It's almost like SE encourages stalking in this game...

[LisSquid]

See, back in the day we had this thing called a phone book. Everyone's name, address and phone number were listed in it, and they dropped it for free on everyone's front door. I don't recall there being a higher incidence of stalking and murder in those days, and my name was in there too. So was my address. So was my phone number. You didn't even need to pay four bucks.

Also seem to recall a time when no one locked their doors, hitchhiked freely, and also had the most numerous amount of active serial killers in recorded history. People want their privacy, and for good reason. A lot more harm can be done to a person now in the information age than just a decade ago, and it's not just about background checks to see if you did anything wrong. Not saying people are going to die over it, but something like a rando from the net with hard beef calling peoples place of work is stepping over many, many lines.

Not to mention online accounts. People keep calendars with Google, which is also (which shouldn't. Please unlink your socials) connected to anything from bank account records, passwords, work emails etc etc etc.

Now, these are basic tactics that aren't "stalking" in an mmo. On the topic: Just ignore them. Don't give our personal information.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

It's not, though? I just said why.

Sorry, I came before the generation that gets bent outta shape over privacy. Everyone can know my name, I don't care, I've never done anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide. My name's Matt and I live in Northeast LA. You can get my whole date of birth off my profile. Go do the White Pages thing if you want, I don't care. I don't do social media so that is of no concern to me at all.

If I did, I wouldn't have privacy concerns over things I willingly made public. Go figure.

See, back in the day we had this thing called a phone book. Everyone's name, address and phone number were listed in it, and they dropped it for free on everyone's front door. I don't recall there being a higher incidence of stalking and murder in those days, and my name was in there too. So was my address. So was my phone number. You didn't even need to pay four bucks. How the hell did we ever make it out of those ages, with everyone knowing our personal info?

Clue: it's because much of the fear over "privacy" is misplaced, unfounded, and flat out silly.

As I've already said, a smart, logical human should be more worried about slipping in the shower or being a better driver. Because a smart, logical human worries about things that are actually most likely to affect them.

And isn't that the sane way to do it? Why would you start at number 124 on the list of "ways I might die," and then worry about it? Start at number 1, yeah? Like you do everywhere else.

I was just adding to yours on how easy it is. I'm 31. I know what a phone book is -_-
These days people get mad if you use one, apparently looking one up in a phonebook is considered stalking now LOL.

[Arillyn]

No, and I am not likely to. I'm far more likely to die at home or due to health issues, so I worry about that stuff.

Worrying about being stalked is nonsense, unless you're also worried about everything more likely than 'death by stalker' that might happen to you.

Compare time spent worrying about heart disease to time spent worrying about stalkers.

It's outta whack if you worry about the latter more than the former. I stand by that. It's illogical and nonsensical.

I don't worry about stalking. I don't have anxiety over it. Most people don't. That doesn't mean that SE shouldn't have things in place that makes it harder to actually stalk people. Stalkers DO exist. It's a reasonable request to not have character ID numbers public in Lodestone.

[HiThere]

I actually find this dumb to ban. Yes, stalking is an issue. No, it is not the equivalent of standing in the street staring into your house. Unless they're staring into your ingame house and showed up. But if you're in Limsa and they end up in Limsa? You don't own Limsa, so it's not equivalent. Dude, it's a public game, and some servers are the most popular, and some server hop for items. It's going to happen, just ignore them like they don't exist. Unless you give them a reaction, what are they going to do, follow you around? Okay? You don't see their chat messages. Just pretend they're a lookalike. As there's only so many combos one can make their character.

There's nothing they can actually do except sit in your mind if you let them. Don't let them.

Sigh... People like you are not really helping with this situation. If you've ever played this game with an ex and the relationship ended on less than amicable terms, and they continue to harass or even just follow you (which I personally consider to be a form of harassment), it isn't just a situation of "coincidence" as you seem to suggest. For example, if you see their character doing something from afar like randomly killing level 20 monsters near you in a zone that serves literally no purpose other than to be near you, then that, in my humble opinion, is akin to someone standing outside your home staring in. It's not a reportable crime in real life, either, but that doesn't mean that it isn't psychologically unnerving. There are plenty of ways for someone to feign normal behavior and skirt the rules against stalking while still very clearly stalking someone. Yes, you could just ignore them. You could also just ignore a stalker in real life, too. But that doesn't mean that SE shouldn't do something such as allowing players to choose whether their character's name/location is publicly available to anyone and everyone on the internet.

[LittleImp]

Sure, but there's absolutely, positively no need to obsess about it, worry about it, have anxiety over it, etc.

How can I say that with confidence? Well... do you obsess, worry, have anxiety and fear driving to work daily? Driving to work, you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of being killed in an auto accident, if you live in the United States.

If you live in the United States, you have about a 1 in 15,000 chance of being murdered at all during a calendar year. I cite 'all murder' figures just to make a point. Actual murders performed by stalkers ranges from (depending on which data you believe) 20% to 80% of all murders. We can split the difference on that data and call it 50%. That's 11,000 murders for 330 million people, or about 1 in 30,000.

1 in 10,000 you die from an auto accident: "No worries. I do 75 in the 65 all the time."
1 in 30,000 you die from murder: "ZOMG this is terrrible!"

What gives? Where are all the threads on being a better driver? Instead we worry about virtual stalkers?

Actually, screw threads on better driving, even. Where the hell are threads on home safety? 173,000 people died in 2020 of accidents at home. That's a whopping 1 in 2000 chance, per year, per person. In other words, you are fifteen times more likely to die from a fall in the shower as you are from a stalker.

Don't even get me started on eating healthy (heart disease, the #1 killer of humans), quitting smoking, avoiding / controlling diabetes and getting regular cancer screenings. Shoot, even murder doesn't get a spot in the top ten ways to die. Suicide does, though. Show me all the mental health threads, now?

/Mindblown at priorities so far out of whack. Seriously, folks.

What are you even going on about? What is your agenda with this? Your take on this issue is extremely bizarre and weirdly aggressive.

I've been stalked multiple times in this game, but been fortunate enough that they couldn't track down any IRL information about me. One of them tried to slander my reputation across a few raiding discords though, and I had to spend a bunch of time setting things right. Another literally threatened to dismember me and said he was looking for my address.

My SO hasn't been so lucky and has been stalked online for over a year by someone who has gone out of their way to actually impact her real life income, and have been partially successful in doing so.

Even if it had no real life impact, it's an extremely unpleasant thing to put up with in game.

People are worried about virtual stalking because it's a widespread issue that isn't being adequately addressed, and no one wants to put up with it in a space where they come to decompress and have fun.

Have you been accused of stalking regularly or something? I genuinely don't understand why you are so weirdly passionate about mocking people being victimized by a problem like this.

[HiThere]

What are you even going on about? What is your agenda with this? Your take on this issue is extremely bizarre and weirdly aggressive.

I've been stalked multiple times in this game, but been fortunate enough that they couldn't track down any IRL information about me. One of them tried to slander my reputation across a few raiding discords though, and I had to spend a bunch of time setting things right. Another literally threatened to dismember me and said he was looking for my address.

My SO hasn't been so lucky and has been stalked online for over a year by someone who has gone out of their way to actually impact her real life income, and have been partially successful in doing so.

Even if it had no real life impact, it's an extremely unpleasant thing to put up with in game.

People are worried about virtual stalking because it's a widespread issue that isn't being adequately addressed, and no one wants to put up with it in a space where they come to decompress and have fun.

Have you been accused of stalking regularly or something? I genuinely don't understand why you are so weirdly passionate about mocking people being victimized by a problem like this.

Indeed, I don't understand why this individual is so vehemently opposed to allowing players to choose whether their Lodestone profiles are public vs private unless they are themselves exploiting such information to harass / stalk people. If you want to set your Lodestone page to public, fine; however, there should be absolutely no reason why someone should care about whether someone else wants to set it to private, especially such other person has actually been experiencing issues with in-game stalking.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I would like to be able to set myself private and offline etc, sometimes you just want to play in peace and not get a bunch of dms. However, I do find a lot of the people who cry about a stalker are just some really narcissistic people who think that just because they dislike someone and then bump into them in limsa or in a housing ward they must be "stalking" them and spam reports to try and get them in trouble. Some people really need to realise they are not that interesting. Also, hiding names of players not on your friend list goes a LONG way, as well as proper chat filters to show only party/fc chat etc. If you're not in my party or on my friends list I don't see your name and I don't even register your existence. Someone lurking on you in ff can only affect you as much as you let it. If it bleeds into irl then get police involved, it's not SE's responsibility at that point.

[Reinha]

If you live in the United States, you have about a 1 in 15,000 chance of being murdered at all during a calendar year. I cite 'all murder' figures just to make a point. Actual murders performed by stalkers ranges from (depending on which data you believe) 20% to 80% of all murders. We can split the difference on that data and call it 50%. That's 11,000 murders for 330 million people, or about 1 in 30,000.

1 in 10,000 you die from an auto accident: "No worries. I do 75 in the 65 all the time."
1 in 30,000 you die from murder: "ZOMG this is terrrible!"

This makes no sense. Getting killed by a stalker is not a randomly distributed event comparable to a car accident. It requires you to have a stalker in the first place, and once you have one the risk goes up astronomically. You or I who don't have a stalker are not at risk in the same way as someone who is getting threatened by a stalker every day.

Additionally, once you're targeted by a stalker there is not much you can do to mitigate the risk. You can stop driving a broken car with no brakes that puts you at an elevated risk of crashing every time you drive, but you can't simply stop existing as yourself to hide from a stalker. In many places the police won't do anything if the stalker hasn't yet done the physical crime he intends to. See videos from Sweet Anita, for example.

[Kyrj]

Where do you guys keep finding all these stalkers?

[LittleImp]

Where do you guys keep finding all these stalkers?

In my particular case, I kind of take newer players on and teach them how to raid. A lot of hours are spent together privately in voice-chat and stuff. Some people I've tutored have gotten waaaaay too emotionally attached to that kind of relationship and became kind of.. reliant on me for validation and affirmation. When I felt our business had run its course and went to move on, one in particular reacted really badly. That one I had gone to cut off early, because I realized fairly quickly the person was really unstable. They followed me for months, even returning after bans to track me down.

In my SO's case, she's an artist with an IRL-anonymous but otherwise public internet presence who does character commissions and merchandise, and that path tends to be.. fraught with all kinds of weird people, not all with good intentions.


Some people are more likely to put themselves in positions where others can open up and attach to them emotionally, and that's where you tend to run into the most incidences of this kind of stuff. RP communities are pretty rife with cases, for example.