#0 - July 6, 2010, 9:58 p.m.
While I can see via the CS forums and among many others offered by Blizzard, there are some key things missing from it. Those will all be highlighted as well as options to fix the current Real ID system.
Let's go to the first thing people have on their minds, the Real ID system. I have been using this system in game and I have to say, I do enjoy it to some extend. Whether it's using the broadcast network as a huge chatroom or playing with friends on another realm, it really does has its perks. However, with these perks come a downside. The use of this system gives absolutely no privacy to any player while gaming. A suggestion on cleaning up the system and thus having far more rewarding factors to it would be the use of a 'hidden' or 'invisible' option. Much like AIM, where you can hide even though you are signed on. The nice thing about putting something like this in would be if you are having just a bad day and don't want to be bugged, you can be hidden from the world as you meld into something that gives you some peace. Or if you just want to play around on an alt and not be bugged. It should have all the same benefits as AIM does where you can talk to people despite being hidden.
Of course, another thing that can be mentioned is the use of real first and last names. Lets say you have a WoW friend for the past year and half, you two are so stoked about this new Real ID system and a couple months later something happens. Or someone that knows your friend on their Real ID can find you and try to find uses of harassment. While I am sure all of us want to have some hope that adults and teenagers alike will not use such means to harass outside of the World of Warcraft community or in general, but lets be real. People will people and some just happen to be very childish and cruel. The use of a first and last name opens a window of sheer opportunity and the Internet is not a safe place with everything pretty much plaster on there. While harassment could start in a simple form of in game mail or whisper spams, it just may (and has in the past) trickle to outside sites.
Even though Blizzard does not have the rights to police other means of harassment outside of the World of Warcraft community, they do have means to stop what could potentiality turn extremely negative.
There's much uproar over the forums changing their current system to mold like the in game system. It's where posters will now be posting with a real first and last name plus the name of a character below them. I can see where Blizzard wants to go with this, but I have a hard time following the logic behind it. It may seem harmless, but there's really much harm to be had from it. I am sure Blizzard is not immune to the fact that the Internet can be a dark place, but in that same regard, they should also understand at what force people will go to be cruel, stalk or harass other players.
At one point or another, a player has either gotten hate mail, whispers, forum harassment and so on. At the same time, the people doing these acts against another player have not always been punished and sometimes such reports of harassment do go unnoticed by the blame being pushed off on the player by Blizzard employees remarking on the fact that they either don't ignore enough or do enough to protect themselves.
I won't go into a huge argument about "HURR THINK OF THE CHILDREN", but I will highlight on it.
The last one I know is going to be debated, but by internet safety I don't mean just about viruses and hacking. If you browse the CS forums, there's hardly any stickies about parental controls or what a parent can do to better be involved with their children in their online play.
It's not anyone's ground to tell a parent how to raise their child, but from my experience, I have learned that children are not always honest and parents do not always have the education to better their child's security.
Lets make a proactive movement for parents and players alike by making a sticky to highlight the importance of the ESRB, get some great links on how to keep your children (and yourself) internet safe and offer tips to people that are just looking to make safe play of their game time.
Again the importance to note of what was said is that I am in no way saying that this is how anyone should raise a child, but giving some neat tools that may help a parent out in regulating online play in any environment.
For the TL;DR requests:
My suggestion for all of this is are the following:
1. Leave the World of Warcraft forums in the same system we have now.
2. Improve the first in game system of Real ID before moving to mark other means of communication with it. Offer new options to have a 'hide' status and give players the OPTION to have their first and last name posted for any Real ID interaction.
3. Sticky important threads about Internet safety.
