Online Profiles, Characters, Accounts and Privacy

[Deleted]

I don't really get why Blizzard must show such lack of attention to these topics, they already showed in the past that they care little for these matters.
They did it with RealIDs and they did it in several other instances.
With RealID they stopped it not because they "understood" it was wrong, but only because of the possible legal implications.
They still have the same approach which doesn't even remotely take into consideration the fact that some players may want to be a bit more "reserved" about the game they play.
There already are RealID and Battletags if you want to share advanced data to people you trust, why did they have to make it public for everybody?

I'm not too concerned about seeing the data of single characters of Diablo 3, I don't like that either just like I don't like that happening for WoW, but it's an acceptable compromise since it would remain just a "single character".
But in Diablo 3 things are different.
You don't only see the characters themselves as standalone, but as part of your personal GAME ACCOUNT.
You can meet a random character during a random game, from that you can get their battletag and by just knowing that, withoug even having such a person accept your battletag friendship request, you can go on a website and see all the characters that guy has on that account, all his dead hardcores, the global achievements he unlocked, the amount of time he played every single class.

Why is that so? How about I don't want random people to know how many character I do own? How about I don't want people stalk how much I play and on which class? How about I don't want to see how many hardcore characters I created have died?

I don't really get why it would have been so hard to make such a thing work only for people in your friend list, or at least give players the chance to CHOOSE wether or not they want their data to be public.


But I guess in the era of Facebook everybody is so accustomed to know everything-about-everyone that they can't even imagine the fact someone might want to keep some data private or just for close friends.
Really, I don't get it. Blizzard is one of the few companies I know that shows disrespect on these issues. It's hard to find a similar behaviour in east companies, but anywhere else tbh.
Take Microsoft, it's a big western company, but on XboxLive while by default you can see any random players' friend list, games played, online status and achievements unlocked, you can still CHOOSE to make that data private, or just for your friends.

Why does Blizzard keep to ignore these aspects on purpose? Why do they continue to show no attention and no respect at all for this minority who would like to have a little bit more of control over their data that every single human being on the net can access to?

[MarizzaDraenor]

Well i dont like the real id idea therefore i am not using it. I have it disabled through account management actually i suggest to everyone to do the same if you dont like it. It is handy ofc and many people do like it so i am not really fuzzed about it since we can just opt out of it.

real id on forums was a horrible idea and glad they gotten rid of it. Armories and character profiles is a different thing imo they dont cause a real harm. You might get trolled a bit but its no biggie if you are an experienced MMO player you dont even bother.

I do support your idea about an option to make those thingies private though there is no harm in that as well. Its kinda bad that they try to turn BNET in a social platform so to say but its doomed to fail anyway so not bothered to much.

[Deleted]

It's not "doomed to fail" alas.
As I said before Blizzar didn't change RealID because they wanted to show respect to the opinions we all expressed back then, but only because they were "scared" of the possible legal implications.
There is no possible legal implication here, so they won't do anything about it. Their "way of thinking" is still the same, and they still don't care about players' privacy.
Not the same reason why they're not allowing "invisible mode" for Diablo3, but it's similar.

"Privacy" is a big word since we're talking about virtual stuff here, but the fact it's virtual doesn't necessarily mean that everybody should be able to access it whenever they want. I am the "owner" of that private data and I should have a minimum level of control over who I want to see that data.

In the case of Diablo3 it wouldn't have been such a big issue if it were only single characters. I wouldn't have liked it like I don't like it in WoW, but I mean, it's an acceptable compromise.
They would have been just single standlone characters, nobody would have been able to recognize who is "behind" that character, and which other character does he have.
Which is exactely what's happening here.

Anybody who meets me in an online D3 match can, just from my character, access to my battletag and even if I don't accept his friendlist request, they can access my profile online and see how many other characters I have, how much I played on each, etc etc etc.


Long story short: he's able to associate a single character to the "virtual identity" who owns that and other characters, that is: my battletag.
This is a violation of my "virtual privacy" because we're not talking anymore about standalone characters but about the virtual identity behidn them.
I'm not talking from a legal point of view, since it's pretty clear Blizzard isn't doing anything that isn't illegal, I'm more talking from a "respect your players" point of view.



The way they structured the APIs for D3 make it impossible to view single character data in a stand-alone mode, separated from the profile that owns them. I'm not saying they should redo APIs from scratch because that would be insane.
But adding a single button like "Everybody can access this profile", "Only friends can see this profile", "Nobody can see this profile" in your account settings wouldn't require more than a couple of hours of coding.

Thing is: it's not that they "forgot" to add such an option, they just CHOSE not to do it, because they want it to be that way, so I felt the need of letting some steam off, sorry if I bothered you all.

[Deleted]

It's all part of Blizzard's big plan to make a gigantic hub for players between all Blizzard games. Expect only more integration in future games.

This is the future of gaming, wether you like it or not. (I don't)

[Ferocity]

Actually you could see all people alts and play time before Profiles went live just after grouping with them once. Battle.net profiles don't show play time btw (they show it in %s, not in hours as in game).

The fact that you could see all people's alts is kind of odd and shouldn't happen in game too. I'd make profiles being set in such way as WoW Armory. I just hope that Armory won't follow D3's example and won't show all alts linked on it's pages.

---------- Post added 2012-08-08 at 06:06 PM ----------

This is the future of gaming, wether you like it or not. (I don't)

I am glad you don't like it, it might be future of Blizzard games, but not future of gaming in general.

[Deadraline]

It doesn't really bother me at all. But I don't use the same email I use for gaming as I do my private stuff. I have an email I use specifically for just games/websites/etc. And I update all passwords often as well as clear out anyone who hasn't logged on for over 2 months. (unless it's family). I also don't give my email and real id out to everyone I meet in game either. Battletag is what it is...doesn't really display anything too personal for me. If you don't want a person on your list simply remove them. I find it more convenient than not.

[Beazy]

Wow, I didnt know char profiles were a reason to hate on Blizzard too. So what is it going to be next week? OMFG BLIZZARD USES SQL ON THEIR WEBSITES SERVERS OMFG BLIZZ IS UNDER BOBBY KOTTIC NOW OMFG BLIZZ SUX!


Profiles are fine, they are nice, the web app is extremely high quality. Do you really have a reason to cry? You were given a cool free service that never had to be there, and you write 3 paragraphs about how 'Blizzards way of thinking' is wrong and throw in some conspiracy theory to make it sound lagit? There is nothing in your profile that would lead anyone to you in RL, its info about a video game.

[Regalbeast]

I guess I don't understand how any of your D3 profile is actually PERSONAL and shows any PERSONAL INFORMATION about you.....you made a reference to facebook like it is related, but FB contains all of your PERSONAL information. Not just information about some character you made up in a virtual game. All I'm saying is, no sort of identity theft or blackmail will be had from stuff people find from your D3 profile.

That's why blizz doesn't have to do anything to keep all your character info private. It's nothing actually about YOU it's about a VIRTUAL CHARACTER.

Don't mean to sound rude, it's just the way it is.

[Deleted]

and throw in some conspiracy theory to make it sound lagit?

It's not a conspiracy, just their way of doing things, they like the social network approach of things and they like everything to be public and under the eyes of everyone.
Similar reason as to why we're not getting invisible mode to play online without your friends knowing you're online. They just don't want to, they want everybody to know you're online. They want your data known and they probably don't mind that data being used, in the right way, from other websites as well. Someone could say that's what APIs really are for after all.

Thing is, it shouldn't really be a big deal to add a field, similar to like you have in most other games I played, or XboxLive etc, to let you choose if you want your profile to be public, partially public (friends only) or completely private. Is it such a big deal? I'm sure over 80% would still keep the default settings of "public", it wouldn't really affect the overall network utility but other people would be able to choose to do it their own way if they feel uncomfortable with other people "stalking" their data.

The bad thing here, imho, is not just that you can get all the details of a character, but that you can associate a certain character with the account that owns it, and from that you can see every other single character that account has made and played. I just don't like it. I understand that a large majority of people don't care either way, but this is exactely why I don't understand why it should affect them in anyway that people like me would make their profiles private.


@Ferocity
Tbh I'm sure you're right. I never played in public games, always played in private ones with a few friends, so I just assumed it was possible to check that data just for people in your realID/battletag friendlist and not just for anybody.
This is wrong too, and kills the last bit of hope that Blizzard might change that.
It's really sad for me, I don't really get this urge of putting everything under the sunlight even when people don't want to. They don't even ask to, they just do it.
You don't really want to tell me that planning to add an option to allow for a certain minimum level of 3-settings privacy would have been such a big deal, right? Because it wouldn't have.

[Beazy]

The bad thing here, imho, is not just that you can get all the details of a character, but that you can associate a certain character with the account that owns it, and from that you can see every other single character that account has made and played. I just don't like it. I understand that a large majority of people don't care either way, but this is exactely why I don't understand why it should affect them in anyway that people like me would make their profiles private.

Well, thats a totally legitimate request, and It wouldnt surprise me if it happened someday, but B.Net is a gaming service platform, and its 'public', so you have to understand that anything relating to it, would be too. It is evolving all the time. It has come a long way since its release. I just dont see the concern about keeping your alts private, but I do understand some people want that feature.

[Riptide]

"Privacy" is a big word since we're talking about virtual stuff here, but the fact it's virtual doesn't necessarily mean that everybody should be able to access it whenever they want. I am the "owner" of that private data and I should have a minimum level of control over who I want to see that data.

Actually, you are not. Blizzard is, deal with it.

[Deleted]

i like the profiles - best tool to ANTI Troll and only Trolls can cry about

for me atm its realy funny to look in diablo 3 forum all this whineposts and than click the profiles

nice to see ppl whining bout inferno is hard and they are not even through normal mode lol
or ppl woth 5k dps monsters making guides and tell others to stfu

i like it^^

[Tazila]

It's not a conspiracy, just their way of doing things, they like the social network approach of things and they like everything to be public and under the eyes of everyone.

Which is funny because they had a facebook app for mobile armory's for WoW, but they took it down due to not enough interest or something.

They didn't give an exact reason other than they were just turning it "off" due to the release of the WoW Web API and apparently just have no reason to turn it back on.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2872777256

As for people seeing what I play? I don't really care. I don't play games with other people just to recluse and hide away. I know some people do, but those people have to accept they're playing a public game thats meant to be social, and want you to be social, even if you don't want too.

[Tharkkun]

Actually you could see all people alts and play time before Profiles went live just after grouping with them once. Battle.net profiles don't show play time btw (they show it in %s, not in hours as in game).

The fact that you could see all people's alts is kind of odd and shouldn't happen in game too. I'd make profiles being set in such way as WoW Armory. I just hope that Armory won't follow D3's example and won't show all alts linked on it's pages.

---------- Post added 2012-08-08 at 06:06 PM ----------


I am glad you don't like it, it might be future of Blizzard games, but not future of gaming in general.

EA does this already with Battlefield games and has been for years so this is nothing new. If people are ashamed of people seeing how much they play D3 then maybe they shouldn't play so much?

[Regalbeast]

EA does this already with Battlefield games and has been for years so this is nothing new. If people are ashamed of people seeing how much they play D3 then maybe they shouldn't play so much?

I don't think the online profiles actually post how much time has been played.

[Deleted]

Well, thats a totally legitimate request, and It wouldnt surprise me if it happened someday

Honestly no, I don't expect that to happen reading the replies Blue made over the months/years, but maybe I'm just being pessimistic.

but B.Net is a gaming service platform, and its 'public', so you have to understand that anything relating to it, would be too. It is evolving all the time. It has come a long way since its release. I just dont see the concern about keeping your alts private, but I do understand some people want that feature.

XboxLive is a public gaming platform and it's a pretty large one too, yet you can do that. Think it's the same on PSN as well if I'm not wrong, and it's been the same in every other online game/MMO I've played so far.
Well, ok, I probably already said that.

This doesn't mean that everything has to be done that way, I just felt like ranting because I don't like this way of doing thing, it would cost them almost no effort at all to make it the way I'm describing, but for some reason which I cannot fully understand they do not.
I really don't see how detrimental it would be for the overall platform if they allowed such a possibility. Doesn't seem to me it affected XboxLive or any of the other games I've played, I'm pretty confident only a wide minority of the community would actually bother to go into their profile management and set anything different from the default "Public" settings.

---------- Post added 2012-08-08 at 04:35 PM ----------

I don't think the online profiles actually post how much time has been played.

It just shows how much you overall playtime is divided beween different classes, as far as I know. If there's an exact time field I haven't found it yet.

I don't really see the direct comparison with Battlefield or other online games. Maybe it's because I don't know them but I see more natural a comparison with MMO games, even if Diablo 3 is not really a MMO game itself (has some MMO aspects though).
I mean, you create a character, or multiple characters, and each of those character are like a new "identity".

I'd go crazy any random guy knew about all my mules in WoW, especially the ones I log on when I need to relax a bit without anybody bothering me. Of course, this issue would be more serious in a real MMO than it is in Diablo, but I still find it annoying than people I don't know about or I don't remember could "stalk" me, my progress, what I do, how I do it, when I do it, on how many characters etc.
I dunno, it just puts me into some real state of paranoia.
I understand this is not the average feeling like I said before, but then again I don't really see the big trouble allowing people to choose among 3 simple settings like you can on XboxLive.
I have all my settings public there now, but have been keeping them private for the past 2-3 years. Wether or not I want to make use of such a possibility, I had the choice to do it.
I'm not attempting to praise lolMicrosoft don't get me wrong. It's just that it's such a simple thing, I don't really see why they don't want to allow it. What are they scared of? I seriously doubt more than 20% of the players would make use of it, I'm being honest.

---------- Post added 2012-08-08 at 04:39 PM ----------

i like the profiles - best tool to ANTI Troll and only Trolls can cry about

for me atm its realy funny to look in diablo 3 forum all this whineposts and than click the profiles

nice to see ppl whining bout inferno is hard and they are not even through normal mode lol
or ppl woth 5k dps monsters making guides and tell others to stfu

i like it^^

So correct me if I'm wrong.
You're basically saying that you're not judging what you read according to the meaning of the words you're reading, but according to the person who wrote them?
If you deem him reliable then you'll bother to have a conversation, if you don't then you won't?

I hope I missed something because... uh, don't want to be too blunt but it doesn't exactely seem a really nice behaviour to me.
And, honestly, you don't really need to "stalk" people's profile to recognize trolls. First because if someone really wants to troll and is so adamant on that, do you think he would have troubles creating a secondary account and troll through that? Second, really, no need to check the accomplishments someone has achieved in-game to judge wether or not someone is writing things that make sense.

This "judge a book by its cover" attitude, legitimating or delegitimating what someone writes according to how much he has accomplished or not accomplished in-game is exactely one of the reasons why I don't want people being able to stalk anybody else, unless they are willing for that to happen.

[Deleted]

You don't only see the characters themselves as standalone, but as part of your personal GAME ACCOUNT.
You can meet a random character during a random game, from that you can get their battletag and by just knowing that, withoug even having such a person accept your battletag friendship request, you can go on a website and see all the characters that guy has on that account, all his dead hardcores, the global achievements he unlocked, the amount of time he played every single class.

I think thats a good thing, I'd love if it worked the same way in wow so instead of seeing countless rerolls as different characters you know it's just one dude. Helps tracking griefing, makes a tighter community...

It only fails in diablo 3 cause the community is nonexistent.

Whats not good is when your real name, adress etc is given in public, which isn't the case here.

[Deleted]

I slightly dissent from your last statement and kindly ask to mantain the right of deciding what is or isn't good for myself

[Riptide]

I slightly dissent from your last statement and kindly ask to mantain the right of deciding what is or isn't good for myself

That's great but it's not your information it's blizzards, which completely nulls your argument. So the above poster was right when he mentioned PERSONAL information specifically. Have a swell day

[StationaryHawk]

Eh. So what if people can see your characters? It's not like they're actually getting any personal information about you.