The End of Stalking, Blacklist & Lodestone

[Batbrat]

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

Oh they'll do it alright. Its kind of like how on social media sites (like twitter for example), people put up begging posts where they say everything in the world they can think of in desperate attempt to get others to send them money for free, and so to get rid of that, you block the words of the cash services they use, and then that should be mean that the problem's now solved, right? But it doesnt, because instead of realizing "Oh, some people dont want to give me money", they get even more determined and use every weird combination and letters possible to force everyone to see them begging. It'll be no different here. Instead of realizing, "right, not everyone will be interested in my venue", they'll just figure, "well they're blocking my venue words, so ill just spell it different to make SURE they see it because ME ME ME ME".

I would for sure pre-emptively (if possible) block all variations of venue related words that they use, as well as other words that they use in hopes of intentionally bi-passing filters to be annoying and attention starved. In addition to this, I would just flatout start adding them to the blocklist, if they get that bent on insisting you have to be forced to seeing their trash.

Also these are all great changes that I am highly looking forward to!!

[CVXIV]

It just makes me wonder if venue advertisers will try and change their text in chat to avoid players mute filters. Like instead of "Club" getting muted, they can just say "C1ub", along with "V3nue" or "DeeJ" instead of "DJ". Maybe there could be a system where you make a muted word, and then you can add similar words within that word to avoid this? I don't think we're going to get rid of RMT sellers anytime soon even with mute filters, considering how much randomness they put in their messages already, it will be hard to find a specific keyword to mute them.

Maybe I'm giving them too much credit but I'd like to believe they would recognize that if people are filtering it out then clearly they don't want to be there, so it's a losing battle on their end. Though I wouldn't be surprised if some tried despite this. Either way, I'm pretty happy with this change.

[Cat_Girl]

The problem with the lodestone is that your character profile page has a fixed id - or url - which never changes. Even when you change the name or server of your character. This means a stalker who has your profile page bookmarked will always find you again. To escape them you have to start a brand new character.

And I am not sure if the changes to the lodestone page will actually fix that problem.

Plus it seems the problem with the friend list - that you stay on their friend list when you delete them from yours - will also not get fixed.

It is mentioned in the stream that the Profile is able to be locked, nobody can view it at all, they can still visit the URL if known, but will have no access to view the page.

I'm guessing it'll be like if you go to the lodestone now, search for Kitty Cat on the Dynamis DC, check Kitty Cat on Maduin, can't view me can you you can still see my Name in the search, but that's it, soon to be gone.

Added link in my first post to the Un-Official translation of SE livestream, if you check at 1:35:40 you can view the updates to come.

[4clubbedace]

A ton of people are super excited about the new house kick feature, and while it sounds good on paper, Americans (such as myself) have special needs. You see, we don’t just treat people as individuals, we treat them as a group. So if you have faction A owning a venue, and person X from faction B is against that venue, you don’t just kick X but also the entirety of B. Which results in venue warfare because now kick wars are legitimized which will result in the fragmentation of the American venue community.

A lot of people like this because we’re a warlike people and we love conflict, but I wonder whether Yoshida realizes this or not. He doesn’t seem to realize that his version of FFXIV relies on “clubbing” and drama rather than actual gameplay. Notice how he spent no time on the video game portion of FFXIV in the LL. He’s hardly addressed it at all. Versus WoW’s expansion keynote, which revealed new features months ahead of time. While most of you love this because it lets you play other games, it’s disappointing that the general focus of FFXIV has moved so far beyond being a video game (at least for Americans). And it takes a proactive approach on his behalf to neutralize our warlike and political culture. We need an American community manager that can have direct input in these issues.

what are you even talking about

[Syln]

Probably the most interesting thing they talked about in that live letter, i use to have a co worker who had, and probably still have, "stalking issues" and just couldn't help himself but check on my activities in game and talk to me about it. Always thought it was creepy and weird thus I'm glad that it won't be a thing after that update

[Jojoya]

The problem with the lodestone is that your character profile page has a fixed id - or url - which never changes. Even when you change the name or server of your character. This means a stalker who has your profile page bookmarked will always find you again. To escape them you have to start a brand new character.

And I am not sure if the changes to the lodestone page will actually fix that problem.

Plus it seems the problem with the friend list - that you stay on their friend list when you delete them from yours - will also not get fixed.

If the player removes their character(s) from character searches completely, it should fix the problem for those searching through Lodestone.

If they are trying to only block certain players, it won't fix the problem. You can do a character search on Lodestone without logging in. If you're not logged in, there's no blocked/blacklisted info for Lodestone to find. SE would need to change Lodestone to require a log in to do any Lodestone searches. It also would not work if a log in is required and the person searching has multiple game accounts unless at least one character from each account has been blacklisted.

The big question: how will it affect outside search engines? Right now, if I know the number assigned to the character, I can go to Google, enter FFXIV Lodestone character profile "########" and it comes back with the character name and basic character description (but not world).

Even worse, it came back with some personal information from third party websites for the friend I just tested (and whom I sent a DM to before posting this because yikes, good things we were friends even before FFXIV so I wasn't seeing personal information I didn't already know). TAKE THAT AS A WARNING - DO NOT SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION AND CHARACTER PROFILE LINKS TOGETHER ON THIRD PARTY WEBSITES.

Everyone may want to start checking their own character numbers on google if you've been posting profile links elsewhere. Actually, you may want to do it even if you haven't been because someone else might have used one of yours.

Anyway, I don't know if that's something SE considered. For it to truly be effective in combating stalkers, it's going to require blocking results on outside search engines.

what are you even talking about

They're talking about RP drama. I'm just amused that they don't think it exists in WoW. It will never go away in WoW.

Also amusing that they evidently missed the 3 FanFests where YoshiP went over new expansion information.

[CidHeiral]

I don’t believe that’s how it works. The slide says, “When players with expulsion privileges are in the estate, anyone registered to their blacklist will be automatically expelled when attempting to enter the estate grounds.”

Which I interpreted to mean they can get in otherwise, assuming they are not under the 10-day ban that is applied upon expulsion.

Ah, so you have to be in there for it to work. Seems like it's still a separate feature from the 10-day thing though.

[Jojoya]

Ah, so you have to be in there for it to work. Seems like it's still a separate feature from the 10-day thing though.

I took it as two different things.

1- Someone with expulsion privileges can place a player on "No entry", which will last for 10 days. The player will be removed immediately and not able to re-enter until the 10 days has passed regardless of who is or isn't in the venue.

2- When someone is in a housing location where they have expulsion privileges, any players on their personal blacklist will be immediately removed if they attempt to enter. It does not prevent the blacklisted player from entering later if the player with expulsion privileges is no longer there but if that player also returns, the blacklisted player will be kicked at that point.



One other thing and I didn't catch if it was pointed out in this thread - any characters on a blacklist prior to 7.0 will be carried forward to the new blacklist but only that specific character. Blacklist settings are moving server-side in 7.0 so if you add any characters to your blacklist after that, all characters on the same account are treated as blacklisted instead of just the one "registered".

Edit: on the internet safety issue

My friend replied to me with a thanks. He added that the links were in posts for player giveaways where he had to post to the FFXIV Twitter X, the platform formerly known as Twitter account. He's got them all deleted now but hmmmm

Hey everyone, better stop entering those giveaways! Square Enix wants you to share your real life information with stalkers via the FFXIV X account.

[Lemuel81]

Hmm... I do not thinking people really need this, because you did nothing wrong means there is no stalking at all. Avoid talking to strangers

What?? You think avoiding talking to strangers is the answer? Why even bother being on a social game? I was close to making a joke saying your comment sounds like something a stalker would say, but I wont say it. This game needed this feature many years ago, SE should be ashamed of themselves for not implementing this a long time ago.

[PaulusHamsteru]

When you blacklist someone, they shouldn't be able to see your PF, imo.