There have been minor discussions in other threads regarding the @Username system. As of right now, your @Username is your login name and every social activity you do with your character is done to your account, not just that character. If you add someone as a friend, or join a guild, the other party will see your @Username in your list, no matter what character you are on. This means you cannot "hide" when you are online, joining a guild with one character means joining that guild with every character, adding a friend to every character.

There are quite a few pro's and con's that can be spoken for both sides of the issue. I have no information regarding if they will allow you to hide, go invisible or any other such things, if there is a source more informed than myself, please direct me to it. I did my best to word my poll in a way that tests your feelings and the strength of those feelings without loaded questions. Hopefully we can have a good discussion about a few key topics about @Username:

1. Is this system good or bad, and why?

2. Would it change your feelings if there is a Stealth Mode?

3. What kind of privacy options would you like to see?

The good thing is they will know if I am on with any of my chars.

Though giving away usernames can be bad, but the hardest part is getting the password which you most of the time have to give the one that would like to overtake your account.

There will be an option to hide if you are online, not sure if it works in guild or only in friend tab.

I honestly do not see the security risk. It is no different than having a username on these forums or something like Steam. GuildWars 2 has the feature you mention (username is shown when in a guild/party), but I am not sure where people are getting this "security risk" from.

#1 Yes. I personally don't mind. The option for others is fine.

#2 Yes. It is easier to remember all my friend's handles instead of 30 of their characters spread across different factions and guilds

#3 Yes. I like to hide sometimes. At the same time though they will know you're online anyways.

#4 No. My forum name is also half my account and I have yet to be hacked. I don't understand this one.

#5 Positive if I have to pick one.

When i played beta, there was an option to be offline to others, but i sometimes was confused when i saw their username and not their character.

I do not like this system, however, I thought I read somewhere that you are able to "appear offline".

As long as you keep your e-mail to yourself and have a strong password that you keep to yourself, there really is no security risk

Because user name can be like a secondary password.

Blame oneself then?

I think instead blame the system and request they change it

For a game that is trying to cater as much as possible to RP'ers this makes absolutely no sense.

I'd also like to play on an alt whenever I want without having to hide myself or be tied to my account. I sometimes play alts just to get away from everything and play solo. Using the offline function doesn't help if they see my @username in a chat window.

I see your point.

However, it can not be so hard to not write their username as a password or 2nd password.

Personally i have no qualms about this and if someone can guess my alpha numeric with symbols and the blood of virgins 26 character long password then they deserve a cookie....

No but them knowing user ID means they have all they need to at least begin a brute force attack on finding the password.

then get a good password lol

Man people like you really don't get how things work. If you have the user ID it does not matter how good password you have when using brute force. Only thing that matters then is if the hacker has enough processes power and time.

I see a username as just a title to who you are. I would consider your email to be a secondary password, hence why I mentioned you never share it with anyone.

As long as you can hide it I have no problem with it.

I never understood why the couldn't just use an alias or nickname system rather than show the account name, surely that would have been just as easy to implement?

You'd think eh. I really don't get the reasoning behind some of their (bad) decisions.

I want people to see only the name of the character I am logged on.

That's it.

If it risks your account, than I guess taking it out would be best.

Account security has to be a priority, not just to keep our details safe but to keep ESO running at a certain level. DCUO was hacked in its early days and I still maintain that was one of the major reasons it went F2P so quickly. As it stands, the @username system is something that will prevent me from joining a guild. Also, as morgueanna said earler, what rper is going to want that hanging over their heads? To many negatives and not enough positives in my opinion.

I hate the system they are using, I don't know when games started doing this but its seems more and more common as of late.

I preferred the old way, account ID which could be anything and a password. No one else would even know what my account ID was unless I gave that information away. Now were made to give this first level of protection away from the very start.

Don't get me started on "account bound" things it drives me up the wall! I want separate characters with separate guilds, separate friends lists none of this do it on one, its done for your entire account BS. It totally takes away from role playing and from having the fun of playing different characters. I feel sorry for who ever is crowned as the Emperor, they will have no way to hide, hell they won't even be able to log on as an alt to escape the constant messages. Bet thats gonna get annoying very quick!!!