realid posts

Blizzard's controversial Real ID social networking system for games like StarCraft II and World of WarCraft has been modified to allow players of those games to turn off the system completely. Blizzard announced the changes in a new post on the StarCraft II web site today. Players who still want to use Real ID can still choose to shut off the ability to add "friends of friends" or Facebook friends using the system. Players can chance their settings by going to their Battle.net account page.

The Real ID system, which uses a player's real name to identify themselves in the game, got tons of head earlier this year when Blizzard announced that it would be used as a requirement to register and post on the company's official message boards for StarCraft II and World of WarCraft. Blizzard fans reacted with near universal outrage at this idea and Blizzard was forced to cancel those plans a few days after it was announced.

Hot on the heels of Blizzard's announcement today of plans to integrate Facebook features into Battle.net and StarCraft II, the developer has now posted up more info on their own internal social networking service RealID, The Battle.net web site now has a dedicated page for RealID info as well as an FAQ page.

Blizzard emphasizes that RealID is an optional feature and not required to play games like StarCraft II on Battle.net. However having RealID will give gamers features like being able to see the real names of your Battle.net friends online, what games they are playing and even chat with friends in World of Warcraft while you are playing StarCraft II. It will also let you broadcast status messages (a la Twitter).