Tracking alts officially within the guild interface
by Mike Schramm 
May 14th 2008 at 3:30PM
It's been almost a full year since I last saw this brought up, and we still haven't seen anything from Blizzard on it. Eric over on WoW LJ brings up the issue of tracking alts within a guild. As we found out last time, most people just use guild notes (or helpful addons) to keep track of whose alt is whose inside a guild, and it works OK -- assuming people are up front about when they're logging in on another toon.But still, it seems like an official interface would work much better. And especially considering that Blizzard is actually going to start encouraging alts as a part of the gameplay (you have to have a character at least 55 on the account to start up a Death Knight, and there are rumors that alts will benefit from reputation grinds as well), it seems like they might be interested in making the connection between characters on the account a little more obvious.
And as we said last time, there are benefits to the guild as well -- you never know when that lowbie leveling through Westfall might actually have a Death Knight ready to tank for you. I'm still not sure about marking alts in the Armory, but if you join up to a guild, I'd think guilds should have the right to know, officially, who's an alt of whom.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Alts, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kothmia May 14th 2008 3:38PM
Personally, I usually make my alts known. Right now, I'm an officer, so I mark my alts in the officer's notes. I don't need everyone in the guild knowing that I'm "hiding" on an alt, but if the officers need a healer, they usually know where to find me.
Brawli55 May 14th 2008 3:50PM
Death Proof of the Staghelm server has a pretty simple but useful alt system. At the bottom of our rank list (above the "timeout" rank and below the starting rank) we have an "Alt / Fam" rank. This rank is strictly for alts and family / friends of guild members. Alts are labeled with a A - "main name" in their guild note and family / friends are labeled with a "F - "family/friend's main name". It works pretty well since when you click to show the whole guild (online / offline ) and sort the list by guild note they line up very nicely. We also have an officer alt rank so it is easier to see who is who.
alektraunic May 14th 2008 4:54PM
i would love to see a little more expanded explanation, seems running a guild is a very "trial by fire" effort as there is very little material online about basic matters like this.
Baluki May 14th 2008 3:44PM
We definitely need an official, in-the-default-interface way to make it known who your alts are, if you want to. Naturally, there needs to be an opt-out option.
Right now, I use a mod called Identity that automatically inserts my main's name when I type something in guild chat. That's kinda nice, but I bet Blizzard can do better.
Timothy May 14th 2008 10:40PM
Unless it changed, and I am playing completely clueless, if you are in your guild, you can place notes with your character in the guild roster section. Something about click the character, and then there's an option to make a note. I do that with the alts in my guild. However, I don't want EVERY character I have to be transparent to the guild. My wife is trying a character on my account to see if she wants to play. She's not in a guild, I'm trying to ease her into WOW, because if she did what I did when I started, she'd run the other way.
Doffencrag May 14th 2008 3:47PM
I'm a little bit against this as sometimes I retreat to a little-played, unguilded lowbie alt to just relax with no guild pressures or whatnot.
If your alt is a member of the same guild, by all means the guild should know who is an alt of what.
But I don't think they should know all your alts. Alts need a little privacy too. :)
MightyIdle May 14th 2008 4:02PM
I agree totally. The main reason I have alts is to get away for a little relax time.
While guilded, you tend to get hammered into one distinct role that you are required to play at all times. That gets old after a while. Jumping on an anonymous alt is a way around it.
Aiur May 14th 2008 10:20PM
I see your point, so I think the solution should be on an opt-in basis only. As in this official interface would only track your alts, and possibly only certain alts-if you opt in. Otherwise you are not a participant by default. It will probably lower participation into this significantly (As many people leave things as is rather than changing, just look at the differences in terms of participants between the US's opt-in and Europe's opt-out policies for organ donors)
Rich May 14th 2008 3:49PM
I hope that it doesn't list all of your alts in any of the interfaces. I'd rather see them have something only for alts in the guild already instead of looking up player "X" and seeing a list of alts they have on that server. I have a couple alts I play on when I don't want to deal with anyone. Having them "outed" would irk me.
FireStar May 14th 2008 3:59PM
I still have the problem of not really having a main. All my characters are alts in the sense the i'm never on one more than another really. It's hard to compared usefullness of them too because they each perform very different and specific functions. It makes me feel the whole idea of a main and alts is defunct to a point.
rick gregory May 14th 2008 4:02PM
If you have multiple toons within a guild this would be nice. The guild does NOT need to know if I'm playing on an unguilded alt though. You mention they have the right... no, they don't. I'm not signing away my privacy when I join a guild - I'm freely associating THAT toon with the guild. If I want to go decompress and play my level 12 druid for the hell of it I don't see that it's any of the guild's business.
And before someone mentioned raiding guilds, a few points about them. First, they recruit by class and feel fine about taking my shadow priest and not my rogue. That cuts both ways though - if I'm off on my rogue or a levelling alt... well, they chose not to take those toons in, right? Second, all a raider owes their raiding guild is to reliably attend raids, be on time, fully ready to go (with all that that implies) and do the best that they can in the raid. They don't control my other playtime and the interface should not enable that.
Orestes May 15th 2008 10:23AM
Bingo. If I wanted an alt to be known to the guild, it would be.
Jeenome May 14th 2008 4:22PM
To keep track in guild maybe, otherwise no freaking way! I don't want to be on my level 12 paladin being begged to switch to my 60 rogue to run someone through some low instance that I now officially hate because I spent the last week running someone through just to get the cruel barb. You know that those freaks that spam trade asking for run-throughs will start who-ing all the lowbies to see who has an alt and then start whisper begging. No thanks. If I'm on my lowbie in westfall it means I don't want to get out my death night and tank for you.
Howard May 14th 2008 4:23PM
I totally agree with what poster "rick_gregory" said. And I'll take it a step further. I actually have multiple characters on the same server that are in different guilds. There is no need for my main guild to know that I'm playing a character in another guild, as long as I'm abiding by any rules set forth within each guild.
I think Mike Schramm is way off base with his post. I'm not even sure if he thought the ramifications of what he's suggesting all the way through...
alektraunic May 14th 2008 4:45PM
you people nead to read! the post clearly says "tracking alts within a guild" which everyone seems to be in favor of. those of you complaining about having your out of guild alt tracked need to read a little better.
one of the main motivations my wife and i started our guild is having a central bank for our stable of alts. this tracking seems like a grand idea to me; and Brawli55 i fully plan to rip off some of those ideas in the mean time (timeout in particular!)
zappo May 14th 2008 5:06PM
I actually advocated something similar to Brawli in my guild, by which regular people could advance to say rank 5, but there was a rank below that reserved for alts. But who listens to me? :p
We also have a policy where people are supposed to list their main's name in their profile or whatnot, but isn't very reliable as it isn't updated enough. I've made it a personal note to always refer to people by their main characters name. This has the drawback of confusing some people at first, but it drives home the point of who is behind various characters. Mainly because (like many guilds) we have a myriad of alts and it got so confusing even I couldn't figure out who was who... as an officer. It was at that point I realized how much of a problem this had grown to.
Jaynitan May 14th 2008 5:13PM
I have always been a fan of the idea that when you speak in things like guild chat your account name and your name appear, or something similar make all characters have a last name that is the same via account so all my toons could be Avieada Jaynitan, and Aglaranna Jaynitan, etc.
G : Avieada Jaynitan : Hello all my guildies!!
G : Prophetess Fawnastra : Hi Avie! What is on the schedule for today?
souvlaki May 15th 2008 8:15AM
Displaying account name is a really bad idea. People should not know your account name, as it is the first step to risking your account.
dan May 14th 2008 5:33PM
I'm in a guild with 200+ people and are camaraderie and use of guild notes is more than enough to address this "need." There are more pressing issues to address with developer/designer time imho.
Milktub May 14th 2008 5:29PM
I would like a better way off keeping up on guilded alts. We use the Alt-rank (member-alt, veteran-alt, officer-alt) with a public note stating who is the main. But that's a little cumbersome when you're used to seeing someone on their main and they say they'd like to come on your heroic run.
However, if some system comes out where my unguilded toons are outed to my guildmates, I'll panic. I had a 3-week-long internal conversation about whether to fold my bank alt into the guild. I was leveling him up to 50 (for access to post-300 tailoring), and was tired of feeling out of the guild loop just in case I was needed to fill a slot in a 5-man. Eventually, I did bring him in, and now feel like I can no longer resell my goods with a clean conscience, knowing that my guildmates used to buy my goods.