Armory says what we have done. This is a big step closer to what we are doing. What's next, /who from outside the game? It's a bit creepy.

The Character updates on the Armory feels more like someone wanted to flex their programming muscle to show what they could do, rather than fill a demand of some kind.

At first glance, it seems like an interesting little addition. I just can't see a practical application for something like that. Creating an RSS feed for a character update? Why would a person need something like that? Are their people that obsessive about someone else's character that they need to be updated on their every in-game success or gear upgrade?

This is definitely the same thing as the news feed on facebook, which also drew a lot of ire. Enough in fact that facebook had to change it and allow you to limit what was shown to some extent. After all, there's no reason every dick and jane to know how I spend my exact minutes and hours online. the armory was a useful tool before the recent activity feed. Now it's just becoming kind of crazy.

In the end, if enough people make a formal complaint, Blizzard will change it to be optional. So go for it!

You know, i AM part of the twittering/facebooking generation but... I have a choice on how public I can make information about my life even in those fora.

Jessabelle would like a little options about her privacy too :( Sometimes I don't want everyone to know all the minute details should they desire to do so... I'm with you Larisa. Optional please!

These information were already available. If I log on to the little banker I made on your realm and type "/who Larísa" it will write "Larísa (Adrenaline) gnome mage Drak'taron Keep"

Anyone could do it. Granted it's much more convenient to just look at the Armory. But if someone wanted to stalk you, could do it already.

BTW grats to the "3 lights in the darkness". Can we expect an "Alone in the darkness" before Cataclysm?

Aww, come on, as a stats junkie I love it!

Seriously though, I do what I do, and I don't mind anyone knowing. Not that anyone cares. A simple rule is that if you find yourself not wanting what you're doing to become known, it's probably a good sign that you should not be doing it in the first place. If you do it anyway, be a man (or woman - or gnome) about it. We're easily offended about our privacy, but in some cases you really have to ask: what is there to hide?

I'm only bothered by the fact that some of the information provided by the feed is plain WRONG! I sure boggled when it claimed that my druid alt had just completed Trial of the Grand Crusader for the seventh time, when I've actually never done that on any of my characters.

This feature does remind me of facebook.

"X has gone to the library".
"Y visited London".
"Z killed Ragnaros"?

People seem to feel the need to share whatever they've done with the rest of the world. Or at least their list of facebook friends.

I personally don't feel the need to do this but if I look at my younger sister it seems to be a common thing to do.

I really fail to see how knowing what I did when in a game is an invasion of privacy. For it to be one there would have to be a way of tracking your character to your real self, which (at the moment) there isn't.

Once they begin displaying my account name (which nowadays has to be your email address) I will start making a fuss though, because this can be tracked back to me by anybody who knows my email address, and the last thing I want is that my WoW habit is used against me when looking for a job.

Until that happens though I won't mind that people know that character X on realm Y killed boss Z at whatever time. Only those I actually know, ingame and out of game, will know it was I who was controlling character X.

I don't like it, but to say it's an invasion of privacy seems a bit too much also. Wouldn't that mean that we have a right to that kind of privacy in the first place? I'm not sure that right exists.

That said, I would like to be able to turn it off; it seems like this could and will be exploited by somebody at sometime. Gear checking, achievement checking, now activity checking. It's not an outlandish jump in logic, it's the next thing that allows others to judge us unreasonably.

@Magma: well, I started to play so late so I don't know anything but a world with armory. And I think it's been pretty ok until now - even though I had doubts about the achievements I could live with it. But this is really to take it too far.

@Taz: You're not the only one.

: ... and then they'll publish our whispers and party chats? Who knows...

@Rhii: well you might be a bit with the new battle-net thing. Not quite sure.

: yeah. No possibility anymore to come up with any surprises on things you've been working on secretly when noone else was online...

: I don't know about Steam, but it sounds creepy to me. But then I don't have any rl friends who are into gaming.

@Rokk: well, there ARE a few people out there who no doubt will put their rss feeds on their blogs. Trust me on that. But I doubt they're so many that it justifies pushing this feature for everyone, wanted or not.

@Ice: yeah, I imagine it could be a sort of tool for top guilds wanting to check out if an applicant tells the truth about what they're focusing on in game.

@Fitz: there are quite a few upset posts about it on the official forums already.

@Miss Medicina: thanks for the support! Yeah, an choice is the key to it.

@Meg: yes, that time stamp is really not necessary. I guess it's there to add a feeling of everything being updated in real time...

@Gevlon: in practice this is a lot different imo. You can't stalk anyone 24/7 online in-game. And even if you do it you won't know the outcome of it - if the bosses were downed or any loot was picked up. This is way beyond what's been available before. A tool designed for stalkers.

Thanks for the congratulations! We were there for a specific reason, more about that tomorrow. Tbh I'm far from sure that well make "Alone in the darkness". It depends on how much time there will be left for us to fill between that we've beaten ICC and Cataclysm is released. Right now the interest for running more Ulduar is pretty low in the guild.

: I too am a blogger, but I really don't feel any need to tell the world about EVERYTHING I do in game. I pick my cherries and I want to keep some stuff to myself.

@Rem: It's not that I'm embarrassed about anything. There isn't anything to hide. It's just that sometimes we want to do things on our own... Never ever had that feeling?

@Shintar: very flattering for your druid! But yeah, it sounds weird and a bit worrying that it's so unreliable.

@Carra: We're just too old. Dinosaurs.

@Virlile: yeah. I won't unsubscribe because if it, but it really is unnecessary and a bit annoying.

@Tesh: Yet another dinosaur! Welcome to the club!
: I think this boils down on how you see your characters. Maybe I'm just a little bit too attached to mine. But for me this feels rather personal.

@G-Rebel: I think some privacy of what you're doing is what you expect. Like when I'm going to the gym - noone is posting how often I do it, how long I run or how much weigh I lift. I can surely post it on a blog if I want to but then it's my choice. Imagine that the gym owner posted it without asking for permission! I think people would complain a bit..

Me:*But ofc I spent all day cleaning the house from top to bottom Koch, and now I deserve to have you cook me a meal, pour a glass of wine and rub my feet*

Koch:*but it says here you killed 5 instance bosses today at x times*

Darn armory :P

I know! What If I call off work cause I wanna play WoW. I have several people I work with that play also. We talk about our characters and such, now all they have to do is armory me and 'OMG Carlos was at home playing WoW, he wasn't sick at all!"
damn there went my anonymity....

@Rem: It's not that I'm embarrassed about anything. There isn't anything to hide. It's just that sometimes we want to do things on our own... Never ever had that feeling?

I'd really like to differentiate between "actively broadcasting every single thing one does, particularly in real-life" and "there is a mechanism that tracks externally defined milestones, specifically in a game, and passively provides access to an overview of the most recent".

If I want to, for whatever reason, go and play around in Deadmines on my own, I can do that (although both friends and guild lists will give away my location immediately anyway), and do not feel my on-my-own-ness harmed by it showing up on my Activity Feed after I log out. Not to mention that if I wanted to be for myself, you'd much rather find me on some beach in Sholazar - and that wouldn't even be tracked.

So, counter-question: can you think of any specific example of an activity you'd feel should rather not show up in the feed? Because the examples you listed in the first paragraph of your post are, in my opinion, perfect instances of "innocent little side-notes on a character's life".

@Gnome: oh, what if you could even reach your bags and make some cleaning when you're offline... an armory vendor... wouldn't that be something to dream of? But yeah, I have no problems with extending it, as long as there's a private option available.

@Rem: well, I think Issy's and Carlos suggestions are examples.
I don't say it's good to lie about your playing, but on the other hand I don't think it's Blizzards buisness to expose what you've been doing.

But I can also imagine other situations. Maybe you there are people in game who are pushing you to do a certain thing and this way they can find out that you've been engaging into other activities. Yeah, they partly can that already seeing you online, but this way it's much more available.

Maybe there are people in game who are pushing you to do a certain thing and this way they can find out that you've been engaging into other activities.

This would be a conflict that needs to be resolved, not ran away from. I've done similar things myself, created "secret alts" I didn't really want to play, just to "get away" for a while. Guess what, it didn't really solve the problems in the long term.

Being in the company of people who want you do to things you do not wish to do means you need to reconsider participation in that company itself. Sometimes, the mix just doesn't match. Sometimes, that realisation hurts.

Cross-referring to your next post, I can't imagine Adrenaline would have announced a Yogg-raid to complete the legendary, and half the people would've said they have urgent stuff to attend to, and then played anonymous alts instead. Or chickened out of primordial saronite donations with "sorry, no emblems" only to be caught purchasing frost gear the next day via the Feed. You wouldn't have written the post if the attitudes were like that.

Yes, you may say, but that comes from the heart, not from fear of being uncovered. Yes, I'd respond, exactly. When you act noble to begin with, you're not afraid someone may peek over your shoulder at an unfortunate moment. I'm not arguing against privacy, merely saying that the information currently provided on the Activity Feed, even if it was made account-wide, would not invade anything I consider private about myself.

Oh, and, no, indeed, I do not consider covering up for lies and infractions a good argument or example. That's deceit, not privacy.

One more note, I do not intend to paint myself as a perfect person. I may do shit, in real life and in game. We all do - we're human. But let's not pretend that wrong stops being wrong when no one can see it.

@Rem: well, for disagreeing I think we're pretty much on the same side. I don't lie about what I'm doing in game or what I think or want to do or don't want to do. Ever. I've never been any good at lying anyway. But still I wouldn't deny other players the possibility to hide if they want to and tell white lies when they need to. I don't feel any urge to force my morality on them, to have complete transparency so I can check them out completely.

I was once upon a time told that the reason why they have so big windows and transparent curtains in Netherlands was due to the calvinistic heritage. You were supposed to display everything to everyone to show that you had nothing to hide. To me that feels just weird. I want to be able to close the curtains every now and then, seen by noone but myself. I don't do illegal stuff at home. I just enjoy not offering people the opportunity to check out every move I make. Is that really so strange?

But let's just agree that we disagree i guess.

Oh, I agree that I wouldn't like Netherlands-style windows either, so .. let's agree not to disagree too much? ;)

: yeah, I don't know if my post will make any difference, but I certainly think - or hope - they'll listen if enough many players raise their voices.

I can't imagine that it would be complicated or require a ton of developer time to make it optional.

...and there, we crossed over from founded and legitimate (because it is, all argumentation aside, indeed everyone's own business, how much to disclose) privacy concern straight into full-out paranoia.

*sigh* I know I should shut up on this topic already, and I'm sorry, but...

Who is paranoid? Are you referring to the thread on the forum? Yeah I admit there is some crazy argumentation around there. Isn't there always?

But I really don't think that the concernes experessed in the comments at PPI are exaggerated.

We're not asking for it to be taken away. Just a simple tick-box so you can chose for youreself. It's a very modest thing to ask for imho.

I keep asking myself why I ever met guildies in RL or told friends about me playing WoW. What about "bring your friends to Azeroth" now? Guess for many this won`t be an option any longer, if they don`t quit the game anyway. I don`t say I will right now, but it gives me a strange feeling when I do play.

This is paranoid.

A tick-box to choose? Yes, by all means, you have my vote (even though I am just fine without). But this "sky is falling, and I can't enjoy playing unless I have total, utter and complete anonymity" pitch some people bring in is just creepy.