The Daily Grind: Are you protective of your alts?

by Jef Reahard on Jun 9th 2011 8:00AM

Fantasy, EverQuest II, Culture, MMO Industry, Opinion, Free-to-Play, The Daily Grind

The other day I realized that EverQuest II's website makes my alternate characters viewable to anyone who knows the name of my main. SOE theoretically gives me the option to toggle the public access functionality on each of my characters, but they're viewable by default (and there's currently a website bug that prevents my profile from being edited).

Character lookups aren't unique to EQII of course. Titles as diverse as Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online pipe in-game information to external websites all the time. What is unique, though, is forcing players to divulge the names of their alts -- even though in this case it's unintended. Though SOE has been polite enough in support ticket communications, its insistence that it can't fix its own website (and thus allow me the option of turning off the public profiles), leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

For today's Daily Grind, tell us about your feelings on alt anonymity. Did you know (and do you care) that SOE broadcasts your alts for the world to see? What are your feelings on the practice as it relates to other MMORPGs?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Reader Comments (21)

My alts are generally known to my friends/guildies ... but I always like to be able to have one or two anonymous alts so that I can have a little privacy sometimes

@Mikkhail

Agreed. It's nice to let guild members you can perform a few different roles, but you also want to play without those pressures sometimes.

Would prefer to have control over this. It's one of those things that i think i should decide for myself, knowing that anonymity has it's positives and it's negatives as well as public alts.

It's okay if a game wants to reveal my alts and justify it with features like shared storage, guild membership and friend lists and that sort, it's not okay though if a game wants to reveal my alts without my knowledge. That's a breach of privacy.

It is hard to think of a universally compelling reason to make all alts of a player knowable in such a fashion.

I really don't care now in all of the games we play where we can't really effect the world. In UO I was extremely closed lipped about my alts. I played such different characters than even close friends didn't know all of my characters.

I doubt it's that they can't fix their page, but that they are being lazy about it. Seems like a pretty consistent problem with them as of late. Personally, I don't want anyone knowing anything about me or my gaming habits without being the one to specifically TELL someone about those particulars. I prefer to play in peace without having people bothering me all the time.

Honestly, I had no idea that they actually did this, as they obviously don't want a breach in privacy to be that well known. I find that quite annoying though, to say the least. In any game, no matter which one it is, you always manage to find that one person who clings like a leech and won't let go, to the point of wanting to strangle them. It does not fill me with confidence that they can apparently just search my bloody name and find me when I try to hide from them.

I think it is universal that everyone tends to like to have a couple unknown characters. The reasons are simple. Sometimes you want to just do your own thing and not go on whatever guild task people are currently working on. Sometimes you want to get away from the guild drama/annoyances. Sometimes you may even want an alt out there to check out other guilds to see if you want to swap to a better one.

It is silly to have all alts viewable by default. They should always default such things to invisible and have people who want to show go click a button.

I am concerned with these MMO companies trying to force more and more player information out there. First it was the Blizzard debacle of their proposed changes to bnet that they quickly decided not to do when everyone revolted and now it is EQ trying to release all of your alt information by default.

Do companies not understand respecting peoples' privacy anymore?

Like most folks, I do like to keep some alts anonymous. Sometimes, I just want to solo and do a one-player thing. Sometimes, it's just a crafting alt, but I do adventure a bit with it.

It's one of the reasons I don't like the Cryptic server/name system of tying your account name at the end. It can be too easy to reach me, no matter the alt I am on in that case.

Admittedly, I am old-fashioned and remember when we didn't have mobile phones, which this sorta is but in an MMO game. I can leave my mobile phone at home when I want some alone-time, but it's hard to do so when people know your alts or when you are on and can reach you by your account name.

@Space Cobra

The main problem with the Cryptic system I think is that it is actually the _account_ name by default. That same name is used in forums and as well as your global name in-game.

You can change so that your global name and forum name is different from your account name (need to open a support ticket for this), but you cannot get your account name changed.

I try to keep my alts anonymous. I think everyone needs a break from their kin once in a while.

I'm gonna get flamed for this but, I'm all for my alts names and everyone's alts names being known. Heck, I'd kill for system in major MMOs like FFXI where you didn't need alts and only had one character which changed classes in the city and level each independently.

The more our identity is hidden the bigger jerks we become. For every nice guy who wants to some quiet time away from the guild, there's 5 complete jerkbags who troll trade and act like completely ***** because they know they can log on their main later and no one knew it was them. We complain endlessly in these comment threads about how community is awful in MMOs, yet at every turn, when given a choice we always choose the option that further erodes community. I can understand not revealing information external to the game in the game (Real ID e-mail). But if once inside the game we still have the need for anonymity within the game itself, then we'll simply never have the community we desire. To get the community we have to give up some of that privacy.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/.

In real life when you don't wanna talk, you stop answering your phone, or tell people that your busy. That's not enough?

@Nucleon Actually, I agree with you. I support an "Account Handle" where you /ignore an entire account when you /ignore any character on that account. In addition, such a method works to create more accountability and allows players to build "reputations" across all their characters and can't, say, ninja-loot on one character, only to switch to another character later to get away from that reputation.

For privacy, players should be able to log on and select a mode similar to most Chat programs - "Online", "Do Not Disturb", "AFK" and even "Invisible". "Invisible" would hide you from being online from your friends/Guildmates, but you would become "visible" to anyone you either PM'd, or Grouped with during that log-in session. This, I believe, strikes a good balance between privacy and accountability.

@Nucleon Although, as an Alt-O-Holic, I LOVE having lots of Alts.

@Nucleon
It's none of your business who my alts are, or what I'm doing.

@Nucleon
Secret alts are not the source of asshole behavior. Assholes are. Almost everyone I've known in any game I played had alts I didn't know about, or that I knew they used for alone time, and that's a pretty big group of people compared to the handful of real trolls I've come across. Someone determined to behave badly is going to do it on their main or their alt, because jerks usually consider their behavior justified and don't really see any -need- to hide it.

The game with the best community that I've ever played was one that had incredibly robust privacy features (FFXI). Community should grow from gameplay, and it will if the game is designed to support it. No amount of trying to force people to play with their virtual blinds open will accomplish that, because all that does is frighten away people who value their privacy and leave you to deal with those who don't care what others think of them and now have easier access to anyone they'd like to harass.

Saying "I'm busy" is not enough; if it were, people wouldn't have been asking Blizzard for years for the ability to appear as offline. It bothers me whenever a company seems like they're trying to develop for what they think -should- happen when people interact, rather than what actually -does-, and it's really none of their business who I share my ingame time with. If they want to improve the game community, they should start by making sure that players need each other and have the tools to interact with each other easily, because I guarantee that a game with total transparency that rewarded being a ruthless jerk with no social skills would still breed ruthless jerks with no social skills.

I like having a secret alt for the purpose of selling on the Auction House in game.

I usually post between 100-500 auctions everyday in games that have an auction system. I don't want players messaging me trying to sell an item for 5% less than I'm asking on the AH (I usually say no and they usually buy it anyway).

Having an anonymous alt prevents me from being hit-up for free stuff by guildies. I'm all for being "friendly and helpful" but there is a limit to my generosity and I prefer to set that limit.

Also my alt privacy is good for the economy. I am free to undercut anyone I want without having to get "hate-tells" from randoms who
can't tolerate competition.

My identity online is my business and no one elses.

Any company that tries to interfere with my right to remain anonymous online does not get my money, period.

Honestly its the only way I can play without having any demands is with my alts

I'm not sure why one would need to "protect" alternate characters, but my answer is no, I am not protective; in fact all of my character names begin with Ord (e.g. Ordegar, Ordren, Ordoth, etc.) so I'm pretty easy to spot.

One of the best innovations in mmos is in Cryptic's mmos, wherein you have an account name and a character name. This has a few advantages; one, a friend can always /tell you if they know your account name even if they don't know what character you're on because they can /tell to your account name; two, your character name is tied to your account name, so you don't get locked out of a name just because someone else in the game has used it, that only happens if YOU already have a character with that name; three, if someone adds you to their friend list, they are friending YOU, not your character, so when they look in their friend list and you are online they will see you no matter what character you are on and what level/class your character is that you're playing at the moment. Brilliant! If you have a strange paranoia about your alts, then don't bother playing any Cryptic games; you would have to make separate accounts for each alt ;P.

In the end its personal preference and their money, time.

I really cant see a reason to make alts, thats just me, whether for storage, because the game is lacking proper mechanics, or going through the same game twice, regardless of which faction/race is available, nothing changes, so let alt taps make their alts, makes no difference to me unless it were to affect my gameplay, which to date hasnt happened. (smile)

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The Daily Grind: Are you protective of your alts?

Reader Comments (21)

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 8:06AM Mikkhail said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 8:55AM meancheez said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 8:18AM Dumac said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 9:03AM Alluvian EstEndrati said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 9:08AM EndDream said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 10:35AM Controlled Chaos said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 10:42AM SnarlingWolf said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 11:11AM Space Cobra said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 1:20PM Sente said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 11:52AM cowboyhugbees said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 12:02PM Nucleon said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 2:14PM Daelda said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 2:16PM Daelda said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 2:20PM Nenene said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 2:41PM Irem said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 12:46PM tooright said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 2:19PM Nenene said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 2:56PM Lateris said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 5:50PM Ordegar said

Posted: Jun 9th 2011 6:20PM Graill440 said

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