Forum and in-game plans for Real ID are ”completely separate” said Mike Morhaime, adding that anonymity at character level is to remain.
”I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games,” posted Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime on the official forums, reports VideoGamer.com.
”We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.” Users have been thanking Blizz for paying attention.
”It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games.”
Real ID in-game allows friends to stay in contact regardless of what collection of alias’ they might be using as it attaches you by your Battle.net account. This also gives you the option for cross-game chat as well.
”We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name.”
”The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name,” he added.
”I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II.”
”We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games.”
”And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature,” concluded the CEO.
Your anonymous troll fest is safe, videogamer. Do you welcome Blizzard’s backtrack on Real ID in response to the community or should they have stuck to their guns?