This one starts out about bank alts, but is really about hiding from in-game stalkers.
So one of our Guild Officers logs in after what feels like at least a weeks’ absence.
Before he logs into the game, he comes on Teamspeak first.
As an aside, sadly, I am now addicted to Teamspeak, because the guys are hilarious. I sometimes find it more fun to listen to them BS while I’m tooling around ore farming, then to actually do some serious grouping or quests. Need to buy a life, WTP 2000g.
Anyhoo, Respy comes into Teamspeak, and we all start hooting hello. And he is ECSTATIC at the 2.3 changes, because the poor bastard was responsible for running “bankerbum’, the Official Legatum Guild Bank Alt. Every day, whether he wanted to play or not, the poor guy had to log into his bank alt, check the mail to see who had mailed donations and who had made requests for stuff, and then do the shuffling around… constantly bitching because the bank would always be full.
It is pretty much obsolete now, but the system Legatum Ignavis had used was GuildBankAccount, an addon that let you designate a guild banker alt, and read all of his bank slots to see what inventory he had… and also poll every member of the guild and keep a running inventory that anyone could access to see how much money you had in your account to ‘buy’ stuff from the bank, and what was in there. Worked pretty damn well. Of course, now, all you have to do is set the Official Guild Bank permissions so that anyone can donate, but only officers can withdraw. Then, any member can in-game mail one of the officers asking for an item, or send a general whisper. No waiting for that ONE particular player to come online to get stuff, or to donate stuff. FAR better.
So Respy logs into Teamspeak, and we are all happy to see him, we start chatting… and he logs into bankerbum and with great shouts of glee begins to transfer all of the bank alts’ inventory into the new guild bank. And then has to buy more bank tabs… and then more bank tabs. He shouts that he’s finally done! He can delete that toon forever! And then realizes he still has hundreds of mails with donations to work through. 
Still, it ain’t too long before he’s got his bags clear, the stuff is stored away for all to see, and with great delight he deletes his character. Before he does, he makes the now traditional joke, “That’s it Jayboi! Screw you man, I’m deleting my character and quitting WoW! /gquit /delete!” [for those confused, see this post]
We’re laughing, because frankly that NEVER gets old, and he logs into his main. And immediately starts screaming in anger.
“Damn it! I just logged in, and I’ve already got 9 whispers from people wanting runs or something! Go away! God %&^# it!” And I mean he is tweaking, because he’s another one of those ‘can’t just ignore them until they go away’ kinds of guys.
At the time, I was running Cassieann (Mrs BBB) though Uldaman so she could clear all those group quests off her log. Got her some nice drops, too. But it was just the two of us in there, me on Windshadow, so kind soul that I am, I instantly /tell him “Hey, can you run me through Uldaman? I’ll give you 5 gold.”
Then I begged Cassie to whisper him asking him to please join her group, need a healer. As he doesn’t know her toon name, I figured that would… help things along.
It takes a few minutes, while chatting and hearing him bitch and complain, but eventually he wades though responding to all the initial whispers to see mine, where he responds on Teamspeak “F%^& You, Wind.”… and a few minutes later gets to Cassies’ /whisper, this time from someone he doesn’t even know, and it’s fun to listen to him growl in rage. I let him sputter for a few seconds, before I let him in on who she was, and we all shared a good laugh… ah, good times.
The whole thing does beg the question… and I know I’ve brought it up before, but still.
What do you do when you’ve been playing a character for a very long time, and people know your name? People that you have grouped with in the past, or used to hang with and help out in a guild, but in the years that have followed, you changed guilds, you lost touch, maybe you even grew to not like them after seeing the way they play or act towards others, but you don’t want to start drama or hurt feelings by telling them to leave you alone?
No matter what you do, you can’t make someone take you off their friends list. For good or ill, if someone wants to stalk you in game, and see when you log in or out, and what zone you are in, they can. You can put outright enemies on /ignore, but it doesn’t stop their ability to track your movements, and what about folks that really aren’t that bad, just… annoying?
I’m not nearly as hosed as Respy is, I get my own share of whispers from folks looking for tanks, but the guild has enough good tanks that it’s usually only when someone had to bail out of a group halfway into an instance. I don’t know about anyone else, but I always feel that pain, I know how much I hate working halfway or, worse yet, all the way through an instance to the last boss, only to have a player D/C and ‘poof!’. If a group of guildies start asking for help just to finish the bloody run, if I can in any way make the time, I’ll do it.
But still, I do have a few ’stalkers’, folks that I tanked for maybe once, a year ago, that put me on their friends list, clearly under the heading of ‘Good tank when I need one for a pug, whisper every time I want an easy run, but don’t ever bother to say “hi” or actually want to be a friend outside of that.’
I even have a few folks that left guilds I’ve been in on a really nasty note, but that seem to think that I was on their side in whatever massive flame war drama fest they were involved in, people who persist, months after the fact, in sending me occasional /tells to let me know JUST how awesome their lives are now that they’ve left the guild I’m in, and what great loot they’ve got recently, and to remind me how crappy they felt they were treated, or whatever.
What do you guys do? Do any of you get this stuff? At least a blind whisper from a stranger begging for stuff you can safely ignore… what do you do when it’s from folks who used to be casual acquaintances?
I know that, sometimes, I feel like hiding on a brand new alt, not telling anyone their name, and just playing quietly to myself in peace. Of course, if I do that… I ain’t participating with my actual FRIENDS. Teamspeak is nice for this, as long as the people you are trying to avoid ain’t on Teamspeak with you. Thank god THAT hasn’t happened yet!
I always get this mental image, when I’m hiding from stalkers on a low level alt, of my max level epic-ed out main hiding behind my undergeared lowbie little alt, cowering in fear.
So, come on, share. Tell me some of your funny stalked in the game stories… or the not so funny stories. Maybe we can all learn a thing or three… or at least, share a wince in sympathy for you!
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