You may think you’re safe, but there is a number of factors that could mean you’re actually not.
Firstly, someone can right click your portrat, and click to add BNet friend, which will come up with a window displying your BattleTag before a confirmation of sending a BNet request.
Plunderstorm happened recently, and that also used the BattleTag system as well.
Plus, there was plans of an update to the forums in the future, though can’t exactly say what they’re are, but what happens if the Forums decided to switch around to posting from the BattleTags.
I doubt that Blizzard will be extending the amount of characters any time soon. You’ll just have to come up with a battletag that fits within the allotted characters available.
I do understand, hence why I’m here. The plus side of my name being so unique, nobody actually believes it’s my name.
It’s on the lines of say, idk Brad Pitt. It’s a name similar to one that’s known like that. But you wouldn’t believe it unless I proved it. So again, not really a risk because of those factors. Even TSA doesn’t believe my name is my name.
I play with a guy named Michael. His profile picture is Michael Cera. His voice is similar to the actor. However, it’s not the actor. Does that put him at risk? No. Because it’s not believable.
Even the horrible platform, Facebook, didn’t believe my name was my name when I created my account. I had to show them my ID. I was able to create it initial with a typo in the last name, but had to contact them to fix it.
There’s a lot more to it. I just prefer to not have it up, but even so, 95% of the people I encounter think it’s a made up name.
I could put my btag as Merlin. People would think that was fake. I actually know a kid (probably a teen by now), who’s 1st name is Merlin. Coolest name, but you’d have to question if he made it up or not. He’s going to get that the rest of his life. My name in a similar situation (although Merlin would’ve been a cooler 1st name).
You could have a name of Princess Waffles and someone will still believe it as a real name. You don’t understand the full risk. And since you posted all this information here on the forums, someone would eventually be saying, oh look, “it is P. Shaman who lives at 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney NSW 2000.”
You need to understand, you can not use real life personal information as a BattleTag, no matter how rare, unique, or cool you may think it is.
I DO understand, and I do not appreciate your assumption that I don’t. How many times do I have to repeat "the friends on my bnet currently, I know IRL and if I want to expand beyond that, then I would need to get this changed!
I don’t use other forums, and I’m not that frequent on these. 210 total posts in ~18 years. So, for now, I’m fine. Risk, very low (as low as it is to me going out & checking the mail). If I expand, risk could increase. Will I expand? Not sure because I don’t really play with others on that level. But I would like to use my overall online identity, which is 13 characters.
I am shocked at the overall reading comprehension of people on the forums though. They see one thing, reply and that’s it. Forums are for reading. Read fully before saying anything.
Did you play Plunderstorm at all? It used your BTag as your character name.
Their point is that having your IRL name as your BTag is an unnecessary risk because you don’t know when Blizz will display it. And really, it’s there for Blizz to display because it’s supposed to be your one “identity” throughout all Blizz games.
Do you understand how many times the people on these forums hear about people’s accounts getting compromised when the owner of the account knew what they were doing?
Most of the people are truly concerned about you and your account safety.
Take or leave the advice. That’s up to you. You just need to make sure that it fits within the 13 characters that’s required. Your a mature person. I’m sure you’ll work something out.
But again, one new game mode uses Btags and there may be others. These forums may change, as well.
No one has an issue comprehending your post. They’re trying to keep you safe, because using a real name for something even Blizz specifically says should be a nickname is dangerous and we’ve seen firsthand what happens to people that have used their real name.
But if you want to focus on the whole “need more characters,” that may be a limitation of the system and no one wants to see hugely long nicknames.
It isn’t an assumption at this point. It is a stone cold fact you don’t understand that there is ZERO case for you to ever use your real name on the internet like you are.
You already maxed out the risk by letting your real name go into a database.
What you don’t seem to understand is that anyone that wants it can get it. And now that you’ve announced your vulnerability in a public forum, you’ve potentially painted a target on your back. You are at risk of being doxxed and possibly having your identity stolen.
But go off. You obviously know more than anybody else in the room.
I don’t often bump up a thread that has been so well addressed by other players, but this one is important!
Like it or not, people absolutely can see your battle tag in game right now. Yep, it’s public, not private even if you only have your IRL friends added.
That’s why when you created it, Blizzard tells you that it’s public. Blizzard could have these forums updated today to include your battle tag if they wanted to (all other forums have b-tags, this is the only one that doesn’t) and everyone, including hackers, would see that name.
It is not just recommended that you change it ASAP, it’s imperative that you do.
Here’s a link to where you can go, and assuming you’ve never used the free b-tag name change, you can change it for free:
If you’ve used that one to mistakenly change it to your real life name, then I would recommend putting in a ticket and asking Blizz if they can change it or flag it for you!
Not the smartest thing to do if Blizzard approves of third party websites like raider I.O to allow to look up player progress information and uses in all the other Blizzard forums.
You are basically freely sharing your identity if you use your IRL name, Blizzard wants us to use nickname handles.
You get one free name battle tag change and any more changes you have to pay a fee of $10.
You can do a battle tag change as long as it abides by these rules.
Also read this before you say battle tags are invading your privacy.
We all agreed to the terms and conditions, otherwise we won’t be able to post or play the game.
If you don’t want another player to contact you through Real ID, remove them from your Real ID friends list.
Parents can enable or disable this service for their children using Parental Controls or through Account Management. If Real ID has been disabled, you can re-enable it on the Privacy Options page.
Note: Real ID friends will be converted to BattleTag friends if you turn off Real ID. All friends must be be manually upgraded through the Upgrade to Real ID Friend option if Real ID is turned back on. A list cannot be restored to a previous state.
