I pay Blizz every month to play WoW, and in return they do everything they can to screw me. No more, I quit.

I have a mostly unrelated story about someone who prank called a factory in Missouri, Laggit and Platt. They prank called them weekly. For about 6 years.
Call traces showed numbers in France, Egypt, Canada, Kentucky, New York, Italy, Etc.
Why was he doing this every week? Because he liked it, apperently.
What tipped off this person to that precise factory? They never advertized internationally, or created any big public events. Apperently it was just picking up the phone book and picking one.

Now, Why would a woman start being stalked if all they do is ask and answer questions in the tech forum?
Because they can.
That’s all the reason needed, and being outted as female just upped your odds of being selected.

Personally, I’m paranoid. I’ve been expecting this all my life. All my profile information is fake, with fake “Real” names thrown in just to buy me time if hackers DO try to find me.

The forum trolls? Propably do the same. So do the hackers. So, for that matter, do the stalkers.

This change does nothing but force real info out of the loyal, trusting playerbase while granting anonymity to the hackers, stalkers and trolls.

Blizzard might as well start handing out guns.

I’m guessing that Activision was mostly thinking about rolling around in the giant trunkload of money they got from Facebook.

All of this before Real ID. God only knows what will happen when my real name is attached to all my posts – and that’s assuming that Real ID in-game isn’t later forced on everyone as well. I won’t be able to just delete a character or change realm if I’m being stalked. What is Blizzard thinking?

As to ‘why would someone harass a woman with a tech problem?’ well, there are a lot of very socially isolated young men playing these type of games and many of them are very lacking in appropriate social behavior. The majority of men aren’t like that. But then you don’t lock your door because 99% of the people in your city are nice and won’t rob and murder you. You lock it to keep out that 1% that’s unhinged and irrational enough to do so in the event that you draw the unlucky straw of being the one they decide to go after. There’s no telling what can send a disturbed mind into the realm of thinking ‘that’s the one I want even if she’s called the cops on me, contacted a GM, name changed, changed realms, changed her email address and moved to another city’. Just answering someone a question like where they can find a quest mob rather than tell them “use f**ing wowhead u f**” can be enough to make some people think you like them, like really like them. Like desperately want to hear about their secret sexual fantasy like them. And that wasn’t a made up example, it wasn’t me, but man, this is why I pick gender neutral names if possible and make most of my chars male.

As I said, I’ve gamed a lot. I’ve gotten some harassment, nothing nearly as major as it could have been as I am extremely careful about handing out my RL info. I’m careful about that as I am the only person with my exact name, there was one other who died a few years ago. Among my guild and trusted friends I’m fine with being female. Among random strangers if people try to get out of me info I go with gay middle-aged construction worker. It works out to less issues, even with the rampant homophobia in most gaming circles. The vast majority of male gamers don’t want constant attention, consoling and closer relations with a middle aged gay guy – and the insults aren’t quite as bad and do not persist over nearly as long time.

http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=466721