Real ID

[Malpheas]

Originally Posted by medierra

You'd only be on an even playing field if you were equally irrational, psychologically imbalanced, and had nothing to lose.

Of course, even then, the playing field may be equal but that doesn't mean it is a good field to be on.

Which would be no different than what there is in smaller locations. All you have to do is up the size.

[sevrun]

I think the overall idea of the RealID was illconcieved to begin with for a number of reasons already mentioned here in this thread. I'm not sure I trust the press release version of the reason they wanted to do it. I am certain that something needs to be done to clean up their forums, and I see a lot of forums out there that do not require information nearly so useful for ID theft that manage to maintain a civil atmosphere quite easily... So I can't believe this was the first, best option they could come up with. Find some hardass mods that aren't afraid to hurt people's feelings and let em crack down on the BS. I'm guessing they'd see maybe a 5% decrease in subscriptions in the short term before their reputation for terrible social climate started to mend and subscriptions picked back up. There are a number of ways to dampen this impact, including implementation just before the release (or in conjunction with) the expansion pack expected out soon. I could go on with ways to fix the ridiculously dated overall package to induce greater numbers to at least try the game, but that's not really the point of the thread.

[medierra]

Basically you're saying they need Evil_Medierra

[Void(null)]

You cant give your secret weapon to the enemy, that would be madness!

[space-time mogul]

In short: I don´t like RealIDing and I wouldn´t participate in a community that required me to give away my real identity.

And as was said, there are, probably thousands of, other forums that don´t have that much of a problem with trolls, flamewars and the like.
Of course you don´t have to be surprised to get things like that on a forum full of 12-16 year olds and die-hard gamers to which their game is one of the most important things in their lifes.
That comes naturally.

Solutions for that have already been named and have worked out and proven their effectiveness over many years throughout the internet.
First thing to have is moderators. And enough of them.
Second thing is rating systems that enable the guest/participant to quickly judge a thread or a user based on a given rating, and to rate those threads and people themselves.
Of course this has to be thought through to really be effective, but I do think that a customer can expect a multi-million-dollar business to get this done.


Most important thing, in general, regarding this topic is anonymity and the importance of it.
The internet is not the streets.
If people hear you shouting on the streets or making a fool of yourself, they don´t know who you are until they call the police to identify you.
Even then only the people directly involved know your name.

On the internet people would not have to call the police, they would know your name instantly; as would EVERY person reading a posting of you.
And as if that weren´t enough - all those people could access EVERY posting you ever wrote while being RealIDed.
Came home drunk and wrote something really stupid? It might be there forever.
Your new boss sure will be interested.

Taking away anonymity on the net would in the end take away freedom of speech; which is in my opinion a much greater good than is having neat and tidy forums.
It would be, in fact, taking away the very thing that defined the internet and made it such a great success.

[Sacred]

Originally Posted by medierra

Basically you're saying they need Evil_Medierra

Yes, that's all they need but we wont give you up so they have to find another solution

I seriously don't know why they have a problem. Before you can post anything you have to register an account and enter a cd-key to one of their games (atleast it worked like that before).
When people misbehave, ban the key from the forum.
It will take a while but soon all the trolls keys would be banned and I don't think they'll be interested in buying games over and over just to be able to post crap on the forums, and if they did; good for Blizzard.

Oh and the Real ID thingy is their worst idea yet.

[TECHNOmancer]

Originally Posted by space-time mogul

In short: I don´t like RealIDing and I wouldn´t participate in a community that required me to give away my real identity.

Taking away anonymity on the net would in the end take away freedom of speech; which is in my opinion a much greater good than is having neat and tidy forums.
It would be, in fact, taking away the very thing that defined the internet and made it such a great success.

I agree wholeheartedly!

TECHNOmancer

[Scryer]

Well, I play WoW with my friends, I find it's pretty awesome talking with them through WoW to SC2 Beta and what not.

I'm kind of glade they decided not to go along with the whole real-names in the forums, that would have been a disaster.

[orionite]

I had all this stuff written down only to loose it to the forum timeout... lovely.

Ok, condensed:

I don't enjoy MMOs anymore because, too many people think that Freedom of Speech = Freedom to insult and spread hatred. And, because they are known as 1337KiLlaX they can do so without fearing repercussions.

While RealID has some issues, how about a "NetID" that is unique to you. Let's assume you can only get one once you reach a certain age and have to verify your identity (driver's license, passport, SSN, whatever). No one would see the link between the NetID and yourself as a person, but you would only be able to play certain online games and participate in certain forums, if you register using your real ID.

This would allow me to easily ban/ignore users based on their NetID, if they have built up a reputation as a person, I don't want to associate with.

I'm the first to agree, that this is quite radical, but what do you think?

[eisprinzessin]

Originally Posted by orionite

I had all this stuff written down only to loose it to the forum timeout... lovely.

Ok, condensed

What is a forum timeout
If this your condensed version - perfect length - we should be happy, that you lost the other one ... I might regret it, but how about using Lazarus: Form Recovery?

Edit: But the above isn't what you asked for ... if there will be such a netID, then criminals will certainly trace it back to you. Other culprits will have multiple netIDs. And worst - there will be bug, which will block some unlucky users in every place in error. Even if not, if you will be blocked by your first online service for whatever reason, then all following might just decline your registration by default.