Why don't we have the option to play invisible?

[ComputerNerd]

Because it's an MMO

Overused excuse.
We have indicators for being busy, which itself nullifies that argument.
Sometimes players who aren't you want to just play, without expectations.
The problem is the community, and that's why the feature is desirable to some of us.

[IxilaFA]

He probably meant "pretentious douchebag". Cause that's what you are.

Everyone who often socializes needs some time alone - you're not in a mood, your friend pissed you off, don't feel like answering "why you're here sending followers on missions when you said you won't be here at all today", whatever... Acting like "when we're friends, it's always and forever <3" just doesn't work - life ain't MLP or whatever shit you got that from.

Well I gotta say, I've seen a lot in my time on the internet but I've never been called a pretentious douchebag for wanting to talk to people. That seems to be the opposite.

I'm not saying that friendship is all rainbows and puppies, but two people who are friends should be able to be mature enough and recognize when the other needs some time away. I feel honestly like you guys are either ridiculously popular to the point where you are bombarded with messages the instant you log in, or you're making an issue out of nothing.

When it comes to someone being a pretentious douchebag, I think that someone who gets irritated by a supposed friend simply messaging them to say hi is the height of douchebaggery. Grow some social skills and learn to be a part of society and not try to hide from people you dont want to talk to. How do you guys make it through the workday or school day even?

And why do I have to go through all that awkwardness to justify a lack of a very STANDARD feature that is present in most all social networking tools? There is a good reason why these tools have them, sometimes we just want some time alone and do stuff without the need to ignore or respond: "Pls don't disturb me" to friends every time I log on.

Awkwardness? Ive been awkward a lot of times in my life, and I do suffer from real social anxiety, and yet this is a situation I have never had a problem with.

Im not against Blizzard adding an Invisible feature. I just dont see the point in wasting the time. Clearly its a tough technical task since it hasnt been done uet, and at that point you have to wonder if its worth the development resources. For a community that's willing to jump on board the hate train against selfies, Twitter integration, and store mounts for being a waste of time, do you really think an invisible feature would be taken very well?

[Kyzawolf]

I would seriously use this feature like 1/2 the time. Ive got a lot of bnet friends, including some people from my current guild that absolutely hate one group of my friends. I still enjoy playing with these friends, but I can't do it without getting loads of shit from my guild for it. It would just make life easier.

That being said, it's probably for the best that they don't add this. Because realistically, i spend more time not wanting to talk to people than I do wanting to talk to people.

[Deleted]

Social anxiety over a virtual chat is not anymore a medical condition, its idiocy. You know why? Simple: why are you actually posting in a forum? Isn't it the same thing? Its full of people here watch out for your so-called anxiety. There busted. People with real social anxiety don't talk like most fakers here do with so many trollistic answers and confrontational attitudes.

You are just like the guys pretending to be with "asperger" syndromes to justify your anti-social and extreme lazyness. You don't fool anyone, much less doctors. I know one who has seem countless retards pretending to have a mental issue to not make any social effort.

Wow thank you Mr Forum Psychiatrist you found the cure, I just gotta be myself! XD

[Destruktion]

You could always just make your bnet message "DND". Works for me.

This. "DND" literally tells people to go away for you, so you don't have to. Invisible mode is superfluous.

[MrExcelion]

Why would the OP want to play as a horse?


...sorry it had to be done

[Jester Joe]

Overused excuse.
We have indicators for being busy, which itself nullifies that argument.
Sometimes players who aren't you want to just play, without expectations.
The problem is the community, and that's why the feature is desirable to some of us.

Also lets not forget not every single game on Battle.net is you know, WoW.

I mean, come on, Steam has multiple choices AND offline as one.

And yes, sometimes people will be slightly offended you don't want to talk to them.

[Biff]

Every single instant messaging program from AOL in the nineties to Skype today has had an invisibility feature.

These programs have absolutely ZERO PURPOSE other than socialization, and yet every single one has had this feature.

Blizzard are stubborn idiots to not include invisibility and so is anyone defending them on this.

[matters]

Because it's an MMO

You are most definitely right in that WoW is an MMORPG, meaning that you are encouraged or supposed to be playing with other people in the game. However, Battle.Net friend list is an entirely different thing. They can see when you are online and you have NO choice in them seeing that you are playing. Perhaps i do not feel particularly inclined to play with those friends, perhaps i just want to play on a different server and try and make some new friends.

Either way in this game you are really selling yourself short if you are playing alone, but you shouldn't always have to be seen by your battlenet friends as being online. I have always wanted an 'invisible' mode for Battle.net since its inception back in late WotLK. Why Blizzard chose not to include this feature is a question that is beyond me. After several years and expansions they really should have added something like this for people who just want a quiet, uninterrupted WoW session.

I have some WoW friends that have been on my realid since Wrath, even though they are great people i do not always wish for them to see that i am online.

Edit: Whoa, sorry for the rant. This is a topic i have held an opinion on for quite a while.

[Biff]

"Because it's an MMO" is a pretty worthless argument.

[Deleted]

The threads on this topic always make me cringe, with the idiots who say the same crap every single time. An appear offline option is a very basic feature in almost any form of social networking, and it would help some people while hurting nothing, so there is no reason not to add it.

"But this is an MMO." - So?
"Just put on AFK or DND." - Nobody pays attention to those messages, if they can clearly see you are active (zones changing, etc.)
"Tell them to leave you alone." - And you accuse us of bad social skills?
"If you have to hide from your friends, you suck as a friend or need new friends." - If only I could be more like you.

This!!! SO MUCH THIS!!!

I just have to reply to the people telling us we're autistic because we don't want to hurt people's feelings.

Look, I'm fairly social by nature and have no problem chatting with people. However, sometimes I don't want to be bothered. Sometimes I just want to concentrate on playing the game and I don't want to be distracted. It does get tiresome when people start whispering you the second you get online and the AWAY/DND mode does NOTHING to deter massive /whispering. I have no problem telling people I don't want to be bothered, but 90% of the time they end up getting their feelings hurt by it. Generally, people don't take even the slightest bit of rejection well. Their fragile egos just can't handle the idea that someone isn't interested in talking to them at that moment. That's just how it is. Very few people would be like, yeah no worries and not feel the slightest bit rejected. I don't have a problem with confrontation at all. In fact, people who know me would call me an instigator, but constantly having to deal with the possibility of hurting someone's feelings could easily be avoided with an invisible mode. It's one of those things that, if implemented, could easily avoid constant unnecessary conflict and drama. I'm guessing that the people who say things like the following don't have this problem because they don't have many friends and don't exactly have a lot of people in their life knocking down doors to talk to them.

1. these people who can't even answer with one sentence when someone is whispering them are total living jokes.

WRONG. A living joke is someone who demands a response. A living joke is someone who sees an away button and totally ignores it. A living joke is someone who is so self-centered and dense that they can't take a fucking hint. A living joke is someone who thinks that just because you don't want to talk to them in that moment that you don't like them or don't want to talk to them ever.

2. Don't play a fucking MMO if you have autism or something similar. Cause it really looks like you have some medical issues in your brain, no offense.

The fact that I play an MMO doesn't mean that I have to or want to be social ALL THE FUCKING TIME! There is something wrong with your brain if you whisper and demand a response when someone puts up an away or DnD message. "No offense" but get over yourself.

3. Why don't you grow some balls and learn how to say NO to people?

Why don't you grow some brains and learn not to whisper people when they have an away message up?

4. Don't be weaklings. You really do give an image of insecurity by not even being able to say "i'm busy". Are you terrible to not even bother to write 3 words? Don't even try to rationalize your lame attitudes, it's only hilarious.

Weak and insecure?! That's rich. This coming from a person who is so needy that they can't deal with the fact that someone doesn't want to talk to them. If my away message is up, I shouldn't have to explain myself a second time. How insecure are you to need someone to spell it out for you? I have no problem telling you that I'm not interested in talking to you, if you can promise that you won't get your feels hurt.

At any rate, it's not poor social skills to want to avoid constantly having to reject people and bruise their little egos. It IS, however, very poor social skills to demand that people talk to you in the first place. It's very poor social skills when you ignore the away message and whisper people anyway. Stop being so egotistical, self-centered, and needy!

[Raiju]

I'd consider this a light necro, not worthy of 'holy necro batman'

[Deleted]

I might be like terribly wrong with this, but if you go offline in the battlenet app, is that not supposed to make you invisible?

[Deleted]

This. "DND" literally tells people to go away for you, so you don't have to. Invisible mode is superfluous.

WRONG. The away and DND modes are superfluous since they always get ignored and people whisper you anyway. Not once has the Away or DND mode kept people from whispering me. Not once. You would have to have people respecting that option for it to be useful.

[Justpassing]

Hahaha I love these threads. "Tell them to leave you alone" autism intensifies, good luck in life buddy.

[Deleted]

Be nasty to everyone you meet and soon enough you will be invisible. Or you could try: Not joining a guild but making your own. Not connecting with btags. Not adding friends to friendlist. Not talking when in dungeons LFR. Not talking in LFG. Not playing pvp of any kind.

Seriously though why on earth would you want to be invisible in an MMO where we all desperately look to have more people around us.

Some of us aren't desperate. Basically, you're telling people that they shouldn't be social AT ALL if they don't want to be social some of the time. Now THAT is autistic.

[Clbull]

Because Blizzard over-promise and under-deliver more than Peter Molyneux.

They announced an 'Appear Offline' feature for Battle.net coming to all games back in 2012 and so far, they've never even made an announcement or acknowledgement on its progress.

[zephid]

Just do a /afk or /busy if you don't want to be bothered by your friends.

[Sierra85]

you can also do a /dnd and type a message why u dont want to be disturbed.

alternatively just dont give ur friends ur real id

[Deleted]

Play invisible = don't want friends to see my lvl 1 pornshire alt. Nobody is fooled

It's the other way around... don't want my goldshire waifus see me raiding and other stuff.