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Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

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Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#61

Post by silencio »

csallen wrote: post #60
silencio wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting in the forums is not completely optional. I mean sure, you can go your entire game-playing life without doing so, but if you ever get a hankering for posting bug reports or wanting more help than GMs can provide in-game, the tech support and bug report forums are now unavailable to you should you wish to never post with your real name. Also, if I ever stop playing WoW because of the Real ID changes (so far, t…

Yes, WoW is full of immature people who may use your real name to harass you (so is middle school). Getting harassed sucks. Maybe you're fearful enough of that possibility that you'll never post on the forums again. And maybe the forums are so important to you that you'll quit WoW without them. Those are perfectly legitimate ways to act, and I'm not arguing otherwise. As you said, it's your choice. What I am saying i…

I'm not unaware of that. Neither was I debating that this was an invasion of my privacy, because Blizzard can do whatever the flying fuck they want with their own game and their own servers, and it requires ME to do something for it to become any kind of privacy breach, but at the same time it limits what I can do with what I'm paying with. (Now, if this was a retroactive change, we then have a problem....) Therefore, my choice is to stop playing the game if they force Real ID on people, where originally they claimed they would only use this for friends to keep in touch with each other. It's not a privacy thing, it's just a proposed change that doesn't fix the problem and screws over other people, and I don't really care to participate in this game if Blizzard continues down this path. For what it is worth, this is not the only change/addition to the game that would prompt me to quit playing.

Claiming that this will cut down on trolling is fallacious. The other features that Blizzard intends on introducing to the forums (voting and threading, etc.) and that they could implement (no posting rights outside of tech support for toons under level 10, for example) will do far more to cut down on this kind of behavior than forcing people to use Real ID. Because it's entirely possible to create accounts with fake details or someone else's details, and it doesn't even take someone to post on the forums to see details about people that can enable them to troll elsewhere and in real life (see: Blizzard employee Bashiok on 4chan today after he posted his real name). This just reduces the overall usefulness of the official forums.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#62

Post by illumin8 »

To prove that this new policy was harmless, one of the Blizzard customer service employees posted his real name. Within minutes, people had tracked down numerous private details about him, including his home address, mother and father's name, the fact that he still lives with his mother, Facebook profile, pictures of him out drinking with friends, a Google street view picture of the front of his house, his home phone number, and tons more information. The thread is over 5 pages long and continuing to grow.

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-games...

What boggles the mind is that the employees are going to be using their real names to post. I have seen the hate and rage that can be spewed on the forums when a class gets nerfed in a patch, and let me tell you, some crazed teenager is going to go postal on a Blizzard employee because of this. After spending thousands of hours "ganking noobs" in Stranglethorn Vale, when little Jimmy gets nerfed, he might decide to take out his rage in the real world.

This move proved to me that Activision/Blizzard cares more about profit motives than the safety and privacy of their customers. This is really all about becoming the next Facebook for gamers. They want to create a social graph across all of their servers, and all of their gaming franchises so that they can map people to their contacts and data mine it for advertising. They've already announced that targeted ads will be displayed in loading screens on Starcraft II and World of Warcraft's expansion. This is the next step.

Unfortunately, Bobby Kotick and Activision have begun to destroy Blizzard. It is a sad day indeed.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#63

Post by prodigal_erik »

marknutter wrote: post #40
prodigal_erik wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymity's protection of nonconformists is the reason cities are the source of progress and villages are not. It is the only way you will ever hear What You Can't Say ( http://paulgraham.com/say.html ) from anyone who isn't willing to wreck their life over it. Any forum that requires a True Name is a waste of time for anything beyond small talk. It's not worth it to try to catch a few griefers (who will work around…

By your logic we should all be over at 4chan to discuss startups and tech news. Hacker News is a perfect example of the good that can come from non-anonymity and 4chan is the perfect example as to why total anonymity will always lead to cesspools.

As noted, HN doesn't ask for your real name (and I would never write anything of substance if it did). Yet it doesn't decay to /b/ because pg included tools to promote signal vs. noise and sometimes even steps in to moderate, and because it still has a critical mass of people who want to maintain its tone. There are workable steps short of making people unemployable.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#64

Post by jasonlotito »

silencio wrote: post #59
jasonlotito wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. You need a WoW subscription to have access to the WoW forums, but you don't need to have access to the WoW forums to have access to WoW the game. > Official tech support forums are...on the forums. Currently, yes. Which has no bearing on the future setup. > Yeah, not part of the game. Right. I was unaware that after landing in a city, you logged onto the forums in game.

Oh, no, they're not part of your in-game experience. They're part of your overall package you get for subscribing...but that's still part of the game. You don't HAVE to use it, but then again, you don't have to advertise your ICC craftables or do any guild recruitment on forums or talk in general realm discussion or submit bug reports either. Right? (But yes, I have hope that they'll at least make this separate from…

> They're part of your overall package you get for subscribing...but that's still part of the game.

I just reference the ToU[1] and EULA[2]. The EULA doesn't reference the forums at all. The ToS mentions forums, but only under chat rules.

In the ToU, it references the Service and the Game Client:

"The Game includes two components: (a) the software program along with any accompanying materials or documentation (collectively, the "Game Client"), and (b) Blizzard’s proprietary World of Warcraft online service (the "Service")."

Reading between the two documents, in case the Service includes the forums, it appears it does not.

"you may use the Service solely for your own non-commercial entertainment purposes by accessing it with an authorized, unmodified Game Client."

So, the Service may only be access with the Game Client, which I assume the forums are not. So, it appears, officially at least, that the forums are not a part of the subscription fee.

Simply put, they are under no obligation to keep the forums up or provide you with forums to use.

Now, having said all that, I understand that part of why YOU pay is for access to the forums in addition to the game.

I think a smart thing to do would be to move essential support functions outside the forums, which it appears they are working hard to do with the Blizzard Support section. In fact, Technical Support might have forums, but their is also an official Technical Support channel here:

http://us.blizzard.com/support/index.xml?locale=en_US&ga...

It wasn't at all difficult to find.

1. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html 2. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#65

Post by jasonlotito »

silencio wrote: post #53
jasonlotito wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is one of the best things they can do. Have you ever browsed the WoW forums? They are horrible. A new player can get destroyed. Their innocence ruined. Their is only so much policing and banning that can go on. The key part to their announcement is this: > 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 las…

Guess what. Loss of "anonymity" isn't going to do ANYTHING about that problem. There will still be plenty of people with fake Real Names and the Real Names of the people being billed (read: not the actual people playing the game, i.e. in the case of minors) trolling, except now they get to do it elsewhere with other players' real names. Welcome to the Internet. This is a big loss for people who go to the tech support…

> Loss of "anonymity" isn't going to do ANYTHING about that problem.

Well, if it silences people like you, I think it will do something. Saying it won't do ANYTHING is pretty black and white.

> There will still be plenty of people with fake Real Names and the Real Names of the people being billed (read: not the actual people playing the game, i.e. in the case of minors) trolling, except now they get to do it elsewhere with other players' real names.

You can't change your name in your account. Also, not having your real name will affect your ability to recover your account. Finally, your account name doesn't have to match the billing name. And, unless I'm mistaken, the account owner needs to have their real name their anyways, according to the TOS.

> This is a big loss for people who go to the tech support forums, bug requests, and do guild recruitment.

That's a valid argument, but one easily solved. Bug reports can have a different mechanism to be reported then forums. Tech Support already has an official mechanism for support outside the forums.

Guild Recruitment is another issue entirely, but again, this is something that can be solved outside the forums in a controlled manner, via something like the Armory. Whether they do any of this is another matter entirely, but these are valid issues.

> This is also quite retarded for realm forums where the context of your character is more important than your real name, so what now?

The problem is, you'd have people still getting quite aggressive and less than polite, throwing around insults and calling things 'retarded' and not keeping a civil tongue.

I like this part:

> Now you get to associate your toons with your real name, and well shit it keeps snowballing from there.

Like your entire post, you don't actually present why this is a problem.

> No, this is not a good thing because it doesn't solve the problem at all.

I think it will help with the problem. Even perceived anonymity turns otherwise rational people into raving lunatics.

Do you really have conversations with people and call things retarded, shit and yell at them, Jane?

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#67

Post by tibbon »

daten wrote: post #55
tibbon wrote: post #39

Newsflash- nothing you do online is anonymous. It hasn't been for a long time now, and it won't be in the future.

This isn't entirely true. In many cases you can post things anonymously online, and they will stay so, unless they're illegal enough to warrant a subpoena forcing a provider to turn over details that can be used to identify you. We all understand that if you include personal information or post using a known alias, a little bit of searching may identify you. If your IP address is made public in the post or email, it…

I think given the time and research, that I could probably identify people just through the text that they post (if the text is long enough) based on their recurring syntax, spelling, word choice and grammar fingerprint. Probably won't work for something like tweets which are highly truncated, but for something like an 'anonymous blogger' I probably could.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#68

Post by csallen »

silencio wrote: post #61
csallen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, WoW is full of immature people who may use your real name to harass you (so is middle school). Getting harassed sucks. Maybe you're fearful enough of that possibility that you'll never post on the forums again. And maybe the forums are so important to you that you'll quit WoW without them. Those are perfectly legitimate ways to act, and I'm not arguing otherwise. As you said, it's your choice. What I am saying i…

I'm not unaware of that. Neither was I debating that this was an invasion of my privacy, because Blizzard can do whatever the flying fuck they want with their own game and their own servers, and it requires ME to do something for it to become any kind of privacy breach, but at the same time it limits what I can do with what I'm paying with. (Now, if this was a retroactive change, we then have a problem....) Therefore…

Mmmm, I don't buy it. When I played (I quit years ago), it was nearly impossible to conduct any kind of civil conversation on my realm's forums. It was an endlessly frustrating shit show, and the bigger guilds went so far as to ban their members from posting. A level cap wouldn't have dissuaded ANY of the prominent trolls. What Blizzard's forums need is an overwhelming change in tone and atmosphere, not minor improvements on the fringes.

>> Because it's entirely possible to create accounts with fake details or someone else's details, and it doesn't even take someone to post on the forums to see details about people that can enable them to troll elsewhere and in real life

Don't understand, I may be misreading this. Can you clarify?

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