Quote Originally Posted by Conadrium View Post
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.
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.