City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Blizzard to remove the veil of anonymity

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-07-06 10:48 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Solos View Post
I thought the Real ID thing was like your global name here? Is it not the y from x@y in the SC2 names?
When you become Real ID friends with someone, they get to see your first and last name. As in, the first and last name you signed up with. Plus, they will be able to see the first and last name of any other player you are real ID friends with.

Quote:
Similar to other social-networking platforms, when you click on one of your Real ID friends, you will be able to see the names of his or her other Real ID friends, even if you are not Real ID friends with those players yourself. If you happen to know someone on that list, you will be able to quickly send a Real ID friend request to that player. This feature is designed to make it easy to populate your Real ID friends list with people you might enjoy playing with.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LiquidX View Post
You means it's NOT?

...What else have you lied to me about?! I BET YOUR NOT EVEN MY REAL MOM! YOU MARRIED DAD FOR THE MONEY! I HATE YOU, AND I'M GOING TO JIMMIES! *Runs out crying&
Probably not the time to tell him Jimmy moved last week...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay View Post
Probably not the time to tell him Jimmy moved last week...
...What do you mean, Jimmy went to go live on a farm? WHY DO ALL MY FRIENDS KEEP GOING TO LIVE ON FARMS?!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LiquidX View Post
...What do you mean, Jimmy went to go live on a farm? WHY DO ALL MY FRIENDS KEEP GOING TO LIVE ON FARMS?!
Because Zynga has the fine print of the gods!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Venture View Post
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
But have you made your reputation on the WoW boards?

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

 

Posted

Pretty much just nixed any chance I had of getting SC2, Diablo 3, or WoW. I have a very close friend who was major excited for SC2, and she'll be letting it go as well.

 

Posted

I don't get it. A first and last name isn't really all that identifying. Heck, I google my name and I get a dozen different people, none of which are me. Names aren't all that unique.

Now, if you get a hold of name + city, that narrows it down a lot. Of course, you can always lie about your city.

Edit: Okay, the fact that you are connected to the real names of all your friends is all kinds of wrong. Blizzard is turning into Facebook. There is a reason I'm not on Facebook.

 

Posted

hmm real names tied to in-game names tied to a game with pvp...sounds like a recipe for real-life ganking!

 

Posted

As far as the forum aspect of this, this seems like it would keep more regular people off than trolls.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Exodus_V View Post
hmm real names tied to in-game names tied to a game with pvp...sounds like a recipe for real-life ganking!
Exactly what I was thinking. It will be like the MMO equivalent of road rage. When I first read about this I thought it was a hoax.

 

Posted

The last time I was on a Blizzard board was back in the Diablo II days because I felt their moderation was horrible. It doesn't look like it has improved any since then.

total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by AngrySandwich View Post
I don't get it. A first and last name isn't really all that identifying. Heck, I google my name and I get a dozen different people, none of which are me. Names aren't all that unique.

Now, if you get a hold of name + city, that narrows it down a lot. Of course, you can always lie about your city.

Edit: Okay, the fact that you are connected to the real names of all your friends is all kinds of wrong. Blizzard is turning into Facebook. There is a reason I'm not on Facebook.
Some of us have more unique names than others. I am the only one that shows up when I google my name when spelled correctly.

total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Venture View Post
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
It depends on the circles you hang out in. Video gamers really aren't that scary.

I used to hang out with criminals, talking about criminal behavior. I never used my real name ('Remus Shepherd' is an alias.) I have had someone hire a private detective to find me. I have had someone run a credit report on me to get info. I've had people threaten my girlfriend and her child. I've been called up at 3 AM with death threats. I've had people send tell-all letters to my employer in an attempt to get me fired.

I don't think any of that is likely on a video game forum. But the possibility exists, and for that reason anonymity should be available. Worse yet, realize that many of the people on these forums may be minors. Is it really a good idea to have minors giving out their identifying information to the world?

Complete fail for Blizzard, here. I just hope that Diablo3 doesn't require this somehow; I was planning on getting that game.

...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
Some of us have more unique names than others. I am the only one that shows up when I google my name when spelled correctly.
Likewise, I'm the only person in the United States with my name, and only one other person in the world has the same first and last names (and he's more likely to come up in a Google search).

Goodbye, I guess.

@Lord_Nightblade in Champions/Star Trek Online

nightblade7295@gmail.com if you want to stay in touch

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by AngrySandwich View Post
I don't get it. A first and last name isn't really all that identifying. Heck, I google my name and I get a dozen different people, none of which are me. Names aren't all that unique.

Now, if you get a hold of name + city, that narrows it down a lot. Of course, you can always lie about your city.

Edit: Okay, the fact that you are connected to the real names of all your friends is all kinds of wrong. Blizzard is turning into Facebook. There is a reason I'm not on Facebook.
The fact that many people have "common" names might hide them, to some degree, but folks like me that have very unusual real names will stand out, and be easily traceable. Even if we are the minority, when considering the WoW population is, what, 11-12 million, that's still a lot of targets.

I'm just a lowly hardware technician, I have no real marketable programming skills, but I bet there are plenty playing at WoW that do, and can use those to further trace someone who has offended them, using the name as a starting point, even if its a common name.

As to the real names connection with friends, I'm hesitant, because the first thing I'd want to know is: can I hide on occasion from all my friends? I didn't have that when I played WoW, and being something of a "lone wolf" by nature, although I enjoyed working with friends and guild, I needed some personal space. So I roled a character on the server without revealing him to my friends and did the same on another server. It sounds like this new friends thing would keep me revealed (regardless of server?) and destroy that chance for a little quiet time or cause some friction with friends with whom I elected not to participate in the program.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
Some of us have more unique names than others. I am the only one that shows up when I google my name when spelled correctly.
I decided to google my name out of curiosity. Apparently it's a pretty common combination but at least one person with the same first/last name was convicted of attempted murder .

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
Some of us have more unique names than others. I am the only one that shows up when I google my name when spelled correctly.
I'm not *that* unique, but a google for me turns up a lot. And there is way too much information up that I have no control over. Classes/labs I've taught (and from that, phone and email), race results (which not only show where I live, but *every place* I've lived since I started running races in the 4th grade...) (Oh! That's my personal record on page 2! Dang, I was fast back then :/). School information from middle school, high school, and college. Scientific papers. Events I've helped run. Photos on facebook other's have tagged me in, even though I'm not on (and avoid like the plague) facebook. Whats worse, is it gives away your friends and family's information as well. I've been trying to keep as much personal info of mine off the internet since I started using the internet. Several places I interviewed with said I would be required to get a profile on a place like LinkedIn. Well... there goes even MORE personal info out to a google search with just my name. Whats sad is, even before I DID start using the internet, a google search for my name would turn up lots of stuff.

Long before I really started using the internet, privacy and staying safe both online and IRL was drilled into me, and this is just scary to see. I barely used the internet till I was finishing high school, and for years before I was frequently told "NEVER give out your name or ANY other information online." I've played CoH for almost 6 years or so, and in that time, I've only given my first name to 2 people, and even then, only fairly recently, and I'm still kinda uneasy about that. Every real life friend I've played alongside has gotten a lecture about never calling me by my real name in teams, or telling anyone. It is honestly mind blowing for me that Blizzard is forcing something like this.

My bank has a bunch of "security questions" for online banking that you need to occasionally put in in addition to your password... several of these can be answered with a google search, and almost all of them can be answered with a typical facebook page (though I do not have one).

Anyway, rambling aside, this is a BAD idea.

EDIT: Hell, isn't this against most game company's codes of conducts, including Blizzard's? "Code of Conduct - NO POSTS CONTAINING PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT OTHER PLAYERS."

 

Posted

Just a little update from the offical forums.

The threads where this message was originally given to the players has "broken records" as being the fastest growing threads, we are talking over 4000 posts in several hours in one thread, the bulk of which are negative responses.

I really would love to be a fly in the wall at the Blizzard HQ for this one.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Venture View Post
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
Obviously we had/have different ways to go about calling said spade a spade, but I have to tend to agree. Back when I was in the height of my forum trollish ways before my none-too-requested forum vacation, I didn't get any kind of push back with my real name being out there on websites I linked to from my profile or anything like that.

But, this begs the question: would I want my forum posts from that time or even now, when I've become a lot more calm and posting more for fun than for fighting, to come up in a google search of my name? Would an employer who is googling a name and finds hundreds of WoW forum posts think less of that person since s/he seems to spend all his time on a video game?

It opens up a lot of moral questions.

Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser

King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast

 

Posted

people have always said that the only wow-killer would be wow. i do not think this will "kill" them but it may affect a number of subscribers, and really is just so poorly thought out that you would figure an executive had to have been the one who thought it up, no way a person with even basic tech knowledge would have ever thought of this.
Just a thought, given Europe's(in general) more regulated privacy codes, will this even be legal to do there ? heck, how is this going to play out in china, where about half the players are. This is going to be some fun legal stuff.

 

Posted

I'm going to guess that they have the right to do it in the EULA.

Will this kill WoW? I doubt it. We're going to see a continued existence of non-sanctioned forums for WoW players. And I'm sure that, much like this game, a good portion of the playerbase doesn't even use the forums anyways.

Will this kill the official WoW forums? Most likely.

Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser

King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser View Post
I'm going to guess that they have the right to do it in the EULA.

Will this kill WoW? I doubt it. We're going to see a continued existence of non-sanctioned forums for WoW players. And I'm sure that, much like this game, a good portion of the playerbase doesn't even use the forums anyways.

Will this kill the official WoW forums? Most likely.
eula's are tricky, they generally are unenforceable in court, I'm just thinking that in counties with more strict privacy laws, this could affect their ability to operate legally in those countries, you may remember that in china the government tried to flex their control over wow a few times now, threatening their license to operate there.
and yeah, i said i doubted it would "kill" them, but i don't doubt that a number of people might find this action by a business so onerous that they will leave out of principle.

in the long run i suspect this will be rescinded by the weekend, the pr is toxic at this point, and the flaws are just too glaringly apparent.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by LiquidX View Post
...What do you mean, Jimmy went to go live on a farm? WHY DO ALL MY FRIENDS KEEP GOING TO LIVE ON FARMS?!
Because they don't like being petted and hugged and squeezed and named George!


 

Posted

I propose that our rep comments here no longer be anonymous, to go with the flow.

Support the Mentor Project - http://tinyurl.com/citymentorproject
[JFA2010]Mod08: And I will strike down upon thee (enrious) with great vengence and .... oh wait wrong script
@enrious, @sardonicism, @MyLexiConIsHugeSon
If you haven't joined a global channel, you're not really looking for team.

 

Posted

This train wreck should be interesting to watch.

In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.