Solution to Real-ID mess and multiboxing

[Ishar]

Eh. I find real-id to be convenient. I of course don't have the whole spy mentality (secret characters / desire to be online but invisible) and pretty much gave up keeping my real identity and my online identity separate years ago. It saves me from having to explain to people I want to talk to that "this is Ishar" cause they can't keep track of all 40 or so toons I have. (I've also been informed that I am "weird" for having identical friends lists across all characters on a server, irregardless of account.) Also, anyone I know well enough to have on my friends list probably already knows my real name, so its not really a case of revealing 'new' information to people.

That said, I sort of wish blizzard would add 'per toon invisbility' so folks can hide their secret auction house guys or whatever other secret toons they have, and add a 'handle' feature that overrides the whole 'real name' deal, just so all the paranoid folks could use it.

Eh, to clarify, its not that I want to sound like I'm endorsing the 'real name' bit. (Its irrelevant to me, is all). I 'love' the Account to Account aspect though. Eg identifying all 5 of my WoW accounts as a single individual for chat purposes. I think that bits genius. (Cause I'm lazy, mostly. And I never saw the appeal of being online, but invisible). Oh, theres another aspect of it I like, the immutability. Anyone else got friends on their friends list that are hard to identify because they got name changes? I swear, I had a friend named "Bob"*, who changed their name, and Now another friend changed their name to "Bob"*, so i have Old-"Bob"* and New-"Bob"*...so confusing.

Probably not the place to get into this, but someone asked what the appeal was=p.

* Name changed to protect the guilty.

[Zub]

sometimes i don't want my friends to know i'm online, and I put Yahoo or MSN on stealth, or invisible to everyone.
Can that be done with RealID?

[MiRai]

sometimes i don't want my friends to know i'm online, and I put Yahoo or MSN on stealth, or invisible to everyone.
Can that be done with RealID?

Negative. I've only a handful of RID friends myself.

I DON'T NEED SVPERNOVA WATCHING MY EVERY MOVE.

[Zub]

Negative. I've only a handful of RID friends myself.

so as was said before, it's really just a limited IM tool, with a pretty UI..

*puts it in the same box as Sentry Totem and Voice Chat*

[MiRai]

so as was said before, it's really just a limited IM tool, with a pretty UI..

*puts it in the same box as Sentry Totem and Voice Chat*

Right, but seeing as I use IRC and message boards to talk to my guild members [I don't use any other real IM programs] and such, the few people who I talk to and aren't on my server and don't use IRC I threw on RID.

[valle2000]

sometimes i don't want my friends to know i'm online, and I put Yahoo or MSN on stealth, or invisible to everyone.
Can that be done with RealID?

As long as you only add real friends you trust I hope they respect if you flag yourself as busy and won't whisper you then.

[lightstriker]

Damn Svpernova and his engineered super sniper scope. LOGOFF YOUR HUNTER!

[Khatovar]

@Ishar - I have all those features by using an IM program. I have had 7+ accounts of toons, my IM names have never changed. And they go with me no matter what game I'm playing no matter the company. Or if I'm not playing any games at all.

The only thing I see RealID having over my chat program so far is you don't have to change window focus, but really, I don't have any issue clicking the flashing window on my taskbar when I'm ready to respond and clicking it again to minimize it. I do it all night long while my husband is at work and I'm playing.

[Ishar]

Eh, ok, I admit that it would be reasonable to have some professional anxiety over the silliness of human resources. OTOH, are you paranoid that your close acquaintances will reveal that. I see that as more of an issue with potential facebook or forum integration.

WRT chat programs. Yeah, I've had an AIM account since the 90s too. I'm even logged into it right now. But I like to play wow full screen and don't like to tab out just to talk. So for me a non integrated chat system is no option. I suppose we could put forth things like Skype or Ventrilo as things that accomplish essentially the same thing too, but I think that there is benefit to having a system that is integrated into the game for those of us that don't want to switch windows =0.