StreamGuard

Formerly StreamShield.

Stream your adventures. Keep everyone's names off camera.

StreamGuard swaps real player names on your screen only for random, lore-friendly fake names. Your viewers see "Grukmar Bloodfang" and "Silas Graves". They don't see the real names of the people you group with, quest beside, or fight. That makes it a lot harder for stream snipers and harassers to find you, your guild or your groupmates.

No setup needed. Install it, log in, and it's on.

Why streamers need it

• Stream snipers watch your stream to find out where you are, then show up to gank you, grief you or ruin your dungeon run.
• Groupmates didn't sign up to be on stream. Showing their names exposes them to raids from chat, whispers and harassment.
• Names leak everywhere: unit frames, tooltips, nameplates, chat, the guild roster, the friends list, scoreboards. Hiding all of them by hand isn't realistic.

StreamGuard covers all of those for you and quietly tells you when someone seems to be following you.

Features

Name masking, in categories you control

Pick your own stream name

Under My name there are two boxes, First: and Last:. Type the name you want viewers to see (up to 24 characters each) and press Enter. Leave a box blank for a random fake. If you fill in Last, your name shows as "First Last" everywhere: player and target frames, party and raid frames, nameplates, chat, tooltips and lists (very long names may be cut short by a frame). If you leave Last blank, spots that show only your character name use First, and full-name spots like the character sheet title get a random surname. Your real surname shows as Last, or as the random surname if Last is blank. You can also type /ss myname <first> [last], or /ss myname on its own to go back to random. The name only shows on your screen while My name is on. Whispers to it go to your real character, and it never replaces another real player: if someone with that name turns up, you get a random fake name instead.

Guild & Friends people

Your guild's name always shows normally. The people in it don't:

• Guildmates get fake names whenever Friendlies is on: in the roster, tooltips, chat and inside the guild message of the day
• Public and officer notes show as —
• Battle.net / Real ID names and BattleTags show as fake names, including the names of the characters they're playing
• Friend notes and Battle.net broadcasts are hidden, including your own BattleTag and broadcast on the friends list
• Battle.net whispers and broadcasts in chat show the fake name

NPCs always keep their real names. Fake names match race styles (orc, troll, tauren, undead, human, dwarf, gnome, night elf). They rotate every 15 minutes (adjustable) or whenever you click Reroll. Names are swapped as soon as StreamGuard sees a frame or line update. A real name can still show for a moment on screens StreamGuard hasn't seen before. Switching a category off only brings back the real names in that category. Everyone else keeps their fake name.

Where names are masked:

• Unit frames (player, target, focus, target-of-target), party and raid frames, and nameplates where the game allows. This includes during combat.
• Every tooltip line, including "Companion of …" and "Corpse of …"
• Chat: say, party, raid, guild, whispers, emotes, system lines, loot, achievements and /who results. A stranger's first appearance already shows a fake name.
• Pop-ups: group invites, duels, trades, summons, resurrects and guild invites
• Ready check, inspect window, trade window, mail senders and death recap
• Right-click menu titles, the guild roster, the friends list, Communities, the who list, the group finder and the battleground scoreboard

Your actions still reach the real player. Whisper, reply, invite, trade, inspect and Battle.net replies always use the real name or account. Only the text you see changes. Type /w FakeName and StreamGuard sends it to the real player. /target, /focus and /assist are never rewritten, so the game never blocks them. Click the frame instead.

If the game hides a name from addons, StreamGuard blanks it. Some names can't be read by addons, for example in some instance combat. StreamGuard shows — in frames and hides that chat line, so the real name never appears.

Options window

Type /ss or left-click the shield on your minimap. It has one-click toggles for every category (My name, Party / Raid, Friendlies, Enemies, plus All to switch the four at once), Sniper Alerts, fake or real names in alerts, the alert sound and a sensitivity control (2–10), plus a Reroll button. Right-click the minimap shield for a quick reroll.

The window opens compact, showing just the "Who gets masked" toggles. Click More + in the bottom-right corner, or type /ss expand, to see every section. Less - or /ss compact shrinks it again. Your choice is remembered.

Works with other addons

StreamGuard also finds names on other addons' frames:

• Unit and raid frames: oUF-based layouts, ElvUI name tags, Shadowed Unit Frames tags, Grid2, VuhDo, Cell
• Nameplates: Plater, Kui Nameplates, TidyPlates and Threat Plates
• Chat: Prat, Chattynator and Glass go through the same masking as the default chat window

Sniper Alerts

StreamGuard watches enemy players around you through nameplates, your target and mouseover. It flags a player only when the pattern is hard to explain by chance:

• seen in 3+ different zones within an hour. A zone only counts after you've spent 2+ minutes in it, the first minute after you change zones is skipped, and nothing is recorded while you're on a flight path.
• seen on 3+ different layers of the same zone within an hour (they keep following you when you change layers)
• seen in 5+ of your play sessions in the last 7 days. A new session starts only after 30+ minutes offline or away, so /reloads and short breaks don't count. Those sessions also have to fall on 3+ different days and in 2+ different zones.

Built to avoid false alarms:

• Kill counting is off by default. Sniper tracking never uses the combat log.
• Dungeons, raids and battlegrounds are ignored. Meeting the same people in instances isn't stalking.
• Never flagged: you, your group (including recent groupmates), guildmates, friends, Battle.net friends and community members.
• Friendly players are only tracked if you turn it on (/ss snipers friendlies).

Alerts are private. You get a small toast near the top of the screen (drag to move, click X or right-click to dismiss) and a chat line only you can see. Nothing is ever sent to other players. The toast, the chat line and the /ss snipers list show fake names by default, so they're safe on stream. Hovering the toast never shows the real name. Sound is off by default. Turn it on in the options or with /ss snipers sound.

Sensitivity: /ss snipers set N or the options control (2–10). N sets zones and layers to N and sessions to N + 2. The default is 3, which means 3 zones, 3 layers and 5 sessions. Lower means more alerts.

Commands

/sg and /streamguard work as aliases for /ss, and /ss sniper … works the same as /ss snipers ….

Limits and known issues

StreamGuard works within what the game client allows:

• Only your screen changes. Other players still see real names, and the game itself isn't changed.
• Combat log: masking there is best-effort. StreamGuard learns new players from standard combat lines such as "X hits you". Lines in other formats only mask names StreamGuard has already seen.
• Names over characters' heads (including pet titles like "Spider <Name's Pet>") are drawn by the game itself and can't be rewritten. Use /ss hideworldnames to hide them while you stream.
• Nameplates inside dungeons are locked by the client and can't be renamed there.
• Other addons: support is best-effort. A frame that shows a name without linking it to a unit, or draws text in an unusual way, may still show the real name.
• Typing boxes (mail "To:", whisper box while you type) show what you type, so they're never rewritten.
• Red error messages at the top of the screen are left alone.
• Guild Information and broadcast edit boxes are left alone, because changing them could save fake text to the server. Keep those windows off stream.
• Mail and death recap mask players StreamGuard has already seen. NPC senders and NPC names always stay real.
• Sniper history is capped at 500 players (oldest removed first). Layers are worked out from nearby NPCs, so treat them as a strong hint, not proof.

FAQ

Will other players see fake names? No. Everything happens on your screen. You can't use it to impersonate anyone.

Can I get banned for this? StreamGuard is a normal interface addon. It only changes text in your own UI through the standard addon API.

Can I still see real names when I need them? Yes. Type /ss snipers real for the sniper list, or /ss off for everything. Do that off camera.

Someone's real name slipped through. What should I do? Tell us which frame or addon it was in the comments. Until it's fixed, turn on /ss hideworldnames and keep that frame off your stream layout.

Does it work on Mac? Yes. It's a normal addon, so it runs anywhere WoW does.

Built for WoW Forever. Feedback and bug reports are always welcome.