Blizzard Demands Your Real Name for Forums

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Sure, put your real name up there for all to see. How long until you are the victim of identity theft? Better still, the U.S. Homeland Security freaks have over a million names on their no fly list... they get random names from somewhere. Make sure people must use a valid email address too while you're at it. I'll subscribe every one I find to so much junk email that their inbox won't hold it all.... by morning.

Don't ever give me that crap about if someone has done nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide. How's this Big Brother... I mail a letter and actually put in an envelope. Why? An envelope is not required. Because it's nobody's business what I wrote, nothing to hide or not... It's just private.

I do a fair amount of posting at Tom's Hardware, some of it is actually helpful. Here's the deal... If you know how it works, you also know how it doesn't work. For those too dense to understand such a simple phrase... If you know how to make it run, you also know how to make it stop, (not necessarily with an on-off switch).
 
I don't care if my real name is out there. I'm michael krueger, now try finding me, tens of thousands of people share my name. lol

Every where you go except online you use your real name, so I don't see the big deal with this.
 
[citation][nom]Tigsounds[/nom]loneninjaDon't you have a brother named "Freddie" ??[/citation]

Doesn't he also live in Cottage Grove, Minnesota?

See what we mean?
 
This is an awesome change and I commend Blizzard for having the balls to do it. Actually being held accountable for what you say shouldn't be such a unusual implementation. I dare hope the internet may become a smidgen more civil as a result, but that's probably being too optimistic.

Simple fact is though, if you're complaining that your employment/life will be negatively impacted by what you say on a gaming forum, then don't say anything stupid, or better, don't say anything at all. Problem solved. I've seen how bad forums (Blizzard one's in particular) can get, and this is definitely a step in the right direction.
 
I don't give out my real name to complete strangers. I may give out my first name, but not my last. Why I would I start on the internet?
 
Last comment on this subject, but imagine for a moment, this scenario:

You have an editorial comment published in your local paper. You include your name and your address. Your comments are not necessarily "mean" or uninformed, but they are highly opinionated. You manage to truly piss off someone whom you cannot even know is now angry with you. How comfortable are you knowing that they can act out on you?

Most people have no idea how long their electronic trail is they leave behind on the internet. A real name, along with say...oh....a character name or forum nick can be used, with VERY little effort, to find out who you really are and where you are. See my example above if you're clever. AND, I'll point out that many posts on game forums tend to evoke more emotion than an editorial and evoke those emotions in individuals that may not be as....mature.... as those reading your local paper.
 
Wow! I can make up a screen name or make up a real name and tie it to a fake e-mail address. So for future reference, my "real" name is Fred Flintstone, and my e-mail is fred@bedrock.com.
 
1) you can make a battle.net account with a fake name, using an actual email address to verify it.

2) dont think anyone has mentioned the disadvantage of having potential employers google your name and find you play wow at all, even if you're being civil on the forums.
 
This is pretty terrible imo. One of the main aspects of the internet is anonymity. Just off the top of my head, do you want a potential employer to be able to do a search on you and find all out b.net posts? Really?
 
There are so many trolls on the Wow fourms, real bad ones too, but this isnt the way to get rid of them.

the hardcore trolls wont give a shit if ppl see their real names.

so all this does is punish nice users(hey like DRM) that don't want their name displayed to millions of people.

Just think what will happen when a girl posts on the forums when this goes into effect.
 
[citation][nom]djackson_dba[/nom]Paying by credit card? They probably already know your real name, possibly address and other data that is used for payment verification.[/citation]

I thought battlenet would be free and the game itself can be paid for in cash. Even if we end up having to pay for battlenet they can't force us to use credit cards as virtually nobody outside of the United States uses them anymore, I mean they could force us but they would lose a lot of potential European and Asian buyers.
 
Get over it people.

I'm assuming most of the retarded comments listed here have been from people who don't even USE the forums or play WoW to begin with; or, are people who played and quit for "x" reason. Most people that even play WoW don't even post on the forums - and for a reason. The forums are complete crap with the condition they're in now. Flamers, troll, haters, you name it. The forums have been in a state of disaray since mid life vanilla and it needs a change. I for one am happy about the REALID change. Finally for once blizzard is doing something to clean up all the crap that's been infested within the forums and I might even use it because of it. Honestley, only a troll would be upset about the change since you can't hide behind a lvl 1 alt and spam BS all day now. If you're worried about people seeing your real name on forums then DON'T POST. It's so easy to find personal information on people these days this is the last thing you should be worried about - overhyping something that doesn't deserve to be overhyped. Big deal.
 
Trouble makers (trollers, flamers) are gonna do the same thing regardless if people see their name, it will probably encourage them even. in the case of blizzard, a user currently makes a new level 1 toon then deletes them when done and endless source of names to harrass and flame people. Give the account 1 alias to use and that's it then actually use some moderators and enforce some of the rules
 
Actually, this shouldn't be too bad considering how unique a person's name is in comparison to a user name. You'll only see one Pwner2010, but dozens/hundreds/thousands of Davids, Johns, and Michaels (even including a last name, real names are not usually unique). The problem would be added info on a user page, like location, age etc. A unique user name can be traced to one single person, while a real name may be the same name as hundreds of others.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom