I am not sure how everyone feels about this feature and how its functionality has been revamped in the beta Lodestone.

My concern is if players will be able to configure their character information from not being searchable at all on the new Lodestone. While some might find it cool that you can track your friends' progress and compare things, I find it a little creepy that any random can easily look up a player's character, see that players' friends, what Free Company they belong to, and so forth.

****Sadly, I haven't had the chance to really explore how the new Beta Lodestone settings work and if it can make you and your character data completely unsearchable - so I could be wrong hehehe ****

If a player is constantly bothered by the same person(s), however, I think the Lodestone Character Search can become a tool for stalkers, trolls, creeps, and any further noun that describes such trashy online players. A recent example pertains to the OP and his/her group of friends in this thread:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ertain-Someone

By using the Beta Character Search, such stalkers or trolls can easily track you and try to find some information in order to find ways to bother you directly or indirectly. If the settings are not yet in place, I think any player should be able to tweak their settings so that their character profile information can either be searchable or unsearchable. This would be similar to how Facebook allows users to have their profiles completely private and unsearchable.

What are your thoughts?