An /anonymous function.

I'd personally like to see this added into the game. Sometimes I don't want people to know what I'm doing; so I'm not bugged to do other things such as raids or dungeons. Yes I know there is /busy, but I would much rather disclose my entire information so I can go about my business unbothered. You might ask, well how would this be any different than a /busy command? Well, with the people trying to reach you not being able to see what class or what zone you're in would keep them guessing, or they'd just assume you're not there. I've had multiple people track me down while I was enjoying my time on the game and then throw it in my face that I was not helping them with content. To be honest, I don't pay money for this game to help people ALL the time. I would like free time to myself, but I don't want to leave the group I play with either. This probably won't get much positive response but it is something I long for....

We had this in XI and it was wonderful.

I don't know, I can see way too many times this function would be misused. I think it'd just be easier to face your friends about how you feel, and if they react negatively, then it's not friends worth keeping.

On a sort of semi-related topic though, I'd like a tool to "cover" the name over my head (in other players' screens) with an anonymous title, such as "Shady-looking Thaumaturge" or "Green adventurer." etc. The actual name could obviously still be seen through "Examine" subcommand though. Just an RP-friendly feature I've thought of. I kind of envy those generic descriptive names some NPCs have.

Privacy? In XIV?

I'm thinking more from a Search or linkshell/guild perspective of remaining anonymous. Not have your name blacked out if someone is standing next to you, you would still be able to see their name, Guild tag, ect.

I would like this. Sometimes you're trying to do your own thing and keep getting friends messaging you to run something, or even just straight up firing party invites at you. If you ignore them you feel bad so it would be nice to remain anonymous from LS, FC, FL and player search from time to time.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

We had this in XI and it was wonderful.

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It sounds like the OP wants something different than what XI had, though. In XI all it did was hide your job and level, people could still see what zone you were in and you still appeared on somebody's friend list unless you set yourself to appear offline.

I love /anon in FFXI and used it extensively, especially as I was the leader of an active LS and often was asked to do things, administer the LS, just go chat with people, the very minute I logged in. It almost seemed I never got a moment of peace, so I created many alts and often logged in with 'offline' chosen and /anon on. FF14, though, like GW2, makes it very, very difficult to 'hide' on your main character. In fact, say you wanted to avoid a stalker or something by changing name, switching servers, and changing appearance....none of that would matter because a simple google search under any of your old names will redirect to your current character profile on the Lodestone (since it is stored via PlayerID)

The only way to really avoid people you REALLY want to never see or hear from again is to remake a totally new character or alt [I don't think there's a way for anyone to see all of the characters on your account...if there is...*sigh*].

We should have the /anon function here, just as a quality of life thing for those wishing a bit of peace and quiet.

Yeah sounds nice. An "offline" option in the search info status would be useful for just being invisible to your friends and family playing but at the same time it feels redundant since the "busy" option is there to indicate you don't want to be bothered.

Um, wouldn't your friends message you ANYWAY if they see you're online? Unless you want an invisible option.
Maybe I'm missing something here but isn't this what the BUSY status is for in the first place? If your friends aren't respecting that, you need to talk to them about that.
The only fix is the ability to hide your online status, and that's too easy to abuse. Just because your friends can't see what job you currently are or where you are won't stop them from sending you tells asking you to do things, especially when they can just right click your name and bring up your search info to see what classes you have at what level anyway.
Unless you want /busy to be like /afk in games like EQ1, where it would autoreply with a message of your choosing.

Invisible, yes. As in, you don't show up in in the FC list as online, shells as online, player search... that's the ticket.

Sometimes you just want to be a lawn.

anonymity and the ability to "appear offline" to keep your private time in game private has all but been removed from gaming, unfortunately. People have been asking for an option to appear offline on Battle.net for years now, to no avail, I doubt XIV will ever give us the option to remain private either.

Appearing offline sounds like a fine idea. But the word "anonymous", at least for me as it pertains to anything on the internet, sets off some warning bells. I hear that and I think about certain types of people turning on this anonymous feature and harassing people for the sole reason that no one knows who an anonymous person is.

In short, this should be called /offline or /appearoffline rather than /anonymous. Because of the stigma surrounding that word.

Ok, I know this may sound crazy, but have you tried saying "No"/"I'm busy"/"Not right now"?
Really.

I agree OP +1.

XI had this feature and your only asking for one step further to remove the zone status. "Offline" status would be awesome as well and would almost negate the need to have a /anon status, at least in the terms your asking for. However I believe if one is added then both need to be added.

I remember the good old days of XI having your "Seeking" status up only to realize 2 hours later your still /anon lol :P

Well this sounds like something that would really help bots and rmt'ers.. so yeah bad idea...

I like your idea, but I don't see it being added. In XI /anon was useful because it hid what job you were. That way WHMs and BLMs couldn't be bugged for raises/teleports/warps when they didn't want to be bugged. Here everyone has the ability to teleport and return, and death penalty is nothing compaired to other MMOs. /busy works fine right now because it blocks out tells invites and such.