At the writing of this post, the thread announcing the megaton change to the WoW forums has hit 500+ pages. That’s a lot of pages of negative feedback towards the change to using your real name when you post or reply. After reading a lot of the responses, it seems almost unanimous that the WoW community is completely against the change. How do I feel about it?  Well let’s start with the reason Blizzard is making this change.

Trolling. Having those who post on multiple accounts some form of accountability when their behavior is unacceptable. That’s the bottom line, and I give Blizzard kudos for at least going above and beyond(maybe TOO above and beyond) the call of duty to clean up the forums. However, using real names may be a little too steep to get the rotten apples out the bunch.

It’s a bad move on Blizzard’s end, especially when you are dealing with millions of subscribers who may not want to reveal their true identity. I haven’t posted on the official forums in a really long time, so in theory this change doesn’t affect me much. However, after this change takes place will I want return to posting? Probably not, since I really don’t want my full name on a public forum. This move may alienate the entire community because many WoW players just aren’t comfortable talking to complete strangers with their real names out there. Me included.

I’ve seen the Facebook argument, but that has nothing to do with a public website like the World of Warcraft forums. There are plenty of options to privately use Facebook, so although you use your real name you can specify who can and can’t find you. Many people use Facebook to keep in touch with family and that’s it. On the WoW forums it is an entirely different ballgame. What about your kids? Will they too have to use their real name to post on the forums? Scary thought, but it seems so.

Google Buzz went through this same issue when it launched, since many users did not give permission for Buzz to add people to the list by using their personal e-mail address. If something like an e-mail address caused so much “buzz”, imagine real names!

An alternative solution? Let the WoW community post under ONE alias instead of using character and real names. Once this alias is tied to an account, this will limit the amount of level 1 trolls out there since there will be no more characters on the forums. Yes, if it has become this serious then just abandon the option to use character names period, including our mains. I would rather this solution than our actual real name. Xbox Live Gamertags come to mind.

It seems like Blizzard is trying to turn World of Warcraft as well as any other Blizzard title into a Facebook community and it just will not work. That’s why we have Facebook! At the end of the day, this is a gaming community. We play games. Forcing your players to use their real name just to have a convo on your forums may be asking for a mass exodus from the community in general. Rethink this decision, Blizzard. I know your intentions may be good, but the strategy is a bit flawed.