How About An "Incognito" Player Status?

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Why don't they just disable the chat?

Seems to be the answer when it comes to PvP.

[Niwashi]

While it has its merits, if OP's idea gets off the ground, for some of us it would do more harm than good in terms of reducing new rapport-formation. I assume that most people make most of their in-game friends in the game (in my case, all), occasionally by looking up someone you were friendly with earlier and /tell-ing them ... if a new behavior arises that jeopardizes this it would be quite a magnificent loss. ;_;

But if you'd met them earlier, you could /tell them regardless of whether they were incognito or not. Of course, if they're withholding their search info you wouldn't know if they were online or not until you tried, but a "/tell <Friend's Name> Hey, you around?" would get you that information as easily as a search would. You just wouldn't know where they're at unless they tell you.

And if it was somebody you didn't know, you wouldn't be able to find out about them by searching for everyone of a certain class in a certain region, or whatever.

most likely never happen

Perhaps not, since SE leaves a lot of pretty basic features out, yet just about every other game has it.

[TiaHariberux3]

Perhaps not, since SE leaves a lot of pretty basic features out, yet just about every other game has it.

Cant be to bad then since the game is fine.

[Mere]

Even FFXI has an "appear offline" option, which obviously, makes your friends see your name as 'offline'. Also, it makes you unsearchable, but at the same time, if they try to send you a tell anyway, it goes thru.

[Lambdafish]

Why don't they just disable the chat?

Seems to be the answer when it comes to PvP.

This has nothing to do with the thread and while I appreciate that this is a problem, this is clear bait (either intentionally or unintentionally) to change the topic to PvP chat.

Cant be to bad then since the game is fine.

In your opinion, however, I know for a fact that complaints about the limitations of the busy status are as old as the game itself

[Sainya]

You know what would make this perfect is it being a status - where all those folks with the mentor crown couldn't be incognito Problem solved for new folks.

[Cinno]

Honestly just allowing us to edit the busy status would solve all of this. Just give us boxes to tick for blocking tells, blocking fc invites, trade requests, etc.

That way I can play on my alt, tick the box for fc invites, and i wont get spammed with fc invites but i also wont have to completely cut myself off from society.

[Bloody]

Chill if you dont want to be social set yourself busy if you still want to receive tells add ppl outside of the game. The point if you gave such status it wouldn't make a nice impression for new players. Busy status is fine as it is if someone stalk you report. Lol And your rl example doesn't make sense since u can try to talk someone. Imagine all ppl with status that let u receive /tells only from friends. New ppl wouldn't have such a nice time playing a game and I say this as a person who plays alone alot of times and not being social myself much Ig and irl.

I think you misread the OP. The idea is actually quite nice for filtering out RMT without otherwise interfering with the ability to communicate with other players, and also hides you from stalkers (which is a thing, this is the internet and anonymity brings out the worst in some people).

What the OP said about blocking tells and invites, if you re-read, is:

While allowing your LS, Friends, FC mates, and anyone in proximity of you to still /tell, invite to group, whatever.

All the newbie who /tell you will be doing it in proximity when they see you running by. No negative impression left at all.

[Alleo]

I agree with you OP. This would also solve the problem with the random group invites from RMT because if we could use it the RMT would need to be near us to invite us again..so at least part of the problem solved. I am also not sure why this would take away the social aspect of the game. People could still spam the say chat, people could still post in their LS and chat with their friends. What exactly takes away from the social experience if someone cant be found in the search function? I mean this would be an option not something forced on everyone.

I am just not sure what exactly is bad about this suggestion? Bad for new players? Why? I was a new player once too and never used the search function to just find random players..and its not like they couldn't talk to anyone anymore. They could still send a tell to anyone near them and the newbie chat exists as help too. (Interesting how some are alway so snarky in threads but call other immature really fast.)

[Magic-Mal]

You know what would make this perfect is it being a status - where all those folks with the mentor crown couldn't be incognito Problem solved for new folks.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the mentor status well... a status? You can't have the crown and a different status at the same time right?