Re: Regarding the Use of Third-Party Programs and Player Safety

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

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The basic answer...? - Some people take friendships/connections online a lot more seriously than what some others do, which is where you might find stalking more prominent... For the most part players that just do content and that's all, they may never get stalked (I haven't in the 11 years I've been playing), and then some others may go to social events (or tend to have a more social nature than others), make friends, do RP (Some people also take this more seriously than others), and players like that I would say generally tend to find themselves being stalked more. I've had a few friends where this has been the case.

I also suppose the very existence of this tool/program answers your question as well, because there certainly isn't another reason for it to exist.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

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There are different reasons why someone would become a stalker. Either it can be a power play, showing a victim that they can't just escape (usually done by bullies), or it could be something like a desperate cry for attention, the offender in their delusion thinking the victim owes them attention and going to lengths to get that. I'm sure there are more possible reasons, but those are usually the big two iirc. May also be both at the same time.

As to the how you get stalked, well... meet the wrong person, really.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

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You would be surprised what you'd find in the RP community.

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Originally Posted by Dante131

it make it worse to provide this information at all. nothing stops a person who already have the criminal mind for stalking someone to create a new account. You dont even have to buy the game since we have such a generous free trial. So people can have multiple accounts just to do harmful activitys. Please dont pretend like people would not do that, people have multiple accounts even without criminal minds in their head. So how it make it worse ? You have a database now which shows everyones character and the alts. Here an example for this situation.

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Outside of finding out a players alt characters, I have zero idea how knowing a players retainer names and previous location history is such a big deal.

"Generous" Free Trials.

Free Trial Players cannot use the "shout," "yell," or "tell" in-game chat options during the Free Trial.
Free Trial Players cannot access the in-game market board during the Free Trial.
Free Trial Players cannot trade with other players during the Free Trial.
Free Trial Players cannot send in-game letters using the moogle delivery service during the Free Trial.
Free Trial Players cannot create or join a Free Company during the Free Trial.
Free Trial Players cannot log into the official forum, or Companion application during the Free Trial.
https://support.na.square-enix.com/r...&tag=freetrial

Not really a whole lot a stalker can do with a free trial account.

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Person A ( attract the stalker by whatever action undercutting market / or not have the same intrest in the person or whatever ) blocks a person
Person B ( the blocked ) is intrested enough to stalk Person A or harras Person A or whatever.
Person B realizes oh i am probably blocked
Person B decides to switch to a new account and there we go nothing will stop them
Person A switches to an alt character to escape
Person B knows this and can just continue his actions on this character.

This is the most basic case of how things can go wrong. But it can gets worse.

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Person A uses situational awareness and blacklists Person B's new account.

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Let’s talk about people who use online games as an escape or a safe space separate from their real life. Imagine a teacher, CEO, or business owner dentist, doctor, IT people,someone expected to maintain a certain public image. If they engage in roleplay (RP), ERP, or just act differently in-game, and someone with a grudge gets access to their in-game activities, it’s not impossible that this information could be used to harm them in real life.

Sure, this might sound extreme, but in today’s world, doxing and harassment happen all the time. It’s naive to assume this won’t be misused.

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Unless I'm wrong, the plugin doesn't extract or show personal information. Not giving away personal information over the internet is basic online safety. So unless the teacher, CEO, business owner, dentist, doctor, IT people, etc are telling people in game their personal history, no one is gonna know.

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Which one of this cases might or might not happen doesnt really matter since every case is bad and to say its the tools fault is just tone deaf if you and your team which gets money every month created the posibility for such tool.

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Hard to understand what this sentence is even saying. It's both the Devs and the plugin authors fault. It is fine to tell CB3 to get their act together, but lets not exaggerate the issues.

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Originally Posted by Rinoa_353

It has with me, a stalker I have been dealing with has been wandering around me as my alts they shouldn't know about :(

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Did you blacklist them?

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

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It's the RP community.

FFXIV's RP scene just happens to be one of the worst, childish, sensitive, and antagonistic RP communities.

Vast majority that complain about "stalking" and "harassment" are abusing the words and are not actually suffering from either.

I run a nightclub and seen first hand the drama.

"They said my RP was awful." "They said they don't want to RP with me." "They didn't like my glams."

Now they cannot be in the same area together without becoming hysterical, and have actually asked me to remove the other player from the venue.

Did they say anything to you? "No."
Are they near you? "No."
Are they even talking about you. "No."

"But the player's pixels on screen is causing me mental anguish."

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

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Any answer given would just be scratching the surface really as there are A TON of factors to be considered, so it's a bit...difficult to really answer this. But I guess to give super basic answer: you get stalked/stalk someone simply because -------. No I did not censor anything: you could replace the ------- with pretty much anything you can think of, even something minor, and it can be someone's reason to stalk someone / get stalked. For example: you bump into someone at a grocery store, they drop something because of it, you pick it up for them and hand it back and then leave. Sounds like you just being a nice person since the bump is what caused them to drop said something and you just picked it up for them, what's the deal? To them, however: that could unironically be a reason for them to start stalking you. From taking revenge, to being para-social, to having mental health issues, to wanting to be controlling, to having low self-esteem, and many, many more reasons: if you can think it, then it can be a legitimate reason to stalk someone / get stalked, both IRL and online.

I won't pretend to know the RP community for FF14 that well since I keep to myself, but I have no doubt that like other RP communities; there are absolutely a few who take it WAY too seriously, and just like all the reasons listed above, anything you can think of in-game can be a reason for them to stalk you / get stalked.

"They said I was bad at RP!"

"They didn't like my glamour outfit!"

"They undercut me on the marketboard!" <- [This one here is why this 3rd party program actually exists apparently: because the maker wanted to know who the retainers of the person undercutting them on the marketboard belonged to.]

Overall, to put as absolutely basic and blunt as possible: People stalk and get stalked simply because. Probably not a good answer as a whole since answering "How does someone get stalked / why does someone want to stalk?" is pretty difficult due to all the factors and parts that make up each specific stalking situation, but hopefully it offers a bit of insight into it.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Please this is no victim blaming, but how the hell does one get stalked and who on earth is this bored or sick to actually stalk someone..? Ive been wondering since years now..

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My kindness is often confused with flirting for some odd reason with a large percentage of guys in this game.... Many of them treat this game as a sort of dating sim despite me friendzoning them from the start because I don't do long distance online relationships nor am I looking to date as well when I play this game to have fun and escape from the stresses irl brings around me. This particular stalker follows me around after I rejected their advances and they also tried to blackmail me (failed) in hopes of causing friction between my friends and I. They follow me around and stand near me looking like Michael Myers and emoting at me too even though I don't see them anymore but my friends who visit my homes seen them there. They have tried talking through my friends to get me to unblock them and more. I'm generally very forgiving and gave this guy many chances to be friends only but he always ends up abusing my kindness in hopes of getting me to be subservient to their twisted whims..... The terms of the blackmail (happened outside of the game) was for me to be subservient to them and also control what I said and who I can be around with.... Thankfully my friends saw through his deceit and what he tried to blackmail me with (He used 3rd party tools to have my characters naked and spread online as revenge porn of sorts but that doesn't really bother me since it's not myself irl). All of this took place outside the game, he is smart enough not to harass through tells/say chat directly to avoid the ire of GM's. Fortunately, I never gave them information about myself irl so it's only confined to the game and rarely outside through social media when he tries to contact me through friends.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Did you blacklist them?

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Yes I did but he creates trial characters and my friends see him once in a while when he stalks me.

It’s hard to give the ‘right answer’ as to why people stalk other than “it’s crazy people”. Doesn’t matter whether it’s from RP or other subset of community. All it takes is just one person or group crazy & wanting enough to cause harm to their target that they dislike for whatever reason.

Google & take your time reading the “FFXIV Koike Incident” and “FFXIV Dingo Case”. While they’re not about stalking strictly, they’re certainly something that can happen more easily should more and more people, good or bad, becomes aware of the BL system flaw. Besides, oftentimes, ‘stalking’ doesn’t necessarily means ‘just following you around lol.’ They worsen the spaces you regularly go to and tend to affect those that normally hangs with you as well.

eureka and bosnia have player position checks

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

[I]Free Trial Players cannot use the "shout," "yell," or "tell" in-game chat options during the Free Trial.

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noticeably "say" is not listed here

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Person A uses situational awareness and blacklists Person B's new account.

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great so we get to play a more intense version whack a mole than we already were. lovely.



I've seen people who don't participate in RP get stalked in game and it translated to irl soon after. your experience of running a venue is not the end all be all. so miss me with trying to minimize this issue.

SE has been so so hands off when it comes to the stalking problem their game has had for a long long time. this is just another example of that behavior. blatant rookie coding mistake that actively made the stalking issues in this game worse, through a function that was supposed to help the issue.

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Originally Posted by EunJuAnna

noticeably "say" is not listed here

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Nope, say isn't listed there. But being limited to say chat where everyone can see it, and report it, (and limited to certain expansions) goes against the previous replyer's narrative that Free Trial accounts are very "generous" in allowing players to stalk.

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great so we get to play a more intense version whack a mole than we already were. lovely.

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A half second inconvenience to add someone to the blacklist vs navigating SE's "1990's" website to create a new service account.

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I've seen people who don't participate in RP get stalked in game and it translated to irl soon after. your experience of running a venue is not the end all be all. so miss me with trying to minimize this issue.

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I'm sorry that the "people" you know ended up being stalked IRL because they gave away their personal information to strangers on the internet.

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SE has been so so hands off when it comes to the stalking problem their game has had for a long long time. this is just another example of that behavior. blatant rookie coding mistake that actively made the stalking issues in this game worse, through a function that was supposed to help the issue.

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The plugin doesn't bypass the Blacklist feature which voids out the blacklisted players entire account. Which is an improvement against stalking than it was prior to 7.0, even with the vulnerability. People asking for the removal of the current Blacklist feature are wanting CB3 to remove the only defense a player currently has.

Should the coding been as half-arsed as it is currently? Absolutely not and it should be fixed. But this isn't some massive breach in personal data and security that everyone is making it out to be.

Rinoa_353's post sounds legit because it makes sense with the systems in place, and I'm terribly sorry they have been dealing with the harassment. No one should have to deal with something like that. Sadly, a lot of the malicious harassment takes outside of the FFXIV servers which the Dev's are unable to do a whole lot about, but it does sound like the Blacklist feature is working appropriately for her by making her stalker invisible in game. My only concern is why do her friends continue to interact with her stalker, and why are they informing her that her stalker is nearby?

Everyone else's exaggerations and hysterics reeks of attention-seeking and has people who want to understand the issue rolling their eyes instead.

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Originally Posted by Rinoa_353

My kindness is often confused with flirting for some odd reason with a large percentage of guys in this game.... Many of them treat this game as a sort of dating sim despite me friendzoning them from the start because I don't do long distance online relationships nor am I looking to date as well when I play this game to have fun and escape from the stresses irl brings around me. This particular stalker follows me around after I rejected their advances and they also tried to blackmail me (failed) in hopes of causing friction between my friends and I. They follow me around and stand near me looking like Michael Myers and emoting at me too even though I don't see them anymore but my friends who visit my homes seen them there. They have tried talking through my friends to get me to unblock them and more. I'm generally very forgiving and gave this guy many chances to be friends only but he always ends up abusing my kindness in hopes of getting me to be subservient to their twisted whims..... The terms of the blackmail (happened outside of the game) was for me to be subservient to them and also control what I said and who I can be around with.... Thankfully my friends saw through his deceit and what he tried to blackmail me with (He used 3rd party tools to have my characters naked and spread online as revenge porn of sorts but that doesn't really bother me since it's not myself irl). All of this took place outside the game, he is smart enough not to harass through tells/say chat directly to avoid the ire of GM's. Fortunately, I never gave them information about myself irl so it's only confined to the game and rarely outside through social media when he tries to contact me through friends.





Yes I did but he creates trial characters and my friends see him once in a while when he stalks me.

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LOL the blackmail


I want to remind everybody here that it's a video game, thank you for your time

I'm just gonna put down some thoughts I have regarding this whole situation with the stalking/harassment third party program via the marketboard and SE's downright failure with the blacklisting system. Personally I believe something as malicious as this (player scope) was only going to happen in a matter of time. I've seen so many threads made on here and reddit from players who have voiced their terrible experiences with stalking and targeted harassment by other crazy players who go to extreme lengths to make their gaming life miserable. I've also seen some of these people downplayed by some in the community, ignored, made a mockery of or silenced in general. It's a shame that it took something as awful as this for others to realize the dangers of what these bad actors are capable of. Not only to current victims, but potentially yourself. The person who made this plugin clearly only has malicious goals and anyone that downloads it certainly does too. FFXIV is no longer a safe place when it comes to privacy. Any alts you made to escape, retainers you didn't want known, your location, everything is compromised because of it. So how can anyone have a peace of mind playing your game SE when our privacy is undermined? Why did it take so long for you to fix the blacklist only for you to completely bomb it by putting it on the client side not the server side? There are so many ways this whole thing could of been handled better.

And with that said, I'd like to add some ways I think would combat this. I played a bit of XI back in the day. I liked how the Auction House worked. Essentially, it was the marketboard for XI. Instead of retainers, you sold everything you picked up or made in game through that. You'd set your price and wait for a sale. Once the sale was made you'd go back and check in with the Auction House to see what sold or go to your Mog Home to check your Mail to obtain your gil. Players wouldn't know who they were buying from or who they were selling to until the end of the transaction in the selling history. And it didn't matter where you sold it from, Sandoria, Windurst, Bastok etc because everything was done via the Auction House not by retainer. Your location did not matter. I think SE should follow this outline now that this has happened. Retainers can still function as storage units, but they no longer can sell your items nor do they have your crafted signatures. (1/2)

XI also had an anonymous feature and those that played can correct me if I am wrong but putting in /anon privated your info from searches while in game. It made you appear as a ??? when people examined you. I think this feature could help alleviate stalking. If updated and applied to this game, the blacklisted players could no longer search you through player search in game, tomestone, fflogs or whatever other websites that stalkers use as tools to find you. You would be completely invisible to the account holder and any of their alts. You would have control over your privacy and be free of those that have bad intent and essentially making this plugin useless. (2/2)

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Originally Posted by KairiElise

XI also had an anonymous feature and those that played can correct me if I am wrong but putting in /anon privated your info from searches while in game. It made you appear as a ??? when people examined you. I think this feature could help alleviate stalking. If updated and applied to this game, the blacklisted players could no longer search you through player search in game, tomestone, fflogs or whatever other websites that stalkers use as tools to find you. You would be completely invisible to the account holder and any of their alts. You would have control over your privacy and be free of those that have bad intent and essentially making this plugin useless. (2/2)

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All that did was hide your current job/subjob and level. It did nothing to prevent stalking.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

All that did was hide your current job/subjob and level. It did nothing to prevent stalking.

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More incentive then for them to update it to here and make changes accordingly so it does help prevent stalking. It can hide everything. Job, Name, Location, FC.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

I'm sorry that the "people" you know ended up being stalked IRL because they gave away their personal information to strangers on the internet.

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you complain about people using quotes for "hysterics" then do the exact same to continue to downplay this issue. she also did not give away personal information to strangers????? you assume so much.

at this point so much damage has already been done that leaving the blacklist as is in it's 7.0 state is the only viable option IF square does not want to fix the issue at hand (which they won't). that much I agree with you on.

it's not a security issue, it's a peace of mind issue. people are reluctant to log into a game where they know they are being harassed. it's not fun. it's no longer the escape it was and no one deserves that.

also calling it hysterics? jeez.

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Originally Posted by SaberEx

LOL the blackmail


I want to remind everybody here that it's a video game, thank you for your time

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this is such a terrible response. this is why people don't speak up about this stuff.

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Originally Posted by EunJuAnna

you complain about people using quotes for "hysterics" then do the exact same to continue to downplay this issue.

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No where in this thread did I complain about people using quotes as being hysterical. You're confusing me with another poster. Might I suggest taking a step back and taking a deep breath?

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she also did not give away personal information to strangers????? you assume so much.

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So "people" is now just a singular 'she'.

The plugin doesn't give away personal information that can lead to IRL stalking, which means one of three things.

1) You're making 'her' up to try to prove a point, which is the likely scenario.

2) She gave away her personal information to strangers in FFXIV, which is no one else's fault but her own. A hard lesson to learn, but still a lesson.

3) This happened outside of FFXIV altogether which is completely meaningless to the discussion at hand, as this is about the plugin causing stalking within FFXIV.

Which is it?

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at this point so much damage has already been done that leaving the blacklist as is in it's 7.0 state is the only viable option IF square does not want to fix the issue at hand (which they won't). that much I agree with you on.

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Sounds like to me you just needed an excuse to be angry on the forums.

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it's not a security issue, it's a peace of mind issue. people are reluctant to log into a game where they know they are being harassed. it's not fun. it's no longer the escape it was and no one deserves that.

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Of course it isn't a security issue. No actual personal information or data is being leaked.

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also calling it hysterics? jeez.

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The blacklist feature still works. The plugin doesn't change anything.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

The plugin doesn't change anything.

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If the plugin does not change anything, there is no harm in removing it if it concerns so many players. Doesn't matter if you think that's relevant or not, but acting like leaving gamers in distress is okay is not the vibe. SE literally changed the Sage icon because the holes were so concerning for a handful of people, but this plugin encouraging stalking is okay? Mmmh... no it isn't. It really isn't.

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Originally Posted by yesnt

If the plugin does not change anything, there is no harm in removing it if it concerns so many players.

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I never argued otherwise. In fact, I've even said they should fix it.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Should the coding been as half-arsed as it is currently? Absolutely not and it should be fixed. But this isn't some massive breach in personal data and security that everyone is making it out to be.

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I've seen comments stating they should remove the current Blacklist feature until they fix it, which is baffling as it still currently still provides protection against stalking as the plugin cannot bypass someone blacklists.

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Doesn't matter if you think that's relevant or not, but acting like leaving gamers in distress is okay is not the vibe. SE literally changed the Sage icon because the holes were so concerning for a handful of people, but this plugin encouraging stalking is okay? Mmmh... no it isn't. It really isn't.

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I originally asked how this plugin made stalking worse, considering the Blacklist feature already solves the issue of stalking for the most part as the plugin cannot just deactivate someone's Blacklist.

I received exaggerated claims, that somehow this will lead to being doxxed IRL. If someone missed Yoshi-P's statement, or haven't looked into/been told what the plugin does, they might think the situation is worse/dire than it actually is. Either the responses are being dishonest because they don't know better themselves and their responses are based on feels/emotions, or they're being disingenuous and trying to fear-monger.

Stalking is never okay. Use the Blacklist feature, it still works as intended.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

responses are based on feels/emotions

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The whole topic of stalking is of course based on "feels/emotions", otherwise people could just laugh it off and move on, but it's obviously deeper than that and heavily rooted in causing distress in the victims. What is your point of argueing? Do you care to understand people or do you just want to make people feel ridiculous for their very real concerns? You are not helpful, nor superior or whatever the fuck you are trying to prove.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

I never argued otherwise. In fact, I've even said they should fix it.



I've seen comments stating they should remove the current Blacklist feature until they fix it, which is baffling as it still currently still provides protection against stalking as the plugin cannot bypass someone blacklists.



I originally asked how this plugin made stalking worse, considering the Blacklist feature already solves the issue of stalking for the most part as the plugin cannot just deactivate someone's Blacklist.

I received exaggerated claims, that somehow this will lead to being doxxed IRL. If someone missed Yoshi-P's statement, or haven't looked into/been told what the plugin does, they might think the situation is worse/dire than it actually is. Either the responses are being dishonest because they don't know better themselves and their responses are based on feels/emotions, or they're being disingenuous and trying to fear-monger.

Stalking is never okay. Use the Blacklist feature, it still works as intended.

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Stalking is never okay. Use the Blacklist feature, it still works as intended.

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No it doesnt.

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Originally Posted by yesnt

The whole topic of stalking is of course based on "feels/emotions",

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Still have to use logic and reasoning, or we wash away the meaning of the words.

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otherwise people could just laugh it off and move on,

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Which people have already begun to. This thread has practically died off.

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but it's obviously deeper than that and heavily rooted in causing distress in the victims.

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Having people act like the plugin has completely removed any benefit or usefulness of the currently Blacklist feature doesn't do them any favors either.

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What is your point of argueing? Do you care to understand people or do you just want to make people feel ridiculous for their very real concerns? You are not helpful, nor superior or whatever the fuck you are trying to prove.

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I was trying to understand if this plugin has actually caused stalking to become this massive issue suddenly and how so, or if the FFXIV playerbase is being its usual self.

I have my answer.

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Originally Posted by Clockworks

No it doesnt.

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Then tell me how it doesn't. I'm actually curious.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Still have to use logic and reasoning, or we wash away the meaning of the words.



Which people have already begun to. This thread has practically died off.



Having people act like the plugin has completely removed any benefit or usefulness of the currently Blacklist feature doesn't do them any favors either.



I was trying to understand if this plugin has actually caused stalking to become this massive issue suddenly and how so, or if the FFXIV playerbase is being its usual self.

I have my answer.



Then tell me how it doesn't. I'm actually curious.

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Which people have already begun to. This thread has practically died off.

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People moved on just like with every single issue in FFXIV because the devs quite literally dont care about anything at all, that's not the "flex" you're making it to be, it just means people give up on SE every single time for every single issue.

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Having people act like the plugin has completely removed any benefit or usefulness of the currently Blacklist feature doesn't do them any favors either.

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It solved one problem and added another that is just as bad, but congratulations I guess ?

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I was trying to understand if this plugin has actually caused stalking to become this massive issue suddenly and how so, or if the FFXIV playerbase is being its usual self.

I have my answer.

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It fixed nothing, that's where the problem is, it fixed one thing and added another thing that it just as much of a problem.

I would say it is 'working as intended'...

But, that 'intended' outcome isn't really a good one by any stretch of the imagination. A good blacklist system should not come at the expense of reasonable privacy measures, and as far as reasonable privacy measures goes, this one is acting like they were in a competition to see how bad they could make such a system.

There is 'benefit' to it, but IMO for me personally that benefit does not outweigh the risks involved with sending out an account ID in raw form.

I would say this thread is as a result of apathy more than anything else.. People are just coming to terms with the fact that the developers view player/online privacy as a serious afterthought. Which of all outcomes this is probably the worst.. Both for them and for the players.. Mainly because it shows people are just giving up, and then because the developers are probably going to get the brilliant idea that this is an acceptable/good implementation just because 'it works'. Eventually someone will develop a tool far worse than this, or will take this development to a newer height, at which point it just creates an unsafe experience, and all of this spawning from their inability to take reasonable measures.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

I would say it is 'working as intended'...

But, that 'intended' outcome isn't really a good one by any stretch of the imagination. A good blacklist system should not come at the expense of reasonable privacy measures, and as far as reasonable privacy measures goes, this one is acting like they were in a competition to see how bad they could make such a system.

There is 'benefit' to it, but IMO for me personally that benefit does not outweigh the risks involved with sending out an account ID in raw form.

I would say this thread is as a result of apathy more than anything else.. People are just coming to terms with the fact that the developers view player/online privacy as a serious afterthought. Which of all outcomes this is probably the worst.. Both for them and for the players.. Mainly because it shows people are just giving up, and then because the developers are probably going to get the brilliant idea that this is an acceptable/good implementation just because 'it works'. Eventually someone will develop a tool far worse than this, or will take this development to a newer height, at which point it just creates an unsafe experience, and all of this spawning from their inability to take reasonable measures.

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Sure you can call it working as intended because technically it works, however its a disaster.

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Originally Posted by Clockworks

Sure you can call it working as intended because technically it works, however its a disaster.

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That's what I mean.. It's 'working as intended', if the definition of this is expressly based on it just 'working' and in a vacuum, without considering extrinsic factors like someone creating a tool that undermines the very system they opted to create.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Still have to use logic and reasoning, or we wash away the meaning of the words.

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There is logic and reasoning in taking people's feelings seriously, otherwise I hope you never have a relationship to an other human being. People have killed themselves because of harassment and bullying, if that is not enough logic for you, then idk. If you fail to understand, you are part of the problem.

Plus, I don't think anyone here will talk about their personal stalker in a public forum under the name of one of their characters, because that's how you lose this game.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

I never argued otherwise. In fact, I've even said they should fix it.



I've seen comments stating they should remove the current Blacklist feature until they fix it, which is baffling as it still currently still provides protection against stalking as the plugin cannot bypass someone blacklists.



I originally asked how this plugin made stalking worse, considering the Blacklist feature already solves the issue of stalking for the most part as the plugin cannot just deactivate someone's Blacklist.

I received exaggerated claims, that somehow this will lead to being doxxed IRL. If someone missed Yoshi-P's statement, or haven't looked into/been told what the plugin does, they might think the situation is worse/dire than it actually is. Either the responses are being dishonest because they don't know better themselves and their responses are based on feels/emotions, or they're being disingenuous and trying to fear-monger.

Stalking is never okay. Use the Blacklist feature, it still works as intended.

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On the topic of doxxing, it's actually not extremely hard to accomplish (even moreso if the person isn't very security aware). The plugin might not directly spit out someone's information but it does allow for people to continuously keep tabs on someone (stalking) and then use outside methods (external link to something that grabs your IP for example) to get that information.

Blacklist is also not properly functional as it should allow for all of your characters to be off limits to any characters registered to the service account you blocked.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

No where in this thread did I complain about people using quotes as being hysterical. You're confusing me with another poster. Might I suggest taking a step back and taking a deep breath?



So "people" is now just a singular 'she'.

The plugin doesn't give away personal information that can lead to IRL stalking, which means one of three things.

1) You're making 'her' up to try to prove a point, which is the likely scenario.

2) She gave away her personal information to strangers in FFXIV, which is no one else's fault but her own. A hard lesson to learn, but still a lesson.

3) This happened outside of FFXIV altogether which is completely meaningless to the discussion at hand, as this is about the plugin causing stalking within FFXIV.

Which is it?



Sounds like to me you just needed an excuse to be angry on the forums.



Of course it isn't a security issue. No actual personal information or data is being leaked.



The blacklist feature still works. The plugin doesn't change anything.

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again, you assume so much.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Sounds like to me you just needed an excuse to be angry on the forums.

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thanks for the self report

Hold on, doesn't the block feature basically erase them from the overworld on your side?

So like, unless they know exactly which instances you're queuing into, then short of pure chance, the thing everyone's complaining about isn't a huge issue?

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

Hold on, doesn't the block feature basically erase them from the overworld on your side?

So like, unless they know exactly which instances you're queuing into, then short of pure chance, the thing everyone's complaining about isn't a huge issue?

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That's correct. Once you've blocked sometime they can't interact with you in the overworld and they're invisible to you.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

Hold on, doesn't the block feature basically erase them from the overworld on your side?

So like, unless they know exactly which instances you're queuing into, then short of pure chance, the thing everyone's complaining about isn't a huge issue?

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It does remove them from your view, yes. But in many respects the plugin actually undermines this effort.. From my understanding of a clip showcasing this that was on Reddit and now on YouTube, it could track character name, last zone, and last time seen in that zone, in addition to historical data. People are under the assumption that all this tool does is maps characters to a single ID, but it actually does far more tracking than just mapping account ID.. - This is why some people are at the edge of their seat complaining, because that information can be seen as pretty invasive, and then it questions "What's next?"

Obviously they cannot interact with you, but they can certainly still be invasive to you and those around you at the time, and honestly the only thing that someone needs to do is create an account, which there are people that absolutely would do such.

Just watched the youtube video and wow...dude that made this is clearly a psychopath and all because someone undercut him on the market. The amount of data they get from a single click on a character and then the ability to add them to "favorites" is just beyond words. They get notifications for any type of change the person does even down to customizations (which I am assuming is Name changes and Appearance). It's also rather interesting that the stalker while clicking away on different characters and being downright creepy can set their own characters to private and make themselves unsearchable on the app. So I am not sure that even having the person blacklisted as it currently stands will help. They can still see you but you cannot see them. The only thing they can't do is have words with you..but who needs words when they have all this? The passive aggressive and destructive nature of this plugin if used by anyone should be detected and have them instantly banned.

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Originally Posted by KairiElise

Just watched the youtube video and wow...dude that made this is clearly a psychopath and all because someone undercut him on the market.

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This game attracts some very "special" people.
They've been here for a long time, being able to make and use plugins like this just aids their already unhinged behaviour.

You know, having read most of what was said here I'm surprised people cling to either of these arguments :

"We don't need an anti-cheat; it would solve nothing - The problem lies in the infrastructure"

"We need an anti-cheat; it would solve everything - The problem isn't necessarily related to the infrastructure"

Any concerns in regard to losing players and whatnot is irrelevant; it's bound to happen regardless at some point in time. FFXI is still up and running and its playerbase is a fraction of what it once was.

Speaking of which, FFXI also has a big "cheating" / botting problem to this day - Should we start worrying about losing players for this game as well, or would it be better to address things in a proper manner once and for all ?

I personally think they should both revise their infrastructure & implement an anti-cheat. At the very least, it would mitigate issues and filter undesirables.

Cheats, exploits, mods & etc. will always be a thing one way or another, everybody knows this. But what's the harm of trying to implement more "long-term" fixes to recurring issues ?

I'm too lazy to @ any of the people discussing this, but I think people who downplay stalking in this game underestimate the kind of person one has to be to become a stalker. It's an obsessive type of person who will go to many lengths to contact you or anyone you are in contact with to either get through to you or to ruin your reputation depending on the stalker type. The game having its very generous free trial kind of makes that easy - they can easily create as many free alts as they wish if the victim blocks the stalker.

I understand it's hard to empathise when you haven't experienced stalking yourself. I haven't had any issues in my years as I mostly keep to myself in this game, but I have dealt with a stalker "on the internet" who used to be a very close friend once. Shit creeps up on you, it's really not as simple as one might think. I'd recommend listening to people talking about their experiences before you criticize them for being sensitive or whatever. However as someone above pointed out, you're not going to see too much on the forums about FF stalking because that would be exposing themselves. There's many stories out there. It can heavily impact your life.

My sub ends tonight so signing off as soon as I showed up lmao Square messed up badly and I just wish they acknowledged their own fault in this situation. Stalkers have and will exist, but this update just made it all too easy to get player information. I don't think many online games implemented a blacklist in this disastrous way.

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Originally Posted by veeika

but I have dealt with a stalker "on the internet" who used to be a very close friend once

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. . But was your stalker cute tho?

/s