Option to privatize or opt-out of lodestone displaying character. Show your support!

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Is stalking really all that common or is it just blown up when it happens to seem like a bigger issue than it really is?

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It’s definitely not blown up, often just giving the wrong person attention once or twice results in you having someone on your ass for many years or even decades. Hell to some people you don’t even need to give attention once, believe me. Unhealthy people can get really obsessive and the internet definitely makes their lives easier.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

I don't mind the idea of more privacy but it seems soon everyone is gonna want to keep to themselves for everything due to what could possibly happen. People already don't speak in content for fear of getting in trouble

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People would be more inclined to get to know people if there was an option to prevent them from following your main to the ends of the earth.

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Originally Posted by Senn

Like this post if you want the option to privatize or opt-out from having your character information (including name and character appearance) publically displayed on lodestone.

Before reading, this post is specifically about having options to privatize or opt-out of lodestone. This topic is NOT about what happened in omega ultimate. I am just using this as one example.

There have been some illicit activities in the omega protocol (ultimate) which has caused a lot of backlash with the community. The players involved in these illicit activities are now being followed and harassed by other people in game. The environment has become hostile, and I doubt this behavior will stop. I am not defending people involved in these illicit activities, but I believe that the GMs should ultimately be responsible for enforcing the ToS.

I read that one of the participants in the raid is going to delete their account, probably in part because even if they get a name change or transfer servers, they can always be tracked through their lodestone page.
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Allowing players to privatize or opt-out of lodestone can help prevent stalking and harassment in situations such as these:

• A situation where two players have a conflict with each other, and one ends up stalking and harassing the other.
• A situation where one player breaks up with their significant other who also plays the game. The other party chooses to stalk and harass them after the break up.
• A situation where a person will create multiple new accounts or trial account to stalk and harass a player.

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I played in WOW for more than a decade. An environment far more toxic than ours. During that entire time I never felt the need to run and hide with a name change because I never did anything I was ashamed of.

If someone is harassing you, you simply report them. I don’t think we should give toxic/cheaters more tools to hide and repeat their behavior.

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Originally Posted by Conadrium

I played in WOW for more than a decade. An environment far more toxic than ours. During that entire time I never felt the need to run and hide with a name change because I never did anything I was ashamed of.

If someone is harassing you, you simply report them. I don’t think we should give toxic/cheaters more tools to hide and repeat their behavior.

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Why are you assuming people who are being stalked and harassed have done something to be ashamed of?
The point you made about how people can abuse hiding their lodestone page doesn't hold water because you can't hide from the GMs if you're reported and found to have violated the ToS. Not only that, people make alts, new accounts, and trial accounts to stalk and harass people.

Does WoW have a feature like lodestone? If so, is this feature opt-in?

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Originally Posted by Conadrium

I played in WOW for more than a decade. An environment far more toxic than ours. During that entire time I never felt the need to run and hide with a name change because I never did anything I was ashamed of.

If someone is harassing you, you simply report them. I don’t think we should give toxic/cheaters more tools to hide and repeat their behavior.

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First off, WoW and FFXIV are different environments as you noted.
You had more open toxicity in WoW, you have more obsessive behaviour in FFXIV. Want to take a wild guess which leads to more stalking? Go on.

Secondly, getting harassed and stalking has nothing to do with doing things you should be ashamed of. Victim blaming isn't a good look. What do you think people that got stalked did? Offered a free lap dance with their skimpily dressed cat girl in shout chat in Limsa? Aggressively flirted with someone and pretended to be their ingame girlfriend to get free stuff? Randomly talked in DF about how they really need to get laid right now and would even bone a stranger?
Tell you what: I personally know 4 people that got stalked. One over winning a placard clicking war before housing lottery. One over having the same last name as the person that stalked them and which they had never seen before. Two of them because they were in the FC with a group of 3 others and the 3 others wanted to do always do content with them, they joined for a few roulettes from time to time, it wasn't enough, they kept pestering them, they left the FC, they got followed around, messaged, random invited etc. for months from these people on throwaway trial accounts.
So tell me what they did to be ashamed of. Go on.

And if someone did indeed get reported, hiding their lodestone doesn't protect them one bit because SE doesn't rely on a public lodestone profile to catch someone. The perpetrator can change their name 10 times and switch server for good measure. It. Will. Not. Hide. Them.

But what it would do is helping people like the 4 I know to remain hidden from stalkers after a name/ server change.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

First off, WoW and FFXIV are different environments as you noted.
You had more open toxicity in WoW, you have more obsessive behaviour in FFXIV. Want to take a wild guess which leads to more stalking? Go on.

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I see what you mean. I was under the impression the toxicity in WoW was more like you get insulted and trolled up front, but then afterwards you'd be left alone at least. In ffxiv, people just get so obsessed with you - they'll follow you and won't let up. I could be wrong about this but that's sorta what it seems like.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Interesting. I've had a stalker once but that was years ago. Folks generally give up if you don't give them attention in my experience.

I don't mind the idea of more privacy but it seems soon everyone is gonna want to keep to themselves for everything due to what could possibly happen. People already don't speak in content for fear of getting in trouble

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We're talking purely about the ability to look up a character via lodestone, and find that characters associations, or track them despite name changes through their lodestone ID.

Personally, I have only ever felt the need to 'look someone up' on lodestone the one time, due to drama of them being the alt of another player and pretending they weren't.
To put it simply, this isn't an ability any honest player needs to have in the first place. It's not like someone's Facebook page, it's more like someone's personal record. It's not a necessary feature in order to be a social player.
Lodestone only really exists to show off your achievements, but it inadvertently serves as a permanent personal information depository that everyone can access.

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Originally Posted by Senn

I see what you mean. I was under the impression the toxicity in WoW was more like you get insulted and trolled up front, but then afterwards you'd be left alone at least. In ffxiv, people just get so obsessed with you - they'll follow you and won't let up. I could be wrong about this but that's sorta what it seems like.

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From playing both games, I'd say that's fairly accurate.
I played on various servers and it was the same on every server. Someone got a problem with you, they'd be pretty damn open about it. But after the dungeon/ battleground/ whatever, that would be it. It always felt more like an angry kid blowing off steam by insulting you. Which I'll not defend, crap behaviour is crap behaviour. But for what it's worth, it never lasted.

In FFXIV on the other hand I've heard, seen and even experienced my fair share of harassment and stalking that went beyond a couple of nasty insults in party chat. It's a fairly frequent problem in the RP scene because you have a few messed up people sneaking in and it's impossible to recognize them at first glance. Same as with the screenshot fans, you have some people that got stalked ingame after posting some cute screenshots on twitter.
It feels like part of the FFXIV community struggles with boundaries and seperating ingame from reality when it comes to social interaction.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

From playing both games, I'd say that's fairly accurate.
I played on various servers and it was the same on every server. Someone got a problem with you, they'd be pretty damn open about it. But after the dungeon/ battleground/ whatever, that would be it. It always felt more like an angry kid blowing off steam by insulting you. Which I'll not defend, crap behaviour is crap behaviour. But for what it's worth, it never lasted.

In FFXIV on the other hand I've heard, seen and even experienced my fair share of harassment and stalking that went beyond a couple of nasty insults in party chat. It's a fairly frequent problem in the RP scene because you have a few messed up people sneaking in and it's impossible to recognize them at first glance. Same as with the screenshot fans, you have some people that got stalked ingame after posting some cute screenshots on twitter.
It feels like part of the FFXIV community struggles with boundaries and seperating ingame from reality when it comes to social interaction.

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Since you said you've played WoW, does it have something like lodestone?

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Originally Posted by Senn

Since you said you've played WoW, does it have something like lodestone?

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WoW has Armory which basically is the same but I think it has even more information but the link to a players Armory is site+server+name so I am 99% sure if you name change the link wont bring you to the same profile anymore. Also the only way to not be in Armory is to not log in/subscribe for a very long time, be a character that is under level 10 and being in middle of a server/realm transfer progress :p

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Originally Posted by Nanne

WoW has Armory which basically is the same but I think it has even more information but the link to a players Armory is site+server+name so I am 99% sure if you name change the link wont bring you to the same profile anymore. Also the only way to not be in Armory is to not log in/subscribe for a very long time, be a character that is under level 10 and being in middle of a server/realm transfer progress :p

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That seems a lot better than the lodestone. At the very least, the armory doesn't link your current profile with your old username.

The armory link changes with the name/ server.
While I never searched for an opt-out or found it, a name change would make your character impossible to track. Someone would have to remember a lot of information and then manually look through e.g. a guild or even an entire server roster to see if a character matches these informations.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

imagine thinking you cant be.

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It's the internet, people only know what you give out

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

I'm just going to ask you to please be more familiarized with the Koike Incident.

That's a Google Docs glossary for terms used by the Japanese fanbase. Among them (just use CTRL + F) you should find a reference to the "Koike Incident". Where a female player was harassed and stalked in-game.

It was so bad that Foxclon had to make an official statement on it in the middle of a livestream.

And that's not even getting into the several cases on Reddit and on these OF's, both in English and otherwise, of people bringing awareness to cases of stalking.

And I know how you tend to be. You'll likely say that I'm trash and my input doesn't matter, but I don't care and I don't mind. Just please be mindful, because these things do happen.

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See above. They were harassed by the way, not stalked. There is a significant difference

I'd be all for this. I was stalked for years in the previous MMORPG I played, since people were able to track everything; ultimately ended up quitting partially because of it.

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Originally Posted by Senn

I'm happy to know that removing someone from your friendlist will also remove you from their list as well in a later update.

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can someone confirm this to be true? and if so, when do they plan to release this?

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Originally Posted by VoidLotus

I'd be all for this. I was stalked for years in the previous MMORPG I played, since people were able to track everything; ultimately ended up quitting partially because of it.

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Mao just sad that peoples going through this sort of thing. Is supposed to be game for having funs!

My husband having a player stalking him in game since a few years, I’m all for it.
Even with a name change, that person can find him too easily. ^^;

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Originally Posted by Zomkei

can someone confirm this to be true? and if so, when do they plan to release this?

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Here's a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ch_option_qol/
I don't know when this feature is coming exactly.

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Originally Posted by VoidLotus

I'd be all for this. I was stalked for years in the previous MMORPG I played, since people were able to track everything; ultimately ended up quitting partially because of it.

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Originally Posted by Gwen_Lavellan

My husband having a player stalking him in game since a few years, I’m all for it.
Even with a name change, that person can find him too easily. ^^;

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Thank you for your support! Please consider liking the original post of this thread if you haven't already. Hopefully change can be made.

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Originally Posted by Senn

Like this post if you want the option to privatize or opt-out from having your character information (including name and character appearance) publically displayed on lodestone.

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We need an option to completely hide our Character on its lodestone URL, so if someone navigated to say /YourCharactersIDHere/ (the characters unique ID number) the page would not show anything at all, just a message (This Character cannot be viewed). The same would apply to a name search, say Kitty Cat on Seraph, it should only show the name in text form with a message saying (This Character cannot be viewed).

One more incredibly important thing we need is, when YOU remove someone from YOUR friend list, YOU must be removed from THEIR friend list, this needs asap attention, and it needs to also affect the lodestone, YOU need to be removed on any NON friend, friend list on lodestone, so there is NO possible way to stalk someone.

I have no horse in this race no dog in this fight no chicken in this pen. But anything that could help make it harder for players to find and harrass others I support.

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Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

We need an option to completely hide our Character on its lodestone URL, so if someone navigated to say /YourCharactersIDHere/ (the characters unique ID number) the page would not show anything at all, just a message (This Character cannot be viewed). The same would apply to a name search, say Kitty Cat on Seraph, it should only show the name in text form with a message saying (This Character cannot be viewed).

One more incredibly important thing we need is, when YOU remove someone from YOUR friend list, YOU must be removed from THEIR friend list, this needs asap attention, and it needs to also affect the lodestone, YOU need to be removed on any NON friend, friend list on lodestone, so there is NO possible way to stalk someone.

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Yoshi P for some odd reason god knows why. Thinks that peoples feelings will be hurt if you are removed from their friends list when you remove them from yours. *shrugs* Goes without saying if you remove somone from your friends list, your likely not concerned about their feelings.

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Originally Posted by Senn

Here's a link: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ch_option_qol/
I don't know when this feature is coming exactly.

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thank you!

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Yoshi P for some odd reason god knows why. Thinks that peoples feelings will be hurt if you are removed from their friends list when you remove them from yours. *shrugs* Goes without saying if you remove somone from your friends list, your likely not concerned about their feelings.

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I think that was a failed way to attempt keeping people conflict free, so to not deal with the entire conversation of “why did you delete me” and instead to just fade someone out without them having any idea you are doing so.

There needs to be a privacy option to restrict who can view your Lodestone page:

• Public
• Friends, Free Company, and Linkshells
• Friends and Free Company
• Friends
• Private

If you attempt to view a restricted Lodestone profile, an error will say that either no such character exists or the character's Lodestone profile is restricted by privacy settings. It wouldn't specify which. There is already the option to restrict your online status, achievements, friends list, and followers list. That should be expanded to restrict the entire Lodestone profile page.

They also need to make it so if you block another player, you are automatically removed from their friends list and cannot be added back unless you unblock them.

They also need to make it so Lonestone profiles can no longer be accessed with the character's ID number. You can only access it if you know the name and realm of the character, like in WoW.

Given that there have been instances of stalking and harassment in the past, and such a blatant tool exists to facilitate it, I wouldn't be surprised if SE gets sued over it.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Is stalking really all that common or is it just blown up when it happens to seem like a bigger issue than it really is?

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It shouldn't matter whether it's blown up or not, because at what point is a problem not worth attention? When it affects less then 50% of people? Less than 10%? Less than 5%? Or less than 0.1%?

About 3% of men in the US have experienced attempted or completed rape. Is rape of men a bigger issue than it really is?

It shouldn't matter, because it's simply wrong and the goal should be that nobody gets raped. Same for stalking. It shouldn't matter how big of a problem stalking in FFXIV really is, it should simply be made harder to do. At least it shouldn't be so easy and absolutely trivial to stalk a character until the character is deleted.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

It shouldn't matter whether it's blown up or not, because at what point is a problem not worth attention? When it affects less then 50% of people? Less than 10%? Less than 5%? Or less than 0.1%?

About 3% of men in the US have experienced attempted or completed rape. Is rape of men a bigger issue than it really is?

It shouldn't matter, because it's simply wrong and the goal should be that nobody gets raped. Same for stalking. It shouldn't matter how big of a problem stalking in FFXIV really is, it should simply be made harder to do. At least it shouldn't be so easy and absolutely trivial to stalk a character until the character is deleted.

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Sorry but using rape to make a point about something far smaller is off on many levels. Virtual stalking is in NO way comparable and I'd kindly ask you not to compare them.

Second how much it effects does in fact matter in the context of a game. Harassment doesn't effect everyone and as such they haven't regulated regular game chat to what chat is in pvp. This isn't an argument against a change btw, just this specific point

I'm on board with this. Had someone checking up on all my characters FCs and all the members in it, only then to send me a message warning me about a friend they used to RP with. They doxxed my friend (only to me, but who knows who else got told this information) and did not/would not understand when I tried to explain how messed up that was.

They then proceeded to roll alts and find my alts via the lodestone and try to trap me.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Second how much it effects does in fact matter in the context of a game. Harassment doesn't effect everyone and as such they haven't regulated regular game chat to what chat is in pvp. This isn't an argument against a change btw, just this specific point

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I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. The lodestone can be used to stalk someone, and this method of stalking people is not uncommon. The fact remains that harassing and stalking can get so bad, some people feel they have no choice but to delete their character, or quit the game entirely. Players should have a choice to privatize their lodestone profile.

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Originally Posted by Feronar

There needs to be a privacy option to restrict who can view your Lodestone page:

• Public
• Friends, Free Company, and Linkshells
• Friends and Free Company
• Friends
• Private

If you attempt to view a restricted Lodestone profile, an error will say that either no such character exists or the character's Lodestone profile is restricted by privacy settings. It wouldn't specify which. There is already the option to restrict your online status, achievements, friends list, and followers list. That should be expanded to restrict the entire Lodestone profile page.

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Yes to all this.

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Originally Posted by Feronar

They also need to make it so if you block another player, you are automatically removed from their friends list and cannot be added back unless you unblock them.

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This feature is going to be implemented in a new update. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ch_option_qol/

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Originally Posted by SassyAssassin

I think that was a failed way to attempt keeping people conflict free, so to not deal with the entire conversation of “why did you delete me” and instead to just fade someone out without them having any idea you are doing so.

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Tbf there are other ways to do it and still maintain that aspect.
It could be that putting someone on your blacklist would remove you from their friendslist, so you have the option to do it either way.

Silly question by the way but can we see if somebody checked our Lodestone page ? I looked everywhere but didn’t find anything.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

The fact you can literally stalk a person even after multiple renames due to the lodestone link being the exact same is already a huge issue by itself, either make it optional private, or make it change when people transfer and/or rename

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I had an issue with a player back in Heavensward. I was new to a dungeon, and it slipped my mind to say anything. The tank(the guy I'm talking about) ran ahead and pulled a ton of stuff and died. He starts going to town calling me every name in the book because I forgot to say I was new. Anyway, I ended up rage quitting because he was being so toxic about it. He followed me out. And preceded to continue to berate me. So I blocked him and reported him. Well, it turns out that if you leave a server and come back or change your name, you are forever on someone's friend list or whatever. So, this guy, after years of being gone, saw me in Limsa and decided to go for round 2. I quit for about 2 and a half years because of that dude. I know people will laugh at me, but seriously, I was in a bad head space at the time, and this guy made it 1000xs worse. Anyway, he held like a 4 year grudge because I originally got him banned. But because I left the server and came back, etc, he was removed from my blacklist. I still remember his name. I literally can't forget it. And sadly, I'm sure he remembers mine. Because I blocked him and reported him again.

All I'm saying is that people are crazy and I'd like a way to mitigate that other than blacklists because those get deleted when you move home servers. But if the person couldn't look me up maybe, just maybe I can truly have a fresh start somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by Senn

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. The lodestone can be used to stalk someone, and this method of stalking people is not uncommon. The fact remains that harassing and stalking can get so bad, some people feel they have no choice but to delete their character, or quit the game entirely. Players should have a choice to privatize their lodestone profile.

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Nowhere did I say it can't be used for that and nowhere did I say adding privacy options is bad. My point has been quite clear on that. I just simply asked how common this is and made a point about how number effected does indeed matter when it comes to game changes. Devs generally make changes when large amounts are effected. I don't see how it wrong to say this

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Originally Posted by Reinha

You don't need to track people on the lodestone if you just blacklist the people who offended you. Having the option to hide your own lodestone profile would protect you, not them.

If an a-hole makes themselves disappear and they are blackilisted, that's a desirable outcome isn't it? They're gone.

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Given what I said already, how else am I supposed to know who they are in order to blacklist if I don't keep track of them (and their frequent name changes)? I don't know how the blacklist handles characters on a different data center, but if it is anything like friendlist then yeah I would first need to wait for them to be in the same DC/world to blacklist them (which they currently aren't, and is the problem)

Call me paranoid, but I did explain the situation and would not want to run it again so I either keep track of them or hope they somehow rework the way blacklisting works (which doesn't seem likely)
It's good that they finally decided to add in (remove from fl = removed from theirs) here's hoping proper blocks come in the next 2 years!

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

I just simply asked how common this is

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It doesn't matter. People should have the option to privatize regardless of how common stalking and harassment is. If you change your username in WoW, their version of lodestone doesn't link the profile with the old username. There are plenty of MMOs that don't even have a lodestone-like feature. It's not necessary. We don't need to play this game of "Just how common is it really?"

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Originally Posted by Corrupted

Call me paranoid, but I did explain the situation and would not want to run it again so I either keep track of them or hope they somehow rework the way blacklisting works (which doesn't seem likely)
It's good that they finally decided to add in (remove from fl = removed from theirs) here's hoping proper blocks come in the next 2 years!

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I understand that friendlist and blacklist don't function as they should, and I think they should be revamped. We should push for the option to privatize our lodestones, and also push for fixes and improvements to friendlists and blacklists.

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Originally Posted by SassyAssassin

I think that was a failed way to attempt keeping people conflict free, so to not deal with the entire conversation of “why did you delete me” and instead to just fade someone out without them having any idea you are doing so.

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I always felt like this line of reasoning was overstepping boundaries, and I'm glad it's being changed.

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Originally Posted by Gwen_Lavellan

Silly question by the way but can we see if somebody checked our Lodestone page ? I looked everywhere but didn’t find anything.

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Not that I'm aware of.

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Originally Posted by Senn

There have been some illicit activities in the omega protocol (ultimate) which has caused a lot of backlash with the community. The players involved in these illicit activities are now being followed and harassed by other people in game. The environment has become hostile, and I doubt this behavior will stop.

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Great, good job everyone.

why nobody stalking me i want personal stalker