How About An "Incognito" Player Status?

[TiaHariberux3]

My biggest problem with your main argument in this thread is that it is basically saying "You can't prevent everything so why bother?"

My main argument wasnt "you cant prevent everything so why bother" this was just a reply to the rl examples OP stated. What I was against is to make a status which block all /tells outside of your friendslist which got suggested in some pages later or to make ppl appear offline/no fc log in notication/hiding players char. Also I already said I agree on some other suggestions but I can still be against some other stuff suggested. I mean if ppl talk to me like "oh boy"/call me troll or telling me I have no point because Im outnumbered ppl shouldnt even complain about my tone which isnt even negative tbh. Just to me its a bit exaggerating when people think they are hurt in their privacy because someone knows how their char look like and where they are in a GAME. Or acting like its impossible to just log in and do stuff and log out. The thing that players here act like you could avoid all problems (atleast in some posts) bothered me so I replied. This "stalking" ppl talk about is not very common and should be handled with blacklist + report to make those "stalkers" understand that they cant do it and to prevent it in the future for other players.

[Newmanxeno]

This "stalking" ppl talk about is not very common and should be handled with blacklist + report to make those "stalkers" understand that they cant do it and to prevent it in the future for other players.

Why are you against more preemptive measures against this? Why can't we have both a blacklist and incognito? And why can't people gang up on you when you have weak reasons for opposition?

[TiaHariberux3]

Why are you against more preemptive measures against this? Why can't we have both a blacklist and incognito? And why can't people gang up on you when you have weak reasons for opposition?

I havent said that people cant gang up on me. I said when someone comes to this thread calls me a troll and says because Im outnumbered I wouldnt have the right to make arguments its pretty meh. Also ty for only replying to such a small part of my post and ignoring everything else.

[Niwashi]

What I was against is to make a status which block all /tells outside of your friendslist which got suggested in some pages later or to make ppl appear offline/no fc log in notication/hiding players char.

I think part of the problem is that you didn't specify at the outset that that was the part you were arguing against. You just argued, and people assumed it was the topic of the thread (which is the Player Search part) that you were arguing about. That's why some of your earlier arguments (like being unfriendly to newcomers) didn't make sense. To people thinking in terms of the original suggestion, it wouldn't have much impact on newcomers, but a "no /tells outside of your friendslist" suggestion could.

So let's break it down:

The main suggestion of this thread: An Incognito mode that prevents your name and info from showing up in Player Search. How do you feel about this one?

Personally, I think it would be quite beneficial at times, for all the reasons the OP listed.

Having that Incognito mode also make you appear offline in Friend/FC/LS lists and block FC login notifications. How do you feel about this one?

My own view on it: It has a more limited applicability than the Player Search part, because hopefully neither RMT spammers nor stalkers are in any of those groups, and people sending out blind invites are unlikely to do so from there either. But it does still have one nice effect for people who want a little privacy from their friends to play on their own for a while. Although it's only got the one purpose rather than several, that one is perhaps the most widespread. Lots of people want to be in highly social groups, yet still be able to have some quiet time to themselves now and then when they don't feel like making themselves available to those groups.

That's common enough that most implementations I'm familiar with combine the two, making their incognito or anonymous mode hide you from both friends and strangers alike. But if it was two selections, one for whether you want to be Incognito and not appear on Player Search, and another for whether or not to extend that to Friend/FC/LS Lists as well, that would be even better.

Hiding our actual characters themselves from other players in our vicinity

It's possible I'm wrong, since tone can be difficult to determine from text in a forum, but I'm pretty sure this part was just a joke suggestion, made from taking the incognito idea to an extreme.

Restrict /tell to Friends only

This used to be suggested a lot back before the right-click report feature pretty well got rid of RMT /tell spam. I was always against it, because it blocks too much useful chat between strangers and further segregates people into cliques (which is already a bit of an issue sometimes for new players and I'd rather not exacerbate it). Back when this was a popular suggestion, I usually conceded that it could be considered as a last resort if nothing else could get rid of the RMT /tell spam. (It's still better than using /busy for it after all.) But now that the /tell spam issue has been handled fairly well, I think we can quit considering such intrusive remedies for it.

The odd part here in this thread, is that although you've argued against it, I'm not sure who you're trying to convince, because I don't recall seeing anyone really arguing for it here. (Some might approve of such a feature, but it would be a bit off-topic in a thread that doesn't really pertain to chat directly.)

And are there any others I've missed? ...