On a positive note…
| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
|
I know there are a few more in my state, of my country, but really, how many phone calls, or just comparing details will it take (see below)?
Cancellation.
I know a quite a few people are contacting me to tell me you are canceling.
I wont lie, I am proud of you for taking a stand.
I will also say, that if the game means enough to you that you don’t care (let’s face it, how many people care when their guild bank gets pillaged due to no authenticators), then you don’t have to follow my path.
I love this game!
let me repeat this…
I LOVE THIS GAME!
and have enjoyed other Blizzard products.
It’s true that as long as I don’t participate on the forums (and Blizzard doesn’t go any further.. yeah right), that personally I could live with this. However, this just shits me and I know that there are an incredible number of people that will be disadvantaged and threatened by this change.
Blizzard is prepared to protect their staff by now stating they don’t have to have a RealID – they know how dangerous it is 1st hand… but you.. you are barely a statistic, you don’t even form a column in their monthly report, let alone a yearly shareholder statement.
YOU AREN’T WORTH THE MONEY YOU PAY BLIZZARD!
So, in answer to those who believe I am sick of the game and this is a great excuse.. sod off.. you are looking in the wrong place. I’m an overworked single father who loves to get online and chat and play with his mates that know me as Gnomeaggeon (or Squidly if I must).
What else can you do?
There is a petition. Yes it’s in it’s early days, but it started with one signature. If you don’t want to cancel your account, why the hell not add your signature?
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-wow-realid.html
You can read and think
Is this for me, or is this for Blizzard?
- Shareholder statements (as in, we are joining with Facebook)
- Articles about how Blizzard are crawling up the Korean governments arse.
- Stalker Stories…
- The “good” and
- The “bad“.. at least Blizzard learned a partial lesson…
- Or read something that will make your heart sink, start with Chastity’s excellent post, then read through the comments until you get to this one and feel your heart sink.
- You could even read why most of us DO play WoW.
Whatever you do, it’s your choice.
I may never return to WoW, but I don’t want to read in the international media about someone stalked and killed.
How many will it take for you?
10,000?
1,000?
100?
10?
For me, it is ONE!
One person harmed by this foolish policy is too much.
Blizzard will hide behind their EULA, and they will be fine… but…
Will you?
Will your sister, brother, mother, father, cousin, guild mate, a complete stranger on the other side of the world that did absolutely nothing wrong?
It’s a game.. it’s only a game.
Blizzard don’t have the right to impose war-time identity requirements on me, or you, as players of a game.
YOU WOULDN’T LET YOUR GOVERNMENT CONTROL YOU THIS MUCH, SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LETTING A GAMES COMPANY?
Remember, Facebook is not a moral standard of internet security. Their creator has stated multiple times he doesn’t give a shit about the user’s privacy… your privacy.
Still, it’s your choice.
- Play the game and leave it to others (who may just leave in disgust)… or
- Shove your fists where the sun doesn’t shine and let Blizzard know you will not accept this.
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gnomeaggedon and Laura. Laura said: It's a message worth thinking about RT @Gnomeaggedon Only 3 of me: http://wp.me/pgTed-1N5 [...]
Interesting link- there are 254 of me in the US, but being from Canada I would be on a few with my name.
This RealID is so stupid. There are stalkerish people in the game. I have personally had to deal with a pedophile in the game and report him. I was quite the mother hen for awhile, I had many young teens who would tell me their problems as their parents wouldn’t listen. I didn’t really sign up for this but I guess they trusted me. To make a long story short..there was this creep in the game..started out okay but got very weird to the point my kid and I refused to join and groups or have anything to do with them “IGNORE”. (I mean who gets off making sexual comments to a player when they know their Mom is in the group??) Well not long after a teen boy confided to me about someone making him feel uncomfortable (very graphic sexually and inapropriate). I asked the name and sure enough it was the same guy. Anyways I contacted Blizz and haven’t seen him since..but what if this teen had of given him his real ID at the start before he was creepy. I’ve had a few players ask for mine already and I don’t even know who they are. One bg doesn’t make us best friends..yet I’m an adult and can figure this out.. children just aren’t mature enough to know the difference.
I’m so with you.. if it saves one child or even adult from being harrassed or stalked then they shouldn’t implement it. It’s not like we didn’t cope before RealID.
No wonder bill collectors have an easy time finding me, there’s only one of me.
This trend in video games, is upsetting. I might just go back to playing Planescape:Torment when games were games, and not social networks.
This realid stuff just makes me sad, why the hell do they need to do it?
[...] several hundred pages of the initial forum thread, I’ve read fantastic posts (some good ones here, here, and a great list here) and some good debates, but in the end, it comes down to one thing [...]
One of the largest online, social, gaming networks on the planet uses nicknames.
It’s this little thing called “XBOX Live”.
And there is a metric shit-ton of parental controls and safety “nets” in place to try their best to protect your identity and protect children.
And you know what else they have? Forums, where people use their nicknames. And what else? Their forums are moderated pret tytightly. There are still falme wars, etc, but nowhere near the level of pain that we see on the WoW forums.
Gnomer, I have nothing but admiration for you.
Chas and I are seriously considering cancelling our accounts too.
Yep – I’m all with you. Too far is too far. They can still salvage this total desaster and add some control to the individual player (A good start would be a common handle for the forums and a “friends only” toggle for the RealID friends list) – I would very seriously consider signing up again.
However, as it stands I have to battle their convoluted system to even be able to cancel my account. I posted a direct link to the European Battle.net page.
Just in case the website of WoW is suffering from unusual load. Wonder why that might be….
well, i’m waiting to see what their response will be. sure, if a nobody like ME cancels my account they won’t care — but Gnomey and all the other high-profile, vocal WoW bloggers will certainly be noticed, because they have influence in the community. i’m very interested to hear what the take is from the guys at The Instance podcast — have have huge pull.
in other news, that howmanyofme.com site has made me realize there’s ONE OTHER of me in the united states. now, i’m compelled to find him. is HE the evil one, or am *i*?? lmao
For me, it is not even one killed, for me it would be one phone call, one random douchebag showing up on a doorstep, or one friend invite…
LOL, there is 1 person in the US with my name!
I don’t think that site is working. Especially considering there about 17 people in my city with the same name as me
Admittedly I don’t live in the US but name can’t be that uncommon out of the UK… can it?
“I love this game!
let me repeat this…
I LOVE THIS GAME!
and have enjoyed other Blizzard products.”
QFT – my point exactly and I won’t let RealID spoil it for me.
there’s one of me in US. there’s 2 of me in the world from what I could find through a different search (unless there are namesakes that are super proficient at hiding their existence, yeah right)
Gordon, its not just your first name or last name – its combination of both that makes it so dangerous.
there are something like 4000 people in US with my first name, and about 7 or 8 thousand with my last name. there’s only me with that particular combination, see where I’m going with this?
the gnome is absolutely correct – one person endangered by this is too many. and there will be more then one. majority might still be safe, but endangering ANYONE AT ALL WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO – that’s not OK. I haven’t unsubscribed yet. I like this game too much and I’m still hoping that they will see reason. but if they continue to erode our privacy, if they insist on in game realID not being optional anymore ( which could absolutely happen) I’m out. not just out of WoW, out of playing blizzard and activision games, period. more time to spend on other games is not a bad thing. killing the trust of your loyal customers and pushing them away? that would be a really bad thing.
not a social network user.
I heard about the latest in Real ID yesterday, and cancelled my subscription the same day. There was nothing for me to think about. I cancelled and gave them my reasons why.
Checking out a few posts I was actually happy to see people that not only were upset but cancelled their subscription too.
Will I be back if they change their mind? No, for myself it’s just a matter of time before they try something else. They’ve lost my trust, and my support. I was looking forward to Diablo III, but I won’t be playing it now.
Re: Name search
There’s only one other of myself in the world. I’ve known that for around fifteen years. She died about ten years ago. I remember searching again about five years ago and found out she had died. There’s even a scholarship in her name.
I did complain to the ESRB, since I think Blizzard needs to have their rating changed, since minors information could possibly be on the forums too.
Their are 257 of me, funnily enough I allways considered my name uncommon due to the only people in the phone book with my name being related to me. My identity was easily findable when the net was new and small due to my work but now? They will find the english musician or the US craftsman or even the minor US criminal but none of them are me, mainly due to the fact I have been making sure my real name stayed off the net since that first time it popped up.
If i wish to make posts on the new realid forums, I would judge myself “safe”, will I? is another thing.
But make no mistake, this is not “blizzard” this is activision, the gamers in blizzard have been told to toe the line.
@Prelimar: The Instance guys aren’t taking any sides in it. They wrote a on-one-hand-on-the-other-hand post and asked the listeners what they thought.
http://theinstance.net/2010/07/real-id-moves-to-blizz-forums-trolls-worst-nightmare/
Doesn’t surprise me. They often say how they aren’t Blizzard fan boys, but I don’t ever recall them saying anything that would jeopardize their relationship with Blizzard.
interesting, but yeah, not surprising. to be fair, they do harsh on blizz at times — it’s not always all shiny. this week’s podcast will be interesting, because there is no way they can avoid talking about it. randy will be even-handed, and scott will probably be pissed off about it. that’s my prediction.
There is two of me. Ironically one of the paid ads on the site was for wow.
so, here’s my scary thought this morning:
what if, next week, blizz makes an announcement and says, “ok, we hear you’re pissed. we get it. so now, for an additional $5 per month, you can have an account-wide secret ID.”
it would piss off everyone, and many would still quit, but some people would take them up on it rather than quit the game entirely. they would probably still make a bajillion dollars.
O_O visited the first link… 1 or fewer people with my name -_- Yeah. that sucks. Good thing is when I substitute my last name for my bf’s last name my anonymity becomes better at 49 or fewer
and even better if I take my real first name and change it to a name that has my real name as a nickname I get even harder to find at 406 or fewer 
So, you can now call me Michelle Arnold