Identity Crisis.
July 12, 2010
So, yeah Blizzard's real ID system. If you read thhe comics lately you'd know that it's a new feature Blzzard has added to their games that allows communication between two players no matter what Blizzard madee game they're playing. Again this is a cool system, it's completely volentary. You give your friend, someone whom you don't mind knowing your personal information your email address and from that moment on you two are cyberly linked for all time, and instead of seeing your friend's gaming handle when they log on you see their actual name.
However there was a darker side to the Real ID system. for some reason Unlce Blizz wanted to add their Real ID system to their official forums, problem is this wans't planned to be an opt in feature, it was going to be manditory. Needless to say people flipped the fuck out.
Now I can see what Uncle Blizz was thinking, if you take away the veil of anonymity maybe people would be more civil on the forums. However people jusst don't want their personal information out there for everyone to see.
Let me paint you a hypothetical. You're in a pick up game with a stranger, and he's a horrible tank. You then let this person know he's a horrible tank on the Blizzard forums. Irked at your accusations of being a horrible tank this guy see's your Real ID on the forums, does a google search and finds your facebook account. He see's that the facebook account has the WoW application installed and is convinced the account is yours. He then befriends your senile, but friendly Grandmother and the next thing you know while you at Nanna's 80th birthday party and some random guy starts stabbing you screaming, "WHO HAS AGGRO NOW!?" Again this is only a hypothetical, but people have been known to stalk people on facebook, and all someone would need to do this is your real name.
At first I wasn't going to do a comic about this, especially since it was already done by much more successful Webcomics, but when I realized it was one more chance to poke fun at real life Brad, well I just couldn't resist.