I have been looking into the “showing offline” feature of the game and I’m a little confused as to what goes, and what doesn’t. A good bit of research on google/reddit is giving me mixed results that may have to do with the age of the posts.
So if one of the really smart people out there could clarify a few things for me please.
As far as I understand, showing offline on Battle.net means I’m offline in the guild, but if I get an achievement it’ll still pop up (I know this as someone showing offline while levelling got “caught” when hitting lvl 60) I also know that if a person has added the actual char on their friends list it’ll still show up as online.
This doesn’t matter much to me, I want to make a little new “winding down after 16 hours at work” char on another server, and just shuffle around for 20-30 min once in a while while my brain recovers from the long hours in a mad world of Covid (I’m an anaesthesiologist)
I have great friends in game, but some of them even though they claim they understand me wanting a little time to “no brain” the game, are still “accidentally” whispering me with something random, followed by “oh I’m sorry, didn’t mean to disturb” when I play with “away” or “do not disturb” and they know, they KNOW.
(love them all, really)
So this is what I need to know. If I made a little char on another server/faction and play offline:
Will I show up in the “quick join” list ? or can I safely join BGs, dungeons, etc ?
I’ll not join a guild, and friends wouldn’t have my char on their friends list.
Help me get about 30 min in peace online, 2-3 times a week (I still do M+ with friends and heroic raiding with the guild when my shifts allow it)
If you’re set to offline in Battle.net, I think you show as offline for absolutely everyone in your Battle.net friends list, but if you’re in a guild with the people you want some privacy from, they’ll still be able to see you online and any gear you loot/achievements you earn will still be displayed to them. The guild also indicates when you sign in in the usual way. But if you keep your winding down alt guildless, your friends will definitely be none the wiser.
According to my partner, you also can’t be whispered or invited to groups if you’re set to offline - I often am myself, and he usually complains at me that I left myself set to offline again when we’re trying to raid together.
Hopefully somebody else can offer a second opinion just to be sure as I have no way of testing my info for definite - my partner’s game is currently broken so I can’t get him to test if my achievements are showing up or not. If that changes I’ll update this post.
But what I can guarantee is if you keep an alt outside of your guild/group of friends and set yourself to offline while playing them, you will NEVER be contacted there. It’s adding that alt to a guild that usually causes problems with privacy.
as far as i know and nothing has changed, yes it does show.
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Yeah, that is why I want to keep a fresh char outside the guild, I’ll even pick another server as it’s not for raiding or anything friends/guild related. I just need to do a quick random dungeon/bg or a few quests to level or something, while my eyes are itchy and my brain is oozing out my ears after work. I can’t go directly to bed, and this game is pretty much perfect for winding down.
Thank you for your help 
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I THINK those quick join notifications don’t show up if you’re set to offline - or if they do my partner’s never mentioned it. If somebody doesn’t answer before I do I’ll try to get confirmation on this for you.
Edit: Just saw Schmusedecke’s comment, I’ll check anyway if I can just to be sure.
okey, i just did an experiment.
a friend of mine could see me queueing up for random battleground and got the quick join message. however, we re in the same guild (and got her on my bnet list) so i assume, as long as you re in the same guild people can see you queueing up.
then i took a character which wasnt in the guild and nothing was showing at all.
so i assume as long as you are not in the same guild, you should be fine.
As the Forum Agent i would like to say all the above posters are correct
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I remember seeing addons which block all whispers and make them invisible for you. But then again, I haven’t played for a decade before SL, so this might not be possible anymore with current LUA.
Its a flawed system anyway, if you go “offline” on b-net when theres people around they can still whisp you manually or via b-net + ontop of that they can see your alts queue for content your on their level for + ontop of that compared to the usual one prompt of you going offline when you genuinely go offline, you do it 3 times when you go invisible.
Keeping in mind the offline feature only impacts b-net, not WoW. so people will still see you logged in etc if they have the character in the same guild or on friends list etc.
Even if you are online when you create a new char, that char is not within a guild at all you need to get invited on every single char you want in a guild.
And as for the showing achievement part you can turn that off.
So yeah you just have to turn yourself offline and you should be fine
Not sure what you mean, I don’t intend on having the alt in question being in a guild at all. I’m blocking guild invites on that 1 char, that is not even on the same server as all my other characters. So none of my friends will see me in guild, I’ll be offline on battlenet.
My only question is if people on battlenet, though I’m offline, will see me join a BG/Dungeon on the quick join function.
I’m not in a guild on this alt, not even on the same server. Only question is if I, even when showing as offline, still show up on the quick join function for my battle.net friends (as it wont show for guildies cos not in a guild)
yes it will appear on quick join for b-net friends from what I understand if they are within the level bracket of content to join for it, it’ll appear as x-character doing whatever content of choice which you can group for via lfg
Even if I’m showing as offline on Battle.net ?
What is I ditch battle.net all together and start the game via .exe ?
battle net will still function cause im fairly sure its integrated into all blizzard games, you need a b-net account after all to own a license of WoW
Get a second account, and just pay double sub fee each month 
Think it’s easier to just play another game Not like this wow expansion is all that anyway 
It doesn’t make sense though, why have an offline function in the game, if you’re not really seen as offline.
Since there seems to be a lot of people confused about this. If you turn on show as offline on Battle.net you will hide:
- Your online status
- Quick Join for Battle.net friends.
- The ability for Battle.net friends to message you in-game
This will still be possible:
- Quick join via Guilds / people that added your character as a friend the old traditional way
- Your battle.net friends will be able to write to you using the desktop client/phone app since they function just like any other messaging service now. You will see their message in-game, but will not know if you were there to see it.
- All type of physical character interraction is not affected.
Beware with the bnet messages if you do get one while appearing offline. They won’t know you have read it, but if you got a message when you were ACTUALLY offline, you would get a notification about having an unread message just like any other social app, so they will probably expect a response at your earliest convenience. Personally I forget that I was online when I got “offline” messages and thus forget to reply to them next time I am online and realistically should have seen it upon logging in.
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This is good news, I’ve just told 2 of my friends (one real life) that I’ll be sat on a secret char a couple of times a week to wind down. As one of my friends is a nurse, he can relate to my need and we just tested the quick join thing. He saw nothing regardless of what I joined and what level I was.
Off to make a relaxing char Thank you all for the input and help
What you said but you can get invited to groups even if offline.
Stay guildless and dont let anyone know thats your character and there you go, totally “offline”.
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