol away from the average player. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I've had MMO's ruined for me by their official forums in the past, namely Anarchy Online and WoW. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Average non-gamer joe who might be interested in some information about whatever would probably think going to a forum for the game run by the company would be a good way to get said information. 10 minutes later they're covered in shit and it probably won't be long before their gameplay goes downhill when they realize that a good amount of the playerbase is like the twits that spam /2 all day and they'll get little to no intelligent discourse from the playerbase short of finding a good guild; which can be amazingly hard to begin with.

Anyway, this is a terrible decision on blizzards part. I've defended the RealID thing quite a bit to people complaining about it in the past, over privacy concerns because most of them seemed a bit overblown in that for the most part you can keep your realid to only those you want to know it. The "friend of friend" option is pushing it; but it still isn't something that could easily be abused as it is.

But putting your name plastered on a public forum where millions of people go regularly? Yeah that's asking for trouble, big time. And other than simply making the forums a ghost town, I can't possibly see what Blizzard could benefit from this action at all.
Zodan
Posts: 209
Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:37 am

Re: Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

Post by Zodan »

Heh,

A CM posted their first and last name, and within 10 minutes people were posting pictures of his house. Then the same CM started threatening bans on people posting personal info....which is exactly what Blizzard plans to do. Pure genius. Is this Blizzard idiocy or Activision idiocy?


EDIT: And now the thread is gone and I'm sure bans are going out. I can't think of a better example of why this is a bad idea. Let's see if it has any affect.
User avatar
Aona
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:43 pm

Re: Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

Post by Aona »

Totally Activision. Blizzard has done nothing but 180 on everything they've ever done or beliefs they've had since the Activision merger. Though, I'm not sure how this affects shareholders.

Maybe with all the bad press it will receive? Bad press is good press in wall street.
Aona - Marksman Hunter
Axeal - Purdy DK tnak
Kymia - Protection Warrior and foot rest for the tall ones
Benediction
Posts: 264
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:10 pm

Re: Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

Post by Benediction »

Well that didn't take long...
Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
I'm glad they came to their senses because that change would have been unbelievably absurd.
User avatar
djinux
Posts: 646
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:23 am
Contact:

Re: Yet another reason to avoid the official forums

Post by djinux »

Oh god if you wanna hear a good rant about that go to wow.com and listen to their podcast from this week
Image
Image
Post Reply