See http://us.battle.net/realid/ - There is an FAQ in there somewhere too. Essentially it's blizzard trying like crazy to become the new EA.

RealID is Blizzard's new feature that allows cross-game communication. For example, if a World of Warcraft player adds a Starcraft 2 player as a RealID friend, then they can chat while playing their respective games, one from WoW and the other from SC2.

The feature requires the e-mail to add a RealID friend (since nicknames between the games vary and it's probably a lot safer to ask for e-mail than the Account Name), and it also displays the real name on your Blizzard account.

I think most of the "reasonable" issue people have with RealID is that if your RealID friend adds another RealID friend, the person he added will be able to see your name (sort of a friends-of-friends thing, not unlike Facebook I guess), but not your e-mail.

I wouldn't listen to that post, anyway. It's Blizzard trying to become more trendy with social networking. A lot of the functionality of RealID is similar to Facebook, just tailored for their games rather than whatever.

I can see that being a big issue, but one that doesn't affect me since I don't post on Blizzard boards because it's just a clown zoo. But that's Blizzard's thoughts that forcing RealID on the forums is a good idea that's the issue, not RealID itself. Personally, seeing the kind of crap that goes on the WoW (and SC2 beta) forums, I can't say I blame them for trying to do this. It's like a raging forest fire that only grows and grows.

Yeah, the problems start when they make that mandatory. I don't think they're insane, though. Unless RealID somehow proves to be more popular than the regular old friend system, I would be very surprised if Blizzard transitions to RealID-only.

That said, I wouldn't quite compare it to Facebook's stance on privacy. After all, the only thing RealID does is just show your real name everywhere, Facebook does a lot more.

I certainly am glad I'm never buying Blizzard games again. I'm not going to get fucking stalked after I post on the forums.

So charming when a child learns a new word, isn't it?

I doubt I would be stalked, but the potential is far higher than if I keep my real name safe. With my real name(which is very unique) you can google it and find my general local(I already did) and then from there its easy to find my address and phone number. 

It's like locking your door. It's highly unlikely that you'll be burglarized, and they could get in anyways if they really wanted, but you lock your door anyways to be safe.

Edit: And I dont have a facebook or anything. They would find me because my graduating class was listen in the local paper which has an online edition.

BTW....'unique' is like 'pregnant'....you cannot be 'very' with either ....  

So it is the kids failure to having parents that failed at their choosen responsibility?

Bah! Still waiting for a real (non carebear) company to force real name, middle name (if any),  first surname, second surname (if any), sex, age, main adress, secondary adress (if any), phone number (if any), mobile phone number (if any), main e-mail account, secondary e-mail account (if any), tertiary e-mail account (if any), personal website(s) (if any), a whole selection of personal preferences (so Google can spam offer you more precise spam publicity) including political tendencies and sexual preferences, if you are in any of the Banks' Black/Red list, police records about you, medical profile, C.V.,.... ended with a history record of all his stalkings/scams using the information from these profiles.

It's pretty funny how the first real ID posts went to great lengths to emphasize the "optional", then not two weeks later the "optional" disappears entirely.

The worst part is that it applies to tech support, because Blizzard's phone support is useless. The real support is done on the forums. Need support? Broadcast your name. Want to help someone ELSE by posting on support? Broadcast your name.

Every forum MVP and many mod authors have come out strongly against it, and the thread is now pushing 1000 pages (by far an all time record for the forum, let alone something done in under 24 hours). For quite a while it was going at a post every 3 seconds.

I'm a Blizzard fanboy and have been for years... but this is completely indefensible. They've lost their marbles and forgotten the whole user experience focus that made them so popular in the first place.