More clarifying than confusing. There was very little concrete information to go on, and what ended up happening was the speculation slowly morphed into truth. But you are right, we won't know for sure until 1.2 hits the PTS, which hopefully happens soon. Big patch, lots to test.

Yes, full combat logs inc.

If I'm reading that right it looks like we are getting full combat logs.

Judgement, whether good or bad, is completely unavoidable when you have a group of people working towards a common goal. If giving us truncated combat logs is intended to curtail that, then it is a very poor solution. Even with personal logs you could infer the quality of the other people in your group.

What's easy and hard in this game is only a matter of how tightly tuned the content is. If BW designs Nightmare Mode content such that complete mastery of your class is merely a prerequisite to enter it, then they need to provide logs so that mastery can be acquired by as many people as possible. It establishes a baseline. One other thing about what you said: I could probably replace every instance of "combat log" with "tooltip" in that first paragraph and your comment would still retain its meaning. Do you feel the same way about tooltips?

It is extremely rare that a pug raid would parse a run. It is also rare (though I'll admit not rare enough) that a person would use this information for negative purposes.

Pretty much, yeah. I understand the opposition though, reality checks rarely tickle.

Even personal logs can be used to grief people. A more direct approach would be to argue in favor of a comprehensive toolkit meant to combat griefers.

Guess not. It was based on experience tooling up on target dummies some time ago. Nothing concrete. Comment withdrawn and I apologize.

Wrong.

The way it works in WoW is you use /combatlog to turn the log on and off. When you are by yourself only your data is recorded, no matter what else is happening around you. When you join a party or raid the data is combined and your combat log records everything that everyone does in your party or raid. This is the point of contention, whether or not the act of willfully grouping with someone constitutes consent for them to record your data. The argument has been made that if we all had private logs that showed only our data we could consolidate them after the fact into a comprehensive log for the entire group. To me this is a solution in search of a problem. It adds a layer of complexity for the sake of this notion of privacy that exists no where else. Where is the outcry over letting me inspect your gear and spec without consent? Or frapsing content? Or livestreaming it? And it also requires that everyone is or isn't running a log to make sense. When some are recording logs and some aren't the idea loses cohesion. For example, say I'm running a log and someone else in my group isn't. If they heal me, does it get recorded? You could say yes, since they chose to heal me, and it is happening to me personally. You could also say no, since their log is off which would indicate they want total privacy in regards to what they are doing. Same thing if they provide group buffs and/or debuffs to any targets I might be attacking, which will have an impact on my personal throughput. Now expand this to a 10 minute encounter in a 16-man Op.

Easily with ease. You don't know that, at all. It's interesting to me that the same people who insist hard data is completely unnecessary and in fact damaging to the game are also the same ones who are perfectly comfortable making blanket assertions about something they know virtually nothing about.

Holy crap Glenn Beck plays SWTOR. The joke is you never had reason, you only had a visceral response to something you imagine might happen. It doesn't matter, BioWare will either get it or they won't. And at this point I'd certainly appreciate some details from them on how exactly a personal log will work in any sort of group setting.

This is the sort of anecdotal evidence that should lead one to believe combat logs should be in the game.

I don't think you meant to quote me, because this answered none of my questions.

It's not really my proposal, that's just how it works in WoW. If you aren't grouped with anybody the combat log will only log your information, no matter what is happening around you. Only after you join a party or a raid is your information available to the people you are grouped with. Once you join a group nothing you do is private. Everyone can see what you do, how you're specced, how you're geared, and the way you behave in chat. How can you expect privacy in those situations? And for the third time, how often do pugs parse their runs? I think this question is being avoided because the obvious answer is 'almost never'. Who here can honestly say they've been harassed with a log parse (a parse would be a linked URL, not spam from Recount or Skada)?

And by joining a group to do a heroic quest, FP, or an Op, you are giving that consent. These people are going to very literally see everything that you are doing. And I'll ask again, how often are parses run for anything but guild-only raids? In all my time in WoW I ran exactly one parse for a pug raid, and that was only because someone else requested it, and I had a WoL account. I never parsed a 5-man.

Careful, they might realize what tooltips are and start screaming that they be removed.

100% false. A combat log will always tell you who performs better in tough raid encounters.

But how often do PUG raid leaders run parses? I'm somewhat ambivalent about a Recount-like meter being part of the UI, so I've got no dog in that fight, but a full combat log should be a no-brainer.

Bolded for ***.

WoW has both the in-game combat log that you can display in your chat window and a slash command to create a .txt file with the same information that can be uploaded to a third-party client and parsed. Addons like Recount would take that data, as well as the data from party and raid members, and compile it into a graphical display as part of your UI.

You insist on analysis, yet scoff at the idea of number crunching. In a video game.

Yes, the tooltips are very nice, but a log would provide actual feedback. Why would a feedback tool only be valuable after I've learned my class? As far as I'm concerned you never learn a class, and then are done with it. It's a constant process that happens as the game evolves. I think we're on the same page as far as progressive raiding, so I won't elaborate there, but my hang up with the "personal log" is that I don't see how they could work in group setting. What are your thoughts? Perhaps it would be better to move the discussion in that direction.

I was being sarcastic. I see some people insisting they don't want logs, then following with how they'd rather think for themselves than let the game do it. Generally the word 'think' implies you have some information or data to think about. What sort of verifiable data are you receiving from the game right now, that giving you more would have a negative impact on your play? Or maybe none of you know what the hell you're even arguing against.