Post soundtrack: “I Think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage
I’ve been following the official RealID thread on the forums, and there seems to be a fairly widely expressed opinion that it’s not ok. (It’s also up to 1029 pages in almost 9 hours* – I think people are making their opinion known)
A good number of other (much more capable) bloggers have been writing down their thoughts, and they make very interesting reading.
Righteous Orbs – Seriously Not Okay
Fail PUG! – A bad idea just got worse
Stories of WoW – My take on the RealID Blizzard fail
Mana Obscure – RealID – What the forums?
Armageddon’s Coming! – RealID = Account Cancelled
I can do alts, me – RealID – the one about choice
Spinksville – RealID debate brings all the posters back to the official forums (also In which Blizzard drinks the realID coolaid)
Moar alts! – I’ll be who ‘I’ want to be, thanks
Eleven-Four – The end is coming – at least for the WoW forums.
The Noisy Rogue – I warned you
Blessing of Kings - RealID and Forums
World of Matticus – Real ID on Blizzard forums, the good and the bad
Shy at WoW – Real ID on the forums
Destructive Reach – Real ID: A Forum Compilation
Eye of the Storm – Public Forums using Real IDs
Troll Racials are Overpowered – Anonymity, Intelligent Posting, and Trolls
the WoW Noob – Real ID: Putting my Feminist Thinking Cap on
The Suicidal Zebra – My Take on RealID
ixobelle.com – Changing My Name (also Real ID + WoW Forums Integration?!?1!!??)
Broken Toys – RealID For Your FakeOrc
WTT: [RP] – Obligatory Pissed Off About Real ID Post.
Dwism.com – So I’ll never post on the Blizzard Forums again.
Escapist Scrawl – Is Real ID The WoW Killer?
Tobold’s MMORPG Blog – Blizzard is heading right towards their first privacy PR disaster
Church of Pangoria – A Small Voice
Need More Rage – Me Real Name is “Ratshag”
Miss Medicina – And I Didn’t Even Catch Her Name…
Big Bear Butt – Planning for a Cataclysm (also Raid ID in forums with a different spin)
Jaded Alt – Getting Out of Hand
Empowered Fire – RealID and Forums: Your Name, Please
Escape Hatch – Real names on the WoW forums.
Tish Tosh Tesh – Blizzard’s F2P Plans: RealID
Pink Pigtail Inn – Did Blizzard just miss to do a reality check?
Murloc Parliament – Privacy “creep”: Real ID on the Forums. (also Young Lady, you will not use that Newfangled “Real Eye Dee”)
Priest With A Cause – Trying to be positive
Stylish Corpse – Fail of the Century
Geek Feminism Blog – Another round of “real names will solve everything”, Blizzard edition
Ravven’s Glass – Pass the Popcorn
The ‘mental Shaman – RealID Saga Part One: Silencing Voices
Border House – Blizzard Wants The World To Know Your Name
Screaming Monkeys – Post with your name, destroy your life!
Too Many Annas – Real ID – Epic Fail
Game By Night – RealID on Forums is an Identity Threat and Blizzard’s Partnership with Facebook
Tree of Life – The only good thing about the Real ID changes
Also, Kotaku chimes in. On Reddit people are commenting on the thread Blizzard Has lost. And enjoy the insights of BlizzardPR on twitter. And Ctrl+Alt+Del has a comic about it.
I wonder if Blizz was expecting people to object like this? Actually… they were, kind of.
We have been planning this change for a very long time. During this time, we have thought ahead about the scope and impact of this change and predicted that many people would no longer wish to post in the forums after this change goes live. We are fine with that, because we want to change these forums dramatically in a positive and more constructive direction. (source)
Jolly good, at least this isn’t unexpected. I just wonder if they expected the proportion of signal to noise would somehow magically improve after they alienate a large number of players who have no desire to lose their relative anonymity when they post?
Gah.
/wave
* Updated with a few more blogs, added a new post from Big Bear Butt, and the CAD Comic. Also, the official forum thread is now sitting on 1116 pages, 11 1/2 hours after it started.
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