Today at Goldgrub’s Goblin Academy we present to you a Guest Post, submitted by Xsinthis of the US-Shadowmoon (A) World of Warcraft Server.  Xsinthis is a freelance writer without a blog to call home.  I hope you enjoy his great article.  If you are interested in guest posting or joining the staff here at Goldgrub’s, please review the earlier post on Guest Posting and Joining The Staff.

Do You Need Anonymity While Banking?

One of the biggest draws for me to having a bank alt was the fact that I could operate completely separate of my other ingame activities, keeping my friends and fellow aaguildies (and those unsavoury souls who populate troll chat as well) unaware of my economic activities. There are many reasons someone would choose to operate anonymously on the AH, and some reasons you might want to avoid it.

Why Would You Want To?

* Repercussion Free Auctioneering One of the biggest draws for many ‘goblins’ (got to put that in quotes now since we actually have a goblin race) is that no matter what you do on your banker to reach your gold making gold, any negative actions won’t tarnish your reputation in the rest of the World of Warcraft. No matter how cut throat you get you can return to your regular toons and no one’s the wiser, and you’re still the same old loved you, with no feelings hurt if you stepped on the toes of any friends or guildies.

* Free of Begging This is apparently a very big issue for some people. If other’s don’t know who you are (your friends, guildies, arena team members etc) there is no way for them to know that you’re rolling in it, unless you let it slip, and they won’t bester you for hand outs. This might not be a problem for some people, but could be extremely problematic if you hang out online with the wrong kind of people.

* Guild Bank Remaining anonymous and keeping your toon separated from your regular guild not only aids in keeping it anonymous, but also frees up your banker to have a guild of its own for storage usage

* No Interruptions Some people lead more demanding online lifestyles than others, and are constantly being bombarded with messages and queries (such as guild officers). For people like this remaining anonymous keeps you off the grid and prevents others from pestering you while you focus on your gold making activities

Why Wouldn’t You Want To?

* Banker Is Also a Crafter If your banking toon is levelled and doubles as a crafter, being part of a high level guild can give a significant advantage to the professions on that toon such as extra yield from disenchanting or cheaper vendor mats. Although I do suggest moving your banking operations to one or more insignificant alts, if you do need this setup for whatever reason, anonymity might be hard or impossible to achieve

* You Need To Be Contactable Ingame If you are in a position that you need to be able to be contacted ingame whenever possible trying to remain anonymous would not be a good idea, because then no one could contact you!

* You Want Your Fame (good or ill) Attached To The Rest of Your WoW Life If you want to be known on your main as the goblin you are, keeping your banker anonymous would be very counter-productive don’t you think?

Tips For Remaining Anonymous

* Be stingy with your Real-ID friends list, people on that list can see every character you log into, so only add people you trust not to blow your secret

* Avoid mentioning your gold making activities on your other characters as this not only lets others in on the secret that you are a goblin, but also makes it easier for them to match patterns and possibly catch your banker

* Never acknowledge guildies or friends from your banker, it’ll make them suspicious as too how you know them!

* Don’t talk about things only people in your guild or social circle would know

* Don’t do your crafting when grouped, this will not only put them onto the fact you are producing mass amounts of goods, but which ones and depending on how often you do it in what quantity

* Don’t inform others when you are going to your bank alt

* If you have a second account, stick your banker on it, and make sure to be logged in on both for overlapping periods, but don’t log in and out at the same time with both accounts!

* If you don’t have a second account, avoid switching directly to and from it, instead once you’ve logged a character out take the time to go get a drink, food, a bio break, chores etc so you don’t do the switch immediately. This will go a long way to keeping people off your trail who are trying to track you down.

* Keep your gold quantities on the down low, if people know how much gold you have, it makes it easier to find out who your banker is (again, if they are searching)

* Break naming conventions for your banker(s) and their guild(s). And not just from your main characters, but from each other too, it helps prevent a chain reaction of finding all your characters.

* Start with fresh characters, don’t just drop an unused alt from an active guild to turn into your banker

* When you log out of your main characters to go about your gold making tasks, make sure to exit from any third party communications outlets such as Vent or the guild site to make it look like you’ve stepped away from the computer. This is mostly just to help keep your identity in the air when someone is tracking you

Recommendations?

I would highly recommend you remain anonymous through your banking empire. It saves a lot of social hassle and once you’ve got your toons setup you won’t really feel any inconvenience. Of course many of the tips are more extreme than others, and it’s up to your discretion which ones you feel you need to employ, as many of them are for keeping people from finding out who you are once they’ve started looking. And remember, it’s much easier to go from anonymous operations to out in the open, then it is to start in the open and withdraw from the public.

Do you try to remain completely anonymous on your banker toon?