Help me understand Blizzard's Battletag system and disable it
November 19, 2014 5:24 AM Subscribe
World of Warcraft Battletag - since the Warlords of Draenor expansion - is now showing my unguilded alts to my Guild members...please make it stop.
Background: I never used Battletag until this latest patch/expansion, I was forced into using it (and the launcher) or I couldn't log in without it, therefore I don't know anything about Battletag. The only Blizzard game I play is WoW. My problem is that Battletag is now "outing" my alts with my Guild.
I've been playing WoW for over 8 years. I play mostly with my small guild on a PvE server, but a few years ago, between expansion packs, I went and discovered the world of a Role Playing server and really enjoy it. No one in my guild knows that I have several alts on the RP server and I don't want them to know because reasons and I really like RP and enjoy my time away from the PvE Guild drama. Also unknown to my Guild (well until the other day) is a bank alt on the PvE server, we'll call her XYZ.
So the other day I was on PvE with my Main with my Guild and had to jump over to my bank alt, XYZ to send some gold to my Main. When I got back to my Main, one of my Guild members asked in Guild chat, "Who is XYZ?" Apparently when I logged in and out of my bank alt, it sent messages to my guild members (or maybe just people who had me in their friends?) I fessed up and now everyone in the guild knows who my bank alt is. I can live with this, but what I can't live with is my Guild finding out about my RP Alts.
I have been too afraid to log into the Role Playing server Alts since this happened because I am afraid my guild members will find out. My questions are: Will my Guild members on PvE see that I logged into RP Alts? How do I stop this from happening? Like I said, I really don't know Battletag to be able to figure this out on my own, so any help would be appreciated.
Background: I never used Battletag until this latest patch/expansion, I was forced into using it (and the launcher) or I couldn't log in without it, therefore I don't know anything about Battletag. The only Blizzard game I play is WoW. My problem is that Battletag is now "outing" my alts with my Guild.
I've been playing WoW for over 8 years. I play mostly with my small guild on a PvE server, but a few years ago, between expansion packs, I went and discovered the world of a Role Playing server and really enjoy it. No one in my guild knows that I have several alts on the RP server and I don't want them to know because reasons and I really like RP and enjoy my time away from the PvE Guild drama. Also unknown to my Guild (well until the other day) is a bank alt on the PvE server, we'll call her XYZ.
So the other day I was on PvE with my Main with my Guild and had to jump over to my bank alt, XYZ to send some gold to my Main. When I got back to my Main, one of my Guild members asked in Guild chat, "Who is XYZ?" Apparently when I logged in and out of my bank alt, it sent messages to my guild members (or maybe just people who had me in their friends?) I fessed up and now everyone in the guild knows who my bank alt is. I can live with this, but what I can't live with is my Guild finding out about my RP Alts.
I have been too afraid to log into the Role Playing server Alts since this happened because I am afraid my guild members will find out. My questions are: Will my Guild members on PvE see that I logged into RP Alts? How do I stop this from happening? Like I said, I really don't know Battletag to be able to figure this out on my own, so any help would be appreciated.
Are you BattleTag or Real ID friends with the guild member who asked about XYZ? If you aren't BattleTag/Real ID friends, she shouldn't have been notified that XYZ logged in. There isn't a way to hide characters from people you're BattleTag/Real ID friends with; this is by design (see the bottom of this page), so I don't think Blizzard will change it. The solution would be to remove your guildmates from your BattleTag and Read ID friend lists.
posted by neushoorn at 5:53 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by neushoorn at 5:53 AM on November 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh, also, you get one free BattleTag name change per account (see here). I'm pretty sure that just removing people from your friends list will prevent them from seeing your BattleTag info, but just in case, you could also change your BattleTag. But Real ID friends work the same way, so you'd really need to remove them completely. You could still have them in your in-game friends list, of course.
posted by neushoorn at 5:59 AM on November 19, 2014
posted by neushoorn at 5:59 AM on November 19, 2014
As others have noted, this behavior is by design. Overall, I like the RealID system, but it is poorly thought out in a number of ways. It's just not very robust.
To answer your questions: Yes, they will see what alts you are on and where. The only way to prevent that is remove them from your realID friends and set their toons as friends on your toons.
Or, you can do like I do, and give no fucks. When they are paying my subscription, then they can tell me how and when to play.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:32 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]
To answer your questions: Yes, they will see what alts you are on and where. The only way to prevent that is remove them from your realID friends and set their toons as friends on your toons.
Or, you can do like I do, and give no fucks. When they are paying my subscription, then they can tell me how and when to play.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:32 AM on November 19, 2014 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks so far everyone. I didn't go with the ticket yet because I know of all the drama Blizzard has been having - like the DDoS attack and figured they were busier with people who can't even get online yet, so I didn't want to bother them with my preference for anonymity issue. I am glad I found this out now. It is frustrating because I have some students (high school seniors) that expressed interest in getting a school guild together on another server and now that this has happened, there is no way I can do that and have them see all my other Alts.
posted by NoraCharles at 7:52 AM on November 19, 2014
posted by NoraCharles at 7:52 AM on November 19, 2014
Can you clarify whether these folks appear in your friends list as BattleTag friends and not just friends of your specific guild toon? You should be able to remove them if so. I've done a bit of googling around and I'm not seeing anything about non-BattleTag friends being inappropriately converted to BattleTag friends, so I'm wondering if maybe you accidentally BattleTag-friended them at some point and it's just that no one's said anything until now because usually no one cares about bank alts.
posted by dorque at 7:56 AM on November 19, 2014
posted by dorque at 7:56 AM on November 19, 2014
Response by poster: They are in my friends list - and I guess I am on theirs? Like I said, I never used Battletag before I was forced to with this expansion pack. I did log into my Blizzard account and saw that RealID was selected (wtf? thanks Blizzard) so I deselected it. Have to wait until there is a guild member I trust online to test things out I guess. Should I take my Guildmates out of my friends list? I only have them there because it shows you they are onlline without opening up the Guild tab to check.
posted by NoraCharles at 8:23 AM on November 19, 2014
posted by NoraCharles at 8:23 AM on November 19, 2014
What I would do is check which guildmates are on your BattleTags list vs. your in-game list, remove everyone who is on your BattleTags list, and -- if necessary -- re-add their characters to your in-game list. To do so, click Add Friend on the social window; if you right-click a character in the guild roster window, you'll only get an option to add them as a BattleTag friend.
You can check the lists in two ways. One is by clicking the icon in the top-right corner of the battle.net app. Everyone in that list is your BattleTag friend and/or your Real ID friend (if you can see their real name).
The other way is by checking the social window in-game. If an icon for WoW or another Blizzard game (like Diablo) appears to the right of the person's name, they're your BattleTag friend. If you can also see their real name, they're also your Real ID friend. If there's no icon, then that character is your in-game friend, but that person isn't your BattleTag friend. However, note that this only works for people who are currently signed in to the battle.net app or who are online in a game.
posted by neushoorn at 9:33 AM on November 19, 2014
You can check the lists in two ways. One is by clicking the icon in the top-right corner of the battle.net app. Everyone in that list is your BattleTag friend and/or your Real ID friend (if you can see their real name).
The other way is by checking the social window in-game. If an icon for WoW or another Blizzard game (like Diablo) appears to the right of the person's name, they're your BattleTag friend. If you can also see their real name, they're also your Real ID friend. If there's no icon, then that character is your in-game friend, but that person isn't your BattleTag friend. However, note that this only works for people who are currently signed in to the battle.net app or who are online in a game.
posted by neushoorn at 9:33 AM on November 19, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
Blizzard did a lot of weird stuff this past week with their servers and such in order to mitigate a DDoS attack and deal with increased logins for the launch. Maybe some weird switch got flipped somewhere.
I did a search on their twitter and the wow forums and don't see any response or explanation. My best suggestion is to open a ticket or tweet at them.
posted by royalsong at 5:41 AM on November 19, 2014