Late to the Bandwagon – RealID

OK, so I was sick when all the RealID on the forums crap hit the fan. By the time I was coherent enough to comprehend what was going on, it was too late and the powers that be had already said, “Oopsie!”

But like I’m going to let that stop me from posting about it.

Let me just say off the bat, I do not like RealID – in it’s current incarnation.

In game, I think it was executed poorly.

My mother plays WoW, as do several of my very close friends.

I love them all, really I do.

But sometimes, I don’t want to talk to them. But I still want to play WoW.

If I’ve shared my RealID with them, they can find me.

Seriously? No opt-out for characters?

The people that thought this up must have beautiful lives filled with sparkly puppies and glittery rainbows 24/7.

I’m not by nature an angry or depressed individual, but I do value my space and privacy. There are days I just don’t want to be found.

Then there’s the networking aspect where you can see the friends of your friends.

Let’s say I’m RealID friends with a half a dozen people or so.

All people I know very well in real life and trust.

And then their friends can find me.

I’m in the process of getting a divorce.

What if my ex and I shared mutual RealID friends and he was able to harass me? (Totally hypothetical, please don’t get the idea that this would ever happen!)

On top of all that, the name on my account is my legal name.

It is not my preferred name.

If I want you to know who I am and how to find me, I’ve already given you that information.

When I play a game, I’m not interested in maintaining a sense of reality, of keeping ties to the real world.

During my time playing Rappelz, I was Strife. (No, not a FF reference. And really, it was xxStrifexx, yes I was one of *those*.)

We didn’t have this fancy, new-fangled Vent or Team Speak or an in-game chat program, it was all text.

Only a couple people knew I was female, almost all people that knew me in real life.

If people asked for my real name, I gave them my relatively gender-unspecific nickname.

I’m not still in contact with the people I played Rappelz with. I sort of drifted away when I started playing WoW.

That isn’t to say that we couldn’t have stayed in contact.

My YouTube account was known by the guild because our PvP videos were posted there. Links were on the guild website. Which I maintained an account on.

The guild master was site admin for the guild site, therefore, had access to my email.

I shared an IM address with several people. It’s my choice that I no longer use that IM.

But to be honest, as soon as I stopped playing, we lost the commonality that made the friendships possible. I kept the IM for several months, conversations were sparse and limited to “hey, how ya doing?”

The one person that tracked me down later was the ONE person that I didn’t want to track me down.

If we really wanted to maintain our game relationships outside of the game, it requires more than just having gratuitous access to their contact information.

Skimming all the piles of information about RealID, I kept seeing mentions of integrating with FaceBook.

Good luck with that.

My WoW account is under my legal, married name.

My FaceBook account is under my preferred, maiden name. The one that I would actually give someone if I wanted them to be able to find me. Matter of fact, several of my guildmates have my FB info because the only reason I started the account was to post pictures when a guildmate visited.

Really, this is what doesn’t make sense to me.

The blue posts talked about being able to keep in touch with people, regardless of what game we are all playing.

But.

All the people that I would want to keep in touch with – I can.

I already have their email, cell numbers, IM, sometimes even an address.

If we wanted to keep in touch, we’ve already done what responsible adults do and exchanged contact information.

Why would I need or want a third party to get involved in the exchange of contact information?

And why, of all things, would I want a GAME to be that third party if I wanted such a feature?

Now, don’t get me wrong, some of the aspects of RealID are sort of spiffy.

It would be highly convenient to be able to ping people directly when they flock to SC. “Hey, raid in 10 minutes, you showing up or are you zerging some newb?”

But that is a matter of convenience.

The prospect of communicating with people across realms and factions is a pretty cool thought.

But again, convenience. Those of us that wish to communicate through those barriers often already do so with the use of external tools.

And aren’t we supposed to NOT be looking for ways to circumnavigate the language barrier between factions? They obviously can’t do anything about me hanging out in vent or IM while playing opposite factions, but now they’re just handing us a method to coordinate “For the Horde!” raids in game.

Oh yeah, and then we were going to have our real names on the forums.

ZOMG.

Remember this post, Orc girls are easy?

Had I said something to the effect of not having any pants under my real name (which is predominately female, although there are a few men with the name), the conversation would have likely taken a completely different turn.

Matter of fact, if I had to post that under my real name instead of a male avatar, I would not have posted it at all.

Arioch, the character, not wearing pants is humorous, he’s a “player” and it’s OK.

Me, the player, not wearing pants (which I frequently don’t around the house) would probably be perceived as “zomg WoW-slut.”

I’ll be the first to admit that the thread was not one that furthered any valid game-play or community issue. It was a goofy thread about the ridiculous size of belts, hardly important.

But fun posts are part of the community commentary.

Thankfully, or unfortunately, this all came about and was resolved during my time of “completely unaware of the world around me” so I thankfully, or unfortunately, missed out on the torches and pitchforks.

But I started thinking about what I would have done if the decision had not been reversed.

Would I have quit WoW? Used the parental controls to turn off RealID? Ignored it?

I think I would have cancelled my sub.

I don’t read the forums very often and contribute even less frequently.

I’m not too worried about it being a slippery slope.

But I am concerned about the division between my game life and my real life.

Just as I try to limit the amount of my real life the spills over into this blog, so I want very little of my real life in my game.

If I wanted everyone to know exactly who I am, it would be in my signature.

I value my privacy and I value the privacy of others.

If you wanted me to know who you were, you would have already told me.

I think the in-game version of RealID has very noble intentions of providing convenience of communication. It just leaves a shit ton to be desired in terms of options and privacy levels. All or nothing is not acceptable.

The suggested forum version of RealID was terrifying, with implications that reached in to our real world lives, our families, our jobs, everywhere.

I find it very hard to believe that halting the rampant trolls was the real reason for the idea. There had to have been something deeper and there are plenty of conspiracy theories out there about it. One or more of them may even be right.

I’m glad that they backed down on the forum implementation, but now we wait and see how long it takes for smaller pieces to be implemented little by little…

Any way, pointless ramble that has already been hashed to death on every other forum/blog leads to:

If there is someone I can’t live without, I have their contact info.

If I don’t have their contact information, I can live without them.

Or I can stalk them myself. I don’t need a game company playing secretary for me.