I was just wondering...

Has anyone else signed on and been intent on making that level, finishing that quest, or stalking that one named elite that you need...but spend so much time replying to tells from well-meaning friends and guildies that the precious little WoW time you have for the evening is whittled away to the point where you sign off feeling like you haven't accomplished anything?

I love hanging out online with my friends and grouping with them and such, don't get me wrong. My friends are the reason I joined into the game. But, there are some days when I just want to get on, grind out some solo play, level and not have to worry about the chat channels or offending my friends by declining the group box that pops up ever 5 mins during combat.

So now I come to my question: Is there a way built into the game to play anonymously, without showing up on everyone's friend lists (for my solo days) or at least to be able to have an auto-reply macro or something (like an 'out-of-office' in Outlook) to disable the chat channels and let people know that I respectfully decline contact at this time while I play?

I know I probably sound pretty antisocial---I am really not. If anyone has some suggestions out there, feel free to let me know. Thanks!

I'm the same way, or at least I used to be. I used to work 50-60 hours a week, and I was getting my master's degree in informations systems. When I logged on to EQ, it was a "HEY HOWYA DOIN'" explosion, and all I wanted was to finally grind out that AA. Eventually I just became a necro, joined an RP server and never interacted except to trade. It was very gratifying spending the whole time xping and never having to talk to another person at all. I was RP'ng the outcast, anti-social, 100% self-sufficient Necro. I eventually missed everyone and went back to my druid, but they had all moved on by then. Its a hard line to walk if the people you always talk to are the same ones you quest and xp with. Or you could just tell everyone that sometimes you don't feel like talking, so don't be surprised if you don't answer. You get weird friends that way though :)

Nyte

Ah...so I am not alone. WoW occupies a small portion of my delicately balanced life, but the friends that I joined up to play for are all at the 50th level mark while I am just making 30. They started a few months before me and they have a bit more time on their hands. No worries though; I know I won't catch up. These are RL friends, too. So, if I blow them off in game....my phone rings. =)

The thing is...I like my character. I carefully chose my character and put this time into it (to some this may not sound like much, but when "me" time becomes as scarce as it is with me, it is), so I would rather not start over with an alt that no one knows or switch servers. So...it looks like I will have to let my guild know that I will have to take a sabbatical from time to time and constantly click on the "Decline" button on the Group Invite box that pops up during combat.

It would be a nice feature to have, though wouldn't it? I don't think that it will happen, unless there is a third party program that comes out to go anonymous or something, but I am sure that will getcha banned. Oh well.

A number of people have asked blizzard to add an /anon feature to WoW. From what I've read of their response, I don't think you'll see this soon.

Or you could just tell everyone that sometimes you don't feel like talking, so don't be surprised if you don't answer. You get weird friends that way though :)

Nyte


Yeah, it figures. Looks like I will just have to stop putting off learning to work with macros, so I can make a quick button to fire off a reply to those that I do not wish to ignore completely.

As for the friends I am likely to make, they should fit nicely with the ones I have already...

Theralas

Macro:

/reply I'm sorry. I'm in the middle of something right now and can't duel/group/raid or answer you atm. I'll get back to you in the future if my situation changes.

There's an "answering machine" mod that you can setup to do that.

No, I hear ya...
After 3 years playing a Wizard in EQ, I was always wanting a group, and would never get a group when I wanted one..
Now that I'm a Druid, I get tells all the time to come PL people through instances, come heal, etc, etc...
Refreshing change to be honest.
Usually I just reply with a 'busy atm, thanks'.

I'm in a small guild of mostly RL friends. One of the group fell way behind in levels over the summer - kids out of school, summer thunderstorms wreaked havoc on DSL, etc... When he (rarely) logs on, the rest of us make a huge deal out of it, and bombard him with tells, offers for PLs, etc. Sounds similar to your situation. He seems to just ignore us. He's told us a few times that he may just ignore us, and not to be concerned. We aren't. :-)

I have a vague memory of a setting in another game (Horizons maybe?) that was sort of the opposite of LFG. This would be more aimed at the random strangers than guildies but something like that would be nice. I would rather my guild know that I'm in game but busy rather than to go anonymous.

On a related subject, it would be nice to have a way for your AFK status to be available to the guild without them having to do a who or tell to find out. It would be nice to see it in the guild window and maybe even a message in the guild chat window when you actually go AFK.

Excellent idea. A DND flag of some kind. That would be very cool. As for the guildies, usually if someone sees me on, sends me a tell, and I don't reply they assume I didn't see it and send another. After a couple tells, they just assume I went AFK withough going AFK, or that I am too busy to respond. No hard feelings. It would very nice in the Guild Window if your status was listed, maybe as a tooltip on mousover. The normal window would show name, class, level, location/offline status. The tooltip could show if you are AFK, Grouped, Raiding, etc. Nice idea Darbor.

Nyte

Okay, maybe I'm misreading something, or maybe I am misunderstanding what the in-game function does, but isn't that what the in-game command /DND does? Whenever someone sends you a /whisper, they get a auto-generated reply back saying "Do Not Disturb". This is different from the /AFK command which resets the moment you perform an action. Please correct me if I am missing something.

LOL Looks like I should RTFM. Well, you learn something every day eh?

Nyte

Yeah you can use /DND and add a message to it. It auto replies back with Do not Disturb along with the attached message, so just don't respond to any /tells you recieve while /DND and let it respond for you. It's not as good as /anon I know but it works just as well. Although lately, being a 60 Druid, /DND doesn't even seem to help sometimes, I still get spammed with /tells to do Instances, MC, ZG ect.

Um.... /DND??? It's that simple? Wow. Is that even in the little game manual that came in the box, because I don't remember seeing it when I was reading that chapter. Cool. I really must try that.

I would still like to see something like what Darbor Wrote about:

"I have a vague memory of a setting in another game (Horizons maybe?) that was sort of the opposite of LFG. This would be more aimed at the random strangers than guildies but something like that would be nice."

One of the main things I was having a problem with was what I like to call "Sniper Groupers". When you are walking through a crowded square...minding your own business, in the middle of a trade, quest, combat, whatever...then seeming from out of nowhere, BAM! GOTCHA! The Group window pops up. No previous warning or a /tell asking if you're looking to be social. No choice there but to quickly hit decline and hope that the offending person can deal with the rejection. :smile:

Of course, after complaining about that, Tygre or Astrel will probably come back with, "Didn't you know that there was a /NLFG function built in?" LOL

Theralas

I wish there was a way to do that myself. I mean, they have Mods that auto-decline Duel Requests, and automatically declining trade requests is a built-in option. Somehow the thought of automatically declining group requests slipped their mind :( .

/dnd! I didn't know about that one. Does it show up over your head like AFK? I've never seen it. It would be great if it did. That might be enough to stop the random unannounced group request.

I still would also like to see some way to display AFK (and DND) status in the guild window. Maybe there's an add-on out there that does it. The UI is sorely lacking in general in the guild window. There's no reason not to make a bigger window that displays more data rather than having to choose between the two column groups and then having to choose the one column to display in the group. Maybe they kept it small on purpose so you could keep it open, but I never do so I would like a bigger window with all the info right there.

Of course all of that is moot for me ATM as I'm temporarily "between guids". :)

/dnd! I didn't know about that one. Does it show up over your head like AFK?
Indeed it does! (first post, woo!)

It's very useful for those situations in which you get bombarded with tells. Just throw on the /dnd and grind to your heart's content.