The Daily Grind: Be yourself or someone like you
It wasn't one of the biggest news items of last week, but Blizzard's announcements regarding Battle.net and the RealID system did turn a few heads. The fact that it uses the real name of players was a bit surprising, but at the end of the day it's not the first game allowing people to track players across alts. City of Heroes has always had a global chat handle integrated with the client, and both Star Trek Online and Champions Online integrate your name directly with the name of a given character.
On the one hand, this can be seen as a good thing. Rather than friending an army of alts that your friend cycles through on a regular basis, you friend somebody once and you know them. There's also no hiding behind alts for disrespectful or unpleasant players. On the other hand, it means that no one gets to advantage of taking a night off on an alt no one knows about, and it can raise some security and identity concerns. (Especially in Blizzard's case, what with the real names being used.) What do you think about global identities in MMOs? Are they a good move as a whole, or are they a bit too Big Brother for your tastes?
