Re: Regarding the Use of Third-Party Programs and Player Safety

[veeika]

I'm too lazy to @ any of the people discussing this, but I think people who downplay stalking in this game underestimate the kind of person one has to be to become a stalker. It's an obsessive type of person who will go to many lengths to contact you or anyone you are in contact with to either get through to you or to ruin your reputation depending on the stalker type. The game having its very generous free trial kind of makes that easy - they can easily create as many free alts as they wish if the victim blocks the stalker.

I understand it's hard to empathise when you haven't experienced stalking yourself. I haven't had any issues in my years as I mostly keep to myself in this game, but I have dealt with a stalker "on the internet" who used to be a very close friend once. Shit creeps up on you, it's really not as simple as one might think. I'd recommend listening to people talking about their experiences before you criticize them for being sensitive or whatever. However as someone above pointed out, you're not going to see too much on the forums about FF stalking because that would be exposing themselves. There's many stories out there. It can heavily impact your life.

My sub ends tonight so signing off as soon as I showed up lmao Square messed up badly and I just wish they acknowledged their own fault in this situation. Stalkers have and will exist, but this update just made it all too easy to get player information. I don't think many online games implemented a blacklist in this disastrous way.