Blizzard Adds Timestamps To WoW Armory

Kharny writes "In a move that could cause serious privacy problems for players of World of Warcraft, Blizzard has added timestamps and an RSS feed to the game's online armory site. This new feature will mean that anyone can follow 'real-time' developments in a World of Warcraft character, which display the exact time and date, so that others can see that person's playing habits. Many players have already complained about the fact that there is no opt-out setting, and this opens very big possibilities for online stalking."

Comments

Already possible

[sopssa]

This just makes it a little bit easier. One could easily write a LUA script that /who's the player in-game between some intervals and save the info. Or the more geeky ones could write a program that uses WoW's protocol and logins to do the same (and relogins if disconnected).

So it's not like it wouldn't already be possible to gather those playing habits.

Re:Already possible

[tokul]

This just makes it a little bit easier. One could easily write a LUA script

Are you sure that WoW EULA does not have some conditions that prohibit scripting?

There is a big difference between seeing opponents time habits and violating gaming rules in order to get them. Especially when such automation can be detected.

Re:Already possible

[xouumalperxe]

Are you sure that WoW EULA does not have some conditions that prohibit scripting?

It might prohibit cyber-stalking, and repeated status requests on a player might be considered as such, but the reason why the OP mentioned Lua is because WoW supports Lua as a user scripting language to make interface addons. (And except for bug exploits, by definition anything done with the Lua API can't be a ban-worthy offence)

Re:Already possible

[CisJokey]

See census plus, it does exactly what is described here. Scans a whole server every 15min. However you need an account and the proper server. Its not that easy like viewieing the website, but regardless of that, its areldy possible.

Re:Already possible

[A beautiful mind]

There are a lot of things that are "already possible", that are made "easier". It is known as the difficulty of a problem. I don't want to build a terrorism strawman so here is another analogy: It is already possible to perform voting fraud without electronic voting machines. All you need to do is gather your closest 100,000 conspirators and rig the counting process. Introducing a centralized software that you conveniently and mostly undetectably can modify just makes it easier.

The fact is, making some things easier make things more probable and skews "cost - benefit" comparisons towards actually doing the thing. The example you use would require a WoW account and would be limited to a few people tops. The new changes can easily allow monitoring of tens of thousands of accounts from a single ip, with a few lines of Perl.

Re:Already possible

[BikeHelmet]

So it's not like it wouldn't already be possible to gather those playing habits.

Yeah, but you leave a strange stalker trace if you're doing that. Why would you be /who'ing someone 48 times per day at 30 min intervals, for several days? If it goes to court, log files could help the victim.

Visiting that armory page a couple times per day for a few days seems like completely normal behaviour. This is dangerous not because it encourages stalking - but because if there is a stalker incident, it doesn't provide any markers to indicate abnormal behaviour. Plus, it's convenient, and available to stalkers that can't write LUA or effectively search Google. :P

And do keep in mind that stalking aside - bots and crawlers are archiving everything. Info on when you were online could be around forever. How long it remains relevant is debatable, but in situations where there could be unknown repercussions, it's often better to err on the side of caution.

Re:Already possible

[HungryHobo]

/who'ing someone 48 times per day at 30 min intervals, for several days would probably not get you in trouble as long as you also /who'd a few hundred other people at the same time and came up with a decent excuse, perhaps something like collecting statistics on the playing habits of a random sample of players or something.

Re:Already possible

[Lazy Jones]

One could easily write a LUA script that /who's the player in-game between some intervals and save the info.

You need to have an account and be logged on to the same server as the person whose habits you are tracking, big difference.

Re:Already possible

[Anonymous Coward]

What "definition" would that be? Of course you can use an API to break the terms of the service, isn't that obvious?

As an example, maybe you have a script that makes your character say rude things in-game and the TOS explicitly tell you not to say rude things.

Re:Already possible

[jabbathewocket]

Yes but they are not actually able to monitor accounts, only characters.. which can't be traced back to account owner from the armory, or in game for that matter.. so yes you can now monitor 10s of thousands of random avatars and see what they are doing.. but how exactly is that a problem? its no different from (theoretically) totally anonymous ballots dropped in a paper box with a bunch of checkboxes to see what people like/dislike..

Your argument about slippery slopes/terrorism/voter fraud and barrier to entry.. are called "I don't have a clue WTF I am talking about but will comment anyhow because I can!" Syndrome

Re:Already possible

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW doesn't prohibit scripting, in fact it supports it.

There are some things that you're not allowed to do in scripts, in order to prevent you from automating things that shouldn't be (such as actual gameplay, combat in particular), those things are prevented by technical limitations.

Re:Already possible

[Jahava]

You raise a good point with your analogy, but it's not quite so apt. While you are correct in analyzing this as a cost-benefit ratio, you make the mistake of ignoring the fact that third-parties already have invested most or all of the cost, and have made their services available to anyone for free! The current state of things is such that:

• There are already free services that do refreshing and time-tracking.
• There are plenty of scripts available that already do that.
• Writing a LUA script is extremely simple

Due to the current suites of tools available, the cost-benefit is extremely low. This change increases the accuracy of the results and decreases the work necessary for existing sites to perform. They're already performing, mind you ... it's just less load on theirs and Blizzard's servers now.

I would wager that the largest impact this change has is:

• How these third-party sites gain their data, and
• The cost of entry for new third-party sites

From the user's point of view, things will likely remain relatively constant.

Re:Already possible

[dontPanik]

This just makes it a little bit easier. One could easily write a LUA script that /who's the player in-game between some intervals and save the info. Or the more geeky ones could write a program that uses WoW's protocol and logins to do the same (and relogins if disconnected).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't the user you're stalking ignore/ban you, and stop you from /who-ing them?

Re:Already possible

[ubrgeek]

> Writing a LUA [lua.org] script is extremely simple

Oh I don't know. Coordinating all of those grass skirts and getting the roast pig out in time can be a challenge. Plus, there's the whole fire-stick thing...

Re:Already possible

[bickle]

Ignoring just blocks a person's comments. A /who will always show if a person is online. Unfortunately there is no way to be 'invisible' as is often an option in other MMO's.

Re:Already possible

[Atzanteol]

No! It's step, hip, step pivot! Are you trying to piss off the volcano?

Re:Already possible

[Ihmhi]

Yes, but this lets people track players outside of the game.

Perhaps you were home sick with the flu, and you (or someone in your family) plays one of your characters. If your boss were to see that, they might think you're slacking.

Let's not forget all of the options for stalking here.

Or how about burglary? A friend of mine had a lot of his possessions stolen by a close friend of many years. If you know someone's character, you could see what times they're online and playing. Not playing might translate into not home.

Blizzard has typically been pretty decent with privacy as far as I've seen and I don't doubt that they will get an opt-out up at sometime soon. Any kind of tracking stuff like this should always be opt-out. Facebook featured a similar outcry with their recent privacy changes, and they don't have to worry about paying customers leaving.

Re:Already possible

[dAzED1]

and wowarmory is for characters, not accounts, as well. Your point?

Re:Already possible

[highbulp]

This has already been done in a research context to study behaviors in WoW. See, for example, http://www2.parc.com/csl/members/nicolas/documents/CHI2006-Alone.pdf.

Re:Already possible

[BobMcD]

Perhaps you were home sick with the flu, and you (or someone in your family) plays one of your characters. If your boss were to see that, they might think you're slacking.

The doubt you're referring to was already available prior to the RSS. It only used to say which day you last logged on. Your boss could still point to that and say you were well enough to WoW and should have been at work that day (depending on your job duties, policies, etc). The specific time stamp doesn't really change much.

Or how about burglary? A friend of mine had a lot of his possessions stolen by a close friend of many years. If you know someone's character, you could see what times they're online and playing. Not playing might translate into not home.

Or it might not. It would be entirely possible to get a trial Warcraft account, friend them on Facebook, or monitor them some other way. My advice to your friend is that they get good locks and better renter's/home owner's insurance, because 'presence' in the online world is here to stay. They might also want to get a second car for alternating use, randomly leave bedroom lights on, and otherwise research some anti-theft techniques - if they really think it is THAT big of an issue.

Blizzard has typically been pretty decent with privacy as far as I've seen and I don't doubt that they will get an opt-out up at sometime soon. Any kind of tracking stuff like this should always be opt-out. Facebook featured a similar outcry with their recent privacy changes, and they don't have to worry about paying customers leaving.

First, this isn't the same Blizzard. So the old rules may or may not apply. Second, adding an opt-out will probably increase load on their systems. Likewise once opt-in becomes required for the ranking sites and whatnot, a given player could see their playstyle impacted by not having it enabled. E.g. applying to a raiding guild without it on would likely fail. Finally, Blizzard doesn't necessarily care about paying customers leaving. They have customers to spare, and would likely appreciate a lighter load on their servers while they gear up for the next xpack. They know, damn good and well, that people with both active and inactive accounts will buy it in droves, and so can make riskier business decisions now. Once the dissenters return, the tracking decision will be old hat.

Re:Already possible

[Digital_Quartz]

But, you get yummy imu roast pig at the end! You don't get that with a PERL script.

Re:Already possible

[aztektum]

The internet has made things easier. By simply being on it, you open yourself up to online stalking, identity fraud (it's not theft), Nigerian scammers, etc. If you're online, you're out there, plain and simple.

Re:Already possible

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a luau.

Re:Already possible

[brkello]

His point is that you can't know when someone's online habits just by this since you don't know if they are on playing different characters. This is true because it only monitors characters, not accounts.

And may I add: Duh!

Re:Already possible

[jkerman]

This is more invasive than things you can normally glean. *any* item won on your account goes into this log, along with the exact time stamp. the only way to see what items a person has won without this, is to be standing within view range of them, when they choose to wear it.

It also shows gains in currency (emblems/badges) that were previously undetectable

In a nutshell, it provides more information, and increases the precision of already available information. i.e. from "ooo bill has a new superawesomeitem recently" to "bill got a superawesomeitem at 2:26pm, 4:14pm, and 8:22pm"

Re:Already possible

[OrangeTide]

you realize that reading an RSS feed over HTTP is repeated status requests right? You have to have some software to poll for the RSS too, it's not any different in my mind.

Re:Already possible

[BikeHelmet]

would probably not get you in trouble

That wasn't the point.

The point was, if a serious incident did occur(and it could with so many million players), forcing more elaborate behaviour leaves more markers behind.

Blizzard would be crazy to do anything if all someone is doing is /who'ing people a bit.

Re:Already possible

[psyque]

RSS was specifically designed for repeated requests. I doubt Blizzard programmed /who with the same intention.

Re:Already possible

[tehaynes]

The timestamps have been around for a while. At least six months ago I was browsing through the XML data for my character on the armory and noticed a 'Last_On' and 'Last_Update' (not exact names of fields but something similar). From this you could find out when a person was playing. None of this information was displayed anywhere in the armory though.

Re:Already possible

[OrangeTide]

not really anything special about RSS over other HTTP queries. they are pretty heavyweight compared to other protocols out there when it comes to reporting blobs of mostly the same information to many clients. /who is really fast in an mmorpg architecture. feel free to check out one of the open source WoW server clones to see how it works.

Re:Already possible

[Golddess]

I don't play WoW, but does LUA even allow you to script the character saying things?

Re:Already possible

[Acaeris]

Yep, LUA can interact with the entire chat interface. Create/join channels, use /s /p /g /o /y /w /r /#, kick characters from channels, change settings, so on and so forth. The main things LUA can't do are things that require mouse activation (spells, looting, interacting with NPCs).

You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[assemblerex]

but instead I see you got new epic shoulders. gratz.

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[Anonymous Coward]

What did Nana drop?

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[Anonymous Coward]

You make me wish I had mod points, AC. Bravo

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[Razalhague]

Epic shoulders, duh.

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[Donniedarkness]

This is quality entertainment. Thank you, AC, thank you.

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[L4t3r4lu5]

[1983 Rover Metro]
"One Lady Owner, 30k on clock, used for shopping once a week."
+ 300% carrying capacity
Use: +100% speed increase until it breaks down at the end of the road
- 100% Chance to score with Nelfs, Humans, and Draenei. Gnomes and Dwarves take what they can get.

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[Anonymous Coward]

Raid Leader: Anyone want it?
Raid: Nay.
RL: Ok, I'm going to disenchant that shit.
RL: We got [Large Glowing Shard][Fuzzy Dice] and [Grandpa's Slightly Used Condom]. Any takers?

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[jbezorg]

*golf clap*

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[Xanj]

well what nana drop? well she droped dead

Re:You were supposed to be at nana's funeral

[ikarigullwing]

Couldn't help it. Lich King called me and apologized for being a dick. Decided to hang out with him and Sylvannas.

There is no privacy in WOW

[MrRTFM]

unlike most other online communities there is no way to show your status as 'Offline' (which makes it very annoying sometimes) In fact all this data is obtainable anyway - just makes it a bit easier for mom to see that johnny got that epic sword last night at 10:30PM - THAT'S PAST YOUR BEDTIME JOHNNY!!!!

Re:There is no privacy in WOW

[Demonantis]

What if he gave his friend or wife Alice the password. It is neat how this is viewed as a privacy concern. It only tracks the character not the account holder. It is like the argument that an ip address does not represent a person. It is not a perfect comparison, but it does draw some interesting parallels. Maybe defining identity on the internet is tricky and people make invalid assumptions and leaps of faith.

Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Poobar]

Situation: I am being "cyber-stalked".

Solution: Log off WOW.

Solution 2 (If you really need your MMORPG fix): Switch to a different character.

Why would a person knowing where you are in a fictional landscape ever be a problem anyway? Surely there's some kind of ignore button in WOW (correct me if I'm wrong, I only played the free trial before getting bored), so even if they knew where you were, they could... what?

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to /who them, then follow them around in my underware, especially the female tauren... mm-mhmm

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[RobVB]

they could... what?

Ground you for playing past your bedtime.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Or fire you for playing on work machines on work time. Or use it in the divorce suit because you're neglecting your kids. The possibilities are endless: I wouldn't consider all of them improper, but it does create some risks.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

then... err. do your job? care for your kids?

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

then... err. do your job? care for your kids?

STFU NOOB

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Xest]

Really, let's face it, most people who have a problem with this are people who play when they should be working or at school or something and are concerned their employer/parent will now be able to see this and hold it up as evidence against them in disciplinary action.

As you say, there's really little value there for a stalker. A stalker is more likely to be watching your house with binoculars to see when you leave the house and what you do at what times, rather than giving a shit about what time you got the epic weapon of lolz or whatever.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. If you're playing WoW on a work machine, chances are pretty good they don't need the armory to figure it out.

The metering report from the software distribution client will tell your employer, coworkers and HR department all they need to know. It's just a matter of getting a subpoena to inform your future ex.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Amorymeltzer]

most people who have a problem with this are people who play when they should be working or at school or something and are concerned their employer/parent will now be able to see this and hold it up as evidence against them in disciplinary action.

Maybe, but that's really the same argument as we see for wiretaps or unwarranted searches or cameras up the wazoo - "You only have something to lose if you're doing something illegal." As has been said before around here, decreased privacy hurts everyone, not just those doing things they shouldn't. Just because so-called stalkers won't find anything doesn't mean they should be able to look.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Obyron]

Situation: I am being stalked.

Solution: Don't go outside.

Solution 2: Kill yourself.

Do you see the flaw in your reasoning? These people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and you should not place the blame for stalking on the victims.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[thesandtiger]

As someone who has seen a number of nasty divorces go down, let me explain something to you:

Has 1 drink with dinner => massive alcoholic in divorce speak
Spanked a child for running into the street => beats the children
Hugs a child => probably molesting the children
Has had lunch with co-worker of the opposite sex => has had a torrid affair
Has had lunch with co-worker of the same sex => almost certainly having a homosexual affair

So...

Spent 3 hours over a weekend late at night raiding => neglects children, wasn't ever there for us, probably having an affair with someone online

I agree, people probably shouldn't be playing or logging in from work unless their workplace allows it during breaks, but the point is that anyone who has an agenda and an axe to grind and would use this tool to support it will certainly also be more than happy to spin things in the worst possible way. Divorce lawyers are fucking NASTY creatures, and people going through a hostile divorce can be psychotic.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Arancaytar]

Why would a person knowing where you are in a fictional landscape ever be a problem anyway?

That's what that drug dealer thought. :P

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Best guildname on Bladefist: "WTF MOM IM RAIDING"

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[jbezorg]

There is a flaw in your logic though. You can see it in the fact that the list includes many activities not related to WoW and if you apply the same logic to those items as well, well, you can see where this is going. Regardless of what you do, you're fucked.

No matter how much bubble wrap you use to try to use to protect it, you can't change the fact that it's already broken.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Xest]

Yeah, except no ones forcing you to play WoW, good luck opting out of warrantless wiretaps and so forth.

It's really not comparable, this is a feature in game, a game you can opt out of playing if you don't like the features. It's arguable if it's even your privacy being invaded, certainly some MMOs claim owernship of any characters and such you create, so legally it might not even be your data they're displaying. If you don't like the terms, simply don't pay them- it's the same with people who use Facebook, no one's forcing them to sign up.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Amorymeltzer]

Not to belabor the analogy, but nobody is forcing you to own a phone either. Sure, anyone who doesn't like this system can just leave, but the point is that people don't want to have to bail, and shouldn't. And as for who the data belongs to, it's just like an IP address. You don't OWN the address, but it sure as hell can be used to identify you, and in some cases your password-protected account might be more unique than your IP.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[sabt-pestnu]

Logging in from work, even on a break, is probably a bad idea. Your break is, what, 15 minutes? 30 minutes? Just enough time to get immersed in things when you have to log off. You're better off with Bejeweled or something.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[StikyPad]

Spanking a kid for running into the road -- a mistake -- is going a bit overboard, and overuse of corporal punishment is pretty much the definition of abuse, but whatever..

More importantly, we need to put an end to the idea that it's ever okay to have a drink with dinner. FFS, having *a* drink with dinner is like going to a strip club with pasties. Just because there's no "Two Drink Minimum" sign in your dining room doesn't make it okay to be a pussy. So remember, if you're ever in a situation where you're trying to decide whether or not to have *a* drink, the answer is already no. Drink, or drink not. There is no try.

And, oh yeah.. Don't be a PedoBear.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[stewbacca]

You should be fired for playing on the job (if your job doesn't allow it) and divorce cases would never take gaming into account, unless (like anything in life) you have a problem and take it to the extremes. I couldn't use my ex-wife's adultery habits against her in my divorce case (it isn't illegal, or even admissible in most states), so why would she be able to use my WoW habits?

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there is an ignore, but they managed to break that (along with several other things) a couple patches ago. I'm not sure if it has been fixed yet as I rarely use it.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[thesandtiger]

I don't disagree, though some workplaces are different. Where I work, depending on how funding cycles go and depending on whether or not we're launching a project or just in maintenance mode, nobody has a problem with people taking downtime in the form of gaming or whatever else. About 60% of the time, I have enough to do to keep me busy 40+ hours a week. The rest of the time my job is essentially part-time, and I'm encouraged to work on my own projects or just have fun to recharge my batteries for the next big project.

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[PaganRitual]

Situation: I am being "cyber-stalked".

Solution: Log off WOW.

I'm certain I've seen this exact same logic used elsewhere, except followed up with "... and you let the terrorists win".

Re:Cyber Stalking - Really an issue?

[AK Marc]

Not to belabor the analogy, but nobody is forcing you to own a phone either.

The federal government has essentially decided that phones are pseudo-rights. You have the right to phone access. A computer game as many analogs at various levels that are (from an outsider's perspective) identical. Don't want to WoW? Go get on Everquest. As long as there is competition, you have choices, and as long as they don't collude, someone will offer untraceable access.

Phones were ordered, by law, to be monopolies, and so rules about "love it or leave it" don't apply. There is no where else to go. Walking 1000 miles to talk to your mother (well, 7000 miles in my case, much of it swimming) is the only free option, and is decidedly more inconvenient. Or you could pay for transport, but the price of a ticket is many times the cost of a call.

It seems

[goldaryn]

I think there will be two SHOCKING REVELATIONS!

1) Most people play waaay more WoW than they admit
2) There's a lot of botting going on

There, you're shocked now. aren't you! Hello?

Re:It seems

[HNS-I]

I don't mind that there are bots in WoW. It doesn't ruin the game for other people at this moment. The bots are just simple, harvesters. It would be nice to see what interaction you'd get when someone implements a proper ai.

Re:It seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the bots are not simple. They are quite sophisticated, and allow not just harvesting, but questing, rep grinding etc.

There are "one click" profiles for ten or more levels at a time. Set it and go.

Auction house bots manipulate the economy. Price fixing at it's worst.

honor/mark farming, even arena point farming. Hell, there were instance profiles for solo'ing lower level instances, and follow profiles designed to let one person run a five-man instance with a couple bots backing him/her up.

Not that any of this relates much to the article, but it's worth refuting your point of the bots being simple. I used to bot three toons at once. A couple made it to 80, and a dozen or so to 60. Mmoglider getting shut down is why I quit the game.

Re:It seems

[BlackBloq]

Your a loser if you can't even play a game for real and you have to cheat. All you loser cheaters should eat shit. Glad you don't play anymore! You should load up on fantasy cuz you can't even pretend for real!

Re:It seems

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to bot three toons at once. A couple made it to 80, and a dozen or so to 60. Mmoglider getting shut down is why I quit the game.

Good riddance.

Re:It seems

[blanck]

>Many of the bots are not simple. They are quite sophisticated, and allow not just harvesting, but questing, rep grinding etc.

Out of curiosity, has light ever been shed on how these bots are implemented? Has the source ever been released? It would be interesting to learn how the bot-creators developed this level of sophistication.

Re:It seems

[ylikone]

"developed this level of sophistication" Meh. Just a bunch of "if" statements.

Re:It seems

[Anonymous Coward]

You "quit the game" that your bots were playing for you?

Re:It seems

[MistrBlank]

Someone please mod the above AC up for me.

How can you quit a game you weren't playing to begin with. And I'm sorry but Bot players are the lowest life forms in the game. It's cheating and they need to get over themselves if they think it's anything but that.

Re:It seems

[quanticle]

Or, rather than getting outraged, you can go ahead and try to out-bot the botters. Don't get mad, get even. Make a bot-hunter bot that detects and attacks other bots.

Re:It seems

[MetalPhalanx]

Oh they ruin the game. As mentioned in sister posts, there are more than just "harvester" bots. They are a lot more sophisticated than you think.

I just started playing WoW again after an 8 month break and I was dismayed at the number of bots in the new "random" dungeon feature. They're sneaky... they'll buff you appropriately, and if you whisper it, the bot will even respond. Then it will follow you through the instance doing the minimum possible. It becomes immediately apparently if you have a good damage meter. There's no way that someone with a 5k+ gear score (that means decked out in t9 raiding gear or better) should be barely pulling 1k dps.

It is frustrating to have your random dungeon ruined by a bot... can't kick them until after the 15 minute cooldown is up, can't leave and re-queue until your 15 minutes are up. You're either forced to wait out 15 minutes - and honestly most heroics take about that time - or you can drag along a severely under-performing bot and fulfill it's purpose of "power gathering" emblems of triumph.

Personally, I wait it out and then kick them.

Re:It seems

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the lowest form of life was gold farmers... Then bot players.

(want to buy some gold?)

Re:It seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please mod the above AC up for me.

How can you quit a game you weren't playing to begin with. And I'm sorry but Bot players are the lowest life forms in the game. It's cheating and they need to get over themselves if they think it's anything but that.

As a bot myself, I take offense at that statement . Good day, .

Re:It seems

[goodmanj]

We're trying to play a fantasy game here, not Robot Battle.

Re:It seems

[goodmanj]

I'm not sure if you're pulling a clever troll, or just having Turing test issues.

Which is more likely: an AI designed to behave appropriately in every 5-man dungeon in WOTLK (including the dragonflying in Oculus, the weird platform jumps in Nexus, the jousting in ToC...), or that WoW has some players who are either really terrible or who just don't care?

The solution's the same either way: vote to kick. But I've met a lot of humans who'd fail a Turing test.

Re:It seems

[zero0ne]

Honor Buddy

This sucker uses meshes and hotspots instead of waypoints.

No way to have it work with other bot controlled players though as far as I am aware...

Re:It seems

[jbezorg]

It would be nice to see what interaction you'd get when someone implements a proper ai.

Since most people couldn't pass a Turing test while playing, yes it would.

Player One: "I just had the most fascinating conversation in WoW..."
Player Two: "You talked to a bot."
Player One: "Can't be..."
Player Two: "Did they ask for gold?"
Player One: "No..."
Player Two: "Did they ask to join your guild?"
Player One: "No..."
Player Two: "Did they ask you to run them through a low level instance?"
Player One: "No..."
Player Two: "Then it must have been a bot... Did they use leet speak?"
Player One: "No..."
Player Two: "Defiantly a bot"

Re:It seems

[2obvious4u]

Honestly why do you care if he bots or not? He has to pay for three accounts to do it and it turns the MMO into a single player game for him. Other than manipulating the Auction House it doesn't affect your game play at all. I would love to be able to build my own three party wow group where I play my main character and the other two toons were bots. It just costs to much money to do it.

Re:It seems

[rlanctot]

I think there will be two SHOCKING REVELATIONS!

Hi, my name is Mr. Fibbldywidget and.... I killed Hogger! /sob.

At first it was just for a quest.He was tough, but it was a fair fight.

Then I levelled to 80.

And I killed him again. and Again... Hundreds of times! I couldn't stop myself! It had become fun!

Next week I'm going into Westfall. I heard about a guy in a ship in the Deadmines...

Re:It seems

[fast turtle]

What's the diff between a Bot and an NPC (GW Hero's/Henchies)?

The NPC is Sanctioned while the Bot is not, yet both are bots.

Re:It seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please mod the above AC up for me.

How can you quit a game you weren't playing to begin with. And I'm sorry but Bot players are the lowest life forms in the game. It's cheating and they need to get over themselves if they think it's anything but that.

This mentality is detrimental to the future development of AI. For some people, the game is about questing and imagination and immersion in a fantasy world, social bonding, and developing skill to press the buttons at the right time.

For others, the game is about solving problems with robust software solutions that can outperform many real people in all quantifiable aspects of the game. The whole situation reminds me of the t-shirt-worthy BOFH quote, "Go away or I will replace you with a small shell script." Who's to say which is the more satisfying way to play? Maybe someone should release an MMO where it's ALL bots, and the fun is had by watching your AI compete and evolve amongst the other AI.

Re:It seems

[brkello]

A bot is something that is set up to solely benefit the person or company running the bot. They are played at the detriment to others in the game. NPCs are designed by the developers and used to enhance the experience.

They may both be run by code instead of players, but the intentions for both are extremely different. Over-simplifying it to your level is either done out of an effort to justify the use of something selfish and unwanted by the community at large (and not allowed) or just plain stupidity.

Re:It seems

[jpyeck]

I think the toon you're describing is in my guild! She's not a bot, that's her typical M.O. We just don't have the heart to boot her from the guild.

Re:It seems

[Chris Burke]

How can you quit a game you weren't playing to begin with.

The funniest part is that they quit the game because they were going to be forced to actually play it themselves. :)

"What, PLAY the game? Fuck that shit, I'm out!"

Clearly, they should be playing progress quest. :)

Re:It seems

[Chris Burke]

Who's to say which is the more satisfying way to play? Maybe someone should release an MMO where it's ALL bots, and the fun is had by watching your AI compete and evolve amongst the other AI.

Yeah, they should. That would be a cool game. And then all the folks who find bot-making to be the most satisfying challenge can go play that game where bot-making is the actual point of the game. If what they want to do is program AIs, why aren't they playing any of the many games for which programming AIs is what the games is about? Or any of the many games where bots are accepted, like FPSes dating all the way back to the original Quake?

You might as well say that some people like to play by finding bugs in the server authentication code, hacking other people's accounts, stealing all their stuff and selling it for real-world money, and taking their credit card to boot. Who's to say which is the more satisfying way to play?

Who gives a fuck which is more "satisfying"? One is the way the game is supposed to be played, the other is not. It might be "satisfying" to bribe the referee, but it's against the rules. Don't like it? Play a game where bribery is an acceptable strategy!

Re:It seems

[MobileMrX]

PocketGnome is the only OS X bot I am aware of and has been fully open sourced:

http://code.google.com/p/pocketgnome/source/checkout

Re:It seems

[Thuktun]

I was waiting for the evidence that proves this was a bot, but none was supplied. How do you know for certain that this is a bot and not an idiot with too much time and just enough skill?

Re:It seems

[jeffasselin]

I used to say "do at least more DPS than the tank".

But lately, I queue up on my prot paladin, and every DPS in the group is doing less DPS than I am, then I have a choice: I kick every DPS for an hour, or I just go through the run and suffer. Any 5-man other than the ICC ones can be done with DPS doing 1K DPS. Just takes a while.

Re:It seems

[ildon]

I have yet to see any bots in the random dungeon queue, but I have definitely seen really really awful players. In fact, I'm fairly certain a bot would out DPS some of the worst ones I've seen.

Re:It seems

[Chris Burke]

There's no way that someone with a 5k+ gear score (that means decked out in t9 raiding gear or better) should be barely pulling 1k dps.

Something doesn't add up here.

Once you've written a bot to behave at all sanely inside an instance, giving it the ability to use a near-optimal DPS rotation should be pretty trivial, and it seems like there'd be every incentive to make the bot do maximum dps and thus increase the rate of badge farming. Why would you make your bot do the "minimum possible"? I guess maybe if they were hunters they could save slightly on ammo costs, but that still seems like a bad tradeoff for making the run last longer.

Re:It seems

[quanticle]

Saying that a bot is no different from a NPC because they're both controlled by computers is like saying that a tank and a bulldozer are identical because they both have caterpillar tracks.

Re:It seems

[Hurricane78]

Who defined that was not “playing the game”?

Would you say that CeTuS was playing Quake 3 Arena? Or the guys from Shaolin Productions?

It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[Anonymous Coward]

Boss: so mr anderson, it seems like you have been livig 2 lives. 1 as the sick employe that stayed at home, and the 2nd as barabas the gnome slayer...

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[ichigo 2.0]

What else would a sick person do at home other than play games and watch television? It's not like you can sleep 24/7...

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[Anonymous Coward]

At-will employment means they can fire your ass for whatever reason. How often do people go to work sick because they feel they have to even if it means working slowly and/or poorly and risking coworkers and/or customers infection?

At least Facebook and Twitter don't automatically follow you around recording and displaying what you've been doing and when. ...yet. (Google Streeview 24/7! Sign up now!)

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[kangsterizer]

that's correct, i go to work when sick unless i'm so sick theres no way i can reach the office or do anything there, because i feel like i am obliged to go there and work. I'm paid for it 'n stuff.

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[tsm_sf]

On behalf of everyone you've infected as you dribble mucus from your house to the break room, just die already.

You are NOT that important.

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[Explodicle]

That's a terrible idea. You will just spread disease and cost the company money. I work for a Fortune 500 company and that's exactly what management tells us; when you're sick, stay home!

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[svtdragon]

Am I the only one that read this in Agent Smith's voice?

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[svtdragon]

Wow, epic whoosh on my part. /ducks

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[david_thornley]

Then here's a message for management: Sick leave. What's common in US companies nowadays is "leave" or "paid time off", or whatever. It is used for both vacation and sick time, and in the US there's a whole lot less than a European would expect.

What it means is that every day you spend home sick is a day you don't spend up at the cabin in summer, or downhill skiing in the winter, or pitching in on a school project for your child, or whatever you might want to do when you're away from work and well.

If I'm hurting the company by coming in sick, then don't make me give up vacation time to help the company. Make provisions for me to get paid by doing what's best for the company.

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[Killjoy_NL]

This system baffles me every time it is mentioned though.
I work in a school in the Netherlands, I get 40 days off this year, I brought over 8 free days from 2009 that I didn't use, so that's 48 days for this year.
When I get sick, I stay at home, this isn't deducted from my free days.
When I am on vacation for 3 weeks and I am sick for 2 weeks, I only lose 1 week of free time, since being sick doesn't cost free days.

I have an absurd amount of free days though, the norm in the Netherlands for companies is about 25 days per year if I'm not mistaken.

I really feel sorry for you guys, having so little vacation/free days. Wish you had more.

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[Explodicle]

That's exactly what my company does. I have like a bazillion sick days but only a few weeks of vacation.

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[IorDMUX]

Nah... I read it in Elrond's voice.

Re:It seems like you have been living 2 lives

[Nexzus]

I work for the regional government in Vancouver, BC. (unionized)
Here's what we get, right off the bat:
3 Weeks paid vacation.
10 'Special Leave' days, acquired by working an extra unpaid 15 minutes per day.
20 sick days, which carry over and can accumulate up to 261 days.
Up to 3 Gratuity days can be earned per year if you don't take a sick day in a non-rolling 4 month period (Jan - April, May - Aug., etc)

Vacations increased to 4 weeks at 8 years, 5 weeks at 16 years, 6 weeks at 24 years.
1 extra week every 5 years.

Stalking a WoW player?

[mykos]

I do believe that stalking a home-bound loser would make the stalker collapse into an infinitely dense (and sad) singularity of loserdom.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Rogerborg]

+1 Insightful, with some exceptions.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right im already feeling the collapse... ill leave your window right now.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that that's the popular perception of WoW players... but you do realize it's about as accurate, and kind, as 'lazy niggers', right? That my guild (of 100ish people) has only 3 or 4 players who kinda fit the geeky shut-in mold, and the rest are normal men and women leading ordinary lives? My mother plays WoW, and she's nearly 60. I can list off 10 couples right off the top of my head in our guild. Some players are casual, some are hardcore raiders. It's all a matter of what percentage of someone's leisure time they choose to spend playing WoW.

Sitting on a couch watching TV is a less worthy pursuit, in my mind, than killing undead minions in WoW. But the stigma of watching TV is notably less.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story, bro.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because choosing to spend a ton of time playing video games is equivalent to inheriting racial or ethnic physical traits.

Some players are casual, some are hardcore raiders.

No, all players are casual. If you can't recognize this, you are probably a loser.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Anonymous Coward]

defensive much?

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[brkello]

If you think playing WoW a lot is lame, then don't play WoW. I am sure how you spend your pass time is probably stupid to a lot of people too. It's just easier not to judge and let people do what makes them happy. I find judgmental people to be the losers in life. They are too busy judging others to see that they are just as flawed in a different way. And no one likes them.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[yurtinus]

Except.... there really is no stigma.

A whole *lot* of people play or have played WoW. Fact of the matter is, nobody really cares anymore if you do. I mean sure, it's fun to joke about the guy living in his folks basement raiding all hours of the day and night (and sure, they exist), but the vast majority of WoW (or Halo, or any popular video game) lead normal productive lives -- and aside from a few folks, society has accepted this. No need to carry on with the "oh woe is me for I play WoW" diatribe :)

EVE Online players though... that's a different story... Those guys are nuts.

Re:Stalking a WoW player?

[Chess Piece Face]

"the rest are normal men and women leading ordinary lives" ...or at least that's what they spend their time reaffirming to each other in their virtual world, while the rest of society wonders where they disappeared to. I've lost several friends - including couples - to MMOs over the years. They traded their meat friends for electronic ones.

Your TV analogy is terrible by the way. Playing a game is more engaging than staring at a screen, but you ignore that most of us are doing other things while watching the tube. Cooking, talking on the phone, cleaning, screwing, what have you. And we can stop any time without leaving people hanging. And we can talk to other people about what we saw in normal conversation. WoW has not replaced Seinfeld at the water cooler - your in-game adventures are incomprehensible to outsiders.

Most people's perception is not of the fat slob in the mom's basement so much as someone who participates in an uninteresting, non-relatable, schedule dominating, all-consuming task that ultimately leads nowhere.

Job absentism

[Anonymous Coward]

So you were ill enough to stay at home instead of working, but it didn't prevent you from playing 9 hours.

9:03 - Killed arthas
9:10 - Equip new pix
10:41 - Achieved ... ... ...
18:30 - logged out

Re:Job absentism

[Tim C]

There's a huge difference between staying at home ill, sat at my desk within easy reach of my bed if I need it (or even in bed if I game on a laptop), staying in the warm, and not having to struggle through a 90 minute commute, and going in to the office, being unproductive as I infect my co-workers with whatever nasty little germ I have.

Just because you're not too ill to sit at one desk, doesn't mean you're well enough to sit at another.

Re:Job absentism

[dissolved]

it's different but not as different as you'd like. if someone in my office had a serious contagious illness (or even a bad cold/H1N1) I'd much prefer it if they were at home rather than making me ill. I wouldn't even care if they were playing WoW whilst wrapped up in a duvet or something.

Re:Job absentism

[Ogive17]

In my case, if I'm well enough to sit at my personal computer and play games, I'm well enough to turn my work laptop on and at the very minimum keep up to date with email.

When I was playing WoW I'd always end up sick on patch Tuesdays which meant the server would be down most of the day anyway... :(

Re:Job absentism

[fractoid]

unless your job consist of carrying heavy objects all day long or something really physical then YES its the frigging same thing sitting at one desk or another
for christ sake people need to get a grip on reality

Including you. The reality is that I could be off for three days feeling like death, and on the fourth day still feel shonky enough to think I might be contagious, but not enough to be fully bedridden. I have a choice of either going to work, coughing on three people, and costing my company nine days of lost productivity, or staying home and playing WoW and costing my company one day of productivity. I think I know which my manager'd prefer.

Re:Job absentism

[Chris Burke]

Well I don't know about you, but my job consists of more than merely having my posterior in a chair. It's not hard to be too sick to do much productive work, but well enough to play video games. Video games are much easier and there's no consequence for massive failure. Work is more challenging, for me anyway. I can be running a fever, stoned off NyQuil, and sneezing constantly and still play video games between naps. It's hard to get much work done that way.

And trying to do that at work, risking getting everyone around me sick (so they can take it home and get their families sick) is a serious dick move. So don't be an asshole, stay home if you're sick.

Fortunately I can work from home, so when I'm not too sick to get work done (but it would still be a dick move to come into work) I still can.

Re:Job absentism

[RulerOf]

I think I know which my manager'd prefer.

....That's one of the problems with the mentality in the US.

For some reason, it's better to show up sick and underperform than it is to stay home without pay and recuperate.

There were maybe 4 or 5 days last year when I was genuinely too sick to come into work and actually have my work be worth my employer's money, including one where I was recovering from an outbreak of shingles (which was ironically induced by work related stress), and for some reason I felt like an asshole every time I called my boss on those mornings.

Such is life, eh?

Valve does the same thing with Steam and TF2

[Ailure]

Steam shows how much you have played a certain game in total: http://steamcommunity.com/id/robinwalker/ and you can view the inventories of TF2 players ( http://www.tf2items.com/ ).

However unlike WoW, you can opt out as player info can't be obtained from private player profiles. When someone asked Valve why you can't grab "information" from a player who marked their profile as private, they said it was a recommendation from their lawyers. Interesting...

Re:Valve does the same thing with Steam and TF2

[Splab]

Actually Steam is opt-in - also when they started doing the public tracking I wrote them a strongly worded letter (at that point they wouldn't allow you to opt out again) where I pointed out that their tracking mechanism is very much against the law to not be opt-outable in Denmark (where steam does business), shortly after they changed their practice and you can no longer find my profile on steam.

Re:Valve does the same thing with Steam and TF2

[Ailure]

You're right, Steam is opt-in. It usually encourages someone to set up their profile as public, but it dosen't force you to.

I believe it's also illegal in Sweden (where I live), but I'm not a lawyer. I guess they just play safe and give the choice to everyone over the world.

WoW also does business in Scandinavia so I wonder why they hadn't done the same thing. I guess someone need to send a angry letter. ;)

beyond stupid.

[unity100]

are these people aware that it takes ages to upgrade even a tiny piece of your gear, if you already have reached a certain item level ?

unless you go changing your items for show or for leisure like a monkey, and just leave your top tier items where they are, noone will be able to make out anything about your 'habits'.

and if you are a raider who also does rp or does pvp and you routinely change armor sets, all they will be doing is knowing at what hour you raid. but then again after all there are a lot of guildies knowing that, and you people probably arrange those times on a forum which is probably open to public anyway.

then whats the ruckus ...

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only real things someone might be able to know, (especially with a class like a druid that requires up to eight [1] different sets of gear), is that someone might be PvP-ing, or running dungeons/raids when they do an armor swap. Some people who don't PvP can get away with a single set of gear if their class is a DPS only class (hunter, mage).

Knowing someone is in PvP or PvE gear, especially on a PvP server may mean something though, especially if griefing is involved. For example, if someone is in their DPS gear, they likely might be Icecrown doing dailies, and perhaps can be easy gankings if someone is so inclined.

[1]: Bear gear for tanking in PvE, tree gear for healing, cat gear for melee DPS, moonkin gear for ranged, moonkin PvP gear, bear PvP gear (for tanking bosses in AV), tree PvP gear, and cat PvP gear. At the minimum, a raiding druid will have three sets of gear, a tank or heal set (because DPS is so common on raids), a PvE DPS set, and a PvP/arena set.

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't "require up to 8 sets of gear" as any particular class. You can only be specced as two different things at a time. At length, if you want to equip some offspec retardation, you could probably justify four sets as a druid. If you're feral and dual-specced Resto, you'd be a retard to be toting around a pile of Moonkin gear under the presumption that you'll be doing "1337 ranged deepz." If you were dual-specced bear and cat for tanking and DPS, respectively, it's one thing to have a resto set for emergencies, but you STILL can't justify the Moonkin gear. This is just an example, but if people are seriously doing that, they're morons.

Re:beyond stupid.

[MetalPhalanx]

Perhaps you should look at WoW armory. The new feed does not just say when you get phat new lootz.

It also says what dungeon boss you killed at what time... I just viewed my main's armory profile, and you can tell which heroics I did yesterday (hint: all of them) and achievements as well as the upgrades I got.

Even without getting an upgrade, doing anything besides standing in Dalaran or farming mats (i.e. anything non-trivial) can trigger an update on you.

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that the "activity tracking" goes beyond gear updates. For example, the Armory Page (http://tw.wowarmory.com/character-feed.xml?r=Wrathbringer&cn=%E5%B0%8F%E7%81%B0&gn=%E7%A5%9E%E6%A8%A3) of the person from the 'Man "Beats" World of Warcraft' story (http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/12/03/1456243/Man-Beats-emWorld-of-Warcraftem), also contains Boss-Kills. I then thought to myself, well, there is no actual time given there, only the date, so it is not that bad. But then I clicked the "Atom feed" button and the result (http://tw.wowarmory.com/character-feed.atom?r=Wrathbringer&cn=%E5%B0%8F%E7%81%B0&gn=%E7%A5%9E%E6%A8%A3) did contain the (probably server) time. If you would look at armory pages of people who did not completed all Achievements, you will find out that even if you do something which is a "part" of an Achievement, you get logged and Time-Stamped which looks something like "Completed step [Borean Man O' War School] of achievement [Northrend Angler]." So if you cast your fishing poll and you hit in a "School of Fish" from which you have never (successfully) fished before, you get logged. Given the amount of possible Achievements, I assume it is very easy to get an "Achievement fragment" by mistake.

Now, if you add that to some existing paranoia, which might be at the place you work for (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2008/dec/17/pc-games) or anywhere else and given that finding out your character name can be simply obtained from that group of people at work who tends to talk about WoW during their launch break (because they probably know) or even by asking you - I can understand why some of the players would like to log in and "disable" this feature.

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even Look at the logged activity before posting?

Every kill of every boss is logged.

For example, here's unity100's toon (I'm lying, but there would be no way to tell except I told you):
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-feed.xml?r=Turalyon&cn=Unity&gn=Forbidden+Legion

Last time he logged in was Jan 11th.
If it was within a week of today, you'd see timestamps to the minute.

Re:beyond stupid.

[jim_v2000]

The ruckus is that people like to raise a ruckus about nothing.

Re:beyond stupid.

[blueg3]

The RSS feed doesn't include gear changes, but does include boss kills (in addition to achievements and gear acquisition).

Re:beyond stupid.

[blueg3]

It also seems to only include your most-recent boss kill (for example, it says when I last killed Marrowgar, but not any of the previous times).

Re:beyond stupid.

[SmurfButcher Bob]

ZOMG! Scrubs can't just use GearScore to pretend they're l33t anymore!

That's pretty much the big ruckus, and probably why this feature was implemented (in lieu of GC's 20,000 gearscore tabard and shirt).

Re:beyond stupid.

[Tim C]

I understand the concept (enchanted equipment grants bonuses to specific skills, etc), but most of that post wasn't even in English...

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It reports every boss kill (including dungeons), loot you obtain from those bosses, every achievement you do, etc

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

the feed tracks more than just gear upgrades.
bosses killed (even if it's not your first time killing it) dungeons/raids completed, achievements earned.
It doesn't display anything for gear swaps (of gear you already possess), so rp/role change/pvp gear swapping wouldn't display.

I haven't upgraded any gear in 2 weeks, and my rss feed is at least 4 pages long just from dungeon/raid kills.

So someone could ascertain to some degree how much you play and when, which I guess isn't that cool.

Re:beyond stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Respeccing is cheap. I've got a pally friend who respecs several times a week between PVP Holy, PVP Ret, PVE Prot, PVE Holy, and PVE Ret. The 50g max price for respeccing is trivial. He usually keeps his PVE Holy spec and respecs the other one for whatever else he feels like doing that night.

The OP's suggestion of 8 gear sets on a druid is obviously an extreme that few players bother with. But that's why he said "up to".

Moron.

Re:beyond stupid.

[Wildclaw]

I understand the concept (enchanted equipment grants bonuses to specific skills, etc), but most of that post wasn't even in English...

General terms:

PvE - Player vs Environment (i.e. Player vs computer controlled opponents).
PvP - Player vs Player.
PvP server - A server where players are free to attack other players at almost any time.
Griefing - The act of causing grief to a player. For example, repeatedly killing said player using stronger characters.
Ganking - Killing someone in an uneven/unfair fight.

Running dungeons - The action of defeating more difficult computer monsters together with a group of people in a closed of environment.
Raids - Similar to dungeon, but with a larger amount of people involved.
Boss - Powerful computer controlled character that deals large amounts of damage, has high amounts of health and generally is more difficult to defeat than other computer controlled characters.

Class - Distinct character type with a specific set of skills.
DPS - Damage per Second. Also used to refer to the act of dealing out such damage.
Melee - Close combat, the opposite of ranged combat.
Tank - A character that is designed to recieve huge amounts of damage without dying and with skills to attract the enemy's attention.

Dailies - Missions/Quests that can be repeated on a daily basis for rewards.

World of Warcraft specific:

Icecrown - An outdoor area in the game World of Warcraft.
Bear gear - Equipment that specifically support the Druid class, bear form skill. Usually involves equipment that raise health and provide good defenses.
Tree gear - Equipment that specifically support the Druid class, tree form skill. Involves equipment that allows the Druid to better heal other players using his skills.
Cat gear - .... Druid class, cat form skill. Involves equipment that allows the Druid to better deal damage.
Moonkin gear - .... moonkin form skill. Equpipment that improves ranged magical combat skills.
AV - Alterac Valley. One of the areas in World of Warcraft that is specifically designed for PvP combat.
Arena - Small scale competitive PvP combat, usually involving organized teams.

Great time to stop playing WoW

[0x000000]

Maybe now is the time to stop playing WoW and instead do something with your life. I've lost too many friends to the game known as World of Warcraft with too many of them turning down social interactions to instead go raiding with their groups. I had a room mate in college that played so much WoW that he ended up dropping out of school just so that he could continue to play WoW. His dad came to pick him up from our apartment at the time and he looked extremely disappointed. I will never forget the look on that mans face when he realised his son had become so addicted to a computer game that he was unable to complete any of his classes that semester.

I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides, and why people get addicted to the point that they drop out of schools. Maybe I am one of the few people that is lucky and doesn't require simulation from an online fake environment to further foster my own mind.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe people stupid enough to get addicted to computer games should stop playing them and leave the rest of us the hell alone?

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[GaryPatterson]

I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides, and why people get addicted to the point that they drop out of schools. Maybe I am one of the few people that is lucky and doesn't require simulation from an online fake environment to further foster my own mind.

Most of us WoW players are casuals, dropping in for an hour or two each day that would otherwise be spent on television. The rest of the time we work, spend time with our wife/husband/squid/mollusc and lead normal lives. My wife and I are having a child soon, we're moving house, I work too many hours in the office and still I find time for reading books, sleeping relatively normal amounts and playing WoW.

It's just a game. Most of us find balance in our lives.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

. I've lost too many friends to the game known as World of Warcraft with too many of them turning down social interactions to instead go raiding with their groups.

Sounds like you're the antisocial one, not playing with your friends.

"Mah friends don't play with me, they're all doing the same thing together!"
"Why uh...why don't you play with them?"
"Because they're not playing with me!"
"Yeah but I mean, why can't you play the same thing they do?"
"Because it's stupid!"
"Uh-HUH."

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Jorth]

WoW has changed a lot over its five years. I have been playing since day 1 EU, I started out with 2 real life friends leveling to 60, this was back in my 2nd year of university. Since then I've made many new friends from all over Europe, had one pretty successful relationship from the game with a Swedish girl (I'm English) she moved to England etc etc, and I talk to people from variety of places that I do intend to visit now that I have a job and money. I think anyone who is socially average can balance a game and normal activities. I make sure I am a member of a guild that doesn't raid Friday/Saturday, those nights and my weekend are free and I spend most of it out of the house drinking and doing the kind of things a 26 year old bloke does...

Raiding originally took a lot of hours, Molten Core the first instance was a sprawling dungeon that my guild achieved Alliance first Rag on the server, so we were pretty hardcore back when no one really understood raiding (WoW brought in a lot of people that had never played an MMO before even at the begining). That place would take 4 hours or so to clear, 5+ if you weren't farming it. Then Blackwing Lair, and AQ40, and Naxx, all of it was very big, and very long. TBC cut the instance size down a notch with some more single encounter raids, and the shorter "Eye" and "Hyjal" taking much much less time to do.

Now in WoTLK the first instance was Naxx from Vannilla, easy for any old player, Ulduar was more regular sized, Trial of the Crusader was VERY short (you can do it all in 30-40mins now even in heroic mode) and Ice Crown is being released slowly. All in all I raid about a quarter of the time I used to five year ago.

Anyway, I suck at writing these kind of posts coherently, but my main point is, WoW has been probably the most enjoyable game I've played in 5 years. I laugh, joke, and chat about all kinds of things with real life friends who I drink with on a weekend, and guys I now know from Denmark,Sweden,Norway,Germany and even Greece. Some people will always have addictive personalities, and just like gambling can ruin a life so can WoW. But to anyone balanced WoW can be a great social experience and the game isn't bad either :)

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Tim C]

turning down social interactions to instead go raiding with their groups

That certainly can be a social interaction - just because people aren't sat in the same room talking face to face doesn't mean they're not talking.

an online fake environment

What's fake about it, in entertainment terms? In what ways are other forms of entertainment more real?

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[DrXym]

I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides, and why people get addicted to the point that they drop out of schools.

WOW and most other MMOs are like fruit machines. They are attractive, bright and entertaining worlds that train the user to perform repetitive tasks for the expectation of a random reward (e.g. item drops).

Like gambling some people know when to stop and others don't. Some people play for fun and many more because of force of habit or addiction. More fool them.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Calinous]

Growth-based computer games provide easy, fast accomplishments, and this in some cases creates psychological addiction. I went thru this phase several times, and it ain't pretty remembering how good it felt then.
      This works so much faster than in real life, and the rewards are (relatively) so big, real life doesn't offer anything like it (and to top it all, the games can be seen as being played for free, or almost for free - this isn't true at all, but it can be seen like that at the time).

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[CFBMoo1]

The lure is to get out of the eventual grind that is adulthood in this society. People like having a get away from the regular work 9-5, pay bills, etc. This gives them something they can do to change things up a bit but unfortunately it's carried to an extreme.

From zero to virtual hero in 80 levels.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Calinous]

"In what ways are other forms of entertainment more real?"

      Now this is real entertainment... not

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrIugmr8kzE

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Mormz]

You good sir, are very much mistaken... Plain and simple :) Of course there are people who get hooked on to anything... Your college room mate is an idiot, in every sense of the word. I've never understood the allure TV provides (except for watching a good premiership match or two), never got addicted to gambling, or drugs or cigarettes. I play WoW regularly, almost every day, but it doesn't interfere with my social life. And I like to think I've done something with my life, if being a sys engineer in a big financial institution, having a fun relationship with a nice girl, having your own apartment and such accounts for something. You see, that what you are doing is called generalizing, and it's bad. If playing WoW = having no life, then I probably fit in the no lifer category. IMO, no lifer is somebody who posts trashing posts on /. about a topic he doesn't know shit about. Most WoW players are normal hard-working citizens who play for fun. Not all, but most. Online fake enviroment ... LOL ... if by fake you mean sth. not tangible, then guess what, everything on the internet is fake... Your logic is flawed and your opinions suck. And yes, you probably have a Facebook account don't you? ;) Yes, yes, you do, admit it... ;)

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Splab]

Indeed, my television usage has dropped to zero after I started playing WoW (I still do my work (reading slashdot...) and out being social every weekend) - regarding the addiction, I was thinking when I hit 80 with my first toon that I kinda done everything and needed a new game, then I accidentically ended up in a PvP battle in wintergrasp and now I'm good an proper addicted.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW is a good way to pass time, however, there are many 'better' and more constructive ways.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[fractoid]

Because all gamers and all video games are the same.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[fractoid]

Actually, I find that the pace of the scaling eventually starts to be a turn-off. It's true that you get rapidly more powerful in the game and you're going "wow, this is amazing, I'm such a winner, I'm so good" and it feels great. But then you realise that it's a sliding scale and the numbers are getting bigger but everything else gets the same. It's as if you got a job and spent your first pay packet on an [Old Television]. Then you get a pay rise and spend your next packet on a [New Television]. But after that you realise that you're still spending 50% of your pay packet on a new television that's the same as the old one but with slightly better stats and a different name, and it still has the same old shows on it. It does get boring.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is nothing but OnGoing Lies, I'm sure of it!

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides, and why people get addicted to the point that they drop out of schools. Maybe I am one of the few people that is lucky and doesn't require simulation from an online fake environment to further foster my own mind.

Oh I think you know all to well. Why so upset?

You are projecting.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[jonpublic]

If addiction was really easy get over, we wouldn't have problems with crack cocaine, gambling and alcoholism.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[thesandtiger]

Maybe hanging out with you is just less interesting/compelling than raiding. :D

Seriously, though, I think the people that get "hooked" on WoW would fuck up for other reasons. When I was in college I had friends who dropped out over a relationship gone bad, or drinking, or drugs, or depression, or socializing, or anything else you'd care to name. People dropping out of college is not a new thing - it's been going on since there have been colleges to drop out from.

My great uncle, who is 80, flunked out of college despite there not being WoW because of a girl.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

same here. me and the wife play together once in a while. i play another character on my own - she doesn't want to play as much as i do :-)

we have a tween daughter (who play a couple of characters on our accounts) and a list of house projects as long as your arm! we travel, attend family events. WoW is a fun way to spend time together instead of being a TV junky. i download the shows we want to see and just watch them - so when we do watch TV it is good time together as well.

we also play graphic adventure games and puzzle games. nice to have your brain working.

and it is just a game.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[thesandtiger]

That's scary, and you certainly shouldn't be playing these kinds of games if that's the effect they have on you.

But other people are not you.

While being a player of WoW, I have:

Gotten 1 of every class, on both Alliance and Horde side, to level 70 (most to 80, still dragging ass on getting my Warlocks and Warriors to level 80 - they're boring), seen the inside of every raid, and even gotten the Lore Master (did pretty much every quest in the game) achievement when it was a little harder.

I've also gotten 2 degrees, started work on a third, maintained a 4.0 gpa in grad school throughout that process, got a fantastic job at university, gotten promoted twice, been an author (and actually did the work) on over 20 papers, given god only knows how many job talks, been party to a dozen posters at events, dated a lot, found someone I like and we live together now, had a social life, and generally all of those accomplishments are VASTLY more good feeling to me.

I have a sense of proportion, I guess - I'm able to make the distinction between wow levels & gear and actually accomplishing things. People who can't do that - you're right - they shouldn't play games like WoW, because clearly they can't handle it.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Most of us WoW players are casuals, dropping in for an hour or two each day that would otherwise be spent on television.

Yeah, what he said! We are just social drink... I mean smok... I mean players, we can quit anytime we want. Any time at all. Any time we feel like it. We have no problem, no problem at all... gotta go, there is a raid on.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

I've lost too many friends to the game known as World of Warcraft [...]

Yes, we know the game is "known as World of Warcraft". We all know that. In fact, we know this so much that, serendipitously, we called it that in the article summary.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[gad_zuki!]

>I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides,

Its called a skinner box. Works pretty well on mice and humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

>Maybe I am one of the few people that is lucky and doesn't require simulation from an online fake environment to further foster my own mind.

Climb down from your high horse and join us in the "some people have flaws and get addicted to things" world. Thanks.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, when I hear this statement I feel as if the person posting it is one of those people that cannot go without seeing or talking to another person in real life. Many people are the exact opposite. We could NOT go without seeing or talking to someone. After a long day at work, the last thing I want to do is go home and then go out with friends. I want to go home and relax. That for me will involve wow. Hell, even if he declined to go hang out for a raid, so what? It's very little than you saying you have a basketball game or something to go to instead. One is in real life and one is online, but both are activities/hobbies that offer no real benefit other than enjoyment in the long term.

Let the people do what they want. Obviously the case above was a severe addict, someone who could not regulate his time and keep his priorities straight. School obviously should come first, much like work (unless you are delivering pizza at least), but this person would have been addicted to something else in college anyway if it wasn't wow. Drugs, alchohol, gambling, it's all the same. Hell he might have even just "gone too too many social interactions" instead of doing schoolwork.

Point is, there's nothing wrong with people wanting to play wow instead of going to various social interactions. A social interaction is for you to have a good time. If you can do that without the social interaction in a video game? More power to you you probably saved yourself some money anyway. :P

And no, you're not lucky, as you likely need to foster your own mind through social interactions with groups of people. It's the same thing in the end. Is the guy who reads at home instead of going out also problematic?

I apologize if this sounds a bit snarky/directed towards you, but I am just trying to make a point that you are viewing this from your specific view, where in the larger picture it's nearly an identical thing.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

had one pretty successful relationship from the game with a Swedish girl (I'm English) she moved to England etc etc

Not interested in hearing about WoW. Tell me more about this Swedish girl...

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he doesn't want to play Counter Strike, he wants to play Unreal Tournament.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[davenkara]

As a "casual" WoW player, I enjoy many different aspects of the game. I'm an engineer, doing a lot of programming, so I have some appreciation for the scale, complexity, and effort that goes into developing something so vast as the 3d world of WoW. The artistic and tactical development of the world itself merits a lot of appreciation in my book. I don't spend every moment (even online) thinking about it, but its something I do consider often, especially when entering a new zone or raid. Meeting and cooperating with new, completely random people on a regular basis also provides its challenges and enjoyment. Different people get different things out of the experience, sometimes sacrificing other parts of their lives to do so. As the only night owl in my household (always have been) I find an hour or so online to be more enjoyable than most of the TV choices that are available when I don't feel like reading late at night.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[brkello]

I hope you don't read fantasy or sci fi...or watch TV...or go to movies. None of us "require simulation (sic?) from an online fake environment to further foster [our] own mind[s]". We do it because we find it fun. Some people don't know how to balance that out and you hear stories like yours. The same goes with people with alcohol or gambling. I don't play WoW now, but I had no problem having a relationship, working full time, playing on 2 soccer teams, and playing violin in an orchestra all while enjoying gaming. I don't watch much TV so it pretty much replaced that. Why no one says anything if you spend 3 hours watching TV doing nothing but staring at pictures but when you are actually interacting with a game for 3 hours, that is suddenly weird. It's a double standard and you should be smart enough to realize that.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[RabidMonkey]

"Maybe I am one of the few people that is lucky and doesn't require simulation from an online fake environment to further foster my own mind."

Clearly your mind isn't open, so it doesn't require much stimulation. Glad to see you're so comfortable condemning people who choose to do something you're not interested in. Do you look down on everyone who isn't you, or just people who choose to be entertained by this particular video game?

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Mashiki]

What's fake about it, in entertainment terms? In what ways are other forms of entertainment more real?

In the mind of some, including /.'s pseudo-jocks, they think that anyone that doesn't get their face smashed in or their fingers crushed aren't being involved in entertainment. This also includes going to theatres with noisy jackasses talking on their phones, and sticky floors. Positive upside to theatres here is they actually kick said people out.

Myself, it's entertainment. It's also cheaper to pay for 1mo of it then to take my GF out there just as something to do. Between the two of us it usually runs around $30 at the moves(that's $18 for tickets, then $12 for popcorn and drinks), and easily $60 if we go out for dinner at a restaurant. Luckily she's happy going out for breakfast at the greasy spoon style places. And I can get away with at $15 bill unless she's paying that week.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[iivel]

24 hours in the day 8 hours sleep 8 hours work .5 hour commute .5 hour toilitries 1 hour dinner 1 hour entertainment reading 1 hour visiting friends/family/loved ones 1 hour gym 1 hour study 1 hour chores 1 hour ??? Hmm...still time in there for WoW if that's a hobby you choose to fill your remaining time with. Mind you not all of those in the list need done every day and time for others can be combined (my wife and I work out together, wake together, eat together, read together etc.). Learn to balance your time with necessities first, there is always a remainder for something you enjoy.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

I played so much StarCraft and Goldeneye I had to drop out of school. Well, actually I had to drop out of school because I did not go to class. I just like blaming StarCraft. Oh, and the alcohol.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[stewbacca]

too many of them turning down social interactions to instead go raiding with their groups.

I hate to break it to you but going raiding IS a social interaction.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[alfoolio]

Maybe now is the time to stop playing WoW and instead do something with your life.

Oh really? Would it also be time for you to consider the possibility that playing WoW is a something to do with part (or all) of your life? Can you accept the idea that while you find it a waste of time, apparently 12 million other people don't?

I've lost too many friends to the game known as World of Warcraft with too many of them turning down social interactions to instead go raiding with their groups.

It must be painful to you to have someone you know in the 'real world' reject your company in preference to that of people in a 'virtual world'. I trust you understand that you are not meeting some relationship need of theirs? This suggests that you may find happiness by changing your expectations of their behavior OR by changing the moral valuations you place on how other people spend their time.

I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides, and why people get addicted to the point that they drop out of schools. Maybe I am one of the few people that is lucky and doesn't require simulation from an online fake environment to further foster my own mind.

Your failure in understanding here is directly attributable to your choice to believe in your own personal superiority over other humans. If you truly desire enlightenment here then you must first stop looking down your nose at people and raise your viewpoint to the horizons. You totally discount the reality that a multi-player game *is* a social interaction. I'm (barely) on the 'right' side of 60 and I game/have gamed with players as young as 5 and as old as 78. As Hilary titled, it takes a village to raise a child. This is part of the new village. We often spend more time discussing our lives while playing than actually playing.

You must honor several facts: We are all unique and *may* have different desires. None of us is truly in charge of another of us. There are many differing basis for value, all but one of which are going to be different from yours. If you truly cannot look outside the "ME" box to think these things (the allure of success, friendship, etc.) through about games then you really need to read some of the forum threads with an open mind.

DISCLAIMER: I am a WoW/EQ player of long standing with multiple characters on multiple servers. I play about 40-50 hours a week because I can. (Medical disability prevents work; no work limits income; limited income limits entertainment options; $15/mo ~ 200 hours of entertainment = dirt cheap)

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Chess Piece Face]

"just because people aren't sat in the same room talking face to face doesn't mean they're not talking."

But it does mean that they aren't making eye contact, using body language, touching, smelling, serving food, or any of the other things that make actual socialization superior to virtual socialization. This is where the "WoW counts as social interaction" argument falls apart - so many elements are missing that it barely qualifies and certainly is not a complete experience.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[ildon]

Raiding *is* a social interaction. Just because a minority forgo important things like work or school doesn't mean that's the norm. People forgo work and school for stupid shit like doing drugs and watching TV, too. It's not because they play WoW, it's because they're mentally ill or depressed.

Despite all the anecdotes posted on the internet, I do not personally know a single person who has quit school or work for WoW. And many of the people I know either currently play or at some time in the past played WoW, so it's probably a better sample size than your one roommate.

One exception I'll admit is people using PTO days or sick days for expansion releases, but I also know people who have done that for sporting events and other similar trivial entertainment purposes.

Re:Great time to stop playing WoW

[Ifandbut]

A) why would I want to see the ugly son of a bitch playing the other character.

B) people either stink or are covered in too much perfume/cologne or dont smell at all. So, it is either unpleasant or does not exist.

C) I dont like touching people in the first place. I also find it strange when people touch me.

D) I'm blind to body language anyways.

E) Eye contact might be necessary in America but in other cultures it is considered rude (Japan for one).

I connect more with people I meet on-line then anyone I have know in meat space including my family.

I'm sorry I am not the extroverted social butterfly with 100 meat space friends like you are.

Asked for comment

[Lord Bitman]

Asked for comment, the involved parties responded "Wait, you thought that information was private before?"

How can you stalk someone?

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean this could work for stalking their character, but there is no tie between a character and the person behind it unless you choose to make one. This really doesn't change anything. If you reveal your name, address, etc to someone then sure they can use it to stalk you. However your WoW character doesn't reveal that. Just don't go telling random people on WoW who you are and there isn't a problem.

Re:How can you stalk someone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortsighted.

While people that may have never played wow may not see the social interaction, it doesn't mean it is not there. Much of the social interaction can occur on guild websites as well. People exchange numbers, post pictures, share information about family and friends. People have met while playing wow and are now married. People have lost relationships to spouses meeting others online. People become closer to long distance relatives online. There is as much social interaction as with any other activity people enjoy doing in groups.

The problem of cyberstalking isn't going to go away if blizzard fixes this (IMO they should). The same thing happens with facebook, twitter, and other websites where people learn your habits and routines. There have already been cases of robberies and break ins that have occurred in which people post pictures on websites like facebook while on vacation. What better time to rob someones house, when you know they are not there. There are cases of stalking where these websites are used by stalkers to determine your habits and routines. One of the first things you learn if you have ever been stalked is to change your behavior patterns and routines, and thats if your lucky enough to realize that you are being stalked.

Raiding in WoW is pretty routine. It usually occurs on a schedule a few times a week, for several hours at a time. Lets face it, its very hard to get 25 people to show up for anything, unless its on a schedule. During that time you are concentrating very intensely (arguably some more than others) and usually have a headphone on with in game sound and voice communications occurring. While your sight and sound is completely focused on the virtual experience, you become very vulnerable to things that may be occurring in the "Real life" environment around you. The armory serves up a nice bit of information on your patterns of having a block of time at which 3 out of 5 of you senses are unaware of your immediate surroundings. Again, a stalkers dream.

Stalkers don't wear cloaks and daggers. It could be one of your relatives, the guy next door, a police officer, the checkout girl at the grocery store, or someone you have had voice communications with for several hours over the last year while playing WoW. With all of the social interaction that does occur with WoW, it is very easy for a person that may be prone to stalking to meet someone and become fixated on that person.

Blizzard probably isn't doing anything worse than many other websites on the internet, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Just like any other social websites, they need a REAL opt out plan. People need to hold the creators of these massive online interaction mediums accountable. YES, individuals have a responsibility as well, but it can be too late to opt out before most people realize there is a problem. Take this from a stalking victim, and a WoW player.

Re:How can you stalk someone?

[Endo13]

Even if someone does use this to stalk your character, how will that even matter? What are they going to do, send illicit chat messages? Try to follow your character around in-game? Good luck with that.

And as for the tie from character to real-life person, if that tie exists just change your character's name. Also, the most anyone could glean from such a tie is what time of day you're normally on your PC. There's no other way a stalker could possibly get that info, right?

As usual, a bunch of FUD.

Re:How can you stalk someone?

[Sycraft-fu]

Blizzard also takes in game harassment pretty seriously. I don't mean things like name calling or talking smack, that they say "Just ignore the person," but if someone is genuinely harassing/stalking you, Blizzard will be on that shit. There's also no room for doing it in secret since within the game, Blizzard is Big Brother on steroids. They can check all chat logs and private messages, so if you report someone and they are doing what you say, there's no defense.

People just seem to get whiny that Blizzard wants to publish info about their characters. I say who cares?

Re:How can you stalk someone?

[Endo13]

People just seem to get whiny that Blizzard wants to publish info about their characters. I say who cares?

Agreed. And if it's really *that* big a deal, you can always, you know, just quit playing.

Re:How can you stalk someone?

[stewbacca]

I'll even tell you my Character name...good luck attaching "Yerma" to me, unless I tell you the server I'm on...too many of the same named characters out there.

What's next?

[gaelfx]

Timestamps on Slashdot comments? /stalk function on every profile page? I don't think I could handle slashdot stalking, later folks

Re:What's next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on your comment history that slashdot easily gives us, I can roughly assume that you normally check slashdot from 10PM-2AM.

Re:What's next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. It's strange how Slashdot criticizes others for not respecting people's privacy and yet whenever someone tries to be anonymous here they're immediately labeled as a "Coward", have their post start at a lower score, and have quite a few moderators which will repeatedly state that they "don't mod up ACs".

Re:What's next?

[gaelfx]

Only if I'm living on US time ;) Oops...maybe that was too big a hint...where's the /deletepost option?

Stalking.

[headkase]

There are jerks everywhere, they may not even realize they are jerks. Let them grow up a bit more. Not counting *physical* stalking which in its own rights deserves some pretty thorough and effective laws, virtual stalking while emotionally distressing is not of the same level of danger. See my signature, I believe that people finding me by interest is more important than privacy. Unfortunately this means you get a few iffies. To combat that, where people are just jerks and not a physical danger, then all that is needed if effective filtering mechanisms. Spam versus non, signal versus noise, wanted versus un-wanted. I want everyone to be able to contact me but I also want to be able to close the tap at the drop of a pin effectively.

Re:Stalking.

[DrXym]

People have killed themselves over virtual stalking / cyber bullying. At the very least WOW should allow opt-out and preferably the service should be opt-in and restricted to over 18s. It's simply irresponsible to lay bare people's online habits without giving them the choice not to disclose information that they may have reason to wish to hide.

Re:Stalking.

[drinkypoo]

See my signature, I believe that people finding me by interest is more important than privacy.

I believe the same, though I do not believe that either of us has the right to decide this for others. Blizzard has the right to publish this data, but is it right? I feel strongly that not providing opt-out is wrong, at least.

Re:Stalking.

[headkase]

You and drinkypoo are both absolutely correct: I've chosen my settings, Activision/Blizzard should extend the same courtesy to their customers.

Re:Stalking.

[headkase]

You and DrXym are both absolutely correct: I've chosen my settings, Activision/Blizzard should extend the same courtesy to their customers.

Re:Stalking.

[Anonymous Coward]

The opt out is you go find another game that does value user privacy. Currency is the only argument they understand.

Re:Stalking.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Those people more than likely had deep-seated psychological problems to do with self esteem and social interaction deficiencies far before they played WoW, or any other MMO. Instead of seeking help resolving the issues, they immersed themselves in a false world of small and fast accomplishment with a greatly inflated sense of achievement.

Anyway, it's not like they're linking it to a real life identity. You couldn't pick out my WoW character from my Slashdot ID, or my real name. Nor could you reverse it to find those details from my WoW characters.

Re:Stalking.

[DrXym]

Those people more than likely had deep-seated psychological problems to do with self esteem and social interaction deficiencies far before they played WoW, or any other MMO. Instead of seeking help resolving the issues, they immersed themselves in a false world of small and fast accomplishment with a greatly inflated sense of achievement.

And as such it's okay for Blizzard to create a feature that allows them to be cyberstalked and harassed?

Re:Stalking.

[Mormz]

I really don't get this cyberstalking and cyberbullying obsession... Come on we live in an age of 13-yo posting nude pictures on F-book under their real name, not some character name, or pseudonym, and you attack Blizzard for time stamping .... f**king hilarious .... The mere notion of being anonymous on the internet makes me laugh ...

Re:Stalking.

[headkase]

I don't know what, if anything, you're saying about me! ;) I've already had more than one person find me by being open in social networks and I've only had to block two accounts: both spammers. So for me: it's been good so far. And for a fact, privacy is an illusion: people finding me/me finding them is tangible.

Re:Stalking.

[headkase]

Anonymous is almost the problem! That's where trolls come from. The trick is making no-one anonymous while allowing the enforcement of pseudonyms: especially from government. Now, do something illegal, not just unpopular with government, and your pseudonym should fall. Of course this takes infrastructure that doesn't exist... Yet.

Re:Stalking.

[headkase]

They have so much income from WoW that they'd never notice the signal. If you want the opt-out start talking about it everywhere: that signal will be a lot easier to pick up.

Re:Stalking.

[DrXym]

If someone wants to be anonymous, that's their perogative. If a previously anonymous service throws its doors open for anyone to see what you are doing and how long for, then that's a privacy issue. At the very least Blizzard should allow people the option not to disclose their information. It isn't hard to do, other services manage it and it's just common decency.

As for cyberstalking / cyberbullying, yes it exists and people have killed themselves or suffered other issues as a result. Even Facebook allows users to control what information they expose and who can see it and the same should be true of any social networking service or game.

Re:Stalking.

[brkello]

First, you have to know the character name of the person who plays. Second, you have to know all their alts names as well. Third, it only really tells you that they are playing not their geo-location.

I agree that it should have an opt-out for the privacy insane people. But comparing this with cyber-stalking that results in suicide is sensationalist nonsense. Slashdot sometimes seems to be the Glen Beck of privacy.

Re:Stalking.

[myowntrueself]

I think that the best solution to the internet 'fuckwad' problem is not so much removal of anonymity as such. It doesn't lie in direct 'real world' identification of a person but rather in being able to connect a persons several online identities.

Sure, that could lead to identification of the person behind those identities, but thats something they need to manage if they want to be careful.

PvP bots

[Anonymous Coward]

The only really annoying ones are badly designed battleground bots who just run around randomly, dragging down the whole groups' performance. It's a pity that they're so easy to make. Maybe Cataclysm's rated battleground will fix that.

I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[RobotRunAmok]

Just glancing at this cursorily (it's slashdot, after all...), this seems like a WoW character's twitter feed. Blizzard prolly thought that was a cool feature: I mean, who doesn't want to communicate their every activity throughout the day in real time to a thousand of their closest friends, and via a website to a billion more complete strangers? Blizzard has watched a generation replace their privacy with "oooh, shiny" and figures they are just giving customers what they want.

Congrats to Blizzard. Shame on the rest of us.

Re:I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[dontPanik]

The problem with this is that there is no way for a user to opt-out.
So I say shame on Blizzard for putting all of us into Web 2.0, willingly or unwillingly.

Disclaimer: My WoW account has been rarely used for the last year or so. But you don't have to take my word for it, you can see for yourself now!

Re:I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[mayko]

The problem with this is that there is no way for a user to opt-out.

Cancel your account. When they ask their little "Why are you leaving?" survey, tell them this was the reason. If everyone did that, I'm sure they would think about including an opt-out feature.

If canceling your account is out of the question, then you value playing the game more than game-privacy.

Re:I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[ShakaUVM]

>>I mean, who doesn't want to communicate their every activity throughout the day in real time to a thousand of their closest friends, and via a website to a billion more complete strangers?

I'm just excited about how much more pleasant and civilized the WoW forums will be, now that they can accuse anyone of noobishness if they don't play 20 hours a day. Because you're not allowed an opinion unless you play 20 hours a day. That's the rule.

(Actually, I'm sort of puzzled why anyone still plays WoW at all.)

Re:I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[Daetrin]

Or the Facebook mentality, re: Zuckerberg's opinion that none of us care about privacy anymore. The fact that at least some people are complaining about this gives me a little hope.

(Of course if one wants to get really depressed there's Brin's opinion that it doesn't matter if we want privacy or not, we ain't getting it anyways.)

Re:I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[BobMcD]

(Actually, I'm sort of puzzled why anyone still plays WoW at all.)

Yeah, I get that. Occasionally I look around for something else to do. Unfortunately there's nothing out that that:

A) Would offer enough enticement for me to leave behind my little world that I've built - economically, socially, and progress-wise

B) Would appeal equally to the wife, family, friends, etc

C) Would be substantially different/better than WoW without severe drawbacks taken in trade

D) Would not qualify for the 'WoW-clone' moniker, casting doubt on leaving WoW in the first place

Maybe someday, but not as of today. And I know, I just checked!

Re:I Blame the Twitter Mentality

[stewbacca]

The way to "opt-out" is to not "log-in". Seems pretty simple to me.

I see

[PePe242]

You haven't changed your epic underwear for 3 days!

Re:I see

[kangsterizer]

epic smell.

Re:I see

[Anonymous Coward]

Just 'cause its purple, doesn't mean it's epic.

Nasty habit of disclosing data

[MysteriousPreacher]

Blizzard, since the launch of the Armory, has a pretty iffy track-record when it comes to revealing data. They seem to assume that everyone is happy to have the information shared, but this is a pretty big assumption. Their revealing gold-related statistics causing a bit of a storm. Although it was never possible to determine how much gold someone would have, the statistics made it possible to get a rough idea of how rich someone was likely to be.

The Armory is a great tool, but they really do need to allow players to decide how they want their information shared. I'd be happy if they just had a series of tick boxes along the lines of:

Share achievements
Share current gear
Share statistics

RPGOutfitter is a site that was doing something similar to the Armory long before the armory appeared, and they did a far better job in allowing users to filter their information.

WoW addiction: Clear goals, easy victories!

[jonaskoelker]

I've never understood the draw and allure that WoW provides, and why people get addicted to the point that they drop out of schools.

It could be that people are unsatisfied with their real life and aren't well-equipped to manage it. I know for sure I learned more than I'm happy to admit about life management (setting goals, working towards them) from David Allen and his Getting Things Done. Maybe I'm not the only one who'd do well to read some of his thoughts?

In any case, In contrast to a poorly managed real life, WoW gives you some very clear goals ("kill monster(s)" and "fetch item(s)" are popular, I hear; they worked in Diablo II), and, if Diablo II is anything to go by, a reasonably straightforward and easy way of accomplishing those goals if you just put in enough time.

So you have "complex, ambiguous, unsuccessful" versus "simple, well-defined, successful". What do you think wins?

See also someone else's take on this question at http://www.pixelpoppers.com/2009/11/awesome-by-proxy-addicted-to-fake.html

Re:WoW addiction: Clear goals, easy victories!

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be that people are unsatisfied with their real life and aren't well-equipped to manage it.

So you say they need a shirt of +10 lifehandling?

Re:WoW addiction: Clear goals, easy victories!

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't "simple, well-defined, successful" hallmarks of most hobbies? Work sucks and a career is a minefield of politics never completely under your own control, but a hobby, be it woodworking, car repair, rock climbing, painting, or gaming or whatever are characterized by being more or less completely under my control and completable in a reasonable time frame. What's "wrong" with wanting to feel a good feeling of accomplishment in something other than our career? Are we so broken that any accomplishment that doesn't further that career is considered poorly managing your life?

The tails of any distribution are weird. I've had friends with unhealthy obsessions/addictions to car repair, collecting, and computer games. I had far more friends with totally healthy hobbies though.

Re:WoW addiction: Clear goals, easy victories!

[fractoid]

[Staff of Get Things Done] and a [Helm of Good Life Choices], yeah. And maybe a [Scroll of Banish Unrealistic Expectations].

Re:WoW addiction: Clear goals, easy victories!

[Chris Burke]

But isn't "simple, well-defined, successful" hallmarks of most hobbies? Work sucks and a career is a minefield of politics never completely under your own control, but a hobby, be it woodworking, car repair, rock climbing, painting, or gaming or whatever are characterized by being more or less completely under my control and completable in a reasonable time frame.

Well-defined, yes. Simple or successful? No, not really. In fact, many hobbies are characterized by a lack of success, like the amateur mechanic who has been working for literally years on an old engine. For some the tinkering itself is the end-goal, but for others they actually want to achieve the well-defined goal of "the engine runs again", but it eludes them, and that's okay. Though if "well-defined" is supposed to mean that the necessary steps are well defined, then even that doesn't necessarily apply.

Rock climbing strikes me as an even better example for contrasting with WoW. In WoW, when you beat a Dungeon or Raid and get the gear from it, then you are well equipped to be successful in the next higher-level one. If you can master the strategies for one raid boss, odds are you already have the mental skills (don't stand in the fire!) to do the next one. In rock climbing, the goals are well defined (reach the top, reach the top without falling, reach the top without falling without ever having seen the route before), but that hardly makes it simple or success likely just because you've done the previous lower-level route. Just because you can easily finish a 5.9 doesn't mean you won't be flailing on the first few 5.10 you come across, and then once you've mastered those you'll take on a 5.11 and realize it's gone to a whole 'nother level and you need a whole new set of skills and strategies. Sometimes some of these routes can become major obstacles that it takes a long time to solve. I spent about two years trying off and on to finish this one 5.11a, it was like a pet project that I kept coming back to. Yeah the goal was well-defined, but how was anything but clear, and success anything but assured.

A person who is attracted to continual and incremental success is not going to be a rock climber for long.

I do like WoW, and there's nothing wrong with that, and I agree that addictive personality types are outliers that come up in a lot of places. But I also recognize that MMOGs are operating on a different level than many other hobbies. The link the GP posted about "performance" vs "mastery" orientations I think spells it out quite well. RPGs give you a never-ending series of essentially inevitable improvements and victories. Not every game or hobby does this.

Slashdot Adds Timestamps To Slashdot Threads

[craznar]

"In a move that could cause mild to almost no privacy problems for users of Slashdot, Cowboy Neal has added timestamps and an RSS feed to the site's online forum site. This new feature will mean that anyone can follow 'real-time' posts for a Slashdot user, which display the exact time and date, so that others can see that person's posting habits. Absolutely no users have complained about the fact that there is no opt-out setting, and this opens very big possibilities for online stalking."

Stalker's log, WOWDate 2010.01.20

[liquiddark]

Notes: Subject is playing WoW. Of course he's playing WoW. He's been playing WoW since I started this fucking log. What the hell is the point of stalking someone who never leaves their computer except to pee and/or restock their Cheetos supply? It's like *I'm* the pathetic wastrel here. Oh god. Have I become a pathetic wastrel? Stalker's log out!

Re:Stalker's log, WOWDate 2010.01.20

[j0hnyquest]

this ^

Improve school results

[captainpanic]

For anyone under 16-18, this would be GOOD.

Ok, the kids will hate Blizzard for it... but it might actually decrease the amount of time spent online, and improve school results.

Working people or anyone who keeps work and gaming separated need not fear. Your boss doesn't know your WoW character, does he?

However, it is surprising that a company would try to motivate players to play less...

Re:Improve school results

[Bieeanda]

It's not surprising at all, actually. MMO subscriptions are per-month, not strictly metered use like they were in the days of Compuserve. The less you actually play, the better it is for the company-- you're drawing fewer resources, and extending the time it would take you to reach whatever milestone you set for quitting.

Re:Improve school results

[Anonymous Coward]

Your boss doesn't know your WoW character, does he?

Actually, if I wanted to be paranoid... assume I played at work (I don't):

• My boss knows my primary non-work email address
• My slashdot account name can be derived from my primary non-work email address
• My WoW main is listed on my slashdot user page

My boss could easily find out when and where I was playing. I could quite easily see a situation arising such as:

Boss: Hey, fractoid, you look tired today!
Me: yeah, I haven't been sleeping too well the last couple of nights
Boss: oh? maybe it's something to do with the fact that you were running Halls of Reflection at 2:50am this morning, and last night you were farming Arathi Basin until well after 2am. If you don't cut down on your gaming and get some real sleep then you're going to have problems at your next performance review.
Me: ...well crap.

(Actually, thinking a little more about this, maybe I ought to pay more attention to my online privacy. The terrorists have won, I'm posting this as anon.)

Re:Improve school results

[Yamata no Orochi]

Why would you have your WoW character name on your slashdot page? Why would you boss know your non-work e-mail address? Especially if he's the kind of douche to suggest your performance review can be affected by whether or not HE gauges you're getting "enough sleep."

Re:Improve school results

[captainpanic]

Hmm, yes... excellent point.

But can't you buy in-game items in WoW? (I obviously never played the game). Is there no added value for Blizzard if players play a lot, other than that they will most likely pay next month's subscription fee?

Re:Improve school results

[Arthur Grumbine]

...and extending the time it would take you to reach whatever milestone you set for quitting.

Blasphemy!

Re:Improve school results

[sopssa]

Well, your boss actually has a good point.

Re:Improve school results

[nacturation]

But can't you buy in-game items in WoW? (I obviously never played the game).

The only way to legitimately collect gold needed to buy in-game items is by putting your time in, or having very generous friends. Blizzard offers no way to use cash.

Re:Improve school results

[jeffasselin]

No. You can buy some in-game pets that exist only for decorative purposes (there's two so far only), but nothing substantial.

checking WoW logs is easier than

[Nowhere.Men]

- listen to the noises from the bedroom,
- look for screen lights from under the door,
- check the internet traffic of your houshold,
- buy a mac, enable parental control with bedtimes hours,
- put the computer outside the kid bedroom.

I have a daughter and I don't have to do any of that. 10 min after her bedtime, she is sleeping, every night. She is 20 month old.

Re:checking WoW logs is easier than

[fractoid]

10 min after her bedtime, she is sleeping, every night. She is 20 month old.

You should have trained her to farm you gold by now.

Re:checking WoW logs is easier than

[Amorymeltzer]

Something tells me Blizzard's target audience isn't girls eagerly awaiting their second birthday...

Re:checking WoW logs is easier than

[Snaller]

Only a year more and she can start grinding gold!

Re:checking WoW logs is easier than

[MBGMorden]

You jest, but I've been playing WoW almost 5 years now. Haven't been in the exact same guild, but I've only been between two of them, and from the first to the second a lot of the same people moved over. When I first started there was a couple that played - the wife a hunter and the husband a warrior (tank). They had an 11 year old daughter who they originally were joking that they were going to raise up to be their healer. Fast forward 5 years and I'll be damned if the girl isn't playing a resto shammy.

Re:checking WoW logs is easier than

[Supurcell]

Nice.

Stalk a Wow player

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell thinks a Wow player would get stalked? That would be some boring stalking:

09:00 am: He's in the basement.
11:00 am: He's in the basement.
11:10 am: He went to the bathroom.
12:15 pm: He's in the basement.
01:00 pm: His mom brought him lunch.
02:00 pm: He's in the basement.
03:00 pm: He's in the basement.
04:00 pm: He's in the basement.
05:00 pm: He's in the basement. ...
10:00 pm: What else? He's in the basement.

On line stalking not the same on WoW

[physburn]

On-line stalking usually means the crime of tracking down a users in physically reality. In WoW in will mean (especially on PvP servers), high level players, griefers and those we grudges, following round low level players, and killing them repeatly as our newbies try to build up there equipment, and complete PvE missions.

---

MUD Games Feed @ Feed Distiller

It's not too late, folks.

[fialar]

Sign out of the bloody game for good: http://www.wowdetox.com/

I did just over 3 years ago and don't regret it.

Can't even log in to the forums to protest.

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the Battlenet auth servers are down.

That said, this is complete bullshit. It's bad enough /who is always live, there's no way to hide your status in game, now anytime you play, even on your lunch hour, a nosy boss can armory you and say ... "I see you have time to WoW, even though all your work is done. Perhaps we need to give you more to do.".

Blizzard does a nono

[hesaigo999ca]

Oops, big time mistake on blizzards part, I don't need anyone knowing my game times whether real time or not, I allow WoW to know, but not anybody (especially ones without an account that want to poke fun at you). The problem here is that when someone
looks you up, they need to know who you are toon wise, and what all your alts are as well as the server(s) you are on.

You can name change and server change to avoid problems...but to my knowledge, someone who knows how the game is played has unlimited access to your game times...so if someone wants to know when you are on, at any time ...you can't say you were at the doctor's or busy doing your laundry....you are stuck as being on, then if the perps have an account, they can spam you until you unwittingly answer and confirm to them you are really on and not just logged on.

I don't see what the advantage of this is, why blizzard even made the effort to do this, I would have liked they keep their money (development) and give me more game story or another patch with extra raids on it....seriously!

Re:I have a solution

[hesaigo999ca]

Your lucky I have no mod points, I would have modded you troll 10 times over.

Did you ever think the reason why some people like it, is they already have paid for the game, and don't need to spend another uber fortune to play other similar games, my next game will NOT be another one like WoW, enough is enough....
the only game I might buy like minded as WoW, would be star wars MMO coming soon, but other then that, keep it offline for me from now on.

Tin Foil Hat alert...

[cigawoot]

That is at least what this article reeks of....

Not Very Accurate

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually doesn't timestamp very accurately. My character received an achievement at around 4:00 AM (server time). I later checked that character's armory page around 2:00 PM (server time) that day, and it said I had received the achievement "one hour ago."

Timestamp... More Like Date Stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

Does not appear that anyone has actually taken the time to look at what the timestamp/rss feature provides. It simply has the date, not the time, that a certain event happened such as getting a piece of loot or killing a boss. This doesn't allow for stalking and is certainly no more information than could be gathered in-game without much effort. You don't even need to create an addon to /who the character all the time, there are already addons that show the status of people in your friends list all the time. To me, this just appears to be an over reaction of people that do not realize that anything that you do in public, is public. It is not as if Blizzard is allowing people to know that Joe Smith in Paris, TX was logged on at 10:00 A.M. and scratched his balls while waiting for a random group to form.

Standard response to all stories like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit? It's just a stupid fucking game. Get a life!

oops

[mister_playboy]

(Actually, thinking a little more about this, maybe I ought to pay more attention to my online privacy. The terrorists have won, I'm posting this as anon.)

Hey, fractoid, you dropped your name in the midst of your AC post and we know who you are. :) Best to decide "to AC or not to AC" before you start composing.

Re:oops

[fractoid]

Yeah, I oops'd. :P Of course, armoury doesn't (yet!) list all of my alts... ;)

And, despite my brief waver of resolve (for a moment there the terrorists really DID win) I concur with Yamata there. I don't think I'd want to work for someone who based my work performance review on anything but my performance at work. Not that, in fact, I think my boss is that sort of guy, I was being more general than specific.

Blizzard needs to do more work on privacy

[Shivetya]

One of the major problems is that you can be harassed by people full time because of the friends list. The issue is that you cannot block people from putting you on that list or hiding from them by using the /ignore feature. While I understand that "loot ninjas" want to hide they can't on the server from their name being trashed.

Throw in that paid names changes don't remove you from friends list and it just gets more of a pain to hide from in game bullies. I fully expect blizzard one day to really screw the pooch and provide a means to see "this person's other characters"

Even changing servers is no protection unless your willing to give up the character name you chose

Real Reason

[kenp2002]

Since this went live I have gotten over 700 requests from employers wanting to contract me to compare those time stamps to select employees known to play WoW to ensure that they are not playing during work hours.

I wrote a perl script years ago that scans and dumps Lotus Notes email containing select keywords and back then it was targeted towards Everquest players but I'm sure they have since updated it for other games. It's trivial to correlate email to character info if you, for instance, raid with coworkers. (I also wrote a juggle-bot script for DAOC at the time that auto-juggled 3 instruments for bard-bots at the same time on contract...)

That is the reason for the time stamps plain and simple for I can see no reason to provide anything beyond the date (really does it matter you cleared Naxx at 1:00 PM or 10:00 PM last Thursday... only an employer would care) and I for one regret retiring since I could clear $75 and hour for cross-checking that kind of info.(Which is what I used to charge to check ... well... slashdot and other popular forums against employee info. Litigating a wrongful termination is expensive but slapping 4 pages of online posts that show deteriment to the company solves most of those claims and challenges.)

Keep this in mind: If your employer knows you play WoW and you have EVER played during the work week start checking the job boards my friend. They won't bother to check if you were on vacation, they'll simply red flag you none the less. There is a frenzy brewing and anyone looking for an excuse to show you the door this is a great little tool for that.

Re:Real Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple solution: Don't tell your boss, or coworkers who can't keep their mouths shut, what your character names are! Without the names, they can't track you.

Also, you are all kinds of stupid if you are using work email for non-work related topics (And keeping those clean, neutral, or positive in nature).

Re:Real Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I call B.S. Nice troll, but I don't believe in the few days since this came out that you've gotten _any_ requests from employers. Even if said employers were interested, and all knew that you could hypothetically offer this service, there's no way for them to match a WoW Armory Profile with a real name. You say, "it's trivial to correlate email to character info if you, for instance, raid with coworkers," but how precisely would go about doing that? I suppose you might get lucky and have some mention their toon's name in company email, but I have a feeling that would be a rare exception rather than the rule.

So, nice kharma whore. Stick with the truth next time?

Re:Real Reason

[jim_v2000]

No kidding. Firing someone based on this kind of "evidence" is just asking for a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Re:Real Reason

[BobMcD]

Keep this in mind: If your employer knows you play WoW and you have EVER played during the work week start checking the job boards my friend. They won't bother to check if you were on vacation, they'll simply red flag you none the less. There is a frenzy brewing and anyone looking for an excuse to show you the door this is a great little tool for that.

You seem to know very little about the actual management process. Just as an FYI:

1) Terminations are either at will (meaning no reason is required and unemployment is paid without challenge) or heavily documented. This might contribute a data point to the 'case' made against you, but unless the boss can prove they told you to STOP (followed up by multiple counseling sessions, action plans, and the like), then the RSS feed isn't going to actually count for much.

2) If you're worried about an at will employer terminating you over WoW, you can stop. By definition they can do so without stating a reason at all. They could have done so yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that - but they didn't. So why worry?

3) If you're worried that this might contribute to a case against you, remember that every employee generates a wide array of 'good' reasons to fire them on a daily basis. If an employer wanted to chalk them up under a generic 'quantity and quality of work' umbrella they could readily march you down the death trail until either you wise up and quit or the size of the stack means you get fired. You surf the web to much, you miss deadlines (or would if your workload were increased), you make mistakes, you make coworkers uncomfortable, you're just not fitting in - the list goes on and on. So long as they counsel you and document all the things they did to try valiantly to salvage their poor worker, they will eventually get what they want. In the end, only the cost-benefit saves an employee like this. Contrast how painful this process is for the manager, including re-hiring and training costs, with just letting the employee slide one more day.

Re:Real Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

my question is how do employers even know your toons name to track you.

Re:Real Reason

[brkello]

If your employer spends that much time putting something like this in place, it is pretty clear they don't actually care about the work that is being done. If you don't trust your employees and can't monitor the performance based on the results, then your company is a failure.

I don't really believe your story, but if it is true, I would leave that company in a heart beat. Besides, you can just monitor your bosses to show that they were doing the same thing then sue the crap out of them.

Re:Real Reason

[sabt-pestnu]

But wait! Slowjoe on the Muradin server is mine, not on Bronzebeard!

You'll want to be careful of the facts, doing that sort of thing.

Re:Real Reason

[sabt-pestnu]

Sure, it's possible to uncover someone's account details from things they've done at work. The system administrator is in a perfect position to intercept anything between the employee's computer and the rest of the world.

1) Check for facebook/myspace pages. The information may be right out there for the world to see.
2) Check the connection log for their computer's IP address. (Ah, they visited the wow forums, and the armory.)
3) Fire up their browser (you do have admin password, don't you? And it's company property, isn't it?), check for saved web login information.
3b) Track non-secured wowarmory access. What pages do they go back to regularly? High probability that some of those are characters of theirs.
4) Track other related site browsing information (do they have a guild page? perhaps a critter corner profile?)

Most folks don't regularly browse with TOR, or even use elementary privacy hygiene practices. Sure these things are invasive. But it's not like you weren't looking for an excuse to fire the person anyway...

Mind... you're putting precious IT staff time to a task that is often as simple as "I don't like your face. Take your coffee cup and go."

I laugh that WoW privacy is more important

[Anonymous Coward]

Is WoW privacy more important than actual privacy? From the wording of that article, one game just spilled his mountain dew over it. He could give a damn about the rest of his civel liberties, but if someone actually knew how much time he was spendingon Wow, HLYC CRAP BZZLLDR SUX UJERKS Privacy privacy privacy

Possibilities for online stalking?you

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? Yeah it could be used to know when someone is sitting in front of their computer at home but stalking? Really? This isn't like twitter where the whole point is to post every thing you're doing (even on your mobile with where you are, that is stalking gold). Or like facebook where you post all your personal details AND what you are doing.

Really if your playing wow your playing wow. Your not posting personal information, running around town, or expressing anything in your life; your playing freaking wow.

Ding.

[headkase]

You are right, that is the answer. Now, it's just getting it noticed everywhere.

Already possible

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't so much "how" accessible is it for folks that know how to program this themselves - the underlying issue is how easy it has become to get hacked in WOW (losing all your mats, GuidBank tabs, gear, gold, etc..) and lately, Blizzard Tech Support acknowledging that the access was made via the
WOW Armory. Our GM of the Day read - "Don't use WOW Armory for anything - incl. iPhone/iTouch - 6 members lost everything due to inappropriate access via this portal"

Although Blizzard is taking care of this situation, allowing more tunnels into the characters that play only allows the hacks to do the same, with just more options to added to the buffet.

Have you looked at the new Armory?

[Azureflare]

It's not just about armor anymore. You can also view number of kills for a specific boss, and other simple statistics that weren't tracked before. It's kind of crazy. They can see your exact raid history!

I think the moral of the story is, if you don't want people to know about your playing habits, don't tell them your character name...

Happiness

[AlpineR]

It sounds to me like you were addicted to WoW. But you're also addicted to life. You're grinding for grades, degrees, jobs, promotions, papers, and relationships.

The only way to judge that you are healthier than a WoW-only addict is to declare that traditional accomplishments are more important than video game accomplishments. And that judgment is a matter of happiness. Do traditional accomplishments generate more happiness than video game accomplishments? Probably, especially in the long term. But only if you truly enjoy both the process and the completion of those goals. If you're just racing to check off a list of real life accomplishments and not really happy, then you're just addicted to a more socially acceptable game.

Re:Happiness

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent insighful.

Re:Happiness

[thesandtiger]

I think that you're reading my view of healthy behavior wrong.

I look at healthy behavior as "behavior that doesn't cut you off from options you want to do or interfere with your life in a way that causes problems" - more or less. In the case of someone who is cutting themselves off from personal relationships, losing a job, dropping out of school, or becoming physically sick from playing too much - yes, that's unhealthy. It is the same kind of unhealthy as any kind of addiction - drugs, alcohol, sex, food, work, whatever.

Some people can play games or use drugs or drink or have sex or enjoy food or work hard to succeed, or whatever else and it doesn't impair their ability to function in other areas - to me, that's healthy. It's when someone's activities start to really impact them negatively that it becomes unhealthy.

As to the issue of grinding in real life - it's only a grind if you don't enjoy the process. I love taking classes and learning new things, not just the degree that comes at the end of it. I love developing research protocols and not just the publication credits that come after. I'd damn well better, considering that being awarded a degree or getting a publication credit is a very brief thing, while the process stuff is a huge part of my life! Toiling away at something that you don't like doing in order to get a brief moment of reward - that seems very sad to me, and I'm fortunate not to be in that position.

WoW Is Like Golf...

[EXTomar]

As a friend put it, it WoW is like Golf. How much privacy are you expecting when anyone can drive by and see them out on the course? If it turns out they really really really like Golf or WoW and are trying to hide how much playing they are doing then there is a different problem.

Beyond this there is a general issue of people expecting confidentiality from an online video game. Expecting the same level of privacy you'd get from a doctor, lawyer, priest or even in your home from a video game is pretty damn silly.

Serious Privacy Problems?

[shadowrat]

Isn't that a bit of hyperbole? WoW's a recreational activity, nobody needs to play WoW. It can even be argued that, due to it's social nature, one should expect the same privacy you would get from any public activity.

Worried about your boss finding out you called in sick to play WoW? That's like bitching that you called in sick to go to the ball game and showed up on the jumbotron.

And online stalking? isn't that one of the most overblown boogeymen of the internet? Don't we all snicker inside when the nightly news trots out a victim of cyber stalking who tearfully recounts recieving profane emails? What is the stalker going to do in WoW? Maybe they can find you and dance in front of you? Maybe they could teabag your avatar?

I guess the seriousness of the situation seems to be directly proportional to the importance you place on WoW.

BTW, where's the article about the SERIOUS PRIVACY ISSUES of slashdot posts showing up with a timestamp and user id? I mean wtf? now my stalkers can read my posts and know when i posted them!

Re:Serious Privacy Problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's like bitching that you called in sick to go to the ball game and showed up on the jumbotron. "

A more apt comparison would be ditching work to goto a ball game, and then a month later having the stadium publish a website with a list of all people who attended which games.

It's all nice to say "don't play WoW at work if you don't want to get caught", but the reality of it is a bit different.

I have some legitimate reasons to play wow during work hours, including on my lunch break, if I'm traveling and stuck in the airport and pony up the cost for the wifi myself, or if I'm taking flex time for the all nighter install. (* my co-workers used to play, and know my character's name).

I could defend all the times I play wow, but making the record so public, and so well documented, makes it more likely I'll have to, and it is best not to have to explain crap like that to HR to begin with.

So the moral of the story isn't "don't play video games at work" it is "don't play video games at work that document you playing to a public site".

Armory has pissed me off from the start

[cfalcon]

Back before armory, you were essentially anonymous when posting on the wow forums- you had your avatar, but what you posted was just words. Now I've seen the following:

1- Threads derailed because someone will point out that someone has only killed a boss BLAH times- where BLAH is a couple less then them, or whatever.
2- Attacks to a player's arena team ratings when they have a point to make about getting one shot in pvp- or more comically, when a player is talking about something not related to pvp at all (arena rating is a rated deathmatch series- the idea being, if a player is only better than 70% of other participants, then their viewpoint is discountable).
3- Ad hominem attacks based on a player that gems one stat over another- for instance, plenty of items will have say, 8 AP if you match the blue socket. So, you can not match and get 40 AP, or you *can* match with a 20AP/15Stamina gem, and get more total stats, but even though there are situations where you want the extra health (maybe your healers aren't super pro), you can be fully discounted if you have any of these part blue gems- etc.

Whatever benefit we've obtained from this accountability seems lost in a wash of troll attack posts. Now that we can see who got what items, in what order, and even when people are on?

I really hate armory. They had this April Fools joke where they had a "tinfoil hat" where if you equipped it your armory would not be visible. It was obviously a joke, but the forums were FULL of maxxed out posts asking for it to PLEASE be implemented.

Re:Armory has pissed me off from the start

[BobMcD]

The success of forum trolls has almost nothing to do with the armory and has everything to do with the culture. Don't blame the tool. If these attacks are able to derail threads then the discussion probably isn't of much value in the first place.

I do wish there was a better place to go, but I can recognize that the Blizzard forums are definitely not the place to talk to other (helpful) players.

Re:Armory has pissed me off from the start

[Conchobair]

I show you are missing a lot of /. achievments. You have never tagged a post and have only read it 8 days in a row. How could you possibly understand how to post on this site?

L2post noob.

(Sorry, I could not help myself)

just a Q

[Kc_spot]

Haven't they tried a RSS feed? or is that the next step?

Already has a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/items/tinfoilhat.xml

No connection to real life

[goodmanj]

1. Privacy does not exist for WoW characters. Any other WoW player can see what your character is doing at any time, using in-game tools. Nothing new is gained from the Armory info. "Stalking" a character using the Armory is useless, since you could do it in-game just as easily.

2. The Armory gives no data to connect your WoW activities to your real life. "Stalking" a person in real life through the Armory is impossible, since you can't connect a person to their character.

The only real-life risk is if someone has information to connect your character to your real life. Then you've got potential stalker problems, potential home invasion problems, potential employer problems, potential relationship problems. But that connecting information was given away by YOU. Blizzard is not to blame, YOU are.

If you don't want your real life to cross over with your online activities, don't connect the two. Only a few close friends and family know I play a lot of WoW. Only my wife knows the name of my server, my guild, and my characters -- and that's only because she plays with me. My work e-mail contains no trace of WoW. Contrariwise, some of my closer WoW friends know what part of the country I live in and what type of work I do, but none could identify my town of residence or my employer. A few have a Gmail address for me which is used only for gaming activities. Only two know my real name.

Whenever you're tempted to let your online personas cross over into your real life, or just interconnect with each other, remember the story of the little Dutch boy and the dike.

Is there any expectation of privacy?

[BobMcD]

Is there an expectation of privacy about whether or not you have entered a public space? If so, why?

As others have said, there isn't any way to hide in WoW.

I guess I don't see what has actually been lost here.

I've read the 'articles', too, and they're basically devoid of any really point being made here.

Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

This probably violates Canadian privacy laws.

Funny you should mention it...

[RulerOf]

prevent you from automating things that shouldn't be (such as actual gameplay, combat in particular), those things are prevented by technical limitations.

Blizzard has made extensive changes to their LUA API over the years, sometimes to add functionality, and other times explicitly to break it.

Something that was recently added, for example, is a Quest Info API that makes it possible for addons to get information about quests you haven't completed and (I think) your eligibility to do so. There's a mod called Everyquest (I think) that makes use of this. Quite handy for those seeking the various "Loremaster" achievements.

Other times, however, when Blizzard doesn't like the functionality an addon provides, like that long ago offered by one called "Decursive," which was much more powerful several years ago, made it so that a player could basically bind, for example, their movement keys to trigger the addon's main function. This effectively created an "auto-dispel harmful debuffs" effect that was quite unfair in a PvP setting. The addon still exists today, only in a slightly less convenient form.

Many functions as well such as attacking units and casting spells and so on are also part of this LUA API, but can only be called from LUA code that's been signed by Blizzard. A little trivia: WoW bots remove this limitation and extensively utilize these protected API calls to perform their actions.

Re:Funny you should mention it...

[sopssa]

There was another addon that broke at some point too, which basically buffed yourself or everyone in your party when you scrolled mousewheel or pressed button. Is there such still?

Re:Funny you should mention it...

[Acaeris]

No addon can cast a spell automatically. You can however bind an addons functions to a macro that includes the spell cast and use that instead. I used to have one that I bound to the key left of 1 that used a variant of decursive to target a player with a debuff I could cleanse, if none found it left me with no target, the macro then tried to cast cleanse on my target (If I didn't have one it would attempt to cast it on myself and fail).

You still need to know the character's name.

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've seen of the feature, you need to know the character's name and realm to see the feed. It does not seem directly tied to the player's real name or email address. In other words, you can only be "stalked" by people who know the name of your character and what realm you play on.

What this means is that certainly protecting your "privacy" will require more diligence than before if you don't want people to know when you're playing WoW. Specifically, you should be careful who you share your character/realm info with.

From what I can tell, the RSS feed currently tracks:
1. When you kill a boss in an instance, and how many times you've killed that boss.
2. When you receive a piece of loot. It appears that this loot must be an epic (or presumably legendary), but I have not confirmed this yet because I have not looted a blue or green since the feature went live. It will also tell if you've got that piece of loot equipped.
3. When you earn an achievement or feat of strength.

Recently Banned for asking for an opt-out package

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you please provide an opt-out package to this feature?

I can write a few lines of code to detail anyones habits I would want.

Many of the Facebook generation might not see how easy this game could haunt them, but it will soon. Especially those who work from work. Or go through a divorce. ETC.

TMIF, imho.

Nothing to hide, sure I don't. But I dont want to be protecting individual rights when they got everyone else's but mine. Too late then.
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Mallyx

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        * Icecrown

        * 1. Re: Armory Timestamp 01/19/2010 10:08:11 AM PST

quote reply
reported
I am proud of my achievements in wow, but i fully agree that if people dont want them to be so easily accessible they shouldnt be /signed
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgdpq160GzA&NR=1
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Fulgora

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        * Dawnbringer

        * 2. Re: Armory Timestamp 01/19/2010 10:24:20 AM PST

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While I also agree I am proud of my achievements, I'm not into the whole cyber-stalking thing. I don't wish my playing habits to be mined, so please allow an opt-out service.
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Plotinus

        * Tichondrius

        * 3. Re: Armory Timestamp 01/19/2010 10:26:38 AM PST

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I love my WoW achievements also. But figure most of the world could care. Unless they have an axe to grind or are geeks like me. One causes me no harm, one causes me alot more, especially if they hire good lawyers.

Maybe it is just my age and the Facebook geneation wants this.

But is it also too hard to allow me to opt-out? Because I don't want it.

Let me have a choice, and allow me to opt-out.

On the other hand...

[Bragador]

But you miss the point of Progress Quest. It's a satire of modern rpgs. What happens if you remove all the boring parts of modern mmorpgs? You end up with Progress Quest.

Grinding is not gaming. Having fun is gaming.

So if the guy only wants to do raids and doesn't care about leveling and getting equipments, why should he waste his time?

Re:On the other hand...

[Chris Burke]

But you miss the point of Progress Quest. It's a satire of modern rpgs. What happens if you remove all the boring parts of modern mmorpgs? You end up with Progress Quest.

Maybe this is what you meant, but Progress Quest is what you get if you get rid of all the non-boring parts. It's literally what you'd get if you replaced the interaction with the game with a bot. Sure it's satire of the pointless grinding in mmorpgs, but is progress quest actually any more fun? No, it's less fun. And this person literally turned WoW into Progress Quest.

So if the guy only wants to do raids and doesn't care about leveling and getting equipments, why should he waste his time?

But dungeons and raids are how you get equipment! And they're just grinds of another fashion. If you can't have any fun leveling and doing dungeons while leveling, odds are you aren't going to have any fun raiding. And I didn't even see him mention what he did other than run bots. He has 80s, why did he not set the bots aside and start running raids? Why would he quit because he can't run bots, rather than simply say "I'm not going to level any new characters"?

The upshot is that if they won't play the game without bots, then they were playing the wrong game. And now they've stopped, and good riddance.

Re:On the other hand...

[toiletsalmon]

Good riddance indeed. Next on the list of undesirable are those people spend more time than me playing, are better players than me, and especially the ones that are better at manipulating the AH than I am.

It gives them an unfair advantage, and screws with the game economy, just like botting. Throw them under a buss I say! /spit

Re:On the other hand...

[Chris Burke]

Amusing specious reasoning. Is this how botters think? That being good or just having lots of free time are the same as cheating, so they should be able to cheat too? I'm picturing someone who was angry at getting their ass kicked in elementary school soccer games, and even angrier that they couldn't even the odds by using their hands, or similar such humiliations.

Re:On the other hand...

[Bragador]

If instead of a bot, you and your friends used the same account to play 24h a day instead of using a bot. Would that still be cheating?

Re:On the other hand...

[Bragador]

No, I meant the boring parts. Leveling and collecting equipment is repetitive. Then again, I dont' like games like Diablo II where all you do is run around killing the same boss again and again to get a slightly better sword to kill the same boss again slightly faster.

WOW is pretty much like Diablo II. You can do the story and have fun, but the whole game is based around killing the same guys again and again. I can't argue with millions of people liking that, but I prefer less repetitive tasks.

Analogy time

[sabt-pestnu]

TSA ID requirements such a big deal? You can always, you know, just quit flying.

Re:I have a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Eve? Yeah, if I wanted to jump into a large-scale hardcore economic simulation wherein the old guard is so heavily entrenched in power that nothing short of complete universal armageddon would give me a chance to not be a slave to some old-timer with a bottomless supply of currency, I'd just stay out here, in real life .

*Time* and date?

[psperneac]

I've checked the armory page of one of my toons and don't see the time either in the web page or in the RSS feed. There is a date, but time is missing. W/o the time, the assumed stalking part in the article is useless. Also the fact that I might not have entries for a day or 2 doesn't mean I'm not playing, I might be farming mats or just wiping in a raid.

Re:Recently Banned for asking for an opt-out packa

[brkello]

They can already be mined without this. I am not saying an opt-out is bad...you should have that option. If you think your time can't be monitored, it already can. So if you are overly paranoid either don't play or make sure no one knows your character name.

I imagined hardcore arena players would want this option as well to gain an upper hand on their opponents who would have their gear/build published.

Well if nothing else

[Kitkoan]

This could help people to find out if someone they know is playing WoW too much and need to make sure of this assumption. Since people who play too much tend to switch gear to better support the different challenges needed in game. Questioning is one thing, having proof is a lot more effective and all together better.

Then again, who wants to really watch what someone does on WoW. Here I'll show you more or less what it'll be:

"You put your right epic on, you take your right epic off, you put your left epic on and you shake it all about. You do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself around...

You can opt-out

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an opt out- stop playing WOW. :)

Wow

[CountBrass]

And the funny thing is how many US worker bees, who are hurt by this, will stand up and argue about how evil 'socialist' europe is by giving its worker bees paid holiday and paid sick leave.

Blizzard Opens Can Of Worms Arround Privacy

[TimRicket]

I agree, Blizzard does have the right to publish this stuff, but it sure will open up a can of nasty worms arround privacy issues, I have a debate about this going on on my blogg right now http://www.warcraftadvisor-tim.com/blog and have mentioned this site

Re:Real Reason - Unemployment

[kenp2002]

I do and each entry is going to be processed at an infraction, I've been in several conference calls already and I can personally attest to 8 people being let go for this already. Abusing sick time and telecommuting policies aren't "mediated" or "salvaged" or "given warnings". Your fired. The End. They call WiPro for offshore or Robert Half or Volt or another contracting house and you are replaced within 4 days. The end. (The costs as you point out though vary depending on the nature of work). Any idiot with a high school degree can answer a support center and drill down in databases.

1) At Will states could fire you for anything, I've seen the old Andersen Consulting fire a guy for "Unacceptable Attire" a.k.a he had a soup stain on his tie from lunch (Down town Mpls. We ate at a burger joint next door in the skyway across from the 5th st. Towers. His boss was screaming at the kid calling him a slob, it was sad really. The actual quote as best I remember was, "What kind of fucking slob are you. We bill you out to a client as $104 and they expect someone who can use a fucking napkin!" Glad they aren't around anymore (Thank you Enron...))

As far as for states that do not have at-will this is plenty of ammo and hard to dispute. You can dispute performance, you are hard pressed to dispute time stamped activities. As far as the STOP issue is concerned I've in 13 years never seen someone get a warning, first offense = last offense. In a business environment that is looking for any reason to hire cheaper labor there is little incentive to hold onto people.

2) You apparently have never had to sit on conference calls where employees are contesting for unemployment benefits. Getting fire for wrong-doing is a considerably different argument then "poor performance." One is termination the other is effectively getting laid off.

3) Which all end up getting argued in front of (metaphorically speaking) and arbitator at the local unemployment office or even internally in an HR meeting. Regardless of "At Will" employment there is still the issue of unemployment benfits and this is a gold mine for blocking benefits. So far as of 12/21/9 it's Gamers= 0, Employers= 3 (so far, 2 more calls next Tues. concerning the last 5).

Listen this is the type of arguments I am hearing:

You are provided paid sick time for health reasons. It is clear from the time stamps you were video gaming STARTING at 11 PM the night before (monday) and from the activities you were still playing at the least as of 3 AM the following day (tuesday). Your next game activity was at 6:08 AM. You emailed into work you were sick at 7:44 AM and the log indicates you continued to play until at least 7:07 PM CST. (A list of 30 achievements) This pattern also occurs on 4 other occasions. First question: If you were too sick to come into work Tuesday why were you up the entire night before gaming?

(usual excuse is "I was sick and couldn't sleep")

Why does't this pattern repeat itself on X,Y, and Z dates?

The next record in their file come up with:
"Due to bad weather you worked from home on XXX date. According to the time stamps while, on company time, you were gaming."

Now there are dozens of those entries listed.

"We terminated Y's employment due to frequent repeated abuse of company time and sick policy for the purposes of playing an MMO while on company time which was a clear violation of corporate policy."

I don't get into the pissing contests, I just handled the data aquisition and explain crap like what a Raid is and how long it takes to do a full clear of Naxx-25 (I frequently am brought into translate geekanese to corpspeak in exchange for a free lunch to former coworkers and employers, the iPhone as a telecommuting conversation was shall we say, entertaining but that is another story).

One manager said this: "It's like a speeding ticket. An employee who gets one occasionally... not a big deal. An employee who gets one every week shows a problem with following basic rules and policies. I do

Re:Real Reason - Unemployment

[BobMcD]

Thank you for your post.

I'd just like to rebut a little that you started with...

Keep this in mind: If your employer knows you play WoW and you have EVER played during the work week start checking the job boards my friend. They won't bother to check if you were on vacation, they'll simply red flag you none the less. There is a frenzy brewing and anyone looking for an excuse to show you the door this is a great little tool for that.

...and wound up at...

It is fuel to show a lack of reponsibility. It''s just one more bullet point in a risk assessment during a background check. Plain and simple and there is gold in them hills for data mining that info (they already spend a boat load tracking social networks, why not this.)

I agree with the latter and I feel the former is too sensationalist.

There could be a whole other discussion here where we explore the impact of gamer culture and the previous generation failing to adapt to it. We could discuss WoW use versus Facebook pictures, or versus older risks like smoking or having bad credit. That would be a tangent, though, and I still feel that if you are at risk of being fired, you probably know it.

Re:Real Reason - Unemployment

[kenp2002]

Not always, cost cutting measure and those meetings are, "We need to let 30 people go. Which department do we tell to let 8 people go?"

(incoming hypothetical base on real meetings)

Then I come in with the stats team and say, "Well based on bulk RSS feeds from we score the following department based on video game activity, "Programmers as 3200 entries. DB Group at 1200 entries. Marketing at 4100 entries. This are not a measure of performance but mearly a comparison of activity accumulated by department. The company median for activity is 800 entries. Based on social networking scores the Java team's activity score is 400 while the marketing department is over 60,000. Of which 40,000 can be attributed to LinkedIn activity. The DB group is 150 for social networking with the company median around 390."

Same goes for web reporting (where I got my start) looking as Squid proxy reports.

"The average user here at XYZ has 4100 HTTP hits across 9 web sites. The majority of web traffic is to CNN and ESPN. The following 10 people are the top of all HTTP traffic excluding CNN and ESPN related traffic.

From statistical analysis the following 100 users are over 2 standard devations in internet usage over the norm.

The following 10 users are 2 standard deviations lower then normal internet usage.

The following web sites have exclusive 1:1 relationships with users\ip address...."

I also did this for disk storage:

"Median home drive space: 1.45 GBs. The following users have disk usage greater then the median by 2 standard deviations." (Automagic weekly report)

We even did it by file type

"Average user per 100 files: 3.4 Word 4.1 Excel ... The following users deviate for the norm by an order of magnatude in any one or more catagories..."

This reporting is then used by management, admins, etc to make decisions. How they use\abuse data is up to them. What got me out of doing it was managers would start asking for data on specific people... looking for something bad. The quote that ended my career in that was, "No no just tell me the bad stuff in his report."

I don't do good or bad, what is... is.

But given 3 departments one with say 1200 hours worth of MMO playing, 1300, and 2600 it's easy to see which department might have a higher risk profile. Now given the mandate to reduce staff by 8% across the board which department is going to get "the lean" more?

Information has been weaponized since the bronze age and the Internet is a gold mine of data. Until there is some real privacy legistation don't be suprised to go into an HR department and see MMO and online game software on the shelves so they can log in and do some data mining.

Race, creed, religion, sexual preference is all protected classes of information but exceeding a 5% MMO time threshold for employment isn't (or any arbitrary threshold). Playing for more then 2.12 hours a week (5%) is just another possible red flag...

Fact: the fastest you can complete a WoW instance is going average out to about 10 minutes.

2.12 hours = 127.2 minutes.

Doing more then 13 instances a week is going to pop that flag. Even given the dates all I have to do is check and see if you've done more then 13 instances in a week. Red flag.

Given the average time of 1 hour for a raid, better not clear Naxx 10 AND EOE 10 in a week, that's 2 hours right there...

You can't beat into these people that correlation doesn't imply causation any more then you can explain that there is no direct evidence that the employee himself\herself is actually playing\surfing\etc. The abuse of data is the norm and the more data, the more abuse.

Re:Real Reason - Unemployment

[BobMcD]

But given 3 departments one with say 1200 hours worth of MMO playing, 1300, and 2600 it's easy to see which department might have a higher risk profile. Now given the mandate to reduce staff by 8% across the board which department is going to get "the lean" more?

Probably the one with the least political pull, the least tangible value, or the least perceived value.

It would be very, very rare for all of these to be held equal.

Now, perhaps within a department, this could be true. But it smacks of bad management, and any upper-level boss would be able to see that. Time spent playing games during the work day would be one thing, but lacking any actual performance indicators, any actual payroll data, and/or any other important-to-the-job factors really makes you a horrible unit manager. You could be firing your best programmer, or your cheapest labor, or your boss's cousin. Any manager worth anything at all has an 'axe list' and playing WoW isn't actually a factor on it. It might be used to 'prove' that the content is valid, but then again it might not.

This brings me back to my point. If your boss wants to fire you, they could use this against you. Though they could also use any number of much easier tools as well, like as you pointed out, web surfing. If they don't want to fire you, which is probable since they didn't fire you yesterday, then they may just as well overlook your report in favor of that guy they don't like.

So if you're about to get fired you could stop playing WoW, but it probably wouldn't save you anyway, unless you never, ever, ever pick your nose.

Finally, why wouldn't a smart employee simply claim that they were botting, renting out the account, or similar?

Again, I think the web logs and/or the time clock would be a far more productive use of a real-world manager's time.

You and I likely work for organizations of different size, but I cannot imagine that human nature has gone as completely by the wayside as you seem to be saying it has.

Disconnect

[Databass]

From this alone, no one can tell _your_ habits. They could learn the habits of Panzofran the Blood Elf Warlock, and conclude certain patterns of play time. (Like that the character plays most during evenings in EST- but who's to say it's not the middle of the night in Europe, or mornings in East Asia?)

People can't easily make the jump to stalking _your_ habits unless you reveal your person-character connection somewhere else: 1) Tell people your real name in game or on guild forums or something 2) Write about your character on Livejournal 3) Meet people IRL at Blizzcon or something