Blizzard Does The Right Thing, Makes RealID Completely Optional

In a statement on the WoW forums earlier today, a Blizzard community rep noted a few changes that just went live with the company's Battle.net RealID system, which allows players to connect with each other across multiple Blizzard games and servers via sharing their real names.

The long-awaited ability to opt out of the "friends of friends" feature is finally in, so you can prevent your real name from being visible to anyone who shares a RealID friend with you.

Players can also turn off RealID in its entirety if they so choose.

While RealID can be a real benefit (har, har) to some gamers, many have voiced their concerns over the system's until-now poor protection of their online identity. We salute Blizzard for making RealID a choice, not a requirement to play its games.