wow-real-id
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New Blizzard community website, forums begin testing in November
The announcement came out this morning on the EU forums that Blizzard is getting ready to roll out its new community website and forums for World of Warcraft some time in early November. Anyone who has been to the community site for StarCraft 2 will already be aware of some of the new features including a more advanced forum system than what we have now. Features will include the ability to report a post for trolling or spam without changing pages, being able to see a quick summary of the thread by mousing over and letting players up- and down-rate responses. The current forums will be set as locked during the beginning of the transition and then will be completely removed toward the end. This means that if there are any old guides, posts or fun things from days of old that you want to see moved to the new forums, you should copy them to your own computer now. One thing that is curiously missing from the announcement is what alternative Blizzard has developed to its original Real ID forums concept since it was thrown out. StarCraft 2 has a centralized handle that is associated with your Battle.net login, and it is the same handle/avatar that's used for multiplayer games. Hopefully, they'll provide more details on issues like this as things start to lead up to the changeover. The full blue post is after the break.
Mike Morhaime: Real names will not be required on official Blizzard forums
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Blizzard_Retracts_Real_Names_NOT_Required_On_Official_Forum'; In a move that is sure to generate just as much discussion as the initial decision itself, Mike Morhaime, co-founder and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, has released a statement that says "real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums." Morhaime says that Blizzard has been "constantly monitoring the feedback" given by the community and that they 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." The other upgrades to the forums will still apply, such as rating posts up or down and conversation threading. This will, no doubt, make many members of the community quite happy. The full statement (updated) after the break.
Rumor: Blizzard employees' real life names will not appear on the Real ID forums [Updated]
Recently a few forum goers have posted that they've been in touch with Blizzard phone representatives and have heard from them that Blizzard employee's real-life names will actually not be appearing on the new Real ID forums. So here's what we know: Bashiok / Drysc posted his real life name yesterday and had his privacy violated by people posting maps to his house, his parents' names and (potentially incorrect) cell phone numbers. We have seen multiple reports of WoW players who have called up Blizzard's support line and spoken with representatives who've told them blues will no longer be using their real names in the new forums. Josh, a Blizzard phone rep, said that Blizzard employees "cannot risk having their personal lives compromised by in-game issues." Blizzard blue representative Rygarius locked, but did not delete nor deny, a thread on this. WoW.com has emailed PR contacts within Blizzard for comment, and has not heard anything back. So there you have it. It's a pretty solid rumor at this point. The known facts speak for themselves. Update: Wryxian is referring people back to the original blue post language about the change. However, we're still hearing from phone bank representatives that Blizzard has changed its mind about blue posters. Update #2: According to Nethaera, they're going to stick with their original plan and have blue posters use their real names. As to why other parts of Blizzard are saying something different (WoW.com has verified what other parts of Blizzard has said), it appears they're having some internal communication issues.
Blizzard's responses on the Real ID situation
Blizzard has provided three updates to Real ID news that broke today. One of them we reported on earlier (the fact that our real life names will not be displayed retroactively). The other two are about parental controls and Blizzard's attentiveness to the response. We provide all three responses after the break. If you're interested in contributing to the discussion on Blizzard's forums, you may do so at the 11,000+ thread. Don't create a new thread though, it'll just be locked. And try not to fall into the trap of responding too harshly... Blizzard has been banning a lot of people today.
