As all WoW players know, Blizzard has added some social networking features to the game. This is purely optional as you can choose not to add people to your RealID friends. I feel this actually doesn't add much to it as I don't want everyone to know my real name but would still love to talk cross realm or cross game with people. An alias would be great! Regardless, I can live with that and just not use it.

A post was made on the WoW General Discussion forum and the battle.net forums about the forums switching over to RealID too. That means when you get redirected in game to post your problem on the Support forum, everyone will know your real name when you do so (First name and Last Name).

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1

This goes over well with a small few, but many do not care for it. There's some great arguments in the thousands of posts made since the announcement. The reasoning behind this is to cut down on trolls and flaming, but I doubt it will cut down all that much. In turn, I think they are going to keep some of the more helpful people from posting at all. Not to mention people getting mad at you and googling your information.

I don't pay fifteen bucks a month for the reasoning of making friends. I do make friends along the way, but the main point is to play the game.

What do you think? Is RealID good or bad?

Will this affect your decision to buy StarCraft 2 and Cataclysm this year?

Likewise - Over on the European forums, we have a similar thread discussing the ooohs and aaahs of this new idea from Blizz.

Personally, I am totally against it!

Read all about it here for EU peeps.

So, personally, it's not going to keep me from buying Cataclysm. I have no interested in SCII, so it won't affect me there.

I don't post at all on the Blizzard forums. WOW, Battle.net, nothing. If I did or were inclined to, yes, I would have a problem with not being able to post under an alias. Any one who I add to RealID currently are people who actually aready know my real name, first and last, so it doesn't matter to me if they see it. I have to admit, I love being able to talk across server, as I currently play on 4 servers and it's nice to know who's playing on what server and where I should log to.

They nixed real names on the forums. Yay!

Confirmed by them Blue poster type peoples on the Wow forums:

Hello everyone,

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.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters (http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/about/mission.html), and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
[ Post edited by Vaneras ]

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