Blizzard to show real names of StarCraft II players on official forums

Posted Jul 6th 2010 2:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: MMO, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft, Diablo III

Blizzard has been promoting the fact that the updated Battle.net online multiplayer service will be using Blizzard's new Real ID system for their social networking features. Real ID is supposed to display the real first and last names of the players of their games including StarCraft II. Today the developer revealed that the Real ID system will be extended into the official forums. After the launch of StarCraft II on July 27, players who wish to post on the RTS game's official forums will do so using their real first and last name as displayed on their Real ID listing. This will be extended to the release of Blizzard's upcoming MMO expansion World of Warcraft Cataclysm and presumably will also extend to Diablo III whenever it is released.

According to a note on the StarCraft II forums, Blizzard gives their reasons for such a move stating, "Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven't been connected before." Blizzard team members will also post with their own real first and last names when this switch is made. There's already a lot of debate on the forums, both pro and con, about this upcoming change.

[Via WoW.com]

Tags: battle.net, Battle.net-2.0, Blizzard, diablo-3, diablo-iii, real-id, starcraft-2, starcraft-ii, World-of-Warcraft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

This is probably one of the best ideas in some time. Although I guess it doesn't stop people from registering with alternate names, it might be a further step to deter a$$holery.Posted at 2:21PM on Jul 6th 2010 by ChimpWithAHandgun

Good thing there's no way to enter a fake name.Posted at 2:28PM on Jul 6th 2010 by Kevin

Forum Trolls can still make fake battle.net accounts and upgrade their account with Cataclysm or SC 2 and still troll away.

Some people also just won't care, as the option is aparently opt-in according to Neth(another Blue poster). If the option is Opt-In then the forums won't change much, but this is really disturbing one way or another.Posted at 2:55PM on Jul 6th 2010 by chris

@chris:
"but this is really disturbing one way or another."

Why? Having to be respectful of others and make intelligent comments is disturbing? Battle.net accounts don't really hold that much info. Just a name and email minimum. What is so disturbing about having some accountability for those always colorful "STFU n00b" comments?

I think this is great. It will cut down on the comments and make reading though the forums for answers or tips that much more efficient.Posted at 3:40PM on Jul 6th 2010 by Eric

You guys are delusional. Check out the WoW forums, there's already 300+ pages of negative response from the community. At best this will simply drive the players to another forum. No one who desires any aspect of privacy wants their personal information broadcast to a public forum.

Blizzard and Kostik need to realize that Facebook already exists and give up on this whole RealID thing before they sink their own ship.Posted at 4:51PM on Jul 6th 2010 by Jorge

As Jorge said, you guys are delusional.

Yes, this will inevitably cut back on (some) trolling, but it won't eliminate it. If someone is determined to be a troll they'll find a way, whether that means buying a new cd key to register a false b.net account or just using their name. It will also open a whole truckload of different issues. Like what, you ask?

You are aware that there is a sizable female demographic for WoW, yes? And that by forcing RealIDs to post on the forums, which includes *TECH/CUSTOMER SUPPORT*, they will essentially make themselves targets for anyone viewing the forums? Leading to all sorts of possibilities of out-of-game harassment? Take it from a female gamer that's experienced it, guys. This will happen and it won't be funny.

Or how about employers researching employees/applicants online? Would you be comfortable with your boss knowing that you're in a raid guild that raids four hours a night/five days a week? Guess you'd better not use the recruitment forums, then. Hope you're not an officer or in charge of recruitment either, they'll really frown on that.

How about your child posting on the forums under YOUR name, since the RealID would be under your name as the account owner? Are you comfortable with him/her posting who knows what or causing someone to look you up? How do you control that short of implementing a block at the router level to the WoW forums? Everybody knows how stupid teenagers are with details on facebook, why would it be any different here?

How about all the 4 chan and /b/ cretins that'll view the new WoW forums as an open season for RL trolling? How about people that are just plan unstable and fly off the handle over their characters being killed in game? Is there really a reason to open all of this and more up to cut down on TROLL POSTS? They could accomplished almost the exact same thing by having one forum account per b.net account policy (which they're doing anyway), and instead of using real names allowing one unique alias that's used on the forums/across games.

RealID started as a cross-game friends list. Then they added facebook integration. Now they're enforcing forum use through it. What's next? Skipping character names entirely and just using RealID in game to promote a closer community and more accountability?

This IS disturbing. Just because you don't think there's a reason to be afraid of where this is going, doesn't mean others don't.Posted at 8:24PM on Jul 6th 2010 by Zyr

Look what some people have already dug up on Blizzard employees from only knowing a full name:

http://asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/Posted at 4:42AM on Jul 8th 2010 by Anonymous

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