The end of internet anonymity in MMO's

Dark Cat

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Leona Cat Srelliw
No doubt many of you know about that big MMO that I cannot mention and it's plans to prevent anyone from being able to speak out using anything other than there real name as described here today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm

Thankfully EU suffers from a very minor amount of trolling compared to games like the one mentioned there, but it still raises an interesting point if this was ever enforced here in EU.

I'm interested to know what our community thinks about this move. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
 
I read that earlier to. I'd think that little change in the rules would push a few people to either quit or migrate to different less sanctioned forums. I wouldnt particularly like to display only my RL name to be honest although some know it, its nice to have an alter ego. An option to maybe link in game accounts to that of facebook or whatever could work but only as an option and not if its mandatory.
 
I'd imagine famous people would have a problem with it.

Dont see the reason for it, and think its unnecessary. MA had a totally different policy in that if you used your real name as your avatar name, you could change it to preserve your privacy.

Be interesting to see what effect that has on their subscriber numbers - or maybe they'll just use the forum less.
 
I dont post anything under a real name on the internet and i never will. Laws that require it are idiotic.

I don't have a problem posting under a named logged with a company that has my real identity tied to it. So long as they are bound not to divulge that identity to ANY other entity except under a court order. So if i were to do something illegal they could give my identity to the authorities. But that's completely different then requiring a real name on every post.

All these kinda laws do is make it easier for someone to get/steal your identity, or meddle in parts of your life they have no business meddling in.
 
Huh, they think the way to end aggressive behavior on a gaming forum is to force people to use their real names...

Is it to make people scared that if they say the wrong thing someone is gonna find where they live and do horrible things to them?
 
Bwahaha!

"Captain Evil DeathKill" that trolls the forums being mean and flaming everyone turns out to be Prince Charles! :evilking:

:laugh:

or the queen herself :D

seriously though i don't think anything like that is going to happen in EU. For starters we have a player base which is a bit more mature and on the whole people who play this are on average older than people who play that other game.

That other game has a lot of teenagers.

Whilst anonymity on the internet gives people the freedom, people do get carried away with it and are more vulgar due to that anonymity the situation can be somewhat amplified within a teenage population as some take longer to mature than others...
 
Luckily the EU community is more stable so there is no need for this. This is why I like EU, in many other MMOs the forums are " a place where flame wars, trolling and other unpleasantness run wild".:)
 
The official forum will die a quick and flameless death. The best, unofficial forum will boom.

Oh, edit: Nothing will change in ef, it isnt an ma-run forum anyway, and even if it was, ma couldnt give a crap about players bickering with each other.
 
I work in a charity and deal with governments officials. If they do a search and see I am a gamer, it could affect my employment prospects," he added.
what he said.

I would have no problem sharing my rl name in here, problem is that it goes both ways.

My work is another thing, people above and below might hold my playfull nature against me, it is hard enough to keep it at bay at facebook.
 
the forum they describe sounds a bit like entropia reality :p
 
sounds like kite flying to me, i'm not sure it would be legal. purpose is to either get people to behave, or to manage expectations in advance of forcing in game avatar (which would make alot of sence. if they actually went through with it, only purpose would be to kill off the forum, for nice cost saving.
 
Bwahaha!

"Captain Evil DeathKill" that trolls the forums being mean and flaming everyone turns out to be Prince Charles! :evilking:

:laugh:

You can tell us the truth Camilla. ;)
 
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I read that too. It seems that some smart arse from management wants to start some facebook like service on the back of the 10 million elves playing wow..
Will proly reach same succes M$ have with bing vs google or silverlight vs flash..
 
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My first thought at the title of this thread is "How the fuck are they going to afford to pay people to police that" (basically same reason police systems do not work fully today, the amount of funding required to maintain the infrastructure of a police system that has 100% umbrella over the community vastly outweighs the cost of preventing felonies)

I guess they reached that limit : P
 
Well...

:)

I've seen a few communities gone bad...just unsure what those freaks will be doing in real life if they can't vent in virtuality.
 
My first thought at the title of this thread is "How the fuck are they going to afford to pay people to police that"

presumably tie it to account details which people tend to put correct details in for. would work up to a point, and those with CC cards you can check easily. but yeah, difficult really and is a problem created for really very little gain and alot of hassle. simpler just to close the boards and let others deal with the problem, as MA has.

main problem is it couldnt be done retrospectivly as im sure that would be a breach of data protection law, only possible for new accounts where you have the choice to sign up or not.
 
in the end of the article there is an interesting story :
Mr Brand *player* said that one Bl*****d employee posted his real name on the forums, saying that there was no risk to users, and the experiment went drastically wrong.

"Within five minutes, users had got hold of his telephone number, home address, photographs of him and a ton of other information," said Mr Brand

The post and topic has since been removed from the Bl*****d forum.

this is serious issue. this could affect real life of anybody , and as hojlund said this can affect your present and future employment .
same idea is also shared by the player Mr Brand of the well known MMO .

on the other hand, this is not far from a hidden commercial purpose , as Rony said .

anyway , that's the end of the official forum of that game and i bet some will leave not only the forum , but the game itself . i hope that somebody skilled in law and human rights sue that company 's arse .
 
I predicted this development 2 years ago, and brought it up here on EF for discussion. Which netted me some -reps.. But I was right. :)

And I tend to see this development as positive. It will be interesting to see how it will end up, and to see if I am right yet again. :)

My thread:

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...58-time-lose-anonymity-entropia-universe.html


this is most stupid and dangerous idea i've seen on this forum in a long time .

care to bring Big Brother closer ?

look , you are not the first genius , some bright politician wanted the same thing 2 years before your post .
Politician wants to end Internet forum anonymity
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/03/6332.ars

i just hope somebody from US sues that company so bad so they don't recover to quickly , since for sure they have servers in US .
and here a quote about this kind of situation *anonymous free speech*

Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States.......

http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity
 
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I predicted this development 2 years ago, and brought it up here on EF for discussion. Which netted me some -reps.. But I was right. :)

And I tend to see this development as positive. It will be interesting to see how it will end up, and to see if I am right yet again. :)

My thread:

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...58-time-lose-anonymity-entropia-universe.html

You weren't right because nearly everyone will abandon the official forum and move to an unofficial forum where they can maintain their privacy. I'd rather deal with trolls (which are pretty easy to ignore) than some nutcase having my irl info and deciding he wants to visit me irl or screw with me some other way.

This is a bad, bad idea.
 
I think people will look for a already know workaround for this problem. Its like copyright people that want to copy stuff alsways can;)
 
Might be worth some enterprising forum owner to register worldofwarcraftforum.com in advance ;)
 
I don't see anything good that can come out from this, or at least anything that outweights the cons of this. Just to list few things:

1. Ever heard of german boy who got knifed by someone in Counter Strike, in return he tracked that someone for SEVEN months and stabbed him back, this time in real life.

2. Female gamers, community of that game is what it is, and showing your real life name on your posts will only send horny wave of 14 year olds to your facebook account (if you happen to have one).

3. It wont actually remove the trolls, instead I can imagine a new wave of trolls, this time posting as "Paris Hilton" and "Barack Omaba" and the likes...

4. Not all employers see MMO (or any games) as a good thing and might reject ones job application just because they found him (or someone with same name) in a given games forums.

Guess I could continue on with more points... but those should give the point.
Also some people have fairly unique names, and a search on google can give information only about that one person, so it not a hard job to find a real life ID for a given poster on that forum.

Just my 2 pecs.

edit:
Also nice blogpost story about one brave forum poster that tried to show others that people can't find you just by your name, and then told his name:
http://seewhatyoudidthere.com/2010/...ry-real-ease-of-stalking-in-the-internet-age/

edit2:
And another story, this time not releated to gaming, but still about meeting strangers you find in internet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8558664.stm
 
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I try to keep my real name away from any forum I'm a member of unless its work related and even then only when it's in relation to a paid service.

To my knowledge only 1 possibly 2 people in EU (who don't work for MA / FPC) know my real name.
 
Ultimately if you don't act like a total douchebag then you shouldn't have anything to fear. Being forced to post under a real name will prevent 95% of the bullshit as people will think of the consequences before they write stuff.

Remove the anonymity and you remove the dickwads

internetdickwad.jpg
 
I don't care who knows what I say, I stand by every word and if I screw up I'll apologise anyway. This is the facebook generation, there is no anonymity anymore.
 
Our forum has good moderators who quickly delete posts that are offensive or spiral into flaming episodes. Most members are mature enough to respect opinions of others.

There is no reason to post real names. This is a virtual fantasy game and should stay as such. I suspect the other game has made a deal with a certain social networking company ...3 guesses which one! :D
 
Ultimately if you don't act like a total douchebag then you shouldn't have anything to fear. Being forced to post under a real name will prevent 95% of the bullshit as people will think of the consequences before they write stuff.

Remove the anonymity and you remove the dickwads

internetdickwad.jpg


I'm really not articulate enough to express why I think you are wrong, but I will try.

I don't think you give people enough credit (and on the same note too much). The only thing I'd change about my posts if it were my real name instead of lilac is I'd likely let more personal information slip because the screen name set a precedent.

I wouldn't be any less cranky, or sarcastic... But as a female gamer, I'd feel some concern about people trying to google my name and get private information about me.


It's just counter intuitive to create a fantasy world, and then tell people they can't live in that fantasy for however long they want to actively engage in it.

This whole thing screams covering their asses because people were harassed, and they don't want to get sued.

If this is what they have to do to get people to not behave like jackasses, perhaps the unnamed game is just bringing out the worst in people and should be abandoned ;)
 
Ultimately if you don't act like a total douchebag then you shouldn't have anything to fear.

I think lilac was being too polite.

Addz: What fantasy world are you living in?

Woman are stalked and killed in our world daily even when they don't post personal information on the internet.

Teenagers commit suicide from being harassed on the internet.

Honestly, I don't believe anyone should post their real name anywhere on the open internet. Facebook and sites like it are a goldmine for predators I'm sure.


On topic/

From the article:

"A post, by Vameras - one of the site community managers"

Vameras doesn't sound like a real name to me.

I'll believe this is happening when I see their admins and devs start posting with their real names.

Let them post under their real names for a week or so and see how it works out for them.

If anything, this is as aridash says, a prelude to them making people link their forum account to their game account (which a lot of games already do) or to them shutting down their oficial forum. It works great, just ask MA.

/signed John Smith
 
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