Sure you would not have the blue posters but i bet you would get most all the green posters (mvp). You could browse the official forum and post your answers on the unofficial forum.

Dang were did i put those blade servers and my NAS…

Character names will now all be ReadID names. Thus John Public @ Cenarius will be your druid and John Public @ Cenarius will be your paladin because you can only be on one toon at a time on that account anyhow, right? And it will make it easier for your stalkers … err employers ………..errrrr friends to find you.

Hey, Johnny, want some candy?

“These threads, however, can often be lost amongst a great deal of other threads that are basically filled with trolling, name calling, flaming, off-topic conversations and that’s just a small amount of some of the content that has been found in these forums over the years. We don’t want that anymore, and we believe the Real ID change will bring about a lot of the improvement that we are hoping for.”

“Posting on the forums with your real name will be optional — yes, in the sense that the options are simply post and show your real name, or do not post and you keep it confidential. If people are happy to post and do not feel intimidated by this, then great — hopefully they will also post constructively (though it’s fair to say, this isn’t a given). It might be scary to consider posting with your real name, in which case it might be advisable simply not to post in these forums. There’s a whole load of other forums across the internet where you’ll be able to post in a more anonymous way, and maybe you will make a useful and constructive contribution there instead.”

I think Blizzard felt they were faced with a stark choice in cleaning up their forums: continue with the current cesspool, where the good threads are hard to find, or else take the course of action they have (i.e. either post with your real name, or post somewhere else). They really are saying what suxxy inferred above: “Folks, we know some of our genuinely helpful contributors won’t like this idea and will choose to post elsewhere, or even abandon the game entirely. We’re sorry to see you go, but feel it is a price worth paying in order to drastically change the culture of our forums.” They realise that they’re up against the GIFW*, and are taking this step in an attempt to cut out the anonymity part of that equation, even if they lose some good posters as collateral damage.

I think the reaction of existing forumgoers is perfectly legitimate, but I also expect Blizzard will have anticipated it and hence won’t change their minds because of it. Once the new forums have been out for a while, and (with any luck) their hoped for cultural change has taken effect, then they *may* start allowing pseudonymous posting on some sections of the new forums. I wouldn’t bet on it though.

Let’s face it, Blizz could lose the entire community on the current official forums without putting a significant dent in their subscriber numbers, and there will still be players that step up to write levelling guides and the like (and even if the authors of those guides don’t post them to the official forums themselves, someone that does post there will likely at least link to the good ones).

It’s a bold experiment indeed, but with Blizzard having made it as far as announcing it, I don’t see them backing down as a result of these entirely foreseeable protests.

*GIFW: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/

It means exactly what you think it means, so good call on not googling it :P

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I can see why people are unhappy with this decision, and I admit it surprised me that Blizzard made this decision. That said for me personally it is not a big deal. I haven’t posted on the forums and do not see this changing.