GM Feedback - GM Laghegath

[Ashemmi]

In the back of my mind, I'll admit a certain appeal. Sincerely, what I think would be better...
If the community would rally, and speak to SE that this isn't acceptable.

Do it with the pen, so to speak. How many reports might it take, how many can this community produce without a single person spamming?

Actionable items for "Ashemmi Yarkul @ Goblin" :

The /c/ in the profile leads directly to smut.
Include that you saw in /this/ thread, how the player had been stalking and harassing -- with no visible remedy.
Let SE know that /we/ don't appreciate this in our environment.


How many GM calls need to be answered before it's taken seriously?

[Commander_Justitia]

Is it time to hunt down their ip address and do the job manually?

They will just use a VPN. They could be running the game in a virtual environment too, masking their hardware specs. But I don't think SE is even capable of banning someone based on hardware with the current way their game works. SE obviously will value having freetrial players over the sub 0,1% playerbase which has issues like this one, so the only reasonable solution would be to limit what a free trial player can do. Unless friends with a player, they shouldn't be able to enter housing or use messaging books - would be a start. There was rumor once about a feature to be able to filter out other players based on your criteria, not sure if a mod can do that already. There could also be a chatfilter to not display messages from freetrial players for cases like this one.

This is all a development solution though, something GM's cant fix, devs do. FFXIV has abyssmal privacy and stalking protection - this has been an issue for years - maybe it is time to polish that image up a little Yoshida-san.

For the meantime the player can try to reduce their attack surface, e.g. by removing the messaging book, disable 'say chat' in chatfilter and stop posting updates here, as the stranger will probably enjoy to read the fruits of his lunacy. And it might also attract other weirdos. Wasting so much time on stalking though...someone is desperate.

[Ashemmi]

For the meantime the player can try to reduce their attack surface, e.g. by removing the messaging book, disable 'say chat' in chatfilter and stop posting updates here, as the stranger will probably enjoy to read the fruits of his lunacy. And it might also attract other weirdos. Wasting so much time on stalking though...someone is desperate.

Absolutely everything you say is valid. I in fact did remove my message books, but disabling 'say' is a non-starter. A player really shouldn't have to reduce the quality of their game, and limit the important and valuable interactions with other players to protect themselves. I even locked my personal spaces for a long period of time, opening them only when I was present. That's not how the game should be.

While SE may not be in position to ban on hardware, and an IP ban is a futile attempt (sort of). I've proven over and over that the player is one in the same. There is absolutely no way that an alt should come day after day after being reported for things which are against policy and there is a verifiable trail. It's either laziness, or lack of effective policy -- and that's truly what needs to be fixed. Technical things can come later, they can be part of the development plan. Reasonable customer service, ie protecting when an issue is pointed out should be an every day expectation. My goal is to make the community better, to make it safer for those who might be more affected. Staying quiet just lets the problem ride.

[Commander_Justitia]

That's not how the game should be. [...]

or lack of effective policy [...]

Technical things can come later [...]

Staying quiet just lets the problem ride.

Yeah it shouldn't be. But I doubt the effective policies always exist in your country, Japan has some cyberbullying laws for example. I think in some liveletter or discussion round they talked about how some players got visits from police lol. So if he is unlucky, maybe that will happen too... It may be easy for you to prove, but from a legal standpoint, for a company - they can't always or are not allowed to.

What they can do easier is "technical things" so this is your best bet. I hate how you will be trackable over lodestone for example, even if you change your name - that needs to change badly - would reduce these type of problems massively. Also it should remove the friend on their list, if you remove them on yours, which sadly won't happen right now. Or how crafted items will show the new name too. Or how you can click on PvP leaderboards on old names and still get relinked to the new profile. It is sadly not a simple change.

And well yeah, nothing is perfect, in the end it is a game huh... I don't play much anymore, I quit my sub like every month I play on purpose even, it gives you an option to give feedback why you quit - for some reason I feel like the data they get from that field is the data they look most at (because it actually hurts their income). Even if you effectively quit for 0 seconds, you can still fill it out.