Let me begin with the assumption that if I say RealID, everybody knows what I’m talking about. Now just in case you no speaka da English you don’t keep up on news, let me link you to a few articles so you can get yourself caught up on what the hell is going on.

What the @$#% is RealID

RealID for the forums

Whoops, no RealID for the forums

You back? Great.

So to summarize, Blizzard is very aware of this concept, courtesy of Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins over at Penny Arcade:

And the community at large is generally of the mindset that if you know someone’s real name, you are very capable of pulling some Gacy or Bundy shit with them. Nevermind that you could find a person’s real name by opening up any telephone book or randomly pulling a name on Facebook or something.

Now, pretty much everybody has said their piece about RealID, so anything I’m going to have to say has probably been said before. With that in mind, I thought I’d provide you all with some light lengthy reading on the subject.

• Some of you might be wondering what the hell is up with Blizzard going this route of social interaction beyond the level of just anonymously interacting within the game. Why are we suddenly so concerned with knowing each others’ real names? Why do we care about their info? This sure sounds a lot like Facebook in WoW. Oh shit, it is.
• For those of you who happen to read web-comics, there’s a little collection of them found towards the bottom of this particular article (the one called Sunday funnies, dated July 11). I’d highly recommend the Penny-Arcade and CAD ones.
• A lot of people have been really paranoid about what might happen if their real name were given out – “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT PEOPLE COULD DO WITH MY REAL NAME?! MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, IDENTITY,” blah blah no one cares blah. However, in all the discussions from people who are so concerned about what would happen were their precious identity taken away, I think the only ones that had some merit were teh womenz. That particular article is so well-written that Jerry from Penny-Arcade commented that it said everything he felt needed to be said. I’d particularly like to point out the section titled “Reasons Why This Is Bad, Even If You’re Not a Troll.” The reason why? Guys understand that girls probably have to put up with being overtly harassed about pictures and whatnot, but very few know about a lot of the other ways they’re more subtly harassed. The best term I’ve heard was “white knighting.” Really, though, give that a read if you’ve never been privy to what our female compatriots have to put up with from random internet people.

RealID has generated more backlash from the WoW community than for any other decision I’ve seen Blizzard make. It’s also generated a lot of great discussion about anonymity and names and whatnot.

Now personally, I don’t like giving out my name on WoW – or any other game I play, really. I’m not really concerned about what people might do if they knew about me. In fact, I’m usually very open with a lot of personal information – how I feel about my job, where I live, my likes, my dislikes, my fetish to be spanked with naked GI Joe action figures while in the nude, etc.

What I DO mind is people adding me on their Facebook and treating me like I’m their best buddy. I’m sure this may sound very cold, but I don’t really give a crap how you’re doing in Farmville or who you started dating recently when my only interaction is that I raid with you two nights a week. I certainly don’t care what you have to say about any pictures I may have uploaded, unless I specifically link you to them and ask.

I’ve also grown uncomfortable with people who know my name without telling me theirs. Customer interaction in retail jobs is really annoying when somebody looks at your nametag and starts using your name – it’s annoying, because it creates a false sense of familiarity. If I’m wearing a nametag that says Dave, and I’m just minding my own business, doing my job, and someone walks up and says, “Hey Dave, how’re you doing?” My first thought is always, “Who the hell are you and why do you know my name?” I don’t really believe they have any hostile intent, but I think it’s instinctive in most people to be wary of those who have information about them that they never shared.

Lastly, I tend to put a lot of time into coming up with character names. Sometimes over an hour, just sitting and “hmm”ing as I try to figure out what best fits the race, gender, and class of my character, as well as something that I think I could put up with being called for potentially months or years. I mean, I’m inventing a nickname that all people will refer to be my by when I interact with them. I don’t really want all that work to be ignored because they just use my real name no matter who I’m on. I CERTAINLY don’t want guildmates using my real name in front of random PuGs who have joined Vent – again, false sense of familiarity that I’m not comfortable with.

So, at least for me, my concern isn’t that I think I’m going to be stalked if people know my real name. But, like a lot of people, my WoW life and my “real” life are very separate and distinct entities, and I like to keep them as separate as possible. I do the same thing at work, I did the same thing at school. The whole world doesn’t need to know everything about me just because they feel like browsing one day.

What are your guys’ thoughts about the RealID system, both in-game and on the forums? Do you think moving WoW to be more like a very elaborate Facebook game is a good idea?