Yes, I know. I am a very bad blogger! But I do have  a reason for being out of the loop for so long. My husband and I just went through a pretty rough move. And it has taken a while for us to settle in and get everything flowing. Then my mom and sister visited for 2 weeks, and we all know how that goes.

Nevertheless I am back! And I have seem to come back at a very interesting time; the RealID war is upon us. Now, there have been so many great blog posts about this issue, so I will not take long on it. But I think as a female player in a gaming community, this is a scary thing. We already have our private life blasted all over the internet, I can only imagine adding this fuel to the fire. What about younger children/teens who play this game and post on the forums. I know parents are outraged that their childs real name could be accessed by others. Yes, I know with the in-game RealID system you need to accept and most kids will be told by their parents not to, but what teen/child really listens to their parents have to say all the time, especially when their “bestest best friend” is sending them the request.

I have never been that big on the main WoW forums. I will spend a lot of time there looking for information about different class ideas, or checking out what is going on in my realm, and especially with the new expansion I was hoping to get some good input and maybe even give my two cents on a few of the new druid issues (which I will be discussing in my next post.) But what about the helpful posters that make amazing contributions to the forums everyday? Should they be punished because of random abuse by trolls? Does Blizzard actually think a troll will care if their real name is shown?

The forums can be a place of nasty hatred from a lot of people. But the main use is for information and help. Just because some young people who do not even contribute to the intelligent conversation of the topics exist does not mean everyone should be punished. I fear we will lose many of the wonderful posters we have now and the forums will only be used for more rudeness and hatred.

Check out these wonderful posts about this issue: Restokin and Panzercow. They also have links to many other well written blogs about this issue.