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Blizzard To Broadcast Real Names On Forums
Blizzard is doing its part to rid the world of online trolls and all-around bastards. Soon anyone posting on the company's forums will have to use their real name. What? You swear your name is protosskiller23? Likely story.
This change will occur on the StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site before the game comes out on July 27, and Blizzard says it will go into effect for all World of Warcraft sites and forums sometime before Cataclysm launches (check out some of our impression's of Cataclysm's beta here and here).
Blizzard says this move is part of its Real ID campaign (click here for more info), and is meant to foster a sense of real community as well as weed out all the trolls and bile by making people actually accountable for their words. An official post on battle.net read: "Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven't been connected before."
Nobody likes a flame war breaking out in their threads, but do fans want their real names to be shown? It'll be very interesting to see how this initiative fairs in a community as strong as Blizzard's.
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