No they wouldn't. You just add an @servername to people in cross-server groups, just like any other MMO with cross-server dungeon finders. >_> Not that difficult.
Always have, always will support this. Please implement SE. Hate having private conversations always cut out by dungeon/raids. Having it be only from friends/party members is a very good compromise IMO.
They don't need to make names unique, every player in the game has a unique ID behind the scenes, e.g. 654879. All they need to do is figure out the destination from the source. So if your on coeurl and you Send a message to "Joe Somebody" it should look up "Joe Somebody" to get his ID from the current server, then send the message to the unique ID instead of the name. Meaning you could only msg people from your server but it wouldn't matter if they are in an instance or not.
But currently, the system is not designed to listen to tells from inside an instance server, it is not implemented, therefore it cannot and it blocks you when you try. Think of it like a road that ends at a cliff. They could expand the road but they would need to build a bridge first.
rest assured that any character has already his own internal unique id and every server has also it's own unique id so if you put them together you can internally identify any and all characters.
how do I know this? elemental. everything on a database uses internal IDs to keep integrity (it also helps to reduce the space required to store it)
think about this. if the database used internally the name of the character and we were graced by an option to change it (previous payment to square) it would mean changing the name everywhere (the lists of items owned, the lists of missions completed, the list of missions the player is doing, the lists of friends, the lists of people he has blacklisted, the lists of achievements... and so on)
but if it's using an internal id then the character's name is stored on a single place and everywhere else there's only an id that will never see the light so nobody will ever feel the need to change it.
so worry not. everything (servers, players, characters, mobs, bosses, items, places, missions, ...) has already it's own UNIQUE id.
I disagree. sometimes you want to say something in private to avoid unwanted conflict. for example if I /p that I want to add that nice miqo'te to my friends list but only her the other two at the party may not take it well but if I /tell her nobody else will know about it.
RMT spam even in dungeons?
y-you too...
Sending the friend request accomplishes that, I didn't realize it required a discussion. That example aside, I do understand what you are trying to illustrate.
Does the potential unwanted conflict of defaulting off outweigh the potential harassment of defaulting on?
I agree with the OP completely, you should be able to send tells in dungeons. It would not be a major distraction, in my opinion, especially considering you can already use FC and LS chat anyways.
For the time being I have opted to create a couple of linkshells and invite individuals or groups of RL friends to them so that I can still talk to them privately within dungeons.
I can see where devs got the idea that it might be distracting but honestly I find things like DF a lot more entertaining with some conversation and it's pretty rare to get grouped up with people who actually want to talk to you. It's kind of weird but since Duty Roulette was introduced I find dungeons a lot more boring these days, not being able to chat with or que up with friends for that daily bonus really has a big impact on fun factor. Sometimes you just need to swallow your pride and admit that an idea is silly, this is one of those times in my opinion.