Today I’ve “stolen” the day’s posting spot to talk about something that has me a bit sadden and also annoyed. It’s a mini-Cassie rant.
I haven’t posted here in a while and have actually distanced myself a bit from the public side of things to just immerse myself in the game and try to have fun.
But I feel like it’s time for me to share some stuff going on and how it’s affected BBB and I because it’s our blog and we get to share what we’re thinking. :)
I have avoided bringing this up even in our guild because I didn’t think it was important to share or something that I was obligated to do. It was part of my private game playing and enjoyment. Something I believe that I have a right to enjoy.
Several months ago here on the blog (the last time I actually posted in fact and did because someone was kind enough to ask what I was up to since I had been so quiet), I mentioned that I had an alt that I was playing with to see if I liked before deciding to bring in to the guild. That was one of my first mistakes because people decided that apparently it was a silent challenge from me to guildies to track me down. Several people have worked hard to track down the identity of my “secret” alt and gleefully share that they have “outed” me, so I guess it’s time to talk about it.
I’ve continued to leave that alt out of our guild for several reasons. I’ve shared before that I started playing WoW to deal with the incredible and sudden loss of my father in 2007; a loss that occurred a mere 17 days after the loss of my last remaining grandmother. In 17 days, my mother lost her 93-year-old mother and her husband of 50 years that she had been with since age 14. And my siblings and I lost the father that we adored and that held us all together. That period changed our family forever and is something that we all continue to struggle with on a daily basis.
I started playing around with the game because I needed something to escape into when the pain got too bad. I had always hated the game with a passion. I can’t tell you how many fights BBB and I had about his time playing “that damn game” (as I referred to it back then). When I started playing, I played solo until level 69 when I finally joined our former guild with BBB, and honestly I joined mostly because I felt bad having him bring his guildies in to do instances with me when I wasn’t a part of their group.
My style is to be a loner in the game, focus, get things done and go on unless it’s an instance or group quest. And in those times, I’d ask BBB to bring one of his max level characters to slaughter the instance while I joyfully gathered up all the loot. :)
Over time, I began to play in more social ways and to talk with people, especially after we invited others to join us in forming a new guild that would be different from others. But there are still many days that I don’t have the energy to handle anything else other than my own thoughts and continued grief. It has nothing to do with not liking people or not wanting to be a part of the guild, but instead, it’s about trying to keep my sanity and figure out how to go on day to day in the changed family and reality that I have now.
In the past month, two people have gone to the energy of looking at what lower level/old world zone BBB happened to be in, deciding that he must be there for a reason and that they have a right to know what that reason is, doing a /who in that zone, and identifying the character that had a similar name to my others (since I created the character my second week in the game and abandoned until a few months ago). And having that secret knowledge on their own wasn’t enough, one whispered me and said “gotcha secret alt!” and the other whispered BBB to comment on how high a level my secret was already.
The amount of effort people seem to go to in order to track our every movement is something that bothers us more than the reality of someone knowing the name of my secret alt. It’s the feeling of intrusion in to our lives at a time that we clearly wanted to be alone and playing with just the two of us that really saddens (and ok, angers us as well).
I know both people probably thought they were just joking around and having fun, but the reality is that it wasn’t fun for us. The first one, to his credit, did come back and apologize after BBB went off a bit on my right to privacy.
But it still took a little bit away from the game for both of us. We’ve already on bad days in the past few months considered shutting down the blog and even walking away from the game for many reasons including:
* Those people who track our every movement and who comment/judge either in game or on their blog or other people’s blogs about every guild decision that we’ve made and what they personally think about it (without offering any solutions or what they’d like to see instead or taking any initiative to make things better/different/etc)
* Those that feel they have the right to second-guess, correct or otherwise be obnoxious about each and every raid leading decision BBB makes on a run
* The constant reality of knowing that if we go on an instance run or raid, our every action will be watched, judged, posted on a blog or two, and that if we make any mistake or are in any way not perfect, it will be commented upon, remembered and brought up endlessly to point out how we failed or didn’t do our job that one time.
As I told the first person that “outed” my alt, the feeling of living in a constant fishbowl day in and day out gets draining at times and takes away from the enjoyment of our game time.
So why do we go on? Why not just walk away or transfer somewhere else where we can be totally anonymous?
The reason we keep coming back to is that we’ve met some incredibly great people during our WoW journey. People that aren’t great because of how they play the game or how high their DPS is in a raid, but because they are truly nice people; people that we would love to sit down with and chat totally outside of the game. For example, people that have already responded to BBB’s post about Child’s Play with incredible donation offers for a raffle event to benefit a charity we love while giving fun stuff to people they’ve never met. It’s because of the wonderful people that we haven’t said “screw this” and shut everything down because of the smaller minority that are negative or downright nasty in emails, chat, behaviors, etc.
That’s something that we have to deal with since we do put ourselves out there publicly and because we chose to start a guild (something that grew much larger than we ever imagined it would and that has it’s own stress/issues in our lives – but that’s a post for another day.) :)
Whether it’s a game or not, I think we all need to remember that we are dealing with real people out there that have real emotions and thoughts about interacting with us, and think about how we are portraying ourselves in those interactions.
If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for taking the time to read about what’s on my mind!
I know the feeling of just liking to be on your own in the game sometimes.
It’s the people that keep me playing wow – always has been. If it weren’t for the people, I’d have stopped playing a long time ago!
Hope you manage to get a little down-time from things the way you need it honey.
(((hugs)))
Totally get where your coming from.
My fondest memories of WoW are playing my first toon in the Barrens at 3am, after all the chat trolls got sent to bed. Just me, my pet and a desolate scenery that totally matched my mood.
Admittedly I’m a pretty inquisitive person myself but that’s mostly to find out where my friends are because I miss them.
For privacy I play a lowby alt on a different server.
Megan (Out of Mana) made a post a few weeks back about how we’re always being judged in-game, and even when we’re alone we judge ourselves. It can get a bit stressful and overwhelming, and occasionally I just turn off the computer and go read a book ;)
Anyway, hope you keep enjoying the game.
I am not a druid, and only came to the site because a friend was looking for a druid blog to read.
That being said, after reading your post I felt compelled to reply. I too started playing WoW as a release from the stress of real life pain. I started playing to escape the reality that was my life and found a home. Since then I have actually lived in some fear that someone will come along and pop my bubble. I am far from anonymous, but I am anonymous from certain people just the same.
Your analogy of playing in a fishbowl and just wanting some alone time to be yourself and enjoy the game without the stress that others force upon you hits home. It is a shame that some people think that there “discovery” needs to be let out to the world. I know that some people just simply believe that their actions are inocuous, but people need to understand that if someone doesn’t tell you everything, its not a challenge to find out that “everything”. Its simply because they may need some space and some relaxation.
I know I am not very eloquent in this response, but I just wanted to respond and let you know that you are not alone.
*hugs* Something I have learned, don’t be afraid to tell people to take a hike and that you’re wanting to just play alone. Do it with a smile, and no one takes offense. :)
I used to have ‘secret’ alts myself, for the very same reason. Just wanting to play alone without my guild going, ‘Hey K, can you do x, y, z, make a, b, c and help with l, m, n?’ two seconds into logging on.
Hope it gets less stressful!
My secret alt hit 60 recently :) I also have a little alt on another server than my main. Excellent fun.
I think if you are involved in a guild in any big way, it is almost a prerequisite (sp?) that you have a secret Alt or two. Sometimes you just want a bit of “me” time and don’t want to log in and spend the next two hours stood in one place simply answering various questions. For me, it is kinda part of the job (being a GL), but there are days when you have been rushing around all day and you just need some peace and quiet.
Of course .. the other side of that coin is that often you have had a busy day rushing around, and all you want to do is log in and have a major natter! Nothing more uplifting than having had a miserable day, log in with a glass of wine to hand, and spend the next several hours laughing out loud with people you have never met.
I do agree though that if you are on your “secret” alt, it is an indication that you don’t want to be disturbed .. i would suggest either creating alts on another realm or the “other side”, or simply getting BBB to create a secret alt himself, so he can’t be tracked down!
One of my major bugbears (lol) is that you can’t make yourself “ex-directory” – so that you do not show up on the /who lists, you don’t automatically get added to the LFG lists .. I do not do PUGs, yet depending on which character I am on, I get hassled constantly by people I don’t know, “heal” this, “tank” that .. etc. Unless I’ve just missed that option – please tell me I have and where to find it!!
I understand what you mean when you say your style is to be a loner in game, as that’s my preferred playstyle as well. I’ve never been a hugely social person anyway, but I love the atmosphere and the unpredictability of playing an MMO so I prefer them to single player games. I’ll pitch in and help with city defence or in a battleground, but mostly I’m happy just to trundle off on my own and get lost playing quests. Actually I usually just get lost full stop… appalling sense of direction :)
I’d love for some in-game tools that work for those of us who don’t want to be disturbed at the moment. Other games like Everquest 2 have anonymous features, and most recently I noticed Warhammer had a feature which was exactly what Rowtan suggested. If you ticked one box you weren’t able to be found on the /who lists and you wouldn’t even show up on people’s friends lists. The other box I loved was one that prevented people from inspecting your gear which was a godsend. One of my pet hates is people who charge up to you in the middle of nowhere and say nothing, then run off again. Drives me nuts! I don’t mind a little discreet inspecting in the auction house or the bank, but obvious inspecting makes me so uncomfortable. Almost like being undressed and having people sniggering about your underwear choices! lol
Best of luck with the alt and hopefully you’ll get a bit more peace after your post.
I too get fed up with the same thing sometimes. I’m pretty anonymous on my server being the GL of a very small family/close friend guild. I don’t raid or group, I prefer to play solo mostly on my hunters or druid or warlock. I will help my guildies if they need it but they know better than to ask for help unless its a group quest.
I was an officer of a very large guild in a different MMO but ended up quitting the game because I was constantly hassled for help as soon as I logged in, my current guildies are aware of this and understand my need to be alone most of the time (usually because I’m not feeling too well), in fact I wrote it in the guild rules to not hassle guildies for help!
A lot of people think I’m antisocial but I’m not, it’s just that with a busy home life I log in to relax and do my own thing as I think most of you all do.
I agree with Hel, there needs to be an “invisible mode” where you can choose to not show up in game at all, to all players, guildies included, that way when you are visible people will know that you are happy to talk to them.
I hope you get some of the privacy and peace you deserve, I understand how invasive it must be sometimes because of the blog and your achievements ingame. I think I speak for us all when I say we really appreciate the time you both put into this blog, its informative and entertaining at the same time and i love it.
Sorry, this post turned out longer than I meant it too. :)
Hey Cassie,
I have two level 70 hunters (hunter being “my” class). One of them is my “social” hunter, she is… well, was… in a big guild, now has a very big social circle, a lot of contacts in game, and she did all the raiding. The other hunter is my “me time” hunter. She is in a guild that consists of me, my alts, my boyfriend’s alts, and a few close family members’ alts… that’s it, and I’m the only one logged in with any regularity. Depending on what I want to be doing that day, or my mood, or all sorts of factors, I can pick with hunter to play, and I love both characters equally! They both have their own in-game goals and everything. It is 100% okay and understandable to do something like that, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
I must confess I think I have lucked out with the “being watched and judged” thing… while I get a pretty decent number of views a day myself I am certainly not the “celeb” that BBB is. I do get a lot of fan whispers from people, on both characters, and sometimes I am recognized by people on my respective home servers, but the most that has ever happened is that I have been invited to some pretty fun raids by fans… no judgment thus far I think ;) for which I am very grateful!
TLDR version: you most certainly 100% deserve some private time if you need it! Start a 100% anonymous “me time” character somewhere if you haven’t already, don’t tell a soul except maybe Sir BBB… I think you will find that it can be very nice sometimes.
P.S. My boyfriend and I hated the game too for a long time, if only because we were tired of our friends talking about it nonstop. We especially hated the “You’ll give in and start playing someday, it’s only a matter of time” spiel. Of course… they were right =P
Much <3, Pike
/hug! I’m glad you guys have kept soldiering on through the rude and thoughtless things people may do. This blog (and Pike’s! (hi up there)) is one of the few I’ve kept on reading though I’ve not even played since August. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions with us.
And to echo everyone else, you absolutely deserve your privacy.
Sorry to hear about that .. if you really need anonymity, I’d be glad to offer you a berth in our guild. On an (yea, I ain’t gonna tell in public forums) server. We are a family oriented guild with parents and kids playing together. No big Raid pushes, Lots of goofy chat. Moms and dads and kids.
Just an offer ..
All of my serious toons are Horde. However I do have secret Alts so that I don’t have to Tank when I am not in the mood. To prevent those from finding out about my Alt they are on the Alliance side. I am sorry to hear that you guys are stressed by what we should find entertaining and I hope things get better for you.
Cassie I truly understand what you are talking about. When I was gl of my old guild mostly decent people just every once in awhile i wanted not to be grai. About the game isuses concerns coming into rl shrinn and I have been there some we giggle about now so are still not at the humor stage yet. I hope you can find fun,peace and serenity again in your life and in your game. As I have told 3B, you and he kept me on this server when i had reached burn out. If there is anything I can do for either of you please ask.
I started playing the game for much the same reason, Cass. I commend you on coming forward about it–not many of us do. I myself feel that I’ll be ostracized for readily admitting I get on the game to release tension and “escape from reality” for a bit. Y’know, the people saying “See! The stereotype is true!”.
Your reasons for staying are the same as mine. If it weren’t for the absolutely amazing people I’ve met in game, I don’t think I’d have kept on as long as I have with playing. I was also lucky enough to find a guild where, despite the daily doses of drama, they’re pretty much understanding about whether someone wants in on something or not (whether it be some alt fun, or a raid). They’re also pretty cool to the point of letting you talk about RL issues (mainly due to the fact everyone knows at least one person in the guild IRL, most of them living in the same general area) if you need to.
I do understand about the privacy thing, and I use my bank alt as an escape–where only one or two people know the toon. I mean, everyone has a bank toon, but who’s going to actually check to see if you’re on it? Pshaw.
Good luck to the two of you, though. I hope all the drama dies down sooner rather than later.
Hey Cassie, hope that you can get some of the space that you need. We all in guild just adore both of you so we do apologise if it all gets too much. Please make sure you and B3 do whatever it is you need to do to keep the game fun for you.
I put a special character in my alt’s name so it’d be harder to /who me. Don’t let the anonymous jerks get to you. Easier said than done, but I had someone who barely knew me say some of the worst things i’ve ever read….. on 10 different characters. It can get rough but it’s courageous of you to stick around. Do your best to help establish boundaries, I guess. I’m sorry that happened to you, and I wish you the best of luck.
I’ve had a few incidents where people have forgotten that there’s a real person behind the blog, and it can be hurtful. But you’ve described here goes far beyond what I’ve experienced. You both have my deepest sympathy. Hopefully being able to talk about it here will help some, at least prevent some future incidents. But if it any point the two of you decide to go in a new direction, I would be completely supportive.
Cassie, i read this blog for the love of what the two of you do. I love to see what is happening and go from there. I think it is incredibly brave of the two of you in that you share so much of yourselves with many other people who you will never meet.
I play this game to try and break up my life, and restore a little sanity. I care full time for my one year old daughter while my wife works, and am also studying uni at a rate where i will get a three year degree in about 15 months total study. As such, i have a secret alt that i just love to retreat to occasionally and get lost so that my friends cant find me.
Good luck to the two of you, and i look forward to hopefully reading about your adventures in Northrend
I came to this site from a link (iirc) and stayed and learned a lot about how to play my first bear tank (Taurean). I rolled my first alliance 70 on K’T (Nelf bear tank), joined SD to share in the fun & hang with a great bunch of people. (see, I’m not stalking you, I’m stalking B3 /tic).
Please don’t feel there’s any fish bowl gazing happening; raid-leaders make a call, for good or bad, all the time. There are many and varied ways of approaching a lot of instances/fights; some better than others; most just taking advantage of the group make-up and talent (or lack thereof) of those playing, and a lot of learning going on whilst flying by the seat of your pants.
Hope you can feel the love from the guild, and I hope the guild can feel your pain and rectify the situation.
Thank you Cassie for sharing. It is reassuring that there are still some people out there that feel the way you do. Gives me some more hope for humanity :P
“Whether it’s a game or not, I think we all need to remember that we are dealing with real people out there that have real emotions and thoughts about interacting with us, and think about how we are portraying ourselves in those interactions.”
I seem to have a knack for discovering my family’s secret alts, and whether I do, it’s always accidental. My dad and my sister plays along with me, and though every of my Horde toon is in the same guild (but even I need some downtime; I have three Alliance alts on another server. Works like a charm!), my sister and dad have about three each in the guild.
It’s actually amusing how I discovered their toons: Mom would send me to fetch Dad or Taylor for something and if I see their laptop open, I would say, “Oh, playing WoW? What level is your toon now?” And glance at the screen – I automatically look at the right uppercorner first and therefore I see the name (I’m a FAST reader) before Dad or Taylor could cover them.
Out of respect for them, I never tell anybody else about their secret alts, though I do occasionally send a “Hi!” to them. A few of my guildies entrusted me with their secret alts, but I don’t tell the guild about them because – hello – they’re SECRET alts.
Secret means secret!
But if it gets too much for you and BBB, why not try to make some “on the other side” toons on a different server? You can level up together, and while it’s annoying to start from 100% scratch (especially the money issues. That is annoying!), it could be fun.
I wish the best luck to you!
I really wish for these sort of servers; effectively guild servers that you control access to. I’m kind of surprised that these aren’t an option.
Best of wishes Mr. and Mrs. BBB. As a largely solo player with mild altitis and severe privacyitis, I empathize with your concerns.
I hate this too. The only people who know about my secret alts are those who I let know about them, and that comes with the understanding that the alt is a secret and not to be shared.
I hope this post causes the privacy invasion to stop.
As GM of my own guild I can totally understand. WoW, and video games in general, can be a great escape for alot of people from the stress and drama of real life. Alts, to those of us in leadership positions, are an escape from the escape sometimes. Don’t ever worry about feeling bad when you have to tell someone to buzz off. We have to take care of ourselves first.
I have read this blog for quite some time now and never responded. But i had a blast reading you and BBB’s excursions into the world we call Warcraft.
I read your story today and i immediately knew what you meant en how you felt. I very recently lost my mother, also very suddenly at the start of my summer vacation.
Needless to say my vacation sucked… Now i already played WoW before this happened and am in a great guild with lots of wonderfull people.
But then i went back into WoW and played an alt that was guildless, just to escape reality a bit and deal with my thoughts and emotions. Much like you are doing.
I also informed the guild that i would be on and off at more random times than before and explained the situation. I felt guilty for leaving em hanging. Which is weird to some degree cause i do not really know them.
They were all very kind and understanding when i said i would play an alt for some time till i felt ready to be part of the raiding and guild experience once again.
So for a few months i played random alts and even ended up grouping with guildies. I wouldn’t say anything at that time cause i rather wanted to be left alone.
I am lucky in the fact that none of my guildies were that persistent in finding out who my secret alts were at that time.
And i still have 1 alt that is guildless and unknown to my fellow guildies.
I play that one not alot anymore as i have come to terms with my loss and am ready to be part of the fun again.
On a more personal note: I am sorry for your loss and i understand how you feel. And to well put it blunt ‘escape’ in a game ‘mindlessly’ doing qs and grind some rep or something while dealing with your thoughts and emotions did help to keep my sanity aswell. I hope it will do the same for you.
Sincerly,
Arnold
I wanted to thank all of you for your wonderful support! It’s really meant a lot to both of us and it also helps that so many of you have confirmed that we weren’t wrong in thinking those people went over the line of reasonable game behavior; that it went beyond satisfying their curiousity and instead into invading our privacy and taking away part of the game that I was enjoying.
I still plan to level my alt because it’s a character I’m having fun with, but I will admit that the enjoyment I was getting by being an anonymous solo player is gone now and that definitely colors my overall feelings about the game. Logging in no longer has the same feeling to it, but I’m sure over time, I’ll find some new way to enjoy things.
Thanks again for all the fantastic comments and understanding! You guys are the best!
Cassie
I’ve had a similar experience. After being one of the most evil roleplay characters when I first started out on Twisting Nether, I was fairly popular. Buuuut, there were people who took such things OOCly and pretty much constantly griped at me OOCly about the way I played my character.
Took me a while to get rid of them by explaining the difference between IC and OOC…but eventually they got bored when I stopped responding to their idiotic posts =D
Anywho, don’t worry…those of us that RESPECT you both will not do such things as hunt down your alts. Shit, to me, the both of you are just normal WoW players. *Blinks* You both run a blog, wew, its a good blog.
Honestly, thats kinda creepy. Its like having that one weird kid breathe down down your neck going “Hi BBB and Cassie…Hi….Hi…Hi…” >_> People need to lrn2notbecreepy.
I haven’t replied to this, dangit, because I have been mostly without internet this weekend. We had an outage in our cable apparently partially fry our cable modem, causing 40%+ packet loss.
Nothing like constant DCs and hung email to make the internet frustrating.
Spent like 35 minutes trying to post one single Kara event on the calander, and finally had to give up.
But back to this topic.
I am firmly of the opinion that offensive behavior is in the eye of the person who feels hurt by it. It is not the place of the person who caused offense to say, “Gee, I don’t see what you’re so uptight about.”
It’s sometimes very easy to, with the best possible intentions, do something that hurts someone else’s feelings. I certainly do it all the time. And if someone else has hurt feelings becaue of something I did, it’s not my job to dictate to them that they are not allowed to feel that way. It is my job to analyze my own behavior, try to see what it is that I did that, in the other person’s opinion, was over the line, and try to make sure that I don’t do that again. If it was something that was simply a misunderstanding, then I will try to assure the other person that I did not mean to hurt their feelings… but I will absolutely respect the fact that their feelings were hurt, and it was my action that was the cause.
This issue of the privacy of an alt… it’s a weird one to look at objectively.
I mean, at it’s core, it’s about the right to privacy and respecting someone else’s apparent wishes. At least, that’s what it seems to me.
On the one hand, it’s a video game. It can seem incredibly silly to become upset about things that happen in a video game, and if you’re playing a massively multiplayer online game, it could realistically be argued that, if you encounter real live people in the game, well, that’s what happens. If you don’t want to deal with people, play the Wii.
But it’s really not that simple. The game has a massive single player aspect to it that is extremely fun. And being able to chat with and play with your loved ones, such as your wife or husband or significant other, is incredibly positive. Shared experiences, whether a walk in the park, taking your son to the apple orchard, or playing a game together, is wonderful. It’s bonding. it brings you closer together.
And even if you often spend time with a large group of people, sometimes you just want to spend that time together, to go for a long walk together, sharing a private moment without being in a large group, without being observed so you can sneak that quick kiss, share that private moment, be out on the town all alone, without parental supervision.
Writing a blog does make me a more public person than another player might be, but I think it applies to anyone that plays in a guild of any size. While being in a guild with friends is awesome, and you do genuinely care about them and enjoy spending time with them… sometimes, you want the family to LEAVE the damn house once the turkey has been eaten, clean the living room, do the dishes, and then sigh and relax and smile at each other in privacy. You can put away the nice clothes, throw on ratty sweatpants, and fart once in a while. You can be your private selves.
And since you cannot go into privacy mode on your characters in the guild, you only have a few choices for that quiet time; leave the guild, or make an alt.
I never expected to have readers, and Cassie sure as heck never signed up to be a WoW celebrity, no matter how small our piece of it may be. It is a never ending miracle to me that Cassie enjoys playing the game in the first place… so things which add to her stress, while playing a game that she started to ESCAPE stress, really upsets me.
See, as she said, she played solo on her Rogue, and never wanted to join a guild in the first place. And she enjoys playing with friends, now. She really does. She hated the asshats and their childish BS in Legatum, but playing with friends in Sidhe Devils is a completely different experience.
But private time is private time. And it just seems as though, if you are playing a character, and you have chosen not to join a guild, then that, to me, indicates the person wants to be alone. To enjoy that freedom of not being watched. Of not being tracked. Of not having your every move watched on someone’s friends list, and judged. Of being able to dance naked in the rain, metaphorically, if you want.
The feeling of freedom, and the absence of stress.
If you don’t agree, then I simply won’t be able to get it across. But to me, there is something fundamentally wrong about going to the effort of doing a /who when you see someone somewhere, just to check and see who they might be playing with.
It is, to my mind, no less than an invasion of privacy, and a sign that you do not respect that person.
What possible business is it of anyone else’s where I go, what I do, or who I am playing with?
I don’t even KNOW how to do a /who for a zone. It never occured to me to find out. I have done it to find the level of someone whispering me begging for money, or someone asking me to join a group, or to see what guild someone whispering me is from. It’s not something I use as an investigative tool to track someone else’e movements and interactions, and I honestly cannot CONCEIVE of trying to figure out who, that I don’t already know on my friends list or in the guild, is in an instance with someone else.
Just… if I see 4 people in the guild roster are in an isntance, I’ll ASK one of them if who else not in the guild they are with. Maybe. Why? Cause maybe they are 4 manning it and could use a hand.
If they say they have pugged a fifth, or brought in a friend from another guild, do I try to find out who? Good lord! What possible business is it of mine?
Now, all my characters on the server, every single one, is in the guild. Because frankly, I don’t give a shit of people know who I am or what I’m up to. Go ahead and track me, or whatever. I don’t even play on another server, except for the one toon I have on another server that always seems to be up when Kael’thas is down. Someday, that blood elf warlock will hit level 10, I swear.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t respect other people’s right to privacy if that is what they want.
Cassie has enjoyed being free to mess around however she wishes. The only times she has been ‘outed’, are the few times we have grouped together to help her character get through a tough quest, or run an instance.
And each time, we have wondered if someone was tracking me enough to try to find out ‘what I’m up to’ in some isntance, and each time I have had to reassure her that no one would really go to those lengths just to follow my every movement.
Who the hell am I, Paris Hilton? Who gives a shit if I’m on my druid in Razorfen Downs?
Well, someone did. Twice.
And each time, they had to say something.
The first time, the person asked me first what I was doing. Since it’s not my choice that Cassie is trying to be under the radar, I lied and said I was farming cloth or some shit. It’s not my call to share someone else’s secret, no matter who asks. It’s Cassie’s business.
The person then clearly went that next step, after asking me what I’m doing and gettng my answer, to do the /who on me to check UP on me, and then ask me why someone with a toon name remarkably similar to Cassie’s is in the same instance?
Seriously. Yes, yes they did.
That just… why ask if you’re going to check? Are you checking to see if I’ll lie to you? When you’re invading our privacy like a stalker?
Seriously. Yes, I was white hot with anger. You are absolutely correct. It was a violation of our privacy, and it was uncalled for.
My favorite bit, was when the person told me they were disappointed in me for lying to them about what I was doing in there.
Awww, you were? You were disappointed in me for keeping my wife’s secret? Really?
The second time it happened was again when I was taking Cassie’s alt through an instance.
The person was far nicer about it, just saying hi, and commenting that they saw Cassie’s secret alt was getting up there in level, way to go.
Nothing offensive, nothing bad at all. No games, just “hi, grats to Cassie”, basically.
But it is that ‘living in a fishbowl’, someone wathcing your every single move thing that just blows my mind. And after the last incident, it really struck to her heart. Now Cassie really feels hunted and watched, and has to wonder if she is on someone’s friend list being tracked.
It’s not like she hasn’t shared her character name with ANYONE else, but SHE made the decision who to share it with. And there is another guildie that knows who Cassie’s alt is, because Cassie told them. Cassie made the choice.
And Cassie had always intended on joining the guild with her alt eventually, but she REALLY wanted to enjoy playing on her own, leveling at her own pace, learning things as she went, and ebing relaxed. Not being the co-Guild Leader and BBBs wife.
For anyone who honestly doesn’t get it, I’m sorry. Maybe to you it just doesn’t seem like that big a deal.
But again.
It’s not about how YOU take your actions.
It’s about how someone ELSE takes your actions.
And if I enrage someone by laying out my own personal thoughts and feelings on this, so be it. It goes right to our heart, and has caused both of us a LOT of hurt. We spend a lot of time playing, it is our one geek thing we share together, and no lie, this issue about the right to privacy is the single most important thing the both of us talk about at home now, when we talk about the game.
Seriously, if we quit the game, or stop playing in the guild, it’s going to be because of this.
I think it’s fair to say I have a right not to have people /who me just to see who they might catch me with. If you want to know what I’m doing… ask. If you don’t trust the answer… don’t ask. And if you think you deserve to know, that you are entitled to know… then I just don’t understand you.
You guys certainly don’t deserve the invasions of privacy, but as public figures in the WoW community, I’m not surprised it happens. (This is one of the top five most popular WoW blogs, no contest.) People are interested in you guys and everything you’re doing, so even casually mentioning having unguilded alts is going to entice some people to try to figure out their names. I guess if you cook up new secret alts, you’ll just have to be stealthier about it. Would be nice if you didn’t have to, but obviously, not everyone is as respectful of privacy as they should be.
I understand needing a bit of a break from guild stuff, too, or just needing time to zone out and think (or not think — I lost my mom earlier this year, so private WoW-time has been very therapeutic for me, as well). I totally adore my guild, but I do have a handful of unguilded alts that I retreat to sometimes. I even have a few on other servers to guarantee complete privacy. I find it liberating, at times, and more immersive to run through Azeroth anonymously. I like being a quiet cog in the machine and going about my business. I even find myself role-playing. *gasp* It’s like a completely different game. I like both games, but sometimes I prefer one over the other. It’s nice to have a choice.
Hang in there, guys. Hopefully your posts here will help give some of the more stalkery folks some perspective. Cooking up noob alts together on a sekrit server might give you a nice vacation, too. I highly recommend it! :)
Very interesting post. It makes me want to create my own secret alt. Pardon me if I’m completely wrong, but wouldn’t an easy solution be to just /ignore anyone who pst you when you were on your secret alt? You could always take them off ignore when you join the guild in the future. But you will basically not have to worry about anything if you just don’t reply or just reply to the person and say I dont’ know what you’re talking about /ignore. No harm no foul. Thanks for the post it gave me soemthing to think about!
You know I use /who to check on friends in another guild because I just don’t have the room to add very single one of them and their bazillion alts. That alone would fill my list to brimming. When I was playing on pvp I used it to see who was in a zone so we could group or run near eachother to lower the ganking chances.
But to use it to stalk people? Really? Does it not occur to people that you want alone time?
*hugs to you both* I am very sorry people invaded your privacy and then to top it off had the audacity to say they were disappointed in you. I think people feel entitled to know what their guildmates are doing at any given moment. Sharing a tag or knowing someone or being famous doesn’t entitle anyone to check on you constantly.
I’m guilty of doing something similar regarding the /who thing but never did it with malicious intentions.
I have friends in a different guild and when I see them in XX instance I check to see if they’re running with guildies. Just in case they are running short, I can offer help. When I saw them in Mags, I thought “Cool! they’re raiding!” It never really occurred to me that they might see this as an invasion of privacy.
I want to cheer them on, not make them think they are fish.
Thanks for poking me in the ass.
Maybe write a short message on your forums to please leave you alone when not on your mains unless there is an emergency?
Drax, the /ignore function only works after the damage is done. Even a /complain function or a /IPbanthefrigginstalker function is reactive. It would be very nice to just fly completely under the radar, so as to never have the problem in the first place.
I think the /who function is borderline at best, precisely for this reason. I’ve played Puzzle Pirates for a while now (my only long-term MMO, but the principle is the same), and I really can’t think of a good reason for the command at all. If I want to talk to someone, I’ll just /tell them, and go from there. (Like a cold phone call, which can still be annoying, but is much less intrusive.) More and more, the /who feels like a /spy command, and it’s just not necessary. There’s the Armory if someone just has to ogle your gear and build, which is plenty intrusive enough, thanks. Live intrusions just aren’t worth the trouble of enabling griefers, stalkers, or even just blundering brain dead idiots like the BBBs have dealt with here.
I don’t see anything wrong with the command, just wrong with the use.
Does /dnd still work?
Blizzard made a joke about the privacy thing a while back. I think it was when Armoury took off and the invasion of privacy was being felt by a lot of people. Now with /inspect on anyone (including opposite faction) showing talent points; comparing achievements and all; perhaps it is time for Blizz to actually introduce the “Tin Hat”. They might be amazed at how many of them sell.
@ Stupid Mage
Yes, /dnd does still work; sends a msg back to the initiator saying the person does not wish to be disturbed; but does not take you off their radar :(
Perhaps we should start a campaign to introduce a tick box such as Hel suggested? After all, if they have it in Warhammer, it must be something that Blizz is aware of? I’d love to have a little box I can tick to just simply remove me, even if only until I untick it again, from all the /who lists – sounds like heaven!
okay .. actions speak louder than words ….
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6790879801&postId=67901588035&sid=1#0
Tesh,
That is completely true, it is very reactive and thus would not prevent you from flying under the radar. If blizzard seriously would sell that “tin hat” for say…$25 even I bet a ton would sell. It would basically just make you invisible to the world unless say…you added that person to your friends list first they could not pst you. Very good idea and I would even consider buying it!
I also started playing WoW to ‘get away.’ My playstyle is also mostly solo; although I do love raiding & the occasional 5-man instance run, I am actually a rather anti-social person in-game. My 70s are all in a fair-sized guild for raiding purposes but I have numerous lower-level alts that noone knows about except my twin sister & a few select friends. I even have an alt or two off by themselves on seperate servers, just in case I NEED to be alone. And yes, when I am on one of those toons, it can be very annoying to get whispers from random people asking for help, money, or what-have-you. In short, you guys have my full sympathy, and I would buy one of those ‘tin hats’ in a heartbeat.
*hugs* to both of you.
I’m an extremely private person and really love soloing on any MMO. I run my own guild – but a very small one now. When it was larger and we were running a couple raids every week (quite a bit for a non-raiding guild) it got pretty crazy and I had to retreat to my “secret alt” much more often than I do now. Even so, I’m an officer in a huge organization that’s a coalition of a couple large guilds and tons of tiny guilds, and I still get swamped when I log on my main. Lately I’ve taken to removing myself from the game entirely (needed time away so I wouldn’t be burned out when LK comes out) and playing Lord of the Rings Online. That MMO also has an anonymous “tick box”. You don’t show online to your friends, and you can’t be /who’d or /inspected though you do show up on your guild list.
And yes, that kind of behavior was over the line. Invasion of privacy = epic fail. :( Hope you can reach that same level of enjoyment again, Cassie.
Hang in there Cassie. Remember how all the asphats came out of the woodwork during the “Zombie Invasion”? They are still there and hopefully more private add-ons will be coming out. If WOW was a single player game, I would be very very happy. But it’s not and as result, there are “those” out there.