The End of Stalking, Blacklist & Lodestone

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Originally Posted by EorzeaWanderer

I just looked over the slides. From what they presented there seems to be a loophole with estate expulsion as it only appears to be initiated if you are both there. After their 10-day ban they could return to your home while you are not there and leave something in your message book potentially.

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If they're on your blacklist they get ejected immediately any time they try to enter. The 10-day timeout is a separate function.

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Originally Posted by Cat_Girl

The new Blacklist update is exactly what I had wished for (for 7.0), it completely ends Stalking both from within the game and out.

Being account wide is exactly what we've been needing, the fact it will hide the name, character model and even chat from a blacklisted player, even in a duty (won't hide the model, but you won't see the name or the players chat if you don't want to).
It is as good as Deleting a blacklisted player from the game!

Can't wait to hide my profile and remove my character from the lodestone search.

Not to mention being able to block access to your Estate so blacklisted players can no longer enter the yard and the house itself!

Thanks Yoshi-P!

Who else is happy about this incoming update!?

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while i am excited there are certain sites they will still have your character information and character name sadly or work on trail accounts.

Can i ask, what the hell is bad about lodestone, or why there is such a "stalker" problem in this game?

I mean i play now 3 years and never had a problem with stalkers... what is wrong with people!

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Originally Posted by QiyoJoyo

Can i ask, what the hell is bad about lodestone, or why there is such a "stalker" problem in this game?

I mean i play now 3 years and never had a problem with stalkers... what is wrong with people!

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Why do people make dozens of alts just to troll a specific group of people? People are weird little friend, people are weird.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Also, why is it some people seem to think they have a right to go to venues? I really don't get it. In America, you can be told not to come back for being a dick in a public space that's privately owned.

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Which is why, in my post, I indicated that unrelated parties will also be affected. In the American FFXIV community, people are penalized for actions committed by others. For example, in the user-generated content community, person A made an asset that people use but said a slur a few years ago. Person B uses that asset. The community has a blanket blacklist on all associations with person A, meaning that person B will also be blacklisted. This is how the venue scene operates as well, particularly on Primal where turf wars are common. If you're an affiliate of someone, you're guilty by association. In my personal experience, this also happens in Balmung FCs.

I just find it funny how WoW never has this problem because it pivoted to gameplay over RP a long time ago. Yoshida keeps flooding us with casual and RP "content" at the expense of people looking to play a video game, such as spending every LL for Dawntrail so far on social features, grass and eyeballs. This game is a catastrophic disappointment because it leaves people with nothing to do but fight over petty drama. Western FFXIV players need to be managed, not simply provided for.

This is amazing news for players who have stalkers and creeps harassing them. Should have had at least some of these features available long ago, but late is better than never!

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

Which is why, in my post, I indicated that unrelated parties will also be affected. In the American FFXIV community, people are penalized for actions committed by others. For example, in the user-generated content community, person A made an asset that people use but said a slur a few years ago. Person B uses that asset. The community has a blanket blacklist on all associations with person A, meaning that person B will also be blacklisted. This is how the venue scene operates as well, particularly on Primal where turf wars are common. If you're an affiliate of someone, you're guilty by association. In my personal experience, this also happens in Balmung FCs.

I just find it funny how WoW never has this problem because it pivoted to gameplay over RP a long time ago. Yoshida keeps flooding us with casual and RP "content" at the expense of people looking to play a video game, such as spending every LL for Dawntrail so far on social features, grass and eyeballs. This game is a catastrophic disappointment because it leaves people with nothing to do but fight over petty drama. Western FFXIV players need to be managed, not simply provided for.

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Sounds likeaa self inflicted problem. They aren't going to moderate your social interactions due to your mod usage lmao.

I think this is a great thing overall, but I can't help but feel like it will lead to its own breed of new drama, and to mods that attempt to circumvent it and perhaps mods to like idk, link blacklists together or something in order to try and ostracize people from certain groups if there's individual beef.

Probably just paranoid, but I expect to see people lording this sort of thing about in manners almost as strange as stalking.

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

I just find it funny how WoW never has this problem because it pivoted to gameplay over RP a long time ago. Yoshida keeps flooding us with casual and RP "content" at the expense of people looking to play a video game, such as spending every LL for Dawntrail so far on social features, grass and eyeballs. This game is a catastrophic disappointment because it leaves people with nothing to do but fight over petty drama. Western FFXIV players need to be managed, not simply provided for.

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I know I've asked this before, but I have to wonder why you're still here if you really believe what you're saying. I take it you haven't pre-ordered DT and won't be playing it?

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

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I hope evading text like that is bannable. I have nothing against RP, but the venue spam is so obnoxious. Ironically, since they kinda threw the gauntlet down on chat filtering, I haven't seen any venue spam. Maybe we got lucky, and it scared them all off if only for a minute.

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Originally Posted by QiyoJoyo

Can i ask, what the hell is bad about lodestone, or why there is such a "stalker" problem in this game?

I mean i play now 3 years and never had a problem with stalkers... what is wrong with people!

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The problem with the lodestone is that your character profile page has a fixed id - or url - which never changes. Even when you change the name or server of your character. This means a stalker who has your profile page bookmarked will always find you again. To escape them you have to start a brand new character.

And I am not sure if the changes to the lodestone page will actually fix that problem.

Plus it seems the problem with the friend list - that you stay on their friend list when you delete them from yours - will also not get fixed.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

If they're on your blacklist they get ejected immediately any time they try to enter.

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I don’t believe that’s how it works. The slide says, “When players with expulsion privileges are in the estate, anyone registered to their blacklist will be automatically expelled when attempting to enter the estate grounds.”

Which I interpreted to mean they can get in otherwise, assuming they are not under the 10-day ban that is applied upon expulsion.

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Originally Posted by QiyoJoyo

Can i ask, what the hell is bad about lodestone, or why there is such a "stalker" problem in this game?

I mean i play now 3 years and never had a problem with stalkers... what is wrong with people!

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Believe it or not, MMOs do tend to attract people who may not necessarily have good social skills, creeps, desperate people, etc. Or inevitably, when you gather enough people into one space like an MMO, a not zero amount of them are going to have unhealthy obsession habits. I have a friend who's been stalked for years now in this game for no other reason than she spoke in discord once in an FC chatroom and now the guy simply can't leave her alone. This game also has had stalking problems because quite frankly, it's stupid easy to do when it shouldnt have been. Blacklist doesn't delete them from your sight, plenty of documented cases of GMs basically doing nothing to stop it, Lodestone profile URLs are static meaning even attempting to change character names does nothing (being hopefully addressed with the greater lodestone privacy controls), creating a new character takes all of 5 seconds so stalkers can just continue harassing their victims easily, etc.

If you're not a woman, it's not too surprising you've never had to deal with any form of a stalker - cases of stalking are predominantly lopsided towards women unfortunately for obvious reasons. If you are, then count yourself blessed - there's plenty of others who haven't been and have had to deal with this for potential years now.

On topic, thank god Square finally did this.

Unironically more excited for this feature than the entire Dawntrail MSQ. It's nearly perfect. If they'd just made unadding friends work both ways, they would've solved the harassment issue in XIV completely.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

Unironically more excited for this feature than the entire Dawntrail MSQ. It's nearly perfect. If they'd just made unadding friends work both ways, they would've solved the harassment issue in XIV completely.

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Dude, I know. I'm not super hyped for Dawntrail, but I want to see the meltdown the term filter alone will cause. I'm for it. I want to some some barely English decoder ring cipher stuff we are going to get so they can spam their garbage. Also, voidlist integration is awesome. This has been the key feature for me. I hate exploratory zones, so I didn't have much to look forward to, but I love chaos, brother. And it's coming.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

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It'd be almost hilarious if they get to the point where they can just type the full thing out and get away with it.

Like Saying DiscJockey for DJ, or Real <Currency> <Trade> for RMT, or other Nonsense.
Or try to pull a old Urianger.

Regardless though, I hope they either give them a place where they can be easily found/ignored, and finally learn their place/know to be more Tactful.
(Like how some have Broadcasted with a Social PF tab, and merging of Fellowships/<CW>Linkshells)

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

Unironically more excited for this feature than the entire Dawntrail MSQ. It's nearly perfect. If they'd just made unadding friends work both ways, they would've solved the harassment issue in XIV completely.

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Kinda Same TBH, While I am interested in the Dawntrail Table Setting for the Rest of the Games New Story Arc.

During the LL, I was falling asleep from the Lalachin/Graphics Spiel PTSD. (jokes aside, the Not 1-1 comparison made it abit annoying, so I just spent chatting with others to bear with over the topics)

But when I saw Blacklist, that woke me up EZ.
Along with the Mutes, Bouncer-ing, and Privacy.

Love this, can't wait to finally be able to walk through a town without seeing club spam and rmt. Long story overdue

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Believe it or not, MMOs do tend to attract people who may not necessarily have good social skills, creeps, desperate people, etc. Or inevitably, when you gather enough people into one space like an MMO, a not zero amount of them are going to have unhealthy obsession habits. I have a friend who's been stalked for years now in this game for no other reason than she spoke in discord once in an FC chatroom and now the guy simply can't leave her alone. This game also has had stalking problems because quite frankly, it's stupid easy to do when it shouldnt have been. Blacklist doesn't delete them from your sight, plenty of documented cases of GMs basically doing nothing to stop it, Lodestone profile URLs are static meaning even attempting to change character names does nothing (being hopefully addressed with the greater lodestone privacy controls), creating a new character takes all of 5 seconds so stalkers can just continue harassing their victims easily, etc.

If you're not a woman, it's not too surprising you've never had to deal with any form of a stalker - cases of stalking are predominantly lopsided towards women unfortunately for obvious reasons. If you are, then count yourself blessed - there's plenty of others who haven't been and have had to deal with this for potential years now.

On topic, thank god Square finally did this.

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Ah, horny creeps, gottcha.

Thats why i play Lalafell, you like them, or you hate them. Most of the time i get pets and nice smalltalk. Long life the shortlegs!

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

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I think this is where you see the system could work really well together with other new additions. Someone trying to get past known filters with that stuff gets added to blacklist or mute list for example.

Part of the reason ads are an issue is people make gil just running to shout in different cities on alts then get the gil on their main. In theory with the blacklist changes that alt now getting blacklisted can impact your main as every character on the account is also now blacklisted. It makes the easy gil from running ads a lot more risky.

I will say as someone that has wanted a term filter for a while now and often suggested one this is a far better solution then I could have hoped for in that regard, I set up my own filters and should something sneak past it welcome to being muted and my filter gets an update.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

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Oh they'll do it alright. Its kind of like how on social media sites (like twitter for example), people put up begging posts where they say everything in the world they can think of in desperate attempt to get others to send them money for free, and so to get rid of that, you block the words of the cash services they use, and then that should be mean that the problem's now solved, right? But it doesnt, because instead of realizing "Oh, some people dont want to give me money", they get even more determined and use every weird combination and letters possible to force everyone to see them begging. It'll be no different here. Instead of realizing, "right, not everyone will be interested in my venue", they'll just figure, "well they're blocking my venue words, so ill just spell it different to make SURE they see it because ME ME ME ME".

I would for sure pre-emptively (if possible) block all variations of venue related words that they use, as well as other words that they use in hopes of intentionally bi-passing filters to be annoying and attention starved. In addition to this, I would just flatout start adding them to the blocklist, if they get that bent on insisting you have to be forced to seeing their trash.

Also these are all great changes that I am highly looking forward to!!

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

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Maybe I'm giving them too much credit but I'd like to believe they would recognize that if people are filtering it out then clearly they don't want to be there, so it's a losing battle on their end. Though I wouldn't be surprised if some tried despite this. Either way, I'm pretty happy with this change.

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Originally Posted by Tint

The problem with the lodestone is that your character profile page has a fixed id - or url - which never changes. Even when you change the name or server of your character. This means a stalker who has your profile page bookmarked will always find you again. To escape them you have to start a brand new character.

And I am not sure if the changes to the lodestone page will actually fix that problem.

Plus it seems the problem with the friend list - that you stay on their friend list when you delete them from yours - will also not get fixed.

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It is mentioned in the stream that the Profile is able to be locked, nobody can view it at all, they can still visit the URL if known, but will have no access to view the page.

I'm guessing it'll be like if you go to the lodestone now, search for Kitty Cat on the Dynamis DC, check Kitty Cat on Maduin, can't view me can you :p you can still see my Name in the search, but that's it, soon to be gone.

Added link in my first post to the Un-Official translation of SE livestream, if you check at 1:35:40 you can view the updates to come.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

A ton of people are super excited about the new house kick feature, and while it sounds good on paper, Americans (such as myself) have special needs. You see, we don’t just treat people as individuals, we treat them as a group. So if you have faction A owning a venue, and person X from faction B is against that venue, you don’t just kick X but also the entirety of B. Which results in venue warfare because now kick wars are legitimized which will result in the fragmentation of the American venue community.

A lot of people like this because we’re a warlike people and we love conflict, but I wonder whether Yoshida realizes this or not. He doesn’t seem to realize that his version of FFXIV relies on “clubbing” and drama rather than actual gameplay. Notice how he spent no time on the video game portion of FFXIV in the LL. He’s hardly addressed it at all. Versus WoW’s expansion keynote, which revealed new features months ahead of time. While most of you love this because it lets you play other games, it’s disappointing that the general focus of FFXIV has moved so far beyond being a video game (at least for Americans). And it takes a proactive approach on his behalf to neutralize our warlike and political culture. We need an American community manager that can have direct input in these issues.

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what are you even talking about

Probably the most interesting thing they talked about in that live letter, i use to have a co worker who had, and probably still have, "stalking issues" and just couldn't help himself but check on my activities in game and talk to me about it. Always thought it was creepy and weird thus I'm glad that it won't be a thing after that update :D

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Originally Posted by Tint

The problem with the lodestone is that your character profile page has a fixed id - or url - which never changes. Even when you change the name or server of your character. This means a stalker who has your profile page bookmarked will always find you again. To escape them you have to start a brand new character.

And I am not sure if the changes to the lodestone page will actually fix that problem.

Plus it seems the problem with the friend list - that you stay on their friend list when you delete them from yours - will also not get fixed.

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If the player removes their character(s) from character searches completely, it should fix the problem for those searching through Lodestone.

If they are trying to only block certain players, it won't fix the problem. You can do a character search on Lodestone without logging in. If you're not logged in, there's no blocked/blacklisted info for Lodestone to find. SE would need to change Lodestone to require a log in to do any Lodestone searches. It also would not work if a log in is required and the person searching has multiple game accounts unless at least one character from each account has been blacklisted.

The big question: how will it affect outside search engines? Right now, if I know the number assigned to the character, I can go to Google, enter FFXIV Lodestone character profile "########" and it comes back with the character name and basic character description (but not world).

Even worse, it came back with some personal information from third party websites for the friend I just tested (and whom I sent a DM to before posting this because yikes, good things we were friends even before FFXIV so I wasn't seeing personal information I didn't already know). TAKE THAT AS A WARNING - DO NOT SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION AND CHARACTER PROFILE LINKS TOGETHER ON THIRD PARTY WEBSITES.

Everyone may want to start checking their own character numbers on google if you've been posting profile links elsewhere. Actually, you may want to do it even if you haven't been because someone else might have used one of yours.

Anyway, I don't know if that's something SE considered. For it to truly be effective in combating stalkers, it's going to require blocking results on outside search engines.

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Originally Posted by 4clubbedace

what are you even talking about

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They're talking about RP drama. I'm just amused that they don't think it exists in WoW. It will never go away in WoW.

Also amusing that they evidently missed the 3 FanFests where YoshiP went over new expansion information.

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Originally Posted by EorzeaWanderer

I don’t believe that’s how it works. The slide says, “When players with expulsion privileges are in the estate, anyone registered to their blacklist will be automatically expelled when attempting to enter the estate grounds.”

Which I interpreted to mean they can get in otherwise, assuming they are not under the 10-day ban that is applied upon expulsion.

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Ah, so you have to be in there for it to work. Seems like it's still a separate feature from the 10-day thing though.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

Ah, so you have to be in there for it to work. Seems like it's still a separate feature from the 10-day thing though.

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I took it as two different things.

1- Someone with expulsion privileges can place a player on "No entry", which will last for 10 days. The player will be removed immediately and not able to re-enter until the 10 days has passed regardless of who is or isn't in the venue.

2- When someone is in a housing location where they have expulsion privileges, any players on their personal blacklist will be immediately removed if they attempt to enter. It does not prevent the blacklisted player from entering later if the player with expulsion privileges is no longer there but if that player also returns, the blacklisted player will be kicked at that point.



One other thing and I didn't catch if it was pointed out in this thread - any characters on a blacklist prior to 7.0 will be carried forward to the new blacklist but only that specific character. Blacklist settings are moving server-side in 7.0 so if you add any characters to your blacklist after that, all characters on the same account are treated as blacklisted instead of just the one "registered".

Edit: on the internet safety issue

My friend replied to me with a thanks. He added that the links were in posts for player giveaways where he had to post to the FFXIV Twitter X, the platform formerly known as Twitter account. He's got them all deleted now but hmmmm

Hey everyone, better stop entering those giveaways! Square Enix wants you to share your real life information with stalkers via the FFXIV X account.

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Originally Posted by Sea-Wolf

Hmm... I do not thinking people really need this, because you did nothing wrong means there is no stalking at all. Avoid talking to strangers :o

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What?? You think avoiding talking to strangers is the answer? Why even bother being on a social game? I was close to making a joke saying your comment sounds like something a stalker would say, but I wont say it. This game needed this feature many years ago, SE should be ashamed of themselves for not implementing this a long time ago.

When you blacklist someone, they shouldn't be able to see your PF, imo.

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Originally Posted by lunartears

Also, we really should have the option to blacklist a player without directly finding them in the world. Even if it was just within Player Search.

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The only downside to this change to the lodestone is that players using third party tools/sites won't be able to scrape it as easily. Note "as easily", since blacklists often just work at an account/username level, so really all a third party tool would need to do work around player blacklists is scrape the site while logged in (thus making it easier for SE to ban them.) This means finding and filtering out bots will become impossible to do via the lodestone. Double-edged sword, as that also means that streamers/youtubers/etc who have gone out of their way to hide the server name and their character name while streaming won't be stalked via the lodestone.

I read through the earlier part of the thread and apparently the RP'ers are more concerned about the changes than the typical player. All I can say about that is maybe agree ahead of time that something is Kayfabe, and not to use the blocking system to prevent SE from seeing it as abuse. Players not part of the story will just likely ignore it rather than go through the effort to block it.

Popular players on a server might still generate a disruptive event and blocking someone's 200-player groupie train might not work as intended. I also don't see "blocking everyone in limsa" to increase your framerate from happening unless they're spamming chat. One "other" game that had the "everyone congregates on one area, that spams chat" problem, resulted in players often blocking everyone in a populated area temporarily because players would spam the chat that would induce a DDoS on players with slower hardware.

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Originally Posted by Cat_Girl

Who else is happy about this incoming update!?

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I didn't realize it was automatically account wide. Now if only it would also automatically remove you from the other person's friend list and things like that. (Because even if you de-friend them, you still show up on their friends list and will show up when you appear online, as tested with a trusted friend).

This is a blessing that I'm so looking forward to. No more unwanted advancements, no more annoyances. No more certain people trying to rope me into their crap. I can have peace without any of that drama, baggage, or egging on.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Edit: on the internet safety issue

My friend replied to me with a thanks. He added that the links were in posts for player giveaways where he had to post to the FFXIV Twitter X, the platform formerly known as Twitter account. He's got them all deleted now but hmmmm

Hey everyone, better stop entering those giveaways! Square Enix wants you to share your real life information with stalkers via the FFXIV X account.

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Yeah, not a good idea to share private data online. Everyone should also follow the basic principle of never cross posting on different topics on the same account on any platform. Always make a separate profile for work, private/family life, anonymous gaming, dating/social activities, politics and support groups. For example, I use a throwaway X account for Square Enix campaigns that has no connection to other facets of my life.

i fear sadly. this is not the perfect solution but its decently better

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Pray that the lodestone changes make it harder to profile characters on everyones favorite unofficial high score website.

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highly doubtful. from what i recall being told it pulls the data from the person parsing so if you're in a party with a person parsing for site you will be there and two you don't have to be on that so called website to have your name posted =/

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Originally Posted by Mosha

Unlikely, based on how it works it will still capture even if your lodestone profile even if its private.

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I believe there's something you can put i your lodestone description or something to tell that site not to include/show your data. It's still unfortunately you have to set that up though instead of said site being opt in to start with.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I believe there's something you can put i your lodestone description or something to tell that site not to include/show your data. It's still unfortunately you have to set that up though instead of said site being opt in to start with.

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tomestone-hidden
fflogs-hidden

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

I am excited to never see a godforsaken club shout ad ever again.

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Same here Friend. First thing my Wife and i will do is putting everything that includes Twitch, Club, Gamba and so on in this Filter.

So glad they made this change.

I get it, this entire player base is mentally ill... isnt it?

https://media2.giphy.com/media/slMXl...giphy.gif&ct=g

This is a good change especially for those of us who sadly have had to deal with harassment or stalking in the game.

Sometimes you are not comfortable with conflict, challenging someone or confrontation - this offers a good solution to block people who invade every aspect of your online space in the game for what reason I have no idea.

I consider myself a happy to lucky person and talk to everyone in game, when I'm not playing with friends I will find a quiet spot in the Roost and just chill learning to play some songs on the harp. One day this player approached me *emote* cheered my playing - so I thanked them - they started to talk to me in /tell and we had a brief conversation - they explained how they were terribly lonely etc and had no friends in the game, so I offered a hand of friendship and said well you can add me as a friend - we can do some dungeons etc.

This was my biggest mistake - what started off as genuine fun doing dungeons and trials - turned into something I was not comfortable with. This person started to hound me in the game almost every time I was online with messages "come to my house I want to show you a new room", if I would be standing in Mor Donah whilst leveling my alt job somehow they would teleport there and stand next to me and say "what are you doing?" "questing" "I will join you" whilst I found it inconvenient I just didn't challenge them and say please stop you are making me uncomfortable.

This carried on and then they started to get really pushy with messages like "come on discord" "send me a face pic please" the conversation became a little seedy. I really was not looking for any of this!

I was so uncomfortable because of it, I stopped playing on my main character and created an alt just to get away from this person.

Because I could not confront them about their behavior as I am not comfortable with conflict and didn't want to hurt them or upset them as I don't know their RL mental health situation I ended up paying for a server change - that was the only solution that was left open to me.

TLDR: For people like me this is a good change.

P.S.: If you are the person in question reading this, I hope you find a good friend IRL who makes you happy, but please learn to give people their space and try not to be too pushy with people!