Ok, so I have this account-through which I've paid probably about $30-40 since I joined- and my steam account that I made to try and get that hat. The ME has been separate the whole time, so I've been trying to lvl my steam account as a challenge since this one is pretty much endgame.
However, I let my brother create an account- not another character, a separate account- on this computer. It's just a regular one through the website. After he played for a while, I got on and logged into my steam account. I found that my ME had been drained. Upon further testing I confirmed the ME is being shared between my brothers account and my steam account.
I thought making purchases was supposed to make the ME separate on ALL accounts on the same computer. Was I mistaken? Was there a recent change to where that isn't the case?
Purchasing makes that specific account separate. Multiple free accounts on that computer always share ME regardless of the presence of a paid account.