Eh... thing is, that is an opinion -- which some share, and others don't... since everyone draws the line on things like "enough to matter" at a different spot.

The point here seems to be that some people have concerns -- regardless of other people's opinion on the validity of those concerns, it would be relatively trivial for ZOS to add an optional flag in one's account management to allow for the setting of a display name (and thus hiding one's actual login id).

They can't please everybody all of the time -- but if a simple tweak would satisfy some additional people, without making others upset (is there a valid reason why changing this would upset someone?), doesn't it make sense as something to ask for then?

I am not crazy about it either, but I am going to wait and see how it plays out before I declare the sky is falling.

I think it's a good idea. Works a charm in NWO and allows for full accountability. Re-rolling an alt and pretending it's not you is no longer an option. Paired with the sub this is a pretty strong mechanic allowing to quickly isolate miscreants. I understand some people may have security concerns but:

1) If you ever use your real name as an account name, anywhere, you're doing it wrong. It's bad practice and yo ucan blame nobody if it gets public

2) There are many different security featues working in the background - username is not really revealing anything and, it's not making it easier to hack an account

Which would still be incredibly easy to do without sharing the actual account name. Flag a toon as /ignore? They could set it so you /ignore all that account's toons without actually knowing the account. Same with reporting a toon.

My biggest concern is for roleplay purposes. If I choose to have three characters, with three vastly different RP stories, how will I make that work in guild chat?

Althou i dont think viewable account names will threaten my security, I agree that showing it is not very wise, They could have done somethink similiar to battletags

This is true - it would solve the people's concern with the security I guess so have no objections against such a thing.

What about the emotes?

If I use /e smirks

will others read in the chat:

smirks

or

smirks

???

I have a complicated and unique(not used anywhere else) password that is in no dictionary. If you do the same, you will be fine.

The people stealing accounts do not try to 'hack' or 'guess' your password. Instead they are going through a list obtained from elsewhere, for instance from stealing a account/password pair list from some forum you registered on 3 years ago and promptly forgot about it. If your password for ESO is not on any such lists, then there is no way your account will get hacked short of a hacker managing to get into zenimax databases(or your own computer being compromised of course).

The username is only visible under specific circumstances, like friend lists. Normal zone chat uses your character's name (that includes emotes)

thank you stax77

Then help me get there.

There is several things you can protect yourself from hacking.

1, make sure you have at least a alpha/numeric password,

2. also don't log in to any PC your not sure about.

3. have a good password for your email.

4. when you log into your account from different PC, then the program knows its not your usual gaming rig. so they will ask for validation.

Think about it. 3 tiers of protection. and possibly 4 if you count your own, from not logging into the game from a dubious rig.

...and also do not use the same password for your game login and your email account and the forums.

[EDIT]

Kinda weird conspiracy is at the brink of our horizon. Whats going on here?

I dunno, this seems to be the way things are going. I prefer to have an Account name and then a common account wide name, like the Battletags and such. But like other have stated, I practice good computer safety and after 5 years of WoW never got comprised on the 4 accounts (2 for me and 1 each for the wife and kid). I refused to get a authenticator, just because I wanted the challenge of it. But I had e-mail accounts created solo for WoW and didn't use them anywhere else. For forums, I have a totally different e-mail address. And that's where I get all the fake phishing e-mails sent to. When I get an e-mail to that address saying my account has been comprised click here, I know it's fake, because that's not my e-mail address for that account I also rotate passwords every 90 days, if nothing else take your favorite password and add the month to the front or end, switch between numbers and letters, odd months use numbers, even months use letters for the months.

There is all kinds of things you can do to make it really tough to lose an account.

It should help against gold farmers/ bots/ account selling/stealing which ok in my books.

Yes, because email accounts never get hacked...Especially considering a lot of people will have used the first part of their email address as their User ID. With access to five guilds and added "friends", a person could have access to 1500+ User IDs easily. Slap @hotmail.com, or @gmail.com, etc. onto the end of those User IDs and you'd probably have a lot of actual email addresses. Considering a lot of those people will have used common, or elder scrolls-themed, etc. passwords, it wouldn't be too hard to get into a few email addresses. Once you have the email address, IP validation is rendered useless and the account is gone. All because we willingly, and unwittingly for many of us, gave away half of our login information...

I don't know about you, but if I would have known my User ID was going to be displayed in game, I would have chosen much differently than I did. Even if this is safe, why give a would-be hacker part of the information they need, and why in the world would they make us use our login User ID? Why not just make us choose a gamer tag or something similar?

I freely admit I'm no IT security pro, so much of what I've said or think could be plain wrong. I'm just concerned.

I imagine many systems have brute force and dictionary password cracker prevention systems. For example after 10 failed password attempts the account gets locked, requires a captcha or whatever.

There is also unknown device system

As I pointed out in other such threads, the issue will be phishing.

An addon collects peoples @usernames. Of these, a given percentage will be the same user name for the persons gmail etc account. Send out email with a "free upgrade to Imperial addition" link that goes to a site which looks like the ESO account page. The server will attempt to connect to the users real account page, triggering the email code response while prompting the user to enter the code. The server will then use the code to access the users account and make changes.

I've been back and forth with Support for two days and they keep telling me they can't change anything. I need to change the email as well as the username.

The email I used to join the beta will be deleted on Monday. I'm not purchasing a new client. I may not be playing at launch.

I've been going back and forth with them since March 5th trying to get mine changed. They didn't tell me I couldn't, but the email responses have been nonsensical at times. I opened a new ticket today and got a prompt response saying they would change it asap as soon as I provided the information they asked for. I promptly sent them the information, but still haven't heard back.