Players Outrage At Blizzard Forums Incoming Change

Yesterday Blizzard announced that all forums posts will eventually be done using your real first name and last name. This has caused a huge outrage among players as many fear for ID theft, account security, and even for their life!

Here's the blizzard post:

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature -www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit. 

For more details read more in this thread- Battle.net - English Forums -> Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to Forums

This thread that was only posted today has already received well over 152 pages of comments! Many of them are of outrage and some of agreement. Here's some of the points made over the thread.

• It will reduce trolling and flaming
• At the moment all you need to change someone's password is their email and first and last name, and now Blizzard is just handing them out!
• ID theft
• The fact that the internet is meant to be anonymous and separate from real life
• Many players play the game to get away from the real world but this brings them closer to it

The very first post in the thread is one such example of the outrage:

Okay this is a TERRIBLE idea. I've been the victim of identify theft once before and so I am VERY private online now, I use NOTHING but aliases, I will not pay for anything that can't be done through PayPal, etc. Now you're wanting to put my REAL NAME on PUBLIC FORUMS?! I wouldn't mind making us select our main character to always have displayed so no1 can troll anymore, but JESUS! I know alot of people are going to just simply STOP using the forums when you do this, you're not bringing us together, you're making us all too afraid to interect with eachother out of fear of identity theft and the like. So now people who want to add me to their friend list will have my login Email, my real name, etc... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I use realid, I like realid, I don't hand it out to anyone I don't know or trust, just like my real name. Hell, there are people and classmates in my real life that only know me by 'Dagoth' because I don't hand out my real name to just anyone. 

What about people who play this game that might be in witness protection or worse? 

I'm in witness protection for testifying in a trial that sent a man to death, and his family swore to send me to my death too, so I will be deleting every single post I've ever made in FEAR for MY VERY LIFE. 

Thank you blizzard for possibly putting my life in danger, thank you SO VERY MUCH.

(leaving this post to delete last the day before these changes hit, so blizz maybe sees it and realize that they have made a grave mistake.) 

please Please PLEASE don't do this! I guarantee you'll be tearing apart your community more than bringing us together. If this change goes through, it better not be retroactive to all previous posts, otherwise you better delete all previous posts ever made. 

Edit: my first 'First!' in over 6 years! lol 

Edit 2: after reading the actual link /RANT 

Oh and Edit 3: Is anyone starting to get a really nervous 'Star Wars Galaxies' vibe from Blizzard now? I'd really hate to have to jump ship from all the Blizzard games I love so much because they start to implement incompetent changes that drive everyone away.

Many players of World of Warcraft are starting to wonder what is wrong with Blizzard, as they seem to keep making choices without any regard for player input! Many players consider Blizzard making the game worse and worse. Hopefully cataclysm will fix this.

To see the thread you can look here : Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to Forums
This change is bound to affect the World of Warcraft forums greatly, as many will stop posting all together, and use other non-official forums instead. The forums will probably decline greatly in activity once this change is implemented.

If Blizzard keeps making changes the players don't like what will happen? What is your opinion on this change and how do you think this will affect the MMO world?

Sources:
Upcoming Changes to Forums
Battle.net Upcoming Changes to Forums