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[Rilifane]

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.

[Senn]

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.

I see what you mean. I was under the impression the toxicity in WoW was more like you get insulted and trolled up front, but then afterwards you'd be left alone at least. In ffxiv, people just get so obsessed with you - they'll follow you and won't let up. I could be wrong about this but that's sorta what it seems like.

[Rilifane]

I see what you mean. I was under the impression the toxicity in WoW was more like you get insulted and trolled up front, but then afterwards you'd be left alone at least. In ffxiv, people just get so obsessed with you - they'll follow you and won't let up. I could be wrong about this but that's sorta what it seems like.

From playing both games, I'd say that's fairly accurate.
I played on various servers and it was the same on every server. Someone got a problem with you, they'd be pretty damn open about it. But after the dungeon/ battleground/ whatever, that would be it. It always felt more like an angry kid blowing off steam by insulting you. Which I'll not defend, crap behaviour is crap behaviour. But for what it's worth, it never lasted.

In FFXIV on the other hand I've heard, seen and even experienced my fair share of harassment and stalking that went beyond a couple of nasty insults in party chat. It's a fairly frequent problem in the RP scene because you have a few messed up people sneaking in and it's impossible to recognize them at first glance. Same as with the screenshot fans, you have some people that got stalked ingame after posting some cute screenshots on twitter.
It feels like part of the FFXIV community struggles with boundaries and seperating ingame from reality when it comes to social interaction.

[Senn]

From playing both games, I'd say that's fairly accurate.
I played on various servers and it was the same on every server. Someone got a problem with you, they'd be pretty damn open about it. But after the dungeon/ battleground/ whatever, that would be it. It always felt more like an angry kid blowing off steam by insulting you. Which I'll not defend, crap behaviour is crap behaviour. But for what it's worth, it never lasted.

In FFXIV on the other hand I've heard, seen and even experienced my fair share of harassment and stalking that went beyond a couple of nasty insults in party chat. It's a fairly frequent problem in the RP scene because you have a few messed up people sneaking in and it's impossible to recognize them at first glance. Same as with the screenshot fans, you have some people that got stalked ingame after posting some cute screenshots on twitter.
It feels like part of the FFXIV community struggles with boundaries and seperating ingame from reality when it comes to social interaction.

Since you said you've played WoW, does it have something like lodestone?

[Nanne]

Since you said you've played WoW, does it have something like lodestone?

WoW has Armory which basically is the same but I think it has even more information but the link to a players Armory is site+server+name so I am 99% sure if you name change the link wont bring you to the same profile anymore. Also the only way to not be in Armory is to not log in/subscribe for a very long time, be a character that is under level 10 and being in middle of a server/realm transfer progress

[Senn]

WoW has Armory which basically is the same but I think it has even more information but the link to a players Armory is site+server+name so I am 99% sure if you name change the link wont bring you to the same profile anymore. Also the only way to not be in Armory is to not log in/subscribe for a very long time, be a character that is under level 10 and being in middle of a server/realm transfer progress

That seems a lot better than the lodestone. At the very least, the armory doesn't link your current profile with your old username.