The Weekly Marmot -- RealID in Review

[Ciderhelm]

[Scyla]

Well Josh Allen (?!?!?) might be a popular name but there are players out there which have an unique name and are listed on websites (e.g. the company where they work) so it is very easy to figure out who they are.

And all this issues have been discussed in lengthy arguments in the German-forums (and I guess also in the NA-forums) and we got no response from Blizzard that they share our concerns.

Yes, the RealID system needs those privacy options but they should have been implemented right from the start.
On my account the feature will be disabled as long as those options aren't implemented (via parentel controll, guess I'm underaged again -.-).

[Elemek]

Cue pointless argument over whether or not .999... is exactly equal to 1. (It is)

Daniel Sutton

[Infusion101]

haha , good vid

first you waste minutes of my time trying to pause the screen at 9:21.5 and then you waste another 10 min of my time trying to figure out why 0.9r = 1! ^^

[Iwchas]

You cant be friends with Jack Nicholson!

[doom1992]

haha , good vid

first you waste minutes of my time trying to pause the screen at 9:21.5 and then you waste another 10 min of my time trying to figure out why 0.9r = 1! ^^

I second that

[Baldun-Shu'Halo]

Amusingly enough My real name not linked to my battlenet, Because shortly after you could link your wow acct to a battlenet acct I got Hacked and Blizz just gave me control over the Battlenet that My WOW acct was attached to. Blizz also wont respond to my request to change it. But to my real point.

I fix the issue with people knowing my real (albeit fake) name by not real ID friending ppl or accepting requests because I DONT want people in my guild being able to find me if I am playing starcraft, my horde toons, or my alliance toons that arn't in guild. Generally because there are times I want to Play a game and not have to deal with guild drama. And if it's really that important they can call or text via people I actually care to give that info to.

[Richie]

Only thing is if your WoW Account is on your dads name... everyone would call you different...
Anyways... since it probably will be up tomorrow by extendings i try it first with setting ´Call me Richie´ in my Broadcast and if that doesn´t work i´ll set it off.

[Fledern]

My issue with RealID is twofold.

First the real name. Unlike you, i happen to have a pretty unique name. Afaik, there is only one other person with my name in the world. Anybody googling me can easily reach my CV, where i work, what my home address is, etc. I'm also an officer in my guild. I dont want some kid who i kicked out of a raid (he doesnt have to have my realid either, he can ask a more reasonable friend of his for my name) to send my home death threats or think it a really funny idea to send my boss at work weird stuff. My name also happens to be unisex. I dont want hormone-pumped teenagers seeing my name from their friends of friends list & trying to court me. Anyways i happen to have a thick skin & shrug these off. Females hiding their identity for similar reasons might not.

My second issue is with handing out my battle.net account email. I use several emails. My bank or trustworthy companies like Blizzard have unique emails that nobody else knows about. Then there are tons of emails that i hand out while subscribing to websites of varying reputation. Those unique, business emails get nothing but important mails from said companies. The others sooner or later start receiving all sorts of cheap watch or viagra add mails. Now, RealID is asking me to hand out my battle.net unique, all business, email (one that has received to date only 3 emails, all from Blizzard) to some dude i met on the internet and hope he wont add it to his "hackers hangout" hotmail address book. Not going to happen.

Now of course, i'm simply not going to be using RealID. I bet Blizzard is also thinking, "if he doesnt like it, he just wont use it". If it were only as simple as that. Now i'll be fighting off people telling them that i dont trust them with my email. Please try telling somebody you spend minimum 3-4 hours 3-4 times a week & chat away happily about everything from game to other stuff that you dont trust them.

WoW is not Facebook. WoW is not twitter. Blizzard should stop trying to imitate those.

[Helgi]

Love the RealID system. BUT I wish there was one more option:
Cross realm party invites.

My brother plays on another realm, but he is still within our battlegroup (and thus the dungeon finder will pull from his realm). Would be nice to do some dungeons with him.

[Xed]

Love the RealID system. BUT I wish there was one more option:
Cross realm party invites.

My brother plays on another realm, but he is still within our battlegroup (and thus the dungeon finder will pull from his realm). Would be nice to do some dungeons with him.

the RealID system is (for now at least) only for staying close in contact, not for ingame-interactions. like you won't be able to do a dungeon with your SCII friends either

OT: exact same thoughts as lores, i really like the functionallity of the system, but it needs just some more securicy/privacy/customization options, like a set name (Steam ect have one too) and to choose wheter or not you are visible to people you never heard of.

edit:

I bet Blizzard is also thinking, "if he doesnt like it, he just wont use it". If it were only as simple as that. Now i'll be fighting off people telling them that i dont trust them with my email. Please try telling somebody you spend minimum 3-4 hours 3-4 times a week & chat away happily about everything from game to other stuff that you dont trust them.

also this.

[Berzerker]

Considering Blizz is billing this as being something you use with "people you know and trust in real life" (http://us.battle.net/realid/faq.html - under "Who should I add to my Real ID friends list?") -- though admittedly they likely added this after some of the security complaints -- displaying your real name can't really be deemed as a security risk of you're assumed to be using it with people who likely already know it. (Though it would still be nice to have the option to change the display name to use a nickname if preferred... I think more people know me by a nickname than my real name anyway.)

As far as being contacted by RealID friends when you're not actually playing WoW, I'd look at RealID as a more restricted version of IM... You're giving them the ability, and hence inferring permission, to contact you... if you don't want them to be able to, don't give it to them.

To me the most significant concerns are that you have to basically give them your login information so they can friend you (though in reality, this is no different than any other messaging platform), and that you don't have an option to block your "friends of friends" visibility to others, meaning you're sharing some of that information with people you have no intent to share, or directly trust (a key element of their own recommended criteria for using the system).


All that being said, I think their target audience and "intended use" classifications were more derived from their implementation than the other way around -- the idea of "cross-realm/game friends" was great, but due to the limitations of their design and the security risks/flaws within it has now been scoped down to "real-life friends that cross realms/games," which in turn is appealing to a (rightfully) much much smaller percentage of players, and provides little additional (and in most cases actually more limited) accessibility to those that use it than the many other options available. After all, most of the people you're likely to trust enough to share this information with (and in fact even some of the ones you DON'T trust enough) are already on your facebook/IM/etc, and while those options won't work IN the game, still work across even MORE games (or even when you're not in a game at all).


TL;DR: Design dictated function, and didn't live up to the hype. Arguably better/comparable options already exist.

And I still, to this day, remember when I was first shown the proof of .9r == 1 in my Algebra I class.... so cleverly simple.

[Kazeyonoma]

The end result is, you'll have a friends list, probably 90% of which are just wow friends, 10% will be realID friends. trying to make EVERYONE your realID friend is the problem that everyone seems to be having, but the fact is, you don't need to, and shouldn't want to.

[Lore]

The end result is, you'll have a friends list, probably 90% of which are just wow friends, 10% will be realID friends. trying to make EVERYONE your realID friend is the problem that everyone seems to be having, but the fact is, you don't need to, and shouldn't want to.

The problem is that the privacy issues are in no way necessary for the system to function. I want the functionality the system provides, but I don't particularly want to be giving my email address out to everyone.

The only reason it's "only for people you trust" is because of the silly way it identifies you. If adding me as a RealID friend meant I gave out, say, my Battle.net account number, and then you only saw an alias that I set up in my battle.net account settings, nothing about the system would be in any way a privacy concern.

[Kazeyonoma]

Yeah, i mean, I agree with you, having been on the sc2 beta with you, we both witnessed the atrocities this realID system created there as well, so I'm with ya, I just think for now, we gotta make due with our own "personal" security measures.

[bakudan]

i don't really have an issue with the real id system, because anyone i ask to be my friend i know in real life. Also with your name noone can really do anything. it takes a lot more to steal an identity. Jonathan Mcgraw is my name, i just don't care that much about people knowing my name

[Maziel]

One of the other issues with using real names in the Real ID system is quite simply the identifier of females. There are a lot of female players that do not want everyone in the World of Warcraft to know that they are female. This avoids things like stalkers. But with Real ID, it will give your real name and that's pretty easy for people wanting to search friends of friends lists to find female players to attempt to talk to.

Giving us an Alias to use instead of our real name would avoid a lot of pending requests from unknown people.

[Kazeyonoma]

or you just don't become RealID friends with guys/girls who would creep you out or your friends?!

[Warwench]

The problem is that the privacy issues are in no way necessary for the system to function. I want the functionality the system provides, but I don't particularly want to be giving my email address out to everyone.

The only reason it's "only for people you trust" is because of the silly way it identifies you. If adding me as a RealID friend meant I gave out, say, my Battle.net account number, and then you only saw an alias that I set up in my battle.net account settings, nothing about the system would be in any way a privacy concern.

This.

No way i'll be using this if I can help it.