Real Life Account Names on PCF?

[Wistrel]

I heard a story that this recently happened on World of Warcraft's forums. ie the game company decided to associate everyone's forum accounts with their game accounts and publish private information publicly such as real life identities alongside forum posts.

As I understand it, the reasoning was to put a stop to bad behavior...

It was never a concern when the main forum was run by players but now FPC run the show, this could in theory happen.

I'd like to ask FPC, will it?

Wistrel

 

[Stave]

I cant comment toward your question, but i will say calypso has a very mature population, so bad behavior prob wont be as much of issue to what WoW was having

 

[Rayne Jade]

I cant comment toward your question, but i will say calypso has a very mature population, so bad behavior prob wont be as much of issue to what WoW was having

I've had NO experience with WoW at all, so I can't comment there. But with a real cash economy, EU does have a fair share of "bad behavior". Fortunately, we have a very astute population and I doubt too many people would get away with concealing their ingame vs forum identity for too long.

 

[Moonbiter]

I heard a story that this recently happened on World of Warcraft's forums. ie the game company decided to associate everyone's forum accounts with their game accounts and publish private information publicly such as real life identities alongside forum posts.

As I understand it, the reasoning was to put a stop to bad behavior...

It was never a concern when the main forum was run by players but now FPC run the show, this could in theory happen.

I'd like to ask FPC, will it?

Wistrel

They did not go ahead with the plan though.

And concerning PCF, i think they said they don't have intentions to link ingame avatar with account forum, so i very much doubt they would go ahead with linking forum names to rl details... Not even sure if they have that kind of information, such decisions would have to be made on MA's level, and Calypso now is only one of the planets.

 

[Serica]

I remember this coming up in the news. Here's a link :
WoW: game-maker demands 'real' names

However Blizzard officially backed down.

Why did they do this ?
Well fan outrage was clearly a factor.
But possibly also what might come to be known as the 'Micah Whipple effect'

 

[Moonbiter]

I remember this coming up in the news. Here's a link :
WoW: game-maker demands 'real' names

However Blizzard officially backed down.

Why did they do this ?
Well fan outrage was clearly a factor.
But possibly also what might come to be known as the 'Micah Whipple effect'

Some interesting stuff in last article:

De Castell has been studying the Real ID incident as part of her broader research on privacy and end-user licensing agreements for software or virtual games. She says users of many online sites don't realize how many rights they sign away when they click on the "I agree" button for user contracts — and companies may bank on that fact.

"As soon as you sign in to the game, you have to agree. Everybody knows you're not going to read these things. They continue to use these things as a medium to legal rights insurance. But it's only protecting the companies. It's not protecting the players," says de Castell.

De Castell argues that such user agreements are like forced consent because the form appears after you've already invested time in the process and your agreement is necessary as a condition of moving forward.

Sounds too familiar in case of EU...

 

[Immortal]

This has already been discussed at length in this thread

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...192613-The-end-of-internet-anonymity-in-MMO-s

AS comments from other's in this and other threads indicate, it is a gross breach of someone's privacy (and physical safety) to publish details about them, whether they are a troublemaker or not.

 

[mastermesh]

hmm... not sure about that... I do think it'd be cool to tie it to in game names for all avatars on forum though - makes hunting people down a little easier.

 

[Wistrel]

Cool - some good positive responses. Going to go and have a look at that article. I don't know much of WoW either.

Wistre;

 

[Pirx Danford]

hmm... not sure about that... I do think it'd be cool to tie it to in game names for all avatars on forum though - makes hunting people down a little easier.

Yep something like that would be cool

 

[remontoire]

hmm... not sure about that... I do think it'd be cool to tie it to in game names for all avatars on forum though - makes hunting people down a little easier.

It would be cool to be able to tie the two together at the players discretion and be able to then have some data be available and show up in the profile / signature, again, if teh palyer so wants. For example the numebr of completed missions. Or the mission that is presently tracked. Or list of in-game properties / land areas. Possibly other things.

Really, there could be a "auto-purchse on unlock" option for the icons from efd shop.

 

[Spawn]

It would be really bad, I didn't choose to be in an official fpc forum, yet I am without my consent. To also link my forum identity to my ingame identity would be double identity theft, and I think one stolen identity is enough for now..

 

[Pirx Danford]

It would be really bad, I didn't choose to be in an official fpc forum, yet I am without my consent. To also link my forum identity to my ingame identity would be double identity theft, and I think one stolen identity is enough for now..

It always depends on how it is done.

I am imagining a communications API made available for planet partners.
If you register on a planet partner forum you have the option to link your account with your ingame avatar.
Then you have the option to receive ingame PMs as instant messaging request on one of the forums you registered on, when you are logged into that forum account.

Also if you know the name of an avatar ingame, which is not yet registered at a planet partner forum you can send a forum PM to that avatar (specifically defining that you are writing to the EU account), then the planet partner will send this message to MA via the communications API and MA will send an email to the relevant player asking if he would like to register on that forum or accept the PM as email or to decline receiving this (and possibly all further) messages from this player (or even planet partner forum).

That should provide great comfort in communications and also be enough to make the paranoid ppl happy

 

[remontoire]

It would be really bad, I didn't choose to be in an official fpc forum, yet I am without my consent. To also link my forum identity to my ingame identity would be double identity theft, and I think one stolen identity is enough for now..

You are here with your consent. If you didn't agree to the forum move, you had the option of not ever logging in to this one and going to other forums.

 

[Ace Flyster]

Will probably never happen

When people in WoW shouted how bad an idea it was, Blizzard by example published the name of one of their employees to show it was not a problem

Within minutes forum people had the guys, Address, social security code, car he drove, details about family i believe etc, Blizzard immediately removed his name and the thread

So do not worry it will never happen, just too much info out there for people to grab

Rgds

Ace

 

[Shadowsong]

Yeah, that experiment backfired so badly for WoW that I think it acts as a cautionary tale for all online community hosts. I doubt FPC will go down the real ID route, but I can see some benefit in connecting forum and avatar ID, so they may explore that avenue.

 

[Wistrel]

It would be cool to be able to tie the two together at the players discretion and be able to then have some data be available and show up in the profile / signature, again, if teh palyer so wants. For example the numebr of completed missions. Or the mission that is presently tracked. Or list of in-game properties / land areas. Possibly other things.

Really, there could be a "auto-purchse on unlock" option for the icons from efd shop.

Regarding the above, yes, integration between game and forum would be cool as long as no private information is exposed. In fact I expect this is half the reason FPC bought the forum DB... in prep for extra combined functionality.

The down side is the security issue (a forum is liable to be attacked via exploits) and of course the people making money out of skills or global trackers via forum sigs etc would loose out

FPC/MA could do anything they like as regards game/forum integration and gettng info out of the database.

Wistrel

 

[Wolverine Queen]

hmm... not sure about that... I do think it'd be cool to tie it to in game names for all avatars on forum though - makes hunting people down a little easier.

I have to say I agree.

Connecting ingame account and forum account would make things definately easier.

 

[Hanne|SDS]

Afaik Blizzard went back on that decision.

And as for us, no -no we're not going to force you to show your real life identity.

 

[Ze-Tomb Raider]

Afaik Blizzard went back on that decision.

And as for us, no -no we're not going to force you to show your real life identity.

Yeah Blizzard went back, finding people was easy as clicking a couple buttons in a 5min period (address, family, work, phone, mobile, etc.).

Thankfully my experience with WoW was with a mature Guild.

 

[Xzion]

Afaik Blizzard went back on that decision.

And as for us, no -no we're not going to force you to show your real life identity.

But... we like to be forced. thats what we do...
But you know, if FPC did team up with blizzard at some point, Entropia sure would turn out great. However maybe not on that point with IRL account thing.

Im still uncertain to if i support the connect friends to account thing. Its.. good, but not.. well its harmful.

 

[Futurama]

Others might be against but still. The best cure against stupidity, trolling etc on the net is that you`re account on a certain webpage is linked together with something else like twitter usernames, facebook profiles etc..

Ok, we might not need to see each others RL names, but obligatory linking forum profiles to Entropia Universe profiles would be very good as well.

 

[SpikeBlack]

Yeah, that experiment backfired so badly for WoW that I think it acts as a cautionary tale for all online community hosts. I doubt FPC will go down the real ID route, but I can see some benefit in connecting forum and avatar ID, so they may explore that avenue.

someone posted their real name on hear as an example. I found his family members names and (if I had paid to access the site in question) his full address. In the UK people can stop their details from the electoral role being sold onto companies however it doesn't stop them using the lists they'd bought before that ruling.

 

[Spawn]

You are here with your consent. If you didn't agree to the forum move, you had the option of not ever logging in to this one and going to other forums.

So what about the gazillion threads I made? They are here too, as if I made them here.