Poll: Well that's RealID over and done with.

[Zaik]

It was quite possibly the dumbest move i've seen a business make in my entire life. Spending resources to basically turn your service into a great way to have some weirdo track you down and burn your house down or something because you killed him in the arena, against the wishes of pretty much everyone who isn't named john smith.

I wonder if they even really decided to not do it just because of how opposed people were to it. It wouldn't surprise me if it was because of crap like this instead: http://www.asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/

 

[Benefactor]

The mandatory aspect was horrible, because most trolls wouldn't be phased and everyone else would lose privacy.

Having it be optional could foster some better relations on realm forums, but Blizzard had a chance to drop a tactical nuclear strike on Troll City, and couldn't push the button. To be fair, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to not institute it.

I feel like the benefits outweighed the initial panic and fear, but obviously Blizzard doesn't agree with me, especially after some serious IRL trolling against one of the Blizzard forum moderators. (If you want, the article talking about the trolling of said moderator is on the front page link of ED talking about RealID.)

 

[Liberaliter]

I think it was an excellent idea. I don't play WoW but I would happily see everyone who does get annoyed, shame they aren't going to do it.

 

[samsonguy920]

There was a lot about RealID that made me real uncomfortable. I think what was most wrong with it was that it was just another dumb tactic that would only punish honest players while the dishonest ones that it was created to discourage would not really be affected by. I do applaud their original reasoning, though. I would like to see something come up that did at least discourage slimy activity in game forums.

I will still boycott any Activision game until they earn my trust back that they will actually use their brain's next time.

Knock yourself out. That won't hurt Blizzard's or Vivendi's(who owns both Activision and Blizzard and which are still essentially separate business entities) business at all. You know, since they aren't Activision. Anything Activision is making right now is being made better by someone else anyway.
And by the way, when making a plural word, you don't use apostrophes.

 

[Lightslei]

There was a lot about RealID that made me real uncomfortable. I think what was most wrong with it was that it was just another dumb tactic that would only punish honest players while the dishonest ones that it was created to discourage would not really be affected by. I do applaud their original reasoning, though. I would like to see something come up that did at least discourage slimy activity in game forums.

I will still boycott any Activision game until they earn my trust back that they will actually use their brain's next time.

Knock yourself out. That won't hurt Blizzard's or Vivendi's(who owns both Activision and Blizzard and which are still essentially separate business entities) business at all. You know, since they aren't Activision. Anything Activision is making right now is being made better by someone else anyway.
And by the way, when making a plural word, you don't use apostrophes.

It's a matter of principle. If you strongly disagree with a "decision" even if it was overturned, you should voice your opinion in a way you feel comfortable with.

Also I am confident there are a lot of companies making better games than activision, saying that they are the best and no one can top them is foolish.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

Imagine if they tried to implement that on 4Chan.

 

[Vrach]

Imagine if they tried to implement that on 4Chan.

Spoiler

OT: Was a stupid privacy-invading idea that would do little to nothing to stop 90% of the trolls and would probably lead to some rage-induced RL attacks. Frankly, the in game implementation also just reeks of poor implementation, if they simply opened up the cross-server/game/faction chat to modders, you'd have seen tons of examples of how it actually should be done within a few days.

 

[mada7]

No one would be safe from being stalked even John Smith could be found by someone with enough resources and determination. It was such a calamitously bad idea Im shocked that it came from blizzard in the first place.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that what people play would become public knowledge. There are employers that would not hire someone if they knew that person played World of Warcraft because it is like hiring someone with a known drug addiction and being able to check if the person is in the world of warcraft forums becomes extremely easy with this system

 

[David Bray]

RealID was great but not secure. Even on escapist (which is one of the best forums) there are still people who use the guise of being some unpronouncable name to excuse terrible communication skills and the spewing of hate.
If they could secure it better, i would be fully behind RealID

 

[CovertCell]

A nice idea but groups and their discussions on Facebook don't really stop people from flaming each other so I don't see how the RealID would have made that much difference. I never use the forums on WoW or any other game so it really wouldn't have affected me that much. Although I do like the fact that I can now talk to friends on WoW no matter what character or faction, but I can't recall if that's entirely linked to RealID or not.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm with one of the above guys in thinking, it could have been slightly changed to only allow one, or maybe your highest two, character names to post on the forums, therefore making you post everything as your character, forcing you to not hide behind a level 1 alt, and at least making you accountable, while not forcing your real name out into the world. In a world where a lot of people think 'wow player = loser that never leaves parent's basement', it's just not a good thing.

 

[Ickorus]

I think giving out peoples real names was a terrible idea but I think they should keep it to a certain degree like only having one forum name instead of being able to use all your characters.