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