7.09.10 - 5:30PM
- by
Cole Stryker

RealID Repealed - Unhappy World of Warcraft Fans Unearth Blizzard Employee's Real-Life Stats, Blizzard Backpedals

topic:
Blogstorm
Gaming
Busted!

diablowiki.net

On July 6, Blizzard, developer of the hugely successful World of Warcraft, announced that they were updating their forums so that all users would be identifiable by their real names, rather than just their in-game usernames. This "RealID" project has generated huge amounts of protest and general internet drama.

A Blizzard employee tried to alleviate concern by posting his real name in the forum, which encouraged other users to track down all his personal information, presumably to deliver a million pizzas to his house.

(Warning: Contains Swears!)

World of Warcraft is usually a friendly game. But there are a lot of crazies out there. This audio clip from Dark Age of Camelot, in which a player says, "I'm going to find out where you live and I'm going to f*cking kill you," is illustrative of nerd rage universal among online games. So a lot of civil gamers are understandably concerned.

I mean, would you want this guy to know your real name?

Or how about this upstanding (but fake) gentleman?

In order to quell some of the concerns about RealID, a blizzard employee named Bashiok gave published his real name, "Michael Whipple" on the forum.

Within minutes, other forum users were able to track down the poor guy's address, phone number, Facebook page, family members, and that the guy is still living with his mom at age 28. This is a picture of Mr. Whipple they found.

Popular video game-themed webcomic Penny Arcade has weighed in. Read the comic and their level-headed analysis of the RealID proposition.

Finally, a Metafilter commenter offers an exhaustive treatise on the failings of the proposed policy, which boils down to the following:

People will get harassed out of game, especially women and minorities
It's unsafe for minors
You wouldn't want prospective employers or even your parents to find out you're a Level 40 Half-Elf Necro-Shaman (I just made that up, calm down nerds)
A lot of parents buy WoW accounts for their kids, so their names will show up in the forums
It won't really do much to stop trolling, which is the stated intent of the RealID policy

As of Friday afternoon, Blizzard has responded to the feedback with a lowered head and an outstretched olive branch:

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.

Well, that was fun!

previously:// WoW Avatars in Real Life
previously:// Guy Goes Ape When Girlfriend Deletes his WoW Account

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10.03.10

By Pauly

Neutral

I've heard people freak out like the first audio clip, ya just have to leave them alone to cool down. But the guy in the second video is just plain scary.

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